The Shadow Cabinet

by W. T. Tyler

  “Georgetown’s got privacy,” he said.

  “Are you kidding?” she said. “There’s no privacy down there; they’d kill him in Georgetown. Basically Artie’s a very low-key guy, very informal. He’d walk down to the deli on a Saturday night in one of those crazy sports getups of his and someone would bring him home in a doggy bag, potato salad and all. Don’t you read the papers? Anyway, I spent four days with those Georgetown real estate women. They’ve all got Bryn Mawr accents, like the old Kennedy crowd.”

  “Bryn Mawr. Is that where you’re from originally? Pennsylvania?”

  “No. New Jersey. Why?”

  “Just curious. Where in New Jersey?”

  “A small town; you wouldn’t know it.”

  “I’m from a small town myself—down in Virginia.”

  “Goody for you. So what’s that explain, your small-town manners?”

  She was holding a cigarette between her fingers, unable to find a light. “Sorry.” He gave her a package of book matches.

  “Where do you live, anyway?” she continued, her voice gathering disapproval as she remembered her futile attempts to get in touch with him.

  “Out in Virginia. It’s an unlisted phone.”

  “That’s what I mean. A real estate lawyer with an unlisted phone. You’re a little weird, Wilson, like that Matthews who shows me the Ramsey house that day and suddenly takes a powder to Florida, like this lawyer for Grace Ramsey who won’t show his face.” She watched him, waiting for a reply, but Wilson said nothing. He didn’t intend to get into another brawl about the price of Grace Ramsey’s house. “Anyway,” she said, “maybe Artie would seem a little weird to that Georgetown crowd. They’d break his heart down there. No privacy, no views, back gardens about as big as a hot tub, and all your neighbors looking in.…”

  Her voice died away and they rumbled on in silence. Traffic was light at that hour of afternoon and Wilson had had the same curious feeling that had frequently come to him since he’d left the Hill that he ought to be someplace else—in a staff meeting, taking notes at a hearing, marking up a piece of legislation.

  “What kind of business is your husband in?” he asked.

  “Don’t get nosy.” Surprised, he laughed, and she turned immediately. “What’s so funny?”

  “You tell me he’s Lithuanian, an ex-fur trimmer who wears crazy outfits and might get his heart broken by the Bryn Mawr crowd down in Georgetown and you tell me not to get nosy.”

  “You mean I’m inconsistent. Maybe. Artie says the same thing sometimes, that I’m too impulsive, too personal, that I talk too much sometimes. But that’s just the way I am. Artie does a lot of things. He’s got a garment factory in L.A., only it’s not really a factory. He has an interest in this computer software firm out in Van Nuys, a couple of nursing homes, an FM station. Real estate too, out in Palmdale. I can’t keep track.” The car had grown warm. She lowered the window and let the fur coat slip from her shoulders. “But he’s also very patriotic.”

  “You’ve said that a couple of times,” Wilson recalled. “I’ve been trying to figure out what you mean.”

  “Just that, patriotic. He wants to come to Washington to help out. What’s so strange about that?”

  “Nothing. You mean help the government?”

  “The administration—help get things back on the track.” She was watching him suspiciously. “What’d you think I meant?”

  “I wasn’t sure. There are a lot of California patriots in town these days—ex-actors, ex-producers, ex-advertising people. All of them want to help out, like this former movie man with the big hit a few years ago, the one that expressed the Republican mood out in California. Reagan was so impressed he brought him to Washington to head up the U.S. information service.”

  “What film was that?” she asked mistrustfully.

  “Snow White and the Three Stooges,” Wilson said. “Now he does all his filming in the White House cabinet room.”

  She smiled but didn’t laugh. “Very funny, but I wouldn’t want Artie to hear a crack like that. Edelman told me you used to be a government lawyer. What did you do—harass the taxpayers for IRS?”

  “No, just a nine-to-five bureaucrat, like most of the people around here.”

  “That’s a pretty grubby life, isn’t it?”

  “Not bad.”

  “Where’d you work?”

  “The Railroad Retirement Board.”

  Her gaze was still steady, her silence hostile. “What’d you do?”

  He shrugged. “A claims adjuster, ballast bed and firebox casualties.”

