American Quartet (29 page)

“Well, I did my duty,” he said. “Although I don’t for the life of me know why you invited her.”

“I thought it would be a nice gesture.”

“After what she did.”

Remington led them up the red-carpeted stairs, to the wide vestibule which led to the horseshoe of box seats. Earlier, he had recognized the unmistakable signs of the Secret Service, their tiny microphones planted in their ears, the color-coded lapel buttons, their unsmiling faces and hawklike darting eyes. As they passed through the vestibule, they attracted hardly a glance from the guardians of the President. As if to further defy them, he put a hand in his pocket and caressed the Derringer.

In the box, he seated the two ambassadors and their wives in the front seats, while Bruce and himself, with Louise between them, brought up the rear. Beside him was the President’s box, still empty, although a Secret Service man stood at the entrance. He could see others behind him as well. Below in the orchestra, other men were already at their posts, watching the audience as it slowly milled about, filling the auditorium.

“He’s late,” Bruce whispered as the theater lights dimmed.

“A precaution,” Remington whispered back. The dimmed houselights filled the theater with hushed anticipation. The curtain rose. At that moment, a stirring began in the box next to them and he could see the President, his wife, and others in their party take their seats. The President took his seat to the right of the others, nearer to Remington. He began calculating the position that would give him the clearest shot to the back of the man’s head.

The President turned and saw the distinguished group sitting next to him. He seemed surprised and mimed a greeting, flashing his broad ingratiating smile. Turning slightly, he saw Remington over his shoulder and waved a special greeting.

Again, Remington put his hand in his pocket and caressed the Derringer. He looked at his wristwatch. There was time. More than two hours. He could relax, watch the show, enjoy the wit and sophisticated Coward dialogue.

A wave of laughter passed through the theater. He could hear the President’s warm throaty guffaws and see his sidelong glances as he beckoned those beside him to join in the fun.

“He’s having a ball,” Louise whispered. “Just like Jack.” Like her, the people in his party were amusing themselves more with the President’s reaction than with the play itself. Below, people who sensed the presence of the President had begun to look up, signaling their neighbors with a jab in the arm and pointing.

He could, of course, do it now. His hand reached again for the Derringer. No, he decided. It would be wrong to break the rhythm of the replicated act. Good Friday. Ten-fifteen. The moment would come in good time.

When the lights went up again, a wave of applause rippled through the theater, acknowledging the President’s presence. He and his wife stood up and waved. Many in the audience below simply stood in the aisles and gaped while others made for the rear of the theater and the Grand Foyer.

The President turned toward them, leaning over into their box, and shook hands with the ambassadors.

“I didn’t know you Russians had such a sense of humor,” he said to the Soviet.

“That is our strongest suit,” the ambassador replied.

“I’m happy to see you enjoying yourself, Mr. President,” the Saudi ambassador said.

“We former colonists still eat up the stuff from the mother country,” the President said. He turned to Remington and put out his hand.

“Good seeing you again, Tad,” he said, offering his most sincere boyish smile. Remington gripped the President’s hand. He had been toying with the Derringer in his pocket. All he had to do was to take it out, point and pull the trigger. It would all be over in a split second.

“They love to see you out, Mr. President,” Remington said. The President laughed, leaned over to him, and whispered:

“It’s like getting out of stir.”

“That doesn’t seem to stop people from wanting to get in,” Remington said. Bruce, trying hard to listen, chuckled. “Like him,” Remington pointed.

Bruce blushed and Louise giggled nervously. Then the President turned back to his group and chatted until the lights dimmed again. Remington looked at his watch. It was 9:45. The audience settled down.

Remington leaned over and whispered loud enough so that all in the front row of the box could hear.

“I saw this recently at the White House.” He pointed. “So did he.”

The curtain went up. The actors began to deliver their lines. Again, he put his hand inside his pocket, felt the cool metal, and gripped the handle, his finger touching the trigger. He would not cock it until he removed it from his pocket. Again he looked at his watch. Time was moving inexorably now. There was nothing to hold him back, only the replication of the exact moment. It would be forever engraved in the minds of men. The connection would be unmistakable. With his left hand, he felt for the knife tucked in his belt. He doubted that it would ever be used as Wilkes had used it on Major Rathbone.

