by Allen Drury
LeGage gave him a long and thoughtful look.
“Is that an order, Mr. President?”
“I don’t like to put it on that basis. Let’s just say it’s a cautionary piece of advice to a man I know is intelligent enough to see its value.”
“You’re asking me to disappoint my people,” LeGage said with a faraway expression in his eyes.
“Your people stand or fall with the United States, you know, LeGage,” Orrin Knox said. “We can’t be separated. You’re Americans, too. We’re all bound together, for better or worse.”
The chairman of DEFY gave him a strange, anguished look.
“I wish we weren’t,” he whispered. The Secretary of State stared back. Finally he nodded.
“I know. We all might be happier if history hadn’t worked out as it has.
“But, it has. And therefore it is up to us, as Americans co-operating together, to do the best we can with the situation as we find it in each generation and as it comes our time to deal with it. Examine your plans and see if they contribute to that end, LeGage. If they do,” he said gravely, “go ahead.” “To that,” the President observed, “I would say, Amen.” For a while they were silent, in the comfortable study where so many things had happened, so many men been tested, so many great decisions made. The Secretary of State, though he stared straight out the window at the Washington Monument, was aware of tensions increased, relaxed, increased, relaxed, in the room beside him. He said nothing, the President said nothing. Eventually LeGage gave a half-laugh.
“Well! Here it is almost 2 p.m. and I expect there’s work to be done up there in New York, as you say. Best I catch a plane and get on up and get busy on that delegation. That’s what you appointed me for, isn’t it, Mr. President?”
“Good,” the President said with an air of relieved pleasure, rising to shake hands. “I think that will be very helpful to us, LeGage. I appreciate it.”
“Mr. Secretary,” LeGage said, “when will you be coming up?”
“Probably for the debate Thursday. Thank you for your help, LeGage.”
“Oh, well, as you say,” the chairman of DEFY told him with a sudden, racy grin, “we’re all bound together.”
After he had been shown out and they were alone, the President looked at the Secretary of State. “Did you believe it?”
“As with Terry, not one word.”
“No more did I. Do you want to bring Cullee here this afternoon?”
“I think it might be better to see him alone. Not that you wouldn’t be helpful, but—”
“As you think best. If you want to bring him here later, feel free.”
“Thanks, Mr. President,” Orrin said. “I’ll be guided by how it goes.”
He had no sooner returned to his office at State than his secretary gave him word that Bob Munson had called. He returned it at once, to the Majority Cloakroom of the Senate.
“Robert? What’s going on in the cave of the winds?”
“I’ve managed to prolong your session for you, right enough,” Senator Munson said. “Now we may never choke it off. Ray Smith is in full flight on the San Fernando water viaduct, Tom August for some reason has decided to get involved, Seab is snorting and pawing the ground with blue smoke seeping out around the edges of his galoshes, and everybody’s having fun. But something even more interesting has now come up from Fragrant Freddy, our little pal. He’s just braced me with an idea.”
“Don’t tell me,” Orrin said. “Let me guess.” When he had, accurately, he grunted.
“I hope you discouraged that.” The Majority Leader laughed, rather grimly.
“I did my best, but you know Fred. Ever since we censured him he’s been even more obstreperous than he was before. He figures he has nothing to lose any more.”
“Okay, then, stall him off. If anybody’s going to undertake what Fred proposes, I want Cullee Hamilton to do it. It’s the only thing that makes sense under the circumstances.”
“I don’t think anybody should do it. How many more pounds of flesh is it proposed to exact from us over the M’Bulu, anyway?”
“I’d rather wield the knife myself than let others do it,” Orrin Knox told him. The Majority Leader made an impatient sound.
“That won’t be very popular here. You know how Seab will react, and he won’t be the only one. I may react myself. I think it’s time to put a stop to this nonsense.”
“Of course you’re aware of what’s happening in New York.”
“We’re aware. Seab’s telling us about it at this very moment. Can’t you hear that roaring in the background? It isn’t the wild sea waves calling, old buddy.”
