by Allen Drury
***
Chapter 8
Sometime in the night, exhausted, he slept; sometime in the morning he awoke, exhausted. The day loomed before him an obstacle so vast and so filled with difficulty and anguish that he did not know whether he could surmount it or not. Somewhere in the depths of the midnight hours he had attained the fragile hope that Fred might not quite dare to go through with it after all; but it was a tenuous hope at best and one he had little faith in. If he could reach Orrin tomorrow morning, if he could ask Bob to help, if Lafe and Seab and Stanley and the rest of his friends would rally to him, there could be pressures brought to bear upon the junior Senator from Wyoming so powerful that he would think long and hard before he ventured to ignore them; but that he probably would ignore them when all was said and done seemed likely, for there was in him a streak of gambling that fed on opposition and knew no restraints. And he had the White House with him, and that was enough to cancel anything that decency and fairness might try to do.
So it seemed to the senior Senator from Utah as he rose with a dragging weariness and went about the business of getting ready to meet the day, that it was only by the most remote and slender thread that his reputation, and indeed his life, now hung. Somehow in spite of this, calling on the last reserves of a heart and mind and body driven close to their ultimate limits, he managed to get dressed and go downstairs, put a fair face on breakfast, though he ate very little of it, and talk to his wife almost as though it were any other day. His daughter mercifully was sleeping late for once, and so he had a little time to gather himself together and prepare himself to be casual before she began calling from upstairs. He was about to go up to her when a car stopped in the driveway and looking out in some puzzlement he saw the director of the Washington Post coming toward the house. He suggested to Mabel that she tend to Pidge, and with a heavy heart, for he knew this unprecedented call must mean more trouble, he went to the door.
“Come in, Ned,” he said quietly, and the director of the Post, looking embarrassed and grave, complied.
“I won’t stay long, Brig,” he said, “but I thought you ought to know about this.”
“Yes,” he said absently, for his heart had begun to pound painfully. “Sit down and tell me about it.”
The director of the Post sighed.
“This is a cruel town,” he said, “when you get on the wrong side of it. A great town and a good town, and a petty town and a cruel town. And nobody ever knows from day to day which face it is going to put on.”
“Write that down,” Brig said with a last feeble attempt at humor, “you can use it in an editorial.”
“Oh no,” the director of the Post said with an answering wryness. “That would be telling the truth about it, and that would be much too upsetting. Brig,” he said abruptly, “I have a column here that Henry Wilson has sent out for use in tomorrow morning’s paper. Apparently he got it from Fred Van Ackerman, because it seems to tie in with what Fred was saying at the rally last night. I know how you must feel and how much it may hurt to read it, but I thought you should be forewarned, so I brought it to you.”
“I don’t want to read it,” Brig said, and a sharp little ache seemed to be developing somewhere behind his eyes, “I just don’t want to.”
“Well, I don’t blame you,” the director of the Post said. “You know how he is. It isn’t quite slander, it isn’t quite libel, it’s just enough to murder a man. He doesn’t come right out with anything, he never does; he just skirts the edge of absolute evil, destroying people as he goes. I don’t know why we continue to take his damned column, except that it’s so entertaining and people want to read it.”
“Oh, he backs some good causes,” Brig said bitterly. “I believe he likes his grandchildren, and he helps the Red Cross.”
“Yes,” the director of the Post said. “Well. We’re not going to use it, and I’ve destroyed the other copies of it that came to us. This is the only one left, and I’m tearing it up right now.” And he proceeded to do so, in tiny, neat, savagely-ripped pieces that he put in the wastebasket by the desk. “We’re against you on this, and as you know we haven’t hesitated to say so, but there are limits. And there are limits for most of us. Nobody in this town, we or the Star or the News or the services or the bureaus or any one of a hundred others, will touch it with a ten-foot pole. Ninety-nine percent of the press won’t touch it anywhere in the country. But somebody will, and I thought you should be warned. Some little paper someplace,” he said with an expression of unhappy distaste, “will run it big as life, and then the wire services will feel they have to pick it up and send it across country, and then we’ll be faced with the problem of whether to run it as a national wire-service story after refusing to run it as a column. And there we’ll be, trapped in our own operation. Especially if Fred quotes from it tomorrow instead of attacking you direct, which would fit in with his usual slimy way of doing things.”
The Senator from Utah managed a wan little smile.
“It’s really—pretty brutal, isn’t it?” he asked in an almost apologetic tone. “I guess if I weren’t involved in it I’d find it quite interesting, the way you go about ruining a man. I’ve never done anything like that to anyone, myself. It’s quite a revelation.”
“I’m sorry,” the director of the Post said. “I truly am. People start things—they take stands—pressures drive them farther and farther apart—before long it’s completely out of hand. And I suppose we in the press are as much to blame as anybody. We don’t mean to be cruel, but the prize begins to seem worth it, and before we know it we’re being as bloodthirsty as everyone else.” He shook his head in wonderment. “What a strange life we all lead in this town,” he said, “and all because we think we’re doing the right thing for the country.”
