The Henderson Equation

by Warren Adler

  Nick watched as he spoke, sensing the discomfort. He had seen it many times before. He felt Myra’s deliberate avoidance of his eyes.

  “Either run the story, or get off my back,” Henderson said. Surely he had wanted to say: Shit or get off the pot.

  “You know the Jews didn’t kill Christ, they worried him to death,” Henderson said. Nick pushed aside the offensively heavy hand of ingratiation. Didn’t Henderson know the allusion only made matters worse?

  “I never suspected that you saw yourself in that role,” Nick said. Myra looked down into the poached fish that the maid was putting in front of her.

  “These confrontations are always difficult, especially from this end,” Henderson mumbled. He was right, of course. Nick softened. The real issue wasn’t Henderson at all.

  “I know, Burt. The story hasn’t run because I have not been satisfied. It’s a one-source story. The pattern is familiar. A subject grips the public imagination. This year it’s the CIA, the spook business. One thing leads to another. We carried the story of those assassination teams, set up through CIA, that supposedly rubbed out foreign officials in the sixties. We hedged on it carefully, despite a leaking sieve within the agency. Then comes the second wave, the confessions, the compulsion of bottled-up guilt. Now the lights are on and the clothes off; it’s open season on confession. And when you’ve got a star bloodhound like Gunderstein, he follows all the scents. He’s got a source. He’s tracking down another. The source tells him you were involved when you were in the army . . .”

  “Involved in what? Specifically what?”

  “In the assassination of Diem.”

  Henderson shook his head and sighed. He directed the focus of his controlled rage at Myra.

  “You see,” he said, “it’s positively defamation, irresponsible. I deny it categorically. It is a patent attempt to destroy my political career. And I resent it.” He was emphatic but in full control. Only a slight flush beneath the winter tan revealed the obvious internal turmoil.

  “The man’s name is Carter Allison.” Nick searched Henderson’s face for a clue. Nothing stirred to embellish the hint.

  “I never heard of the man. Nick, it’s like the McCarthy era. How far does the press have to go to flex its muscles? Really, Nick.”

  Myra remained silent, her eyes still on her plate as she picked at her lunch.

  “I told you, Burt, I would not run the story until”—he checked himself—“unless it’s confirmed by another unimpeachable source.”

  “Damn it, Nick. Take my word for it.”

  “Your word?”

  “I think my word has credibility. Have you lost all faith?”

  “In the word of politicians? Is that the question you’re asking?”

  “No, Nick. My word.”

  “You know what you’re asking?” A danger signal had gone up in Nick’s head. He was clever, this Henderson. He was prodding him to confess a bias, to articulate it in front of Myra with him as witness. He saw the looming trap and side-stepped.

  “Of course.”

  “I always start out disbelieving news leads. It’s a habit of newspapering,” Nick said, amused at the irony. “But I have been known to be disappointed.”

  “What the press will do finally is to run off everybody with political aspirations. Who the hell wants to submit to your magnifications? You start off with the built-in bias that every politician’s heart is overflowng with mendacity.” Somehow, now that he had side-stepped, the admonition had lost its sting. “And you proceed from there. In my case, I am a victim, a speared fish, thrashing about on your point.” He raised his blue eyes to Nick, the sun glistening from their surface.

  “There’s got to be some compassion. I’m asking for mercy, man.”

  “If I thought in those terms,” Nick said, “I’d go nuts.” He looked quickly at Myra, the allusion to insanity both involuntary and indelicate. Myra had raised her eyes and looked at him impassively. It was a three-cornered conversation between faces on cards, the queen of spades talking to the king of clubs and the jack of diamonds. Did they see him as he saw himself, the jack? Jackass might be better. Did they think he could not smell the conspiracy?

  “Either print it or be done with it,” Henderson said. “I don’t want to live in the shadow of the knife.” It was, of course, a display of bravado, macho. Nick could see the shiny colonel’s eagle, the glistening boots, the blue glaze under the helmet liner. A flash of memory of his army days intruded. “Now that is a leader of men,” Charlie had sneered at their battalion commander, square-featured and confident, with the Arrow-shirt look of that era.

