The Henderson Equation

by Warren Adler

  “You’re a goddamned whoremonger,” Henry had also observed, smiling.

  “She’s really not my speed,” he had responded, flushing.

  Her assignment was to cover a Kennedy Center event, a social, artsy affair, in connection with the opening night of a British play starring Rex Harrison.

  Arranging to meet her for breakfast in his apartment the next morning, he had prepared an elaborate seduction breakfast: orange juice and champagne, scrambled eggs, croissants, and coffee all laid out on a table near the terrace with a single yellow flower as a centerpiece. He felt giddy with his foolishness, silly. He also put on a velvet smoking jacket which he had found hanging in the closet and topped it off with an ascot.

  “You look like Little Lord Fauntleroy,” she said, breezing into the apartment, taking in the scene knowingly. “You little devil.”

  But under the patina of chic sophistication, she was nervous, her fingers wrinkling the copy paper as she pulled it out of her pocketbook.

  “The moment of truth,” she said. “I was up all night, trying to get it right. As you’ll see, Nick, I talk a good game.”

  He opened the copy, thankful for the opportunity for professionalism, and began to read. Without a pencil at the ready, he felt frustrated. She must have sensed it, since she pulled a ballpoint pen out of her bag.

  “It stinks, right?” she said.

  “It’s not all that bad,” he lied. “It needs a little work.” He walked to a desk in the corner and began to re-fashion it with the pen, while she stood over him, sipping the champagne and orange juice. He worked swiftly, carefully, jabbing the pen as he sliced and rewrote, fitting together the pieces with swirls and curlicues. Feeling her breath near his ear, he spurred himself on to re-fashion the story with special care, showing off. He was, after all, doing his thing.

  “Shorten your sentences. Use the omnipotent point of view. Take a position as superior observer. You should write the way you talk.”

  “Believe me, Nick, I try.”

  He turned his face upward to her, watching her coolness evaporate as she read the changes in her copy.

  “You must think I’m full of shit,” she said.

  “Just young. You can learn it, Jennie.” He stood up, watching her, sensing the vulnerability beneath the coolness.

  “I want to learn,” she said, putting her champagne glass on the desk and leaning her body against his. He kissed her deeply, his hands roaming to her hard, curved buttocks, pressing her pelvis toward his already erected organ. She reached down and felt it.

  “I want that,” she said, leading him to the couch in the corner, kneeling between his legs, unzipping his pants with a feathery experienced touch.

  “I’m told I do this beautifully, far better than I write,” she said, lightly moving her tongue up and down the shaft of his erected penis, moaning lightly. He reached out, curious about her breasts, which were tiny mounds. He unbuttoned the back of her dress, feeling her boniness. He noted from the beginning that she was sexually aggressive, a challenge he felt, at least on that first morning, that he could meet, and did, as he held back waiting for the moment when he would tell her to stop so that he could plunge himself into her. But she would not desist, increasing her oral activity, caressing him with marvelous experience, goading until he could not find the will to move, feeling his body explode, his semen pouring into her mouth.

  When she had completed the act, decelerating with gentle zeal, she lay with her head against his thigh, her eyes closed, her long lashes resting it seemed against her high cheekbones.

  “I’m good for something,” she said, as if she were hinting at some inner sense of self-abasement. He had detected from the beginning something curious in her sexual nature, as if the least important point of pleasure was the most natural.

  He had, of course, engineered her hiring. She had retyped the copy, handed it in to Margaret, whose objectivity prevailed.

  “Her stuff’s terrific,” she said at the budget meeting that day.

  “Let me take a peek.”

  Later he had called her. “You’re right. I think you might have something there.”

  Jennie came over that night. She was jubilant.

  “You’ve got to have patience with me,” she pleaded, as they lay in the afterglow, windows open to the lights of the city, clearly seen as they lay on his raised bed.

  “I won’t let you down, Nick,” she said. “You teach me. And I’ll teach you.”

