The Henderson Equation

by Warren Adler

  “That was tough, kid,” he said.

  It was a flash of compassion, quickly dissipated. Charlie stood up again and paced his glassed-in office in agitation.

  “You see what I mean, kid. It’s not like newspapering in any city in the world. They’re always out to use us, subvert us. I’ve got to be on my guard all the time.” He looked at Nick. “You see why I need someone around that I can trust. Wheels within wheels. I’ll root it out of this place if it’s the last thing I do.”

  The incident with Lighter did begin a kind of ideological purge within the Chronicle, bloodlessly achieved, since not all the offenders were as stubborn in their views as Lighter. Charlie had wisely chosen to undertake it without formalization, encouraging a kind of philosophical exchange of views on how the bureaucracy would be covered without undermining the delicate balance that could block their already established conduits. It was Nick’s first major assignment. Ironically, it had never ended, since the natural consequences of human contact made the idea of being a true adversary workable only in the abstract. Human confidences persisted, would always persist. As Charlie might have learned, it was impossible to be God.

  15

  The downward movement of the elevator accelerated the feeling of alcoholic haze that the uncommon intake of three martinis had produced. It was not, as he soon realized, a happy high. It made his mood heavier, more somber. As he moved through the city room, unusually busy for that hour, Ben Madison turned and waved him toward his desk.

  “Look who’s in your outer office.”

  “Christ.” He had recognized Mrs. Henderson. “They’re letting out all the stops,” he said, conscious of the tightness on his tongue. Had Madison detected the astringent smell of gin?

  “And there’s this note from Gunderstein.” Madison handed him a sealed envelope, which he opened.

  “Could you meet me later in my apartment?” the note read. “Phelps is staying with me. I think it would be important.”

  Nick showed the note to Madison, who shrugged.

  “A bloodhound like Gunderstein deserves to be heard,” he said, his eyes nodding approval of the way events were going.

  He patted Ben Madison on the back and pressed on to where Mrs. Henderson was sitting. As he approached he could see the faint stirrings of a smile begin from the tight corners of her lips. She had retained the remnants of girlish grace, despite the cruel crenulations that age was painting on her skin. From her pictures, and from brief observations in past social contacts, she seemed one-dimensional, wafer thin, without substance.

  “I hope you will forgive the intrusion,” she said, standing up, a hand outstretched. Her dominant characteristic was her fading traditional good looks, as if in her younger days Henderson had pulled her off the rack, like a good suit to be worn for political occasions.

  “I guess it must be my week for the Hendersons,” Nick said, feeling the faint thickness on his tongue. “I had lunch with your husband yesterday.”

  “Yes,” she answered, following him into his office. He motioned her to a seat and stepped behind his desk, resentful that she had robbed him of his time to scan the street edition.

  “I hope this isn’t an awkward time,” she said. “I deliberately waited until the paper was”—she paused—“I think the expression is ‘put to bed.’ ”

  “Actually it’s a misnomer,” Nick said, looking at the unopened front page, his mind trying to absorb the inked pages. “She may get put to bed, but she never really sleeps.”

  “You must consider this visit unusual, Mr. Gold,” she said. Her cloying humility was beginning to grate on him. Why didn’t she say it and get the hell out? He willed himself to remain silent, wanting her to feel unwelcome, intrusive.

  “I know what’s happening, Mr. Gold, and frankly it’s beginning to wear us both down. First your Mr. Gunderstein and now another person, a young lady, Miss Gates, I believe.”

  “Martha Gates,” he said.

  “Yes, that was her name.”

  He noticed for the first time that she was twisting a handkerchief in her fingers.

  “It’s wrong,” she said, her composure cracking. He vowed that he would walk out of the office at the first tear.

  “What’s wrong?”

  “What you’re trying to do,” she said hesitantly, her voice recovering, gathering strength. He felt himself losing patience, sensing her weakness, feeling his power over her. He felt totally without compassion.

  “Does Burt know you’re here?”

  “No,” she said emphatically. “This is my own idea.”

  “You realize that it’s stupid?” he asked, feeling his own malevolence.

