The Mandarin Club

by Gerald Felix Warburg

  The ring of the bedside phone startled her. She checked Caller ID, then snatched the receiver at the second ring.

  “It’s Alexander.”

  “Hi. I know. I’ve been screening calls.”

  “I tried you a bunch of times earlier. I was a little worried.”

  “I wasn’t picking up. Sorry, I just checked out for a bit. I’m afraid I made rather a fool of myself today.”

  “The office that bad?”

  “Wasn’t really the office, though that was tough, too. I had a little mix-up with my security detail. Long story.”

  “I figured when your secretary said you’d left for the day at noon. . .”

  “I just. . . couldn’t manage the whole scene today. Heavy Monday, that’s all.”

  “Are you OK?”

  “Yeah, I guess. I’m finding it hard to get in rhythm. I just need to climb back on my horse.”

  “Is that Turrentine you’re listening to?” Alexander asked, impressed.

  “Yeah.”

  “So, what exactly were you running from today?”

  “Running? I don’t know. From work, marriage, all of it. I feel like road kill. I just can’t balance it all sometimes. I mean, sometimes I feel like I’ll never be good enough at anything.”

  “Whoa.”

  “And how about you? How was your day?”

  “Rachel, I’m worried about you.”

  “Tell me. Surely it couldn’t have been worse.”

  “OK, well, it went great, actually,” Alexander conceded. “A little peculiar, in a way. I kind of need to fill you in on something I’ve been working on—it’s about TPB. It may complicate your—”

  “Are you writing about the bombing?”

  “No. It’s a China story.”

  “Because that’s over, Alexander. They figured it out. The FBI’s got their guy.”

  “They’ve arrested somebody?” Alexander pressed. “Really? There’s nothing on the news yet.”

  “No. No,” she stumbled, “he’s dead. The guy who did it supposedly blew himself up.”

  “Who was he?”

  “Alexander, you know, you can’t use this. I don’t even know if it’s been released yet. I mean, I just walked out of the office at noon, and I’ve been kind of out of it ever since.”

  “Rachel! It’s me. Alexander! I’m not going to file some story on this tonight. I just have a passing curiosity about somebody who damn near killed me and one of my best friends!”

  “Best friends?”

  “You are. I mean, at least.” He paused. “What should I say?”

  “It’s OK. Best friends is OK, I guess.”

  “What’s going on with you?”

  “And what is going on with you, Mr. Reporter, and what is this China stuff you’re writing about that’s going to cause me such grief? Did I say something indiscreet that morning at the Willard?”

  “Rachel! No, you didn’t say anything indiscreet. And, yes, my story is something that will affect you. It’s a piece that gets into stuff about your firm—Mickey Dooley even. But damn it, wait a minute. What’s the deal with the FBI investigation? I have a right to know, don’t you think?”

  She waited, wanting her head to clear, wishing she was back on the parkway with the wind washing over her. Her elbows were on her knees, one hand pressed at her temple. The tee-shirt was becoming too warm, bunching at the hips.

  She sighed, exhaling long and slow. “Alexander, it was just some guy, apparently. Some guy who was pissed off at Porter. It was just some business deal gone bad. He lost his millions and then just lost it. Went crazy. I guess he wanted to take Alan Porter with him.”

  “Apparently? You sure they’re not getting pressure to close the case?”

  “No. Talbott’s confident they know what they’re doing. The bomb was kind of amateurish, Hickman says. Crazy stuff. ‘No big sin. No big virtue.’”

  “Oh.” Alexander waited to make sure she was done. “That’s Steinbeck, by the way.”

  “I know.”

  “Grapes of Wrath: ‘Ain’t no sin. Ain’t no virtue. There’s just stuff people do.’”

  “Just stuff some people do.”

  They fell silent for several moments. She realized once more how she hungered for that trust, that shared space. Even across the telephone wire, it felt as if Alexander was there in the bed with her. There was none of Barry’s irritating busy-ness, his intolerance for spontaneity, his obsession with control.

