The Pinocchio Syndrome

by David Zeman

  The president’s poll numbers immediately plummeted. Nothing could have been more damaging to his administration’s image than the specter of illness. Deliberation in the Senate over Palleschi’s confirmation ceased. In its place came heated debate over whether to pass a constitutional amendment allowing for a special election to name a new president.

  So great was the embarrassment caused by Palleschi’s incapacitation that thought was given to confecting a Boris Yeltsin–style video to prove that Palleschi was not seriously ill. But in his paralyzed condition Palleschi could hardly feign normality. File tape would have to be used for the video, and the media would certainly see through it. In the end it was decided to do nothing but wait and hope for the best.

  During this tense period Joseph Kraig took an hour off from his busy schedule to pay a visit to Susan Campbell at her Georgetown house.

  She had asked him to come in the middle of the day, when Michael would not be home. On the phone she wouldn’t say what it was about. Kraig had agreed, wondering what she could possibly want to talk to him about.

  He did not relish the idea of being alone with her. In the years since his divorce he had avoided the Campbells as much as he could. Being around Susan was painful for him.

  Kraig had been Michael’s close friend at Harvard, and his roommate freshman year. Kraig had been present on the sidelines when Michael was courting Susan. He had met her at the hospital when Michael was having his second surgery, and had had many a heart-to-heart talk with her about Michael and about herself.

  Even in those days Kraig had not lied to himself about his feelings for her. Her softness, her fragility, the passion under her cautious exterior—these qualities brought out a deep longing when he was with her. He coveted his times with her unscrupulously. When he was not with her he thought about her. His loyalty to Michael deepened during that time, not only because of Michael’s painful surgery and convalescence, but because Michael was now Susan’s lover. That fact exalted him in Kraig’s eyes, and made him seem more precious as a friend.

  Kraig did not get over his love for Susan. He correctly sensed he would never have such feelings for another woman. Years later, when he met and married Cathy, his attraction to her, though sincere, was a pale shadow of what he felt for Susan. He tried to deny this, and gave a great deal of effort to his marriage. But when it went sour and he ended up divorced, he couldn’t help wondering if he had chosen Cathy in bad faith, and thus doomed their relationship.

  Indeed, during the last painful stages of their marriage Cathy often accused him of never having loved her in the right way.

  “You picked me out because you thought it was the right time for you,” she said. “Not because you really believed I was the right girl.” Kraig denied this hotly, but he came to wonder whether his denials had the force of truth.

  In any case, he had never stopped thinking about Susan during his marriage. He carried her image inside his brain like a guilty secret. And when he and Cathy broke up, he found it hard to be with Susan. His old feelings for her returned with a force magnified by his unhappiness.

  Susan was waiting for him when he got out of the car. She was wearing a soft wool dress, perhaps a bit too conservative for her, but she looked magnificent in it. Her long hair was down over her shoulders. Her sensitive fingers nestled in his as he shook her hand.

  “Welcome, stranger.”

  “It’s good to see you, Susan.”

  She took his coat and watched him precede her into the house. She had not seen him in a year or more. He had not changed all that much. A little heavier and stronger looking, a little gray at the temples now. His skin, always ruddy, was a bit more lined. He gave the impression of a great deal of masculine force, combined with a secret sadness that made him attractive.

  Susan knew that Kraig was not a happy man. His divorce had left scars, probably very deep ones. He had not had a serious romance since Cathy left him. He lived for his work, but he did not seem to enjoy it.

  “How is your daughter?” Susan asked.

  “Fine. She’s in sixth grade. I have now attained the status of creep as far as she’s concerned. She can’t stand to have her friends see her with me.”

  “Oh, it can’t be as bad as all that,” Susan said.

  “I suppose it really isn’t,” Kraig said. “I’ve got time on my side. She’ll outgrow this phase.”

  Susan nodded, hoping that Kraig could not see the jealousy in her eyes. She would give her right arm to have a young daughter like his.

