The Henderson Equation

by Warren Adler

  “And Myra knows all this?” Nick asked, remembering Charlie.

  “Of course.”

  He felt a sudden feeling of giddiness as the image of Gunderstein floated into his mind, the infallible Gunderstein and his remarkable nose for the big story.

  “That’s the basic problem with the newspaper business,” Henderson said, as if he had been leading up to this. “It only considers a single dimension. Nothing is ever that simple.”

  “How would you make us better?” Nick asked, annoyed at his sudden hostility.

  “I’d begin by loosening the trigger.”

  “We have to move fast.”

  “I’m aware of that. But if you took just a bit more time to reflect instead of rushing to fire, you’d be surprised how more effective you might be.”

  “You might have the same criticism for politicians.”

  “Oh, I do, Nick. I do. You put the pressure on us. We react. Our perceived interests aren’t necessarily compatible. After all, we both have constituencies. You have to sell papers. We have to get votes.”

  “It’s hardly that simple,” Nick said, as the waiter put their food in front of them. He had ordered a salad.

  “That’s my own special dressing,” Duke said from behind him, insisting on cataloging the ingredients.

  It was all so casual, the big comfortable room, the light smell of garlic that rose delicately from the shiny green pickles, the talk and laughter of easy male companionship, the taste of pleasantly prepared American food. To contemplate Henderson against this backdrop, while the words registered their persuasive logic, seemed beyond comprehension, like a sudden hailstorm on a summer’s night.

  “You see,” Henderson said, as if in the phrase he had set up an imaginary mind to debate, “you begin to wonder who your constituency really is, who you are really accountable to. If you say the people it becomes an abstraction, because reaching them, truly communicating, is done through third persons. People like yourself. Editors of media. So you see, I’m actually playing to you. And it is you—I’m speaking generically—who determine what my constituency really knows.”

  The words seemed strained, cautious. But the sense was clear.

  “You exaggerate our power,” Nick said, half believing the well-worn phrase.

  “You can make or break any one of us,” Henderson said.

  “I suppose if you had your druthers you’d legislate us out of business.”

  “As a matter of fact . . .” Henderson smiled, relegating the response to humor.

  “You see,” Nick responded in the same vein.

  “It boils down to who knows best.”

  “Somebody has got to keep you fellows honest.”

  “Who keeps you honest?” It was an accusation.

  “Answer that question yourself and you get some appreciation of what it means to be an editor.”

  “So you police yourselves.”

  “Yes we do.” Nick knew he was being defensive. “And if we goof, there are still the laws of libel.”

  “Political careers rise and fall on misplaced adverbs. What good are damages to a damaged man? A kind of Pyrrhic victory at best.” He put his fork down and sipped the remains of his drink. “We’re at your mercy, Nick. That’s the long and short of it. And it’s not what you say about us editorially. People understand when you clearly label things ‘opinion.’ It’s the other ways you express yourself. The subtleties of story placement. What you choose to run and not to run. The pictures you print or don’t print. There are a thousand myriad ways to jab a guy.”

  “And build him.”

  “And build him.”

  “The sword cuts both ways.”

  “It’s awesome. You’ve got too damned much control.”

  “Power is always dangerous in the hands of the wrong people,” Nick said, conscious of the weakness of his argument. He wanted to confront Henderson with his own cynicism, throw it back at him like a live grenade. Here he was, he thought, America’s most promising politician, with his tongue literally stuck up Myra’s ass. How he must have sickened at the notion! And yet, who was he, Nick Gold, to challenge Henderson’s image of his own sense of goodwill? Evil, like love and beauty, could also lie in the eyes of the beholder.

  “What makes you so sure you know what’s best for this country?” Nick challenged. He knew he was playing to Henderson’s strength. But he wanted to see it displayed, needed to see it, as if to validate his own helplessness, searching for a rationale for his surrender.

