Absorbed though he was, Collins was acutely sensitive to
sound. Now, in the stillness of the huge seventy-foot office, he could hear the brush of her footsteps on the thick Oriental rug. He looked up from his two stacks of papers to see Marion Rice, his secretary, coming hastily toward him from her adjacent office. She was holding up a large manila envelope,
‘Just came in - hand-delivered - from across the street,’ she said.
Across the street meant across Pennsylvania Avenue -the J. Edgar Hoover Building and the FBI and the FBI Director.
‘It’s marked Confidential and Important,’ she added. ‘It must be from the Director.’
‘Odd,’ said Collins. ‘He usually has everything in before noon.’
She handed the manila envelope across the desk to him, and hesitated. ‘Unless there’s something else, Mr Collins, I’ll be leaving now.’ He was surprised. ‘What time is it?’ ‘Twenty after six.’
‘My God. I’m not even half through yet. I shouldn’t have let that writer fellow take up so much of my time.’ He thought about it. ‘Well, maybe it was useful. He was interesting.’ Ruefully, he looked down at the first stack on his desk. ‘I guess I’ll have to take most of this home. Okay, Marion, you can lock up and go.’
‘You’ll have no more time for work now. Don’t forget, you have a dinner date tonight, seven fifteen, the White House.’
He grimaced. ‘That may be work, too.’ She still hesitated, and then a reticent smile surfaced on her plain, elongated face. ‘I just want to say, Mr Collins, congratulations on your first week’s anniversary as Attorney General. We’re all happy you’re here. Good night.’ ‘Good night, Marion. I appreciate that.’ After she had gone, and he was quite alone, he considered the large manila envelope that Marion had given him. There was rarely good news from the FBI these days, so it was with reluctance that he unsealed the package. He withdrew what appeared to be a half dozen pages
of typed statistics. Attached to them was a covering letter, a handwritten note really. From the crabbed hand already familiar to him, from the erratic punctuation (mostly dashes), the impatient abbreviations, he knew that the note had been written by Director Vernon T. Tynan even before the signature confirmed it. His curiosity aroused, Collins began reading the note.
Dear Chris -
Heres the latest figures on last months nat’l crime statistics - the worst yet by far -the worst in our history - I’m sending a copy to the Pres and one to you so that you get it before we see the Pres tonight. Note the jump in murders, riots, armed robbery, interstate kidnapping. See my addendum on leads to probable conspiracies and organized revolutionaries - we’re really in a stew and we’ll be cooked, and the only thing that can pull us out is final passage of the 35th Amend - pray for it tonight. I already had these latest statistics phoned in to legislators in Albany, NY, and Columbus, O, so they know the true situation before they vote tonight. Hate to give you this terrible report, but feel its vital you are up to date before seeing the Pres. This is in rough form - will check it out thoroughly before making it public tomorrow - see you at the TV dinner in a few hours.
Best,
Vernon
Folding back Tynan’s note, Collins glanced through the Uniform Crime Reports, slowly turning the pages. In the past month, compared with the previous month, violent crimes, including murder, had gone up 18 per cent, forcible rape had gone up 15 per cent, robbery and aggravated assault up 30 per cent, riots up 20 per cent.
He laid down Tynan’s pages. He went over some other statistics in his own mind. Because of this growing lawlessness, prisons were filled to bursting. Five years earlier, there had been two million persons, at one time or another, in the 250 major prisons and reformatories in a given year. Despite
a stepped-up effort to put the lid on lawbreakers, despite the 45,000 lawyers and FBI agents working for the Department of Justice, despite three special divisions of Army troops assigned to domestic control by the Pentagon, despite the 22 billion dollars that wouid be spent on law enforcement this year (it had been only 31/2 billion in 1960), the crime rate continued to spiral upward. The cancer could no longer be kept in remission by force, it seemed. In another year it might be terminal, heralding the death of organized society.
