by Ridge King
“I have just told Matt our proposal. You tell him, Walt.”
The old Republican senator had a raspy voice and spoke sharply.
“I’ve agreed to resign my seat in the Senate,” he said to Matt, “in exchange for your own resignation in the House. “I’ve spoken to the President about this today and will do anything he suggests that will help Sam here get elected.” He grunted, sat back and crossed his legs.
Norwalk touched a button.
“Yes, Mr. President?”
“Put Lowry Smith on.”
“Yes, Mr. President.”
“He’s on the speaker so we can all talk to him,” he said.
“This is Lowry Smith,” a voice said out of the box.
“Thank you for waiting so patiently, Lowry. I have with me Matt Hawkins, Sam Houston St. Clair and Walt Lafitte. We’ve discussed the proposition we’re making to Matt and I want you to tell him how you stand at your end. Go ahead, he can hear you.”
“Matt?”
“Yes, I’m here.”
“I will appoint you to the Senate the minute Walt resigns if you’ll resign that seat in the House. Then I’ll appoint Bill to fill your seat. I’ve opposed you for election, but you know my positions and why I did. That’s politics, just like this. But I have no urge to keep you out of the Senate if by appointing Bill Crampton back to the House I can help St. Clair, even if it costs me my own reelection. Do you understand me?”
“Yes, I understand. Does Crampton know anything about all this?”
“Not from my end,” said Smith.
“No, he doesn’t know a thing about it and won’t until the day you resign and he’s appointed,” said Norwalk.
Matt looked down at the floor. He still had his hands folded in his lap. Everything rushed through his mind at once. He didn’t know how to respond to the men gathered before him, all seeking, bending over backwards to pull him over, offering him a prize he hadn’t envisioned within his grasp for years—all this if he would just say “Yes.”
“I’m that important?” he said, looking up to the President.
“Yes, you are, Matt,” said Norwalk.
“If he quits today and Walt does, too, I’ll have the papers ready to put him in the Senate and Bill in the House tomorrow morning at nine o’clock sharp.”
Norwalk looked from the box back to Matt.
“You heard him, Matt. You’ll go from a nobody congressman-elect to a senator sitting in the new Congress. And you’ll be in the Senate free and clear for the next four years, plenty of time to repair any damage this causes.”
“I see,” said Matt, hesitating. Norwalk saw him sitting on the edge. The slightest push would send him over.
“Walt will resign this very minute to show you we mean what we say. This is no trick, I assure you, no trick whatsoever.”
“I’ve got the letter here,” said Lafitte, pulling it out from inside his coat. “I wrote it this morning after talking to the President. I would be resigning for reasons of failing health, which isn’t far off the mark. I’ll take it to the president of the Senate right this minute if you accept the deal,” he said. “It would be formal as soon as he had it in his hands. All I have to do is fill in the date and time.”
Matt looked at the letter Lafitte held out to him, his future contained in it.
“Gentlemen,” he said, prodding himself to speak to stop their entreaties, “gentlemen, you must give me a little time. I believe in Thurston. I had no idea what the President would say when he called me over. I am utterly overwhelmed by all you’ve thrown at me. I’ve just got to have a little time to myself.”
He seemed to Norwalk emotionally overwrought and close to breaking up. He turned to St. Clair and Lafitte.
“Thank you, gentlemen,” he said. “I believe Matt knows we’re sincere and how we feel about everything. You may go about your business. I’ll be getting back to you later on.”
“Take it, Matt,” said St. Clair as he rose.
“I have a question, Governor,” said Matt.
“Yes?”
“Jack didn’t know anything about this, did he?”
“Nobody knows anything about this except the people in this room and Lowry.”
“You’re a fool if you let this thing slip by you,” added Lafitte with another grunt. As they were leaving, Norwalk spoke to Smith.
“And thank you, Lowry. I’ll be getting back to you one way or another after I’ve given Matt some time to think it over.”
“All right, Mr. President. I’m ready when he is.”
Norwalk cut the connection and looked at Matt. He saw the conflicting emotions of an honest but ambitious man appear on Matt’s face. He’d seen them before, felt them before, though he admitted to himself that he’d seen more men who were ambitious than men who were honest. He felt genuinely sorry for Hawkins. He could feel the emotion burning through his eyes.
“I know this is all somewhat of a shock to you, Matt, but that is the proposition,” he said coldly. “I’ll give you a little time to think about it—I can’t afford to give you much. After all this, I don’t know what else we can do to convince you. If you don’t accept this offer, you can expect complete hostility from my party in your state. They will naturally do everything possible to take your seat in the House if you decide to keep it and vote for Thurston. You’ll be out of Congress in two years, you realize?”
He paused.
“As for your affair with Mrs. Vaughan…” he said, looking down at his desk briefly and fingering his pipe, “I’m not sure just now if we’ll smear you with that, whether we’ll use it at all, I can’t say right now. As things get closer to the third, as the situation in China becomes further prolonged, there’s no saying what we might feel we have to do. But I assure you, this offer will not be repeated at a later date. You’ll have to make up your mind one way or the other. If you decide against us, be assured that your political career will be over after your one term in the House.”
