The Last President: A Novel of an Alternative America (8 page)

Sunday, September 2, 1973

OF INTEREST TO THE GENERAL PUBLIC. THESE CONVENTIONS, “WORLDCONS” THEY ARE CALLED, ALTHOUGH MOST OF THEM HAVE BEEN HELD IN THE UNITED STATES, HAVE BEEN YEARLY EVENTS SINCE 1943. THE LAST ONE, HELD IN LOS A

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WASHINGTON, 12:20 (MPS)—FIRST LEAD PRESIDENT NEWS CONFERENCE

AT AN UNSCHEDULED PRESS CONFERENCE CALLED THIS MORNING IN THE OVAL OFFICE OF THE WHITE HOUSE THE PRESIDENT ANNOUNCED THE APPOINTMENT OF DANIEL BOHR, THE DIRECTOR OF THE CIA, TO THE POST OF AMBASSADOR TO IRAN. HE SAID THAT HE WAS PLEASED TO HAVE A MAN OF BOHR’S INTELLIGENCE AND EXPERIENCE AVAILABLE FOR A POST THAT WAS GROWING INCREASINGLY MORE IMPORTANT IN THE FOREIGN RELATIONS OF THE UNITED STATES.

BOHR, WHO WAS WITH THE PRESIDENT, SAID HE WAS GLAD TO SERVE WHEREVER HIS COUNTRY NEEDED HIM.

BOHR’S DISTINGUISHED CAREER AS A PUBLIC SERVANT BEGAN IN F.D.R.’S SECOND TERM, AND HE HAS SERVED ABLY IN A VARIETY OF POSTS IN THE DEPARTMENTS OF STATE, DEFENSE, THE INTERIOR, AND FOR THE PAST SIX YEARS IN THE CENTRAL INTELLIGENCE AGENCY.

AS THE NEW DIRECTOR OF THE CIA, THE PRESIDENT HAS NAMED RALPH CARMICHAEL, WHO IS CURRENTLY SERVING AS ASSISTANT ATTORNEY GENERAL. CARMICHAEL HAS SERVED WITH THE PRESIDENT IN VARIOUS CAPACITIES SINCE THE PRESIDENT FIRST CAME TO WASHINGTON AS A CONGRESSMAN IN 1948.

IT IS NOT ANTICIPATED THAT EITHER BOHR OR CARMICHAEL WILL HAVE ANY DIFFICULTY IN THEIR SENATE CONFIRMATIONS. (MORE)

EDITORS: BOHR AND CARMICHAEL BIOS FOLLOW. CONTINUED

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ANGELES OVER LABOR DAY WEEKEND LAST YEAR WAS ATTENDED BY OVER THREE THOUSAND PERSONS. THE THREE DAYS OF SCI-FI REVELRY INCLUDED SUCH HAPPENINGS AS

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FIRST LEAD RALPH SCHUSTER

WASHINGTON, 12:30 (MPS)—RALPH SCHUSTER, A REPORTER FOR THE WASHINGTON POST, WAS FOUND DEAD IN HIS APARTMENT THIS MORNING. SCHUSTER APPARENTLY COMMITTED SUICIDE BY PUTTING THE BARREL OF A SMALL CALIBER REVOLVER IN HIS MOUTH AND PULLING THE TRIGGER. A NEIGHBOR HEARD THE SHOT AND TELEPHONED THE POLICE, WHO WERE THERE IN MINUTES. THEY FORCED THEIR WAY INTO THE APARTMENT AND FOUND SCHUSTER’S BODY ON THE LIVING ROOM COUCH. HE LEFT A NOTE, THE TEXT OF WHICH HAS NOT BEEN RELEASED AT THIS TIME, BUT IT IS BELIEVED TO STATE THAT HE WAS DRIVEN TO HIS ACT BY “THE PRESIDENT’S MEN.” WHAT HE MEANT BY THIS IS NOT KNOWN.

SCHUSTER WAS ON THE CITY DESK OF THE POST, WHERE HE HAD BEEN FOR THE PAST THREE YEARS.

