By Order of the President

by Kilian, Michael;

  A long freighter was steaming north along the coast, high in the water. Dresden stopped to watch it.

  “Cape Henlopen’s just north of Rehoboth. It’s the entrance to Delaware Bay,” Maddy said. “That ship could be going to Wilmington or all the way up to Philadelphia. They go by all the time. We can watch them tonight.”

  They moved on, still without another human in view.

  “So you see,” she continued, “all those things can be managed. I’m troubled by something else.”

  He didn’t let her finish. He wasn’t sure she was ready to.

  “What if things didn’t work out so neatly?” he asked. “What if we just had to cut and run?”

  “We’d manage. I’d find a way to get some money from Daddy and …”

  “No money. No daddies. Just us. I once knew some people who lived way back up in the Carmel Valley, so far back there were wild boar in their woods. They had a cabin without glass windows. Just some books and musical instruments and a well and a garden—everything those people needed. Could we hole up in a place like that?”

  “There’s no place in the Carmel Valley anymore without glass windows, or a swimming pool.”

  “Up in the Sierras then. Or in Brooklyn, or Jersey City. Some crummy walk-up apartment with cooking smells and people jabbering in Spanish or Haitian or Russian. You and I working under assumed names at wretched little jobs just to get by. Or living in some tank town in upstate New York or Ohio. Or out of the country, on the run in Canada or Mexico or God knows where. Maybe even stealing just to get by. Are we up to that, Maddy? Am I? Are you?”

  “You’ve obviously already answered that question for yourself. My answer is simple. Yes. Of course. I’d do any of those things, whatever it took for as long as it took, and not a second longer. I’d hate it, but I’d do it. I will do it. If you feel otherwise, you don’t understand what’s been between us in these last few days.”

  “I don’t misunderstand what’s between us. It’s the one thing in my life I understand perfectly.”

  The more substantial houses were behind them now. There was an interlude of dune, traversed by snow fences, and then a stretch of closely packed motels and bungalows, closed for the season, gaudy signs advertising soft drinks and souvenirs that were not for sale.

  “What’s troubling me, Charley, is something else. It’s marriage.”

  “Your marriage to George?”

  “No, damn it. My marriage to you! I’m the marrying kind, Charley. Present circumstances excepted, monogamous. A husband’s loving wife, that’s the essential me—the wife of a loving, giving husband. If we get out of this, in splendor or in squalor, I should become your wife.”

  “Or leave me.”

  She said nothing. They continued to hold hands, but walked a little further apart now. Finally, she dropped his and put both of hers in her jacket pockets.

  “I made a rash mistake when I went off with George all those years ago. It took me a long time to pay for it. I don’t have all that much time to pay for another mistake.”

  “I’m not George Calendiari.”

  “Of course you’re not. But you’re you.”

  “Are you afraid I’d be unfaithful?”

  “Such a very male question. Of course you’d be unfaithful, on occasion. Rare occasion. It happens. You’re going to be middle-aged in a few years. It’s not a time of life conducive to saintliness. I can’t guarantee that I’d be altogether perfect that way, either. But that’s not my worry. What I’m afraid of is that you might not be my husband, in the way I want, that we might not be truly married in the sense that’s most important to me.”

  “I’m not sure I understand.”

  “What I called your ‘wildness,’ Charley. It was a large part of what attracted me to you in the first place, and even now, a little. Maybe even a lot. You’ve always been the great free spirit—shooting off guns in your house, driving all the way up to the Sierras just for a date, tearing through forest fires, howling at the moon, quitting your jobs, making piles of money and losing it in poker games. Doing whatever came into your head.

  “I’ve been married nearly all my adult life, Charley. You’re going to be forty in a few years and you’ve never married. Your relationship with Charlene Zack—if none of this had happened, where do you think you two would have been, say, a year from now?”

