The Means (10 page)

MITCHELL MASON

19

Two Secret Service agents enter the room and scan from side to side, their eyes focused on something no one else can see, as though examining dust particles in the air.

Mitchell Mason sits in a wide, antique armchair by the lit fire in the living room of Blair House. The two Secret Service agents of his own detail already in the room, one in each of the room corners behind him, nod to the new arrivals who had come up through the cellar.

All four agents seem satisfied and one of the new agents speaks “All clear” into the lapel of his suit jacket signaling that President John Hammermill may enter and join Mitchell Mason by the fire.

Blair House is a pale-yellow, four-story townhouse at 1651 Pennsylvania Avenue, across the street from the White House. The president-­elect and incoming First Family stay at Blair House in the days leading up to the inauguration and the the formal move into the White House.

The front of the townhouse has a green awning leading out to Lafa­yette Plaza. The area can be well protected by the Secret Service, but for tonight's meeting the president uses the tunnel under the plaza to avoid media attention.

Hammermill enters the room. He's wearing a tan cardigan and navy slacks. He's seventy-four and looks older than his years as is the way with most exiting presidents, especially those serving two terms. He is six foot three and was six foot five thirty years ago. He has a slight stoop and looks like the grandfather in an after school special.

Mason is still wearing a charcoal suit for the midnight meeting, which he now regrets wearing. He feels like a dressed-up job seeker who miscalculated the business casual company. He stands to greet Hammermill and they shake hands.

“John, I want to thank you for everything you did for me during the campaign.”

“Mitchell, I was happy to do it, though you didn't need much help from me at all.” Hammermill doesn't like Mason. He thinks he's overly ambitious and an empty suit, but he was the Democratic nominee and as a matter of ideology they're pretty close, provided Mason sticks to an ideology.

“The election was as much a referendum on the last eight years as it was on me. I wouldn't be here but for your popularity.”

“Thank you, Mitchell. Here's hoping you keep it going and we'll have a span of Democrats in the White House that exceeds FDR and Truman.” The old man bends noisy joints to get to the chair using both armrests and leaves Mason standing.

Damn, thinks Mason who hurries to catch up and get into his chair. Mason is as good as the sitting president now and wants to start acting like it. Holding this meeting at Blair House is a gesture in this regard on Hammermill's part but Mason still has the feeling it was the sort of kindness an adult would bestow on a minor. Mason adjusts his blue tie to no purpose, then decides he can issue a command by dismissing the Secret Service from the room, which he does.

He had spent a quarter hour picking out the tie he thought would best project authority, only to be outdone by a sweater. Mason is just under six feet with thick dark hair that is the product of a system that uses both his own and others' hair. He started it twenty years ago at the first sign of recession and he's certain he'd be entirely bald now without it. He's always known he'd be president one day. His father knew it too.

Mason went to Yale undergraduate and Harvard Law. His father was a US senator from New York who in later years acted like a talent agent for his only son, calling in favors when needed. Like Joe Kennedy, once Mason's father's personal ambitions for the presidency were unmet, the ambition transferred to the son.

“How are Evelyn and the kids?” asks Hammermill.

“Very well. Excited for tomorrow so I imagine they're upstairs tossing and turning.”

“Of course.” Hammermill smiles. He has the relaxed pose of a man who has done great things and has wisdom to share. But the pose is in part an act. At seventy-four and now relinquishing power, he has the first doubts that he can still be useful. He wants to be friendly with Mason because he hopes to be called on from time to time. He wants his wisdom to count. “Tomorrow is one of the most important events in modern times. It will mark the forty-sixth peaceful transfer of power as our head of state. No civilization in the history of the world can match that. Perhaps our country's greatest achievement.”

Of course Mason knows this but hasn't thought about it in exactly that way. He decides people always think in grander terms when they're at the end of something than when they're at the beginning. “It's remarkable,” he says.

Hammermill senses Mason's state of mind and says, “The transfer is always so much more pleasant when it stays within the party. In addition to a social call to wish you well, I hope I can take the liberty of offering some unsolicited practical advice with regard to the office.”