He sat back in his chair, hands and fingertips together on his chest, as if in prayer. It was the darkest period in American history since the Civil War, of this he was certain. Anarchy and terror dominated every new day. When you woke in the morning, you did not know whether you would see the night. When you went to sleep at night, you did not know whether you would wake in the morning. Every day when he kissed Karen good-bye before going to work, he felt the frightening uncertainty that he might not find her (and the child she was carrying) alive when he came home.
He felt the invisible fist of fear grip his stomach. It was not the first time. Momentarily, his thoughts shrank from the chaos in the streets beyond his window to personal pity for himself. Certainly, he - he and Tynan - had the worst, most hopeless, jobs on earth.
Self-pity led to morbid self-fascination. Then why had he, Christopher Collins - thoughtful, self-effacing, withdrawn, sometimes selfish (he could be objective, too) - taken this impossible job as the nation’s number one law-enforcement officer and the head of the nation’s largest law firm?
Had he come here, without passionate convictions (except, as Ishmael Young had suggested, that democratic society had to be restructured) or solutions, because of a desire for power? Or had it been for ego gratification? Or had it been to fulfill a patriotic duty? Or had it been from a chivalrous feeling that he could do some good? Or had it been that he was the victim of a masochistic, even suicidal, strain in his make-up?
He did not know. At least, not tonight.
An then he heard his telephone ringing. He spun to his left, facing the oak cabinet on which rested the bank of
buttons, and saw that his personal button (for Karen, for friends, as distinct from other buttons for the President, the Director, his Deputy, Ed Schrader) was fighting up.
He lifted the receiver. ‘Collins here.’
‘Darling. I hope I’m not interrupting something … ‘ It was Karen’s voice.
‘No, no. I was just going through some last-minute things. How are you, honey?’
She didn’t answer directly. She said, I know we’re going to dinner tonight. I wanted to check on the time your driver is picking me up. Is it seven?’
‘A quarter to seven. You’ll be meeting me at seven. We’re due at the White House fifteen minutes after that. The President wants us to be on time. We’re all watching the TV specials from New York and Ohio. Are you dressed?’
‘I’m dressed underneath. And all made up. I just have to slip into something. What’s it going to be like? Can I wear the red knit?’
‘Wear whatever is casual. His secretary said this was going to be very informal.’
‘I guess the red knit will do. It’s almost the last time I can wear it before my stomach starts showing.’
‘Any action today?’
“Where? Oh, you mean there. A few tentative kicks.’
‘Good. The Redskins need a punter. You still haven’t told me - how are you otherwise?’
‘I’m fine, I guess. All things considered.’
‘What things considered?’ He knew, but he had to ask anyway.
‘Well, you know how I feel about those big protocol affairs. I’ve been to the White House with you only once, that time in the State Dining Room when we went with the Baxters. That was bad enough. But this one - you said this one was a small affair, intimate - that’s doubly scary. I won’t know what to say.’
‘You won’t have to say a darn thing. We’ll all be watching television.’
‘Why do you have to be there? What’s so important about you being there?’
‘Don’t you remember? I told you this morning.’
‘I’m sorry -‘
‘Never mind. I’ll tell you again. First o
f all, the President wants me there. That’s reason enough. In the second place, I am the Attorney General - and the 35th Amendment is up for a crucial vote tonight, and that falls in my province. I’m supposed to be very interested. There are special late sessions of the New York and Ohio lower houses tonight, being televised live, and since two of the three states that haven’t voted yet are voting tonight - and only two more states are needed to pass the 35th and make it part of the Constitution - this is a big deal. Is that clear?’
‘Yes, I understand. Don’t be angry with me, Chris. I just didn’t realize so much was going on tonight.’ She paused. ‘Do you want it to pass? I’ve read some bad things about it’
‘So have I, honey. I don’t know. I really don’t know what’s right. The Amendment can be good if good people are running the country. It can be bad if there are bad people. I can only say, if it passes, it’ll make my job easier.’
‘Then I hope it passes.’ But her voice carried no conviction.