  “Nothing is that clear-cut, Burt,” Nick responded.

  “It is to me.”

  “Only an irresponsible newspaper would already have printed the story.”

  “And it would be libelous,” Henderson snapped.

  “Would it?”

  Henderson squirmed visibly. Was he getting at last to the soft underbelly?

  “Or filled with half-truths.”

  “Like what?”

  “Like I was recalled by the National Security Agency for a brief time in 1963. That’s on the record. I have a certain expertise in intelligence data. I was with Marshall in the Chiang-Mao negotiations. Hell, I was just a kid. And I was on MacArthur’s staff in Korea. Let’s face it. I’m vulnerable. I was, in a sense, a spook. It’s quite in vogue now to knock such an involvement and that alone would murder me with my constituency.”

  “It would hurt. I’ll grant you that,” Nick said.

  “But I was not mixed up in any assassination teams. Whatever the hell they were. Believe me, Nick. That’s pure fantasy. Rubbish. Take my word for it.”

  There it was again, Nick thought.

  “Allison told Gunderstein you played a significant part in the whole Diem action.”

  “He’s a goddamned liar. Whoever he is. Bring him here. Let him confront me.” Henderson isn’t really the issue at all, Nick reminded himself as he watched Myra light a cigarette and blow smoke out of both nostrils. He reached into the silver cigarette dish, slid out a long-filtered brand, lit it, and inhaled deeply. Henderson’s pain seemed distant. Was this Myra’s handpicked man? Would the little list have all the other names crossed out? What did Myra believe? Was this Henderson’s test or his own?

  “Believe me, Burt,” Nick said, “I don’t take the matter lightly.”

  “I know that, Nick,” Henderson pressed, “that’s why I thought I’d take this direct route. I’d have a tough time getting up from the mat even if you hedged the story. You acknowledge that in today’s climate it would hurt me badly. In political terms, it would kill me with the kids, a whole generation of kids who came of age in the middle sixties. You see, I too take my responsibilities seriously.”

  “I’m quite aware of that, Burt. I’m also very much aware of your presidential aspirations.” He looked at Myra.

  “I’ve made no bones about it. I’m not ashamed of my ambition.”

  “I never met a politician who was.” He wished he had checked that, the implied cynicism was, in its way, an admission of bias. Were they outfoxing him? A maid cleared the table in silence then brought a carafe of hot coffee. They remained silent as she poured. It was revealing to see their distrust even of supposedly “safe” retainers. Surely the maid had silently absorbed conversations like this before. Would she one day write her own book, Nick thought, her own revelation of power from another vantage, through another lens? “But I heard them say it,” she might say to a book editor. “I was there. They thought I was merely a picture on the wall.”

  “This isn’t easy for me, Nick,” Henderson said, when the maid had gone. “Call off Gunderstein. Take me on faith. This one time. Christ, man,” he looked at Myra, “I’m on your side.”

  It was, of course, ideologically accurate. He wanted to shout: “You’re not the issue!” Myra was eloquent in her silence.

  “It’s not as simple as all that,” Nick said. “There are ecologic
al problems.”

  Henderson seemed confused. Power is power, he must be thinking. Nick preempted the expected response.

  “I’ve got to let Gunderstein play it out. If there’s no truth in it, he’ll come up against a blank wall and that will be the end of it.”

  “There is no truth in it, Nick. I swear it.”

  “You’ve got to be a newspaperman to understand.”

  “You make it sound like there’s some special mystique about it.

  “There is.”

  “But, Nick, I’m vulnerable. I have enemies, especially at the right end of the political spectrum. They want my ass. They’ll pay for confirmation, if necessary. Put out the right bait and they’ll find a fish for the hook.”

  “Gunderstein will see through it.”

  “I’d hate to stake my career on a newspaperman’s ambition.” It was Henderson’s bias now. For the first time since he had come into the room, Nick felt the raw power of his own position.