  He had not imagined such sexual propensities, eagerly pursued by her, imbibed to surfeit by him. A man not careless in his relationships, his affair with Jennie engulfed him, not only in a sexual sense, although that part of it was powerful enough, but also in another, more complex way. He was flattered by what he assumed was his attraction, his allure, which in a man who was heading swiftly toward his middle fifties, provoked all sorts of danger signals. For this reason, he was never completely secure, always on the thin edge of disquiet.

  “I think I love you,” he told her one night, months after they had become involved. They were sitting quietly in his living room reading, oblivious to communication. He remembered he was reading a biography of Woodrow Wilson.

  “You are romantic, Nick,” she had answered. “Be careful, you’ll exaggerate your expectations.” The cool, quick, almost flippant answer seemed to strike right into the heart of the matter. Of course, that was his problem, he thought, remembering Charlie.

  But the remark had made him cautious and he was not above increasing his hold of dependence.

  “You’ve made me a success, Nick.”

  “Isn’t that what you wanted?”

  “I wanted to do it on my own.”

  “You did.”

  It became a kind of duel as she would try to increase his dependence on her, through sexuality, which drove him to unimagined ecstasies. At times he flagged, which caused her to find other ways. When she discovered he could be anxious about her, manifested by jealousy or fits of controlled rage, she could be cruel. Although she lived with him, she had moved across the street from his place, but withheld from him the key to her apartment.

  “I won’t let you have it,” she had said, joking, then taunting.

  “I’ve given you mine.”

  “You’ve got to leave me something of my own, Nick,” she had replied, dead serious.

  Sometime later she had actually disappeared for forty-eight hours, her two days off, driving him crazy with anxiety.

  “Where the hell were you?”

  “My place.”

  “I called.”

  “I didn’t answer. I left the service on.”

  “So I found out.”

  It reached a point where, if he watched closely, he could sense the onset of these withdrawals and he tried, emotionally, to prepare for them. When she would finally return, he would sometimes greet her with contrived indifference. Her reaction never quite fulfilled his expectations. Not that he would ever reveal to her the real extent of his anxieties. He was too cautious for that. He imagined that the difference in their ages had something to do with it. Was that the real reason he had opted to keep the relationship secret? A fear of failure. His! He was conscious of using his power over her, pressing his advantage, not without a twinge of guilt. After all, wasn’t she using him as well?

  He was, of course, aware of his self-deception. Jennie was ambitious, greedy for recognition, and since he was certain it was her most obsessive drive, he was ruthless in his manipulation of it. But he also knew that someday, somehow, he would lose his hold. C’est la guerre, he thought. When his power faltered, that would be that. He allowed himself no illusions on that score and understood her need to keep some part of herself free of him, an escape hatch, a bailout door.

  But tonight he felt a special need for her closeness. His tolerance was strained. Lying on his bed, watching the lights, he felt washed out, fatigued beyond sleep, unable to calm himself.

  He got up, went to the bathroom, dipped his face in
handfuls of cool water, then left the apartment again. Outside, he crossed the street to her building. Waving to the guard at the desk as if he were a tenant, he reached the elevator before the man’s curiosity could be aroused. When he reached the door of Jennie’s apartment, he put his ear to it and knocked lightly. Inside nothing stirred. He banged harder, recklessly, he thought, knowing that he was being watched on the security television monitor, feeling the humiliation. There was still no answer.

  “Jennie,” he called, “it’s Nick. Open up.” No sound came from within. He could hear only the surge of his own blood. He felt an urge to kick the door in, but resisted, concluding that she was probably not home. But where? he wondered, a pang of jealousy tightening his gut. Where are you, Jennie? he screamed within himself.

  “I thought you lived here,” the guard said as he passed. He paid no attention and moved into the empty street again, walking swiftly, heading toward Wisconsin Avenue. He felt his fists tighten as if he were preparing to fight off a mugger. Let them come, he taunted the night, feeling himself an exposed target, imagining his own violent reaction to an attack. Why don’t they come? he wondered with disappointment and he reached the well-lighted main artery of Wisconsin Avenue and headed south toward Georgetown.

