Benchley, Peter - Novel 06 (25 page)

 
          
 
A Filipino steward showed Burnham to a small
table for two nestled against the far wall. Burnham ordered coffee and opened
his Boswell. He heard a familiar voice nearby. It was not loud—barely above a
whisper—but it was angry, emphatic and contemptuous. He looked up.

 
          
 
Beside him, at another table for two, were the
Secretary of State and Mario Epstein. Epstein was excoriating the Secretary.
The Secretary's face was heliotrope with rage and humiliation; so much blood
had rushed to his face that his neck had swollen and threatened to pop his
Tiffany collar pin. His eyes were fixed on his coffee cup, and his hands
gripped the sides of the table so hard that he barely moved each time Epstein
jabbed him in the shoulder with a finger.

 
          
 
The Secretary's appointment had been a token
tossed by the President to the eastern establishment. He was the only male heir
to a huge chemicals fortune that had permitted him, his father, his grandfather
and his great-grandfather to dedicate their lives to public service. He had
graduated from
Princeton
and
Yale
Law
School
, and had served, briefly but creditably, in
the Foreign Service until he received the first of a succession of increasingly
important appointments to various international commissions, committees,
delegations, negotiations, parleys and palavers. He taught seminars, wrote
articles and books, moderated television shows and won formidable awards from
obscure groups for his devotion to international understanding. He was
debonair, impeccably tailored, diplomatic, handsome . . . and safe.

 
          
 
Though well educated and widely experienced,
he had no ideas of his own. He was a talented synthesizer incapable of
creation. He fit perfectly into the President's Cabinet.

 
          
 
The last thing Benjamin Winslow wanted in
Foggy Bottom was a free thinker. One Henry Kissinger was enough for a
generation. If the supervision of the nuclear arsenal was too important to
leave to the generals, then foreign policy was too important to leave to the
striped-pants brigade. In the Winslow

 
          
 
Administration, foreign policy was born and
bred in the White House and merely enunciated by the State Department.

 
          
 
Epstein jabbed the Secretary again, and Burnham
wondered what transgression the man had committed. Hubris, probably. The
Secretary must have had the gall to issue a policy statement without clearing
it with Epstein or the President's National Security advisor—one and the same
thing, really, since the National Security advisor, Dennis Duggan, had been
recruited from the Brookings Institute by Epstein and (it was rumored) didn't
dare belch without first clearing it with Epstein.

 
          
 
But why would Epstein have chosen the White
House Mess as the forum in which to dress down the Administration's own Cary
Grant, when he could have ranted at any decibel pitch he chose behind the
closed door of his own office? Looking at the Secretary of State, Burnham suddenly
knew, and he felt the pride of perception. Epstein would have recognized three
choices: the privacy of his office, the open public—that is, in front of his
subordinates or the Secretary's or (the unthinkable last resort) the press—and
the semiprivacy of a place like the Mess.

 
          
 
The second option he would have abandoned
immediately. The Secretary would have felt compelled to resign (rich WASPs
could afford to take offense at anything, so you had to be careful how you
abused them), would have become the darling of the nation's op-ed pages, talk
shows and think tanks and would suddenly have found himself wielding a great
deal more clout as an adversary of the President than he had as an ally.

 
          
 
The first option was no good, either. In
private, the Secretary would have defended himself vigorously, would have
scored several telling blows, and Epstein would have had to argue with him,
deal with him, negotiate. Epstein loathed the very thought of dealing and
negotiating.

 
          
 
A semiprivate room was the answer, for here
Epstein had a hands-down advantage. He had no hesitation about offending
anybody anywhere at any time. He would castigate waiters, upbraid chefs, insult
hosts and belittle dinner partners with gay abandon. But the Secretary was too
well-bred. He would never make a scene in front of strangers. He would eat bad
food, drink bad wine and suffer appalling boors with polite forbearance rather
than raise his voice or (God forbid) tell them to buzz off. In this
circumstance, the Secretary was forced, by genetics and environmental training,
to endure Epstein's attack in silence. At most, he would say something like,
"Respectfully, Mario, I must disagree with you."

 
          
 
Burnham realized he was staring. He should
look away. But it was too late. Epstein must have sensed an intruder, for his
head snapped around and he glared at Burnham and said, "You got a
problem?"

 
          
 
"Me?" Burnham squeaked.
"No!" He flapped his hand over his book. "Confusing
translation."

 
          
 
Epstein kept staring at him until Burnham
hunched over and surrounded Boswell with his arms and appeared to be about to
eat the book.

 
          
 
He hummed, to block out the conversation at
the next table, as he tried to focus on Johnson, so he didn't hear Warner Cobb
walk up to him and say, "Hi."