“I think this is best,” the Secretary said firmly. “Stall Fred.”
“Does the President agree with you?”
“Call and ask him. He isn’t entirely convinced, but he’s willing to give it a try.”
“I think you’re mistaken, Orrin. Sadly mistaken.”
“You aren’t fully aware of what we face in the world, I’m afraid.”
“I must say your horizons have broadened considerably,” Bob Munson remarked with some sarcasm.
“They have. I’m counting on you, Bob. I want this done, and I want Cullee to do it.”
“Yes, Mr. President.”
“Go to hell. But be sure you do as I ask, first.”
“I don’t like it.”
“I don’t like it, either. You don’t think I’m happy about our choices in the world these days, do you? I have to make some of them, and it isn’t fun. This isn’t fun.”
“I’ll talk to Fred. I can’t promise anything, though.”
“Thank you. I’ll talk to Cullee. Oh, and Bob: talk to Seab, too, will you?”
“I already have that planned.”
Before he turned back to the items on his desk, the Secretary put in a call to the comfortable house in Spring Valley.
“I just thought you’d be interested to know,” he said when Beth came on the line, “that there is another brilliant mind running in the same channel as yours. That fighting champion of right and justice, Fred Van Ackerman.”
“Don’t let him do it,” she said with alarm. “That would ruin everything.”
“Bob and I are heading him off at the pass. But it’s ironic, isn’t it, how great political instincts seem to see the same things at the same time?”
“I’m just surprised yours didn’t.”
“Oh, it did. I’d been thinking about it. You just confirmed me in my wisdom.”
She laughed.
“That’s a good story.”
“True. Absolutely true.”
“All right, Mr. Secretary. I suppose you’ll write it in your memoirs and nobody will ever know the difference.”
“You’ll probably write them for me, so you can have it your own way in the end. Don’t give up.”
She laughed again.
“I never have. Good luck with Cullee.”
“Thanks,” he said soberly. “I’ll need it.”
In the pleasantly luxurious house out Sixteenth Street the door from the garage slammed shut behind the master with a forceful thud. He came into the living room and threw down his coat as Maudie entered from the kitchen.
“Always throwing things down,” she said grumpily. “Always have to be throwing things down. Didn’t your mammy ever tell you to hang things up?”
“She told me, but I’m a bad boy, Maudie. I’ve always been a real—bad—boy.”
“So you say,” she said skeptically. “So you say.”
He laughed.
“Why, Maudie, I never said it before in my life. Because it just isn’t true, old Maudie, it just isn’t true.” He made a pretense of leafing through the early edition of the Evening Star, then threw it down. “Where is she? Where’s that wife of mine?”
“Spectin’ some day to come home and she not be here? Well, she’s not.”
“Where is she?” he demanded, a sudden twist of fear giving his heart a painful squeeze.
<
br /> “She called,” Maudie said indifferently. “Rest easy. She just been out eatin’ in high-class style with high-class ladies. That gal hasn’t run away. This time … In fact,” she added as a car drove up out front, “there she is now, I expect I’ll go hide.”
“You don’t have to do that, Maudie,” he said with a laugh he tried to make casual, but of course she saw through it.
“We expecting tornadoes in this house,” she observed. “That’s the kind of weather we got nowadays. I’m going to go hide in the cellar.”
“Okay. Then don’t stand behind the door and listen.”
“I don’t listen!” she said with great indignation.
“Not much. I bet you keep notes.”
“Make me quite a book if I did,” she said as she went out. “Make me quite some reading book, I tell you.”
He hurried to the window as the door closed behind her and peeked through the curtains. Sue-Dan had told him nothing about her luncheon date, and it was with considerable surprise and much curiosity that he saw his wife and Patsy Labaiya engaged in farewell talk beside Patsy’s Rolls-Royce. He could tell from their respective stances that the conversation was stilted, uneasy, and based on a mutual dislike. But it concluded calmly enough, as conversations between those in Washington who dislike one another do often conclude, with an exchange of cordial smiles, fervent promises to meet again soon, a quick, warm handshake as quickly and warmly returned. Sue-Dan came toward the house, Patsy got into her car, and it purred grandly off. He leaped away from the window and dropped into his big armchair, grabbing the Star and pretending to be absorbed in it. He looked up with an air of casual interest when she came in, and her look of surprise changed to one of knowing amusement.
