The President's Palm Reader: A Washington Comedy

by Robert MacLean

  I mean what was he, anyway? Crazy? Stupid? Uncoordinated in some total sense? What?

  Long shot of the President jogging with his grim-faced guards, everyone in gray sweatsuits. A blur as the angle changes and you see that he is not in fact jogging but skipping. He waves.

  That’s the one that did it, really. Looking back on it now I think it must have been right there that I knew there was no going back. I wish I could say I did it for democracy. What did I care about democracy?

  But this duly-elected dope, this Leader of Humanity out of breath and opting to skip along with his faintly disdainful retinue, I loved him. I don’t mean I’m gay or anything, I don’t know how these things work, but I loved him.

  Here he was boarding Air Force One and pausing to wave, the stair truck already moving away from the door and zooming across the tarmac, the ramp rat at the wheel in his rubber earmuffs oblivious to the President’s cries.

  Snow and static. Lights.

  “Somebody,” said Lewman, “is trying to make the President look like a vapid boob!”

  We sat there blinking, thinking it over. Alberta didn’t seem to want to discourage Lewman’s approach.

  “All right,” I said, “even supposing that were true, what would we do?”

  “Circulate, Wordsworth. Work the crowd. People talk to you! Do your readings, we may have a few suggestions. Get them to open up but don’t let them know what you’re after. You know how to do it, Wordsworth.”

  “It’s not really fair. We went out and got the tape.”

  “The tape is gone, Wordsworth. It’s too late to worry about the tape.”

  “What about your own agents?” said Alberta. “Surely professional people—”

  “Politics,” he said. “We are using our agents. I’ve got men on this I should have on other cases but it’s not that simple. We have to work around the Secret Service. They send in the advance team to go over a proposed route and it takes all their attention just to keep the President on it. We can’t step on their toes, it’s politics. We’ve notified them but—”

  “We’ve even thought of staging our own assassination attempt,” said the partner, “to bolster the President’s popularity. But if anybody found out—”

  “So far we’ve been able to keep the incidents down to a minimum. But they can strike at any time.” He looked at me.

  I didn’t want to give in too easily.

  “Or,” he went on, “you can forfeit access to your assets, submit to an investigation of your finances and face charges of conspiring to blackmail an elected official. These things are already in motion. We’ll certainly testify that as far as we know you’ve been cooperative. Up to a point.”

  He had a lawyer’s knack of saying something catastrophic without noticeably changing his tone.

  “And if we do cooperate you’ll release everything to us,” said Alberta.

  “If the investigation leads anywhere we’d certainly be inclined in that direction.”

  “Will you put that in writing?” I said.

  “No.”

  “Of course we’ll do it, won’t we Wordy.”

  “We know you want to do the right thing, Wordsworth.”

  “Your country comes first, Wordsworth.”

  I mean where was the exit? Do you see an exit?

  “And what suggestions did you think you might have?” I said.

  “We do have some suspects.”

  He pulled down a screen and the lights went out, a slide projector purred and the image of a frowning white-haired man, close up and almost aware of being photographed, snapped into place. Sober he looked like he was in pain.

  “Dr. Oskar Finkle. Confidant of the First Lady and several high-ranking members of the administration. We can make him at most of the incidents—”

  Slides of Finkle in audiences and crowds, a dark circle around his face; at banquet tables; walking with Mrs. President and looking especially evil as he ducks around a corner for a real drink, peers out.

  “—and when he isn’t on hand one or another or his ‘patients’ always is.”

  A party organizer, a civil servant, a staff member. Familiar faces in large groups, in backgrounds. Norman.

  “Keep in mind that we’re not looking for one contact. If the Russians are involved we’re facing a network. And Finkle’s roots”—he looked at us pointedly—“are East European.”

  He turned to the screen. “Norman Prodwurst. Obscure beginnings. Got his start in small-town party politics and rose mysteriously to the position of Press Officer on the First Lady’s staff. We don’t know how he managed it.”

  Full-face, the weak-eyed defeated look suggested a history of brainwashing and indoctrination. The boil made you squirm. At an angle, wiping his nose and appearing to whisper to someone, he looked sneaky, unAmerican.

  “Could be him,” I said.

  The screen went blank and unbearably bright as empty slots flicked past, then a passport snap of Keesh in light unflattering to his complexion. Apparently intuiting this he affects a dead-eyed mug-shot look.

  “Christopher ‘Keesh’ Larain. The First Lady’s hairdresser. Accompanies her to many of her appearances and has been on set for several of the President’s accidents.”

  Keesh with Mrs. President. Keesh at a reception standing too close to people. Keesh in beside the President for the benefit of the camera, striking a posing-strap stance.

  “Guy’s a mo,” said the partner.

  “We know that the international homosexual movement is largely underground. We don’t know exactly how it ties in with the administration.”

  Keesh at a cocktail party giving the camera a burnt-out-rock-star look. Keesh with his hand on—

  “Now, we don’t like this. We don’t like this one bit.”

  —Fes’s shoulder. File shots of Fes looking like a robot on recharge. Front, profile.

