Ex Officio

by Donald E. Westlake

  She shook her head slowly, frowning. “He doesn’t exactly want to defect,” she said. “He doesn’t think of it that way.”

  “But that’s what it would be!”

  She lifted her head again to look at him. “Would it? That’s what it seemed to me, but he acted so sure . . .”

  “There wouldn’t be anybody in the world who would call it anything else,” Robert said, “no matter what explanation he gave. Evelyn, are you sure he wasn’t pulling your leg?”

  “He was serious,” she said. She was offended, and added, “Robert, I’m not a silly little girl. I wouldn’t have come here if it wasn’t serious.”

  “I’m sorry, you’re right. But Good God, you come out of the blue and say Bradford Lockridge is going to defect to Red China! I mean, it takes some getting used to.”

  “And I just don’t know what to do about it,” she said. “For all I know, he’s changed his mind again by now, it could be the same as when he was going to run for Congress.”

  “But you don’t think so.”

  “How can I know?” And suddenly she was on the verge of tears. “It’s becoming so nerve-wracking with him, never knowing what he’s—” She shook her head and said, as though pleading for belief, “It didn’t used to be this way. I don’t know what’s changed.”

  Robert, casting around for a role he could perform, some meaningful action he could undertake, said, “Do you want me to talk to him? I didn’t do much good with that Congress business, he talked himself out of it without any help from me, but I’m willing to try.”

  “I don’t know,” she said. She folded both hands around the coffee cup and slowly shook her head. “He wouldn’t like it if he knew I told you. But I can’t handle it by myself, I don’t have the arguments, I don’t know what to say to him.” She looked up at Robert again. “Do you have a copy of that article you wrote? About the Fuehrer?”

  “Yes, of course.” He was about to tell her that it had just been accepted for publication, but realized that was irrelevant now.

  She said, “May I read it?”

  “Sure. But why, what’s it got to do with Bradford?”

  “He told me about it, it’s one of his reasons for going. Or one of his illustrations, I suppose, of what’s wrong, why he has to go.”

  Robert grinned uncertainly, all at once suspecting some sort of mad gigantic practical joke. “Bradford’s defecting to Communist China because of my article? I’m that bad a writer?”

  “No, of course not. He said—” She stroked a palm across her forehead, suddenly looking weary beyond endurance. “I don’t know what he said. That there’s a climate of opinion leading to repression, or making it possible for repression, something like that. And your article shows that climate of opinion, or emerges out of it. Something. I don’t really know, the ground kept shifting all the time he talked.” She looked directly at Robert, as though the thought had just now occurred to her, and said, “Why didn’t you ever show it to me?”

  He felt obscurely embarrassed. “I don’t know, I suppose it’s—it just didn’t occur to me. It doesn’t seem like a man-woman thing, you know? To show you a piece of hack scholarship I wrote.”

  “Hack scholarship?”

  But he was still gnawing at her last question, and now he said, “No, I’ll tell you why. It’s because my wife—my ex-wife wouldn’t have wanted to see it. She’d have put it down.”

  “I’m not your ex-wife,” Evelyn said, and when he looked at her face her expression was ice cold.

  “I know you’re not,” he said. “I’m sorry, old habits die hard.” He reached out and grasped her hand on the tabletop. “I am sorry.”

  “Yes,” she said, nodding, and it seemed she had not so much forgiven him as simply put the problem to one side for the moment, there being more urgent things to consider. “I’d like to read it,” she said. “It might help me to understand what Bradford has in mind.”

  “Sure. I’ll get it for you.” He glanced up at the wall-clock; two-forty. “I have a three o’clock,” he said, “and then I’m done for the day. If you want, I’ll try to get somebody to take the class.”

  “No, don’t do that. I’ll read the article while you’re gone. And try to think.”

  “Think about whether you want me to go talk with Bradford or not.”

  “I will. I’m just afraid he’ll stop trusting me, if he finds out I told you. It’s bad enough now, but if he wasn’t talking to me, wasn’t telling me about his plans, that would be even worse.”

