Benchley, Peter - Novel 06 (40 page)

 
          
 
"LP-er. Listening Poster. Infiltrators.
They monitor radio transmissions, keep their eyes open. They don't miss a
trick."

 
          
 
"Do they speak Spanish?"

 
          
 
"Of course!"

 
          
 
"Then I fail to understand how ..."
Burnham stopped. He understood. "But they don't speak English."

 
          
 
"Why should they? The Cubans speak
Spanish. Our men here translate for them."

 
          
 
"I see." Burnham waited, wondering
if the synapses in the general's brain would suddenly begin to connect the
neurons of cause to the neurons of effect. But the man's synapses, apparently,
were off-duty. So Burnham said simply, "Thanks, General," and he hung
up.

 
          
 
He punched up his open line to Bilitis.
"Teresa?"

 
          
 
"Hi, Timothy."

 
          
 
"It's all set. They're on their
way."

 
          
 
"I'm almost at the mouth of the
harbor."

 
          
 
"They're not chasing you?"

 
          
 
"No."

 
          
 
"When you get home, I want you to do me a
favor."

 
          
 
"Anything. I owe you my life."

 
          
 
"Put a new plaque on the boat for
me."

 
          
 
"Saying?"

 
          
 
" 'No man will be a sailor who has
contrivance enough to get himself into a jail; for being in a ship is being in
a jail, with the chance of being drowned. A man in a jail has more room, better
food and commonly better company.' "

 
          
 
Teresa laughed again. "Who said
that?"

 
          
 
"A friend of mine. And when you get the
plaque all screwed into place ..."

 
          
 
"Yes?"

 
          
 
"Sell the boat and be a decorator."

 
          
 
Burnham put the receiver back in its cradle.
He stood up and stretched. He felt elated, better than when he had written a
good speech, better even than when he had been praised by the President
himself. He had actually done something, and what he had done was good—good not
only in the sense of well done, but also good for someone else. Maybe he had
saved lives, maybe he had done something for the country. The idea of leaving
his mark on the world had always seemed preposterous to him. But now, suddenly,
he wondered, for he knew that a measure of his satisfaction came from the
certainty that he had left—if not a mark, at least a tiny scratch upon the wall
of posterity.

 
          
 
A sweet little irony occurred to him then, and
he savored it: He had acted on principle, had actually done something selfless,
and the beneficiary was a member of Sarah's family. She would have to
appreciate him, to acknowledge that for once he had done something worthy.

 
          
 
He looked at his watch. It was too early to
call her: She would still be out selling macaroons for Kennedy. But when he
spoke to her later on, and told her that Cobb had vowed to investigate the
source of the bug in her car, and regaled her with his tale of rescuing Toddy
from being garroted by a Mohican-cut anthropoid camouflaged in lampblack, she
would have to relent. Without intention or design, he had bought himself a
ticket home.

 
          
 
He had always believed in the apothegm: No
good deed ever goes unpunished. Now he was finding it insufferably cynical.

 
          
 
He scooped his jacket off the couch and, as he
slipped it on, crossed to the table where Dyanna sat, looking drained.

 
          
 
"Did we do it?" he said with a
smile.

 
          
 
"Yes, sir!"

 
          
 
He put his hands on the edge of the table and
leaned down toward her. "I have a present for you from the President."

 
          
 
"You do?" Dyanna brightened.

 
          
 
"He said to tell you that you're a source
of comfort and strength to him."

 
          
 
"Go on!"

 
          
 
"He told me to give you this." Burnham
reached a hand behind Dyanna's head and drew her to him. He kissed her full on
the mouth.

 
          
 
For the first second, Burnham felt that he was
kissing a piece of cold chicken. Her lips were firm and unyielding. Then they
began to tremble, uneasily seeking an appropriate response. They parted, and
Burnham felt warmth on his tongue. He wanted to flick his own tongue into that
hot, wet cave, but no: It would be cruel.

 
          
 
He disengaged.

 
          
 
"Mr. Burnham!"

 
          
 
"Don't blame me," he said, slyly
licking his lips to collect the sweet and fruity taste of her lip gloss.
"I was just following orders."

 
          
 
"I . . . but . . . well . . ." One
hand shot to her hair the other to a button on her dress. They were
diversionary hands, like a hen pheasant scampering this way and that before her
nest to distract a predator from her eggs.

 
          
 
"You did good, Dyanna," Burnham said
honestly. "I'm proud of you. And"—he smiled—"you taste
great."

