by Allen Drury
“Are we going to get that atomic sub contract for the Portsmouth Navy yard?” Charlie Abbott asked.
This, Bob Munson knew, was the sort of thing he was going to be running into repeatedly as the Leffingwell nomination progressed, and he might as well set his pattern right now, particularly since several Senators nearby had overheard the challenge and had quieted to listen for his answer to it.
“We’ll have to wait and see, Charlie,” he said crisply. “If you help us, we’ll help you.”
“You help first,” Senator Abbott said pleasantly, but with a little tightening around his eyes.
“Run along, Charlie,” Senator Munson said, starting to turn back to Lafe and Powell. “I haven’t got time to play games today.” Senator Abbott placed a hand tightly on his shoulder.
“God damn it,” he said angrily, “my people need that contract. We have eight hundred unemployed in that town right now, and Portsmouth isn’t any metropolis. That’s a lot of people for a town that size, Bob. The Admin-istration had better come through on this, or by God, there’ll be trouble, not only out there”—he gestured toward the floor—“but up there at the polls. We could lose New Hampshire next year, Bob. It’s changing fast and it’s got troubles.”
“Haven’t we all,” said Bob Munson dryly. Then he moderated his tone.
“See here, Charlie,” he said, looking beyond him at Cecil Hathaway of Delaware and Ed Parrish of Nevada and Rhett Jackson of North Carolina, all of whom were listening intently, “the President is aware of your situation there, and he wants to do the best he can for you, and I think you’ll find Portsmouth won’t be forgotten. But it’s not going to be remembered on any blackmail basis, I give you my word as Majority Leader on that. Now if you want to come in with us on Bob Leffingwell, wonderful, your support will be welcome and valuable. If you don’t, we’ll make out. It’s up to you Charlie. I’ll be hoping to hear from you favorably one of these days soon.”
Senator Abbott looked at him for a long moment, and Senator Munson looked impassively back. The eyes of the Senator from New Hampshire fell first.
“Okay, Bob,” he said, but coldly. “We’ll have to see.”
“I guess we will, Charlie,” Bob Munson said, unmoved, as Charles Abbott walked away. Ed Parrish waved ironically from across the room.
“Another day, another dollar,” he observed dryly; and Bob Munson, aware that here was one vote he could probably count on, laughed out loud.
“I hope so,” he said. Senator Parrish smiled.
“I’m sure of it,” he said. “Pride goeth before a surrender, particularly where Charlie’s concerned.”
“Of course,” Cecil Hathaway remarked, “you may find all of us that difficult too, you know, Bobby.”
Senator Munson smiled, but his reply was pointed.
“I trust you all heard the answer he got,” he said, and Cecil Hathaway grinned.
“How could we help it,” he asked, “when you were so careful to make sure we would?”
Bob Munson laughed.
“You’re just too sharp, Ceece,” he said. “I can’t have any secrets around here.”
“Not from us who know and love you,” Ceece said jovially. “That’s for sure.”
“Tell me,” Bob Munson said as the others turned away and he could concentrate again on his two younger colleagues, “what are you going to do, Powell?”
“I’m for him,” Senator Hanson said promptly, his trim blond head nodding vigorously. “I always have been, as you know.”
“Yes,” Bob Munson said, “one man who’s never had any doubts about Bob Leffingwell. You’re a rarity, my boy.”
“It’s largely a matter of conviction,” Powell Hanson said. “We see things pretty much alike, Bob and I, in spite of the fact that I, unlike him, am not engaged in any sinister plots against the Republic.”
“What got into Paul?” Lafe asked, and Powell snorted.
“He’s always been a damned isolationist,” he said, “he’s never changed.”
“Apparently Indiana hasn’t either,” Bob Munson observed. “They keep sending him back.”
“Yes, that’s true,” Powell said. “Something people forget, sometimes: if our people didn’t like us, we wouldn’t be here.”
“A little truism that is overlooked by some of our higher and mightier publications now and then,” Senator Munson agreed. “I’d like your help on this, Powell, if you’re willing.”
“Gladly,” Senator Hanson said. “I’ll do whatever I can, Bob.”
