The stars and Stripes, whipping from the pole above the White House, was no longer at half-mast.
It had given Douglass Dilman a small shock when Crystal, fifteen minutes ago, had delivered this fact to him with his breakfast tray, in the second-floor Yellow Oval Room. She had proudly described the event as an eyewitness: yesterday, coming to work, she had seen the flag hanging limply midway down the pole; today, coming to work, she had seen it billowing in the wind at the very top of the flagstaff. She had reported the change as if it were a momentous event.
Remembering Crystal’s glowing face now, as he gulped down his coffee, Dilman supposed that she was right. The returning of the nation’s banner to its normal position meant that the thirty-day period of national mourning had ended. On this day, four weeks and two days since he had taken office, the beginning of his second month as President, his fellow countrymen would do an about-face. They would cease looking backward. They would look ahead again, and find him before their eyes. They would begin looking at him, at him and no one else. Not that they hadn’t already done so, he thought wryly.
A vicious editorial, in one of Zeke Miller’s more Southern newspapers, came to mind: “Citizens, keep your Old Glories at half-mast for the rest of Dilman’s term, not in mourning for T. C., but in mourning for the death of our dignity and stature as a nation.” But now Crystal had told him, in effect, that Miller’s advice had not been followed, that this day the flag once more celebrated at full-mast a living President.
Yes, he thought, today it’s official. They would all be looking at him, and he did not like it. He was not ready for their total scrutiny and judgment.
He drank his coffee in haste, knowing that today would be another busy and trying day, even more trying than the ones that had preceded it. When the telephone at his elbow rang genteelly, as befitted its station in the gracious damask room, and then musically rang again, Dilman was not surprised. Lately Edna Foster had been starting off his mornings with these calls from her office because there were more and more messages awaiting his reluctant arrival, acting like so many powerful magnets trying to draw him into a day that he shrank from attending.
With a sigh he gave the saucer back its cup, and answered the telephone before it could begin its third summons.
The caller was Edna Foster.
After assuring her that she had not disturbed him, not at all, that he was dressed and fed and almost prepared to come downstairs, he listened for the inevitable.
“There are several messages, Mr. President-”
“Yes, Miss Foster.”
“Grover Illingsworth called in a terrible panic-I mean for him.”
Dilman enjoyed good humor for the first time this morning. Visualizing Illingsworth in a panic was as difficult as picturing a waxen Prince Albert in Madame Tussaud’s trying to slap a fly off his nose. Ever since Kwame Amboko, the President of Baraza, had arrived two days ago, the tanned, tall patrician Chief of Protocol had been a dominant part of Dilman’s life. Everything about Illingsworth was formidable-he was Back Bay Boston, his English so precise as to sound faintly foreign, his chalk-striped gray suits as impressive as a military uniform, his knowledge of Burke’s Peerage and Almanach de Gotha as thorough as his fluency in French, German, Italian, Spanish was expert-yet he did not make Dilman cower. And this instant, Dilman realized why: because, as Chief of Protocol, Illingsworth regarded all heads of state as equals without regard to their race, religion, or background. When you rode in jet planes or jeeps or on horseback with leaders of millions of people in Ireland, in Spain, in Nigeria, in Iran, in India, in Japan, you charted men by their position in life and not by their color. To Illingsworth, Dilman was one more head of state, like so many black or yellow ones he had known and dealt with, and he was easy and casual with Dilman, and Dilman felt relaxed and natural with him. But this man phoning in a panic? Had Miss Foster taken leave of her senses?
“What is he upset about?” Dilman asked. “Is anything really wrong?”
“Tonight’s State Dinner you are giving for President Amboko. Mr. Illingsworth knows the menu is set, but he just found out Amboko is a vegetarian!”
Dilman laughed. “Is that all? Well, you have the housekeeper prepare a special meal for Amboko. What does a vegetarian eat besides grass?”
“I already asked Mr. Illingsworth. He said he hadn’t had a chance to inquire, but he supposed that a vegetarian could eat anything that, in its original state, would not have bitten back. Anyway, he’s very anxious about this State Dinner, since it’s your first, and Baraza is such a hot spot, and-”
“Miss Foster, you call Illingsworth right back, and have him get in touch with Amboko’s aide-de-camp at the Barazan Embassy, and have him find out exactly what our guest will or won’t eat. Then have him pass it on to Miss Watson, and she’ll take care of Mrs. Crail and the chef. Put in a call for Illingsworth at the New State Department Building right now-I’ll hold-”
Waiting, Dilman tried to review the two meetings that he had already held with Kwame Amboko. In some childlike way, he had expected that the meetings would be informal, lively, easier than those with his own Cabinet members, because both he and Amboko were black, and that would be enough to bind them in quick understanding and agreement. It had astonished him how wrong he had been.
He had found Amboko a young man, no more than thirty-five, a scholarly and withdrawn young man with woolly black hair, suspicious eyes behind rimless glasses, and a flat nose that seemed to cover his countenance from cheek to cheek. His puncture of a mouth was ringed by flabby lips that revealed a quarter of an inch space between his upper center teeth. While Amboko’s accent was Harvard, and he possessed many agreeable memories of his time in the United States, and had tried to model his newly independent democracy along the lines laid out by the United States Constitution, he had appeared unconvinced that the United States was an entirely trustworthy mentor and friend.
Dilman could see that Kwame Amboko was not impressed by a fellow colored man’s ascension to the Presidency in a mammoth white nation where colored men were a minority. Amboko seemed to be suggesting, without saying so outright, that Dilman was merely a front for an undependable white cabal. The African had implied that Dilman was a puppet repeating white men’s words, and therefore could bring no more understanding to the problems of an all-black nation than could his white masters.
Dilman had been able to discover only one common bond between President Amboko and himself. He and his visitor appeared to be equally sensitive to disregard and disrespect from whites. But even this one bond, which might have drawn them closer, was slack, because their sensitivities were activated by different hurts. Whereas Dilman was sensitive to slights reflecting on his human and democratic rights as a man, Amboko was sensitive about the weakness of his small country and the threats of foreign domination. To Dilman, President Amboko was like a longtime prisoner, paroled at last, uncertain that his freedom is real, constantly glancing over his shoulder at the gray walls that had incarcerated him to make sure that someone more powerful than he is not reaching out to pull him back inside. When Dilman had mentioned this to Sue and Nat Abrahams two nights before, Nat had said, “Yes, I think all newly independent nations are at once paranoid and egocentric-they think everyone is against them, and they have no interest in anyone but themselves. Not so long ago the United States suffered those same adolescent growing pangs.”
Dilman’s policy talks with Amboko had been inconclusive. Dilman had been frank about the necessity for a compromise. He would sign America into the African Unity Pact, which the Senate had ratified, he would guarantee continued economic assistance to help industrialize Baraza, if Amboko would be less repressive toward native Communists and the Soviet Union. Dilman felt that this was the least Amboko could do, in order to help the United States pacify Russia.
Doggedly President Amboko had resisted this compromise. True, the Barazan Communist Party was small. True, there was no evidence of subversive activity by the Soviet Embassy in Baraza. True, there was no conclusive evidence that young Barazan natives on cultural exchanges to Moscow were being indoctrinated with Marxist ideas. Yet, despite this, President Amboko felt that his country, in this transitional period, was a fertile field for the rise of Communism. Because Amboko had abolished rule by chieftains, broken up the ancient social structure (which had scattered warring tribes over the grasslands of the plains and through the dense forests of the mountain ranges), supplanted it with not yet effective elected inter-village councils, there was discontent. Furthermore, the per capita income in Baraza was still only sixty dollars a year, and industrialization had hardly begun. The impoverished and unemployed might easily be turned against democracy.
Above all else, President Amboko did not trust the Soviet Union. He feared that Russia coveted his little nation’s resources-the gold, iron ore, diamonds-and, in a power grab, might try to put his people back into a colonial stockade. He had reminded Dilman of the experience of one of his neighbors, Guinea, with Russia. After the French had left Guinea in 1958, the newly independent nation, tempted by the Soviet Union’s anti-colonial talk and its offer of economic credit, had invited the Russians to help them. Within three years Guinea had been forced to expel the Russians because the Soviet Embassy, it was learned, had been working with native union leaders against the democratically elected government. President Amboko feared that the same Soviet activity might occur, if it was not already taking place, in Baraza, and he wanted to anticipate and thwart it.
Impressed as he was by Amboko’s concern, Dilman had felt that he must not be sidetracked by a small nation’s problems to the detriment of world peace. He had tried to behave as T. C. might have behaved. He had insisted upon the compromise, promising that Montgomery Scott, Director of the Central Intelligence Agency, would assign a sufficient number of his agents to Baraza to keep a watchful undercover eye on any subversive activity there. Amboko had agreed to think the matter over further, and to give his final reply to Dilman before returning home. He would be leaving for Baraza, Dilman remembered, after tonight’s State Dinner.
“Mr. President.” It was Edna Foster on the telephone again. “I spoke to Mr. Illingsworth. He’ll take care of everything.”
“Fine.”
“There are two messages from Leroy Poole. He wants to discuss the last chapter of the biography with you. Shall I have Mr. Lucas give him an appointment?”
Dilman tried to interpret Poole’s calls. If there had been only one, the writer might indeed have wished to discuss the book. But two messages indicated something more urgent. Dilman suspected that it was the Turnerite business, still. For one who had insisted that he was not a member of that avowed direct-action group, Poole’s interest in the organization was unaccountable. Three weeks ago he had agitated Julian into fighting with his father. A week ago he had cornered poor Nat Abrahams in the Mayflower lobby, without success. Now, no doubt, because of the Hattiesburg sentence rendered by Judge Gage, he was trying to get to Dilman once more.
While Judge Gage’s verdict of “guilty” in the Mississippi trial had probably been technically exact, his sentence had been unduly harsh and vindictive. Two days before, in his Southern courtroom, he had sentenced all the Turnerite pickets, including the blinded one, to the maximum ten years’ imprisonment in the Mississippi State Penitentiary at Parchman, under State Criminal Code Section 2011. While the Crispus Society had agreed to review the legalities of the case with an eye to an appeal, the Turnerites were too outraged to be patient. The Jeff Hurley statement to the press yesterday had been an uncomfortable threat, understandable, yet imprudent. “We are told this is justice, and to abide by the law of the land,” Hurley had announced. “We are also told to abide by the words of the Old Testament, that ‘Vengeance is mine; I will repay, saith the Lord.’ But this cautious and creeping Lord is not our Lord. We find a better Lord with better guidance in the words of Nahum, ‘The Lord revengeth and is furious; the Lord will take vengeance on his adversaries.’ ”
Dilman had deplored Hurley’s injudicious statement. Such pledges of lawlessness gave further ammunition to the enemies of the Negro race, and made Dilman’s own situation that much more difficult. No, he would not discuss the Turnerite activity with young Poole again. There were other ways to proceed, better means, within the law, and he would hasten them when he felt that it was possible.
“Miss Foster, you call Poole and tell him I’m too busy right now,” he said. “I’ll discuss the book with him-well-tell him next week.”
“I think he wanted to see you this morning.”
“Impossible.”
“Very well, Mr. President. Then there is Chancellor McKaye’s letter, the invitation to Trafford. I have a notation on my calendar that it must be answered by today.”
Dilman had forgotten. Chancellor McKaye and the Regents of Trafford University had written to him, inviting him to appear on Founders’ Day to accept an honorary Doctor of Philosophy degree and to be the principal speaker at the gathering of the student body, alumni, and faculty.
Even his son had put aside his pique to congratulate him and to beg him to make the appearance. Dilman had avoided any decision, but now he knew that he must reach one. His instinct, he admitted, was against the appearance. If he could not turn down the honorary degree, he must turn down the invitation to speak. Julian would be disappointed, perhaps upset, but there were more important considerations. To date, he had avoided public speeches, accepting the advice of T. C.’s advisers that they might be inflammatory no matter what he said. While he must give his first television press conference this afternoon, and hold others later, this contact with the public would be buffered by reporters. When the time came to speak in public, he would have to do so, but certainly it would be unwise to make his first such appearance at a Negro school.
“Miss Foster,” Dilman said, “you write Chancellor McKaye to this effect-that I’m moved and pleased to be offered the honorary degree and that I will accept it later if I may, but that I regret I cannot accept the Founders’ Day speaking engagement. Tell him my overloaded schedule will not allow my leaving Washington. Make it-make it as tactful as possible. Leave the door open for the future. Say maybe on another occasion, when things ease up, I can pay Trafford a more informal visit. Tell him I’m not unmindful of the good job they are doing there, and I speak not only as Chief Executive but as the father of one of their undergraduates. You know how to write it. I’ll read and sign it later in the day. Anything else?”
“Mr. Flannery and Governor Talley have just walked in. They’re ready to brief you on the press conference.”
“Tell them to wait in my office. I’ll be right there.”
After hanging up, Dilman considered a second cup of coffee, rejected it for lack of time, rose, tugged his jacket straight, and found his briefcase. He left the Yellow Oval Room and went into the West Hall.
As he started for the elevator, he heard his name. He spun around, to observe Sally Watson, waving a sheaf of papers, hurrying toward him. Once again he was aware of her dress. The variety of her attire-he could not recall seeing the same garment on her twice in three weeks-fascinated him, as usual. She was wearing a claret-colored sheer blouse and magenta skirt, costly, unornamented, the subtle colors contrasting pleasantly with her sleek blond hair. She had more the appearance of a hostess than that of a secretary, Dilman decided, and he did not mind. At first he had worried about her conspicuous beauty, but by now it blended into the stately beauty of the White House itself. Besides, to his relief, with one exception, the press had played down and been uncritical of her being chosen to fill the position of social secretary. The expected exception had been Reb Blaser, acidly writing that the wily new President was trying to disarm the Southern bloc in Congress by embarrassing bribes, beginning with the hiring of the daughter of Senator Hoyt Watson. Dilman’s annoyance at this gratuitous observation had been teased away by Sally herself. “Now really, do I look like a Southern Trojan horse, Mr. President?” she had joked.
However, whimsicality from Sally Watson was rare. For another surprise about her had been her seriousness. Somehow Dilman had expected a certain degree of frivolity in a wealthy, spoiled child. Instead, he had a social assistant who had proved punctual, earnest, dedicated, agreeable to working all hours, and who had the initiative to go beyond the scope of her East Wing office, to take over the handling of his engagements outside the White House. Once or twice he had almost forgotten to be cautious with her about his private affairs.
As she approached, smooth brow furrowed, it was difficult for him to reconcile with the young lady’s angelic face one bit of gossip that he had heard. A few evenings ago Sue Abrahams had repeated a tidbit that Mrs. Gorden Oliver had passed on to her: that Kay Varney Eaton had been out of the city an uncommonly long period of time, and that the Secretary of State had been seeking solace in the company of Miss Sally Watson. Sue Abrahams had not repeated the gossip to titillate, but to keep Dilman informed of all that she heard behind his back. She doubted if the Arthur Eaton-Sally Watson thing was true, and had been pleased when Dilman discounted it entirely. Dilman had said that he could not conceive of an amorous relationship between a dignified, circumspect, older career diplomat like Arthur Eaton and a relatively superficial, inexperienced, too-well-known young single girl like Senator Watson’s daughter. What had Nat thought? Nat had shrugged, hummed a few bars of “September Song,” and they had laughed and dismissed it.
Now, waiting for her, Dilman superimposed Nat’s shrug on Sally’s gilt-headed Aphrodite loveliness. Anything was possible, of course, but in this central city of professionally prying eyes it was unlikely that a sophisticated statesman of international renown would dare risk his reputation over any bachelor girl. Improbable, he told himself again, and accepted Sally Watson in her previous virginal and unsullied state.
“Good morning, Mr. President,” she said, trying to catch her breath. “I need you for a few minutes-tonight’s dinner-”
“I’m sorry, Miss Watson, but can’t it wait? I’m running behind-”
“Just one minute, then. I suppose it’s not all that important, but-”
“All right, Miss Watson. Do you mind telling me on the way to the office?”
They walked to the elevator as Sally checked the markings on different sheets of her papers.
“The platform is up in the East Room, and it’s completely decorated,” she said. “Very pretty. I just called the Hay-Adams and the Statler Hilton, and the whole Hollywood contingent is in, safe and sound. I can’t wait to hear Herbie Teele, and I adore Libby Owens, don’t you?”
Entering the elevator, Dilman was less enthusiastic than his social secretary about the entertainment that was to follow the State Dinner. Allan Noyes, the Party chairman, had been the first to suggest it. The six famous Hollywood and New York performers had been staunch and vocal supporters of T. C. and the Party, and had raised a small fortune to help finance his election campaign. Now they had been the first to volunteer their support of the new President. Their quotations in the syndicated movie columns had been embarrassingly extravagant in praise of Dilman, whom none had ever met.
This type of show-business liberal, no matter how sincere and well intentioned, had always made Dilman uneasy. They made too much of a point of loving anyone black or yellow or brown, no matter what the character and worth of the object of their extrovert affection. When the entertainment group had heard of Dilman’s first State Dinner, they had offered their services through Noyes. Dilman had been indecisive about them, preferring no entertainment at all, or, at least, something more conservative. And then Illingsworth had learned that President Amboko was an inveterate moviegoer, and that he would be delighted to enjoy some of his American cinema idols in the flesh, and that had pushed Dilman into agreement.
Dilman had not minded Trig Cunningham, the rough and fearless star of a half-hundred swashbuckling and soldiering epics, or Betsy Buckner, the sinuous national Love Object, or Tilly Reyes, the rubber-featured lady clown, or Rick Wade, the disheveled guitar-strumming adolescent. They were white. His objections were to two other members of the troupe, Herbie Teele, the lanky, fork-tongued comedian known for his acid integration monologues and his coterie of young white female worshipers, and Libby Owens, the magnificent singer of sad blues songs. They were Negro. Dilman did not want them, not so soon, not the first day after the national mourning ended. But President Amboko wanted them. So did Sally Watson, apparently. And so they were here and in the wings.
“Yes, it’ll be interesting,” he found himself saying. “I hope they exercise some caution. President Amboko may be a little touchy about certain jokes.” He meant himself and not Amboko, but he could not bring himself to be so naked in front of this girl. He hated Negro jokes told by Negroes, and Negro songs sung in public by Negroes.
“Oh, don’t worry, Mr. President. Mr. Illingsworth’s assistants are attending a rehearsal at the Hilton this afternoon.” Sally was busy with her bundle of papers. “The routine for the dinner has finally been worked out.”
“Go ahead.”
“All but the honored guests will arrive by the south grounds-go through the South Portico entrance to the first-floor corridor, where the Marine Band will be playing. I’ll be there with my staff, and we’ll show everyone the seating plan and give them their escort cards. Then we’ll get them into the East Room. They’ll have about twenty minutes there before your arrival.”
The elevator had stopped. Quickly Sally opened the door, and waited for Dilman to step out before following him. Dilman, whose mind was on the press conference briefing, walked hurriedly, so that Sally had to skip every few steps to keep beside him. As they traversed the ground-floor red carpet, she continued to speak.
“President Amboko and his entourage, with Mr. Illingsworth, will come in by the Pennsylvania Avenue side-the North Portico entrance-around five minutes after eight. You will welcome them in the Yellow Oval Room, and have perhaps ten or fifteen minutes to chat with President Amboko. After that, all of you will go down the stairway. Photographers will be permitted to take pictures-”
“Is that necessary?”
“I’m told it is the custom followed by T. C. and most others before him.” She glanced at Dilman, who nodded assent, and then she went on. “The Marine Band will be playing ‘Hail to the Chief’ as you take Amboko into the East Room. Then, since we’ve been forced to combine the reception with the dinner, you, Mr. President, and Amboko, and his entourage, will form the receiving line, and as guests file past, they will go on to their tables-one main table, and smaller ones-in the State Dining Room and wait for you to take your seat. You will offer the first toast, after the dessert.”
A White House policeman had sprung forward to open the door, and Dilman emerged outdoors with Sally onto the colonnaded walk that went past the indoor swimming pool, and turned toward the West Wing executive offices. He sniffed the air, cold and invigorating, peered at the blue-gray cloudless metallic sky, and resumed his march to the briefing.
“According to Mr. Illingsworth,” Sally was saying, “after dinner you can lead President Amboko upstairs for a private conversation in the Yellow Oval Room, while the other guests go into the Red, Green and Blue Rooms for champagne. Then, Mr. President, you will show him to the East Room for the performance.” She slowed, searching her papers, and Dilman slowed his stride with her. “The final total-we sent 104 invitations and admittance cards-”
“Is everyone coming?” Dilman asked.
“Ninety-six have accepted,” she said. “The others are either out of town or ill or-oh, yes, there is one guest-no, two-I haven’t heard from. Senator Bruce Hankins-”
“I predicted that. I told Talley we shouldn’t bother, but he wanted to play politics.”
“-and Miss Wanda Gibson. She and the Reverend and Mrs. Spinger were invited together. I heard from the Spingers, but I have not heard from Miss Gibson.” She looked up. “I’ll telephone Miss Gibson-”
“No,” said Dilman, and at once, from Sally’s inquisitive eyes, their widening, he knew that he had uttered his order too hastily and too strongly. He sought to rectify it. “You needn’t bother. She lives with the Spingers, and I am sure she assumed their acceptance was her own.”
“Very well.” But he could see that Sally was reluctant to drop it. He wondered if she would go further. She said, “I think I am acquainted with all of the guests, or at least know about them, except Miss-Miss Wanda Gibson. Since I want to be as useful to you as possible, Mr. President-you know, introductions, making outsiders feel at home-is there anything I should know about the lady?”
Dilman cursed himself for having added Wanda’s name to the invitation list. He had known the hazard of doing so. He had done it only to prove to Wanda that he was not afraid to see her in public. He had expected questions from Illingsworth and received none, and Sally Watson’s curiosity caught him momentarily off guard.
He halted before the French doors leading into his Oval Office, returned the greeting of a Secret Service agent, and then confronted Sally as casually as possible. “You needn’t fret about Miss Gibson,” he said. “As a senator, preparing for committee hearings, I sometimes found her a valuable information source. She is employed by a Liechtenstein corporation, the Vaduz Exporters, in Maryland. I believe her firm carries on a good deal of trading with African nations, Baraza among them, and I thought that President Amboko and his Ambassador-what in the devil is his name?-Wamba, yes, Wamba-that she’d be one more person for them to talk to. That’s all. You needn’t bother about her tonight. She’ll be well taken care of. The Springers will have her in tow. And Mr. Abrahams-you met him-I think he knows her slightly, professionally, and he’ll pitch in.”
He realized that he had explained too much, and that Sally Watson had been listening too closely.
He said, “Is that all? I’ve got to-”
She said, “Well, there are a couple of minor-”
“You take care of the rest of it, you and Illingsworth. I haven’t time to be nervous about tonight. I’ve got to save my anxiety for the press conference. Forgive me, Miss Watson. You’re doing wonderfully on your own.”
“Thank you. And I’m sorry, Mr. President. I didn’t mean to distract you. Good luck, if I’m allowed to say so.”
He turned to the closest French door, and could see Tim Flannery holding it open. He thanked his press secretary and went into the office, which was agreeably warm. Talley, making corrections on the typed pages in a loose-leaf folder, began to rise, but Dilman signaled him to remain seated.
After taking his place behind the desk and apologizing for his tardiness, Dilman said, “Well, gentlemen, I’ve been doing my homework the last couple of nights. What’s next?”
“This,” said Talley, closing the vellum folder and holding it up. “I’ve tried to anticipate every question that might be put to you in the press conference. Then Tim here kind of had drinks with some of the boys, and picked up a few clues as to what you might expect. We listed the questions, circulated them to every department, and each one sent over lengthy replies on policy, supplemented with facts and figures. Tim and I condensed this to five typewritten pages. I don’t think we’ve missed a trick.” He came out of his chair and handed the folder to Dilman. “You have enough time to go over them by yourself now. Most of it will be familiar, but if anything puzzles or confuses you, we can talk it out right here.”
