Benchley, Peter - Novel 06 (42 page)

 
          
 
Burnham read over the new paragraphs. Too
much, he concluded. An utter fiction. An insult to the President to imagine
that he would endorse such a patent lie.

 
          
 
"Well, Tim?" The President stood
over him, hand extended. "What've we got?"

 
          
 
"Oh! I . . . I'm not ... I don't think
you could read it, sir." Burnham tried to crumple the paper, but the
President plucked it from his hand.

 
          
 
"No time for modesty, Tim," he said.

 
          
 
The President began to read the letter,
squinting at the hastily written words, speaking the sentences silently to
himself.

 
          
 
Now you've tom it, Burnham thought. He was
sweating again. His stomach complained at the sudden onset of anxiety and,
vengefully, fired a fart that was silenced by the thick upholstery of the
couch.

 
          
 
"This, Tim ..." The President looked
at Burnham. His face was solemn. He held the piece of paper in one hand and
slapped it rhythmically with the other. "This is what I call writing."

 
          
 
"Wh . . . oh . . . thank you, sir."

 
          
 
"This is . . . it. This is a portrait of
my nephew."

 
          
 
"It is? I mean ..." For what reason
Burnham wasn't sure, but he felt compelled to disclaim his own lie. "I was
worried it might be a little . . . exaggerated."

 
          
 
"Not a bit. It's true, that's what's
important. Facts aren't important, as long as they support the truth." The
President smiled. “ 'Lunch-pail degree.' I'd forgotten that. Damn right!"

 
          
 
Forgotten it? Burnham thought. How do you
forget something that never was?

 
          
 
The President dropped the piece of paper on
his desk, turned and sat on the comer of the desk. He said, "You've been a
big help to me the past couple of days."

 
          
 
"Thank you, sir."

 
          
 
"Now, about this business with Andrei
..."

 
          
 
The door to the private office opened, and
Epstein hurried in, followed by Duggan.

 
          
 
"Damn it, Mario!" the President
said. "You forgotten how to knock?"

 
          
 
"Sir?" Epstein stopped. "I'm
sorry. I—" He saw Burnham then, but he did not acknowledge him.

 
          
 
"Never mind. What is it?"

 
          
 
Epstein waved a telex. "This just came
in. He's out. We've got him."

 
          
 
"Who?"

 
          
 
"The lunatic in
Havana
. The Navy's got him."

 
          
 
"Old news, Mario, old news."

 
          
 
"Sir?"

 
          
 
The President gestured at Burnham. "Tim
got him out, just like he said he would."

 
          
 
Epstein looked at Burnham. His eyes were as
cold as a crocodile's. "I see."

 
          
 
"Jolly good," said Duggan, and he
saluted Burnham with his pipe.

 
          
 
Epstein scowled at Duggan as if the man had a
booger on his lip.

 
          
 
A buzzer sounded on the President's desk. He
snatched up the phone and said, "What?" He listened for a few
seconds. "Oh. Okay. Be right there." He hung up and said, "What
the hell's a Young President?"

 
          
 
"Sir?" Burnham wondered if he was
being asked a riddle.

 
          
 
"They tell me I've got to go speak to
some group called the Young Presidents. Don't they know there's no such thing
as a young President? Soon as you take the oath of office, you're as old as the
hills and twice as mossy."

 
          
 
"It's a youth group, sir," Epstein
said. "Movers and shakers."

 
          
 
"Plotters and schemers, more likely. Did
you write it, Tim?"

 
          
 
"No, sir."

 
          
 
"Damn. Well, I'll go spin 'em a yam or
two." The President patted Burnham on the back, and, ignoring Epstein and
Duggan, marched out of his office.

 
          
 
Nobody else moved. Burnham didn't know what
was expected of him, so, with a feeble attempt at a polite smile in Epstein's
direction, he turned to go.

 
          
 
"Who are you?" Epstein might as well
have shouted, "Halt!"

 
          
 
Burnham stopped and turned his head.
"Nobody."

 
          
 
Epstein nodded. "You know it, and I know
it. How come the President doesn't know it?"

 
          
 
Burnham said (and immediately wished he
hadn't), "He must be an extraordinary judge of character."

