By Order of the President

by Kilian, Michael;

  “It’ll take both of us to persuade him.”

  “It’ll take more than that.”

  “We’ll fly him down the most luxurious whore in New York. A countess from the Hamptons. Someone featured in W magazine.”

  “Maybe one of those ladies who’s been on the cover of Embassy Row magazine. But you’ll have to persuade him of the logic of this as well. When he’s sober, you know, he’s still one of the shrewdest guys on the Hill.”

  “Entendu.”

  Jackson munched a large bite of steak. “And that’s not all he’ll want.”

  “What else?” said Rollins, slightly irritated.

  “The president.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “It’s going to take a call from the president. Private. Direct to Meathead.”

  “A personal call.”

  “He’ll insist on it. He will, Andy. It has to be. Otherwise he’ll think it’s just you guys screwing around.”

  “Okay.”

  “You’re sure? A call from the president?”

  “How about this afternoon?”

  “He may be asleep.”

  “Well, wake him up, damn it. It’ll be the president of the United States.”

  My sorrow—I could not awaken

  My heart to joy at the same tone—

  And all I loved—I loved alone—

  Then—in my childhood, in the dawn

  Of a most stormy life—was drawn

  From every depth of good and ill

  The mystery which binds me still—

  From the torrent, or the fountain—

  From the red cliff of the mountain—

  From the sun that round me rolled

  In its autumn tint of gold—

  From the lightning in the sky

  As it pass’d me flying by—

  From the thunder and the storm—

  And the cloud that took the form

  When the rest of Heaven was blue

  Of a demon in my view.

  Charley Dresden was again in his old velvet chair, again watching the arrival of dawn, again drinking wine. But in reciting aloud, he had disturbed the peace. He heard Charlene move from the bed. In a moment she appeared in the doorway, barefoot, but otherwise wrapped in a robe.

  “What were you saying?” she said.

  “I was reciting a poem. Edgar Allan Poe.”

  “Edgar Allan Poe. ‘The Raven.’”

  “‘Tis some visitor,’ I muttered, ‘tapping at my chamber door—Only this and nothing more.’” He shook his head. “No. The poem I was reciting is titled ‘Alone.’”

  She went to the chair opposite him, seating herself demurely. She was extraordinarily beautiful, even when unkempt. Perhaps especially when unkempt. It brought out her inherent wildness.

  “You’re not alone,” she said. “I’m back.”

  “For now.”

  “For a long time. I got the resort account in Monterey.”

  “You’re hiring on as the fellow’s flack.”

  “I’m hiring on to nothing. He’s an account, a client. And I’m going to have more. As of today, I’m a public relations agency.”

  “Do you want to use my office?”

  She shook her head firmly. “I’m going to have my own office. I’m going to get one today.”

  He smiled, indulgently, the parent of a superambitious child.

  “I mean it, Charley. I’m going into business. On my own.”

  “Estupendo.”

  “Don’t speak Spanish.”

  “Sorry.”

  “You’re sitting here naked again, drinking wine, in the morning.”

  “The last scant edge of night. It’s the most pleasant part of the day.”

  “The rest of the day might be more pleasant if you didn’t start off with drinking.”

  “I hear nagging. It must be Mrs. Mercredes next door.”

  “It’s me, Charley. You got drunk last night.”

  “There’s not a person in Tiburcio who doesn’t get drunk once in a while, including you.”

  “Nobody else shoots holes in their walls.”

  Dresden glanced up at the ceiling corner.

  “I’ve done that before.”

  “I know. And I’ve left you before. Charley, I don’t want to live with a man who gets drunk and plays around with guns.”

  “Okay.”

  “I mean it, Charley.”

  “Okay.”

  They sat. Charlene rubbed her eyes and then looked down at her hands. She glanced at him. He was seated very elegantly in his nakedness, legs crossed, wine glass held as though in preparation for a toast. She started to speak, but didn’t. The morning light had brightened some by the time she finally did.

  “How did you make out in San Francisco? Isabel said you went up to the city.”

  “I don’t know,” he said. “They had nothing on the air last night.”

  “Why don’t you give it a rest, Charley?” He had never seen her expression so earnest, or unhappy.

  “I told you why.”

  “It doesn’t matter that people think you’re a screwball?”