  In that long silence, her mind meandered from murder to motherhood, from work to home, and back to the whole weird scene beginning with her moment in the den. As she ruminated, her path ahead was suddenly clear. She decided; she would live this way no longer.

  “So,” she began anew, kicking the covers off her toes, “what exactly is it you’ve done to me?”

  “I haven’t done anything to you,” Alexander replied. “Just doing my job.”

  “Out with it, Bonner. What exactly have you written? Must I treat you, too, as the enemy now?”

  “Rachel, c’mon. Of course not.”

  “Is this the long-awaited lobbying piece? Some nasty story on all our alleged conflicts of interest? Thanks, ‘best friend.’”

  “No. No, this is a China piece. A piece about their trading practices. Import-export stuff. Dual use items.”

  “Satellites?”

  “Satellites. Missiles. Computers. Your basic modern shopping list.”

  “You hitting my favorite client, Telstar?”

  “Rachel, Telstar’s always at the center of this kind of story.”

  “Just what I needed. Welcome back, girl.”

  “Yeah, sorry,” he said. “Welcome back.”

  WHISTLING IN THE CRYPT

  “Mr. President! Mr. President!” The raspy voice of Georgia’s senior senator, Harold G. Parker, startled Booth. “Staff members out of the well!”

  “You’re busted again,” said a grinning Senator Kip Cavanaugh, needling Booth as the aide slunk away from the legislators, who were crowded before the presiding officers’ desk like anxious travelers at an airline counter.

  The small Senate chamber, at mid-morning roll call, was stuffy already. The TV lights felt unusually warm, as if they were drawing oxygen out of the room. Knots of tardy senators were still popping through the east doors from the banks of elevators just outside, fragments of jocular conversation carried with them from the world beyond.

  “I see you’ve roused our good Senator Parker again,” Smithson said. “Looks as if we’re in for a long day.”

  “How,” asked Booth, “am I supposed to count votes without working the well?” He was smoldering, perched now on the small armless staff chair at Smithson’s elbow. “I’m just trying to do my job.”

  “Down, boy. Parker will be on our ass all day.” Booth could sense the flinty eyes of the proud Atlanta scold, burning into his back from the row of desks behind him. “Don’t take everything so damn personal.”

  The chairman sat beside his aide at the old mahogany desk of the majority leader, reserved for the floor manager of the measure of the day: the State Department funding bill. On a small table before them, mounds of paper were growing. Booth was responsible for juggling it all; the draft amendments, the special provisos for senators’ pet projects, and the mischievous proposals designed to gut a provision with a simple verb change, the raw power of language being what it was in the legislative chamber. This was Booth’s burden. He could play the role of a minor god, deciding fates, but it was a daunting task. A minor misstep could become a major screw up under the media’s watchful eyes. A few words here or there might mean little at first glance, but mean everything in Peoria or Pakistan.

  Smithson’s teasing was interrupted as Senator Widener, the Colorado maverick, lumbered up the carpeted steps leading from the Senate well. “Mis-ter Chairman, what exactly are your intentions in having us vote at dawn?”

  “Wasn’t my request for a roll call,” said Smithson. “Looks like Oliver’s checking
attendance. Making sure enough of his troops are here to table my China amendment.”

  “We got the votes on this China thing?”

  “Maybe. You with us?”

  “Well, Jake, it’s kinda hard to say. I’d planned to be. . .”

  “But?”

  “It’s just that. . . I’m getting some heavy static from back home. Industry’s all riled up. Do we really have to raise this whole issue of export controls again?”

  “Come on, Sam. You know we’ve got to do something. Big business pressures are making us too damn permissive with export licenses. Even the anti-terrorist crowd in the administration lets dangerous stuff out. Satellite launch equipment. Super high-performance computers. Sophisticated machine tools. Laser guided munitions. We can’t be letting every rogue nation on the planet buy cutting-edge hardware. My amendment will help ensure we don’t.”

  “But you know the European industry folks will sell it if we don’t.”