“If all the people who talk about doing the right thing for the country only did the right thing for the country,” Brig said with a weary dryness, “what a wonderful country it would be.”
“It is a wonderful country,” the director of the Post said. “It just gets a little mixed-up, sometimes.”
“Yes,” Brig said. He suddenly felt profoundly touched by his visitor’s kindness, his genuine interest and friendliness even though they were on opposite sides of the nomination, the fact that he would take the trouble to come by personally on a Sunday morning. His voice was not very steady as he said, “Thank you for coming by, Ned. It was terribly decent of you. I appreciate it more than I can say.”
“I hope it works out all right for you,” the director of the Post said seriously. “We’ll try to treat Fred’s speech tomorrow with as much restraint as we can. We can’t ignore it, but we won’t go overboard. And we won’t run the column.”
“But somebody will,” Brig said, and the director of the Post sighed.
“Yes,” he said. “Somebody will.”
So there was no foundation for any hope that Fred would not go through with it, the thing was already in motion, Henry Wilson was already doing his dirty work for him, and in an alliance more cold-bloodedly ruthless than the President had perhaps conceived when he unleashed his forces, they were out to profit from his fall, each in his own characteristic way. For Fred it would be headlines and political advantage, and for Henry, possibly a few more clients on the strength of his latest sensation, and the standard accolade he always got from his readers: “Well, I don’t know whether he always tells the truth or not, but at least he prints things about Washington you don’t see anywhere else.” The latest of these, it was now apparent, would provide the basis for the destruction of a Senator; and nothing he could see now could in any way stop it.
This knowledge, which meant the end of his reputation, his career, his marriage, all the great world and the fair things in it, all the things that made life worth living, the chance for public service, the chance to do good, the chance to achieve a little share of happiness for himself and his family, did not come to him as a shattering revelation, for he was past the point for that. Rather
it came into his being in a sort of subconscious seepage, so that the tired dark eyes did not look more tired, the haggard expression did not become more haggard, the desperate weariness did not become more desperate. Instead a curious kind of numbness began to envelope his heart and mind, the grayness over the world became more gray; he did not seem to see so well, his hearing actually seemed to be affected, his understanding appeared to fail a little, things did not penetrate as they used to do. He moved around the house aimlessly, picked up magazines and books and put them down again, leafed pointlessly through the Sunday paper, spoke to Mabel with an absent air that frightened her. With a great effort when Pidge wanted to play he managed to muster a reasonable appearance of calm, took her out into the yard, pushed her in the swing, tossed a ball back and forth, watched the fishes in the pond. There began to come upon him, subtle, insistent, inexorable, inescapable, the feeling that he was doing everything for the last time, that he was looking his last upon things most lovely and most dear, that only a miracle could prevent a culmination that had been growing in his mind ever since he had come upon the gun last night. Once when his daughter asked him worriedly, “Daddy, what’s the matter?” it was all he could do to keep from crying out in anguish, but in some way that was more instinct than intent he managed to muster from somewhere something that passed for a laugh, and by throwing the ball suddenly far down the lawn he diverted her and by the time she came trotting back he was again in some sort of control of himself and could go on a little longer.
Noon came and with it food he again could hardly touch. Looking frightened and drawn, Mabel said she thought she would lie down and take a nap and suggested that he do the same. He said he would put Pidge down and then think about it. Possibly, he said, he might go on up to the Hill to the office and try to get caught up a little, so if she woke and found him gone she would know where he was. When she wanted to know what there was to do there on Sunday, he said vaguely, “Oh, there are letters and things.” She started up the stairs and then turned back abruptly and kissed him, hard. “I’m here,” she said, as though it proved something. It could have once, but it was too late now.
As soon as she had gone up and the door of the bedroom had closed he put through a call to the proprietor of “Meet the Press.” Eager and excited, for in the wake of the COMFORT rally he was sure he had a sensation on his hands, the little man greeted him. “I’m sorry to give you such short notice,” he said, “but I won’t be able to appear this afternoon.”
“But, Senator—” the little man cried in angry disbelief.
“I’m sorry,” he said, and hung up.
When he put Pidge to bed there was some business, rather willful, about wanting several special toys to take naps too; he got them for her and bedded her down.
“Daddy,” she said, “will you play with me when I get up?”
“If I’m here,” he said in a muffled voice, and she looked at him in some alarm.
“Won’t you be?” she asked. He shook his head.
“I don’t know,” he said finally.
“Where will you be?” she said.
“I’ll—try to get back to you,” he said.
“And then will we play?” she asked.
“Yes, my baby,” he said. “Forever and ever.”
“I do love you lots, Daddy,” she said comfortably, snuggling down into the blankets.
“That’s good,” he said, and there was a terrible crying in his heart. “I love you, too.” He gave her a hurried kiss and went quickly to the door. “I’m going to go now,” he managed to say.
“All right,” she said sleepily. “Come back later.”
“Yes, baby,” he said as he closed the door. “Yes. I will. Sometime. Somewhere. Somehow.”
He leaned his head against the wall and closed his eyes in agony.