  “I know I’m not.”

  “Charley.”

  “You once told me I was the most unusual man you’d ever met, that I was a very special person.

  “You are.”

  “You topped it off by saying you loved me.”

  “Maybe I do.” She looked down at her hands again, then directly up into his eyes. “I mean to be a respectable woman, Charley. A very respectable, adult, sensible woman. No more Tahoe. No more on the bum.”

  “You’ve said that before.”

  “I mean it. Don’t screw things up for me.”

  He sipped his wine, gazing at her over the rim of his glass. “Do you want to move out?”

  “No, Charley. I don’t want that at all. That’s why I’m so goddamn unhappy.”

  Jenks did not call until long after Charlene, still angry with him, had left for Santa Linda. Dresden had fallen asleep in his chair.

  “Your phone rang nine times,” Jenks said. “I was going to give up on you.”

  “Maybe you should. I’ve had a half gallon of wine for breakfast.”

  Jenks paused, then sighed. “We ain’t gonna no way do an editorial about what you got to say.”

  “That’s your privilege.”

  “The general manager’s decree. A matter of the majesty of the presidential office. The good news is that I can get you on the air with what you have to say anyway.”

  “On the newscast?”

  “No. I guess this comes under bad news. In any event, what I can get you on is ‘The Jimmy Moon Show.’”

  “Malchiste,” Dresden said, using the Spanish term for bad joke. “The Jimmy Moon Show” was so notoriously sensational it made the “Phil Donahue Show” seem like a BBC documentary. Moon had actually once had Siamese twins on to discuss their sex lives.

  “No joke,” said Jenks. “They want you, amigo. I think they’d like to have you on tonight.”

  “Malchiste el grande.”

  “It’s all I can do.”

  Dresden stared at his bare feet. If even his mistress was going to think him a screwball, he might as well be a famous one.

  “Tell them I’ll do it.”

  “They’re having their morning meeting right now. It’ll be an hour or more before they’re done. Where can the nice producer lady reach you?”

  “I’ll be at my office. Fast as I can.”

  He arrived in his very best vested suit, a dark gray pinstripe he had bought at Brooks Brothers in Philadelphia on a business trip several years before. He also wore an actual, pressed, nonwash-and-wear blue shirt and a dark, striped guards tie. Isabel was very impressed.

  “New client?” she asked.

  “No such luck. I think I’m going to be on television tonight.”

  “Well, your old client, Mr. Bolger of the amusement park, has already called twice. He said he would like an expr
ession of interest from you as to whether you would like to continue with his account. Freddy the pizza man would like his radio spots. Novak called from Channel Three. The Press-Journal real estate ad section would like its money. Frank’s Used Cars would like to buy some TV movie time. And the police sergeant called and said he really does have a warrant.”

  “How nice. I’m going to San Francisco. It looks like I’m going to be on ‘The Jimmy Moon Show.’”

  “Terrific. I watch it all the time. Are you going to wear a dress?”

  “Ho ho. Anything in the mail?”

  “Two bills and yet another invitation to join the Chamber of Commerce.”

  “Sooner the Elks. Did those two mysterious gentlemen show up again?”

  “So to speak. I saw one of them sitting in a car when I pulled up this morning. Maybe they’re process servers.”

  “A process server would have served me by now.” He went to the door and opened it slightly. “What kind of car?”

  “I don’t know. Chevy, I guess. Dark blue.”

  “No such car there now.”

  The phone rang. It was Freddy of Freddy’s Pizza. Dresden shook his head and Isabel muttered something pleasant, hanging up. The next call was from Mr. Bolger. Dresden shook his head twice as hard. The third call was from Channel Six in San Francisco. Dresden leaped for the phone.

  The “producer lady” sounded young, breathless, excited, and deferential. He supposed she was that way with all the show’s guests, including sexually active Siamese twins. The requirements were simple. His would be a twenty-minute segment. He and Moon would talk about his tape, view the tape, and then take questions from the studio audience and those at home. Though the program aired at midnight, the taping would be at three-thirty that afternoon. Could he please arrive at three? He could.

  “Do you need to pat my fanny?” Isabel asked after he got off the phone.