Dilman picked worriedly at a corner of the blue vellum folder. “What if I don’t remember some figure or-”
“You’re not expected to be a memory expert, Mr. President,” Talley said. “Tim will be seated beside you with that folder, and you can always turn to him for some elusive fact or number.”
“Won’t that look amateurish on television?” he asked.
Flannery shook his head. “Not a bit. It’ll make you appear fallible and mortal, serve to put viewers at ease.”
Dilman did not feel reassured. There had been several hours of debate on how his first press conference should be presented to the public. Dilman had turned down a huge televised press conference from the New State Department Building auditorium as being too impersonal, and as demanding histrionic talents that he knew he did not possess. He had considered an informal gathering in the Indian Treaty Room across the street. Flannery had been against this, arguing that Dilman had yet made no contact with the American public or with the majority of the press, except through brief, impromptu remarks or dictated statements, and that full exposure was now a necessity. A compromise had been reached only two days before. Forty to fifty members of the press would be admitted to the Cabinet Room. The television networks would cover the event. The atmosphere would be comfortable and unstaged. Dilman would make a series of news announcements, and then answer questions for perhaps twenty minutes.
Dilman opened the folder. On the first page there was typed in capital letters:
FOR THE PRESIDENT-MORNING BRIEFING ON PRESS CONFERENCE
As he turned the page, he heard Tim Flannery saying, “One thing, Mr. President.” He looked up, and Flannery went on, “You’ll notice a star in the margin, and the name of a newspaper or wire service beneath it, alongside several questions. There are not many, but those are the ones we planted to be sure they were asked. They’re the ones we feel you have good replies to and can come off well with.”
“I knew it was done,” said Dilman, “but how do you manage it? Don’t the reporters resent it?”
“Not at all,” said Flannery. “It gives them added news, even if canned or controlled, as they may think. These are men we can depend upon. They do us a favor, and at the right time we repay them with an exclusive lead. It’s not too obvious. Yesterday I called in one of the bureau chiefs representing a New York paper, handed him a written question, and I said, ‘Look, if you ask the President this question, in your own words, you might get an interesting answer. I’m just tipping you off.’ He looked at the question and said. ‘You mean, he’d like to get an official policy statement on this off his chest?’ I said, ‘I think so. It won’t be pap. It’ll be solid and definite.’ He said, ‘Okay, Tim, good enough.’ ” Flannery smiled at Dilman. “It’s the way we’ve worked in the past, with excellent results.”
“Fine,” said Dilman. “You two do whatever you wish until I’ve gone over this. If I have any questions, I won’t be reticent. I’ll need every bit of direction I can get today.”
Dilman studied the second page in the folder. Under the heading, YOUR OPENING REMARKS, there was a concise list of the subjects that he would cover in his reading of the mimeographed text. Next, under the heading, QUESTIONS ON OPENING REMARKS AND OTHER MATTERS (IF ASKED), there were fourteen short queries. Turning the page, Dilman found the heading, YOU MAY RESPOND AS FOLLOWS, and here each possible inquiry was repeated, followed by a suggested reply, severely condensed to one paragraph. This ran almost two pages. The last heading read, BACKGROUND, with numbers keyed to the questions and answers, and tight paragraphs filled with authoritative quotations and statistics from government departments elaborating upon the suggested responses.
Flipping back to the second page, Dilman quickly went over the outline of the prepared statement already in his briefcase, which he was to read to the reporters and television cameras. The general tone was humble and conciliatory. He was to begin by saying that he welcomed the opportunity to meet with the men and women of the fourth estate upon whom the electorate depended for all information concerning their government. He was to say that he felt they would perform with the same sense of responsibility with which he would try to perform. Never in our history, he would say, was a President or the public more dependent upon news media for accuracy and reliability. There would be the quotation from Thomas Jefferson: “The press is the best instrument for enlightening the mind of man, and improving him as a rational, moral, and social being.” Tim Flannery had calculated that these remarks, this initial flattery, would soften the cynical reporters, make them preen with self-importance, make them know that here was a Chief Executive who would cooperate with them. Remembering the writings of Reb Blaser and his kind, Dilman felt less confidence in the uses of flattery, but he liked Flannery too much to disagree.
After that, there was the repetition of all of Dilman’s press statements of the past month. He had not sought the Presidency, he had not wanted it, but since it was his duty by law to undertake the office, he would do so to the best of his ability. He had, he was to say, only a short time-short time was underlined-to be the caretaker of T. C.’s ideals. As a senator, he was to say, he had always admired and supported T. C., and he was to cite his voting record as a congressman. The country, he was to say, need expect no drastic detours from the peaceful and prosperous road along which the former President had been leading it. Had he not already given evidence of good faith in retaining every member of T. C.’s Cabinet and personal staff of advisers?
Troubled, Dilman looked up. Talley and Flannery were across the Oval Office, leaning against the fireplace, smoking, whispering. He considered telling them that he did not like these opening remarks. They seemed too humble, as if he were apologizing to the press and the 230 million Americans for having a Negro in the wrong place, as if reassuring everyone that the fact that he was a member of a minority race would not destroy them. Yet he had no courage to bring it up this late, for he realized that these were not Flannery’s words but the language of politically expert white men like Talley, Eaton, and the Cabinet members, and perhaps they knew what was best for him.
He concentrated on the rest of his opening remarks, mostly official news announcements: he had met with the National Space Council and agreed that within three months the advanced Apollo rocket would catapult a team of three astronauts into orbit; he had given assurances to Brazil and India that A-11 flights would not be continued over their embattled borders; he was being kept closely informed of Secretary of State Eaton’s meetings with Russian Ambassador Rudenko, and could reveal now only that progress had been made, and it was likely that the interrupted Roemer Conference with the Premier of the Soviet Union would be resumed at another site, probably on the European Continent; he had sat in on one meeting with labor leaders, heads of the steel industry, and Secretary Barnes, and he was confident the impending strike would be averted; he had been informed of the exclusive story in the Chicago Tribune that Frank Valetti, second-in-command of the Turnerite Group, was a member of the Communist Party, and he had already urged the Justice Department to investigate; he had written a letter to Annapolis, appointing T. C.’s young son, Fred, to the Naval Academy when he became eligible.
Dilman unwrapped a cigar, bit off one end, and lighted it. Although his opening remarks were filled with news, he knew that they would not be enough, and that Flannery and Talley knew it, too. Puffing the cigar, Dilman went down the possible questions that he might be asked, and then he examined the answers offered to him.
Question: Will you sign the African Unity Pact Bill? Suggested Response: Yes, we affirm our determination to support free peoples and democratic ideals throughout the world, et cetera.
Question: Can you discuss the subjects that you and Kwame Amboko of Baraza have covered, and relate them to the AUP and the recent Roemer Conference? Suggested Response: The meetings with President Amboko have been fruitful, and progress has been made in many areas. We will conclude our talks after tonight’s State Dinner. There will be a joint statement from President Amboko and myself upon his departure tomorrow.
Question: Do you feel that, as a Negro, you can be more effective in making activist organizations like the Turnerites behave more moderately? Suggested Response: I do not believe my color is an issue one way or another. As a senator, and now as President, I am certain my views about immoderate activity and violence are well known. Like my predecessor, I believe in progress under the law and through the courts of the land, such progress as is being made on behalf of Negro Americans by the Crispus Society and NAACP.
Question: Do you believe passage of the Minorities Rehabilitation Program will alleviate the current tension, and do you intend to support and sign the massive work and education bill? Suggested Response: I believe that MRP has much to offer minorities in this country, but at the same time I do not believe it should make us relax our other efforts to secure civil rights for all men and women, et cetera. I am still studying the bill, and will make my views known shortly.
Dilman put down his cigar and rubbed his eyes. The last question was the only one, so far, to which he had written the response. He realized now that his statement was ambiguous, and might not satisfy the press.
“Tim,” he called out, “do you think they’ll try to pin me down on the MRP Bill?”
Flannery nodded. “I think you can expect it.”
Talley took a few steps from the fireplace. “Mr. President, I’m positive you’ll avoid a lot of nettlesome questions by simply coming out in flat support of-”
“Governor,” Dilman interrupted, “I’m not saying I’m against it, God knows. It’s just so damn big and important, I want to feel sure it is right-will ease off the tension-”
Flannery said, “Then whatever you’re asked, keep saying you are consulting with your advisers, seeking the best and most efficient legislation possible. You know the sort of thing.”
“I understand,” said Dilman.
He reviewed the remaining possible questions and suggested responses quickly. How often would he hold press conferences? There was a star after this one. It had been planted. He was to say that he hoped to air ideas with the press every two weeks, depending upon circumstances. Had he approved of the Postmaster General’s new commemorative stamp bearing T. C.’s likeness? This also had been planted. He was to say that he had instigated the idea of the memorial stamp. Would he permit his name to be offered as a candidate for the Presidency at the Party convention in Baltimore next year? No star after this one. He was to say that such political considerations were premature, that he preferred to make no comment at this time, except to say that he had never had, and had not now, any political ambitions beyond Congress.
There were several more questions, and then the last one, and reading it, he sat up. For the first time, the New Succession Bill, which would freeze his Cabinet by giving the Senate authority over him, lay coldly and boldly before his eyes, not in speculative newsprint but as a fact presented by his advisers.
Possible Question: Since the New Succession Bill seems assured of passage through Congress, will you sign it into law or veto it?
Without lifting his head to look, he sensed that the watching Talley knew that he had arrived at the yet unspoken question and that, in a way, it was being asked of him by his staff rather than by the press.
Suggested Response: For a long time we have needed reforms and better precautionary measures in our Presidential succession system. The possibilities of multiple deaths in the line of succession, in this nuclear age, are too real to be ignored. I approve of Senator Hankins’ proposed bill as one more security measure to safeguard the nation at large.
The omission glared out at Dilman. There was not a word about the embarrassing addendum to the bill, the one amputating his removal powers. Did Talley and the others think the members of the press were blind to it, that they would not ask it?
He took pen in hand, and looked at Talley. “Governor, about the last question here. I don’t think I’ll get away with your suggested response. It covers only three-fourths of the New Succession Bill. Someone is surely going to inquire about the final paragraphs, and I’d better be ready.”
Talley came toward the desk, with Flannery behind him, and Dilman was pleased to see that his aide was flushed with consternation.
“I-we didn’t know what you’d want to say about that, Mr. President,” Talley was saying. “We’ve never discussed the clause-”
“Because no one brought it up,” said Dilman. He faced Flannery. “Tim, I’d better be ready to say something about that. If I’m asked about it, and I will be, I’ll try to make up my mind what to say extemporaneously. I just want to jot a note here for you, after my suggested response, to the effect that-let me think-well-that I have examined the clause shifting the removal powers of the President over his Cabinet to the Senate, in the special case where the succession has gone below Vice-President, and-and while I understand the motivation behind it-the desire of Congress to preserve the nature of the elected and appointed government-I must remark that I believe the clause to be of debatable legality and designed to weaken the executive branch of government. Will I let that one questionable feature turn me against an otherwise excellent piece of legislation or will I approve it? I don’t know, Tim-Governor-I’m afraid if I suggest veto, it will create an uproar, make the Southern bloc in Congress, the racists around the country, positive that I’m going to dump T. C.’s Cabinet for an all-black Cabinet. I can’t afford that, no matter how I feel-”
“Exactly, that’s the point, Mr. President,” said Talley anxiously. “The whole piece of legislation was merely made to alleviate fear-”
“But I think the legislation is wrong because it is unconstitutional,” Dilman said. “I’ll make a note here that I cannot say how I will act until I observe the conditions under which the final New Succession Bill reaches my desk. Then, if I find it necessary to approve it in order to preserve national unity, I will do so after making my legal opinion, and the opinions of the best constitutional lawyers, known to the country.”
Hastily, he scrawled several sentences after the last suggested response.
He looked up. “There, that should keep everyone satisfied-for the time.”
“Very wise, Mr. President,” said Talley, exhaling a gust of relief.
Dilman turned the page. “Let me bone up on the backgrounds to my responses-”
Talley quickly retreated, as if his proximity might provoke the President into second thoughts.
Studiously Dilman devoted himself to the information. He had gone through five of the capsule briefings when the buzzer sounded from Miss Foster’s office.
Since he had told her to hold all calls except the most urgent ones, he picked up the telephone immediately.
“Mr. President,” said Edna Foster, her voice quavering, “the Attorney General is here. He must see you at once. He says that it is imperative.”
“Shoot him right in.”
He hung up. “Clay Kemmler’s here. Apparently, something critical-”
“We can step out until-” Flannery began.
Dilman waved Flannery and Talley back to the sofa. “No, stay put. Let’s-”
Edna Foster’s door swung open, and then shut, and Attorney General Kemmler stormed in, flinging his hat at the sofa, ignoring Talley and Flannery as he shed his coat and moved toward the President. Dilman could see that Kemmler was the personification of spleen. His close-set, flinty eyes narrowed, and looked as if they were giving off sparks. Head back, his square jaw thrust forward beyond the point of his nose, he resembled a beset dragon carrying banderillas in its backside.
“Mr. President, there’s trouble for us,” he announced angrily, almost bumping into the Buchanan desk. “I thought you’d better hear it in person, not on the phone, because we’ll have to make some fast decisions.”
He paused, leaned over the desk, and said, “Those goddam Turnerites went and started their retaliation program. I just got the flash from Mississippi. Some of Hurley’s hoodlums crossed into Hattiesburg, grabbed Judge Everett Gage at gunpoint, and kidnaped him. They left a ransom note for local, state, and Federal officials. They’ll free Judge Gage when Mississippi frees those Turnerites who were sentenced to ten years. Now what in the holy hell am I supposed to do?”
Involuntarily, Dilman had shivered when Kemmler spat out “kidnaped him.” The full realization that his people, a segment of them, had ceased talking terror, were practicing it, performing it, involving him in their insane deed, frightened him.
“It’s crazy,” he said. “Are you sure Hurley is responsible? I can’t believe it.”
“He’s already sent a denial to the Birmingham and Jackson papers-but who else can be responsible for this act except Hurley and his Turnerites?” Kemmler demanded impatiently. “Naturally, he gave out a statement denying his Group had anything to do with it, but he added something to the effect that he couldn’t disapprove of any of his fellow Negroes standing up for their rights. We’re trying to locate him for questioning, but no luck, so far. But whether he denies it or not, whether he makes it look like an individual action or not, it’s got to be something he sanctioned. Hasn’t he been threatening us with retaliation and violence in all his speeches? And who else on earth would risk their necks in a foolhardy act like this-trying to spring a bunch of jailed Turnerites-except other Turnerites?”
Within Dilman there beat a faint hope. “So far, as much as you know, the kidnaping was done by individuals?”
“So far, yes,” said Kemmler. “But, Mr. President, there’s no doubt over at Justice that the crime is a direct result of announced Turnerite policies.”
Dilman’s gaze went from the Attorney General to Talley and Flannery, who had come forward, both deeply disturbed. Dilman shook his head. “Well, whether it was the act of individuals or an organization-whichever-how in the devil do they expect to accomplish anything by it?”
“I’ll tell you how,” said Kemmler. He pushed past Flannery, and came around the desk to stand over the President. “It’s all been thought out, every detail. The unsigned ransom note demands that the ten Turnerites in the penitentiary at Parchman be released from jail at once and be delivered safely to Tampico, the Mexican seaport-very smart, since you know and I know how goddam uncooperative the Mexican government has been lately about extraditing our fugitive citizens of Mexican, Japanese, or Negro descent. When the Turnerites are released and landed in Tampico, the kidnapers promise Judge Gage will be returned unharmed. That’s the deal.”
Dilman sought to rally his authority. “What’s this got to do with us? From what you’ve told me, it’s strictly a state affair.”
“No, Mr. President, it’s our affair,” said Kemmler emphatically, slapping his thigh. “I spoke to Lombardi at once, and ordered him to sic the FBI after them, because there were indications that the victim was being taken across the state line. Now there’s concrete evidence from the FBI that Gage has been carried from Mississippi into Louisiana, and the hoodlums are probably trying to get him to Texas and into Mexico. That makes it our business. That brings it under the Lindbergh kidnaping law. It’s a clear-cut Federal offense.”
“Well, all right, you’re on top of it,” said Dilman. “You’re doing what you can-”
“My God, Mr. President,” exclaimed Kemmler, slapping his thigh repeatedly in his agitation, “this is only the beginning. Can’t you see what this means? It means Hurley, Valetti, the whole Turnerite gang-no matter what their phony denials-are starting their eye-for-an-eye policy. If we let them get away with this, they’re going to go on with it, take the law into their own hands. Every time they can trump up an injustice practiced upon a Negro, they’re going to retaliate with a kidnaping, blaming their act on unknown individuals and mocking us with their innocence as a group. Can’t you see what this will lead to? Anarchy, crime compounding crime, with counter-vigilante outfits galloping around the country. Goddammit, we’re going to have the Civil War all over again-but twice as bad, because it’ll be black against white this time-unless we do something fast.”
Shaken, eyes now downcast, Dilman began crumbling the cigar butt between his fingers. “I suppose I could make some kind of personal appeal to Hurley to join us in apprehending-”
“No, absolutely not,” said Kemmler.
Talley snapped his fingers for attention. “Mr. President, I’m inclined to agree with the Attorney General. You, personally, can’t treat with a possible abductor as an equal, bring him up to your level, or demean yourself by going down to his. The consequences-”
“I’m flatly against any bargaining,” Kemmler interrupted. “The situation is too explosive. We can’t let one man who is outside the law, heading up one organization, decide what is just and unjust, and mete out his own punishments. We can’t have two governments, Mr. President. If there are biases and delinquency on our side, and there are plenty of these, we’ll find ways to right them under due process, but no gang of activists is going to supplant us.” He straightened, breathing heavily, and then continued. “The FBI’ll nail the kidnapers soon enough, you can be sure. Then we’ll be able to prove their link to the Turnerites and prosecute them. But we can’t wait for that, believe me. What we need from you, Mr. President, is foresight and firm intervention right now that’ll put an immediate stop to any more Turnerite violence. In this way you’ll discourage lawlessness from other activist groups, black or white. You’ve got a press conference today, right? You can bet those reporter hounds will be howling after you and after me. Okay, I think you should be ready for them, beat them to the punch. I think you should announce that the Federal government is moving immediately to outlaw and disband the Turnerites, and that any person found to be a member-”
“Wait a minute,” Dilman interrupted, rolling his swivel chair back, and swinging his bulk directly toward Kemmler. “I haven’t the power to ban or restrict any private society or organization in the United States, be it the Turnerites or the Ku Klux Klan, unless-”
“Unless it is proved subversive,” Kemmler finished for him. “That’s right. Well, we’ve got the goods on the Turnerites. It was because he anticipated a situation exactly like this that T. C. forced Congress into beefing up the Subversive Activities Control Act. He and Congress knew that the $10,000 fine and five-year imprisonment for failure of a Communist to register wasn’t going to scare anyone, especially since it was always being questioned in the courts. That’s why T. C. pounded through this stronger act-any Communist Front organization engaging in subversive activity, to the detriment of the nation, against the safety of the government, can have its leaders punished and its membership disbanded, and those not complying-”
“You don’t have to read the law to me, Kemmler,” Dilman broke in. “I voted for it in the Senate. I just don’t see how the Subversive Activities Control Act can be applied to the Turnerites. They don’t-”
“We can pin a Communist Front tag on the Turnerites and make it stick!” Kemmler exclaimed triumphantly.
“The Turnerites-Communist?” said Dilman with disbelief. “Come, now. I know you’re investigating that newspaper scoop about one of the Turnerite directors-whatever his name-Valetti, yes-being a Red, but-”
Kemmler shoved his face almost into Dilman’s own. “We have investigated Frank Valetti. He’s been a Communist Party member for years, and he still is. He is also Hurley’s second-in-command. That’s point one. And here’s point two, the clincher. Over in Justice we wondered where the Turnerites were getting their money. Who was financing them? Either they were being kept in business by the Crispus Society, which I doubted, or by the Communist Party. Well, we’re now satisfied that Valetti has been carrying money from the Commies to the Turnerites.”
Dilman shook his head vigorously. “I’m not satisfied. It sounds flaky. Accepting the fact that a member of the Turnerite leadership is a Communist is one thing, but proving the Turnerites, as a group, are part of a conspiracy to overthrow the government-I don’t think anyone will buy that.”
“You don’t?” Clay Kemmler was obviously indignant. “Mr. President, forgive me, but your people have been wide-open to Communist manipulation for years. Remember what J. Edgar Hoover said years ago? He said the Communists were trying to divide and weaken America from within. He said the Communists were trying to exploit misunderstandings and take advantage of areas of dissension and unrest in this country. He said, ‘This is especially true in the intense civil rights movement, for America’s twenty million Negroes and all others engaged in this struggle are a major target for Communist propaganda and subversion.’ Well, okay, that’s what is going on right now. Valetti and the Commies are trying to use the Turnerites for their own ends, and Hurley and the Turnerites are fanatic enough to accept anyone’s help to achieve their goals.”
Dilman stared at Kemmler. “You still haven’t proved that the Turnerites are being financed with Communist funds.”
“We have a dossier a mile high on Valetti, Mr. President. Here’s an unskilled man, whose education ended with grammar school, banking a fantastic yearly income. From whom? From registered Communists, that’s who. And no sooner does Valetti deposit this money than out it goes in big cash lumps. Where does it go? Do I have to spell it out? Our file is wide-open to you.”
Dilman gripped the arms of his big green chair and heaved himself to his feet. He studied Kemmler a moment, and then left his desk, circling the office. He knew that the three of them were watching him, waiting for him to speak. He tried to think. Desperately he tried to sublimate his feelings as a Negro and coolly judge what he had heard and what was wanted from him, by applying his critical faculty as a onetime practicing attorney-at-law.
At last he faced them, “Gentlemen, this much I know now-I don’t intend to do anything rash, anything I’ll regret later. Ever since the stronger Subversive Activities Control Act has been in effect, there have been five hundred specific organizations posted for public notice on the Justice Department’s questionable list. To my knowledge, not one has ever been prosecuted and disbanded under the act. Is that correct?”
“Well, yes, but that doesn’t mean-” Kemmler began.
“It doesn’t mean such banning can’t be done or shouldn’t be done,” said Dilman. “When the safety of the country is at stake, and the enemy within is proved guilty, it will be done. I remind you, Mr. Attorney General, I’ve got a law degree, as you have, and I tell you I am not satisfied that we possess sufficient evidence to invoke the Subversive Control Act now against the Turnerites. Until I know beyond a shadow of doubt that Hurley and the Turnerites, as a group, are responsible for that kidnaping of Gage, and until I am certain that they are Communist-financed, I cannot restrict, ban, or dissolve them.”
Kemmler was unable to conceal his dismay. “But, Mr. President-you’ve got to do something.”
Dilman had started for his desk. “I intend to. I want to satisfy myself on one question. And then I will do something.”
He dialed Edna Foster, and requested her to put through a call to the Reverend Paul Spinger at the Crispus Society Building. Standing, telephone in hand, he suggested that the others make themselves comfortable. Talley and Flannery retreated to the sofas, but Clay Kemmler refused to sit. He went to the French doors and glumly looked out at the south lawn.
In less than a minute, the Reverend Spinger’s concerned voice greeted Dilman.
“Reverend,” Dilman said into the mouthpiece, “have you heard what’s happened down in Hattiesburg?”
