The Last Heroes (Men at War 1)

The house was a turn-of-the-century mansion, stately in its ugliness. The building was faced with sandstone. Gargoyles at the roofline spouted rain from the slate roof. A widow’s watch crowned the peak of the building and two snarling stone lions guarded the massive double front door. There was a marble veranda twenty feet wide across the entire front of the house, and four sets of cast-iron tables, each with four cast-iron chairs. Canidy had been coming to the house on Q Street since he was a fifteen-year-old, gangly second former at St. Mark’s School, and he had never seen anyone sit on one of the cast-iron chairs.

It was the tradition at St. Mark’s School to assign first formers (freshmen) to share rooms with upperclassmen, the notion apparently being that the older boys could look out for, and set an example for, younger ones. An exception was made for fourth formers (seniors), who could, if they wished, room with other fourth formers. But first formers, without exception, were assigned to second formers. The new students were called hacks, and Jim Whittaker had been his.

St. Mark’s semisacred customs had made little impression on Dick Canidy, who had been born and raised in a midwestern copy of St. Mark’s, St. Paul’s, of which his father, the Reverend George Crater Canidy, D.D., Ph.D., was headmaster. Though second formers were supposed to hold themselves aloof from first formers, he had liked Jim Whittaker more than he liked the other two boys who shared their two-bedroom, one-bath apartment. And they had become friends.

Jim had asked him to visit that year for the Thanksgiving holiday—holding out the bait that his uncle Chesty had tickets for the Army-Navy game—and he had accepted.

On his arrival Canidy paid the ritual compliment to Jim’s uncle and aunt, ‘‘Lovely home you have,’’ but their astonishing reply was that the compliment properly belonged to Jim.

‘‘The house is his,’’ Chesley Haywood ‘‘Chesty’’ Whittaker, Jim’s childless uncle, said. ‘‘It was his father’s.’’

Seeing the confusion on Canidy’s face, Chesty Whittaker had explained: ‘‘After Jim’s father died, the idea was that once the house was known to be available, an embassy or an ambassador would snatch it up at an outrageous price. In the meantime, just for a couple of months, of course, Barbara and I would use it when we were in Washington. That was ten years ago, and we’ve yet to get that first outrageous offer.’’

Canidy had liked Uncle Chesty from the first. For one thing, Chesty Whittaker had not concluded that because Dick was a priest’s son, he was therefore a good moral influence on Jim, and neither did he spare him dirty jokes or keep him from anything smacking of sin. And later Jim’s uncle had been responsible, Canidy was sure, both for his acceptance at MIT and for the Navy scholarship without which MIT would have been out of the question. Jim had shown him copies of the letters his uncle had written to the secretary of the Navy on Canidy’s behalf. The first, addressed ‘‘Dear Mr. Secretary,’’ had painted Canidy out to be a paragon of virtue and academic prowess whose services the Navy could ill afford to pass up. The second, addressed ‘‘Dear Slats,’’ said: ‘‘I mean everything I said in the attached letter, and if the Navy doesn’t see fit to give Dick a scholarship, you had better be prepared to explain to me why not.’’

Over the years, Canidy had come to think of the house on Q Street as almost a second home and of the Whittakers as a second family. And Canidy had spent happy summer weeks at Whittaker’s home on the New Jersey coast, where Jim’s aunt had been as kind to him as her husband was.

A silver-haired black man in a gray cotton jacket, whom Canidy had never seen before, opened the door.

‘‘Yes, sir?’’

‘‘Mr. Whittaker, please,’’ Canidy said. ‘‘Either, but preferably both.’’

‘‘Neither Mr. Whittaker is at home, sir.’’

‘‘My name is Canidy,’’ Dick said.

‘‘Oh yes, sir, we’ve been expecting you,’’ the butler said. ‘‘Won’t you come in?’’

‘‘Is Mr. Whittaker here? Jim?’’

‘‘Lieutenant Whittaker called, sir,’’ the butler said. ‘‘He asked me to tell you that he can’t get away from the Air Corps. And he told me, sir, to make you as comfortable as I possibly can.’’

Damn, Canidy thought. When he’d called Jim, who was an Air Corps reserve second lieutenant at Randolph Field in Texas, Jim had thought he’d be able to make it up for a night on the town. With Jim around, the house on Q Street was a great place to be. Without him, it was about as exciting as a library. There was still plenty of time to return to Anacostia and the dinner at the Army-Navy Club.

‘‘What I think I’ll do,’’ Canidy said, ‘‘is say hello to Mrs. Harris, and then call a cab.’’ Mrs. Harris was the house-keeper.

‘‘Mrs. Harris has retired, sir. I have, in a sense, taken her place,’’ the butler said as he opened the door wider. ‘‘There is a telephone in the sitting room, sir.’’

Canidy was looking in the telephone book for a cab company number when he heard a female voice asking about him.

‘‘It’s Mr. Canidy, miss,’’ the butler said. ‘‘He asked to use the telephone.’’

When he heard footsteps behind him, Canidy turned around. It was Cynthia Chenowith. She was a few years older than he was, a disadvantage he was perfectly willing to ignore; for she was well set up, with nice breasts and rich dark brown hair. But she also had a distant, off-putting look that left you not knowing where you stood with her or if indeed you had anywhere to stand. Canidy had a hunch that there was heat and passion beneath all that. But very deep down. Very. She was ‘‘a friend of the family,’’ and he had known her, not well, for a long time.

‘‘Hello, Canidy,’’ she said. ‘‘What brings you here?’’

‘‘Hello, Cynthia,’’ he said. ‘‘You make a lovely consolation prize.’’

‘‘In lieu of what?’’ she asked, her voice level.

‘‘I was supposed to meet Jim here.’’

‘‘Then he didn’t get in touch with you? He said he would try."

‘‘No,’’ Canidy said.

‘‘Is there something I can do for you?’’ she asked, clearly hoping there wasn’t.