Benchley, Peter - Novel 06 (36 page)

 
          
 
Burnham stood up. Rivulets of sweat ran down
his sides and soaked the elastic in his boxer shorts.

 
          
 
"Mr. President?"

 
          
 
Epstein looked at him as if he were a herpes
lesion.

 
          
 
Duggan sucked on his pipe and contemplated him
as if he were a new species.

 
          
 
The President said, "Yes, Tim?"

 
          
 
Burnham stepped forward. "It's
three o'clock
." No, no! Not that! He cursed himself.
What an opener! They've got to think I'm nuts.

 
          
 
"Thank you, Tim," the President
said. His head was cocked at an interesting angle.

 
          
 
"Ah . . . sir . . . what I mean is, there
are two hours till the deadline expires. I wonder if . . . may I have one hour
to work on it?"

 
          
 
"You!" snorted Epstein.

 
          
 
"You think you can help, Tim?" said
the President.

 
          
 
"I th . . .I hope so, sir."

 
          
 
The President looked hard at him, and Burnham
had to fight to keep from looking away. But he kept his eyes locked on the
President's.

 
          
 
"What makes you think you ..." The
President stopped. Then he smiled and said, "You got it, Tim." He
turned to Epstein. "Mario, give him the paper."

 
          
 
"But, sir^" Epstein was aghast.

 
          
 
"Give him the paper, Mario!"

 
          
 
Tight-lipped, Epstein stepped toward Burnham
and handed him the telex sheet that had come into the Situation Room. Burnham
glanced at it just long enough to see that it was slugged: TOP SECRET—URGENT.

 
          
 
He turned toward the door. The President walked
with him, his arm around Burnham's shoulder.

 
          
 
"I'm counting on you, Tim."

 
          
 
"Yes, sir. If I need some help with
communications ..."

 
          
 
"Communications!" the President
said. "Shee-it, son."

 
          
 
He yanked open the door to Evelyn Witt's
office and barked, *'Evelyn, Tim is on a special assignment for me. Top
priority. Whatever he needs, you see he gets it. Planes, choppers, the goddamn
Third Marine Division if he wants it." The President patted Burnham on the
back and walked into his office.

 
          
 
Burnham heard the President say, "Now,
Dennis, I want to know which one of your wimps wrote that crap for the swami
toast tonight."

 
          
 
Evelyn Witt smiled at Burnham and said,
"Welcome to hard times."

 
          
 
Burnham felt his hands shaking. He stuffed
them into his pockets before Evelyn could see them. "I think I'd like to
take a nap," he said.

 
          
 
Evelyn pulled a pad and pencil toward her.
"What do you need?"

 
          
 
"Is there such a thing as a secure open
phone line?"

 
          
 
"Where to?"

 
          
 
"The middle of
Havana
harbor."

 
          
 
"If there isn't, I'm going to take my cat
and move into a cave. I'll set it up. Anything else?"

 
          
 
"I can't think of anything. But if I do,
can I call you?"

 
          
 
"Timothy ..." She reached up and
touched his cheek. "You're sweet to ask, but don't ask any more."

 
          
 
"What?" Lord, Burnham thought, I've
had this job for sixty seconds, and already I've put my foot in it.

 
          
 
"You don't ask anybody. You tell
them."

 
          
 
"Oh. Sorry."

 
          
 
"And you never apologize. Never."

 
          
 
"Oh. Right. Thanks."

 
          
 
Burnham turned left outside Evelyn's office,
and walked quickly down the hall past the Secret Service men guarding the
President's private office, past the closed door of the office of the
Appointments Secretary, past the regiment of Epstein's harassed secretaries. He
turned right and took the stairs to the basement two at a time.

 
          
 
No one noticed him, and it occurred to him
that he was moving through these hallowed halls in a way he had never moved
before—as if he belonged there. Hurrying. Preoccupied. Confident. Defying
anyone to stop or question him. He was on priority business for the boss.

 
          
 
He felt strange: nervous but not frightened,
challenged but not worried. He should be berating himself for an idiot—there
was a good chance he would come out of this looking like a presumptuous,
feckless fool—but instead he felt a little glow of self-satisfaction at his
daring (he would never have called it courage). He had seen a chance to help
the President, help the country and help an unfortunate friend (a distant friend,
but a friend nonetheless), and rather than refuse the risk, he had volunteered
to take it. If he succeeded, he would be doing himself a favor, too: Virtue
Plus Twenty Percent.

