The Henderson Equation

by Warren Adler

  She hesitated, watching him, nervously lapping at her drink as he finished his off. She rose, moved her heavy body toward the Scotch bottle, and repoured their drinks.

  “I’m just trying to get you to understand a woman’s mind. To take the blinders off.”

  “You and your damned female generalizations,” he said, more tranquil now as he felt the alcohol move into his blood, soothing him. “Believe me, Maggie, what Myra has in her mind is not as mysterious as you allow.”

  “Not mysterious at all, not to me.”

  “Or me.”

  “But you can understand her only if you look at it from the vantage of her femaleness. And the way that being a woman has shaped her.”

  His mind groped back to that first dinner at Mr. Parker’s house. He could almost smell the steaming vegetables and hear the clink of the crystal wineglasses. “I understand her perfectly,” he said. “That’s exactly the point.”

  He wondered how far he could go with Margaret, who he knew must be relishing the idea of this conversation and its implications. But could he really trust her? Surely, half a lifetime shared counted for something. He caught himself looking at her breasts again, feeling perhaps the beginnings of an urge to bury his face in those warm pillows of flesh. He imagined his head lying there, an embryo in the safety of the womb, hearing only the heartbeat of life.

  “I’m frightened,” he said, aware that the words had been mumbled, as if he had not wished himself to be understood. But Margaret’s hearing was alert.

  “You are down,” she said, surveying him suddenly like some prized butterfly pinned to a specimen card.

  “But not out,” he said quickly, shivering as he finished the Scotch which she quickly rose to repour. Could he really trust her? he wondered. Was the paranoia seeping into his marrow? He felt his mind racing in different directions at once. His eyes searched around the still familiar room, alighting on a picture of Chums. It had been taken at her fifth birthday. The innocent child’s eyes stared back at him, large eyes, like his, always questioning, never able to hide a hurt. Margaret followed the direction of his concentration.

  “Remember how pretty she looked then?”

  “I had forgotten,” he said honestly, although he had the same picture in his apartment. Odd, he thought, that he had never really looked at it for years.

  “We botched that one up rather badly,” he said, recalling the memories of the painful parts of their marriage.

  “Someday she’ll simply have to stop using it as an excuse for self-destruction,” Margaret mused aloud. Perhaps she had repeated it silently to herself and was testing its effect as a spoken thought. “And I don’t intend to feel guilty about it forever.” Like him, she was still fighting her guilt about Chums.

  “She’ll find herself, Maggie,” he said gently, but without conviction. It was the one element of sharing still left. They drifted into silence. Nick sipped his drink and placed the glass on the cocktail table. Talk of Chums rekindled his sense of home, and he untied his shoes and stretched his legs.

  “More?” she said, holding out the bottle.

  “Just a drop.” It would be futile to get drunk, he thought.

  Finding his concentration again, he felt the tension had begun to ease. He felt his guard slipping, more secure somehow.

  “I can’t shake this sense of being surrounded,” he said. “And I can’t seem to find my way out, the path out. The fact is, Maggie, that Myra’s got me by the short hairs.”

  “Nothing lasts, forever,” Margaret said, forcing an attempt at cheerfulness.

  “You’re a great help.”

  “Please don’t misunderstand, Nick,” she said. “Let’s face it. You couldn’t expect her to remain passive little Myra forever. It wasn’t in the cards.”

  His antenna caught an odd vibration. His defenses rose. Again he had the feeling of something amiss, the furniture awry. She finished her drink, an action perhaps to cover a sudden discomfort. She knew him well enough to tread cautiously.

  “Sounds like you’ve seen some of the hands.”

  “I have, Nick,” she said emphatically. He remembered her odd frown, the joining together of lines on her forehead, her unconscious signal of determination.

  “You’re not going to lay this intuition shit on me?”

  “No. We were close once.”

  “You and Myra?”

  “Perhaps I’m exaggerating. Let’s say I had her confidence once.”

  “The sister thing?”

  “As a matter of fact.”

  “I hadn’t realized.”

  “You wouldn’t have known what to look for at the time.”

  His mind groped back over the years. There had never appeared to be any real closeness between Myra and Margaret.

  “It was just after Charlie died.” She took a deep breath, sipped her drink again. “She was frantic with guilt and despair.”

