by Ward Just
McGee said, “I do. I don’t like to leave things to chance. I believe that all acts have consequences, and that’s why I think it’s best to define the acts as precisely as you can. Somebody worked like hell and made a load of money and if someone hires me to protect the money, forever if need be, that’s what I’ll do. You can’t allow one profligate to destroy a family” He looked at his father. “And that’s the consequence of what you’re suggesting.”
“It’s a risk,” Harold McGee acknowledged. “You never really know.”
“Then you agree,” Dana said.
“Dana, I don’t know,” the older man said. “I don’t know what’s good or bad. I only know the system. I’m a lawyer. I work within the law, I know the statutes, I advise my clients on these statutes, what can be done and what can’t. I am not on the bench. I argue before it but I am not on it. I am retained as an advocate. I litigate. I do the best I know how. I work hard, my opponent works hard. Usually I win. I have occasionally been bested in a divorce action. Not often. In any case, I work inside a courtroom before a jury.” He looked at her with large eyes.
She said slowly, “What do you believe in?”
His smile began before he spoke. “Thorough preparation,” he said softly.
McGee laughed and she smiled in spite of herself. She was restless and irritated; she felt that somehow these eastern lawyers could reach into Dement and find a way to pry the I loose. “It’ll never happen in my family,” she said.
“Oh,” the lawyer said. “Never, never say ‘never.’” He turned to his son. “It distresses me, you’ve got to talk some sense to this daughter of the prairie.”
“She’s got plenty of sense,” McGee said.
“But if it ever happens,” Dana said. “Happens in some way I can’t foresee. I’ll want you to represent me.”
“Only handle divorces,” he said lightly. He signaled for the check and leaned toward her. “Before I go. What’s happening with the book?”
McGee looked away. “Let’s not talk about that.”
“Now, now,” she said.
“I mean it,” McGee said.
She ignored him and leaned toward the older man. “Fine. We’ll have galleys in a month and if we do our job right it’s going to be very handsome. Dust jacket’s being prepared now. You’re going to be very proud.”
“I’m glad to hear it,” he said. McGee was silent.
“And one final thing for you. Who are you supporting?”
The lawyer grinned. “Can’t you guess?”
“I guess I can,” Dana said.
“Trouble is, that family of his and his own record. It requires a certain leap of faith.”
“Um,” she said.
“And something about him puts people off, particularly in your part of the country. I hope they come around.”
“I agree with that,” Dana said. “He’s made one big mistake. He’s got to get Ike into it. That’s been his problem. He’s got to wrap himself around the war hero, Father Figure—”
Harold McGee looked at his son and then at her, and laughed. “I’m talking about Kennedy, Dana.”
“Kennedy?”
The litigator smiled widely and drained the balloon. “My dear, you’ve got a lot to learn about the smart money” Then he signed the check and left them, explaining that he had to be at the office early the next morning, When he shook hands with his son he winked. Take her to the Plaza, he said. She’ll like the Plaza. Then he kissed Dana and ambled off, distributing money as he went: cash for the wine waiter, cash for the maître d’, cash for the hatcheck girl. They all followed Harold McGee to the door, summoned him a cab, wished him well, bade him a pleasant evening, all the while expressing desires to see him again very soon.
McGee watched him go, smiling.
She said, “Sometimes he does go on.”
“Well, that’s Dad. Nobody like him.”
She asked, “The Plaza?”
“Not on your life,” he said. “He likes the Plaza. It’s his special place, he knows the waiters, one in particular. His special man, Mister Hopkins. I don’t think we need Mister Hopkins to guide us through this particular evening.” He said, “He always took my mother to tea at the Plaza. And her mother. He used to go there during Prohibition and they’d give him setups and he’d mix his own drinks from a silver flask he carried in his coat. It’s one of my earliest memories. I must have been about six. He’s been going to the Plaza for more than forty years and it makes him reminisce. He’s very good at reminiscing, don’t you think?” McGee looked around the small candlelit room. They were the last to leave. He said, “The White Horse.”
