Irving Wallace - The Man

“Gaynor and I will leave you here,” said General Faber. “I’m sure you’ll want to oversee what’s going on in privacy. If you need anything up there, Beecher and Miss Crail will be at your beck and call.”

“I appreciate your help,” said Dilman.

He ducked into the miniature elevator, as Beecher closed the double doors and pressed the button for the second floor. While the mobile closet climbed upward, Dilman inspected it. The elevator was carpeted in green. There were three mirrors on its three walls, and two mirrors on the double door before him. For the first time since shaving, hours ago, he could see himself. His kinky hair, despite the tonic, was as stiff as ever. His wide dark face was as Negroid as ever. The improbability of it all hit him with fresh impact. He was black and he was here .

He emerged into another small vestibule, almost bumping into an umbrella holder. The valet had gone to the left, and Dilman followed him.

“This is the second-floor West Hall,” said Beecher.

The hall, too long and too wide to be called a corridor-to Dilman it resembled a gallery-appeared to run almost the width of the White House.

“It goes from east to west,” said the valet, “and divides the second-floor apartments. Every important room opens into this hall. Down that way”-he pointed to the east section-“on the other side, the south side that looks down on the back lawn and Washington Monument, are the main rooms-the Executive study, although the Kennedys, Johnsons, and the late President used it for a living room, also. That is where the Truman Balcony is, sir. Next is the Treaty Room, and then the famous Lincoln Bedroom.”

“What’s down at the end there?” Dilman asked.

“The state bedrooms, Mr. President. The Rose Guest Room, the Lincoln Sitting Room, where there’s a fine television set, the Empire Guest Room, that’s the most of it, sir.”

Dilman stood studying the enormous hall. There were bookcases against one wall, and along the opposite wall were grouped a settee and chairs, beneath early American prints of Indians. At the farthest part of the hall stood a desk, and then a Baldwin piano.

Dilman gestured to his right. “What’s over there?”

“A private suite, Mr. President. You can see, it opens into T. C.’s sitting room, and on either side are the bedrooms that were used by the President, First Lady, and their son. Also, the pantry is there. It all looks down on the Rose Garden. I’d be glad to show you around-”

“Not yet, thanks,” said Dilman. “First, I’d like you to show me where my own things are being unpacked.”

“Oh, in the Queen’s Bedroom-the Rose Guest Room, really-way down at the end of the hall. We figured it wouldn’t be in use immediately, and it was the best place to uncrate everything until you ’could sort it out and become acquainted enough to know where you wished your effects to be placed. I’ll take you there, Mr. President.”

They marched briskly to the end of the hall, then through an entry, past a carpeted bathroom, a sitting room where the sofa and chairs were done in blue slipcovers, and into the Rose Guest Room. Dilman stepped aside as two Army privates carried out the last of the empty crates.

In the bedroom, he found Crystal on her knees upon the white tufted rug, stacking his embarrassingly limited collection of law books, history books, encyclopedias, synthetic leather-bound sets of Booker T. Washington’s writings and Dickens’ novels, and all the garishly jacketed mystery stories he enjoyed. Diane Fuller, her back also to him, was sorting out his papers on a table draped in red velvet.

Without disturbing them, he glanced around the room. It probably had been breathtakingly beautiful yesterday, he guessed, but this morning it was a mess. Except for the Revels handmade Belter chair, his cheap pieces of furniture, drab and scuffed, were eye-sores that littered the magnificent room, so gaily decorated in red and white. Heaps of his belongings, from humidors to ashtrays, from photograph albums to laminated plaques, stood like dozens of unattractive molehills. Piled across the canopied bed, across the rose patterned quilting, was a rag mountain of his clothes, on hangers, encased in plastic garment bags.

“It’s not fit for any royal Queen visiting us today,” he muttered.

“We’ll have it orderly in no time,” Beecher said quickly. “You know, many Queens have stayed in this room, one of the last being Queen Elizabeth II of Great Britain. She left behind, as a gift, that mirror over the fireplace. The bed was said to have belonged to Andrew Jackson. The shield-back chair-”

But Dilman was no longer listening. Crystal and Diane Fuller had turned around at the sound of voices, and now, grunting and heaving, Crystal was lifting her rotund bulk upright. “Thanks, Beecher,” Dilman said. “I think I’ll pitch in and help them here. I won’t need you right now.”

The moment that the valet was gone, Dilman went directly to Crystal, taking hold of her thick arm, smiling down into her shining face. “Well, Crystal, how are you managing? It’s a little different from my beat-up five rooms on Van Buren, isn’t it?”

“Mr. President, I’ll sure take them beat-up five rooms any day. This ain’t no livin’ home. This is a museum, sure is. Why, I’d be ’fraid to go to the bathroom here!”

Dilman chuckled. “You’ll get used to it, soon enough.” He was suddenly serious. “That is, if you want to. Crystal, I haven’t had a real chance to speak to you, or I would have asked you before. Will you stay on and help me?”

Her shoulders went up and down, and her fat arms shook. “Doin’ what, Mr. Dilman-Mr. President? I’m willin’, but doin’ what with all that fancy help around?”

“Taking care of me, that’s what you can do, Crystal, as you always have done. Those servants you see are for other people-visitors, dignitaries, guests. I need someone who knows how to make my breakfast, and keep starch out of my collars, and where to put my bedroom slippers. Let’s make believe nothing has changed, Crystal, except our address. We’ll continue on the same basis, only I’ll try to arrange a raise. What do you say?”

“I say yes, and how, bless the Lord!” Crystal exclaimed. “Maybe I’ll wind up writin’ a famous book about you, what the President is really like, and I’ll get rich and famous, too, and-”

Dilman grinned. “I knew I could count on you.”

He became aware of Diane Fuller watching, listening, from the velvet-draped table. He tried not to frown. Oddly enough, while Crystal belonged here, Diane did not. Her scrawny, deferential manner, her lack of poise, her unseemly loud dresses (the one this morning was orange polka dots on yellow), her bowlegs, her stutter and nervous mannerisms, made her less of an asset here than in his Senate office, where he could relegate her to the typewriter and file cabinets. Moreover, he did not want to bring in too many of his own color. That would create unpleasant talk. Still, there was Diane, waiting. Something must be done.

“What about you, Diane?” he asked. “Would you like to stay on?”

She spoke with difficulty. “Of-of course, S-senator. I have-haven’t no place else to go, and besides-”

“Besides what?”

“This is-is-is sure enough real exciting.”

“All right. Now, it won’t be the same as before, I’m sorry to say. I’ve kept on T. C.’s personal secretary, because she’s familiar with the Executive Office routine and can guide me. However, they can always use another secretary in the East Wing downstairs. I’ll tell them I want you hired.”

“I-I’d sure be grateful, S-s-senator.” Then she amended it hastily, “I mean-Mr. President.”

Crystal had approached, taking in the entire room with the arch of her hand. “What do we do with all this stuff?”