  “I don’t know. I’d still be in Tiburcio probably. She might be back up at Tahoe, or down in L.A. or San Diego, or possibly a very successful business woman in Santa Linda. There’s no telling. That’s the way it’s been—the way it was.”

  “But your little house, it would still be part hers, always, whenever she came by.”

  “Yes. That was our understanding.”

  “Charley, do you realize that arrangement is as close as you ever got to a serious, meaningful relationship with a woman in your entire life? And, from what you said, I don’t think that was enough for Charlene, not toward the end, not when she came back the last time.” Maddy halted, looking up at him. “But that wildness—freedom, self-indulgence, immaturity, rugged individualism—whatever you want to call it, it got in the way.”

  She stepped closer, her blue eyes troubled, fiercely serious, hypnotic in their perfection.

  “I have to be married, Charley. I’m not a possessive woman. I’m not domineering. I’m not a clinger or a whiner or a shrew. I’m so grateful that we found each other again, that we’re in love again, but I can’t settle for an ‘arrangement.’ That wildness in you. I don’t think it’s run its course. I’m very much afraid that it would get in the way.”

  They moved on, in silence. Occasionally, she’d kick at little fragmerits of shell upon the sand. The dark hull of another ship was visible in the murky gray of the southerly horizon.

  “That life I led, Maddy. My coming out to California in the first place, the magic of it was that it let me escape from what I feared most, and that was failure, the kind of failure that destroyed my father. With my kind of life, I couldn’t fail, because I’ve never really tried to succeed.”

  The approaching ship shifted course slightly, seeking the channel. The breeze had become a gusting wind.

  “Are you telling me you’re afraid you’re like your father?”

  “No. I’m just telling you I’ve spent my whole life avoiding having to find out.”

  “Well, just let me lay a few things on the table, Charles August Dresden. I saw some of your television work. It was brilliant.”

  “My father was brilliant. No one doubted that.”

  “Be quiet. Your friend, Tracy Butterfield …”

  “Bakersfield.”

  “Bakersfield. When she told you you could do whatever you wanted to do she was quite right. Your problem is you never stopped to give any thought to what you really wanted to do, what you should do.” She stopped. “End of lecture. Anyway, this is as far as we go. This is where I turn back. At the towers.”

  There were two of them, one near, the other perhaps a mile farther down the beach, stark, forbidding sentinels of pitted concrete, as high as lighthouses, and shaped somewhat like them, but without their life-saving purpose. The role of these structures, dark, gaping slits cut curving around their tops, facing out to sea, had not to do with life, but death.

  “They’re from World War II,” Maddy said. “They used to have them all up and down the coast. There were machine guns in them, and I think some small cannons. George told me all about them once. I don’t know what happened to all the others. There’s been a movement to have these preserved as historical landmarks. They’re on state park property, but the kids have gotten into them.”

  She took his arm, and started them back toward the house, this time walking closest to the sea herself.

  “We shouldn’t be permitting ourselves troubling thoughts,” he said.

  “We can’t afford them yet, can we? We’re still trapped in the present. The past’s been taken from us. We don’t yet have a future.”

  He
took her hand. “We’ll have one.”

  “I feel quite happy now, sadly happy sometimes, but sometimes giddy too. Like a little girl.”

  Facing the north, the wind behind them now, they found the horizon much brighter. The peeking sun had already reached its zenith and was easing west.

  “I’m happy,” he said.

  “Let me ask you one troubling question, then. Just one more,” she said.

  “All right.”

  Her eyes were playful now. “Would you like to have a baby?”

  “What?”

  “A baby, that would grow up to be a child, and an adult, and all the rest.”

  “That’s a question that never occurred to me before.”

  “And?”

  “It’s a question I’d have to think about a lot, but I can in all honesty say this to you.”

  “Yes?”

  “It’s not a troubling question.”

  They kept on past the house on their return, going on up the boardwalk and into Rehoboth, Maddy to do some odd shopping, Dresden to buy some later newspapers.

