The Fourth K (22 page)

“Sure,” Congressman Jintz said. “I got a call from the Socrates Club, they are going to lean on every member of the House.”

Troyca said respectfully, “The Constitution says, any other body the Congress may provide by law. Why not bypass all that Cabinet and vice-presidential signing and make Congress that body? Then they can decide forthwith.”

Congressman Jintz said patiently, “Sal, it won’t work. It can’t look like a vendetta. The voting public would be on his side and we’d have to pay for it later. Remember Kennedy is popular with the people—a demagogue has that advantage over responsible legislators.”

Senator Lambertino said, “We should have no trouble following procedure. The President’s ultimatum to Sherhaben
is far too extreme and shows a mind temporarily unbalanced by his personal tragedy. For which I have the utmost sympathy and sorrow. As indeed we all do.”

Congressman Jintz said, “My people in the House come up for reelection every two years. Kennedy could knock a bunch of them out if he’s declared competent after the thirtyday period. We have to
keep
him out.”

Senator Lambertino nodded. He knew that the senatorial six-year term always grated on House members. “That’s true,” he said, “but remember, it will be established that he has serious psychological problems, and that can be used to keep him out of office simply by the Democratic party refusing him the nomination.”

Troyca had noted one thing. Elizabeth Stone had not uttered a word during the meeting. But she had a brain for a boss; she didn’t have to protect Lambertino from his own stupidity.

So Troyca said, “If I may summarize, if the Vice President and the majority of the Cabinet vote to impeach the President, they will sign the declaration this afternoon. The President’s personal staff will still refuse to sign. It would be a great help if they did, but they won’t. According to the Constitutional procedure, the one essential signature is that of the Vice President. A Vice President, by tradition, endorses all of the President’s policies. Are we absolutely positive she will sign? Or that she won’t delay? Time is of the essence.”

Jintz laughed and said, “What Vice President doesn’t want to be President? She’s been hoping for the last three years that he’d have a heart attack.”

For the first time Elizabeth Stone spoke. “The Vice President does not think in that fashion. She is absolutely loyal
to the President,” she said coolly. “It is true that she is almost certain to sign the declaration. But for all the right reasons.”

Congressman Jintz looked at her with patient resignation and made a pacifying gesture. Lambertino frowned. Troyca kept his face impassive, but inwardly he was delighted.

Troyca said, “I still say bypass everybody. Let Congress go right to the bottom line.”

Congressman Jintz rose from his comfortable armchair. “Don’t worry, Sal, the Vice President can’t seem to be too much in a hurry to push Kennedy out. She will sign. She just doesn’t want to look like a usurper.” “Usurper” was a word often used in the House of Representatives in reference to President Kennedy.

Senator Lambertino regarded Troyca with distaste. He disliked a certain familiarity in the man’s manner, the questioning of the plans of his betters. “This action to impeach the President is certainly legal, if unprecedented,” he said. “The Twenty-fifth Amendment to the Constitution doesn’t specify medical evidence. But his decision to destroy Dak is evidence.”

Troyca couldn’t resist. “Once you do this there will certainly be a precedent. A two-thirds vote of Congress can impeach any President. In theory anyway.” He noted with satisfaction that he had won Elizabeth Stone’s attention at least. So he went on. “We’d be another banana republic—only in reverse, the legislature being the dictator.”

Senator Lambertino said curtly, “By definition that cannot be true. The legislature is elected by the people directly, it cannot dictate as one man can.”

Troyca thought with contempt, Not unless the Socrates Club gets on your ass. Then he realized what had made the
senator angry. The senator thought of himself as presidential timber and didn’t like someone saying that the Congress could get rid of the President whenever it liked.

Jintz said, “Let’s wind this up—we all have a hell of a lot of work to do. This is really a move to a more genuine democracy.”

