Benchley, Peter - Novel 06 (43 page)

 
          
 
He waited for her praise.

 
          
 
"Timothy," she said, "you're
pathetic."

 
          
 
"What?"

 
          
 
"This fairy tale and a dollar will get
you a ride on the Metro."

 
          
 
"You don't believe me? Call Evelyn Witt.
Call the President! I spent the whole afternoon in his office. He thinks I'm
terrific."

 
          
 
"He has no taste. Goodbye, Timothy."

 
          
 
"God damn it!" Burnham shouted.
"I'm coming home."

 
          
 
"I thought you might say that," she
said evenly, "so I changed the locks."

 
          
 
"You what?” Sonja. This was a Sonja
trick. Sarah even sounded like Sonja.

 
          
 
"Goodbye."

 
          
 
"No! Wait!" But she hung up.

 
          
 
Congratulations, he thought. Welcome home.

 
          
 
He looked up. Dyanna was standing at the outer
door. She had to have heard the entire conversation.

 
          
 
"I understand," she said.
"Now." She pulled open the door.

 
          
 
Burnham rested his fist on his forehead.
Wonderful. Now she thinks I kissed her because my marriage is breaking up. I
couldn't help myself. I was propelled by something deep.

           
 
Like mortal loneliness. Or existential
sadness. Or terminal hominess.

 
          
 
When he looked up again, Dyanna still had not
left. She was standing in the open doorway, talking to a black cleaning woman,
who was pointing at him.

 
          
 
“It's all right," he said to Dyanna.
"Let her in." He stood up and walked around his desk. "I've only
got one more call to make, and I can do it from your desk."

 
          
 
Dyanna stepped back, and the cleaning woman
shoved her cart forward with such vehemence that it rose up onto two wheels as
it rounded the comer into Burnham's office. She was in her fifties, Burnham
guessed, and she had a pronounced limp. Her hair flew out from her head, and
her eyes were glazed.

 
          
 
Silly woman thinks she's Mario Andretti, he
decided. She looks wired. But then, if I had to push a cart around the E.O.B.
all day, I think I'd stick something up my nose, too.

 
          
 
As Burnham left his office and headed for
Dyanna's desk, he noticed that as soon as she was alone the cleaning woman
seemed to calm down. She was still breathing heavily, but she began
meticulously to dust around every picture in the office, only occasionally
glancing his way.

 
          
 
He rooted through his pockets until he found
the slip of paper. He stared at it for a long moment, sighed and ^aid to
himself. What the hell . . .

 
          
 
Then he dialed Eva.

 
          
 
The dustrag was a metronome in Ivy's hand. Flip-flop-flip-flop-flip-flop,
it danced over the top of the dark wood frame of the old painting of the
square-rigged sailing ship. Her hand lived independent of her, powered by an
internal battery that she couldn't turn off. Her feet shuffled in rhythm with
her hand, sending pennants of pain up her bad leg. The pain was curious: She
knew it was there, but she was detached from it, didn't seem to care about it.

 
          
 
Her eyes wandered out into the secretary's
office and landed on the Burnham fellow, sitting at the secretary's desk and
cooing to some honey on the phone. She sent him a thought that said, Scram:
Don't you have anything better to do?

 
          
 
She had been waiting for hours to get into
this office. At first she had been so anxious that she prowled the halls and
cleaned everything in sight. Suppose she couldn't get any more papers for Mr.
Pym and Mr. Pym lost interest and wouldn't get Jerome his diploma? Jerome would
fall in with a rough crowd and start mugging people, and he'd pick the wrong
dude to mug, and the dude would blow him away. The thoughts made her more
anxious, and the anxiety generated more bad thoughts, and soon she was flitting
around the halls like a hummingbird trying to distract herself, with the result
that she tripped on a doorstep and pulled something in her bad leg. She took
one of Mr. Pym's pills, and not only did the pain fade but the anxiety did,
too, so she took another one.

 
          
 
After an hour or so, she felt bathed in
confidence and control, and whereas, before, she had stayed away from this

 
          
 
Burnham's office till she was sure he had
left, now she didn't care if he was there or not, so she had pushed open the
door to the office and said to the Debbie Reynolds secretary, "I got to
clean."

 
          
 
"Come back later," Debbie Reynolds
had said, "Mr. Burnham's still working."

 
          
 
"He's not working," Ivy had said.
"Look, he's sitting."

 
          
 
"I beg your pardon!"

 
          
 
"You're welcome."

 
          
 
Then the Burnham fellow had done the right
thing and told her to come on in.

 
          
 
Now, if he'd just get out of here, she could
do her job and be gone.

 
          
 
She heard him say something like, "See
you soon," and hang up the phone, and she flopped her dustrag at one of
the windowsills. Flip-flop-flip-flop. Maybe she should hire her hand out as a
windshield wiper.

 
          
 
"Excuse me?" He was standing in the
doorway.

 
          
 
Not bad. Civilized, anyway. Debbie Reynolds
didn't say "excuse me."

 
          
 
Be polite. Don't want to leave a bad
impression. Don't want to leave any impression at all. They claim they can't
tell you-all apart unless you sass 'em. "Yessir?"

 
          
 
He pointed to a pile of papers over by the
wastebasket. "Those all get burned, don't they?"

 
          
 
"To a cinder."

 
          
 
"Good. I didn't want to have to sit here
and shred them."

 
          
 
"I'll make sure they go up the
chimney."

 
          
 
"Thanks. Goodnight."

 
          
 
" 'Night."

