by Allen Drury
And still and all, the President was capable of coming up with a nomination like that of Robert A. Leffingwell. Nothing would weaken the nation more, in Orrin’s opinion, than to have that type of fuzzy thinking in charge of the State Department. It had only been with the greatest inner questioning and only because he respected the President’s prerogative with regard to the Cabinet that he had been ready to go along. Now in the reassessment of everything that was following the death of the senior Senator from Utah, all his doubts were coming back and with them an inescapable feeling that he had been right the first time. On every count, he felt, he was justified now in opposing the nominee. Loyalty to Brig demanded it; his own instinct for what was right demanded it; and the welfare of the country demanded it.
It was in this mood, after a hurried breakfast with Beth before the rest of his troubled household began to stir, that he arrived at his office early on this Monday morning of the final week of the Leffingwell matter to find waiting for him on his desk an envelope bearing the typewritten notation, “Senator Knox—Private.” And it was in this mood fifteen minutes later, compounded now by a heavy wave of returning sorrow and a savage renewal of bitterness against the President, that he placed it quietly aside and, taking up the telephone, called in rapid succession Senator Cooley, Senator Danta, Senator August, Senator Smith, and Senator Strickland to a private conference in his office.
***
Chapter 3
On the terrace the sunlight fell warmly across the perfectly appointed table; a maid came out and left some toast with silent dispatch, in the distance a gardener went carefully about his work; there was a sense of everything in the right place, of being in the presence of an ancestral efficiency humming quietly along out of the far past and into the far future, incapable of being disturbed by the hurrying cares of the world. The master of the house chewed absently on a doughnut as he plowed determinedly through the Washington Post, the lady of the house swung out with a brisk busyness from her study. The British Ambassador and his Ambassadress were up at nine to face a busy day in the stately brick mansion on Massachusetts Avenue.
“Dolly just called,” Kitty announced. “She’s canceling the reception for Crystal.”
“Oh?” her husband said politely. “The first but not the last of many rearrangements to be made in this intriguing city, I imagine.”
“I am so sorry,” Kitty said slowly, sitting down and glancing unhappily at the glaring headlines in the paper. “We saw him and Lafe Smith out at Normandy Farms on Thursday, you know. We thought he seemed worried. But who could have known?”
“You never know,” Claude Maudulayne said. “Never, never....Well, I suppose now I must consult with my friend from the Commonwealth and my friend from La Belle Patrie and all my other friends. There is no end to the ramifications of a good man’s death, particularly when it occurs in a political context.”
“Will they defeat Mr. Leffingwell now?” Lady Maudulayne asked.
“I expect they may,” her husband said.
“Will you like that?” she asked. He smiled at her over the paper.
“I don’t know yet,” he said. “London hasn’t told me. I expect not.”
“Why do you approve of him when he causes such terrible things?” his wife inquired. He shrugged.
“You’ve been a diplomat as long as I have,” he said. “It’s one of those things. Anyway, what do we know about this, actually? Maybe he isn’t to blame. What else did Dolly say?”
“Not much,” Kitty said, “except that she was terribly worried about Bob. She kept saying she didn’t know what it would do to him.”
“Oh, then,” Lord Maudulayne said with interest, “if Bob was involved, the fat may very well be in the fire. Chilton came back from the Press Club last night with a rather ugly rumor—”
“Chilton!” Lady Maudulayne said scornfully, with a face for the press attaché. “He always picks up rumors, the uglier the better. The only man worse than he is, is K.K.”
“Yes,” Claude Maudulayne said. “Well, I don’t know about that, although I expect I’ll be hearing soon enough.”
“Anyway,” Kitty said, “it is not one of those things that is going to be talked about openly. I know this Washington. They can hound a man to death and then turn around and be as bland as you please. Just wait and listen to those speeches in the Senate this afternoon. Butter won’t melt in their mouths. Wait and see.”