  “You’re a goddamned liar, Wilson. You know who you remind me of? I even told Edelman after that first day: ‘That Wilson reminds me of someone; I know I’ve seen him before.’ Finally I remembered. You remind me of my Uncle Frank.”

  “Is that a compliment?”

  “In a way, maybe. He was my mother’s brother.”

  Wilson was beginning to feel at home behind the wheel. You ever been to the Grand Ole Opry? Mrs. Fillmore had asked.

  She told him her uncle visited them every summer in the small town in New Jersey when she was growing up. He was a bachelor and a traveling salesman—hardware, screen doors, embalming fluid for a time, floor wax, fire insurance; she’d forgotten what else. He would take her for summer drives in his company coupé, down to the dairy plant for ice cream or out to the country for fresh corn, sometimes a watermelon, and even more infrequently, cantaloupe, a rarity for her in those days. She would never forget the smell of fresh cantaloupe on the seat beside her as they were driving back to her parents’ house.

  “When we were out driving, he’d always make up these crazy stories about where we were going. He was always dressed up in a coat, a seersucker coat and a straw hat, sometimes in what my dad used to call an ice cream suit, with a little bow tie. He was shy, except when he was with me. I was ten or eleven, and he’d make up these crazy stories. I think he liked kids better than adults—oh, God, I’m not going to get into that. Anyway, that’s all he had, the company coupé, the ice cream suit, and all these crazy stories. Just a bachelor all his life. I was working a club in Reno when I got a telegram about him—Jesus, why’d I ever start this?”

  “What happened?”

  “A little river town in Ohio. He jumped off the bridge. Why’d you have to ask me? It wasn’t until I got into analysis that I understood. Anyway, all those crazy answers were what reminded me. You’re a Democrat too, just like my dad was. You people never learn.”

  “Learn what?”

  “That you’ve got to do it yourself, that no one else is going to do it for you—free enterprise, not carrying the government around on your backs all these years, the way Artie’s been doing. What’s this place?”

  “Rosslyn,” he said. He drove down the ramp and onto George Washington Parkway along the Potomac. A few oaks along the slopes still held their autumn color, the last to go. The Georgetown skyline across the river was splashed with sunshine here and there, roofs, turrets, and spires bright against massed purple clouds pregnant with rain. “You could probably find a small place over there,” he said, watching her turn to look. “The Ramsey place is pretty big.”

  “It suits me,” she replied. “Just the two of us, but it suits me.” She gazed down at the river. “Do you have any children?”

  “Two. Grown up now.”

  “That’s nice. Artie’s frisky, but not in the family way.” She noticed his expression. “Don’t be shocked, you’ll disappoint me—someone with no come-on, just some down-home bullshit, driving a hand-me-down car. You’re not like the rest of this real estate crowd, so don’t try to high-hat me. You’re a taxpayer too, so don’t be so hard on this California administration. What happened—did the Reagan crowd push you out, tell you to take a walk?”

  “No, it wasn’t like that.”

  “So you just decided to take a walk anyway and end up in a real estate brokerage with interest rates at twenty percent. Sure, honey, don’t kid me. You
’re probably one of those bureaucrats that got dumped, some expert at spending the taxpayers’ money. What kind of legal expert were you?”

  “Just the usual Washington expert.”

  “A lawyer, that’s what Edelman said. Like who in particular? Come on, tell me.”

  “Like any of them—the people over across the river in the office buildings, the guys back there at the Pentagon, the ones that spend all day calibrating their delivery systems for a five-thousand-mile ICBM crunch, right on target, and then go out to the parking lots and can’t find their cars.”

  “You really are cynical, aren’t you?”

  “No, I just live here.”

  The winding lane led from Chain Bridge Road to a set of locked iron gates set within stone pillars. Young junipers and older spruce lined the long drive to the parking area in front of the stone-and-redwood house built atop the cliff a few hundred feet above the chutes of the Potomac. Wilson was curious about the house, which he’d never seen, curious too about Grace Ramsey, whom he’d never met, although he’d known her husband, a senior deputy at the Agency. A groundkeeper in worn dungarees was on his knees in a flower bed, planting bulbs. He alternated with another groundkeeper from the Maryland farm belonging to Grace Ramsey’s brother-in-law to tend the house and garden five days a week. At night and during the weekends, the two were replaced by a guard from a Rosslyn security service. In the ancient black pickup truck parked in the drive were three rhododendron shrubs, their roots in burlap.

