Ex Officio

by Donald E. Westlake

  “No.”

  “Four hundred miles of pipe,” he said. Waving his arms in the air, he cried, “The goddam Big Inch, that’s what it is!”

  Evelyn frowned at him, bewildered. “I don’t understand.”

  “The idea is,” he said, “Brad’s studied the maps, and he’s got us a water supply. The only problem is, it’s four hundred miles away. So what are we supposed to do? According to him, we’ll make a public announcement that we made a mistake about their being a big enough water supply right at the townsite, but we want to make up for it by putting in a four-hundred-mile pipeline from this Lake Whatever-it-is at our own expense! Can you imagine that?”

  “At whose own expense?”

  “Me!” Harrison struck himself in the chest, outraged all over again at the thought. “The whole syndicate is supposed to join me, of course, that’s part of his scheme, too, but you know how much chance there is of that happening?”

  “None, I should think,” Evelyn said.

  “You’re damn right, none. And even if they were big enough fools to go into this with me, do you realize how much four hundred miles of pipeline would cost? Pumping stations, it isn’t just a hole in the ground and a piece of pipe in it, it’s a major operation. He says take it out of the profit we made on the town, but all together we didn’t come away with a tenth what that pipeline would cost, not a tenth.”

  Evelyn said, “I don’t understand that.”

  “God damn it, Evelyn, neither do I. I expected Brad to be sore at me, he warned me, God knows, he showed me a way out back in February, but I was just too dumb to listen. I wouldn’t blame him being sore at me, but for God’s sake there comes a time to be serious, to get down to the problem at hand, and he just won’t do it. What’s he up to? He can’t mean this pipeline business, it’s a pipe dream, it isn’t practical no matter how you look at it. So why does he stay with it, why won’t he talk to me brother to brother? Why can’t I get through to him this time?”

  “I don’t know,” Evelyn said, frowning in true bewilderment. A four-hundred-mile pipeline really wasn’t a practical solution to the problem, and she couldn’t understand Bradford’s having mentioned it at all, much less sticking to it as the one and only answer. No wonder Harrison was so upset, no wonder he was beginning to believe Bradford had chosen this way to brush him off, that this time Bradford had decided not to help him out of his jam after all.

  But that couldn’t be the case. Evelyn knew Bradford had not been happy about Harrison’s latest disaster, but he had surely been resigned from the outset to play his usual role, stepping in at the last minute to save Harrison from the results of his actions. So this pipeline idea couldn’t be merely a not-too-subtle way to refuse to take part, since Evelyn was certain Bradford had never for an instant considered not taking part.

  But the pipeline suggestion couldn’t be serious, either. Bradford’s great strength was his practicality, it was his awareness of the possible that made him not only the acknowledged head of the family but for four years had made him the acknowledged head of the entire United States and by extension a good third of the population of the world. “Politics is the doctrine of the possible,” Bismarck had said, and it was his unswerving devotion to this doctrine that had made Bradford the great politician he had been and the strong family leader he still remained. So he couldn’t really intend Harrison to leave here the day after tomorrow and go build a four-hundred-mile pipeline.

  Harrison was saying, “He won’t talk to Herb at all, he won’t even acknowledge his existence, so there’s nothing poor Herb can do to find out what’s going on and you can imagine how that’s driving him crazy. I’m not excusing him for going after the maid, but you can see where he might not be himself right now.”

  It wasn’t that Herbert was not himself that Evelyn had objected to, but that he was so much more himself than ever before. She felt she’d already established the point, however, and didn’t want to distract the conversation from Bradford and the pipeline, so she said nothing.

  Harrison said, “Patricia’s tried to talk to him, of course, you know Patricia, but he won’t say a word to her either. Oh, he’ll talk to her, but not about this mess, not a word about that. She’ll ask him a question, and it’s as if he didn’t even hear it. I’m the only one he’ll talk to, and all he’ll say to me is pipeline pipeline pipeline.”

