Palace Council

by Stephen L Carter

  Eddie remained the perfect gentleman, unwilling to go away, but unwilling to press. “I won’t push you,” he said. “I can wait until you’re ready.”

  “I won’t ever be ready,” she snapped, thinking, to her surprise, of Kevin, who always used to take such protestations on her part as challenges, not warnings. She remembered their courting days. The harder she had tried to erect walls, the harder Kevin had tried to break them down and sweep her off her feet.

  Not until this moment, listening to Eddie’s smooth placations, did Aurelia realize how much she missed her late husband. And not until the following morning, as she bustled about, herself again, singing silly songs with the children as she readied them for school, did Aurelia realize that she had loved Kevin Garland after all.

  CHAPTER 40

  Two Bites at the Apple

  (I)

  THE NEXT TIME she saw Eddie, he was not alone. He had arrived at the cottage on a Friday. Saturday had been taken up by the children—Locke’s youth hockey in the morning, Zora’s flute recital in the afternoon—for Aurelia was yielding to the town’s conventions as fast as she could. Sunday she had surprised the kids by waking them early for a rare visit to the snooty Episcopal church near the campus, where she spent a lot of time on her knees. The sermon was about unmerited grace, and Aurelia figured she unmerited a lot of it. Not until Tuesday did she feel sufficiently fortified. Even so, she took care to dress as sexlessly as possible, changing after classes, throwing on the worn, heavy sweater in which she lounged around the house in the wee hours. She decided to take Crunch along as chaperone, penning him behind the mesh in the back of the station wagon. When she reached the stone cottage, she found in the driveway not only Eddie’s huge Cadillac but one of those tiny round modern machines made by a hesitant Japanese company called Subaru, advertised with a cute little jingle about saving money and gas.

  She got out of her station wagon. Eddie’s visit was supposed to be a secret. She felt skittish and irritated, as if he had broken the rules. She opened the liftback, and the dog ran barking around the back of the house. She walked over to the Subaru. The shiny blue panels were caked with salt from the roads. The plates, like Eddie’s, read DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA.

  No way to find out but to knock.

  The rickety door flew open as soon as her knuckles touched it, and Aurelia could not suppress a gasp. A comely black woman stood there, early twenties if that, slim and green-eyed and fair, all the things the old Harlem families used to worship. She was dressed to the nines, and Aurelia was at once ashamed of her own costume. The girl said, “Hello, Mrs. Garland, please come in,” and Aurelia, regaining her composure, recognized the melodious Southern voice. She had heard it a time or two on the telephone. This was Mindy, a graduate of Spelman, Eddie’s latest assistant. He hired black women right out of college. People whispered that the duties Eddie required of them were considerably more than secretarial, an assertion Aurelia always laughed off. Yet the rumor mills of the darker nation never associated him with anybody else, and, stepping inside, Aurelia felt herself stiffening with what could only have been jealousy, and burning with what could only have been shame. The events of last Friday had happened to somebody else, a long time ago, and would never, ever happen again.

  Over by the sofa stood a delicately feminine overnight bag.

  Eddie was sitting at the plank table, reviewing a document that Mindy had obviously brought along.

  “I just wanted to make sure you had everything you needed,” Aurelia said, voice strained. “But I guess you’re well taken care of.”

  “What? Oh. Make yourself at home.” He had barely glanced up. “I’ll just be another minute.”

  “No, no, I can’t stay—”

  Eddie was already reading again, distressed as well as distracted.

  “Well, I’ll check on you in a few days,” said Aurie, backing toward the door. “You know how to reach me if you need anything.” Again her eyes moved toward Mindy, who stared back with a guileless triumph that appalled her.

  “Yes,” said Eddie, going back to page one. “Fine.”

  “A pleasure to make your acquaintance, Mrs. Garland,” said well-bred Mindy in her syrupy tone.

  “Mutual,” was all Aurelia could manage. To Eddie: “Take care.”

  “Right,” he echoed, still studying the document. Then his head jerked up, and he was seeing her as if for the first time. “I’m sorry. Wait.”

  “I really have to go—”

  “Aurie, wait. I need to talk to you for a minute.”