 
          
 
Cobb gazed quizzically down at the humming
machine consuming the book, then pulled out a chair and sat down.

 
          
 
Burnham felt the table shake, and he looked
up. "Oh. Hi," he said. "I tried to call you."

 
          
 
He told Cobb about Sarah finding the
microphone in the car. He did not tell him how their discussion had ended. It
was none of Cobb's business. Besides, Burnham had no idea how long his problems
with Sarah would last, and he had not had time to absorb them, to adjust to
them. He was not ready to become a White House staffer with Personal Problems.
Personal Problems were a liability. At best, they were a source of gossip and
sympathy. At worst, they could affect security clearance, assignments and
access to the President. They could be used as a synonym for instability and unreliability.
To the President, an aide with Personal Problems was a flake.

 
          
 
"She must be pissed," Cobb said.

 
          
 
"You could say."

 
          
 
Cobb smiled. "Is that why you're in
early?"

 
          
 
"Sort of. She thinks ... no, she knows
that she's being bugged because she works for Kennedy."

 
          
 
"That's paranoid nonsense."

 
          
 
"That's what I told her. Can you find
out?"

 
          
 
"What would we do it for? He isn't running
again. Even if he was . . . Man! If there's one lesson from Watergate, when it
comes to that kind of shenanigans, watch your ass/'

 
          
 
Burnham nodded. "Can you find out?"

 
          
 
Annoyance flicked across Cobb's face, and then
he realized that Burnham was not so much disbelieving him as begging to be
rescued. "For real? I doubt it. If anybody was doing it—and I can all but
guarantee you they're not—they'd hardly admit it to me. But I can get you an
answer. What makes you think she'd believe us?"

 
          
 
"I don't know. She won't believe me.
Maybe if I look as if I'm making an effort, raising hell in high places, she'll
see reason."

 
          
 
"It's none of my business, but . .
." Cobb paused. "Maybe she doesn't want to see reason."

 
          
 
"That, Warner, I can't deal with. I can't
do anything about it, so there's no point thinking about it. I'd rather bear
the ills I have, than fly to others that I know not of."

 
          
 
"Very healthy. Okay. I'll check around.
I'll make sure you get a categorical denial from usually reliable sources very
close to senior officials high up in the Administration. Unofficially."

 
          
 
"And off the record."

 
          
 
"Right. Now, if I may ..." Cobb took
some folded papers from the inside pocket of his jacket. "This morning I
got a call from the boss. I was at home. In bed. Asleep. He seemed annoyed that
I wasn't on station in my splendid office. It was
six o'clock
."

 
          
 
"Power knows no time of day." Burnham
smiled. "And absolute power never sleeps."

 
          
 
"Johnson? I like it."

 
          
 
"I just made it up."

 
          
 
"Oh. Too bad. Let's find somebody to
attribute it to. Anyway, Himself has a job for you."

 
          
 
"You mean he asked for me?"

 
          
 
"Specifically. And even by your right
name."

 
          
 
"Why?"

 
          
 
"Who knows? It must be more of the magic
you worked on him yesterday. I wouldn't worry about it. He gets these
infatuations. It'll pass. They always do. Sometimes, the people even survive.
There's a State Dinner tonight."

 
          
 
"I know. For the Gizmo of Grunt."

 
          
 
"Please. Show some respect. It's for the
Pasha of Banda."

 
          
 
"Banda." Burnham tried to read
Cobb's eyes, to see if he was being thrown a curve. He wasn't. "Warner, I
went to fine schools. I have traveled. I read the gazette. I monitor the
electronic marvels of the age. I think of myself as respectably informed. But
never in my life have I heard of the nation of Banda."

 
          
 
"You are so . . . parochial." Cobb
grinned. "In the
Timor
Sea
, of course.
Critical. Very critical. A citadel of democracy."

 
          
 
"No doubt with a population of six
anthropoids, a derelict copra industry . . . and fifteen trillion barrels of
oil."

 
          
 
"Approximately."

 
          
 
"So what's the problem? We phoneticize
'Banda.' The President calls him a great American and gives him a set of cuff
links and a gift certificate to Orvis."

 
          
 
"The President received a draft of a
toast for the dinner from the NSC. I don't think he liked it."

 
          
 
"You don't think."

 
          
 
"His words were"—Cobb consulted some
scribbles on the folded papers—" 'Warner, I got the toast for the
whosiwhatsis tonight. That dog won't hunt.' "

 
          
 
" 'That dog won't hunt?' Where'd he get
that one?"

 
          
 
"T. Boone Pickens paid a visit the other
day. T. Boone Pickens likes to say things like 'That dog won't hunt.' "

 
          
 
"Did he say exactly what was wrong with
that dog?"