“Yale class of fifty-five?”
“That’s right. Leo is a friend by happenstance, of course.”
“ ‘Happenstance.’ I like that word.” McGraw wrote it down. Then he said, “Caroline’s a Lockwood voter?”
Julian blinked at what seemed to be a non sequitur. “I’ve always assumed so.”
“Leo, too?”
“Very likely.”
“They’re both avid, uh, liberals?”
“How do you define ‘avid’?”
“Want their man to win at all costs, want to save the world, and especially the trees and the wild animals, give money to their candidates and causes till it hurts, hate Mallory and all he stands for.”
“By that definition ‘avid’ is the word.”
“Back in the sixties, while you were flying F-4s in Vietnam, before you married her, your ex-wife spent some time in a commune on East End Avenue in Manhattan with a bunch of other Ivy League Maoists who thought they were urban guerrillas, like the Montañeros in Argentina, M-14 in Colombia, that kind of people?”
Julian said, “Caroline sometimes made those comparisons, but as far as I know she and her friends never did anyone harm.”
“But she did undergo this sixties experience? Passwords, plots, mumbo jumbo, bomb-making lessons?”
“I guess you could describe it that way. The truth of the matter is, it was just a game for kids with well-to-do parents.”
McGraw threw up a hand. “Jeez, funny you should say that. That was my neighborhood where they were holed up, and that’s what we always said. I had an uncle who rented slum apartments to hippies. He’d put in extra rats and cockroaches, he’d sabotage the toilets. They’d pay whatever rent he asked for because their fathers were paying the bills. They liked it squalid, he said.”
“Interesting man, your uncle.”
“Not half as interesting as your family, Julian,” McGraw said. He closed his notebook. “That’s all I need. Thanks.”
“It is?” Julian was surprised that the interview was over so soon, and that so little of real interest had been discussed. But he said in cordial tones, “Glad to be of help. Be in touch if you need anything more.”
“Thanks, I will be,” McGraw replied.
12
The word most often applied by op-ed page pundits to the relationship between Lockwood and Julian Hubbard was “symbiotic,” because they were two dissimilar types living together for mutually beneficial purposes. In the unwritten dictionary of the Cause, this meant that Julian, the patrician, the intellectual, the disinterested ideologue, had politicized Lockwood, the primitive from Appalachia, in the same way that his missionary ancestors had christianized the heathen Chinese: by learning the rudiments of their language and simplifying the message of salvation into a version of the Scriptures that could not possibly be misunderstood because it left out every contradiction that might confuse the issue. Though he would never have put it so baldly, in his innermost mind Julian himself believed that there was some truth in this analogy.
Lockwood knew this, and understood what malarkey it was. He also understood how useful the illusion was to himself. Vanity was a powerful motivator of missionaries and clerks, and Julian was the product of a system—the prosperous family, the Church Genteel, St. Grottlesex and the Ivy League, the creed of good works, the seal of secret societies—that was designed, like its model, the British public school system, to produce a class of competent, hardworking, unshakably self-satisfied clerks.
History was overrun with underlings who believed they had empowered the monarch. But as all human beings except the clerks knew, a ruler’s right to rule actually came from magic. Lockwood, who sometimes spoke in terms so simple that Julian, trained to deal with complexities, could scarcely comprehend them, actually called this right “the Magic.” Julian had always assumed that this term was one of the President’s homely, self-deprecating jokes. But it was not.
“Smoke from the volcano, divine right of kings, democratic elections all come down to the same thing,” Lockwood had said to Julian one night, out on the campaign trail. “One man gets anointed and everybody else says, ‘Right! He’s got the Magic.’ ”
“Do you really think it’s as primitive as all that?”
“Hell, yes. Think about it. What do all rulers have that nobody else has? The right to offer human sacrifice. The Caesars crucified folks. Montezuma did it by having priests cut out people’s hearts. The kings of England chopped off heads. Lincoln and Wilson and FDR and JFK and LBJ and the rest of ‘em sent American boys off by the carload to get blown up in wars. It’s all the same damn thing. Nobody questioned their right to do it, then or now. Public slaughter makes everybody feel better.”
