(1964) The Man (25 page)

He determined not to lose them. “Well, boys, it should be quite a day in school today, with a new President, eh?”

Gertrude’s querulous voice drew a discordant curtain between her sons and their father. “You sound like it’s good news. You have a Negro President. You have two sons in a predominantly Negro school. They’re both afraid they’ll be hooted at and kicked around.”

“Why make out that it’s so bad?” Beggs demanded. “Why does everything have to be bad?”

“Because it
is
, it just is,” “Gertrude said, throwing her crumpled paper napkin on the table. “Do you want some really bad news now? I don’t mind telling you. I just heard it from the milkman. The Schearers are moving out of the neighborhood. They’ve put their house up for sale. They didn’t even have the nerve to tell us. I had to hear it from the milkman.”

Automatically Beggs’s eyebrows had arched with surprise. The Schearers were the last of the old crowd, their old friends in the neighborhood, who had stayed on with them. He and Gertrude saw the Schearers at least twice a week.

Gertrude was going on. “He must’ve gotten that new position he applied for. Well, at least they’ve got some sense. They’ve had enough, even if you haven’t. And I’m thinking of the boys now, especially now, and nothing else.”

“I think of them, too,” he said angrily. He paused, to control himself, and then he said, “There’s going to be a change right here. Didn’t you hear it on television or read it in the papers?”

“What? Read what?”

“Sonenberg and McCune were in the same room with the President in Frankfurt. They were killed, too. That means the Assistant job to Agajanian in the White House is open, and I’m next up. It means a solid raise.”

Gertrude seemed to deflate into weariness. “Oh, that one. I heard that one before. Do you have a contract that says you’ll get it?”

“It’s my turn, Gertie. Chief Gaynor knows I’m next in line. Besides, I was thinking”—he felt shrewd, his old confident self—“the fact that we stayed on in this neighborhood is going to work for me. Look at it any way you want, but the new President is a Negro, and knowing Gaynor’s politicking, he’ll be wanting to play up to President Dilman. Gaynor knows where we live. It shows I have no prejudices—in fact, shows I like the Negro people and get along with them. Gaynor’ll figure my promotion will look good to Dilman.”

“I’m sure Dilman doesn’t know you exist,” said Gertrude, “and I’m not sure Gaynor knows either, considering these past years.” He was furious at her remark, in front of the boys, but before he could reply, she was on her feet, hustling Ogden and Otis to the door, stuffing their arms into their jackets. “Get on your way,” she was saying, “and watch the crossings, and if there’s any trouble you report it to the principal.”

Otis had gone through the door, but the older one, Ogden, hung behind. “Pop, last night Junior Austin said there’s a holiday off when a President dies. I hope so.”

“When I get to the White House, I’ll arrange it,” Beggs said expansively.

“Ha,” Ogden chortled, “that’ll be the day.”

Flushed, Beggs shouted, “If I can get you those damn stamps from the President’s secretary, I can—” It was too late. His older son had gone.

Put down, he waited, as Gertrude came back into the dining room. She tried to push her hair out of her face, and buttoned her housecoat, and then she lifted her head and stared at her husband. The tight, unyielding lines of attack had left her forehead and mouth. When she spoke, her tone was more imploring than accusing.

“Otto, I know what that promotion means to you, and I—I hope you get it, for your sake,” she said. “I know what the Service means to you, and all that business, and the excitements, and the scrapbooks. But there’s more to life, Otto. Even if you got the promotion—”

“I’ll get it,” he said fiercely.

“So you get it. But even then, we’d have to borrow and scrape to make a down payment on a better house in a—a decent, proper neighborhood for the boys.”

“We’ll manage, that’s all that counts.”

She came forward a few steps. “Why do you make it so hard for yourself and for us, Otto? It’s been—I guess it’s over a year since Austin agreed he’d like to have you in Chevy Chase as a partner. It was no favor to a brother-in-law. He’s making money hand over fist. He wants to expand. He respects you, no matter how—how carried away he gets sometimes with his success. He’s always saying a person of your background would be a definite asset to his business.”

“I don’t need his charity—him, of all people.”