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Kit Young groaned and rolled over in his sleep, throwing what was left of the bedclothes onto the floor.
An unappetizing sort of man
, thought Miriam, looking down at his twisted form, half child and half ape.
I can’t for the life of me figure out why I’m so fond of him.
She prodded him with her index finger. “Wake up, my love,” she said softly, “the bird is on the wing!”

Kit opened one eye and stared fuzzily up at her. “He’ll freeze his ass off,” he said. “It’s cold out there.” He groped around for a minute, his hand encountering nothing but rumpled sheet, then he sat up and opened his other eye. “What have you done with the blankets?” he demanded.

“They’re on the floor where you threw them.”

“Did no such thing,” he said. “What time is it?”

“Almost one. Want some orange juice?”

“That’s what I like about you,” Kit said, swinging his legs over the side of the bed. “You’re always ready with a kind word and a glass of orange juice. I don’t know how anyone can be so damn cheery in the morning.”

“How would you know what I’m like in the morning?” Miriam said sweetly. “You’ve never been awake in the morning.”

Kit considered this. “I’ll take a shower. When my blood sugar gets high enough I’ll join in this repartee.” He stood up and staggered into the bathroom. “Any clean towels?” he called out as he closed the door.

“On the rack,” she yelled through the door.

“Um!” he called back. Then the water went on. Miriam went out into her kitchen and busied herself preparing brunch: Nova Scotia salmon, bagels, cream cheese, thin slices of Bermuda onion. She broke five eggs into a bowl and whipped them up, then set her French enameled frying pan on a low fire and hoped the butter wouldn’t burn before Kit got out of the shower.

Miriam found that she enjoyed the mornings when Kit stayed over with her for themselves, and not just as echoes of the night before. She would get up before Kit—no great problem—and prepare an elaborate breakfast. On days when he wasn’t working and slept until early afternoon, she would prepare an even more elaborate lunch. Perhaps she was finally developing the nesting instinct, and any day now she’d start going all soft inside at the thought of tiny feet and wet diapers and four a.m. feedings. Well, she certainly hoped not. She and Kit had a very good thing going: they enjoyed each other’s company, they respected each other, they turned each other on, they were good in bed together, and they never argued about money. It would sure be a shame to spoil all that by getting married.

Now that Kit had left CIA and gone to work directly for the President, their one great source of argument was gone. Not that Miriam had changed her views, but now Kit flatly refused to discuss politics or the administration in any way. Miriam didn’t agree with his position, but he was immovable.

So she suppressed her feelings and, since politics was the only thing they had ever argued about, they never fought anymore. But it was still there between them. Kit was looking increasingly depressed when she saw him, and he admitted that it was about the job but refused to discuss it. He had several times snorted and left the room in the middle of a news broadcast, usually when something Miriam thought quite innocuous was being discussed. He still didn’t seem overly concerned about the continuing social unrest or any of the other issues that Miriam held close to her heart, but even little unimportant changes in government or things like the interview with the director of the new Institute for an Informed America would get him upset. She had urged him to discuss it, if not with her, then with Aaron, but he was adamant about keeping his mouth closed. “Maybe someday I’ll write one hell of a memoir,” he said.

So they had peace, and Kit had problems that he couldn’t share with her. And she was happy for the peace, and unhappy for what Kit couldn’t share, and still it was better than fighting.

Kit came out of the bedroom buttoning his shirt-sleeves and stood in front of the big living room mirror to knot his tie. “What’s the tie for?” Miriam asked, knowing she was fighting a losing fight. “Where are we going?”

“A man is either dressed or undressed,” Kit said, “and if he’s dressed, he has a tie.”

Miriam shrugged expressively. “I refuse to argue with a man’s religion,” she said.

“I had a great-uncle who went insane,” Kit told her. “Spent his declining years in a home for the bewildered up in Massachusetts. Walked around all day stark naked except for a string tie and a top hat.” He paused. “Aren’t you going to ask me why?”

“I know better,” she told him.