“Not everybody.”
“Yeah, well, a bleeding heart’s a pretty good sign that nothing else is leaking.”
Whatever others might think, both men knew that Lockwood was the one who had the power, and therefore the last word. Julian’s first wife had left him for another man when she realized that Lockwood was the host and Julian the parasite. She had imagined that it was the other way around, that the purpose of life for people like Julian and herself was to do the thinking and the finer feeling for the Lockwoods of this world. They might reign, but they could not be permitted actually to rule. The chief lesson of modern times was clear: When the common people were allowed to act for themselves, they listened to their brute nature instead of their teachers and elected someone like Hitler or Mallory, never their true friends. Lockwood understood this, too. However, he loved Julian like a son or a younger brother. He thought his chief of staff was a silly kid who thought too much and was never satisfied to let well enough alone, but he had brains, he meant well, and of course he was willing to do most of the work. In Lockwood’s opinion, any damn fool could run the U.S. government. He made decisions and let Julian make sure that the cabinet and the rest of the hierarchy took care of the details. What was important in the presidency were the very things Julian dismissed as superfluous: ceremony, symbolism, tone, ritual appearances—in short, the Magic.
All these memories and perceptions were jumbled up in Julian’s mind as he made his arguments to Lockwood against entrusting the entire defense of himself, his presidency, and the Cause to one man neither of them knew, Alfonso Olmedo C. Expressionless, his stocking feet propped on an antique table, a cup of cold coffee balanced on his stomach, Lockwood heard him out.
“Of course Olmedo is a brilliant courtroom advocate,” Julian said. “No one denies that. But I’ve had several calls already from people who wonder where he stands politically. Is he really with us?”
Lockwood said, “Let me guess who made the first call. Patrick Graham.” Julian nodded, just as expressionless as Lockwood. The President continued, “What did you tell him?”
“You don’t tell Patrick anything. You listen to his list of multiple-choice questions and try to check the right answer.”
“Which was, in this case?”
“The President has his reasons, which only the President knows. But these will become apparent. Be patient. Trust us. This is only the first step in a journey of a thousand miles.”
“That’s the stuff,” Lockwood said. “But I’ve got to tell you, for your ears only, so you won’t waste your time worrying about it and trying to catch old Spats’s dingus in the wringer, that there ain’t going to be no more steps. Olmedo is it.”
Julian was stunned. “But he knows nothing about this town or how it works.”
“Who the hell does?”
“You do. Your enemies do. The other side will have dozens of lawyers, hundreds of staffers working day and night and inundating us with requests for information. How can one man cope with that? Olmedo doesn’t even have a staff.”
“He’s got Spats.”
“He’s also got one investigator. One, Mr. President.”
“I know Olmedo’s outnumbered. So was Horatio at the bridge.”
“Yes, sir, and I imagine there were momen
ts when Horatius wished he had some help. I hope you’ll reconsider. Olmedo is a fine advocate, but he needs backup.”
“Well, as I just got through saying, he’s got Norman Carlisle Blackstone. Plus this investigator, Macilaguddy.”
“McGraw.”
“Lookahere, Julian,” Lockwood said. “I don’t give a rat’s ass what this gumshoe’s real name is. Or Horatio’s either. If they need backup, they’ve got the whole damn Justice Department and two thousand useless lawyers across the alley in EOB. Let them idle minds and hands shuffle the papers. All it is is a bunch of goddamn useless bullshit.”
“Yes, sir. But we can drown in it.”
“No, we can’t. What you’ve got inside the Beltway is the Dead Sea. Ain’t worth a damn except to let you imagine what it used to be like. No fish can live in it. A little fresh water trickles in from outside, but none ever gets out. All it produces is evaporation, day in and day out. But the one thing you cannot do in the Dead Sea is sink in it, because it’s turning into concrete. The shore is crowded with people who want to see you drown. Pricks like Tucker Attenborough and Patrick Graham come out in boats and hit you over the head with the oars to make you sink. But it won’t work. The best the sons of bitches can do is drive you crazy so’s you’ll do away with yourself.”
