Advise and Consent (61 page)
Read Advise and Consent Online
Authors: Allen Drury
Tags: #Literature & Fiction, #Contemporary, #Genre Fiction, #Political, #Contemporary Fiction
“I don’t think,” Senator Munson said, “that you had better tell them anything, Tommy. I really don’t. I think you’ve done enough damage to your-self after all these years of being honorable, so if I were you I’d just let it rest. You wanted to put the burden on me, and you have. Now just leave it alone.”
“It’s only because I believe the nomination should be confirmed,” the Justice said with a sort of dogged, determined defensiveness. “Why did God let me find it if He didn’t want me to use it to help the country?”
“Why does God do anything?” the Majority Leader demanded shortly. “You ask Him, I’ve given up trying to figure it out. Just one thing, Tommy,” he added as the Justice rose. “I don’t want you saying anything to the press about this now, and if I decide not to do anything with it I don’t want you to say anything to anybody about it ever.” His voice became both soft and filled with a genuine menace. “Is that clear?” he asked quietly.
Tommy Davis looked at him defiantly.
“You can’t defend him,” he said, rather shrilly. “You can’t defend him if what we think is true, and you know it. You wouldn’t dare, you just wouldn’t dare. So don’t try to bluff me, Bob.”
“He’s a decent and honorable man,” Senator Munson said slowly as though he hadn’t heard him at all, “who has paid his debt to society, if you’re right and he had one to pay, a hundred times over.”
“But you couldn’t defend him if it came out,” the Justice repeated, “and you know it.”
The Majority Leader sighed.
“No,” he agreed, “I couldn’t defend him. Now why don’t you run along, Tommy? You’ve done enough for one day.”
“I will,” the Justice said meekly. At the door he paused.
“Bob—” he said hesitantly. “Don’t hurt him any more—any more than you feel is necessary to make him get out of the way. It needn’t be anything drastic. My God,” he said as though suddenly struck by the enormity of it all, “I don’t want you to do anything that would really hurt him.”
“I appreciate your charity and kindness, Tommy,” Senator Munson said dryly, “and I’m sure Brig would appreciate it too, if he could only know. You’ll understand and forgive me if I suggest that it’s perhaps a little late in the day. Wait a minute until I get the press out of the way.” And lifting the phone and pressing a buzzer, he told Mary to open the door and let the reporters into the outer office. When he was satisfied that they were all in he turned back to the Justice.
“Now, Tommy,” he said, his voice suddenly becoming harsh, “you go out this door and beat it. Just get the hell back where you belong and don’t stop to talk to anybody along the way.”
“Will I be hearing from you, Bob?” the Justice asked, almost apologetically, and Senator Munson snorted.
“You may or you may not,” he said. “Now, good-by. And don’t call the President, either,” he added.
“I may or I may not,” Mr. Justice Davis said, not without a flare of spite provoked by the Majority Leader’s tone. “Good luck.”
“Thanks for nothing,” Bob Munson said.
After the door had closed he remained seated at his desk for several minutes. He was surprised but not shocked that a Justice of the Supreme Court should be engaged in such an enterprise, for passions were running very high on the Leffingwell nomination, and a long life in politics, while it still left some small room for surprise, had virtually extinguished the capacity for shock. People did the damnedest things and quite often the damnedest people did the damnedest things. The same applied to his young colleague, though for him the Majority Leader felt a much more profound emotion tinged with a heavy sorrow. Once more he took the photograph out and studied it carefully, finally shaking his head in wonderment. “Brigham, Brigham, Brigham,” he said with a sigh.
Tear it up now,
a voice of sanity and decency urged him;
Don’t be too hasty,
another countered,
the nomination has got to go through.
“God damn it to hell!” he exclaimed bitterly, and with a sudden angry motion, as though if he did it very fast he wouldn’t know he was doing it, he slipped the picture back in its envelope, put it in his coat pocket, and went out to see the press.
“I have no announcement to make,” he said abruptly, before anyone could speak.
“Nothing at all?” AP said in a tone of disbelief.
“Nothing at all,” Senator Munson said.
“But I thought you told us—” UPI began.
“I was mistaken,” Senator Munson said.
“But Justice Davis said—” the
Newark
News
protested.
“He was mistaken too,” Senator Munson said.
“Can we see him?” the
Philadelphia Inquirer
asked.
“He’s left,” Senator Munson said. “Mary, bring those letters in and we’ll get to work on them.”
