by Allen Drury
Therefore there were certain things he might have to do, he felt, if he were to hold out and survive it; assuming he could, which of course any man who was not a coward had to assume. The first was to get in touch with Orrin and tell him all he knew about the nominee and James Morton; and quite possibly, for he thought their friendship could stand it, all there was to know about himself. This last would not be easy, but it would be honest and fair to Orrin, if he were to ask him to help; and he had an idea Orrin would understand and forgive him and think the more of him for his candor, for he was a man of fifty-eight and not an hysterical child. Another thing would be to take Harley up on his offer, which he knew had been entirely genuine, and which he was quite sure the Vice President would not hesitate to validate if he should ask him. And a third would be to make use of Meet the Press and any other means at hand to get across to the public the truth about Robert A. Leffingwell.
These, however, were desperation counsels, and as his spirit and confidence and fighting stubbornness returned he felt that he wanted to wait a little and see how things developed before yielding to them; for if it should turn out not to be necessary, if the anonymous phone call had been just a one-shot attempt to scare him that he would hear nothing more from, then it would be foolish to provoke a public showdown. More immediately and much more imperatively for the sake of peace in his own house, he must reconcile the situation with his wife; and shortly after midnight this became possible, for she came back in, red-eyed and exhausted, accepted, or seemed to accept, his calm statement that the call had been nothing but the evil mouthings of a crank, and clung to him crying bitterly at her lack of faith in him and her leaving when he needed her; too late to recapture the moment when she might have put their marriage on a basis it had never known, but not too late for his purpose of restoring their life together to some basis of rational stability from which to repel any further attacks that might be made upon it in the ugly turn of events that had now come about in the nomination.
Or so, at any rate, he thought; and though it did not re-establish any real happiness, it re-established enough of the customary to bring the day eventually to an end in a more or less normal manner. There was no question of love, but there was a reasonable calm. Mabel took a sleeping pill, sobbed quietly for a while, and drifted off. He took one too, which did no good and only left him feeling even more logy in the morning than he would have been otherwise. He slept only fitfully and his mind raced most of the night; less and less panic-stricken, more and more practical, increasingly confident it could cope with the situation, but never happy. He wondered if he would ever be really happy again.
Now he found as he tried to wade through the Saturday morning accumulation of mail, telephone calls, and telegrams that he was even tireder than he had thought. A sort of dull weariness, compounded of lack of sleep and terrific inner tension, seemed to be dragging him down, an all-pervading exhaustion that put chains on his mind and sapped his physical energies. This was not, he realized, a good condition for a man who must stand off the world and all the pressures he was under, but there was no help for it. He could not stay home this day, he had to keep going, he had to be on the job, he had to be ready on the firing line for whatever new attack might come. When it came shortly after eleven it was from an unexpected quarter, and he could not say afterwards that it had exactly been an attack. Rather, he supposed, both an encouragement and a warning; not really necessary in view of his own decision, but one which revealed to him that even if he wished to change course, it would not be without unpleasant consequences, not so drastic as those which might attend his present course but not so very enjoyable either. The buzzer sounded and he was informed that the senior Senator from South Carolina was in the outer office. He put aside his mail with a sigh and said to send him in.
“Seab,” he said, rising and shaking hands, “make yourself at home. How are you?”
“Well, sir,” his visitor said, slumping comfortably into one of the leather armchairs and surveying him with a sleepy smile that did not entirely conceal the thoroughness of his study, “I’m fine, Brigham. But I think—I just do think, now—that you look rather tired. Yes, sir, you do. Very tired. Did you stay up late?”
“Rather late,” Senator Anderson agreed. “I slept very little last night.”
“I thought possibly that was it,” Senator Cooley said. “I wonder why, now? Surely you weren’t having second thoughts about your talk at the White House. Surely you weren’t disappointed by the appointment.”
“It had to do with the nomination,” Brig admitted. Seab smiled again.
