Ten North Frederick (61 page)

“No.”

“What
are
you going to do, Joe, with the rest of your life?”

“I've been wondering. First, I'll try to get back my self-respect without the conceit. I'll try to get over my embarrassment. I wasn't embarrassed at the time, but since then I can't
tell
you the embarrassment I've felt, thinking of myself sitting there facing those men while they stared at me and told me I was a useless chump. They were being courteous to a hundred thousand dollars. Mother's money, incidentally. Not even money I earned myself. Not even money a Chapin earned. Money a Hofman earned. What am I going to do? I'm going to live at
10
North Frederick Street, go to my office, spend the summers on the farm—and yes, I know one thing I want to do. I want to be a better father to my children. I'm a useless chump to the world, but my children love me. And you love me, don't you?”

“Yes.”

“Or do you?” said Joe.

“Of course,” said Edith. “Do you love me?”

“You have every right to ask that.” He got up and kissed her forehead.

“I'm not much,” he said. “But what there is is yours, Edith. Never once anybody else's. Just think, Edith, no more trips to Tioga County, no more golf tournaments at Bedford Springs. I'm almost happy.”

“Joe, you're not. It's too soon to say that.”

“I know it,” he said. “The fellow that did all the talking in Philadelphia, he kept saying, ‘We don't kid ourselves, Mr. Chapin. In this room we don't kid ourselves.' My trouble, one of my troubles, is that I kid myself. I'm one of the little princes of Gibbsville, Pennsylvania, and I wanted to be President of—”

“Don't hurt yourself, Joe. Nobody knows that that's what you wanted, and the only way that that could hurt you is if people did know. And they don't. And they never will.”

He moved to his desk. “Any interesting mail?”

“Letters from the children. Oh, some invitations. Two wedding invitations. Mostly ads and bills. Are you going to telephone Mike Slattery?”

“Why?”

“Well, I think you ought to, in the morning.”

“Why?”

“I don't know the first thing about politics, but I think I know Mike Slattery. If you let him think you're angry or cross, he'll get angry and cross right back, and if you don't want people to know about what happened in Philadelphia, it's better to have Mike on your side.”

“Yes. I agree.”

“And he may be worried about himself. That article in the Philadelphia paper wasn't very kind to him, either. I think you ought to at least pretend that you and he are just the same as you always were. Friends. Not like Arthur or Henry. But the kind of friends you and Mike have always been. He likes you, Joe, and there's no point in antagonizing him.”

“Oh, I'll call him. I would anyway, to see what he wants. I'll do it now.” He telephoned Mike Slattery.

“Mike, this is the people's choice,” said Joe.

“Joe, I'm glad to hear you taking it that way. Really and honestly glad. They didn't know what to think when you left that suddenly, and they asked me. I said, ‘Gentlemen, class tells. Class tells,' I said. I said what was there for you to do? Prolong it into a session that would be painful for all concerned, or make your announcement and leave before anybody had a chance to get embarrassed. I just want to know first and foremost, you're not sore at me, I hope?”

“No, I think you probably did the best you could,” said Joe.

“What I wanted to hear you say. I'm on my way to Washington tomorrow, but let's have lunch when I get back.”

“Any time at all,” said Joe, hanging up.

“Well, that's that,” he said to Edith.

In the Slattery living room Mike said to Peg: “I don't know. He made it too easy for me.”

“Don't look for trouble, Mike. You said yourself, class tells. I don't know about the class, but he was raised a gentleman.”

“Uh-huh. And he'll never trust me again as long as he's alive to draw breath.”

“Well, why should he? And what do you care?”

“I care because now that he's completely out of politics I can like him again,” said Mike.

“The way I look at it, twice you came to his rescue to get the daughter out of trouble. The first time wasn't anything, the time she had her little whatever-it-was with the truck driver. But that second time was worth a hundred thousand dollars.”

“Well, thanks for reminding me. I guess it was.”

“A hundred thousand dollars, a lot of money even if you say it quick. But not much to what they would have spent. If you could get that thought across to him maybe he wouldn't take it so hard, not getting on the ticket.”