  Robert released her hand. “I’ll go get the article,” he said, and got to his feet. At the doorway, he stopped and looked back with a sheepish grin to say, “By the way, it was just accepted for publication.” He turned away again before she could choose a response.

  ii

  THEY TRAVELED DOWN TO Eustace together in his Jaguar, leaving her Mustang in the driveway beside his house, and on the way they talked about his article. Evelyn said, “I do see what Bradford means. It’s a very pessimistic article, isn’t it?”

  “I suppose it is,” Robert said. “To tell you the truth, I don’t see much reason for optimism right now.”

  “Neither does Bradford. But do you really think America is going to have a dictatorship? I’m sorry, but it sounds awfully far-fetched.”

  Robert said, “I think the chances of it are better now than at any other time in the last hundred years, including the Joe McCarthy period. If McCarthy’d had larger ambitions, he might very well have been able to take this country completely apart and put it back together again different.” He glanced at her, in the passenger seat beside him, and looked back out at the highway again, saying, “You know the form of government we have in this country isn’t a natural law, like the shape of a rabbit’s ears, it’s simply an historical accident. A thousand things might have happened along the way to make this country far different from what it is. In fact, at the very beginning we came very close to being a monarchy.”

  “I read something about that once,” Evelyn said. “Didn’t some people want to make George Washington king?”

  “That, too. But before that, during the Revolutionary War, an American delegation went to the Stuart pretender living in Paris to offer him the crown, the idea being to win over the loyalty of the American Tories, but he turned out to be a fat old drunk who passed out at the meeting, so nothing came of it.”

  Evelyn, half-smiling, said, “Is that true?”

  “Yes, it’s true. And Aaron Burr’s plot was true, and the secession of the southern states in 1861 was true, and Roosevelt’s attempt to pack the Supreme Court was true, and a thousand other things have been true. There’s no God-given law that says the United States has to be a democracy forever. We’ve lasted longer than most of the governments of history already.”

  He could sense her studying his profile as he drove, and he wasn’t surprised when, a moment later, she said, “I have the feeling you’re going to agree with Bradford all the way.”

  He glanced at her, grinning, and shook his head. “Not quite all the way,” he said. “That the country’s in grave danger, yes. That the solution is for Bradford Lockridge to defect to Red China . . . no.”

  iii

  “BRADFORD,” EVELYN SAID, “I talked to Robert, about what you asked me.”

  Robert, watching the older man’s face, saw it harden at once, as though Bradford were abruptly steeling himself to exist without aid. He didn’t look at Robert at all, but continued to face his granddaughter as he said, “Did you think that was wise?” His tone was cold, icy with disapproval. He continued to sit in his reading chair in the library, where they’d found him, and they two stood facing him. He hadn’t suggested they sit.

  Evelyn said, “I didn’t think it was a decision I could make by myself. I needed help.”

  “You’ve always come to me for help, in the past,” Bradford said. His manner was still cold, unforgiving.

  Robert broke in: “She already knew what your opinion was, sir. She wa
nted a second opinion.”

  Bradford glanced briefly at Robert’s face, and Robert was startled by the impersonal harshness of his expression. Then, looking back at his granddaughter, he said, “Are you two in love, is that it? You don’t want to come with me because you don’t want to give him up?”

  “Bradford,” she said, and Robert could hear the embarrassment and helplessness in her voice, “that isn’t—”

  “Because if that’s true, naturally I’ll understand. I wouldn’t try to come between you and your happiness.”

  “Bradford—”

  “But you should have told me about it. There was no need to bring Robert into the situation, it only complicates my security, don’t you see that?” The cold eyes flicked to Robert. “I hope Evelyn impressed on you the necessity for secrecy. I wouldn’t want interference from the government.”

  Robert said, “Interference wasn’t what I had in—”

  But Bradford continued with his own thought again, saying, “Because I can’t be stopped, you know. All you could do would be make the situation more complicated, but you couldn’t stop it. No one could stop it.”