  “And you?” she asked in a hospitable tone. “How are things?”

  Kraig’s look was friendly but evasive. “Oh, same old thing,” he said. “Too much work, and not much results. Some day I’ll probably get out. Practice law or something. Far from here.”

  “I sympathize,” Susan said, gesturing for him to sit down. “Some days all I think about is starting over someplace far from here. But I don’t have that choice, unfortunately.”

  Kraig nodded. He was aware of her dilemma. He knew she hated politics and had never gotten used to it. The falseness of it offended her, as did the exposure. But she was trapped. Michael was working his way up the ladder to greater and greater visibility. One day she might have to assume the unenviable position of First Lady. That would be agony for her.

  “I saw you onGood Morning America last week,” he said.

  She blushed to think of the fluff interview she had done. “Why did you want to tune in a thing like that?”

  He shrugged. “Business, I suppose. You’re pretty visible lately.”

  He wasn’t about to admit that he always set up his machine to tape anything that had Susan in it. Or that he watched every appearance she made a dozen times, and had great trouble convincing himself to erase any of the tapes.

  “A lot more visible than I’d like,” she said. “Would you like a drink?”

  “Whatever you’re having.”

  “Coffee?”

  “Sure.”

  “Still milk and Equal?”

  He smiled. “You’ve got a good memory.” He was touched that she remembered. A long time ago they had drunk many a cup of coffee together. He had sometimes left her with caffeine jangling in his ears, because he had not been able to tear himself away from her.

  When she came back into the room her face was serious.

  “What’s up?” he asked.

  “I’ve been getting some strange phone calls,” she said. “Crank calls, I guess you would call them.”

  “Why did you pick up?” Kraig asked. “Don’t you have an answering service?”

  “We do, for business. I also have a machine here for personal calls. Sometimes I pick up instead of monitoring—when I’m expecting a call from Michael. That’s what happened in this case.”

  “What did the caller say?”

  “It was a woman,” Susan said. “She said that Michael will be chosen as vice president this year.”

  “This year?” Kraig raised an eyebrow. “That’s crazy.”

  “I told her it was impossible,” Susan said. “But she seemed absolutely sure. She told me I wasn’t willing or able to see the truth yet, but that soon I would be convinced. She seemed—it was as though she knew something I didn’t.”

  “A woman,” Kraig said. “How was the voice?”

  “Husky. Strange. She sounded sort of faraway, and yet there was an intimacy about it. As though she knew me. As though she knew what I was thinking before I myself did. A step ahead.”

  She thought for a moment. “And there was another aspect. A sort of sympathy. As though she was my friend, and wanted to help me.”

  “Help you?”

  “She said that when it happened—when Michael was chosen—it would all be up to me. And that I would need a friend. She said she would be that friend.”

  “What would be up to you?” Kraig asked.

  “To get him not to take the job,” she said. “I think that’s what she meant.”

  “Was she threaten
ing?” Kraig asked.

  “Yes and no. It was frightening, but she didn’t actually threaten. She just assured me that Michael would be the president’s choice, and that when the time came no one could stop him but me.”

  “When did you get these calls?” Kraig asked.

  “The first one was before the holidays, last fall. She called me right after Danny Everhardt got sick. She told me he would not get well, and that Michael would be the nominee. Then, after the president chose Tom Palleschi, she called again. She assured me that Tom would not become vice president.”

  Kraig reddened a bit. The caller had been right about Palleschi, who was now gravely ill, probably from the Pinocchio Syndrome, and would certainly not become vice president this year.

  Kraig looked skeptical.

  “Sounds like your garden-variety crank caller to me,” he said.

  Susan was silent, thinking.

  “Why?” she asked.

  “What you have to understand, Susan, is that there are cranks who spend the whole day on the phone, all day every day. A single crank will call a dozen well-known people, or their families, with vague threats. Usually the caller will mention some kind of conspiracy. The phone company deals with them all the time. They’re usually paranoid schizophrenics. They’re completely harmless, though they’re a nuisance.”