  “Guilt.”

  “She needed someone then,” she said evasively. “Someone who might understand. She took a stab at me and I was there. She was lucky. I did understand.”

  “Understand what?”

  “Well, for one thing,” she paused. “What it means to suffer the humiliation of male domination . . .”

  “Christ,” he interrupted. “That was just ass-kissing. Charlie was dead. You saw in it a good opportunity to short-circuit me.” He had not wanted to say it just that way, to reveal his vulnerability. But his training had taught him the smell of a half-told story.

  “Don’t, Nick,” she said gently. “I’ll tell it.” Watching him, her eyes misted. She wasn’t prone to tears and quickly recovered, finding control. “Myra needed someone,” she continued, her hands folded as if to restrain nervous fingers. He could see the whiteness of the pressure around the knuckles.

  “She was glad that Charlie had blown his brains out,” she said quickly, an ejaculation. She paused again and refilled her glass, ignoring his, drinking swiftly, as if to drown the words that she must have known were coming. “It was unbearable for her to endure his madness, his hate. He was detestable, disgusting. He beat her, abused her.”

  “I know all that,” he said bitterly. “But Charlie was already institutionalized. She had the power to keep him there.”

  “She thought he was getting better. She felt she owed him that last chance.”

  “I saw him there,” he said, remembering that last visit, the flights from lucidity. It had puzzled him when he was released. “He was still sick. He was beyond hope.”

  “She owed him that last chance,” Margaret said flatly. “She told me that herself.”

  “And you believed her?”

  “Yes.”

  “And the guns. Her father’s guns. They were in a gun case in their old house on Massachusetts Avenue. The case was kept locked. And how come the guns were in such perfect working order? Charlie never hunted.”

  “What are you implying?” Her mouth remained open, the circles under her eyes seemed to deepen.

  “Come on, Maggie. She didn’t have to pull the trigger. He was sick, crazy. All she had to do was give him the opportunity.”

  “She wouldn’t,” Margaret whispered, on the edge of panic. “Not Myra.”

  “That was the only way she could get control. She must have tried to break the trust agreement on grounds of non compos mentis. I’ll bet she consulted lawyers.”

  He could see that she was reacting now out of some wisp of memory, confirming what he had suspected, although he had kept it hidden, even from himself. Was it merely Charlie talking through him? Did he need a justification for Charlie’s death?

  “No matter what you say, I’ll never believe it.” She paused, watching him. “And even if I did, she had good cause.” He remembered the day at the funeral parlor in Hempstead, the memory clear. The secret was buried, never to emerge again in Charlie’s lifetime, except in his anguished brain. He might have seen his suicide as an act of retribution.

  “You’ve always been in league w
ith him,” she said, the panic receding as she found her strength again. “That relationship was a real aberration,” she hissed. He could feel her anger now.

  “I’ll bet it was quite a coffee klatch, all that damned confiding. She found the right person, all right. Someone with whom to share hatred of Charlie. Sick old Charlie, who wore out his substance trying to make the Chronicle something. Where the hell would any of us be without Charlie?” He stood up, pacing the room in his stocking feet. “You ungrateful bastards. Charlie made us . . . even Myra.” He paced silently, feeling her eyes watching him.

  “There are limits, Nick.”

  “To gratitude?”

  “Even that.” She paused. “Also to pain.”

  “He was sick. He didn’t know what he was doing.”

  “That didn’t make the pain any less.”

  He sat down again.

  “The two of you must have had a field day. It’s a wonder I’m still around.”

  “She had planned to fire you,” Margaret said, softly now. The words stabbed into him. “She was determined to get rid of any last vestige of Charlie. I convinced her to keep you, Nick. I did. I invoked the power of our relationship and her manipulated vulnerability. I did it.”

  He felt the beginnings of a retch, an exploding glob in the pit of his stomach. Fighting it back, he stammered, “The Chronicle would have fallen on its ass. She had no experience, no training. She would have blown it.”

  “She was willing to take that chance,” she said smugly. “It wasn’t easy to convince her.” But he was protesting within himself, without conviction. He believed her, refusing to be grateful. It was her only logical move. “As it turned out, I was right. Years later she admitted it. Thanked me.”