‘Well, as they say in the mysterious Mideast - what is to be, will be. Let’s just eat the President’s food and look and listen.’ He checked the time. ‘You’d better get into the red knit. The driver’ll be there any second. Love you. See you soon.’
After hanging up, placing one stack of papers in the Out tray on his desk, stuffing the rest into his briefcase, he sat thinking of Karen. He was sorry he had been even passingly gruff with her. She deserved better, his best. He knew the evening ahead would be an ordeal for her. She had been against the change from the start, against the job as Deputy Attorney General, against the move from his private practice in Los Angeles to public office in Washington, and even more vehemently against the Cabinet post as Attorney General.
While she was not outspoken generally, and pretended to be apolitical, he knew where Karen stood. It had all come up before he entered the Justice Department. She did not like or trust the people he would be associated with, from
President Wadsworth to Director Tynan. Furthermore, she had tried to tell him, it was a loser’s job. For all the importance he would have, in the end he would be a scapegoat. The country was going rapidly downhill, and he’d be at the wheel. Nor did she like the business of his office. Above all, Karen did not want to live in a fishbowl, did not want the forced friendships and socializing and the nakedness before the news media demanded by his position. They were newly married then - the second time for each - only two years married now, and here she was in her fourth month of pregnancy, and she wanted only closeness, privacy, bliss, and she did not want to share him.
He rose from his chair with the resolve to be by her side all evening, no matter how difficult that proved, and to be kind. He stretched to his entire stringy six feet two, until he could hear his bones crack. He briefly considered his cadaverous - but not unhandsome - visage and rumpled dark hair in the mirror, and then he saw that the limousine would arrive in twelve minutes. He started for his private sitting room, beyond his secretary’s office, to wash and change, wondering all the while whether it would be a momentous and memorable night.
*
When their Cadillac limousine drove through the open gate in the black iron fence along Pennsylvania Avenue and entered the curving White House driveway, Collins could see that a great number of news people were on the lawn across from the north facade, with their lighting equipment turned on and waiting.
Mike Hogan, the FBI agent who was his bodyguard, twisted around in the front seat and asked, ‘Do you want to talk to them, Mr Collins?’
Collins squeezed Karen’s hand and said, ‘Not if I can help it. Let’s go right inside.’
Once they had left the car at the North Portico, Collins was affably noncommittal with the press. Taking Karen’s arm, he hurried after Hogan toward the White House entrance. He answered only one question before they went inside.
A television newscaster called out to him, “We hear you’re going to be watching television tonight. How do you think it’ll come out?’
Collins called back, ‘We’ll be watching a rerun of Gone with the Wind. I think the North will win.’
Inside, two surprises awaited him.
He had expected the gathering to take place in the Red Room, or in one of the smaller entertaining rooms located upstairs, but instead he and Karen were escorted to the Cabinet Room in the West Wing. He had expected thirty or forty people to be on hand, but there proved to be only a dozen or so besides Karen and himself.
Along the wall that faced the green draperies covering the French doors that led to the White House Rose Garden, near the shelves of books, a large color television console had been installed. Several persons were standing watching the picture on the screen, although the audio had been turned dov/n low. Half the black leather-covered chairs around the long, shining dark Cabinet table (which suggested to Collins a coffin lid for the Cardiff Giant) had been turned to face the television set. On the opposite side of the table, beneath the Great Seal set in the east wall and between the United States flag and the Presidential flag, President Andrew Wadsworth was engaged in an animated conversation with the Senate and House majority leaders and their wives.
Although Collins had been in the Cabinet Room a half dozen times before - five times as Deputy Attorney General substituting for ailing Attorney General Baxter, and earlier this week as Attorney General himself - the room seemed suddenly unfamiliar to him. This was because it had been rearranged, with many of the chairs moved away from the Cabinet table to be nearer the television set. At the far end of the table, before the Gilbert Stuart portrait of Washington hanging over the mantelpiece, hors d’oeuvres were being kept warm in gleaming copper chafing dishes set on a green cloth and supervised by a chef in a jaunty white hat. The
staid room had been transformed, by informal disarray, into oversized, comfortable play quarters.
