Too Much Too Soon (58 page)

On the third floor more people stared. Honora paid attention to the corridor. The high ceilings gave no sense of grandeur, serving only to amplify the roar of voices and footsteps. Cheap wooden chairs were stacked in pairs outside a Congressman’s office.

Arthur Kohn hurried around a corner, greeting them each with a handshake. He was accompanied by two of the partners whom
Honora had met aboard the
Odyssey.
Joscelyn was introduced all around and the group fell in step behind Curt.

The media were waiting outside the chamber where the Morrell Subcommittee would meet. Ballpoints and notepads went into action, cumbersome minicams were maneuvered, microphones with call letters were thrust at Curt’s face. Reporters shouted questions at him simultaneously.

“Mr. Ivory, what sort of inquiries do you expect?”

“Have you any comment on why you’ve been called?”

“Is it true that your company has the inside track in the Mideast?”

“Exactly how substantial are Ivory’s payments in the Mideast?”

A mike was aimed at Honora’s mouth. “Mrs. Ivory, will you comment on why Mr. Ivory has his home on a yacht while you live in London?”

“Mrs. Ivory isn’t answering questions,” Curt said, gripping Honora’s arm.

At the warm strength of his fingers, she swayed spontaneously toward him, then wheeled away, pushing through the crowd. Immediately she realized her purpose in Washington was not to quiver and escape Curt’s touch but to establish herself staunchly at his side. She halted in the doorway until he caught up.

In contrast with the behind-the-iron-curtain drabness of the elevators and corridors, the committee chamber showed a somber richness. Portraits of long-dead Speakers of the House
gazed down from dark paneling, gold garlands were woven into the crimson carpeting, the looped-back red velvet draperies were fringed with gilt, yet even amid this luxury were incongruous touches of shabbiness—the thick, exposed wiring that tangled near the green-baize-covered witness table and the paper towels placed under each water pitcher.

The five long rows of chairs arranged for visitors were all taken while reporters and camera people bubbled around the pair of press tables at either side of the chamber. The solid curves of desk on the rostrum, however, remained empty. A quartet of aides chattered against the wall while a girl with long, dark blond hair—she looked very little older than Lissie—gravely snapped the subcommittee’s names on wooden stands.

Arthur Kohn asked Honora to take the twelfth seat in the front row, which placed her directly behind the witness chair.

The subcommittee began to wander in, a stout, sixtyish woman with elaborately waved blond hair and heavy makeup, a stoop-shouldered man coughing into his palm, a wiry young man who nodded at Curt. The friendly gesture made Honora a bit more sanguine.

The hearing was set for 10:30. At exactly 10:42 the chairman appeared. Representative Jason Morrell was a tall, gray-haired Oregon Democrat who had been in the House for nearly forty years: his jutting jaw gave him a fortuitous resemblance to FDR, a resemblance that he enhanced by wearing small, gold-rimmed glasses
and clamping his teeth on a cigarette holder.

Ignoring the cameras with histrionic aplomb, Morrell moved to the center of the rostrum. Two young aides bent over him, he shook his pewter head negatively, then nodded.

Looking around the chamber, including the press and visitors in his somber glance, he rapped his gavel.

“The subcommittee will be in order,” he said—he had gone so far as to cultivate a patrician, eastern accent. “During the past months, charges that American companies have engaged in extensive bribery of foreign public officials have been made and substantiated. The president of the Gulf Corporation has admitted making a three-million-dollar contribution to the last political campaign in the Republic of Korea . . . the Northrop Corporation cannot account with accuracy sufficient to satisfy the Securities and Exchange Commission for a thirty-million-dollar fund established and used between 1971 and 1973 . . . the Paloverde Oil Company consented to a Securities and Exchange Commission charge that the company had made secret payments totaling four million and a quarter out of corporate funds, overseas . . . .”

Honora stared up at the chairman, outrage prickling on her skin. What right did this cheap presidential imitation have to indict Curt by association?

“. . . before the hearing begins, I wish to say that Ivory and Company is held wholly by Mr. Ivory, which puts him beyond the jurisdiction
of the Securities and Exchange Commission, and no charges have been made against him by the Bureau of Internal Revenue. Mr. Ivory is appearing before this committee voluntarily.”

“Swell of him to mention it,” Joscelyn muttered from the corner of her mouth.