  “So you’re still sharing confidences.”

  “I’m afraid not. I said Myra had changed. She’s more protective of herself these days. Considering her responsibilities, I can’t blame her. Besides, I’m a little wary myself. And, you may not believe this, but I don’t want you to think I’ve gone over your head.”

  “That doesn’t seem to bother some people.”

  “Like who?”

  “I’m not sure,” he admitted.

  “Ambition does strange things, Nick.”

  “So they tell me.”

  Despite her outward look of confidence, he knew she was concerned with his reaction. He believed her. He felt her trust and loyalty.

  “I’m not ready to give it up, Maggie,” he said. “Not yet.”

  “I know that, Nick.”

  “But I’m in a damned jackpot, and I haven’t been able to figure a way out.”

  “Are you asking for advice?”

  “Let’s say I’m open to it.”

  She hesitated, perhaps carefully going over her response.

  “I’d say she is determined. If it came to a showdown she’d expect you to bend. She’s strong now, probably sure of herself. It’s obvious to me just from the little bit you’ve told me that she’s come to some understanding with Henderson. She was always intimidated by Charlie’s talents. Beyond her hate. She wants herself a president, Nick. Wants to surpass Charlie. She wants to be on the inside.”

  “That’s what’s frightening, Maggie.”

  “She’s entitled,” Margaret said.

  “Entitled?”

  “It’s her ball game. She owns us, all of us, even you.”

  “Delusions of grandeur,” Nick shrugged. “Only they’re not delusions. We can tell people what to think. It’s not ordinary property rights she has, Margaret. She owns one of the most important information monopolies in the country. Getting a president to resign might only be a beginning.”

  “You’re exaggerating,” Margaret said. “Besides, Nick, you’ve had that power all along. And before you, Charlie. She has a right to clip your wings.”

  “The full extent of our power was only a myth, until we proved we were stronger than the presidency, stronger than our most powerful institution. It’s like putting an atomic bomb in the hands of a child.”

  “That’s so typical of you men,” Margaret sneered. “Since when are you the sole repository of all wisdom? As soon as a woman gets ascendant you buck like hell.” She threw her head back and laughed, the deep well of some secret malevolence revealed. “She’s cutting your balls off, Nick, and there’s not a goddamned thing you can do about it.”

  His mind groped for a reply. But he was too stunned to respond. He could only look at her empty-eyed.

  “You seem almost joyful about it,” he said after a long pause, recovering himself.

  “Not joyful. Oddly proud to see her make the move. But damned upset about you.”

  “And the thing with Henderson?”

  “The prerogative of power.”

  “You’ve missed the point.”

  “You asked me for advice.”

  “You’re advising capitulation.”

  “I’m facing reality.”

  He searched her face for some softness, a sense of yielding. But he could find no solace there, only the harshness of her own fixation, the warped vision of generations of trapped females. But the fact that she was torn, teetering between the poles of her inner life, invalidated her advice.

  He stood up, felt shakiness in his knees, as he looked down at her seated figure, bloated by time, the big breasts no longer objects of desire, merely appendages.

  He put on his shoes and staggered, letting himself out, not looking back. It was quite enough for one night. Perhaps he was only dreaming after all, a nightmare induced by a late snack of heavy cheese, and he was really lying on his bed, fully dressed, still waiting for Jennie. But once outside, his sense of place returned. He breathed deeply, felt better as gulps of fresh air recharged him.

  There were no cabs to be found, and after he had stood in the chill for some time, he began to walk again, feeling now the drag of his exhaustion as he willed himself forward. Tiredness, he knew, had always left him vulnerable.

  Each of them, Margaret and Myra, had good reason to detest her femaleness, had always detested it. He felt compassion for them. But what did it matter to him? If that was the issue then he was doomed. There were simply no defenses against it. Like his marriage. Destroyed before it began.

  In his bedroom again, he undressed. Even the aching absence of Jennie seemed trivial. It was nearly five. He lay on the bed, and felt his pores open, the juice of his sweat emptying over his skin. It was, he knew, a time to search deep within himself.