“Well, I’ll be damned,” the
Providence Journal
said as the Majority Leader turned his back upon them without ceremony and returned to his private office. “I thought we were going to get the end of this story this afternoon.”
“I have a hunch,” the
Times
remarked thoughtfully, “that this story is just beginning.”
***
Chapter 4
The radio was going on the nightstand while Pidge sat fascinated on her mother’s bed and watched with an occasional comment as her father wandered in and out of the bathroom in bare feet and a pair of terry-cloth trunks, shaving and getting ready. One of the nation’s most famous and colorful commentators was hard at work upon him at the moment, and the rich purple prose flowed out into the peaceful room with an air of intimate urgency that undoubtedly concealed from a good many millions of people the fact that its owner had spent most of the afternoon in the Press Club bar and had only blended together his on-the-spot coverage out of wire-service clips and one last martini just before airtime. But he was an old hand at the game, and it rolled:
“This day of dramatic behind-the-scenes maneuvering in the Leffingwell nomination is drawing to a close here in spring-drenched Washington with the deadlock between the White House and Senator Brigham Anderson of Utah apparently still unbroken. Not in years has there been a clash of wills as dramatic as that which is taking place between the President of the United States and the youthful Senator from the Far West. Senator Anderson’s friends, including such powerful members of the Senate as the Majority Leader, Robert D. Munson of Michigan, and the senior Senator from Illinois, Orrin Knox, have spent most of the day attempting to bring about a face-to-face conference between their young colleague and the President; but the Senator, persistently refusing to disclose the reasons for his abrupt reopening of the hearings on the nomination, has so far refused.
“Since he has kept himself incommunicado from the press, Washington has been forced to speculate on what those reasons may be; and the speculation always comes up against the solid rock of the reputation and character of the nominee, Robert A. Leffingwell. It seems inconceivable to Washington tonight that Senator Anderson can really have in his possession any facts casting any serious reflection upon the monumental integrity of this man the President has chosen to be his principal assistant in foreign affairs. So speculation turns elsewhere. Can there be political advantage in it for the Senator? Is this an elaborate attempt to hold up the White House for some pet project out West? Does he have long-range ambitions for national office that are leading him to curry favor among reactionary elements which are opposed to the confirmation of the nominee? Or is it something as simple, and perhaps understandable, as that he wishes to focus the national spotlight upon a career which in seven long years, despite his youth and the apparent promise with which he came here, has been, if truth were known, relatively undistinguished? These are the things Washington is speculating about tonight. The speculation is not, as Senator Anderson apparently hoped it would be, What is wrong with Bob Leffingwell? Rather, it is, What is wrong with Brigham Anderson?”
“Yes, you son of a bitch,” Brig said savagely, walking over and snapping off the machine, “that’s the speculation, all right.” Then he became aware of his daughter’s wide-eyed surprise, gave a sudden laugh, and bounced the bed vigorously. “Isn’t that the speculation?” he demanded, as she flew up and down in gurgling excitement. “
Isn’t
it?” And leaning over with a fist planted firmly in the mattress on each side of her he suddenly ducked his head and pretended to dive into her tummy. “
D
a
dee!
” she squealed in ecstatic delight.
“What’s all this unseemly noise that’s going on in the bedroom?” Mabel asked from the doorway, and her husband looked up with a grin.
“I’m glad you came along,” he said. “I have a young lady here who’s quite a flirt. She was getting too much for me, as you can plainly see.”
“As I can plainly see,” Mabel smiled. “Looks to me as though nobody is doing any serious work at all.”
“Daddy got mad at the man on the radio,” Pidge offered, and her father bunted her again to the accompaniment of more loud squeals. Then he suddenly sat her upright and put a pillow on top of her head.
“Now you’re a very stylish lady,” he said.
“Daddy,” Pidge said, “you’re silly.”
“So I am,” he admitted, “in a few private circles where I am known and loved.”
“What was the man saying?” Mabel asked, sitting down on the bed beside her daughter as he went back to the bathroom and started to mix up some lather.
“Don’t tell her, Pidge,” Brigham Anderson said. “It wasn’t anything very original.”
“I won’t,” Pidge said practically. “I don’t remember.”
“Well, that’s as good a reason as any,” Mabel agreed, and her husband chuckled.
“That’s right,” he said. “It wasn’t anything Mommy would want to hear anyway. No different from what she’s been hearing all day. It seems she’s married to a bad, bad man who is doing awful, awful things to his country. She knows that already.”
“No, I don’t, either,” Mabel said firmly. “I don’t know that at all.”
