Benchley, Peter - Novel 06 (57 page)

 
          
 
"Mr. Burnham?"

 
          
 
The voice sounded far away, like someone
calling from the kitchen, but because it didn't belong in his head it was
jarring, intrusive.

 
          
 
He opened his eyes and looked between his
stockinged feet and saw Dyanna standing in the doorway.

 
          
 
Her face was ashen beneath its veneer of
rouge, which made her cheeks look splotchy.

 
          
 
"I have to talk to you right away."

 
          
 
Burnham expended a mighty breath and rolled
upright. He opened and closed his eyes and rubbed his temples with his
fingertips. His mind had begun a retreat, and to be yanked back suddenly from
the lip of oblivion was painful. "I don't suppose it can wait."

 
          
 
"No, sir. Not this. I'm afraid I found
out why we're here."

 
          
 
"What?" He looked at her to see if
she was joking. "You mean you've solved the seminal teleological riddle?
For that you woke me up? It's been lying around for a billion years. It could
have waited another half hour.''

 
          
 
"Here." Dyanna pointed to the floor.
"Why we're here."

 
          
 
"I know why I'm here. The President told
me. I'm to be his Boswell."

 
          
 
"That may be why you're here now, but
it's not how he found you."

 
          
 
"What are you talking about?"

 
          
 
Dyanna opened one of her hands and showed him
a Sony microcassette. "I'm sorry," she said. "I mean, I think
I'm sorry. I don't know! Don't you see?"

 
          
 
She's about to burst into tears, Burnham
decided. She's come unglued.

 
          
 
He stood up and went to Dyanna, took the
cassette from her and put an arm around her shoulder. "We have any
coffee?"

 
          
 
She nodded.

 
          
 
"Let's have some coffee."

 
          
 
"Then you'll listen to it?"

 
          
 
"Then I'll listen to it, whatever 'it'
is."

 
          
 
He followed her into her office, and as she
fumbled for the cups and the sugar substitute and the nondairy creamer and the
coffee, the words flooded from her like water through a ruptured dike.

 
          
 
"I ran out of tapes for my dictation
machine, and I needed another one in case the President wanted something in a
hurry and you had to dictate or whatever, I didn't want to be caught without one,
so I called downstairs and they won't have any new ones in until tomorrow, and
our old ones have been used so many times they're fuzzy and sound like a
chicken fight."

 
          
 
She handed Burnham his coffee and, carrying
her micro-cassette recorder, followed him back into his office and shut the
door behind them.

 
          
 
He did not try to hurry her, did not want to
interrupt her, because he sensed that whatever it was she was leading up to was
something about which he would need to know every minute detail.

 
          
 
"Well, I knew that Mr. Epstein's girls
have a whole bin full of these tapes, 'cause you know every phone call he has
is taped and—"

 
          
 
"It is? Every one?"

 
          
 
"Uh-huh. Not so much for a record or
anything, I mean this isn't Watergate or anything, he's not crazy, but just so
the girls can type an accurate transcript if they need to later, and then when
they're done with it or they don't need to transcribe it they just throw it in
the bin and use it again. So I asked Connie if she'd lend me a tape and she
said sure and she reached into the bin and gave me a whole handful of them, so
I brought them back here and I picked one and put it in my machine and pushed
'play' just to make sure it wasn't all crackly and . . . well, that's it."
She pointed to the tape in Burnham's hand. "I'm sorry."

 
          
 
"What are you sorry about?"

 
          
 
"You'll see. I mean, maybe you'll be
happy. I don't know."

 
          
 
Burnham handed her the tape and sat on the
couch. She loaded the recorder and placed it on the coffee table.

 
          
 
"Sit down," Burnham said, and he
patted the place beside him on the couch.

 
          
 
"No, sir, I—"

 
          
 
"Jesus, Dyanna, I'm not gonna kiss you!”

 
          
 
"No, sir, I'm afraid you might strangle
me."

 
          
 
He smiled at her and said, "I promise.
Now sit."

 
          
 
She sat on the edge of the couch, as if poised
for flight, and pushed the "play" button.

 
          
 
From the little speaker in the recorder came
the voice of Evelyn Witt: "Just a sec, Mario."

 
          
 
Then a second of silence, a click, and the
President: "Yeah, Mario."