  He looked at his watch. It was past two. In Georgetown the streets were still lively. Students turned out from bars, lounged in doorways. Why did he see them as arrogant? he wondered, thinking about Chums. They seemed to be withholding some secret knowledge, some mystery known only to youth. He felt his age, his aloneness, the full lash of his anxieties, his fears. His mind picked over minute details, bits and pieces, revelations. It was the familiar gnawing sense of betrayal, the feeling of furniture out of place, of unspecified anguish.

  He recalled the scene in Gunderstein’s apartment, Phelps’ accusation concerning Charlie. There were too many secrets, too many rationalizations of dark deeds. If only he could discourage his preposterous need to know everything. It was only when he found himself at the doorstep of his old Georgetown house that he knew where his subconscious had been leading him. He had not been as disoriented as he imagined. As a reflex, he reached into his pocket for a key, then remembered it had been years since he had owned one. Ringing the doorbell, he waited. Then rang again. A light went on in the second floor. Margaret peeked out from behind a curtain. Stepping back, he showed himself. She parted the curtain and lifted a finger.

  Letting him in, she watched him pass through the foyer into the living room, following him as he slumped into a chair.

  “You want a drink?” she asked, rubbing the sleep from her eyes. He noticed that her figure was heavy beneath her nightgown, her huge breasts sagging with their large circles of nipples showing pinkly through sheer material. Before she got close enough, handing him a glass of Scotch, he imagined he could smell her special night odor, her scent. She sat opposite him on the couch, cross-legged, her belly ballooning against her thighs. He drank deeply, and placed the glass on the cocktail table.

  “I’m slightly discombobulated tonight, Maggie.” She watched him silently. “Something’s going wrong,” he said.

  “Personal or business?” she asked.

  “A little of both.”

  “Jennie?”

  They had never discussed her before, nor had Nick ever confided his relationship. Yet he pressed on, as if there were no gaps in Margaret’s knowledge.

  “She’s on one of her toots. I think she’s pissed off at me about that Henderson piece.”

  “To put it mildly.”

  “You noticed?”

  “I’ve got eyes.”

  “I’ll bet they all think I’m acting pretty strangely on the Henderson thing.” He was hardly conscious of his shift of focus. The Chronicle was more common ground.

  “As a matter of fact.”

  “What are they saying?”

  “They’re only surmising. Nobody knows for sure, including me. Some say it’s an old grudge. Others give it a political tinge. Everybody knows that you and Myra and Henderson had lunch together the other day.”

  “Everybody’s a yenta.”

  “That’s what the newspaper business is all about, Nick. We’re all yentas.”

  “And that sums up our problem. We know too goddamned much about other people’s lives.”

  “Shades of Miss Lonelyhearts.”

  “West was right, you know. Right on the money.”

  Nick lifted the glass from the cocktail table, sipped again, and replaced it, watching Margaret, her hair, even for bed, still in its upsweep. She lifted her fingers to pat it, perhaps feeling the pressure of his stare. In a way, he envied her. She was so complete, so self-contained; she had reached—what did they call it?—a philosophic calm. He felt compelled to articulate the compliment.

  “I’ve got to hand it to you, Margaret.”

  “Oh,” she responded coyly, perhaps suspecting his evaluation.

  “The dream just never died. You really look fulfilled, you know, a happy woman.”

  “I don’t know about happiness, Nick,” she said. “But I do feel I’ve achieved something. You can’t imagine how satisfying that is.” She paused, her eyes narrowing. “Oh, I do have regrets about the pain I’ve caused others. You and Chums. But you know, Nick, I don’t feel guilty, only regrets. I’m where I’ve always wanted to be, the top of my profession. I owe a lot to you, Nick. I’m thankful and I’m grateful. But I do know one thing. You wouldn’t keep me there if you didn’t think I could hack it.”

  He wondered if that were really true, but sensing the importance of this conclusion to herself, he allowed her to think it. He envied her feeling of accomplishment, her security. She, at least, had won her battle.

