The Last President: A Novel of an Alternative America

by Michael Kurland

  He found a place almost directly across from the Embassy and parked and locked the car, then hurried across the street. Waving his invitation at the uniformed doorman, he allowed it and his coat to be taken from him as he was ushered into the building.

  Outside, the man called Curtis pulled his car up at a convenient fire hydrant where he could see both Schuster’s car and the French Embassy’s front door. He turned off the engine and lit a cigarette, prepared for long wait.

  Inside Schuster’s apartment Peterson finished screwing together the phone in the living room and picked up his walkie-talkie. “Blue Bear,” he said.

  “Right.”

  “Phone check,” he said.

  “Right.”

  Peterson put the walkie-talkie down and dialed a number on the phone. It rang five times. “Suicide Prevention Center?”

  “What took you so long?” Peterson said.

  “Excuse me?”

  “It rang five times.”

  “I’m sorry,” the voice said. It sounded like a young woman.

  “Talk to me,” Peterson said.

  “Of course,” the voice said. “Whatever I can do to help. What is your problem? Do you want to talk about it?”

  “I need someone to talk to me,” Peterson said, his voice flat, emotionless.

  “Yes, yes,” the woman said. “What shall we talk about?”

  “Whatever you like,” Peterson said.

  “Yes, well. Let’s talk about your problem,” the woman said. “Maybe I can help. We’re trained, you know, to help.”

  “My problem is, I need to talk to someone. On the phone.”

  “Yes, well, what about?” the woman asked. “Where are you calling from?”

  “I don’t think that’s relevant.”

  “Are you feeling depressed?” the woman asked.

  “No.”

  “You must be honest with me if you expect me to help you,” the woman said. “And I do want to help you, you must believe that.”

  The walkie-talkie made a churping sound, as of suppressed laughter. Then came St. Yves’ voice: “Phone check okay.”

  “I have to hang up now,” Peterson said into the phone.

  “Let me help you!” the woman said. “You mustn’t give up!”

  “Good-bye,” Peterson said in his flat voice. “Thank you for trying.” And he hung up the phone.

  Schuster walked through the Embassy mansion and out into the greenhouse. She was sitting there waiting for him. Her hands, folded demurely in her lap, were covered by long white gloves that made her arms look too slender to be real, too slender for the remembered strength of passion. The blue dress with its almost conservative neckline in this day of daring wives made her prim and proper and gave little hint of the exciting body it sheathed. She was in earnest conversation with the undersecretary of something or other when he came out, but her eyes caught his and did not let them go.

  He walked past the two of them, and stood with his back to her, admiring flowers he wasn’t sure were there, waiting for her to come.

  Then her hand was on his arm. “Ralph.”

  “Hello.”

  “Just ‘hello’? That’s not very friendly.”

  He turned to look down at her. “Hello, my love,” he said. “If I get more friendly I’ll screw you here in the greenhouse, and your husband will challenge me to a duel.”

  “Can’t you take me away and screw me somewhere else?” she said, her gray eyes staring intently up into his brown eyes, just the hint of a smile on her face.

  “Say the word,” he said.

  “My husband couldn’t come,” she said. “He’ll be here at one to have a drink with the French Ambassador and let me drive him home. Can we be back at one?”

  “That,” Schuster said, taking her arm, “is the word.”

  “We mustn’t leave together,” she said. “Go out the side door and walk toward the Circle. My car’s in back. I’ll pick you up.”

  “I hate this!” Schuster said. “Couldn’t we—”

  ”Later,” she told him. “Right now, this. Later, your more direct approach, perhaps.”

  “All right,” he said. “We can’t talk about it here. Besides, that’s just one of the things we can’t do here. Pick me up. I’ll be the man with the chattering teeth and the blue thumb.”

  Curtis glanced up as a man came out of the side entrance to the Embassy, but he headed off in the wrong direction, and he wasn’t wearing a camel’s-hair overcoat. A minute later an old MG, driven by a woman with a light-blue scarf around her head, came from around the building and headed after the man, who was already out of sight. Curtis sank further down into his seat and turned on the engine again to blow some warm air into the car.

