In the evenings, Doris went with Ed to the library to search for Ed’s Dream City, which both the Guru and Nathaniel wanted him to find. He made a sketch in pencil, outlining the major features from memory. They pulled atlases off the shelves, under the stern and watchful eyes of an obese librarian who always wore floral dresses that might have been sewn from queen-sized bedsheets, and searched the books for maps that bore any resemblance to the Dream City. Doris began compiling a list of the cities they couldn’t immediately rule out.
“Look for a city by the ocean,” Ed told her during their first trip, as she was studying an atlas of North America. “There’s an island with a runway on it. An airport.” This proved to be largely unhelpful, since, now that he thought about it, he wasn’t absolutely certain the airport was located on the island and not on the mainland. Searching for cities next to the water yielded an unmanageable number of possibilities, and that was just in the atlases of America. They hadn’t even begun to look at other countries yet.
Ed stared a long time at a map of Honolulu before finally crossing it off the list. “It didn’t look like that,” he mumbled. New York City, with its jagged coastlines and many small islands, took him a whole evening to go over, but to no avail. San Diego seemed promising at first, but something about it didn’t fit with Ed’s memory. The shape of the land was wrong. Each night, as the surly librarian shooed them out at closing time, they seemed to be no closer to finding it.
At night, when Ed grew tired of reading his book of Blake or studying his own maps for some sign of his Dream City, the gnome continued to pay its visits. It waited for him in the forest, where the trees were becoming increasingly sparse and the ground was littered with the decaying trunks of those that had fallen. It watched him as he floated upward to seek out strange landscapes on distant planets where he could plant his memories, but whenever he asked the creature why it wanted him to do this, it merely repeated its earlier unhelpful explanation: that Urizen would take them unless Ed hid them away. If Urizen wanted his memories, he were welcome to them as far as Ed was concerned.
Every night, when the gnome finally left him alone and he was able to sleep, Ed dreamed of Eleanor. He always saw her from a distance, too far away to hear his screams as a shadowy figure crept up behind her and slashed her throat. Ed awoke each morning with his hands clenched painfully into fists.
Tom only called him once during this time, near the end of March, to apologize again for nearly shooting him and to reassure him that the wheels of his plan were still in motion. “Albert hasn’t forgotten you,” he said. “You’re still with us?”
“A deal’s a deal,” Ed replied. As if I have a choice.
“Glad to hear it, buddy,” said Tom.
* * *
Kajdas hung up the phone and retrieved his car keys from the hook by the kitchen door. He had promised to pick up one of his up-and-comers at the airport, a young man named Ralph who was arriving from Montreal. Ralph would only be in town for a few days—he had to fly back East on Monday to finish up some business—so Tom wanted to make the most of his time while he was here. Kajdas didn’t envy his people, traveling about the way they did. It couldn’t be helped, though; the tasks he gave them tended to cover a lot of ground, and his people had to keep up. That was why he paid them the big bucks. As long as they didn’t ask where the money came from, then all was well. Ralph was good at knowing what questions not to ask.
The phone rang just as he was going out the door. “Darn it,” he swore, and went back in to answer it.
“Kajdas,” he answered.
“Tom, it’s Albert.”
Tom was a hard man to surprise, but this was a first. “This line is wide open.”
“It’s okay,” Wensel said. “This isn’t about work, exactly. I just heard a rumor you might be interested in hearing.”
“Albert, you know my feelings about rumors.”
“This one’s verifiable; it’ll be all over the papers in a day or two.”
“What is it?” said Tom, leaning against the doorframe.
“Johnson’s pulling out.”
“Pulling out?”
“He won’t be trying for the nomination. He’s decided to wrap up his term and stay out of the race in November.” Wensel paused for a long moment, probably to take a pull from a cigarette. “Not many know yet, but Hoover’s been told. He called Tolson and Witherspoon into his office an hour ago. The public story is that the President’s unhappy with his approval rating since Tet. He’s going to give an address tomorrow to announce it. Don’t discuss this with your assets yet.”
