He slapped his hands, reared back and roared, and the audience behind Dilman gave out a great whoop of laughter and joy in unison, and applauded for a half minute as the audacious Teele pranced off the platform.
Dilman clapped halfheartedly, and when he had ceased, the two chandeliers above had dimmed, and Libby Owens, in her tight sequined skirt slit thigh-high, stood center stage, while her colored accompanist slid onto the bench behind the piano.
She drew the microphone to her and announced throatily, “For the finale, I shall render three haunting Negro spirituals by unknown bards.”
She began, and the room was hushed in the soft light. She sang:
“I know moon-rise, I know star-rise,
Lay dis body down.
I walk in de moonlight, I walk in de starlight,
To lay dis body down.
I’ll walk in de graveyard, I’ll walk through the graveyard
To lay dis body down.
I’ll lie in de grave and stretch out my arms;
Lay dis body down.”
The melancholy lyric moved Dilman, sent memory clutching backward for an almost forgotten part of his childhood, and he was too lost in the distant past to realize that someone, bent low, had hurried past the front row and crouched before him. He stirred, then was startled to find Beecher, the valet, on a knee waiting to address him.
“Mr. President,” the valet whispered, “Attorney General Kemmler is in the Blue Room. He must see you at once. He says it is urgent.”
Dilman’s heartbeat tripped. It is urgent. He had been so far away, rocking in the helpless cradle of the past, that he was unprepared to cope with crisis in the world of tall men.
Dilman shivered. “Tell him I’ll be right there.”
Silently the valet slipped away, and Dilman waited for the last of Libby Owens’ lyrics. As she finished the spiritual, and the room rang with applause, Dilman excused himself to Amboko, speaking under his breath, then hurriedly rose and went past the guests sitting in the front row and to the exit. He could see that first Eaton, then Nat Abrahams, were observing his sudden departure, and he shrugged to both. He went into the Main Hall, just as the piano resumed and Libby Owens sang, “Oh, Mary, don’t you weep, don’t you moan.”
Coming into the Main Hall of the first floor, Dilman found himself immediately flanked by two Secret Service agents.
“Why don’t you keep your eye on President Amboko,” Dilman suggested. “I’ll be all right.”
Nevertheless, they accompanied him up the corridor, past the Green Room, until they came to the entrance to the Blue Room, where Otto Beggs was on guard, and Beecher had pushed the door open. Dilman hung back a moment, steeling himself for this crisis that was as yet unknown to him, and then went into the large formal chamber, hearing the door click closed behind him.
There were two of them waiting for him, he observed. Robert Lombardi, the Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, bald as a cannonball and as inflexible and physically round, was pacing in short, quick steps near the velvet-draped circular table in the middle of the room. His usual forced public smile was missing. His forehead was damp. Beyond him, fingers laced together behind his back, loomed the presence of Attorney General Clay Kemmler, still wearing his coat.
“Gentlemen,” said Dilman, announcing himself.
Lombardi’s pacing stopped. He moved to one side of the room in token deference to his superiors as Kemmler spun around from the lofty center window, and as he did so, the spire of the Washington Monument in the distance appeared to emerge from his head, making him resemble a unicorn rearing on its hind legs. Immediately, Kemmler came forward to where the FBI Director had been, and Dilman, advancing to meet him, could see across the circular table that the Attorney General’s cold eyes glittered, but that his tight lips, a slash in his craggy face, were severe and implacable.
“Mr. President,” he said, “what I’ve been expecting has happened. The second that Bob Lombardi received the flash from his field operatives and brought it to me, I came right over. I hated to break in on you, but I think you’ll agree the news is of critical import.”
Dilman placed his fingers on the draped table to steady himself, and then remained immobile.
“We don’t have every detail yet, but the essential news is this,” Attorney General Kemmler said. “The Hattiesburg kidnaping was committed by a gang of Turnerites led by Jefferson Hurley himself. They have since killed Judge Everett Gage in cold blood, and the FBI has apprehended Hurley. The others in his gang got away. But we have Hurley, we’ve got him good, and now you can have no more reservations.”