 
          
 
She waited until she heard the outer door
close, then headed straight for the pile of papers.

 
          
 
Remember the camera in the chandelier, the
microphones in the dingle-dangles. To hell with them, keep your back to them,
they'll never be able to prove a thing.

 
          
 
She saw the first paper on the file. It was
slugged TOP SECRET.

 
          
 
Bingo.

 
          
 
She turned over another paper. TOP
SECRET—URGENT.

 
          
 
Big leagues. This stuff d make Mr. Pym sit up
and take notice. Let him dribble it out at his swell affairs, he'll be so much
in demand he'll prob'ly have to sell stock in himself and become a
conglomerate.

 
          
 
But be careful. Suppose they run a search on
you on the way out.

 
          
 
No big deal. She picked up the two papers and,
keeping her back to the chandelier, walked to the desk. She found a pair of
scissors and clipped off the classification slugs.

 
          
 
There. Now no one can say anything.

 
          
 
She scooped the rest of the papers into a
trash bag, tied it off and dropped it onto her cart. She tidied up the desk and
looked around to make sure everything was in place.

 
          
 
Then she left, pushing her cart ahead of her
and turning out the lights.

 
          
 
She was amazed at how brilliant she was.

 
          
 
''I WONT DO IT," Eva said to her father,
who was slicing smoked salmon into paper-thin leaves.

 
          
 
"Of course you will." He didn't
bother to look at her.

 
          
 
"I'll leave. I'll find some other way to
pay you back."

 
          
 
"No you won't. You don't want to go to
jail again."

 
          
 
"I don't believe you."

 
          
 
"Yes you do, or you wouldn't be trying to
talk me out of it. You'd've left already." He laid the razor edge of the
filleting knife against the soft flesh and slashed it with quick expertise.

 
          
 
"But why! Don't you have any—"

 
          
 
"No, I don't. None at all. This is a
once-in-a-lifetime chance for me, and it's not asking too much of you to help
me."

 
          
 
"They could lock me up for life! You
too."

 
          
 
"Only if you get caught. And if you do
what I tell you, you won't." Pym was reassured by the certainty in his own
voice. He had to convince Eva, true, but he also had to convince himself.
"Now," he said, "tell me."

 
          
 
She told him about the squash game and the
lunch and the sudden summons to the Oval Office.

 
          
 
"What about the allergies?"

 
          
 
"What I thought. He's supersensitive to
chemicals. His body overreacts to everything. I put him up with an amino acid
in about two minutes. I didn't have a chance to see what'11 bring him
down."

 
          
 
"What's he like?"

 
          
 
"Naive. Out of his depth. He doesn't know
who he is or what he's got. Nice. Kind of charming."

 
          
 
Charming. Pym didn't like that. He looked at
Eva, but now she wouldn't look at him.

 
          
 
"What are his politics?"

 
          
 
"I couldn't tell. I don't know that he
believes in anything very strongly."

 
          
 
"Good. The mushy ones can be prodded. Is
he married?"

 
          
 
"Sort of. Something's wrong there, but I
don't know what."

 
          
 
"Find out. That sounds like a real weak
spot."

 
          
 
She didn't respond. Pym couldn't tell if she
was sad or frightened. Her face was slack.

 
          
 
The doorbell rang. Pym frowned and looked at
Eva, who shook her head. It rang again, urgently. Pym wiped his hands on a
dishrag and left the kitchen.

 
          
 
Ivy was through the door before it was all the
way open, dragging her tote bag into the living room.

 
          
 
"Ivy! What a nice surprise!" Pym
hated surprises, especially from people who were providing him with documents
stolen from the White House.

 
          
 
"I know I should've called," Ivy
said, "but ..." With a dismissive wave of her hand, she plopped
herself down onto the sofa.

 
          
 
She's drunk, Pym thought. Then, suddenly, from
nowhere: Mother of God, she's been caught! No. Control yourself. Don't panic.

 
          
 
He wondered if his passport was still valid.

 
          
 
He forced himself to say, "Not at all, my
dear. Always glad to see you."

 
          
 
Eva came out of the kitchen. She looked at Ivy
for a long moment before saying, "Are you okay?"

 
          
 
"Sure." Ivy smiled.

 
          
 
"How's your leg?"

 
          
 
"No problem."

 
          
 
Eva said, "That's what I thought."

 
          
 
Pym saw Eva glare at him as she turned back
into the kitchen, but he didn't know why until he looked again at Ivy and saw
the stuporous grin still stretching her face.

 
          
 
The pills. She was carrying a load of
Percodan. Had anyone at the White House noticed? Had she been fired? Was that
why she was here?

 
          
 
"How was your day?" he asked.

 
          
 
"Wait'11 you see," Ivy said. "I
brought you some goodies."

 
          
 
Eva returned with a cup of tea for Ivy, so
strong it was almost black. Ivy sipped at it contentedly.

 
          
 
Pym could tell that Ivy was floating in a
friendly fog in which time did not exist. She made no move to show him her
goodies, so he pointed at the bag and said, "May I?"

 
          
 
"Be my guest."

 
          
 
He dumped the tote bag in the middle of the
rug and sat beside the heap of papers. The first two papers he examined had
been cut by scissors. He held them up to Ivy. "What happened to
these?"

 
          
 
"I cut the TOP SECRET off 'em, so if they
stopped me, they couldn't prove anything."

 
          
 
Pym blinked and bit his lip. "I
see." This woman, he thought, is a live bomb. The sooner Eva can get her
hooks into Burnham and retire Ivy to the sidelines, the better.