“Yes, Mr. President, it’s dreadful. Those irresponsible and ornery gangsters couldn’t have done a greater disservice to our cause.”
“I agree with you, Reverend. Now I’ll tell you why I’m calling. I have here in the office with me the Attorney General, as well as Governor Talley, and Mr. Flannery. We’ve been discussing the abduction, and the possible repercussions it will have. We must be prepared to act. Reverend, do you consider the kidnaping as something done by an isolated bunch of hotheads or as something instigated by Hurley and his Turnerites?”
“Mr. President, I can’t say. Certainly we have no information here, one way or the other.”
“All right, you don’t know.” Dilman looked over his shoulder at Kemmler, whose back was still to him. “Reverend Spinger, we’ve touched upon this matter many times, but I have never put the question directly to you. Now I am going to do so, and do so officially.” He could see Kemmler turning to catch every word. Dilman concentrated on the telephone. “Since many Crispus Society members left you to form the Turnerites, it is imperative that we know what ties you have, if any, with the Turnerites. I must-”
“None, Doug, you know that.” Dilman could detect the fervent emotion in Spinger’s voice, as the clergyman went on. “We disapprove of Hurley, his threats, his inciting activities, just as he and his group disapprove of us, of our adherence to legal procedure, our qualified support of the Minorities Rehabilitation Program, our-”
“Then, Reverend, you disavow any ties with the Turnerites. Two final questions. Has your organization now, or at any time, by any means, ever financed the Turnerites?”
“The answer, Doug, is an unequivocal no. Not now, not before, never.”
“Never. Very well. Then the second question. Do you have any information as to who is financing Hurley’s group?”
“I have no factual information, Mr. President,” replied Spinger, more controlled. “There’s been some hearsay-you know, Valetti, the-”
“I’m not interested in hearsay, Reverend.” He paused, then asked, “Have you ever met Jefferson Hurley? Do you know him?”
“I’ve appeared on several speaking platforms with him, at one or two rallies, on a television show once, that’s the extent of it.”
“Does he have a fairly high regard for you, Reverend?”
Spinger grunted. “He thinks I’m a doddering and reactionary has-been who ought to have been interred long ago.”
“I see,” Dilman said. “Would Hurley speak to you if you requested a meeting?”
“I don’t know why not… yes, I think he would.”
“Very well, Reverend Spinger, I’ll tell you what we’re up to, here. When the news of the kidnaping gets out today, we expect an uproar, and considerable unrest and agitation. Based on some evidence in the hands of the Justice Department, I have been asked to outlaw the Turnerites-”
“Doug, don’t do it, don’t do it unless you are positive,” Spinger pleaded with passion. “You have no idea how this might affect the Negro community. It might give the impression that you’re in the hands of vindictive whites, that you’ve been whitewashed, so to speak. It would create a terrible reaction against you, your administration, and, worse, create automatic sympathy for Hurley and his Turnerites. Our people might look upon them as the persecuted underdogs, identify with them in a way they have not done up to now. Our people might begin to equate the Crispus Society with any repressive government action, and pull out on us, and-”
“Wait, Reverend, I haven’t said I’m ready to disband the Turnerites. I’ve only said it is under consideration, until I have the facts, all the facts. You have as great a stake in ferreting out the truth as I have. I want you to do something for me, if you can.”
“Anything, Mr. President. Whatever you say.”
Dilman measured his words carefully. “Reverend Spinger, I am appointing you my official representative, the President’s intermediary, to meet with Jefferson Hurley for a discussion of this whole affair.” As he spoke, Dilman’s eyes shifted from Kemmler’s reaction of disgust, to Talley’s expression of bewilderment, to Flannery’s show of approval. He drew the mouthpiece closer to his lips. “Reverend, I want you to locate Hurley, and converse with him by phone, if you can’t in person. I want you to find out, as best you can, whether the Turnerites are behind this crime or not. If he denies any part of the crime, as he has done already, I want you to tell him exactly what the Justice Department is considering doing. And I want you to tell him that if he wants to prove himself clean, and keep his organization intact, he must publicly condemn the Hattiesburg crime, and come forward to open his financial records for your eyes. If he will do this, I can promise him I will not enforce the Subversive Activities Control Act. If he refuses, I will promise nothing. Are you prepared to undertake the assignment, Reverend Spinger?”
“I am, Mr. President. When should I begin?”
“You begin this minute, and report your findings to me directly. Good luck, Reverend.”
After he had hung up, he remained still, knowing the others were gathering before his desk.
Dilman lifted his head. “That’s it for now, gentlemen.”
Kemmler was doing a poor job of containing his displeasure. “You’re making a mistake, Mr. President.”
“You might be right,” said Dilman. “I think it would be a greater mistake to act in haste.”
Talley had sidled up alongside Kemmler. “Mr. President, I’m still inclined to agree with the Attorney General. Reconsider, please. The appointment of Spinger only delays the inevitable. It may make the administration appear weak and vacillating and-and even encourage more lawbreaking and violence-I mean, giving the Hurleys encouragement to go on and commit more crimes because we’re reluctant to do anything but talk.”
“I’ll have to take the gamble, Governor.” He looked at Kemmler, who was still seething. “Give Spinger twenty-four hours,” Dilman said in a conciliatory voice.
“Then give me twenty-four hundred more FBI agents,” Kemmler snapped. “Okay, you do it your way, Mr. President. I’ll be in my office, sitting on my hands. The responsibility for whatever this leads to is in yours.”
Dilman suffered a sudden ache of abandonment and a sinking heart, as he watched the Attorney General stalk out of the Oval Office.
As he lowered himself into his swivel chair, he met Tim Flannery’s questioning eyes. Dilman’s fingers touched the loose-leaf folder. “I guess some revisions are in order for the press conference, Tim. What are they going to ask me now-and what am I supposed to say?”
After drawing up to the curb in his rented Ford, a block from the Capitol, Nat Abrahams kissed his wife, reminded her where to pick him up and when, and then relinquished the wheel of the car to her. He waited until she had safely driven off, then he walked to the stairs of the Capitol and slowly mounted them.
While he knew it troubled Sue that they had already been in Washington a month, and he missed the children as much as she did, he found that he was neither annoyed nor impatient over their protracted visit. More than ever, Washington was stimulating. The fact that he and Sue had enjoyed the opportunity to dine in the White House three times since his private reunion with Doug Dilman had made his stay doubly interesting. Of course, if his negotiations with Gorden Oliver continued at this snail’s pace, he had promised Sue that she could go back to Chicago and the children this week. He was positive he would not be much behind her.
The half-dozen meetings with Gorden Oliver had been profitable. What had caused the delay was the fact that Oliver did not possess final authority to approve of Abrahams’ demands and revisions. Whenever a contractual clause came under discussion, and Abrahams requested improvement of it, or clarification, Oliver would promise an immediate answer and then disappear for several days. It was clear to Abrahams that Oliver was consulting not only with the Eagles Industries Corporation crowd in Washington, but with Avery Emmich in Atlanta. Abrahams suspected that Oliver had even flown off to Eagles’ main headquarters to meet with Emmich once or twice. Then Abrahams had read that Emmich had been out of the country last week, and that had explained the most recent delay. Despite this, Abrahams felt that his last meeting with Oliver might have concluded the preliminary give and take. He expected that the next time he saw Oliver, there would be copies of the contract ready for his approval. Then he would be able to take Sue home and help her wind up their affairs, before moving the family to Washington. In fact, he had encouraged Sue to occupy herself by looking for a roomy brownstone to lease in the city.
It was not Oliver’s telephone call last night that had surprised him, but rather the fact that Oliver wanted to see him about a matter other than the contract.
“The contract is routine now, Nat,” Gorden Oliver had said. “It’s at the home office for final review and retyping. It should be here any day. You can assume you are now a representative of Eagles Industries. No, what I want to see you about, Nat, is not the contract-I’m as sick of it as you are, old boy-but something pertaining to your first duties here in Washington. I’ll go into it when I see you tomorrow. Why don’t you meet me in the private Speaker’s Lobby of the House at noon? I’ll leave your name with the Capitol police.” Abrahams had accepted the invitation.
Now he found himself, as he had so many times in the years past but for the first time on this trip, standing before the elevator beneath the Capitol. When it arrived, he followed a woman and two men into it. In seconds, he was upstairs. He went past the sign members only to the swinging doors leading into the Speaker’s Lobby, gave his name to the uniformed policeman, and was admitted. He reflected briefly on the power of a lobbyist like Oliver, who was able to get his friends and associates past that excluding sign so easily.
The long lobby, with its rich red carpet, contained only a few visitors studying the Department of Commerce weather map and the framed portraits on the walls of former Speakers of the House, the one of MacPherson still draped in black. None of the visitors was Gorden Oliver.
Puzzled, Abrahams turned left and entered the Members’ Reading Rooms that ran parallel with the lobby. He saw a group huddled beneath the globular light fixtures, once picturesque gas jets, near the teletype machine. Gorden Oliver was not among them. Abrahams inspected several members standing before the library stands of newspapers, reading the front pages. For a moment Abrahams was diverted. These newspaper stands fascinated him. There was an individual rack for each state of the fifty in the Union, and every day upon these racks were hung the newspapers from the leading cities in that state. Abrahams paused before the stand with the sign MISS. above it. Tilting his head, he cast his eyes down the file of dangling newspapers from Greenville, Columbus, Vicksburg, Meridian, Natchez, Hattiesburg, Biloxi. The majority of the headlines were several days old, and were devoted to Judge Gage’s sentencing of the Turnerite demonstrators, or to the debate of the Minorities Rehabilitation Program Bill in the House, or to the announcement of Dilman’s first State Dinner to entertain a fellow black man from Africa. Before many days the rack would carry the dated headlines screaming of Judge Gage’s abduction by Negro terrorists, and segregationists’ vows of retaliation, which Washington newspapers had carried only an hour before.
Nat Abrahams continued through the Members’ Reading Rooms, but nowhere was Gorden Oliver to be seen. He realized that a burly, blue-coated Capitol policeman was observing him. He went over to the policeman. “I’m Mr. Abrahams,” he said. “I was to meet Mr. Gorden Oliver here. Have you seen him around?”
“Oliver? Is he the columnist-?”
“No, he’s-”
“I’m new on the force,” the policeman apologized. “Let me check with someone else.”
As the officer left for the lobby, Abrahams thought that he heard a familiar voice. Even as he pivoted, he recognized it was Doug Dilman’s voice, low and strained, competing with the hum of a television set. The small set was on a reading table, and several representatives had pulled up chairs and were watching and listening. Nat Abrahams came up behind them, to see how his friend was faring in his first press conference.
The picture projected on the screen, momentarily wavy, showed President Dilman seated at the mahogany Cabinet table, flanked by Flannery and Governor Talley. He had reached the last page of his prepared speech, and was reading the final news announcement: that he deplored the kidnaping of Judge Gage, that the FBI was on the trail of the terrorists, that there was no information yet as to whether the abduction was the work of individuals or an organization, that he had already appointed the Reverend Paul Spinger, head of the Crispus Society, as the President’s personal representative, and that Spinger was to investigate the possible participation of any extremist organization in the crime, and to sort fact from rumor.
As the camera pulled back for a full shot, the battery of microphones before President Dilman was revealed, and then the forty to fifty journalists with their pencils and note pads pressed around the far side of the table, and the still photographers taking their pictures.
Dilman put down his prepared statement and looked up tightly. The distortion of the television screen made his Negroid features seem broader and blacker than they were.
Dilman said, in almost a whisper, “That completes the news announcements, gentlemen. Do you have any questions? Hold up your hands, and Mr. Flannery will recognize you in order.”
Like marionettes’ limbs jerked by strings, at least a dozen arms shot up and a dozen hands beckoned for recognition. Flannery acknowledged each with a nod, and scrawled the name of each on a sheet before him. Finishing his jotting, Flannery called out, “Mr. Blaser, of the Washington Citizen-American and Miller Newspaper Association.”
Nat Abrahams searched the mass of reporters on the television screen, and then could make out a short, stocky middle-aged man with a high pompadour and an unattractive carbuncle of a face-“I don’t mind most of those reporters,” Dilman had told Abrahams at their last dinner, “but that Reb Blaser is like a toad in a flower bed.” Blaser was elbowing through the crowd of reporters to get closer to the table.
“Mr. President,” Blaser began, his wheedling, oiled tongue seeking to cover his renowned cantankerous, liverish manner, “about your announcement of that dastardly Turnerite kidnaping in Mississippi-”
To Abrahams’ surprise, Dilman leaned forward and interrupted. “Mr. Blaser, I did not announce that the kidnaping was done by any organization. I believe I made that point clear. We can make no accusations until our investigation is completed.”
Blaser was smiling regretfully. “I beg your pardon, Mr. President. I assume-you see, our papers have information that the act was performed by a parcel of Turnerites-”
“Then you should turn your information over to the Department of Justice,” said Dilman grimly. “If it’s not fiction, they’ll welcome it.”
There was some laughter, but, viewing the exchange on the television screen, Nat Abrahams squirmed. Dilman was allowing himself to be baited. He was not standing aloof. Abrahams told himself that he must speak to Doug about this.
Framed in a close-up on the television screen, Blaser’s face had lost its unctuous smile. “I’m fixing to have my editors follow your advice, Mr. President. Meanwhile, I would like to inquire what you instructed Reverend Spinger to find out about, in relation to this dastardly kidnaping. Also, how do you expect to get objective facts from the head of a Negro lobby pressure group, who goes into this with well-known prejudices?”
The camera cut back to Dilman’s face, and Abrahams was relieved that it was outwardly passive and that he was considering his reply carefully.
“I appointed the Reverend Spinger,” Dilman said, “because I felt that the kidnapers, if they are Negro, be they individuals or members of an organization, would trust him more than anyone else. I believe the Reverend Spinger is the best-qualified person I know to reason with anyone so involved, and to gain their confidence. As to his exact assignment, I think it would be unwise to disclose what I have ordered him to do, especially at a critical time like this. When the Attorney General and I have the facts, we shall act upon them without hesitation… Next?”
Flannery called out, “Mr. Paletta of U.S. News and World Report.”
“Mr. President, concerning the New Succession Bill now on your desk. Do you expect to approve it or veto it?”
Nat Abrahams felt someone touch his arm, and spun around. It was the burly young policeman again. “Sir, I’m sorry about keeping you, but I found out that Mr. Oliver did leave a message. He’s across the Chamber in the House Majority cloakroom. He said for you to meet him there. Will you follow me?”
Reluctantly Abrahams turned his back on Doug Dilman’s excruciating ordeal by press, and followed the policeman out of the Reading Rooms and lobby, past the elevator, through the library, and into the rear of the mammoth House of Representatives Chamber.
Treading as silently as possible behind the last row of leather-covered benches, Abrahams could see that the House of Representatives was about two-thirds filled with members, some slouched and listening to Congressman Hightower’s speech, others gathered in knotted groups whispering together, and still others reading the daily Congressional Record they had found in the compartments under their seats.
Abrahams knew that the Minorities Rehabilitation Program Bill was in its climactic stages of debate. Congressman Hightower, representing the opposition party from a California district, was vigorously endorsing the seven-billion-dollar public-works bill, and especially the apprentice and job-training provisions designed for uneducated and unskilled Negroes, Puerto Ricans, and Americans of Mexican descent.
“When we have passage of this bill,” the Congressman was promising, “we won’t have repetitions of the sort of violence we saw in Hattiesburg, Mississippi, today. Our minority citizens will enjoy a law of restitution to make up for their educational and financial losses under slavery, under segregation, under bondage. They will be trained. They will be gainfully employed. They will be indemnified for their long history of inequality. Thus satisfied, they will know peace of mind, and we will all know the peace of harmony that comes with justice and economic improvement.”
They are slugging the big bill through, Abrahams thought, and in two weeks, less perhaps, it will be on Doug Dilman’s desk. Poor Doug, he thought, how much these elected politicians are throwing at him, and how little time he has had to prepare for the deluge of vital legislation. Still, Abrahams thought, if Doug’s only going to get T. C.’s hat, he has no decisions to make. If he were going to fit a hat for himself, one of his own, that would be another matter. A pity, Abrahams thought, for if Doug Dilman remains as subservient to a ghost as he insists that he must be, his own keen intelligence and fine judgment will be wasted and the nation will never know its loss.
Abrahams looked up at the press gallery above the Speaker’s rostrum, and then at the curved mezzanine of public galleries, almost filled, and he knew that the minorities bill had captured the national interest. It was the most crucial domestic legislation in years.
The policeman had halted, waiting for Abrahams, and then said, “Right through this door, sir.” Abrahams thanked him, took hold of the doorknob, realizing that while he had been inside the House Chamber many times, he had never visited the legendary cloak-rooms, where national decisions were supposed to be made by horse trading in secrecy.
He entered the Party’s cloakroom, not knowing what to expect and yet finding less than he had supposed he would find. The cloakroom was narrow and dimly lighted. There were a half-dozen soft sofas along the walls, about the same number of deep used leather armchairs, then the room stretched off behind the House and turned a corner. At the far end three men were assembled before a semicircular bar. Only when Abrahams approached them closer did he see that it was an innocuous ice cream and soft drink counter, with many telephone booths nearby.
He recognized Gorden Oliver, even though the Eagles lobbyist had his back to him. Identification was possible from Oliver’s distinctive high starched collar, navy-blue wool sport coat, gray flannel slacks, and brown metal brandy-flask cane (his trademark).
“Gorden-”
Oliver wheeled around at once, and when he did so, Abrahams could see that the Eagles lobbyist and the two others beside him were watching Dilman’s press conference on a television set.
“Hello, hello, Nat. I was beginning to worry whether you’d find the way.” Oliver pumped his hand, and then took him in tow. “Nat, I want you to meet two of our most influential House members-Representative Stockton, of Colorado, Representative Kramer, of West Virginia… Gentlemen, this is Nathan Abrahams, Eagles’ answer to Rufus Choate.”
After the handshaking, Representative Kramer said, “Gorden here tells us you are a personal friend of the President, Mr. Abrahams.”
Embarrassed, Abrahams said, “Yes, the President and I have known each other since the Second World War. We were in the Judge Advocate’s Department together.”
Representative Kramer assumed a dour visage. “Well, if Dilman got out of the service uninjured, then he’s certainly earning a Purple Heart today. They’ve been grenading him for twenty minutes.”
Abrahams’ eyes went to the television screen, to Dilman’s worn expression as he listened to one more question. “Most people haven’t had a chance to find out yet, but President Dilman is very sharp,” Abrahams said loyally. “I saw some of the press conference on my way in. I think he can handle them. When you’ve made it all the way up to Congress as a Negro, you’ve been through worse inquisitions. He’ll survive.”
“We didn’t mean he won’t,” Oliver said hastily. “It’s simply that this is his first time out, and they’ve mined every inch of it with dynamite. You should have-”
“Quiet, Gorden,” Representative Stockton interrupted. He pointed to the television set. “The Time-Life man just asked him about the minorities bill.”
The four men directed their attention to the close shot of Dilman, gnawing his lower lip, fingering the blotter in front of him. “You want to know why I have not spoken out in favor of the Minorities Rehabilitation Program?” he was saying. “In reply, I remind you I have spoken neither for it nor against it. I have been examining the bill. It has much to offer minorities in this country, and can make a great contribution to bolstering our economy. At the same time, I think it would be a mistake to regard this bill as the cure-all for the civil rights problem. The bill may alleviate certain pressures brought down on minority segments of our population. Still, whether it passes into law or not, it must be supplemented by continued and unceasing efforts to secure for each and every citizen those equal rights guaranteed by our Constitution. I am closely watching the debate over the bill in Congress, and await seeing in what form it reaches me for signature.”
Gorden Oliver dug an elbow into Abrahams’ rib. “Cagey, Nat. Your friend is playing it cool and cagey.”
For an instant Abrahams was irritated, but he contained himself and kept his eyes on the screen, where Flannery had nodded to someone off scene. On cue, the correspondent from United Press International called out, “Thank you, Mr. President,” and the first press conference was over. As the picture on the screen dissolved to one of the Presidential seal, Representative Stockton turned the set off.
The Colorado Congressman addressed Abrahams. “Mr. Abrahams, since you know our new President personally, you might do well to inform him for us-since nobody else seems to be able to get to him-that we hope he doesn’t drag his feet on this bill or on putting that Baraza President in his place. Tell him that’s what the boys in the back room are saying.”
“You tell him yourself,” said Abrahams stiffly. “I’m afraid I have no influence over the President.”
Gorden Oliver emitted a false, cackling laugh. “Aw, Nat, don’t take it so seriously. None of us are worried about Dilman. He’s pledged himself to the Party platform and T. C.’s policies. We know he’ll deliver… Say now, Nat, you’ve never been in this sacred sanctum before, have you? Well, have a gander down there, past those fourteen phone booths, and what do you see? A stretcher, yes, sir, and a first-aid kit. Know what? After those Puerto Ricans began holding target practice from the House gallery in 1954, wounded five of our members, the boys here became scared it might encourage more open-season hunting. Now they’re prepared… What say we have our lunch? I’m starved. I’ve a table reserved at the Hotel Congressional down the way… See you later, boys. I’ll tell Emmich you’re reading his breakdown.”
Gorden Oliver led Abrahams out of the cloakroom, through the rear of the House Chamber, still resounding to oratory on the Minorities Rehabilitation Bill, past Room H-209, which he pointed out to be the Speaker’s quarters, past the House Reception Room, and then downstairs.
They came out into the east front of the Capitol and started in the cold sunshine of midday toward the Hotel Congressional.
“It’s only a couple of blocks,” said Oliver.
But the few blocks, Abrahams soon realized, would take as long to traverse as a mile. Gorden Oliver knew everyone, and everyone knew him. It was not enough for him to greet each acquaintance with a wag of his metal brandy-filled cane. Each person met-a photographer for the Republican Party, a public relations man for the Democratic Committee, three Capitol policemen, two senators, four young giggling female secretaries going to lunch-was stopped, introduced to Abrahams, regaled with a warmed-over joke or bit of innocuous gossip, before being passed.
There was neither business nor political conversation between Oliver and Abrahams as they walked. The lobbyist’s eyes were scanning the pedestrians for more acquaintances, while he filled Abrahams with petty chatter about Washington and calumny about congressmen, past and present. According to Oliver, there was one congressman and his wife who, to save money, had set up and maintained living quarters in a corner of the House basement, until they were discovered and evicted. There was another who, to make ends meet, sold ready-made suits at a discount out of his office. There was a third who had enjoyed a reputation for hard work by staying on in his suite in the Rayburn House Office Building long after his colleagues had gone home, until it was discovered that he was using his suite to entertain call girls.
“Yet the work of government gets done,” said Oliver, as they crossed the street and entered the modest lobby of the Hotel Congressional. He halted, after waving his cane at the desk clerk and at two congressmen who had entered behind them, and he added, “I only wanted to show you, Nat, that you won’t be dealing with sacred cows but with plain, ordinary human beings, possessing their share of mortals’ frailties.” He poked his cane toward a sign to the right of the lobby, indicating the direction to the Caucus Room and the Filibuster Bar. “Caucus over food, Nat, or filibuster over drinks first?”
Abrahams held up his vest-pocket watch. “Sue’s picking me up here in an hour,” he said. “She wants to show me some houses she’s been-”
“Food it’ll be,” said Oliver.
Abrahams allowed the lobbyist to take his arm and guide him through a corridor, decorated on one side with framed photographs of the current members of Congress. They entered the spacious dining room, already nearly filled, and were shown to a reserved table next to the curved window overlooking the hotel’s lawn and garden.