  “See? You’ve phrased the question so that anything I say could be suspect. ‘When did you stop beating your wife?’ You’ve invested me with having some sort of magic potion, forcing me to acknowledge its possession. The answer is that I’m not sure, not sure at all. I only know that I am essentially a man of goodwill with the ability to attain office, to put me in a position to exercise my goodwill.”

  “In other words, you’re saying that your principal expertise lies in getting yourself elected?”

  “More or less. Any politician who speaks differently is a damned liar.”

  “Are you saying you have no programs, no panaceas, no real solutions?”

  “I have a posture. I’d like to see a contented, prosperous, creative America at peace with itself and the world. With every man a king, every woman a queen, every one of us with a fine feeling about his own self-worth.”

  “And how would you achieve that?”

  “How the hell should I know?”

  “You’re applying for the job, not me.”

  “I couldn’t possibly do much worse than my predecessors.”

  “That’s hardly a qualification.”

  “Then what is?”

  Despite his preconditioning, Nick found himself enjoying the exchange, the wonderful candor of the man, or so it seemed. Was it merely a performance for his own titillation, this self-effacement, this light-hearted humility?

  “I’d say that if you were to drive my car, I’d first find out if you drove well enough.”

  “Ask anyone who knows anything about traffic safety and he’ll tell you that a previous record of good driving is no insurance against accident.”

  “You’ve got an answer for everything.”

  “That’s my business, the word business. Like yours.”

  “Only we don’t have our fingers on atomic buttons.”

  “Except by proxy.”

  “Again you exaggerate.”

  “I don’t think so.”

  They had by now reached the abyss, the who-struck-John stage. In a way it was comforting to know that Henderson was just as unsure as himself, just as tentative, with the same fears and anxieties, the same cursed humanness, the same realization of infallibility. He could see how easily it must have been for Henderson to manipulate Myra. How blandly he had lied, denied his involvement in the Diem thing. It was as if he believed in some higher set of values, a chosen one, like himself perhaps, with the power to decide what the people were entitled to know for their own good. Democracy is dying, he thought. After all, did the people really have to know everything? Every little thing?

  When they had finished eating Henderson paid the check, indicating a subtle change in their relationship, as if his confidence had been bought for the price of a lunch. He had actually wanted to reach for his credit card, raise a protest, make a stand. But Henderson had been deft, signing the check swiftly. Nick noted that he had left the waiter an oversized tip. Stopping at each table Henderson shook hands all around, while Nick merely waved, avoiding the touch of flesh.

  “See you at the game tomorrow?” Swopes called.

  “Sure,” Nick answered.

  “I’ll be there, too. Freeloading as usual.” Henderson laughed. “I hope they beat the shit out of the Skins.”

  “I’ll convey the message. That could lose you twenty-two votes. Not to mention mine.”

  “Hell, I’ve seen your ballot. You voted for Gold-water and McGovern.”

  “The ridiculous and the
sublime.”

  It was warm, heavy male banter. It was odd the way Henderson suddenly reminded Nick of Charlie. He wondered if Myra could detect the resemblance. It would be poetic justice, he thought, if someday Henderson were to find himself dumped suddenly, unsuspecting, in midstream, never knowing why. They said good-bye in the chilly sun-brightened street, Henderson’s blue eyes glistening in the cold, his hand strong as it gripped Nick’s, not an ordinary politician’s handshake, but a symbol of brotherhood.

  “Well, I’ve given you my balls,” Henderson said, smiling. It was a strange reference, disturbing. He had no right, Nick thought. He watched as Henderson waved, a cab drawing up immediately as if it had materialized at Henderson’s command.

  He walked back to the Chronicle, his hands shoved deep into his pockets, annoyed at Henderson’s carefully planted image. It was, to him, an obscenity to sense the feel of another man’s testicles in his hands. He shivered and rolled his head, as if trying to shake the terrible obscenity from his mind.

