by Allen Drury
“I have a hunch,” the Times remarked thoughtfully, “that this story is just beginning.”
***
Chapter 4
The radio was going on the nightstand while Pidge sat fascinated on her mother’s bed and watched with an occasional comment as her father wandered in and out of the bathroom in bare feet and a pair of terry-cloth trunks, shaving and getting ready. One of the nation’s most famous and colorful commentators was hard at work upon him at the moment, and the rich purple prose flowed out into the peaceful room with an air of intimate urgency that undoubtedly concealed from a good many millions of people the fact that its owner had spent most of the afternoon in the Press Club bar and had only blended together his on-the-spot coverage out of wire-service clips and one last martini just before airtime. But he was an old hand at the game, and it rolled:
“This day of dramatic behind-the-scenes maneuvering in the Leffingwell nomination is drawing to a close here in spring-drenched Washington with the deadlock between the White House and Senator Brigham Anderson of Utah apparently still unbroken. Not in years has there been a clash of wills as dramatic as that which is taking place between the President of the United States and the youthful Senator from the Far West. Senator Anderson’s friends, including such powerful members of the Senate as the Majority Leader, Robert D. Munson of Michigan, and the senior Senator from Illinois, Orrin Knox, have spent most of the day attempting to bring about a face-to-face conference between their young colleague and the President; but the Senator, persistently refusing to disclose the reasons for his abrupt reopening of the hearings on the nomination, has so far refused.
“Since he has kept himself incommunicado from the press, Washington has been forced to speculate on what those reasons may be; and the speculation always comes up against the solid rock of the reputation and character of the nominee, Robert A. Leffingwell. It seems inconceivable to Washington tonight that Senator Anderson can really have in his possession any facts casting any serious reflection upon the monumental integrity of this man the President has chosen to be his principal assistant in foreign affairs. So speculation turns elsewhere. Can there be political advantage in it for the Senator? Is this an elaborate attempt to hold up the White House for some pet project out West? Does he have long-range ambitions for national office that are leading him to curry favor among reactionary elements which are opposed to the confirmation of the nominee? Or is it something as simple, and perhaps understandable, as that he wishes to focus the national spotlight upon a career which in seven long years, despite his youth and the apparent promise with which he came here, has been, if truth were known, relatively undistinguished? These are the things Washington is speculating about tonight. The speculation is not, as Senator Anderson apparently hoped it would be, What is wrong with Bob Leffingwell? Rather, it is, What is wrong with Brigham Anderson?”
“Yes, you son of a bitch,” Brig said savagely, walking over and snapping off the machine, “that’s the speculation, all right.” Then he became aware of his daughter’s wide-eyed surprise, gave a sudden laugh, and bounced the bed vigorously. “Isn’t that the speculation?” he demanded, as she flew up and down in gurgling excitement. “Isn’t it?” And leaning over with a fist planted firmly in the mattress on each side of her he suddenly ducked his head and pretended to dive into her tummy. “Dadee!” she squealed in ecstatic delight.
“What’s all this unseemly noise that’s going on in the bedroom?” Mabel asked from the doorway, and her husband looked up with a grin.
“I’m glad you came along,” he said. “I have a young lady here who’s quite a flirt. She was getting too much for me, as you can plainly see.”
“As I can plainly see,” Mabel smiled. “Looks to me as though nobody is doing any serious work at all.”
“Daddy got mad at the man on the radio,” Pidge offered, and her father bunted her again to the accompaniment of more loud squeals. Then he suddenly sat her upright and put a pillow on top of her head.
“Now you’re a very stylish lady,” he said.
“Daddy,” Pidge said, “you’re silly.”
“So I am,” he admitted, “in a few private circles where I am known and loved.”
“What was the man saying?” Mabel asked, sitting down on the bed beside her daughter as he went back to the bathroom and started to mix up some lather.
“Don’t tell her, Pidge,” Brigham Anderson said. “It wasn’t anything very original.”
“I won’t,” Pidge said practically. “I don’t remember.”