As they were seated and given their menus, Oliver winked at Abrahams and said, “Best table in the room, Nat. Eagles Industries rates here, and so will you. Congressmen come and go, but Eagles stays on forever… What’ll you have?” He began recommending dishes, but Abrahams ordered only a small green salad and a mushroom omelet. Automatically Oliver ordered a steak. “We’re on an expense account, you know, Nat,” he reminded Abrahams.
“I’m on a diet,” Abrahams replied. “I’m at my best when I’m lean and hungry.”
“Good, good-” the lobbyist said absently, his attention again diverted by his recognition of familiar faces. He began to salute diners at other tables, calling out, “Hi, Mike… How you doing, Jim fellow?… Hello, Ruthie girl.” Then he excused himself, and for five minutes, cane in hand, he went table-hopping, ending each visit with an uproarious peal of laughter.
When he returned to Abrahams, who was eating his salad, he offered only an oblique excuse for his absence. “My trade consists of contacts,” he explained, “making them and maintaining them.”
“I’m not good at that, Gorden.”
“You?” said Oliver, with pretended horror. “We can’t waste a genius like yours on this sort of Rotary-Kiwanis activity. My rounds are the National Press Club, Burning Tree Golf Club, Metropolitan Club, and right here. That’s for me, not you. Avery Emmich wouldn’t be paying you what he is paying you-hell, my salary is picayune tip money beside what you’re going to get-for public relations. He’s hiring your brain, Nat, not your glad hand.”
“As long as that’s understood, that’s all,” said Abrahams.
The lunch proceeded into the entrée, and Oliver spoke less and became preoccupied with his own thoughts. Abrahams searched the Caucus Room, trying to match faces to headlines he remembered, and then, finishing the omelet, he stared up at the rough yellow-and-white textured plaster ceiling and speculated on the reason for this lunch.
While the lobbyist was drinking his Sanka, Abrahams sipped his hot tea and decided to make certain that the meeting had nothing to do with the contract.
“Gorden, last night you said you wanted to see me about my first duties here in Washington, not about the contract. Are you sure?”
Oliver’s ruddy, weather-beaten Vermont countenance immediately offered an open expression of distress that his motive should even be questioned. “Nat, I told you, the contract is routine. It’ll be in final draft shortly. The delay has been caused by Emmich’s visit to Dallas for a speech before the National Association of Manufacturers.”
“Well, I’d like to be able to send Sue home and let her close up shop.”
“Send her, by all means, send her. But you’d better hang around here for the final reading of the contract and the signing. After that’s done, you can get back to Chicago for a week and turn over your keys.”
Glancing off, Abrahams caught the time on the wall clock. “Okay, Gorden. Then what did you want to discuss with me? I’ve only got fifteen minutes.”
Oliver blew across the rim of his cup, drank the Sanka, and then set the cup down. “Nat,” he said, “you heard the little speech Congressman Stockton made to you in the cloakroom.”
“About what? You mean the President dragging his feet on the minorities bill and Baraza? I sure did.”
“Well, I think he was really concerned about the minorities bill. That’s a big thing. Nobody gives much of a damn about that little African football field.”
“Soviet Russia does,” said Abrahams.
Oliver took his cane, which had been leaning against the table, and began unscrewing the top. “Oh, you know what I mean. The minorities bill is the thing that counts right now for the boys on the Hill. A wrong move can lose a lot of votes back home. That’s what matters to them.” He paused. “I know that Stockton got your dander up a bit, but he means well. He was only trying to tell you how the majority of both parties in the House feel.”
“Why tell me?” said Abrahams.
“Because he heard you knew the President and-” Then, as if to prevent Abrahams from interrupting him, Oliver went on more urgently, in a rush, “Look, Nat, listen, the boys on the Hill-forget the Southern bloc-the others, they’re not too worried about Douglass Dilman. He’s behaved well. He’s made it clear he’s standing on the Party platform and listening to T. C.’s best minds. Only one curious fact gives them pause. The single major legislation the President has made no private or public commitment on is this minorities bill, the very bill he should be behind hot and heavy. It’s the only pacifier we have to stop the racial unrest in this country. Once it is law, all rioting and demonstrations will cease. No more repetitions of what happened down in Mississippi today. The Negroes will be too occupied and prosperous to complain. We’ll have solidarity.” He considered Abrahams a moment, and then he asked, “Have you read the MRP Bill yet?”
“No,” Abrahams answered flatly. He felt vaguely irritated again and put upon. He had guessed, at once, what Gorden Oliver was leading up to, and he wanted to make it difficult for him. “No,” he repeated, “I haven’t. Should I?”
Oliver screwed the top of his brandy cane tightly, and leaned it against the table once more. “Only because it is a vital piece of public works legislation, and a great part of your job for Eagles Industries will be to advise Emmich on any new bills affecting his interests.”
Abrahams was more determined than ever to be difficult. He forced his eyebrows upward, ingenuously. “Is the minorities bill of that much concern to Emmich?”
Now it was Oliver who was irritated and trying to control his feelings. “Really, Nat, you must know what passage of this bill can mean to Eagles. There’s a seven-billion-dollar-billion, mind you-Federal pie to be cut up among private industry. Eagles wants its share, and is ready to underbid all competition. And Eagles can do the job. We’re strong in the South, strongest there, where much of the money will be spent. We have the know-how and equipment to build those new vocational trade schools, those highways, those housing tracts, those factories. Sure we’re concerned, damn concerned. Nothing is more important to Emmich right now. I thought you knew that.”
Abrahams was suddenly impatient with games. “I suppose I did know it. I guess I was leading you on a little, Gorden. I wanted to find out how involved you were in this legislation.”
“Then you have read the bill?”
“No, really, I have not. I know what it is about, generally, but I haven’t read it. I didn’t think I was on the payroll yet.”
“Well, you are, in a way you are.”
“Then I’ll get a copy.”
“You won’t have to.” Oliver patted his chest complacently. “I brought a copy for you.”
“So reading pending legislation is one of my first duties here,” said Abrahams. “Assignment one is the MRP, is that right? Okay. What am I to do after I’ve read it? Tell Emmich I think it’s great? He knows that. Tell him I think it won’t help him very much? He doesn’t want to hear that. Tell him what, Gorden?”
“You have to tell him nothing,” said Oliver uneasily. “He wants passage of the bill-of course. I think he’d like to know that you want it, too.”
Abrahams could feel the involuntary tension in the cords of his neck. “What’s the difference whether I want it or not?”
“Nat, you’re being tough on me.” Oliver was frowning down at the cane. He took it, laid it across his lap, and turned it several times before looking up. “Christ, we’re on the same team. We’re getting money from the same mint. We have our jobs to do.”
“I only want to know my job, I suppose.”
Oliver appraised Abrahams with a quick glance. “Harv Wickland, the Majority Leader, feels the Party can push the bill through the House. It’ll be landing on President Dilman’s desk any day. Dilman is the one worrying Emmich, all of us. He’s the only unknown factor.”
“You heard him say that he wants to read the bill in its final form.”
“Come now, Nat, there won’t be many late changes. It’s in the open for everyone to read. Dilman has had plenty of time to read it and make up his mind. Really, Emmich is deeply concerned. He feels what Dilman does here is the test of him as the new President.”
“You mean the test of him in the eyes of Eagles Industries.”
“Well, whether he is for us or against us.”
Abrahams found himself appalled at this constricted, selfish vision of a piece of legislation which carried with it so many broader ramifications. “Perhaps Dilman feels there is more at stake than whether this is good or bad for big business.”
“I don’t know,” Oliver said. Then he added quickly, “Maybe you happen to know. Has President Dilman-after all, everyone is aware you’ve been in the White House with him pretty often-has he ever mentioned how he honestly feels about MRP? That could tell us a good deal. Emmich would be very grateful if he could get some inkling of-”
“Gorden, I don’t know whether the President is for or against that bill, but even if I knew, even if he had discussed it with me, I wouldn’t tell you about it. I’ve been visiting with him as an old friend, not a lawyer-lobbyist for Eagles Industries.”
“Touché,” said Oliver, with a twisted smile. “I’m nicked and I deserve it. But I’ve got my job, too, you know.”
Abrahams crumpled his napkin and threw it on the table. He pushed back his chair. “Gorden, I know what you’ve been trying to get at. The MRP is an Eagles Industries type of bill. You want to be sure that, once it has passed both Houses, the President approves it. You’d like me to go to him right now and find out if he’s intending to sign it. If he does, you’d like to know first, so you’d have the jump on your competitors when it comes to submitting bids. If he’s on the fence or negative, you’d like me to use my influence on your-okay, our-on our behalf. That’s the sum of it, of this lunch, isn’t it?”
Gorden Oliver almost beamed with relief. But then, aware of Abrahams’ taut face, he converted his smile to an appearance of moderate seriousness. His caution was obvious. “If you think Avery Emmich and I are asking you, as your first job for us, to go in and use your friendship with the President to make Eagles a few millions, you are mistaken. We’re not such fools, and we don’t favor using such tactics. No, that’s not it. All we want you to do is to study the MRP Bill, and then study a little homework we at Eagles have done on the bill, a sort of breakdown on its value to our economy and-and to domestic peace-” He reached inside his suit coat, and drew out one bulky document and one folded memorandum. He handed the bulky document across the table. “There’s the text of the MRP.”
Abrahams opened it, and read the heading: “Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled-Section 1. This Act may be cited as the ‘Minorities Rehabilitation Program.’ ” He carefully folded it. “Okay,” he said quietly.
“And this is a concise breakdown and memorandum of the high points of the bill,” said Oliver, handing over the other folded pages. “Anyone who reads this will know in five minutes how this five-year works program will help the Negroes, all minorities, economically, socially, educationally, improve and integrate them, to the best interests of the majority white community as well. It may be brief, but it is thorough, Nat. You’ll see how this bill can be helpful to every one of the fifty states, naming names, facts, figures. It’s irresistible.”
Accepting this document, too, Abrahams shoved both in his pocket. “I’ll read them. Then what?”
“If you approve-I think you will, most everyone has, except for a handful of left-wingers and right extremists-I wish you’d tell us so. Then, if it comes up, only if it comes up, you understand, I wish you’d let President Dilman know how you feel. That would be natural. But, Nat, even if you find it awkward, then-well, at least ask him to have a look at our patriotic little breakdown of the facts and figures. He might find it an eye-opener, if he needs one. I suspect he’s on our side, anyway… Don’t promise me anything, Nat. I just want to be able to tell Avery Emmich you are studying this, and will do what you believe is right and best for the country.”
“For the country,” Abrahams murmured, rising quickly. “I’ll be in touch with you, Gorden. Thanks for the feed.”
Departing from the Caucus Room, Abrahams could see Oliver’s worried face pretending to study the restaurant bill as, out of the corner of one eye, he watched his guest and tried to gauge his feelings.
Going up the corridor, Nat Abrahams’ feelings were red with anger, not at the idiot lobbyist’s effort to use him to coerce the Chief Executive of the land, who happened to be a friend, but at himself for having allowed himself, for the first time in his entire life, to be put in a position that might compromise his honesty as a responsible human being.
By the time he had left the Hotel Congressional and crossed over to the corner before the Old House Office Building where Sue was to pick him up, his anger had subsided. The bright cool air was not only refreshing but prickly, stinging to life his numbed sense of reality.
His abiding human fault, Abrahams had come to realize, was that he constantly clung to the saber of romanticism. This satisfied his ego and conscience, but it had provided him with a poor weapon in a progressive, mechanized age, a weapon shown to be inadequate for the protection of his wife, his children, his weakened heart. He had known from the start of the Eagles negotiations that he could not slay dragons with obsolete sabers and broadswords to rescue his family and save himself. This was a new world out here, and to get by the dragons you did not blindly slash at them-they were too big, too many, and you were too small, too ill-armed-instead, you reasoned with them, you compromised, you gave something so that they would give, too. What was it that wise old Edmund Burke had said? That all government, almost every human benefit and enjoyment, almost every virtue and prudent act, was founded on compromise and barter. As his own grandfather used to say, holding him on one bony knee, his grandfather licking his saliva and croaking, “Boychick, you bend sometimes so maybe you won’t break.” Or, Abrahams now thought, so you won’t break others with you when you fall.
He searched for his mottled briar pipe, filled it with tobacco from the rubbed pouch, and lit it. He had taken no more than one puff when the rented Ford blocked his vision and Sue was framed in the car window, her left hand hitting the horn.
He climbed inside, kissed her cheek, and the Ford jolted forward. He asked her what she had been doing and where they were going, and she began to tell him, but he hardly listened. If you must bend, he thought, how far do you bend?
As the car turned a corner, and he was forced against her, he realized that she had become silent and was trying to study him as she drove.
“What’s the matter, Nat?” she asked.
“Matter? What makes you think-?”
“You haven’t heard a word I’ve said. You’ve been a million miles away.”
He tried to smile. “Only a few blocks away, in the Hotel Congressional with Gorden Oliver, errand boy between Mephistopheles in Atlanta and Nat Faust right here.”
“So that’s the way it is,” said Sue. “Tell me. Don’t leave out a thing.”
She drove, and he talked. He told her what Oliver had wanted, and how he himself had reacted, as much as he could remember of it in a ten-minute monologue. When he was done, he turned his head. Her pretty face, still unlined except at the brow, was pointed straight ahead at the windshield, wifely grave.
“That’s it, Sue,” he said. “Beneath all the verbiage it comes to this, a command from on high-go in there and influence Doug Dilman, no matter what he believes, to approve the minorities bill. Persuade him, get him to sign it, and you’ve earned your salary from Emmich and big business.”
“Gorden Oliver didn’t tell you to do that in so many words.”
“He told me without the words.”
She continued watching the street before them. “Nat, maybe you’ve got your hackles up for no reason at all. You are simply assuming that whatever is good for Eagles Industries is bad for the country, for Dilman, for yourself, and you are against it. Can’t it be that what they want might also be what everyone else wants and needs?”
“We-ll-could be.”
“The odds are Doug Dilman likes most of the bill and will sign it. He hasn’t told you he won’t, has he?”
“No, he hasn’t.”
“I read the papers too, and from what I have read, almost the entire press and the political organizations and Congress seem to be behind this legislation.”
“That doesn’t make it right.”
Sue glanced at him. “That doesn’t make it wrong either, darling. I think you’re misplacing your hostility. You feel guilty about leaving your practice, abandoning your underdogs, making so much money in a short time. You feel ashamed, and so you’re taking it out on Eagles and Emmich and Oliver and anything they propose. Nat, you’re smarter than that. Study all that stuff in your pocket objectively, like you study a legal brief. Then decide how you feel. If MRP is a sensible compromise program, speak up for it. And there’s nothing wrong in telling Doug you’re for it, whether he’s President or not. He may welcome discussing it with you. If you don’t like it, shut up.”
She took her right hand from the steering wheel and covered her husband’s hand. “Nat, maybe it is good for the country. Don’t be like some angry kid who has to be against everything his elders are for, to show he’s a man. You are a man, the best and most wonderful one on earth. You are a man who can still serve himself and the public while protecting his own life and his children. Don Quixote wasn’t for real, darling, but you are. No more dragons, either. Freud scared them away. And all that is left are human problems to be solved by human beings like yourself in a mature way. I know you’ll handle this and the next three years that way.”
Her literary allusion, so exactly and uncannily reflective of his own on the street corner earlier, swept aside the last vestige of his anger. Wives, he thought, wonderful wives who grow your minds as you grow theirs, until you and they are one and the same till death do you part. He was amused by her and loved her, for herself and for the better part of him that she possessed, and he wanted to hug her and hold her close to him and enjoy her.
Instead, he leaned over and kissed the corner of her mouth. She seemed startled, and wary, and then pleased.
“Mmm,” she whispered, “nice, even if I did almost hit that truck.” Then she said, “What brought on that affection?”
He continued to smile at her. She would never know what had moved him. Nor did it matter. He could only say, “Because you make good speeches, and you are sensible, and you think I am a man, and I love you. I’ll always love you.”
He settled back, at ease at last, lighted his pipe again, and felt strong enough to bend a little, a little, if it would be necessary.
When Otto Beggs caught sight of the broken, unlighted neon sign jutting out from the Walk Inn a long block away, he automatically slowed down. For the second time in a week he had lied to Gertrude about his hours, to get away from home early, and for the second time in a week he was deliberately timing his arrival at the tavern because he knew that Ruby Thomas would be there, and suddenly he felt furtive and uneasy about what had previously come about so naturally-well, almost.
Except for those times in Korea, which did not count because he was in the Army and in danger and the tiny, submissive girls were foreigners, and except for four or five times on special assignment trips around the country, which did not count because he had been drinking in his off hours and the women were prostitutes, not women, Otto Beggs had never been unfaithful to his wife. He was prim and correct about living up to the responsibilities of a husband and a father, and about remembering the obligations of his position in the Secret Service, and especially the extra obligations thrust upon him as a Congressional Medal of Honor holder, and he would do nothing to sully his reputation. He looked down, with an attitude of superiority (and a tinge of envy), upon those of his colleagues who cheated on their wives, proud that there was as little likelihood that a scandal would find its way into his scrap-books as there was that Tom Swift would accept a bribe or that an astronaut would beat his wife.
Yet what had made Otto Beggs feel furtive this time, for the first time, was not the lie to Gertrude (he had already lied to her two days ago), not the fact that he had told Ruby Thomas he would be there (he had been there with her three times before), but that he had lain awake several hours last night enacting a fantasy relationship with her. Even worse, late this morning, and again after lunch, with Austin’s lousy real estate primers open on the desk, he had been unable to study a line because Ruby had sat on the pages before him, Ruby dressed (which was like any other woman undressed), Ruby naked (which was like any other woman undressed), Ruby naked (which was like no sight on earth, he imagined), Ruby opening her arms to him (which had excited him as much as if he were a schoolboy).
It was this sudden obsession with her, and the realization that she might not be averse to fulfilling his dreams, that gave today’s meeting a special significance, and gave him pause in his advance toward the Walk Inn, where she waited. For now this was no more, at least to him, a casual meeting between chance acquaintances. It was something strange to him: an assignation. It was the kind of surreptitious activity of which he disapproved as being indecent, almost un-American, and yet it moved him like a force powerful enough to overwhelm his puritan will and fear of danger. Much as his mind resisted it, his body had become a partner to this rendezvous with Ruby. For in a life of disillusionment, where he was being ignored on a job he loved, being degraded into studying for a new and anonymous and sedentary career he detested, being disapproved of by those closest to him, being made less and less a virile male of action, there was one radiant light of hope. Ruby. It was Ruby who admired his looks, his position, his dreams. Ruby, who was young, magnificent, passionate (he was sure). It did not surprise him that he could not resist her. What did astound him was that the one radiant light of hope in his life, in this gray time, should shine from one so black. For Ruby Thomas, twenty-four, was a Negro.
He had progressed halfway up the block, and the neon in front of the Walk Inn loomed larger and more distinctly against the silver-gray midafternoon sky. His reluctant stride shortened, for he wanted added time to think, to decide if he was plumb crazy or plain lucky, to determine whether the lie he had told Gertrude a second time in three days was worth the risk.
Almost two weeks ago-an afternoon such as this one, he remembered-he had pulled the battered Nash Rambler up before the Walk Inn before continuing to work, because he was out of cigarettes. Once inside the dim interior of the saloon, reviving his resentment against the shiftless colored boys who had appropriated his place at the pinball machines, he had gone to the horseshoe bar for his cigarettes. Then, realizing that he was thirsty, he had lifted himself up on a stool and asked Simon, the former pugilist now a bartender, for a root beer in a frosted stein.
As the soft drink had been placed before him, Ruby Thomas had set herself on the stool beside him. She had made him conscious of her presence by pointing at his root beer and telling Simon, “That sho’ looks yum-I’ll have some of the same, but git me a J an’ B on the rocks on the side.” Immediately, two facts had made themselves clear to Otto Beggs: one, that this was the prettiest Negro girl he had ever seen; two, that despite her reserve she must be interested in him, for most of the stools at the bar were unoccupied, and yet she had deliberately and boldly chosen to sit beside him.
At first he had tried to ignore her, for fear that she was a streetwalker. This concern was quickly dispelled by her appearance and manner. She was attired in a crisp white uniform-he would learn she was a dental assistant, only recently moved into the neighborhood-and there was a fresh, unused look about her and a self-contained air of minding her own business.
Against his will, without being too obvious, he had inspected her several times from head to toe. She sat erectly on the stool, one leg crossed over the other, exposing a knee and shapely calf. She was, his thumping heart told him, breathtaking. Not since he had enjoyed and suffered through a long-distance crush on the singer Lena Horne, way back when he was a sophomore at Oregon State University, had he known a colored girl to attract him so instantly and engage him so totally. This one had tousled gamin hair, silken, brunette, sort of French, and widely spaced, large almond eyes, a short cute nose, and pouting lower lip. He guessed that she was no more than five feet two, and he thought it therefore remarkable how firm and large her breasts were beneath the white uniform, and how broad her thighs were against the tightened skirt. And she was black, although it kept amazing him how her color enhanced rather than detracted from her prettiness.
She had not spoken, and he had not spoken, that first time, until he had emptied his stein and was sorting his change. Suddenly she had turned to him and said, “I’m guessin’ who you are-Lordy, I kin tell-y’all the famous Mr. Beggs, the Secret Service hero.” He had flushed with pleasure and pride, and mumbled that he was no hero at all but that yes, he was Otto Beggs and he was a Secret Service agent. He had wondered how she knew. She had told him that everyone in the neighborhood knew-Lordy, he was the big celebrity in the neighborhood-and that he had been pointed out to her last week. She had been apologetic about intruding upon his privacy-“I knows you must git mighty tired of bein’ a celebrity”-but she wanted to brag to the girls in the office that she had met him. He had asked her name, and she had told him, and had told him where she worked, and he had said that he hoped to see her around, and he had fled (alive and young as that young one) into the brightening street.
That had been the first time, and that had been last week. The second time had been a few days later, again on his way to work, and this time she had been sitting at the bar, and he had summoned up the nerve to sit beside her, making some kind of joke to which she had responded with delightful laughter. They had talked incessantly, for twenty minutes maybe, this second time, until she had to leave to return to her dentist and his drills.
For five successive days after that, he had come into the Walk Inn in search of Ruby Thomas, and she had not been there. At last, casually, he had inquired of Simon what had become of her, and Simon had explained that she had to take her coffee break earlier now, that she was usually in at three o’clock instead of three forty-five. And so two days ago, motivated by this intelligence, Otto Beggs had contrived his first small lie for Gertrude. His shift at the White House began at four o’clock, and he had been leaving for work as late as twenty-five or even twenty minutes to four. At lunch he had told Gertrude that his new shift began at three o’clock, an hour earlier, and he would be leaving around twenty minutes to three. Gertrude had thought nothing of it, except to worry that he would have an hour less to bone up for his real estate examinations. He had promised her that he would make up the lost reading time at night.
Thus two days ago, he had driven to the Walk Inn and found Ruby at the bar, as he had known that he would, and had sat beside her and enjoyed an entire half hour with her. By the end of this meeting, the best there had been yet, he had learned a good deal about Ruby Thomas. She had lived in Louisiana and Indiana, and was an only child. She had managed to have one year of high school before being forced to quit and help support her family. She had wanted to be educated, though, and had saved up for mail-order courses, and tried to take one a year. She had been a photographer’s model-“but when them white boys kept wantin’ me to pose in the way it ain’t fittin’ to be seen, in my altogether, I sorta got it in my cottonpickin’ haid they was wantin’ more than pitchers an’ I told them where to go”-and so she had quit. She had been quick to assure Beggs that she was no prude-“I got as much lovin’ naycher in my bones as any no’mal gals”-but she did not believe in mixing business with pleasure.