“When I graduated from college I went up to see my great-uncle,” Kit continued. “Must have been in his eighties then. I asked him. ‘Uncle Jebedah, why don’t you have any clothes on?’ ‘Why should I?’ he asked me. ‘It’s hot as the other place in here, and nobody ever comes to see me anyway.’ ‘But Uncle,’ I objected, ‘what about the hat and tie?’ He looked at me like I was the one who was crazy. ‘Somebody
might
come,’ he said. I have never forgotten those words of wisdom.”

“I’ll scramble the eggs,” Miriam said.

After brunch, Kit shared the couch with the bulky Sunday editions of the
New York Times
and the
Washington Post.
Miriam sat at her window desk editing the galleys of her latest article for
Polity
. It was almost three p.m. when the phone rang.

“It’s for you,” Miriam said. “How does anyone know to call you here?”

“I always leave this number when I’m staying over,” Kit said absently, taking the phone. “They don’t call unless it’s urgent.”

He took the phone and listened, with only an occasional “Yes,” or “I see,” to break long stretches of silence. Miriam turned in her chair and stared at him, finding herself getting angrier and angrier. How
dare
he leave her number when he spent the night with her. What did he do, post it on the office bulletin board? This was too much. Why didn’t he just write it on a few phone booth walls while he was at it?

Kit hung up and looked at her. There was a strange vacant expression on his face.

“What do you mean leaving my number with your office?” Miriam demanded. “You’ve a hell of a nerve.”

“They don’t know it’s your number,” Kit said, focusing on her. “It’s just a number. They couldn’t care less where I spend my nights. I’m on the right side.”

There was something wrong. By now it had come through Miriam’s fog of anger that Kit wasn’t responding to her emotion. Something he had heard on the phone had preempted his response. “What do you mean?” she asked softly. “What do you mean, ‘on the right side’?”

Miriam sat down on the couch next to Kit. “A guy named Schuster. Reporter for the
Post
. I knew him. They just told me.”

“What? What did they just tell you?”

“They found him this morning. The police. Vandermeer wants me to follow the case. There’ll be an official announcement.”

“What case?” Miriam asked, taking his hand. “What are you talking about?”

“He killed himself,” Kit said. “In his apartment.”

“Oh,” Miriam said. There was a strange, stretched quality in Kit’s voice that she had never heard before, and she reached for understanding. “You knew him? I don’t think you’ve ever mentioned him. Was he a friend?”

“No. Not a friend. I met him once. I—saw—him a few more times. I think it’s safe to say I wasn’t his friend.”

“What does Vandermeer want you to follow? If he committed suicide, what more is there? And why should Vandermeer care, anyway?”

“He left a note,” Kit said.

“A note? Explaining why he—whatever he did?”

“Shot himself. Through the head. The note doesn’t explain why. It’s very short.”

“What does it say?”

“It says, ‘Fuck all the President’s men.’ It was in his typewriter. That’s all it says.”

“Oh,” Miriam said. “How strange.”

“Yes,” Kit agreed.

That afternoon Edward St. Yves met Billy Vandermeer in the latter’s White House office. “Glad you could take a few minutes to see me,” St. Yves said. “Sorry it had to be on such short notice, but I’ve got something I think will interest you.”

“I have a well-developed faith in your judgment, Ed,” Vandermeer said. “If you ever have something you think will interest me, scoot it on over here right away. It’s about the Schuster business?”

St. Yves shook his head. “That little son of a bitch,” he said. “Who would have thought?” He sat down in one of the metal-frame red chairs surrounding the desk. “I really thought we had him. I really did.”

“How’s that girl of his? The Canadian, ah, lady?”

“She’s been out of the hospital a month. Must have been hysterical. She wasn’t hurt that bad.”

“Some people are sensitive,” Vandermeer said. The sun glanced off Vandermeer’s hornrimmed glasses, making it impossible to read his expression. Looking at his blond visage, St. Yves was suddenly reminded of Vandermeer’s daughter, Kathy, and felt himself on tenuous ground.