Dilman allowed the sensational report to sink in, rocking on his heels, cursing himself for not having believed Kemmler this morning and in consequence having been made to look like an indecisive fool—or worse, like a prejudiced black. “You have Hurley?” he repeated woodenly; “And they actually murdered Gage? What more do you know?”
Kemmler jerked his head toward the FBI chief. “Bob—” he said.
Robert Lombardi came back to the table. The dampness on his forehead had spread to the top of his pate. His high-pitched confirmation came out as if strained through his nostrils. “Mr. President, as of a half hour ago, this is what happened, and this much is accurate. My men trailed the kidnapers from Mississippi, across Louisiana, into southeast Texas. They were moving fast, those kidnapers, but they weren’t too hard to follow, being amateurs and, begging your pardon, being of dark skin. They holed up on some ranch before reaching Beaumont, and laid low, and my field agents spread a pretty wide net to catch them in. Then there were a couple of pistol shots on this ranch, and as luck would have it, some of our men were nearby. We sent out an alert, surrounded the farm, and nabbed Jeff Hurley and found Judge Everett Gage’s corpse. The rest of the gang—don’t know how many there were yet—got away. Hurley’s not telling, but evidence indicates there may have been two more of them.”
“You know that it was Hurley who killed Judge Gage?” Dilman asked.
“He confessed it, Mr. President. Well, not at first, of course. What we figured out was he’d stayed behind a minute too long to clean up things—burn some papers and hide his gun. We found the revolver. Two chambers empty, and two bullets were in old Judge Gage, one in his chest and one in his abdomen. Ballistics says the markings on the bullets were made by the barrel of Hurley’s revolver. Then we—we put a bit of pressure on Hurley—he’s a sullen bull—and he finally admitted to doing it. We’ve got his signed confession to the murder. Well, what he said, actually, at first, was that they intended Gage no physical harm, they weren’t killers like Gage and his Southern Klansmen—lots of propaganda like that—but in trying to hide out from us, trying to find a real concealment until they could continue to Mexico, they let down their guard on their victim. Gage worked his wrists free, got his hands on one of their rifles, and instead of trying to escape, prepared to gun them down. Hurley came into the room, and Gage fired at him. Hurley said that it was a matter of self-defense, his own survival, and instinctively he pulled out his pistol and began firing back, got Gage with his first two shots.”
Lombardi shook his head. “Mr. President, you can discount that kind of whining. We always get that song at the Bureau. It was murder, pure and simple, compounded by the Federal offense of kidnaping, crossing two state lines. As Clay here says, Hurley is the secondary issue. He’s caught, he’s confessed, and he’s as much as buried. The bigger issue, and that’s what the Bureau is proud of, is that we’ve proved it was a Turnerite Group plot and crime. Since we know they’re a pack of Red scum anyway, this gives us what we’ve been hoping for.”
Something inside Dilman prickled, and he said, “What have you been hoping for?”
Kemmler’s arm went out, forcibly pushing Lombardi from his spot near the table. “Let me take it from here, Bob. My department. . . . Mr. President, I laid it on the line with you this morning. I said we have evidence that Valetti, the Turnerites’ Number Two man, is a member of the Co
mmunist Party and is a go-between, financing violent racial groups like the Turnerites so they can commit acts of subversion, create an atmosphere of hate and rebellion in this country, and weaken us at home and abroad. I said that the first major crime of this sort had been perpetrated by the Turnerites, and I demanded that we act at once to outlaw them, to discourage further organized violence. You felt I was being hasty about such a big move. I said Turnerites definitely, and you said Turnerites maybe. You wanted more evidence before acting. Now you have the evidence. You can’t have any more doubts. I want to invoke the Subversive Activities Control Act at once. This is our first clean-cut opportunity to show these damn agitators the law has teeth. I’ve got to use it, and put an end to insurrection.”