She had seen an advertisement in Ebony magazine, and enrolled in a mail-order course that would graduate her as a dental assistant. Her diploma, she had learned later, had not been enough to make her a qualified dental assistant, but only a sort of assistant to an assistant, as well as a receptionist, file clerk, telephone operator, and jane-of-all-trades. She had held three such jobs already, including the new one, and she liked working for dentists because they were on their feet so much during the day, they were too tired to chase her at night. She ate lunch in the office, in order to get this daily midafternoon break, which she found picked her up when she most needed it and left her refreshed for the evening. She had located a pleasant, inexpensive double apartment a block from the Walk Inn, a furnished apartment with a private entrance, which was important to her because she liked her own business to be her own. Her only extravagance was a recently acquired hi-fi phonograph-she would pay it off in eighteen months-and her avocation was collecting classical jazz records. Did Otto Beggs like Jelly Roll Morton? Beggs had never heard of Jelly Roll Morton, but he had told Ruby he had never heard anyone better.
Best of all, she had enjoyed listening to Beggs, enjoyed questioning him and listening to his lengthy answers, her wide almond eyes concentrating on his lips. She was curious about his life, his achievements, his work in the Secret Service. He had been able to talk to her more easily than he had talked to anyone in years. The latter years with Gertrude had dammed up his pride in himself, and now he was able to release what had been too long held back. He had told Ruby of his boyhood, of his athletic triumphs at Oregon State, of his war days in Korea, of his Medal of Honor, of his numerous jobs, of his years in the Secret Service. He had avoided telling her about his family. All he had recounted to Ruby Thomas, every minute detail, every anecdote, even to the contents of his beloved scrapbooks, impressed and awed her. “Dog my cats!” she would exclaim. “You really done that?” Above all, she held his work in high esteem. Where Gertrude considered a Secret Service agent as nothing more than an underpaid game warden, Ruby considered the role of guarding the President an honor next to the Presidency itself.
Only one truth marred their relationship, and it trailed doggedly after him, following their third meeting. She was black.
Otto Beggs had long taken pride in his tolerance. Sure, Negroes were different from white folk, they were lazier, less dependable, trickier, less smart, but hell, they weren’t to blame, because look what they came from; they came from Africa and from plantation slavery. He had not known any Negroes, except Solly, who ran interference for him on the football team in Oregon, and a few others in the Army, and he had liked them well enough. Of course, he didn’t like Prentiss too much, because Prentiss had got the job as assistant to the head of the White House Detail that had rightfully belonged to himself. Still, he could not hold that against Prentiss personally. It was not Prentiss’ doing. If anyone was to blame, it was Chief Gaynor. Beggs couldn’t prove it yet, but he was willing to bet money Gaynor intended to promote as many colored agents as he could, which was natural when you played politics. As to President Dilman, Beggs wasn’t definite about him. He didn’t like him in general, that was for certain. On the other hand, he could not say he disliked him entirely, either. What he did dislike was having to track around on the heels of a Negro. Beggs knew that he was smarter than Dilman, more courageous (as he had once proved), and had more personality, and yet, look what that lumpy politician was paid per annum and look what he was paid. And worst of all, for the lousy money he was getting, Beggs was pledged to lay his life on the line to protect that colored man. For one of Beggs’s stature, gifts, potential, it was demeaning. Imagine Dilman doing anything to deserve a Medal of Honor? Ha!
Without being able to define it, Beggs felt uncomfortable around Negro men, especially the ones in this cruddy neighborhood, which even his so-called friends, the Schearers, had now abandoned. About Negro women, however, his feelings were more lenient, although still confused. After all, he had loved Lena Horne in his youth, well, when he was younger. He had always liked to watch Negro women in the street from his bedroom window. The young ones carried themselves great. And their builds, they were built for heroic men. Sometimes, but not often, in his pre-Ruby days, he had entertained wild thoughts about Negro women and their secrets. But then he would always get mixed up in his thoughts, for sometimes he would think they were below him, not in the street below but socially beneath him, and not good enough for him, with their secrets, those builds from Africa, and only Negro men could manage them.
Several times he had recalled the night that he had escorted President Dilman to that brownstone where the Reverend Spinger lived, and the crazy thing that had happened before they left, that colored girl, an older one but a swell looker, who had come dashing out after Dilman. The President had called her Miss Gibson and acted like she was a secretary, which she probably was, taking notes on the conference with Spinger, which she probably had done, yet Beggs could not forget that when she had come out, she had been kind of informal, calling after the President, “Doug.” Beggs had never heard of a secretary calling her boss by his first name, especially a boss who was President of the United States. He had tried to picture Miss Gibson exactly in his mind, but could only remember that she had been kind of light-colored and slender, and not bad for her age. He had wondered if she was Spinger’s secretary and had just called Dilman by his first name because she had known him a long time, or if maybe she was Dilman’s lady friend and nothing else. The latter thought had been so disrespectful, so Communistic, especially for one in his job, that Beggs had driven it from his mind as best he could and had not dared repeat the juicy speculation even to Gertrude.
But it had come back to him, the thought, in a different context last night when he could not sleep, when he had enjoyed his daring dreams of Ruby. If Dilman, he had told himself, could manage to take care of a pretty fair-looking light-colored girl-lady-then he, Otto Beggs, could do ten times better with any one of them. This feeling of superiority had brought some order to his confusion, and reinforced his ardor for Ruby Thomas. He had not waited for lunch to tell his lie to Gertrude. He had done so the moment that he had sat down to breakfast.
Suddenly he realized that he was standing before the Walk Inn. No more last night’s dreams. No more last week’s accidental meetings. He was here, now and today, because he had planned it. He had even left the Nash for Gertrude, being gracious and considerate about it, announcing that he would take the bus (because he did not want the car parked so dangerously long in front of the nearby tavern). He had planned everything. His first assignation.
He went inside, past the clanging pinball machines, and headed straight for the horseshoe bar.
He stopped in his tracks. There were three men at the bar, two colored, one a white laborer, but there was no Ruby. His disappointment was as sharp as if he had received a physical blow. He had started toward the bartender, Simon, who was busily drying his glassware, when the flutter of a distant brown hand crossed his vision. He stood on tiptoe, elevating his bulk to its utmost height, and peered over the bartender’s bent head. The hand fluttered still, and then he could see it belonged to Ruby.
Quickly Beggs made his way between the bar and the wooden tables and chairs, to the farthest of the three leatherette booths hidden deep in the rear of the tavern. She was waiting for him in a corner of the dark booth, fingering the rim of her drained glass. What perplexed him was not that for the first time she was waiting in the intimacy of a booth, but that for the first time she was not in a white uniform.
As he clumsily slid into the booth, he could not help but gape at her across the table. Since he had never seen her out of the dental uniform, he had not imagined that any different garment could improve her good looks. This instant he could see that he had been wrong, that a new dimension had been added to her. She wore a ruffled pink chiffon blouse, one that almost indecently revealed the well-filled pink lace brassière beneath, and could not adequately contain her breasts. Her waist was tied tightly with a red flowered sash above her red skirt. She was ravishing.
She smiled timorously, showing him even white teeth and a deep dimple. “I was hopin’ y’all be comin’, Otter,” she said. The first time that his Otto had become her Otter, it had made him squirm, reminding him that he was white and she was not, but the intimacy of it had quickly appealed to him, as it did now. “ ’Cause,” she went on, “I didn’t wanna be made to feel foolish, ’cause I done come here ’specially today expectin’ you to come, like it was an occasion.”
“Ruby,” he said, “where’s your usual outfit, the uniform?”
“Doc done come down with the flu bug last night, and we been cancelin’ the customers. So today’s off for us-all, an’ I been fixin’ an’ messin’ ’round the apartment, and done some shoppin’ for records, but still thought to git me here case you come, too.”
His head swam, and last night’s fantasies began to grow real in the daylight. “That’s awfully nice of you, Ruby. I guess you knew I’d, well, I’d be hoping to run into you for a drink.”
“You were ackin’ like you was meanin’ it day ’fore yesterday.”
He opened his hands. “Here I am,” he said. “You been here long?”
“One drink’s worth.”
He felt expansive and rich. “Well, have another.”
“You gonna?”
“I’ve got to go on duty, but-what the hell-one beer never made anyone cockeyed.” He twisted, raised his arm and snapped his fingers. “Simon! One J and B on the rocks, and one tap beer. Bring some pretzels, too.”
She reached for her folded coat to find a cigarette, but he took one from his pack, handed it to her, and then put a match to it.
“I was thinkin’ ’bout you last night, Otter.”
“If it was something bad, don’t tell me.”
“I was thinkin’ how I hopes you don’t go sellin’ real estate land. Maybe I should hush my big mouff, but-”
“No, go ahead, Ruby, please.”
She set her elbows on the table, and stared at him. “I been thinkin’ you is too much man-Lordy, too much man-to be givin’ up bein’ a hero and protectin’ our Pres jes ’cause of extra money. Bein’ a richcrat ain’t no more impo’tant than what you is.”
“Well, I don’t know that I’m so important, Ruby-thank you, anyway-but I do think the job is certainly important. I’m beginning to feel the way you do about giving it up. But my pay’s sure not up to what I could make in real estate, and everybody can use extra money.”
“Bet if you eggs ’em ’bout leavin’, Pres Dilman would git you a raise but fast. Bet he wouldn’t wanna lose you.”
He wanted to tell her that Dilman probably did not know he was alive, but he did not want to run himself down in her eyes. “Maybe,” he agreed. “You think a lot of Dilman?”
She brushed the air with her long thin hand. “Aw, Otter, I don’t mess ’round much studyin’ politics or race stuff an’ nonsense like such. Like my mothah always used to be sayin’-‘Sweetheart, live an’ let ’em live, and don’t fuss ’round none with such p’ofessional matters.’ Sep, ’course, I wanna git an education an’ be smart so’s I kin live good an’ be right for the right man, but I don’t fuss my mind with Dilman this and Dilman that-I jes mostly wanna have me a good time, swing it ’round a little, ’joy my days.”
Beggs had tried to assess what she was saying, and wondered if it was meant to be provocative. Since he was not certain, he said pedantically, “You have a healthy attitude, Ruby.”
The drinks had come, and she drank hers and he drank his, and then she said, “ ’Course my not messin’ with politics don’t mean I’m not fascinated ’bout your impo’tant job. Otter, what you do day ’fore yesterday when you left here, an’ what you do yesterday?”
He was on, and liking it, and he went on and on, without interruption, except for a reverent “Sure enough?” or “Ain’t that somethin’!” from her occasionally. He narrated his activities of the day before yesterday, and of yesterday. He told her of his colleagues and their duties. He presented her with the highlights of the history of the Secret Service. He described the West Wing offices and the people and life in them, and he described what sections of the White House he himself had visited, with himself always in the foreground of these descriptions.
She listened raptly, and drank, and exclaimed or clucked her admiration.
His monologue took him a half hour, and when he was done, he was hoarse and happy. “Christ, Ruby, I’ve been bending your ear to death. You shouldn’t let me go on that way.”
“You-all a good teacher, Otter. I was lovin’ it.”
He finished what was left of his beer. “What about you, Ruby? What have you been up to today?”
“Like I told you, nothin’, ’cept sleepin’ too long this mornin’ to git me my naycher back full stren’th-nothin’, Otter-”
But then she went on about her hi-fi set, and the fun she’d had shopping for rare jazz records to add to her collection of classics. With enthusiasm she evoked names little known or unknown to him, mystical names like Bix Beiderbecke, Joe Oliver, Fats Waller, Muggsy Spanier, Bunk Johnson. She spoke of Storyville jazz and gut-gone bands and Bessie Smith’s “St. Louis Blues” and King Oliver’s Creole combine belting out “Froggie Moore.”
After ten minutes she stopped. “You diggin’ it, Otter? No, you ain’t, you not with it, you a orfan from the blues. You need educatin’, Otter.”
He swallowed. “I’m always open to improvement, Ruby.”
“Man, you gonna go limp when you hear what I bought me this mornin’-know what?-piano solo of Jelly Roll doin’ ‘The Pearls.’ You gotta hear that, an’ then you gotta come up to my place an’ hear Duke Ellington an’ his Wash’tonians doin’ ‘Rainy Nights’-listenin’, you ain’t ever gonna be exactly the same, Otter, you gonna be no more orfan, you gonna join up an’ belong like Ruby Thomas here.”
He had been holding his breath. Now he let it go with a wheeze. “Are you extending an invitation to me for a musical concert in your apartment, Ruby?”
Her almond eyes held on him a moment. Then she said softly, “You always been welcome, Otter. Fact is, my machine needs some adjustin’ an’ I ain’t got the money for it yet, but you always sayin’ you got mechanical ways-”
“I’m a wizard with a monkey wrench, Ruby. I’ve never tinkered with a hi-fi, but I bet I’ll have yours perfecto in two seconds and a jiffy. That’s a deal, if you say so. I’ll bring a bottle of J and B, and some tools, and you can give me my first jazz lesson.”
She pushed her glass aside. “You done got a deal. When you wanna come up?”
Before he could reply, a hollow, echoing voice intruded upon their conversation, coming from the left. He looked off. A well-dressed Negro customer had walked through the door, holding a transistor radio, and was making his way to the bar. The radio’s volume was on high, and an announcer’s voice boomed, “-gave his first press conference in the Cabinet Room of the White House today. President Dilman told fifty reporters very little that they did not already know. He sidestepped any direct commitment to the Minorities Rehabilitation Program, was evasive about reporting the results of his conversations with the visiting President of Baraza, and would make no comment on the New Succession Bill. However, the President did speak of reopening a summit conference with the Russians. He came under greatest fire, during the questioning period, over his appointment of the Reverend Paul Spinger, director of the Crispus Society, to investigate the electrifying kidnaping, down in Mississippi, of-”
As abruptly as the radio news program had assailed him, it now ended. Beggs could see that Simon had leaned across the bar to speak to the customer, who had then lowered the volume.
Turning back to Ruby, Beggs suddenly realized that he had lost all track of time. The radio program reporting on Dilman’s press conference reminded him that he was to report for duty, to guard Dilman, at four o’clock. He looked at his watch and was horrified that it was seven minutes to four.
“Ruby, what time do you have?”
“Five to four.”
“Christ, I’d better find a cab.” He pushed free of the booth and jumped to his feet. Fumbling for his wallet, he found it and laid down three dollars. “Sorry to run out on you like this, Ruby.”
She smiled. “Like I was sayin’, you is doin’ man’s work. But, Otter, you ain’t answered my lil question-when you fixin’ to come up an’ see me?”
The haste went out of him. Impulsively he reached down and touched her hand. “Soon as I can, Ruby. My first free day off. Tell you what, see you here same time, day after tomorrow, and we’ll set a-a rendezvous.”
“I’ll be waitin’, Otter dear.” She turned her palm upward, caught and caressed his fingers, then released them. “I wanna be with you.”
He winked at her, started away, turned once to wave back, and then hastened outside to hail a taxi. For the first time in the Secret Service, he would be late on the job. Yet he did not give a damn what Agajanian said or Gaynor said, or in fact what President Dilman might say. All that mattered was what Ruby Thomas had said: Otter dear, I wanna be with you.
Sighting the parked taxi down the block, he hummed to himself as he hurried toward it. The girl had said that she wanted to educate him. Great. Nothing suited him more. He had reached the time in his life where he wanted action, action and a little more learning. Whatever Dilman did with that colored broad of his, if he did, he could do better, if he dared.
“The White House, Pennsylvania entrance,” he ordered the cab driver. “Half a buck extra if you make all the lights.”
He was moving again, he was rolling, Jelly Rolling along, and everything was good, real good, once more.
Edna Foster and George Murdock ate an early and hasty dinner at the Chez François on Connecticut Avenue near H Street, and by five-thirty they had left the modest French restaurant and headed in the direction of Lafayette Square.
Edna had not enjoyed the rushed meal. She liked the comfort gained from leisure with George, their time for small talk and confidences, and she resented any deadlines imposed upon their dinners. Lately she had been more and more burdened by work, so that she often stayed on at night to clear her desk for the following day. Not that President Dilman was being more demanding than T. C. had been, for, in truth, he was almost diffident about summoning her for dictation or special assignments. No, it was not Dilman per se, but rather the atmosphere of conflict and tension that his presence in the Oval Office had created. Her desk, it sometimes seemed, had become a fort (her typewriter a machine gun), a surrounded outpost in an alien land, vainly trying to survive the cannonading and strafing of an overwhelming enemy.
More difficult than the upsetting atmosphere was the concrete problem that she was no longer a personal secretary to the President alone. Under T. C., she had worked for him and no one else. Under Dilman, a subtle change had occurred. She worked not for the Commander in Chief exclusively, but for his aides, his staff and allies as well. It was as if a half dozen of them did not trust Dilman to perform solo, and intruded themselves as a chorus (so there might be less likelihood of detecting a sour note). Edna found herself doing what Dilman wanted, little enough, and also what Talley, General Faber, Eaton, to think of only three, wanted done for Dilman.
Tonight would be one more night for her to reduce the overload of work. Besides, Dilman was having his last conferences with Kwame Amboko before and after his first State Dinner, and Flannery and the wire-service men and syndicated columnists (like George) would be standing by in the press lobby. She might be required to help Flannery and his girls if there were any press releases, which she did not mind as much, since indirectly she would be helping George.
But more than the haste of their dinner, what disturbed her right now, as they strolled hand and hand toward the square and the White House across from it, was George’s mood. Whatever his shortcomings-no one is perfect, her father always used to say, although it does not hurt to try-George Murdock was almost consistently cheerful and lighthearted. Rarely was he pensive. When he complained, and usually he did it in a joking way, it was not about the $150 a week he earned from Tri-State Syndicate, but about the fact that the twelve newspapers in his string were small, obscure, and so no one in Washington ever saw his stuff. As a consequence, he had no permanent slot in the Press Room off the West Wing entrance, and no standing among his colleagues or with the administration. This indignity, added to the chore of having to be his own photographer, sometimes became a matter of annoyance to him. Yet most of the time he enjoyed his work, what standing it did give him, and he lived economically in his bachelor’s quarters, his only extravagances being his numismatic collection, Indian-head coins his specialty, and his gifts to Edna.
From the time they had begun going together, she had wanted to help him succeed, because instinctively she knew that she might be helping to liberate herself from spinsterhood and improve her own condition of life. While she could have been of enormous value to him numerous times, by slipping out to him scoops or beats or whatever the reporters called exclusive stories, she had refrained from doing so. By her rigid standards it would have been unethical and unthinkable. George had always been a darling about this, and had never pressed her. Sometimes she had ached to let him in on a secret a few hours or days before it would become public, so that he could benefit by it and become famous. She had never done so. The main consideration was not that such an act might cost her the job she had once cherished, but that the respect in George’s eyes would have been lost to her. They had always discussed T. C., of course, but usually in relation to his public politics or known gossip or nonsense about her own work. However, since Dilman had come to office, there had been even fewer of these discussions, because her intuition had warned her that Dilman was more vulnerable to loose talk and more opposed by the press.
Yet, in her own way, Edna had tried to give assistance to George. She had made it known to T. C. that she was going steady, that her boy friend was a habitué of the West Wing lobby, so that T. C. would be more aware of George Murdock. And T. C. had been, for on several occasions George had been invited to intimate off-the-record briefings (reserved for the select handful of White House veterans) and paid-for administration trips that he would not have otherwise rated. Recently, whenever the opportunity presented itself, she had begun to mention George’s name to President Dilman, too. (“If you need me, Mr. President, I’ll be dining with my boy friend, George Murdock, of Tri-State Syndicate, at the Iron Gate Inn.”) She was never sure that Dilman heard her.
Even though George did not complain about his meager income, she was certain that it was his economic straits that inhibited him from discussing marriage. Except for the small amount he had been able to put into a few speculative stocks, she knew that he did not earn enough to save. Until he did, there was little chance of his proposing marriage. There was one hope on the far horizon, hinted at by George. He had an Uncle Victor in Hawaii, wealthy, retired, and now seventy-nine years old. George was a favorite of this uncle, and was undoubtedly written into the old man’s last will as the heir to a considerable sum. But the Waikiki sun appeared to have rejuvenated Uncle Victor. He had not been ill once since Edna had been going with George. Still, that was a hope, a possibility, something.
Sometimes Edna became desperate at the waiting. Once, on her own, she had planned to go to Tim Flannery, who was so nice, and ask him if he would take on George as a Press Department assistant. She had rehearsed her request, a beautiful and touching one. When the occasion had arisen, she could not make her speech. She had perceived that Flannery would have had to consult T. C., and whatever he might decide, it would put her in a bad light. Using her confidential position.
And so her directionless life with George had gone on with no merging of their separate paths into a single path in sight. Her father brought the situation up at least once every other month in his short, stilted letters from the farm outside Milwaukee, but she never tried to explain, beyond saying that George was still her good friend and implying that she was still behaving in a way that would not disgrace anyone back home.
In fact, most often, it was she, not George, who was disturbed by their seemingly pointless relationship. She had tried to tell him, without telling him, that she was the kind of girl who did not need much, who was not demanding. She had tried to tell him that the only riches in life to which she aspired were someone she cared for and a decent home where she could bear and raise wonderful children. Did he understand? He had never let on. How she wanted to tell him, if only he would bring it up, that she was ready to move into his confined apartment, ready to continue working while he worked, ready to skimp and save for their family and their future. This was her workable vision of tomorrow. She knew that it was not his. A man who wore lifts in his heels, she supposed, who was sensitive about his acne marks, she supposed, who wrote marvelously but was not read, she supposed, would be too proud for another second best.
Tonight-it was becoming dark, no longer day, not yet night-she could see from his mood, so unusually low-spirited, so ingrown and silent (he had not uttered a word in all their walk to this point), that until now it was his own good nature and ebullience that supported both of them. But not these minutes, not tonight. His depression was only too apparent. She wondered what had caused it. She was afraid to find out.
They had reached the square.
He released her hand. “One second, Edna. Late edition of the Citizen-American is out. I want to see how Zeke Miller let his paper handle your boss’s first press conference.”
She waited in the gloom while he went to the heavily sweatered newsboy. She enjoyed observing George when he was apart from her. His thinning blond hair was so neat, his pointed nose and receding chin made him appear so intellectual (which he was), and the tweed topcoat, even if it was not exactly the latest fashion, gave him the appearance of Fleet Street’s best.
He returned to her, the newspaper opened, his gray eyes darting across it from side to side, then up and down. He was, she remembered, a remarkable speed reader. He clucked his tongue.
“What is it, George?” she asked.
“Congressman Miller’s unloading his big guns,” he said. “Look at the headlines over Reb Blaser’s by-line lead story.”
He pushed the front page before her, sharing it with her, an intimacy she appreciated tonight. She had meant to glance at the front page only briefly, for this kind of news was the last thing on her mind. But the headline pulled her eyes toward it.
The banner headline read:
IS THE WHITE HOUSE REALLY BLACK?
The second headline read:
DILMAN BEGINS TO COLOR LOOK OF NEW ADMINISTRATION
The three columns of bold type over Reb Blaser’s by-line read:
PRESIDENT DEFIES ATTORNEY GENERAL REFUSES TO ACT AGAINST TERROR KIDNAPERS OF JUDGE GAGE APPOINTS NEGRO FRIEND SPINGER TO “INVESTIGATE”
Edna’s eyes took in the three paragraphs of Blaser’s lead. Blaser had it from a source “close to the President” that Attorney General Clay Kemmler had demanded Dilman “outlaw” the Negro Turnerite Group for being behind the Mississippi kidnaping and for being supported by Communist Party funds. Apparently the President had rejected advice based on “well-known facts,” and had taken the first step in reducing T. C.’s brilliant Cabinet into “Uncle Tom’s Cabinet.” Dilman had appointed the Reverend Paul Spinger, a Negro apologist, to sustain his stand with “fiction” about the colored abductors. Dilman’s Black Hand had shown itself today, and it was redecorating the nation’s first and proudest house in its own dark hue. Not only had the President demeaned his high office and violated the nation’s trust, by attempting to treat with a known subversive and criminal like Jefferson Hurley, but he was dealing “softly” with a fellow African, Kwame Amboko, and risking our peaceful coexistence with Russia; he was refusing to come out in full support of T. C.’s minorities bill that would enable Negroes to “earn their citizenship” instead of commit crimes for it, and he was “reluctant” to sign the New Succession Bill on his desk that would assure every American that its Executive Mansion would remain as President Washington had wanted it to be and as President John Adams had known it.