“Well, that’s as good a reason as any,” Mabel agreed, and her husband chuckled.
“That’s right,” he said. “It wasn’t anything Mommy would want to hear anyway. No different from what she’s been hearing all day. It seems she’s married to a bad, bad man who is doing awful, awful things to his country. She knows that already.”
“No, I don’t, either,” Mabel said firmly. “I don’t know that at all.”
“Well, you’re nice,” he said, winking over the lather, “but that’s what a lot of people think.”
“What’s happened to you in the last few minutes?” she asked curiously. “You seemed rather depressed when you got home, I thought.”
“I got home,” he said simply. “That’s what happened.”
And he gave her a warm look that was such a mixture of white-lathered Santa Claus and half-naked satyr that she suddenly burst out laughing as though all the cares of the day were rolling away, as indeed it seemed almost possible they might be.
“What’s the matter?” he asked with a grin.
“Nothing,” she said. “Just you. And me. And life.”
“And me,” Pidge reminded firmly, and her mother gave her a hug.
“And you,” she agreed. “We’re quite a sketch, all of us.”
“I’m not,” Pidge said. “I’m me.”
“Sister,” her father said with a chuckle, “there’s no doubt of that. No, indeedy. As some young man is going to find out to his eternal fascination, bafflement, and enthrallment someday....As a matter of fact,” he said as he finished shaving, “I talked to the President on the phone this afternoon.”
“Oh?” Mabel said, and her fears suddenly came back stronger than ever. “How was he?”
“Pretty presidential,” Brig said soberly. “Headmaster-to-boy-in-the-lower-form type of thing. ‘I am asking you as President of the United States to come down here and discuss this with me,’” he quoted with an exaggerated emphasis.
“I hope you didn’t antagonize him,” Mabel said nervously, and a trace of impatience crossed her husband’s face.
“I am telling you as United States Senator from the state of Utah that I am not coming down there unless I am accompanied by my good friends the Majority Leader and the Vice President,’” he quoted, with a somewhat more emphatic emphasis.
“Oh, dear,” she said, a real worry flooding her heart, spoiling the mood of their happy moments, shadowing the warm, familiar room. “Oh, dear, I wish you hadn’t.”
“Hadn’t what?” he demanded sharply, coming into the room to get some socks and underwear from his bureau. “Hadn’t what, for heaven sakes?” he demanded again as he returned to the bathroom and prepared to close the door. “I’m not a school child, Mabel. I have some rights and some prerogatives of my own. Anyway I’m going to see him at the house after the banquet. Lay out my dress shirt and cuff links while I’m showering, will you? I’ll be out in a minute.” And he closed the door to become engulfed in a roar of water.
“Mommy,” Pidge said thoughtfully, “I wish Daddy would mind you.”
At this, for which there was no very good answer, Mabel scooped her up with a half-laugh, half-sob, half some sort of sound she wasn’t quite sure of, and gave her a hug.
“Help me fix Daddy’s shirt and jewelry for him,” she said. “He’s got to get all dressed up and look handsome for the big party.”
“I’ll bet he will,” Pidge said confidently, and her mother, al
though she felt as though she might start crying again if she didn’t watch out, made her answer light.
“He sure will,” she said. “He’ll be the handsomest one there, I’ll bet.”
“He’ll be the handsomest one there, I’ll bet,” Pidge repeated triumphantly.
And when a little later, shaved, showered, lotioned, and dressed in his tuxedo, he kissed them good-by and started across the lawn to the car, his wife felt with a pang of pride and pain and love and protectiveness like a knife that he very probably would be; for nature had favored him well, and tonight everything seemed to conspire to set it off. As he reached the car he turned back for a moment to wave, and the flat rays of the late afternoon sun, flooding through the trees and over the world, bathed his compact figure in a sudden glow, highlighted the sunburn in his cheeks, lent a ruddy tinge to his hair. She always remembered him as he looked at that moment, on that clear, gentle evening with a warm wind blowing, standing there in his white coat, black tie and black trousers, a smile on his lips, a confident look on his face, the level dark eyes carrying an expression of kindness and decency, his whole aspect steady and sure, his being caught and held in one of those rare moments of absolute physical perfection that come only fleetingly even to the most favored. That was how she always remembered him, later, that is, after enough time had passed so that she could stand remembering.