  “That man is crazy,” St. Yves said, taking off his earphones. “But the phone tap works fine.” He rewound the tape on the voice-activated recorder.

  Kit had his chair up against the window and was leaning forward, resting his forehead against the frame and peering out at the building across the street. “How’s that?” he asked.

  “He called up the Suicide Prevention Center for the phone check.”

  “Maybe he knows something we don’t,” Kit commented.

  “Damn, the batteries on this tape recorder are low. I don’t know if I have replacements.”

  “Plug it in.”

  “It doesn’t plug in. Yes, here. No, damn, they’re the wrong size.”

  Kit watched the empty street while St. Yves struggled with the equipment. In the Company, he reflected, they checked out equipment before they used it, but he decided it would be more politic not to mention it. “Say,” Kit said, “there’s a sports car pulling up in front of the building. Parking by the red line at the curb.”

  “Diplomat,” St. Yves said, uninterested. “Those bastards park on the sidewalk when they want to. Why diplomatic immunity should extend to parking tickets is something—”

  ”That’s him!” Kit said. “Getting out of the car—that’s Schuster!”

  “You sure?” St. Yves shouldered Kit aside and pulled two venetian-blind slats apart. “Son of a bitch!!” He grabbed for one of the walkie-talkies, then realized that he had pulled the batteries to see if they fit in the tape recorder. Dropping it, he ran across the room to his little canvas case and pulled out another. “Red Bear, Red Bear—quick!”

  “Yes?”

  “Get the fuck out of there. Hibernation is over—repeat, over. Head for roof. Subject is going in front door now, repeat now.”

  “Right.”

  St. Yves put the instrument down. “Now, how the hell did that happen?”

  “Your man is somewhere right now, guarding an empty car,” Kit said. “What now?”

  “Go get the license number of that MG,” St. Yves said.

  “Okay.” Kit went outside and strolled over to the car, then strolled back.

  “They made it out okay,” St. Yves said. “Let them stay on the roof for a couple of minutes, then we’ll bring them down and split. Peterson thinks Schuster won’t notice anything disturbed, but he’s not sure. At least he retrieved all the equipment. Wouldn’t do to give Schuster another camera to find. What about the car?”

  “License number DPL one-four-five-three.”

  “Good!” St. Yves grabbed for the phone. “If it was a regular plate, we’d have to wait for DMV to open in the morning, but I think we have a list of DPL plates somewhere in the office.” He talked on the phone earnestly for about five minutes, and when he hung up there was a gleam in his eyes. “The car is registered to the wife of a Canadian cultural attaché,” he said. “Cultural attaché. How nice. ‘Chaste to her husband, frank to all beside, A teeming mistress, but a barren bride.’

  “Mr. Schuster doesn’t know it now, in the position he’s in, or will shortly be in, but I think we have him by the short hairs. By the very short hairs, indeed. Come on, get those people off the roof. Let’s get the fuck out of here.”

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  THE OVA
L OFFICE, Tuesday, June 26, 1973 (10:15-11:05 a.m.)

  MEETING: The President, Vandermeer, Ober, and St. Yves.

  AUTHORIZED TRANSCRIPTION

  FROM THE EXECUTIVE ARCHIVES

  Following a discussion about new staff appointments with Vandermeer. Ober and St. Yves enter.

  P. Hi, Charlie, Ed. (unintelligible) are you?

  O. Yes, sir.

  P. I saw the press coverage on the opening of the institute.

  O. Right, sir. The Institute for an Informed America is on line, and going ahead.

  P. I don’t think we got enough mileage out of that. Put a couple of our Jew-intellectual writers on it—get articles out to the great silent majority out there. Something about how the Democrats will ruin the country if we can’t get a majority in Congress in ’74. You know, how the Democrats put people on welfare instead of creating jobs for them. A projection, with dates and all.

  O. Great idea, sir.

  P. How’s it coming with your boys, Ed? The institute working for you?

  St. Y. Great cover, sir. Gets most of the operations out of the White House. We’ve still got our office in the basement of the EOB of course, but—

  P. It sure simplifies the money thing. No more Mexican banks, or any of that crap. We put the word out that anyone wants to help us, he donates a little bread directly to the institute.

