by Gore Vidal
“Now who told you I was interested in the nomination?” said Senator Rhodes with an attempt at roguishness, not much of an attempt at that; he was obviously paying very little attention to us. He seemed preoccupied with some perplexing problem. His gray eyes looked unfocused.
While Verbena Pruitt and the Senator sparred, I talked to Mrs. Pomeroy who sat beside me on the couch. “Such a marvelous man, the Senator,” she said, her eyes glowing. “Have you known him long?” I shook my head, explaining my presence in the house.
“We’ve known the Rhodeses for just years, back in Talisman City. Were you ever there? No? It’s a wonderful residential town, almost Southern in a way, if you know what I mean. Except we’re getting quite a bit of industry there … my husband is in industry.”
“That’s very nice,” I said.
“We have a government contract,” said Mrs. Pomeroy importantly. She chattered on about herself, about their hometown, about the gunpowder business, about the latest developments in gunpowder: the new process Pomeroy Inc. had developed. While she talked I watched Ellen making time with lovely boy Langford on the couch opposite us. She was talking to him in a low voice and I could tell by the gleam in her eyes and the flush of confusion on his youthful puppydog face that before this night was over he would be forced to revise his estimate of the Rhodes family since, I was quite confident, long before Aurora showed her rosy head in the east, he would be engaged to the daughter of the house. He was a gone goose … for a few weeks anyway. I wondered if Mrs. Rhodes was on to her daughter. If she was she hardly showed it. She completely ignored her, speaking for the most part to Mr. Pomeroy and Rufus Hollister who sat on either side of her, their voices pitched a register below those of Senator Rhodes and Miss Pruitt who were now speaking of various scandals attendant upon the Denver Convention of 1908.
Just before midnight, Mrs. Rhodes stood up and announced that she was going to bed but that the others should take no notice of her if they wanted to remain up. “Good nights” were said and the hour for breakfast set. I was wondering whether I should go straight up to bed or wait for some sign from Ellen, when the Senator beckoned to me. “Like to have a little chat with you,” he said. “We can go up to my study.” I said good night to everyone. Ellen hardly noticed us go; she was already beginning to unravel poor Langdon, right there on the couch … all very ladylike, though: only an experienced eye like mine could tell what she was up to.
The Senator’s study was a corner room on the second floor with windows on two sides, oak paneling and bookcases filled with law books (which looked unopened), bound copies of the Congressional Record (fairly worn), and thick scrapbooks of newspaper clippings, much used, dating from 1912. There were photographs on the walls … less political, however, than those in his office. Photographs of his family at various moments in their lives … even one of Ellen as a bride. This surprised me since, as I remembered the story, she had eloped with an undesirable and had been brought home before, in the eyes of the law at least, he had soiled her.
The Senator seated himself at a desk in front of the windows. I sat down in a leather armchair beside the unlit fireplace; the room was chilly, I thought. I remember shivering.
“I must tell you frankly,” said the Senator, looking at me severely, “that I didn’t anticipate this … situation.”
“What situation?” I acted innocent.
“This business with my daughter … this ‘engagement.’ ”
“Sir, there is no business with your daughter,” I said, sitting up very straight.
“What do you mean, sir?” He was obviously going to out-courtesy me; our manners became more and more antebellum. “My daughter gave me to understand that you and she were to be married.”
“She is mistaken,” I said; the job was over, I decided sadly.
“You mean that you refuse, sir, to marry my daughter?”
“I mean, Senator,” said I, suddenly weary of the whole farce, “that I have never in my one year’s acquaintance with your daughter thought of marrying her nor has she ever thought of marrying me.”
He looked at me as though I were Drew Pearson investigating the inner workings of the Senate Committee on Spoils and Patronage. He blustered. “Do you mean to imply my daughter is a liar?”
“You know perfectly well what she is,” I snapped.
Leander Rhodes sagged in his chair; he looked a hundred years old at that moment. “Young man,” he said huskily, “I have misjudged you. I apologize.”
