Helen McCloy

by Minotaur Country

  “I think I do.”

  “Why? To be inside history? To be where power is? To watch decisions made?”

  “No.”

  “Then why? You must have some reason.”

  “No reason. Just a feeling that this is something I have to do.”

  “We’re going to miss you.”

  “Bill, if you really need me here, I’ll turn it down.” Bill smiled. “Dear Tash, I think we may be able to struggle along without you for a few months, but remember: you can always come back here if anything goes wrong.”

  It was Tash’s turn to smile. “What could possibly go wrong?”

  5

  THE GOVERNOR’S HOUSE at Leafy Way was shaped like an E.

  The front was a classic oblong. At the sides two long wings extended toward the back, framing a courtyard. The Florida Room formed the short, center bar of the E between the two wings.

  The far end of the West Wing housed kitchen and pantries and laundries. The far end of the East Wing housed executive offices, where worker bees toiled anonymously for the good of the hive; secretaries, file clerks, researchers, and speech writers.

  That next morning, when a page conducted Tash to her new office, the first thing she saw on her desk was a morning edition of her own newspaper.

  GROW YOUR OWN APPLES

  SAYS MRS. PLAYFAIR

  by Tash Perkins

  Months ago she and Bill Brewer had worried about whether it should be Tatiana or Tash. She didn’t like nicknames used as full names, but Bill had said Tatiana was too foreign. Now it didn’t seem to matter. It would be a long time before that by-line appeared in print again.

  A tap on the door.

  “Come in!”

  Carlos de Miranda walked into the room carrying some books.

  “Welcome to Leafy Way!”

  He sounded manorial, as if he had been welcoming guests to official residences for years. Perhaps he had . . .

  “First of all, I must tell you about the alarm system for your office,” he announced.

  “Does each room here have its own alarm system?”

  “Only each office. In the rest of the house, each suite of rooms has its own system, and each floor has its own fuse box in the hall. Like all the others, your alarm is a combined burglar and fire alarm. You know it’s on when this red button is lighted. There are push buttons inside and outside your office, so you can turn it on or off, whether you are in the office or not.”

  “You can’t mean that anyone outside can turn it off in order to break in!”

  “Oh, no! Only you can turn it on, or off, outside or inside, because it works on a numerical combination that only you know. It has to be a number of five digits, and you can change it as often as you like.”

  Tash laughed. “I’ll be sure to forget the number and lock myself out.”

  “So would I without something to remember it by. I use the digits for my birthday date. That’s a number I can’t forget.”

  “I’ll do the same. My birthday is March 29, 1950.”

  Carlos pushed the numbered buttons for her: 29-3-50.

  “You’ve done it wrong!” cried Tash. “It’ll have to be 3-29-50, if I’m to remember it, because that’s the way I think of numerical dates.”

  “A month-day-year sequence? Okay.” He corrected the number and put the books he was carrying on the table. “Have you everything you want in here?”

  Tash smiled. “Everything. Typewriter, tape recorder, papers, pens, pencils, even comfortable chairs and a nice view of flower beds. Everything but work.”

  “Don’t worry. There will be more than enough of that, I assure you.”

  He sat on the edge of a window seat and held out a cigarette case.

  “No, thanks. I gave it up two years ago, but it doesn’t bother me when other people smoke.”

  “What strength of character! Some day I am going to be virtuous, too, but now, like Saint Augustine, I am asking God to wait until I am a little older.” He drew on his own cigarette luxuriously. “Do you read Spanish?”

  “Only a little.”

  “Then it’s just as well most of these books are in English.” He took an ashtray from the table and set it on his lap. “What do you know about Barlovento?”

  “Nothing.”

  “Fine. Then you won’t have anything to unlearn. I was born there, but educated in America. I was a classmate of the Governor’s at Princeton. I’m an American now, but . . . how can I be indifferent to the fate of Barlovento when it is becoming a football in American politics?”

  “The dock strike?”