  “Festus Trent,” sighed Lewman. “Two years in the Secret Service. Clean record. Good steady man. Of course he’d have to be.”

  Aerial shot of The Arc, Fes sunbathing on the rear deck, stretched out in a chaise longue, Keesh sitting a little too close.

  “One of our own. I mean he’s not FBI, but all the same.”

  “Kind of customer you don’t want to swap fluids with,” said the partner.

  “Sounds thin,” I said. “I don’t think this guy is up to political intrigue. He moves his lips when he watches TV.”

  “Exactly. He may be the weak link in our system. Who knew you were going to record the President when you went to the White House? Who had access to the Office? And,” he said, “we have this.”

  Slide of Fes on one knee tying his shoe. Slide of Fes rising and moving on, and you can see he’s in Lafayette Square across from the White House. On the bench behind him Gora Smard looks away, her shopping bags on the ground between her and Fes.

  “Gora Smard, real name Smardovich. SVR contact in Washington for four years, maybe more. Took us a while to make her.”

  Slide. Gora giving passers-by an I-am-not-in-full-control-of-my-functions look. And indeed, though the Square is the biggest gay-lonelyhearts-cum-drug-mart south of the West Village, no one sits on her bench.

  “We didn’t see him drop anything.”

  It made a certain sense of course. She looked Russian.

  Slide. Someone is sitting there, a fat man with a wart on the side of his nose. They do not acknowledge one another.

  “Colonel Blotskie, SVR. They do this every Thursday.”

  Slide. Blotskie leans over a bag as he gets up, something blurry falling in.

  “Guess what it is. We took that this morning.”

  Lights. The machine went off.

  “That’s what we’ve got.”

  “I wish you’d left our pictures in,” Alberta said. “If they’re as good as these I’d like some enlargements.”

  “You know these people, Wordsworth. And they won’t know you’re working for us. We’re holding your funds pending an investigation of
your activities, period. That’s not a bad cover.”

  “We’ll give you a phone number,” said the partner. “That’l1 be our contact. Don’t call any other number and don’t come here.”

  “If we need you we’ll just pick up the telephone and talk into our wire tap,” said Alberta. “If that isn’t perfectly convenient I’m sure you’ll let us know.”

  “Look,” I said, “have you given any thought to the possibility that the person behind these attempts to embarrass the President might be the Vice President?”

  Lewman laughed. His partner laughed. They laughed together.

  “Wordsworth, that isn’t even funny.”

  “We don’t do that kind of thing.”

  “We don’t spy on the country’s leaders, Wordsworth.”

  “Had some bad experiences with that.”

  “We do a background investigation before the election, that’s as far as we go.”

  “We haven’t fooled around with that kind of thing since Hoover.”

  “The CIA does that kind of thing. Not us.”

  “The Vice President is the Second Chief Executive of the country, Wordsworth.”

  “Don’t even think about it.”

  16.

  “Mr. President, are we giving in to the Russians on the question of reducing our second-strike capability?”

  “Well, Belton, I don’t think it’s a question of giving in. If we can get them to agree to let us go in there and monitor what they’ve got that will be a major concession.”

  “Can we do that?”

  “We’re working on it.”

  “Let’s come to the economy, sir. How long can we go without some attention to this new deficit?”

  “We are giving attention to the deficit, Belton. We have several revisions of the corporate tax structure before Congress and the investment schedule of the Federal Reserve is under review—”

  “Well, forgive me, Mr. President, but we have heard those answers before and, well, the word is that your allies in Congress are puzzled by your recent inactivity. You’ve stopped signing bills again.”

  “Well that’s the President’s prerogative, Belton. If I’m not altogether in agreement I can withhold my signature. That is my privilege.”

  “It doesn’t indicate, then, that you have no real sense of direction? Your administration isn’t in trouble?”

  “That’s what taking responsibility means, Belton. Finding yourself in trouble.”

  “I see. Yes. Well then how do you respond to charges that your leadership is foundering?”

  “Well of course there are always people around who are going to pronounce against you, Belton, if the media give them a chance—”

  “Yes but the interesting thing here is that it’s members of your own party who are saying this. You have been described variously by people in the government as, and I’m quoting now, sir, a limp-dick and a species of cementhead. It has been said by some of your own aides that you couldn’t find your ass with a mirror.”

  “Well I think those are a little exaggerated, Belton—”

  “Coming back to the question of the economy, Mr. President, what’s really being challenged is your grasp of the issues. Do you know what the Dow-Jones Industrial Average is?”

  “Well—” He looked around as if for prompters. “The last time I checked—I don’t think I’d better guess, Belton. I don’t want to start a panic.” He smiled.

  “No, I mean exactly what does it consist of, sir? How do you define it?”

  “Well, it’s the—it’s the average of the major companies’ output, isn’t it?”

  “The numerical value?”

  “That’s right—”

  “Sort of a numerological procedure. And there you have confirmation of my theory,” said Belton to the camera, “that the average Joe, if you’ll pardon the expression, Mr. President, doesn’t know what the Dow-Jones Industrial Average means.”

  “Heh heh. I do know. I know what it is.”

