Once that meeting was over, Allegra would have the scoop on a story that could completely rewrite the presidential race. With any luck at all, she would be the one breaking that story on the air.
Chapter Seventy-Eight
The pouring rain had slowed the heavy traffic on the Connecticut Turnpike to a bumper-to-bumper crawl, but Joe Gelardi did not care—even if it meant his arrival back home in Brookline would be much delayed. He appreciated the solitude behind the wheel, the lulling hum of the car’s engine, barely above an idle, the insistent patter of the rain on the car’s body, the rhythmic swish-thump—swish-thump of the wipers as they danced back and forth across the windshield, keeping the beat to a song only they knew. This rain-soaked traffic jam gave him time and peace of mind to reflect on everything that had transpired yesterday in New York City and what would happen next.
He had been amazed how easily the story of David Linker’s death had flowed from his mouth, guided by questions from Allegra Wise. He had to admit that at first she had intimidated him, just like she had when she tried to interview him at MIT: I thought it was going to be the attack of the 50-foot newswoman all over again! She is sooo tall! She could be really menacing if she wanted to be! Once we all sat down, though, and she gave those endless legs of hers a rest, things went pretty smoothly...Hell, she already knew what happened in Malmö. She’s just looking for corroboration…
Pola had said little during his interview, finding it necessary only to fill in the blanks for the names of Swedish officials and some locations—names he had long forgotten or never knew.
One thing he was sure of: Having Pola there made all the difference. It made everything right again.
Joe and Pola had been startled when the anchorman, the most trusted man in America—Wally, they all called him, in a way that could only be described as reverence—strolled into the room to greet them, happily puffing on his pipe. He did not linger; this interview was clearly Allegra Wise’s show. They could not help but notice the encouraging way Wally patted Allegra’s shoulder before leaving: It was like he was giving his blessing.
Then there was that final question from the newswoman: “Why has it taken you so long to come forward? Everyone will want to know that.”
There were a few moments of anxious silence before Joe began to speak. “We were young,” he said. “Sometimes, it takes a long time to fully realize what a terrible mistake you’ve made…”
Pola finished his sentence. “And even longer to correct it.”
“That’s great. Perfect,” Allegra Wise said. “Say it exactly like that when we’re on the air.”
For the first time in 16 years, Joe Gelardi did not feel he had failed David Linker.
Something else happened yesterday, also for the first time in 16 years. Joe Gelardi and Pola Nilsson-MacLeish had slept together. His mind eagerly retraced their steps after the interview concluded. There was the ride to the lobby in that crowded elevator, all eyes locked forward and unseeing, no words spoken; the two of them pressed tightly shoulder to shoulder, neither interested in lessening the pressure of that contact.
She squeezed my hand. She didn’t turn to look at me, but I could tell she was smiling. She’s still such a tease…
There was that awkward moment in the lobby when Pola’s bodyguard—that sullen Mr. Bjorkman—joined them. Yet, just as quickly as he appeared, he seemed to melt away, though he was never more than a few feet away from them at any time. As they lunched, he was seated by himself at a table against the wall—you have no blind spots when you’re against a wall.
Afterwards, as they strolled around Washington Square, with Bjorkman a few paces behind, Joe asked, “Aren’t you a little uneasy to be out in public like this? After what happened?”
Taking his arm, she replied, with the honesty of a child, “No, Joseph. I know you’ll protect me.” Turning and nodding toward her bodyguard, she continued, “Besides, Mr. Bjorkman is with us.”
As they relaxed with coffee in her office before her 3:00 p.m. Developing Economies seminar, Bjorkman took up his post in the hallway.
I enjoyed sitting in on that seminar, Joe reflected. Watching her engage those students was so refreshing…I almost forgot how brilliant she is! And what classroom technique! How gently she slapped that glib know-it-all kid down after he botched that Harrod-Domar Growth Theory presentation. How encouraging she was of those who seemed less sure of themselves. That bodyguard, though…the Bjorkman fellow…he certainly does stay focused on his job. That’s a good thing…But he never smiles, not even a hint of one. Oh, well…I guess that goes with the grim territory.
