“Do you want me to go for you, Dad?”

“Nah.”

Dina pushed her chair back. “Let me, Uncle Dave. It’s probably Washington. They said tomorrow, but they’ve probably had a meeting, it’s about midnight there.”

“I’ll go, I’ll go. They can’t make up their minds because they haven’t got any brains, you can’t make up minds with—–” He sounded far from fit to cope with Washington long-distance affairs. His face was flushed, he crushed his napkin into a ball and threw it into the dessert plate of melting baked Alaska. Standing, he grasped the chair back a moment, then weaved his way among the tables with superb accuracy and speed, he even saluted a group here and there as he went.

“A liqueur, anybody?” Czar inquired, grandly. He said lik-weer, but not a muscle moved in the three young faces. “How about a nice cream de mint, Louise?”

She laughed, plumply. “Now, Czar, I guess you think you’re out with one of those chorus girls.”

Dina was glancing toward the great doorway. She turned back now to the table. “I’ve eaten such an enormous dinner, I think I’ll just have a brandy, Mr. Kennedy.”

“Brandy, eh? Anybody else want to keep Miss—uh—company?”

“I’ll try one, Grampa Czar.”

“No you won’t, my girl. You’ve never tasted brandy.”

“Grampa Thor would say this is a good time to try it, then.”

The little white flame leaped from his eyes. “Thor has had his day. This is mine. Understand?”

“I’m sorry, Grampa. I didn’t think you’d be cross about it. You asked.”

But now Dave Husack came swiftly toward the table and behind him like a comet’s tail, Emil. Dave’s hand on the chair back was shaking, his face was dangerously purple, his eyes stood out like balls from their sockets. “You keep those goddamn reporters out of this room or I’ll sue the hotel, hear me …!” He sank into the chair, the scented handkerchief seemed unavailing as he dabbed at the greasily wet face.

“David! David! What’s happened!”

He glared at them, his lower jaw combative, outjutting, like a troglodyte’s. “She’s gone. The goddamned ship is gone.”

“Gone where, David? She was supposed to go at eight, you said, se—–”

“The Buccaneer. She sank. Just like that. Sank.”

Czar leaned across the table, his face was halfway across it, he pushed aside the pink-shaded lamp with a gesture that rocked it. “Collison?”

“Here,” Dina said. She thrust toward Dave the brandy that the waiter had just placed discreetly at her place.

Dave pushed the glass bubble aside, it overturned and rolled a bit, the amber liquid spread on the cloth. “She just went down, I’m telling you. No reason. Daylight. August. Nothing in sight. They say she gave a heave, like, and shivered once, and went down. They saved two men, maybe three. She’s gone, absolutely gone. Listen to this.”

He unfolded a crumpled wad of newspaper in his hand. “They been trying to get me. The papers. Listen to this swill, will you!”