  19

  Walking through the city room, he found he could not keep his eyes from seeking out Gunderstein, not without guilt now. He could not deny his sense of shame, although he made ritual attempts to rationalize his position. After all, he could not empty the knowledge from his mind, could not will himself to upend his repository of secrets and spill them into some special cesspool. Charlie, too, must have agonized over the secrets handed to him, like IOUs from the young President, which he never had a chance to collect.

  When he had seated himself at his desk, the telephone rang. It was the girl at the message desk reporting his calls. On Saturday there was no Miss Baumgartner to screen them, remove the wheat from the chaff. He listened with little interest, except to note that Margaret had called, the mention of her name recalling last night’s conversation. He had hardly dismissed the idea of calling her back, when he saw that Henry Landau had followed him into the office.

  “Hot potato,” he said, sitting down in the chair in front of Nick’s desk. Nick noted that his tan was fading fast, having lost some hue even in the last few hours.

  “I had Flanders do a piece on crimes of violence, a sidebar to yesterday’s mass murder. It started out as purely statistical. You know how many murders were committed in the District last year?” Nick shrugged, uninterested.

  “You know how many were committed by blacks?”

  When he did not answer, Henry responded: “Ninety-five percent.”

  “So? It’s a black city.”

  “Precisely why I’m here, Nick. I’m kind of torn. On the one hand, my sense of journalism ethics screams out at me to run the story, while on the other hand, considering the environment, our posture, where we are, I think to run it would be inflammatory, an attempt to balance the fact that the mass murderer was white. It’ll look as if the honkies on board cooked up a rebuttal.”

  Nick listened, feeling Landau’s dilemma, knowing the taste of it, the feel of it. He felt again the sense of his own exhaustion. Was it the walk that had tired him? Weights seemed to press dowm on his mind. Wasn’t there anyone with whom he could share responsibility? What would Charlie have said? But even that contest was no longer valid. The world had changed considerably since Charlie’s death, metamorphosed, like altered genes.

  “What do you think?” he asked quietly.

  “That’s why I’m here, Nick.”

  “Put the shit on my stoop, eh?”

  “That’s the only place I know where to throw it.”

  “It’s the system.”

  “In a way,” Landau said, fidgeting, perhaps feeling slightly diminished, “I don’t want to make your life any more difficult than it is.”

  “Then why didn’t you kill the story?”

  “Because”—Landau hesitated—“I probably really want it to be told.”

  “And you distrust your gut feeling.”

  “Only because of the consequences.”

  “Run the fucking thing, Henry,” Nick said, feeling the heavy bile of anger again rise in his gorge. “We’re not sociologists. We’ve got to stop feeling so damned guilty.”

  Landau smiled.

  “Funny, Nick, I had expected a different reaction.”

  “Shows you how unpredictable I am.” Landau continued to sit on the chair, rubbing his chin, eyeing Nick.

  “I just don’t feel comfortable about it,” he said finally, after a long silence, during which Nick had deliberately looked at his watch. It was nearly time for the budget meeting.

  “It’s the knee-jerk thing, Henry. You’ve got to learn to control it.”

  “But . . .”

  Buts, buts. Nick felt his patience erode as anger seeped upward, bubbling, pressed by mysterious inner gases. “Isn’t it about time we stopped pandering to all these sacred cows? Let’s erase the labels we’ve branded on their butts. Blacks are people, not a cause. Women are people, not a cause. All those goddamned causes. What the hell ever happened to our objectivity?”

  He wondered if he were making any sense, feeling his palms sweat again, watching Landau’s surprise mature into confusion. Could Landau ever fill his shoes, he wondered? Had he filled Charlie’s?

  “You look tired, Nick,” Landau said, getting up.

  “I am tired,” he said.

  The words came as a double echo, voices bouncing in the cavern of his memory. McCarthy had said the same thing one night in Shanley’s, as he sat at the bar, hunched over his shot glass.

  “I’m a burnt-out case,” he had said, his articulation pristine, although the hour was four in the morning and the bartender had already begun to upend the barstools to leave room for his sweeping.