Julian said, “Is that what you’re trying to do to yourself, Mr. President?”
He had gone too far. “That’s enough,” Lockwood said, glaring. “There’s only one question: Was I elected or was Franklin? That’s what we stand or fall on.”
“Mr. President, I’m sorry, but it’s more complicated than that.”
Lockwood uttered a roar of frustration. “Julian, don’t say ‘more complicated than that’ in my presence! That’s what the goddamn intellectuals always say, so you’ll think they’re the only ones smart enough to run the world. But it’s a bunch of hogwash.”
The briefing book on impeachment history and procedure that Blackstone had given him lay on the floor at Lockwood’s feet. He picked it up, and using both hands as if shovel-passing a football, threw it at Julian, who caught it.
“It’s all in there,” Lockwood said. “I’ve been up all night reading that sucker. And what this case is going to come down to, just like with the other two raggedy-ass poor boys they tried to throw out of the presidency in 1868 and 1973, is five or six articles of impeachment. Four of ‘em will just be the statutory-rape and cruelty-to-dumb-animals charges, in there for the sake of pure meanness. The Senate will never even vote on ‘em. The two articles that count will, number one, charge me with stealing the election, and number two, charge me with ordering the murder of Ibn Awad. Number two is the get-the-bastard-anyway article. Now any damn fool could get me off on the first charge, because I did not steal the election or tell your half brother Horace and his girlfriend or anybody else to do so in any way, shape, or form, and no son of a bitch on this planet can prove I did. Where I’m going to need Alfonso Olmedo is on charge number two, because I’m guilty as hell. And hell is probably exactly where I’m going to go when I die if there’s a God in heaven. But I’m not going to jail first if I can help it.”
As he finished speaking, Lockwood was breathing audibly. For the first time, Julian noticed all the signs that the President really had been up all night. He was unshaven, haggard, red-eyed, still dressed in the shirt he had worn the day before. His hands trembled and his face was flushed, familiar indications that he had drunk too much coffee and driven up his blood pressure.
In a gentler tone, Lockwood said, “One more thing, Julian. If you were my own son I couldn’t love you more. I want you to know that. But I’m in this mess, on all counts, because I listened to you. And I’ve learned my lesson.”
To his own amazement, Julian gasped. He heard his breath rushing out of his lungs, filling his larynx, producing a sound that was hardly human. No such involuntary reaction had ever occurred before. But then no one had ever hit him quite so squarely with the battle-ax of the truth before.
He said, “Are you asking for my resignation?” His voice broke on the question.
“No,” Lockwood said. “This isn’t the moment, and we both know it. It would look bad, it would make things worse.”
“Then what do you want from me?”
“I want you to do your regular job, keep things running while I take care of the problem. Keep out of the legal process. I mean out—completely. Get yourself a lawyer to tell you how to do it.”
“I understand.”
“I hope you do,” Lockwood said. “You’re a good man, Julian. You have my interests at heart. I know that. I don’t know what I’d do without you. But I just want you to understand why I’m not hiring any lawyer you recommend.”
13
When Sam Clark and R. Tucker Attenborough, Jr., met for their regular biweekly working breakfast, called the Odd Wednesday breakfast, Attenborough told a story about Lockwood.
“Frosty thought up the name Odd Wednesday when he was Majority Leader,” Attenborough said. “His idea was, the Leader and the Speaker would meet and commiserate every Wednesday that fell on an odd day of the month. Sounded ingenious as hell. I whipped out my pocket calendar and said, ‘Shoot, Frosty, there’s twenty-six odd-numbered Wednesdays, and there’s fourteen days between ‘em, so we’ll just be meeting every other week like we always do.’ And old Lockwood, he cackled like he does sometimes and said, “Yeah, but it sounds bad in case we get caught praying in secret by Patrick Graham. Should be worth two thousand Baptist votes in your district alone.”
