“I could have him sent elsewhere,” Jordine said. “A place where you would have good reason not to go. He could be promoted and you could stay here. There’s a vacant ambassadorial slot no one good will take, the Central African Republic. The administration wants a career man. Dennis would not dare turn down an ambassadorship. Not him.”
“He might to be DCM in Canada,” she said, reaching down to between Jordine’s legs. “He is very, very fond of Canada.”
“Marie-Claire, I …”
“Arthur, cher Arthur,” she said. “Je t’aime si fort. You are everything.”
She leaned close to his face, her blond hair falling forward, touching his cheek. “But Dennis is my husband. And you know that Papa will never allow us to have a divorce.”
Marie-Claire then giggled, abruptly shifting her body, moving it up and settling like a bird upon his mouth. “And now it is your turn,” she said, sipping her Pernod, and she giggled again.
4
Still feeling queasy, and walking with a slow, clumsy step, Showers left the White House grounds through the busy northwest gate, removing his VIP badge from his lapel and avoiding the gaze of two newsmen waiting at the guardhouse to be admitted. The Washington heat was sickening. He had arrived at the White House still somewhat drunk and was leaving in the first stages of what promised to be a gargantuan hangover. But he was nothing if not a man of highly practiced poise. The first rule of diplomacy was to drink what you would, but never look drunk.
Showers had spent most of the morning in the White House basement offices of the National Security Council, braced stiffly against the back of a leather couch, speaking only when asked a question and then with a slow deliberation he hoped would pass for careful thought. It helped that his audience was with Max Diehl, a grimly tough western-hemisphere specialist universally regarded as the meanest man at the NSC. Trifle with him, and you could quickly find yourself stamping visas in Uganda.
Lately, the White House had been summoning Showers for the most trivial reasons. Diehl was no exception. He asked questions about expected French and Belgian conduct at the forthcoming summit that could have been answered by the most junior research assistant. Then he turned from trivia to sleaze, asking pointedly personal questions about the private lives of the new French president and defense minister. Showers disliked accommodating such curiosity.
“Wouldn’t the CIA be better able to assist you in this?” he asked, trying not to sound testy—not too testy.
“Can’t trust the bastards,” Diehl said. “Their NIEs these days read like old Joe McCarthy campaign speeches. El Flako over there’s scared to death to send anything up to the president the Old Man might disagree with. We use some of their stuff, have to. But we use other people, too, even in the State Department. You’re not all wimpy pinko faggots.”
He smiled, if the expression could be called that. “So tell me about the Frogs,” he said.
Showers took a long, deep breath, fighting back anger. “In the privacy of his own home,” Showers said, “our conservative French President Dubrow is a closet socialist. He’s maintained the close relationships he had with leftist friends in his youth and they come and go, discreetly, almost at will. As for his sex life, it’s quite conventional, for France: the wife, an older mistress, and a quite young one. No one else. No philandering, nothing kinky.” He took another deep breath, feeling rather dizzy.
“And the defense minister?”
“He was given his cabinet post because the militants in the party demanded it. The president dislikes and distrusts him, but he needs the militants. The defense minister is a homosexual, with a bent for whips. I think he’s borderline homicidal.”
Diehl positively beamed. “You’re better than the Agency,” he said. “You ever think of becoming a spook, Showers?”
Showers head was beginning to throb. “I have no interest in intelligence work,” he said.
Diehl leaned back in his chair. “Is your boss a lush?”
“The head of my section?” Showers said, startled.
“The secretary of state,” said Diehl, glowering. “I hear he’s usually plastered by the end of lunch. Takes naps in his office. Sobers up in time to make the embassy receptions. Goes to more embassy receptions than even Al Haig did. Makes up for every drink George Shultz never took. Doesn’t miss a night. Is that right?”
“I can only say I’ve never noticed that. I’ve only spoken to the man twice.”
Diehl glowered again, stared at Showers for a long, long moment, smiled, then placed his hands palm down on the desk top, glancing down at them, then looking up quickly. “You’re going to Canada by the end of the year,” he said. “As DCM.”