  Susan was listening intently, as though eager to grasp at any crumb of reassurance Kraig could offer her.

  “Why Michael?” she asked.

  “Mike is the ideal choice for a crank,” Kraig said. “For one thing he’s been a household name since the Olympics. For another, he’s widely thought of as a potential presidential candidate. He’s handsome, he’s charismatic—he’s got it all. He’s a crank’s dream.”

  He thought for a moment. “And there is another aspect. Mike wasn’t just another Olympic athlete. Those two back operations made him look vulnerable. His public image combines vulnerability and heroism. Like Kennedy withPT-109 . A crank will fantasize on that kind of image.”

  Susan nodded. “I never thought of it that way.”

  “Then there’s you,” Kraig said. “You’re very beautiful. Your face is all over the media. You’re a made-to-order tabloid star in your own right.”

  A pang of familiar pain made itself felt inside Kraig as he referred to Susan’s beauty. He forced himself to continue in a clinically impersonal voice. “You’re known as a vulnerable person yourself because of the things you’ve said over the years. Also, there is the childlessness angle. A crank will get off on a thing like that. He’ll think you don’t have children because of some sort of plot or conspiracy. Communists, Martians, Venutians—you name it. Conception and pregnancy is one of their fetishes.”

  “I see.” Susan was thoughtful. “I guess you’ve dealt with a lot of cranks,” she said.

  “Dozens. Hell, hundreds. I’ve worked with the phone company and the FBI on them. It’s so predictable that you get hardened to it.”

  Susan nodded uncertainly.

  “I see what you mean,” she said. “But she seemed so sure . . . It was scary.”

  Kraig smiled. Susan’s neurotic personality again. She was too thin-skinned to be able to laugh off a crank. In this way, as in others, she was not cut out to be a political wife.

  “What is it you’re afraid of, Susan?” Kraig asked.

  “This disease,” Susan said, avoiding his eyes. “When Danny Everhardt got sick, that was bad enough. But Tom Palleschi too . . .”

  Kraig looked at her steadily. She had touched on a sore point with him. He could not confirm that Palleschi suffered from the same disorder as Dan Everhardt. On the other hand he did not want to lie blatantly to her. She had asked him here because she wanted to confide in him. He did not want to destroy that claim to closeness with her.

  “I keep thinking about how closely Michael worked with Danny, and with Tom,” she said. “I mean, if there is a problem of exposure, Michael must have been exposed.”

  “I’ve talked to the public health authorities,” Kraig said. “They have no evidence that the disease is communicable from human to human. If Michael could have caught it from Everhardt, he would have been sick a long time ago.”

  Susan tried to take comfort from his words. But the voice of the crank caller came back to her, speaking with an eloquence all its own.Palleschi will not be the vice president. Michael will be chosen .

  She looked at Joe Kraig’s tanned face and calm eyes. She trusted Kraig as much as any man alive except Michael. She had known him for fifteen years and never heard him say a word that wasn’t true. Yet her own fear had more power than his reassurances.

  “What if Tom Palleschi doesn’t get better?” Susan asked. “What if the president asked Michael to become vice president?”

  Kraig smiled. “He won’t. Michael is too young. He’s out of the running, Susan.”

  “But . . .” Her words trailed off.

  “Tell me what’s scaring you, Susan,” Kraig said gently.

  There was a silence.

  “Joe,” Susan said, “what if someone was able to make people sick? Deliberately, I mean.”

  “What are you saying?” Kraig asked. “That Everhardt was eliminated by someone?”

  Susan thought for a moment, chewing her lip nervously. “When she called the second time, she saidwhen Palleschi is removed . Those were her words.When Palleschi is removed .” She was looking intently at Kraig. “And now—now Tom is sick.”

  Kraig did not flinch. “You said the first call came after Everhardt got sick. Right?”

