The Seersucker Whipsaw

by Ross Thomas

  “Who?”

  “Funny. Both the British and the Albertians. He makes speeches all over the region, shows motion pictures, and when something nasty happens in the U.S., he calls a briefing session for the press.”

  “That ought to keep him hopping,” I said.

  “What’s Mr. Shartelle like?”

  I shook my head. “It has to be seen to be believed. Would you like to?”

  She smiled quickly. “Sure. I want to see where you live.”

  I paid for the drinks and we took the elevator down to the parking lot where I found William asleep. “We’ll go home and you can go to bed there,” I told him.

  “No drive Madam home?” he asked.

  “I’ll drive her home. A growing boy like you needs his rest.”

  “Sah!” he said and gave me the wide grin.

  William turned into the driveway of the broad-eaved house and parked the car in front of the porch. He handed me the keys, said good night, and moved off towards his quarters.

  I helped Anne out of the car. As we walked around it, we could hear Shartelle’s voice: He was doing imitations and he had them down pat:

  “You goin’ out after Miss Kitty, Mr. Dillon?” That was Chester Proudfoot.

  “Reckon I am, Chester. Those Greeley boys sometimes turn right mean.” That was Marshal Matt Dillon.

  “Gosh, Mr. Dillon, I like Miss Kitty and all, but she ain’t nothin’ but a whore lady.”

  “That’s right, Chester, but she’s the only whore lady in town.”

  I knocked on the folded-back door. “Marshal Dillon?” I said.

  Shartelle was stretched out on the couch, a pillow tucked under his head. The television set was flickering in the corner of the room, the sound turned off. He swung his feet to the floor and rose.

  “Hello there, Pete—ma’am,” he said. “I was too busy doing all the parts and didn’t hear you drive up.”

  “Anne, this is Clint Shartelle. Anne Kidd.”

  “It’s my pleasure, Miss Anne,” Shartelle said, making his slight but courtly bow.

  He walked over to the television set and turned it off. “I’m certainly glad you folks decided to drop by,” he said. “I’ve just watched The Halls of Ivy,” ‘My Little Margie,’ and I was going right good on ‘Gunsmoke.’”

  Anne took one of the chairs and I sat on the couch.

  “You often do that?” she asked.

  “You mean all the parts?”

  “Yes.”

  Shartelle smiled down at her. “For a lonely man of my years, Miss Anne, it’s a harmless enough pastime. And I can make the stories come out the way I want.”

  “He’s forty-three,” I said.

  “Well, I was just fixing to have a drink,” Shartelle said. “What you care for, Miss Anne?”

  “Gin and tonic,” she said.

  “You need any help?” I asked.

  “No. Before I sent old Samuel off to bed, I got him to show me where everything was kept. Just sit there and mind your young lady, boy.”

  Shartelle came back with three drinks and sat on the couch. His eyes roamed over Anne and he turned to me and said: “Pete, you said you had met an attractive young lady down there at the beach at Barkandu. You didn’t mention the fact that you had met the prettiest girl I’ve ever seen in my life.”

  “My error,” I said.

  “Miss Anne, Pete tells me you’re with the Peace Corps.”

  “Yes.”

  And then Shartelle turned it on and started her talking about the Peace Corps and her impressions of Albertia, her likes and dislikes, what she thought could be done to improve it, and what she thought its future would be. He was attentive, interested, and intelligent. Whenever she started to falter or hesitate, he gave her a gentle, verbal nudge and she continued.

  Then Anne stopped talking and looked at him for a moment. “Mr. Shartelle, you’ve pumped me. I thought I was good at getting people to talk about themselves—to open up—but I see I could use a few lessons.”

  Shartelle laughed and rose, gave his seersucker vest a tug, and smoothed the lapels of his jacket. He picked up our glasses and moved to the dining table where the liquor was. “Miss Anne, you are not only the prettiest young lady I’ve ever seen, but also one of the most intelligent. And if old Pete here weren’t such a good buddy, I just might squire you around myself.”

  He handed us the fresh drinks. Anne said: “Mr. Shartelle—”

  “You just call me Clint, Miss Anne.”

