Hollywood

by Gore Vidal

  “Yes. They say he left two letters but they’ve disappeared.”

  “She was charming,” said Frederika. “Mrs. Cramer. What was her name?”

  No one answered. Then Burden said what each was thinking. “Cramer was supposed not to have been involved in Forbes’s deals.”

  “He must have known,” Blaise was emphatic. “And if he knew, he should have gone public. He is—was—a lawyer, after all. Anyway, according to my reporter who was in the house, there was a clipping about the Senate investigation on his desk.”

  “He would have had to testify …” Burden stopped; suddenly aware of the possibility of a scandal so vast that it could bring down the Administration.

  Caroline completed his thought. “But if someone did not want him to testify, they would shoot him and make it look like a suicide.”

  “Or a movie,” said Frederika. “Nonie, I think, is her name.”

  “I have been living in a movie murder case.” Caroline was hard. “It is not pleasant, let me tell you.”

  “Where’s Daugherty?” Burden turned to Blaise.

  “Somewhere in Florida. Sick.”

  The maid arrived with whisky for the master of the house. Burden used her arrival as pretext for departure; and bade his three lovers a fond farewell.

  2

  Usually May was Jess’s favorite time at Deer Creek, but nothing pleased him now because nothing that he could do would ever please Daugherty again. For the most part, the two men sat in their rocking chairs, staring straight ahead at the woods in full leaf. In silence they had eaten the hamburgers that Jess had cooked. Now Daugherty was yawning; ready for his afternoon nap. It had taken him three months to recover from the flu. After Florida, he had gone alone to North Carolina; then back to Washington Court House and the shack at Deer Creek which they had both used for years as a getaway from the world. But the world could not be got away from if you were attorney general.

  “Maybe,” said Daugherty suddenly, “you should stay on here.”

  “Here? In the shack?”

  “No. Washington Court House. That other Washington’s nothing but trouble for you now. Me, too.” Daugherty rocked more quickly in his chair.

  Jess waited to be told what kind of trouble, but Daugherty was silent. “Well, there was the Charlie Forbes and Cramer business. But that’s all over. I mean, what else is there?”

  Daugherty grunted; and slowed down his rocking. “There’s Fall.”

  For a year the conservationists had been attacking Fall for his indifference to nature, a likeable trait in Jess’s eyes. Then La Follette had got into the act, and asked for a Senate investigation of all the oil leases given out by the Department of the Interior. Senator Walsh of Montana was assigned the task of finding out why the Navy lands had been turned over to Interior and on what principle Fall had then leased the lands to private exploiters. Nothing of interest had come to light. The Secretary of the Navy did not want to be burdened with such vast oil reserves, pending some distant war with Japan. The Secretary of the Interior had then asked to take them over and the President had agreed. All this was done openly. Edward Doheny had taken a lease on Naval Reserve Number One at Elk Hills, California, and Harry Sinclair had taken a lease on Naval Reserve Number Three at Teapot Dome, Wyoming. All of this was straightforward, or so it seemed. Yet the Senate investigation of Fall was due to continue when Congress convened in October, simultaneous with the investigation of the Veterans Bureau.

  “What’s Fall done?”

  “Who knows? It’s what Walsh thinks he’s done that matters to us.”

  “Like take a … a commission from Doheny?”

  “A bribe. Sure. And one from Sinclair, too. He’s travelling with Sinclair right now, the damned fool. I asked him not to, but he thinks he’s God on earth, and so he and Harry Sinclair are prospecting for oil together in Russia.”

  “Partners.”

  “And for just how long have you two gentlemen been partners?” Daugherty assumed a loud inquisitorial voice. “Oh, it’s going to be hell. For the President. Thank God he’s leaving town. He needs a rest. So do I.” Daugherty stood up and stretched. “I’m going to take my nap.”

  “O.K., General. I’ll hold the fort.” Daugherty went inside, and Jess rocked back and forth, soothed by the motion. The truss bothered him less now that the scar was beginning to heal, but lately he had been having odd dizzy spells and moments of confusion when he was awake and terrible dreams when he was not. The doctor had unhelpfully assured him that this was perfectly normal for a diabetic, who had nothing to fear as long as he remembered to take his insulin shots.