  “My husband is innocent,” she said. It was the kind of melodramatic delivery hardly worthy of a bad high school play. Whatever possessed this woman? he asked himself. Did she really believe that her presence would make a difference?

  “You might characterize him in a hundred different ways, Mrs. Henderson. But innocent. Really now. There isn’t a politician in this town who would consider that quality as part of his baggage.”

  “I mean of your accusations.” Her façade of humility was also corroding before his eyes.

  “You don’t know anything about our accusations. As I told your husband yesterday, we haven’t come up with any conclusions.”

  “You could take his word for it.”

  He felt his annoyance growing as the pressure of time became more apparent. If only Miss Baumgartner had stayed to shield him. Looking at the woman, he felt he could see her motivation, a wild gamble that she might inject a note of compassion, an appeal to emotion that might regain for her a place in her husband’s life. To Nick she seemed a ludicrous cliché, the abandoned wife, helplessly adrift in the stink of her husband’s leavings, cast off, humiliated, searching for ways to find a path back to him.

  “I’m making a fool of myself,” she said, fishing for some word of approval.

  “I appreciate your sense of concern,” he answered, sidestepping the opportunity she might have suggested. He watched her, wondering how she would react to suddenly being thrust into the White House, the First Lady. Would it salvage her life?

  “It doesn’t matter to you at all,” she said bitterly, standing up. “You don’t care a bit about what you do to people. My husband is a fine, wonderful man. This country needs a man like him. And you’re willing to destroy him. It’s so damned unfair, so damned unfair.”

  “I’m really sorry he’s not here to see your performance,” Nick said. The woman was getting tiresome, her sincerity suspect. Surely Henderson had not been stupid enough to put her up to this inept display. But then, he had been through it all before, the appeal of distraught women, acting out of misguided impulses.

  “You are a bastard, Mr. Gold.”

  “From where you sit, perhaps,” he agreed, feeling the alcoholic effect begin to dissipate as his impatience and anger grew.

  “You and that bitch upstairs.” She had hissed the words, like air escaping from a punctured tire.

  So there was more here than met the eye, he considered calmly.

  “What has Myra Pell got to do with it?” he asked, gently now, his newspaperman’s mind dissimulating, searching for information, his head finally clearing. The woman continued to twist the handkerchief, her knuckles white with tension. His abrupt change in attitude confused her. She might have mistaken it for compassion.

  “I shouldn’t have mentioned her,” Mrs. Henderson said, contrite now, her weakness blatantly exposed.

  “She is your husband’s greatest defender,” Nick pressed, conscious of his maliciousness.

  “Sure,” Mrs. Henderson said angrily, her bitterness showing.

  “Frankly, I don’t understand your implication.”

  She looked at him, startled. “I suppose you don’t,” she said.

  “What are you trying to tell me, Mrs. Henderson?” he asked pointedly. Her eyes flitted helplessly about the room.

  “I should never have come
,” she said, getting up.

  “Then why did you?”

  “I thought I could help my husband,” she said weakly. He watched her, annoyed that he had to witness her pain.

  “Are you trying to tell me that your husband and Myra Pell are lovers?” The accusation seemed so incongruous to his nature, gossipy, unworthy of his sophistication. “Is that the message you’re trying to bring me?”

  She seemed a study in conflicting emotions: indignation, shock, confusion. The blood drained from her face. He wondered if she would faint.

  “Are you all right?” he asked.

  She nodded.

  “He spends more time with her than with me,” she whined. She carefully avoided answering his question. Could it be true?

  “Then why didn’t you go to her?” From her look, he could see she had debated the point.

  “Because I know what she’s trying to do.” She threw her head back, stifling a forced laugh. “She wants to make him beholden, to swallow him up. She wants to own him.”

  “And you think we’re merely gathering blackmail on your husband?” Nick stood up.

  “Yes,” she said, her face actually brightening, thankful, perhaps, for the gift of the words. He could see that she was guessing at motives, hoping that Nick might confirm her suspicions about her husband and Myra Pell.

  “You’re wrong,” he said. “Just as wrong as you are about the other.”

