So on your own really means being on your own. It means having a newspaper that doesn't want you on the story. It means having a key informant who has nothing else to give. It means having an FBI that may be trying to kill you rather than help you. It means returning home to Washington to nobody and nothing but the presence of imminent danger.
After all that had gone on that day, with all that was left to come, my hotel room seemed depressing, if I had the time or inclination to be depressed, which, right now, I didn't. As I fired up my laptop, I leaned back in my chair and pondered what I had. The president of the United States was a former armored car robber named Curtis Black who had entered the federal witness protection program at the invitation of the government under the name of Tony Clawson, switched names again to Clayton Hutchins, became a prominent businessman in Iowa, was elevated to the governorship by the eleventh-hour whims of a fickle electorate, was nominated vice president without a public vote, became president when his predecessor dropped dead, and was now one day away from being elected to a full term.
How did I know this? Well, two of his cohorts on the armored heist told me-one who was now dead, another who wouldn't allow me to use his name.
While we're at it, let's not forget that the Federal Bureau of Investigation was trying to kill me and had succeeded in killing my colleague, Steve Havlicek. And how did I know this? Well, the suspicions of those same criminals and my own gut instinct.
All this would go over big with Appleton-trying to end the Hutchins presidency on the word of two admitted criminals, but without the benefit of sharing their identities with our readership. I couldn't help but smile to myself. My sourcing, if that's what you want to call it, was so weak as to be laughable. I knew the facts. I just couldn't put them in the newspaper. I imagined the pitying look on Appleton's face when he fired me, or maybe he'd just do it by telephone, and all I'd get would be the pseudo-sympathetic tone of his voice.
I flicked the television on and turned to CNN'S Headline News to see where Hutchins was campaigning. A couple of minutes later, the network played footage of him speaking to a huge rally at Rockefeller Center in midtown Manhattan, urging his supporters not only to vote themselves but each to bring a family member and a friend or neighbor to the polls-all, he said, "To guide our own destiny, to renew that most sacred of institutions, the American dream."
The camera showed men and women and children laughing and applauding and shouting high into the air. Balloons, red, white, and blue, fell from the sky, framed by the mammoth skyscrapers of New York. I stared hard at Hutchins, at his features, his smile, his face, his eyes, his graying hair. Frustrated, I flicked the picture off.
So do I call Martin? I decided it wasn't the right time yet. I decided I wanted to be armed with more information before he raced over and threw me off my game. On a legal pad, I scribbled down the names of people I needed to call: Sammy Markowitz, Kent Drinker, Clayton Hutchins. Neither Markowitz nor Hutchins would be particularly easy to raise, though I imagined by now, Drinker might well be all too easy.
Chances were, he would find me before I even began looking for him.
Which, of course, begged the question: which was, the killer FBI agent-Drinker or Stevens, Stevens or Drinker? Or both? Stevens was an obvious suspect, given her mysterious presence at the airport. But then I recalled Havlicek telling me in the car before he died that he had talked to her that day. He just didn't explain what he had said.
Perhaps he really had given her my arrival time.
Well, I wasn't going to answer that question now, so I flipped through my datebook for Markowitz's number. When I called, some dullardly gentleman picked up the telephone, announced the name of his fine establishment, the Pigpen, then yelled to someone nearby, "Hey, leave the fucking jerky alone. I'll get it for you when I'm done." Pause, then, "Yeah, what."
"Is Sammy there?" I asked.
"No."
Great. This song and dance all over again. I said, "Well, when he gets in from church, could you tell him that Jack Flynn called. Tell him it's urgent that I speak to him."
"Hol'on a second," the man said. I heard him ask someone else, "Hey, Rudy, the boss go to church or somethin'? Isn't he in his booth?"
There was no pulling one over on this guy. A long pause followed, then the phone rang, then Markowitz's voice said, "You have nine lives?
Hate to tell you, but I think you're down to about two."
I wasn't much in the mood to make funny with him, given the day.
"Sammy, I need you to tell me something, and I need you to be straight.
Is there anyone up there in your world who'd be worried about me digging around on Curtis Black? Let me take it a step further. Is there anyone up there who'd kill over this? His cohorts in that failed robbery? Debtors? Anyone you can think of? And is there anyone who would want to kill Black himself if they found out who he is or where he is?"
