“Good afternoon, gentlemen,” Mac confidently greeted the Dulles brothers, despite the late hour of his arrival at work, and he not being dressed work appropriate.
“Well, look what the cat dragged in,” laughed Allen Dulles. “Looks like you had a night for yourself, young man.”
Mac laughed, albeit a bit uncomfortably.
“I took Mrs. Pack out, as you suggested. I think I showed her a good time.”
“Where did you go?” asked Foster Dulles.
“We dined at the Sherry Netherland, and then we ended up at the Copacabana down the street. She seemed to hit it off with that Frank Costello. I think she enjoyed the evening.”
“She did,” laughed Allen Dulles. “You left out the hansom cab ride today.”
“Wow, you are the master of intelligence,” chided Mac, somewhat perturbed now, as he was obviously being tested.
“Your new young friend called me a little while ago to thank me for having you take her out on the town. She said you were a perfect gentleman. ‘Wonderful’ she called you.”
“Well, I was representing the firm, sir,” Mac said with a wink. “I tried to do it as you would.”
Both Dulles laughed, Mac not necessarily entirely in on the joke. As it turned out, Allen Dulles had the reputation of being somewhat of a ladies’ man himself, although he, of course, never left any evidence of his reputed indiscretions.
“We called you up here to make sure you are ready for Washington, and for Italy,” continued Allen Dulles, as his older brother was still chuckling. “We have you all set up for next week in Washington. You will go the Friday after Thanksgiving, and spend the following week at Navy Hill, before coming back here for a few days. Then, you will ship on the Serpa Pinto to Lisbon the Monday thereafter. From there, you will fly to Rome. All the travel arrangements have been made, and the paperwork will be on your desk today, along with the course material and schedule for your time at Naval Intelligence. In Washington, you can stay at my apartment on DuPont Circle. I will not be there, but I will have the key left for you with the doorman. Any questions?”
“Who will I be seeing at Navy Hill, sir? They know I am coming?”
“Yes, you will undergo a week of training by the instructors there. There is no formal training program. We are working on that now. But we put together a little something to get you ready. You will be taught how to write reports, how to take informative photographs, and the rudiments of shortwave radio. You will also be given some training in self-defense, nothing outlandish, just the basics. And they will be training you on some new equipment that you will be taking with you to Rome, which I am sure you will find fun.”
“Sounds good, sir. I am excited. I will not let you down.”
“Are you going to see Mrs. Pack while you are in Washington?” asked Foster Dulles. “Be careful, for God's sake. Don’t forget, despite being American, she is a spy for the British.”
“I understand, sir. If I do see her, maybe it will be for a dinner, or something.”
“It is the “or something” that he is worried about,” said Allen laughing. “Just be careful, Mac.”
“You are now representing your country,” advanced Foster Dulles. “In fact, here is your Commission. Congratulations, you are now a Commander in the United States Navy, assigned to Naval Intelligence. Commander Martin! Welcome aboard, sir.”
The two older men stood and saluted Mac, presenting him with his white dress hat from the United States Navy, and the Commission signed by Admiral James O. Richardson, United States Fleet.
“Report to the Navy Yard tomorrow,” said Foster Dulles. “You need to get fitted for uniforms. I’m sure your parents would love to see you in your dress whites for Thanksgiving?”
“Yes, sir. I am going up to Poughkeepsie next Wednesday.”
Mac left the conference room feeling like a man. He was an Officer in the United States Navy. He was hoping to get his uniforms, so he could walk into his parent's home in full dress whites. They will be so proud!
For the next week, Mac and Hallie played house. She made him coffee every morning; he made love to her every night. In between, they both pursued their own work, and then painted the town red together each evening. They caught bebop jazz at Three Deuces and at Onyx Club, both on West 52nd Street, and at Minton's Playhouse, in Harlem, all with lots of laughs, booze and dancing. Neither one cared if others looked twice at them, wondering, sometime out loud, about their difference in age. One exceedingly proper lady, with a little too much gin under her belt, had the nerve to say to Hallie, “Honey, I most definitely approve.” Mac laughed out loud, while Hallie pinched him under the table.
“They are all jealous, Hallie,” Mac whispered in his older woman's ear.
