“What did he say?”
“I’m going to talk to him later.”
“He told you to come back?”
“Sort of. I’m going to go to the room and jot down some thoughts. I want this to be perfect.”
“Great. I’m going to window-shop down here. Look at this watch, isn’t it beautiful?”
Max wasn’t thinking about anything but his impending confrontation. “Yes,” he said. “Buy it if you want.”
“It’s three hundred thousand dollars.”
He didn’t even hear her; he was out the door. Max’s heart was racing. He finally had the chance to convince the one person in the world who could make a difference. The interesting thing about Max was that mixed in with his cynicism and bitterness, there was a naïveté. He still thought that if he could get someone to really understand, they would change. And now, finally, he could make Sam Mueller really understand.
When he got back to his suite he paced around the room, talking out loud, as if Mueller were sitting in front of him, listening rapturously. Max had made these speeches in the group meetings before to great response. He knew this stuff in his sleep, but now he was going to talk to the man himself. When Sam Mueller saw it the right way, he would spend his billions to reverse course. Max had dreams of sitting in front of Congress, with Mueller by his side, giving the “rights of each new generation” speech.
He looked at the time. An hour and a half had gone by. He was sure Mueller and his son had eaten by now and were probably relaxing; if he didn’t strike soon, they might go to bed. He walked over to the minibar and downed two small scotch bottles. Then he pumped his fist in the air and downed a third. A little extra courage now couldn’t hurt.
At five minutes to nine he walked out of the elevator. He was surprisingly calm, although the colors in the hallway seemed much more intense now. What was the worst that could happen? That he wouldn’t quite make his point, but Mueller would find him compelling enough to have another conversation. As he reached the door he stood for one moment and took a breath. He pressed the bell. Nothing. He pressed it again. Nothing. Did they go out? He was about to give it one last try when he heard a voice. It was Mark Mueller.
“Who is it?”
“Is your father there?”
“Who is it?”
“It’s Max Leonard. The man you met downstairs and also in Chicago.”
“Oh, yeah. What do you want?”
“I want to talk to your dad.”
“He isn’t here.”
“What do you mean?”
“He left. Come back another time.”
“When?”
“I don’t know, but he isn’t here.”
Max was frustrated. He was primed and ready. He didn’t want to come back. “Can I wait for him in the room?”
And the boy, for no apparent reason, opened the door.
“You want to wait here?”
“May I?”
“I guess. I guess you can wait in the living room.”
And the boy allowed him to enter.
Jesus Christ, look at this goddamn suite. This must be ten thousand square feet! The living room looked like a palace. It was divided into three sections. One corner was a den–office area with dark wood floors and the most magnificent desk Max had ever seen, like something out of Monticello. Another side of the room was a living area with beautiful oriental rugs and two couches from the Victorian period, and a love seat that looked as if it was so valuable that no one should ever sit in it. The remainder of the large room was yet another living area, but modern and welcoming with a holographic screen, a game center, and an automated chess set with hand-carved pieces that were made out of white jade. “How many bedrooms in this place?”
“Four,” Mark said. “Do you want something to drink?”
“Yes. That would be nice.”
“Help yourself if you want liquor or something. It’s in the bar.”
Max walked over to the bar, which was made from a combination of black slate and mahogany. Jesus, the bar alone looks like it cost a million dollars. He put ice in a glass and looked over the bottles of sherries. Max didn’t know much about booze but he knew expensive sherry when he saw it. He poured a glass of Lustau and went back to sit down in the more casual part of the living room. He downed his drink and wondered if scotch and sherry mixed; he never really knew the liquor rules. The boy sat down opposite him. “I forget, how do you know my dad?”
Now Max had to figure out if he was going to make this lie go on or just tell the kid the truth. He continued to hedge.
“I’m a big admirer of his work.”
“Oh yeah?” Mark had heard this a lot. It didn’t mean much to him and it certainly didn’t mean Max was his dad’s friend. “Did you work with him?”
“No.”
“So how do you know him?”
“Well, he’s famous.”
“So you’re just a fan?”
“Yeah.”
“I could get in trouble for letting you in. I’m not supposed to let strangers in here.”
“Well, we met before, so I’m not really a stranger. I’m not going to do anything weird. It would be great if you let me wait for him. I really need to talk to your dad.”
“What’s wrong?”
“What do you mean?”
“Well, people who wait a long time to talk to my dad are usually dying. They want advice or something.”
“I’m not dying.”
“So what do you want to talk about?”
And before Max knew it, he was in deep conversation with this thirteen-year-old boy about generational injustices and how Mark and his friends were going to have a harder life because of the olds.
“The olds?” Mark asked.
“That’s the name for anyone over seventy.”
“Oh.”