He leaned forward, and said in a soft, fatherly voice, “Matt, you’ll have to learn to live with your compromises as well as your successes, no matter how you come by them.”
“Should I call you?”
“Yes, call me either way you decide. I’ll talk to you myself. You’re finished dealing with Slanetti for the moment. You’re dealing with me.”
Norwalk rose and held out his hand. Matt got up and felt the weakness in his knees and hated himself for his inexperience in life, inexperience in Washington, youth and what he thought was the dullness of his mind. He shook the President’s hand. Norwalk touched a button on his desk and the double doors opened as if by magic. A man was there who stood by to escort him out of the White House.
“Goodbye, Matt,” smiled Norwalk with that same solid, father-like warmth Matt had felt when he first entered the Oval Office. “Let me hear from you soon.”
Matt turned at the door.
“You will, Mr. President. And sir?”
“Yes, Matt?”
“The sandwich. I think it’s oregano, not tarragon.”
“Ahhh,” the President nodded.
Chapter 12
CONFLICTED
An aide handed Matt over to a soldier in a crisp dress uniform who took him to a holding area where people leaving got their cars. He found Jack and Sam waiting in this room.
Things were strained. Jack saw his dad eye Matt suspiciously and bite his lower lip.
“I guess lunch is off,” said Jack.
“I ate a sandwich with the President,” said Matt. “I’m good.”
Jack glanced at his dad and then Matt.
“It’s really awkward being on the outside,” said Jack.
“Better that you are,” said Sam. “Our ride’s here. You coming with me or going with Matt?”
“Go with your dad, Jack. I’ll see you soon.”
Jack nodded and followed his dad outside where they got into the governor’s limo.
Matt was next. He followed them out and took the
White House limo right behind theirs, telling the driver to take him back to the Hilton.
Jack crawled into the limo first, followed by his dad.
“Dad,” he said, completely frustrated.
Sam touched Jack’s knee and nodded toward the driver up front, slightly shaking his head.
“Driver, pull over, will you? We’re going to walk. Just follow behind us till we’ve had enough of the cold air.”
“Yes, Governor.”
The car pulled over and the St. Clairs got out.
“Dad, you’ve got to give me something here.”
“I know it’s tough, son. It’s just that I’m in a pit of quicksand and there’s really not much I can do about it.”
Sam explained quickly about the Keystone File. Jack listened in complete silence.
“I never did like Phil Slanetti,” said Jack.
“Now you know why,” Sam added with a sly knowing smile.
“Yeah.”
“What would you have done if you were me when Norwalk told you?”
Jack shook his head.
“Uh, you’re blowing my mind, Dad. I don’t think I’d have done anything different. What could you do? You can’t just quit in the middle of the process. That gives the victory to Thurston.”
“I’m stuck, right?”
“You’re stuck, whatever you do. Whatever they do. Whatever anybody does.”
“Now, about Hawkins.”
“Yes, tell me about Matt and this meeting.”
Sam filled Jack in on all the particulars: that it appeared the decision would come down to Matt’s single vote; the offer Norwalk had made to place Matt in the Senate.
“Whoa!” said Jack in a low voice.
“Whoa, indeed,” said Sam with a half smile. “Hawkins will be getting the same feeling I got when I found out about Keystone.”
“He sure will. That’s some kind of deal Norwalk offered him.”
“The deal of a lifetime.”
“Wonder what he’ll do,” Jack mused.
“That’s what he’s thinking right about now,” said Sam, raising his arm for the car to come up.
* * *
Inside the black White House Town Car, Matt rolled down the window to let the fresh cold air inside the heated car.
The chauffeur drove him back to the hotel, where he went directly to the restaurant and ate a big lunch. He wanted to eat in public, hoping that noise and people bustling around would restore his equilibrium.
He didn’t know what to tell Thurston that night when he met him. He didn’t know, for that matter, what to tell Patricia, but he decided to tell her everything.
Of course, he’d wanted to accept the proposal as soon as Norwalk made it, but Norwalk had made it quite clear to Matt that he wanted Matt to wrestle with his convictions, to realize that Washington was a place where convictions were bought and sold every day like so many bushels of wheat. The President said he didn’t want a nervous man responding to his offer. He wanted a calm man, who knew what he was doing, to answer back. He wanted Matt to know that he was betraying his convictions, and a part of his soul as well, if he decided to accept. Apparently, thought Matt, Norwalk was used to people giving up little pieces of their souls, bit by little bit.
A chance to become the youngest senator of all time because he was in the right place at the right time; a chance to have four years in the upper Chamber before having to run for reelection; a chance to build a record and to prove himself so that when he did run he could win; a chance to make a national name for himself, elevate himself even higher. The price was simple: he had to give part of himself away, a part that he could never have back. Norwalk in exchange would give him a chance to be greater and more powerful sooner that he ever could have hoped. As he’d put it, it was a simple matter of horse-trading.