“Let me know what you hear,” Senator Munson said, rising. “I’m going over to the other cave and talk to Warren Strickland for a minute.”
“Send for us if you need help,” Cecil Hathaway called as he started out the door. Bob Munson laughed.
“I think my passport is still good,” he said.
As he traversed the short distance from his own side across the center aisle past the main door to the Minority cloakroom, he noted that Taylor Ryan was now up and arguing bluntly with Jay Welch on the Federal Reserve bill while Murfee Andrews cast in waspish comments whenever he got the chance. Harley had left the Chair and disappeared somewhere, gracious gray Lloyd B. Cavanaugh of Rhode Island was sitting in for him, and in the Majority Leader’s own chair Tom Trummell had given way to John J. McCafferty of Arkansas, a wispy little old man of eighty-three who always looked as though he would blow away in the next high wind but somehow clung to the well-riveted affections of the people of Arkansas in spite of it. Irving Steinman of New York was sitting in for Warren Strickland in the Minority Leader’s chair, soberly signing correspondence and ignoring the debate as he did so. Elsewhere about the floor Senator Munson spotted Clement Johnson of Delaware, apple-cheeked and bright-eyed, chatting amiably with chunky little Leo P. Richardson of Florida, who was sitting on the edge of his chair and swinging his legs, which were just too short to reach the floor. Dick Mclntyre of Idaho, small, dark and swarthy as befitted his Indian blood, was gesticulating violently to Raymond Robert Smith of California, tall, elegant, handsome, and faintly, just faintly, willowy; Lief Erickson of Minnesota, big, bluff and biting, was talking forcefully to Porter Owens of Montana, small, hostile-looking and obviously unimpressed; and Luis Valdez of New Mexico, young, earnest and bespectacled, was arguing suavely with Seab Cooley’s dark-eyed, dark-visaged colleague from South Carolina, H. Harper Graham. In the galleries above the tourists were thinning out, only a corporal’s guard of wire-service reporters manned the press gallery; the afternoon was wearing on. He pushed open the door of the Minority cloakroom and walked in to be greeted by the usual jocular ribbing that always greeted his rare appearances in that enemy enclave.
“Lock up the silver!” Allen Whiteside of Florida cried in his jolly, plum-pudding way. “We’re being invaded!”
“Under which king, Bezonian?” demanded Verne Cramer of South Dakota lazily from a sofa where he was stretched out full length with a pillow under his head, “Speak or die.”
“The wits they have in the Minority,” Bob Munson said wonderingly. “Why is it they can never get control of the government?”
“It’s our contention,” said John Winthrop of Massachusetts in his dryly twinkling way, “that the nation prefers quality to quantity.”
“That’s no way to build post offices,” Bob Munson observed.
“Or conduct a foreign policy either, hm, Bobby?” Winthrop of Massachusetts suggested. Senator Munson made a face.
“It must be nice to have all the fun and none of the responsibility,” he said, and John Able Winthrop snorted.
“I never heard it put with such classic simplicity,” he said. “I only wish you’d tell me how to vote, if it’s as simple as all that.”
“I could tell you,” Bob Munson said, “but you wouldn’t listen.”
“I might,” Winthrop of Massachusetts said. “I may. But not yet awhile, My Yankee ancestors caution me to go slow on this one.” He clucked between his teeth in a parody of his Yankee ancestors and s
miled blandly at the Majority Leader. “Yes siree bob, Bob,” he said.
“You and your Yankee ancestors,” Senator Munson said. “I wonder if your grandfather and mine had all these headaches when they sat in the Senate together from Massachusetts.”
“First World War?” Senator Winthrop said. “I guess they did. Probably felt the end of the world had come then, too.”
“I suppose,” Bob Munson said. “Only this time it probably has. Where’s Warren, Win? I thought I’d find him in here.”
“He’ll be back shortly. He got a call from the White House and decided to take it in his private office down the hall.”
“The White House?” Senator Munson said. “The President’s really working, isn’t he?”
“Didn’t he tell you he was going to call Warren?” John Winthrop asked in surprise. “I thought to hear Paul Hendershot talk that the two of you were in cahoots in some big plot to stampede us.”
“When did anybody ever stampede the Senate?” Bob Munson asked, and his tone was sufficiently wistful so that Senator Winthrop laughed.
