Irving Wallace - The Man

“Oh, what a day,” she groaned. “Everybody’s callin’, and it ain’t-isn’t-no fun. I don’t know what’s goin’ on here, Leroy.”

“Then I won’t keep you, honey chile,” Leroy Poole said sympathetically. “I just want to know where I stand. I have an appointment with him day after tomorrow, around two in the afternoon. He was going to give me a full hour. But now that he’s moved from the Senate to the White House, I want to be sure the date’s still good and to know where to come. Has he had time to mention it?”

“Leroy, so much is happening, I haven’t even seen him yet. Got to talk to him once on the phone, no more. I don’t know where he is or what he plans. I have your date on the calendar. First chance I get today or tomorrow, I’ll remind him.”

“That’s my sweetie pie. And look, I want to be reasonable. The poor guy’s been hit on the head with a country. If he’s crowded day after tomorrow, you tell him I can wait. But try to get a firm appointment out of him for this week, even if it’s a shorter time.”

“Sure thing, Leroy, I’ll call you… whoa, there’s three other phones. Good-bye.”

Leroy Poole sat back deeper in the chair, still holding the telephone in his lap. Of course, he had almost enough material to do the biography without any additional interviews with Dilman. He could see other people, which he had not done yet, and use clippings. Still, that was not the point. He wanted to maintain his person-to-person contact with Dilman. He must fight for nothing less.

The telephone in his lap shrilled at him, and he juggled it, undoing the receiver, then retrieved it.

“Yeh, hello?”

“Mr. Poole? Sally Watson again. Remember, you told me I could call back.”

“That’s right.”

“Have you heard the news for yourself by now?”

“Miss Watson, I not only heard the news, I’m trying to make some of it myself,” he said cockily. “It’s quite an experience, having someone you know, someone you’re dealing with, become President.”

“That’s why I’m calling you, Mr. Poole. I hope I’m not being presumptuous. If I am, you tell me. To be perfectly honest, even though I hardly know you-well, actually I feel that I do-I’ve read so much of your work-I want to ask a favor of you.” She paused. “There, I’ve said it.”

He puzzled over what on earth he could possibly do for a rich white girl whose father was a senior powerhouse in the Senate. “You name it, Miss Watson. If it’s something I can do, I’ll be glad to oblige.”

“I mean, I don’t go around asking people favors like this,” she said. “I’ve never done this before. But maybe you won’t mind. I know a lot of people on my own. Maybe one day I can be of help to you-not that you need it, with your genius.”

Impatience nudged Leroy Poole’s curiosity. “Like I said, name it.”

She seemed to exhale her request through the earpiece. “I want you to help me get a job with President Dilman.”

The request bewildered him. “A job with him? Why, I don’t know that I have all that much standing with him, Miss Watson,” he said. “Can’t your father do that better for you? After all, they were fellow senators, on the same side of the aisle.”

“Yes, I know,” she said hastily, “but that would be awkward for a hundred reasons. Besides, my father doesn’t know President Dilman as well as you do, and even if he did, it would be a little difficult for him to pop right in and ask for Party patronage.” Her tone became a plea. “You’ll be with the President constantly. It would be easy for you. I’m sure he’d listen.”

Leroy Poole straightened, gratified to have become Dilman’s adviser. He weighed her request. Her background was important. Intervening on her behalf was no skin off his ass. You did a favor, you had a debtor. It was good to have investments outstanding. When he saw Dilman- if he saw him-he could just toss it out, and if Dilman said yes or no, at least he had his debtor. “Miss Watson, I think you’d better tell me, what kind of job have you got in mind?”

“I want to be his social secretary.”

“Forgive me for being naïve, Miss Watson, but exactly what does that mean?”

“Every President has a White House social secretary. Sometimes his wife has one, too. But now there’s no First Lady, so the President will need someone competent and experienced for both jobs. The social secretary helps the President with his-well, his social life, getting up lists, sending invitations, calling around to arrange cocktail parties, dinners, informal gatherings in the White House. Both T. C. and President Johnson had marvelous social secretaries, but President Dilman needs someone even better. His problems are more complex. Not having a wife or daughter, he’ll have to have someone who knows all levels of Washington society. And, well, the fact that he is colored, he may want someone who-well, Mr. Poole, you know-who is understanding, and so forth. I fill the bill.”

She had entered Poole’s grounds, and he challenged her. “Where you from, Miss Watson?”

She sounded disconcerted. “You mean where I was born and raised? I was born in Louisiana. My mother lives in New Orleans. Well, now she’s in Rome, but-and my father, well, you know, he’s-”

“How’s it going to look, Miss Watson, a daughter of the Confederacy working so close to a Negro?”

“I told you how I feel. I don’t have those die-hard sentiments. I was educated in the East. You saw me at the party last night. I like your people.”

“I don’t mean how’s it going to look to you, Miss Watson. I mean how’s it going to look to your father? Even if Dilman took you on, do you think your father’d allow it?”

“Mr. Poole, not my father, not anyone, waves me around like a Confederate flag,” she said with a tinge of anger. “I’m over twenty-one. I’m an American like you and the President. I belong to me and I do as I please. I want a job where my background can be useful. I think that’s the right job for me. Above all, I think I might be of use to the President. I can send you a résumé of my experience and abilities, to show to him. I can send you a list of persons, high up as Cabinet members, who would recommend me. Won’t you help me?”

“Miss Watson, I like your sound, and I dig you. Yes, I’ll try to make a pitch for you. I’ll do my best.”

“When? Do you have an idea? I’d like to apply before everyone else begins pestering him.”

“I’m supposed to see him this week. If we speak on the phone earlier, I’ll mention you right off. Like I said, I’ll do my best. Whatever happens, I’ll call you.”

“Let me give you my number-”

“Wait, I don’t have a pencil.”

“Well, no matter, I have my own phone. I’m listed as Watson, Sally, in the Arlington book. I don’t know how to thank you enough.”

“Only thank me if I’m lucky. If I am, just see that I’m invited to one of those White House dinners someday.”

“I’ll do more. I’ll have hundreds of copies of your book there, waiting to be signed. Thanks, Mr. Poole. I’ll be living by the phone. Goodbye.”

Setting down the telephone, Leroy Poole crossed to the cheap pine desk on which his portable typewriter rested, located a pencil, and jotted a reminder to mention Sally Watson to Dilman, if and when. He then knelt, opened his suitcase under the desk, and pulled out two unwieldy legal-sized manila folders. One contained the typed transcript of his interviews with Douglass Dilman. The other was filled with typed research notes, newspaper clippings, photostats of magazine articles, and mimeographed handouts, all giving data on Dilman and his public record, on the Senate’s rules and history, and on Dilman’s home state and its politics; and there was also associated material on other Negroes who had served, or were currently serving, in Congress.