Matt knew he was young. He also knew that it was his youth that held him back from accepting immediately. He still believed strongly in himself and his opinions, his destiny, his private aspirations, his closest hopes and dreams.
What was more important?
Could he cheat Jeffrey Norwalk by fulfilling his dreams without the inestimable boost he was being offered? For the longest time Matt considered that question. It was a hard decision. He found himself wishing he were older, more jaded to the ways of Washington, more experienced in weighing political words and intentions. The offer couldn’t have been clearer than Norwalk presented it. But he was young, he knew. The young always ask questions even when they know there might not be any answers.
After calling Patricia and telling her that he’d be a little late getting to Horizon that night, he went up to his suite to think for the rest of the afternoon.
* * *
Early that evening Matt went to see Fred Thurston. He met Peggy and they sat down over drinks. Afterwards, Peggy left them alone.
“Tell me a little about yourself,” said Thurston.
“Well, I’m thirty years old and was damned lucky to beat Bill Crampton out of his seat,” smiled Matt.
Thurston laughed.
“I’m glad you beat him—that’s all I can say.”
“Others aren’t so happy.”
“I’m sure they aren’t,” said Thurston soberly, reading meaning into Matt’s every word. “It’s been a long time since I was a freshman congressman. How do you like Washington?”
“It keeps you jumping, especially with that floor fight coming up.”
“I have a feeling it’ll all be long over by the time the House gets to vote on it, don’t you?”
“I think you may be right, Fred,” said Matt, staring straight ahead.
“Why do you support me, Matt?”
“I agree with your position on China. Frankly, I think some of your domestic ideas suck shit, but it’s China that’s the polarizing point in this election.”
Thurston smiled at Matt’s honesty.
“Yeah, I guess maybe that is the clincher.”
“Why’d you have me over here? Shouldn’t you be working on someone who doesn’t support you already?”
Again Hawkins was being frank, Thurston thought. He liked it.
“All right. I want to know what kind of pressures have been exerted on you to change your vote.”
Matt wanted to say, “If only you knew,” but he didn’t. What he said was, “Well, Bill Crampton nudges me every now and then, and a few others have talked to me.” Despite his frankness, he didn’t think he ought to tell Thurston about Slanetti. The candidate couldn’t help him and there was no use worrying him by bringing him into it.
“Just people in the House?”
Matt looked up sharply at him. It was almost as if he knew about the White House interview that afternoon. But he couldn’t. Thurston was much too calm to know something like that. He imagined he was just picking up nuances that didn’t exist.
“Well, yes, I guess so,” said Matt.
He watched Thurston closely. He wondered if he would be like Thurston in another ten years. Thurston was young to be a candidate for President. He still had his looks and body. He speculated on the quality of the man’s mind and soul. He knew the urges running through his blood also ran through Thurston’s.
“How badly do you want to be President, Fred?”
“How do you mean?”
“What would you do to be President? What would you give up?”
“Just about everything.”
“And have you?”
“No, I don’t think so. It hasn’t come to that.”
“That’s good, that’s very good,” said Matt, taking a sip of his drink.
“Why do you ask?”
“Just curious.”
“Matt, how strong is your support for me?”
He was bothered by that question. If he decided to support St. Clair and accepted Norwalk’s proposal, he would be despicable in Thurston’s eyes and he didn’t want that. Thurston would still control the Democratic Party, Matt’s party, but beyond that, he admired Thurston
very much and didn’t want to lose what little regard he might already possess on such short acquaintance.
“You mean, could I be talked out of supporting you?”
“That’s what I mean, yes.”
“I don’t know. It might depend on what I was offered, or if I was threatened with something.”
“Have you got anything behind you that could be used against you?”
Thurston was amazed that the conversation was getting so deep. He hadn’t talked like this to a colleague in years. He attributed the flow of their talk to Matt’s youth and willingness to discuss such things.
“No, nothing I’m ashamed of—nothing at all.” He knew how he felt about Patricia so this was not a lie.
Thurston wanted to ask if he’d been offered anything to change his vote, but decided not to be so direct. He had no reason to suspect that Slanetti had singled out Hawkins. He wanted merely to judge how vulnerable members were reacting to White House pressure. Hawkins’s inexperience alone made him vulnerable. Every freshman was. Before he could ask anything further, however, Matt asked him something.
“What would you do if you lost?”
“An interesting question. Stay in the Senate, run again for my seat. Maybe try one more time in four years for the White House. St. Clair wouldn’t be that hard to beat after he’d had four years to make mistakes and after he’d won in the House when the popular vote was on my side.”
“Incumbents are hard to beat.”
“St. Clair wasn’t meant to be President. Norwalk picked him. He belongs back in Florida. You can look at him and tell. He just wasn’t meant to be President.”
“And you were?”
“What do you think?” smiled Thurston, raising his glass to drink. Matt smiled back, naturally agreeing.
* * *
Later with Patricia, there was no lovemaking for a long time. They talked when they were in bed. He told her everything that happened to him that day.