There was no particular reason for me to be nervous that day. Hortense had lined everything up down to the last detail, especially my part in it. But for some reason, I was—plenty. As director, I was to stand with her and Mr. Garrett and help receive the guests, dividing with Sam Dent the job of supplying names, though since he had no official connection with the Institute, he didn’t stand in the receiving line. But because he knew the Garrett staff and, of course, the politicians, and I knew the fellows, board members, scholars, and Institute staff, it seemed that between us, we had everyone covered. It was my first big Washington party, however, and I had a lot to learn.
I felt something, something more than I had expected, the moment I get there around four, with things due to start around five. It may have been the baby grand piano that had been moved in without my knowing it or the bull fiddle in its case, leaning in one corner. Or it may have been the chrysanthemums, the big jardiniers full of yellow ones, standing in all four corners and in rows against the wall. Or it may have been the half-dozen black girls in the dining room whom I glimpsed through the open doors—the caterer’s contingent, in dresses so short there was probably a law against them—bare legs, bare midriffs, skimpy bras, and little lace caps and aprons. Or it may have been the black girl at the desk, dressed the same way, who was reading a magazine and who put her hand on the phone when I went over to call Hortense, saying: “Sir, this phone is for incoming calls only. I can’t let you use it. There’s a pay phone in the lobby.” Or it may have been Hortense’s manner when I went out in the hall and called her—the quick brush she gave me, as if to say she was busy and would I kindly leave her alone. Whatever it was, I finally got it through my head that something was about to happen. And, of course, I tried to get with it, which is a bit hard to do when you have no idea what you’re trying to get with.
Sam Dent arrived, and I asked him what was up, but he gave me a vague answer: “If I knew, I’d certainly tell you; but nobody does, actually. They think they do, but they can’t be sure.”
The Garretts arrived and Hortense gave me a quick briefing: “You’ll stand with us, receive the guests first, and present them. Sam will present them to you and you will present them to us. For heaven’s sake, listen for names and get them straight. Repeat them clearly to us.” She took her place with Mr. Garrett, at the upper end of the room near the door of my office, and I took mine with them; she was standing next to me, with Mr. Garrett on her right. The orchestra came in and began to tune up. The bass player took his fiddle out of the case.
The guests began to arrive and were met by Sam who herded them to the front of the room toward the windows. If was barely five o’clock, yet dozens of people were there, some looking out at the street as though expecting something. Everyone seemed to know what was coming off except me, and I began to feel queer. The orchestra struck up with “Ma, He’s Making Eyes at Me.”
The phone rang, the one for incoming calls, which the girl had refused to let me use. She answered it and then signaled to Mr. Garrett who was there in three strides. He answered, nodded, and handed the receiver back to the girl. Then he nodded to Hortense and they went out in the hall and from there to the sidewalk. Finally I knew what it was: the call was from the White House to say that the President’s car had just left. That’s what all the excitement was about.
By now everyone was at the windows, watching, and I watched, too, from the doorway. A car pulled up and six men got out, like in a gangster movie, four of them staying outside, two-and-two, to block the sidewalk, and the other two coming inside to stand around gimlet-eyed, studying the crowd. Then another car pulled up, a limousine with the blue-and-white Presidential seal on the door. Then the President was getting out and holding his hand for the First Lady. Then they were coming in with Mr. Garrett and Hortense. The orchestra leader, who by now was standing beside me, made a sign and the orchestra broke off what they had been playing and rolled into “Hail to the Chief.” The President waved to them and took his place with the Garretts where they had been before, up near the door of my office, the First Lady beside the President and the Garretts beside her. Hortense beckoned to me and I went over. When I was presented, the President said: “Dr. Palmer, it’s a pleasure I’ve looked forward to. I’ve seen you play often.”
“He’s a fan of yours, Dr. Palmer,” the First Lady said.
From there on in, it went smoothly. Sam formed the guests into line and brought them to me, and I latched onto the names, which wasn’t hard, since they were all prominent people—senators, cabinet officers, congressmen, judges, writers, scholars, librarians, and so on. It was quite a distinguished gathering. Senator Hood was there with Mrs. Hood, but they seemed somewhat subdued.
The orchestra resumed its lively tunes, and when everyone had been received, the President stood around, chatting affably. I made a point of not staring. Then I felt a hand on my arm, and when I turned, he was standing beside me.
“Dr. Palmer, I saw you do something once that baffled me, and I’ve promised myself that if I ever met you, I would remind you of it and ask you to clear it up.”
“Sir, if I can, I’ll be glad to.”
“It was in a game with Virginia. In the last quarter, one of Virginia’s players scooped up a Maryland fumble and headed for a touchdown, with you in hot pursuit. Now, I had noticed your clean tackling—you left your feet, hit them clean, and brought them down hard. But when you closed in on this man, you didn’t tackle him the way you usually did. You went up his back, threw an arm around his neck, and wrestled him to the ground with about as much style as a fireman throwing a mattress out the window. I knew there had to be a reason . ... So what was it? Do you remember the play?”