“Of course not.” This was wonderful news. So many of Tom’s logistical challenges would disappear at once if it turned out to be true. He was eager to share this news with Ed, though he’d have to wait until the newspapers ran the story.
“You don’t suppose the Director had anything to do with his decision?”
“Sorry, Tom, I’m having trouble hearing you. We’re thinking this through on our side, trying to anticipate what comes next. I’d encourage you to do the same. Mr. Witherspoon asked me to come in this evening to discuss how this will affect us, and I’d like to have you call in and give him your two cents. Seven o’clock our time.”
Four o’clock in California. Tom couldn’t recall whether he had anything scheduled, but he’d shift whatever he needed to for a meeting with Charles Witherspoon. “I’ll call your office.”
Kajdas replaced the handset and mulled the news over. Vice President Humphrey would become a contender for the nomination, Tom was sure. He was equally sure that Humphrey, ever loyal to his President and the administration’s policies, wouldn’t stand a chance in the primaries against the young Senator from New York. Robert Kennedy was an outspoken proponent of withdrawal from Vietnam—a view that would resonate strongly with voters in the current climate. That, along with his stance on civil rights, would serve him well in the primaries. Unless Tom missed his guess, then, it would end up being Kennedy versus Nixon in November.
It would be 1960 all over again. Nixon didn’t have it in him to defeat a Kennedy at the polls.
Kajdas sighed. This news wasn’t entirely unexpected, but he hadn’t had time to plan for it properly. New arrangements would have to be made.
25
A Change in the Plan
April 1968
A young couple was whispering together at the bar, breaking occasionally into quiet laughter. The girl was pretty, with long, dark hair and a spectacular chest, but her good looks were diminished slightly by a snooty, up-turned nose. The nose made her look like one of those little dogs. Ed couldn’t remember what they were called. Pugs, that was it. She looked like a pug. The man with her had curly reddish hair and a vaguely slouching posture, and a pale scar on his upper lip made him look like he was constantly sneering. Ed always wondered what pretty women saw in ordinary guys. Other people had probably asked the same question when they’d seen Ed out with Eleanor. He’d always felt like a troll next to her.
Tom had asked to meet him at Kinzie’s at eight. Ed had arrived early for once; Tom, always impeccably punctual, was usually the one who got there first. Ed didn’t know what to do with himself while he waited, so he took a seat at the end of the bar and bought himself a gin and tonic. He watched people until they noticed him watching, after which he tried to be less obvious about it.
The pug-nosed girl caught him looking at her. She smiled slyly at him before returning her attention to the red-haired man. The man didn’t seem to notice. Ed looked away in embarrassment and forced himself not to glance her way again.
The door opened and Tom walked in, accompanied by a gust of chilly wind and a shower of raindrops. He saw Ed, nodded to him with a tight smile, and spoke quietly with the hostess. She checked her list of names and motioned for him to follow her. Kajdas waited while Ed got up to join him. The couple at the bar came over as well.
“Hello, Ed,” said Tom. “I want you to meet some friends of mine. This is Ralph.”
The curly-haired man shook Ed’s hand. He wore a sport jacket and a wide striped tie. Ed felt inadequate in his old sweater and jeans. He hadn’t done laundry in at least a month, and couldn’t remember the last time he’d had a haircut. He gave Tom an irritated look for failing to mention that others would be present at this dinner.
“Nice to meet you,” said Ralph. He had a slight accent that was hard to place—French, maybe. Ed, finding his smile a little unnerving, nodded and mumbled a reply.
“And this is Margaret,” Tom continued.
“Maggie,” corrected the pug-nosed girl, flashing an excessively white set of teeth. She grasped Ed’s hand without really shaking it, and held onto it somewhat longer than necessary. Ed finally pulled his hand away and stuck it in his pocket. Ralph gave Ed a wink and a pat on the shoulder. Ed smiled awkwardly at them, wondering if they were both insane.