  “Hey, I’ve got the biggest high tech constituency down here. We’ve got to learn to say ‘no’ sometimes.”

  “Mr. Booth,” said Widener, “your boss here has a goddamn death wish.” The Coloradan shook his head in bewildered admiration as he strolled away.

  “How’d we score him?” Smithson demanded, pulling out an elongated tally sheet. His dog-eared vote count looked like a cash register tape, covered in +’s and -’s.

  “He was an L-plus: ‘leaning for.’”

  “Leaning against sounds more accurate. I’ve got to be conservative on these vote counts. Guards against inevitable disappointment in my fellow man.”

  “What’s with this planned to be crap?” Booth asked. “That like arguing over the definition of what is is?”

  “Hey! A blow job is a blow job,” Smithson snickered, trying to rattle his sober aide. He pursued the point as they waited for the interminable conclusion of the day’s first vote. “You know what our last president said to me once? Their guys in the House had been ragging him all week in the press about ‘word games.’ So he says to me with that Arkansas twang, ‘You know, Jake, language is like snow. It’s only pure and virginal in the countryside. Come to the big city, and it gets obscured with smoke and foot traffic.’ Turns out he stole the line from some Commie poet.”

  “Yevtuschenko,” Booth offered quietly, then pressed the business at hand. “You still think we can get to fifty-one votes on export curbs?”

  “Oliver’s move for a bed-check roll call is a good sign. Probably thinks he needs every single body here to have a chance at winning.”

  “Aren’t we close to being over the top?” Booth asked. “I mean, we had forty-six senators by my last count.”

  “Yeah. But the undecideds. . .”

  “I know.”

  “The undecideds are going to break with the White House and industry. They always do. Even Cavanaugh’s getting slippery with the double team he’s getting from United Technology and the insurance folks. Your pals like Rachel Paulson over at TPB are going into overdrive on this one.”

  “My pals?” said Booth, squirming. “Aren’t they on your host committee for tonight’s fundraiser?”

  “Sure. Old man Talbott will have half the firm there. But it’s his gal Rachel who’s killing us on this one. I understand from one of the senators in the cloakroom she came back on the job just for this vote. By the way, she really OK now?”

  “I guess. Amy and I saw her at the hospital. She still sounds a little spaced out, though I know she’s out there working the lobby.”

  “Such an energetic, talented lady. A lovely lady.” Senator Smithson sighed wistfully. “I can’t believe some bastards were trying to harm such a gorgeous creature.”

  “Hey, you still sure they weren’t after you, Senator?”

  “Hell, Martin,” Smithson bristled, “I’ve been all over that with the authorities.”

  “Right. And by the way, I think you’ll be able to congratulate Ms. Paulson on her labors against us when you see her at this evening’s event,” Booth said, “but don’t take it personal.”

  “Of course not! Nothing here is personal, right? Even with a sweetheart like the”—Smithson caught himself. Senator Landle was standing before them, smoothing the sleeves of a finely tailored suit, the unctious bearing of a British butler confident in his own cleverness.

  “Mr. Chairman, may I steal a moment for a word with you? Something’s just come up in an Intelligence Committee briefing I want to make sure you’re aware of.”

  “Certainly, Tom.”

  Landle gazed dismissively at Booth, waiting for the staff man to leave. But Smithson grasped Booth’s arm. “Martin’s security clearances are in order, of course.”

  Landle paused, clearly uncomfortable, before launching ahead. “Jake, I am concerned by the anti-China tone the upcoming debate is likely to take. You know, I and others are deeply sympathetic to many of your motives.”

  “Of course you are.”

  “But your timing here is really atrocious. We’re trying to mop up in Iraq. Afghanistan still needs work. We need Chinese cooperation on the North Korea nuclear talks. We need ’em at the UN on Iran—hell, we need ’em on a bunch of issues. You’re going to undermine the moderates in Beijing who want to work with us.”

  “Tom, with all due respect, the White House always complains Congress’ timing is bad. Same old tune I been hearing since I came here. Folks up there still think we ought to have a king and keep Congress out of these war and peace matters—and these guys say they’re strict constructionists!”