“I remember it—the game, the play, the tackle. It was cold that day. There were snow flurries, and our hands were so numb that we couldn’t handle the ball. Both teams kept fumbling, and passing was out of the question. To tackle a man from behind, you had to grab what you could and hold on—pants, padding—anything. You couldn’t knock a man down by impact; there wouldn’t be any. He would be running the same way you were and just about as fast. But what could I do that day? My hands were so cold I couldn’t hold on, so I had to clip him and take the penalty or else go up his back. I hated it; it’s such a crummy way to play. But I did it. I brought him down, and we won the game. Does that clear it up?”
The President nodded, apparently in admiration. Then he smiled.
“It never occurred to me,” he said, “what the reason was, but I knew there had to be one. I always admire someone who does what has to be done—when, as Grover Cleveland put it, he ‘faces a condition, not a theory.’ ”
He turned to someone else then, and my other arm was caught, this time by Hortense.
“I heard it,” she whispered. “Aren’t you proud?”
“I guess so, but why couldn’t you have told me who was going to be here?”
“Oh, I couldn’t! We weren’t sure he would be. Even after he accepted, something could have come up. He would have been represented, of course, but that would have been awful—to let it out that he was going to be here and then have him not come. And, the Secret Service asks you not to make an announcement. If it’s not known, the danger is that much less.”
“Everyone knew but me, apparently.”
That night she paraded naked in front of the full-length mirror, asking me: “Lloyd, does it show on me? I am five months gone, as you said, and tonight that Judy Hood looked at me rather peculiarly. She had a certain look in her eye.”
“Turn around. Slowly.”
She turned, and I said: “Nothing so far.”
“It won’t be long now, and I still haven’t heard from that Finn.”
“Not to hurry you—”
“I know, I know, I know.”
20
THAT DAY MARKED THE zenith of Lloyd Palmer’s star as director of the Hortense Garrett Institute. After that, it began to fall—or, I could even say, plunge. That same week we took on
more writers, more biographers, with study rooms, recorders, secretaries assigned to transcribe, and all the rest—including a man I won’t name. He was from Georgia and was doing a book on Longstreet, who was briefly Lee’s second in command. That doesn’t sound like anything trouble could grow out of, but what that biography did to me shouldn’t happen to any American citizen who pays taxes and obeys the law. This writer was well known. He was the author of a fine book on Francis Marion, the Swamp Fox of Revolutionary fame, as well as many historical articles in important publications. In other words, he seemed worthy in every way of the grant-in-aid we gave him, in addition to office accommodations.
The first indication that there might be something odd about him was when Davis dropped by my office and suggested that “you leave him to me,” a hint I disregarded because I was beginning to distrust all hints from Davis. So when this man came in, I asked him to lunch. I took him to Harvey’s and listened while he talked—or at least, half-listened, for he began to bore me early on. I dislike people with grievances. His was against Douglas Southall Freeman, the biographer of Lee and Washington—and, it seemed, of Longstreet as well. That, this man could not forgive Freeman for.
“So, okay,” he growled, “we know about Gettysburg, how Longstreet wanted to shift his corps to the right and hit the Union rear and cut them off from their road, and perhaps, with luck, roll them up for a surrender. And we know that Lee said no and insisted on Pickett’s charge, one of the worst decisions yet made on a battlefield. So, okay, that was it; that was how Freeman had to tell it so long as the subject was Lee. But couldn’t he leave it at that? Did he have to write Longstreet up year after year for every newspaper, quarterly, and publisher who wanted a piece on the subject? Couldn’t he have disqualified himself? Because he must have known, Dr. Palmer, that to make a star out of Lee, he had to make a bum out of Longstreet! But Longstreet was right that day at Gettysburg! He was not a bum! And I say Dr. Freeman was wrong to keep on defaming him! He shouldn’t have! He did not have the right! Why did he have to be Longstreet’s biographer, too?”
He was getting so worked up that the maître d’ began shooting looks at us, and I tried to quiet him down. “Hold it,” I said, “I agree that Freeman might well have stepped aside and let someone else write on Longstreet, but, after all, Longstreet is dead and Lee is dead and Freeman is dead. It’s your turn now, but bury the dead, why won’t you?”
“You have no objection, then?”
“What objection could I have?”
“You’re furnishing me with money, which could give you the idea that you control what I say. Well, get this, Dr. Palmer, I control what I write. I do, not you! Sir, did you hear what I said?”
“Hey, hey, hey.”
He shut up and I told him: “The Hortense Garrett Institute passes no judgment on what you write, nor does the Institute try to control it in any way. All we ask in return for our help is a book.”
“Then you accept my way of doing it?”
“I accept your writing your own book.”