Over a sumptuous dinner in Little Italy, the talk turned serious. Their live on-air interview was in two nights’ time. Leonard Pilcher’s cat would really be out of the bag then.
“Will you get a bodyguard, Joseph?” Pola asked, her face beginning to show the glow from her second glass of Chianti.
“No. I can’t afford that.” With a flippant grin, he nodded toward Bjorkman, seated at a corner table. “And I’m not quite the national treasure in my country you seem to be in yours. Don’t worry. I’ll be fine. Just so my daughter is protected.”
“I wish you’d reconsider.”
“Pola, once we’ve been on television Pilcher wouldn’t dare touch us. It would be too late…and too obvious.”
She emptied her wine glass and set it on the checkered tablecloth, never taking her eyes off him. Picking up a breadstick, she wielded it like a pointer, a teacher tapping an imaginary blackboard. “I hope you’re right,” she said. Turning to glance toward Bjorkman, she repeated, “I hope you’re right.”
The cab ride back to her hotel, with Bjorkman in the front seat with the driver, was made in contented silence. The giddy buzz of the Chianti had faded, leaving a pleasant glow that foreshadowed the sex Joe felt sure they were about to have. They were holding hands like teenagers, not caring if anyone else noticed.
I’ll bet she’s remembering how good all our times together were. Lord knows I am. Look at her face, gazing at the city lights. She seems so happy, like she’s off in some fantasy world…
They ceased holding hands the moment they left the cab, submitting in autonomic unison to some unwritten rule of decorum for people their age. She took his arm instead, as Joe wondered whether it was more for support than affection after all the Chianti? As they made their way across the lobby of Pola’s hotel, Joe hesitated, then stopped in front of the reception desk. He felt awkward, out of place. He feared he might be overstepping some boundary the wine had erased.
“What’s wrong, Joseph?”
He stammered his reply. “I guess…I should check in.”
Her arm still tightly clutching his, she began to usher him toward the elevators. “Are you out of your bloody mind?” she asked, the glow lighting her smiling face once again.
Joe could not be sure, but he thought—just for a moment—he had finally seen Bjorkman break into a smile, too.
Still stuck in the rainy traffic jam, Joe was lost in the memory of last night with Pola.
The sex. What can I say about the sex? Except that it was all—no, it was more, than I hoped. It was tender, yet passionate. Totally uninhibited, without reservation. Completely satisfying, just like it was in Sweden…well, except maybe for that last time.
His mind’s eye could see their sweat-glistened bodies locked together in that sweet movement, each thrust erasing a little bit more of the 16-year emptiness in their souls. The hotel bed had rocked noisily with their motion, providing a percussive beat as the headboard struck the wall rhythmically: swish-thump—swish-thump…
A horn began to overlay the beat. Quickly, more horns joined into an insistent cacophony. They were not being played by some crazed musicians in his subconscious. They were car horns: the traffic had finally picked up its pace. Joe’s car had not; there was a good 10-car length between it and the vehicle in front. That distance was growing by the second. The rhythm of lovemaking’s memory was now played by
the windshield wipers, the song they had been performing all along finally clear: swish-thump…swish-thump…
Ahh…the rain has slowed up. Now we’re making decent speed again. It’s a shame I’ve got to drive all the way home, just to return to New York for the interview tomorrow. But what the hell…CBS is springing for the airline ticket.
But I need to go home. Diane must hear the whole story before it’s broadcast to the world…and she must hear it from me, face to face.
Chapter Seventy-Nine
Once the traffic jam in Connecticut eased, Joe made it back to Brookline in record time. He pulled into his driveway just as Diane was finishing supper. She sat at the kitchen table with Sean Riley, her protector for the day, as Sean’s mother plied them with fresh-baked apple cobbler.
His mouth full of dessert, Sean managed to say, “The professor’s back.”
