The Man

by Irving Wallace

  “No, I did not.”

  “Miss Watson, about the night under discussion, the night the President allegedly made improper advances to you, you have stated that he was intoxicated. Were you?”

  “No, I was not.”

  “Yet you were seen, at the dinner for the Joint Chiefs of Staff, consuming champagne before and after the meal, and wine during it.”

  “Wine does not make me drunk. It is a part of the meal.”

  “And then, according to your testimony, you drank in the President’s bedroom?”

  “He forced me to.”

  “Forced you? How is that possible? He offered you a drink, if he did, and you accepted it. Is that what you mean?”

  “I had to take it.”

  “Miss Watson, you stated you were waiting in his bedroom before he arrived. How long?”

  “I don’t know. Ten or fifteen minutes.”

  “What did you do in his room?”

  “Do? I-I smoked, and reread the papers he sent for, and kept thinking how I wished I wasn’t there.”

  “The President had left his briefcase open in the room. It contained top-secret documents of such a nature as to have been useful to your friend Arthur Eaton. Did you even casually look at any of those documents?”

  “Of course not! What do you think I am?”

  “Then the President came in and pressed his attentions upon you, and because you resisted you were injured-is that still your story?”

  “It is not my story, it is what happened.”

  “Miss Watson, I have shown the photographs of the scratches and bruises on your chest and legs to three highly competent physicians. It is their opinion that while the wounds may indeed have been caused by another person, they may also, like the scar on your wrist, have been self-inflicted. Now-”

  “That’s a filthy dirty lie!”

  “I am merely repeating expert-”

  “A lie!”

  “I am sorry to have so upset you, Miss Watson. You must remember there were two persons in that bedroom, not one-”

  “You bet your life there were.”

  “-and you have given the court one view of what took place, but there is quite another view held by the other person who was present. In any event, let’s leave behind us the scene of our disagreement. Let’s get you out of that savage bedroom. You escaped, as you have told us. Where did you go? What happened next?”

  “I ran to my office in the East Wing, to the washroom, to stop the bleeding, and clean up. Then I went home.”

  “You went home. A little while ago, when learned counsel for the House asked you what you did immediately afterward, you said you promptly told some friends high up in government what had happened to you. How did you tell them, by telephone or in person?”

  “In-in person. I couldn’t go right home in my condition. Now I remember. I had to speak to someone. So I went to my friends.”

  “Could one of your friends, perchance, have been the Honorable Secretary of State Arthur Eaton?”

  “Yes. I thought of him first.”

  “You went to his house in Georgetown to tell him?”

  “Yes.”

  “But he was merely one friend. You say you spoke to several friends. Perhaps, when you went to Secretary Eaton, he had gathered about him others to receive you. Who was there when you arrived?”

  “Mr. Eaton, and-and Governor Talley and Senator Hankins were there, and also Representative Miller. They were horrified by the way I looked.”

  “Did you tell them all what had happened to you?”

  “Not right away. I told Mr. Eaton. I was afraid to tell Senator Hankins and Representative Miller, knowing how outraged they would be at how a nig-a-a Negro-had acted.”

  “You mean you were afraid they would be more outraged that a Negro had, as you say, made improper advances than if he had been a Caucasian?”

  “I don’t mean that exactly.”

  “What do you mean, Miss Watson?”

  “I mean, they were already mistrustful of Dilman-President Dilman-and I was scared this behavior of his-they are very touchy about nig-about such behavior toward young ladies where we come from-I was afraid this would overexcite them.”

  “Did it, when you told them?”

  “Yes.”

  “After that, was impeachment of the President mentioned in your presence?”

  “Yes.”

  “Because of what you told them?”

  “Because of other things. This was just one more offense to them.”

  “And Secretary of State Eaton-how did he take it?”

  “He was revolted by the President’s behavior, and angry, naturally. He was restrained, because that’s part of his background and training.”

  “But Secretary Eaton was pleased?”

  “What?”