 
          
 
He walked toward the door, leaving her at the
table, as red and shiny as a Bing cherry.

 
          
 
He was at the outer door when she thought to
ask, "Where are you going? I mean, if someone ..."

 
          
 
"Where else? To see the President."

 
          
 
"Oh."

 
          
 
"It's hell, I know." Burnham frowned
and shook his head. "But somebody's got to do it."

 
          
 
Why had he kissed Dyanna? Why had he done that
to her? For, he had to admit that he had done it to her. Not with her, or for
her. To her. There were women whom you could kiss, in a burst of rash
exuberance, and they would accept the kiss for what it was, a brief spasm of
joy that had less to do with you or them than with the moment. He knew Dyanna
well enough to know that she was not such a woman. To her a kiss was a
covenant, to seal things past and promise things to come, the ultimate of which
was the Act of Darkness itself, which to her (he was guessing wildly) would be
a solemn ritual signifying commitment as permanent (and about as pleasurable)
as a brand.

 
          
 
She would be confused now, wondering what he
had meant by the kiss, unable to believe that it had been meaningless. Was he
in love with her? Did he lust after her? What about his family? Suppose he
asked her out, how should she respond? She shouldn't lead him on, but she
didn't want to anger her boss, not when he was beginning to approach the
throne.

 
          
 
The kiss to her would be like a Beckett play
to a college student: She would study it, dissect it, analyze it, appraise it
and inject it with the serum of significance, until at last she transformed the
simple touching of four lips into a Rosetta Stone that would give meaning to
her life.

 
          
 
That was not a nice thing to do, Burnham told
himself as he turned out onto
West Executive Avenue
. When I return, I will apologize.

 
          
 
Head down, lost in thought, Burnham did not
see Butterworth striding toward him, head down, lost in thought. They collided,
like the Andrea Doric and the
Stockholm
. Burnham's bow struck Butterworth's port
beam. Papers flew and fluttered down like falling leaves.

 
          
 
"Now look what you've done!"
Butterworth said, as he stooped to gather up his papers. "Wrecked my
proclamation for Rural Electric Power Week."

 
          
 
"Sorry." Burnham stooped to help him.

 
          
 
Butterworth flicked a wad of gum off one of
his papers, and stood up. "Where have you been?"

 
          
 
"Me? Nowhere."

 
          
 
"Cobb tells me the boss has gathered you
to his bosom. True?"

 
          
 
"Hardly." Burnham forced a weak
laugh. He looked away, hoping to encourage Butterworth to join him searching
for any stray papers. But Butterworth continued to look directly at him.

 
          
 
Ned Butterworth was one of Burnham's two good
friends on the staff. He affected the guise of the absent-minded academic,
which was a calculated act, designed to keep Epstein's minions away from him,
to lead them elsewhere with their assignments of interminable, repetitive,
tedious, unrewarding messages to Congress, each of which involved many late
nights, bitter arguments and countless drafts and redrafts, all to no end
whatever, since the President delivered his real messages to Congress in
person, face to face.

 
          
 
Only Burnham, Cobb and a few of the other
writers knew that Butterworth had a sharp and perceptive mind, an instinctive
grasp of the complexities of foreign policy and the skill (when ignited) to
turn out first-rate work in a very short time.

 
          
 
Burnham had never felt competitive with
Butterworth. He admired him, envied his facility, and consoled himself with the
knowledge that Butterworth was five years older than he and had been a
professional speechwriter for twenty years. Their friendship was based, in
part, on the maintenance of their relative positions: Butterworth senior and
superior, Burnham junior and respectful. Burnham had no desire to become a
rival of Butterworth's. He had endured too many lunches at which Butterworth's
viperous tongue had flayed writers who had had the temerity to accept an
assignment to write a speech in the field he regarded as his private fiefdom,
foreign policy.

 
          
 
For, as contemptuous as he claimed to be of
authority, as ostentatiously blase about power and power politics, Ned
Butterworth was very human. He cherished praise from the President and framed
his signed photographs just like everyone else, and he collected nuggets of
inside information and used them as prized chips in the daily game.

 
          
 
"I almost got fired," Burnham said.
"If that's being gathered to his bosom, you can have it."

 
          
 
"But you escaped."

 
          
 
"Yeah. How, I don't know, but I
did."

 
          
 
"He asked for you by name, to write
tonight's toast."

 
          
 
"Not to write it, exactly. Just to clean
up someone else's mess." Burnham looked at his watch. "I've got
to—"