Ex Officio

by Donald E. Westlake

  Which reminded him: Where were they? He hadn’t seen them for an hour or more, not since shortly after the reception got underway. Looking around, he saw Eugene White, Audrey’s father, chatting with a couple of Boston Wellingtons, and he headed in that direction to ask if Eugene had seen the young marrieds recently. (This reception was properly Eugene’s responsibility anyway, as father of the bride, but Holt’s place in Philadelphia was both more centrally located for the wide-ranging family members and more adapted to the entertaining of a large gathering than the Whites’ small apartment in Washington, so Eugene had furnished the caterers and Holt had furnished the locale, and between them they were serving more or less as co-hosts of the affair.)

  Coming closer, Holt could hear that the two Wellington ladies were giving Eugene a bad time about American Asian policy, and he looked as though he could badly use rescuing. Most of the family knew he was an Asian affairs expert with the State Department, so he tended to have trouble at social occasions with people too long frustrated by faceless government. Eugene’s handsome mustached face bore a pained smile as he listened to what America should do about China—give it a good spanking, appeared to be the gist of the ladies’ approach—and his diplomat’s façade cracked enough to show his relief now when Holt arrived and said, “Gene, I’m sorry to interrupt, but I need your help. If you ladies won’t mind?”

  Not at all, they said, though they didn’t mean it. Eugene said something vague to them about continuing this interesting discussion soon, and then he and Holt moved away again, Eugene saying sotto voce, “I owe you my life.”

  “You did look as though you were going down for the third time. Have you seen Greg or Audrey anywhere?”

  “No, I haven’t.” He sounded surprised, and lifted on tiptoe to look over the heads of the crowd. “Do you suppose they’ve skipped?”

  “Without saying goodbye?”

  Eugene rocked down off his toes again and looked at Holt, grinning sidelong. “That son of yours,” he said, “is devious for a Navy man.”

  “He really left,” Holt said. He couldn’t get over it.

  “And I don’t blame him,” Eugene said. “He can see all the relatives he wants at funerals. Would you stick around, Joe, if it was your wedding day?”

  Holt grinned back and said, “I suppose not. I just had a check for him, that’s all. They were faster than I’d anticipated.”

  “He’ll appreciate it even more after the honeymoon,” Eugene said, and Evelyn Canby came up from the other side. Eugene nodded at her: “Hello, Evelyn.”

  “Hello, Eugene.” The girl looked troubled; she said, “Uncle Joe, when you have a minute could I talk with you?”

  Holt saw Eugene give him a guarded look of sympathy, and he knew they were both having the same thought. If Eugene had his Asia kooks, Holt had his hypochondriacs.

  Which wasn’t fair to Evelyn, of course, since the girl fretted not about herself but about Bradford, and she was undoubtedly right to do so. But did she have to come around long-faced in the middle of a wedding reception, when Holt’s only child was celebrating his only—God willing—marriage?

  Eugene said, “Well, I’ll talk to you a little later, Joe,” and walked off, with a meaningful look at Holt, to let him know the rescue operation would be paid back very soon.

  Holt said to Evelyn, “Is this important?”

  “Yes, it is.”

  “Brad again? Another attack?”

  “Not exactly. Could we talk in private?”

  That would make it more difficult for Eugene to disentangle him, but the girl looked so damned worried. . . . He nodded. “Of course,” he said, trying not to let his reluctance show. “Come on.”

  They started for the house, and Robert Pratt joined them, Holt surprised to hear Evelyn say to him, “I’m glad you’re here to help.”

  Help? Help what? With the sinking feeling that his day was about to be spoiled for good, Holt led the way through the French doors and across the dining room and down the hall to a small room he’d had fixed up as an office, but which he almost never used.

  Feeling vaguely hostlike, he said, “Would you like to sit down?”

  Evelyn shook her head. “I’m too nervous to sit.”

  So they stood. Holt shut the door and said, “All right. What is it?”

  The girl looked helpless, and made a vague movement with her hands. “I really don’t know how to say it.”