  “I can’t just now, Eddie. I’m sorry.”

  “Mindy, dear, please give us a minute.”

  “Certainly, Mr. Wesley,” she drawled, and vanished into the only other room, which happened to be the bedroom. The door clicked behind her.

  Aurelia stood there, feeling like an idiot.

  “I really can’t stay,” she said.

  “Please sit.”

  “I’d rather not.”

  His eyebrows went up. “What’s the matter with you?”

  “Nothing,” she snapped, hating herself in this mood, unable to keep her eyes from cutting toward the bedroom.

  Eddie’s gaze followed. Understanding gleamed in his clever face, and now Aurelia was ready to scream. He had always been able to read her, and she had never been able to read him. His grin was wolfish. His voice was soft. “Aren’t you the one who just told me we can’t see each other again?”

  “My God, Eddie, you could have waited more than two days!”

  “Four days, actually.”

  She wanted to slap him, but the act would require a dangerous proximity. She backed toward the front door. “Goodbye, Eddie.”

  “Wait.” On his feet, heading toward her. She kept moving. “Aurie, come on. I was joking, okay?”

  “I really do have to go. The school bus—”

  “Won’t be along for another hour and a half. Here. Sit down. Please.”

  So Aurelia sat, managing to look disdainful and bitchy, a side of her she knew he had always found alluring.

  “What is it?” she asked coldly.

  “First of all, there is nothing going on between Mindy and me. She works for me, honey. That’s all.”

  Aurelia lifted her chin a little higher. “What you do is your own business. It doesn’t make any difference to me. And I am not your honey.”

  Eddie looked exasperated. “Mindy came to deliver this to me,” he said, tapping the pages. The folder was bordered with a dull red stripe. “Aurie, look. This file is important. I’ve been waiting a long time for it. A very long time. Mindy is just doing her job. She drove all night, and she’s worn out, so she’s staying over. She’s leaving tomorrow.” He saw her face move, but now he was getting angry. “Unless I ask her to stay longer.” Another pause, heat building on both sides. “So now I suppose you’ll ask me about the sleeping arrangements.”

  “Fuck you.” She made the five steps to the door in about half a second, wishing he would stop her, knowing he was too proud.

  His hand touched her shoulder, and she froze.

  “Let’s not do this, okay?” The voice was the old Eddie, the Harlem Eddie. Her Eddie. “I’m sorry, honey. I have no right to talk to you that way.”

  He waited. Aurelia held her tongue, waiting right back. If he said he loved her, she would slap his face for thinking she was easy. If he said Mindy was sleeping on the sofa, she would curse him out for thinking she was jealous.

  Instead, he said the only words that could have made her stay.

  “I need your help, Aurie. It’s about Junie.”

  (II)

  THE WOODEN TABLE WOBBLED when she put her weight on it, because one of the legs was loose. Kevin would have been underneath tightening the screws, but Eddie was immune to the need to showcase his masculinity.

  “It took me years to get this,” he said, putting the pages back in order. “I pulled in all the markers I could think of. Gary Fatek. Everybody I knew from my White House days.
Even Lanning Frost.”

  “Lanning? I didn’t realize—”

  “I met him in the Kennedy campaign. I went through Margot, and—well, I guess I implied—I’m sorry, Aurie. I used your name.”

  “My name? What does—Oh.” She had not considered this angle. The whole world thought Lanning Frost was alive today because Kevin Garland died in his place. Lanning would naturally believe he owed her. Aurelia supposed she should be furious at Eddie, but her anger was, for the moment, exhausted. As for the memories being dredged up—well, she would deal with those later, and alone. Eddie was still apologizing, but she waved him silent. “It’s okay. I understand.” She found a smile somewhere. “Really, Eddie. Tell me about what Mindy brought you.”

  Eddie hesitated, then reached down to pick up the red-bordered folder from the floor. The words SECRET—LIMDIS were stamped prominently on the cover. Eddie saw her looking. “They use a special paper that can’t be copied. This is a set of originals. They’re the ones that go to senior executive-branch and elected officials. They’re redacted to protect sources, and, well, this is why I need your help.”