  Could Bradford be punishing him? Evelyn studied that possibility, and though it too seemed doubtful it was at least possible. Possible that Bradford had decided this time to teach Harrison a lesson, to give him nothing but this impractical suggestion until the last minute, until Saturday, day after tomorrow. Then, an hour or two before they were to leave, Bradford would call in Harrison and Herbert—and perhaps even Patricia—and then he would outline something sensible and practical they could do to wriggle themselves out of this mess.

  It was a possibility, Bradford was surely angry enough this time and had the additional spur of the Paris fiasco to keep him on the boil, but Evelyn hoped it wasn’t true, because it was really very cruel. Of a piece with sending the bus. Harrison was too easy a target, it wasn’t like Bradford to engage in overkill like this.

  She would have to find out, one way or the other. And stop Bradford, if she could. “I’ll talk to him,” she promised. “As soon as we get back.”

  “Thank you, Evelyn.” He reached out and took her hand and held it for a moment in both of his. She was sure the gesture began naturally, but he became almost at once self-conscious, and prolonged it theatrically, spoiling it. Still holding her hand, he said, “And I’ll talk to Herbert. I’ll read him the riot act.”

  “The rape act would be more like it,” Evelyn said.

  They walked on through a brown path, sun-dappled and surrounded by thick-trunked trees. They walked in silence now, Evelyn going over and over the pipeline suggestion in her mind, trying to find some other explanation for it, and soon she heard the high-pitched squeals of children ahead.

  It was the Simcoe girls, going for a swim in the pond, a natural body of water in a small meadow surrounded by woods but still relatively close to the house. All five were present, in bathing suits, like an illustrated lecture in female pubescence, ranging from skinny eight-year-old Jackie to lithe but well-developed sixteen-year-old Pam, with all stages in between. They were fighting over two objects at the moment, a blue-and-gold beach ball and an inflated inner tube.

  Sitting in a folding chair well back from the water, wearing his inevitable suit but with the jacket open, a newspaper spread between his spread hands and a cigar stuck in his mouth, was the girls’ father, Maurice. He glanced across at Evelyn and Harrison as they followed the path in its skirting of the pond, and when Evelyn called, “Beautiful day,” he nodded soberly and went back to his paper.

  There was a narrow strip of woods on the other side, separating pond from house, narrow enough to permit glimpses of the house through it. Once inside and among those trees, Harrison said softly, “Do you suppose God will forgive me for hoping at least one of them drowns?”

  “God may wonder, as I do,” Evelyn said, “why you set your sights so low.”

  They smiled at one another in an almost unprecedented moment of rapport, and walked on together to the house.

  vii

  BRADFORD WAS IN THE back library, reading G. A. Lipsky’s John Quincy Adams, His Theory and Ideas. Evelyn said, “Bradford? May I interrupt you?”

  He glanced up at her, and she was surprised at the mildness in his eyes. The time spent up here apparently really did do him good, because right now there was nothing in his face at all to show the strain he’d been under recently or the crisis they were all currently living through. He said, “Of course, come in. Everything all right in the kitchen?”

  “As long as we can keep Martha out,” she said. She shut the door and walked across the room toward him, saying, “You can tell me this is none of my business, if you want, but I want to talk to you about Uncle Harrison.”

 
He frowned slightly, but the mild expression remained and he made no objection.

  “He’s really frightened,” she said. He was in one of the leather chairs near the windows. There was no direct sun, since these windows faced south, but the room was bright without artificial light. Evelyn sat in the other leather chair, so that when Bradford looked at her the left side of his face was in daylight and the right side was in semi-shadow. She said, “He’s afraid you’ve abandoned him this time.”

  “He simply refuses to understand,” Bradford said softly. “I’ve never given him bad advice before. Why should I begin now?”

  “He told me all you’ve suggested was some sort of four-hundred-mile pipeline.”

  “Of course.” If he was surprised, it was only mildly so. Still soft-voiced, he said, “Those people need water, Evelyn.”

  She looked at him, trying to understand. “You mean you’re serious? You really think that’s the thing for him to do?”

