Benchley, Peter - Novel 06 (34 page)

 
          
 
Be smart, he told himself. You don't want to
pass out in the Oval Office. He found two old Hershey Chocolate Kisses in a
jacket pocket, unwrapped them, picked shreds of foil from the brown goo and
swallowed them. Insurance.

 
          
 
By the time he turned into Evelyn Witt's
office, his pulse had dropped to 80—higher than his normal resting pulse, but,
he reassured himself, that was only natural since he felt neither normal nor
restful.

 
          
 
"What have I done?" he asked Evelyn.

 
          
 
"I don't know, Timothy. Your speech came
over an hour ago—that sweet little girl of yours brought it—but he was in a
meeting with the majority leader and then on the phone with his brother, who
wants him to write a letter of recommendation for his son to Amherst, so he
didn't get to it till about twenty minutes ago. Ever since he read it, he's
been bellowing for you. I think his blood pressure's probably two thousand over
fifteen hundred. Did you write something naughty?"

 
          
 
"I don't think so."

 
          
 
"Well, maybe—" She smiled, and Burnham
knew she was hoping to seem encouraging, "Maybe you didn't do anything.''

 
          
 
"It's been nice knowing you,
Evelyn." Burnham started for the door to the Oval Office.

 
          
 
"Timothy ... do you remember Willa
Badham?"

 
          
 
"No."

 
          
 
"I guess she was before your time. Yes,
back in our first term. She was a staff assistant in some office or other,
about your level, and for some reason the President took a liking to her. He
wouldn't let her out of his sight, as if he felt the Presidency depended on
her. He does that. Not often, but he does that."

 
          
 
"Cobb told me. How long did she
last?"

 
          
 
"Oh . . ." Evelyn turned away,
fiddling with some papers. "A long time."

 
          
 
"Six weeks?"

 
          
 
"Well. . . about." Evelyn added
quickly, "But she wasn't fired. She quit."

 
          
 
"Why?"

 
          
 
"She had a little . . . breakdown. Well,
not really a breakdown, more of a . . ."

 
          
 
"Collapse?"

 
          
 
Burnham looked at Evelyn and saw her sneaking
a glance at him, and he laughed. And then she laughed.

 
          
 
"Go ahead in," she said.

 
          
 
Burnham tapped lightly and opened the door.
The President was standing beside his desk, speaking on the phone. He saw Burnham
and, with a curt wave of his hand, motioned him in. Burnham stepped into the
office and closed the door behind him.

 
          
 
"Now you listen here. Admiral," the
President said into the phone. "I don't give a shit if that sumbitch has
got solid gold handles on the pissers and a diamond-studded steering wheel. I'm
not gonna pay five billion dollars for a submarine!" He slammed the phone
down and snapped, "Where you been, Tim?"

 
          
 
"At State, sir. The traffic was
terrible."

 
          
 
"Shoulda called a helicopter."

 
          
 
"Me?"

 
          
 
"Damn right. When the President wants
you, he wants you."

 
          
 
"Yes, sir." Like a quarterback
surveying a defense, Burnham tried to appraise the President's mood, looked for
signs that would foretell an imminent blitz. But he didn't know the man. he had
no scouting reports. The President seemed calm— icy, maybe, but in control. For
all Burnham knew, however, he was like a mamba, a silent killer who struck with
no warning, rather than like a cobra who gave showy notice of an impending
attack.

 
          
 
The President reached across his cluttered
desk and picked up a few sheets of paper. He held them up to Burnham. Exhibit
A.

 
          
 
"The fella who wrote this, Tim ..."
With a mean little grin, the President crushed the papers into a ball.
"... that fella, if he had a brain, why, he'd be outdoors playin' with it.
That fella does not have his President's best interests at heart."

 
          
 
Goodbye, Burnham thought. There went my
speech, there went my job, there went my life. Now: how to get out of this
office without losing something really important, like a couple of quarts of
blood or a kidney or two.

 
          
 
The President cocked his arm and fired the ball
of papers at the portrait of Abraham Lincoln that hung over the fireplace. Then
he pulled from his jacket pocket more papers, which he dangled before Burnham's
glazing eyes.

 
          
 
"Now, the fella who wrote this, Tim, this
fella is a true source of comfort and strength to his President."

 
          
 
Cobb. Cobb had rewritten his speech. Somehow,
he had intercepted Burnham's draft—either in Dyanna's office or Evelyn Witt's—and,
in vengeful spite at Burnham's attempt to go around him, had sent the President
not only his new draft but also Burnham's draft (its rumpled corpse had bounced
off Abe Lincoln's proboscis and now lay beneath a coffee table), no doubt with
a note telling the President that he had read Burnham's draft and had found it
"a little flaccid" (or something equally sly and condescending) and
had taken the liberty of "punching it up."