As Collins, with Karen clutching his arm, surveyed the scene, the President’s chief aide, McKnight, hurried forward to welcome them. Quickly, they were taken on the rounds of the Cabinet Room, to meet either again or for the first time Vice-President Frank Loomis and his wife; Miss Ledger, the President’s personal secretary; Ronald Steedman, the President’s private pollster from the University of Chicago; Secretary of the Interior Martin; then the Congressional leaders and their wives, and then President Wadsworth himself.
The President, a slight, dapper man, suave and urbane, almost courtly, with dark hair graying at the temples, a pointed nose, a receding chin, took Karen’s hand, shook Collins’, and was at once apologetic. ‘Martha’ - he was referring to the First Lady - ‘is so disappointed she won’t be here tonight to get to know you better. She’s in bed with a touch of the flu. Oh, she’ll be all right. There’ll be a next time…. Well, Chris, it looks like a happy evening.’
‘I hope so, Mr President,’ said Collins. ‘What do you hear?’
‘As you know, the state Senates in New York and Ohio ratified the 35th early yesterday. Now we’re entirely in the hands of the New York Assembly and the Ohio House. Immediately after yesterday’s votes, Steedman had his teams of pollsters swarming over Albany and Columbus, buttonholing state legislators. Ohio looks like a cinch. Steedman has the figures, and they’re impressive. New York is a little more iffy. It could go either way. Most of the legislators polled were Undecided or No Comment, but among those who did reply, there’s been a definite gain over the last poll. It looks favorable. Also, I think Vernon’s latest FBI statistics - Hello, Vernon.’
Director Vernon T. Tynan had joined them, occupying all empty space, a formidable presence. He was shaking the President’s hand, Collins’ hand, complimenting Karen on her appearance.
‘I was just saying, Vernon,’ the President resumed in his vibrant voice, ‘those figures you sent over an hour ago, they
should have great impact in Albany. I’m glad you got them in on time.’
‘It wasn’t easy,’ said Tynan. ‘It took a lot of hustle. But you’re right. They should help. Ronald Steedman seems less cer
tain. I just had a word with him. Based on his projection, Ohio should be in our corner, but he feels New York is up in the air. He doesn’t seem too confident there.’
‘Well, I’m confident,’ said the President. ‘Two hours from now we’ll have thirty-eight out of fifty states, and a new amendment to the Constitution. After that, we’ll have the means of preserving this country, if it ever becomes necessary.’
Collins nodded in the direction of the television set across the table. ‘When does it start, Mr President?’
‘Ten or fifteen minutes. They’re just warming up with some background.’
‘I think we’ll have a look,’ said Collins. ‘And a drink as well.’
As he guided Karen away, he realized that Tynan remained in step beside him. ‘I think I can use a drink, too,’ said Tynan.
They went silently toward the end of the Cabinet table where the President’s valet, Charles, was supervising the drinks over his rows of glasses and bottles, an ice bucket, and a champagne cooler.
Tynan looked past Collins at Karen. ‘How do you feel, Mrs Collins? Are you feeling okay these days?’
Surprised, Karen raised her hand to smooth her short blond hair, then automatically lowered it to touch her loose chain belt. ‘I’ve never felt better, thank you.’
‘Good, good to hear that,’ said Tynan.
After Collins had got a glass of champagne and some caviar on a wedge of toast for his wife and a Scotch and water for himself, and started her toward two empty chairs in front of the television set, he felt her tug at his sleeve. He inclined his head toward her.
‘Did you hear that?’ she whispered.
‘What?’
‘Tynan. His sudden concern about how I feel - if I’m
feeling okay. He was practically telling us, in his own way, that he knows I’m pregnant.’
Collins seemed confused. ‘He can’t know. No one knows.’
(1976) The R Document Page 2