  He nodded. “Barlovento is mining country. America needs bauxite from those mines, but the dockworkers’ union had such a bad experience with Communist infiltration during the thirties that they won’t unload any imports from Barlovento, which, they say, is Communist.”

  “Is it?”

  Carlos shrugged with Latin elaboration. “Such polarized terms have little meaning in an economy as primitive as Barlovento’s. The dictator, Escudero, calls himself an agrarian reformer. He has trade relations with Russia, like everybody else today, including us. If he is handled with tact, he is more likely to evolve into a Tito than a Mao. His predecessor, the neo-fascist Roya, was far worse. The Mafia ruled Barlovento through Roya. Indeed, it was to escape Roya that my father brought his family to this country.”

  “And where do I come in?”

  “There are two factions among Barloventan-Americans now: immigrants, who are pro-Escudero and want the Governor to break the strike, and political exiles, who are anti-Escudero and want the Governor to support the strike.

  “One thing that confuses people is the fact that the anti-strike faction is liberal and the pro-strike faction is conservative.

  “In a few days the Governor will have to make a speech about all this. You are going to write the speech.”

  “Which side do I take?”

  “Can you ask? Neither, of course! He must say nothing in a great many words and so buy time for negotiation. This is what I believe speech writers call a challenge.”

  “But won’t he have to take sides eventually?”

  “If he’s lucky, the President will step in and stop the strike as a matter of national interest. Then the Governor won’t be compromised. That’s important to him because this is an election year.”

  “So he is going to run for a second term?”

  “Of course. That was decided months ago.” Carlos smiled. “Now you’re one of us, we don’t have to pretend with you any more.”

  “Anything else?”

  “Just remember to walk on eggs whenever you mention the Barloventan crisis.”

  “In other words, dodge it?”

  “Exactly.”

  Tash remembered her first day as a reporter. She had covered a story about the sale of a Fragonard drawing for a fabulous sum. When there wasn’t time to look up the date of the drawing before going to press, she had asked the city editor what to do about it. He had answered, without looking up from his work: “Dodge it!”

  To a girl fresh from academia where accuracy and honesty were gods, it had been a shock. Now she was getting used to this other world, where the only goal was getting things done, however sloppily or deviously.

  “How did you learn so much about American newspapers?” she asked Carlos.

  “Not so long ago I was running the South American department in the New York office of a North American wire service. When Jeremy found out how many Barloventan-American voters there were in this state, he decided he needed a press aide who could talk to them in their own tongue. So here I am!”

  “Barlovento means windward, doesn’t it?”

  “So you do know some Spanish?”

  “Not as much as I’d like to.”

  “In that part of the Caribbean, the prevailing wind is such that it was always easier for Spain to invade leeward islands, like Sotavento, in sailing ships than windward islands, like Barlovento. So Barlovento got its freedom long bef
ore Sotavento and was always more free until Roya took over. Why not put that in the speech? Say something about the gallantry of the liberty-loving Barloventistos, who threw off the iron yoke of tyrannical Spain over one hundred years ago, etcetera. Revolutions as old as that are respectable. The safest way to give brio to a newspaper story is by whipping a dead horse, and—”

  He paused at the sound of staccato footsteps outside in the corridor.

  The door burst open, and an angry, little man plunged into the room.

  “Carlos! Why are you hiding back here?”

  “I am not hiding. I am explaining to Miss Perkins—”

  “Miss Perkins?” The little man turned to stare at Tash. “Well, I’ll be jiggered! I always thought Tash Perkins was a man. The name sounds like a man’s and the columns read like a man’s.”

  Tash was nettled. “Would you say Lise Meitner’s equations and formulae read like a man’s?”

  Carlos interrupted in his most formal tone: “Miss Perkins, may I present the Lieutenant Governor, Mr. Job Jackman?”

  In the neighboring state of Maryland, there was no lieutenant governor, but here he was an important officer, presiding over the Senate and performing all functions of a national vice president at state level.

  The gap between the dignity of the office and the personality of this small, uninhibited man was enormous. Beside Job, Carlos was like a large, calm, splendid Saint Bernard dog, while Job himself seemed like a yapping, feisty, little terrier.