That’s how things stood until he was invited to address a convention of the United Daughters of the Confederacy in Atlanta. There he not only shot off his mouth about his book but repeated his remarks about Lee and what Freeman had done to Longstreet, one of Georgia’s eminent sons. Then he dragged me into it, claiming that I had accepted his “whole idea” as proof of the gains he was making “in swaying scholarly opinion, so justice can be done at long last to a great man’s reputation.” He spoke along these lines for an hour, with photographers taking his picture, reporters taking notes, and ladies taking exception. Because some were fans of Robert E. Lee and one or two were fans of Freeman, there was an argument, which was fine with the newspapers, and not just those in Atlanta, but papers that subscribed to the Associated Press. The story appeared in Washington and Wilmington.
Mr. Garrett called, wanting to know what was up. When I told him, he said: “We’re in for it, then. Sam Dent just reported. We’re to be peeled tomorrow, have our shirts ripped off by old blabbermouth himself, Senator Pickens of Georgia, who’s going to let us have it on the floor of the Senate. He’ll wave the Confederate flag. What else he’ll wave, we don’t know, but I wouldn’t put anything past him. He’s up for reelection this year, and to have this drop in his lap—a chance to defend God, the Confederacy, and Robert E. Lee all in one fell swoop, while being racist and yet pretend he’s not—that’s something he could have prayed for but never believed could happen. So keep your head down. It could be bad.”
Sam Dent was in and out all day, but around five he came in and sat down, looking sullen. “That stupid son of a bitch,” he growled, “we pay him a hundred a week, give him a girl, room, phone, and free phone calls, and this is his way of showing his gratitude. And it’s a mess, Lloyd. That rotten Pickens is milking it. He’s going to give us the works.”
“All right—but what works?”
“Hearings ... before his subcommittee.”
That meant the Subcommittee on Internal Revenue, or whatever its title was, of the Senate Finance Committee, which Pickens was chairman of. They had been looking into tax-exempt foundations, some of which had unquestionably been getting away with murder. So far, they hadn’t bothered us, but legally we were under their jurisdiction. I said: “I guess we’re in for it, then.”
“I would say you are.”
“Me? Personally?”
“I hate to upset you—but yes, you are.”
“How? In what way? What have I done?”
“I don’t really know, Lloyd, but if there’s one worst way you can think of, that’s the way it’s going to be. This guy is a rat.”
I could think of a way.
And from the way Sam looked at me, so could he.
The hearing was held in Room 2227 of the Senate Office Building, which is the Finance Committee’s room. Since it met on Wednesday, our hearing was scheduled for Monday of the following week. I received a subpoena to testify, which was served by a man who seemed not to have any face. He touched my coat with it, dropped it on my desk, and left without saying a word. Mr. Garrett also got an invitation, delivered the same way by the same man. By this time he had come down from Wilmington and checked in at the Hilton, “so you won’t be bothered by endless phone calls,” he told Hortense. “Actually,” she explained to me, “so I can stay with you without his seeming to know. He’s so sweet.”
“If you stay with me.”
“Well, that’s nice! Don’t you want me?”
“Hortense, it’s not a question of wanting. Of course, I want you. I’m hungry for you—always. But we could be under surveillance. Sam has already warned me: This guy is a rat. Senator Sam Pickens probably already knows about you.”
“You mean, Sam knows?”
“Let’s assume everyone knows.”
“But how could anyone know? I’ve never been seen—”
“Using your keys, no; but right here in this restaurant, now”—we were at the Royal Arms—“they all know ... by the way I look at you, the way you turn your head, the way we talk, and most of all, by the way we don’t talk. That’s when they show it—two people in love. They just sit there saying nothing, with a vacant look on their faces. That’s it. That tells the world.”
“Tells the world what?”
“What do you think?”
“Then I may as well come ... tonight.”
“O.K., then ... I love you.”
Mr. Garrett, Sam Dent, and I went downtown in my car, which I left in a parking garage on Constitution. Senator Hood, who was on the subcommittee, had invited us to stop by his office before the hearing so he could “have the privilege of escorting you in.” This suited us fine. At 9:30 we were at his office, and he immediately took us into his inner sanctum where he knocked off the amenities and gave it to us straight.
“To begin with,” he said, “this undoubtedly is going to be bad. Lloyd is marked up to go, and he may have to go as a sacrifice—”
�
��Why?” I said. “What does he have against me?”
“Weakness, for one thing. You’re an employee.”
“And that makes me weak?”
“If he can shake Mr. Garrett’s confidence in you—”
“He can’t,” Mr. Garrett said in that toneless voice of his, causing a warm surge to sweep over me. But Senator Hood cut him off. “I’m giving it to you straight—from Pickens’ point of view. He thinks Lloyd’s scalp can be had, as a rotten anti-Robert E. Lee, anti-God, anti-motherhood, pro-nigger, and pro-man-eating-shark creep. And he needs a scalp in the worst way. He doesn’t dare attack the Institute, which is a project everyone admires. But a worthy project’s faithless employee—”
The Institute Page 13