  Annoyance crept into Holt’s voice. “In one simple declarative sentence, if possible.”

  Evelyn looked for assistance to Robert Pratt, who nodded and said, “All right.” He looked at Holt. “Bradford,” he said, “wants to defect to Red China.”

  ii

  THEY WERE JUST FINISHING their story when a knock sounded at the door. Holt looked up in annoyance—they were all seated now, he at the desk and they in the naugahyde chairs opposite—and called, “What is it?”

  Eugene White stuck his head in. “Oh, there you are, Joe. We could use you out—”

  “Come in, Gene,” Holt snapped. “Never mind that.”

  Baffled, Eugene said, “Uh—we could—”

  “Come in,” Holt said impatiently. “Come in and shut the door, this is serious. And you’re exactly the man to talk to.”

  Evelyn half rose from her chair, saying, “Uncle Joe, this was supposed to be private!”

  Robert Pratt said, “Doctor, we’ve been sitting on this thing for a week. We don’t want it broadcast to the world.”

  “Neither do I,” Holt told them. “But you don’t want a doctor for this, you want Gene.”

  Eugene, looking like a man suspecting a really atrocious practical joke, had come cautiously into the room and shut the door behind him. “All right,” he said guardedly, “what’s going on?”

  Holt said to Evelyn, “Tell him.”

  Evelyn half-turned in her seat and studied Eugene. Then she nodded and said, “All right. Bradford wants to defect to Red China.”

  A doubtful smile touched Eugene’s lips. He glanced uncertainly at Holt for guidance, and it was obvious he thought the situation was either (a) the practical joke he’d been braced for, or (b) an unfortunately loony girl who had to be humored.

  But then Robert Pratt said, “It’s true. I’ve talked with him, and it’s true.”

  Eugene frowned at all of them, and looked to Holt for solid ground, saying, “This is on the level?”

  “On the level,” Holt promised him. “Bradford Lockridge intends to sneak out of this country and go live in Red China.”

  “Bradford Lockridge.”

  “For the best motives in the world,” Robert Pratt said.

  Holt nodded. “That’s what’s so bad about it. Sit down, Gene, let Evelyn tell you the story.”

  There was a wooden-armed chair with a blue-cushioned seat just to the left of the door, into which Eugene sank with a stunned look on his face. “Yes,” he said. “Tell me.”

  Evelyn told him, with interpolations from Robert Pratt, and Holt, listening carefully to this second recitation of the facts and Bradford’s stated motivations, saw how smoothly it all came together, so that young Pratt’s attempt to dissuade Bradford had to fail because he was trying to find the entry to a completely closed system.

  When the two of them were finished, Eugene said, “And he’s been in correspondence with these people?”

  Evelyn nodded. “But I don’t know how.”

  “But you did see the Chinese when they delivered the first message.”

  “Yes. Two men in the back of a Mercedes. With a chauffeur, also Chinese.”

  “Did you notice the license plate?”

  Evelyn turned to Robert Pratt, who said, “I’m sorry, no, we didn’t.”

  Holt said, “The Secret Service should have a record of that.”

  “Right,” said Eugene. “I’ll have to get in touch with Welling—” He broke off and said to Evelyn, “You realize I’ll have to talk to some people. This isn’t something that can be handled by we f
our in this room.”

  “This is beginning to spread,” Robert Pratt said doubtfully. “What Evelyn is mainly concerned with is protecting Bradford’s good name. She doesn’t want a lot of publicity.”

  Eugene said, “None of us do, man. We all want the lid on this as tight as we can get it.”

  Evelyn said to Eugene, “You started to say Wellington.” She offered a thin nervous smile. “That’s all right, I’d already suspected Wellington had something to do with espionage. But he’s family, he’s Bradford’s son, so it’s all right. Just so it doesn’t get outside the family.”

  “If at all possible,” Eugene told her, and turned to Holt. “Did he come today? I haven’t seen him here.”

  “Bradford?” Holt shook his head. “No, he didn’t feel up to a mob like this. He phoned a little before noon and talked to them both, Greg and Audrey.”