  “Elected officials.” Aurelia tilted her head to one side, the schoolmarm look from the old days. “This is Lanning’s personal copy, isn’t it? Oh, Eddie. Why would he take this chance for you? What did you have to promise him?”

  But they both knew the question was rhetorical. She gave up and reached for the folder. Eddie grabbed her hand.

  “What’s the matter? Why can’t I touch it?”

  “Let’s just say this set is borrowed. It doesn’t matter who from. The point is, Aurie, I have to give it back. Now, it’s okay for my fingerprints to be on the folder. If there’s ever an investigation, they’ll already know I had it in my possession. But there’s no reason for them to know you had anything to do with this.”

  Aurelia took her hand back. His protectiveness annoyed her. “What about little Mindy?”

  “It was delivered inside another envelope, and I told her to wear gloves. She hasn’t touched the folder itself.” Eddie waited, but Aurie had no more questions. “These are summaries of surveillance reports. What the senior officials get. This is everything they have about Jewel Agony. And it’s not enough.” He banged his hand on the table. “It’s not enough. There’s information here, and it helps, but I need more.” He opened the folder, pulled the pages apart, finger darting. “Look at this one. Junie’s code name is WAKEFUL CURRENT. Don’t touch. Just read. See?”

  Aurelia read. And saw. And was careful not to touch the pages. The sources supplying the intermittent reports were similarly obscured: ORANGE VOLUME, SILVER APPLE, and so forth. It took Aurie only a minute to understand that the good guys—the FBI’s informants—were all given code names beginning with colors. She looked wherever Eddie pointed. The pickings were as thin as he described. 1960: Wakeful Current seen passing through a safe house in Dallas. 1962: Wakeful Current overheard arguing with another commander about a proposed action. 1963: Wakeful Current believed to have left the country. Wakeful Current attends Ghana summit with heads of two other radical groups, names redacted. 1964: Wakeful Current spotted in Los Angeles, believed in Boston, moved to Georgia. 1965: Wakeful Current renounces violence, charged with ideological error, placed on trial, stripped of her authority—

  Aurelia looked up.

  Eddie’s face was pale. No wonder he had been distracted.

  “Eddie—”

  He shook his head, tapped the page. “Keep reading.”

  She did.

  The next report was dated spring of 1966, just under a year ago. It was brief and, in its toneless way, poignant:

  Multiple sources report subject WAKEFUL CURRENT no longer in contact with elements of Agony. Current whereabouts unknown. Source GREEN SADDLE (q.v.) reports rumors subject WAKEFUL CURRENT expelled. Source GOLD DECKHAND (q.v.) reports rumors subject WAKEFUL CURRENT liquidated by elements of Agony. Rumors not substantiated. (Note: Multiple sources report subject WAKEFUL CURRENT in the past sought assistance on urgent matters from unknown Negro male known as FERDINAND, surname not given, no ref, no file. Sources believe witness FERDINAND might be aware of present condition and whereabouts.)

  Aurelia realized that she was gripping Eddie’s hands. Tightly, her nails digging into his flesh. Her arms trembled. She did not know which of them was being reassured. When Eddie spoke, his words were empty of emotion.

  “Ferdinand is Perry Mount. It’s a name from when we were kids. Perry works for the State Department, in the Agency for International Development. These days, that usually means CIA.” Aurie said nothing. “None of my sources can get information out of that particular vault. This is where you come in.”

  “Me?”

  “I need to know where Perry is. I promised not to ask you about Kevin, and I won’t. But I need your help to find Perry. I need to find him, and make him tell me what’s happened to my sister.”

  Aurie let go of his hands. “Eddie, come on. I’m a half-salary lecturer in English at Cornell. I don’t know anybody at the CIA.”

  “But you know somebody who will know somebody. I bet he’ll be happy to help.”

  “Who? You already tried Lanning!”

  “Nixon.”

  “What?”

  “Dick Nixon. You always liked him, Aurie. The Garlands raised a ton of money for him. They say he keeps in close touch with the intelligence people, and, well, I’m sure he’d be delighted to hear from Matty’s daughter-in-law.”

  “Be serious, Eddie. He’s running for President next year. Even if he took my call, well, it’s not the best time to ask him to spill the Agency’s secrets.”