  “Just can’t put it into words I guess, sir. Um, on the question of numerology, are you superstitious, Mr. President? Can we address this?”

  He smiled. “Well I suppose everybody’s superstitious in some way, Belton.”

  “Rumor has it, sir, that you’ve engaged a palm-reader to help you with some of your decisions.”

  “Heh heh. Yes, I’ve heard that rumor. It seems everything it’s possible to say becomes a rumor sooner or later. I don’t have to tell you that, Belton.”

  “Mr. President, are you specifically denying that you’ve engaged a palmist?”

  “No, I’m not saying that, Belton. We’ve had a palmist at the White House”—there was a gasp from the audience but this was a taped interview and the President didn’t hear it—“at my wife’s suggestion. She has a lively curiosity about all sorts of things.”

  “Does the First Lady really play a role in your policy decisions, Mr. President?”

  “She’s an invaluable adviser, Belton. The President should never overlook the opinion of any citizen, no matter how close or far away.”

  “It is true though that she likes people to call her Mrs. President. She’s not the real President, is she?”

  The President laughed.

  “There hasn’t been a coup at the White House?”

  They both smiled.

  “I think we’re pretty safe there, Belton.”

  “But, Mr. President, you must be aware that there is a tape recording of one of your meetings with your—palmist. Word Wallace is his name; he’s been on this program.”

  The President shrugged. “I guess it’s possible.”

  “Would you mind if we played a little of that now and got your comments? We have it here with us.”

  The President didn’t move. His eyes read over some internal script looking for a line.

  He smiled. “Belton, is this really on the main issues? You know, anybody can work a tape. Someone at a party imitating the President—”

  “So you’re saying, sir, that this isn’t your voice on the tape.”

  “No. I don’t want to say that! I mean I don’t know! I don’t know what you’ve got there!”

  “Well it’s a tape, sir.”

  “Are you trying to ambush the President, Belton? This wasn’t mentioned in the agenda!”

  “Would you prefer us to play it in your absence, sir, when you’re not there to comment?”

  “I understood that we’d be talking about things of interest to the American people—”

  “You don’t think a conversation between the President of the United States and a fortune-teller is of interest to the American people, Mr. President?”

  “Well, I—I mean I certainly—”

  “Would you prefer that we destroy the tape, Mr. President?”

  There were calls of “No!” from the audience, of necessity inaudible to the President, though he seemed to hear them. He swallowed heavily as a boom box was handed to Belton, who pressed a switch and worked the volume.

  “Word, I—This is not my—I can’t do this, Word! This is wrong, it’s wrong!” Heavy breathing, tears being sniffed back. “Word! That’s it! That’s it! I’m not the President!” He seemed buoyed by the insight. “I’m not the President! Somebody else must be President!”

  Belton turned it off. Two silences. The President’s, the audiences’s.

  “Well, Mr. President?”

  “Was that me? I have no recollection of that conversation.”

  “That seems possible, sir.”

  The frame shrank and the tense face-on protocol of the presidential interview relaxed into the swivel-chair informality of The Haines Report.

  “And that’s the way it was yesterday in the Oval Office with the President refusing to acknowledge his voice on the tape. That was a piece of our report on his first months in office that aired last night at nine, eight central and mountain, and with me now in the studio is Word Wallace, the Wisconsin Street Wonder and palmist to the President. Well, Word
, you heard it. Are you going to sit there in front of America and deny that was the President’s voice?”

  “Well first of all, Belton, let me congratulate you on a first-class piece of jornalism. Good work. It may be a while before you’re asked back to the White House, though.”

  “Well, you never know. Was that the President, Word?”

  “Well as you know, Belton, I can’t make any comment whatever on that tape.”

  “You can’t?”

  “Of course not. If I do deny that’s the President you could then confront me with another tape that I would either have to confirm or refuse to comment on, which by then would be the same thing. I simply refrain from comment altogether.”

  “Secrets of the confessional, is that it?”

  “It’s a matter of professional ethics, Belton. I know you’ll understand.”

  “You don’t think the American people have a right to know?”

  “The American people are being served by a good President. A caring President.”

  “Word, you’ve been seen going in and out of the Oval Office over a period of weeks. Did you read the President’s palm?”

  “Well again, Belton, it would be breaching confidentiality to answer either way. But I am able to say that the President was humoring the First Lady by seeing me, and that he asked all the questions.”

  “Whatever they were. Sounds to me like he’s crumbling under the pressure of the office. I would say that’s a man having a nervous breakdown.”

  “Well let’s hope his hair doesn’t fall out too, Belton. By the way, let me compliment you on a really smooth-looking rug. I could never have told.”

  “You know, I hate to tempt fate like this, Word, but I am still here.”

  “Touch wood, Belton.”

  “What happened to your prediction?”

  “You get that sometimes.”

  “Want to take another shot?”

  “I’m not sure that would nourish your spirit.”

  “Just for science.”

  “The clean future, Belton. Don’t ask.”

  “Were you worried about me?”

  “Your whole life passed before my eyes.”

  “Word, does the most important man in the world have a crack in his pool?”

  “Well, it depends on what you mean by that, Belton! I mean what do you want from the guy?”