“It’s nothing, sir,” I mumbled. I felt genuinely sorry for the old bastard. He sighed heavily; then he lit another cigar.
“I’ll tell you a little about the coming campaign,” he said. I was enormously relieved: I wasn’t fired after all. “On Friday I shall announce my candidacy. So far the only two candidates officially in the field are both conservatives … neither is quite so conservative as I am, however, and neither has my following in the Midwest, among the farmers and small business people. Now I have been in this game long enough to know that high ideals are not enough if you want high office: you have to compromise to win and I want to win and I am willing to compromise with both Labor and the Left Wing, two elements which have never supported me before. You follow me?”
I said that I did, perfectly. I was beginning to revise my estimate of him. He was not entirely a fool. Had he been in the fashionable liberal camp I should probably have thought well of him … there were men far less astute than he who enjoyed a good deal more esteem.
“Now I anticipate a deadlock at the convention.…” For the next few minutes I was told political secrets which any Washington journalist would have given an arm to know. I found out what the President was going to do and what was going on in the inner circles of both parties … it was all very grand. “I am taking you into my confidence, young man, because unless you are up on the facts you’ll be of no use to me, and you have a lot of work to do. Fortunately, we have money. I am backed in this by some of the richest men in America and we’ll spend all that the law’ll allow … and then some.” He smiled for the first time since I’d met him: long yellow teeth, like a dog’s.…
It was almost one-thirty when our conference ended. “I feel we understand each other,” said the Senator, shaking my hand as he led me to the door.
“I do, too, sir,” I said sincerely, not adding, however, that I understood Leander Rhodes so well that I was tempted to take the next train back to New York and start a crusade against him. I had not realized the extent of his cunning nor had I suspected he had so many large sinister interests behind him. It was a chilling interview, even for a political innocent like myself: I realized, as I walked down the hall, that Huey Long had been a ward heeler compared to Senator Rhodes.
In my confusion, I went downstairs to the drawing room instead of upstairs to my bedroom. The butler was still up, to my surprise, collecting the remains of the coffee cups and brandy glasses. He looked at me expectantly but I only smiled vaguely at him and then, seeing a package of cigarettes on the couch opposite me, I walked over and picked them up, determinedly, as though I had come downstairs for them. The butler and his tray vanished. I stood for a moment, looking into the coals of the fire. The phrase “Man on horseback” kept going through my head. What a terrible man he was! I thought impotently, and what should I do? just how far from virtue should self-interest propel one? It was very perplexing.
“Oh, you gave me a start,” said a female voice.
I jumped myself; it was Verbena Pruitt in a dressing gown of flesh-colored silk, a vast tent-like affair which made her seem more than ever like a mountain of festering flesh; her thin gray hair was done in paper curlers and I noticed that she had a bald spot the size of a Cardinal’s cap on the back of her head.
“I was looking for my cigarettes,” said the apparition. “I thought I left them on the couch over there.”
I felt like a thief: the lady’s cigarettes in my coat pocket. Had I been of strong character, I should have admitted guil
t and handed them over to her. But, as usual, I took the easy way. “Perhaps they fell down behind the cushions,” I said and I began to search for them with great stage gestures, scrutinizing the backs of cushions with an idiot stare.
“It’s unimportant,” said Verbena Pruitt. “The butler probably took them. They always do. Anything they can get their hands on.” She glanced thoughtfully at the row of bottles on a tray near the fireplace.
“Can I get you anything?” I asked eagerly.
“Perhaps a mouthful of that brandy,” said Miss Pruitt smiling; I noticed with alarm that her upper teeth had been removed for the night … so richly fat was her face, though, that it made hardly any difference. Only her speech was somewhat impaired. I wondered if I should attempt some pleasantry or not about the mouthful … did she want me to carry it to her in my mouth? I let it go. The Verbena Pruitts of the world were, as far as I was concerned, an unknown and dangerous quantity, capable of any madness. I brought her a stiff shot of brandy, and one for myself.
“That is nice,” she said, tossing off half of it in such haste that a bit of the essence trickled down her tier of chins, like Victoria Falls.
