The Pinocchio Syndrome

by David Zeman

  “Nothing.” He was sitting stiffly on the couch, as though about to get up and leave.

  “What’s on your mind?” she asked. “You don’t look happy.”

  Kraig grimaced. “You had an interview with Susan Campbell last week.”

  Karen nodded. “Yeah, I did. So what?”

  “What did you talk about?”

  “What do you think? Her husband’s selection as vice president. The Pinocchio Syndrome. Her fears. Her concerns. Stuff like that.” Karen shrugged. “It was human interest. Reactions of the families. That kind of thing.”

  “I wish you had seen fit to leave her alone,” Kraig said.

  “Why? She didn’t seem unhappy to see me.” Karen had stubbed out the cigarette beside the computer and was lighting another one from a butane lighter. She flopped down on the battered armchair across from Kraig, her slim legs extending straight in front of her.

  “She was upset by your questions,” Kraig said.

  “How do you know?”

  “I keep in touch with her and with her husband,” Kraig said, watching the smoke plume around the reporter’s head. “I don’t think you really needed to talk to her, did you?”

  Karen was perplexed and intrigued. Why would a man as busy as Kraig go out of his way to come here and upbraid her for doing her job? What was he trying to hide?

  “She was helpful and forthcoming,” she said. “We parted on good terms. She even asked me to keep in touch. I think she likes me.”

  Kraig watched sourly as Karen picked a piece of lint off her shirt. Her easy informality in the midst of this mess irritated him.

  “Look,” he said. “Oh, hell. Get me a drink.”

  “Bourbon?” she asked.

  “Whichever bottle is the fullest,” he said.

  “Ice?”

  “And water. Yes.”

  She got up and poured a stiff shot of Early Times over ice with a splash of water. She padded back into the living room on bare feet and put the drink on the table before him.

  He sipped the bourbon. He didn’t like liquor anymore. It gave him headaches. He had only asked for the drink to try to forge a small bond of hospitality between himself and Karen.

  “Let me explain something to you,” he said.

  “I’d like that.” She regarded him steadily over her joined knees.

  “I’ve known Susan and Michael since college,” he said. “I’ve known Mike since we were together at Choate.”

  “Prep school buddies,” Karen observed with a small grin.

  “Susan has never really gotten used to the political life,” Kraig said. “As a matter of fact, she hates it. They have a good marriage, I think, but the public part of their life is hard on her. She doesn’t sleep well. She’s—”

  “Unhappy?” Karen offered.

  “I wouldn’t go that far.” Kraig was lying. He believed Susan was in fact unhappy in her life. But it was a life she had chosen. She would never give it up.

  “She’s fragile,” he said. “Permanently so. At least that’s my opinion of her. The last few months have been hard on her nerves. It would help if she wasn’t bothered any more than absolutely necessary.”

  “If she doesn’t want to be bothered, she shouldn’t be married to a man who is about to become vice president of the United States,” Karen said.

  Kraig nodded grimly. He took a sip of the bourbon, whose flavor reminded him faintly of furniture polish.

  “I respect your job,” he said. “I can understand that you wanted reaction from her about the things that have been going on. I’m just wondering . . .”

  “What?” Karen asked, puffing at her cigarette.

  “Did you say anything, or ask anything, that might have upset her?”

  Karen smiled. “What are you, her keeper?”

  “No. But I’m responsible for the people who are keeping an eye on her husband,” Kraig said. “Her state of mind can have an effect. She sounded upset when I talked to her after your interview.”

  Karen looked at Kraig. “Yes, I asked something that might have upset her.”

  “What?”

  “I asked her if it had ever occurred to her that Everhardt, Palleschi, and Stillman were removed so that Michael Campbell could become vice president this year.”

  Kraig’s dark eyes flashed. “Christ!” he said. “What a thing to ask her.”

  “I didn’t get an answer,” Karen said. “The phone rang. She went to answer it. When she came back I backed off and threw her softballs for the rest of the interview.”

