3
DEAL, NEW JERSEY
JUNE 25, 1942
Dick Canidy, dressed in a business suit and carrying a briefcase, after a full day in coveralls in Hangar 17, stepped off the New Jersey Central train at Asbury Park. The Rolls-Royce was waiting for him.
After making another killing on Wall Street, home comes Richard Canidy, well-known international financier, to be met by the faithful family retainer in the Rolls.
When the Rolls delivered Canidy in his stockbroker’s uniform to Summer Place, the admiral, Barbara Whittaker, and the admiral’s chief of staff were drinking wine at an umbrella-shaded cast-iron table on the lawn. The lawn was green and lovely and it stretched down to the beach. Without being asked, the admiral’s middle-aged orderly brought Canidy some of Chesly Whittaker’s older-than-Canidy Scotch.
With a breeze coming off the ocean, it was so pleasant at the table that Barbara Whittaker ordered that their dinner be served there. And they lingered over coffee and brandy until it was dark and fireflies came out.
The admiral finally announced he was going to take a stroll along the beach, and Canidy was flattered when the old man asked if perhaps he would care to join him.
They caught up with one of the Navy sentries, who was patrolling the beach with a Springfield rifle on his shoulder and an allegedly ferocious German shepherd on a leash.
The shepherd obligingly chased pieces of driftwood for the admiral, proudly delivering them with his tail wagging. Finally, the sentry resumed his rounds, and Canidy, without thinking, idly asked a question he immediately regretted. He asked the admiral about his family.
“My wife lives as I do, on charity,” the admiral said calmly. “When I was court-martialed—”
“Court-martialed?”
“In absentia, almost immediately after I left Morocco,” the admiral said matter-of-factly, “I was convicted of treason. The court stripped me of my rank and decorations. That of course stopped my pay, and my property was forfeit.”
“Jesus Christ!” Canidy exploded.
The admiral shrugged. “My son was dismissed from the Navy shortly after my court-martial. As my son, he was obviously not trustworthy. He has been arrested by the Germans. I don’t know where he is.”
“I’m sorry.”
“I have old friends in New York,” the admiral said, “Madame Martin and her husband, who have been kind enough to provide a little pocket money for me, enough that I can share a little with my staff.”
“You don’t get money from the Free French?”
“I have a letter from Brigadier de Gaulle,” the admiral said, his tone making it quite clear what he thought of de Gaulle, “in which he states that he, representing the Free French, does not of course regard my court-martial as valid, and that so far as the Free French are concerned, I am in honorable retirement. He went on to express his profound regret that because of other, more pressing claims upon the limited funds made available to him, he will unhappily be forced to delay the payment of my pension until after the war.”
“That sonofabitch!” Canidy said.
“You are referring, mon Major,” the admiral said dryly, “to the head of my government. But under the circumstances, I do not believe I will offer you the choice of a duel or an apology.”
They walked along the beach in silence for a couple of minutes, nodded to the sailor when he came walking back down the beach with the German shepherd, then turned and headed back to Summer Place.
When they got back to the house, Barbara Whittaker was waiting for them. Captain Douglass had called, she said. Canidy was to fly the Beech to Anacostia Naval Air Station in Washington first thing in the morning. Someone would meet him at the airport.