Edna’s eyes skipped down to the end of the story. She read: “Tonight President Dilman is presiding over his first formal State Dinner in the very room where President Adams’ prayer is carved beneath the mantel: ‘I pray Heaven to bestow the best of Blessings on this House and all that shall hereafter inhabit it. May none but honest and wise Men ever rule under this roof.’ Poor Adams! Tonight President Dilman will sit with his back to our country’s prayer, having for his first honor guest to our House an African who is tampering with our lives, enjoying for his first official entertainment the anti-American wit of several entertainers of his own race. As one well-known congressman remarked, ‘We on the Hill are worried that we have a black Andrew Johnson in the White House, one with no regard for other branches of government or for the wishes of the majority of all decent Americans. We have grave apprehensions about the future. If the remaining days of Dilman’s one-year-and-five-month term are like today, then, alas, America has been pushed into a time of trial and infamy that will come to be known as its own Dark Ages.’ ”
Edna Foster was surprised at her shivering indignation as she looked up from the newspaper. “How dare they! Did you read that? As ‘one well-known congressman remarked’-meaning who? Zeke Miller, that’s who!”
George Murdock withdrew the newspaper and carefully folded it. “I suppose it is Miller-after all, the paper is his plaything-but there are dozens more who are apt to say the same thing.”
Edna could not control the quaver in her protesting voice. “It’s terrible, terrible, George. I’ve read some bad things-the President insists on seeing everything-but this, his painting the White House black, creating an Uncle Tom’s Cabinet, it’s-it’s scurrilous libel. He ought to sue. George, I wish you wouldn’t buy that newspaper any more.”
He had taken Edna’s arm, and when the street was free of traffic, he guided her across it and into Lafayette Park. As they passed the Kosciusko statue, he said, “I disapprove of this as much as you do, Edna, you know that. But what the devil, I can’t say as I blame Reb Blaser. He does what he’s told. He’s got a job to do like the rest of us. I will say one thing, he’s a darn good writer.”
“Then why doesn’t he write for someone decent? I think there is simply no excuse-”
“Edna, be reasonable,” pleaded George Murdock. “We newspapermen try to be truthful and honest in our own way. Blaser has to give in a little, just the way I do. Do you think I like slanting my stories the way I have to, full of corn-shucked pap, because my employer and audiences are conservative hayseeds? Still, I have to. I’m sure you don’t like working overtime, like tonight. Yet you have to. Do you think Dilman likes reading newspapers like this one any more than I do? No, but he has to and I have to, so we both know what’s going on. The country’s full of many kinds of people, Edna, and we have to live with them.”
“Well, I don’t want to if I can help it,” Edna said. Her wrath had diminished as they reached the center of the park. George’s objectivity and good sense always calmed her, and Lafayette Park, too, always had the effect of soothing her. Even as she listened to George, she had been peering across the artificially lighted grass toward the tree trunks, looking for the brown squirrels, and sparrows and pigeons, that gave her so much pleasure. They reminded her of the farm in Wisconsin and her childhood when there had been so little conflict and so many rosy dreams. She saw two squirrels at last, one scampering up the rough bark-covered trunk of a tree, the other following, and she felt even better. “The poor President,” she said. “I can see him opening up the paper tomorrow morning or before lunch. I always try to avoid him then. I can’t stand the-the way his face looks-”
“How does it look?”
“How does it look? Sort of like the face of one of those Negroes they knock down in the South, after they pull back the dogs and close in around him and start kicking him-I remember the series of pictures of one on the ground being kicked, his first look of automatic shock, sort of, then pain but not letting them see it, then finally a look of resignation, keeping the hurt inside so as not to give them satisfaction. That’s the way the President looks when he reads the papers. He doesn’t show much. But I’d hate to see his X rays.”
George Murdock scratched one scarred cheek and then the other. “I guess I can only say I hope your boss is tough underneath, Edna. This vilification is just the start. Every President is a target. He asks for the job and he’s got to be prepared-”
“President Dilman did not ask for the job.”
“He did when he ran for the Senate, and he did when he accepted the gavel as President pro tempore of the Senate. Dilman is a bigger target than the others, because he’s black on white and can’t be missed. There he is. Everything he does will be judged not only for its wisdom but for what it means coming from a Negro. The facts of life, Edna. Every day is going to be worse for him.”
Her gaze went to George, and for once she was not calmed by his matter-of-factness. “You think it’ll be worse?”
“Unquestionably.”
She resolutely prepared herself to speak what had grown in her mind. “If it is, George, then, well-maybe he can take it, but I can’t. I’m going to quit.”
He was so startled that he stopped abruptly to study her, to gauge how serious she was. She knew that her upset expression convinced him. He took her arm. “Come here a minute,” he said. He led her to the last bench before Pennsylvania Avenue. After they sat down, he said, “Edna, I thought we settled your quitting that first day, when you took my advice and decided not to resign.”
“It’s never been completely settled in my mind, George. That first day I made up my mind to stay because you convinced me he needed help and because-you know-I felt so sorry for him. But I’m too close to what’s going on, and I can’t stand it. How can I explain it to you?”
She clasped her hands and looked down at the pavement. “I’ve had enough of the mental strain, George. The position is hard enough without that. I’ll be honest with you, I really will. I finally figured it out. It’s not that I suffer every day with him, get hurt because he’s hurt, the way I felt with T. C. No. I-I’m as liberal as anybody, but I can’t somehow identify with him in the same way. He’s so different from me. I know this is awful, but it is his color, I guess, his whole background, so different from anything I know. Yet I can understand him. So I’m outside him, but I have to be there. You know what-it is like a bullfight-having to go to a bullfight and watch. He’s the bull, practically helpless, no chance, and the men with the banderillas and the picadors with their lances are sticking him till he bleeds, goading and hurting him, until he’s weaker and weaker, and the matador comes out and finally drives the sword in behind his neck. If I have to be close up, watching, maybe I can’t feel like the bull, I can’t suffer that way, but I can hate what I see of all the torturing before he is finished and dragged away. I can be revolted and sickened by it. Well, George, that’s the way I feel, being in those offices with Dilman. I can’t stand it. I hate having to go in and see him tomorrow.”
George Murdock squeezed her hand. “Edna, he has only one year and four months left in office. Surely-”
“How many days is that? Four hundred, four hundred and eighty or more? That’s four hundred and eighty bullfights. No, George. He can find other help now. He’s settled into his office. And me, I can find a better job, without agony, typing for someone who doesn’t have to worry about anything more than sales volume or competitors undercutting him.”
“You couldn’t stand it after these years. You’d go stir-crazy. You’d wither.”
Edna Foster shuddered. The word wither made her think of spinsterhood. Maybe this was the time to test him on that, too. “Then I could do something more interesting. I didn’t tell you, but Hesper kind of subtly asked me if I’d like to move to Phoenix and help her and Miss Laurel with T. C.’s papers and documents, and her correspondence. She’s-”
“Edna, no, I can’t have you leaving me now.”
She met his eyes, which were genuinely anxious, and she felt a wave of relief. “George, that’s nice of you, but-”
“I mean it,” he said, almost desperately. “I’ve got no right to ask you to do anything for me. I realize that. But you know, I haven’t been able to-to sort of talk to you more seriously-about the future-because I’ve been trying to get myself set, better established.”
There could be a moment of truth, she knew, far from any bullfight. “George,” she said firmly, “as far as I’m concerned, you are well enough established. I mean, from my point of view.” She had never been more eloquent about her longings for their future, and she awaited his reply with trepidation.
He sighed. “Maybe,” he said. “I suppose I always set my sights too high. You know how I feel about you. Nothing is too good for you. Maybe I’ve wanted too much. Tonight, if things were the way they were yesterday, I-I might say more than I have up to now. But tonight I can’t, Edna. I got a one-two punch today, both on the button, and I’m shook up, I’m badly shook up.”
She turned fully toward him. She had known something was wrong. Why had she not penetrated his moodiness from the outset? “I suspected you were worried,” she said. “Tell me, George. Maybe I can help.”
“First off, I had a cable from Honolulu this morning. Uncle Victor, the senile bastard, he went and got himself married. Can you beat that? After twenty years a widower? Some island social dame nailed him. And him seventy-nine. I didn’t think the old bastard was that feebleminded. Well, that blew it-good-bye, nephew George. I bet they’re collaborating right now on the new will.”
“George, my God, you were depending on that pie in the sky? I never gave it a second thought.”
“Well, I don’t know if I counted on it or not. But somehow it was always there to think about. So that’s out.” He hesitated. “That’s not the important thing, though. Something worse happened in the mail.”
“What?”
He ran his fingertips across his pocked cheek. “Edna, I lost three newspapers today. They-they dropped me. Far as I can figure out, I’m not ‘in’ enough. They switched to the big wire services instead of keeping their own correspondent. They figure the big ones, exclusive or not, are closer to the inside.”
She felt weak, helpless, and faintly guilty because he was not inside. “You still have nine papers.”
“For the time,” he said, “and for now, less income.”
“I don’t understand, George. I know you’ll make less, but-”
George Murdock’s nails dug at the bench between his knees. “The whole tone of Weidner’s letter,” he said. “There’s a point of no return with Tri-State. If I lose another paper, I’m through. They’ll buy some other columnist. In fact, if they can’t sell my column to more outlets, I may be through anyway. I didn’t even have to read between the lines. He wrote, ‘If you don’t pep up that daily column, don’t come up with something hot, in place of those warmed-over handouts, we’ll have to reappraise the whole situation. I can’t understand why you’re not doing better.’ Then he said something dirty.” George Murdock glanced at Edna worriedly. “I don’t know if I should tell you.”
“Tell me, go ahead, tell me everything.”
“He wrote, ‘I can’t understand why you’re not doing better. After all, you are going steady with the personal secretary to two Presidents. Who has a better pipeline into the White House, especially today?’ Goddammit. Can you imagine?”
She felt sick. “Oh, George, how could he!”
“He did… I tell you, I’ve got a good mind to quit. Here you were talking about quitting, when that’s all I have on my mind. The effrontery of the bastard, thinking for one minute I’d risk the respect of the only decent woman I’ve ever known, for personal advancement.”
She wanted to hug him for his perception and gallantry. What held her back was a heavy anchor of failure, tied to a rope of guilt. “Maybe I have let you down, George-”
“Stop it, Edna. You’re not involved.”
“I mean, you’ve always been so wonderful, knowing my responsibilities, what my position entails, never even being curious. So maybe I am a little to blame, George. Maybe I’ve been leaning over backward to your detriment.”
“Forget it. I don’t want to even discuss it.”
“You’re so kind, George. There are story leaks, let’s face it. Every day it happens. That Blaser story we were just reading. Kemmler and the President did have a disagreement today about the kidnaping. But it was secret. How did Blaser find out? Someone must have leaked it to him.”
“You bet your life. Somebody over at Justice. Maybe even Kemmler himself. They want to look good, get on the record. All the big press correspondents have inside contacts whom they use, and who use them.”
“Except you, because of me!” cried Edna. The resolve came to her, and she gave voice to it “I won’t have you penalized any more, simply because you happen to be seeing me. I’m going to keep my eyes and ears open, and if there is something that-that doesn’t endanger security-that I know someone else will let out before-hand anyway-I’ll tell you first. I promise, George.”
“I told you-forget it,” he said gruffly. “Tri-State isn’t the only syndicate. I’ll look around. We’ll make it yet.” He stood up. “Come on, we’d better check in.”
She came to her feet slowly. “George,” she said, “I think I want to keep my seat at the bullfight.”
“Not for me,” he said. “Don’t do it for me.”
“For us,” she said. “I want to do it for us.”
His thin lips curled upward, and he pulled her arm through the crook of his elbow and propelled her toward Pennsylvania Avenue. “That’s different,” he said. “That makes me very happy. We’ll make out somehow, together.”
They crossed Pennsylvania Avenue in silence, and entered through the open driveway gate leading to the White House, both automatically flashing their passes and greeting the police guards, now doubled in number for this evening’s State Dinner.
As they walked in step to the West Wing lobby, they heard someone hurrying behind them. Edna glanced over her shoulder and grimaced. Reb Blaser, skipping on stubby legs, was alongside them, a grin on his frog face.
“Hiya, Edna-Georgie, old boy,” he drawled. “How are the love doves?” He did not wait for an answer, but gestured toward the front entrance of the White House, ablaze with light. “Looks like a big night, eh?”
“To paint the White House black,” said Edna indignantly.
“Aw, come now, Edna girl,” Blaser said, still grinning. “I got me a job to do, that’s all. Matter of fact, might be some truth to what I wrote, even though I admit to applying a trifle too much tar and feather. But that’s Zeke for you. Don’t blame you none for being loyal to your employer, though.”
Before Edna could speak again, George Murdock said hastily, “It was a little too rough, Reb, like you said, but that was quite a thing about Kemmler and Dilman disagreeing. Where’d you get it?”
One of Blaser’s warted eyelids winked. “Connections, George. Comes of being slavey for a big-time Congressman.” They had reached the door to the West Wing, and all three halted. “Incidentally, George, my Congressman brought up your name to me day before yesterday. Meant to tell you, but been too plumb beat out to remember.”
“Zeke Miller mentioned me?” asked George Murdock cautiously.
“Nobody else but you. Seems one of our stringers sent him a clip of the piece you did on Miller’s speech on farm subsidies. He liked it, liked it powerfully. ‘That’s a smart young man, that Murdock,’ he said to me. ‘Sharp nose for news. Let’s keep on eye on him.’ ”
“That’s nice of Miller,” said George Murdock.
“Oh, he’s not half as bad as everyone makes him out,” said Reb Blaser. “Hell, he’s a successful business tycoon from the South, and he knows what side his bread is buttered on. Yes, he’s right impressed with you, George.”
Edna turned her glare from Blaser’s nauseating face to George, and she disliked the way George was swallowing this syrupy flattery whole and enjoying it.
She said briskly, ignoring Blaser, “Good night, George. Don’t work too hard. See you tomorrow.”
“Yes-good night, Edna. I’ll call you.”
She started into the lobby, but at the door, turning sideways to let a correspondent slip past her, she had one more glimpse of George and Reb Blaser. The frog was still croaking, and George was still listening, eager, deferential, pleased. For an instant she wished that George wouldn’t stand there, that he would be more than that, but then she knew that she was being unfair. It had been a bad, bad day for George, and now for her also.
She would have to do something for him. But what?
Unhappily, she went inside to resume her seat at the bullfight.
The one emotion that Douglass Dilman suffered, as he stared at the dessert being placed before him, was deep mortification.
He had suspected what was happening earlier in the evening, when he and Kwame Amboko had stood against the wall of the East Room, he uncomfortable in his new white tie and long-used unstylish dinner suit, Amboko at ease in his blue-and-white-striped silk peaked hat and matching cape draped over his dress suit, the two of them receiving the splendidly garmented guests. Dilman had suspected something was wrong, because it had gone so quickly. He had meant to draw Sally Watson aside and put it bluntly to her, but she had been busy, her fashionably coiffured blond hair and bare shoulders and shimmering white satin evening gown everywhere, and he had been unable to catch her eye.
Only when Dilman had arrived in the enormous white-and-gilt State Dining Room, and had taken his place in the gold-covered Queen Anne chair at the head of the immense horseshoe table, with Kwame Amboko to one side of him and Amboko’s older sister at the other side, and the guests had seated themselves at the main table, and at the four smaller tables near the Red Room, had his earlier suspicion been fully confirmed.
Once the guests had been seated, in the interval before the waiters swarmed through the room from the pantry hidden behind the Chinese screen, Dilman was able to see the truth. Of the 104 invitations sent out, Sally Watson had advised him this morning that ninety-six had been accepted. The seating plan, which Illingsworth had shown him before he had dressed, had provided for fifty-six guests at the three sections of the main horseshoe table, and forty more guests at the four smaller tables. Ninety-six guests in all. And when these were seated, Dilman was reminded-he had almost forgotten in the excitement-that he was not Washington’s social Commander in Chief, but T. C.’s humble orderly.
Humiliation had filled every pore of his being: naked shame before his honored guest and the latter’s entourage from Africa, before his official family, before the White House waiters. He had been witness to a similar scene twice in his life, as an onlooker, when he had viewed the old motion picture, Stella Dallas, on television, and when he had attended a screening of the silent film, The Gold Rush, with pathetic Charlie Chaplin. Both times he had been moved, for, as a Negro, he had understood. Now he was witness to it a third time, not witness but participant and the solitary object of this shattering ostracism.
Every second gold-covered chair at the horseshoe table, it seemed, was empty. The four smaller tables mocked him with their gaping vacancies. Ninety-six important guests had accepted the invitations to his first State Dinner. No more than fifty had appeared. To all intents and purposes, President of the United States or not, he was still segregated, and the house he lived in was segregated too.
From that moment on, the formal evening had been for him an embarrassment to be tolerated and a disaster to be survived. He could not now remember one dish he had eaten, or the sense of anything that Amboko had spoken about or what he had replied to Amboko.
Dipping his spoon into his dessert, an ice-cream mold of a miniature White House, he raised his head, one of the few times he had done so during the dinner, and quickly his eyes roved over the room. He had to be positive that he had not been oversensitive and mistaken, to be sure that the seats had not been filled in the interim. But there they were. Nothing had changed. More than forty were empty still.
His gaze crossed Nat Abrahams, then darted back and fastened upon his friend. Nat, adjusting his bow tie, lifted his fingers slightly toward him in a private communication of understanding and assurance. Dilman’s furtive gaze moved to Rose and Paul Spinger, and the empty seat next to them. That was disappointing too, but in a different way. Wanda had made her terms clear. She would come to the White House, not as his employee, not in the guise of some one else’s guest, but only as his own guest.
The Spingers, he remembered, had been the very last to arrive, Rose plainly distressed, her husband harried. The receiving line had already broken, and Dilman had begun to engage Amboko in diplomatic conversation once more, when he had seen the Spingers and excused himself to intercept them.
He had addressed Rose, searching past her. “Welcome, Rose. Where’s Wanda?”
“She refused, Doug. I scolded her, but-” Rose Spinger had shrugged. “She said you’d understand.”
The Reverend Spinger had joined them. Dilman had inspected the clergyman’s face, appraising it to see if he bore encouraging tidings, and at once he saw there was nothing to give him optimism.
“I received your message earlier, Paul,” Dilman had said. “You were still waiting for Hurley to return your call. I thought you’d be on your way to him by now. What happened?”
“I’d be on my way if there was some place to go,” Spinger had said unhappily. “I just hung up on Frank Valetti in Little Rock. It took a lot of-of wheedling and prying to find out he was there-and a half-dozen calls to get him to phone back.” Spinger had glanced around, to be certain that no one else was within hearing, and then he had gone on in an undertone. “I made it clear to Valetti that I was personally representing you, but he already knew that from radio and television reports. I told him I had to see Jefferson Hurley. I told him I would fly out and see Hurley anywhere, under any conditions. No use. Valetti insisted that Hurley was away on a trip, out of touch, and he did not expect to hear from him for at least two or three days.”
“What about Valetti himself?” Dilman had demanded. “Did you say you’d see him?”
“Yes-yes-I certainly did, Mr. President. I told him that since he was second-in-command of the Turnerite Group, perhaps he would do as well as Hurley. I told him I could be in Little Rock tonight to confer with him.” Spinger had paused, and shaken his head. “He was evasive and-and I’d say distrustful. He kept saying that no meeting with him would prove helpful. He kept saying only Hurley could speak for them, and Hurley was not available. I persisted that there were some questions that he could answer. He said flatly no, that he was in seclusion, that he didn’t want to be hounded and harassed by the press and Federal investigators, who’d only persecute him without good cause, and that my coming was sure to put everyone on his trail. Besides, he said, he was on the move, leaving the city. Well, I could see it was hopeless-”
Dilman, conscious of the time he was spending away from his honor guest, had quickly interjected, “Paul, did you get anything out of him?”
“There was nothing left to do but pose your inquiries to Valetti on the telephone. I told him you were deeply disturbed by the Hattiesburg kidnaping. I said that both you and the Attorney General wanted to be assured that the Turnerites had no part in that heinous crime, and that if they had not, it would do much for their cause if Hurley came forth and condemned such acts of violence. I reminded him that the Justice Department was investigating the Turnerites as well as other similar associations for possible Communist affiliations, and that they could forestall and thwart any repressive government action by voluntarily coming forward, opening their membership records and financial ledgers for the Justice Department. I implored him to cooperate. I begged him to get Jefferson Hurley to cooperate. I asked him if he would-” Spinger halted, swallowed, blinked down at his shoes.
“What did he say to that, Paul?”
“One word, Mr. President. A crude four-letter word. I am unable to repeat it. Then-then he hung up.”
Dilman had scowled. “That’s it?”
“That’s all of it, Mr. President. I’m afraid I failed you, but that’s the most I could do. They’re a mean, secretive bunch. One thing. Somewhere in our talk, toward the end, I did leave the door open. I told Valetti that he or Hurley could call me at any time, any hour, and reverse the charges, if they had a message for you.”
“They won’t call,” Dilman had said. “What do you make of it now? Do you think the Turnerites played any part in the abduction?”
“We don’t know a thing more than we knew this morning. Maybe yes, maybe no. As long as there is reasonable doubt, I don’t see how you can ban them.”
“I don’t either… Well, Tim Flannery is down in his office, waiting to put out some kind of statement. When you get a chance, slip out and call him on the Entrance Hall phone. Tell him what you reported to me, in substance, and tell him that I suggest a non-committal statement over my name. Something like-you have made contact with a high Turnerite official, conversations are proceeding-the Group admits no complicity in the Hattiesburg affair-mean while, the Federal Bureau of Investigation is being reinforced with additional manpower for its pursuit of the criminals. Have you got that, Paul?”
“Yes, Mr. President.”
“Now I’d better return to Amboko. He’s being about as cooperative as Valetti. What an evening.”
He had remembered all of this earlier failure as he studied the Spingers across the State Dining Room. Absently, he finished his dessert. From his close friends his gaze went to the dazzling gilded chandelier with its flame-shaped electric bulbs, then down to the gay flower-filled centerpieces on the table, and at last to the empty Wedgwood plate on the white damask linen cloth in front of him.
He hoped that his face did not reflect his shame at the massive rebuke of the empty seats. He was still that kinky-haired, thick featured relative of the orangutan, one of Zeke Miller’s Nigras, barely a second-class citizen. He could not help but be conscious of the oil portrait above the white marble mantelpiece directly behind him. Healy’s Abraham Lincoln. Would anyone but himself, Kwame Amboko for instance, appreciate the irony of it?
He glanced at his guest and realized that Amboko had been squinting at him thoughtfully through his rimless spectacles.
“A marvelous meal,” Amboko said with his always startling Harvard accent. “I regret it is finished.”
“You must come back soon for another,” Dilman said. Then he added wryly, “I’ll invite you, if I’m still here.” Down the table he saw a napkin fluttering. It was Chief of Protocol Illingsworth, pretending to wipe his mouth but actually signaling to him that the dinner was ended and that there was one more formality before the champagne and entertainment.