“He wants you to back down, doesn’t he?” he said. “He wants you to turn tail and be a coward and give in and let this evil man become Secretary of State. Two evil men together, running the country into the ground in the face of her enemies. Yes, sir. That’s what he wants, isn’t it?”
“That’s what he wants, Seab,” Brigham Anderson said shortly. The Senator from South Carolina looked at him sharply.
“Are you going to do it, Brigham?” he asked softly. “Are you going to do what that bad man wants?”
His young friend thought for several moments, staring out the window, his eyes, looking glazed from lack of sleep, wide with considerations whose nature Senator Cooley did not know but whose seriousness he could easily perceive.
“I don’t think I will, Seab,” he said finally. “No, I don’t think I will.”
“He’s a mighty strong man,” Seab pointed out thoughtfully. “Mighty fierce temper, he’s got. He might do you a lot of damage if you persist in it, you know. He’s broken other men, and he wouldn’t hesitate with you, of that I am quite sure. Yes, sir, quite sure.”
“I know it,” Brigham Anderson said. “I’m aware of all that, Seab.”
“And you’re not afraid,” Senator Cooley inquired gently. Senator Anderson stared again out the window and spoke in a remote voice that still held an unyielding iron in it
“I was last night,” he said. “Maybe I still am today. I don’t know, Seab. But I don’t care anymore. I know what I’ve got to do and I intend to do it. However,” he added, and his voice suddenly became more personal, “I may need help.”
“I think you can get it from me, Brigham,” Seab said softly. “Yes, sir, I really do think you can get it from me.”
“Is that a promise?” Brig asked. Senator Cooley shrugged.
“I’ve said it,” he noted. “What did he threaten you with last night, Brigham?”
“He didn’t,” Senator Anderson said. “I don’t even know directly that he’s involved in it. Some anonymous well-wisher called my wife.”
“That I would expect,” Senator Cooley said calmly. “There is no end to the duplicities of that man. But you think you can withstand it.”
“I think, with help, I can withstand it,” Brig said. “I may not be able to force him to withdraw the nomination, now, but I think I can beat it on the floor. If you are with me, and one or two others.”
“There will be one or two others,” Seab said softly. “Oh, yes, Brigham, there will be quite a few more than one or two others.”
“And you will help me, no matter what charges may be made against me, and no matter what they say?” Brigham Anderson asked earnestly.
“Will the charges be true?” Senator Cooley asked calmly, and with a look that disclosed to him just how near the ragged edge his young friend was, Brig said in a low voice,
“They may be, Seab. They aren’t nice, but they may be. After all,” he added with a bitter dryness, “even I was human once.”
“Do they have proof?” Seab asked. Senator Anderson stared down at his mail, and a sudden impulse for understanding, a sudden desire for friendship, prompted an answer more candid than he might otherwise have given.
“Not so far as I know now,” he said. “I don’t see how they could have. There’s only one person in the world”—he stopped and then forced himself to go on—“only one person in the world who could furnish proof, and I don’t think th
at—that person would. I don’t even know if—if that person is still alive.”
“Well, then,” Seab said reassuringly, “I don’t think you should worry, Brigham. I think you can weather it. I think we can all weather it together, and I think we can beat that man. Yes, sir, I really do, I think we can beat him thoroughly, completely, and with finality.”
“I hope so, Seab,” Senator Anderson said. “I hope so.” He hesitated. “I want to say one thing more, though. If the—the charges are made, I shall of course deny them, and they’ll be exaggerated enough, if they are made, so you can be sure that most of them will be false. But if they produce proof of even—of even one per cent of them, I want you to feel entirely free to abandon me. Because then,” he said with a lonely desolation that touched and alarmed the Senator from South Carolina, “I won’t be worth saving, anyway.”
“Now, sir,” Seab said firmly. “Now, sir, you stop that kind of talk, Brigham. I don’t want to hear any more of it at all. No, sir, I do not. There isn’t anything I haven’t seen or heard about or known of, or maybe”—he gave a sleepy grin—“maybe, to hear what folks have said about me over all these years, done, and I am not about to be shocked or horrified or flabbergasted like some silly little stupid mincing schoolgirl. No, sir, I am not about to be any of those things. So you can count on me, Brigham. You can surely count on me. I mean it. I do mean it, now.”