  “It’s simply too much for one man,” he had said. Nick had thought it was only the plaint of momentary self-pity. “I’m tired of being the keeper of their bloated souls.”

  And Charlie had said it, although somewhat differently, as the twilight was descending. He could barely remember the scene, although the words could not be erased.

  “We count too much. We’re the keepers of the word,” he had said.

  “We count too much,” Nick said, aloud, watching Landau, who had frowned, not understanding. He was too tired to offer explanations. “I am tired,” he confessed again.

  “Why don’t you take off and get some rest?”

  He nodded, lit a cigarette, puffed deeply. Landau sighed, stood up, and left. Watching him go, Nick wondered how he might be observed, felt himself observed by himself. It was an odd sensation, himself watching himself. He simply knew too much to be objective. Surely it would be highly unlikely that an ignorant, dispassionate observer could really understand what was happening in his mind, since the tendency would always be to generalize, simplify. When people talked of the media, the press, they meant “them,” a faceless band of insidious, immoral, effete elite, as Spiro Agnew might have said. As dispassionate observer, Nick chuckled to himself. There was some truth to it after all, he agreed. With a handful of replicated minds, like his, they could control the country, the world. And maybe they did. But he doesn’t look like much, the dispassionate observer observed. He’s just a tired, frightened, over-worked, betrayed, unsure, anxiety-ridden, menopausal, middle-aged man. He shivered slightly, returning to the unobserved isolation of his mind, cursing the loneliness, the absence of viable competition. What if he were the only editor left in America, the last screen? At least there were checks and balances on the president, while he was reasonably free to work his will. And if he were gone, there would be only Myra. He picked up the phone and dialed Gunderstein.

  “Get the hell in here,” he hissed, hanging up, leaning back in his chair as he puffed deeply, down to the darkest corner of his lungs. Was he being mildly suicidal?

  “I read your damned story, Gunderstein,” he said, knowing that Gunderstein could hardly understand the source of his anger.

  “The budget meeting,” Landau said in pantomime, tapping on the glass wall.

  “You go,” Nick mimed. “Then repo
rt back here.” It was the reflex of control. Landau’s eyes opened wide, as he turned and started toward the meeting room. Nick could see the editors gathering. He spotted Margaret’s upsweep as she moved along the well-traveled route, between the rows of desks with typewriters, now being furiously pounded, as the deadline moments sped on.

  “What makes you so damned sure?” he said, turning to Gunderstein.

  “It’s really no mystery, just logical deduction based on fact.”

  “A regular Sherlock Holmes.”

  “In a way.”

  “Nothing will ever be safe with you around, Gunderstein. No one will have any more secrets. You’re like the grim reaper.”

  “It’s hardly that esoteric,” Gunderstein said, confused, not smiling.

  “Do you think we should print everything we know?” he asked, watching Gunderstein registering the question in his mind.

  “I don’t know.”

  “What kind of a dumb answer is that?”

  “It’s too broad a hypothesis, Mr. Gold. My focus is much narrower than yours. If you asked me if we should print everything about Henderson that we know, I’d say yes. Just as I said we should print everything about the President, the former President, that we would find out.”

  “Regardless of the consequences.”

  “You see,” Gunderstein said gently, “that’s where we just miss any contact. I’m a journalist. I don’t think terms of consequences, only in reporting the story.”

  “You’re a great help.”

  “I’m sorry, Mr. Gold.”

  There was a long pause in which Nick contemplated the younger man. “You’re just a guardian of the truth, Harold,” he sighed.

  “I’m just a reporter, Mr. Gold. No more. No less. What about my story?”

  “I’ll bet your two colleagues are pissed at me.”

  “That doesn’t matter,” Gunderstein answered. Nick could see his pimples flushing.

  “Then what the hell matters?” Nick hissed.

  “The story, Mr. Gold.”

  “The story. The story.” Nick stood up and paced the floor. “If it were only that.”