One more formality-and then he remembered it. Quickly Dilman pushed back his chair and came to his feet. Immediately the clatter of ice-cream spoons and the hum of conversations ceased. All eyes in the half-filled room were upon him.
Dilman reached for his hollow-stemmed champagne glass, and his unsteady hand held it before him. “Ladies and gentlemen, I offer a toast,” he announced, “a toast from the people of the United States to the health and prosperity of the President of Baraza, Kwame Amboko, and the people of his free republic.”
Throughout the room, glasses tinkled and sparkled as the assemblage rose and joined in the official toast.
Awkwardly Dilman sat again, spilling some of his champagne on the tablecloth. He could see that Amboko was already standing, proffering his champagne, and piping out in his cultivated voice, “To the President of the United States of America, to the republic for which he stands, I reciprocate with our wishes for your health and prosperity and”-he half turned, lifting his glass toward the portrait of Lincoln-“to paraphrase the blessing and hope of your Emancipator, may our nations, under God, enjoy a new birth of freedom, so that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall never perish from the earth.”
Dilman drank, with everyone, and the champagne was curiously stale. He tried to fathom his honor guest’s toast. Had Amboko shrewdly tried to remind the whites in the room that not only must his own primitive land continue to know freedom, with America’s help, but vast America needed to begin re-evaluating its own attitudes toward freedom? Or had he been merely paying lip service to the greatest President and his most familiar quotation in the usual Fourth of July manner?
The toasts were continuing, from Secretary of State Eaton, from Secretary of Defense Steinbrenner, and were being answered in turn by Baraza’s Foreign Minister and Baraza’s Ambassador Wamba, and automatically Dilman responded to each and sipped the flat champagne.
Suddenly the ordeal was ended. He rose with Amboko, and both watched the dinner guests rising, the women in their formal gowns being led by their escorts or military attachés to the Red Room and Blue Room and Green Room for more champagne.
Again Dilman found Amboko squinting at him. He felt tired of formality and protocol. “Well, President Amboko,” he said, “I guess the rules say we’re supposed to have a few minutes alone upstairs to settle our problems. We’re supposed to make some kind of joint statement tonight or tomorrow. Ready to climb the stairs again?”
“Not necessary,” said Amboko. “I have made up my mind. I can say what I have to say right here.”
Dilman hesitated. “Very well.” There was something about Amboko’s expression, a warmth, a comprehension, that he had not seen before. For the first time, as they stood there-the two of them, isolated from the departing guests-they were not African and American, but two black men struggling in the power world of whites.
“I tried to hint it in my toast,” Amboko said. “I will be less cryptic now.” He paused to form correctly the words he wished to speak, and then he spoke. “I will take the risk. I will compromise. I shall return to Baraza and rescind all pending plans to repress our Communist Party. I shall not oust the Soviet Embassy or forbid the cultural exchanges with Moscow. In short, we shall attempt to maintain an open but watchful society such as you have here. You have shown good will in ratifying the African Unity Pact, and we shall display good faith by giving you what you need for bargaining with Soviet Russia when you meet with them.”
Dilman was overwhelmed by a sudden surge of affection for this scholarly young man. “I can’t tell you what good news this is, President Amboko. I can’t tell you how gratified I am.”
“If I may suggest one tactic, Mr. President. Let us make no mention of my concession in our formal announcement, only say that our talks were valuable to both of us and the agreements we reached will be jointly given out in the near future. This will afford me the opportunity to put my house in order back home. It will also equip you with something unexpected when you sit across from Premier Kasatkin to barter. Agreed?”
“Agreed,” said Dilman. He was still bewildered by the African leader’s change of heart. He wondered what had moved Amboko to make the concession that he had so recently opposed.
Amboko’s eyes had narrowed behind his spectacles. He said, “Perhaps, Mr. President, you are curious at my reversal of position. I can see you are perplexed that-”
“I am curious,” said Dilman quickly. “Of course, I am pleased. Your cooperation means so much. But I was wondering-”
“I will tell you,” said Amboko. “I will address you frankly, as I hope we will always address one another in the days to come. Until tonight I was reluctant to trust you wholly. Until tonight I thought you were the puppet of your Master Race in this country. Forgive me, but this I thought. Then tonight I saw the truth. I observed you look around this room, and I looked around it too, and the truth was clear.”
Dilman’s shame rose in his throat. “The chairs, you mean, the empty chairs?”
“Yes, my friend. I realized that you were not one of them, because they would not let you be. I saw you were on your own, because of your color. I saw you for the first time as a black like myself. I knew then that our problems were one. The freedom problem. You must win your freedom here as we must maintain our own in Africa. You must convince yourself that democracy in America is real as I must convince myself it is possible in Baraza. The guests who did not come tonight, the hurt they visited upon you, the illumination of your battle that they gave me, those absent guests were the ones who swayed me. I knew that you would always understand me and my people and our aspirations because, in a larger sense, they are your own. I can now trust you. I can now return to my homeland and take the risk of letting my people be freer, because I know you will never let us down. I am prepared to help you, because I believe you will always stand ready to help me. Not because we are both black, finally, but because we have both known bondage and we have the common human desire not to suffer it again.” He smiled beneath his broad expanse of nostrils and said in a kindly tone, “I thank the empty chairs, no matter how they may grieve you, for bringing us to friendship at last.”
Amboko extended his ebony hand, brightened by its large sapphire ring, and Dilman warmly gripped it in his own. He wanted to express his gratefulness further, but he was too choked with emotion to do so. At last he said, “Come, President Amboko, we can tell our visitors we are ready for some well-earned relaxation.”
Comforted by their agreement, the two men crossed the State Dining Room and entered the crowded Red Room. Dilman could see Grover Illingsworth’s towering, impeccable, waxen person rising above the crowded champagne drinkers. He beckoned to his Chief of Protocol.
“Mr. Illingsworth,” said Dilman, “why don’t you get President Amboko and his party settled for our little gala? In fact, you might start shooing everyone into the East Room.” Dilman turned to Amboko. “I won’t be a minute. I must find my Secretary of State, inform him of what we’ve agreed upon, so that he can have a joint press statement drafted at once. A copy will be at Blair House for your approval later tonight.”
Satisfied, Amboko gathered his entourage and followed Illingsworth out of the Red Room. As others began to move toward the door, and the crowd thinned, Dilman looked around the room for Arthur Eaton. He saw him finally, in a corner, deep in conversation with Sally Watson. For a moment he recollected Sue Abrahams’ gossip about the pair, and how he had dismissed it because Eaton was too circumspect and too old for Senator Watson’s child. But now, seeing them so close, he had second thoughts. They seemed right together: Eaton, despite the striking gray at his temples and through his hair, so much like a youthful aristocrat, bronzed, perfect in his faultless white tie and dinner jacket, and Sally Watson, despite her smooth, innocent countenance, so much like a mature lady with her beautiful carriage, and her bare shoulders set off by her costly white evening gown. They appeared scientifically matched. Dilman wondered where Eaton’s wife was this night, and if still in Florida, why she had not returned for this occasion.
He hesitated to separate them, yet knew that he must. Before he could move to do so, Eaton’s head turned toward Dilman, and Dilman was able to summon him. Eaton whispered something to his partner and came to Dilman at once, an inquiry on his features.
Dilman led his Secretary of State to the red silk Empire sofa against the wall, where they could have relative privacy. “I’ve finished with Amboko,” Dilman said. “He’s agreed to everything-everything.”
Eaton’s long diplomat’s face, used to shrouding reaction, this time could not conceal his surprise. “Really? Splendid, Mr. President. How did you accomplish it?”
Dilman would never let one like Eaton know the truth. He said, “Oh, we’d talked so much, and then suddenly, a few minutes ago, he threw in the towel. He said that he would put his entire trust in us, to protect him against his native Communists and Soviet meddling.”
“And we shall,” said Eaton. “I’ll speak to Monty Scott tomorrow. I’ll see that he has his best Central Intelligence agents over there. Were there any reservations?”
“Not one,” said Dilman. Then he snapped his fingers as he had an afterthought. “Except this. He wants our news release to be optimistic but ambiguous. He doesn’t want his concession made public until he’s had time to return home and secure his position there. Also, he thinks we should be silent about his concession so we can spring it on the Russians as a bargaining point.”
“Of course, of course,” agreed Eaton with a trace of impatience. “I suggested from the start that if we won this agreement from Baraza, we withhold it until we sit down with Premier Kasatkin. When Kasatkin begins to rave and rant about our ratification of the African Unity Pact, we hand him this concession to prove our good will. Will you sign the AUP?”
“Tonight.”
“Excellent, Mr. President. I’ll reopen negotiations for resumption of the Roemer Conference at once. The Russians seem to be agreeable to holding the talks in France, in Chantilly. Are you?”
“Perfectly.”
“Consider it done.”
“One thing, Mr. Secretary.” Dilman was conscious of his continuing formality with Arthur Eaton. Try as he would, he simply could not call this formidable person Arthur. “Edna Foster and Tim Flannery are standing by downstairs. Could you slip away for a few minutes and notify them? I promised Amboko a rough draft of our joint press statement at Blair House tonight. If he has any amendments, we can incorporate them in the morning. You can tell Flannery to let the press gang know they can go home and get some sleep. We’ll have nothing for them until nine in the morning.”
“I’ll do that at once, Mr. President. I’ll go upstairs and call Edna and Tim immediately.” He did not leave. He said, “I think we can agree, then, your first State Dinner has been a success.”
“In some respects,” said Dilman. He decided to say no more. “I’d better get to the East Room. They may be waiting for me.”
“I shall not be long,” said Eaton.
He left the room without a glance at Sally Watson.
Sally Watson had remained stationary in the corner of the Red Room, watching Arthur Eaton go into the Main Hall. He was moving purposefully, with concentration, and so she guessed that he was not yet on his way to the entertainment in the East Room. Restlessly she stayed on, waiting for the room to be emptied of all but herself. The moment that she saw President Dilman take his leave she gathered her long skirt a few inches from the floor for greater mobility. Just as Dilman disappeared into the Green Room, she hastened into the Main Hall.
She had the briefest glimpse of Arthur Eaton, beyond the central pillars, as he turned off to the wide staircase that led to the private apartments on the second floor. Except for the chief usher, the Secret Service agent Beggs, and a White House policeman, there was no one to observe her as she hurried along the red carpet of the arcade to the stairs. There she found two more Secret Service agents, who greeted her admiringly. For their eyes she made her ascent with more reserve and dignity.
The State Dinner had been a thrill for her, because of its success and despite its failure, although the failure part made her feel insecure about her position as social secretary. From the instant, however, that Arthur Eaton had sought her out in the Red Room, all thoughts of the dinner had vanished from her mind. Arthur-now really her Arthur, her darling, since she had visited him twice alone in his Georgetown house, and had had the one midnight drive with him to that tiny bar near the Normandy Farms, off the River Road in Potomac-had dominated all her waking hours. Arthur had been beautiful tonight, and in their minutes together, considering the important guests around, he had been almost daring. She suspected, from his lack of inhibition, that he had been drinking more than he ordinarily drank. She had not minded, indeed, loved it, because it had made him more open and romantic.
She remembered: he had teased her about their evening last week in his house that nestled behind the trees on Dumbarton Avenue. After dinner, after the maid and cook had retired, he had poured the brandies, while she had studied the antique-filled gracious Tudor living room with its two fireplaces. She had felt drunk with excitement that night, reckless, and following the brandy she had blurted out, “Arthur, I don’t want to embarrass you, but where is your wife?”
“In Florida,” he had replied calmly.
“No-no-” Her hand had drawn an arc around the room. “I don’t see a single framed photograph of your wife. Isn’t that peculiar?”
He had remained unruffled, smiling. “Not at all, my dear. You see, I put them away in drawers before you came the first time. They’re still in the drawers.”
“Oh.” She had speculated upon that act. “What if she came home suddenly?”
Still unperturbed, he had said, “I doubt that she will be here for many months.”
Sally had then wondered if they were quietly being divorced, and prayed for it, but had not bothered him with it, for she wanted no definite answers so early, not until she was indispensable to him. “I see. Well, it is cozier this way. I wouldn’t want her glaring at me. You were thoughtful, Arthur. You think of everything.”
He had come to sit on the sofa beside her. “I don’t want you distracted when you are with me. These evenings mean too much.”
She had held out her arms, and he had gone into them, embracing her passionately, kissing her eyelids and forehead and ears and lips. And then the special telephone from the Pentagon had come between them. That had been that.
The next time together, he had kissed her again, caressed her, in his car in the parking lot outside the café in Potomac, and had briefly resumed after driving her to her home, but he had done no more.
She had desired him, and was ready to satisfy his desire when he made the demand. He had not yet demanded her, at least not until tonight in the Red Room, when he had been somewhat drunk and was dazzled by her low-cut white gown. After she had teased him about that time in his living room, the hiding of Kay’s photographs, he had become serious and so had she. He missed her every day, he had whispered. He wanted to see her more, be with her alone, know her better. She had waited expectantly for the final overture, the ultimate invitation, and then President Dilman had stolen him away.
She could not let go of their precious exchange, its promise and potential, and she was determined to play their scene out to its conclusion. Perhaps, because of whatever Dilman had told him, his mood had been altered and he would not go further with her. Or perhaps nothing had changed. She must find out. And so instead of going to the East Room to help direct the seating, her duty as President Dilman’s social secretary, she had followed Arthur Eaton upstairs.
She stood now, uncertainly, in the vast West Hall of the President’s private second floor. No one, not even the valet, was in sight. She wondered which of the fifteen rooms Arthur had gone into, and then she wondered if he would be conferring with someone or be by himself. The champagne bubbled behind her eyes, reinforcing her adventure, making her intrepid.
Stealthily she went to the Monroe Room, tried the door, peered inside. It was empty. Shutting the door softly, she started toward the Yellow Oval Room, and then, nearing it, she heard his voice. She stopped beside the partially open doors, listening, trying to determine whether Arthur was speaking to someone in the room or on the telephone.
He was addressing Tim-that would be Tim Flannery-but still no evidence whether it was the press secretary in person or on the telephone. She listened harder. Only Arthur’s voice could be heard, then silences, then Arthur again. No question now. Telephone. To hell with discretion.
She released the folds of skirt gathered in her hand. She peered down at the cleft between her breasts, which were pressed high by the built-in brassière cups of the evening gown. She took hold of her bodice at the waist with both hands, pulling it down an inch (the way it was meant to be) so that the milky rise at the top of her bosom was defined as her most attractive accessory. Lightly touching her hair to be sure every strand was in place, she straightened. Boldly she opened the first entrance door and walked into the Yellow Oval Room.
He was standing with the receiver at his mouth and ear, leaning against a sofa. When he saw her, he lifted his hand in welcome, smiling, but continued to listen to the voice on the other end. Suddenly he cupped the mouthpiece tightly and called out softly, “Be right with you, darling.”
Sally closed the doors, then wandered about the lustrous room, hardly listening to him, knowing only that he had apparently dictated something about Baraza, and was hearing Flannery read it back, and was suggesting revisions. On a fragile Louis XVI end table she noticed three books in a neat pile, the President’s reading, and when she bent to read the titles, she found them strangely incongruous with the furnishings of the living room. One was the latest Congressional Staff Directory, another Our CIA Defense by Montgomery Scott, and the third, at the bottom of the pile, a faded, mottled, secondhand volume, My Bondage and Freedomby Douglass. She drew the bottom book out from under the others and opened it to the title page, which read “My Bondage and My Freedom, Part I-Life as a Slave. Part II-Life as a Freeman. By Frederick Douglass.” It had been published in New York and Auburn by Miller, Orton, and Mulligan, in 1855. Sally turned to the lengthy dedication and then to the following page, and there, above the “Editor’s Preface,” was an inscription in pale blue ink, a slanting, definitely feminine inscription that read, “For my favorite Senator-the first Douglass would have been so proud of the present one. With enduring affection, Always, W.” The date was last year, the day and month President Dilman’s birthday, she remembered.
Sally examined the inscribed “Always, W.,” closed the book, lifted the others, and returned it to its former place. Going to the wall to the right of the fireplace, intending to study the two Cézanne paintings once more, her mind lingered on the inscription to Dilman. Her feline curiosity reached for, pawed and clawed for, a female W. connected with the President. Mrs. Wickland, wife of the House Majority Leader? No, unthinkable, not a personalinscription like this one. W.? At once, it came to Sally. W. for Wanda, Miss Wanda Gibson, the friend of the Spingers, whom Dilman had invited to the State Dinner tonight, who had neither responded to the invitation (gauche), nor appeared, although Dilman had insisted that she would (interesting). So Wanda Gibson, probably Wanda if she was the W., was a personal friend, even last year on his birthday. Intriguing.
Before she could speculate further, she felt cool, strong hands on her naked shoulders, and turned around to find herself looking up at Arthur Eaton.
“Business concluded,” he said. “I’m glad you came up here, Sally.”
“I thought you might need a secretary.”
He held her arms, squeezed them. “I might need someone who needs me.”
“I hoped you’d say that. I-I was unhappy the President interrupted us. It was going so well.”
“I was sorry, too, but it was important. He brought Baraza into line tonight. Not that it was so difficult. But I’m afraid he needed something affirmative to shore up his pride. In all my existence I’ve never been witness to anything like the social rejection that took place downstairs.”
“It was terrible. I hope he doesn’t blame it on me.”
“On you? Nonsense. You did what you could.”
“I swear, ninety-six of them accepted-accepted. Do you know how many showed up tonight? I counted the cards. Fifty-seven. I checked with my office right before dinner. And then with Edna. There was such a flurry of notes, telegrams, telephone calls, terribly apologetic, everyone fallen ill at once. I’ve never known an epidemic like that to sweep Washington. And the worst part of it was the cruel timing, the heavy last-minute declining, so that by the time I realized what was actually going on, it was too late to remove the table settings and chairs. I mean, it couldn’t be done, there was no time left. So there they were, those embarrassing chairs. I’m sorry for him. It’s so humiliating. It’ll be in all the columns tomorrow, you can be sure. No matter how many faults he has, he didn’t deserve this.”
“I don’t like it either,” Eaton said. “Whatever one’s views, there is such a practice as observing the social amenities. We have a generation of gauche boors.”
His usage of gauche brought to her mind what had been there a minute ago. “At least his friends showed up, the Spingers, the Abrahams, all-except one.”
Eaton’s eyebrows raised. “One?”
Sally savored her tidbit. “Have you ever heard of Miss Wanda Gibson? She works for Vaduz Exporters… no, of course you haven’t. Well, she lives with the Spingers, and as far as I can guess is an old friend of the President’s. He specifically invited her for tonight, and when she didn’t answer and I asked him what to do this morning, he went into a long thing about how she would show up anyway with the Spingers. He disowned any personal interest. He said that her export company traded with Baraza, and she would be someone Amboko and Wamba could feel at home with. Well, the President was mistaken. Miss Gibson did not appear. And also, I don’t mind telling you, and this I don’t understand at all, he was mistaken about Miss Gibson’s Vaduz company being involved with Baraza. I wanted to make conversation with Ambassador Wamba before dinner, so I mentioned Vaduz, and he looked blank, perfectly blank. He’d never heard of it. Do you think Wamba was bluffing? Or that the President didn’t know? Or-I know this is awful of me-that the President invented an excuse for inviting Miss Gibson?”
Eaton’s hands still held her arms, and he smiled and said, “I haven’t the faintest idea, Sally, but I do know you are the best representative the State Department has ever had in the White House.”
“Arthur, don’t make fun of me. I only want to be of help. I’d do anything for you.”
“Well,” he said lightly, “there are some of us who’d give a good deal to find out what the devil the President has in mind about that minorities bill, and a few other matters.”
“I can find out,” she said eagerly.
He shook her playfully. “I was kidding, Sally. We don’t need a secret operative in the White House. We’re both working with the President. If we do our jobs well, that is enough.” His smile went away. “I prefer you as you are, not as Mata Hari.”
She lifted her fingers to his neck and caressed it. “Arthur-before-you were saying before how much you missed me-how you wanted to see me more often-alone… I’d like that.”
“Right now I want to kiss you,” he said.
Her eyes went to the entrance doors, worriedly, and then to the balcony doors to her left. “Let’s go outside a minute.”
“You’ll freeze.”
“You’ll keep me warm.”
He released her, and she went to the first sash wood door. Opening it, she stepped out into the darkness of the Truman Balcony and stood beside the moist green pad that covered the white metal settee. He came to her in the shadows, and she went quickly into his hard arms, feeling her breasts flattened against his chest as his parted lips rubbed against hers and finally held to them. They clung to one another, and when his lips freed her, she gasped, “I love you, Arthur. I want you-you say it.”
“Tonight,” he said.
“Tonight.”
“When you’re through here, come straight to the house. You don’t have to go home tonight.”
“Will the servants-?”
“They are off. Just us, alone.”
“Yes, Arthur.” She heard her exultant heart beating wildly, and brought her hands up to hold his face, and kissed him quickly. “There’ll be a million years of time tonight.” She pushed herself from him and sought his hand. “Let’s get downstairs, before we’re missed… No, wait, I’ll go first, then you… I can’t stand these next hours. You do love me, don’t you, darling? You won’t be sorry, you won’t be sorry at all.”
In the middle of the front row of seats in the white-and-gold hall that was the East Room, President Dilman sat impassively, his arms resting motionless on the arms of his chair like the paws of a sphinx, as he watched with distaste the show being performed by the Hollywood and Manhattan entertainers.
His mood had been good an hour ago when he sat down with President Amboko and waited while the guests noisily took their places. His good mood had continued as the entertainment began with the five-piece orchestra on the raised platform before him doing its lively medley of George M. Cohan songs, ending on the rousing “Yankee Doodle Dandy.”
Then after the provocative blues singer, Libby Owens, backed by her own accompanist at the ornate mahogany grand piano with its gilt eagle legs, had rendered “St. Louis Blues” sweet and low, Dilman’s mood of well-being had begun to deteriorate. Just as he and so many of his fellow Negroes resented aggressive liberal whites who buttonholed them in ostentatious and determined displays of equality, speaking to them with proper indignation of nothing but Negro problems, he resented the slant and content of this show. The white entertainers, out of misplaced eagerness to parade their tolerance (look-we-are-on-your-side-fellow), had loaded their program heavily with both serious and humorous Negro sketches and songs. Dilman detested this kind of patronizing, well-intentioned though it may have been. If a Jew were President, he asked himself, would this same crowd have presented Yiddish jokes and songs?
He stared at the stage with displeasure. There was Herbie Teele, the brash nimble-limbed colored comedian, propped high on a stool, derby lopsided on his head, homely black face feigning solemnity, then wide-grinning after each burst of applause, twirling his cane and spouting his half-bitter inside integration stories and jokes. Why Herbie Teele tonight? Why this special routine? Would this same crowd have offered the same program to T. C., to The Judge, to Lyndon Johnson, to John F. Kennedy? Dilman doubted it.
He cast a sidelong glance at Amboko and then down the row at other members of the Barazan entourage, and they seemed appreciative enough. They were chuckling, beaming, and the constant eruptions of laughter from the rows behind indicated that Allan Noyes, the Party’s national chairman, had cast the evening right. At last Dilman once more had to blame himself for his own thin-skinned sensitivity, but he felt the way he felt, and there was no use trying to feel any other way.
He tried to be more attentive to the stage.
Herbie Teele, elastic mouth, brace of white chipmunk teeth, was concluding his routine.