There was silence. I heard the flick of his lighter, the sound of him inhaling a cigarette, then blowing smoke out toward the decrepit environs of his bar. "No," he said. "Black kind of became a nobody when he left, and that was a long time ago-over twenty years. We don't hold grudges that long in my business. Only in the movies. Too much money to be made." He paused as if he was calculating something, like that day's bookmaking receipts maybe, then added, "And I'm tallying the people up here. Everyone involved in that particular heist is either still in jail or dead. There's no one free who gives a rat's ass about Curtis Black."
I asked, "You're absolutely sure?"
He paused again, then said, "Yeah, unless there's something going on I don't know about, but that's at best unlikely. Yeah, I'm sure."
I said, "Let me ask you something else. You by chance mention to anyone that I was talking to you about Curtis Black? If you did, no hard feelings. But I'm at a point in my story that it would be really helpful to know."
There was another long pause. I could hear him puffing on his cigarette. I could hear the mindless chatter of his small-minded clientele in the background, some woman on a jukebox singing a country song about a car stealing her man or maybe her man stealing her car.
"No," he said. But it was the way he said it, anything but firm. He sounded uncharacteristically weak, begging more questions.
So I asked him one. "Who? Who'd you tell? I need this."
I heard him take a deep breath, then let out a mouth full of smoke. "A fed, some fucker by the name of Drinker-I told him he should own a bar with that name. He came by, wanted to know what I knew. He kept pressuring me, wouldn't get out of my face. He was raising your name.
After a while, I just had to get him out of here. I told him you were looking into Black." Another long pause, then, "I don't normally say this, Jack, but if I hurt you, sorry."
Dimed by a lifelong crook. "Great. An apology. That means a lot."
Sammy said, "Look, I'm getting old. I'm in the market for friends, not enemies, and he was offering me friendship, said he'd keep an eye out for me, rather than on me."
I said, "Do me a favor, Sammy. When you screw me over again, just let me know about it, would you?"
Next, I called the White House switchboard and asked to have Royal Dalton paged in New York. This would be my most significant problem.
My past dozen days aside, a reporter doesn't just get in to talk to the president of the United States at will, especially on election eve. In fact, most reporters never get the chance to see the president one-on-one in their entire lives. The only time they are able to question him is on national television, at one of his rare press conferences-a venue that wouldn't work particularly well in this situation. Just imagine, me standing up in the East Room of the White House and saying, "Sir, we are pursuing a story saying you were once Curtis Black, an armored car robber in Massachusetts. Do you care to confirm that fact here, and if so, is it true that the FBI has killed reporter Steve Havlicek in its effort to protect you?" Either the stock market would drop one thousand points in the day, or I'd be led off the grounds in a straitjacket by men who would load me into the back of a blue van and say repeatedly, "You're right, the whole world is out to get you. But trust us. We're your protectors."
Ten minutes later, my telephone rang back. An officious-sounding twenty-something said, "This is Hamilton Carr. Could I help you?"
First off, I hate when someone returns someone else's phone messages.
Second, I hate it more when they just assume I know who they are.
This, by the way, is standard procedure in Washington, the world's self-importance capital.
I said, dismissively, "I don't think so. I'm trying to reach Royal Dalton."
"Well, can I help you with something?"
"Sure. You could take a message and pass it on to Royal Dalton. Ask him to call me at the number you just dialed."
Exasperated, young Hamilton said, "I am the duty person in the White House press office today. How can I help you?"
Equally exasperated, I said, "You can do your duty by calling Mr.
Dalton, telling him that Jack Flynn said he has a significant story running in tomorrow's paper on the presidential assassination attempt that requires an adult's attention, and asking him to please call me at the number you just dialed. Tell him I'll be here for ten more minutes."
Sure enough, about three minutes later, Dalton was on the other line, himself exasperated. "It's the day before the election," he said in that thin voice of his. "What could you possibly be doing?"
"Trying to hold this democracy together, a task that you people aren't making any easier," I said. "Here's my problem. I need to talk to Hutchins. I need to talk to him about a subject that only he knows about and that only he will want to know about. I need to talk to him tonight-"
"Absolutely no way. We just gave you time with him on Saturday, and best I can tell, you haven't done anything with it."