 
          
 
If he failed . . .

 
          
 
He pushed open the door of the West Basement
and strode across
West Executive Avenue
.

 
          
 
He didn't intend to fail. He was sure he was
right about Bilitis. The parallels were too great to be coincidence.

 
          
 
Unless . . .

 
          
 
His foot struck the curb on the far side of
West Executive Avenue
, and he tripped.

 
          
 
Suppose Toddy Thatcher wasn't on board.
Suppose he had sold the boat to one of his chums. Suppose ... No. It couldn't
be.

 
          
 
Toddy Thatcher was Sarah's cousin. He had been
a source of concern to his family since the fourth grade, when he started
avoiding the boys in his class and associating only with the girls. He had been
asked to leave
Groton
, not because of any overt homosexual activity—he didn't consider
himself a homosexual, he considered himself a female—but because he refused to
be a boy. He wouldn't undress in the boy's locker room, wouldn't sleep in the
same room with his roommate, insisted on trying out for the girls' field hockey
team (and threatened to file a lawsuit when he was denied permission), and
circulated a newsletter called "The Daughters of Bilitis Gazette."
School officials tried to accommodate him for a year, but then concluded that
he was too disturbed— and too disturbing—to function in the
Groton
community.

 
          
 
Psychoanalysis proved to be a waste of Toddy's
time and seventeen thousand of his parents' dollars. He regarded his penis as a
cruel joke played on him by a male chauvinist god.

 
          
 
He acquired a high-school equivalency
certificate from one of the academies that advertised on the inside covers of
matchbooks. He let his hair grow, took female hormones and applied depilatories
daily to his soft, fair face and his slight body. In the fall, without his
parents' knowledge (by this time, his parents had given up on him; to them, he
was an eccentric roomer who, instead of paying rent, was given an allowance),
he applied and was admitted to
Elon
College
in
North Carolina
.

 
          
 
As Teresa Thatcher.

 
          
 
Sarah's branch of the family, including Burnham,
had lost touch with Toddy for several years. He had gone underground, someone
said. He had joined a commune. He had had surgery, though to do what, no one
was certain.

 
          
 
Burnham liked Toddy, who was bright and
congenial and, as he had grown up, funny about what he called his
"perversion." He hoped Toddy had found a way to be happy.

 
          
 
A year ago, Toddy had resurfaced at a
Christmas gathering at his parents' home. As Teresa. He dressed like a Teresa.
He looked like a Teresa. And he said that he was about two-thirds of the way
through the long process of mechanically becoming Teresa.

 
          
 
His ambition was to become a businesswoman,
and, as he told Burnham on the telephone, the business he intended to start was
Lesbian Charter Boating.

 
          
 
"This is the age of specialization,
Timothy. I have to find my slot."

 
          
 
"But Toddy—"

 
          
 
"Teresa."

 
          
 
"Teresa. Don't you think this . . . slot
... is a little narrow? Is the clientele big enough?"

 
          
 
''Big enough? You have no idea. They're out
there, millions of them, longing to escape the yoke of maleness. I offer them
relaxation, sisterhood, no macho Lx)ng John Silvers calling them dumb
broads."

 
          
 
"Do you know how to sail?"

 
          
 
"I'll learn. But first I need a boat. I
want you to recommend a boat broker.''

 
          
 
"What kind of boat?"

 
          
 
"You tell me. All I know is, I'm going to
call her Bilitis.”

 
          
 
Burnham had made a couple of calls to brokers
he had known when he was writing
America
's Cup pieces. He had prepared a short list
of boats that sounded possible and had sent it off to Toddy. A week later he
had received a huge bouquet of spring flowers from an FTD florist, with a note
enclosed that said: "I'll name the nicest powder room on board after you,
so everyone will know that Timothy Burnham gives good 'head.' Love, T."

 
          
 
That was the last he had heard of Toddy.

 
          
 
Burnham marched into his office. Dyanna was at
her desk, shaping her nails into scimitars.

 
          
 
'*Have a nice lunch?" she said, with a
conspicuous glance at the clock on her desk.

 
          
 
"Grab a pad and come in here." He
continued toward his desk, shedding his jacket and tossing it toward the couch.