Benchley, Peter - Novel 06

by Q Clearance (v2. 0)

  There came a knock on Burnham's door, three quick raps of a knuckle.

  "Just a sec!" Burnham hopped up and scrambled for his trousers. He wasn't about to answer a door in his boxer shorts. Not here. Who knew what were accepted practices in the corridors of the Y? He was no fool; he had seen The Ritz.

  There was no one at the door, but at his feet Burnham saw a copy of the Post and a brown paper bag. He picked them up. Inside the bag was a container of coffee, a stirrer, a cup of dairy substance and a packet of Sweet'n Low. On the bag, scribbled in pencil, was a note:

  Why you're here is your business. My business is to welcome you. See you at noon.

  Hal. Burnham smiled. He must have checked the register.

  Burnham arrived at his office at eight. He had finished the coffee and the paper, shaved, showered and dressed, had breakfast at a cafeteria, and still it was only 7:45. He had nothing to do, nowhere to go and nothing to read, so he went to work.

  He dialed Cobb's number—Cobb might be able to help him begin his inquiry into the likelihood (however remote) that the bug in his car had been planted by someone in the Administration —but there was no answer.

  He decided to go have a cup of coffee at the Mess. For company, he took along a volume of Boswell's Life of Johnson. Another great thing about Johnson: You could reread him forever and always find something new. Open Boswell to any page, and you were sure to find something Johnson said that hadn't etched itself on your mind the first time you read it, or the second or the third. It was Burnham's bible.

  He had never before been in the Mess in the morning, and he was surprised to find it crowded. There were no seatings in the morning; serfs sat cheek-by-jowl with knights.

  Evelyn Witt waved pleasantly to him as he came in, but she didn't beckon him to join her. She was sitting with two of her deputies, and from the chastened looks on their faces, Burnham guessed that Evelyn had been giving them hell.

  Three Air Force officers sat together. Burnham recognized one of them: Brigadier General Woody Ravenel, who was the pilot of Air Force One. One of the others was a bird colonel, the last a light colonel who was obviously older than the other two. Burnham assumed that the light colonel was the infamous Clip Dixon. Eighteen months ago, Dixon had been the President's pet pilot. He was sure to become a general officer before the end of the President's term. But one day, Dixon had been escorting the President off Air Force One at Andrews, and the President had started toward the wrong helicopter.

  *'That's your helicopter over there, sir," Dixon had said.

  "Son," the President had smiled, "they're all my helicopters."

  They had both chuckled at that one. The trouble was, Dixon had repeated the story at the Mess, and one of the people he had told had told someone else, and the next morning the anecdote appeared in the Post.

  There was no penance he could do. He had sinned and been caught, and this lord was a lord not of mercy but of vengeance. Dixon would end his career as a light colonel, and because the spread between the retirement pay of a light colonel and a brigadier general is the difference between ease and penury, the sins of the father would be visited upon the wife and the children and the parents-in-law.

  Two members of the National Security Council staff played pocket chess over their cups of tea.

  Four women from the "east side"—the social office in the East Wing—huddled in grave conference over the seating plan for tonight's State Dinner in honor of the dictator of some Asian ministate. From what Burnham could overhear, an Asia scholar from Columbia had had the tacky brass not only to first decline the invitation, but then to accept, and finally to renege at the last minute, after his card had been printed and his seat assigned—at the right of one of the poo-bah's wives. Evidently, the scholar had objected to an esoteric point in the Administration's Asia policy and had decided to shaft the President publicly, not realizing that the President had no idea who the man was and that the only people he was shafting were four overworked young women who had nothing to do with policy and, in fact, couldn't have pointed to Asia on a map.

  A Filipino steward showed Burnham to a small table for two nestled against the far wall. Burnham ordered coffee and opened his Boswell. He heard a familiar voice nearby. It was not loud—barely above a whisper—but it was angry, emphatic and contemptuous. He looked up.