  She appeared totally confused now. Standing up, her face flushed, she seemed a tragic, humiliated figure, her looks ravaged by time, her self-confidence shattered.

  “I should never have come,” she said again, turning and leaving his office without a glance back.

  He looked after her and shrugged. It was the humor of it that finally struck him and a giggle erupted, growing in intensity. Did it all boil down to the stupid blindness of a woman’s love? Emotions, he thought, destroyer of objectivity. If only their readers knew. Was the fate of Henderson to turn on such emotional garbage? He had better not be so contemptuous, he told himself, recalling his entanglement with Jennie. He shook his head, trying to crowd out the interview with Mrs. Henderson as he reached for the front page again, gathering his concentration.

  But he could not find its threads. Unintelligible type stared back at him as he tried to find meaning in the neat slugs which carried his conception of the day’s picture. It was only when a news aide came into his office with a sheaf of wire copy that he felt the authority of his mind return. Glancing through the short pica paragraphs he again came across the casualty lists from the bus shooting. Studying the names carefully, he was annoyed that he could recognize no familiarity, feeling briefly the guilt of the survivor.

  The gloomy thoughts triggered in him a peculiar state of anxiety and loneliness. God, how he missed Charlie. He felt himself being crushed by the weight of decisions, like heavy rocks cascading over him in an avalanche. Yet all he had to do was sidestep and the rocks would fall harmlessly to the valley floor. Was it a death wish that haunted him, a desire, perhaps, to be with Charlie? Or was it lofty motives of truthfulness that goaded him to taunt Myra, challenging her power, testing its limits? Did he long for such a termination at last, the final stoppage of the presses in his brain, the end of continuous pressure to feed the greedy maw of the machine? Henderson as an issue seemed remote. After all, what did Henderson mean to him? Another hollow politician, an opportunist, a mere reflection. He felt suddenly unsure, lonely. He picked up the phone and dialed Jennie’s extension, the ring persistent and unanswered. Finally a voice, annoyed and distracted, answered perfunctorily. It wasn’t Jennie. He hung up. Jennie must still be mad over his earlier display of authority, he thought. Egocentricity! At this moment, she surely was contriving for him a kind of massive punishment.

  He put aside the street edition, knowing that in the morning, when his lucidity returned, he would find a vast array of mistakes and misinterpretations of his implied directions. Who but he would know? he thought.

  He lit a cigarette, puffing deeply, feeling again the urgency of his need for Jennie. Dialing his apartment, he let the rings persist until the desk operator’s voice came on. Then he hung up and dialed Jennie’s place. At the impersonal voice of her answering service, he hung up. Feeling ridiculous, like a schoolboy, he tried to shake the feeling of anxiety, as if the sudden dependence were somehow obscene. When he found himself finally dialing Margaret’s extension, he cursed his weakness, girding for his impending humiliation, hoping she would have left for the day.

  “Margaret?” He paused.

  “Nick.”

  Searching his mind for some casual question, he drew blanks, felt awkward.

  “Nick,” Margaret repeated.

  “I was thinking about Chums,” he lied. But it was, after all, the bridge between them.

  “Should we call her, Nick? It’s been a long time.” He detected a hesitancy, a softness.

  “Are you worried?”

  “Of course. Not a day goes by that I don’t get a flash of worry.”

  He looked at his watch, calculating what the time would be on the West Coast.

  “I suppose we should call,” he said, dreading the confrontation, the family friction. He hadn’t meant to stir that up. Pausing, he cursed his silence, knowing she would see through it.

  “Jennie’s left, Nick,” she sighed, sensing his priorities.

  “On assignment?” he asked, hoping that he might sound casual.

  “No. Not tonight.” Had she caught his panic?

  “Perhaps we’ll call Chums tomorrow,” Nick said, distracted. Later he knew he would feel fatherly guilt, having used Chums once again. He hung up.