Diane jumped into Joe’s arms the instant he walked through the door. “Daddy! I missed you so much!”
“Missed you, too, pumpkin.” Sniffing the air, Joe added, “Umm…that cobbler smells great! Can I get some of that, too?”
“Don’t you go spoiling your dinner, now,” Mrs. Riley said. “I’ve made your favorite…chicken pot pie.”
By the time Joe had finished his supper and sorted through the accumulated mail, it was after 8:00 p.m. Diane was in her room doing homework. Sean Riley had departed, his duties for the day long concluded. Joe approached Mrs. Riley, who was busy putting the kitchen in order. “Edna,” he said, “I need to talk privately with Diane. I’ll fill you in later, okay?”
There always seemed to be a look of furrowed concern on Edna Riley’s face, but, strangely, his words shocked her and deepened that look into something approaching abject fear. Joe had no intention of upsetting her; quite the contrary, he hoped his news would come as a great relief to all concerned.
Seeking to calm her, Joe added, “No, this is a good thing. Really! For all of us!”
The fear washed from his housekeeper’s face; the usual concerned look returned. Her voice heavy with skepticism, she said, “Oh, so it’s good news. You scared the life out of me, Professor. Seven years I’ve worked in this house, and you’ve never once called me Edna before. I was fearing something dreadful.” She hoisted the last of the supper dishes from the sink and placed them in the drainer. “Where do you want to chat with little missy?”
“The living room,” Joe replied. “There’s something on television I’d like her to see.”
When Diane entered the living room, Joe was seated before the small black and white television set, watching news coverage of the Wisconsin primary. She twirled a single feather between the fingers of one hand.
“Where’d you get that feather?” Joe asked.
“When I hung up your coat before, it fell out,” Diane replied. “I guess it was in your pocket.”
Joe welcomed her discovery. Yes…the pigeon feather. I had forgotten all about it. “May I see it?” he asked.
“Sure.” She handed him the feather.
Joe took it and twirled it happily between his fingers, just as his daughter had a moment before. As if on cue, a smiling Leonard Pilcher appeared on the television screen, standing before an election tally board and a happy crowd of supporters. The chalk-etched figures on the board were being updated to show the Wisconsin primary now tied: based on early returns, Pilcher and Richard Nixon were neck-and-neck. A news announcer shouted confirmation of the results over an outburst of wild cheering. Joe placed the feather on the coffee table, reached to the television set and turned the volume control all the way down.
Pointing to Pilcher on the screen, Joe said, “Diane, honey…it’s time I told you a story about me and that man.”
As he told his story, Diane seemed confused at first. She was not following the relevance of the war and her father’s bomber crew and their internment with life as they knew it today. Then he told her about his friend from Sweden, a woman named Pola, and how Pola had come back into his life after all these years. His daughter began to comprehend the meaning of all this, and she found that meaning troubling and threatening. A betrayal.
“Is she your girlfriend?” Diane asked, her voice trembling.
“We’re very good friends, sweetheart.”
She stammered her next question: “Do you…love her?”
“Yes, I think I do, Diane.” He paused, not quite sure how to handle her reaction, one he had failed to consider. “I was hoping you’d be happy for me.”
Her stony silence was all the answer he needed. “But there is so much more I have to tell you,” he said.
Diane was not sure she could take much more. What she had heard so far was distressing enough. She was already weeping softly. Joe could tell she was pulling away, emotionally if not physically, as his story continued.
With the exultant face of Leonard Pilcher on the screen for a backdrop, Joe told his daughter about the death of David Linker. As he mimed with his hands the motion of something falling, Diane’s expression changed from petulant to horror-stricken. Her soft weeping turned to unabashed sobs as she buried her face into her father’s shoulder.
Seen only to Joe, Mrs. Riley’s face peeked in from the kitchen. He read her accusing look with certainty: You lying bastard! Good news, my foot!