  “He was pleased when you produced a set of file cards with notes taken by you in the President’s private bedroom, notes made from a transcript of a top-secret meeting between the Director of the CIA and the President, notes that gave warning to Secretary Eaton that the President was aware of Secretary Eaton’s efforts to usurp the Presidential prerogatives of office?”

  “You’re insane!”

  “Our relative sanity is not the issue here, Miss Watson. I told you that only two persons know what occurred in the Lincoln Bedroom. One is yourself, and you have given us your view of it. The other is the President, and in due time I shall introduce an affidavit signed by him proving that your story is fabricated out of whole cloth, and that your real motive in stealing into that bedroom-”

  “He’s a liar like you! He’s a dirty lying black-”

  She halted abruptly, staring at Abrahams, then at everyone around her, gasping.

  “Are you all right?” Abrahams asked.

  “I won’t be insulted!”

  “I don’t think you are in any condition to go on, and I do believe I’ve heard all I want to hear. Thank you, Miss Watson. As far as the defense is concerned, you may be dismissed.”

  He turned his back on her and returned to the table. When he resumed his seat, he could see that she had a handkerchief to her eyes, and, assisted by the Sergeant at Arms, was stumbling, then half running from the Chamber.

  In the third row of Senate desks, Abrahams could also see Senator Hoyt Watson, livid, white mane wagging, as his colleagues crowded about him.

  Abrahams sighed. He had challenged an ego, and when he thought that he had demolished it, he had found the id in its place, the immortal id that could not be demolished.

  He looked up to realize that Zeke Miller was standing before the bench, glaring at him. Then Miller directed himself to the magistrate on high. “Mr. Chief Justice, the House managers offer their final witness in the trial of impeachment against the President. I shall examine the Honorable Secretary of State of the United States, Arthur Eaton.”

  Abrahams’ eyes followed the tall, slender, faultlessly attired Secretary of State as he made his way to the raised dais. While Eaton ascended the podium and took the oath, Abrahams touched the arm of Walter T. Tuttle beside him.

  “Walter,” Abrahams said in an undertone, “I can handle ordinary people, for better or worse, but I’m not sure I’d be any good at cross-examining someone who believes he wrote the Constitution. Think you can take him when the cross-examination comes?”

  Tuttle glanced up at the witness stand, then said dryly, “Not sure anybody’s going to take him, Nat.”

  “I suspect Miller will handle his last star witness on a loftier note,” said Abrahams. “He’ll evoke T. C. and Congressional dignity and the law of the land, and argue that Eaton was a symbol for all three, and in firing Eaton, our client sullied T. C.’s grave, spat on the Senate, and broke the Federal law. If that’s the gambit, I suggest we leave personal considerations out of the cross-examination. Equate the unconstitutionality of the New Succession Act with the proved unconstitutionality of the similar Tenure of Office Act back in 1868, and say it was slyly slipped through t
o keep Doug from performing as President and to keep Eaton serving as T. C.’s proxy in the White House, as evidenced by Eaton withholding CIA information from the President. I think that should be the note. That’s your cup of tea.”

  “I think my cup of tea is weak, and so is theirs,” said Tuttle in a whisper. “I think it’s the stronger stuff everyone swallowed, or refused to, upon which the trial vote will depend. Legally, the Article supporting Eaton is the important one. Popularly, in fact, it will be the other Articles that will determine acquittal or conviction.”

  Abrahams said, “I still say this technical stuff is your cup of tea. Want to handle it?”

  “Gladly, even though the potion turns out to be hemlock.”

  Exchanging smiles of agreement, Nat Abrahams and Walter Tuttle settled back to listen to Representative Zeke Miller begin his respectful examination of the closing witness, the man he was trying to make the new President of the United States.

  For almost a half hour, Douglass Dilman had been gloomily sitting at his desk in the Oval Office, watching the spectacle on the portable television screen, watching and listening to Arthur Eaton grandly offer himself to the United States and the Senate as T. C.’s mind and conscience. Eaton had given the impression of being one who had done his utmost to save the country from a pretender, on T. C.’s behalf, in everyone’s best interests, but could do no more unless the nation took legal steps to oust the pretender and fill the vacancy with the one who alone was qualified to give the voters what they had wanted in the first place. His behavior was that of a person who fully realized he was giving a preview of what the next President would be like, and who displayed each patriotic and learned digression on domestic and foreign affairs like a model showing off a new garment the public might, and should, buy.