We sat down on one of the couches. I could hardly believe it. Here I was alone at night in an empty drawing room with the First Lady of her Party seated beside me, wearing an intimate garment of the night, her hair in curlers and her teeth waiting for her upstairs in one of the bedrooms. It was the sort of moment every boy dreams of, in nightmares.
“Tell me, my dear young man, what your function is … in relation to Senator Rhodes.”
“I am to handle his publicity.”
“Not an easy job,” said Miss Pruitt cryptically, touching her bald spot bemusedly with a hand like a bloated starfish.
“I’m afraid not.”
“Lee has many enemies.”
“I can see why.”
“You what?”
“I mean I can see why … considering the principles he stands for and so on,” I extemporized hastily.
“Of course. Still most of the press is against him … I can’t think why except you know what smart alecks those newspaper people are … just between you and me and the lamp post.… I hope you won’t quote me.” She smiled, terribly.
“I know what you mean,” I said, averting my eyes.
“Lee has such courage,” she added irrelevantly, sniffing her brandy like a terrier at a rat’s hole. “Take tonight. He actually thinks he can win over that young Communist from New York who’s writing a piece about him. He is fearless … but he should keep people like that at a distance.”
“Perhaps the Senator needs someone to save him from himself,” I suggested.
“How right you are, Mr. Schroeder.”
“Sargeant.”
“I mean Mr. Sargeant. Then you must remember that I’m not exactly pro-Rhodes.” This last information was said with a shrewd wink which struck me as being oddly unpleasant.
“I thought you were on his committee.” Rhodes had given me to understand that Miss Pruitt would deliver the women of America on Election Day.
“Wheels within wheels,” said Verbena Pruitt rising to her feet. “But now I must be off to my beauty sleep.” And, like Lady Macbeth, she sailed out of the room.
I finished off my brandy slowly. Then, wondering whether or not I should look in on Ellen, I walked up the dimly lit staircase. I was just recalling that I had no idea where her bedroom was when a figure stepped out of the shadows on the first landing. I gave a jump.
“Hope I didn’t startle you,” said Rufus Hollister smoothly, emerging from the darkened doorway, where he had been standing, into the faint lamplight. He was still dressed.
“Not at all,” I said.
“The Senator just phoned me … on the house phone. He’s working late … never lets up … secret of his success … nose to the grindstone.” I was pelted with saws.
“I’ll see you in the morning,” I said, edging away. I didn’t get very far, though. The next thing I knew I was on the floor, in Mr. Hollister’s arms, an enormous gold-framed mirror in fragments about us as the whole house rocked back and forth while a sound like thunder or the atomic bomb deafened us and put out all the lights.
They picked a fine moment to bomb Washington was my first conscious thought. My second thought was to check myself in the dark for broken bones. I was all in one piece, I decided, though my cheek was bleeding … from the broken glass. Then the shouts and shrieks began. I heard Mr. Hollister cursing in the dark near me, heard the tinkle of glass as he got to his feet and brushed himself off. Then, from all directions, candles appeared, held by servants, by Mrs. Rhodes, by Miss Pruitt, who was standing in the corridor with the Pomeroys. No one knew what had happened. Not until an hour later did we find out, when a police official addressed us in the drawing room.
It was a curious scene.
A dozen candelabras cast a cool yellow light over the room, making long shadows on the floor. The house party and the servants, in various states of dress and undress, sat in a circle about the police lieutenant, a young man named Winters who stood sternly between two uniformed policemen and surveyed his audience.
“In the first place,” he said, glaring for some inexplicable reason at Verbena Pruitt, “Senator Rhodes is dead.” Mrs. Rhodes, who had already been informed, sat very straight in her chair, her face expressionless. Ellen sat beside her, her eyes shut. The others looked stunned by what had happened. And what had happened?