  Once back—for good for the day—Maddy turned on the gas flames in the living room’s free-standing fireplace. Without being asked for it, she poured him a glass of scotch with ice as he settled into a nearby chair and began to look through the papers—the morning’s Philadelphia Inquirer and an afternoon edition of the Baltimore Sun. It was in the latter that he saw it, an article at the top of page 3.

  “Nothing in there?” She was in the kitchen, making a drink for herself.

  “No, not nothing. Something.”

  “The vice president’s done something?”

  “Not him. More likely the other fellows. Howie King is dead.”

  “Dead?”

  “Yes, ma’am. They found his body in a Baltimore garbage dump this morning.”

  “What happened? Was he shot?”

  “They don’t know what killed him. He was in a green plastic bag. Some dogs were trying to tear it open.”

  She stood beside him, putting one hand on his shoulder. The ice in the glass she held in the other rattled slightly.

  “My God, Charley, did we cause this?”

  “No, we didn’t. They’ve caused this, all of this. We’re just honest citizens. I wonder how far it is from Camp David to Baltimore. It can’t be far. Fifty miles or so.”

  “But why would they do it? Don’t they need him? How can they put a President Hampton on television without King?”

  He went over to the television set. “Can this get Washington? On cable or something?”

  “No, just Wilmington and Dover. Baltimore and Philadelphia, if the weather’s right.”

  He clicked the dial through its full rotation, but it was too early for any newscast. Leaving the set on, with the volume low, he resumed his seat by the fire, drinking and thinking. Madeleine took the newspapers, reading through them carefully, then sat staring out the window, at the darkening skies and sea.

  “Maybe I’d better call George,” she said.

  “No, I don’t think so. Let’s leave well enough alone. If George needs us, if he has something to tell us, he’ll call.”

  “He may have tried to. We’ve been out.”

  “We’ve been back for nearly an hour. If something’s up, he’d keep trying. Please, Maddy. I know this must be hell on your nerves, but be patient. Let George handle his end of things.”

  The news came on and Dresden increased the volume. It was one of the local stations in Wilmington and the lead story was of a trailer-truck auto accident on Interstate 495. After that was a piece on a warehouse fire the night before. The rest of the news was as insignificant. Even the sports managed to be dull. The weatherman said the unusually warm temperatures would continue, but skies would be cloudy and intermittent rain and thunderstorms were predicted.

  Finally, as though it had been added at the last moment, there was a brief item on the finding of Howie King’s body, but the newswriter had bent the story to the fact that a neighborhood of sleazy bars, nightclubs, and massage parlors was not far from the garbage dump. They closed with a feature piece, about a Christmas party for handicapped children.

  The network news began more consequentially, with a press conference at the temporary center set up in the Rustic Motel in Thurmont. National Security Adviser James Malcom, White House Chief of Staff Irving Ambrose, and Defense Secretary George Moran presided at a table crowded with microphones. They said additional warships had been dispatched from Galveston, Texas, to augment the task force on station off Honduras and that they understood Secretary of State Crosby had sent a warning to the Soviet Union that the intrusion of Soviet vessels in Honduran waters would be considered a hostile act. The three, with the defense secretary as spokesman, said that American troops in Central America had not been placed on a higher level of alert, despite earlier reports to the contrary, and that they did not consider the situation critical. The president had developed a slight case of bronchitis and was resting, they said. Otherwise, he would have made a statement himself from Camp David. His condition was not now serious, they said.

  The network switched to correspondents in the field, a blond woman in Tegucigalpa and a dark-haired man in Managua, who both wore khaki safari shirts and both said tensions were high. In another story the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee said he had left a meeting of the Latin American Contadora nations on the Central American crisis and was en route to one with NATO leaders. The secretary-general of the United Nations said the Security Council had met but had taken no conclusive action.