“Of course, John. Please.” Mason says this out of polite reflex then finds he is happy to sit back and listen a bit. Both political parties regard John Hammermill as brilliant. Mason hasn't taken real advice from anyone since his father died five years earlier.

“The most important thing to get right in the first months is the people around you.”

Mason nods.

“You'll have an advantage in this over some presidents since you come in as governor of New York. You've been executive of a big state and you have a big staff to pull from. This was one of Obama's biggest problems. He spent a couple years in the Senate and had nobody around him. Never had a staff so he had to pull from scratch and he screwed it up all over the place.”

Hammermill stands and Mason wonders where the hell he's going. He takes a few steps to the coffee table in front of the sofa in the center of the room and picks up a crystal decanter with brandy in it. He looks at Mason who nods yes and he pours two glasses.

Hammermill sits back down. He loves telling stories and this feels more like a story than a speech. “There are three kinds of appointments you'll make. Some have political consequences, some have personal consequences, and some are just gifts. The key appointments with political consequence are State, Justice, and Defense. Above all else, get great people. Here you should sacrifice partisanship, if you have to, to get great people.”

Hammermill sips his brandy. Mason is listening but with a look that is challenging Hammermill to show him something of value. “The appointments of personal consequence are your chief of staff, possibly senior White House advisors. This is where you'll have an advantage having run a team for years. These people plan your agenda and run your day-to-day. They're constantly at your hip and do all the blocking and tackling for you. They know all your secrets. Let them do as much of that as possible. That is easy advice to give, harder to take. For these people, talent is nice but what really matters is loyalty.”

“Sure.” Mason tries to look bored, which he is. He's a little surprised Hammermill is giving him this lecture on the obvious. He was hoping for dirty laundry on some foreign heads of state.

“Now, I understand you've taken a mistress.”

Mason's bored look is overtaken by shock. He's as surprised by Hammermill's knowledge of the affair as he is by the man's audacity to bring it up. His instinct is to deny it but recognizes in time that would be pointless so he searches for something clever. “I didn't know you could offer counsel in such matters, John.”

“Oh, at seventy-four I don't indulge in such matters but I certainly know how I'd do it if I were a fifty-two-year-old president-elect.”

“I see.”

“Mitchell, I don't judge this one way or the other. I'm of the belief that it has no bearing on one's ability as a chief executive. I'm merely offering practical advice.”

“Of course.” Mason glances at the ceiling as though checking on his restless wife upstairs.

“I understand she was your deputy campaign manager.”

“That's right. I had a campaign manager and two deputies.”

“You plan to continue the affair?”

Mason had never imagined speaking so frankly about it. Certainly not with John Hammermill. He finds he can't put voice to it so he just nods up and down.

“Make her your communications director. It's a role plausibly held by an attractive forty-year-old woman. It's much less public-facing than press secretary so she can be a bit out of the way but still can be directed to travel with you without raising attention. You'll be always on the road and your life is scheduled in fifteen-minute increments. You'll need someone who has a reason to be there. The Secret Service will of course know, and that won't be a problem. They have a one hundred percent track record of covering the sexual indiscretions of presidents.”

Mason nods, still refusing to participate audibly for reasons unknown even to himself.

“The gift appointments are Interior, Commerce, HUD, Transportation. You can put any dope in there. Republicans think Labor is a throwaway, but as a Democrat you need to take it more seriously. Agriculture, just make sure you get a real farmer. Treasury and Energy are different. You actually need to get someone good and credible. Health and Human Services, nobody even wants that. Then your other set of gifts are all the ambassadorships. Court of Saint James's is the most plumb. Holy See for a Catholic. You want to return a favor to an Irishman, give him Ireland. That sort of thing.”

“Right.”

“Don't get too much in the weeds. Get another good loyalist at the Office of Personnel Management and let them do the smaller ones.”

Mason just nods again. Hammermill loved stunning him by addressing the affair then switching back to the banal with casualness. He switches back again.

