Acts of Mercy

by Bill Pronzini

  He could feel the anger starting to give way; as so many times before, the nearness of her, her touch, was a kind of emotional tranquilizer. “I’m sorry, Claire, I didn’t mean that. But I’ve taken all the pushing and shoving I can stand. My mind is made up; I need support, not dissent.”

  “You won’t change it even for me?”

  “I won’t because I can’t. Now I don’t want to talk about it anymore.”

  “We have to talk about it. We ... have to.”

  “No,” Augustine said. The anger in him was completely gone now; he felt nothing but weariness. “You asked me not to doubt you, you say you only want what’s best for me—all right, then tell me you’ll stand by my decision.”

  “Nicholas ...”

  “Will you stand by me?” he said.

  Her throat worked as if she were swallowing something painful. Her eyes moved on his face, gentle, stroking, and he knew again the illusion of being absorbed in their depths. She said, “Do you really have to ask a question like that?”

  Impulsively, almost fiercely, he drew her to him, held her in a tight embrace. Felt the solid unyielding strength of her flow into him and cement his own strength. “God, how I need you,” he said against the softness of her hair.

  “I know,” she said. “I know. I know.”

  Thirteen

  We have gathered more evidence now against the man we believe to be the leader of the conspiracy against Nicholas Augustine—almost but not quite enough evidence to fully convict him in our eyes. We cannot afford to wait too long, and yet we must continue to be careful and cunning. The last necessary proof will come to us shortly, we are growing more and more certain of that; it can only be a matter of a day or two.

  The clock ticks slowly, but it ticks inexorably too: ticks away the minutes of life that are left to this viper in the President’s bosom.

  Fourteen

  The Oval Office, ten-thirty Thursday morning.

  Christopher Justice sat in one of the chairs near the fireplace, listening as the President gave an informal interview to senior correspondents from Time, the Washington Post, and Commentary. The reporters—two men and a woman—were grouped in a loose semicircle before the President’s desk; the only other person in the room was Austin Briggs, who occupied a chair near Justice’s.

  The interview had been going well. Augustine was garrulous, polite, forceful; as a result the reporters, who were clearly hostile at first, were now responding more favorably to his comments on the nature of his office, on contemporary politics, on his plans for a second term. Briggs, though, seemed nervous and kept lighting one cigarette from the butt of another. Justice wondered again why the President had asked the press secretary to sit in. For that matter, he did not know why he himself had been asked to sit in, except that Augustine seemed to want him nearby more and more of late.

  The reporters’ questions had gotten around now to Israel, as Justice had expected they would. The thin, attractive woman from Time was saying, “Mr. President, do you have anything further to add to your recent statement on Israel?”

  The President smiled indulgently. “Only that those remarks of mine were meant as a comment on American foreign policy in general—a philosophical comment, not a statement of intention. In no way were they meant to demean the Israelis, as some of your colleagues have presumed.”

  The studious-looking man from Commentary leaned forward. Of the three reporters, he had been the most hostile in the beginning; Justice knew that that was because Commentary was an intellectual quarterly circulated almost exclusively among members of the Jewish community. “Have you conveyed that explanation to Prime Minister Stein, Mr. President?” he asked.

  “Through Mr. Oberdorfer, yes, certainly.”

  “But reports from Tel Aviv state that the Prime Minister is demanding an immediate retraction. Apparently he was not satisfied with a simple clarification. Are we to understand, then, that you have no intention of acceding to his demand?”

  “That is correct. But only because I see no purpose in retracting a misunderstood statement. It would only compound the misunderstanding, if you see what I mean—give credence to it.”

  “What do you intend to do, sir, to reestablish optimum relations with Israel?”

  “Well, if Mr. Oberdorfer is unable to handle the situation to our mutual satisfaction, I will ask Prime Minister Stein to meet with me here in Washington, both privately and publicly. That should eliminate any regrettably unpleasant feelings on both sides, and help clarify our positions as friends and allies.”