  The newscast did not get to Howie King for another four stories. It was a brief report. The sound bite was of an off-camera reporter noting that King had been a habitué of gambling casinos in Atlantic City as footage was shown of his covered body being wheeled to a police van.

  The newscast concluded with footage of First Lady Daisy Hampton waving briefly from some distance at Camp David, then some of an army choral group singing carols in the White House with Vice President Atherton and some other dignitaries looking on, and finally a shot of the White House Christmas tree on the Ellipse.

  “George and I used to go to the vice president’s Christmas parties,” Maddy said. “Every year. I half expected to see George on the screen.”

  “He may have been there,” Dresden said, turning off the set. “They’re obviously keeping up appearances.”

  “I wish George’s appearance had been one of them.”

  He got up and put his arms around her. “We’ll call George, before the night is out.”

  “I really want to, Charley.”

  “But not now. Let’s go into town for dinner. I’m not up for another bout with canned hash.”

  They drove, a patter of rain spotting the windshield by the time they arrived. Charley missed the turning and so parked on the main street, leaving them a half block to walk around the corner. They didn’t mind. In their beach clothes, in the sea air, a touch of rain in their faces seemed a pleasure, almost obligatory. The restaurant was small and warm and cheery, with red tablecloths.

  “Do you realize it’s Christmas Eve?” she said, reaching into her purse. “I bought you a little present.” She set down a small, thin cardboard box, tied with a tiny ribbon. “If you don’t remember about this, you’ll think I’m just being silly, or very cheap.”

  She watched, chin resting on folded hands as he opened it. He smiled, holding it up to the light. It was an inexpensive gold wedding band, the kind one might find in a better grade of discount store or a beach shop that sold jewelry among its souvenirs. On their second date in California, on an impulse, feeling a little crazy about each other, they had dashed into a five and ten in Santa Linda and bought each other such rings—to wear forever.

  “I remember,” he said. “I more than remember.”

  He reached in his jacket pocket and took out a small packet of tissue paper. Inside was a similar ring, inexpensive and very plain. She smiled, slipping his onto h
is finger, then put on her own.

  He raised his glass. “Merry Christmas, Madeleine Margrit Anderson.”

  Hers touched his. “Merry, Merry Christmas. And all good things.”

  When they left, arm in arm, a light rain was still falling, but they paid it absolutely no mind. A man was at the corner, leaning against the brick wall of a building. The very last thing there should have been in Rehoboth Beach, Delaware, on Christmas Eve was a man standing at the corner, in the rain.

  Instead of crossing the street to the car, Charley pulled them the other way, down the empty main boulevard, toward the boardwalk.

  “Are we going for a walk on the beach, Charley? Can’t we wait until the rain stops?”

  Not speaking, he kept them moving, glancing back over his shoulder. The man had left the corner and was following them. Across the way, on the other side of the grassy median strip, two other dark figures stepped from behind a parked car.

  Charley Dresden was the stupidest man who ever lived, the most arrogant, cocky, egomaniacal, unthinking, thick-headed fool there could be. He had flamboyantly signed his name all over Washington, paraded all over New York, beat up David Callister in his own house, appeared at the vice president’s mansion, and had gone off for a little seaside idyll at the Calendiaris’ well-known beach retreat. They had tracked him down to his canyon house in California and murdered his friends, yet he had had the appalling presumptuousness to think they could not possibly find him on their own territory. Now he might die for his stupidity. And so might she.

  “We’ve got to run, Maddy! There are men behind us! Both sides of the street!”

  She turned for a frantic look over her shoulder, but did as bidden, holding onto his hand.

  “Run where, Charley?”

  “I don’t know! Just keep going!”

  Their beach shoes gave them an advantage with their good traction on the wet pavement, allowing them to keep ahead of the three men, who were obviously in streetwear. But there was no sanctuary. There were many storefronts, but they were closed and locked and dark. The glistening wooden planking of the boardwalk was in sight, and nearing.