His concentration was interrupted by activity in the President’s box, a hurried whisper, a movement of chairs. Someone had bent over the President. There was shuffling of feet, bodies moving. His hand tightened over the Derringer. A flash of panic assaulted him as he saw the President and his wife stand, their seats taken by two men. He started to withdraw the Derringer. In a moment he knew why. The President did not leave his box, he had merely shifted chairs and was now sitting within touching distance of him. He resisted the impulse to reach out and touch the man’s arm, clamping his right hand more tightly around the Derringer.

Ignoring the spectacle on the stage, he listened with all the intensity he could muster. Was it the man’s heartbeat he could hear, the relentless tick of the life force, flooding him with energy and being? The sound seemed to draw him into the man’s body, his own substance slithering through the man’s pores, pulsating now with the same rhythms. Surely, he cried within himself, this is the ultimate validation, the final truth. He was the President.

A trill of laughter passed through the theater, recalling the lines of the play. Piggie, Mr. and Mrs. Wadhurst, absurd names, no less absurd than Mrs. Mountchessington or Asa Trenchard from
Our American Cousin
. He looked at his watch. A shiver of pleasure passed through him; the denouement, so irresistibly conclusive that he could not resist an exclamation.

“What?” Louise asked.

He did not answer. “How’s your daughter?” The words crackled from the stage.

His hand brought out the Derringer, his thumb put the pressure on the cocking device.

He stood up. In another moment . . . immortality.

JEFFERSON’S
huge body sat propped forward, his body angled toward the windshield, his big hands manipulating the wheel. The car moved in gasps, bursts of sudden speed and abrupt stops as it snaked through traffic heading south.

Bracing herself with the handstrap, her feet pushing against the slope of the car, Fiona tried to ignore the near misses and dangerous turns. He was taking chances for which the car was not built. But her anxiety propelled her courage. It was necessary. It was up to destiny to decide.

Had the split second of revelation come too late? It gnawed at her, despite the consuming agitation. She looked at her watch. It was three minutes to ten when the car literally jumped through the traffic at Fourth Street, ignoring a light, swerving to avoid the traffic’s crosscurrents. Behind them, they heard the grating squeak of tire on asphalt.

Their reactions had been instinctive and his car was in front of her apartment as she dashed forward, hastily dressed, still wiping the cream off her face with the sleeve of her jacket. He was tireless and his beer breath filled the car with its sour stench.

Both knew that their actions were beyond consequence, raw intelligent energy reacting by rote.

“Time?” Jefferson shouted, as they sped past the Tidal Basin. “Ten-oh-one,” she fired back.

“Fuck.”

Through the thicket of self-disgust, her mind groped for a plan. There was little time for explanations. “Just trust me,” she would shout at them. The chiefs voice roared back its answer: “Trust you?” Confronting the Secret Service was awesome in itself. They always seemed so dead certain, so arrogant in their sureness.

“I won’t think about it,” she said, her voice a croak.

“What?”

She looked at her watch again. The car swung past the Lincoln Memorial, offering a fleeting glimpse of an unwanted irony. The watch’s face had blurred.

“There’s an entrance along Rock Creek Parkway.”

He slowed as he saw the wooden guardrail, but the hesitation was temporary.

“Ease it. Don’t crash it,” she cautioned, her mind recognizing the reality. The Secret Service would crowd in on them, misunderstanding. He obeyed and the car reacted, jostling them, as it decelerated. The brief shake-up sharpened her, like a strong hand quieting a hysteric. Her mind cooled, splitting her intellect from her emotions. A wrong move could trigger a wrong reaction. Was it possible in their state to be credible? Deliberately, she wiped her face and smoothed her hair. We mustn’t look like madmen.

The car reached the outer island in front of the Kennedy Center, directly across from the Eisenhower Theater entrance. Jefferson was reaching for his Magnum.

“Don’t draw,” she barked, her hands reaching for her own piece, feeling the cool leather of the holster.