 
          
 
"Listen, you ..." Epstein took a
step toward him. "I'm gonna find out who the hell you are."

 
          
 
"Feel free. I have no secrets."

 
          
 
"I don't trust you," Epstein said,
"and I don't like you."

 
          
 
"And I don't blame you." Burnham was
wearying of Epstein's bluster. "Now, if you've finished threatening me,
I'll be on my way." He nodded to Duggan, who raised his pipe in civil
reply, and walked out into Evelyn Witt's office, closing the door behind him.

 
          
 
Evelyn was typing. When she saw Burnham, she
picked up a sheet of yellow legal paper and held it between her fingertips as
if it were a dead mouse. "This," she said, ''this one is going to be
sent to
Amherst
College
? On White House stationery? Who is this
supposed to be about?"

 
          
 
"It contains a cosmic truth,
Evelyn," Burnham said, grinning. "The President saw it right away.
Our problem is, we can't see the forest for the trees. That's why we're not
President."

 
          
 
"If I didn't know you so well,
Timothy," Evelyn said with a bemused look, "I'd say you were becoming
a dangerous man."

 
          
 
Dyanna was preparing to leave for the day, a
ritual that took her from fifteen to thirty minutes, depending on the weather,
for she regarded her daily emergence into public view with as much care and
concern as if she were Laurette Taylor making an entrance in The Glass
Menagerie: First appearances formed an audience's impression of a character. If
it was windy, she sprayed her hair; rainy, she covered it with a scarf; sunny,
she chose one shade of makeup; cloudy, another shade.

 
          
 
Her mirror was propped on her desk, and she
was creating a self-portrait in lip-liner.

 
          
 
"I owe you an apology," Burnham
said.

 
          
 
"For what?"

 
          
 
Sly minx, he thought. Trying to make believe
it didn't happen. Get angry! Tell me off! Then it won't gnaw at you.

 
          
 
"My impetuous assault upon your
person."

 
          
 
"Don't be silly, it was nothing."
She stretched her mouth.

 
          
 
But you won't forget it, will you? "No,
really, I do apologize."

 
          
 
"Mr. Burnham ..." She looked at him
now. "It wasn't like it was the greatest kiss I've ever had."

 
          
 
Good, he thought, there you go. "No. But
it was stupid of me."

 
          
 
"Yes," she said, and closed the
subject with, "we all make mistakes."

 
          
 
The floor of Burnham's office was littered
with papers. He gathered them into a pile and dropped them beside the shredder.
Before he left, he would separate the sensitive papers from the routine and
would shred them. If he tried to shred everything, page by page, he'd be there
till
midnight
.

 
          
 
Before he left? Where was he going to go? Back
to the Y, to watch Dynasty in the common room with a Fuller Brush man and a
couple of out-patients?

 
          
 
No. He was going home. Now was the time to
play his trump with Sarah.

 
          
 
He dialed his home number. It rang four times
before Sarah picked up.

 
          
 
"Hi, Sarah," he said cheerily.

 
          
 
"Hello." She sounded as effusive as
a slug.

 
          
 
"How are you?"

 
          
 
"All right."

 
          
 
She was not going to make it easy for him. He
spoke quickly. "I talked to Cobb. He promises me he'll launch a full-scale
investigation into that bug m your car. He can't believe the Administration had
anything to do with it—neither can I, frankly—but if it did, he'll get you an
answer."

 
          
 
"Get me an answer? What about you? Don't
you care?"

 
          
 
"Of course! I just meant—"

 
          
 
"No, you don't. You just want to come
home."

 
          
 
"Hey—"

 
          
 
"You think I'd believe anything Warner Cobb
told you?"

 
          
 
"What would you believe, then?"

 
          
 
"I'd believe it if they admitted it. Fat
chance. Look, Timothy, I've got to go . . ."

 
          
 
"Where are you going?"

 
          
 
"Out."

 
          
 
Hurry up, Burnham told himself. "I saved
your precious cousin Toddy Thatcher today."

 
          
 
"Toddy? From what?"

 
          
 
"From being blown up, that's all."
Burnham gave her an abbreviated version of the Toddy/Teresa saga. At the end,
he said, "I really felt proud. I did something good, for once."