“I was fond of him, too,” Lord Maudulayne said mildly, “and I’m not happy about it, either. But I don’t think we should be too rough on our hosts. After all, it’s the same everywhere. De mortuis nil nisi bonum, and so on. They mean it, you know—mean it in spite of what they may have contributed. People aren’t hypocritical when they say they’re sorry; they rarely intend for things to happen as they do. They’re always genuinely upset when they really go wrong.”
“Well,” Lady Maudulayne said tartly, “I think I’ll be happy if they do defeat Mr. Leffingwell. It would serve him right.” Quite abruptly she began to cry. “I’m really very sorry about it,” she said through her handkerchief.
“I don’t really know just what to make of it,” her husband said thoughtfully, putting the Post aside. “If I have them pegged right, this will defeat him and no mistake. They’re as emotional as we are, underneath it all. We each have our ways of hiding it, but all hell is boiling around inside there ready to explode if the occasion calls. And this is it. I can’t help feeling, though, that it would be better for the world if he were confirmed.”
“Isn’t there anybody else?” Kitty asked with some annoyance. “Must it always be the great Bob Leffingwell? Surely there are other Americans.”
“He has the reputation abroad,” Lord Maudulayne said. “We all more or less told the Administration that we wanted him, through Bob, that night at Dolly’s party. He’s been pretty well cleared, so to speak, with everybody. It would be difficult for the President to find anybody else with as much ready-made welcome overseas.”
“Dolly thinks the President had a lot to do with—with that,” Kitty said. Her husband’s eyebrows lifted.
“Does she, now?” he said. “That’s interesting. I wonder how much she knows?”
“More than she will tell,” his wife said. “And,” she added firmly, “more than I am going to ask her.”
“All right,” Lord Maudulayne said. “I’m not urging you....That,” he said as a phone rang somewhere in the distance, “is either London or K.K.”
“If it’s that Indian,” his wife said emphatically, “I hope you won’t waste any time on him.”
Her husband rose, kissed her forehead lightly as he passed, and then turned to give her a smile from the doorway.
“I think the Queen is very fortunate,” he said gravely, “that she has me for her Ambassador and not you. I hate to think what would become of the Commonwealth if you were in charge here.”
“And if it’s London,” Kitty said with equal firmness, “you tell them that you hate Bob Leffingwell and you strongly advise against any support for him now.”
“Oh, they’ll know how I feel about it,” her husband said. “And I’ll know how they feel. And the Senate, which at this point isn’t giving a damn about anything or anyone outside the Senate, won’t care less. Is this one of your rare days of not seeing Celestine, or have you got something planned?”
“We thought we’d go to the auction at Sloan’s this morning,” Lady Maudulayne said.
“Well, I’ll let you be my diplomatic courier,” the Ambassador said. “Tell her to tell Raoul that I said I am planning to set up an appointment with the Vice President sometime in the next couple of days. Tell her to tell him if he wants to come along I think it would be nice.”
“Why?” Kitty asked. Her husband smiled.
“You guess,” he said.
“I have,” she said. “And I hope he does,” she added with a vicious stab at a piece of butter. “It would serve him right for all the bad things he’s done.”
<
br /> “I hope you won’t say that to an American,” Lord Maudulayne said, not entirely in jest. “You’ll get us deported yet.” A buzzer sounded three times. “London,” he said. “See you at lunch.”
In five years he had walked along this way on many a sparkling morning, but he knew today that the time had come when he would never walk it again; for he was walking it with a ghost, and that was not pleasant company. He moved forward automatically along Seventeenth Street past the Pan American Union to Constitution, along Constitution past the Monument and the White House. He wasn’t quite aware of where he was going, or why, for instinct had taken over on this bright spring day as beautiful as those which had just preceded it. Instinct was walking him along; somehow he himself didn’t quite seem to be there. Something seemed to be wrong inside, there was a desperate crying somewhere, a sort of terrible rending unhappiness unlike any he had ever experienced; he wondered, really, whether he could stand it or whether he would die as he walked blindly along. It would serve him right, he thought dully; it would undoubtedly serve him right. It would be justice rendered where justice was due. He was not a bad man, and he knew now beyond all recalling or redemption or peace of mind that he had been guilty of something from which he would never recover. “Hop in, Tommy,” the ghost said cheerfully as he had so often, opening the door of his car and giving his quick, pleasant smile. “I’ll leave you at the Court.” But he wouldn’t leave him, Mr. Justice Davis knew. He would never leave him again.