Max waited a moment before he spoke further to see if he had gotten any kind of a rise out of the son of the great scientist. It would be so helpful to have a family member on board. But the boy didn’t bite. He didn’t even seem interested, and he actually argued a little with Max. “My life is going to be better than my dad’s. My dad was poor.”
“I understand, but you don’t count.”
“Why? Why don’t I count?”
“Because you’re the richest fucking kid in the world.”
“You don’t have to swear.”
“I’m sorry. But you’re immune.”
“Like my dad’s company?”
“What do you mean?”
“You know, Immunicate.”
“Right. Like that.”
“Are you poor?”
“No.”
“So why are you so upset?”
“Because I care about people and you should, too.”
This was beginning to sound like a parental scolding and Mark wasn’t too thrilled about it. And at that moment the front door opened and Sam Mueller was standing there. He was shocked to see a stranger holding a drink and talking to his child—shocked and angry. “Who in God’s name are you? And why are you here?”
“I met you downstairs.”
“Put your drink down and get out of here or I’m calling the police. What is your name?”
“I just want to talk to you. It’s about something important.”
“I asked you what your name is.”
“Max.”
“Max what?”
“Listen, sir, would you just talk with me for five minutes? You’ll understand everything if you give me five minutes.”
“Max what?”
“Max Leonard.”
Sam Mueller walked directly to the intercom. “There is a gentleman who has come into my suite who was not invited and I need security up here immediately.” Max was getting upset and frustrated.
“You don’t have to call security. I’ll leave.”
“Then leave.”
Max started to lose his temper. As he walked toward the door he turned to Mueller and yelled, “Do
you know the suffering that young people are going through because their hopes and dreams are now buried under the debt of keeping old people alive? Do you know they do not get to have the same life their parents had? Do you know that? Why don’t you work to make things fair for everyone instead of making all that money helping the olds?”
“That’s what he calls the people over seventy,” Mark told his father.
Mueller was livid now. “Get the fuck out of my suite or you will never reach an old age. I’m not kidding. I will prosecute you for breaking and entering and I will see that you are put in prison.”
“Why can’t you just listen to me? Do you understand what is happening with our country or are you too blinded by profits?”
At that moment two security guards appeared. “This man broke into our suite and he will not leave! I want you to arrest him!” Mueller said.
“I didn’t break in, your son invited me.”
“I didn’t invite you, you said you knew my dad.”
The larger of the two security men took Max’s arm. “Let’s go, sir. Now!” Max shouted as he was being led out.
“I’ll see you at the stockholders’ meeting! I own a thousand shares of your corrupt company!”
Mueller shouted back, “If you try and come to the meeting you’ll be arrested! Do you hear me?” And then he slammed the door in Max’s face.
Outside in the hall, when the guards realized that Max was also a guest in the hotel, they made a quick deal with him: Check out, go home now, and they would not call the police. And that’s what happened.
Max and Kathy left the Imperial Hotel and he went back to Indianapolis with his tail between his legs, angrier than ever. Maybe Sam Mueller wasn’t the right person to confront, or maybe he was. Max needed time to think. Now he was seriously confused.
CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
A real feeling of success pervaded the West Wing. The polls on China were remarkably good, with sixty-seven percent saying it had been the right move. Only thirty percent disagreed, and three percent simply didn’t understand or care about the question. Bernstein was pleased but still surprised by how many people welcomed this. He had underestimated how beaten down America had become.
There had been so many warnings to the people of the United States over the last thirty years that they were losing their place in the world. But what no one realized was that these warnings were being taken to heart. If you tell a child over and over that she’s stupid, she’ll eventually believe you. And it isn’t any different for a nation. By the time the China plan was announced, the mood in America was “Save us. We need help.” And while pleased with the numbers, the President couldn’t help but feel a bit sad.
Born in the 1980s, Bernstein came into the world as a citizen of the most powerful nation on earth. But within his lifetime that had all changed, and now here he was, the president of the United States, at a time when the U.S. could no longer even borrow its way out of trouble. Sure, he put on a good face and told the world how exciting the new partnership with China was, but never before had a country been forced to sell one of its cities, which in essence was what they were doing. Would he go down as the president who sold out the country or saved it? Would history show him as a visionary or a fool? It was moments like this that he used to rely on his wife to tell him that it was all going to work out. Now he needed someone else.
“Madame Secretary, I have the President on the line.” Susanna Colbert was always so happy to hear her assistant say that.
“Hi,” the President said. “Did I bother you?”
“I live to be bothered. How are you?”
“Do you want to have a bite to eat tonight?”
“Of course. With your wife? Others?”
“No others.”
“All right, I just didn’t know how formal it would be.”
“I’ll be in my pajamas. You can wear what you like.”
She laughed. Susanna was having an intellectual affair with this man, there was no denying it, and she was enjoying the hell out it. It was something that had been missing for so long in her own marriage, and obviously it was missing in his. “I’ll stop at the mall and pick up a nightgown,” she said.