  “This time you’ll have to trust me, Burt. You’ll have to have faith in my instincts.”

  “I never said I didn’t.” Henderson was defending now.

  “He’s right, Burt,” Myra said suddenly. He had flushed her out. She was telling him not to press.

  “He lives by story values,” Henderson said. It was a mild protest. “I live by image. That’s not necessarily compatible.”

  “That’s the name of the game,” Nick went on. “We’re not only the victimizer. Sometimes we’re also the victim.”

  “Of what?”

  “Of the image-maker’s bullshit. If we let down our guard, we blow our credibility. That’s what I mean by ecology. We’re very sensitive to words around here. If I get too heavy-handed, they’ll get suspicious of me, of my—” Nick paused—“let’s call it integrity. They know the parameters. If I sidestep the subtleties, they’ll buck. I’ve got a constituency, too.” It was a lecture directed at Myra. He watched Henderson watching Myra, who had slipped back into impassivity. Sipping his coffee, Henderson suddenly drained his cup and placed it down again, soundlessly, on the saucer. The act seemed a symbol of finality, as if his persuasiveness had failed. Despite it, his coolness commanded respect.

  “If there is no credible confirmation, it’s dead. That’s as far as I can promise. I’m hardly an enemy. I’m not searching for anything.”

  “You wouldn’t know it from where I sit.”

  Henderson glanced at his watch to cover his desire to leave, having seen that he was making little headway. As he stood up, Myra followed, came around the table, and put her arm in his. Nick remained seated as Henderson held out a firm hand and joined it to Nick’s, pumping it with undiminished vigor.

  “I suppose I should understand,” he said.

  “Don’t sweat it,” Nick said. He wanted to mitigate the man’s anxiety by assuring him that rarely do words slip through the net, his net. But he felt Henderson might see pomposity in it, bravado, and it would make matters worse. His eyes followed them toward the door, where Henderson bent to kiss Myra lightly on the cheek.

  “See you at the game Sunday,” he heard Myra say. In its way it was more a confirmation than the physical closeness, the ritual of the touching of the flesh which revealed nothing. But this thing with the game. That was the stuff of which myths were made.

  Each Sunday the Redskins were in town the owner, Henry Bloomington Swopes, paid court to Washington power. It was no coincidence that Swopes was the lawyer for the Chronicle. Power clusters together like peanut brittle, Nick had thought on the occasions he had attended, which was most of the time. Myra had a standing invitation to bring a half dozen guests and therein lay the trappings of rank. Like the elegant ritual of a Japanese sword dance, a day in the owner’s box followed the scripted scenario to the letter, complete with stage directions.

  One arrived nearly two hours before the game at the private dining room behind the owner’s box. Guests came dressed in chic football-viewing togs fresh out of the latest “W” pages. The sense of with-it-ness hung in the air like perfume, oversweet and, in a special way, intoxicating.

  A feast was provided, rustic, but elegant in its casualness and presided over by Swopes with a boyish charm which masked the ritualization of the set piece, a tableau arranged around Myra Pell, the Queen Bee who, even Nick grudgingly admitted, played her role with superb style, with just the right measure of blue-blooded humility. Conscious of her favor, guests would bask in the glory of proximity and like obedient supporting players, allow the Queen the best lines.

  To the practiced observer of the Washington Scene, the primary action was played out during the game itself, when royalty exhibited itself in the imperial box as the gladiators performed for the multitude. In the magnified eyes of the binoculars, one might speculate, draw conclusions, derive hints of who might be in the running for special favors and, conversely, who was in decline. Even the late dishonored President had attended, measuring his power against theirs, concluding, wrongly, it turned out, that he held the better hand.

  Myra closed the door softly after Henderson and came back to the table where she sipped the dregs of her coffee, holding the cup with a light, delicate touch in shapely fingers.

  “You could have at least given me fair warning,” Nick said.

  “You might have talked me out of seeing him.”

  “I would have tried.”