  Beside him, at another table for two, were the Secretary of State and Mario Epstein. Epstein was excoriating the Secretary. The Secretary's face was heliotrope with rage and humiliation; so much blood had rushed to his face that his neck had swollen and threatened to pop his Tiffany collar pin. His eyes were fixed on his coffee cup, and his hands gripped the sides of the table so hard that he barely moved each time Epstein jabbed him in the shoulder with a finger.

  The Secretary's appointment had been a token tossed by the President to the eastern establishment. He was the only male heir to a huge chemicals fortune that had permitted him, his father, his grandfather and his great-grandfather to dedicate their lives to public service. He had graduated from Princeton and Yale Law School, and had served, briefly but creditably, in the Foreign Service until he received the first of a succession of increasingly important appointments to various international commissions, committees, delegations, negotiations, parleys and palavers. He taught seminars, wrote articles and books, moderated television shows and won formidable awards from obscure groups for his devotion to international understanding. He was debonair, impeccably tailored, diplomatic, handsome . . . and safe.

  Though well educated and widely experienced, he had no ideas of his own. He was a talented synthesizer incapable of creation. He fit perfectly into the President's Cabinet.

  The last thing Benjamin Winslow wanted in Foggy Bottom was a free thinker. One Henry Kissinger was enough for a generation. If the supervision of the nuclear arsenal was too important to leave to the generals, then foreign policy was too important to leave to the striped-pants brigade. In the Winslow

  Administration, foreign policy was born and bred in the White House and merely enunciated by the State Department.

  Epstein jabbed the Secretary again, and Burnham wondered what transgression the man had committed. Hubris, probably. The Secretary must have had the gall to issue a policy statement without clearing it with Epstein or the President's National Security advisor—one and the same thing, really, since the National Security advisor, Dennis Duggan, had been recruited from the Brookings Institute by Epstein and (it was rumored) didn't dare belch without first clearing it with Epstein.

  But why would Epstein have chosen the White House Mess as the forum in which to dress down the Administration's own Cary Grant, when he could have ranted at any decibel pitch he chose behind the closed door of his own office? Looking at the Secretary of State, Burnham suddenly knew, and he felt the pride of perception. Epstein would have recognized three choices: the privacy of his office, the open public—that is, in front of his subordinates or the Secretary's or (the unthinkable last resort) the press—and the semiprivacy of a place like the Mess.

  The second option he would have abandoned immediately. The Secretary would have felt compelled to resign (rich WASPs could afford to take offense at anything, so you had to be careful how you abused them), would have become the darling of the nation's op-ed pages, talk shows and think tanks and would suddenly have found himself wielding a great deal more clout as an adversary of the President than he had as an ally.

  The first option was no good, either. In private, the Secretary would have defended himself vigorously, would have scored several telling blows, and Epstein would have had to argue with him, deal with him, negotiate. Epstein loathed the very thought of dealing and negotiating.

  A semiprivate room was the answer, for here Epstein had a hands-down advantage. He had no hesitation about offending anybody anywhere at any time. He would castigate waiters, upbraid chefs, insult hosts and belittle dinner partners with gay abandon. But the Secretary was too well-bred. He would never make a scene in front
of strangers. He would eat bad food, drink bad wine and suffer appalling boors with polite forbearance rather than raise his voice or (God forbid) tell them to buzz off. In this circumstance, the Secretary was forced, by genetics and environmental training, to endure Epstein's attack in silence. At most, he would say something like, "Respectfully, Mario, I must disagree with you."

  Burnham realized he was staring. He should look away. But it was too late. Epstein must have sensed an intruder, for his head snapped around and he glared at Burnham and said, "You got a problem?"

  "Me?" Burnham squeaked. "No!" He flapped his hand over his book. "Confusing translation."

  Epstein kept staring at him until Burnham hunched over and surrounded Boswell with his arms and appeared to be about to eat the book.

  He hummed, to block out the conversation at the next table, as he tried to focus on Johnson, so he didn't hear Warner Cobb walk up to him and say, "Hi."