“Yes.”
“We may move the timetable up a little.”
“We?”
“The name of this place is the White House. It does have jurisdiction over State, you know.”
Showers remained quiet, trying to look polite and submissive.
“The new ambassador’s appointment is going to sail through,” Diehl said. “The Senate Foreign Relations Committee vote will be next week. My count is seventeen to two. The rest is pro forma. He’ll be in Ottawa within six weeks. He’ll need help. A lot of help. Your help. So will we.”
Showers stared blankly.
“These ambassadorial appointments,” Diehl said. “The president has some problems there. He’s got a lot of personal and political obligations to take care of. He’s got some old family friends to take care of. The new ambassador to Canada, he’s an old family friend. I’ll have you in Yemen if you repeat this, but the guy’s a boob. First-class boob.”
“A used-car dealer,” Showers said.
“A new-car dealer. He also owns part of a Canadian whiskey distillery. And he has a big thing about hockey.”
“Hockey,” said Showers.
“While he’s at the games, you’ll be running things up there. When he’s in the chancery, you’ll still be running things up there. For us.”
“Us?”
“Same as ‘we.’ White House. The Old Man. This office. Me.”
He folded his arms, his eyes locked onto Showers’ like radar tracking devices.
“I don’t understand,” Showers said.
“Things are going to hell up there. Fast. Old Trudy may have been a lefto, but he knew how to hold it all together. Harry York can’t. He’s on our side, but he’s screwing it all up. Canada’s coming apart. Critical stuff, situation-room stuff. Historically, there’s an advantage to our side in what may happen. There are parts of Canada—the western provinces, probably most of Ontario—that really ought to be part of the U.S. But the risk is goddamn big. Big, Showers. Europe, Japan, they all got a stake. The Russians got a stake. If they can mess up Canada, they’ll have us tied up for months or years while they’re having their way in Oman or someplace.”
He leaned slightly forward, his eyes still fixed on Showers’. “We’ll show you the NIEs, Showers. Gas, oil, uranium alone. We can’t let Canada go. And you’re gonna be our man in Canada.”
“I still don’t understand.”
“The Old Man, he’s, well, distracted by other matters. We can’t rely on Flako at the Agency, or the high command over at 21st and C streets. We think we can rely on you. You’re to do whatever is required of you by the striped-suit boys on the Seventh Floor, but we want to be informed of everything. Everything the Canucks do. Everything anyone in our embassy does. Everything all the other embassies do. You’re to be in constant contact with my office. This office, here. Every day, if necessary.”
Diehl took off his glasses. With them on, he looked to be in late middle age. With them off, he seemed no older than forty.
“Why do you feel so strongly that you can rely on me? I intend to do my duty, as always, but …”
“You had a couple of Chinamen in your time, Showers. The late ambassador to Germany. The former senator from Wisconsin. You didn’t get promoted over all those Yalies on the strength of your disp
atches alone. Now, I’m not saying I’m prepared to be your China, but if you help us, it’ll be remembered. And rewarded.”
A chilly tremor danced over the flesh of Showers’ back. The muscles of the back of his left hand began to twitch along the jagged scar left from the shrapnel wound he had long ago suffered in the Congo. He felt very dizzy. He was tumbling helplessly into just the sort of Washington political entanglement that every career foreign officer dreaded most. If the secretary learned of this conversation, Showers would indeed be punching visas in Uganda. If Jordine learned of it, the secretary would know in two seconds. Showers groped through his sodden mind for something to say. “We all serve the president,” he said.
“Some of us try,” said Diehl, putting on his glasses. “The Old Man knows about you, Showers. It was with his personal approval that you were given the Ottawa assignment, you know, not because of anything any fancy-pants faggot in State had to say. Your record was brought to the president’s personal attention. He likes it that you don’t have a college degree, that you’re a self-made man, that you’ve had to scratch your way up like he did. That kind of approval can take you far, Showers. Without it, there would be no one at all to protect you from all those goddamn Yalies. You realize that, don’t you?”