“I expect I’ll be a little late,” he called back casually. “You know how these things are.”
“Good luck at the White House,” she said.
“I’m scared,” he said with a grin, “but I guess he won’t eat me.”
“Goodness, I hope not,” she said, with a fairly good attempt at a laugh.
“Don’t you worry,” he said as he climbed in and turned on the ignition. “Little Jack is quite a giant killer.”
“I hope so!” she replied with a laugh that sounded steadier, and a last wave as he drove away. “Oh, my darling,” she said to herself as she watched him negotiate the corner smoothly and disappear from sight, “my beloved, my life, I hope so, oh, I hope so.”
***
Chapter 5
All across the great room with its deep scarlet carpets, its blue, starred walls and ceilings, its hundreds of white tables set with gleaming silver, its giant angular statues representing some awkward, self-conscious, mid-Forties concept of Humanity, the pride and pomp of America was assembling. The White House Correspondents’ banquet for the President, along with the Gridiron Club a major socio-political event of the year for the press corps, was drawing its usual complement of Senators, Congressmen, Supreme Court Justices, Cabinet officers, high-ranking military, diplomats, and reporters. For all practical purposes, the Government of the United States was concentrated on that evening in the Statler, for anyone who was anyone in that government, anyone who was anyone diplomatically assigned to that government, anyone who was anyone in the business of recording the events of that government, was present. In from northwest, up from southeast, down from Bethesda and Chevy Chase and Silver Spring, out of Georgetown and across the river from Virginia they had flocked in their formal attire for this annual gathering, and now they were slowly beginning to fill up the ballroom amid a clatter of waiters rushing about banging dishes and silverware, a steadily rising babble of voices, greetings, laughter, and joking talk, and above it all the Navy Band softly playing “Velia” and “The Banks of the Wabash” and similar sentimental compositions on the platform at one end of the room. There was excitement in the air and it was rising steadily as more guests entered and the crowd grew. It was always an enjoyable affair, and tonight the nomination lent it a spice that promised to make it even more memorable than usual.
So they were coming to it from all over the world of Washington, Lord Maudulayne picking up Raoul Barre in a British Embassy limousine and stopping by also, although not without some mild acerbic protest from his colleague, for the Indian Ambassador, who had been invited to sit at the head table and couldn’t help burbling about it most of the way down until he was quietly informed that both his companions had been invited too, after which he relapsed into an obviously miffed silence; Orrin Knox and Arly Richardson, sharing a cab in from Spring Valley, which gave Orrin a chance to fill Arly in on the plan for the White House conference, which he divulged, as soon as he reached the Statler, to his host, the Arkansas Gazette; Seab Cooley and Bob Munson, riding down together from their hotel through the soft breezes of Rock Creek Park, amiably telling one another lies about what they knew of the latest turn in the nomination; Harley Hudson, ordering his chauffeur to stop by Tom August’s in the park near Dolly’s so that the chairman of Foreign Relations could join him and arrive in style in the Vice President’s limousine; the nominee being picked up by his host, a very happy AP staffer who had covered Defense Mobilization for a decade and had suddenly found the patient drudgery of years sensationally rewarded by the fact that his guest had overnight turned out to be not only the director of ODM but the Secretary of State-designate as well; the Chief Justice and five of his colleagues, including Mr. Justice Davis, who was baffling his host, the legal reporter for the Times, by remaining deep in a brown study which certainly bore no resemblance to his usual pleasant presence; the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and the Joint Chiefs, the Secretary of Defense, the Secretary of the Treasury, the Secretary of Commerce, the Secretary of the Interior (Howie Sheppard, moved by an unhappy premonition that his days were numbered, had some weeks ago turned down the invitation of UPI’s chief diplomatic correspondent at State), the Secretary of Labor, and the Secretary of Agriculture.