“Listen, Mitchell, your affair is not widely known. As president, I learn things. You'll find that after today, you won't hear much from me unless you want to. There's one good thing you can say about George W. He shut the fuck up when he left office. He showed some class there. Clinton and Obama didn't do that.”

Hammermill has met his goal for the meeting. He wanted to let Mason know that he knows about the affair and to do it in a way that is wrapped in helpfulness. Neither of them cares about anything else that was said. It was all just pointless filler.

Hammermill has an excellent piece of leverage and they both know it. Mason decides he'd better keep the old man happy.

20

Mason had joined the Yale Political Union his freshman year. The officers of the club knew his pedigree and called him the first week of school and asked him to join. Six other freshmen joined the nonpartisan club. The six others had an interest in politics but only Mason had lived it.

The freshmen would meet weekly to discuss political news. All seven were either Independents or Democrats which is the way in academia. Reagan was getting criticism for the Iran-Contra Affair and the nation was introduced to Oliver North.

The group of freshmen wanted to discuss the agenda items that would be most advantageous for the Democratic Party to stress in the upcoming election. Biden, Dukakis, and Hart all looked strong.

They went around the room offering their top idea, starting with Jaime Hutton. Mason has since forgotten the name but not the face. Jaime looked young for the class, physically undeveloped and a face that would be handsome in years to come. He was plenty smart but not confident and offered his ideas like apologies.

“I think Democrats should focus on gun control,” he apologized. The discussion was designed to force everyone to participate, otherwise he would not have been comfortable making such a declaration. “I think it makes sense given Iran-Contra as a pressure point for Republicans. Senator Rose from Nevada would be a great champion for it and that could launch him into the national conversation.”

Mason said, “Ha.” It wasn't a laugh, it was the word. Jaime looked at Mason then looked away hoping someone else would jump in with their turn but they were all freshmen and Mason was the only leader in the room. Mason looked five years older than he was. He was athletic and cocky because that's who he thought he had to be around his father. “Do you have any idea what you're talking about?”

Jaime froze except for one more glance at Mason. Jaime thought the answer was no.

Mason said, “Gun control is political suicide. Take a guess who is the number one contributor to Rose.” This information was not readily available to the public in those days. Mason knew only by listening in with his father and his father's friends but he traded on the information as though only an idiot wouldn't know. “The NRA.”

Everyone in the room nodded up and down just a bit which seemed like the safe thing to do.

Mason went on, “Rose speaks out on gun control and he loses all that support. He's toast. And not just Rose. Half the Democrats get NRA support and therefore they support the NRA. And therefore also support guns. Gun control is an asinine idea.”

Mason looked around the room and stopped on Jaime. He was proud of his lecture until he saw that face. Something already frail in Jaime had snapped. Something then broke loose in Mason too.

Mason had been bullied by his own father. He knew how it felt. He didn't want to become his tormentor.

Afterward he went to find Jaime in his dorm room and he apologized. He tried to befriend Jaime with only some success, but he made it clear to everyone that he considered Jaime a friend and he spoke up for Jaime at every opportunity. For his own part, Jaime decided politics was not for him and he treated Mason with cautious kindness, regarding him as a friendly lion.

Jaime never again came to a club meeting. Mason never again defeated a person he considered too weak to fight. Since then he's been a person who fights fair and fights to kill. He's of the warrior class but has found a higher moral plane than his father.

*   *   *

Mason hands his tie to his chief of staff. “You do it.” He had walked downstairs to the same living room of Blair House in a foul mood and a state of half dress. “And where the hell is Roberts?”

“It's only two minutes after nine.”

“He should get here early and wait. I'm the fucking president as of today.”

“In a few hours.”

“This is deliberate by him. Asshole.”

“Mitchell, you should be in a good mood today. Enjoy it.” They had agreed Ron Stark would address his boss as Mitchell if just the two of them and Secret Service were in the room. “This evening you'll be sitting in the White House with approval numbers at seventy-nine percent.” Stark is struggling to tie a Windsor knot around someone else's neck. He's nose to nose with Mason and he restraightens the two ends of the tie to start again.