Though he had heard this story many times before, Sam Clark nodded appreciatively. He knew that the Speaker merely wanted to remind him that he was just as old a friend of Lockwood’s as he was. He said, “That was the time Graham ripped the lid off prayer breakfasts?”
“That was it. Old Patrick uncovered the link between saying grace and receiving campaign contributions from the evangelicals. Everybody had to learn to pray without moving their lips.”
That, too, was a Lockwood line, though Attenborough gave him no credit for it. After 1992, when the Republican Party was captured from within by the religious right, just as the Democratic Party had earlier been captured by its own left wing, no politician who was not dependent on the evangelicals for votes and money wanted to be accused of mingling piety and politics.
“Who knows?” Clark said, “maybe prayer will make a comeback. Most things do in this town if you hang around and wait.”
“Not in our lifetime, Sam.” Attenborough sighed heavily; extremists were a sore burden to him in the House, as they were to Clark in the Senate. “One side’s as big a pain in the ass as the other.”
They had been discussing the probable effect the two groups of extremists, left and right, would have on the two chief pieces of future business before the Senate and House, the confirmation of Archimedes Hammett as Chief Justice and the impeachment and trial of Lockwood.
“Both bunches want him out,” Attenborough said. “The evangelicals because they think he’s a tool of the atheistic left, the radicals because they think he’s wounded so bad he can’t govern.”
“Have they got the votes?”
“Not at the moment, but one thing’s for sure. Frosty doesn’t have to go out of his way to make things look bad anymore.”
When Clark, watchful and taciturn, made no reply, Attenborough said, “I wonder if Frosty realizes that.”
Clark said, “What do you mean by that?”
To show how delicate this subject was, Attenborough put down his
coffee cup with great care so as not to make so much as a symbolic noise. Then, in grating tones, he said, “Damn it all to hell, Sam, you know as well as I do he’s going around saying I want to steal the presidency from him. If that gets out, everything hits the fan.”
“You think he’s serious?”
“Damn right he is. That’s what he told me right to my face just the other day.”
“Was that after you handed him that letter with
the hundred and thirty-seven signatures?”
Attenborough scowled. Lockwood had been talking; that’s what he had wanted to find out. He said, “Then you do know he’s got this paranoid idea in his head.”
“He’s mentioned his concern.”
“I hope you told him he had nothing to worry about.”
“I did,” Clark said. “But I’m not sure he was listening.”
He changed the subject. “What’s going to happen in the House on impeachment, and when?”
“Nothing’s going to happen until we have a Chief Justice. When is that going to occur?”
“Pretty soon, I imagine.”
“Then that joker will make it?”
“I don’t see what’s to prevent it,” Clark said. “There’s nothing against Archimedes Hammett but the suspicion of the right wing that he’s either crazy or the brain behind international terrorism, and he’s probably got more on them than they’ve got on him.”
“So he’s got no scruples and no sense. But can he be confirmed?”
“If he can’t it won’t be the fault of the loonies that love him. They’ve put on a full-court press. Busby’s got the votes on the Judiciary Committee because he packed it with the politically correct. It took the Bar Association, which is also politically correct, two whole days to announce that Hammett is highly qualified. The new president of it called me up. He said, ‘In Hammett’s case what we mean by “highly qualified” is ideal.’ As far as the media goes, Patrick Graham and the rest of ‘em have certified that this fellow’s either Tom Paine or the Lord Jesus come back to save us all. Hammett’s a slick son of a bitch when the cameras are on him, and I don’t think there’s going to be any unflattering pictures or stories in the papers about how he sneaks out at night and fucks chickens. When it comes to a vote on the floor, Amzi Whipple’s folks will sound alarms and all fifty of them will vote no. If all fifty of us vote yes, Willy Graves will break the tie and he’ll be confirmed. All Hammett needs to do is act sane for a couple of weeks and he’s home free.”
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