  “Would you try? That’s all I’m asking.” She had never seen such pain in his patient eyes. “Please, Aurie. I need this. I’m out of ideas.”

  Somehow Aurelia was back in the station wagon, Crunch yapping in his pen. Probably she had promised to try. She could scarcely remember anything but those imploring eyes. She glanced at the Subaru, reminded herself that Eddie’s sex life was none of her business, and backed into the road. She was late, but could still beat the school bus if she broke enough laws. She skipped lights and, passing through one of the villages, touched eighty miles an hour. Aurelia told herself that she was running home to greet the children, but another part of her knew she was running away. Eddie demanded too much of her. If she allowed him to get too close, he would turn her inside out, and she would find herself telling the secrets she most needed to keep.

  Odd how he had never doubted she would do as he asked.

  (III)

  NIGHT. Eddie sat at the table in undershorts and tee shirt. Mindy was asleep in his bed. She had left the door open, and made clear that he was free to join her, but he had thrown a blanket over the sofa and planned to make do. He was flipping through the surveillance summaries again, particularly the ones he had kept from Aurelia’s view through the transparent device of not allowing her to touch the pages. He kept coming back to the same report, dated 1961:

  Subject WAKEFUL CURRENT is reliably reported to have given birth to a child. According to source SILVER APPLE, the child was taken for adoption. According to source BLUE SHEPHERD, the child was born shortly after Agony launched its unsuccessful attack on the county jail in Macon, Georgia. Further action not recommended at this time.

  Eddie stared at the paper. He remembered the attack in Macon, as he remembered the details of every publicly known action of Jewel Agony. The attack on the jail—really just a cluster of shots fired from a passing truck, missing everything, even the many police cars sitting outside—had occurred in the late spring of 1959. The nation’s press had announced, with the oracular imagination that never failed, even when wrong, that the incident had been timed to protest the lynching of Mack Charles Parker, in Poplarville, Mississippi, several states away. Maybe Macon was more convenient. Maybe the motive was different. What mattered to Eddie was that if the baby was born after the Macon attack, then the baby was born three years after Junie’s disapp
earance.

  His sister had a second child.

  CHAPTER 41

  The Domino

  (I)

  A FEW WEEKS LATER, freshly credentialed as a journalist for a radical monthly, Eddie took the early-morning flight from Hong Kong to Saigon. The Boeing 707 was crowded with reporters, diplomats, and war profiteers. As they swooped over the mountains at ten thousand feet, the country looked marvelously lush. From the air, the war might have been mythology, although the young executive sitting beside him kept talking excitedly about how one of his co-workers had been blown up in a café, and the pilot selected a sharp angle of descent to avoid whatever form of surface-to-air death hid among the beautiful trees.

  Aurelia had come through. That was what Eddie kept telling himself, with happy wonder. She had gone to Nixon, and Nixon had discovered that Perry Mount was in Vietnam. There the information stubbornly halted, but Eddie had always believed in the power of determination. Finding the whereabouts of a single man in a country at war did not daunt him. Moreover, it made sense that Perry would be here. Philmont Castle had negotiated deals for his clients all over Europe, but Kevin had done Europe. The lawyer had also traveled extensively in Southeast Asia—particularly, in Hong Kong and Vietnam, back when it was a French protectorate.

  Perry was here for the federal government, yes; but he was also here in service to the Project. He was searching for Castle’s testament.

  Eddie stayed for a while at the Caravelle, because Mona Veazie, who had ex-lovers everywhere, had given him the name of a British journalist who used it. Mona’s friend was at the front. Waiting for his return, Eddie hung out at Jerome’s Bar with the movers and shakers, but the war reporters never paid for their own drinks and kept the best gossip to themselves. He had arrived in mid-April, in the middle of Operation Junction City, a massive, and successful, American assault on major Viet Cong bases in Tay Ninh Province. At first he cared little for such details. He did not know where Tay Ninh was, and was unimpressed that the North ran the war from there. But he quickly learned that his attitude was one of the reasons the press corps ignored him. Nobody cared that he had won two National Book Awards. Either you followed the war or you were an outsider.