“Well, thank you, Seab,” Brig said, and the Senator from South Carolina could see he was profoundly moved by it, and again he felt alarmed, for what attack could possibly have produced such depths of emotion in his normally steady young colleague? “You don’t know how much I appreciate it. You just don’t.”
“Well,” Seab said comfortably, turning to what he had come to say, “I want you to know I am very pleased that you are standing firm, Brigham, because it is exactly what I should expect of you. In fact,” he added gently, “I should have been extremely perturbed—ex-treme-ly per-turbed—indeed, if I thought you would back down. It wouldn’t be like you, Brigham. It would upset everything if you did. You have no idea how much it pleases me to have you insisting on standing firm.”
“What would you do to me if I didn’t, Seab?” Brig asked with a grim little smile, for he had not expected to get out of this conversation without some little quid pro quo. Senator Cooley smiled again.
“Oh, probably not much,” he said casually. “Probably nowhere near as much as the President will try to do to you for standing firm. About all I could do, would be to charge that the two of you all had joined together in a conspiracy to cover it all up. That’s really all. Of course,” he said gently, “I could do quite a bit of talking about that. Quite a little bit.”
“How could we have done that?” Senator Anderson asked curiously, and Seab chuckled.
“Well, sir,” he said lazily, “you all could have cooked up this plan to send James Morton out of the country.”
Brigham Anderson’s eyes widened, and in spite of his tiredness and worry a little expression of ironic appreciation crossed his face.
“So it was you,” he said, “I might have known. How did you ever hit on that?’
“Well, sir,” Senator Cooley said, not without satisfaction, “I have learned a thing or two in this Senate over the years, indeed I have. But more than that, it was instinct. It really was. It just came to me, with a little study. You develop instinct if you stay here long enough. You’ll have it eventually yourself, if you haven’t already. It just takes time.”
“If I stay here,” Brig said slowly, and Seab smiled.
“You will be here many years, Brigham,” he said confidently. “You’re the kind of Senator who stays. Don’t worry about that.” He rose slowly to his feet and shook his coat into shape like a ponderous old dog. “I’m mighty glad we agree, because I wouldn’t want to have to attack you. I would do it if I had to, but I wouldn’t like it, because I am a friend of yours, Brigham. I really am. I hope you regard me so.”
“I do, Seab,” he said, and he meant it. “I do.”
“Well, sir,” Seab said, “I think that’s mighty fine. We’re together, and I’m proud of it, Brigham. Proud of it.”
And with a smile and a nod and a firm, enveloping handshake, he went on his way, a friend and a supporter and also the one other man on Senator Anderson’s side of the issue who knew about James Morton. If he were to let it ride, he was sure Harley and Bob would never say a word, but Seab most assuredly would. And so, he realized with a certainty that was both wry and deeply troubled, he was in checkmate. If he moved one way, the President was waiting, and he had already been given a taste of what that could mean. If he moved the other, Seab was waiting, and for all his friendship, which was genuine enough, the old man would not hesitate to act as ruthlessly as he knew how if Brig crossed him. Brig had no intention of crossing him, but just the same the thought was not too comforting in his present state of mind. He decided, after a few more futile attempts to concentrate on his mail, that if he was to get through the day with any sort of reasonable efficiency, he had better go over to the New Office Building, take a swim, and go up to the solarium and lie in the sun for a while until he felt more rested.
