by Warren Adler
“I didn’t call the police,” she said, anticipating the question. I put another glass of Jack Daniels in Don’s hand, encouraging him to gulp it down. I hoped the liquor would shock his nervous system into some sense of coherence. There were things that had to be done. We needed his mind, and we needed it reasonably clear.
“Did anyone know she was coming out here?” I asked Christine.
“Yes. They knew she was going to the beach with me. Everyone in the office knew. I wouldn’t be surprised if they knew that Don was going with us. You know these things have a way of being open secrets. She was also very close to her father. They exchanged letters. He’s a mailman in Philadelphia. No. There’s no way to escape from that one. She very definitely came here with me. You remember we came in the same car. And people knew it.”
“Suppose no body is ever discovered. Suppose she never gets washed up on the shore. Can we explain her disappearance? Call it suicide or something?”
“How do we get Don off the hook?”
“We get Don out of here. Hole him up in a hotel somewhere. Then we establish a threesome. All three of us went out here together for a quiet weekend.”
“It’s believable—I guess.”
“Just as soon as we get him out of here, we’ll call the police and pronounce her missing. But we’ve got to find a way to get him out of here.” I pondered the possibility for a moment. No. It would be a tough story to establish. Where was the senator last night? That was the problem. A good detective could punch holes in the story quickly. Besides, Washington was a network of gossip, all kinds of gossip. Someone would know that Don and Marlena were having an affair. Someone had to know.
“It won’t work,” I said.
“No, it won’t work.”
“And, even if it did, I don’t think we could all live with it.”
Don was sitting on the couch curled up in the fetal position. His eyes were open; his expression, blank.
“Look at him, Christine. What are we supposed to do? It’s one helluva responsibility. I don’t want to make the wrong move. I’m getting frightened now. I wish I weren’t so meldramatic, but I simply don’t want to tell the world about this. I’m caught in limbo. If only we had more time.”
“I’d say we were running out of time. In a few hours, it will be Monday morning. The calls will start to come. The whole organization will be thrashing about. There are appointments to be filled. Marlena, too, had things to do on Monday.”
I went over to Don and shook him by the shoulders. He looked up at me and nodded.
“Don,” I said gently. “You’ve got to help us think this out. There’s no sense waiting for something to happen. We’ve got to do something. We’ve got to make something happen.”
He sat up. Then he put his head in his hands. “Let me walk along the beach for a bit,” he said. “Let me just be alone.”
“Don—” Christine was about to say something, then checked herself.
I guess moments like these must come to every man, moments of mental paralysis. It was not simply a question of not knowing what move to make. Rather, it was a wish, a compulsion to make no move. Don’s whole life was built on weighing alternatives, options, shoulds and should nots. He always squarely faced two, three, four sides of a question. That was his greatest strength, that uncanny ability to sift the right move out of a hash of alternatives.
“I want to walk on the beach,” he said. I blocked his way. He pushed me gently aside.
“I’m going with you.”
“I’ve got to be alone.”
He walked out onto the beach, a sad, hunched figure. There was no point in following him.
VII
When he had gone, Christine and I looked at each other. Near where she stood, in a neat little pile, were the beautiful yellow napkins that had so happily punctuated the morning. What a beautiful morning it was! A century ago, it seemed.
“I feel so damned helpless,” I said.
“So do I.”
“Do you think we’re too close to the situation to make a rational evaluation?”
“I hope not.”
“Do you think he’ll do something stupid?”
“Oh, my God.”
We walked out to the beach. At a distance, we could make out his figure walking slowly beside the water.
“Should we follow him?” Christine asked.
“I’m afraid we’ll just have to take our chances. The ball is in his court.”
We went back into the house and sat silently in the living room for a long time. I was disgusted with myself, with my helplessness, my inability to work up a plan. I felt, somehow, without courage, unbrave. It is a terrible frustration to be ineffective in a crisis.
And this was a crisis. It was, indeed, much more than that. It was an incident that would have reverberations around the world. There was one thing that being with Don all those years had taught me—to respect the sense of history, to follow destiny. Senator Donald Benjamin James was the most important political star in the American galaxy. In that context, he was hardly a man. He was an organization. He was DBJ, a point of view, a catalytic force, a symbol, carefully constructed, painstakingly assembled, ready to be launched into an arena where the big prize is the ultimate power trip. In fourteen months, the Democratic convention would begin. Soon a decision would have to be made on the primaries. But now was the crucial time, the fund-raising time, the jockeying for position time; the galvanization, the careful work of years was all coming together. The presidency! It seemed like some shimmery blue lagoon in an arid landscape, visible to the eye, the path through the parched desert barely discernible, but beginning to throw off bolder and bolder outlines.
But even Don, with all his attractiveness and organization, knew he stood on ever-shifting sands. Those winds were tricky. Things happened. Nothing stayed quite the same. Especially now.
A politician was not simply a man. Like Don, he was only pieces of different men, scraps of imagery and imaginings, a media creation. From state senator, direct to the Senate of the United States for two terms, a campaign of uncounted nights, meetings, speeches, strategies, echelons of advisers, cadres of people, strung out and lined up throughout the length of the country, waiting for the signal to go forth and capture the holy grail. To recognize that Don was, after all, only a man, a man who defecated and fornicated and felt pain or anger or sadness, was admitting a lapse of faith in the political system. Even Don would never allow himself such a delusion.