  “Just what makes you think you and Pete can win this election for Chief Akomolo?”

  Shartelle held up a hand. “No—no, you don’t, sweet and pretty as you are. You’re not going to get me started. Old Pete here’s got to get up tomorrow and write us a the speech and if you turned those big brown eyes of yours on me, and let that pretty little mouth drop open just a bit, just like you were tasting and savoring every word I said, why I’d be sitting here talking ’til daybreak. Two expert listeners in one house, honey, is plenty. You listen to Pete, here, if you want to put your listening cap on. Now there’s a boy who needs some listening.”

  “Thanks,” I said.

  “Well, Pete, if you insist, I will start,” he said.

  “No—no, it’s not really necessary. I could do with some listening.”

  “What’s a the speech?” Anne asked.

  “You tell her, Pete.”

  “A the speech—you can pronounce it ‘thee’ or ‘thuh’, it doesn’t matter—is simply the major basic speech of a campaign. It sets the mood, the tempo, the tone. The candidate repeats it or parts of it with variations, throughout the campaign. But it is the speech. All candidates have one, and after they use it a few times, it becomes part of their personality. It fits them—because it’s been tailored for them. They have to have it because if you make five to ten speeches a day, you can’t have something new to say each time.”

  “And you’re going to write this?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “How do you know what to say?”

  “That’s Pete’s specialty, Miss Anne. It’s a gift—like being able to play a piano by ear. Pete, I figure, hears the speech as he writes it. But at the same time, he’s plotting its course, remembering how the candidate talks, what the major points are, when the peroration begins, and how to end it so that they still want more. Especially how to end it—right, Pete?”

  “It’s a gift. Like playing a piano by ear. In a whorehouse.”

  “I think it’s wonderful,” Anne said.

  We talked a little more. Shartelle told Anne some of the latest political gossip from America and said he thought he’d met her daddy once at a national convention. After the drinks were finished, he rose.

  “It’s been a pure pleasure, Miss Anne, but I think I’ll turn in. I’ve had a long day. I wouldn’t leave now, unless I knew I could count upon the pleasure of your presence at breakfast.” He bowed his slight, courtly bow and left as we said good night.

  “You’re officially invited,” I said.

  She laughed and shook her head slightly. “I’ve never heard it put so politely.”

  “Then you’ll stay?”

  “Do you want me to?”

  “God, yes.”

  “It will be all right, won’t it?”

  “It will be fine.”

  I called Silex to lock up and we went out the front door and down the side of the house to the entrance that led to my room. We went to bed and made love for a long, sweet time. When I awoke early in the morning she was still there and I could never recall a day that had held such promise.

  Chapter

  16

  After breakfast, I had William drive Anne home. Shartelle started making notes to himself and I began to read the white papers that Dr. Diokadu had brought the previous afternoon. That kept us busy until the Rolls-Royce pulled up in front of the living-room door. The driver, an Albertian, got out and marched smartly up the steps, across the porch, and to the door where he stopped, and came
to board-like attention. He was ex-Army.

  “Mr. Shartelle, Mr. Upshaw?”

  “Yes, sir,” Shartelle said.

  “Mr. Duncan’s compliments, Sah, and would-you-do-him-the-honor-of-accepting-this-transport?” The last part was pure rote.

  “Why, we’d be most honored,” Shartelle said happily, slipping into his fresh seersucker jacket and giving his vest a slight tug. He got his black hat on his head at a proper angle, clamped a twisty cigar between his teeth, and we went out, down the steps, and into the back seat of His Excellency’s Rolls-Royce.

  The liveried chauffeur closed the door, went around to the right-hand side where he slipped behind the wheel, and skillfully backed the car to the turnaround spot in the driveway. We rolled grandly down the drive and out into the street, on our way to Government House.

  “Now ain’t this fine, Petey—couple of country boys sitting up tall and straight in the back end of His Excellency’s Rolls-Royce limousine.” He shook his head in frank admiration of the fate that had befallen him, gave his cigar a couple of puffs, and tapped a little ash into a convenient tray. “You ever been in a Rolls-Royce before, Pete?”