The hostess cleared her throat in a way that said she had a lot to do, and they were beginning to waste her time. She led them to a booth in the corner, some distance from the rest of the tables, and Tom slipped some cash into her hand as she was turning away. Tom and Ralph slid into the inside seats opposite one another. Ed took the spot next to Tom and nervously sipped his gin and tonic. Maggie sat opposite Ed, leaning forward as she slid into the booth and displaying a fine view down the front of her dress as she did so. Ed was briefly transfixed by the sight until he realized that Maggie was looking right at him with a self-satisfied smile. He quickly broke eye contact and studied the tabletop.
“Try the prime rib, Ralph,” said Tom. “They do a wonderful job with it here.” He turned to Ed and said, “Ralph is visiting from out of town.”
This was clearly meant as an opening for Ed to start a conversation. “Yeah?” said Ed. “Where you from, Ralph?”
“Ohio, originally. But I grew up in Montreal.”
That was somewhere in Canada, Ed knew, but beyond that he didn’t have a very good idea where it was. “What brings you down this way?”
“Business. Golf courses.”
“You’re a golfer?”
“Oh, no!” said Ralph, laughing. Maggie was laughing too. “I develop golf courses.”
“Ralph just opened a big new one in St. Louis,” said Kajdas. “I had planned on taking him out to dinner to celebrate, but he only comes to town on rare occasions, so I invited him and Maggie to join us tonight. I apologize, Ed, for killing two birds with one stone here.”
“No problem,” Ed said. “And, ah, Maggie, do you live in Montreal too?”
Maggie smiled at Ed in a way that made him blush. “No,” she said, “I’m a California girl. Can’t you tell?” Ed had no idea what a Californian should look like, or why they should be easily distinguishable from Canadians, so he just shook his head. Maggie rolled her eyes playfully and said, “They don’t have any pretty women up in Canada. All the good ones migrate south. Isn’t that right, Raoul?” Ralph scowled at her. Out of the corner of his eye, Ed could tell that Tom was frowning too. “Ralph, I mean.” Maggie stopped smiling at Ed and suddenly became very interested in her menu.
A long silence followed while they all decided what to order. Ed had difficulty choosing; nothing appealed to him. He finally picked the salmon, hoping it wouldn’t be too dry. He was also hopeful that Tom would pick up the bill.
After the waiter took their orders, Tom leaned his elbows on the table and entertained them with a story about a long-haired hooligan he’d had a run-in with earlier that week. “So instead of apologizing for bumping into me, he says, ‘Hey, old man, watch where you’re going.’ And his friend, even scruffier than he was, he starts looming as if he wants to get physical with me. You know how these young guys loom at you when they want you to back down.” Ralph smiled and nodded.
“So,” Tom continued, “I said to the first guy, ‘I beg your pardon. You bumped into me, son, and now I’m going to have to get this suit cleaned to get your fleas out of it.’ I didn’t like his attitude, see, and I really have no patience for this kind of thing anymore. And I’m pretty sure he actually did have fleas.” Maggie giggled at that.
“I didn’t really like being called an old man, either. I’m only forty-six; don’t let my gray hair fool you. So the kid says to me, ‘You think I won’t beat the tar out of you right here on the street?’ He didn’t say ‘tar,’ but you get the idea. Then he says, ‘It’s guys like you who cause problems for the rest of us, you know? You go around bumping into people like you own this whole town. You’re so much a part of the Establishment that you probably can’t even tell it’s there.’ These kids are always down on the Establishment; you know how it is. They always bite the hand that feeds them.”
Ralph barked a laugh. “He would’ve croaked on the spot if he knew you were in the FBI. Did you tell him that? You should’ve pulled out your badge right then.”
“Well, I did better than that,” Tom said. “I didn’t say anything right away. I just stood there, very calmly, and I put my hands on my hips, so my suit jacket sort of flared out, and I had my shoulder holster on under the jacket. These kids saw my gun, and they just froze. I think the one kid might’ve wet his pants. Then I said, ‘Oh, I’m not part of the Establishment, kiddo. I am the Establishment.’
“They backed off at that point, and the one kid mumbled something. I was all riled up by that time, so I said, ‘Was that an apology, son? Why don’t you speak up so an old man can hear you?’ Those kids couldn’t wait to apologize then. They apologized over their shoulders as they got the heck out of there.