  “Why?” Kraig asked.

  “Why what?”

  “Why did you let up?”

  “She seemed upset,” Karen said. “I could see she didn’t know anything that might help me, so I saw no reason to upset her further.” She blew smoke out the side of her mouth. “I liked her.”

  Journalists, like politicians, have to be adroit liars. Karen’s bland look gave no hint of the crucial phone conversation she had overheard at Susan Campbell’s house. Karen’s own questions could hardly have upset Susan as much as that phone call.

  Kraig looked displeased. “That was a stupid thing to ask.”

  Karen shook her head. “No, it wasn’t, Agent Kraig. It was the perfect question.”

  “To ask a woman like her?” Kraig shook his head. “Christ. Do you have to float your conspiracy theories to innocent people who are worried enough as it is?”

  Karen smoked in silence, looking at him.

  “Well?” he asked.

  “I have to push buttons,” she said. “It’s my job. I wanted to see her reaction.”

  “But you backed off.”

  “Yes. I backed off.”

  Kraig thought for a moment. “Who was on the phone?”

  “I don’t know. She took the call in the kitchen.”

  “Was she upset by your questions or by the call?” Kraig asked.

  “I’m not sure. Probably by me.”

  Kraig took another cosmetic sip of his drink. Then he stood up.

  “Thanks for the drink.”

  “You didn’t finish it.”

  “I’m not much of a drinker. I never was, to tell you the truth.”

  “I forgive you.” Karen smiled. Her face looked younger in that instant, framed by her dark hair.

  “Will you do me a favor?” Kraig asked. “Bring your theories to me. Let me answer you. Don’t bother Susan Campbell.”

  “Bring them to you? That would be a first,” Karen said. “I haven’t been able to get a foot in the door with any government employee since my article came out.”

  “I make my own decisions about interviews,” Kraig said.

  “All right, then I’d like to hear your answer to the question I asked Mrs. Campbell,” Karen said. “Right now.”

  Kraig looked for his coat. He didn’t see it.

  “There is no evidence that anything that has occurred this winter was deliberate,” he said. “No evidence that anyone is behind the epidemic, or that anyone made Everhardt or Palleschi sick.”

  “What about the hit-and-run that killed Stillman?” Karen asked.

  “That’s exactly what it was,” Kraig replied angrily. “A routine hit-and-run by a drunk driver.”

  “You believe that?” Karen asked.

  “Yes!” Kraig raised his voice to cover the lie.

  Karen was looking steadily at Kraig. “Are you relieved that the epidemic stopped in America?”

  “Obviously.”

  “You don’t see anything odd about the fact that it stopped right after Michael Campbell was chosen to replace Vice President Everhardt?”

  “Jesus!” Kraig exclaimed. “You stop at nothing.”

  The note of dismissal in his voice annoyed Karen.

  “If I were you, Agent Kraig, I wouldn’t be too quick to breathe a sigh of relief about this.”

  She got up and went to the bathroom for his coat. Her slim thighs moved delicately under the wrinkled shorts. She had pretty feet, he observed, like h
er pretty hands.

  She helped him on with the coat. He paused to look at her.

  “You’re a bright girl,” he said. “When are you going to give up?”

  “When I get some answers that make sense,” she said. “So far things don’t add up. It’s a reporter’s job to pursue that.”

  He sighed. “Do we have a deal about Mrs. Campbell?”

  She chewed her lip ruminatively, studying his face.

  “I can’t make that kind of promise,” she said.

  “If I catch you around her uninvited, I’ll pick you up for harassment,” he said.

  “I won’t come uninvited,” she said. “That I will promise.”

  “Fair enough.” He turned to leave.

  “Agent Kraig.” Her voice stopped him.

  “What?”

  “You don’t really believe it yourself, do you? Everhardt, Stillman, Palleschi . . . That’s no coincidence.”

  “It is until we can prove otherwise.”

  “What are you trying to prove?” she asked. “That it is, or that it isn’t?”