  Susan nodded. “That’s right.”

  “The caller was just trying out a theory on you,” Kraig said. “She’s paranoid, and she’s trying to make you paranoid. No one is being removed, Susan. That simply doesn’t happen in politics.”

  “But she was right,” Susan hazarded.

  Kraig kept his face expressionless. Susan was very close to the painful truth. The intelligence agencies were working overtime with the health authorities to discover how Everhardt and Palleschi, two isolated cases, had been infected by a disease that always claimed multiple victims.

  “It was a shot in the dark,” he said. “She was just trying to scare you.”

  Susan nodded uncomfortably. Kraig could see she wanted to believe him, but her fear was strong.

  Kraig decided to be firm with her.

  “I want you to do two things for me. First, stop answering the phone. You’ve got answering machines and answering services for that. Second, stop worrying about this. You can’t let a crank caller give you sleepless nights. That’s what she wants, you know. That’s how they get their kicks.”

  Susan weighed the look in Kraig’s eyes—serious, firm—against the tone of the voice on the phone. It was a close call. The conviction in the caller’s voice had been every bit as strong as Joe Kraig’s conviction that it was all nonsense.

  Kraig had one advantage. He enjoyed Susan’s confidence, and had for many years. No human being alive had a stronger claim to her trust. But the caller also had an advantage. Her prediction had come true. Tom Palleschi was sick, and would almost certainly not replace Dan Everhardt.

  Susan gave a weak laugh. “You probably think I’m completely off my rocker, don’t you?”

  Kraig shook his head. “This is a very tense year. The president is under attack, and so is everyone close to him. TheCrescent Queen has left everyone afraid a nuclear bomb is going to fall on them at any moment. With Goss doing so well in the polls, a lot of things we once took for granted don’t seem so sure. And Michael is on the front lines of all this. No, Susan—I don’t blame you a bit for feeling tense. And the caller knew that. She used it, too.”

  He stood up to leave.

  “Do you have to go already?” Susan asked.

  “Afraid so. Duty calls.” Kraig was lying. He could have stayed with her another hour if he wanted. But he could not bear the pain of prolonged exposure to her.

  “Thank you for coming,” she said.
She stood up. The sight of her slender legs and delicate shoulders, in the soft dress, made him feel weak.

  “No problem,” he said. “Call me if you have any more trouble. Have you told Mike about this, by the way?”

  She shook her head. “He has enough on his mind.”

  “You should tell him,” Kraig said. “He’d want the opportunity to reassure you.”

  “He does enough of that already,” she said. “I want him to keep his mind on his work. I don’t want him fretting about a neurotic wife.”

  Kraig did not reply.

  She walked with him to the foyer.

  “We don’t see as much of you as we’d like, Joe,” she said.

  “Well, you know how it is,” he said. “Business is business.”

  She knew he was keeping his distance intentionally since his divorce. She wasn’t sure why, but she knew Kraig well enough to know that the best way to be a friend to him was to give him plenty of space. He was a very private man.

  They went into the foyer, and she helped him on with his trench coat. She noticed the gray in his hair as she stood close to him. It made him look handsome, but it saddened her, because she knew Kraig lived alone now with no woman to share his life. He was growing older without a wife.

  She went out onto the stoop with him. The sky was gray, the wind brisk. He turned to say his good-bye.

  She hesitated before saying, “Joe, there’s one more thing.”

  “What is it?”

  “The woman on the phone . . . She told me to ask Michael about what happened at Harvard. Do you have any idea what she might have meant?”

  “What happened at Harvard?” Kraig asked. “Nothing happened.”

  Susan was looking at him in silence.

  “You were there,” Kraig said. “You were his best girl. I was his best friend. I guess one or the other of us would know. Don’t you think?”

  Susan frowned. “I guess so.”

  “I’ll tell you a secret,” Kraig said. “Mike led a very boring life before you came along. I know. I was his roommate.”