  “I’m still going on yesterday’s luck,” he said. “I don’t want to empty the well.” He picked up his briefcase and started out the door, then hesitated. “On second thought, maybe I better. You know how the MG hates going to San Francisco.”

  She stood up, smiling. “After this, Charley, you get back to work, okay?”

  The MG behaved itself, and Dresden was able to reach the studio well before three. He thought of stopping for a drink to bolster his nerves, but dismissed the idea. He needed to appear as sober and responsible as possible.

  Jenks was in a meeting and not available. The station receptionist rang up the young woman Dresden had talked to and she appeared a few minutes later. A tall, starved, nervous stick of a girl, attractive, but wearing very thick glasses, she led him to a windowless room in which sat two others, presumably also guests on the show. One was a man wearing combat fatigues, though no military insignia. The other was a fashionably dressed and very striking woman, or possibly a man dressed as a woman, or possibly a woman who thought of herself as a man dressed as a woman. Charley said nothing to either of them, pretending to rummage through his briefcase.

  Jimmy Moon looked the epitome of a well-dressed hayseed—a man twenty or thirty pounds overweight in obvious places, with a beefy, jowly face, florid complexion, and bristly hair, yet dressed in a stylish, dark brown suit that might have cost a thousand dollars. Like most Californians, he spoke with a midwestern accent, and in fact came from St. Louis. He had a loose, affable manner, but a mind and mouth like a snapping turtle’s bite. His was the highest rated program in its time period in San Francisco.

  He began Charlie’s segment very circumspectly, reminding viewers and his studio audience of the details of the assassination attempt, then in gracious manner introducing Dresden.

  “You are, sir, an advertising executive in Santa Linda?” he said, after Charley had seated himself.

  “Yes,” said Dresden, a trifle nervously. “I’m president of the Dresden Organization. It’s an advertising concern that specializes in television production.”

  “And you’ve had previous experience as a broadcast journalist?”

  “Yes. I was news director at Channel Ten in Santa Cruz, and before that was program director at Channel Three in Santa Linda. I was also …”

  “I just want to establish that you’re an expert on videotape and what shows up on the television screen.”

  “Well, yes, I suppose you can say that.…”

  “And you’ve studied tapes of the assassination attempt at Gettysburg very carefully. Having done so, it’s your belief that it was not a mere attempt but an actual assassination, that President Hampton is not at Camp David but is actually dead. That his aides are perpetrating a monstrous fraud and cover-up on the American people, that our most fundamental governmental institutions are being threatened by an evil cabal …”

  “It’s my opinion, having looked at the tapes, that the president suffered not just one wound, as the surgeon general stated, but two, and that the second one was in all likelihood fatal.”

  “All right, Mr. Dresden, we’ll roll the tape.”

  The screen gave way to images that had not been a significant part of Dresden’s tape—Bonnie Greer meeting her violent end yet once again in living color, in living rooms throughout the Bay Area. Finally, they came to the footage that Tracy Bakersfield had prepared, the slow motion torture of the president receiving his wounds and the pink blobs sailing slowly from his chest into his limousine. The tape stopped in freeze frame, then faded to black.

  “And Mr. Dresden,” said Moon, “you claim that those little pink balls are drops of the president’s blood.”

  “They’re large and pink because, in recording this from the original footage, we—my assistant and I—deliberately turned up the tint and color controls.”

  “Why did you do that, Mr. Dresden?”

  “It exaggerated the size of the droplets and made them more visible. Otherwise, they’d be almost impossible to see on a home receiver. You need a very high resolution television monitor …”

  “Yes. It’s fascinating stuff, Mr. Dresden. Compelling. Riveting. Before we go any further, there’s something I have to ask you. Is it true your father flew war planes for the Nazis?”

  Dresden controlled himself, but only just. “It was my grandfather and it was for the Kaiser, in World War I. He became an American citizen. He was later in the motion picture business.”

  “But a German flier nonetheless?”

  “Yes, but what …”

  “The phones are all lit up and we’d better take a call. Sir or madam, identify yourself and let’s have your question.”