  There is no fool like an aging fool involved with a woman half his age. The thought gave him the strength to stir and walk swiftly out of the city room, avoiding the upturned eyes seeking recognition. Outside, falling heavily into the seat of a taxi, he closed his eyes and let his fatigue take over. The taxi moved quickly up Connecticut Avenue, around Dupont Circle to the entrance of Gunderstein’s apartment house. He got out and proceeded through the ritual of announcement.

  Gunderstein’s apartment seemed even fouler than the night before, although the smells were more exotic and definable. A half-eaten pizza lay in its pan in the center of the battered coffee table, surrounded by a forest of beer cans. Martha Gates sat on the floor, cross-legged in tight jeans and, Nick noticed, braless in a tight Mickey Mouse T-shirt, with a shorthand pad poised on her flat stomach.

  Standing near her, neatly vested and pinstriped, smoke billowing aromatically from a large pipe, Robert Phelps nodded a friendly greeting and extended his hand. Gunderstein lay slumped back on the sofa, his shoes off, revealing a big hole in his sock, near the big toe of his left foot.

  Phelps was a compact man, pale with thin greying hair, the self-consciousness of his dress indicating that he took himself too seriously, as if he were making a statement of his esthetic and intellectual superiority. Nick hadn’t seen him for two years. Ten years ago he might have been described as a kind of gentlemanly Gunderstein. The two were a study in contrasts, a sign of changing mores in the newspaper business.

  “That was some quick hop over the land,” Nick said, feeling the warm pump of his hand.

  “I took the first plane,” Phelps replied.

  Nick looked at the half-eaten pizza, felt a fleeting pang of hunger, then revulsion, as he reached for a beer instead. Sitting down on an upholstered chair, he put his feet up on the cocktail table and stole a glance at Martha’s nipples pressing arrogantly against the big ears of Mickey Mouse.

  “We’ve been busy people today, Mr. Gold,” she said, her seriousness incongruous with her dress. He could detect the intensity of their newspaperman’s curiosity, the impending excitement of revelations to come.

  “It’s like playing hot potato, Mr. Gold,” Gunderstein said. “We’ve been passing it around among each other. Finally it got so hot we had to put it down until you got here.”

  “Stop th
e hard sell, Harold,” Nick snapped. “It doesn’t become you.” He drank his beer, swallowing deeply. He caught a glimpse of Martha looking fearfully at him, as if his presence were an intrusion, intimidating.

  “Robert has been most helpful, Mr. Gold,” Gunderstein said calmly, oblivious to Nick’s outburst.

  “Let Robert tell it, Harold,” Martha said. Gunderstein nodded, picking at his pimples. Nick watched as Phelps paced the room, smoke pouring from his mouth and nose, then he stopped and removed his pipe.

  “It wasn’t meant to be bottled up this long,” he began. “You can’t imagine how debilitating it is to keep these so-called secrets.” He paused to be sure he was commanding attention. “Covering South Viet Nam in those days was like covering any third-world country. You had to know where the CIA bodies were buried or you simply wouldn’t be able to interpret events. You see, it’s the CIA that really carries the ball out in the boonies. The straight diplomats are merely pawns in the game. The real power is held by the CIA, deriving it directly from the President. Actually it’s no mystery. I’m sure you’ve all read the Pentagon Papers which describe in detail events concerning Diem’s downfall. They’re very accurate—up to a point. The CIA was, we know, the conduit between the generals who effected the coup and the President who engineered it. Actually, they were quite efficient. The Ngu brothers were boxed in before they knew it and it was all over quickly, almost a routine CIA activity.”

  “You knew all this at the time?” Nick asked.

  “Of course.”

  “If I recall, it wasn’t even implied in your stories.”

  “Even if I wrote what I knew we wouldn’t have printed it.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because Pell had given Kennedy his word.”

  Nick felt himself grow tense. Why had he not known?

  “How did you know?”

  “He called me and told me. It was as simple as that.”

  “The overseas lines were tapped. Charlie wouldn’t have been that stupid.”

  “He was cryptic. I knew what he meant. I’ll never forget the way he put it. He said the company had asked that I omit the golf balls from my next shipment. I knew exactly what he meant. So I filed the acceptable version of what I knew as a bunch of bullshit.”