Speaking softly into Diane’s ear, Joe finished his story. When he was done, she lifted her head from his shoulder and composed herself. After dabbing at her eyes with a handkerchief, she turned to glower at the face of Leonard Pilcher on the television screen. It was a look of hatred, something Joe had never seen from his young daughter.
Her manner was distant, yet her voice was purposeful. “Of course you have to tell, Daddy. You can’t let that man be president. He’s a killer.”
Joe Gelardi found himself overwhelmed by that simple logic—the wisdom of a child. The news announcer’s lips moved frantically on the muted television, shouting a silent confirmation of the tally board’s latest figures: a two-point lead for Pilcher over Vice President Nixon.
Diane’s eyes did not meet his as she asked, “Can I go now?”
Chapter Eighty
For a moment, Joe Gelardi thought they had never left Boston’s Logan Airport. As he stepped through the airliner’s doorway and onto the boarding stairs, the airfield’s ramp looked, sounded, and smelled just like the ramp at Logan. The blinding reflection of sunlight on polished aluminum fuselages, the roar of aircraft piston engines, the aroma of the salt water that formed a good share of the airfield’s curved border, the reek of aviation fuel and engine exhaust—it was all the same. The past 90 minutes of rumbling and lurching through the sky had all seemed to be for nothing; they were back where they started. If it were not for the words LaGuardia Airport spelled in bold letters across the terminal building’s façade and a glance to the west that revealed the smog-veiled Manhattan skyline just a few miles away, Joe could have been fooled. He had been so distracted by his own concerns during the flight that he had paid no attention to the landmarks that had drifted past his window.
Hell…who could miss the rivers? The bridges? The Empire State Building? And to think Uncle Sam trained me to be an aircraft navigator…
It was near noon. In six short hours, he and Pola would be on television, telling the world the true story of Leonard Pilcher. He was already queasy with nervousness.
God…what if I sound like some blithering idiot on the air?
Then, there was the problem of his daughter. I should have anticipated how threatening the prospect of a woman in my life—our life—would be to Diane. How stupid I am!
He was halfway to the gate before he noticed the smiling Pola, waving to get his attention from behind the chain link fence that separated terminal from ramp. Mr. Bjorkman was close by her, standing watch.
Look at her! She doesn’t look nervous at all, Joe thought.
“Didn’t you see me waving like a bloody fool?” she asked, before pulling Joe close for a welcoming kiss.
“I was�
��let’s say, preoccupied,” Joe replied when the kiss was done. He exchanged barely perceptible nods of greeting with Bjorkman.
“No matter,” Pola said as they head into the terminal. “Let’s get into Manhattan and have some lunch.”
“I’m not very hungry, Pola. My stomach’s a little upset.”
“What? A big flyboy like you can’t take a little plane ride anymore?”
“It’s not the plane ride.”
Her smile faded. There was no mistaking it now. Something was on Joe’s mind.
“Are you having second thoughts about the interview?” she asked.
“No. Not at all.”
Pola sighed deeply. “Then you’ve told Diane about us, haven’t you?”
“Yes, I’ve told her everything. She understands about Pilcher just fine…”
“But she doesn’t fancy another woman in your life, does she?”
Joe’s silence was all the reply she needed.
“Oh, that poor, dear child,” she said, grasping his arm tightly with both hands. “I was afraid she might take it badly.”
The limousine slowly plied its way through the thick midday traffic of Manhattan. In its back seat, Tad Matthews was trying to brief Leonard Pilcher, who was more interested in browsing the newspaper’s sports page. The paper’s headline screamed PILCHER JUGGERNAUT WINS WISCONSIN.
“We really should have talked about this on the plane, but you insisted on napping,” Matthews said.
Without looking up from the newspaper, Pilcher replied, “A man needs his sleep, you know.”
Tad Matthews knew full well why Leonard needed that nap on the plane from Wisconsin to New York City. The congressman had not slept at all last night. The victory celebration had turned into another excuse to bed at least one woman from his campaign staff. Two was quite probable.
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