I said, angry, "Well, we've had a few things happen since then, like a car bomb and the death of my colleague." I paused. He stayed silent, so I asked, "Where are you?"
"We're at Kennedy. We're about to board Air Force One back to Andrews."
I said, "Would you relay a message to Hutchins? Tell him I'm doing a story about Curtis Black, with some new, crucial details that could prove, well, explosive." Much as I enjoy my own puns, especially those with a double entendre, I didn't particularly like that unintended one.
He replied in that superior tone of his, "What in the world are you talking about? I'm not going to relay a message like that, even if I could. Tell me what you're working on, and maybe I can get someone else at the White House to help you out."
I said, "I'm going with a story tomorrow. It's potentially devastating to Hutchins, especially if his own staff prevents him from responding.
If you don't tell him I'm trying to reach him, you're going to be screwed. Take my word for it, Royal."
"You know I can't go to him on the night before the presidential election with no information."
"On this one, you have to, or you'll regret it for a long time to come.
Have him call me. I'll be here."
He didn't reply, leaving another moment of gaping silence. I added,
"Remember, Curtis Black, crucial details, explosive. Tell him that."
Now I'd be lying if I said I wasn't getting any satisfaction from this, working the telephone, putting pieces together, inching closer to the answers that Havlicek and I had pursued to his death. I was back in my element, even if no one wanted me there. But it doesn't matter if they did or didn't. In newspapers, at the end of each day, the only thing that matters is what you can get into print.
The telephone rang. I picked it up, and it was Lincoln Powers, the chief of staff.
"Young man," he said in a spare Texas twang, "I brought your request to the president and the president said, verbatim, that he doesn't know what you're talking about and has nothing to say."
I replied, "Well, could you tell the president, verbatim, that tomorrow's Record will carry a story detailing the transformation of Curtis Black, and it will no doubt have a profound impact on the election. I'll be at my phone for a short time only."
Well, that last part was a lie. Actually, I'd be glued to my phone waiting, but why give them the confidence rooted in your own anxiety?
About ten minutes later, the telephone rang again, and miraculously, or not so miraculously, it was that familiar voice of President Clayton Hutchins. Every half-cocked bluff was working like a charm. Without introductions, or even enthusiasm, he said, "Curtis Black. What the hell does that mean?"
"I think you know, sir," I said, trying to sound sympathetic to someone who was about to be found in a life-defining lie. "I uncovered some crucial new information on Curtis Black and his current identity."
"I don't know what the hell you're talking about, young man," he said.
He sounded sincere, but politicians usually do.
I replied, "Sir, I've talked to other members of the gang on that Wells Fargo job. They know who you are. They are willing to go public with their information." Well, not exactly, but why get bogged down in the mundane details of sourcing a story?
"Young man, I don't have the slightest fucking idea what you're fucking talking about, but be aware you're talking to the president of the United fucking States of America."
Employing an old reporting trick, I let that hang out there, my implicit accusation, his pathetic response. This wasn't so much a pause as a protracted silence. I pictured him sitting in his office on Air Force One, the plane preparing for takeoff, a small army of aides and servants outside his study door. He was the most public and most private man in the world.
Now I understood what Stemple was saying on that very first day he spoke to me, all that stuff about nothing being as it seems, the strange complex motives involved. At least, I think I understood.
More important, I think I was about to know in such a way that I could write about it.
Then, in a tone I had never heard before, his voice so thick it barely sounded like him, he said, "I'm in New York now, on my way to the airport. Why don't you come over to the White House when I get back, and we'll talk."
"That would be helpful, sir," I said. "What time?"
"Seven." We hung up, leaving just one immediate question, at least for me: would someone try to kill me before I could get in?
At this point, I had no choice but to call Peter Martin, who snapped up the telephone on the first ring as if he had been waiting for my call all day. Just as Havlicek preserved the story in the moments before he died and passed it on to me in the form of Stemple's address, I needed to make plans in case I came in harm's way.
"Well, we were right about one thing," I said. "Curtis Black was definitely involved in the shooting. Only he was the victim, not the attempted assassin."
Martin said, "What? What are you talking about?"