“Incredible after the savagery of that campaign. I was a monster to almost half the country four months ago.”

“The Republicans' fault. They told twice as many lies as we did.”

“Probably even, but damn it, they told the first one. Twisting everything I ever said and going back thirty years. I was right out of college for God's sake.”

“As they say, welcome to the national stage.” Stark and Mason had been classmates at Yale. Stark went directly from college to an internship on Capitol Hill. He was an Obama staffer just prior to joining Mason as chief of staff for his run for governor in New York. “It's not the only thing you'll find different from Albany. For now, just revel in seventy-nine percent approval. It won't last.”

“People are an amazing thing.” Mason pauses. “Where the fuck is Roberts?”

Stark finishes the knot. “I'll go look into it.” He knows his boss wants loyalty and action with only small doses of friendship. “Relax for a few minutes. I'll take care of it.”

Mason had seen the gaffe in 2008 when Chief Justice John Roberts presided over Obama's swearing-in ceremony. He wants to make sure it doesn't happen again today. He knows he comes across as a diva but he doesn't care. Some people come from nothing and through wild circumstances manage to succeed in politics. For these people, once they've made it, the common background turns into an advantage because people think they can relate. This worked for presidents like Truman and Clinton. Other people get into politics with a leg up. Yale and Harvard, a senator for a father, and an eighty-million-dollar net worth. Then they spend their whole career apologizing for the advantages while trying to make the world think they're just regular people. Damn it, a leader doesn't need to be a regular person. He shouldn't be. A leader needs to be a fucking leader. Mason thinks, Kennedy didn't apologize for advantage and I won't either.

Stark and Roberts return to the room. Roberts is already dressed in the robes of Chief Justice and he looks the same as when he was nominated by Bush. Like Dick Clark, he has a period of decades when nothing seems to age. Maybe his bald spot is a little bigger, thinks Mason, making a mental note to circle behind Roberts at some point to have a look.

“Good morning, sir,” says Roberts, extending his right hand.

“John,” says Mason, taking the hand. Mason notices only that the face looking at him is neutral. Polite, respectful, but there's no way to tell if he likes or dislikes what he sees. Figures, thinks Mason. Probably practices in the damn mirror, has some clerk hold up a picture of Giselle then Rosie O'Donnell and sees if he can hold the line.

“How would you like to do this, sir?”

“Have you got a Bible on you?”

“No.”

Stark walks to a shelf behind the sofa and picks up a book without looking at it. He hands it to Mason.

“
For Whom the Bell Tolls
? A bit secular for this, isn't it, Ron?”

Stark shrugs. “It's a dry run.”

Roberts takes the book and hands it back to Stark. “Your wife will hold it like this. You put your hand on top like this. Then you repeat after me. I, Mitchell Connors Mason.”

Mason repeats.

“Do solemnly swear that I will faithfully execute the office of the President of the United States.”

Mason repeats.

“And will to the best of my ability.”

Mason repeats.

“Preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States.”

“Okay, got it.” He smiles. “You sure you got it, John?” Mason loves the ribbing and Roberts is still neutral, though Stark can tell he's angry and thinks the president is petty and a jerk. Stark knows that the president usually comes across this way and has never minded it much because he knows that the president, except when it comes to his own marriage, is a force for good. Knowing the man is decent beneath the exterior is like being in on a secret. Stark has always admired those who don't mind appearing like a jerk and are actually good people. It's the reverse sort of person that he loathes. He senses that the worst parts of Mason are known to his friends.

Stark also knew Mason's father and knows he was a domineering man who needed to prove he was better than everyone else, a behavior than can normally be laughed at once identified. But when it's directed with particular vigor toward a young son, it's in its most perverse form and stamps indelible insecurities. The way the abused can become an abuser, Mason suffers from this same flaw though he has more self-awareness of it than his father had and he can sometimes control it.

“Are we done here?” asks Roberts.

“We're done.”

“See you in a couple hours, sir,” says Roberts.

“I'll walk you out, Mr. Chief Justice,” says Stark.