“Get one for me,” Bernstein joked. “Betsy has a function to go to at six o’clock so I’ll have some downtime until nine. Come to the Oval at seven.”
The President liked eating dinner in the Oval Office. There were many places to eat in the White House; even the kitchen was fun to have a meal in once in a while. But for the ultimate in privacy, other than the residence, this was where he felt most comfortable. He didn’t want Susanna to join him upstairs. That would be crossing a line, even though mentally he’d crossed it a long time ago.
As they ate a Chinese dinner—no special meaning given to that—the President let out some of his conflicting emotions. “Do you think I have sold out the United States?”
“God, no,” Susanna said. “I think you made a brave and quite remarkable decision. Don’t the polls tell you that?”
“The polls don’t have a soul. And what the people think is temporary, anyway. Most of the time the real brave stuff gets the lowest numbers.”
“Would you rather the numbers were bad? Would that make you feel better?”
“No. I’m a whore for numbers. We all are. But it still doesn’t mean I’m right.”
“Don’t we have an ‘out’ clause?”
“Yes. After a year. But by that time it will be too late.”
“Why?”
“Because the Chinese will front-load the project. At least a trillion will be spent early. They’re not stupid. They’re not coming here to work for a year and go home with nothing. So we would still be screwed. We would still owe them money with no place to get it.”
“Well, Mr. President, it will work out.”
“I wish I could tell you not to call me Mr. President. But I can’t. That’s for the spouse only. Even John calls me Mr. President.”
“I understand. It doesn’t bother me. I rather like it.”
“I know, but sometimes the formality sucks.”
“Well, I could call you MP.”
“That’s not bad. But don’t.”
They sat for a while, eating without talking, and then the President put his fork down. He hated the next subject but this was the one person he could trust. “Yesterday, I was asked again by some right-to-lifers about my mother. I can’t stand that these fundamentalists are using her to their own advantage.”
“What do you mean?”
“They know damn well what my views are on prolonging life. And now that it’s happening in my own family, they think it’s checkmate. I can no longer talk about it while she’s draining the pot herself. And one of them actually said to me, ‘When it’s your own mother, it’s a different story, isn’t it?’”
“What did you say?”
“What could I say? That I want her dead and the machines were not my idea? I can’t say that. Why couldn’t she have just died? She lived almost a hundred years. Is that bad to say?”
“No. It’s normal.”
“What I don’t understand about the fundamentalists is that their whole life seems to be about the kingdom of heaven. If the next world is so goddamn great, why all the hesitancy to go there?”
“They think God is keeping those people alive.”
“I know. As if God is actually spending any time thinking about my mother. And what kind of a God is that? Did he allow man to come up with the respirator to counter his wisdom of taking breath away? Or is he so bored that he’s playing a game? And if he is playing a game, why doesn’t he just win?”
“You’re talking to an atheist, Mr. President. I don’t believe in a God game.”
“You know, you never told me you were an atheist.”
“Well, you didn’t ask me. It wasn’t in the interview.”
“What were you born as?”
“Second-generation atheist.”
“Wow. What was the
religion when it was still there?”
“Catholic.”
“Have you even been to church?”
“Weddings and funerals.”
“Some people think they’re the same thing.”
“The funerals have better food.”
The President laughed. “Did my mother look like she had any life in her at all? Anything?”
Susanna didn’t answer right away. “Well, she looked peaceful.”
“That’s not what I asked.”
“No, Mr. President. She didn’t.”
“So why can’t they turn off the goddamn machine?”
“They want the income and they don’t want the lawsuits. Especially because it’s you.”
“See? This is what I hate. I want her to rest in peace, I don’t want the machines. But because it’s me they’ll keep her alive longer than anyone.”
The President stood up and walked over to pour himself a drink. “I don’t want to answer any more questions. I need to be free of this so I can do my work and make my decisions. They are prolonging life for profit, Susanna, and the young people know this and are resentful, and I don’t blame them. That’s what these uprisings are all about. How can I go out and publicly state that this violence is an outrage when I would be right there with them if I were their age?”
“I don’t know. I just don’t know. Maybe your mother will pass soon, naturally.”
“How is that going to happen? With that equipment they can keep a cabbage alive.” Susanna took a moment to think.
“Would you like me to talk to Nate Cass?”
“Talk about what?” And then the President realized what she was saying. He thought for a moment before he answered. “Yes. See what he thinks and ask him what he would do if it were his mother.”
“I can do that.”
At that moment the intercom buzzed and the President was told his wife was outside. “Get up. Walk with me to the door.” He led Susanna out and as he opened the door he started a conversation they had not even been having. Susanna realized who it was for and went with it perfectly. “Talk to the Chinese counsel and see what their polling is. And ask John to get some feedback. Sorry for working you late, but at least you got fed.”
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