I said, "Here's the short version. Curtis Black is the president of the United States. One of the guys from his old criminal gang told me so today." I paused and added, "Take this one to the bank."
"I don't understand." You don't hear Martin say that all that often.
I said, "Curtis Black became a federal witness. He came out with a new identity, that of Tony Clawson. A few years later, he ditched the name Clawson and assumed the name Clayton Hutchins, who, I have a raw hunch, was an actual person who had died very young. He's a smart guy. He went off and made a fortune in computer software. He came into politics almost unwittingly. He became governor of Iowa at the last minute, and then he rose up almost in spite of himself. And when it was time to run for president, think about it. He had a fabricated background. It was real, but it wasn't. It was chosen as a best-case scenario, so there could be nothing wrong with it, except it was a lie.
Remember when David Souter won confirmation to the Supreme Court? One of his best qualities was that no one knew anything about him because he was such a recluse and never wrote anything down. This is like that. In a media age when all we do is look for scandal, he didn't have any because his whole life was made up. And fortunately for him, we all found scandal in his opponent, so we were distracted."
I could hear Martin breathing heavily into the phone, playing out every angle of this story, every possible thing that could go wrong versus what might be right.
"You have it firm enough to go with?"
"No. But Hutchins has agreed to see me. I'm heading over there in about an hour."
"Is it safe for you to go?" Good question; Martin getting his bearings.
"Don't know, but it's even less safe not to go."
"All right. I'll be in the office when you get back. Be careful, and be good."
When I paged Drinker next, he returned the call before I could even lean back in my chair.
I said, "I need to speak with you soon. I'm ready to go with a story and want to go over some angles. You know as well as I do that I wasn't the intended target at Congressional. I'll give you one final chance to help."
He replied, sounding sincere, "Go ahead."
"No. In person. Meet me in the lobby of the Four Seasons Hotel in twenty minutes. And just so you know, I've already written everything I know down and passed it on to my superiors. Don't fuck with me. It won't do anyone any good."
Maybe it was rude to leave him hanging in a hotel lobby on the night before this historic election. But maybe it was ruder still to kill Havlicek in cold blood, and try to kill me. Screw him.
I paused and ran my fingers over a picture I had in my luggage of Katherine, eight months pregnant, sitting at our patio table, her chin resting on the palm of her right hand, smiling at me. "This is it," I whispered. Then I snuck out the back, through the kitchen.
It was after dusk, chilly. I scanned the parked cars, checking to see if any of them pulled out and followed me as I walked, but none did. I had the feeling that death waited around every corner. I headed down Sixteenth Street with a baseball cap pulled low over my head and flanked by the two gentlemen I had assigned to protect me. I ducked into the Hay-Adams Hotel, just across Lafayette Park from the White House. I sat at the bar, ordered a Coca-Cola, and wrote out the lead to my story dozens of times on the keyboard of my mind, glancing constantly at the door all the while.
About forty minutes later, out the tall windows, I could see Marine One descending from the sky and disappearing from view to land on the South Lawn. One more time, I pulled my cap low, and hurried straight across the park at a pace that was closer to a trot than a walk. At any minute, I felt, my life could end. I also felt as if my destiny was out of my hands.
I arrived at the northwest gate, where I flashed my badge to a Secret Service agent. I felt safe on the White House grounds, maybe wrongly.
The agent buzzed me in with a bored nod. An interview like never before.
Truth be known, I didn't have anything close to what I needed to get this story into print. Like I said, I had the word of two admitted felons, one of whom was dead. I don't think even the National Enquirer would go to bed with this one.
So what I needed here, like a good cop trying to create an airtight case, was a confession. And just as a good detective uses the power of the law to scare the bejesus out of suspects, I needed to use the power of the written word to intimidate a president on the verge of his own election. I needed him to think that his fate had already been decided, at least in terms of the coverage in the Boston Record. I needed him to think about the inevitable onslaught to come, the media maelstrom that would follow my story, the classic feeding frenzy from which there would be no escape. I needed him to believe that the best and perhaps only way out was an honest admission of fault.
