Leon Uris - A God In Ruins

“Christ, don’t glower,” Thornton said. “You’re getting like those Navy doctors. They’re on automatic. Cut down on the booze, Mr. President. You know what the Navy doctors remind me of—a sidewalk filled with wind-up dolls all going in different directions and yakking, “Cut down on the booze.””

“You and Dwight have words?” “I had words for him. Get rid of that sweet thing, Rodney or Rudy or whatever the hell its name is, or resign the party.”

“Dwight Grassley is your devoted slave, and he is family.”

“Sure, the same kind of family Jimmy Carter had with that heehaw brother of his.”

“What about me? I bring white girls to the White House banquets.”

“You are not currently married.”

“Dwight and Brenda have not had sex in a quarter of a century. Both of them are entitled to their lives. You know, fucking A, when Dwight suggested a divorce twelve years ago, you flipped out. For the first time in his life, Dwight has a sweet young man to love him.”

The President’s face screwed up in disgust. “That is very ugly.”

“Mr. President, the American people don’t give a big rat’s ass if Dwight Grassley is fucking rattlesnakes.”

“Oh, sure,” Thornton answered, “take a look at the press launch. You think the Clinton scandal has put an end to our prurient curiosity?” He changed the subject. “Anything in your reports that needs attention?”

“No. A few small blips. I don’t want to sound cocky, but unless there is an unforeseen disaster, you can’t lose the election next year. Neither volcano nor ice storm can knock you off the mountaintop.”

“That’s what George Bush thought after the Gulf War.” Lifting the phone to the bridge, “Captain, have we got a few rays left?”

“We should be heading in in forty minutes, Mr. President. The Secret Service wants us to land before dark.”

Thornton stared at the sea pensively. “We don’t get to see many sunsets, Darnell. It’s been a long time since we sat here watching sunsets with our daddies.”

“Why did you change your Labor Day itinerary?” Darnell asked.

“I didn’t like it. Besides, I like to outfox the press. From Detroit we fly to Kirkland Air Base in Albuquerque and helicopter to Glen Canyon. Three columns of Eagle Scouts are converging for a twelve-hundred Scout jamboree. We will sing, “Under the Spreading Chestnut Tree,” pin on a few merit and bravery badges, and address them as the new leaders of the new generation.”

“What the hell has that got to do with Labor Day?”

“I hear say,” Thornton answered, “that architects will soon be redundant.. . obsolete. In fifteen seconds a Bulldog can put up on the screen detailed plans of every major structure that has been built in the last two thousand years.”

Thornton Tomtree stared at Noah’s Rock in puzzlement. To Darnell he looked like Orson Wells about to say the word, “Rosebud.”

“Architects are done. Writers are going. We can put every known piece of literature on the screen in seconds. Creative arts were once the beacon of civilization. But now the people have come to realize that the one perfect and infallible mechanism on earth is the computer,” the President said. “I am the man who can control the Internet. The people know that.”

In his Nanatuck study, the President etched out his Labor Day speech.

Who could he offend by going to the Eagle Scouts? What the hell! These were lads who knew to get a sane haircut and wear a necktie and polish their shoes.

Eric brought dinner to his desk, and Pucky came in. She looked rather interesting. Thornton had never seen her in his office in exactly this kind of configuration.

Pucky had a gossamer-draped material over her breasts, which had remained surprisingly young. She was otherwise flashy and elegant, her height allowing her to wear whopping jewelry.

“I’m off to the Van Aldens’. Some new Vivaldis have been unearthed. The Juilliard String Quartet will be playing. Are you all right, Thornton?”

“I’ve a rotten week coming up.”

“You are always in a snit when you go out to Noah’s Rock.”

“Is that a fact?”

“Should I stay in with you? I’d like to.”

“No, no, you run along,” he said reflexively.

The worst part of this job, Maud Traynor thought, was moments like this, flying into a smuggler’s redoubt in a single-engine penny glider. All of them were hidden in jungle and scorched mesas. The Cessna woofed up on a sortie of hot air off the desert floor. Now ponderous, brooding rock formations of dull color flipped quietly beneath their wings.

She tried to rest and closed her eyes, but the plane’s motion made it impossible. Maud lit up.

Already ten years she had been “special counsel” for The Combine. She

had been working in a massive Washington law firm as a labor lawyer,

married Morton Traynor, also a labor lawyer, and settled into dull

dom

Yet her appearances at legislators’ offices on the hill had gained her a measure of notice. The Combine had offered her a position that assured her a life of creature comforts.

Her husband had objected. With The Combine she would be immersed in secrecy, among sleazy characters, and straddling the line of legal and illegal.

One thing was for certain. Morton had to go. She divorced him.

A short while later, Maud proved her mettle to The Combine, and she purchased a horse farm over the state line in Virginia.

Maud’s daughter, also divorced with a pair of children,

became the centerpiece of her life. Maud did not struggle long or hard to make peace with the morality of her work: three hundred fifty acres, a very rapid sports car, eye-dazzling finger rings, and a roustabout’s lust.

Maud always had a tall and handsome and manicured Washington first-stringer after her short and uncommonly plain body. She seduced whomever at will. Earthly rewards? The devil pays mighty wages. Maud didn’t let morality compromise her lifestyle. Once in a while, when a jet carrier was bombed out of the sky, she winced.

That was the way of things, straddling the line. Legally, America exported more weapons than any other nation. Below the line in the gray and black world of gun runners, America exported more weapons than any other nation. Fall into wrong hands? Who decides wrong hands when you put Stinger missiles in the hands of Afghans to shoot down Soviet planes, then have to buy them back from the Afghans?

That was the way it worked. Morality was best kept at arm’s length.

Maud mulled over the coming meeting with Red Peterson, who had become a major player. The Combine had decided it would be best to ally with Peterson, who had gained inside control of the distribution point in Colon, Panama. Two of The Combine’s top dealers had been erased, one tossed from a helicopter at sea. No one had accused Red Peterson. Yet no one failed to get the message.

Maud’s Cessna blessedly set down on a baked dirt strip on the far side of the mountains from Los Alamos near Yucca Bend.

The plane turned and taxied back to where a Wagoneer waited.

“Maud Traynor?” Red asked.

“Red? Do I call you Red?”

“Christ, I don’t even remember what my Christian name was.”

They sized one another up quickly. That old bird will fly, he thought.

Maud had looked into the eyes of the crudest men in Afghanistan and Guatemala. Red Peterson was in their league. His skin was spotted and wrinkled from too many years in the oil fields.