  As Eaton’s underplayed performance, responding to Miller’s direction, came to a close, Douglass Dilman silently acknowledged its magnificence. For a while he stared out through the windows at the White House south lawn, with its stark elm and oak trees, and the long shadows of the late afternoon creeping across the expanse of brown-patched grass.

  He was faintly depressed. Eaton’s poise and sophistication, his modulated eloquence, the ease with which he faced questions about farflung nations and their problems and America’s historic role in their future, his impeccable attire, above all his superior whiteness-these, and not his actual replies to the interrogation, were what depressed Dilman. The Secretary of State appeared to be the perfect archetype of a national leader, while he himself did not, and never would. If the Senate vote came down to a popularity vote, a vote for an image, then Eaton would be in this chair next week, and he himself would not see this view of the White House lawn again in his lifetime, except in tortured memory.

  A familiar voice brought him back to the television screen. Abrahams’ colleague, and The Judge’s friend, the redoubtable Walter T. Tuttle, had begun his cross-examination of Eaton.

  Tuttle’s stature in political history would match Eaton’s own. Tuttle’s tart sarcasm, his piercing inquiries, thrown from catapults built out of his wide knowledge of precedent and the country’s past, appeared to jolt the witness. Now and then Eaton’s invincible and arrogant confidence would give way to human uncertainty, and there were glimpses of a man no more a man than was Dilman or any other man. Did others see this, or was it only Dilman himself? Imperceptibly, his depression lifted.

  He was entirely absorbed in the cross-examination when the telephone buzzer sounded. Absently, eyes still focused on the screen, his hand brought the receiver to his ear.

  The voice was Edna Foster’s.

  “Mr. President, it’s your son Julian, telephoning from New York City. He says that unless you are terribly tied up, he must speak to you, and even then he’d like a minute-he sounds-”

  “Put him through, Miss Foster.”

  He reached out, shut off the television set, then cupped the earphone and mouthpiece closer, and tensely waited.

  “Hello, Dad?”

  “Yes, Julian, what is it? You said-”

  “Don’t be alarmed, everything’ll be fine,” Julian was saying in great agitation, “but I felt it best to call-it’s about Mindy-I’m in her apartment right now. Dad, she tried to kill herself, she tried-but she’s going to get well-everything’s working out-”

  “Kill herself?” Dilman was aghast, chilled and shivering. “Are you sure she’s all right? Is there a doctor there? How is she, Julian? What happened?”

  “After she saw the newspapers-the ones telling about her passing-and then heard the radio-she finally made up her mind and took an overdose of sleeping pills-my God, the amount of pills! Then, when she thought she was beyond help and ready to go, she telephoned me at Trafford. She wanted to clear her conscience before dying, I guess. Anyway, I could hardly understand her. She kept mumbling about some reporter who found her out, and to save her own neck she got him after me and my Turnerite membership, and now she was sorry and wanted to apologize. I tried to keep her talking, because I couldn’t understand her and knew something was wrong. Finally she blanked out, but luckily, when I got the long-distance operator to say we were cut off, she gave me Mindy’s unlisted number-then I made the operator get the police and police doctors. Whew, it was close, Dad. They found her sprawled on the floor, but the stomach pump did it. A few more minutes and she’d have been a goner. She’s all right, though. By the time I got her address from the police, and whizzed into New York from Trafford, she was half sitting up in bed, and her own doctor was-he’s still here. She’s okay now.”

  Dilman slumped back, unable to overcome his anguish. “Julian, give me that address. I’m flying right in. I want to see her.”

  “No, Dad, please-that’s the first thing she said when she knew I was calling you-she doesn’t want to see you or anyone else, no one for a while. The doctor agrees. She’s pretty weak. It would only upset her, I mean badly, that’s what the doctor says. She needs rest, some time to think, think by herself. Of course, I knew you’d want me to hire nurses to be with her-”

  “She really tried to kill herself?” Dilman repeated, still aghast at what had taken place.