  “I’ll call you Tash. You call me Job. Everybody does. Is that your car outside? The blue convertible? It’s rolled. I came in to tell you.”

  “Oh, no!”

  “Oh, yes! Come on out and look.”

  It hadn’t rolled far. A tree had stopped it, denting one of the front fenders.

  “This is the second time it’s happened this month!” wailed Tash.

  “It’s that automatic drive,” said Job. “So easy when you’re in a hurry to put the gear indicator on N for neutral instead of P for park. You do it by sight, not by feel, the way you did the old gear shifts, and sight can be deceptive.”

  “I’ll watch it in future,” said Tash.

  “You’d better.” Job took a cigar from his pocket and made a business of lighting it. Once he had it going, he went on in the same rapid-fire style. “Has Carlos been loading you to the eyebrows with stuff about Barlovento?”

  Carlos opened his mouth, but Job stifled his protest with a raised hand. “Forget it!” Job went on. “Who cares one good goddamn about what happens to Barlovento?”

  “Now wait a minute!” cried Carlos. “There is a large Barloventan vote in this country, and if you took the trouble to read history—”

  “You told me yourself this morning that there are no good histories of Barlovento in English,” retorted Job. “And you know that I don’t know one word of Spanish. But I do know that all the voters in this state really care about is the gut issues. What I’d like to see in the Governor’s next speech is a pledge to stop inflation, lower taxes, and raise food prices.”

  “You’re joking,” said Tash.

  “I never joke about politics.”

  “But you said raise food prices!”

  “Of course I did. There are only two industrial counties in this state. The other seventeen are all farming counties. Seventeen counties are a lot of voters, and they all want food prices to go up.”

  Carlos burst out laughing. “My dear Miss Perkins, do not let our Mr. Jackman intimidate you with his impersonation of Boss Tweed. Neither he nor I decide policy around here. Only the Governor himself, and he will talk to you about all this at luncheon. Oh, didn’t I mention that you’re lunching with him today? Drinks in the Florida Room at one o’clock. Come on, Job. Miss Perkins has work to do.”

  At five minutes to one Tash stepped through the door that led from the executive offices to the rest of the house.

  The first thing she heard was a bird singing.

  She followed the sound and it led her to the Florida Room, where Vivian Playfair’s canary was pouring out his heart in a fountain of song.

  Vivian herself stood by the cage, listening.

  One look at her and Tash was speechless.

  This was another woman from the woman who had received her last Monday.

  It was not just the change in clothes, though that was part of it. She had taken trouble with what she wore this time. Her raw-silk slacks and short-sleeved cashmere sweater were the yellow of the canary’splumage, a streak of sunshine in a room now dimmer with the Venetian blinds drawn. Their cut revealed a Tanagra figure—wasp waist, small, high bosom, gently rounded hipline, long legs. But the real change was in the woman herself.

  This time she looked young for her twenty-eight years. Her eyes were a clean, bright blue. Her hair, loosely shaped to frame her face, had a pale gloss with golden highlights. Her skin seemed to glow softly like light shining through alabaster. With all the yellow, she was wearing coral beads and a coral ring, the pink shade of coral that has yellow in its composition.

  This was the legendary Vivian Playfair whose looks and taste had provided so much copy for Sunday newspapers and women’s magazines.

  “Miss Perkins, I am so glad you are going to work with us for a while. I liked the interview and so did Jerry.” It took Tash a moment to realize that “Jerry” meant Jeremy.

  “We were both distressed when we read in the papers that your pocket had been picked after you left here. Did you lose much?”

  “Only thirty-nine dollars and that letter you—” Vivian interrupted gently. “Did Hilary Truance assign you a room of your own here?”

  “An office? Yes, when I got here this morning, a page—”

  “You’ll need more than an office when the campaign gets under way. You’ve no idea of the organized frenzy that goes on during an election. There’ll be nights when you work too late to go home afterward, so you’ll have to have a place here where you can flop for a few hours. Tell Hilary I said so. I think there’s a suite of rooms near hers, but if not, she’ll find you something elsewhere.”