They ran across the island, through the tall glass doors, slowing abruptly as they saw an iron-jawed Secret Serviceman react quickly, blocking their way. She looked at her watch. Ten-ten. Jefferson’s oncoming menacing black face triggered a quick response by the white Secret Service agent. His fingers flicked toward his belt. She flashed her badge and ID

“MPD,” she cried. The badge and ID trembled in her hand. “In five minutes, someone is going to shoot the President.”

His eyes darted from face to face, evaluating them. He was wasting precious time. His fingers groped for his holster.

“No time for that,” she shouted. Her knee lashed out, crashing into his groin. Doubling up, he sank quickly, and they dashed forward, slipping through a side door that she knew led to the corridor outside the auditorium, used primarily for an exit.

In the corridor they hesitated.

“You bad, mama.” His eyes searched hers. It was her show, her judgment. Again she looked at her watch. The second hand was relentless. What she wanted was for time to freeze. Her stomach lurched. She berated her lack of insight. Damn! How had she missed it? It had been there all the time. Jefferson looked at her helplessly, waiting, his Magnum drawn. The exit door was closed, perhaps locked. A Secret Serviceman surely was posted inside. Alert eyes were watching. They should have run up the balcony stairs to the box seat vestibule.

Her mind calmed again. Remington would be up there, in point blank range, the Derringer cocked, his finger on the trigger. For him, confusion would be an asset.

“The President’s box?” she whispered.

Jefferson nodded.

“Just react,” she pleaded. “I know he’s there.”

“I’m with you, mama.”

She heard a wave of laughter. “Don’t think,” she begged herself, pushing open the door to the orchestra. In the sliver of light, she caught a peripheral glimpse of a Secret Serviceman’s startled face. Jefferson, like a big silent cat, bounded past her, moving up the aisle, the Magnum balanced in both hands. Another wave of laughter exploded; her eye, in a swift miracle of magnified vision, saw him move, a slow motion danse macabre. She saw the President’s head, unmistakable even in the shadow, and the outline of the rising Remington. Others moved as well.

“
Him.”
She pointed. “Shoot the mother.”

The split second expanded in a bubble of stopped time. She saw the big black hands clutching the gun, his arms outstretched, making a human barrel, his thick legs braced, as he sighted. The explosion ripped through the auditorium, freezing time at last.

The rolling laughter stopped abruptly. The interval passed in a mini-second, shattered by a staccato burp of the Secret Servicemen’s suddenly revealed Uzzi machine guns, which quickly created a cast-off rag doll out of the black man.

“No!” she screamed. It was a clarion for life to begin again. She heard others scream. The audience erupted in panicked movement and she had to fight the oncoming crowds to get to Jefferson’s torn and battered body. The Magnum’s trigger guard was clasped in his rigid fingers.

Strong hands gripped her shoulders, lifting her, and she fought to shake them loose, bending over him again, cradling him in her arms. Rage clamped her chest, and her tears came without sobs. Through the mist, she saw his smiling open-eyed death mask, hard ebony, without anger. Again she fought them off as they tried to lift her.

“Leave her be,” a voice said, with the disembodied ring of authority. “They saved the President.” The hands left her, and she continued to cradle him until she could not bear his empty eyes. She closed them gently and stood up.

“I want to see him,” she murmured, looking up. A crowd had gathered in the vicinity of the President’s box. They let her pass and she walked through a cordon of hard-eyed Secret Servicemen, through the auditorium, then up the steps to the boxes. They made way for her.

She saw him lying on the floor of the box, face down, the cocked Derringer still poised in his hand. Kneeling, she touched his hair, fine spun, still neat. The familiar aroma wafted to her nostrils. Lifting his head, she saw his face, still smoothly handsome and patrician, even in death. The bullet had caught him dead center in the right eye, leaving a large spongy blank spot. She let his head fall, and, still kneeling, reached into the pocket of her jacket for her credentials.

Secret Servicemen crowded around her in a semicircle. She flashed her badge.

“I am an officer of the Homicide Department of the MPD. This is my case. I don’t want anything touched. Anything.” The men looked at one another, confused. In the distance, she heard sirens.

“Do you understand?” She glared at them, then turned back to the corpse, her mind beginning to absorb the essential details through clear eyes.