  Kraig shook his head. “Good night, Miss Embry.”

  He let himself out and moved quickly along the sidewalk to the parking lot. He got into an unmarked government sedan. Karen heard the engine roar. He must have gunned it angrily as he was turning the ignition key.

  She watched him drive away. She wondered why he had come. His mission as Susan Campbell’s knight in shining armor didn’t ring true. He had another reason, one he wasn’t saying.

  Karen closed the door and returned to her computer. A faint smile played over her lips as she looked at the screen.

  Kraig headed for home, cursing at the traffic that surged under the rainy sky.

  He had learned what he went there to learn. Karen Embry did not know who telephoned Susan Campbell during their interview.

  Kraig did know. It was the crank Susan had been worrying about. Susan had told him so.

  What Susan had not told him was that the reporter had dared to float her conspiracy theory to Susan herself. No wonder Susan’s nerves were frayed, Kraig thought.

  He would not tell Susan about his conversation with Karen. There was no point in bothering Susan any further about it.

  As for the reporter herself, Kraig could not stop her from seeking the truth. After all, the constitution he was sworn to uphold guaranteed the freedom of the press. But he could punish her if she used her power unscrupulously. There were ways. A free press was one thing. An irresponsible press was another.

  She knew a lot already. She was sharp, all right. But she didn’t know about that phone call.

  “Thank God for small favors,” he mused, nosing the sedan into the ugly traffic.

  41

  —————

  Washington

  March 10

  MICHAEL CAMPBELL was in the weight room.

  He was finishing his bench presses. Two hundred eighty pounds, eight repetitions. He had started at 180, then moved to 220. Then 250, then 280. He had found a few years ago that he simply lacked the muscle bulk to handle more than 280.

  His arms were burning after the last rep. He sat for a long time, waiting for his rasping breaths to subside. Then he lay down on the mat for some stretching. His physical therapist had taught him long ago that with his back problems, frequent stretching was a must. He could not afford to have his back muscles stiffen up on him.

  He lay on his back and turned both legs to the left, stretching the base of his spine. Then both legs to the right, then bridging and catbacks to stretch the spine forward and backward. He was wearing cotton shorts over a weightlifter’s supporter, and a Baltimore Orioles T-shirt. The shirt was soaked already from his curls and presses.

  Lying on his back he thought of Susan. One of the first times they made love, after his second operation, he had been on his back. She took off all her clothes as he watched, and came astride him, her beautiful breasts poised above him, her warm knees caressing his ribs. When she lowered her fanny to guide him inside her, he had an orgasm despite himself, spilling his seed on her fingers. His embarrassment had been intense.

  But Susan had smiled and said, “I’m flattered that you want me that much.” Her generosity had touched him.

  Later on, when he was fully recovered, they made love with her on her back. She liked the deeper penetration he could achieve with her legs pulled up and wrapped around him. She wanted to feel all open to him, possessed by him as completely as possible.

  Nowadays he usually lay on his back when he made love to Leslie. With Susan he stayed on top. In a way the difference of position symbolized the different relationships he had with the two women. Susan wanted to be passive, wanted him to take charge. Leslie liked to dominate him, using her wiles to force him to come when she wanted it.

  Sighing, Michael got up to do the Nautilus. Squatting under the bar, he started at 175 and worked his way slowly up to 250. This was the core of his routine. The weight went right to his back. Where the back was permanently weakened by his scoliosis and the two surgeries, his legs made up the difference.

  Eight reps. Then rest, then eight more. He had to be careful. He had tothink the distribution of the stress. If he allowed the wrong muscles to take on too much, his lower back would go out and he could be bedridden for weeks.

  Michael had a near-perfect body for a man of his age. His shoulders were a bit larger now than they had been when he did his competitive swimming. So were his biceps. The rest of him looked like a twenty-one-year-old athlete. Women raved about his pectorals, his washboard stomach, his long legs. Two years ago a photographer got a picture of him sweeping Susan up into his arms on the beach in Hawaii, and it had made all the wire services.Beautiful couple at play . Michael did not mind being hyped for his physical attractiveness. In politics one learns to use what one has. Even now his athletic body was being used by the White House PR people to project an image of health and strength.