  The air was chilly, still damp from the late morning rain. The vapor brightened the thick carpet of lawn that stretched toward the enclosing woods. A tennis court was concealed by an ivy-covered trellis just at the treeline. She stopped on the walk to look back toward the dark palisade of trees.

  “Privacy,” she said.

  “Nice.”

  She glanced at him reproachfully. “Nice doesn’t describe it.”

  A sunken living room with a soaring ceiling looked out over the river, but the room was too large and too cold. The glass doors of a small sun room opened to a terrace that seemed to hang suspended out over the gorge of the Potomac. In the far corner was a swimming pool, covered with a blue nylon tarpaulin. A few odd pieces of furniture remained in a few of the rooms and some showed signs of an occasional occupancy. Wilson was surprised. He’d supposed the house was empty. In the long dining room was a seventeenth-century French table with a single chair. A mat, a plate, silver cutlery, and a wineglass sat in front of it. A collection of pewter was still arrayed on the matching sideboard. Above it hung an old oil painting, the woman’s face dim with age, the features as blank as a mushroom, the gender known only by the white cap the woman wore.

  On the upper level to the north was one of several bedrooms overlooking the river. This one was fully furnished. Fresh linen was on the bed and a few books stood on the night table. A package of cigarettes lay next to an enamel cigarette box. Rita Kramer told him that during her previous visits the upstairs bedroom had been locked, like the small study downstairs.

  “So she comes and goes, like a ghost,” she said, standing inside the door. The bedroom was furnished in white—a deep white rug, white shutters and drapes, a white French Empire bed and dressing table, a white marble bath. She crossed the room on tiptoes, stopped to look around, seemed to relax again, and then, curiously, opened the door to the dressing room closet. A few garments still hung there. She pulled one sleeve from the rack and then another. “Expensive,” she said. “Chic too, but a little out of style. But she certainly has taste.” She closed the door and moved on to the white marble bath, where she studied the tub set in the marble shelf, turned on the faucets, picked up a sliver of soap to sniff, and then opened the medicine cabinet. A few barbiturates sat on the shelf with some Valium and benzodiazepine vials. “I don’t much like that,” she said, shutting the cabinet door. “I can tell you one thing, honey,” she said as they returned to the bedroom. “No man ever put his feet up in this room.” She crossed to the night table and picked up the two paperbacks lying there. “I know the schmuck that wrote this,” she said, removing an Air France boarding pass from one of the paperbacks. It was titled The Congressman’s Courtesan. On the glossy cover, a balding man in a cutaway coat was being comforted by a young redheaded woman in a black negligee. “He’s a friend of a friend of Artie. I wonder why she’d be reading this trash.” The second book, by the same author, was called The Geneva Quadrangle.

  “Maybe a friend of a friend gave it to her,” Wilson said. Rita Kramer started to open the bedside drawer, but he said, “Come on now. It’s still her house.” She looked up, hesitated, and slid the drawer closed without looking in. As they left the room, a silver frame on a small table behind the door caught her eye. The photograph within showed a woman’s graceful shoulders, a slim neck, a strand of pearls, but no head. The print had been torn in two. She glanced at Wilson, started to say something, thought better of it, and went out.

  “You think I’m nosy?” she asked as they went downstairs.

  “I think you’re curious, like most women.”

  “And you’re not, I suppose, like most men. You’re too predictable, Wilson. How many houses does she have, anyway?”

  “A few.”

  “What’s her husband do?”

  “He was a lawyer originally. He died a few years ago.”

  “An old man, or what?”

  “Late forties, I think.”

  “His money or hers?”

  “Hers, I think. Most of it.”

  “Any kids?” She turned quickly. “Don’t answer that. I don’t want to know.”

