Don Pendleton - Civil War II (12 page)

"Oh God, Mike," Becky commented.

"Yeah, oh God. I think that's when I told him to get lost."

Horror and misery were evident in her voice as Becky said, "So that's how you happened to leave the Justice Department."

He smiled thinly and told her, "No, not quite that heroically. I was half crazy for a week or so, but they gave me time to collect myself. And when I did, I had my tail down and firmly captured between my legs. I rode it out, and tried to forget. I couldn't, of course. And . . ." He sighed and got rid of the cigarette. "And I started dragging my feet in one area and another. To put it bluntly, I hit the skids. I kept seeing Leslie in every black person and I filed some briefs in the courts on behalf of a number of them ... and one thing led to another. In '95 I was being considered for the number two job in the new federal police force. And a buddy of mine wanted the job worse. He was the first one to call me an Uncle Mose. Then it all fell in. And that's when I came to Urban." He chuckled drily. "By presidential direction."

"I'll be proud to marry you, Mike," Becky quickly told him.

He kissed her, warmly and slowly, and then he rolled off the bed and got into his clothing. "Stay ready," he said. "Quit your job. Go some place quiet and far away from any Town. How about Connecticut? Your aunt still there?"

She showed him saucer eyes and nodded her head.

"Okay. Go to Connecticut. I'll contact you there. Take some good books and lose yourself until you hear from me. I have a job to do, or a job to at least
try
to do."

"Something is going on with the blacks, isn't it?" she observed in a frightened voice. "That's why you wanted the passkeys. It's why you came in here all banged up."

He nodded. "I think they might be getting ready to come out of the Towns. You stay clear,
way
clear. I don't want to lose love again to this insanity."

Her eyes watered and she said, "This may be inappropriate, but that's the nicest speech I've ever heard."

He smiled and told her, "No, I guess it's very appropriate."

"I'll be waiting for you in Connecticut. With my Mailer."

"With your what?"

"The collected works of Norman Mailer."

"Well there's a start," he said. "Mailer knew where it was at."

"Call it a whisper from yesterday, Becky. From an age of
guts.
Hey. Come on, help me find my stuff. There's a bucket waiting for me in California."

"A bucket of what?" she asked, the puzzlement growing.

"Guts," he said. "A bucket of guts."

CHAPTER 4

It was a large house, in the synthetic early colonial styling—mostly plastics—with huge white columns gleaming in the brilliance of floodlights. Winston set the Avis U-fly down on the oval of the circular drive, cut the engine, and consulted his watch. It was eleven twenty, Mountain Time—so far he'd lost less than half an hour in this sudden inspiration to detour through Colorado; the side-flight from Stapleton Field to the Cherry Hills estate of Jason Tromanno should cost him another half-hour at most, all time considered.

His inspection took in the ornate sweep of grounds surrounding the mansion. Winston was glad that the old man had been able to preserve an acre or two through all his troubles. He walked rapidly along the flagstone footpath, ascended winding plastic steps, and pulled the pendant-type door bell. A little man in a domestic's white jacket responded immediately, a magnificent Doberman on a short leash at his side.

The visitor eyed the big dog uneasily and said, "I'm Winston."

"Identification, please," the other requested.

Winston produced his credentials. The man smiled, and said, "Step in, please. The man is waiting in the library."

The man. Yeah, he still deserved to be called
the num.

The little guy in the white jacket was a Tom, not much doubt about that. They went across a foyer along a short hallway, and into the library. The first thing to catch Winston's eye was the nurse; he caught his breath and gazed at her closely, then smiled away the resemblance to Leslie. It wasn't so much the physical characteristics—it was something about the way she stood, the way her head angled a bit to the side as she looked at him.

She returned his smile and said, "Don't let the man overexert himself. He shouldn't even be up this late."

Winston nodded his reassurance and went on into the room. Tromanno occupied a huge overstuffed chair in front of the fireplace, and he seemed to be raptly studying the flames from the synthetic logs. Winston hoped his face did not reveal his sense of shock at the old fellow's appearance. Never a large man, the former U.S. President was now a delicate stack of bones encased in transparent skin.

The old man leaned forward, brushed a silvery wisp of hair from his forehead, and extended a bony hand. Winston took it, warmly and carefully, and mumbled, "It's good to see you again, sir."

"I'll just have to take your word for it that you're Mike Winston," Tromanno told him, in a surprisingly strong voice. He peered closely into Winston's eyes. "Everyone changes with age, of course. Even in the eyes. As I recall, you had very daring eyes."

"You once told me I had
your
eyes, sir," Winston reminded him.

The old man laughed, a deeply booming flood of pleasant music, then cut it off abruptly and placed a hand on his chest. "Every laugh takes another hour off my life, they tell me," he said. "People used to tell me I'd die laughing." He sniffed. "Better than dying crying, I suppose. Well . . . what've you been up to all these years, Michael? I hear you're a nigger tender now."

"That's why I'm here, sir. I need your counsel."

The old man leaned forward in the chair and peered around Winston's figure, his gaze taking in the nurse and

the manservant who had remained nearby. The dog was watching Winston, head cocked to one side, ears standing stiffly.

Tromanno said, "Henry, you and Em go take a coffee break, or a brandy break, or whatever young people break with these days. I'll ring if I want you."

"Should I leave Rhinemaster, sir?" the manservant asked.

"Take the slavering beastie with you," the old man commanded. "He'd as soon eat me as anybody else. I've noticed him giving hungry looks at my legbone here lately."

The manservant laughed, sent the ex-president an affectionate twinkling of eyes and went out with the dog. The nurse paused in the doorway to give Winston a final critical appraisal, then she too vanished.