He swallowed. “Yes, of course.”
“That’s all,” Diehl concluded, looking grimly down at the papers in front of him. “Thank you. You’ll hear from us. Soon.”
Now, walking unsteadily in the soggy, sun-broiled air of Pennsylvania Avenue, Showers tried to put the entire matter from his mind. He engrossed himself with the problem of where to eat lunch. He needed a Bloody Mary, or something as curative, but didn’t want to be seen drinking. His left hand was still trembling. He dared not go to Dominique’s, his favorite restaurant, as it was also the favorite restaurant of Jordine and half of his section at the State Department. Maison Blanche, the Class Reunion, and Nick and Dottie’s, all nearby, would be just as dangerous. He decided he’d go to the Old Ebbitt Grill, on F Street on the other side of the White House. He’d get a quiet corner table upstairs, in the rear, and only then, after a tall cold beer, begin to ponder what Washington was about to do to him.
Turning unsteadily, he retraced his steps past the Northwest Gate and headed east. The traffic light just ahead changed to red and pedestrians began streaming across the avenue from Lafayette Park opposite. Among them was a small, slender woman with dark hair, wearing a blue blazer, white blouse, and khaki skirt—an ensemble vivid in Showers’ memory from countless times before, so long ago. For a long moment, he stood stunned, unbelieving, then hurried along to catch up, to be there as she reached the curb. He stared at her approaching figure as he walked. The hair color and style appeared the same. She had eyes that could be green. There could be the same fine features, but he wasn’t sure. He wasn’t at all sure what Felicity Stuart might possibly look like after twenty years, would look like at thirty-nine, nearing middle age. This was all so damnably strange, so impossible, so ridiculous. Yet, here she was, crossing Pennsylvania Avenue in Washington, D.C., coming toward him.
Reaching the curb, the woman looked up at him, first in startled curiosity at his stare, then in hostile resentment. He moved clumsily aside, letting her pass. She looked nothing at all like Felicity Stuart, like no one he had remembered or imagined. Or dreamed.
Paulette Arlon dropped the newspapers on the kitchen table with a thud. Macoutes, who slouched there drinking wine and gnawing on a piece of greasy cheese, glared at her.
“Read,” she said, pulling back a chair and pouring wine for herself. She scratched irritably at a badly healing cut on her finger.
“Is it there?” asked Macoutes.
“Just read.”
There was nothing in the two French-language papers she had brought. The Gazette had only a short, one-paragraph item, under the headline: “New California Slayings.” It mentioned no names.
“Is this all?” he asked.
“Read.”
Scowling, he picked up the Globe and Mail. On page five was a full-length wire service story, headlined: “California Mountain Slayer Strikes Again.” Macoutes smiled. This reminded him of the satisfying days when the newspapers carried accounts of his student protest demonstrations and bombings.
He continued reading, as Paulette watched him sullenly. The story described what authorities said were the seventh and eighth shotgun murders committed in the coastal mountains south of San Francisco in the last fourteen months. As with all the others, the victims were a couple. As with the others, the woman appeared to have been sexually assaulted. Unlike the others, these two had had their faces shot away, but police did not think this a significant aberration. They still sought the same suspect, a tall, long-haired, bearded man who wore old army clothes and had been sighted in the area several times. The latest victims had been wearing hiking clothes. At the end of the story, the victims were identified as Hope F. Stuart, a day-care-center attendant from San Jose, and a G. Brown, address unknown.
That was all.
“Bien,” said Macoutes. “Just as Hillion wished.”
“They identified the dead man as G. Brown,” said Paulette. “No address. Nothing about the hotel.”
“Perhaps it is too soon.”
“Leon, what if the dead man stays G. Brown?”
“That can’t happen.”
“I think it has happened.”
“I’ll send someone to talk with Hillion in the prison.”