During this demand, Dilman’s mind had gone to the consequences of invoking the control act. It would place a terrible onus on his race. Worse, and here his cooler legal brain was at work, it would strike a blow against civil liberties, setting a precedent that could soon be misused. Still, there was the law, and there was the crime against this law—Kemmler was right about that—and justice must be observed, and national security (his prime concern) must be preserved. But there must be no mistake, no margin of error, no matter how small or narrow. Lombardi had a reputation for being ruthlessly if not sadistically anti-Communist on the United States domestic front, not wrong in itself, but often he had been too eager to interpret every coloration of opinion and action as Red, and consequently had had his arrests reversed by more unbiased minds. Was he too eager now? Was he being honestly patriotic, or subconsciously using this as a grand opportunity to make headlines and raise himself even higher on his pedestal as the public’s foremost law enforcement officer and superpatriot?
As for Clay Kemmler, he, too, was eager and ambitious, yet Dilman could find no reason to fault him for bad judgment or overriding vanity. Kemmler had been a district attorney, a Federal judge, T. C.’s Cabinet member, a person of spotless reputation. Still, he had shown himself to be impatient, which Dilman regarded as injudicious, and to be motivated less by considerations of political advancement, probably, than by some kind of absolute view of what was just and unjust. He was a man to be listened to, but not one to be overwhelmed by, not without deliberating upon every word he spoke first.
Dilman deliberated, teetering on his dilemma, not wanting to jump or be pushed, yet not wishing to fall.
“I believe you have a sound case,” Dilman said at last. “I’m not concerned about Hurley as an individual. He committed the crime of kidnaping, clearly. Did he commit premeditated homicide or homicide in self-defense? That will be for the Federal courts to determine. So you see, I, too, am concerned only with the larger issue. Was this so-called crime of subversion an organization crime or an individual one? There is still no airtight—”
“Please, Mr. President, don’t start that again,” interrupted Kemmler. For the first time, his rigid face was clotted with anger. He tried to control himself, with little success. “Mr.—Mr. President—how can you have second thoughts about cracking down on an overt and outrageous crime like this? Over in Justice, we have a file on every one of Hurley’s public utterances as head of the Turnerites. Even if his motives were the best, to give your people equality overnight, to be their black Moses, it’s not enough to offset what he’s done. Time and again, in public, he promised violence if the Negroes could not have their way. Then a crime of violence was performed, kidnaping and confessed murder, and who did it? Hurley and his gang. He practiced what he preached for the Turnerites. Are you going to go before the American people and say you doubt that?”
Dilman weakened under his Attorney General’s righteous wrath. Desperately, Dilman tried to fortify himself with Blackstone and the Constitution. “I’m not doubting anything, when there is factual evidence to support it. Yes, I’m inclined to believe this is a Turnerite crime, an organized and planned crime, and I’m inclined to punish the group responsible. But, Mr. Attorney General, when I do something unprecedented, that is necessary to protect us now, in spite of attendant harmful aftereffects, I must be positive I am right, 100 per cent positive, not 99 per cent positive. Did the Turnerite Group meet and plan this crime and vote for it, and then did Hurley and several others, representing the Group, carry it out? If that is the case, it is subversion, and to be punished instantly. Or—and here is my one per cent legal doubt—did the Turnerite Group vote against this as being impractical and inflammatory, and did their leader, hardly a reasonable man at any time, go off on his own, with one or two accomplices, and did they perform the heinous deed as individuals? I must know that the last did not happen. I must learn which it was from Hurley himself, or from his accomplices, when and if you catch them, or from any other reliable Turnerite members you question, or from Turnerite records that you find.” He held up his hands. “That’s my view of it, gentlemen.”
Kemmler glared at him. He said coldly, “What if we can’t find any more evidence?”
“I’ll see then. I’ll study Mr. Lombardi’s findings, the interrogation of Hurley, and make up my mind. I suppose I’ll let you invoke the control act. But until I do, I suggest you not make any rash moves or statements.” He made an effort to gain their friendship, to mollify their anger. “Look, gentlemen, you have Hurley. Go ahead with that. Announce it. As to banning his organization, give me a day or two, overnight at least—”
“Good night, Mr. President,” said Kemmler curtly. “Come on, Bob.”
“I’ll be in touch,” said Lombardi to Dilman. “Good night, sir.”