She reached over and brushed back a lock of hair that had fallen over his forehead. “Sure.”
“It won’t be crowded this late.”
She said, “Let’s go.”
They hailed a cab and were flung back into its hard cushions as the car shot down Fifth Avenue. Dana loved the speed and recklessness of driving in a cab at night in New York City. On New York streets at night, the cab windows down, she heard music in the breeze. They sped eight, nine blocks at a time, then slid through a yellow light and came to rest at the next red, the car bouncing on the asphalt, the avenue sloping now. She kissed him and he put his hand on the back of her neck, pressing lightly. He murmured something, the last words catching in. his throat, and she kissed him again. She wanted never to part from him. She would float down Fifth Avenue to Greenwich Village forever with him, not watched. The cab swaying, his hand in hers, her hair touching his cheek, she looked at the nights behind apartment windows and imagined romantic lives and spontaneous laughter, laughter crashing against the windows like so many insects. She imagined them both in bed or in the shower in the morning or at the dinner table, he leaning over in the candlelight, kissing her on impulse. Their lives would be run on impulse. He shifted his arm and she kissed him again. His eyes popped open and she winked at him, waiting for his smile and smiling back; smiling for him only, her emotion thick and full. She burrowed into his chest. The cab lurched forward and they were thrown back. Easy, she called out, laughing. Sorry lady, the driver muttered.
Now they were in Greenwich Village, moving slowly through the bright, crowded streets. She thought of New York as a city of escapees. One slipped into the city’s life like a suit of clothes off the rack, disappearing into the anonymous throngs. You could experiment with different voices and there were no accusers nearby who cared if you were different now, or had invented new personalities, or dreamed. They arranged themselves at the end of the long bar, wedging between two solitary drinkers. They ordered ale, which arrived in white china mugs. Standing at the end of the bar, they looked dreamily at each other through cigarette smoke. His arm was around her waist, her hand touching his elbow, both of them leaning into the worn and polished wood, making wet circles with their mugs. The room was crowded, men and women at the bar and at tables, their voices rising in intense crescendo. He took off his tie and stuffed it in his jacket pocket. She rumpled his hair affectionately and murmured into his ear, smiling delightedly A blast of laughter from the corner was followed by loud argument near the door, the sounds in heavy counterpoint. At a table behind them three men in shirtsleeves and a woman in a mackintosh were gravely discussing Billie Holliday, her death a year ago. Dead surely of an overdose of drugs, probably morphine. Dana dipped her head, a gesture of sorrow. O-o-o, one of them sang, What a little moonlight can do-o-o. Drinkers in the immediate vicinity were silent a moment, remembering; then the talk resumed. The woman in the mackintosh began to cry, burying her face in her hands; she said the singer’s name again and again, talking through her fingers. She lifted her head and looked imploringly at her companions, her face wet. She’s dead! The men stopped singing and all three nodded in solemn agreement. The bartender and the waiters floated. through all this, imperturbable as bishops, the china mugs filled, emptied, and filled again. The door swung on its hinges, admitting new arrivals: esoteric cries of greeting, ar
ms around necks, kisses, shouted exchanges of information. The four at the table stared silently at each other; there was nothing left to say about Billie Holliday. At a table along the wall a man sat with his head in his arms, peacefully sleeping, a girl’s hand on his knee. He was a well-dressed man with a soft red face, one hand in his jacket pocket as if he had reached for a cigarette before dozing off. The girl was talking to a second man, often nodding at the one asleep; their heads wagged in commiseration for the sleeping man, evidently in distress. She removed her hand from his knee long enough to light a Gauloise, then replaced it.