  “Yes,” he said, “I guess that’s true.” He saw a brief frown, as if she might have read his thoughts, causing him to add quickly, “You’re good, Margaret. No question about that. You can be proud of yourself.” Her frown disappeared. But his thoughts were already racing in another direction. Henderson! If only the lines were clearly drawn, as in the case of the departed President. They were all allies on that one, eager participants, enjoying the systematic destruction, the steady methodical bulldozing through the façade. Why had the victory soured so swiftly? They had been so self-righteous, so puffed with their own evangelism, so euphoric in the final days as the façade splintered. Not a tear of compassion was shed as they toasted victory in Myra’s office and after, at all the victory dinners and cocktail parties.

  Was it exhilaration or merely smugness? Like zealots they had cleansed the nation, and the shock waves still rumbled throughout the world. Old Mr. Parker was surely reveling in heaven, perhaps pontificating to his fellow angels on the ultimate wonders of the objective truth. Selective truth, he told himself, with contempt. He reached for his glass and drank down the contents in one gulp, as if it were needed immediately to increase his powers of insight. But it wasn’t really necessary. He knew the root cause of his disorientation. Myra was crossing the Rubicon at last. The other shoe had dropped. She wanted a president of her own, like Charlie, and nothing would stop her, nothing at all. He shivered at the thought of his own vulnerability in the face of her passion and knew he was doomed if he resisted. She was asking him to submit to his own castration. The Scotch curdled in his stomach, inducing a slight nausea.

  Margaret got up, moved to the liquor cabinet, and bringing the bottle, poured another drink into his glass, filling it. He noticed the heaviness of her breasts as she bent over, as if they were separate from her body, living a life of their own.

  “I’m damned if I do and damned if I don’t,” he said, knowing that it would be cryptic.

  “I don’t understand,” she said.

  “She would never stand for us bombing Henderson. He’s her handpicked boy. If I buck her on this, I think she’d toss me away like a stale loaf.”

  “Myra?”

  He nodded.

  “After all you’ve done,” she said, drinking deeply, perhaps worrying abo
ut her own mortality. “There would be a revolution on the paper. You’re a goddamned shrine. We’re all your people. I doubt if she would risk it.”

  “There’s more here than meets the eye. Mrs. Henderson came to see me today. She insists that Myra and Henderson are lovers. I can’t believe it, but the woman seemed quite sure.” Margaret smirked and shook her head.

  “It’s quite obvious that the woman doesn’t know Myra,” she said, moving her body for emphasis, her drink spilling on her nightgown. “Myra carries her own balls around with her.”

  “It’s quite possible,” he said quickly, almost with a touch of pedantry as if his experience with Jennifer had a quality of universality. “Don’t write it off so fast. Emotions have a way of betraying reason.”

  It occurred to him then that it might be simpler for him if Myra and Henderson had been lovers. At least he could understand that, could find a way to cope with that. But this other, this sudden quantum leap for more and more control, that implied a far more difficult confrontation, and for him, a denser minefield.

  “I know, Nick,” Margaret said, taking a deep sip of her drink. “And I really don’t want to invoke that silly wheeze of woman’s intuition. A male must have concocted that, as if women couldn’t really think except intuitively, a mystical gift. But goddammit, Nick, from what I know about Myra, and myself, I’d say she’s put all that behind her and was more tantalized by her role, the thrill of achievement, the sense of being boss.”

  He watched her huge ballooning breasts as she spoke. It had always been a distraction, was one even now.

  “The titular head,” he said. She understood the implication and flushed slightly, looking down at her ravaged glory. He knew she was concocting some kind of a put-down, drawing again from the well of old hates, ancient angers.

  “Your problem, Nick,” she said with deliberation—her eyes told him that she was softening the blow—“is that you don’t understand the mind of a woman. You look at her too much from the crotch.”

  “Goddammit, Maggie,” he exploded. “Not now. Don’t lay that superior sister shit on me now, not now.”