“I don't think he minds the money so much, but it's a good idea to remind him of what he would have spent. And I never even asked him for carfare to give that marriage record the tear-up.”

 • • • 

A brief telephone call from Slattery to Bob Hooker disposed finally of any further local publicity regarding Joe Chapin. At Mike's suggestion Joe issued a single statement concerning his candidacy, which ran in the
Standard
and in some other newspapers in the county, but nowhere else in the state. “Upon the advice of my physician, who informs me that the rigors of a strenuous statewide campaign could lead to serious complications of the recent accident to my leg, I have asked the members of the State Republican Committee to withdraw my name from consideration in shaping up the ticket for the coming elections. In doing so, I have assured the Committee that I shall continue to lend my wholehearted support to all Republican candidates in the forthcoming campaign, short of public appearances involving extensive travel. I wish to thank my friends, who have so loyally rallied to my support, for their good wishes and offers of assistance. I know that they, like me, will now direct their energies toward the only satisfactory conclusion of the campaign; a sweeping Republican victory in November!”

Joe saw Billy English at the club the day after the announcement appeared.

“Joe, I'm sorry to learn you have a new doctor.”

“A new doctor? Oh, the statement.”

“As a matter of fact, I've always warned you that the leg could give you trouble, so I didn't mind.
Is
that why you withdrew, or did a little taste of politics turn your stomach?”

“Well, between you and me, a little of both. My leg and my stomach were involved. But I'm not going to admit that to people.”

“For people who don't need it in their business, the best publicity is no publicity. The biggest men I've ever known have stayed out of the newspapers as much as possible. When Julian died I developed such a hatred for notoriety that I told Bob Hooker I never wanted my name in his paper again. Well, I knew that couldn't be. The hospital, and the Medical Society, they come in for a certain amount of publicity, and my name gets printed in those connections. But articles about me or my family, even squibs on the society page, I don't want them. You wouldn't have liked it after a while, Joe. I saw one article in one of the Philadelphia papers, I guess you saw it too. I wanted to horsewhip the fellow that wrote it, and I was thinking about it last night after I read your statement. You're well out of the whole thing. I'm all for helping the party, but I'll do it with money, as long as I can afford it, and whatever my opinion is worth to the people I come in contact with. There's Arthur.”

“Where?”

“Isn't that Arthur at the bar?”

“No, Arthur's still in the dining room. I don't know who that is. A guest, I imagine.”

“Oh. I thought it was Arthur, but on second look I can see it isn't. Well, glad you haven't changed doctors, Joe. Wouldn't like to have to change lawyers.”

Some men at the club commented on Joe's withdrawal from politics, and others ignored it. Partly on Mike's advice, and partly on Arthur's, Joe was making himself visible at all of his usual places—the club, the courthouse, Main Street, the country club—for the first few days after the statement. In a little while, probably as little as a week, people would accept him as a non-candidate, and in only a little more time they would forget he had ever been considered a possibility. After that Joe and Edith were to visit the Dave Harrisons at their new house in a place called Hobe Sound, Florida. They had not at first intended to accept the Harrisons' invitation, but as Edith said, “This would be a very good time to remind Gibbsville, and Pennsylvania, that one of your best friends is a Morgan partner. It won't do any harm, just in case there's any talk about your not getting the nomination.”

The Harrisons had the Alec Weekses and the Paul Donaldsons from Scranton as their other guests with the Chapins. The men fished and played golf and drank large quantities of whiskey and nursed their grudge against their friend in the White House. The women swam and played bridge and went to Palm Beach to shop or to the nearby St. Onge's for Kodak film. Hobe Sound was less than an hour's drive from Palm Beach, and was only just becoming known. It was a resort that was in effect a private club, and the theme of it was the new simplicity: houses that could be run with staffs of a minimum of servants; multimillionaires driving inconspicuous Plymouths instead of Rolls-Royces; a place where the powerful could relax unobserved by the trippers from West Palm Beach, and yet could tie up their Diesel yachts. A visitor could be made a member of the Jupiter Island Club for ten dollars, but he could then find himself in a dollar-a-point bridge game every afternoon and night. The man in the old Groton School blazer might be a Morgan partner, and the man in the shredded khaki pants might be the brains of the motorcar industry.

