Black took a swig from his coffee, wiped his mouth with a napkin, and addressed the manager over the music. “I don’t think we want another riot, do we, Mr. Windshuttle? And believe me, sir, these ladies are more than capable of it. They’re quite mad. I believe Ms. Duffy here is probably packing heat. You can tell by just looking at her that she’d be the sort. Now, if you just back off a little bit, I’ll see what I can do about bringing her down from the fine head of psychotic rage I can see building behind her eyes.”

Mr. Windshuttle’s mouth pursed to form a reasonable facsimile of a cat’s anus, and he spun away, storming off in high dudgeon.

The three of them burst out laughing before he was out of earshot.

Dan returned to the Clinton for the rest of day, leaving the women to lounge around the hotel. He thought it would put Julia in a relaxed frame of mind for the dinner with Spruance, but he was wrong. When he returned to the hotel he found her pacing their room like a caged wolf. She was beginning to chafe at the restrictions on her movements.

“This story is going to break, Dan,” she said, “and if I want to have any chance at getting my job on the Times, I need to be there on day one.”

Dan slipped an arm into the jacket of his dress whites.

“I think you’re getting all worked up over nothing, baby. You’re the man on the spot, so to speak. They’re going to want as much as you can write for them.”

“They’re going to want to know why I didn’t get on the blower to call them right away. That’s what they do here. They get on the blower. Right away.”

Dan finished buttoning his jacket and leaned over to kiss her on the forehead.

“Nobody is getting on the blower at the moment, baby. So what is it you say? ‘Chill out’? You’re going to dinner with Admiral Spruance, and there’s a story for you right there.”

“He’s not going to tell me squat about what you guys are cooking up. First thing I’ll know, there’ll be newsreel footage of a mushroom cloud over Tokyo and some asshole sounds like he’s got a pole up his butt doing a voice-over like, That’ll put the nips in the stir-fry.”

Dan sat at the end of the bed to enjoy the sight while she pulled on her stockings. Julia rarely wore dresses, and he wondered why, given how good she looked in this one.

“You brought that frock with you, I’ll bet,” he said.

“Nice shuffle, Dan. I did. I got it in Milan a couple of years ago. It’s great for travel because it crumples to nothing in your bag, but never creases. See?”