“I don’t like to figure wrong,” St. Yves continued more cautiously, “and I sure figured this one wrong. We haven’t had any contact with him for the past three weeks. Give him a chance to get with that girl again. Think about it some. Then Warren gave him a call a couple of days ago. Put it to him. Something would happen to the girl again.”

“That wasn’t very subtle.”

“All he suggested was she might be
persona non grata
-ed as an undesirable. But I’m sure he got the drift. Said he’d think it over. That was Thursday. Then—blam! How can you predict such a thing?”

“It was, um, an accident?” Vandermeer asked.

St. Yves stared at Vandermeer, his blue eyes glinting. “It was suicide,” he said.

“Yes, um, of course. What I meant was, there was no—to your knowledge—there was no external force that might have, um, prompted such an act? That is, beyond the pressures we’ve just been discussing.”

“To the best of my knowledge,” St. Yves said, “the son of a bitch just up and shot himself.”

“Right,” Vandermeer said. “Well, enough about that. It’s a, um, dead issue.”

“You making a statement?”

“Have to,” Vandermeer said. “We express regrets. Assign a man to cooperate with the D.C. Police. We picked Kit Young.”

“Very good,” St. Yves said. “He’ll know which problem areas to steer clear of.”

“Any prospect of plugging the leak with Schuster gone?” Vandermeer asked. “The President is very concerned about the leak. He feels keenly about disloyalty.”

St. Yves shook his head. “I don’t recruit men like that for room sixteen,” he said. “My men are loyal to the President and to me; they don’t give a shit about the Constitution or the Washington Monument or the United States Code. They’re loyal to the country through the President and the President through me.”

“What about the leak?” Vandermeer asked.

“We’ll keep checking,” St. Yves said. “With his contact gone, the source is probably going to have to establish a new one before he can continue. One thing you should consider: it’s distinctly possible that the leak comes straight out of CIA. Those people may be trying to discredit us. It would be useful if the President passed the word to the new Director to check on that.”

“I’ll mention it,” Vandermeer said.

“Now,” St. Yves said, putting his briefcase on one corner of the desk and snapping it open. “Here’s what our document boys have come up with for you.” He took a file out of a zippered compartment and passed it over.

Vandermeer took it gingerly, as though afraid that it might blister his fingers. The file cover had the printed seal of the Department of State on it, and was stamped top secret in red block letters. A typed label on the file’s tab read: “Saigon Embassy Cables / Nov. 1963.”

“This is it?” Vandermeer asked, his voice almost a whisper.

St. Yves nodded. “All the documentation,” he said. “And done right. Original typewriter, original carbon, the right paper. We got some help from the Technical Services Division of the Agency; the new director’s a big improvement.”

“It’ll pass?” Vandermeer asked. “Everything?” St. Yves looked at him peculiarly, and he realized that he was still whispering.

“It should,” St. Yves said. “But to make sure, like I said before, we make sure they only get their hands on Xerox copies of these. Can’t let these leave the files, after all. You check them over and give me your okay, and Operation Counterfoil is launched.”

Vandermeer opened the folder and glanced at a few of the telegrams inside, then closed it and pushed it over to St. Yves by the edge. “I don’t want to read it,” he said. “Better if it comes as a surprise to me when the media boys come waving it at me. You sure you got the tone right?”

“As right as a forgery can ever be,” St. Yves said. “There’s always a certain stiffness in forged documents because the forger is unwilling to be original—to use any phrases that weren’t in the real copy.”

“You certainly know your craft,” Vandermeer said.

“Yes,” St. Yves agreed. “Do we go with Counterfoil?”

“Okay,” Vandermeer said. “I’ll pass it upstairs.”

“Right,” St. Yves said. “You shouldn’t have any trouble with the Democrats for a while after this comes out.”

“Speaking of Democrats, what about the special operations for the election? How are they coming?”

“They’re well under way. We’ve picked our primary targets from the list of men the President wants out. We’ve got some very good men on special operations. A few opposition congressmen seem to have sex problems of one sort or another. It’ll take a while to get them pegged, but we’ve got a good lead time here. You want a list of the operations?”