Dana touched McGce’s arm and said she loved the White Horse Tavern, she could spend her life in it. He nodded, still tense but more comfortable now with his tie off and a relationship established with the bartender. He’d left his money on the bar and when they finishes an ale he’d push their mugs forward. The bartender filled them automatically and took his payment from the stack of bills and coins. She looked over his left shoulder and began to smile: Look at that. In the corner a rumpled man stood, apparently intending to address the group at large. He paused, assembling his thoughts, and then began to fall, Friends on either side caught him but he was dead weight and crashed to the floor like a heavy tree, bringing smaller trees with him. Glasses and mugs fell with the table and then everyone laughed as the table was righted and the rumpled man seated again, semiconscious but grinning.
“Christ,” McGee said. “It’s a zoo.”
She said, “I love it.”
A glass crashed behind them. “It’s late. Why aren’t they home in bed?”
“With their ’jammies on?”
“Right.” He pushed their mugs toward the bartender and leaned close to her, blocking out the noise. “Dana, we have a problem.”
“Not now,” she said. “Tell me about it later.” It would have something to do with his father; McGee was so silent and preoccupied during dinner. He worried unreasonably about his father’s health. She squeezed his arm and smiled, loving being with him in the White Horse. He looked as if he belonged, older than most of them standing at the bar. “Your dad’s fine, I’ve never seen him in better—”
“Not about him,” he said slowly.
“—form.” There was embarrassment in his voice. Its tone was serious and she looked into his unsmiling eyes and saw them shift; he did not want to look at her. His face was thinner than ever and drawn, and his mouth was set.
“Look,” he began. She was silent, holding her breath. Her eyes were wide and bright is stars and he had a fierce desire to take her by the arm and leave; have done with the noise. He smiled apologetically “There’s a problem with the book,” he said.
Her eyes closed for a second, then opened, laughing. She’d thought—she didn’t know what to think. But she’d been frightened. and now she was amused. The book, “Don’t worry, it’s going to be fine.”
“Well, I dont’t think so.” He leaned closer to her, avoiding a new arrival at the bar. The noise had subsided and was now a gentle roar.
“Hey.” She put her hand on his cheek. “Don’t worry about it.” He looked so stricken that she had to smile. “I’m watching it every step of the way and if I get stymied there’s Noah and he’s never stymied.”
“The book’s off,” he said.
She let her hand. drop to his shoulder. “Off?” Her voice rose. “How can it be off? It’s at the printer’s, we’ll have galleys—”
“Not anymore.” he said miserably
“Lamb,” she said. “Please. Explain.”
“There are problems.”
“Problems,” she said. The noise receded; she was concentrating on him totally. Nothing so far made any sense to her.
“There are problems with the—material.”
“So? That can be fixed. Anyway it isn’t true. There aren’t any problems with the material. We’ve gone over the manuscript together and agreed. Two weeks ago we agreed.” She smiled. “We signed in blood, remember?”
“I feel terrible about its”
“Look,” she began.
“Really, more for you than for me. You’re worked like a Trojan, you’ve worked your head off.”
“Perhaps you’d better tell me what these problems are.” This was all so unlike him. She had never seen him nervous in this way.
“I had a visit while you were in Dement. Two men who had read the manuscript and had objections to it.” He leaned closer to her, talking into her ear; his hands moved on the bar. “Two colleagues, erstwhile colleagues, good friends. Really.” He looked at her, anxious that she believe the truth of what he was about to say “Really, excellent men. But they’d obtained a copy of the manuscript. Or, to be more precise about it, someone had—I believe they said ‘furnished’ them a copy.”
“Lamb—”
“It doesn’t matter who it was,” he said quickly. “That’s the least of it, and it doesn’t matter. They’re friends and colleagues and I respect their views.” He took an envelope from his coat pocket, looking at her out of the corners of his eyes. Numbers were written on the back of the envelope. “There are specific objections to the third chapter, parts of the fourth, the last half of the fifth and the first half of the sixth, all of the ninth, and the epilogue.” He put the envelope, numbers down, on the bar.
“But that is the book. The third, fourth, fifth—”
He nodded. “That’s correct,”
“These men,” she began.