 
          
 
The President proffered the papers to Burnham.
"Tell me if you don't think this fella is a great American."

 
          
 
Swell. As his final act in this life, Burnham
was being forced to sing a paean to his assassin. As he extended his hand, a
sour, metallic taste suffused his mouth, as if he had just had his teeth
cleaned.

 
          
 
He meant to pretend to glance at the first
page (once a girl tells you you're ugly, he reasoned, there's not much fun in
having to admire the true beauties she parades by you for comparison), but as
his eyes swept over the lo-pitch, Bookface Academic IBM type, he saw a familiar
phrase. Then another. Then a third. Then he actually read an entire paragraph.

 
          
 
It was his speech. Verbatim. Cobb hadn't
stabbed him. (Guilt for having suspected Cobb fluttered across his mind like a
hunting bat and flew away.)

 
          
 
He was the great American, the source of
comfort and strength to the Leader of the Free World.

 
          
 
He said, "Ah ..."

 
          
 
"This is the finest toast I have seen
since I took my first oath of office." The President snatched the papers
from Burnham's fingers. "This is a toast that if they gave noble prizes
for toasts, this one would be a shoo-in."

 
          
 
Come now, Mr. President, Burnham thought.
Great, yes; epic, perhaps; but Nobel prize . . . ?

 
          
 
"I'm serious." The President's look
reproved Burnham for his modest thoughts. "Do you know why?"

 
          
 
"No, sir. I was just trying—"

 
          
 
"Because it's savvy. It's deep. It shows
long-term thinking. It has the best interests of the country at heart. And most
of all, it shows that this writer is in tune with his President."

 
          
 
Humbly, Burnham hung his head.

 
          
 
"Any hack could fawn all over of some
two-bit muckety-muck, but it takes a writer to see through all the fog and tell
it like it is. Where'd you get this stuff?"

 
          
 
"Sir?"

 
          
 
"No. Don't tell me. I don't want to know.
Better you do your job and I do mine. But, Tim, I have to be frank." The President
took a step toward Burnham and put his arm around his shoulder and began to
walk him around the office, like a comrade trying to sober him up for the long
drive home.

 
          
 
"Yes, sir," Burnham said. “Please
do.”

 
          
 
"This toast worries me."

 
          
 
"It does?"

 
          
 
"Yessir. Fact is, I'm 'bout as worried as
a pregnant fox in a forest fire."

 
          
 
"Really. What is it that—"

 
          
 
The President stopped walking and clutched
Burnham's shoulder and drew him even closer. Three inches shorter than the
President, Burnham found himself staring into the pores on the man's chin,
could feel the President's moist breath warming the tip of his nose.

 
          
 
"Tim, I've got the State Department. I've
got the National Security Council—though what those dipsticks keep secure is a
mystery 'bout as great as the goddamn Sphinx. I've got about a billion people
working for me in the federal government, and at least a million of them are
s'posed to know something about foreign policy. Right? Is that asking too
much?"

 
          
 
"Yes . . . no, sir . . . right."

 
          
 
"Then why is it, Tim"—the President
resumed his promenade—"that of all those millions of people, people the
taxpayers pay billions and trillions of dollars, only one man knows his ass
from live steam?"

 
          
 
"Well . . ."

 
          
 
"Now, the fella who wrote that ..."
The President pointed to the ball of papers beneath the coffee table, which
Burnham assumed was the NSC draft of the toast. ". . .he didn't have the
guts to put his name on it. And he was right, too, 'cause when I find out who
he is, he's gonna be lucky to get a job writing four-letter words for the
Scrabble company."

 
          
 
"I'm sure—"

 
          
 
"Where've you been keeping yourself,
Tim?"

 
          
 
"Sir? I've been—"

 
          
 
"Never mind. Past is past. I should be
grateful—the country should be grateful—^that you're here now." The
President gazed at the ceiling. "It's a comfort to know that somebody up
there still looks out for us." They had reached the couch. Gently, the President
eased Burnham down into the soft upholstery.

 
          
 
"How's Andrei?"

 
          
 
Andrei? Burnham thought. Andre? Andre who? My
dinner with Andre? Andrei? He said aloud, "Gromvko?"

 
          
 
The President guffawed. "Who do you
think? Andre Previn?"

 
          
 
Burnham forced a choking laugh. Who does this
man think I am? "Well, I—"