When I was led into the Oval Office, Hutchins was sitting at his desk in shirtsleeves and a crisp red tie loosened at his neck, the top button undone. He was alone. Dozens and dozens of lawyers and dozens more political advisers and newly minted friends in every corner of official Washington, and he chose on this evening to handle this topic alone, just as I suspected he would. That, in itself, was interesting.
He held a heavy lowball glass in his hand, and the glass was filled with about three fingers' worth of what looked to be whisky and ice.
As I sat in a chair in front of his desk, he nervously slid the glass around, causing the cubes to smash softly against each other. He brought the glass up to his face and absently took a sip.
"You believe in redemption?" he asked me, his voice deep, animated, breaking the heavy silence like a clap of thunder.
I considered that question for a moment and replied, "I do, sir.
There's something very human about it, something almost moral, and something uniquely American. We have the right to screw up. More important, we have the right to another chance, at least in most cases."
He pondered that for a minute, shook the ice around in his glass again, and took another sip.
"It's election eve," he said, looking me in the eye. "My pollsters informed me this afternoon that I'm going to win. You care for a celebratory Scotch?"
Why not? Create a mood of confidence, two men exchanging secrets. "If it's convenient, sir."
He pressed a button on the side of his desk, and a dark-skinned steward, Indian-looking, came silently through a side door. "Raj, get my friend a Johnnie Walker, please," Hutchins said. To me, "Rocks or no rocks?"
"No ice."
"Neat," he said to the steward, who turned and walked quietly out the door he came in. Hutchins called out after him, "Make it a double, Raj. We're celebrating."
After I got my drink, Hutchins bore into me with his eyes. "I watched you guys go after my opponent early in the campaign. Christ, what did he do? Fudge some information on his mortgage application or something ten years ago, and you guys try taking him down, try ruining his political career. You were throwing around half-truths and nontruths and buying into anything you were fed. I thought it was sickening then, but it helped me, so I kept my mouth shut. The guy, he wins his party's nomination. He's sacrificing his time, his livelihood, his fucking reputation. He's on the doorstep of the White House, for God's sakes. He's campaigning all over the country twenty hours a day for something he believes in, even if that something is only himself.
Christ, he should be applauded. He's part of the elite. And you guys won't cut him a break." He paused and laughed a breathy, bittersweet laugh to himself.
He looked down at his drink, took another sip, and continued. "And now here I am. I'm on the verge of winning the election. I'm going to get my own four-year term. Things are going all right. We're getting a good team in place, even if you're not on it. The economy's doing well. Wall Street breaks a new record every other day. And you guys, you're bored. You're fucking bored. You need something else, something to get your teeth into. So you turn on me because that's just what you do. You can't help yourselves."
He stared at me. Maybe glare is a more appropriate word. I stared back. That's easy to do when you're in the right. He eventually averted his eyes, giving me some small victory. He said, decisively,
"All right, tell me what you think you know."
I took my own sip of Scotch. I don't particularly like whisky on the best of days, but the taste seemed especially harsh tonight, almost medicinal.
After grimacing, I showed him all my cards. It was coming up on 8:00
P.m. and I didn't have the time or the creativity to do anything cute.
"Sir," I said, "you are living under an alias. You were born Curtis Black. You were a convict in Massachusetts. You turned government's witness. You were relocated under the federal witness protection program under the name of Tony Clawson. After being in the program for eight or nine years, you switched names a second time, to Clayton Hutchins. Through a combination of luck, timing, and skill, you have risen to the top of the world."
This time, he laughed a devilish laugh, then leaned back in his high-backed leather chair. "I'm the fucking president of the United States, young man. President Clayton Hutchins. What you have is some cockamamy story that's probably been put out by my political opponents in a final, desperate attempt to defeat me. You're embarrassing yourself by even bringing it up."
If that was true, what was he doing sitting here with me alone in the Oval Office on election eve drinking a Scotch whisky?
"Sir," I said, always talking to him in that formal way, "I have two men involved in the armored car heist on the record-"
"Bullshit," he said harshly, leaning forward this time. "Armored car heist? There's no fucking armored car heist. You've been set up, by my opponent or someone who is desperate to make sure I don't win.
Check my fucking biography. I was never involved in any fucking armored car heist."