Regretfully Douglass Dilman watched them leave him. He had not merely disappointed them, he had infuriated them with his indecisiveness. Would they believe that he was motivated by a true concern for justice, or solely by a sympathy and partiality toward hounded men of his own color? He knew their answer. He was less sure of his own.
They had gone, but the door was still open, and now he noticed the bulky Otto Beggs waiting to speak to him.
“Mr. President,” Beggs said, “we’ve been holding a phone call for you. Miss Foster downstairs says she must talk to you. Do you want to take it in here?”
“Yes, please.”
Beggs closed the door, and Dilman walked tiredly to the indigo-colored French telephone that sat on the pier table.
He took up the receiver. Edna Foster was on the line, sounding as harried as he felt.
“Mr. President,” she was saying, “I have Leroy Poole on the other phone. It’s the sixth time he’s called tonight. He insists upon speaking to you personally. He sounded so frantic that—”
“No,” said Dilman irritably. “I have no time for him tonight.”
“I’m sorry to bother you,” Edna Foster apologized. “I wouldn’t have, except he said it was so important, something about Jefferson Hurley being arrested in Texas—I didn’t know what he was talking about—”
Ready to hang up, Dilman suddenly gripped the receiver hard. “Wait a minute, Miss Foster. You say Leroy wants to talk to me about Hurley’s arrest?”
“That’s right, Mr. President.”
Dilman’s brain aligned this information beside another piece of information. The two facts did not belong side by side. What had brought them there together? Apperception told him the answer to this might be the answer to what had made him so indecisive before Kemmler and Lombardi.
“I’ve changed my mind, Miss Foster. Put him on.”
For a few brief seconds the telephone was dumb, and then it had Leroy Poole’s squeaky, hysterical voice. “Mr. President, is that you—you—Mr. President?”
“Yes, Leroy, what is it?”
The words tumbled forth in a torrent. “Mr. President—have you heard?—geez, the FBI caught Jeff Hurley in Texas, and they’re indicting him for the murder of Judge Gage. Mr. President, you can’t let them frame him—it was justifiable homicide—it can be proved—even the kidnaping wasn’t exactly that—they were taking the judge to reason with him, show him new information—but then Gage became viol
ent, got hold of a weapon, tried to kill Hurley, and Hurley did what any man on earth would do—what you and I would do. He defended himself, he acted in self-defense to save his life. That’s the truth of it, I swear, and it’s in your hands. If you haven’t heard, they got poor Hurley—”
“Leroy!” Dilman broke in, and his stern command checked Poole’s hysteria. “Leroy—I have heard—I know all that—but how do you know?”
“Me? How do I know?” Leroy Poole sounded confused. “I don’t understand. What do you mean?”
“I’ll spell out what I mean. Minutes ago I heard of Judge Gage’s death and Hurley’s arrest in Texas from the FBI chief and the Attorney General. Except for the three of us here in the White House, and a handful of FBI agents in Texas, and a couple of Hurley’s friends who got away, nobody knows about this incident. It couldn’t have happened more than an hour ago. And the news just got to us. So how do you know?”
It was as if the phone at the other end had gone dead.
“Leroy, are you there?” Dilman said. “Listen to me. You’re calling, asking for help for Hurley. If you want my help, you’d better give me yours.”
Still the other end of the line was silent, but now Dilman could hear Poole’s labored breathing.
“Leroy, if you don’t want to get involved with the FBI yourself, and I mean that, you’d better level with me. You’ll find me easier to talk to than those agents.” He hesitated, then resumed harshly. “I think you’ve given me the picture already. Many times as you’ve denied it, you are in the Turnerite movement, aren’t you? Apparently a secret member, isn’t that right? Now a lot of things you’ve said recently make sense. Jeff Hurley’s your friend, at least your boss, isn’t he? And now someone has gotten to you—not Hurley, he’s incommunicado this minute—but the others, one of his accomplices in the killing, he or they, they’ve got in touch with you from wherever they are and told you what happened, and they’re desperate, and they know that you know me, and they asked you to appeal to me. Is that right, Leroy?”
(1964) The Man Page 44