  “Jimmy, this is Marinda Sue in Alviso. What I want to ask Mr. Dresden is this. As everyone knows, President Hampton and the Communists are in league …”

  The remainder of Dresden’s segment, perhaps eleven minutes all told, seemed three hours. When he was finally freed from the set during a commercial break, the man in the camouflage garb taking his place, he felt released from an inquisition. He left the television station as quickly as possible, not stopping to talk with Bill Jenks, rudely pushing past some people in the lobby to reach the revolving door to the street before them. Still hurrying, he moved down the hill till the studio was out of sight, halting finally for a traffic light. He was breathing heavily. In a way, he felt violated.

  The light changed, but he remained at the curb. His breaths came more slowly. He’d been made a fool of, but perhaps that didn’t matter so much. Actually, it didn’t matter at all. What counted was that they had accepted his tape, and in a few short hours would be broadcasting it to hundreds of thousands of homes.

  The tape. He had left his cassette with them. But Tracy had made him another copy.

  After the traffic light again went through its cycle, he crossed the street, striding quickly. Now he could go home to Santa Linda. Tomorrow he would celebrate his triumph at Antoine’s, at lunch. Charley Dresden had put his case on holy television. It would be up to Jim Ireland to disprove it. All television is real until proven otherwise.

&n
bsp; He did not want to go home. A celebratory drink was in order. He turned into the first decent-looking cocktail lounge and ordered himself a large martini. A few sips into it, he had a wonderful idea. He had been trying to work up the courage for it for days. Now was the time. He went to the public telephone.

  “I’m sorry, old buddy,” said Paul Bremmer, once Dresden had located him and explained his need. “I’d do it if I could, but our policy on the confidential phone file here is carved in marble. And that especially goes for the private unlisted home phone numbers of U.S. senators. They fired a copy boy last week for giving out a number.”

  “You’re sure, Paul?”

  “I’m your friend, old buddy, as I think I’ve proved in recent days. But the editor’s a real hard case on this. Why don’t you try to reach Calendiari through his office?”

  “It’s not the senator himself I’m trying to reach.”

  “What?”

  Dresden paused, glancing about the saloon. The damned place was filled with ferns.

  “Paul,” he said. “What about addresses? Do you have a written policy about giving out home addresses?”

  “Well, now that you bring it up, I don’t think I’ve ever seen such a thing. The old man’s hang-up is phone numbers.”

  “I would surely appreciate knowing where the good congressman is now residing.”

  “Hang on and I’ll see what I can find. Uh, friends for life and all that, old buddy, but I might point out that the favor quota for the week is getting kinda full.”

  “Duly noted. In the repayment book.”

  “Hang loose.”

  Within the hour, Dresden was out of the city and grinding the MG up into the hills. Perhaps it was only the martini, but he was feeling in love.

  8

  The house was situated far back among trees on the east side of the mountain road. It had a sweeping view of the Bay and, from the upper windows of its west side, a glimpse of the yellow vales and valleys of San Francisco horse country. Dresden drove past the driveway twice before realizing it was the place. The brand-new black and gray Seville parked in front of the three-car garage made it certain. The license plate bracket bore the name of Anderson Cadillac in Santa Linda. An annual gift from mommy and daddy, no doubt.

  There was a Mercedes-Benz roadster, top down, parked next to the Seville, but it bore no U.S. Senate license plate. Calendiari maintained a local senatorial office in the small bayside city at the foot of the mountain. His winery’s corporate offices were in San Francisco, and his family’s holdings—comprising thousands of acres of vineyards in the Napa and Sonoma valleys—also included a large horse ranch in this country. Dresden hesitated, holding the MG at idle on the crown of the descending drive. He was still uncertain as to which of them he really wanted to see—the powerful senator who could help him press his case about the president’s death, or Madeleine, now so far removed from his life, yet once its dearest treasure. He had last talked to her a little more than two years before. It had not been a happy occasion. There had been tears in her eyes, and anger in her voice—much like their first awful parting years before that, in that so youthful time of theirs in San Francisco. He well remembered the look of shock, anger, disgust, and injured pride when she had stumbled upon his clumsy, disreputable self-indulgence with her roommate in that cluttered kitchen of her hilltop apartment. To him, it had seemed a thoughtless but harmless indiscretion at first, but Maddy had taken it with fierce seriousness, marrying Calendiari not long after. Charley had devoted their subsequent few reunions, chance meetings most of them, to seeking her forgiveness. She had devoted them to withholding it, always behaving very much as Calendiari’s wife.