He was pursuing the precise strategy that I feared the most-a hard-and-fast denial, followed, no doubt, by complete inaccessibility, at least long enough to be elected president the next day. Basically, what he was doing was issuing a challenge, daring me to go with the information I had, which he realized was pretty damned flimsy. His arguments would be almost identical to the ones I would hear from the paper's editors, from Martin to Appleton, as they tried to protect the institution from libel and shame.
There are a lot of reporters, mind you, who are all too willing to stretch their information in stories, to make supposition appear as fact with a few careful twists of phrases and subtle caveats. I'm as willing as anyone to stretch my information, but I do it before I write the story, like now, as a device to achieve the truth.
"Sir," I said, "we have a source, someone familiar with your transition into the witness protection program, who is helping us out. Later tonight, this source, who has intimate knowledge, will agree to go on the record to discuss your case. He is familiar with all the details-the initial criminal charges, the name change, the cosmetic surgery."
I eyed him carefully to see if I was having any effect. I couldn't tell. Hutchins shook his glass some more and gazed back at me with a look that was tough to read.
Maybe I was just having a tough time with perspective. I was physically exhausted and mentally drained, and perhaps because of that, Katherine's image kept rolling through my mind. I thought of that ride to the hospital the year before. I thought of how she put her face against my shoulder and held my arm and kissed my hand and told me that she felt as if she were born to have children with me. She told me that even after we had our baby, I would always, always, be the most important person in her life, the one she cherished the most, and that I had damn well better feel the same way about her. And I did. I did.
Which is why ever since, the emptiness had been so overwhelming, the loneliness unbearable, even when I wasn't alone.
Then, sitting there in the Oval Office, I had another thought, as if Katherine had all but whispered it to me in this time of need.
"Sir, it's god-awful to have your wife and child die the way yours did," I said. "Unbearable." I paused for a long moment, then added,
"I understand that all too well. I understand what it can do to your heart, to your mind, to your very sense of being. It can change everything, even if you don't realize that it's changing anything at all."
That was followed by a long stretch of silence. He wasn't looking at me, but rather down at his glass, if, in fact, he was looking at anything at all.
I said, "You don't need me to tell you how much of a monumental success you've become," I said. "And against all odds. I have a hunch you didn't turn to crime until after your wife and son died, when you didn't know what else to do. I have a feeling that their memory gave you an awful lot of support when you left crime behind and started your new life. I have a feeling that you miss them now in a way that only the two of us could ever really understand, that you'd like to be true to them, that you want to stop living this lie."
He still stared down at his desk. I couldn't be positive, but I thought I saw a drop of water-a tear-roll off his face and splash into his glass.
I paused for effect more than anything else, took another deep breath, and said, "Sir, tomorrow morning, I'm fairly certain I will have a story on the front page of the Boston Record explaining that your past is fictitious, that you are a rehabilitated felon." I then added in an admittedly lame attempt at humor, "At least I think you're rehabilitated."
He didn't laugh.
Behind me, on the other side of the office, the burning logs in the fireplace snapped several times, sounding like gunshots, making me jump, but imperceptibly so, I hope. Darkness engulfed the room, the reflection of the desk lamps shining on the inside of the French doors and the tall windows. In front of me, Hutchins held the glass in his hand on the surface of the desk and shook it back and forth again, then lifted it to his mouth for another sip. He still hadn't met my eyes.
The quiet seemed interminable.
"I am Clayton Hutchins," he said finally, looking up, his voice softer, his tone less resolute. "The government says I'm Clayton Hutchins.
All my records say I'm Clayton Hutchins. I have a birth certificate.
I was home-schooled by parents who have since died. I worked on a farm, went to college later in life."
I stayed silent. I saw that his cheeks were damp. I shook my head slowly in a sign of disappointed disbelief.
More silence. He took a deep breath, focused on some point beyond me, and said, "It's one thing I always liked about you, Jack, one thing that always drew me to you. You know what it's like to have everything taken away from you by some arbitrary hand. You know what it's like to lose everything you've ever wanted, all of your hopes and all of your dreams and all of your expectations for the future, all in one incomprehensible act of a God who you could never, ever even pretend to understand. You know what it's like to live the rest of your days knowing you can never get it back, no matter who you are, even if you're the president of the United States. You know all that."
I was riveted, fearful that even the slightest movement or noise would stop his inevitable confession.