Now the head-table guests were beginning to come in with their hosts, walking along the dais looking for their seats, and suddenly somebody on the floor cried, “There’s Leffingwell!” and there was a sudden burst of applause that rose and swelled through the glittering room until it almost drowned out the music. The nominee acknowledged it with a pleased smile, first bowing formally and then clasping both hands above his head in a prize fighter’s salute. The applause rose and doubled, not dying until he reached his seat and sat down. During this, from different entrances to the room, the senior Senator from Utah, the senior Senator from Illinois and the senior Senator from South Carolina could be observed entering with their hosts; it was noticed that while Brigham Anderson did not join in the applause, neither did he display any particular emotion at all, that he only smiled in a calm, unworried way and turned to chat pleasantly with his host, AP, as soon as the sound died down; it was noticed that Orrin Knox and Seab Cooley exchanged a glance across the tables between them, that Orrin made a grimace he made no attempt to conceal and that Seab gave a dry little nod that might have meant many things. There was much interest in all this and much excited gossip all around as the Chief Justice and his colleagues, the Joint Chiefs, Lord Maudulayne, Raoul Barre, Krishna Khaleel, Vasily Tashikov, and the Ambassador from Libya also came in and found their places along the head table. Expectancy and excitement mounted, for there remained now only one more entry to be made, and no matter how often those present had witnessed it, there was always a stirring and an emotion and a thrill.
Abruptly there was a roll of drums and over it the two traditional challenging announcements by the trumpets, “Ta—ta-ta-ta-ta—ta! Ta—ta-ta-ta-ta—ta! They got to their feet, the band swung into, “Hail to the Chief,” and the President came in with the officers of the Association and made his way along to the center of the table, grinning and smiling at them all, waving first one arm and then the other, and finally, as he reached his seat, raising both arms together in his characteristic gesture that combined the best features of yell leader on Saturday afternoon and spiritual leader blessing his flock. He held this pose for several moments while they stamped and whistled and applauded, and then at the height of it he suddenly looked down the table to his left where Bob Leffingwell was standing applauding with the rest. With a vigorous gesture as the excitement rose he beckoned him forward, and when the nominee reached him he gra
bbed his right arm and raised their two hands together in a triumphant gesture while the cheers and whistles grew to a steady roar. When this had lasted just long enough, he lowered their arms, gave the nominee a hearty pat on the shoulder, and sat down with a happy grin and satisfied shake of his head.
“So much for me,” Brig murmured to his host, but he had underestimated the President, for just at that moment men around him began calling loudly to attract his attention, pointing to the head table, and looking toward it he could see the President gesturing frantically. For a moment he hesitated, but he was helpless in the hands of a master showman, and there was no stopping this new scene in the drama. The President was half on his feet, reaching over for the microphone on the lectern at the center of the table. “BRIGHAM!” his voice boomed out. “BRIGHAM, COME UP HERE AND SAY HELLO TO ME, YOU SON OF A GUN!” And so after a moment, while the laughter and applause again mounted and rolled over the room and the spotlights in the control booth in the ceiling suddenly singled him out and accompanied his progress, the Senator from Utah slowly made his way to the head table.
“Brig, it’s great to see you!” the President exclaimed, leaning over the table edge and shaking hands vigorously as the Senator stood beneath him reaching up and the flashbulbs flared and the cameras snapped and the photographers fell over one another in their zeal.
“Mr. President,” Brig said with the exact degree of politeness necessary and no more, “I hope you have a good dinner.”
“I’m looking forward to dessert, eh, Brigham?” the President said with a wink and a chuckle and a hearty laugh, and the angry expression that flashed across the Senator’s face came and went so fast no camera caught it.
“I hope you don’t find it indigestible!” he shot back sardonically as he turned away, and in response to some wild inspiration on the part of the conductor the band suddenly swung into the Stanford Fight Song and once again the room broke into an uproar of rather hazy, rather woozy, but oh, my, such delighted sound at the great big happy, glowing, wonderful excitement of it all.