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use it’s necessary.
A block south of Union Square, Canidy came to the storefront of an expensive lingerie shop and Ann Chambers came immediately to mind.
But Dad would like Ann.
He looked in the window, at the display, and had graphic thoughts about the lingerie and Ann.
And what about Ann?
That is one incredible woman—and a long way, in many ways, from the young coed I first met two years ago at her family’s Alabama plantation.
Beautiful, smart…and determined. Her capacity for affection and care is off the chart.
And it’s not as if I have none of those feelings for her.
I’m just not accustomed to having feelings for only one woman for any length of time. Fifteen, twenty minutes max, making me one sorry sonofabitch.
So then…where is this going, this “relationship”?
The war is not going to end tomorrow, or next week, and I can’t keep promising her that I won’t go away—then immediately break that promise.
This is what I do.
And now I’m off to Sicily?
I’m going to need some help with that, help handling these mob guys.
Maybe I can get Fulmar. Or Stan Fine. Screw David Bruce.
Sicily! Jesus!
Ann won’t like that…me gone again to parts unknown.
Canidy noticed a display of silk hosiery.
I’d be smart to bring back some of those for her. And some soaps and fragrances. Yeah, after I hit the hotel I’ll head back here, then over to Kiehl’s, over on Third Avenue and—what?
He looked at the street sign—it read 13TH.
That’s it. Third and Thirteenth. Come to think of it, without my Dopp kit I need deodorant and stuff, too. But first, the room.
[ THREE ]
Gramercy Park Hotel
2 Lexington Avenue
New York City, New York
1415 6 March 1943
Dick Canidy pushed hard on the gleaming brass bar of the heavy revolving door of what he considered to be one of the city’s best-kept secrets.
The Gramercy, built in the 1920s of brick in a renaissance revival style, had a simple elegance that was in keeping with its quiet but very nice neighborhood. It even had a private park across the street.
It was, Canidy believed, every bit as elegant as, say, the Roosevelt up on Madison at Forty-fifth—only some twenty or so blocks north—but a world away from the feel of a crazed city outside your door.
So without really trying, the hotel drew a wide spectrum of guests, including high-level politicians and a slew of celebrities on the way up—or down. There were all kinds of stories about the stars, including, Canidy recalled hearing, that Humphrey Bogart had been married to his first or second wife—or maybe it was both of them—in the rooftop garden.