“Well, all that I am, all that I hope to be, I owe to one of the pioneers of topical humor, my fellow Afro-American, Dick Gregory,” said Teele. “He went to jail so’s I could come to the White House. Like Dick used to say, these days I’m gettin’ a couple thousand a week for saying the same things I used to say under my breath. No matter what the goings-on in Mississippi, they’re really not readying to pass a law banning mixed drinks. So, like ol’ Dick, I’m not worried. The President is doin’ his best. He’s got the Reverend Spinger in there, and the Reverend is the only famous man I know who’s given out more fingerprints than autographs. The kids down South used to collect his signature on police blotters. Well, folks, let me bow out with one more to my mentor, Dick Gregory-like he used to think, I was just thinkin’ ”-Teele jumped off his stool and came to the edge of the platform and rubbed his cheeks vigorously-“now, wouldn’t it be a helluva joke if all this on me was burnt cork and all you folks were being tolerant for nuthin’?”
He slapped his hands, reared back and roared, and the audience behind Dilman gave out a great whoop of laughter and joy in unison, and applauded for a half minute as the audacious Teele pranced off the platform.
Dilman clapped halfheartedly, and when he had ceased, the two chandeliers above had dimmed, and Libby Owens, in her tight sequined skirt slit thigh-high, stood center stage, while her colored accompanist slid onto the bench behind the piano.
She drew the microphone to her and announced throatily, “For the finale, I shall render three haunting Negro spirituals by unknown bards.”
She began, and the room was hushed in the soft light. She sang:
“I know moon-rise, I know star-rise,
Lay dis body down.
I walk in de moonlight, I walk in de starlight,
To lay dis body down.
I’ll walk in de graveyard, I’ll walk through the graveyard
To lay dis body down.
I’ll lie in de grave and stretch out my arms;
Lay dis body down.”
The melancholy lyric moved Dilman, sent memory clutching backward for an almost forgotten part of his childhood, and he was too lost in the distant past to realize that someone, bent low, had hurried past the front row and crouched before him. He stirred, then was startled to find Beecher, the valet, on a knee waiting to address him.
“Mr. President,” the valet whispered, “Attorney General Kemmler is in the Blue Room. He must see you at once. He says it is urgent.”
Dilman’s heartbeat tripped. It is urgent. He had been so far away, rocking in the helpless cradle of the past, that he was unprepared to cope with crisis in the world of tall men.
Dilman shivered. “Tell him I’ll be right there.”
Silently the valet slipped away, and Dilman waited for the last of Libby Owens’ lyrics. As she finished the spiritual, and the room rang with applause, Dilman excused himself to Amboko, speaking under his breath, then hurriedly rose and went past the guests sitting in the front row and to the exit. He could see that first Eaton, then Nat Abrahams, were observing his sudden departure, and he shrugged to both. He went into the Main Hall, just as the piano resumed and Libby Owens sang, “Oh, Mary, don’t you weep, don’t you moan.”
Coming into the Main Hall of the first floor, Dilman found himself immediately flanked by two Secret Service agents.
“Why don’t you keep your eye on President Amboko,” Dilman suggested. “I’ll be all right.”
Nevertheless, they accompanied him up the corridor, past the Green Room, until they came to the entrance to the Blue Room, where Otto Beggs was on guard, and Beecher had pushed the door open. Dilman hung back a moment, steeling himself for this crisis that was as yet unknown to him, and then went into the large formal chamber, hearing the door click closed behind him.
There were two of them waiting for him, he observed. Robert Lombardi, the Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, bald as a cannonball and as inflexible and physically round, was pacing in short, quick steps near the velvet-draped circular table in the middle of the room. His usual forced public smile was missing. His forehead was damp. Beyond him, fingers laced together behind his back, loomed the presence of Attorney General Clay Kemmler, still wearing his coat.
“Gentlemen,” said Dilman, announcing himself.
Lombardi’s pacing stopped. He moved to one side of the room in token deference to his superiors as Kemmler spun around from the lofty center window, and as he did so, the spire of the Washington Monument in the distance appeared to emerge from his head, making him resemble a unicorn rearing on its hind legs. Immediately, Kemmler came forward to where the FBI Director had been, and Dilman, advancing to meet him, could see across the circular table that the Attorney General’s cold eyes glittered, but that his tight lips, a slash in his craggy face, were severe and implacable.
“Mr. President,” he said, “what I’ve been expecting has happened. The second that Bob Lombardi received the flash from his field operatives and brought it to me, I came right over. I hated to break in on you, but I think you’ll agree the news is of critical import.”
Dilman placed his fingers on the draped table to steady himself, and then remained immobile.
“We don’t have every detail yet, but the essential news is this,” Attorney General Kemmler said. “The Hattiesburg kidnaping was committed by a gang of Turnerites led by Jefferson Hurley himself. They have since killed Judge Everett Gage in cold blood, and the FBI has apprehended Hurley. The others in his gang got away. But we have Hurley, we’ve got him good, and now you can have no more reservations.”
Dilman allowed the sensational report to sink in, rocking on his heels, cursing himself for not having believed Kemmler this morning and in consequence having been made to look like an indecisive fool-or worse, like a prejudiced black. “You have Hurley?” he repeated woodenly; “And they actually murdered Gage? What more do you know?”
Kemmler jerked his head toward the FBI chief. “Bob-” he said.
Robert Lombardi came back to the table. The dampness on his forehead had spread to the top of his pate. His high-pitched confirmation came out as if strained through his nostrils. “Mr. President, as of a half hour ago, this is what happened, and this much is accurate. My men trailed the kidnapers from Mississippi, across Louisiana, into southeast Texas. They were moving fast, those kidnapers, but they weren’t too hard to follow, being amateurs and, begging your pardon, being of dark skin. They holed up on some ranch before reaching Beaumont, and laid low, and my field agents spread a pretty wide net to catch them in. Then there were a couple of pistol shots on this ranch, and as luck would have it, some of our men were nearby. We sent out an alert, surrounded the farm, and nabbed Jeff Hurley and found Judge Everett Gage’s corpse. The rest of the gang-don’t know how many there were yet-got away. Hurley’s not telling, but evidence indicates there may have been two more of them.”
“You know that it was Hurley who killed Judge Gage?” Dilman asked.
“He confessed it, Mr. President. Well, not at first, of course. What we figured out was he’d stayed behind a minute too long to clean up things-burn some papers and hide his gun. We found the revolver. Two chambers empty, and two bullets were in old Judge Gage, one in his chest and one in his abdomen. Ballistics says the markings on the bullets were made by the barrel of Hurley’s revolver. Then we-we put a bit of pressure on Hurley-he’s a sullen bull-and he finally admitted to doing it. We’ve got his signed confession to the murder. Well, what he said, actually, at first, was that they intended Gage no physical harm, they weren’t killers like Gage and his Southern Klansmen-lots of propaganda like that-but in trying to hide out from us, trying to find a real concealment until they could continue to Mexico, they let down their guard on their victim. Gage worked his wrists free, got his hands on one of their rifles, and instead of trying to escape, prepared to gun them down. Hurley came into the room, and Gage fired at him. Hurley said that it was a matter of self-defense, his own survival, and instinctively he pulled out his pistol and began firing back, got Gage with his first two shots.”
Lombardi shook his head. “Mr. President, you can discount that kind of whining. We always get that song at the Bureau. It was murder, pure and simple, compounded by the Federal offense of kidnaping, crossing two state lines. As Clay here says, Hurley is the secondary issue. He’s caught, he’s confessed, and he’s as much as buried. The bigger issue, and that’s what the Bureau is proud of, is that we’ve proved it was a Turnerite Group plot and crime. Since we know they’re a pack of Red scum anyway, this gives us what we’ve been hoping for.”
Something inside Dilman prickled, and he said, “What have you been hoping for?”
Kemmler’s arm went out, forcibly pushing Lombardi from his spot near the table. “Let me take it from here, Bob. My department… Mr. President, I laid it on the line with you this morning. I said we have evidence that Valetti, the Turnerites’ Number Two man, is a member of the Communist Party and is a go-between, financing violent racial groups like the Turnerites so they can commit acts of subversion, create an atmosphere of hate and rebellion in this country, and weaken us at home and abroad. I said that the first major crime of this sort had been perpetrated by the Turnerites, and I demanded that we act at once to outlaw them, to discourage further organized violence. You felt I was being hasty about such a big move. I said Turnerites definitely, and you said Turnerites maybe. You wanted more evidence before acting. Now you have the evidence. You can’t have any more doubts. I want to invoke the Subversive Activities Control Act at once. This is our first clean-cut opportunity to show these damn agitators the law has teeth. I’ve got to use it, and put an end to insurrection.”
During this demand, Dilman’s mind had gone to the consequences of invoking the control act. It would place a terrible onus on his race. Worse, and here his cooler legal brain was at work, it would strike a blow against civil liberties, setting a precedent that could soon be misused. Still, there was the law, and there was the crime against this law-Kemmler was right about that-and justice must be observed, and national security (his prime concern) must be preserved. But there must be no mistake, no margin of error, no matter how small or narrow. Lombardi had a reputation for being ruthlessly if not sadistically anti-Communist on the United States domestic front, not wrong in itself, but often he had been too eager to interpret every coloration of opinion and action as Red, and consequently had had his arrests reversed by more unbiased minds. Was he too eager now? Was he being honestly patriotic, or subconsciously using this as a grand opportunity to make headlines and raise himself even higher on his pedestal as the public’s foremost law enforcement officer and superpatriot?
As for Clay Kemmler, he, too, was eager and ambitious, yet Dilman could find no reason to fault him for bad judgment or overriding vanity. Kemmler had been a district attorney, a Federal judge, T. C.’s Cabinet member, a person of spotless reputation. Still, he had shown himself to be impatient, which Dilman regarded as injudicious, and to be motivated less by considerations of political advancement, probably, than by some kind of absolute view of what was just and unjust. He was a man to be listened to, but not one to be overwhelmed by, not without deliberating upon every word he spoke first.
Dilman deliberated, teetering on his dilemma, not wanting to jump or be pushed, yet not wishing to fall.
“I believe you have a sound case,” Dilman said at last. “I’m not concerned about Hurley as an individual. He committed the crime of kidnaping, clearly. Did he commit premeditated homicide or homicide in self-defense? That will be for the Federal courts to determine. So you see, I, too, am concerned only with the larger issue. Was this so-called crime of subversion an organization crime or an individual one? There is still no airtight-”
“Please, Mr. President, don’t start that again,” interrupted Kemmler. For the first time, his rigid face was clotted with anger. He tried to control himself, with little success. “Mr.-Mr. President-how can you have second thoughts about cracking down on an overt and outrageous crime like this? Over in Justice, we have a file on every one of Hurley’s public utterances as head of the Turnerites. Even if his motives were the best, to give your people equality overnight, to be their black Moses, it’s not enough to offset what he’s done. Time and again, in public, he promised violence if the Negroes could not have their way. Then a crime of violence was performed, kidnaping and confessed murder, and who did it? Hurley and his gang. He practiced what he preached for the Turnerites. Are you going to go before the American people and say you doubt that?”
Dilman weakened under his Attorney General’s righteous wrath. Desperately, Dilman tried to fortify himself with Blackstone and the Constitution. “I’m not doubting anything, when there is factual evidence to support it. Yes, I’m inclined to believe this is a Turnerite crime, an organized and planned crime, and I’m inclined to punish the group responsible. But, Mr. Attorney General, when I do something unprecedented, that is necessary to protect us now, in spite of attendant harmful aftereffects, I must be positive I am right, 100 per cent positive, not 99 per cent positive. Did the Turnerite Group meet and plan this crime and vote for it, and then did Hurley and several others, representing the Group, carry it out? If that is the case, it is subversion, and to be punished instantly. Or-and here is my one per cent legal doubt-did the Turnerite Group vote against this as being impractical and inflammatory, and did their leader, hardly a reasonable man at any time, go off on his own, with one or two accomplices, and did they perform the heinous deed as individuals? I must know that the last did not happen. I must learn which it was from Hurley himself, or from his accomplices, when and if you catch them, or from any other reliable Turnerite members you question, or from Turnerite records that you find.” He held up his hands. “That’s my view of it, gentlemen.”
Kemmler glared at him. He said coldly, “What if we can’t find any more evidence?”
“I’ll see then. I’ll study Mr. Lombardi’s findings, the interrogation of Hurley, and make up my mind. I suppose I’ll let you invoke the control act. But until I do, I suggest you not make any rash moves or statements.” He made an effort to gain their friendship, to mollify their anger. “Look, gentlemen, you have Hurley. Go ahead with that. Announce it. As to banning his organization, give me a day or two, overnight at least-”
“Good night, Mr. President,” said Kemmler curtly. “Come on, Bob.”
“I’ll be in touch,” said Lombardi to Dilman. “Good night, sir.”
Regretfully Douglass Dilman watched them leave him. He had not merely disappointed them, he had infuriated them with his indecisiveness. Would they believe that he was motivated by a true concern for justice, or solely by a sympathy and partiality toward hounded men of his own color? He knew their answer. He was less sure of his own.
They had gone, but the door was still open, and now he noticed the bulky Otto Beggs waiting to speak to him.
“Mr. President,” Beggs said, “we’ve been holding a phone call for you. Miss Foster downstairs says she must talk to you. Do you want to take it in here?”
“Yes, please.”
Beggs closed the door, and Dilman walked tiredly to the indigo-colored French telephone that sat on the pier table.
He took up the receiver. Edna Foster was on the line, sounding as harried as he felt.
“Mr. President,” she was saying, “I have Leroy Poole on the other phone. It’s the sixth time he’s called tonight. He insists upon speaking to you personally. He sounded so frantic that-”
“No,” said Dilman irritably. “I have no time for him tonight.”
“I’m sorry to bother you,” Edna Foster apologized. “I wouldn’t have, except he said it was so important, something about Jefferson Hurley being arrested in Texas-I didn’t know what he was talking about-”
Ready to hang up, Dilman suddenly gripped the receiver hard. “Wait a minute, Miss Foster. You say Leroy wants to talk to me about Hurley’s arrest?”
“That’s right, Mr. President.”
Dilman’s brain aligned this information beside another piece of information. The two facts did not belong side by side. What had brought them there together? Apperception told him the answer to this might be the answer to what had made him so indecisive before Kemmler and Lombardi.
“I’ve changed my mind, Miss Foster. Put him on.”
For a few brief seconds the telephone was dumb, and then it had Leroy Poole’s squeaky, hysterical voice. “Mr. President, is that you-you-Mr. President?”
“Yes, Leroy, what is it?”
The words tumbled forth in a torrent. “Mr. President-have you heard?-geez, the FBI caught Jeff Hurley in Texas, and they’re indicting him for the murder of Judge Gage. Mr. President, you can’t let them frame him-it was justifiable homicide-it can be proved-even the kidnaping wasn’t exactly that-they were taking the judge to reason with him, show him new information-but then Gage became violent, got hold of a weapon, tried to kill Hurley, and Hurley did what any man on earth would do-what you and I would do. He defended himself, he acted in self-defense to save his life. That’s the truth of it, I swear, and it’s in your hands. If you haven’t heard, they got poor Hurley-”
“Leroy!” Dilman broke in, and his stern command checked Poole’s hysteria. “Leroy-I have heard-I know all that-but how do you know?”
“Me? How do I know?” Leroy Poole sounded confused. “I don’t understand. What do you mean?”
“I’ll spell out what I mean. Minutes ago I heard of Judge Gage’s death and Hurley’s arrest in Texas from the FBI chief and the Attorney General. Except for the three of us here in the White House, and a handful of FBI agents in Texas, and a couple of Hurley’s friends who got away, nobody knows about this incident. It couldn’t have happened more than an hour ago. And the news just got to us. So how do you know?”
It was as if the phone at the other end had gone dead.
“Leroy, are you there?” Dilman said. “Listen to me. You’re calling, asking for help for Hurley. If you want my help, you’d better give me yours.”
Still the other end of the line was silent, but now Dilman could hear Poole’s labored breathing.
“Leroy, if you don’t want to get involved with the FBI yourself, and I mean that, you’d better level with me. You’ll find me easier to talk to than those agents.” He hesitated, then resumed harshly. “I think you’ve given me the picture already. Many times as you’ve denied it, you are in the Turnerite movement, aren’t you? Apparently a secret member, isn’t that right? Now a lot of things you’ve said recently make sense. Jeff Hurley’s your friend, at least your boss, isn’t he? And now someone has gotten to you-not Hurley, he’s incommunicado this minute-but the others, one of his accomplices in the killing, he or they, they’ve got in touch with you from wherever they are and told you what happened, and they’re desperate, and they know that you know me, and they asked you to appeal to me. Is that right, Leroy?”
He heard Poole’s disjointed whine at last. “Mr.-Mr. Pres-President, I swear on my mom and everything that’s holy, one of the members called long distance, which one, who, I don’t know, no names on the telephone, and simply told me what happened to Jeff Hurley, the truth of it, and asked me to help him, see the truth gets known. That’s all I know, I swear to God in Heaven.”
“All right, I take your word for it, Leroy. But you still haven’t told me what I want to know. This abduction of Judge Gage, it was done by your gang, by the Turnerite Group, wasn’t it?”
“What if it was? Sure it was. You don’t think a man of Jeff Hurley’s moral character and standards would go out for some personal revenge, do you? He and whoever was with him, they agreed to lead the way, to be the first like John Brown, to set an example, not order others to do what they wouldn’t be willing to do themselves. So they did it for the Turnerites-not kidnaping, either-but merely taking that sonofabitching, persecuting magistrate to another climate where they could reason with him about his abortion of justice, make him rescind it or admit he was wrong, make him agree to be the instrument to let our poor guys free. This was no hoodlum act, Mr. President. It was a protest act by the only decent, uncorrupted protest society in America today, doing something, not just talk and compromise, but doing something to dramatize the plight of every beat-up and degraded colored man and woman and kid in the country. You-you of all people-should be the first to see that, Mr. President. And you can become the greatest President in history, a hero of our people, if you will shake off those white bastards around you and intercede for Jeff Hurley-”
Dilman felt ill with the knowledge of the truth, with the realization of what had happened and what he must do. His loathing of his truth, its consequences, filled every bone of his body with a creeping dullness.
“Leroy,” he said wearily, “Hurley is no longer the issue. The Turnerite Group is the issue, the whole society, you and every one of them, your membership, your financing, your program-that’s the issue. You may as well know. The Justice Department is going to take legal action against you, to disband and outlaw you, and arrest and fine those who resist.”
There was shock in Poole’s trembling voice. “You-you can’t let them do that.”
“I have no choice. I must.”
“No, listen, Senator-Mr. President-don’t, don’t let them. If you kill Hurley, disband what he’s fought for, you kill me and yourself. With one act, you hurl us back where we were before the Civil War. Freedom now becomes freedom never. Ban us, and the fiery crosses and police dogs win. Every activist group will have to close shop and get off the street when the white man passes. We’re niggers again, with no hope but those ass-dragging old Uncle Toms in the Crispus and NAACP. We’re niggers again, and when we want white men’s food, they’ll throw us our watermelon rind like the Minorities Rehabilitation Bill, so’s our mouths will be full and we’ll have to stay shut up. Mr. President, don’t do it, don’t go bowing and scraping after the ones who’re lording it over you, don’t sell us out, because if you do, you’ll not only kill us, like I said, but you’ll make every one of your people your enemy and the enemy of your Party for life.”
Annoyance at the offensive little writer’s presumption and disrespect momentarily overrode Dilman’s guilts and fears. “I’ve heard enough, Leroy. I have no more time to talk to you. I’ve got my job to attend to. I’m going to do what has to be done. Good-bye and-”
“Hold on, Mr. President,” Poole called out across the wire. “You’re sure, you’re absolutely positive, nothing can change your mind?”
Dilman hesitated, not because of what Poole said but because of how he had said it. Poole was no longer hysterical or wheedling, no longer begging. There had been a new undercurrent in his voice, of slyness, even cruelty. Perhaps, Dilman told himself, he was imagining too much.
He still held the receiver, and now he brought the mouthpiece closer. “No, Leroy, nothing can change my mind. I will instruct the Department of Justice to observe the law immediately. I have no more to say.”
“I have,” said Leroy Poole. “One last thing. Listen. You indict the Turnerites for criminal subversion, and you indict your own son, too. You hear me? You indict your own son. Maybe it is news to you, but Julian is one of us. Julian is one of our secret members assigned to the Crispus Society, to get at their private files of statistics on cases of white persecution, like the information that Hattiesburg was a hot place to begin our crusade. If you condemn us, you-”
Dilman’s hand clenched the telephone until his fingers were nearly bloodless. The nausea that welled high in his throat was not of fear but of disgust. He said, “You’re no better than Hurley-you’ll do anything-you’re a rotten, sick liar, dragging my boy into it.”
“Am I?” said Poole. “Okay, Big Man, ask him-and then let’s see what you’ll do!”
He banged the telephone in Dilman’s ear.
Douglass Dilman stood motionless, the receiver still poised at his mouth and ear. Kemmler and Lombardi were right, and Poole had confirmed it. And they were right about another thing, too. There was no room in America for Turnerites, black or white. They were savage. They were vicious. No tactic, no matter how slimy and foul, was too low for them to accept, with their psychotic minds, and to brandish as a club. Kidnaping. Murder. Now-family blackmail. The Lord damn them and curse them every one.
He jiggled the telephone for the White House operator, and demanded she get him Edna Foster.
When his secretary came on, he said, “Miss Foster, I’m coming down to the office. Ring up Attorney General Kemmler. If he’s not home yet, leave a message with anyone there. Tell Kemmler to come back to the White House immediately. Say the President has made up his mind and must see him at once.”
“Yes, Mr. President. Will that be all?”
“All?” He wondered: Could there be more? Something nagged. “Uh, one last thing. Before you go home, Miss Foster-that letter you wrote to Trafford University, turning them down-tear it up. I’ve changed my mind. Write Chancellor McKaye I consider it a privilege to accept that honorary degree, and I’m glad to accept the invitation to make the principal address. Inform him I will speak not only to his student body and faculty, but to the nation, on a policy decision of national importance. Have you got that, Miss Foster?”
“Yes, Mr. President.”
“And then write a short note to my son-to Julian-tell him I’ll be at the school on Founders’ Day, and that I want him there, because-because after the ceremony-I want to have a private talk with him about a matter that concerns us both. Is that clear, Miss Foster? Leave both letters on my desk for signature, and then go home. Now, you’d better get that call in to Kemmler first.”
He hung up, and then he strode to the door, opened it, and went into the corridor. The ever-present Otto Beggs was still on duty.
“Is the show over with?” Dilman asked.
“Fifteen minutes ago, Mr. President. They kept it going with encores, hoping you’d get back. The guests are gone. Except there’s one gentleman-”
It was then that Dilman sighted Nat Abrahams slumped on a red chair in the Main Hall, puffing his pipe. Abrahams came to his feet, waved, and started toward Dilman.
“I thought I’d hang around a little bit,” said Abrahams as he approached, “in case you needed a friendly ear. I was worried the way you left the East Room. Anything I can do, Doug?”
“Damn kind of you, Nat. Thanks. There’s nothing anyone can do for me tonight-except me.” Dilman tried to smile. “Believe me, Nat, I’d rather be talking to you than to the Attorney General. But he’s the one I’ve got to go downstairs to see.”
Nat Abrahams nodded agreeably. “Another time, then.” His eyes did not leave Dilman. “I’m not prying, Doug, but is everything all right?”
“Nat, everything is lousy, and I’m afraid it’ll get worse. Maybe I’ll be able to tell you about it someday soon. Anyway, what was that girl singing in there before? Yes. ‘I’ll lie in de grave and stretch out my arms’ and ‘Lay dis body down.’ That’s what I’d like to do tonight, Nat.”
“Not yet, Doug.”
“No, not yet… Good night, Nat. And, Nat. Don’t let your kids grow up to be President. They deserve better. Remember that.”