  Robert made a vague gesture with one hand, not knowing precisely what to say at this juncture. The conversation, which he had imagined in several different modes on the drive down here, had gone off from the beginning in ways he hadn’t anticipated. He said, “It isn’t a question of stopping you, sir, it’s—”

  “Let me tell you,” Bradford said, “what will happen if the government learns of my plans and tries to keep me from leaving the country. I will pick up the handiest telephone—” he nodded at the phone across the room “—and announce a news conference. At which I will explain my intention to leave for Peking, my reasons for so doing, and the attempt of government officials to keep me from going. Protected by the spotlight of publicity, I will then be perfectly able to travel unmolested.”

  “Sir, I don’t want to—”

  “I would prefer to do it quietly,” Bradford said, “and present my government with a fait accompli. I believe that would put fewer noses out of joint, which would be important if I am to be an effective conduit of communication between East and West. But if necessary, I will take the public route. The most important thing is that I go.”

  Robert said, “But is it? That’s what I want to question, sir, the advantages of your doing this in the first place.”

  Bradford’s lips moved in a thin smile. “I frankly wouldn’t expect you to be enthusiastic. A positive act conflicts with your modish fatalism.”

  Robert fought down a sudden flush of anger, but Bradford’s phrase rankled like a burr under the saddle. Had the man intended it to rankle? Robert said, in as neutral a tone as possible, “Evelyn told me how my article fits into your theory, sir, and in many ways you’re right. Modish or not, I do feel fatalistic about this country’s future. The temptation to lay down the burden of freedom is a strong one for any people, and we’ve held out for—”

  “You are about to agree with me in principle,” Bradford said, the thin smile showing briefly once again.

  “No, sir. I am going to agree with you right on down the line. This country is confused by its internal problems and in despair over its external sins and blunders, and is ripe for dictatorship, we both agree on that. It is very likely to happen unless some huge event takes place, some miracle, something dramatic and unforeseen and tremendously effective, we both agree on that. But what we don’t agree on is that your defecting to Communist Chi—”

  “Defecting! I thought Evelyn explained the situation to you.”

  “I’m describing it in newspaper shorthand, sir,” Robert said. “Your explanation is a little too long and involved for a headline.”

  “In other words, your objection is that you’re worried about me.” The smile was now more openly sardonic.

  “Yes, sir,” Robert said. It was growing increasingly difficult to keep his temper.

  “And if I say that I’m willing to leave Evelyn here, will that cause you to worry less about her grandfather?”

  “No, sir,” Robert said. “Evelyn is old enough to make her own decisions. My only feeling is that you’re about to make a very serious mistake that will spoil your record of—”

  “Mistake? Young man, when did you first hear of this plan of mine?”

  “This afternoon. About four hours ago.”

  “How long do you suppose I’ve been thinking about it?”

  “Yes, sir, I realize—”

  “How long?”

  “For some time, I’m sure, sir, but neverthe—”

  “For some time. How long?”

  “I imagine, sir, that sooner or later you intend to tell me how long, though I don’t really see what difference it makes. If it was fifty days, or twenty-seven days or a hundred and nine days, it’s still a bad idea. People have been known to keep mistaken notions in their heads for decades.”

  “Whereas your brain leaped to the truth at once.”

  “In this case, yes, sir. This is a wilder idea than running for Congress, but it comes out of the same—”

  “Now you’re a psychiatrist. Evelyn, you seem to have found a Renaissance man.”

  “I don’t claim to be a Renaissance man, sir. I don’t claim to be a messiah, either.”

  “But I do, is that it?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Bradford’s eyes glinted above the cold smile. “Tell me, then,” he said. “Which would be better, to fail at the glorious or to succeed at the stodgy?”