  But Michael did not work out just to look good. He needed to feel strong. The political life made him feel more vulnerable than other people. Exposed. Endangered, even.

  He thought about Dan Everhardt. Dan had been a good friend and a dedicated colleague. Now he was dead. Soon Tom Palleschi, one of the most athletic men in Washington, would die too. Kirk Stillman, a legend among diplomats, was buried in his hometown of Glenview, Illinois.

  The world was not a safe place. Security was not a thing one took for granted. It was a rampart one built with the strength of one’s hands and maintained by the force of one’s will. And force sometimes meant violence.

  Violence, Michael believed, was not an accident or an aberration. No matter what the political scientists and historians said. One look at the history of international relations left no doubt that the waves of violence that swept over the world at regular intervals arose from something deep in man’s nature. Something he must express every few years, in some part of the world, simply to show that he was human. Africa, the Middle East, the Balkans—sooner or later it touched everyone. Civilization was man’s way of bottling up the violence inside him. War was his way of letting off the steam, getting the bad blood out. War, and genocide.

  Violence could not be stopped. But that did not mean there was nothing to be done. One could fight to prevent the violence from touching one’s own family, one’s own country, during this generation. One could take precautions, be cunning, have foresight. If one did a good job, the violence might take someone else this time. Not my wife, not my child, not my loved ones.

  Michael thought of Susan. She was so delicate, so vulnerable. He felt a husband’s fierce need to protect her against harm. Because they had no children, this need was focused entirely on Susan herself. The world was so cruel, he had to shield her from its dangers.

  But he could not accomplish it by hiding his head in the sand. He had to put himself on the front lines and do the difficult and painful things necessary to protect his country. Because, in the last analysis, that country w
as the vessel that contained Susan, the rampart that protected her life.

  Difficult and painful things. Sometimes ugly things. The world was not a kind place.

  Thirty-five years of life—almost twelve of them in public service—had taught Michael that the United States of America could not survive if it continued to follow its present course. The senseless murder of three thousand people in the World Trade Center had made that abundantly clear. So had the bombing of theCrescent Queen . Civilized countries could no longer stand by passively and watch terrorists and terrorist nations destroy their institutions.

  It was time for a change. Michael would be part of that change. So would Colin Goss.

  Judd Campbell had said it best when Michael was still a boy. “Sometimes the only way to survive is to win.” A few more months, a few more difficult battles, and the struggle would be over. In the meantime, as Colin Goss had told Michael so often, one must keep one’s eyes on the prize, and not allow oneself to feel anything.

  The sexual thoughts that had come to Michael during his workout stayed with him all afternoon. He kept thinking of Leslie’s smooth body, and of Susan’s sensual blond softness. He knew he could not slip away to see Leslie today or, for that matter, this week. There was simply no time.

  He got home by seven despite the rush-hour traffic. Judd and Ingrid were there for dinner. Michael made the drinks while Susan and Ingrid baked the hors d’oeuvre, a special recipe of Ingrid’s for scallops casino, handed down from Michael’s mother. Then they all sat down to a rib roast made by Susan. Dinner was amicable, but Michael was eager to get it over with and be alone with Susan. He was grateful when Ingrid insisted that Judd get home for an early bedtime.

  Judd and Ingrid left at nine for the long drive home, with Ingrid behind the wheel of Judd’s Cadillac, looking very much like the boss as her father slumped sleepily against the side window.

  Michael curled his hands around Susan’s waist when the door had closed.

  “Let’s make love,” he whispered in her ear.

  He pulled at her zipper even as she was closing the blinds, and had her dress down around her waist by the time they got to the top of the stairs. He picked her up and carried her to the bed, ignoring her remonstrances about his back.