“Hal,” the Indian Ambassador said cautiously, “I am sorry to awaken you if you are not awake. But I wished to know.”
“I’m not awake,” Senator Fry said tartly. “That’s obvious. What did you wish to know?”
There was a sibilant sound at the other end of the line and the senior Senator from West Virginia made an impatient sound in return.
“What did you say?” Krishna Khaleel asked quickly.
“I grunted,” Hal Fry said, “because I am old and tired and a dear friend of mine lies dead and I am sick at heart about it and I don’t really want to be bothered with you. But don’t mind, K.K. I’ll feel better in a minute. Only, what in Christ is on your mind, anyway?”
“I wanted to know why it happened,” the Ambassador said.
“You hear the same things I do,” Senator Fry said shortly. “Is there any point in rehashing lurid details that may or may not be true? This is a real tragedy for us Americans, you know, however academic it may be to you objective observers from far away.”
“He was my friend, too,” K.K. said with dignity. “I do not like your tone, Hal. It is a very tragic event and I am truly sorry. I hope you will realize that, Hal. I did not call to create hostilities.”
“All right,” Senator Fry said, more mildly. “I don’t mean it, I’m just unhappy, damn it. I may cry, after a while, when I finally realize what’s happened. In the meantime, I have nothing to add to what you read in your daily newspaper or hear over your local radio or television station courtesy of somebody’s pills to jack up your colon. By the way, how is your colon lately, Akbar?”
“Please,” the Indian Ambassador said coldly. “Now, please, Hal. I must ask—I really must ask—”
“If you want to know what the Senate is going to do,” Hal Fry said abruptly, “we’re going to lick hell out of the Leffingwell nomination.”
“Ah,” Krishna Khaleel said softly. “That was what I wondered, among other things.”
“That was what you wondered, period,” Senator Fry said bluntly. “I suppose you aren’t going to like it, either.”
“I don’t know yet what position my government—” The Indian Ambassador began, but his United Nations buddy cut him off with a snort.
“The hell you don’t,” he said. “You Asians work by radar, and the deeper the fog the quicker you get the message. They don’t have to tell you they still want Leffingwell, you know it already.”
“I would not assume that their position had changed in any great degree,” the Ambassador admitted. “The Administration had gone quite far, you know, in checking it with all of us; quite far. It would be rather difficult now for the President to find someone else, I should think.”
“He should have thought of that,” Senator Fry said coldly. “I find myself greatly moved by his predicament. Touched, in fact.”
“But after all, Hal,” the Ambassador said reasonably. “Is there any evidence known to us which associates him directly with this unhappy occurrence?”
“My friend,” Hal Fry said crisply, “after you’ve been around this town a while you don’t need a road map to put together the things that go together.”
“I see,” K.K. said carefully. “You do not think, then, that he might still be able to bring sufficient pressure to bear on some of your more susceptible, shall we say, colleagues—”
“We shall say, Akbar,” Senator Fry said, “and maybe he can. But I doubt it. Yes, I do doubt it. This is a family matter, you know, and you outsiders don’t understand it. Not even many Americans understand it. But in Washington, we understand it. This is something between him and us, this is; it’s one of those things they wrote into the Constitution, only they didn’t quite know at the time they were doing it. There comes a day with some Presidents when they push the Senate just a little bit too far. And then, brother, there’s blood on the pie.”
“Blood?” K.K. asked in some alarm. “Whose blood, Hal?”
“His, I hope,” Senator Fry said with relish.