  “But Mr. Chairman, the upcoming summit makes the timing critical. The Chinese are at a crossroads. The moderates in Beijing have taken a lot of heat for joining the World Trade Organization and opening up the economy—even making such a big deal out of hosting the Olympics. China is changing as quickly as any society ever has. They’ve doubled their GDP in just ten years!”

  “Yeah, by dumping goods on the U.S. market, Tom. A bunch of their guys may have gone to Wharton, but they’re still a Communist dictatorship that wants to—”

  “Jake! I’m surprised at you. You know as well as I do that our intel shows there’s a factional rift running right through the Chinese government. If you punish the moderates right before the summit, if you cut off their access to U.S. technology, the hard-liners will have every reason to turn up the anti-American volume.”

  “And how the hell would we notice the difference?”

  “They’re holding hundreds of billions in U.S. bonds right now. Imagine the dislocation in our markets if they sat out the next few Treasury auctions.”

  “Exactly my point, Tom. We let Beijing get away with stuff because Uncle Sam is borrowing billions of dollars a week from the Chinese. You don’t want to pick a fight with the banker who’s holding your mortgage. So now the White House is going squishy soft on some basic security standards for exports. Well, it’s long past time for the Senate to take a stand.”

  “You’re going to take a hit back home, Jake. I don’t have to remind you of that. You’d be closing markets for your own guys in California. You’re going to regret it.”

  “C’mon, Tom. The Chinese are shoving more and more ballistic missiles in Taiwan’s face every year.” Smithson barreled ahead, the commotion all about them masking their rising voices. “They’re locking up Chinese-Americans on trumped up spying charges. Torturing priests. Arresting foreign journalists. Censoring the Internet. Having PLA soldiers gun down unarmed fishermen and environmentalists. This is your definition of moderation?”

  “It could get a whole lot worse if you—”

  “They’ve had something like a twenty percent annual increase in their defense spending over the last five years—so they can buy every new-fangled weapon the French and Germans and Russians sell them. And they’re selling everything the Iranians and the Syrians can buy.”

  “We need to see the big picture,” Landle said.

  “Tom, I am seeing the big picture. The big picture is what my little
amendment is about. Someday, if we don’t draw a line now, we’re going to stumble into a goddamn war with China—a shooting war. Hell, they’re working joint maneuvers with Russia on a routine basis now. If it comes to war, I just don’t want Telstar’s precision-guided munitions raining back on us.”

  “Jake, I’m warning you, you’re going too far with this thing. You know, there are some really troublesome things coming over the transom about Taiwan. Signs of escalation there, too.”

  “Meaning what?”

  “Meaning a change in Taiwan’s strategic posture. New missile imports of their own. Some in the U.S. intelligence community even think the Taiwan folks may be flirting with nuclear ideas again. So it’s a lousy time for you to press the China issue, just to gain some political advantage.”

  “Nuclear?”

  “You really ought to get off the administration’s back for once. Stop playing politics. Let the pros work the problem. You polarize things with a floor vote, and a whole lot of stuff may fall on your head. That’s all I’m saying.” Landle was off into another chattering group across the aisle.

  “What the hell was that all about?” Booth asked when Landle was out of earshot.

  “The China business?” Smithson responded. “Or the Taiwan stuff?”

  “Both,” Booth replied. “That’s a pretty heavy load he’s carrying.”

  “It’s horseshit, Martin. Same old executive branch horseshit. They think they can intimidate me. Landle talks pretty. But he’s just a messenger for the bully boys down at the White House. Well, Jake don’t quail before bullies.”

  Just then, they were startled by an outburst of laughter. Senator Jennings was regaling a clutch of legislators in the well with one of his vulgar jokes. An upright Catholic, the Pennsylvanian saved his raunchiest lines for the Senate chamber. While the civics classes observed reverently from the gallery above, sophomoric Jennings would whisper about hooters and a tight snatch, squealing with the same clique of buddies.