“I wouldn’t have done anything to them,” he explained to Ed reassuringly. “But maybe they’ll think twice next time before they start picking on innocent people, right?” He glanced in turn at Maggie and Ralph. “Am I right?”
Maggie and Ralph both clearly got a kick out of this story. The food came while they were still laughing about it. The conversation trailed off while they started their meals.
“Now,” Tom said with his mouth full of prime rib, gesturing with his fork, “there’s a reason why I brought up that story. There’s always a moral to the story when I’m telling it. I wanted to point out to you the way these young kids think and act nowadays. When I was eighteen, twenty years old, I would’ve been hit in the mouth if I talked to an adult that way. It just wasn’t done. Teenagers today get away with murder. I don’t blame the kids, though.”
“It’s the parents,” Ralph said through his own mouthful of beef. Maggie nodded.
“No, I wouldn’t even say that,” said Tom. “Most parents try to do a good job raising their kids, but the kids rebel anyway. No, I don’t blame the parents. I blame the music they listen to.”
Ed inhaled some of his mashed potatoes and spent some time coughing them back out.
“Seriously, Ed. I know I sound like an old fart, but I truly think this rock music has a terrible effect on kids. And the TV shows, and the movies, sure, but the music is more influential than anything. Kids look up to their rock and roll stars. They idolize them and emulate their behavior. I mean, look at this whole hippie movement, the war protests. Where do kids get the idea to grow their hair long and wear the flowers in their hair and say shameful things about their country?”
“From the music,” Ralph said helpfully.
“They do it because their friends are doing it,” said Ed.
“Right,” Tom said, pointing his fork at Ed, “but ultimately they do it because the rock bands are doing it. These musicians—don’t even get me started on how inappropriate that term is for them—they want to be seen as rebels; they want to show everyone they’re part of this hippie counter-culture, and all the while they’re getting rich off of their record sales and buying nice cars and houses. Getting rich off of capitalism. Meanwhile, the effect the counter-culture has on American youth is very dangerous. Don’t underestimate the damage it can cause.”
“It’s the leftists, if you ask me,” Ralph said. “All those rock singers are a bunch of Communists.”
Tom poi
nted at Ralph with his fork, swallowing his food before he continued. “Well, you’re right, in a way. I don’t think there’s some huge leftist conspiracy to take over the United States, but that doesn’t mean the Brezhnevs and the Ho Chi Minhs of the world don’t jump for joy when they see the effect this hippie movement is having. Think about it. You have this counter-culture, working through the academics and the entertainers, chipping away at what they call the Establishment. They attack the American way of life, the status quo, most of them thinking in all honesty they’re doing something right—something virtuous. They promote things that sound nice on the surface, like racial harmony and peace.”
“Bullshit,” said Ralph. To Maggie, he said, “Pardon my French, honey.” Maggie put on an expression of mock horror and put her hand over her mouth.
“Hypocrisy,” said Tom. “They say they want all the world’s resources to be distributed equally, but I don’t see those rock and roll heroes donating their money to the needy. They say they want peace, but then they start fights and cause trouble, like my little encounter the other day. The hippie movement isn’t about peace at all. It’s about throwing out the American way of life that gives them the right to speak out the way they do. And they go about it in a very insidious way, at least the clever ones do.
“You remember Joe McCarthy, don’t you, Ed? You’re probably old enough to remember him.” Ed nodded. His uncle had ranted about McCarthy over dinner on countless occasions. “Clumsy guy, but he could see what was happening,” Tom said. “He could tell the leftists were slowly gaining ground in this country. He fought back by trying to expose Communists in America, but his plan backfired because people weren’t willing to accept that the Communists had such a foothold in our society. And frankly, people were scared of him. McCarthy went too far. No doubt about it. But the basic idea behind his crusade was sound. The lines that divide modern liberalism from Socialism and Communism are becoming more blurred all the time.
Forest of the Mind (The Book of Terwilliger 1) Page 23
