Collins, Max Allan - Nathan Heller 09 by Damned in Paradise (v5.0) Page B

entrance to the naval station, an innocuous white-picket gate between fieldstone posts in a mesh-wire fence that couldn’t have kept out a troop of Campfire Girls. Our driver checked in with the Marine MP there, who checked us off on a clipboard, and gave us admittance into a surprisingly shabby facility.
    Not that the Navy Yard didn’t have its impressive points. Like the immense battleship bed of the cement pit labeled DRYDOCK —14 TH NAVAL DISTRICT ; or the coaling station with wharf, railroad, and hoisting towers. Or Ford Island (as our driver identified it), with its seaplane station and battery of ungainly planes.
    But the wooden shacks labeled, variously, GYRO SHOP, ELECTRICAL SHOP, MESS HALL, DIESEL SHOP looked more like a rundown summer camp than a military base. Sheet-iron shelters housing sailors’ automobiles had a cheap, temporary look; and the submarine base, with what should have been a grand array, was a couple dozen tiny subs at a wobbly wooden network of finger piers.
    The fleet was definitely not in. No great warships loomed in the harbor. The only ship in sight was the Alton, perpetually stuck in the mud, aboard which our clients were in custody.
    But our first stop was at the base headquarters, another unassuming white building, if better maintained. Our young Navy chauffeur was still our guide, and he led Darrow, Leisure, and me into a large waiting room. Venetian blinds on the many windows were letting in slashes of sunlight as men in white bustled in and out with paperwork; the chauffeur checked us in with the reception desk. We had barely sat down when an attaché pushed open a door and summoned us with, “Mr. Darrow? The admiral will see you now.”
    The office was spacious, its paneling light brown, masculine, touched here and there with an award or a plaque or a framed photograph; one wall, at our left as we entered, was taken up almost entirely by a map of the Pacific. Behind the admiral was a wall of windows with more blinds, but these were shut tight, letting no sun in at all; an American flag stood at ease, to the admiral’s right. His mahogany desk, appropriately enough, was as big as a boat, and it was shipshape: pens, papers, personal items, arranged as neatly as if prepared for inspection.
    The admiral was shipshape, too—a narrow blade of a man in his late fifties, standing behind the desk with one fist on a hip. In his white uniform with its high collar, epaulets, brass buttons, and campaign ribbons, he looked as perfectly groomed as a waiter in a really high-class joint.
    Pouches of skin slanting over grayish-blue eyes gave him a relaxed expression that I doubted; his weathered countenance was otherwise rather dour: prominent nose, long upper lip, lantern jaw. He was smiling. I doubted the smile, too.
    “Mr. Darrow, I can’t tell you how pleased I am,” the admiral said in a mellow voice gently touched by the South, “that Mrs. Fortescue took my advice and acquired your good services.”
    Second Navy man today who’d taken credit for that.
    “Admiral Stirling,” Darrow said, shaking the hand his host extended, “I want to thank you for your hospitality and help. May I introduce my staff?”
    Leisure and I shook hands with Admiral Yates Stirling, exchanged acknowledgments, and at the admiral’s signal took the three chairs opposite his desk. One of them, a leather padded captain’s chair, was clearly meant for Darrow, and he took it grandly.
    The admiral sat, leaning back in his swivel chair, hands resting on the arms.
    “You will have the full cooperation of my men and myself,” Stirling said. “Full access to your clients, of course, twenty-four hours a day.”
    Darrow crossed his legs. “Your dedication to your people is commendable, Admiral. And I appreciate you giving us your time, this afternoon.”
    “It’s my pleasure,” the admiral said. “I think you’ll find that, despite the grim nature of your mission, these beautiful islands have much to commend