Did Don’s trail end on some lonely beach, the soul revealed, an empty shell of a man baying at the moon? It would seem so. The facts—notice, I did not say the truth of it—were perfectly suited to both creating the man and, therefore, killing the image of the man at the same time.
Put it in these terms. He is the beautiful, symmetrical man who shows up well from every angle on television. His voice is distinctive, individual, warm, reassuring, the words he speaks are well tuned, and the ideas carefully created, served up like a delicate soufflé. His style is envious, active, athletic, vital. His family is a perfect complement to the man of action. But he is not all putty and geegaws. Hasn’t he stood sweating under the TV lights and allowed the skilled newspaper boys to play darts with him as target? His is the body by which every woman dreams of being entered. A leader? He is a leader because he attacks the opposition. He is a leader because he instills hope in empty hearts, that is his greatest talent. He is the promise, the resurrection. Issues? He stands with mankind, the poor, the disenfranchised, the blacks, the Chicanos. You see them, lined up, like scraggly bums before a soup kitchen, banging on their bowls. But that only shows compassion, for he is not for the kind of change that will change. That kind of change will undermine the middle, and it is in the middle that the treasure is buried. Nor is he a fraud. He cannot be a fraud, because he is not real. The technology of politics makes it impossible for him to be real, and he knows it.
Now take this figure, precariously perched on the limb of history, re
ady to build his nest in the highest branch-pit of the tree, and reveal him as vulnerable, a miserable man, an adulterer, a smoker of pot, a cheater, perhaps a murderer, and you have the ingredients of political suicide at your door.
That was only one side of the coin. That was the wherefore of it. Where was the why? Why did Donald Benjamin James want to wield the ultimate power of the state? That was the dark side. I had watched Don’s ambition grow, not like some rotten malignancy taking possession of a life; rather, it was like a flower springing up from some stray seed, perennially in bloom, with blooms creating buds, then more blooms, until the thing was growing beyond anyone’s wildest imagination, enveloping all, soaking up earth and moisture, bloom upon bloom. He could have been a very successful lawyer. He could have been anything. He could have made barrels of money, could have fitted well in the modern Babbittry of country clubs and charity balls and “Kultur,” a “credit” to his community. Instead, he chose this power thing, and I had come to learn that this was the headiest thing of all. Power! Even the word had its own sinews and suppleness. Power! The quintessence of being, the rarest prize of them all. Who had planted the seeds of this thirsty flower? What did it matter? It was there. Let explanations lie. Let it suffice that I understand its force and temptation, as do all men who hover around a power source.
And I couldn’t tell, really, whether I mourned for Don or for myself. Certainly, it was not for Marlena. What was Marlena to me? Who cared about Marlena? That must sound callous. But it is honest. What was she to me?
Now, in practical terms, here is what could be expected. The police would be notified. Don’s involvement would be revealed, and the informers to the world would descend upon Rehoboth like a community of ants attracted to a melted caramel.
And the fornicators of the world would head for the hills while the hypocrites rubbed their hands together in anticipation of the dismemberment of the political corpse of Donald Benjamin James, DBJ. Headlines would be composed with cleverness and zeal by curmudgeon copy editors for ten-dollar prizes. “DBJ Takes Pot Luck. Comes up with Black Corpse.” And the TV boys, all eyes and cameras doing a recap of the weekend. “And here they had breakfast. And here is where they lit the fire and smoked the pot.” It would be the most delicious scandal of the century, the kind that years from now becomes the big movie of the season. Then the interpreters would follow, all compassion and kindness, all superior in their knowledge, all knowing, all omnipotent, all humble. Eric Severeid—rosy cheeked, grey perfection, nobility of articulation—would intone wisdom, like oil from an eyedropper. And then the conclusion: “There but for the grace of God go I.”
Americans might excuse the philandering, but the death would be hard to swallow. Sex made great media grist. Combined with death, it was sure fire. The challenge to Don’s credibility was mammoth.
Had Don yet to comprehend all this? And having done it, would he throw himself into the sea, not after Marlena now, but in denial of his own fate? That thought made me run out to the beach again. He had stopped going away and was now coming back.
His face was white, almost transparent, even in the yellow bulb light. He shook his head. “I’ve really bought it this time,” he said.
It was then that I knew he was beginning to reach inside himself for some lever of control.
“What were you saying about options, Lou?” he asked.
VIII
It was nearly midnight. We moved into the kitchen and seated ourselves around the table of an old-fashioned dinette set with a plastic top and thick, round aluminum legs. Christine poured us each a cup of steaming coffee. We sipped deeply, ignoring the burning against our lips and tongues, perhaps welcoming the pain. Christine had moved a brush through her hair and lightly painted her lips with her special brand of shiny orange. Don was sitting erect in the chair, as if the act of keeping straight was holding him together and any movement or slouch would cause his joints to collapse.