“You sound as though you wished it were possible, Bobby,” he said. “What’s the matter, is life getting complicated?”
“It wasn’t so very at noon,” Senator Munson admitted, “but it is now. Anybody made any estimates over here?”
“Just what Warren says he told you this morning,” Senator Winthrop said. “It hasn’t changed much since then.”
“Maybe Seab has increased the tally some,” Senator Munson suggested, making the sounding he had come over to make; Senator Winthrop showed an expression of distaste.
“Seab,” he said, “is overdoing it already. I knew he would, but not this soon. That stuff goes big with the galleries, and you can see what the press is making of it”—and he held up the final edition of the Star with a banner headline reading SENATE IN BITTER ROW ON LEFFINGWELL—“but it doesn’t go big here. At least not with the old hands who count.”
“Well, I hope not,” Senator Munson said thoughtfully, peering out through the glass of the doorway into the Senate chamber just in time to see Albert G. Cockrell of Ohio go sweeping by with his slickly handsome good looks, his covey of adoring aides, and his hot-pants yen for the White House, “I hope not.”
“Anyway,” Allen Whiteside spoke up with a chuckle from across the cloakroom, “you know the Minority can always be convinced by a sound and logical argument from you, Robert. It’s like the dentist said to the salesgirl in Woody’s lingerie department—”
Bob Munson held up a hand.
“Not today, Al,” he said in a pleading tone. “I’m too weak to stand your little funnies. All I want is your lousy vote.”
Senator Whiteside gave one of his total laughs that started at the top of his head and worked down gradually, with many secondary earthquakes and other seismological disturbances, through his ample paunch to the tip of his toes.
“Ho, ho, ho,” he chortled like some cynical old Santa Claus who had been around for a long time, which he had, “do you now? And what will you give me for that?”
“I didn’t come over here to bargain,” Bob Munson said. “I just had to slap Charlie Abbott down about that sub contract and I’m not about to come over and bargain with the Minority when I won’t bargain with my own side.”
“You’ll bargain, Bob,” Allen Whiteside said shrewdly. “Not right now, but you’ll bargain. The day’s going to come, on this one.”
“We’ll see,” Senator Munson said. “What are you reading, Verne?”
“The Federalist” Verne Cramer of South Dakota said in his lazy, half-mocking way. “I take a refresher course in it about once a year, right after I reread the unexpurgated Arabian Nights. What’s on your mind?”
“Ha,” Bob Munson said tersely. Senator Cramer laughed.
“Tell the Prez to call me,” he suggested. “Maybe I can be had, with the right persuasion.”
“Ha,” Bob Munson said again, and looking once more through the glass into the chamber he finally saw Warren Strickland appear down the center aisle, tap Irving Steinman on the shoulder with a smile, and reclaim his seat at the Minority Leader’s desk.
“Take care,” Senator Munson advised the Minority cloakroom’s inhabitants, and went down to take back his own seat from John J. McCafferty. The ancient junior Senator from Arkansas was asleep, which didn’t matter because Taylor Ryan had the floor for an hour’s time on the Federal Reserve bill and was droning along in his sleek Princetonian way. When Senator Munson touched Senator McCafferty on the arm the old man jumped and looked up with a sheepish smile.
“Sorry, Bob,” he said apologetically, rising somewhat shakily to his feet. “Just dropped off. Taylor isn’t—he doesn’t—well, you know Taylor. I just dropped off.”
“No harm done,” Bob Munson said with a smile. “I would have, too. By the way, where’s Arly Richardson?”
“Haven’t seen him all day,” said Arly’s colleague. “Probably cooking up hell someplace.”
“For me,” Bob Munson said, and the old man chuckled thinly.
“Wouldn’t know, Bob,” he said. “Wouldn’t tell if I did know.”
“Thanks, John,” Senator Munson said. “Don’t get caught pinching the waitresses.”
Senator McCafferty looked startled, then laughed so violently Senator Munson thought he would fall down.
“Better that than some other ways, Bob,” he said between chokes of laughter. “Better that than some others!”
“Bring me some of that goat-gland extract, will you?” Bob Munson requested. “I could use it.”