  The man from Commentary seemed satisfied, as did the other two reporters. After a moment the short, balding man from the Washington Post asked, “Would you care to elaborate, Mr. President, on your foreign-policy views?”

  “Yes, I would,” Augustine said. He selected one of his pipes, rubbed the bowl against his nose to add oil to the surface, and then buffed it vigorously with one palm. “Since the end of World War Two, our foreign policy has become the center of ideological attention; but the fact is, for many administrations it was also a means of distracting the populace from domestic problems which were not being solved. The Cold War, the arms race, escalating nuclear capabilities, the Domino Theory—all of these diverted attention from the more serious issues of racial inequality, poverty, unemployment, and so on. In short there has been a two-party consensus on foreign policy which amounts to a tacit agreement not to challenge each other on domestic affairs.”

  “That’s an interesting concept, sir,” the woman from Time said, “but one I find difficult to accept. Surely you don’t mean that foreign policy has been overemphasized as a deliberate means of protecting a negative domestic status quo?”

  “Not at all. I was merely pointing out that recent administrations have found domestic difficulties so insurmountable that they have concentrated instead on foreign affairs.”

  There were more questions, more responses on the subject, each of them increasingly complicated and philosophical. Justice had difficulty understanding some of them; political science was a topic which sometimes bewildered him.

  The discussion shifted finally to Vice-President Conroy’s Western states travails. Not only had he had problems in Montana and Nevada, but yesterday he had been traveling in a motorcade in Phoenix when a group of Navaho dissidents approached his open car and spat on him. A photograph showing the Vice-President cowering inside had appeared on the front pages of the Washington papers this morning, and more than one columnist had not neglected the opportunity to match Conroy’s posture figuratively with that of the President. After the incident the Vice-President had gone into seclusion at his hotel and had not as yet issued a public statement.

  “Mr. President,” the man from the Post said, “what is your reaction to the incident in Phoenix?”

  “I’m appalled, of course,” Augustine said.

  The reporter from Commentary asked, “Do you feel that the Vice-President was correct in not issuing a statement after the incident?”

  “I see no reason why he should have. There was nothing for him to say, really.”

  “The photograph in this morning’s papers was somewhat unflattering, to say the least. Do you question Mr. Conroy’s public reaction when he was spat upon?”

  “Certainly not,” the President said. “I defy any man not to show fear in a similar situation.”

  “How do you think you might have reacted, sir, if it had been you instead of the Vice-President?”

  “If you mean by that would I have retaliated in some way, the answer is yes.”

  “In what way, sir?”

  Augustine smiled impishly. “Why, I would have unzipped my fly and pissed on the lot of them,” he said.

  The room became suddenly and awkwardly silent. The reporters shifted in their chairs, looking at each other, looking at the President. Briggs sat forward, the burning stub of a cigarette in one hand and an unlighted cigarette in the other; his expression was one of shock. Justice felt himself frowning,
but not so much at the President’s remark as at the others’ reaction to it.

  “After all,” Augustine said lightly, “fire should be met with fire and water with water.”

  The silence held. When the reporter from Commentary coughed into the back of his hand, the sound seemed unnaturally loud. No one moved.

  The President’s smile faded as he looked at the reporters. At length he tapped his pipe against an ashtray, as if calling for their attention, and then laid it aside. “That was a joke,” he said. “Surely you recognize a joke when you hear one.”

  The man from the Post cleared his throat. “It’s hardly a joking matter, Mr. President.”

  “I suppose you think it was in poor taste then.”

  The reporter said nothing.

  “Or do you attach more significance to it than that?” the President said. His voice was low-pitched, mild, but Justice recognized an undercurrent of irascibility in the tone. “Maybe you think it was foolish, deliberately offensive?”