  Despite three months of convalescence, Daugherty was still not himself. He was irritable with Jess, something he had never been before. For Jess, Daugherty had always been the ideal older brother, wise and humorous and kind. In twenty years, they had never exchanged a harsh word. Jess would have committed murder for Daugherty; he would even have gone into the downstairs coat closet without a light, if Daugherty asked him to. Since the thought of that closet made his pulse race, he made himself think of something pleasant, like the trip to Alaska. Most of the Cabinet would be on the train with the President, and they would make leisurely stops across the country so that W.G. could bloviate and get his strength back, renewed by the crowds who loved him even if the Senate did not. Jess would join the President in his bridge games.

  “Jess!” With a start, Jess opened his eyes. He had fallen asleep in the rocker. Standing over him was one of the courthouse gang from Columbus. An early supporter of Harding, he only came around when he wanted something.

  “Whaddaya know?” said Jess.

  “I know I got to talk to the General. He’s here, isn’t he?”

  Jess nodded. “But he’s taking a nap like always after lunch. Come back later.”

  The man shook his head. “I can’t. I got business over to Marion. I just want a couple words with him. That’s all.”

  Finally, reluctantly, Jess agreed. He went inside the shack and climbed the dry-rotted stairs to Daugherty’s bedroom. He listened to the snoring a moment; then he called out, “General. There’s a friend come to see you.”

  With an oath, Daugherty was on his feet. “Damn it!” he repeated, as he came out of the room and went downstairs. Jess, alarmed, stayed in his own room until the interview ended some five minutes later when there was a sound of a car moving off, followed by Daugherty’s heavy stride on the stairs, and then a tirade of the sort that Jess had never heard before from Daugherty or, indeed, from anyone.

  The subject seemed to be the sacredness of the afternoon nap, but all sorts of other things were said until Jess decided that he was probably still asleep in the rocker and this was a typical diabetic nightmare. Presently, he would wake up. But he didn’t. Daugherty was now dressed and packed and he had called for his car and driver to take him to Washington Court House. “You can get back to town on your own,” he said, and slammed the front door behind him.

  Jess went to the telephone, and rang Roxy. But she wasn’t home. He made two more calls: no one was answering. Then Daugherty opened the front door and said, “Come on, I’ll take you into town.”

  They did not speak for most of the short drive. Daugherty stared out his window, and Jess out his. The driver was sealed off in the front, for privacy’s sake.

  When they got to the main street, Daugherty told the driver to stop near Jess’s store. Daugherty avoided Jess’s gaze when he said, “I meant it about your staying on here, staying away from Washington. It’s getting too hot.”

  “I haven’t done anything.” Jess was almost too wounded to defend himself. He had done nothing, except the sort of odds and ends that practically everyone else did in his situation. “I never had anything to do with Charlie or Fall.”

  “There’s K Street, there’s Mannington.” Daugherty still did not look at him. “The President wants you out of Washington.”

  “W.G.?” Jess was stunned.

  “I’ve also got to
tell you you’re not going to Alaska with him. He told me to take your name off the list.”

  Other things were said. But Jess was confused. He hated firearms. Daugherty was like a madman. The car stopped.

  Blindly, Jess got out of the car. Several cronies greeted him. He shook a half-dozen hands. Then, as the car bore the Attorney General away, Jess went into Carpenter’s hardware store and bought a pistol and a round of ammunition. The proprietor was amazed. “Why, Jess. I never knew you to touch one of these before.”

  “It’s for the Attorney General. Nowadays you got to protect yourself.” Jess did not mind the cold hard feel of the gun as much as he had thought he would. What else had Daugherty said to him? Or had he dreamed it all? What he thought Daugherty had said in the car, he couldn’t have said. It was just a nightmare.

  Roxy wanted to go to a dinner dance at the Scioto Country Club, and Jess indulged her. Now that everything was decided, he felt at ease with the world if not his own body, which was not responding as well as it should to insulin. He was more and more subject to fits which left him shaken and disoriented. But all would soon be well. Daugherty had telephoned him that afternoon at the emporium. They would go back to Washington together and Daugherty would then move into the White House while Jess would go back to Wardman Park to wind up his affairs. It was like old days, almost.

