Irving Wallace - The Man

He remained standing over her. “I’m afraid, Miss Watson, you fell fast asleep on my bed. You said before that you felt you’d had too much to drink, and you wanted to lie down. I don’t know how you found your way up here, but-”

“Oh, heavens, did I? What an awful thing. I-I guess I wanted to find some out-of-the-way corner-I meant to lie down on the bed in the Rose Guest Room, but I-oh, I remember-I couldn’t make it, that’s it. I was going past here, and I felt suddenly ill, and your bathroom was the nearest, and after that I simply collapsed on the first thing I saw. I’m afraid I’ve made a spectacle of myself. I’m sorry.”

“Not a bit. It happens sometime or other to everyone. It’s just that-” His Adam’s apple bobbed up and down, and he smiled weakly. “If I had come in with someone, it could have been embarrassing for both of us. Of course, it’s ridiculous-”

She had not moved, lying there, her eyes on his Adam’s apple and his nervous fingers. She could see his gaze go helplessly from her naked thigh between the bunched hemline and the upper sheath of her silk stocking, to fix once more on the protrusion of her brassière cup. “I don’t know what to say,” she found herself saying. “What you must think of me. I’m ashamed. I hope you won’t hold this against me, I mean, against my keeping the job.”

He swallowed, and tried to chuckle. “Hardly,” he said. “What I should do is offer you a drink, or something, to get you on your feet. But I think you’ve had quite enough. What I will do is send you right home in a White House car, Miss Watson.”

“Thank you, Mr. President, thank you so much. You’re very kind.” She came up on an elbow, and then groaned, even as she forced a smile, groaned and touched her brow, to give validity to her having passed out. “Ouch. I have a cage of buzzards in my head.”

He was instantly solicitous. “If you don’t think you can make it, I’ll have Mrs. Crail find you a room on the third floor.”

“Oh no, not that, Mr. President. Mrs. Crail? She’d have me branded Hester Prynne-S for scarlet sinner-in ten seconds flat. I can make it under my own steam. I’m grateful to you.”

She began to sit up, and as she did, Dilman started to turn away. “I’ll step out while you fix yourself.”

“Oh,” she gasped, pretending to see for the first time her dropped bodice and revealed thigh. “Heavens, what a sight. Don’t leave-I’ll be out in a second.”

In a rapid motion, knowing she had survived the ordeal, eager to escape, she swung off the bed. As she did so, her hip struck the bulging evening purse on the edge of the bed, and the purse hurtled to the floor, hit hard, burst open, and spilled its contents widely over the figured rug.

She was momentarily horrified by what lay strewn about the rug, not her lipstick and compact, not her handkerchief and keys, but the bent index cards filled mainly with her clear writing, everywhere. She wanted to throw herself across them, hide them, gather them, but it was too late.

Out of automatic gallantry, Dilman had crouched, gone down to one knee, retrieving her beaded purse, returning to it the lipstick and compact, the handkerchief and keys, and now he began to pick up the scattered index cards.

“I-I’ll-please let me-don’t bother-” she cried out, yet she was unable to move from her sitting position on the bed.

He had gathered some of the cards, but the frantic pitch in her voice made him glance at her with surprise, and then, almost as a reflex, down at the uppermost card in his hand.

“It’s nothing-” she gasped out.

He stared down at the index card, ignoring her, while his free hand groped for the rest of the cards on the floor. He placed these on the others, and stared at the new top card, which was also crammed with writing. He rose silently, leaving the purse on the floor, blinking at the cards in his hand.

She could not see his full face; it was averted from her, lowered over the cards. She crossed her arms, dug her nails into her flesh to make the trembling cease. There was nowhere to hide, nowhere to go, no way to brazen it out. She wanted to die, but could only wait for the first blow.

His voice, issuing from the lips and face not fully visible to her, was surprisingly controlled, level, though chillingly soft and restrained. “You have embarrassed both of us, Miss Watson-you have.”

“Don’t believe-it doesn’t mean what you-”

“It’s my own fault, of course.” His Negro modulation, the slurred vowels, had become more pronounced. “I should have known there is no one to be trusted. I should not have breached security by leaving my briefcase unlocked. Yet, I suppose I felt that my bedroom was-my own.”

The blood and drinks had coursed to her head, and the room rocked, and she felt palsied by insane desperation and recklessness. “Believe what you want-but try to believe me-I swear it on the Bible-I was drunk-I came in here to-to use the bathroom, and then lie down-I bumped into your briefcase-and something was sticking out-I figured it couldn’t be important if it was sticking out-so I took it to read, to help me nap-I read only a few pages-then I started copying a few things because-because-you want the truth? I want to write a book about you one day, about being your social secretary, and I wanted these notes as inside stuff to put in my diary, to remember years from now when there’d be no security involved-I swear-it was just something that-that happened on the spur of the moment-believe me-”

He turned toward her at last. She expected his features to be hardened into anger. She resented that they were only pitying, like those of a father listening to his daughter recount an improbable fib. “I see, Miss Watson. Do you mean to say that you’re in the habit of always packing note cards in your evening purse?”

“No-no, of course not. I was taking those home from my office. I’d picked them up just before dinner, to use before coming to work in the morning.”

He had moved closer to her, and was staring down at her now. “Or did Arthur Eaton put them in your purse, Miss Watson? Was that why you came here? For him?”

She tried to summon up indignation. “Eaton? What ever has he got to do with it? Why would I come here for him?”

“It’s all over Washington, Miss Watson. I don’t listen to gossip, but everyone seems to know about you and Eaton.”

“Filthy troublemakers!” She was truly angry at last. “Filthy, dirty tongues. How dare they!” She was panting, but tried to be as controlled as he. “What would I have to do with that old man? I have my own crowd. Besides-how can you? He’s married, he has a wife. I know him only socially, because he’s an old-time friend of Daddy’s, and-”

Dilman’s expression remained placid. “And he would like my job. In fact, as you now know, he has been trying to do my job, just as you have been trying to do Mrs. Eaton’s job. Very well. Now you can go to him and tell him I know.” He stepped forward to hand her the index cards, and his knee touched hers, and the contact, the proximity of him, his lack of anger, gave her a last mad surge of hope.

“No,” she said, refusing the cards, “I wouldn’t do that to you. I think too much of you.”

He lowered the cards to drop them into her lap, eyes avoiding her eyes and the exposed brassière. With a sob, Sally clutched both his arms, not allowing him to turn away and leave her.

Dilman made no resistance. “Let go of me, Miss Watson.”

“No,” she sobbed. “Listen-all right-I’ll tell you the truth-all right, you’re forcing me to-it’s terrible-but I’ll tell you. I-I didn’t come here to lie down, or for anyone else, but just for you, to be with you awhile alone and talk to you. I deliberately came here to wait, and became lonesome, and poked around-looking at your work-it has moved me, the way you work so hard, and nobody understands you except a few of us, like myself-and the cards, the notes, I did take them to keep busy, for my diary, honestly-that’s what it was. I’m not ashamed, I wanted to be alone with you, to tell you I understand what you go through, that you have a friend in me who-”