Troyca was still not used to the direct simplicity of great men like the senator and the Speaker, how with such sincerity they went to the very heart of their own self-interest. He saw a certain look on the face of Elizabeth Stone and realized she was thinking exactly what he was thinking. Oh, he was going to take his shot at her no matter what the cost. But he said with his patented sincerity and humility, “Is it at all possible that the President may declare that Congress is overruling an executive order that they disagree with and then defy the vote of the Congress? May he not go to the nation on television tonight before the Congress meets? And won’t it seem plausible to the public that since Kennedy’s staff refuses to sign the declaration, Kennedy is OK? There could be a great deal of trouble. Especially if the hostages are killed after Kennedy has been impeached. There could be tremendous repercussions on the Congress.”

Neither the senator nor the congressman seemed impressed by this analysis. Jintz patted him on the shoulder and said, “Sal, we’ve got it all covered, you just make sure the paperwork gets done.”

At that moment the phone rang and Elizabeth Stone picked it up. She listened for a moment and then said, “Senator, it’s the Vice President.”

Before making her decision, Vice President Helen Du Pray decided to take her daily run.

The first woman Vice President of the United States, she was fifty-five years of age and by any standard an extraordinarily intelligent woman. She was still beautiful, possibly because in her twenties, then a pregnant wife and assistant district attorney, she became a health-food nut. She had also become a runner in her teens before she married. An early lover had taken her on his runs, five miles a day and not jogging. He had quoted Latin, “
Mens sana in corpore sano
,” and translated for her, “If the body is healthy, the mind is healthy.” For his condescension in translating and his taking literally the truth of the quotation—how many healthy minds have been brought to dust by a too healthy body—she had discharged him as a lover.

But just as important were her dietary disciplines, which dissolved the poisons in her system and generated a high energy level with the extra bonus of a magnificent figure. Her political opponents would joke that she had no taste buds, but this was not true. She could enjoy a rosy peach, a mellow pear, the tangy taste of fresh vegetables, and in the dark days of the soul that no one can escape she could also eat a jarful of chocolate cookies.

She had become a health-food nut by chance. In her early days as a district attorney she had prosecuted a diet-book author for making fraudulent and injurious claims. To prepare for the case she had researched the subject, read everything in the field of nutrition, on the premise that to detect the false you must know what is true. She had convicted the author, made him pay an enormous fine but always felt she owed him a debt.

And even as Vice President of the United States, Helen Du Pray ate sparingly and always ran at least five miles a day—on weekends, she did ten miles. Now on what could be the
most important day of her life, with the declaration to impeach the President waiting for her signature, she decided to take a mind-clearing run.

Her Secret Service guard had to pay the price. Originally the chief of her security detail thought her morning run would be no problem. After all, his men were good physical specimens. But Vice President Du Pray not only took her runs early in the morning through woods where guards could not follow, but her once-a-week ten-mile run left her security men straggling far to her rear. The chief was amazed that this woman, in her fifties, could run so fast. And so long.

The Vice President did not want her run disturbed; it was, after all, a sacred thing in her life. It had replaced “fun,” meaning it had replaced the enjoyment of food, liquor and sex, the warmth and tenderness that had gone out of her life when her husband had died six years before.

She had lengthened her runs and put aside all thoughts of remarrying; she was too far up the political ladder to risk allying herself to a man who might be a booby trap, with secret skeletons in his closet to drag her down. Her two daughters and an active social life were enough, and she had many friends, male and female.

She had won the support of the feminist groups of the country not with the usual empty political blandishments but with a cool intelligence and a steadfast integrity. She had mounted an unrelenting attack on the antiabortionists and had crucified in debate those male chauvinists who without personal risk tried to legislate what women might do with their bodies. She had won that fight and in the process climbed high up the political ladder.