She was pleading. “Otto, there’s no charity. You’d have to work for it. Six months ago you seemed to be more agreeable. That’s why I got him to loan you those textbooks, so you could study up for the realty board examinations. I think maybe you opened them once. They’ve been rotting inside the desk ever since. But you’re smart enough to do it. Look how fast you got in the Secret Service, passing those tests when you wanted to. You could become a licensed realtor in no time. You’d triple Austin’s business.”

“Doing what? Standing in drafty houses and showing couples still wet behind the ears the view, the goddam new plumbing, the bedrooms? That’s a life, after what I lived? Listen, Gertie, you stick with me, let me do it my way, and I promise you—”

The telephone in the living room rang out, and he stopped, wondering.

“I’ll get it,” Gertrude was saying. “Probably Mae Schearer to gloat about—”

She was gone. He started to eat his bowl of yogurt, when he saw her return.

“Otto, it’s Chief Gaynor calling from the White House.”

He jumped to his feet, suddenly beaming, his temples throbbing. “I knew it, I knew it. Tell him I’ll be right on. I’ll take it upstairs.”

He wanted this triumph alone. He rushed out of the dining room and bounded up the creaking stairs two at a time. Breathless, he snatched up the telephone on the desk.

“Hello . . . I’ve got it, Gertrude . . . hello.”

He heard her click off, and heard a remote secretary tell him to hold on, and then he heard Gaynor’s gruff voice, so welcome this morning.

“Beggs? Chief Gaynor here.”

“Good morning, Chief. I was just leaving for duty. Glad you caught me. I’m sure sorry about Sonenberg and McCune.”

“It happens, it happens,” said Gaynor impatiently. “We just wish they could have done something to save the President. Well, that’s behind us. We’ve got a job to do, and today it’s harder than ever. Beggs, I’m calling to tell you we’re forced into some changes around here—”

His heart swelled. “Yes, sure.”

“—and we’ve upped the guard detail, and have to do some switching around on the three shifts. I know you’re on the morning-to-afternoon shift. But for the time being we’re putting you on from afternoon to evening. You don’t have to come in now. Rest up. You check in at four o’clock and stay until one in the morning.”

His heart thumped faster. “You—you mentioned changes, Chief. Is that all? I mean, just the time?”

“Matter of fact, no, glad you mentioned it. One second, I think there’s another call—no, it’s okay. Yes, you’ll be undertaking a new job. Lou Agajanian tells me you get along well with Negroes.”

“That’s right, Chief,” he said hastily. “Been living right here off Connecticut among them for years. Some of my finest friends—”

“Excellent,” Gaynor interrupted. “We’re assigning you to being one of the twelve special agents who will personally be guarding President Dilman. How’s that?”

Confused, he waited for Chief Gaynor to tell him the rest, but realized there was no more. “I—I don’t understand, Chief. You want me to guard the President? Is that my new job?”

“I knew you’d be pleased. Agajanian told me it was a duty you’d always wanted.”

Beggs felt sinking and frantic. “Chief, it’s what I wanted four or five years ago. But there’s a lot of water under the bridge now. I—I’ve got seniority, now that McCune is gone. I know that Sonenberg left a supervisory vacancy. I figured it was regular procedure—I mean, I thought that the Assistant to Lou, that opening, would—”

“It’s already filled, Beggs.” Chief Gaynor was brisk and businesslike. “An hour ago I submitted Special Agent Roscoe Prentiss’ name to the Secretary of the Treasury and he okayed it.”

“Prentiss?” Beggs could barely restrain himself from shouting at his Chief. “He came into the Service four years after I did. He’s way down the list. I’m supposed to get—”

“Wait a minute, Beggs, easy there. You’re creating a seniority system that doesn’t exist. Going by length of time in the Service is not in the regulations. It’s a factor, of course—always has been when we consider promotions. But just as often we try to angle the right man for the right job at the right time.”

Beggs felt himself shaking with righteous indignation. “Who’s Prentiss? What has he got that I haven’t got?” Then it came to him, and he knew. “Don’t tell me. I get it. He’s colored. He’s being upped to supervisor because he’s a Negro.”

There were empty silent seconds on the telephone, and then Chief Gaynor came on less gruffly. “I’m not in a position to say that was the decisive factor, Beggs. I—” His tone of voice lowered, offering confidence, man-to-man equality. “I just want to put it to you as one reasonable human being to another—what would you do in my boots? Overnight we’ve got an unusual situation, we’ve got a Negro President. Don’t you think it’s only fair that one of the six Secret Service executives should be of his people? If I didn’t do this, he might feel we were being discriminatory, and feel unkindly toward the Service.”