But at this Senator McCafferty was completely overcome, and gesturing Bob Munson away with a gnarled and withered hand he went laughing and choking and wheezing and chuckling and staggering back to his desk at the side of the room while Senator Munson watched and marveled that he could make it without falling down.
The afternoon was drawing on apace, he noted, and he was beginning to get that restless, impatient feeling he usually did around 5 p.m. It ought to be time to quit pretty soon, and he was ready for it. He hunched his chair across the aisle to a place alongside Warren Strickland’s and leaned against his arm confidentially.
“I hear you got the word,” he said, and the Minority Leader smiled.
“I see you hear I got the word,” he said blandly.
“Was there anything I should know?” Senator Munson asked. Senator Strickland looked even blander.
“Just a chat between old friends,” he said, “on the parlous times in which we live.”
“You told him how many votes you could deliver for him,” Bob Munson suggested.
“I estimated how many votes I could deliver against him,” Warren Strickland said. “He seemed startled but undismayed.”
“That’s my boy,” Bob Munson said.
“I told him the Administration could probably make some headway on this side of the aisle,” Senator Strickland said seriously. “Particularly if Seab keeps on performing.”
“And Orrin doesn’t join him,” Bob Munson said glumly.
“Orrin?” Senator Strickland asked, surprised. “He certainly didn’t sound much like it this afternoon.”
“Orrin is a fair-minded man,” Senator Munson said, “but he didn’t commit himself to anything....Let’s get out of here,” he added abruptly. “It’s almost five and we’ve all got to get ready for Dolly’s.”
“I’m game,” Warren Strickland said, surveying the floor which now was empty of everyone save Taylor Ryan, Murfee Andrews, Julius Welch, and a handful of clerks and pageboys. “Taylor ought to be just about through.”
And so, in five more minutes, he was, concluding with a spiteful flourish that threatened to provoke Murfee and Julius into lengthy rejoinders. Senator Munson, however, was on his feet in a flash asking for recognition, and Harley Hudson, back in the Chair for the concluding moments of the session, hurriedly gave it to him.
“Mr. President,” Bob Munson said firmly, “I move that the Senate
stand in recess until twelve noon on Monday next.”
“Without objection,” said Harley, banging his gavel, “it is so ordered,” and at once the pageboys began leaping about the chamber, shoving papers into desks, banging desk covers, shouting and calling to one another again in the big tan fishbowl of a room as the last tourists left, the press gallery emptied out, and the Majority Leader and his few remaining colleagues moved slowly out the doors.
***
Chapter 6
Night had come down on the District of Columbia, and with it clouds and a biting wind carrying promise of snow. The bright day Dolly had witnessed at 10 a.m. through her bedroom window had succumbed to the erratic climate of the nation’s capital and the most chronically frustrated Weather Bureau in the world was already hedging its bets with the cautious prediction that there might possibly be a blizzard if, of course, it didn’t clear. In private homes from Chevy Chase to Falls Church and from Westmoreland Circle to Forest Heights, department heads, agency employees, clerk-typists, secretaries, professional people, military folk, members of the press, lobbyists and what-have-you, and their wives were putting last-minute touches on the parties to which they had invited other department heads, agency employees, clerk-typists, secretaries, professional people, military folk, members of the press, lobbyists, and what-have-you, and their wives. Out among the embassies the Belgians, the Ceylonese, the Rumanians, and the Dutch were getting ready to entertain at lavishly decorated, lavishly catered receptions that would be attended by representatives of all the other embassies in town with which at the moment, they happened to be on speaking terms. In hundreds of giant apartment houses thousands of government girls were about to descend in thousands of self-operated elevators to meet thousands of government boys for a night on the town; and on Ninth Street and other drab haunts of Washington’s incorrigibly small-town sin, little aimless groups of sailors, soldiers, airmen, and marines from nearby bases had just begun to wander about looking for wine, women, and a place in which to enjoy them. Under the swinging chandeliers in the great white portico at Vagaries the Cadillacs, the Chryslers, the Chevvies, and the Fords were driving up to discharge their chattering, self-important cargo, the men encased in tuxedoes like a stream of glistening beetles, the women gussied-up fit to kill.