Morrell fitted a fresh cigarette in his holder. “I feel obligated to mention that the Criminal Code, title 18, section 1001, provides that whoever makes a false or fraudulent statement to an agency of the United States Government shall be subject to a ten thousand dollar fine, or imprisonment of not more than five years, or both.” He delivered this message sternly, then his politician’s smile settled into its creases. “On behalf of the committee, Mr. Ivory, I welcome you.”

Cameramen jockeyed for better vantage points as Curt, Arthur Kohn at his side, moved to the witness table. Curt swung his briefcase onto the green baize directly in front of Honora: she could not see his face, but he crossed his ankle on his knee the casual way he did sitting at his desk at home.

*   *   *

Crystal lay on her bed, a mound of small, lacy cushions propping her head as she watched the Six O’Clock News on the Zenith that swung out from her armoire. In her sashed kimono, her bright hair concealed by a scarf, a concoction of her Zurich dermatologist thickly white on her face, she bore more than a passing resemblance to a Japanese Noh actor. Her beauty
was being refreshed for an intimate dinner party she was giving. Mitchell and Alexander—he now lived in a bachelor pad on Nob Hill—would enjoy the masterful menu, then tactfully disappear, leaving her alone with Ben Hutchinson: the gruff-voiced grass-widower, head of the Onyx Motor Company, considered himself a beau of hers. Ben was a cautiously belligerent CEO and Crystal was aware that there would be no handshake over the coffee tonight with a go-ahead on the huge Onyx truck factory that was planned for Frankfort, but she was also aware that next month he would read Talbott’s proposal with a positive eye.

The anchorman was announcing: “. . . And now we go to Washington for a report from our correspondent, Marcille Whalen.”

Crystal’s whitened face lifted from the pillows as an attractive young woman wearing a raincoat flashed onto the screen. “This is Marcille Whalen outside the Rayburn House Office Building where the Morrell House Subcommittee is investigating corrupt practices by American business in the Mideast. Curt Ivory was today’s witness. Ivory, who heads the multibillion-dollar Ivory engineering and construction firm based in Los Angeles, was accompanied by his wife, here from London, and his sister-in-law, Joscelyn Sylvander, a vice president of his company.”

Jumpy shots showed Honora and Joscelyn at Curt’s side stonily pushing their way through a crowd of reporters.

“Ivory testified that he had given bribes.”

Crystal stiffened as the shot of Curt behind microphones with Honora apparently leaning over his shoulder filled the screen. “Mr. Morrell,” Curt said, “in certain countries it is the practice to give gratuities to ministry clerks—their governments aren’t as generous as our own with their public servants.”

Shot of audience laughing and Morrell rapping his gavel.

“Are you trying to tell this committee, Mr. Ivory, that bribery is practiced by
every
American in those countries?”

“A few tourists might get by without. But if you’re conducting business, you’d be in trouble. For example, no building permit is processed without a small amount of cash changing hands.”

“How much money do you consider ‘small’?”

Close-up of Curt being whispered to by a bulbous-headed man. “My counsel has advised me not to answer,” Curt said. “But usually around fifteen bucks.”

More laughter. The screen filled with Honora, lips parted, dark, beautiful eyes gazing directly at the camera. Though gentle creases showed here and there, and the oval face seemed thinner, she did not look worn or old. This surprised Crystal. Daddy had said Honora had struggled since she’d left Curt, living in a grim slum with Joss’s handicapped little girl, whom she’d adopted, and that coarse, redheaded waitress she’d known at Stroud’s all those years ago. She supported herself as a gardener—yes, a gardener! With a surge of warm exasperation
that belonged to her youth, Crystal wanted to reach into the color set and shake Honora out of her idiotic impracticality. She was right to leave Curt—staying with him all those years was her mistake—but why on earth hadn’t she taken her rightful half of his fortune? And why was she with him in Washington, standing by him?
He must have begged her to
, Crystal thought.
Honora never could resist a cry for help.

“Curt Ivory will continue his testimony tomorrow. If convicted he faces up to five years’ imprisonment. This is Marcille Whalen on Capitol Hill—”

The door to the hall opened and Alexander came in, tieless but wearing dinner clothes. She leaped from the bed, rushing to the bathroom to throw tepid water at her face, scrubbing away the claylike mask. She could not bear to have anyone, especially Alexander, witness the support that her beauty now required.