  “I think it’s the thing for all of them to do,” Bradford said gently. “All of the speculators who made money from this operation.”

  “But they won’t,” she said. “You know that, Bradford, you know what kind of men they are, they won’t agree to a thing like that.”

  “Harrison must persuade them.”

  “No one could persuade them,” she insisted. “Least of all Harrison. You do know that, Bradford, Harrison is just a puppy, that’s all he’s ever been. The only reason those men took him in with them was because of his relationship with you. He’s not a leader.”

  “He comes from a family of leaders,” Bradford said. “His father was a leader. Both his grandfathers were leaders.”

  “But we’re talking about Harrison.”

  Doubt flickered briefly in his eyes, he seemed for just a second confused, but then he shook his head and said, “I know we’re talking about Harrison. And you know I want what’s best for Harrison. For all of us.”

  “I know that,” she said, and behind the words she was trying to think of what she could say to him. He meant this pipeline suggestion, he was really serious about it. But how could he be? It didn’t make sense, that’s all. He’d got caught up in a wrong way of seeing things, and he hadn’t yet been able to break out of it. That happened to everybody at one time or another, it had happened to Bradford before, but she couldn’t remember it ever being this severe or for this long a period. One of his most useful characteristics was an exceptionally alert self-editor; he tended to find his own errors early, and correct them.

  This time, he was going to need a little push from outside, she could see that. (As the pickets had pushed, toward the end of his Presidency? His error then had been global, the response vitriolic. He had changed courses at once, on seeing where he’d gone wrong, and had been accused of vacillation and opportunism by his opponents. Would an intransigent man, determined to pursue his erroneous course even if it led to general war, have been preferable? Evelyn had always doubted it.)

  Her method of pushing Bradford into seeing his error would have to be gentler than the public reaction of a decade ago to that larger error. Cautiously she said, “But we have to stay within the realm of the possible, don’t we? Don’t we have to stay within the limits of what Harrison can do?”

  “That’s his mistake,” Bradford said, holding up a warning finger. The book on Adams, closed and with a red leather bookmark sticking out like a tongue at one end, lay in his lap. “He thinks only of his limitations,” Bradford said, “and not of his potential. Harrison is sixty-four years old, Evelyn, he’s not a young man. A young man can be forgiven if he never raises his sights above money-making and selfish interests, but a man of sixty-four should have higher goals. What will Harrison leave behind him when he goes? Children and grandchildren? That isn’t enough, not for men like us, and not even if they were much better than the ones he has.”

  Evelyn found herself smiling, thinking of the Simcoes and the Chathams, but when she saw that Bradford wasn’t returning the smile she sobered instantly.

  Bradford said, “A man wants to feel that he has accomplished something in life, that the world is in some way a better place for his having lived in it. That he has affected it somehow. What is Harrison’s place in history? Merely that by the accident of biology he was the brother of an American President? Reflected glory won’t suffice, I don’t understand why he can’t see that.”

  “He never wanted glory,” Evelyn said softly. “That isn’t Harrison’s way. All he’s ever wanted is to be treated like a grown-up. In fact, not even that, not even all the way to the grown-ups. He just wants to be allowed to play with the big boys.”

  “That’s why I say,” Bradford insisted, his voice still low and gentle, “that he must raise his sights, while he still has some time left. And he’ll never get a greater opportunity than this. He has created a city in the wilderness, which in itself is an almost mythic accomplishment. He has named it after the father of our country, drawing a quite proper parallel. But his motives haven’t been the equivalent of his actions. George Washington, California, is a grand gesture, a noble act, but engaged in for ignoble reasons. Now Harrison has a chance to bring his motives up to his actions, to really create something splendid out there. With water, that town can live. And he can bring it water, he can finish the job he started. I’ve studied the maps, I’ve seen where the water is.” He picked up his book with one hand, put the other on the chair arm preparatory to rising. “Shall I show you the maps?”

