Irving Wallace - The Man

“Yes, sir.”

“Did the President, in a private room at Trafford University, ask you if you were a member of the Turnerite Group?”

“He did.”

“And you told him you were not a member?”

“I told him I was not a member.”

“Did he believe you?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Did he ever bring up the subject again?”

“He did not, sir. He believed me.”

“In short, Julian Dilman, as far as you know, the President was satisfied from that day on that you were not a member of the Turnerites?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Therefore, he would have no reason to compromise himself with the Turnerites in order to protect you?”

“He would have no reason whatsoever, sir.”

“You have told the learned manager of the House that the President did, on several occasions, discuss the Turnerite movement with you, other than discussing your own possible involvement. Is this so?”

“Oh, yes. We talked about them. I mean, he didn’t discuss the Turnerites with me. I discussed them with him. I always brought them up.”

“Why did you bring them up?”

“I felt worried about secretly belonging, without his knowledge, and wanted to convince him that the ideals of the Group were good ones. Then, at the time, I believed in the society, and he did not, and we used to argue about it.”

“What were the President’s feelings about the Turnerites?”

“He thought they were all wrong. He detested them. He hated every extremist and pro-violence organization, black or white, left or right. So we would argue. But now I can see my father was correct.”

“Julian Dilman, one thing puzzles me. Allow me to pose the puzzle in the form of several questions. You were a member, yet you never told your father about it. Why did you not tell him? Why did you lie about this one thing? You informed Mr. Manager Miller you were afraid of revealing the truth to the President. What were you afraid of?”

“Well-”

“Were you afraid of breaking your pledge of secrecy to Hurley?”

“Only a little. That was the least part of it.”

“What was the major part of it, then? Were you afraid of your father’s disapproval?”

“I-I knew how much he was against those extremists. I knew how much he hoped for me and expected of me. I knew that if I told him, he-he would be horrified, and disappointed by the way I’d turned out, and think less of me. I knew he loved me and-I didn’t want to lose his love.”

“I see.”

It was a fine moment to dismiss the witness, but Abrahams knew that one more question needed to be asked. “Is that why you finally confessed your secret? It was your secret, and you might have kept it forever. Yet, last week, you made it known to the press and the world. What compelled you to do so? Why did you-when it was no longer necessary-jeopardize your character, make your veracity questionable, and give ammunition to the smallest and weakest part of the House managers’ indictment?”

“Why?” Julian paused. “Because-I guess because I was so proud of my father’s integrity-and-and ashamed of my own lack of it-and my own ambition was to grow up to be a man like he was, and is-and I decided the way to start was to be honest like him.”

“Thank you, Mr. Witness.”

After Julian had left the witness box, Abrahams returned to his table. He could not calculate, from the reaction of his associates or that of the senators, how effective his cross-examination had been. He decided that if it had accomplished nothing else, it had shown the legislators that the President’s son was sincere and trustworthy, and that although Julian had lied once, it was not likely that he was lying under oath today. If this image had been created, Abrahams decided, it was something, little enough, but something, a small victory. And perhaps the scale of justice (or injustice) so heavily weighted against his client had been lightened, and was better balanced, if only a trifle.

Suddenly Abrahams realized that Miss Wanda Gibson had been summoned, and was already standing before the Secretary of the Senate, right hand raised.

The Secretary of the Senate droned forth, “You, Wanda Gibson, do affirm that the evidence you shall give in the case now depending between the United States and Douglass Dilman, President of the United States, shall be the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth: so help you God.”

“I do, so help me God.”

“The witness will kindly be seated.”

It pleased Abrahams to see her there, so composed, so attractive in her blue jersey dress and matching jacket. Wanda’s luminous eyes, shining out of her solemn tan face, fleetingly caught Abrahams’ gaze, and they flickered as if to reassure him, and he was grateful for her piquant maturity. He hoped that Doug Dilman was watching on television. Perhaps he would be less worried about the ordeal to which he had subjected her.

But then, as Zeke Miller materialized, Abrahams’ confidence in her buckled slightly. She would have to be as resilient on the inside as she appeared to be poised on the outside, if she were to survive without serious hurt.

“Miss Wanda Gibson, I have it,” said Miller, slurring the syllables of her name. “According to Articles I and III of the impeachment, according to the testimony already received, you are the great and good friend of the President of the United States. How long have you known him?”

“Five years.”

“How long have you lived under his roof?”

“I have rented a room from the Reverend Paul Spinger and Mrs. Spinger, the upstairs tenants, for six years. The President purchased the building, occupied the lower half of the duplex, and became the Spingers’ landlord, and, in turn, mine, five years ago.”

“Do you pay rent for your room?”

“Of course I pay rent for my room.”

“Have you always paid rent? Did you pay rent when the President lived in the same building with you?”

“If you are trying to say, Mr. Congressman, that I accepted special favors from my landlord in return for special favors-the answer is no, I did not.” There was a wide tittering across the gallery, and Wanda looked up with surprise, and then down at Miller. She said, “I have never missed payment of a single month’s rent.”

Miller sniffed. “Miss Gibson, were you ever, in those five years, alone with the President, either in his downstairs flat or your own?”

“Never in his flat. Occasionally in the Spingers’ living room. Most often, we were alone on the outside, when we went to dinner or the theater, that is, when the President was a senator.”

“Miss Gibson, in this dwelling on Van Buren Street where you live, which the President owns, is there any means of private access one could use to go from the downstairs to the upstairs, or vice versa?”

“Do you mean, is there some kind of private stairway or hidden passage by which the President and I could have seen one another without being seen by others?”

“I will request you to refrain from rewording or defining my questions, Miss Gibson. I mean precisely what I asked. Did the President have any private means of getting to your quarters or you to his?”

“No. Unless he used a ladder-or the vine that grows on the back wall-but I doubt if the President is, or ever was, that athletic or romantically foolhardy.”

The spectators in the gallery roared with laughter, and some stamped and whistled.

Chief Justice Johnstone’s gavel slammed down hard. When peace was restored, the robed magistrate warned, “The Chief Justice will admonish strangers and citizens in the galleries of the necessity of observing perfect order and profound silence-at the penalty of being evicted.”

Zeke Miller was staring at the witness. “Miss Gibson, previous witnesses who were acquainted with both you and the President, when he was a senator, have agreed that you had a close relationship with him. How close was it?”