“Did President Dilman ask for this?”

“No-no, he doesn’t even know about it yet. It’s just something we felt would be fair at this time.”

“Dammit, Chief, it’s not fair, say whatever you want. It’s discrimination against me because I’m white. It’s not giving me what I deserve. I don’t like it.”

“Beggs, this is a time to be reasonable. I appreciate your disappointment. The fact is, we’re giving you something better, something you always wanted, an assignment right next to the President of the United States. In fact, and Lou’ll go into this with you, there’ll be a—a token raise. As for the future, we’ll keep you in mind. We take care of our own, Beggs. Now, you take it easy, and check in with Lou at four. Be seeing you.”

Listlessly, Otto Beggs returned the telephone to the desk. Life had spat in his eye again. He knew when he was licked. His glance went to the door, but he had no stomach for facing Gertrude.

He lumbered to the bedroom window and glared down into the busy street. There were people down there, and most of them were black. Until now his attitude toward them had been boxed between resentment and toleration. Now he was bitter toward all of them. Because his Chief wanted to apple-polish a new President, who was Negro, who did not deserve to be President, Otto Beggs had been elbowed aside to make room for a callow colleague whose only qualification was his black skin. And the worst of it, they were throwing him a few pennies more and telling him to risk his life to protect the life of a colored politician.

The injustice of it gagged him. He, a war hero, who almost gave up his life for his country, almost got killed trying to protect those watermelon eaters in the safe rear lines doing soft KP and shooting craps and knocking up Korean girls. He, who had received the Medal of Honor from Eisenhower, having to be at the beck and call of a black President, whose war record consisted of keeping records in the Pentagon. Chrissakes, what in the hell was the world coming to?

He was ready for Gertrude at last.

He strode out of the room and down the stairs. She was waiting below, unblinking, as her fingers picked at the fringe of her housecoat, watching his descent. He felt that his cheeks were livid, and knew that she knew, and did not give a damn.

He looked fixedly at her. She did not utter a word.

He said, “My shift’s been changed. I’m not going to work until four. I’ve got time on my hands. I want to use it. Where in the hell are those real estate textbooks?”

She swallowed, quickly nodding her head. “I—I’ll find them for you, Otto. I’ll get them right away.”

She raised the long skirt of her housecoat, to make movement and speed easier, and hastily she climbed the stairs. For once, he was satisfied with her. For once, she’d had sufficient respect for him to say nothing more.

Late in the afternoon, still behind her desk in her office next to the President’s Oval Office, Edna Foster sat with hands clasped tightly, observing George Murdock as he read the short letter she had moments before pulled out of her gray electric typewriter.

Her gaze did not leave her fiancé. He was running his fingers through his sparse blond hair, and then scratching at his acne-pocked pale cheeks, and then scratching at his beaky nose and receding chin, about which she felt so possessive.

His small, translucent eyes were smaller as they came up from the page to meet her own. “No, Edna, don’t show it to him, not yet.”

She took her neat, two-paragraph letter of resignation to President Dilman back from George, coughed wretchedly, since her cold had settled in her chest, and said, “It’s expected of the whole staff.”

“Flannery told us President Dilman was keeping on T. C.’s entire staff. And there’ll be an announcement he’s keeping on the Cabinet, too. Just like Harry Truman and Lyndon Johnson did, at first.”

“George, it’s impossible. How can I work for him after working for T. C.?”

Murdock’s eyes became even smaller. “Is that the reason, Edna?”

“I don’t know,” she said quickly. “He has his own secretary over in the Senate Office Building. She’s colored. She’d understand him. It—it would be so difficult for me.”

George Murdock shook his head. “No, it would be wrong, Edna. You know this job. The other girl doesn’t. Give him a break. You admitted you didn’t even know him. You haven’t even talked to him today.”

“He’s been locked up in the Cabinet Room for hours, with Eaton and Talley and everyone. Even if I did know him, it would be—”

She halted, and listened. She could hear the tread of many feet leaving the Cabinet Room for the tiled corridor outside.

She said, “They’re breaking up now, George. You’d better leave me. He might come in, and it wouldn’t look right.”