  V. What about that leak? You got a handle on that?

  St. Y. I think so. This reporter, Schuster, we’ve been running a security check on him. He has a, um, contact that might prove helpful to us. That is, we may be able to hold it against him.

  P. Contact? You mean (unintelligible) friends? Like Cubans or Communists? The Washington Post has a Commie reporter?

  St. Y. No, sir. Not that sort of contact. This is a lady.

  V. So he’s not a fag, so what?

  St. Y. We’re having a psychological profile done on Schuster. but I think, if my experience is any good for judgment, that Schuster cares about his lady friend. She’s the wife of the Canadian cultural attaché.

  P. We’ve got him, huh? Between a rock and a hard place? What’s the game plan?

  St. Y. At the right time we’re going to switch from passive to hot surveillance.

  V. Hot?

  St. Y. Let him know we’re following him around. Then, when he’s good and nervous about that, confront him with what we have. We should shock the name of the informer out of him. With a little luck, we might even double him. He’d be our man at the Post.

  P. Good play.

  O. How’s Young working out?

  St. Y. Fine, fine. We blooded him last night. He sat watch with us, was in on the entry operation. Cool head.

  P. That the Agency guy we brought over? Good guy. See him every morning. Puts the Daily Intelligence Summary on my desk.

  (Inaudible)

  V… but we’re not making any headway on the Hoover thing, that right?

  O. It’s all a shot in the dark anyway.

  St. Y. No, I think the President’s thinking is sound. We know Hoover had a set of blackmail files.

  P. Son of a bitch used to tell me stories out of them.

  St. Y. Well, these files are supposed to have been destroyed, but I think we’re getting close to one partial set.

  P. Good, good. Can’t think of anything more useful as a handle on some of those Democrat senators. Work on that, Ed.

  St. Y. It’s top priority. Well, thank you for your time, Mr. President.

  P. Always good talking to you, Ed.

  (St. Yves exits) (Inaudible conversation)

  V. That other thing is moving ahead, but our document man needs a bit more time. That telegram thing.

  P. That Kennedy thing? Good. Take your time. It needs a delicate touch. Those media bastards are going to love this one. Full text on page seventeen of the New York Times. They’ll have no choice. Sure they can’t spot the forgery?

  V. Expert says that maybe they could if they could get the originals, so we’ll see they get only copies.

  P. Great work. I think I’m finally getting the kind of staff around me I can trust.

  St. Yves, his highly polished shoes up on the desk, was on the telephone. “The son of a bitch doesn’t seem amenable to any of the more standard forms of persuasion,” he said. “But the Big Man says we have to get him. Now.” He took a small silver pocket knife out of his jacket pocket and, flipping the blade open, began cleaning under his already immaculate nails. “We must demonstrate to him the error of his ways. In an immediate and forceful manner. You have any ideas?”

  St. Yves listened for a minute. Then he chuckled, a sound that welled up from somewhere deep inside him. “Warren, you’re a genius. What the hell would I ever do without you? You have a slimy mind. It should work. You have anyone for the job…? Okay. Go ahead. But stay out of it yourself, understand? There’s no way we can let this be traced back to the Office. Call me when it’s done.”

  St. Yves hung up and stared at the phone for a minute. Then he broke out laughing again.

  Dianna Holroyd walked into the office to find St. Yves leaning back in his swivel chair and gasping for breath. “Here’s the weekly action report,” she said, carefully setting a folder on her boss’s desk. “What’s so funny?”

  St. Yves sat up and looked at her through tear-washed eyes. “Warren’s going to get Schuster,” he said.

  “Oh. How?”

  “You don’t want to hear,” St. Yves told her. Then, laughing again, he waved her out of his office.

  When the doorbell rang, Suzanne Chartre was washing her hair and thinking about Ralph Schuster. He was a rough diamond, her Ralph, but well worth polishing. And such a passionate man! Not that her husband wasn’t passionate, or that she didn’t love him. But Charles’ lovemaking had grown more and more perfunctory.