  The orchestra was a good one, and the latest favorite, “Tea for Two,” tempted Jess to dance, but Roxy said, “No. It’s too much strain on you. Besides, I hate feeling that truss up against me.”

  “Not for much longer,” said Jess. All around them there were signs of prosperity. Something was happening in the country. Everybody’s business was good. There was a powerful smell of roast beef and Havana cigars in the large dining room with the dance floor and orchestra at the far end. Jess knew everyone in the room and everyone knew and liked Jess. But as tonight he wanted to enjoy Roxy, he kept to a minimum his “whaddaya knows?”

  “You’re all right now, aren’t you?” Roxy had been worried the day before when he was suffering from a kind of waking dream in which the words of Daugherty at Deer Creek were mingled with nightmare visions of crabs and galoshes and pistols, and the dark. He knew that he had talked wildly to Roxy. But now he was in perfect control of himself. Events would take their course according to his plan and no other.

  “What did you mean when you said, ‘They passed it to me’?”

  “I was just having one of those spells I get every now and then.” From a coffeepot, Jess poured himself a gin martini. “You’ll miss me when I’m gone?”

  “I always do. Some of the time, anyway. I’m pretty busy. You know.”

  “I’m giving you my Cole sedan.”

  The orchestra played “Yes, We Have No Bananas,” a title that irritated Jess no end. Why “yes” if there are none?

  The train ride back to Washington was also just like old times, almost. Daugherty was agreeable, very much like his usual self. It was agreed that Jess do away with all his records in case the various investigations were to spread beyond the Veterans Bureau and the naval oil reserves. Daugherty did not think that the Senate would find out anything other than the well-known fact that Forbes was a thief, acting on his own, while Fall, a favorite of the Senate, was no more than an obliging friend to the oil magnates.

  “We’ve been tapping Senator Walsh’s telephones.” Daugherty fixed his blue eye humorously on Jess; through the window the flat Ohio landscape was giving way to mountainous West Virginia. “He’s headed nowhere, I’d say. Fall’s too shrewd an old bird.” The blue eye suddenly winked, for no reason. “But Charlie Forbes will go to jail for thirty years if I have any say.”

  “What about Charlie Cramer?” Jess had not believed the suicide story. You only killed yourself if you were really sick with something, like diabetes before the days of insulin.

  “What about him?”

  “Was he in on it, with Forbes?”

  “Why else would he go shoot himself?” The brown eye had joined the left eye in staring at Jess.

  “Well, somebody could’ve shot him to shut him up, couldn’t they?”

  “Burns would’ve known.” Daugherty had a lot more faith in his director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation than Jess or anyone else had. William J. Burns was an old friend of Daugherty’s from Columbus, where he had established the Burns National Detective Agency. So close was Burns to Daugherty that Burns had eventually moved into Wardman Park, taking an apartment directly under the one that Daugherty shared with Jess. As a result, Jess had always been jealous of the intimacy between the two and he suspected that there were secrets Daugherty shared with Burns that he did not with Jess.

  Jess had never played golf well; today he was at his worst. But the others were tolerant as they made their way around the golf course at Friendship, under a dark sky. Although the McLeans were in Virginia, at their Leesburg place, friends were encouraged to use the course any time.

  Among the players was Warren F. Martin, Daugherty’s special assistant at the Justice Department, a man Jess had never got to know particularly well, and the President’s personal doctor, Lieutenant Commander Boone, an amiable fellow who, finally, aware that Jess was sweating too much even for a damp airless day, said, “Let’s go in. Jess here’s having a menopausal response.”

  But Jess said no. He’d play to the ninth hole. Then they all went back to the clubhouse. Jess stayed a moment but refused a drink from the waiter. “Looking forward to the trip next month?” Boone was an amiable man and, reputedly, a good doctor.

  “I’m not going.” Jess looked at Martin, who looked somewhat guiltily away. Martin knew of his disgrace. Daugherty had told him. How many others knew?