Dave Harrison and Alec Weeks went fishing one day and left the Pennsylvanians, Chapin and Donaldson, to play golf. But the rain fell heavily and the Pennsylvanians decided to do some rainy-day drinking together while the women visited the shops of Worth Avenue.

“Joe, I understand they gave you a real royal screwing a month or so ago.”

“I guess you could call it that.”

“Well, what would
you
call it?”

“Oh, a real royal screwing,” said Joe.

“Is what I heard true? A hundred and fifty thousand smackers?”

“No, not that much, but it was a large sum. But I see their point.”

“I wish you'd talked to me,” said Paul Donaldson from Scranton.

“What would you have done?”

“I'll tell you what I'd have done. I'd have got together about a half a dozen fellows and said, ‘It's Joe Chapin or else.'”

“Well, thanks, Paul. But I think it worked out all right. I'm here in Hobe Sound with my friends, instead of dragging my tail around Pennsylvania.”

“Balls to that, Joe. If you thought enough of it to give them a wad of money, you wanted the job. Lieutenant governor is what you were after, that right?”

“Yep.”

“Well, I don't know if it's any consolation to you, but according to my sources of information, we're going to have to take a little punishment in the fall.”

“So I gather. Oh, hell, Paul. Water under the bridge.”

“Does that finish you with politics for good?”

“I'm inclined to think so.”

“But you're going to keep on living in Gibbsville.”

“Christ, yes.”

“Is your leg all right again?”

“Well, I took forty dollars away from you yesterday, and twenty the day before.”

“The way we go around that golf course, Dave could play,” said Donaldson. “What are your plans? I know of a few things in New York that might interest you.”

“Law business?”

“No, not exactly. Investment trusts. This is the bottom, this is the time to get in. There's going to be a war in Europe.”

“How do you know that?”

“That fellow with the Charlie Chaplin mustache. You won't read about it in Bob Hooker's rag, but that crazy bastard is going to take over the whole Continent of Europe before he gets his ass in a sling. And we're going to get rich.”

“Oh, come on, Paul.”

“Well, how long since you talked to anybody that really knows what's going on over there?”

“I haven't.”

“I have. You ask Dave. He'll be cagey, but just ask him if I don't get some pretty good information.”

“I don't doubt that, but this Hitler, he's a God damn freak.”

“Well, if you're not interested in money, what are you interested in? You don't want to just vegetate in Gibbsville the rest of your life. Have you got a girl friend?”

“Nope.”

“You ought to come to New York with me sometime and I'll fix you up with a little group I know. They aren't hookers. Most of them are getting alimony from some poor sucker, and all they want is somebody to take them to El Morocco so they can doll up. A couple of them even live with their husbands, but the husbands don't give a damn either. They've got girls of their own. I saw one of them in Palm Beach the other day. In fact I almost went down there this afternoon and got myself a good piece of tail. They aren't kids, but who wants kids? The only trouble I ever got into was those young kids that think all they have to do is holler and you'll shell out. No, these dames I'm talking about, they're all in their thirties or more, but there isn't a thing they don't know, and you don't have to go to Paris. New York is overrun with the most perverted, fanciest, good-looking dames in the history of the world. And all they want out of you is take them out to a good dinner and a show and a night club.”

“How do you get time to make all your millions?”

“Listen,” said Paul. “I'm downtown by ten o'clock, just after the bell rings. A good piece of tail and a good seven hours' sleep, and I think more clearly than if I was some guy that tossed and turned wishing he had what I had. A lot of our friends go to a gym. I get in bed with a woman and I sleep better. I'm a great believer in sleep. Not ten hours, not twelve hours. Six or seven or eight hours of sound sleep.”