  “I’ve been in Duffy’s Bentley. It’s the same car, but it’s not really the same.”

  “What you reckon His Excellency wants to see us about? You recollect his name?”

  “Sir Charles Blackwelder. Call him Sir Charles.”

  “Happy to,” Shartelle said. “Be most happy to. I believe he wants to see us about the election and maybe give us a little advice. I believe I’ll do him the honor of listening. Man who’s been out here as long as he has might just have picked up an idea or two.”

  The driver steered the big car expertly through the crowded streets of Ubondo, apparently looking neither left nor right, and sounding the mellow horn only at the occasional goat or chicken who failed to recognize the official limousine. The traffic policewoman whom we had spotted the day before saw the Rolls approach and stopped cars from moving in any direction. The driver seemed to take no notice, but Shartelle grinned broadly.

  Government House was built on the highest point in Ubondo, on the peak of one of the hills that ringed the town. The Rolls sped up a winding, metaled road that was bordered by carefully tended flowers and shrubs. The road doubled back on itself several times, and when we were on its outside edge the view of Ubondo was spectacular. Not beautiful. That town would never be beautiful. But it was spectacular.

  “Looky there, Pete,” Shartelle said. “That sight just makes me shake all over with nastiness … just like I’d chewed up four aspirins.”

  “It’s some view,” I replied.

  Government House was two stories high, painted white with a red tile roof, and it seemed to have grown from a rather simple, oblong structure into an imposing mansion complete with porte cochere where the driver parked the car. He hopped out quickly and ran around to open the door for us. As we got out, a man of about Shartelle’s age started down the steps. He had a smile underneath his brush mustache. He moved down the steps quickly, and held his back stiffly straight. Either he wore a corset, I decided, or he had spent twenty years in the British Army. “I’m Ian Duncan,” he told us. “The A.D.C. Let’s see, you’d be Mr. Shartelle—” They shook hands. “And Mr. Upshaw.” We shook hands. “If you’ll just come along, I’ll let you sign the book and then I’ll announce you to H.E.”

  We walked through fifteen-foot-high doors into a hall with a ceiling that was even higher. An Albertian clerk dozed over what seemed to be a reception desk. At one side was a stand with a large guestbook. Both Shartelle and I signed and marked the date. Duncan looked on with what seemed to be interest. He nudged the clerk awake and then said: “It’s down the hall and to the right.” He walked briskly ahead of us, his head back, his chest out, chin in. His heels clicked loudly on the tile floor as we moved past a series of photographs of what I took to be former governors of the region dressed in full regalia. There were some tall-backed chairs along the wall that looked as if no one had sat in them since 1935. Duncan came to a set of twin doors, also fifteen feet high and four feet wide. He grasped the polished brass handles firmly, gave them an expert twist, and shoved both doors open simultaneously. Then he moved smartly to our left and stood parallel with the door. He didn’t look at us; he looked straight ahead, and his voice could have been heard across any good-sized parade ground.

  “Mr! Clinton! Shartelle! and Mr! Peter! Upshaw! from the United! States! of America!”

  Shartelle and I later agreed that there should have been music. Maybe “Dixie” or “America, the Beautiful.” There was a good sixty-foot walk to the far end of the long room where the gray-looking man sat quietly at the carved oak desk. Shartelle snapped straight up and I noticed my own muscles responding as we walked that sixty feet, the longest sixty feet in the world. From the side of his mouth, Shartelle whispered: “My, ain’t they got style!” As we grew near we could see Sir Charles Blackwelder regarding us with a faintly quizzical expression, as if we were some new and not too reputable neighbors come to call for the first time. He rose to his feet when we were fifteen feet away. There were three comfortable-looking chairs arranged in front of his desk.

  The introductions were made by Duncan who sat in the chair farthest to the left. Shartelle sat in the middle and I was placed on the right. Sir Charles lounged in his high- backed executive type chair and smiled at us. It was a slight smile. There were a lot of lines in his face, I noticed, especially around the eyes and the corners of his mouth. It was a good, long wedge-shaped face with gray hair brushed to one side to cover a bald spot. His eyebrows were straight and dark and his eyes were a curious dark blue. He wore a white suit, white shirt, and a green tie fastened in a large knot. There was some kind of signet ring on his left hand.