Revealed, her smooth-pored skin glowed admirably. Rubbing in moisturizer, she returned to the bedroom, where Alexander was sliding the TV back into its recess.

“I didn’t hear your car,” she said pettishly. “You know dinner’s not until eight.”

“We need to talk.” He closed the doors of the armoire. “On the local news there was a rehash of dear Aunt Joscelyn’s misfortunes, and of dear Aunt Honora’s peculiar marital situation. Tomorrow morning the papers will be full of it.”

“I told you,” she said uneasily, “I’m not
sure starting this was smart.”

“Granted,
he
won a few rounds today, but that’s Morrell’s routine strategy. He gives the witness enough rope.” Alexander ran his hand through his long blond hair and gave her an ingenuous grin. “Mom, the next step is for us to volunteer to testify.”

She had pulled off her scarf. The chiffon wisp fluttered to her bare feet as she gaped at him.

“I never heard of anything so insane!” she cried.

“What’s wrong with agreeing with Ivory on the small payola being essential? Everybody else has.”

She sat next to him on the window seat. Beneath his cologne, she could detect a faint, hottish smell of excitement. “Alexander, you saw how he was roasted at the witness table?”

“Yes, I saw,” he said.

“And you want that to happen to
me?
”

“There’s no way we can be connected to anything substantial,” Alexander said. “And if you’re not up to taking the oath, they’ll let me speak for you.”

“There’s no point even discussing this.”

“Gid’ll take a leave. We’ll present ourselves. The gorgeous little widow who kept the family biz going, her two stalwart, upright sons, the freckled mother-to-be, the four of us reeking with hard work and honesty.”

“We are not going to Washington.” Her recently creamed hands were unaccountably cold.

“What are you afraid of?” he asked.

“Nothing,” she said. But she was afraid. She knew that whoever sat at that green covered table could be stripped naked, be vulnerable to a world of enemies, known and unknown.

The following evening, Friday, Honora lay on the couch, head propped, knees bent, a hotel-silver sugar bowl and cream pitcher and a bowl of strawberries ranged on her stomach, her yellowing paperback resting against her thighs. First dipping the pored red tip in the thick cream, then twirling it in sugar, she popped the berry in her mouth, savoring it with a contented sigh.

This was the first time since her arrival in Washington that she had been granted solitude.

At night she had Joscelyn for a roommate. Across the darkness from the other bed flowed a stream of disparaging comments about Morrell and his colleagues, a know-it-all partisanship that baited Honora into defending her foes, Curt’s harrying tormenters.

When Joscelyn finally shut up and Honora could sleep, she had orgiastic, embarrassing dreams that she could not dislodge from her memory, adolescent dreams that made it impossible for her to look Curt in the eye. On his part, he had addressed less than a dozen briefly impersonal remarks to her, this even though
they had been together two and a half days for most of their waking hours.

Breakfast and dinner were sent up from room service and eaten at the large, reproduction Sheraton dining table with Marvin Callahan, top dog of Curt’s PR company, who was in Washington to guide his prestigious client through the hearing, and with Arthur Kohn and two or more of his partners. The flack and the attorneys never deviated from the subject for which they were receiving their bloated fees: Curt and Honora and Joscelyn were instructed what to say and what not to say, when they should smile, even how to walk. Honora toyed with her food, concentrating on their advice. Much as she resented the image-making, she knew she needed the coaching. The face of Honora Ivory had become instantly recognizable. Bits of the hearings were shown on every channel’s newsbreak, and there she was, eternally looming behind Curt’s shoulder.

She had begun to share the primitive belief that the camera captures the soul. From the minute the limousine drove underneath the Rayburn House Office Building, the flashing Nikons and portable television cameras nibbled away until she felt there was no
her
left. The two days of hearings had degenerated into a rancorous exposé that went beyond political affiliation. Thursday had exhausted the subject of
dash
, as the Arabic world calls petty payoffs. Today, Friday, Curt had presented copies of the company’s recent tax returns to the subcommittee. The Honorable Representative from
Maryland (D) demanded an interpretation of Ivory Investment’s cash flow, Congresswoman Hergesheimer (R) Iowa was fascinated by deductions Curt had taken for business entertainments aboard the
Odyssey
, Morrell tapped his cigarette holder on the stacked papers, requesting explanations of depreciations until even a financial ignoramus like Honora could see that he was engaged in a fishing expedition.