“Merde! You won’t listen to me, Leon, but you must! We are the ones responsible now. Everything depends on us. Hillion’s plan is not working. It is a stupid crazy plan.”
“Your plan, Paulette, is more crazy. It would get most of us killed.”
“It would free Quebec! We would not have to depend on outsiders!”
“Paulette. We must depend on many for this to work. And they on us. If we all act alone, then Harry York wins. He gets us all, here, in the West, everywhere. We must stick to the plan. We must help the man. He has proved he is with us.”
“I say go to that apartment and kill him. Then we won’t have to worry about any ‘Mr. Browns.’”
Macoutes turned away from her angry eyes. They reminded him unpleasantly of his father’s.
“I will wait to hear from Alain,” he said somberly.
“Merde.”
Macoutes took the next call at a public phone several blocks from the first one he had used, as prearranged. Alain and the new man, Maurice, were now in Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan. They were driving east in a stake truck carrying lumber and—joyful news—gelignite! The “friends” in the West had been true to their word after all. Things were going well again. Macoutes could ignore Paulette.
But there was the other problem.
“Alain,” he said, “there was a story in the Globe. It said the man was identified as G. Brown, and had no address.”
“C’est impossible. If they identified him as G. Brown, they would have an address. The hotel in San Francisco, as arranged.”
“Alain, everything depends on …”
“We took care of everything, Leon! Everything! The ID. The hotel room. The suitcase in the closet. Perhaps the police are just slow. Or the newspapers have it mixed up. Get a San Francisco paper, if you can. It may have more.”
“Okay. I will talk to you tomorrow. Don’t waste time getting here. Vive Papineau! Vive Québec!”
“Vive Québec!”
He would go to the newstand at Peel and Ste. Catherine and see if they had a San Francisco paper. It would be safer if Paulette went, of course, but it would be better if she did not.
Showers sometimes paused at an embassy reception on the way home, but he almost never stopped in a bar for a drink after work, considering it a pointless, wasteful, and dangerous habit. Yet here he was entering the Class Reunion, a White House staff and newspapermen’s hangout, one of the most popular places in Washington in which to have too much to drink.
As he had hoped and
expected, Jack Spencer was there, at the bar, with a woman, as always. Spencer was a newspaperman, a longtime foreign correspondent for a large chain of Midwestern newspapers, who had been beached in Washington. He and Showers were old friends and fellow New Yorkers, Spencer having grown up in Bedford Village, a Westchester County town not fifteen miles from Braddock Wells. A man of picture-perfect handsomeness roughened and weathered by travels, drink, and approaching middle age, Spencer had been married to one of the most attractive and socially prominent women Showers had ever known. Now divorced, Spencer had turned to other women like a chain-smoker taking up cigarettes again.
The girl with him at the bar was a tall blonde with marvelous eyes and scrawny legs. A star newspaper reporter, she had been much gossipped about during the previous administration for a lingering affair with a high-ranking and married official in the White House. Spencer seemed more interested in his drink, a large Manhattan.
“I thought you gave that up for reasons of health,” Showers said.
“Why it’s old Dennis T. Showers the First,” said Spencer, turning. “My health and I are leading different lives these days, since you ask. But what about you? I thought your idea of a wild time was two Dubonnets at a British embassy garden party. Yet here you come boldly among the biggest sots in town.”
“A glass of white wine,” Showers said to the barmaid, a slim girl in a T-shirt.
“Aha,” said Spencer.
The tall blonde, whom Spencer declined to introduce, tried to resume their conversation, which seemed to consist mostly of her telling him about a trip she had just taken to Egypt with the secretary of defense.
“Sweets,” said Spencer, finally, patting her behind, “Mr. Dennis Showers the First here is a high-ranking dip.”
Showers returned her suddenly pleasant smile.
“I’m sure what he has to tell me is something I’d rather not share with your editor and the rest of the Washington press and bugle corps,” Spencer said. “Give us a few minutes to commune.”
Northern Exposure Page 4