Benchley, Peter - Novel 06 (41 page)

 
          
 
"What do you know about Banda?"

 
          
 
"Nothing!" As if pleading to the
accusation in Butterworth's eyes, Burnham began to feel guilty. "I'd never
even heard of the place." Again he looked at his watch. "I really
gotta go, Ned." Burnham started across the avenue.

 
          
 
"Rushing off to confer with the
President, I expect."

 
          
 
"Yeah, sure, Ned." Burnham tossed a
laugh over his shoulder. "And tomorrow he's moving me right next to him in
the West Wing."

 
          
 
Shit! Burnham said to himself. I didn't ask
for any of this. I didn't want any of this. I still don't.

 
          
 
He pulled open the door to the West Basement,
and the cool darkness and the gentle hum of the air conditioning reminded him
that he was entering the womb of power.

 
          
 
Liar. You love every minute of it.

 
          
 
He climbed the stairs, walked down the hall
and turned into Evelyn Witt's office. "Hi, Evelyn," he said.

 
          
 
"Timothy! How did it go?"

 
          
 
"Okay, I think. Thanks for all your help.
Dyanna was scared to death."

 
          
 
"She's a sweet girl. She'll learn."
She glanced at her phone console. "He's talking to the Speaker, but you go
ahead in. He said he wanted to see you as soon as you got here." She
smiled. "Give the poor man a word of comfort."

 
          
 
"What's the problem?"

 
          
 
"He's been trying to write that letter
for his nephew to
Amherst
."

 
          
 
"I thought he already had a draft.
MacGregor did it."

 
          
 
"He didn't like it. It wasn't warm
enough, didn't bring out the boy's true qualities."

 
          
 
Burnham recalled MacGregor bemoaning the
difficulty in finding satisfactory circumlocutions with which to praise a boy
whose true qualities were twin four hundreds on his SATs and substantial
evidence of incipient alcoholism. MacGregor had dwelt at length on the lad's
athletic prowess, calling him the finest lacrosse player since Crazy Horse.

 
          
 
"So he's doing it himself," Evelyn
said, "but if he puts in any of the language I've heard bouncing off the
walls in there, the wretched child won't get into Dannemora."

 
          
 
"I'll see what I can do." Burnham
started for the door to the President's office.

 
          
 
Evelyn's phone rang. She picked it up,
listened, and said, "Timothy."

 
          
 
"For me?"

 
          
 
"No safe haven." Evelyn smiled.

 
          
 
Burnham took the phone. "Burnham."

 
          
 
"Sergeant Pingrey here, sir. He's out.
The Navy should have him in about ten minutes."

 
          
 
"Thanks, Sergeant. You've been a big
help."

 
          
 
"My pleasure, sir."

 
          
 
The President was leaning back in his
high-backed, spring-loaded leather chair, his feet propped up on the desk, the
phone cradled on his shoulder, picking at his cuticles with a letter opener. At
the sound of the door opening, he snapped his head around and glowered, but when
he saw Burnham he smiled and waved him in.

 
          
 
"The problem is," the President said
into the phone, "he tests as if he was a damn
Ubangi
. I've got to say I know he's smarter than
his test scores, but I'm gonna need reinforcement. I need you to promise you'll
make him an intern next summer. You don't have to do it. Just tell me you'll do
it, and back me up if anybody asks. . . . No . . . The damn place doesn't take
a dime of federal money, or I'd have 'em by the balls. . . . Okay. ... I
appreciate it. Thanks."

 
          
 
He hung up the phone, swung his feet to the
floor and stood up. "Children," he said to Burnham. "Children
are like pancakes: You should always throw out the first one."

 
          
 
Burnham smiled and thought: I'll tell Sarah.
That touching thought will secure the President a place in her heart.

 
          
 
“Well?" said the President. "Where
are we, Tim?"

 
          
 
"He's out, sir. No fireworks. The Navy
will pick him up in a couple of minutes."

 
          
 
"Damn!" The President grinned. He came
around his desk, grabbed Burnham's hand and shook it. With his other hand, he
squeezed Burnham's shoulder. "Damn! How'd you do it?"

 
          
 
Burnham tried to appear casual,
matter-of-fact, but he couldn't suppress a smile, couldn't contain the
adrenaline that flooded his arteries. This, he thought, must be how Doug Flutie
felt after he threw that 64-yard touchdown pass in the last four seconds of the
game against
Miami
. Sheer, unalloyed pride. "I . . . talked him down, sir."

 
          
 
"I thought he wouldn't talk to us."