Walking through the Saturday-emptied corridors, he was pleased to find that hardly anyone was about, for this spared him the necessity of being bright and sociable when he felt like the devil. The same applied to the pool, which was deserted save for one attendant. He stripped, took a shower, methodically swam twenty laps, and crawled out. The atmosphere of a gymnasium, redolent of steam, disinfectant, sweat, and nakedness, made him think of things he didn’t want to think of, in fact hadn’t really thought of at all during the past twenty-four hours, even though they were of course central to what he was going through. With a peculiar mixture of melancholy and distaste he dried himself quickly, slipped into a pair of trunks, and went on to the solarium. He was both annoyed and relieved to discover that he was not to be alone there, for recumbent in the sun he saw the lean and craggy frame of Clement Johnson of Delaware alongside the mahogany bulk of Bill Kanaho of Hawaii. They were talking as he arrived, and for a moment he stopped in the door to listen, though he soon wished he hadn’t.
“—why that was necessary, I can’t see,” Bill Kanaho was saying. “I suppose you’ve heard the gossip that’s going around.”
“About Brig?” Clement Johnson said with a nod. “Sounds damned sinister all right. Damned unspecific, too, it seems to me, the damned smear artists.”
“Exactly,” Senator Kanaho said with an air of contempt “Do you believe it?”
“If I can understand what they’re talking about,” Senator Johnson said, “no, I do not. Do you?”
“No, indeed,” Bill Kanaho said. “You can hear any damned thing about anybody in this town if you listen long enough. I’d give a lot to know where it started, though, and who started it. That would explain a good many things.”
“The Press Club bar last night I imagine,” Clement Johnson said, “and somebody from the White House, I wouldn’t be surprised.”
“Or was it Freddy Van Ackerman?” Senator Kanaho suggested. “He hangs around there a lot, it’s such a good place to start things going.”
“Yes,” Senator Johnson said. “Or was it both the White House and Freddy?” he added, and Brig came forward from the doorway.
“I think it was,” he said easily, as his two colleagues started guiltily; but they were friends of his and no friends of either Senator Van Ackerman or the White House, so he smiled candidly. “I think they’re both out to get me on this,” he said as he stretched out a towel and lay down beside Bill Kanaho. “What do you think?”
“I think,” the senior Senator from Hawaii said comfortably, “that I’m getting much too fat and flabby. The days when I was an Olympic swimmer and able to surfboard all day long off Waikiki and Kailua are gone forever, I’m afraid.” He squeezed a roll of fat on his stomach and looked at it with a comical distaste.
“Too much fish and poi,”
Clement Johnson said.
“And a few other things, I’ll bet,” Brig said. Bill Kanaho grinned.
“That’s right,” he said. “You know how it is out there, don’t you? Didn’t you say you were in Honolulu during the war?”
“I don’t remember saying it,” Brig said with an outward calm.
“Oh,” Senator Kanaho said in a puzzled voice. “Well, I heard it someplace.”
“Probably the Press Club bar,” Brig said dryly, and stretched his arms with an air of elaborate unconcern in the sun, though he knew very well that was quite likely exactly where it had come from, and felt suddenly sick inside.
“Maybe,” Bill Kanaho said. “You can hear anything there. Well, tell us, Brig, what’s going to come of all this, anyway?”
“Oh, I don’t know,” Brig said slowly. “What’s your guess? It’s probably as good as mine.”
“I hope he’s going to withdraw Leffingwell,” Senator Johnson said. “It would simplify things greatly for the Senate.”
“To say nothing of me,” Senator Anderson said with a grim smile. Clement Johnson nodded.
“Yes,” he agreed. A helicopter droned over against the bright blue sky, a white cloud drifted far above. Muffled by distance the noises of cars and buses arriving and leaving at the Capitol came faintly up. The wind had died and the sun was hot. Clement Johnson spoke again.
“What are you going to do if he doesn’t, Brig?” he asked quietly.
“I think I’m going to fight it,” Brig replied with equal quietness. Senator Kanaho grunted.
“May get hurt,” he observed.
“I’m hurt already,” Brig said. “My wife got an anonymous phone call last night.”
“The hell you say!” Bill exclaimed, and Clement Johnson said, “The bastards!” indignantly. Brig shrugged.
“There are penalties as well as rewards in public life,” he said with a savage irony. “Or so I tell my high-school lads when they come here.”
“What was it about?” Bill Kanaho asked. “Or don’t you want to say?”