  The doorbell rang again, and Suzanne realized that there was nobody else home to answer it. She wrapped a terry cloth towel around her waist-length hair and put on the red satin robe that Charles had bought her before his passion had waned, adjusting it carefully to be properly modest for Washington, D.C.

  “Yes, what is it?” she asked the short, well-dressed man on the porch. Obviously not a tradesman. But not quite Embassy Row. American government official of some sort, probably. Come to see her husband. But why out here? And why Sunday?

  “Mrs. Chartre?”

  “Yes?” Not for her husband. It was a beautiful warm day outside, she noticed. She’d have to get dressed and get out. Perhaps do some shopping. What did this man want?

  “Mr. Schuster sent me.”

  “Excuse me?” Ralph? Sent him? What for? Perhaps he was hurt!

  “You’re alone?”

  “Why, yes.” What a strange question.

  “I thought you would be. Ralph said so.” The man pushed his way by her, and was in the hallway.

  She turned and followed him in. “Now, wait a minute!”

  The door slammed behind her as a second man, tall, rough-looking, wearing an Army fatigue jacket and a green knitted cap, entered the house.

  “What is this?” Suzanne said, trying to stay calm, but feeling the fear rising in her throat.

  “We’ve come to see you, Mrs. Chartre,” the tall one said, his voice like gravel falling on a bass drum. “Ralphie says as how you’re good. Very good, he says. Are you good, Mrs. Chartre?”

  “Get out!” Suzanne gasped the words. She knew she was trembling, but couldn’t control it. Where had these men come from?

  “Aw, that’s no way to talk, Mrs. Chartre,” the short one said, grabbing her by the upper forearm and pulling her toward the stairs. “Ralphie says you like it. He says you like it a lot. So we’re going to give it to you.”

  She tried to scream, but the small man clamped his hand over her mouth. Then something was being stuffed in her mouth, and she realized it was the satin belt to her robe. The small man took her shoulders and the tall man took her legs and they hustled her upstairs and into the bedroom.

 
Five hours later when Charles Chartre, cultural attaché to the Canadian Embassy, came home, he found his wife naked, lying on their bed, staring at the ceiling. Her eyes were puffy and black, and blood from her mouth and her genitals was drying on the pink pastel sheet. There were bruises over much of her body. She did not hear him when he called out. Her eyes did not focus on him when he leaned over her. He called his doctor and then the police. Then he returned to the side of the bed. “Darling,” he said.

  This time her eyes almost focused. “Ralph,” she whispered. “Why?”

  CHAPTER NINE

  The front doorbell in Aaron Adams’ house played the first eight bars of “Yankee Doodle.” He’d always meant to change it to something less strident, like the “Ode to Joy” or the Internationale, but deed had not yet followed thought and it still played “Yankee Doodle.”

  This evening, when the call to arms sounded, Adams was settled comfortably in his study reading. He laid the book aside, stretched, and went to the door. It was a little past ten, and he was expecting nobody.

  He looked through the peephole and saw an Army uniform with three rows of ribbons. Four stars twinkled on the right shoulder loop. Adams pulled the bolt and released the lock. “Tank!” he said, opening the door. “What the hell are you doing here?”

  General Hiram “Tank” MacGregor stalked past him and into the house. “That’s a fine way to greet an old friend who’s traveled miles to see you,” he said. “How are you, Aaron—how the hell are you?”

  Adams closed the door and led the way into the study. “Well, it’s been a while, hasn’t it?” he said. “What about a drink? I’ll tell you: what about an Irish coffee?”

  “Wonderful, Aaron, if it isn’t too much trouble. Go easy on the cream, though. This inactive staff life is hard on a man’s waistline.”

  “You settle down, Tank. Let me go out in the kitchen for a second; there should be a pot of coffee set up in there ready for me to perk. To what do I owe the honor of this visit? Why didn’t you call first? Not that I mind your dropping in, but you might still be standing out there pushing the bell. About half the time I don’t bother answering.”