 
          
 
"Yes, sir. Well ... I ..." Don't tell
him the whole truth, don't make it seem too easy, don't dilute your triumph.
"It took some work, but I got to him."

 
          
 
"Damn! That's delicate stuff. You done
that before?"

 
          
 
"Here and there." Burnham looked at
his feet, shoved his hands into his pockets. "I—"

 
          
 
"Never mind. I don't want to know. You
did it, son. That's what counts with me. Results."

 
          
 
"Yes, sir. Ah . . . you should know, Mr.
President, I had to promise him a couple of things. Nothing too—"

 
          
 
"Look here, Tim." The President
squeezed his shoulder harder. "I don't care if you had to promise him a
shiny new galvanized dick."

 
          
 
"Not quite, sir." Burnham chuckled.

 
          
 
"You got us out of a nasty fracas down
there, so whatever commitments you had to make, I'll honor 'em."

 
          
 
When that requisition comes in, Burnham
thought, I believe I would like to be in
Fiji
.

 
          
 
"Now, Tim ..." The President led
Burnham toward his desk. "I want you to help me with a little personal
problem."

 
          
 
"Of course, sir."

 
          
 
The President explained the quandary he was in
regarding his nephew. The boy was not qualified to go to
Amherst
, should never have applied to
Amherst
, should have been content to attend a state
university or one of those third-rate party schools named after an obscure
Civil War colonel. But

 
          
 
the boy's mother's father had gone to Amherst,
and since the boy's mother—"a stuck-up, contrary bitch, all she likes to
do is come here and suck up champagne with the Brits and the
Frogs"—worshiped her father and believed that Amherst could compensate for
whatever qualities had been omitted from her son's genetic makeup, she had
insisted that the boy apply to Amherst.

 
          
 
"I don't care if they pitch him out after
half an hour," the President said. "That's no reflection on me. They
all go bad someday. But if he can't even get in! Shit, if Brooke Shields can
get into
Princeton
, my nephew can damn well get into
Amherst
."

 
          
 
He had pulled out all possible stops. His
problem was with the letter he had agreed to write on the boy's behalf. It had
to be laudatory but not absurd, general but full of specifics, brief but
comprehensive.

 
          
 
"Would you take a shot at it for me,
Tim?"

 
          
 
"Of course, sir."

 
          
 
The President handed him a yellow legal pad
and MacGregor's draft of the letter, which appeared to have been attacked by
pencil-wielding termites. It was scratched, torn, covered by lines, Xs and such
exclamations as "Horse shit!”

 
          
 
Burnham turned toward the door.

 
          
 
"No! No!" the President said, taking
his arm and guiding him to the couch. "You sit right here. I'll make a couple
of calls. I've gotta call a little girl in
Nebraska
who saved her dog from drowning. Or maybe
it was her brother. Maybe it was the dog who saved her brother. Whatever.'' He
returned to his desk, flung himself into his chair and, over his intercom, told
Evelyn to place the call to
Nebraska
.

 
          
 
Burnham hummed to himself to blot out the
President's voice as he studied MacGregor's draft of the letter. It was a
serviceable letter, but obviously written by someone who did not know the
President's nephew. It was full of phrases like "inquiring mind,"
"eager to learn" and "significant contribution to the
Amherst
community." It said nothing, in about
250 carefully chosen words.

 
          
 
Again Burnham was impressed by the President's
acuity. He could spout empty rhetoric, sign vapid letters, ooze with unfelt
treacle—as long as nothing was at stake. But when substance mattered, he could
spot its absence as quickly (as he once told Cobb) "as a fly finds
shit."

 
          
 
Burnham began to scribble, as in the
background the President lavished praise on the Nebraska girl, who had begun
the conversation as "a brave and selfless child" but had by now
evolved into "a shining example of the kind of dedicated, fearless
Americans this country will be counting on as we forge ahead to face the
challenges of the twenty-first century.''

 
          
 
Under Burnham's pen, the President's nephew
was being transformed. No longer was he "eager to learn"; instead, he
had "begun to find himself after a painful growth spurt" (the
miserable test scores had to be acknowledged, however tacitly). If the lad had
neglected his studies, it was so he could spend time at the President's side,
earning a "lunch-pail degree" in the business of government (as far
as Burnham knew, the kid had never been in
Washington
). What had most impressed the President,
however, was a time when his nephew had broken his ankle and, defying doctor's
orders, had insisted on joining a protest march against rent-gouging by
slumlords in his home town (a complete fabrication: Burnham suspected that if
the kid knew what slumlords were, he applauded them for being pretty clever).