Irving Wallace - The Man

Forcibly, he removed his arms from her grasp. “Miss Watson, I suggest you leave here at once.”

“No, listen-” She believed it now. Who had known Secretary of the Treasury Hamilton as well as Mrs. Maria Reynolds? President Cleveland as well as Mrs. Maria Halpin? President Harding as well as Miss Nan Britton? She believed those stories as much as she believed in herself, now and here, and in what was possible. If she were to lose Arthur because of her failure, she might still have more than any woman on earth. Casting the index cards aside, she leaped to her feet, and the room went topsy-turvy, and she almost collapsed, grabbing Dilman’s arms, holding herself erect. She knew she was drunk, but she knew what she wanted. “-listen-I do care for you. I want to help you. Don’t you-don’t you want to know me better?”

She had pulled close to him confidently, knowing the offer of her flesh had never failed her before. She waited for his concession to the inevitable, his embrace, and their friendship.

“Miss Watson, get out of here.”

Her hands released him, and she recoiled, looking at him with disbelief. For the first time, his face was set in pure black anger.

There was one thing left. She’d had her elementary school in Negroes. She knew them too well. “You’re afraid of me, that’s all,” she heard herself say. “You’re afraid of getting in trouble because I’m white, Southern white, and somebody, and you’re colored. Don’t-don’t be that way. I’ve known plenty of Negro men. I consider them to be like-like anybody else-and when they get to know me, they appreciate me. Now you know, so-”

She halted, frightened by the way his red-rimmed eyes protruded and blazed at her.

“You’re a drunken, silly, sick young lady,” he said. “You get out of here, and you stay out of here, and never show your face in this house again.”

As her self-assurance faded, her face became contorted by humiliation and rage. “You- you throwing me out-?”

He turned his back to her, picked up her purse, took the index cards from the bed, fitted them into the purse, and placed the bag in her hand. “I’m throwing you out, Miss Watson. I’m sure Mr. Eaton will take you in.”

She glared at him, reeled past him to the door, held the knob, and over her shoulder considered him contemptuously. “You hypocritical pig,” she cried shrilly. “You-with that nigger girl you’ve got stashed away-I know -I’m not forgetting-no low nigger is going to insult me. You’re damn right I’m going to Arthur Eaton. He won’t be forgetting either… Enjoy this house while you can, because, mister, your lease is running out, and from now on we want only gentlemen on the premises, nothing lower-you hear? No more of your indecent kind, only two-legged beings, you hypocrite!”

Reluctantly Arthur Eaton reopened the concealed wall bar of his Tudor living room and took down the bottles and glasses. He prepared a Jack Daniel’s, with water, for Senator Bruce Hankins, and poured a generous amount of sweet liqueur from the Grand Marnier decanter for Representative Zeke Miller. Behind him, he knew that the elderly Hankins had settled on the sofa across from Wayne Talley, while Miller remained on his feet, spread-legged, in the pose of a public speaker impatient to begin a harangue. Talley, Eaton had observed, still had two-thirds of his Seagram’s whisky, and required no refill.

About to take the two drinks to his recently arrived guests, Eaton, who had not been drinking, reconsidered his own need. The sight of the newcomers definitely left him with a bad taste in his mouth. To remove this taste, a counter-potion was required. Eaton studied the two rows of bottles on the shelves of his bar, brought down the Remy Martin cognac and an amber-tinted snifter that Kay had long ago purchased in Vienna, and he covered the bottom of the glass with the cognac.

His eye caught the Roman numerals of the early English lantern clock on the mantelpiece of the fireplace. It was twenty-three minutes after eleven, too late for this, and too late for Sally Watson. When Talley had come over, after dinner, they had quietly reviewed the entire Baraza situation, from start to the present, as well as the withholding of the single CIA warning from Dilman. They had justified their act, one to the other, and Talley had been reassuring about the safety of their position. Sally’s precious news that Dilman had found out, or at least suspected what they had done, had been useful in alerting them to possible trouble. However, more important would be the degree to which Dilman could confirm, through the Director of CIA, exactly what they had withheld. If Scott was uncooperative or vague, Dilman would have no evidence with which to endanger the peace of the country. (If new evidence came-better, worse-the problem could then be handled by them openly.) On the other hand, if Scott had been informative and explicit this afternoon, Dilman might be foolhardy enough to act both against Talley and himself, and against the Russians, and the rift in foreign policy would have to be taken to the public-T. C.’s public still, he trusted.

Eaton had hinted to Talley that Miss Watson had indicated she had means of learning what had transpired between the President and Montgomery Scott. Also, she had indicated that she might have the information for them this evening. Fortunately, Talley, who was anything but well-bred, had accepted this with delicacy. He had not questioned why Miss Watson should trouble to help Eaton, or, indeed, what her relationship was with Eaton. Of course, Eaton guessed, Talley knew about Sally Watson and himself. Eaton was never one to indulge in self-deception. There were few personal secrets anywhere between Foggy Bottom and the Hill. Yet, to Talley’s credit, he had behaved like a gentleman, an unnatural behavior no doubt induced by Talley’s realization that his own future was insecure and entirely linked with Eaton’s future.

Without discussing it further, they had waited, both of them, for Sally Watson’s telephone call. At eleven o’clock, when they were discouraged and had talked themselves out, the telephone had finally rung. Hopefully, Eaton had answered it, only to find that the caller was not Sally but Representative Zeke Miller. If Eaton had not known of Miller’s temperance, he would have thought him intoxicated, so excited and unrestrained had been his outpouring.

“Remember, Arthur, how I was telling you, after that there Nigra vetoed the minorities bill, that we were setting out to put him in a kennel where he belongs? Well, Arthur, we were dibble-dabbling here and there, digging up a case or two, when tonight we cracked it wide open. Yayss sir, my friend, cracked it open with a Jim Crowbar.” Miller had cackled with glee over the telephone. “We were having a caucus, five or six of us on the Hill, me and Bruce Hankins presiding, when this certain information about our Nigra President fell plumb in our laps, came right to us, dropped down in our laps like manna from the sky. Yayss sir. This is it, Arthur, and me and Bruce are scooting right over to Georgetown to share our intelligence with you in person.”

Eaton had meant to protest that he was expecting someone else, but then he decided that Sally would not be heard from tonight. Still, he was in no humor for Miller’s white-supremacy pipe dreams. “Zeke, I appreciate this, but it is terribly late. If this is some idea or plan of yours, can’t it wait until tomorrow?” Yet, considering the precariousness of his own position with Dilman, he had been unable not to leave the door slightly open to a possibly ally. “Of course, Zeke, if you are not being carried away by wishful thinking, if you have some information that is vital-”

“Vital and factual!” Miller had shouted. “Important enough to make our Nigra tender his resignation, and to make you, as next in line, the President of the United States.”