  “Politics, I understand, brings you gentlemen to Albertia,” Sir Charles said.

  “That’s correct, sir,” Shartelle said.

  “At first I thought it strange that Chief Akomolo should pick an American firm. But then I thought it over, and it wasn’t strange at all. Not at all. He hates us, you know. Oh, not individually perhaps—but as a collective whole. The man simply doesn’t like the English. How do you get on with him?”

  “So far, very well,” Shartelle said. I decided that he could be spokesman.

  “You’re an expert on politics, I believe, Mr. Shartelle?”

  “I earn a living at it.”

  “And you are a public relations expert, Mr. Upshaw?”

  “Yes.”

  “Well, I should say that you both have your work cut out for you during the next six weeks. I can’t, for the life of me, predict who’s going to win and I really can’t see that it will make much difference.”

  “Only to the winner—and the losers,” Shartelle said. “It usually makes a great deal of difference to them.”

  “To be sure. But I’m not at all convinced that it will make much difference to Albertia as a country after independence. Of course, independence here will be more or less routine. The ceremonies will be kept to a minimum. It will happen three days after the results are in and the winner is acclaimed—or the coalition—or what have you. Then there will be merely a simple formality of handing over the reins of government. I shall be going home before that; I doubt that I shall be back to see it. I’d like to, really.”

  I found something to say to that, and Shartelle asked: “How long have you been in Albertia, Sir Charles?”

  “I came out in 1934. I was posted up north as an assistant district officer. It was different then. I’m not saying it was better, mind you, but it was different. It seems—and perhaps this is just memory playing tricks—but it seems to me that my Albertian friends and I had some rather good times together then. We would laugh more, have jolly parties, occasionally get drunk together, and sometimes I would put a few of them in jail for a day or so. And occasionally they’d play some rather unpleasant tricks on me, but on the whole we got along famously. Out in the bush.
>
  “But tell me, Mr. Shartelle, why do you think your American brand of politics will work here in Albertia?”

  “It’s not a brand, Sir Charles. It’s merely politics.”

  “And you think it applies to Albertians as well as to Americans—and say the English?”

  “It’s a theory that’ll undergo a severe test six weeks from now,” Shartelle said. “Perhaps I could talk about it more learnedly then.”

  Blackwelder smiled. The aide-de-camp smiled and so did I. Sir Charles leaned far back in his chair, made a steeple of his fingers, and gazed up at his high, high ceiling. “Mr. Shartelle, I have been here for more than thirty years. I speak two of the dialects and I can get by in Hausa. What I’m saying is this: I’ve lived among these people all my adult life, and yet I don’t think I know them. I don’t think that I ever know what they’re thinking.”

  “Well, sir,” Shartelle said, warming to his favorite subject, people, “I think you underestimate yourself. I’d take you to be a shrewd judge of character, one who can tell pretty much about a man after talking to him for fifteen minutes or so. Do you agree?”

  Blackwelder laughed. “I’m most susceptible to flattery, Mr. Shartelle.”

  “Now I didn’t mean that, Sir Charles. I didn’t mean that at all. But I’d say that maybe you’re too close to the Albertians. Man who spends more than thirty years with anybody is bound to take on some of their notions and characteristics. I’d say that if I were you, and wondered what the Albertians were thinking, then I’d ask myself what I’m thinking, and what I would be thinking if I were them. Then I’d just about have it wrapped up.”

  “I couldn’t possibly think the way that they do.”

  “Well, I don’t think you’re thinking the way most British think. At least not the ones I’ve met.”

  “Neither fish nor fowl, eh?” He smiled. “I’ll devote some time to considering it—from both an English and Albertian point of view. Still, Mr. Shartelle, your job is to get votes for Chief Akomolo. How do you appeal to the typical Albertian voter—how do you know what he wants, how he’ll react, or what influences his tribal feelings and natural rulers may have on him?”