  He followed her into the living room, where she stood in the center of the room, the mink coat dropped from her shoulders, like a stole, long legs apart, hands on her hips as she moved her head to study the high ceiling, the towering windows looking out over the river, and finally the stone fireplace where a few charred logs lay. “Nice for rainy days, don’t you think? I hate rain just like I hate snow. Living in Jersey did it—after we moved to Newark. You know the difference between city snow and California snow? Money. Not mountains, honey, money—like Grace Ramsey. This would be pretty comfy in the winter, don’t you think?”

  “It’s a nice room.”

  “‘Nice,’ he says again. ‘It’s a nice room. That’s a nice picture, Mr. Picasso. That’s a nice nose job you got, Mr. Nasser. This is a nice house you got, Mr. Rockefeller. Your drink nice, lady?’ Sometimes you’ve got a bartender’s vocabulary, honey. Nice isn’t what I meant. Try to reach out a little. This wasn’t her room, anyway; it was his. You’re about as discriminating as Artie. This house would sail over his head like the Concorde.” She turned and led him up the two stairs to the center hall and back to the small study whose door had been locked during her previous visits. Like the bedroom, it was fully furnished. The small fireplace had recently been used. A white sofa and armchair stood near the window. She circled about cautiously and knelt on the couch in front of the bookcase to study the titles.

  “What is it interests you?” he asked. “The house or Grace Ramsey?”

  “Both,” she said, reading a few titles aloud. She frowned. “Snodgrass? Who’s he? Lowell? Wallace Stevens? You ever heard of him? Neither have I.” She pulled the book from the shelf and opened it. “Maybe you’re right. A poet. But not Artie’s kind.” She replaced the book and stood up. “Artie thinks he likes poetry, like that California fag poet, what’s his name?” Wilson didn’t know. “You know who I mean—the guy who sells millions with the stuff that doesn’t rhyme, just nice fat words, like some ad for toilet tissue or feminine hygiene in some slick paper fashion magazine. Pure shit, except homogenized. Sorry, no offense. You’re not Baptist, are you? Episcopalian, I’ll bet, like my broker.” She moved to the closet door. “All right if I peek in?” She didn’t wait for his answer. The record library and stereo equipment were inside. Paneled in acoustical tile, it looked like a miniature recording studio. On one counter were turntables and amplifiers
. Overhead were screens for the closed-circuit television system monitoring the front and rear entrances. Floor-to-ceiling shelves of long-playing records and tapes were racked in the rear. She called out a few titles to him approvingly and finally came out, shutting the door. Then, remembering something, she reopened it and searched for the light switch.

  “It’s probably a pressure switch,” he said. “It goes on and off when you open and close the door.”

  “Thanks, I thought it was another ghost. This house is full of them, have you noticed?”

  “Which kind?”

  “I’m not sure,” she said. “Come on, let’s go look at the terrace.”

  The gardener was planting a rhododendron shrub down the hillside and Rita Kramer sat on the stone wall at the edge of the terrace, watching him silently as she smoked a cigarette. From time to time she lifted her auburn head to study the lines of the house soaring above her against the broken clouds overhead. The afternoon had grown darker and the headlights of the homeward-bound cars stirred through the gathering dusk across the river. Wilson thought she’d wanted to see the house again because it interested her, as much as Grace Ramsey interested her, that she’d wanted to come out here the way some women, shut up in a downtown hotel room in a strange city, might have gone to a museum or an afternoon movie. She hadn’t mentioned offering a new contract on the house. At last she leaned over to pick up the cigarette she’d ground out on the flagstones, wrapped it in a Kleenex, and dropped it into her purse.

  “Let’s go,” she said abruptly, “before I get a goddamned Georgetown accent.”

  She was edgy as they drove back down the parkway, as nervous as a cat, shifting position constantly, stretching her legs, leaning forward to peer through the windshield as if about to say something, then collapsing back silently. Only as she saw the familiar silhouette of the Watergate and the Kennedy Center across the Potomac did she finally speak. “You’ve really screwed my brains, honey, you really have. It’s depressing, that house back there, you’re depressing, this whole goddamned town’s depressing. Artie’s got to work for a living, not just drift around like a tooth fairy between a half dozen places in Bimini, the south of France, or wherever else it is. Let’s stop kidding ourselves. Money always depresses me, doesn’t it you?”