  “You can’t set up an either-or propo—”

  “I can’t? I just did.” Bradford leaned forward suddenly, pointing a finger up at Robert. “Let me tell you something, young man. You come here with professions of selfless concern for my—don’t interrupt me!—for my reputation and my future, but I tell you your hands are not clean. You have not merely one ulterior motive, you have two. In the first place, you don’t want to be proved wrong in your fashionable theory of pessimism, you want a dictatorship, you are just exactly the internal enemy I fear, the man who talks of freedom but who inside himself craves to be led and protected and absolved of responsibility. No, let me finish! And in the second place, you fear what my actions will do to your relationship with my granddaughter.”

  “Sir, that isn’t—”

  “I said, let me finish!”

  “But you’re making a speech!”

  “Yes, I am!” Bradford shouted, and lunged to his feet. Standing there, head thrust forward close to Robert’s face, he shouted, “The first speech of many, young man, only the first of many! I will be heard, I will force the world to pay attention to me and to turn its back on the nay-sayers and the fatalists like you who would seduce not only this nation but the entire world into a Dark Ages from which the human race might never recover!”

  Evelyn, coming forward in panicky concern, called her grandfather’s name, but Bradford turned off the anger at once, smiled at her and said, “Oh, I’m all right, dear. Don’t worry about me, I’ll stay healthy. I have too much to accomplish.” He looked again at Robert. “And don’t you try to stop me.”

  2

  EVELYN STOOD IN THE open doorway and watched the red tail-lights of Robert’s car flicker in undecipherable semaphore as he drove away out the blacktop road amid the trees. Then darkness, then one light winked briefly through the tree trunks like a low-flying red star, and then darkness again, this time complete.

  Evelyn shook her head. How she would like to be beside him in the other bucket seat of the elderly Jaguar now, going outward in a straight line forever, with no problems, no terrible decisions, no responsibilities. Instead of which, a chauffeur was riding in her place, traveling to Lancashire with Robert in order to drive her Mustang back.

  She stepped inside and shut the door and listened for a moment to the silence of the house. It was nearly ten, and Dinah was long since in bed; otherwise, Evelyn would have gone up there now for the psychological bolstering, the calming, that an hour or t
wo in the child’s presence always gave her. As it was, the house seemed empty, the servants all away in their own section, only Bradford still moving around upstairs, in the back library.

  Bradford. She was afraid to see him now, and yet she had to see him. But what was she going to say to him?

  She hadn’t been able to talk about it with Robert. The minute they were alone he’d wanted to start making plans, deciding whom to go to for help, how best to handle Bradford, and she hadn’t been able to hold that kind of conversation, not now. Her mind was too confused now.

  Could it be that Bradford was right, after all? Robert’s article had shaken her, demonstrating as it did just exactly the fatalism Bradford had been talking about. Bradford and Robert were in agreement about the nation’s illness; it was only in the cure that they parted company. And even then, what was the disagreement? Only that Robert was afraid Bradford’s gesture would be ineffective, he would be throwing himself away. And what alternative did Robert offer? For Bradford, continued retirement and inaction. For the nation and the world, nothing.

  Perhaps Bradford should be allowed to try his plan, perhaps throwing himself away would still be better than stagnating to death. The things he’d said to Robert tonight had been harsh, some of them, but they’d made sense. And if the current danger to democracy was as extraordinary as both Bradford and Robert agreed it was, then why not an extraordinary cure? Why not a gesture so grand it couldn’t be ignored?

  There were moments like this when it seemed absolutely right that Bradford should do what he planned, but then the whole problem tended to make a sudden shift into another perspective, like those stacks of boxes in Ripley’s Believe It or Not that sometimes seem to angle one way and sometimes the other, and she would find she was arguing against herself.

  Now, for instance, she was remembering France and what had happened to Bradford there, and she was realizing it would be the same thing all over again this time, only much worse, on a much larger scale. No matter how good Bradford’s motivation, no matter how accurate his diagnosis of the world’s ills, all that could happen would be that the Chinese would use him for their own propaganda. And the United States would have to disown him, turn from him in repugnance as a traitor, no matter how he might try to explain things. The world would listen as George had listened during that interview, nodding all the way and then cutting out the parts it didn’t want to hear.