  Cobb gazed quizzically down at the humming machine consuming the book, then pulled out a chair and sat down.

  Burnham felt the table shake, and he looked up. "Oh. Hi," he said. "I tried to call you."

  He told Cobb about Sarah finding the microphone in the car. He did not tell him how their discussion had ended. It was none of Cobb's business. Besides, Burnham had no idea how long his problems with Sarah would last, and he had not had time to absorb them, to adjust to them. He was not ready to become a White House staffer with Personal Problems. Personal Problems were a liability. At best, they were a source of gossip and sympathy. At worst, they could affect security clearance, assignments and access to the President. They could be used as a synonym for instability and unreliability. To the President, an aide with Personal Problems was a flake.

  "She must be pissed," Cobb said.

  "You could say."

  Cobb smiled. "Is that why you're in early?"

  "Sort of. She thinks ... no, she knows that she's being bugged because she works for Kennedy."

  "That's paranoid nonsense."

  "That's what I told her. Can you find out?"

  "What would we do it for? He isn't running again. Even if he was . . . Man! If there's one lesson from Watergate, when it comes to that kind of shenanigans, watch your ass/'

  Burnham nodded. "Can you find out?"

  Annoyance flicked across Cobb's face, and then he realized that Burnham was not so much disbelieving him as begging to be rescued. "For real? I doubt it. If anybody was doing it—and I can all but guarantee you they're not—they'd hardly admit it to me. But I can get you an answer. What makes you think she'd believe us?"

  "I don't know. She won't believe me. Maybe if I look as if I'm making an effort, raising hell in high places, she'll see reason."

  "It's none of my business, but . . ." Cobb paused. "Maybe she doesn't want to see reason."

  "That, Warner, I can't deal with. I can't do anything about it, so there's no point thinking about it. I'd rather bear the ills I have, than fly to others that I know not of."

  "Very healthy. Okay. I'll check around. I'll make sure you get a categorical denial from usually reliable sources very close to senior officials high up in the Administration. Unofficially."

  "And off the record."

  "Right. Now, if I may ..." Cobb took some folded papers from the inside pocket of his jacket. "This morning I got a call from the boss. I was at home. In bed. Asleep. He seemed annoyed that I wasn't on station in my splendid office. It was six o'clock."

  "Power knows no time of day." Burnham smiled. "And absolute power never sleeps."

  "Johnson? I like it."

  "I just made it up."

  "Oh. Too bad. Let's find somebody to attribute it to. Anyway, Himself has a job for you."

  "You mean he asked for me?"

  "Specifically. And even by your right name."

  "Why?"

  "Who knows? It must be more of the magic you worked on him yesterday. I wouldn't worry about it. He gets these infatuations. It'll pass. They always do. Sometimes, the people even survive. There's a State Dinner tonight."

  "I know. For the Gizmo of Grunt."

  "Please. Show some respect. It's for the Pasha of Banda."

  "Banda." Burnham tried to read Cobb's eyes, to see if he was being thrown a curve. He wasn't. "Warner, I went to fine schools. I have traveled. I read the gazette. I monitor the electronic marvels of the age. I think of myself as respectably informed. But never in my life have I heard of the nation of Banda."

  "You are so . . . parochial." Cobb grinned. "In the Timor Sea, of course. Critical. Very critical. A citadel of democracy."

  "No doubt with a population of six anthropoids, a derelict copra industry . . . and fifteen trillion barrels of oil."

  "Approximately."

  "So what's the problem? We phoneticize 'Banda.' The President calls him a great American and gives him a set of cuff links and a gift certificate to Orvis."

  "The President received a draft of a toast for the dinner from the NSC. I don't think he liked it."

  "You don't think."

  "His words were"—Cobb consulted some scribbles on the folded papers—" 'Warner, I got the toast for the whosiwhatsis tonight. That dog won't hunt.' "

  " 'That dog won't hunt?' Where'd he get that one?"