"They are a couple of your responsibilities," Tromanno told Winston. "Or I suppose you noticed, if you still have good eyes."

Winston said, "Yes sir. I've been noticing many things during the past few months. I'm afraid, sir, that the black volcano is rumbling again."

"That so?" Tromanno eyed his visitor thoughtfully, sank back into the cushions, and drummed his fingers on a bony knee. Presently he asked, "Would you like a smoke, Mike?"

Winston declined.

"I sure as hell would," the old man declared. "But I've had my three for the day. Well so what—it's almost midnight, isn't it?" He opened a pedestal type humidor, selected a cigar, lit it, coughed, glared at it, then quietly said, "It's about time."

"Sir?"

"It's about time for some rumbling. When do you figure the lava will start flowing?"

"I expect it most any time, sir. It may already be flowing."

"I see. Well... good! I hope I live to see it."

"It could get pretty brutal," Winston said soberly.

"More brutal than the seventies? Than the eighties?"

Tromanno puffed furiously at the cigar. "They say two wrongs never make a right. Baloney! I say it always
takes
the second wrong to restore right. So do you think the second wrong will be wronger than the first one?"

"Perhaps more damaging to the nation as a whole, sir," Winston replied.

"Damn the nation as a whole! The nation as a whole ceased to exist twenty years ago."

"In a sense, sir, I suppose I agree with you."

The old man smoked and coughed some more, then he asked, "Why'd you come up here tonight, Mike?"

"Grabbing at straws, I guess. I've come to a conclusion that a Negro uprising is imminent. I can't get anyone to listen to me. I suppose I—"

"What's happened to you, Michael?"

"Sir?"

"Why aren't you standing up and cheering them on?"

"Well, I . . . we're speaking of carnage, Mr. President. Destruction of an undreamt magnitude . . . civil war, that's what we're contemplating, sir."

"It started more than two hundred years ago."

"Sir?"

"This civil war you speak of. It began in the Eighteenth Century. It has never ceased. It
shall
never cease. It cannot. It must not. Can you understand that?"

"I'm not sure I do, sir."

"The problems between the governors and the governed are unremitting, especially in a so-called democracy."

"Yes sir, I accept that."

"But listen, Michael. There is no such thing as a pure democracy. We can make grand speeches about freedom and we can sneer at the totalitarians, but it's all one big ball game."

"I'm afraid I don't quite agree, sir."

"Some day you'll see it. Arlington saw it. To our everlasting damnation."

"I, uh, think I get your drift, sir."

"Drift, hell. Tell me something, Mike. What is the most horrible sort of tyranny? That of a despot? Or that of a democratic majority?"

"I, uh ... That seems to be a paradoxical question, sir."

"Paradoxical hell. It's pure grim reality. When you've got one-man rule, everybody in the state is riding the same boat. The problem of the governed is a common one. Everybody's alike. But there is no more horrible form of despotism than to find yourself a part of a hated minority in a state run by majority rule. Then the despots are on every street corner, in every public place. They are your employers, your neighbors, your policeman, even your doctors and preachers and teachers. Oh, Michael.. . what terrible tyrants we free men are!"

Winston grinned. "This is like old times, sir. When I was a little boy, hiding in the dark in the next room, and listening to the arguments between you and my father."

"Yes and we argued about the same damn things, didn't we? Ah well, your father was a good man, Mike. Misguided here and there, but a good man who eventually saw the truth."

"Yes sir. He died for his convictions, sir."

"That he did. And what are your convictions, Michael?"

"I'm not sure." Winston took time to light a cigarette. He gazed at the old man and softly declared, "But I don't want to see a totally black America, I'm sure of that."

"Neither does anybody else. Not even the Negro, if he's honest with himself. Arlington niggered us, Mike. He niggered the whites and he even niggered the blacks. He got us all shook out and set apart from one another, just like one of those whirling machines they use in the laboratories to separate everything out. They called me a nigger lover, Mike. Hell, I'm not a nigger lover. Never have been. But I'm not a nigger hater, either. I'm an
America
lover, Mike. You know what a principle is, Mike?"

"I think so, sir."

"So what is the guiding principle of this country today?"

"I, uh, couldn't say, sir."

"That's because there are no guiding principles in this country today. A principle, Mike, is usually something you don't particularly like to do. While ago you said something about paradox. A principle is a paradox. We all want the other man to be principled, but we don't want to be chained by that same method of personal conduct. So a principle is always something for the other man to observe. But you remember this—if you're going through life just being comfortable, just doing the things you like to do, or want to do, then you're unprincipled. And if you're unprincipled, then you have no character. Where is the character of America today, Michael?"

"I don't know, sir."

"Could it be stirring itself, do you think, in the Towns?"

Winston gave the old man a startled look.

"You can't answer the question.-All right, don't answer it. But when you find the answer, just be sure you let yourself know. So, the niggers are coming out. Hip hip hooray. Who do you think their top people are?"

"Williams, for one. Bogan, I believe. Most of the town mayors."

Tromanno nodded thoughtfully and dropped his gaze to the fireplace. "Well, whoever they are, let's hope they're a blending—I mean a well-balanced blending of Eldridge Cleaver, Martin King, and Whitney Young. That'll give them fist, heart, and mind—and they're going to need all of it."

"These people here, sir, in the house. Can you count on their loyalty? To you, I mean?"

"Why not?" Tromanno snorted.

"I have reason to believe that many of the Toms are figuring prominently in the uprising. They have more freedom of movement, without appearing to be out of place. This would be vital to any intelligence operation. Also I wouldn't be surprised if many of them were trained assassins."