  “Shame. Sounds like it’s going to be fun. Is the General coming?”

  “No,” said Martin. “He’s staying put. He’s been away from his desk almost three months.” So Martin answered a question addressed to Jess Smith, Daugherty’s bumper and best friend. The curtain was coming down fast.

  Jess drove his Cole sedan from Friendship to the Justice Department, where he was greeted as if nothing had happened. At least Daugherty hadn’t told the guards. Jess cleared out the files in his sixth-floor office; then he drove to the White House, where, again as if nothing had happened, the guards waved him through the gate to the executive offices. In the reception hall, he told the usher in charge that he had an appointment with the President, which was not exactly true. But he was not kept waiting long. As he walked down the corridor, past the coat closet, he shuddered, as he did at the thought of any closet, so like a coffin, except that in this particular closet W.G. and Nan had made love—standing up? Or was there room enough for the two of them to lie on the floor?

  The President was standing at his desk, looking out the window at the south lawn, a radiant green in the late-afternoon light. Then he turned and Jess was struck by how putty-gray his face was, by how fat he’d become. But the smile was as beguiling as ever, and the hand-clasp firm. “Well, Mr. President, I’m doing like I was told. I’m clearing out of town.”

  “Sit down, Jess.” Harding remained standing, an unlit cigar in his right hand. “I’m really sorry it had to end like this. You’ve been a good friend to the Duchess and me, but we’re in for a lot of trouble come October when Congress gets back. I’ve been too trusting, the Duchess says. But I don’t think I am. I figure that people who’re doing well doing the right thing won’t be dumb enough to get themselves in trouble by doing the wrong thing.”

  “Yes, sir.” Jess felt as if he was a disembodied pair of eyes resting high up in the chandelier, watching the two of them in the distance. “I don’t think any of us in the K Street house …”

  “Jess, Jess.” The President motioned for him to stop; then he sat behind the desk and cradled his head in his hand. “I know all about K Street. Or I know as much as I want to know, and I wish to God I didn’t know what I do. I don’t blame you. I guess it’s my fault, thinking you’d know the difference b
etween the capital here and Washington Court House, and what’s seemly here and what isn’t.”

  “Well, I did my best. For everybody, or tried to.” Jess hoped that he would not start to cry.

  “I know. I know. If it weren’t for … the Veterans Bureau mess …” The President did not go on; he also could not say the name Charlie Forbes.

  “What shall I do with the Ungerleider accounts?”

  The President shrugged. “You can publish mine in the Post for all I care. It just shows that I’ve been as unlucky in the stock market as everything else. I’m selling the Star.”

  “I’m sorry, W.G.” Somehow the thought of the Marion Star and Harding transported, if only briefly, the two figures at the far end of the oval office back to a happier better time when W.G. was a newspaper editor and Jess the proprietor of a dry-goods emporium in the next town. They had come such a long way, to this evil house and uncommon end.

  “I had to. We need the money.” The President stood up. Jess rejoined his ailing body at the desk and shook Harding’s hand for the last time.

  It was evening when Jess parked his Cole sedan in the garage beneath Wardman Park. Then he took the elevator to his floor. As he unlocked the door to the living room of the suite, he was aware that something was not right. Then he saw Martin, in his shirt sleeves, seated at the desk, talking on the telephone.… “I won’t know till he gets here.” Then Martin must have heard the heavy sound of Jess’s breathing. He said into the receiver, “I’ll call you back.” Martin smiled at Jess; he always smiled. He was a dozen years younger than Jess.

  “The General was worried about you. So he asked me to sleep over, knowing how you don’t like being alone at night.”

  “Fine,” said Jess. There were two bedrooms in the suite with a living room between. Martin’s suitcase was on Daugherty’s bed.

  Jess went into his own bedroom, and shut the door. Then he opened his briefcase and withdrew all the bank statements, receipts, letters. He had also collected everything that pertained to the President and Daugherty. Beside his desk, there was a large solid metal wastebasket. Methodically, one by one, he put the papers into the basket, and set them afire. A cool breeze blew the smoke out the open window. In the distance thunder sounded. Why, of all people, Martin?