  There was an uneasy silence this time. Justice worried his lower lip; he could feel the mood in the room shifting back to one of hostility, knew that the President must feel it too. And yet Augustine seemed to be offended by their attitude— with cause, Justice thought, because the joke had not been all that improper—and unwilling to let the issue pass. As a result of that, if not of the joke itself, all the goodwill he had established in the past hour seemed threatened.

  “No comment, eh?” the President said. “Well then, maybe the press secretary has something to say. How about it, Austin? What’s your opinion of my little joke?”

  Briggs was startled. “Mr. President?”

  “You heard me, Austin. What’s your opinion?”

  The three reporters had turned to look at Briggs. He glanced at them nervously, said, “I have no opinion, sir.”

  “No? Do you think we ought to make it an off-the-record comment?”

  “Well ... that might be best, yes—”

  “I agree,” Augustine said. “We wouldn’t want these distinguished writers to pass it along to their readers and risk a misinterpretation of its meaning and intent. Not that they would misinterpret it themselves, of course.”

  Briggs looked down at his burning cigarette, stubbed it out in the ashtray beside him without speaking.

  The President nodded and sat back in his chair. “Now that that’s settled,” he said to the reporters, “shall we go on to another topic?”

  They had been exchanging looks again, and Justice could tell from their profiles that Augustine had lost them. The woman from Time said stiffly, “I don’t believe we have any more questions at this time, Mr. President.”

  “I see.” Augustine’s voice had turned cool, distant. “All right, then we’ll consider the interview terminated. Thank you for your attendance. Mr. Briggs will show you out.”

  When the reporters were gone, and Briggs was gone, the President picked up the toy locomotive and sat studying it as if looking for flaws in its construction. Justice watched him for a time and then got to his feet and crossed to stand in front of the desk.

  “Mr. President?” he said. “Do you want me to leave too?”

  Augustine did not look up. “Yes, Christopher, I’d rather you did.”

  “Yes sir,” Justice said, and wanted to say something else, something comforting. But what words could someone like him offer that would have any meaning?

  He turned reluctantly and left the President alone.

  Fifteen

  Maxwell Harper had been looking for the President for thirty minutes before he finally found him: strolling through the rose garden with his bodyguard, Justice, and humming one of those damned railroad folk songs.

  Augustine stopped humming when Harper came up to them, squinted his eyes against the glare of the lateafternoon sun. It had been one of those sultry Washington false-summer days, temperature in the eighties, seventy percent humidity, and Augustine had loosened his tie and shed his suit jacket. His shirt was heat-rumpled and damp with patches of perspiration. There was a thin gleam of sweat on his forehead as well. His eyes and his mouth were solemn.

  Harper said, “We have to talk, Mr. President.”

  “All right, Maxwell. Go ahead.”

  “In private.”

  “We can talk in front of Christopher,” Augustine said. “He’s on our side, you know.”

  “I think it would be best if we spoke alone.”

  Justice moved his feet in a self-conscious way. Unlike the President, he still wore his jacket and his tie was crisply knotted. He said to Augustine, “I can wait for you inside, sir...”

  “Nonsense. I prefer to have you here.”

  Harper felt his hands clenching, an old habit when he was upset and one he hated in himself. But how could he be expected to maintain rigid control in the face of a crisis that, in spite of him, grew graver by the day? He wanted to say that this was hardly a matter to be discussed in front of a Secret Service bodyguard, of all people, but he curbed the impulse. There was no sense in arguing the point.

  “Very well,” he said. “I suppose you know about the UPI story that broke a little while ago.”

  “Yes,” Augustine said, “I know about it. I had a call from Senator Jackman just before I came out here.”

  “How accurate was their quote?”

  “Fairly accurate. They paraphrased, of course.”

  “Then you really did say you would have urinated on those dissidents in Phoenix?”

  “No, I said I would have pissed on them.”

  “What?”