  Evelyn said, “And they’re going to stop in and see him after the honeymoon.”

  Eugene looked at his watch. Calmly he said, “Then he could have left already, couldn’t he? He could have a three hour start on us right now.”

  “No,” Evelyn said. “He promised me he wouldn’t leave today. He wants me to go with him, that’s why he told me about it in the first place. I haven’t given him an answer yet.”

  Robert Pratt said, “It’s a stall that won’t work much longer, though. Bradford thinks now the answer is going to be no, that Evelyn’s going to want to stay in this country because of me.”

  “He talks against Robert now,” Evelyn said in a small voice. “I think he still hopes he can overcome Robert’s influence on me.”

  Holt said, “But he knows that Robert is aware of his plans and doesn’t agree with them. Even with this threat of his to call a news conference if anybody tries to stop him, he’ll probably want to make his move soon.”

  “What a mess,” Eugene said.

  Holt said, “Evelyn, has there been any other odd behavior from Bradford in the last few months? Anything out of the ordinary.”

  “No, not really.” But then she said, “Well, yes, in a way. But that was because of the mess in Paris, that whole thing over there going so badly.”

  “What was?”

  “He was very short-tempered with Harrison, in July. You know what happened to Herbert.”

  “I don’t,” Eugene said.

  Holt explained to him, “Herbert Jarvis, Harrison’s partner.”

  “His brother-in-law, yes. Died a few months ago.”

  “Killed himself,” Holt said. “Out at Bradford’s place. I fudged the death certificate myself.”

  Eugene held up a hand like a traffic cop. “Wait a minute. You people are hitting me with too much all at once. Herbert Jarvis killed himself?”

  “I have no idea why,” Holt said. “Business worries, I suppose.” To Evelyn he said, “Weren’t they having trouble with some sort of real estate scheme in California?”

  “They went to Bradford for help,” she said, “that’s what it was all about. That’s why they were there. And Bradford was very hard, very cold. He wouldn’t talk to Herbert at all, and he wouldn’t help Harrison, not until after Herbert killed himself. All he’d suggest was some sort of crazy idea for a four-hundred-mile pipeline across a desert.”

  “A serious suggestion?”

  “I don’t know. He kept saying it was, but it couldn’t have been. It wasn’t a sensible idea, it would have cost more than all the partners had together, and Bradford wanted Harrison to do it all by himself.”

  “Why?”

  “He said it was because Harrison never tried to do anything large and selfless for other people, so he’d never be remembered, but if he did this pipeline he’d be remembered as the man who built a city in a desert.”

  Holt glanced at Eugene and found Eugene meeting his eye.

  In a small voice, Evelyn said, “This is the same kind of thing, isn’t it? For himself, this time.”

  Eugene said, “What did Harrison do?”

  “Bradford finally helped him. Herbert killed himself, and after that Bradford made some phone calls and fixed things up.”

  “So he can be reached,” Eugene said.

  “Possibly,” Holt said.

  “And he sent the bus for them,” Evelyn added.

  “He did what?”

  She told the story about the bus, and then Holt said, “Has there been anything else like that? Where he’s been harsher than usual, or more unnoticing of other people’s feelings?”

  “I don’t think so. Maybe in small ways, day by day, but nothing like that. He’s shouted at the servants more than he used to, I think, but I just thought that was part of his agitation. First the business in France going badly, and then Harrison’s trouble and Herbert killing himself, and then getting all excited about running for Congress, and that rug being pulled out from under—”

  “Running for Congress?” Eugene was lost again. “Bradford?”

  Holt said, “That’s a part of it I was a witness to. Two or three months ago, he got the idea he’d take his old seat back in the House. Seems John Adams did the same thing, after his Presidency.”

  “John Quincy Adams,” Evelyn said.

  “Excuse me,” Holt said.

  “It seems to me,” Eugene said, “there’ve been enough clues. The man’s been acting oddly for months. Surely somebody should have seen something before now.”