“—were very polite and very firm.”
“And you’re taking their word.” She stopped and moved back from him, looking at him now in profile. “Lamb, it’s not their book. They don’t have any right to stop publication, or suggest revisions, or anything else. This is a book, yours, not a government pamphlet. The government has no interest here.” She shook her head and took a long draft of ale. “They have no right—”
“They’re solid people,” he said stubbornly. “Doing their job. It’s important to them—”
“What kind of ‘solid people’ try to stop a person, a friend according to you, from publishing his book? A book containing his own experience, It’s your life, not theirs. Your work.”
Her voice had risen and he put a finger to her lips. He said, “It was not unexpected. Though they were very quick about it. I had a feeling that they’d seen the manuscript in earlier drafts and were hoping I’d change my mind and not publish. Decide that on my own, without their having to interfere.”
“Who showed them the manuscript?”
He shook his head. “I don’t know. Honestly.”
“Someone at my office?”
“Presumably.”
“It’s theft.”
He shrugged. “Technically—”
“I don’t think they can do it,” she said flatly “It’s up to the author and the publisher. Actually, it’s in our hands now. It’s the decision of the publisher.”
He ignored that and lit a cigarette. Then he put his hands flat on the bar. “Sweetheart, let me explain something.”
“You’re defending them. Why are you defending them?”
“Well, yes I am. Up to a point.”
“McCarthyites—”
He laughed at that. “McCarthyites? Oh, God no. No, really. Understand that, if you understand nothing else. These are good people, people about as far from Joe McCarthy as you could imagine. They fought McCarthy while the rest of the government was kissing his ass, and fought him with great skill. Sweeney and Caull are not yahoos—”
“Sweeney and who?”
“Never mind the names.” He looked at her severely His composure had returned now and he stood at ease at the bar. Then he said formally, “There are no more dedicated civil servants in the American government.”
“All right,” she said calmly. “Did these two dedicated civil servants explain why? What is wrong with the book?”
“Well,” he said. “They do not hold me at fault. Or you either.”
“How wonderful for us,” she said.
>
He said, “We can skip the sarcasm.” His voice softened then. “I’m sorry about everything. I didn’t know how to tell you. I’m sorry as hell about it.”
“Lamb,” she said. “What is objectionable? There is nothing in the journal that can in any way be construed as a criticism of the government. You are completely dispassionate in your reporting, scrupulous—as I’ve said—to a fault.” She watched his head wag and knew that somehow she’d missed a beat.
“It’s not the government. It’s nor a question of politics. It’s policy.”
“Policy,” she said dully
“Nothing is spelled out in. the journal. Everything is between the lines, right? But anyone who understands the area will know that there’s quite a lot of sensitive material. You understand?” He watched her nod. “I didn’t think it was as obvious as it apparently is. It seemed to me to he no more than hints, more knowledgeable than material that had appeared in the press, but not really ... more, uh. They convinced me that it was simply not in the national interest at this time, an election, a new administration—”
“I thought you said it had nothing to do with politics.”
“Doesn’t,” he said confidently. “But nothing occurs in a vacuum. Eastern Europe doesn’t occur in a vacuum. Events happen against a political backdrop.”
“Yes,” she said.
“So there we are.”
“No,” she said. “Not yet. You agree with them?” He nodded. “You’re satisfied?” He nodded again. “Well,” she said. “And I’m not to know exactly what this material is? I don’t know what to say. What can I say, I’m so disappointed. I guess your father was right after all,), I don’t understand about the smart money. I suppose that’s what it is. I love that book. Loved working with you, loved seeing it grow.” She picked up her mug and set it down again. “Ah, shoot,” she said.
“Look,” he said softly. He knew now that it was almost over and that she had taken it well. “Look, Sweeney has already talked to Noah—”
She jerked backward as if struck. “He has done what?”
“Talked to Noah,” McGee said. “You’re out of it entirely, in the clear. It’s Noah’s decision.”