He continued in a louder, firmer voice. "I paid a steep price. I struck a deal. I traded in my entire life, or what was left of it.
You know what that's like, to give up your life? And now that I've turned myself around, now that I've made it on my own, you're going to hang all that around my neck and choke me to death, all over again?"
He pronounced those last three words by punching out every syllable.
"I deserve better," he said. "You know that."
He paused, stared down at his glass, at the ice melting into the whisky, and added, far more softly, "This wasn't part of any deal."
I probably should have felt pity. But all I really felt was relief.
Sitting in the Oval Office on deadline on the night before the election with the president of the United States, I had him cold. I had my story. I even had my quotes, which I repeated in my mind several times to help commit them to memory.
"Sir, you may be right. It wasn't part of the deal you had with the government. But you had a deal with the American people, and that deal was to tell the truth, to let them know who you are, to be judged on the whole rather than just the past few years."
His voice grew louder. "I did tell them who I am, dammit. I am Clayton Hutchins. I made my money on my own, with no help from anyone.
For chrissakes, I gave up a lucrative life to be Clayton Hutchins. I succeeded. And now you're about to burn me with my own success?
Where's the fairness in that? Where's the fucking fairness in that?"
He pounded his fist on the desk as he asked these last questions. I remained silent, taking in this remarkable situation. Hutchins started up again, seething. "You think I've been a bad president? You think all those people who are planning to vote for me tomorrow believe I'd make a bad president for the next four years? You think my policies aren't carefully thought out? You think I've been corrupt? No, goddammit. No."
He took a long, final sip and slid the glass aimlessly across his desk as he reclined in his chair. "Raj!" he yelled. The steward appeared silently in the doorway. "Another Johnnie, please."
"Sir," I said. "The voters have a right to know who they voted for.
They have a right to know your background, your experiences, the truths in your life, and the lies. All of that shapes who you are, and dictates how you'll act in the future as the country's leader, in times of good fortune and in times of crisis. The voters have the right to the truth."
He shook his head dismissively. "But I struck the deal with the government. I honored my part, they honored theirs."
"Sir, with all due respect, the people are the government. Yes, it's a clich'e, but it also happens to be the truth. And the people have a right to know."
And I believed this. Light, sunshine, is an amazing thing. It keeps a democracy vibrant by keeping the people informed. Informed people are usually wise people, or at least practical. Was there self-interest in this story? Of course. I'm in this business to break news, to tell people that which they don't already know, to place important facts in the rich dialogue of our nation. This wasn't about his sex life or some ancient two-bit misdemeanor. This struck at the very foundation of who our president is, and in this case, was.
He stood up and stared down at me from across the desk, then walked toward the French doors, slowly. He stopped and looked out into the Rose Garden, black but for a few spotlights shining on some chrysanthemums standing sentry against the autumn breezes. Then he walked slowly over to the fireplace and stood there for a moment, gazing at the unfinished portrait of George Washington hanging over the mantel. I sat in silence, following his movements, thinking of the office. I remembered hearing how Ronald Reagan, on his last morning as president, walked slowly from the residence to the West Wing and found it completely darkened and empty. Everyone had cleaned out their offices the night before. He wandered aimlessly around the Oval Office, absently letting his hand drift across the furniture, the walls, all that history, some of it made by him. Then he saluted and walked out the door, alone.
From across the room, Hutchins said to me, "How about a deal? How about I resign, Wednesday morning, win or lose. I'll send my resignation up to the Congress. I'll schedule a speech and tell the public I have some illness or something like that. We'll figure that part out. I'll give you an exclusive interview about it tomorrow night, after the results are in, for Wednesday's paper. You alone, on the details of my resignation. And you agree not to write anything about my past."
He paused and looked at me dejectedly, expectantly, seeking a reaction that he wouldn't get. In fact, it wasn't a bad deal under most circumstances, and would alleviate a lot of bullshit I was about to face, I'm sure, from Appleton and Martin. But there was one essential problem with it. It was another lie.
"I can't, sir," I said. "The public is entitled to the truth."
A flash of anger spread across his face. "The truth is," he said, in something just short of a yell, "the truth is that I've been a damned good president. That's the fucking truth. You want the truth, print that."