“Jealous of whom, sweet boy? All these men wish they were you tonight.”
The time came when Mac had to get on with it. Hallie was distressed when he boarded the train for Poughkeepsie, in his full-dress whites to see his parents. She accompanied him to the track at Grand Central Station, kissing him goodbye at the side of the train, a tear in both of their eyes. Mac made sure she would find two-dozen roses at her apartment when she returned home.
Mac rode the New York Central, 20th Century Limited, in a seat all his own, as the train was practically empty. Except for a few other boys in uniform, no one seemed to be riding the rails that early Wednesday morning. Mac looked out the window at the cold looking Hudson River, his thoughts going from Hallie, then to Sara, then to Betty. As the train rode along the water, past Sing Sing, Mac ruefully thought of Charlie Luciano spending his Thanksgiving alone behind bars, still at Dannemora. People make mistakes, he thought, but he had made a few too many. Mac was concerned that he had done the wrong thing by being with Hallie, both for her, and for him. Mac wondered if Sara would always be his true love, whether or not he would ever see her again. Enough time had passed now, that he was starting to believe that she was gone forever.
As the train whistled past Croton Point, the woods on the side of the train track got thicker, and the Hudson seemed calmer, and less gray. Mac marveled at the boaters out in the November chill. The Bear Mountain Bridge, stretching way above the water between high points on each side of the now leafless river, loomed ahead, as the train wound along the ins and outs of the mountain cuts seemingly thrust out into the river itself.
At West Point, the majestic granite buildings of the United States Military Academy provided a formidable façade of the country's might on the west side of the river at one of its narrowest points, his mind turned to what was sure to be the impending war.
How many of these fine young men will have to die? So many people are against us getting involved, with good reason. Yet isn’t it our avoidance of this war that has allowed the violence to persist. Involved? We are already. I too will do my part, when called upon. I will do whatever needs to be done.
The diesel engine chugged up the tracks through Beacon, after which there was an unanticipated delay. As the train rested on the tracks, mere miles from Mac's Poughkeepsie destination, another engine meandered by, pulling only a few cars. Mac chuckled as he realized that the last car carried his Commander-in-Chief, on his way to Hyde Park, just north of Poughkeepsie. Mac's train resumed its travel minutes later, slipping slowly into Poughkeepsie, behind the train of the president.
Mac was pleased to see his father sitting in the family DeSoto DeLuxe outside the train station. The first new car owned by the Martini family, purchased the year before, was black with round headlights and white wall tires. Most distinguished was its front grill, chrome, making the vehicle look like it had teeth. Mac had not relished the thought of walking up the big hill from the station to his parent's house on Catherine Street in his dress whites. His father, dressed in a flannel shirt, a maroon knit tie, light brown slacks, and a light wool waist length coat, jumped out of the car in front of the station with tears in his eyes. He held out his big arms to hug his only child, dressed in all white. Pride was written all over his face, most likely tempered by the thought of his son in harm's way.
“Wait until your mother sees you in that uniform. She will be overcome. You look good, Thomas, really good! God bless you!”
“Thanks, Dad. Thanks for coming to get me.”
Mac and his father hopped into the vehicle. The heat inside felt good, given the morning chill still in the air. Mr. Martini put his hand on Mac's forearm, his emotions seemingly getting the best of him. He was not unable to speak, nor did he want to move the car.
“Move it along, buddy,” said a police officer in full dress blues, tapping on the car window with his nightstick, as it stood running outside the glass doors to the brick station, high on the bluff along the river.
Mr. Martini shook his head in understanding without word, and he put the DeSoto in gear for the short ride up Church Street, through the main streets of Poughkeepsie.
Mac had forgotten, or never realized, how quaint the city of Poughkeepsie really was, having barely escaped the pummeling it took during the Depression. It was making its way back to the vibrant city it once was. The Mid-Hudson Bridge, newly built across the Hudson River, connected Poughkeepsie to the vastness of America. Mac had seen the president, who was then governor of New York, attend the blue-ribbon cutting ceremony with Eleanor. From the top of the hill, Mac could see the colorful sculls practicing in the Hudson River. These same hills hold hundreds of thousands of spectators each spring for the National Rowing Championships, which Mac had attended throughout his youth.