“Come home to check up, Cullee?” she asked, sinking with an instinctive animal grace into a well-posed picture of relaxed unconcern on the sofa. “Come home to find out if I’d run away and gone to New York?” She raised her arm languidly, looked at her watch, and let the arm drop back along the sofa’s edge. “You’re a little early. Plane doesn’t leave until 4 p.m.”
“You’re not going,” he said, with an air of calm dismissal that unfortunately wasn’t quite calm enough.
“You’re not going?” she mimicked, adding the question mark he had tried to conceal.
“No,” he said with a real anger now, “you’re not going. And I’m not going to sit here and argue with you about it. You’re not going, period. I didn’t come home to check up. I came home to get some reports I forgot to take this morning.”
“I hope you found them,” she said with elaborate politeness. “Anyway, I’m glad you’re here, because I’ve got something to talk to you about. Something that may help you be a good colored man again.”
“Something from Patsy Labaiya,” he said with a quick suspicion. “I don’t want any part of that one. You can have her. Incidentally,” he said with an elaborate sarcasm of his own, “I trust you fine ladies had a hotsy-totsy luncheon. Where did you go—Joe’s Drive-In?”
“We went to the City Tavern,” she said with a genuine anger. “I’ll have you know that’s where we went!”
“Well, bless me! Where did they seat you, in the kitchen?”
“No! Not in the kitchen! We ate in the best part.”
“Yes,” he said, “I expect Patsy wouldn’t be seen with you anywhere else but the best part. It might hurt Ted’s chances if you weren’t in the best part. Patsy would think of that.”
“Patsy was all right! They wanted to make a fuss and Patsy wouldn’t let them. Also, Patsy could have had it in all the papers if she wanted, and she didn’t do that, either.”
“Just let me look,” he said, leafing through the Star to the society pages. He gave a little exclamation of triumph and was pleased to see that his wife looked startled and dismayed. “Listen to this: Patsy Jason Labaiya will never cease to shock and delight this town. Who else but Patsy would have thought of the idea of taking the wife of California’s brilliant young Negro Congressman to the swank City Tavern for lunch? The gesture of tolerance and understanding was of the dramatic nature Washington loves, and it couldn’t possibly be missed—particularly since pretty little Sue-Dan Hamilton was clad in a flaming red dress that was, to say the least, easy to spot amid more quietly dressed luncheon visitors, such as Mrs. Orrin Knox, wife of the Secretary of State, and Mrs. Robert D. Munson, wife of the Senate Majority Leader. We asked Patsy’—oh, listen to this, Sue-Dan—‘We asked Patsy, while Sue-Dan was in the powder room (and that must have been a sensation, too!), whether her luncheon with Rep. Cullee Hamilton’s wife had any political significance. The usually gracious Patsy refused to comment, but Washington doesn’t need a refresher course in arithmetic to put two and two together and come up with six, or even seven!’ … Oh, Miss Patsy wouldn’t tell the papers. Miss Patsy’s your friend. Miss Patsy and you, you’re society, Miss Sue-Dan. And we’ve just got to keep it out of the papers.”
“I know she didn’t plan it like that,” Sue-Dan said stubbornly. “It says she wouldn’t comment doesn’t it?”
“Oh, yes. It also says you had a pretty red dress, too. It sneers you had a pretty red dress. Let me look at that pretty red dress, Sue-Dan. My, my, that is a pretty red dress!”
“All right!” she said stridently. “All right now, Cullee! I want you to listen to what we talked about at that luncheon, because that’s a lot more important than all that white sneering, or yours either. You hear me? I want you to listen.”