  “Well-it was awful for her, Dad-being revealed naked in public like that, and-wait, one second, she’s trying to say something… what, Mindy?… Sure, sure, okay… Dad, I-I showed her the newspapers with the statement you made in reply to the exposé. She was just repeating something from what you said, about the crime of passing not being hers but everyone’s, for not letting her grow up with dignity. It’s hard to understand her, the way she’s talking-so indistinctly.”

  Dilman understood her, if his son did not. “Julian, let me have a word with the doctor.”

  The physician, impressed by the opportunity to speak to a President, was verbose and clinical, but his prognosis came down to no serious aftereffects. Mindy had taken a lethal dose of Nembutals, and been discovered, and her stomach emptied in the nick of time. With proper care and rest, she would be on her feet in forty-eight hours. As for her mental outlook in the days to come, that, of course, was beyond the province of a general practitioner. Right now it would not be advisable for the President, for her father, to visit her, considering her emotional state. Perhaps it would be permitted in the near future, if she wished it. At this time, unwise.”

  When Julian came back on the telephone, Dilman said, “I want you to remain there in her apartment, nurse or no nurse, at least overnight. Mindy may want someone close to talk to when she wakes up.”

  “I’ll stay right here, Dad.”

  “And you keep in touch with me. Understand?”

  “Absolutely. I’ll call you later tonight.”

  Dilman shook his head, although there was no one to witness his despair. “Poor baby. I only wish she’d see me. I have so much to say to her.”

  “She’s alive, Dad. That’s all that matters. Maybe one day-”

  Maybe one day.

  Slowly, Dilman hung up.

  He could envisi
on, with sorrow, Mindy’s probable destiny. Condemned and ostracized in New York City, truly alone, of no people, no race, she would-like the Wandering Jew, the cobbler who had pushed off the Lord-become an eternal wanderer, too, in search of identity and belonging. As long as she could endure it, there would be for Mindy, endlessly, another city, another lie, another fearful life lived within the fragile lie, and another exposure. Perhaps the only peace she would ever know would be the peace of the oblivion she had sought, and been denied, today. How soon would she be driven to seek it again?

  Aching with grief, Douglass Dilman left his desk, circled the room, and then finally he opened the door to Miss Foster’s office and went inside. He had no specific business with his secretary. He wanted only the solace of companionship.

  Edna Foster, partly attentive to the letter she was typing, partly attentive to the television screen, halted in her work and greeted him with a guilty nod.

  “I guess I’m being compulsive about it, Mr. President,” she said. “I can’t keep my eyes off the set.”

  On the small screen, Tuttle and Eaton were no longer in view. The camera was offering a panoramic picture of the crowded Senate floor, galleries, and press section. The volume had been turned down too low for Dilman to hear the announcer.

  “What’s happening?” he asked Miss Foster.

  “There was a motion for recess,” said Miss Foster. “After Mr. Tuttle finished with Eaton, the prosecution rested its case. I don’t think they’ve made such a good case-I mean, there are no facts, if you think about it.”

  Dilman said, “Unfortunately, Miss Foster, too few people watching, including the senators, may think about it. Did they say what comes next?”

  “Yes. Mr. Abrahams said that, except for introducing and reading the defense affidavits, he has only to examine the five witnesses for the defense that he has subpoenaed. Then somebody from the floor made a motion which was passed by a voice vote. It was agreed that Mr. Abrahams could begin his examination of defense witnesses at five-thirty this afternoon. Then the court will adjourn at seven for dinner and convene again tonight, for a night session, at eight-thirty, continuing until all the defense witnesses have been heard and cross-examined. Tomorrow the Senate will convene at ten o’clock in the morning for the closing speeches. The House managers will be given one hour, then Mr. Abrahams will be given one hour. Then there will be a lunch break, and Johnstone said if there were no undue delays, no further points of law to be discussed, the voting should begin at two o’clock tomorrow.”