Before the bedroom door he hesitated for a long moment and then went on.
I tried, he thought. I tried, my poor beloved who could never understand me. I wanted to make you happy, but God wouldn’t let me. He had other plans. Go home to Utah and forget I ever lived. I wasn’t worth it, after all.
He took the gun, got in the car and drove, guided by blind instinct and seven years of habit, through the golden afternoon to Capitol Hill.
A few cars passed, a few tourists meandered; a Sunday calm lay on the Hill. “Working, Senator?” the guard on the door said brightly. “Senator Hanson and Senator Cooley are, too.” He tried to enter his office quietly so that he would not arouse his upstairs neighbor, but his hands seemed to be trembling and the heavy door slipped shut with a thud. The phone promptly rang.
“Brigham?” the sleepy old voice said. “Is that you down there, Brigham?”
“Yes, Seab,” he said, “I’m down here.”
“Well, sir,” Senator Cooley said, “I’m glad you are, Brigham, because I was intending to call you.”
“Yes, Seab,” he said automatically again. “What can I do for you?”
“I heard that evil little monster last night,” Seab said, “and I have been thinking about him. Yes, sir, I have been thinking most carefully about him. I have decided to help you, Brig. I want you to know that I will be with you, and we will see what we can do about him. Yes, sir, we will surely see.”
“Thank you, Seab,” he said.
“That isn’t all,” Senator Cooley said.
“No?” he said, and braced himself for whatever might come. “What else?”
“Well, sir,” Seab said, “I have decided that much as I despise Mr. Robert—A.—Leffingwell, and much as I despise that being in the White House, and much as I would dearly love to get them both, the pleasure is not sufficient if it is really going to mean harm to you. No, sir, it isn’t sufficient if that’s what it means. I am quite an old man, Brigham,” he said, “and I know by now when a fine young man comes to the Senate, and I suspect that much as it might satisfy my ego to get them, an old man’s ego isn’t worth a young man’s career and happiness. I truly suspect it isn’t. I don’t know what they have to fight you with, but I don’t like the sound of it. I don’t like the sound of it at all. I think you could be most severely hurt. I think this would be a real tragedy for you, and for the country, and for the Senate. I think you are worth a hundred times any satisfaction I might get from beating Mr. Leffingwell. I gen-u-inely do.”
“Well, thank you, Seab,” he said dully, for what was there to say? “I appreciate it.”
“So,” Senator Cooley said. “Therefore. You just do what you think best to save yourself, and if that means giving in to them, I want you to feel free to do so without any worries about me. As far as I am concerned, I have forgotten already that I ever knew about James Morton, and nobody will ever know that I did. No, sir. Nobody ever will.”
“Thank you, Seab,” he said again in the same dull voice. “I wish I could tell you how much I appreciate—”
“Now, then,” Seab interrupted briskly. “I think the first thing we should do tomorrow morning is talk to Bob and Orrin and decide what to do about that twisted little man from Wyoming. I told Bob before the vote Wednesday that he ought to destroy him, and I suspect now he may agree with me. So you don’t worry, Brig. We’ll take care of him, and everything will be all right.”
“That’s good,” he said weakly. “That’s very good.”
“Are you feeling poorly, Brigham?” Senator Cooley asked in some alarm. “You don’t sound very well.”
“I’m all right,” he said. “I’m all right.”
“I tell you,” Seab said after a moment. “Are you planning to be down there awhile?”
“Yes,” he said. “Awhile.”
“I’ll come down presently and we’ll go eat something,” Seab said. “Unless you are planning to go home?”
“No,” he said. “I’m not planning to go home.”
“Good,” Senator Cooley said. “I’ll see you later, then, hear?”
“Thank you so much for everything, Seab,” he said.
“It
wasn’t worth it when I really realized how they meant to act,” Seab said. “I’ll see you later, Brigham.”
“I’ll be here,” he said.
Two minutes later the phone rang again.
“Hi, buddy,” Lafe said. “I tried you a couple of minutes ago, but the line was busy.”
“I was talking to Seab,” he said.
“Oh, is he working too?” Lafe asked. “The old war horse never stops, does he?”
“He’s very kind,” Brig said.
“I know he is, at heart,” Lafe said, “even if it’s hard to find the heart now and then. I just heard about your canceling out on ‘Meet the Press.’ What’s wrong?”
“Maybe you could say Fred scared me out,” he said. “Does it matter?”
“Of course it matters,” Lafe said. “Do you want me to go and see him? Nothing would give me more pleasure than to mop up the floor with the slimy two-bit bastard.”
“Thanks, Lafe,” he said, and if it had been in another world he would have felt amusement, but there was no time for it now. “I don’t think there’d be much point.”
“Are you all right?” Lafe asked sharply. “You don’t sound good at all.”
“I’m okay,” he said.
“Are you sure?” Lafe asked suspiciously.
“I’m okay,” he said, trying to make it vigorous.
“I don’t think you ought to be alone,” Lafe said in a worried tone. “I can be up there in ten minutes if you need me.”