  “I wouldn’t understand them,” she said. “I believe you about the water.”

  “It’s the nearest water not already claimed by some other community,” he said. “It’s unfortunate it’s so far away, of course, but in the long run that only makes the task more noble, more noteworthy.”

  “And more expensive,” she said.

  “Harrison is not a poor man,” Bradford said. “Nor is Herbert. Nor are any of their partners. The world has been good to them all, it won’t hurt them to repay some of that goodness.”

  “Bradford,” Evelyn said, her voice rising a little because she was beginning to feel desperate about reaching him, “you’re not thinking about Harrison, about who he really is. You could do it, you could do that pipeline if you were in Harrison’s position and you really set your mind to it, but he can’t. He really can’t, Bradford, and it’s only cruel to expect him to try.”

  “Cruel? Evelyn, I’m not asking anything of Harrison. I’m not asking him to do anything for me. He came to me for advice, and my advice to him is to raise his standards, to worry more about humanity and less about himself. Is that advice really cruel?”

  “Yes, it is,” she said. “If Harrison was in a burning building, stuck on a high floor, and he asked you to help him and you advised him to learn how to fly I’d say that was cruel, too. And this is exactly the same thing.”

  “But it isn’t. I didn’t merely advise him to fly, I set down instructions for how to learn. I didn’t merely tell Harrison to think about humanity, and to try for a nobler goal than money. I showed him how to do it.”

  “The pipeline.”

  “Water for the city he created. I’m really surprised at you, Evelyn, I’ve always thought of you as someone with vision. Can’t you see what a perfect answer this is to all of Harrison’s problems? All of them, not merely this little indictment that won’t come to anything anyway. But think of what that city could do for Harrison’s self-esteem. If he brought water to that city, if he made it live, he would never let Patricia dominate him again. And he would stand in the history books on his own two feet, not sit on my coat-tails. And he would have a sufficient sense of his own personal worth not to have to travel with his entire family any more.” He grinned, a surprising transition, and said, “Which is where we get our advantage.”

  This time, Evelyn didn’t return the smile. She said, “Bradford, if Harrison could do this thing with the pipeline he would already be someone who couldn’t be dominated by Patricia, and wouldn’t have to t
ravel with his whole family, and didn’t need to ride through life on your coat-tails. But he isn’t that kind of person, he just isn’t. So what you’re suggesting isn’t practical. That isn’t like you, Bradford, it really isn’t like you.”

  “If Harrison tries and fails,” Bradford said, “I will agree with you, it isn’t practical. But he won’t fail. If he acts with determination, if he truly tries, he can’t fail. But all he persists in thinking about is this ridiculous indictment.”

  “Ridiculous? It’s the indictment that’s causing all the trouble.”

  “It doesn’t mean a thing,” Bradford said. “It’s political, that’s been obvious from the beginning. Harrison’s partners are already making their deals, you can be sure of that.”

  “But it can’t be entirely political,” she said. “There isn’t enough water, is there?”

  “Not for the city they’d planned on. For a much smaller, less fashionable, less valuable community there’s probably enough water. Those individuals who have already bought homes there have paid too much for them, that’s about the extent of the injustice.” Bradford shook his head, saying, “No, the indictment isn’t the point. I could spend an hour on the phone to California this afternoon, find out what they want, and settle that part of it. The point is, what will Harrison do with this opportunity?”

  “Why don’t you?” she asked him.

  He didn’t understand. “I beg your pardon?”

  “Why don’t you call? Spend the hour on the phone, settle the indictment.”

  “Because it’s so irrelevant. Why don’t any of you see this? A city in the desert! For God’s sake, epic poems have been written about an accomplishment that Harrison did almost inadvertently! He’s on the threshold of greatness, and the damn fool can’t grasp the fact. Some have greatness thrust upon them, and Harrison is one of them.”

  “If the indictment was off his back—”

  “No. The indictment is the goad. Remove it, and Harrison will settle back into the same easy acceptance as before. With the goad, there’s a chance he may attain greatness.”