Christine brought out a dictation book and pen, crossed her legs, and perched her large-framed glasses on her nose. We were what we were, and while the terrible events of the past few hours had broken the rhythm of our lives, it did not change who we were and what we had to do. A stranger peering through the window might have taken it for an ordinary business meeting, perhaps two writers working on a play with their secretary.
“Do you believe in miracles?” Don said suddenly, breaking the silence, and, appropriately, opening the strange meeting. And yet, this was always our method—Don, Christine and I. This was always the way we attacked a problem—sitting around a table, boiling down the options, recording the results.
“No,” I said. “I don’t believe in miracles.”
“Neither do I.”
“Let’s start with a fact, then,” Don said. He was recovering the strength of his mind, although his physical appearance belied the fact. Deep black pockets had suddenly embedded themselves under his eyes, and the firm mouth seemed slack at either end. “Marlena is dead. That is an incontrovertible assumption. Marlena has drowned. Marlena could not have been saved. Marlena is dead.” His voice broke for a moment and then firmed. “No sense asking why. Only how. The ocean wanted her, trapped her, smothered her.”
“Accepted,” I said.
“Now what is the likelihood of the body being washed ashore?” Don asked.
“I have no idea.”
“If there is no body, there can be no autopsy,” Don said.
“And if there is no autopsy, there would be nothing to indicate sexual encounters or pot. That’s an important consideration, Don. Call it option one, Christine. If there is no body, then there can be no autopsy. If there is a body, there could be an autopsy, although I think you need the permission of next of kin. In any event, if there is no body, then we have the option to eliminate certain details of the events, like the question of sex and pot.”
“You’re probably right. Make a note of this, Christine. Whether they find Marlena’s body or not, they must first establish cause of death. In this case, drowning. Then once they’ve determined that there was no foul play, the question of autopsy becomes moot.”
“Unless the next of kin asks for it?”
“Which could happen.”
“That means we’ve got to speak personally to the next of kin, to Marlena’s father.”
“I don’t know how the hell I can face him. If it weren’t for me, his daughter would still be alive.”
“And that’s another thought you’ve got to put out of your head. Marlena’s death was an accident. It was in fact an accident. In the eyes of the law, it was an accident. Don, you’ve got to look at this rationally and solely from your own point of view. You’ve already established your humanity to your public, to the American people. That’s not your problem. You’ve now got to prove that you’re not an adulterer, that you don’t cohabitate with women other than your wife, much less black girls, that you don’t carouse, that you’re happily married and that one of your staff simply got herself drowned by accident while you were working in this house, lent to you by an old friend, for the weekend. People can believe that you worked all weekend. Hell, you had your secretary with you and the most trusted member of your staff. If you keep your cool, you could be home free. Do you understand?”
“You make it sound so simple. The smart money will know I’m lying—”
“You mean, suspect. Knowing is something else.”
“The self-righteous will want to believe it.”
“And they will.”
“The blacks will think I’ve exploited one of their women.”
“And secretly admire you.”
“The kids will know I’m full of shit.”
“And love you for shoving it up the ass of the American people.”
“The question then is, Is there more currency in telling the truth straight out or fudging the whole scenario?”
“Can a politician really show his weaknesses? A king descends from the gods.”
“Frankly, Lou
, a full confession, the whole truth, is the course I’d really like to take. Call it expiation. I’d feel a hell of a lot better.”
“So what?”
“You think there is no forgiveness in the electorate.”
“Oh, come on, Don—you sound like a ten-year-old in a 1935 civics class. Forgiving, perhaps, Remembering, definitely. Do you want their forgiveness or their votes?”
“I would still like to tell it like it is.”
“It won’t come out like that, because like it is to you is not like it is to others. You’d have to be almost omniscient. Almost, hell—you’d have to be totally omniscient, and a brilliant performer, to pull it off. You may be the latter, but not the former. Now, Don, I think you’re good. You’re great. But bringing off the pristine truth—there are too many possibilities of failure.”
“Put it down as an option, anyhow. Let’s not strike it out completely.” Suddenly Don stood up. “I think this is ghoulish. I just can’t believe that this is happening and Marlena is lying out there somewhere in that black, lonely sea. It makes no sense at all.”
I could see his point. Hell, I’m not inhuman.
“We’re just outlining the situation,” I said.
He turned angrily and beat his fist on the table. “Hell, don’t you think I wouldn’t like to find an easy way out of this mess? Don’t you think I’d like to spare my family the humiliation? Not to mention the party and the organization out there that thinks Senator Donald Benjamin James’s shit doesn’t stink. Well, they’re about to find out that it does, just like everybody else’s. How gullible do you think they are out there? How much of a massage do you think we can give them?”
“A big one,” I said.
“Not big enough.”
“We’re exploring options.”
“Options—horseshit. I haven’t got many options.”
“If you’d calm down, we’ll go over them.”
“No, I’ll read them out to you. Option one: Tell the simple truth. Report the drowning. Let the chips fall where they may. Option two: Report the drowning. Tell lies. Hope that time will make the story believable. You remember Goebbels and the big lie? Repetition of a lie equals truth. Option three: Just resign. Walk away. Fuck it all. Option four—”