The waiter, a small dull-eyed youngster, hovered in the room staring with a vacuous grin as Cleveland talked to the bookmaker. “Mr. Cleveland, I just want to tell you I’m a big fan of yours,” he blurted when Cleveland hung up. “I really think you’re terrific. So does my whole family. We never miss the amateur hour.”
“Thanks,” Cleveland rumbled with a heavy-lidded look, fingering his sandy hair. “Want anything, Matty?”
“A drink, thanks. I’ve got a cold.”
“Bring her another double,” said Cleveland, with a sudden charming smile at the waiter. “And get me three Havana cigars. Monte Cristos, if there are any. See how fast you can do it.”
“Yes,
“How was Quantico?” Madeline threw her coat on a chair and sat down, blowing her nose.
“The stage’ll work fine. The commandant’s all excited. He thinks it’s a wonderful recruiting stunt.” Yawning, Cleveland lit a cigar and explained the arrangements for the broadcast that he had made with the commandant. “He showed me all over the camp. I saw a real combat exercise. Jesus, those marines shoot live ammunition over each other’s heads! I’ll be deaf for a week,” he said, rubbing his ears. “I guess they won’t put you through that.”
“Me? Am I going there?”
“Sure. Tomorrow.”
“What for?”
“Screen the performers, get the personal stuff on them, and all that. They’ve already got an amateur thing going there, it turns out. They call it the Happy Hour.”
Madeline said, “The Happy Hour’s an old custom all through the service.”
“Really? It was news to me. Anyhow, that makes it a cinch.” He described the arrangements for her interview at Quantico.
The doorbell rang. Blowing her nose, Madeline went to answer it. “I think I’ve got a fever. I don’t want to go and interview a lot of marines.”
A girl with dyed black hair stood simpering in the doorway, in a yellow coat and yellow snow boots, showing stained teeth in a thickly painted mouth. Her smile faded when Madeline opened the door.
“I was looking for Mr. Hugh Cleveland.”
“Right here, baby.” he called.
The girl came into the suite with uncertain steps, peering from Cleveland to Madeline.
“What is this?” she said.
“Wait in there,” he said, indicating the bedroom with his thumb. “I’ll be along.”
The girl closed the bedroom door behind her. Ignoring Cleveland’s embarrassed grin, Madeline snatched her coat and jerked on one sleeve and the other. “Good-night. I’ll talk to you tomorrow..”
“You’ve got a drink coming.”
“I don’t want it. I want to get to bed. I’m shivering.”
Cleveland came padding to her in stocking feet and put his hand on her forehead. She pushed it away.
“You have no fever.”
“Don’t touch me, please.”
“What’s the matter?”
“I just don’t like to be touched.”
The waiter knocked at the door and came in. “Double martini, sir and the Monte Cristos.”
“Great. Thanks.” Cleveland offered the tray to Madeline when the waiter left. “Here. Take off your coat and drink up.”
Both hands jammed in her coat pockets, Madeline said, “It’s not fair to keep a prostitute waiting. All she has to sell is time.”
Hugh Cleveland slowly grinned, putting down the tray. “Why, Madeline Henry.”
“I’m sorry. I feel extremely lousy. Good-night.”
Cleveland strode to the bedroom. A murmur of voices, and the girl, tucking money in a shiny yellow purse, emerged from the room. She gave Madeline a tough unpleasant sad glance and left the suite.
“Sit down and have your drink. Here’s all the dope on Quantico” — he flourished a manila envelope — “and who to see, and the list of the performers. If you’re still not feeling well tomorrow just call me, and I’ll have Nat or Arnold come down and take over.”
“Oh, I guess I’ll manage.” Madeline sat, throwing her coat back on her shoulders, and drank.
“How are your folks?”
“Fine.”
“Any interesting guests at dinner?”
“Alistair Tudsbury, for one.”
“Tudsbury! Say, there’s genius. There’s a man I’d like to meet. He’s got style, Tudsbury, and a superb radio voice. But he’d never come on
“Air Commodore Burne-Wilke, of the RAF.”
“Is an air commodore somebody?”
“From what my father says, he more or less ran the Battle of Britain.”
Wrinkling his nose, Cleveland put his feet on the desk again. “Hmmm. Not bad. The Battle of Britain’s awfully tired, though, isn’t it? I don’t know if he’d mean anything today, Matty. The audience has had the Battle of Britain up to here.”
“I wouldn’t dream of asking him.”
“I would.” Hands clasped, two fingers pressed judiciously to his chin, Cleveland shook his head. “No. Dated. I say balls to the Battle of Britain.”
“There was Senator Lacouture.”
Her employer’s thick sandy eyebrows rose. “Now,
“His daughter married my brother.”
“The one on the submarine?”
“No. The aviator.”
“What do you think? Would Lacouture come to New York?”
“For the chance to attack Lend-Lease, I think he’d go to Seattle.”
“Well, Lend-Lease is front-page. Not that one person in forty knows what it’s all about. Let’s get Lacouture. Do you mind talking to him?”
“No.” Madeline finished her drink and stood.
“Fine. Set him up for Monday if you can. We’re kind of blah on Monday.”
Madeline tapped the envelope in her hand, regarding it absently. The drink was making her feel better. “There’s Happy Hours at all the Navy bases, you know,” she said. “Practically on every ship. Probably in the Army camps, too. Couldn’t you do another show like this every now and then? It’s something different.”
Cleveland shook his head. “It’s a one-shot, Matty. Just a novelty. The regular amateurs are the meat and potatoes.”
“If we get in the war,” Madeline said, “they’ll be drafting talented people, won’t they? There’ll be camps over the country.”
“Well, could be.” With his most engaging smile, he waved a thumb at the bedroom door. “Sorry about her, kid. I thought you weren’t coming tonight.”
“It doesn’t make the slightest difference to me, I assure you.”
“You really disapprove of me. I know you do. The way my wife does. You’ve had a good upbringing.”
“I hope so.”
“Well, see, I wasn’t that fortunate.”
“Good-night, Hugh.”
“Say, listen.” With an amused genial squint, Cleveland scratched his head. “There might be something in that Happy Hour thing at that, if we do get in the war. It might be a series in itself. Start a file on Wartime Ideas, Matty. Type up a memo on that and stash it away.”
“All right.”
“Your father’s an insider. Does he think we’ll get in war?”
“He thinks we’re in it.”