"I will, sir. Any story will note your policies, your successes. It will note your popularity. It will also inform voters of your past.
They can decide what they want to do with that information."
He collapsed into one of those pale yellow chairs where he was often pictured on television during photo opportunities with some visiting foreign leader. He rested his elbows on his knees and stared at the carpet in front of him, looking increasingly despondent. "I tried to save you," he said.
I assumed I must have heard him wrong, so I asked, politely, "Excuse me, sir?"
"I tried to save you, and I tried to save your cohort, Havlicek. And this is the payback I get."
I stared at him as he continued. "When you started asking around about Paul Stemple last month, Drinker just wanted to kill you. Just kill you, no questions asked. Put an end to our fears. I wouldn't allow it. I had another plan. I said I could hire you, give you the job as press secretary. You seemed talented enough to do the job. You'd be on our side, and the questions about me and Stemple would never be asked again. They'd go away forever. I had no idea he was going to try to kill you at Congressional that day."
I gulped hard at this matter-of-fact revelation. "So that wasn't an assassination attempt on you? That was really an attempt on my life?"
"It was, but believe me when I tell you I didn't sanction it. My intent was to hire you. That was the point of golf that day, not to kill you."
By now I had moved over to sit on one of the settees perpendicular to his chair. A single lamp lit this side of the room, leaving both our faces in virtual darkness as we talked, as if we were both sitting just off-stage, just out of the limelight.
I asked, "Why Drinker? What's his motivation?"
Hutchins flashed me a wry look. "Isn't self-motivation always the best motivation?" he asked. I stared at him but didn't answer. He said,
"He expected to be named the director of the FBI soon, by me, once I became elected, and his expectations were probably going to be fulfilled. He knows my goddamned secret. He was involved in the case way back when, and when I was about to become vice president, I had no choice but to call him up and make it in his own interest to keep my past the past."
You never know what people might say in times of triumph and tragedy, how much information they may divulge, the depths of their emotions, and this soul-bearing exercise in the Oval Office was certainly proof of that. In some odd way, Hutchins began to look relieved talking about his past and the efforts to conceal it, so I continued to press him, and perhaps my luck as well. "So it was Drinker who killed Havlicek?"
Hutchins nodded.
"Why?"
"You wouldn't take the press secretary's job. My plan failed. He also believed that Stemple began providing you with information after the Congressional shooting, and he couldn't find Stemple to kill him at first, try as he did, so he figured it was easier to kill you. And you guys wouldn't buy into our line that the dead assassin was a federally protected witness named Tony Clawson, which would have been embarrassing for the FBI, but would have assured that no one would ever associate me with Clawson for the rest of my life. I tried fending Drinker off by pushing and pushing you to take the job. You set yourself up by refusing to come aboard."
If I thought about that too hard, the calculation would sicken me.
With that logic, I had caused Havlicek's death a number of different ways. But right there and then, I refused to dwell.
It was after eight-thirty and heading toward nine, the deadline for our first edition. I assumed I had blown that already. I steadied myself on the couch and said, "Sir, I appreciate your help, but I have to leave. Is there anything else you want to make clear to me about your past, about the election, about your plans for the future? More to the point, if we run a story tomorrow, and we will run a story tomorrow, do you plan to resign in the light of these allegations, or will you remain in office for as long as you are able?"
He sat with his elbows on his knees and his head pointed straight down at the floor, as if in prayer. He looked up at me from the uncomfortable crouch and said, "I don't know. I just don't know right now."
I nodded. Why should he? I got up and started slowly, quietly for the door. When I got there, he said softly, "So no deal?"
"I have an obligation, sir."
"You know, you fulfill that obligation, it's the end of me. Have I really been that bad a person? Do I really deserve this?"
As I turned to walk out the door, he was still sitting in that chair by the fireplace, hunched over, looking nothing like the man I saw on the golf course on that brilliant October morning eleven days before. He said to me in a voice as plain as white paper, neither loud nor soft, angry nor sad, "You should believe in redemption. And if you do, you should honor that belief." I stopped walking while he talked, not wanting to be rude. He wasn't even looking my way anymore. When I began walking again, I heard him say, as if to himself, though perhaps to me, "You more than anyone else should understand my grief."