“Well, you’re nice,” he said, winking over the lather, “but that’s what a lot of people think.”
“What’s happened to you in the last few minutes?” she asked curiously. “You seemed rather depressed when you got home, I thought.”
“I
got
home,” he said simply. “That’s what happened.”
And he gave her a warm look that was such a mixture of white-lathered Santa Claus and half-naked satyr that she suddenly burst out laughing as though all the cares of the day were rolling away, as indeed it seemed almost possible they might be.
“What’s the matter?” he asked with a grin.
“Nothing,” she said. “Just you. And me. And life.”
“And me,” Pidge reminded firmly, and her mother gave her a hug.
“And you,” she agreed. “We’re quite a sketch, all of us.”
“I’m not,” Pidge said. “I’m me.”
“Sister,” her father said with a chuckle, “there’s no doubt of that. No, indeedy. As some young man is going to find out to his eternal fascination, bafflement, and enthrallment someday
....
As a matter of fact,” he said as he finished shaving, “I talked to the President on the phone this afternoon.”
“Oh?” Mabel said, and her fears suddenly came back stronger than ever. “How was he?”
“Pretty presidential,” Brig said soberly. “Headmaster-to-boy-in-the-lower-form type of thing. ‘I am asking you as President of the United States to come down here and discuss this with me,’” he quoted with an exaggerated emphasis.
“I hope you didn’t antagonize him,” Mabel said nervously, and a trace of impatience crossed her husband’s face.
“I am telling you as United States Senator from the state of Utah that I am not coming down there unless I am accompanied by my good friends the Majority Leader and the Vice President,’” he quoted, with a somewhat more emphatic emphasis.
“Oh, dear,” she said, a real worry flooding her heart, spoiling the mood of their happy moments, shadowing the warm, familiar room. “Oh, dear, I wish you hadn’t.”
“Hadn’t what?” he demanded sharply, coming into the room to get some socks and underwear from his bureau. “Hadn’t what, for heaven sakes?” he demanded again as he returned to the bathroom and prepared to close the door. “I’m not a school child, Mabel. I have some rights and some prerogatives of my own. Anyway I’m going to see him at the house after the banquet. Lay out my dress shirt and cuff links while I’m showering, will you? I’ll be out in a minute.” And he closed the door to become engulfed in a roar of water.
“Mommy,” Pidge said thoughtfully, “I wish Daddy would mind you.”
At this, for which there was no very good answer, Mabel scooped her up with a half-laugh, half-sob, half some sort of sound she wasn’t quite sure of, and gave her a hug.
“Help me fix Daddy’s shirt and jewelry for him,” she said. “He’s got to get all dressed up and look handsome for the big party.”
“I’ll bet he will,” Pidge said confidently, and her mother, although she felt as though she might start crying again if she didn’t watch out, made her answer light.
“He sure will,” she said. “He’ll be the handsomest one there, I’ll bet.”
“He’ll be the handsomest one there, I’ll bet,” Pidge repeated triumphantly.
And when a little later, shaved, showered, lotioned, and dressed in his tuxedo, he kissed them good-by and started across the lawn to the car, his wife felt with a pang of pride and pain and love and protectiveness like a knife that he very probably would be; for nature had favored him well, and tonight everything seemed to conspire to set it off. As he reached the car he turned back for a moment to wave, and the flat rays of the late afternoon sun, flooding through the trees and over the world, bathed his compact figure in a sudden glow, highlighted the sunburn in his cheeks, lent a ruddy tinge to his hair. She always remembered him as he looked at that moment, on that clear, gentle evening with a warm wind blowing, standing there in his white coat, black tie and black trousers, a smile on his lips, a confident look on his face, the level dark eyes carrying an expression of kindness and decency, his whole aspect steady and sure, his being caught and held in one of those rare moments of absolute physical perfection that come only fleetingly even to the most favored. That was how she always remembered him, later, that is, after enough time had passed so that she could stand remembering.
“I expect I’ll be a little late,” he called back casually. “You know how these things are.”
“Good luck at the White House,” she said.
“I’m scared,” he said with a grin, “but I guess he won’t eat me.”
“Goodness, I hope not,” she said, with a fairly good attempt at a laugh.
“Don’t you worry,” he said as he climbed in and turned on the ignition. “Little Jack is quite a giant killer.”
“I hope so!” she replied with a laugh that sounded steadier, and a last wave as he drove away. “Oh, my darling,” she said to herself as she watched him negotiate the corner smoothly and disappear from sight, “my beloved, my life, I hope so, oh, I hope so.”
***