  “Not necessarily,” Holt said, cutting in before Evelyn’s outrage could find voice. “He hasn’t been all that odd, and up to now there’ve been perfectly normal explanations for everything. Fatigue, disappointment, boredom. They could even be the explanation for what’s happening now.”

  “Not the full explanation, surely,” Eugene said.

  “Probably not,” Holt admitted. “But there was that television interview a week or two ago, did you see that?”

  “The tail end of it, is all. I was at a late meeting.”

  “He was perfectly all right there,” Holt said. “Blander than usual, if anything.”

  “Well, I’ll tell you the reason for that,” Evelyn said sharply. “They cut out everything important he had to say.”

  Holt looked at her in sudden interest. “That wasn’t the complete interview?”

  “No! George talked to him for an hour and a half, and they cut a whole hour out of it. Everything really meaningful that Bradford felt was important to say.”

  Holt said, musingly, “I wonder if they’d still have the parts they cut?”

  Eugene said, “Worth a phone call.”

  “George is still out in the garden, I believe,” Holt said.

  “I’ll talk to him later. Joe, will you be free tomorrow and Tuesday?”

  “I can be,” Holt said.

  “I’ll set things up as quickly as I can,” Eugene said.

  Evelyn said, “For what?”

  “For a meeting,” Eugene told her, and added, “Family members only, I promise. But we’ll have to talk things over, so we’ll have to get together.”

  “I can be there,” she said. “Wherever you meet, I can be there.”

  “I think you should stay with Bradford,” Eugene told her. “I think you should be with him as much as possible.”

  “Before you do anything,” she said, “anything at all, you’ve got to talk to me about it. If you want to have a meeting behind my back—”

  “It’s not a meeting behind your back, it’s simply—”

  “I know exactly what it is. All right, you think you’ll be able to talk more freely if I’m not there, because of the way I feel about Bradford. And probably because I’m a woman. All right. But before you do anything, come talk to me. Because if you don’t, and if I think you’re doing something to hurt Bradford, I’ll warn him. I’ll tell him what’s going on, I’ll even help him get out of the country. You talk to me before you do a thing.”

  Holt said, “We’ll want Robert at the meeting, Evelyn. You trust him, don’t you?”

  She turned her head to look a
t Robert, sitting beside her, and her expression softened. “Yes,” she said.

  Robert reached over and rested his hand on her’s on the chair arm. “We’re all going to be on Bradford’s side,” he said. “You don’t have to worry.”

  “That’s right, Evelyn,” Holt said.

  She looked over at Holt again, and he was surprised at the cold strength he now saw in her eyes. “Is it?” she said. “I know I’m on Bradford’s side. I know I don’t want him to defect to China because that would be terrible for him, terrible in every possible way. Terrible for him. A lot of the rest of you are going to be worried about the national reputation, or your own future as relatives of a President who defected, or other things that aren’t really Bradford. But I just want you to know that anything you do, you’re going to have to go through me, and I’m on Bradford’s side.”

  Holt suddenly smiled, delighted with the girl. “All right, Evelyn,” he said. “That’s good.”

  iii

  HOLT SAT AND WATCHED Bradford’s face, magnified in close-up on the screen in front of them in the darkness, and listened to Bradford’s amplified voice, and never got over his surprise at how rational it all sounded.

  There was a faint distraction; sitting on his left, Meredith Fanshaw, junior Senator from Missouri, was taking notes, ballpoint pen on yellow legal pad. Taking notes? To Holt’s right, Sterling Lockridge simply sat and thoughtfully gazed at the film of his brother’s interview unreeling in front of them. In the row ahead, Holt’s nephew George fidgeted slightly whenever his own voice sounded to ask a question, so it was probably just as well there was no picture of George, the camera remaining focused for the full ninety minutes in medium close-up on Bradford’s face.

  The film ended, the screen blared a sudden crackling white, and then there was soft darkness for a few seconds before the regular lights came on. The nine men in the small screening room cleared their throats and shuffled their feet and moved their heads around, but none of them looked at one another, and no one spoke. The feeling of discomfort and embarrassment was palpable, and Holt felt it as strongly as the rest.