  “Believe me, Nick, I agonized over it.” She sipped her coffee. “But all’s well that ends well. It turned out better than I thought it would.”

  “How did you think it might have gone?” Nick asked. Did she have it in her head to be a matchmaker?

  “I thought you’d display some of the Gold temper, get your dander up, become self-righteous. I’m proud of you, Nick.”

  He felt her attempts at manipulation and, now that his guard was up, he listened closely. He felt in himself an echo of Charlie’s anger, the cutting edge of his madness. “The devious bitch,” Charlie had erupted. But was it really deviousness? Her strategy was almost transparent. Surely she knew that, and had orchestrated this charade as an oblique confrontation.

  “How else could it have been played?”

  “You could have accused me of deliberately trying to get you to kill a story.”

  “I’ll reserve judgment on that.”

  “You still don’t believe him then?”

  “Do you?”

  “Why do you always answer a question with a question?”

  “It’s my Semitic background.”

  “And your newspaperman’s natural tendency. Your cynicism is showing.”

  “So is your starry-eyed innocence.”

  She smiled thinly at first, then broadly, displaying her cared-for, even teeth. Like her hands, smooth and tapered, her teeth were distinguishing characteristics, oddly youthful in her aging face with deepening crinkles around the eyes.

  “I’m not innocent, Nick,” she protested. “Intuitive perhaps, but not innocent.” No, she was not innocent, Nick thought, remembering Charlie again. She lit a cigarette, puffing deeply.

  “You believe him then?”

  “Yes, I do, Nick. Call it a gut feeling if you won’t go with intuition.”

  “Is there a difference?”

  He wondered if there was a romantic interest in Henderson, an errant thought quickly discounted. Myra’s sexuality had been sublimated, he had concluded, long ago, its fury spent, if Charlie’s graphic early descriptions were to be believed, on Charlie.

  “The woman’s insatiable,” Charlie had told him in the early days of their marriage, and he had hinted at it during their courtship. Could it flicker again, Nick thought, recalling the morning with Jennie? Yes, it was quite possible for love, whatever that was, to intrude, even in midlife, gathering heat in the ashes. He must watch for signs in Myra. Henderson was certainly attractive, confident in his manhood, ambitious enough to use that route as a last resort.

  “I believed him,” Myra said.

  “He was believabl
e, I’ll grant you that. It’s his dominant quality. It’s also the trained response of the clandestine service. Unfortunately, I have facts to contend with.”

  “Like what?” Myra asked, a trifle too swiftly, a brief frown lining her forehead, then disappearing.

  “Allison’s so-called confession. Gunderstein’s instinct.”

  “Even you admit that you’re not convinced.”

  “I have to go with Gunderstein’s track record. Hell, Myra, he is, after all, a star in the Chronicle’s crown. We went with his instincts before.”

  “Also our own.”

  “True.”

  “We knew he was on the right track before. We encouraged him. We put all our strength behind him. We were committed from the beginning.”

  “We were dealing with an acknowledged enemy, with ideological differences. That’s a hell of a motivating factor.”

  “At least we both agree that Henderson’s a friend.” She drew deeply on the cigarette again, then added quickly, “He stands for the things we believe in. He has compassion, decency, a sense of morality. The country needs that kind of leadership, Nick. He’s our kind of guy.”

  “That’s beside the point.”

  “That is the point.” She punched out her cigarette in the ashtray, a trace of frustration in the act.

  “You really believe we’re persecuting him?” Nick asked, measuring his words carefully.

  “I think he’s entitled to a quick resolution.”

  “Either way?”

  “Either way.”

  He was seeing her differently now, as if the light were shifting in the prism of his lens. She did, after all, have the power to order him to shut the tap, a privilege she had never invoked. Was he prepared to walk away from this, all this? His sudden vacillation frightened him. Her message came through quite clearly. All subtlety was dissipated, her direction confirmed. He slapped both his thighs.

  “Well then, let the chips fall where they may.” And let the best man win, he might have said, completing the cliché.