  "T. Boone Pickens paid a visit the other day. T. Boone Pickens likes to say things like 'That dog won't hunt.' "

  "Did he say exactly what was wrong with that dog?"

  "No. His next words were"—Cobb turned the paper on its side to decipher more scribbles. " 'Get Tim Burnham to do me a proper toast. Tim probably knows this fella. He's well wired.' "

  " 'Well wired.' What does that mean?"

  "I was going to ask you."

  "Me?"

  "You're the one he was talking about." Cobb slid the folded papers across the table to Burnham. "Have a look at it. Run it through your typewriter. Give it some of that old black magic."

  "And all I have to go on is: 'That dog won't hunt.' "

  "That may say more than it seems. The President is not without instincts. He didn't get to be President by being thick. I think he smells something wrong—maybe not with the speech but with the visit, or with the pasha himself. Something has set off an alarm in his head, even if he doesn't know what it is." Cobb smiled. "He has great faith that you'll find it for him. After all, you're well wired."

  "You want to give me a hint about how I find it?"

  Cobb shrugged. "If I were you, I'd call the CIA."

  "What d'you mean, call the CIA? You can't just call the CIA."

  "Of course you can. They're in the book."

  "Why are they going to talk to me?"

  "You're one of the President's men, Timothy. They have to. Never forget it."

  Burnham picked up the folded papers. "What about the NSC guy who wrote this? Maybe he's already called the CIA."

  "The NSC hates the CIA, and vice versa. They don't speak."

  "Wonderful. I . . ."

  A shadow fell across the table. Burnham looked up into the pointing fingertip of Mario Epstein, who loomed above him.

  "You!" Epstein growled. "What's your name?"

  "Huh?" Burnham was startled, and had he tried to say anything more, he would have stammered.

  "Do you work here?"

  "Yes. I—"

  Cobb to the rescue. "Mario, this is—"

  Epstein ignored him. "What do you do?"

  A steward came up behind Epstein and said softly, "Phone for you, sir."

  Epstein shot a final venomous glance at Burnham and turned on his heel.

  Burnham saw, beyond Epstein, the blue-pinstripe back of the Secretary of State hurrying out of the Mess—a proud man, a kind and good man, probably, a man who wished ill to no one and who strove to make the world a better place, now humiliated, pummeled into submissive jelly by a bullying schmuck. Burnham felt sorry for the Secretary, wanted to shout encouragement to him—"Don't take that shit!"—and at the same time hated him as a reminder of his own cowardice in me
lting before Sarah's swami-inspired fusillade. Nice guys finish last. Rudeness is its own reward.

  Enough.

  Burnham snapped, "Hey!" The sound of his own voice surprised him, for he had made no conscious decision to speak.

  Jolted, Epstein stopped.

  "What about you?" Burnham said. "Do you work here?"

  Epstein's eyebrows popped upward until they formed perfect crescent moons above his tiny eyes. His mouth opened, but no sound emerged.

  All the color drained from Cobb, as if someone had pulled a plug in his toes.

  Burnham continued to look expectantly at Epstein, as if awaiting a civil reply to his civil question.

  Epstein pointed at Cobb. His pointing finger trembled. "I'll see you later," he said, and he departed.

  "That was not smart," Cobb whispered to Burnham. "Not smart at all."

  "Why are you whispering, Warner? You told me: I'm one of the President's men. I'll never forget it."

  Burnham signed his check and pushed his chair back from the table.

  His wife had kicked him out of the house. His home was a cubicle in a den of outcasts, misfits and deviates. He had just committed an unforgivable act of lese-majeste against the second most powerful man in the country, and the odds were that by noon he would be out of work.

  He should have been frightened, depressed and confused.

  But he had done something, actually become—if for only a moment—an actor instead of a reactor.

  He felt terrific.

  Dyanna had just arrived by the time Burnham returned to his office. She wore a dress of yellow cotton decorated with blue butterflies. She was humming the theme music from Gone with the Wind and arranging a huge flower display on her desk.

  "What's the occasion?" Burnham asked her.