“Surely you don’t mean—” The Indian Ambassador said in a hushed voice. “Surely, Hal, you don’t mean—”
“Oh, I wouldn’t put it in the diplomatic pouch if I were you, K.K.,” the Senator said airily. “It might get out before we’re ready for him. But you just wait and see. Yes, sir, you just wait and see. There’ll be blood on the pie, and no mistake.”
“My goodness,” K.K. said in the same hushed tone. “Oh, my goodness, Hal. I had no idea it could mean—I had no idea it could mean—”
“You’ll be safe enough in the Embassy,” Hal Fry said comfortably. “Don’t worry about it. Nothing ever happens to the embassies. And now, good-by, K.K. I’ll see you around. I’m going back to sleep for a little while. Or maybe I’m going to cry. I don’t just know yet.”
“Well, Hal,” Krishna Khaleel said with a rather nervous laugh, “I know your love for a joke, so I shall not entirely believe what you have told me. At least not about—about blood.”
“That’s right,” Senator Fry agreed. “You’re right not to believe that. But you can believe what I said about Leffingwell. As sure as Shiva made little naked statues, you can believe that.”
“I hope not, Hal,” the Ambassador said. “I really think my government desires him very much to be in that position.”
“It’s a family matter,” Senator Fry said. “Even in India you must know enough to stay out of family matters. Good-by again, K.K. I’ve just decided which it’s going to be. I’m going to cry.”
And rather to his surprise, after he hung up the phone and lay back against the pillows and contemplated the beautiful day and the black tragedy it held, he found that he came very close to doing exactly that.
“Let’s skip this bastard,” AP suggested as they walked down the corridor in the Office Building.
“Right,” UPI agreed. “I prefer humans.”
It was the second time this morning that he had been deliberately snubbed by the press. Fred Van Ackerman began to wonder angrily if they were so damned partisan they couldn’t take a thing in stride. He could.
“I’m calling about the nomination,” the President said directly, and Powell Hanson, who did not often receive communications from the White House, was suitably taken aback.
“Yes,” he said cautiously, suppressing a desire to ask bluntly, “Why me?” It rapidly became clear.
“I am saddened and shocked about Senator Anderson’s death,” the President said, “and I have just issued a statement saying so.”
Have yo
u? Powell thought rather dryly. That’s nice.
“Yes,” he said again.
“So I won’t waste time talking about that,” the President told him. “I want to talk about the situation which now confronts me and Bob Leffingwell. What is it, in your estimation?”
The junior Senator from South Dakota paused for a moment before answering.
“Bad, hm?” the President suggested into the silence.
“Yes,” Senator Hanson said.
“Hopeless?” the President inquired.
“No,” Powell Hanson said slowly, “I don’t think so. Not if you can find people who will stand by you and help.”
“Will you?” the President asked bluntly.
“I might.” Senator Hanson said carefully.
“I thought possibly you and Fred Van Ackerman—”
“Not with Fred Van Ackerman,” Powell Hanson said, so sharply he forgot to be polite. “You leave him out of it, if you want to get anywhere.”
“Well, you and Tom August, then—” The President offered. Senator Hanson snorted.
“I met Tom on his way to Orrin Knox’s office a few minutes ago,” he said. “They’re having a council of war.”
“Oh?” the President said sharply.
“Yes,” said Senator Hanson.
“Is Bob Munson in it?” the President asked.
“I don’t know,” Powell said. “Tom didn’t know who else was involved.”
“Have you seen Bob?” the President asked.
“No, sir,” Powell said.
“I would give a lot,” the President said with a sudden flattering candor, “to know just what Bob is going to do about all this.”
“Why don’t you ask him, Mr. President?” Senator Hanson suggested.
“I tried to reach him at his apartment, but he had already left,” the President said. “Then I tried to reach him there and Mary said he wasn’t in yet. I’m not sure,” he added with the same candor, “that she was telling the truth. Just between you and me, I think maybe Bob doesn’t want to talk to me this morning.”