  “Don’t look so shocked, Maxwell,” Augustine said. “I realize the word piss is still considered a little vulgar at Harvard and the Institute of Policy Studies, but it really isn’t, you know. It’s just a word. Besides, I was making a joke.”

  “Joke?”

  “Exactly. Isn’t that so, Christopher?”

  “Yes sir,” Justice said.

  Augustine nodded. “A harmless little joke.”

  Harper stared at him. For an instant he felt as though he were standing there with a pair of ciphers instead of just one; that all of the President’s intellect had been abrogated, reducing him to a witless figurehead who prattled on about semantics and making jokes.

  Trying to keep his tone reasonable, he said, “Mr. President, didn’t you realize the repercussions of a statement like that?”

  “Belatedly,” Augustine said, but there was no apology in his tone. “Which is why I specifically stated that the comment was to be taken off the record.”

  “Off the record? Then how did it leak out to UPI? Unless it was the Post reporter ...”

  “It wasn’t the Post reporter. I’ve known him for years and he can be a bastard at times, but he would never betray a direct Presidential request. Neither would the other two.”

  “Then who was responsible?”

  “There was only one other person present besides Christopher,” the President said. “I shouldn’t have asked him to sit in, I was a damned fool for doing it, but I thought it would be a psychological advantage to have him there, let him see how I was going to handle the media.”

  “For God’s sake-Briggs?”

  Augustine nodded. The sun burning against his face illuminated it so brightly that the lines on his cheeks and around his eyes appeared deep and sharply etched, like the scars of old wounds. “Briggs,” he said. “I didn’t expect he’d go this far, but I should have known he was capable of it.”

  Harper’s hands had clenched again; he flattened them out against his hips. “I suppose we’ve all been guilty of underestimating people.”

  “Yes. Well, Briggs is a dangerous man, there’s no question of that now. Something has to be done about him.”

  “Granted. But what?”

  “That’s what I’ve been trying to decide, walking out here with Christopher.”

  “And?”

  “And—I don’t know; I just don’t know. I could fire him, that’s the obvious choice—”
/>
  “It’s also the worst thing you could do right now,” Harper said. “It would make a martyr out of him.”

  “I know that, Maxwell. I’ve already discarded the idea.”

  The collar of Harper’s shirt felt tight, sticky, but he did not lift a hand to loosen his tie. If Justice could stand the heat properly dressed, so could he. He felt Justice looking at him then, glanced at the man and saw his own frustration mirrored in the steady brown eyes; he put his gaze back on Augustine.

  The President said, “There’s got to be another way.”

  “I don’t envision it yet if there is. Beyond your being very careful, that is, not to make any more controversial remarks—no candid comments, no jokes, nothing that can be misinterpreted or deliberately taken out of context.”

  “I have every intention of being careful,” Augustine said. “From now on I’ll exclude Briggs from press conferences and other public appearances; I’ve already informed him by memo that he is not to join us on the trip to The Hollows this weekend. But that won’t stop him. No, there has to be some sort of direct action. And someone has to find it damned soon.”

  Harper was silent. The three of them stood in the hot sun, listening to the faint hum of a lawn mower somewhere on the grounds, the murmur of traffic and voices from the East Gate as the last of the White House tour groups left for the day. Listening to their own thoughts.

  Augustine said finally, “Isn’t that so, Maxwell?”

  “Yes,” Harper said. “Someone will have to find a way.”

  Sixteen

  We have all the evidence now that we need: the traitor stands convicted. And the hour of his execution is at hand.

  When we slip quietly into the press secretary’s office, the anteroom is dark and as deserted as the West Wing corridors; it is after nine o‘clock and nearly all the White House staff has left for the day. But there is a strip of light showing beneath the door of the traitor’s private office. He is waiting for us just as we requested by telephone at five o’clock. Even though we did not tell him why we wanted to see him at such a late hour, he agreed to the meeting without question. In that sense only he is an ideal press secretary—a man whose time is perceived solely in terms of how others will utilize it.