  He was suffering, he suspected, from brutalizing self-analysis, from an offensively programmed Semitic reaction which insisted on sweeping into all the inner corners, overturning all the psychic furniture to get at every wisp of offending dust. This thing that he had discovered, lurking under the carpet’s edge, hard as rock, was his own fear. It had him scared out of his wits. The ends of his hair ached. He was frightened, terror-stricken, frozen with petrification at the prospect of catastrophic events rushing down at him like a great tidal wave.

  Without the Chronicle what would his life be? Without the Chronicle, he was certain his mind would explode, his tissues clog, his cells atrophy. What did he care about Henderson and his insufferable blue eyes, his ambition, his aspirations? What mattered was the Chronicle and he was the Chronicle. The paper was a mirror of his soul, his prejudices, tastes, hopes, ideas, passions. When he changed a comma, the subtle rearrangement sent shocks through an army of analysts who probed, ingested, and regurgitated the words he had let through the screen. It was not the illusion of power that he held in his fingers, the kind of negative veto power that Myra, up to now, had been content with, could play with, like a form of masturbation. It was real, raw, uncut, creative power, the kind that counted, that could move men’s minds. He had always been modest in his own evaluation of the extent of this power, but now, with fear splashing all around him, he could tell himself exactly what was at stake. The prospect of handing this kind of control to Myra was preposterous, stultifying, patently sinful. It was
one thing to have a disembodied idea of how the world might be refashioned, to maintain a posture of political ideology, to control the sword of Damocles that hung over all public figures, but quite another to exercise the balance that kept the credibility of the machinery intact.

  Was it his ego or his fear? The Chronicle gave meaning to his life. To lose it might prompt him to the gun case, like Charlie, to whom the recently oiled guns and the clearly visible keys were unmistakable road signs to oblivion. Even avenging angels could not be perfect, he told himself finally, the fear beginning to recede, like a flood seeking the level of gravity.

  He could imagine Henderson and Myra spending long hours in contemplation of their envisioned world, mulling over the abstractions of political promise, the details of the impending joint rule outlined, expanded. Between them they could control America. He could imagine Henderson posing as the zealot, fresh-faced, craggy, high-cheeked, the blue eyes blazing with contrived sincerity as he pandered, persuaded, flattered, assured her that he, Henderson, was her kind. Little did he know that he was ransoming his manhood.

  Let her have her goddamned president, he agreed finally, feeling drowsiness descend. It was giving him too much pain to resist. Nothing was forever.

  The sound of the alarm found him, like a beam of light in a dark pit. He felt surprisingly refreshed, although he had only slept for two hours. At first he had reached out, feeling for Jennie, her warm flesh. He felt ridiculous. That was another thing, he vowed. He would untangle himself from these debilitating emotional distractions, these unnecessary anxieties that drained energy. Not that he would abdicate sexual adventures, and Jennie was a great comfort in that way, but to step over the brink of emotional chaos, was, he felt now, adolescent stupidity.

  He showered, found himself whistling, and dressed, picking out his newest suit, blue pinstriped, vested, and choosing a gay tie that Jennie had bought him. There’s life in the old carcass yet, he told himself, patting his greying hair, and rearranging it over the crown to hide the growing bald spot.

  Outside it was a bright morning, although a chill persisted. He hailed a cab. There was luck in the swift response, he agreed, a kind of harbinger of good tidings. Saturdays at the Chronicle were mainly reflective days, since most of the huge Sunday edition had been locked in, a great mass of trivia, filler for the gobs of advertising that hungered for their mass Sunday circulation, which was more than fifty percent that of the daily and double that of their nearest competitor. It was good to be thinking about the technical details of newspapering again, although contemplation of the Sunday paper always elicited a kind of professional despair. It was a formless monster, a mass of treacle, with inserts upon inserts falling over each other like snowflakes. As a work of newspaper art, it was a mess, although financially it was a fantastic success, which inhibited motivation for change. But he was ashamed of it, another symbol of compromise that he somehow managed to live with. After all, he could tell himself and those among his staff who found the courage to protest, the Chronicle was not an eleemosynary institution—a cop-out that would send some of them scratching in panic for their dictionaries. He resolved now to renew his efforts at rethinking its structure, which meant gearing for the inevitable clash with Delaney and the rest of the advertising department. He chuckled at the prospect. It was good, reassuring, to think about.