“Don’t talk too long,” he said, throwing down the Star. “I wouldn’t want you to miss that plane.”
“If I ever want to go,” she flared out angrily, “I’ll go. I won’t miss the plane, either!”
He leaned back as far as he could in his chair, put his arms behind his head, sprawled his legs as far apart as they would go, and looked at her across them with an insolent expression.
“You just tell me what you and sweet old Patsy talked about. You just tell me all about it, little Sue-Dan.”
When she had, he sat suddenly upright with a sour expression.
“I won’t do it,” he said flatly. “Damn it, I said I wouldn’t be a stooge for the Jasons, and I won’t. Can’t I get that through your head?”
“Can’t I get through your head this is how to help your own people?” she demanded. “They’re all after you, Cullee—Ebony, and the Defender, and the Afro-American, and them. They’re going to start writing nasty things about you, such as, where was our big Congressman when that little gal wanted to go to school? Where was big brave cowardly Cullee when he let Terry carry the ball? They’re going to begin asking some mighty sharp questions about you, Cullee. Then what?”
“I won’t answer.”
“Won’t answer!” she gave a hoot of spiteful laughter. “Fat lot of good that’s going to do—won’t answer! Cullee, listen to me. Patsy’s your friend—”
“Patsy’s Ted’s friend. I don’t even think she’s Felix’s friend.”
“Listen to me! Senator Van Ackerman wants to do this, and Patsy doesn’t want him to. She wants you to. She told me so I could tell you so you could get the jump on him.”
He made a disgusted movement of his mouth.
“She’s afraid of Fred Van Ackerman because of that crowd he runs with. She also wants a black boy to do it. That’s Patsy’s game. She doesn’t give a damn about anything but my color. Patsy wouldn’t want me to do it if I was bright blue, Sue-Dan. You know that. Also, how come Patsy’s such a great friend of yours, all of a sudden? I thought you didn’t like Patsy so much. Lunch at City Tavern kind of gone to your head, has it maybe?”
“Damn you!” she said bitterly. “I swear to God, Cullee, I’m trying to help you, but you don’t want to be helped, do you? You just don’t want anybody to help Mr. Old Know-It-All Cullee. Don’t want to be Senator, don’t want to be a fighter for your own people, don’t want to do anything but just—just—”
“Just want to lie in bed and do things to you, Sue-Dan,
” he said with a sarcastically happy air he knew she hated. “That’s really all I want to do; you know that, now.”
“All right, stop making a joke of everything! That’s all I say, stop making a joke! You’ll push me too far some day, Cullee. Maybe right now.” A sudden shrewish expression came into her eyes. “Maybe you gone a little too far already.”
“Well,” he said, as a car door banged out front and he went to the window to look out, “here comes your ticket to New York. Now you can both slam me around.”
“Who’s that?” she asked skeptically. “Terry, maybe?”
“His Royal Highness the Shelby of Shelby,” he said, opening the door and bowing low with a flourish. “Do come in, Your Royal Highness Shelby of Shelby.”
No answering gleam of amusement or good nature greeted him from the chairman of DEFY. LeGage came into the room as though going into battle, paced up and down a couple of times, and collapsed violently into a chair.
“God damn! If I haven’t been given the old civics lecture on how to carry the flag!” A savage mockery came into his voice. “We’re all in this together, us black and white folks, did you know that? We’re all Americans, each of us, we really and truly are. If you don’t believe it, just ask the President and Orrin Knox; they’ll give you the word! We’ve got to behave real nice, because we all stand or fall together! So be nice, now, everybody, be nice! Makes white folks unhappy when you’re not, because we all stand or fall together.” He slapped the coffee table beside him with the flat of his hand. “God damn! That’s all I can say—God damn!”
Cullee Hamilton studied him for a long moment with an expression of distaste.
“What’s wrong with that, loud boy?” he asked finally. “It’s true, isn’t it?”
A look of genuine anger came into LeGage’s eyes, and the Congressman expected another outburst. But his ex-roommate spoke with a softness more ominous than anger.