“Some time between nine o’clock yesterday morning and one-thirty-six this morning, a small container of a special new explosive, Pomeroy 5X, was hidden behind some logs in the fireplace of the Senator’s study.” There was a gasp. Ellen opened her eyes very wide. Mr. Pomeroy stirred uneasily; his wife chewed her lip nervously. Verbena Pruitt was nearly as impassive as Mrs. Rhodes: she had been through too many political battles to be unnerved by such a small thing as murder, and it was murder in the eyes of Lieutenant Winters.
“It is our belief that someone who was closely acquainted with the Senator’s habits knew that he usually went to his study alone after dinner to work, and that he always lit his own fire on cold nights. In fact, according to Mrs. Rhodes and the butler here, he was very particular about this fire, insisting that it be made like an Indian tepee of ash logs and strips of pine kindling. It was never lighted by anyone except himself and, in the morning, the coals were always taken out by one of the maids. Yesterday morning they were removed at nine o’clock by …” Lieutenant Winters squinted in the candlelight at a sheet of paper he was holding in his hand, “by Madge Peabody, a maid. Fifteen minutes later the butler, Herman Howells, laid the fire. From that moment until Senator Rhodes retired to his study the library was visited by no one … except the murderer.” Lieutenant Winters paused damatically and peered through the gloom of candles at his captive audience, unconscious of his errors. I wondered if he’d ever thought of television for a career; with that handsome dull profile, that hypnotic voice he could write his own ticket. I was suddenly very tired; I wanted to go to bed.
Mr. Hollister provided a mild diversion. “And myself,” he said calmly. “I was in the study shortly before dinner, at the Senator’s request.” I held my fire.
“I will get your testimony later,” said the Lieutenant, a little sharply I thought. His great moment robbed of some of its drama. He then told us that we were, none of us, to leave the house without police permission. Then, beginning with the ladies, the interviews began. They were held in the dining room. The rest of us remained in the drawing room, talking in hushed voices of what had happened, and drinking nervously. Mrs. Rhodes was the first to be interviewed; which was fortunate since her presence embarrassed us all. When she was gone, I was surprised at how calmly the guests took this sudden, extraordinary turn in their affairs … especially Ellen who was the coolest of the lot.
“Do fix me a Scotch,” she said, while I was standing by the bar getting more brandy for Miss Pruitt. When I had finished my bar
duties, I sat beside Ellen on an uncomfortable love seat. Across the room Miss Pruitt and Mr. Hollister were talking animatedly to Walter Langdon. Close to the fire the Pomeroys, man and wife, conferred in low voices while the servants hovered on the outskirts, silent in the shadows.
“This is awful,” I said inadequately, conventionally.
“I should hope to hell it is,” said Ellen, guzzling Scotch like a baby at its mother’s breast. “It’s going to tie us all in knots for the next few months.”
This was cold-blooded but I saw her point and, after all, it was her honesty which has always appealed to me. She had obviously not liked her father and I was oddly pleased that she had not, despite the crisis, acted out of character. It would have been such a temptation to weep and carry on. “What a funny way to kill someone,” I said, not knowing quite what to say.
“Dynamite in the fireplace!” Ellen shook her head; then she put her drink down and looked at me. “It’s the most impossible thing I’ve ever heard of.”
“How do you feel?” I asked, suddenly solicitous.
“Numb,” she said softly, shaking her head. “Did you ever find yourself not knowing what to think? Well, that’s the way I am now. I keep waiting for an alarm or something to go off inside me and show me how to act, what to feel.”
“Your mother’s taking it pretty well,” I said.
“She’s numb, too.”
“Where were you when it happened?”
Ellen chuckled; for a moment she was like her old self. “That would be telling!”
“With that boy?” I motioned to Langdon who was still talking to the politicos.
Ellen nodded, with a wicked smile. “We were just talking, in his room. He wanted to hear some stories … you know, life with father kind of things.…”
“I can imagine what you told him.”
“Well, we really hardly had time. He had just told me he was being divorced from his wife, a Bennington girl, when the lights went out and …” She stopped abruptly, took a long drink; then: “Did you ever know any girls from Bennington? They’re so terribly earnest. They know everything. I pity a boy like that being married to one of them.”