As a young lad, Mac had loved to watch the rowing teams working together to achieve a common purpose. It was a lesson well learned, as to the power of people pulling together, of which Mac never lost sight. He was there in spirit, along with the entire country, when the boys from the Pacific Northwest, who had won the National Championship right here that spring, went on to the 1936 Summer Olympics in Germany, and won the whole thing, winning the Gold Medal right out from under the Nazi's bitter disappointment. One of many defeats the Nazis would suffer at those games.
Mac walked into his three-bedroom Victorian home to the wonderful smell of a bacon cooking on the stove, and a huge hug from his beautiful mother, all dolled up for his arrival. It was just as he remembered it, the living room filled with too much overstuffed furniture, doilies hanging from every seat that your head might touch. Mrs. Martini had fashioned herself as the American Mrs. Miniver, with everything in its place, the house neat and friendly as ever.
There were fresh autumn flowers on the fully set, lace covered dining room table, which was not unusual, as Mr. Martini made it a point to bring his wife a bouquet of flowers every Friday. There were books everywhere, on shelves, on the coffee table, spread out on the floor. A home of educators was never in want of something to read. The wallpaper could have used updating, but Mrs. Martini kept the walls decorated with a rotating mélange of art and family photographs until they could afford to do so. The heavy brocade draperies, and the sheer underlying Irish lace curtains that hung about each window made Mac smile, as he remembered Sara hiding her naked body behind the kitchen counter due to his inadvertence to hanging window treatments of his own. The smell his mom's perfumed hair, while still in her embrace, competed with the bacon, bringing back memories of his childhood.
“Mac, you look so handsome in your white uniform,” remarked his mother, as she started to cry. “Oh, Mac, I am so worried. I’m sorry, I can’t help it,” she said as Mac continued to hug her so she would not see the tears in his own eyes.
“Mom don’t worry about me. I will not be fighting anyone. I will be lawyering in Italy, just the same as here. If war does happen, I will get home. I promise.”
The woman shook her head in understanding, but the tears did not abate, as she knew her son better.
“My bacon!” she finally yelled, as she ran to the kitchen, more to hide her emotions than to save the pork from disaster. “I hope you are hungry?” she yelled behind her in her wake, her chunky heeled shoes clopping on the linoleum kitchen floor.
“Always, Mom; that hasn’t changed, especially for your home cooking.”
They looked the same, his mother and his father, but to them, Mac must have seemed different. He was older, and much wiser, than he had been when he had moved out years ago to attend law school in Boston at the tender age of twenty-one. It was a lifetime ago. Mac was now a man, with all the duties and responsibilities that entailed.
“Mac, I can’t get over how mature you look in your uniform,” his mother gushed at the breakfast table. “What branch of service are you in again?”
“I have been given a Commission as a Commander in the United States Navy, Mom, the Intelligence Division.”
“Very impressive, Mac,” said his father. “We are very proud of you. Now, pass those potatoes.”
Mac spent the rest of the next few days with his parents, sleeping in his childhood bed, reliving the happy years of his life. That day, the Wednesday before Thanksgiving, he accompanied his father to a local farm to retrieve their ordered turkey, and he escorted his mother to the market to pick up the trimmings, spending as much time as he could with each of them. He relaxed through a wonderful Thanksgiving dinner the following day, regaling his parents with stories of Lucky Luciano, Frank Costello, and the women spies in his life. He told them about the Copacabana, Lucy and Desi, and meeting Frank Sinatra. His parents were clearly mesmerized, but still seemed a little sad that their only son had not only become a grown man, but that he was living a very dangerous life, that was about to become even more so.
When they both brought him to the train the Friday after Thanksgiving, they all again had tears in their eyes, of which Mac was not ashamed, it being the Italian way. He had learned from example that you never bother to do anything unless it is done with passion. Mac had seen both of his parents cry, in good times, and in bad. They showed him by their example the importance of feeling, and loving, no matter what is happening around them. The Martinis were giving their son up to the greater good, which was not particularly comforting, yet it was about to be done by countless families the world over. His mother told him to write, as she kissed him on the cheek, and she let him go. His father hugged him, without words, as he knew there was nothing more memorable to say than a son being in his father's arms.