From a lifetime of experience she disdained the theories that men and women should be more alike; she celebrated their differences. The difference was valuable in a moral
sense, as a variation in music is valuable, as a variation in gods is valuable. Oh, yes, there was a difference. She had learned from her political life, from her years as a district attorney, that women were better than men in the most important things in life. And she had the statistics to prove it. Men committed far more murders, robbed more banks, perjured themselves more, betrayed their friends and loved ones more. As public officials they were far more corrupt, as believers in God they were far more cruel, as lovers they were far more selfish, in all fields they exercised power far more ruthlessly. Men were far more likely to destroy the world with war because they feared death so much more than women. But all this aside, she had no quarrel with men.

On this Wednesday, Helen Du Pray started running from her chauffeured car parked in the woods of a Washington suburb. Running from the fateful document waiting on her desk. The Secret Service men spread out, one ahead, another behind, two on the flanks, all at least twenty paces from her. There had been a time when she had delighted in making them sweat to keep up. After all, they were fully clothed while she was in running gear, and they were loaded with guns, ammo and communications equipment. They had a rough time until the chief of security detail, losing patience, recruited champion runners from small colleges, and that had chastened Du Pray a bit.

The higher she rose on the political ladder, the earlier in the morning she got up to run. Her greatest pleasure was when one of her daughters ran with her. It also made for great photos in the media. Everything counted.

Vice President Helen Du Pray had overcome many handicaps to achieve such high office. Obviously, the first was being a woman, and then, not so obviously, being beautiful. Beauty often aroused hostility in both sexes. She overcame
this hostility with her intelligence, her modesty and an ingrained sense of morality. She also had her fair share of cunning. It was a commonplace in American politics that the electorate preferred handsome males and ugly females as candidates for office. So Helen Du Pray had transformed a seductive beauty into the stern handsomeness of a Joan of Arc. She wore her silver-blond hair close cropped, she kept her body lean and boyish, she camouflaged her breasts with tailored suits. For armor she wore a string of pearls and on her fingers only her gold wedding ring. A scarf, a frilly blouse, sometimes gloves, were her badges of womanhood. She projected an image of stern femininity until she smiled or laughed and then her sexuality flashed out brilliant as lightning. She was feminine without being flirtatious; she was strong without a hint of masculinity. She was, in short, the very model for the first woman President of the United States. Which she must become if she signed the declaration on her desk.

Now she was in the final stage of her run, emerging from the woods and onto a road where another car was waiting. Her detail of Secret Service men closed in and she was on her way to the Vice President’s mansion. After showering she dressed in her “working” clothes, a severely cut skirt and jacket, and left for her office—and the waiting declaration.

It was strange, she thought. She had fought all her life to escape the trap of a single-funneled life. She had been a brilliant lawyer while rearing two children; she had pursued a political career while happily and faithfully married. She had been a partner in a powerful law firm, then a congress-woman, then a senator and all the time a devoted and caring mother. She had managed her life impeccably only to wind up as another kind of housewife, namely, the Vice President of the United States.

As Vice President she had to tidy up after her political ‘husband,’ the President, and perform his menial tasks. She received leaders of small nations, served on powerless committees with high-sounding titles, accepted condescending briefings, gave advice that was accepted with courtesy but not given truly respectful consideration. She had to parrot the opinions and support the policies of her political husband.

She admired President Francis Xavier Kennedy and was grateful that he had selected her to be on the ticket with him as Vice President, but she differed with him on many things. She was sometimes amused that as a married woman she had escaped being trapped as an unequal partner, yet now in the highest political office ever achieved by an American woman, political laws made her subservient to a political husband.

But today she could become a political widow and she certainly could not complain about her insurance policy, the presidency of the United States of America. After all, this had become an unhappy “marriage.” Francis Kennedy had moved too quickly, too aggressively. Helen Du Pray had begun fantasizing about his “death,” as many unhappy wives do.

By signing this declaration she could get all the loot. She could take his place. For a lesser woman this would have been a miraculous delight.

She knew it was impossible to control the exercises of the brain, so she did not really feel guilty about her fantasies, but she might feel guilty about a reality she had helped to bring about. When rumors floated that Kennedy would not run for a second term, she had alerted her political network. Kennedy had then given his blessing. This was all changed.