  “Thank you. About that letter—”

  “Carlos!” Vivian’s glance went beyond Tash to the doorway. Her smile was radiant as she held out her hand. Carlos bowed his head to brush her fingers with his lips. He turned to Tash without losing a beat and smiled.

  “I meant to show you the way here, but I see you didn’t need me.”

  “I followed the canary’s song,” said Tash.

  “Ah, Blondel!” Carlos went over to the cage. The bird seemed to know him well for it did not flutter. “You are no longer a minstrel,” he whispered, lips close to the bars. “You are merely a luncheon bell.”

  “I am dying for a martini,” said Vivian. “And I imagine that Miss Perkins is, too.”

  “Don’t I see sherry?” said Tash.

  “You do indeed.” Carlos moved to the drinks table. “The best of all pre-luncheon drinks, as anyone with a drop of Spanish blood will tell you. This I ordered myself.”

  The moment Tash tasted it, she knew it was special. She sipped it slowly, so she was still savoring it when Hilary Truance came into the room.

  “Martini?” inquired Carlos.

  “Need you ask?” Her roving glance fell on Tash. “So you’re one of us now. Welcome to the madhouse!”

  “It seems a well-regulated madhouse.”

  “Wait till the campaign starts.”

  Vivian crossed the room to them. “Hilary, she will need a room for overnight.”

  “All set. She’s to have the suite next to mine.”

  “Mrs. Playfair,” said Tash. “If I may, I would like to explain about that letter.”

  “Not now, if you please, Miss Perkins. Some other time.”

  Tash was not used to flat rejection or a voice of ice. Why should Mrs. Playfair treat her as an enemy? What could be more natural than wanting to explain what had happened to a letter she had been trusted to mail?

  Hilary was lo
oking at Tash over the rim of her cocktail glass. “There are a lot of things I’ll have to explain to you. Maybe after luncheon. Damn this election! There’s no time for anything else. I can’t even work on my book.”

  “What’s your book about?”

  “The structure of society. After all, I am a social secretary.” Her laugh was as harsh as the grinding of gears. “It’s called In Defense of Snobbery.”

  Tash blinked. “I gather you don’t agree that the word snob comes from sine nobilitas—without nobility?”

  “I don’t care whether it does or not. I decided to write this book when I heard someone say that good grammar is snobbish, and—”

  But Tash was no longer listening. The Governor had just come into the room.

  Job Jackman was with him, and a small, plump woman, who was introduced as Mrs. Jackman and addressed by the others as Jo Beth.

  Everyone present now was a member of Jeremy Playfair’s famous “Tennis Cabinet,” a close-knit group that worked and played with him: his own wife, the Jackmans, Mrs. Truance, and Miranda. The only one missing was Captain Wilkes, who commanded the state police guard at Leafy Way.

  They moved to the adjoining breakfast room, where luncheon was usually served, as well as breakfast.

  Tash discovered from a place card that she was on the Governor’s left. He was polite and even cordial to Tash when he remembered she was there, but most of the time his eyes were on his wife at the other end of the table. Once when he was speaking to Tash he said, “Miss . . . er . . .” and she had to supply the Perkins. She thought then: There will never be anything very personal about this relationship, and turned to the woman on her left.

  Jo Beth Jackman was just about what one would expect Job’s wife to be: simple, serious, dressed carefully rather than smartly. She looked just about Job’s age, and Tash put them down as old high school sweethearts.

  Jo Beth talked about her two sons, both in college, and showed their pictures to Tash. They looked like the kind of boys Tash would like to have herself some day.

  “I miss them,” Jo Beth sighed. “I miss the life we used to live at our ranch out West. We’ve rented a sort of country place here, Fox Run, but it’s too suburban. The boys don’t like to spend their vacations there. They miss the horses and mountain trails and all that. So do I. I’m just not cut out for this sort of life.”