 
          
 
Burnham pushed the "stop" button.
"He records all his conversations with the President?"

 
          
 
"Uh-huh."

 
          
 
"If the President knew, if he even
suspected, he'd have Epstein's ass." Burnham smiled. "Whatever's on
the rest of this tape, Dyanna, no matter what it is, I'm gonna have a medal
stmck for you."

 
          
 
"Wait." Dyanna's hand fluttered over
her hair. "Please wait."

 
          
 
Burnham started the recorder.

 
          
 
"Mr. President," Epstein said,
"I've spoken to Dennis again about this Gromyko business."

 
          
 
"And?" There was an edge of
aggressive irritation in the President's voice.

 
          
 
"Sir, we hope you'll reconsider the idea
of using Burnham."

 
          
 
"Why? You don't think I know people? You
don't think I can pick my own man?"

 
          
 
"No, sir ... I mean, no, that's not what
we think. He's not qualified. It's as simple as that."

 
          
 
"How do you know?"

 
          
 
"We've double-checked his whole file. He
has no experience in foreign policy. He's never negotiated anything with
anybody."

 
          
 
"You checked his file." The
President chuckled. "You ever check Dick Helms's file? How about Kermit
Roosevelt's? Just bureaucrats, right? A file's like the credits on a movie: It
doesn't tell you anything about the story behind the story."

 
          
 
"But, sir—"

 
          
 
"You want me to send Parker Randall? He's
'qualified,' all right, but you know's well as I do that he'd spend the whole
time trying to find a restaurant that made you eat with eight forks and six
spoons. Gromyko's dealt with nine American Presidents. He knows more about the
history of our foreign policy than we do, crissakes. He's got no respect for
college boys with on-the-job training. What he respects is someone he knows,
someone he also knows has the ear of the President. And that's Tim. To a 'T.'
"

 
          
 
"Excuse me, Mr. President, but how do you
know Burnham knows Gromyko?"

 
          
 
(Burnham said to Dyanna, "I can't
wait." She did not reply. She picked frantically at her nail polish. She
seemed 4o be shrinking into the couch.)

 
          
 
"How do I know?" the President
thundered. "I know, that's how!"

 
          
 
"Did Gromyko tell you?"

 
          
 
No reply.

 
          
 
"Did Burnham tell you?"

 
          
 
"As good as. The first day he came in
here, that day I was gonna fire him for fucking up, he had a couple of phone
messages on his papers. I know, 'cause I picked 'em off the floor myself. One
said he should call Margaret Thatcher. The other said Gromyko had retumed his
call and he was to call back right away."

 
          
 
(Burnham stopped the tape. He looked at
Dyanna, who was wishing she could vanish into the floral print in the
upholstery. He said, "Jesus Christ."

 
          
 
She nodded.

 
          
 
"The whole thing?" He waved his arm
around the room, gathering in the White House, the presidency, his entire life.
"Everything? From two silly messages you scribbled for me because I felt
insecure walking around the White House without papers?"

 
          
 
She nodded again.

 
          
 
"He must've thought I was ... I don't
know. What?"

 
          
 
She pointed dumbly at the tape recorder, so he
pushed the "play" button.)

 
          
 
"Phone messages?" Epstein's voice
had risen half an octave. He was trying his best to muzzle a scream. "But,
sir . . . how do you know they were genuine?"

 
          
 
"Goddammit, Mario, don't be an asshole!
What kinda jerk-off runs around writing himself phony messages to call the
Russians?"

 
          
 
Epstein made a noise that sounded as if he had
a piece of stew beef caught in his esophagus, a kind of gurgly breathless
swallowing noise.

 
          
 
Sensing that his counterstrike had drawn
blood, the President resumed the offensive.

 
          
 
"You know, your trouble, Mario, is you
think anybody who doesn't report to you and God forbid anybody who knows
something you don't know, he must be a friggin' Chinaman or a spy or something.
But there are people in this government that you don't know about, and some
that even I don't know about, who serve their country goddamn well in spite of
you. Like Timothy. Now, if you're still nosing around him, I want you to stop
it. I'm not gonna have you bitch up some major undercover operation just 'cause
your pride's got piles. Understood?"

 
          
 
"Yes, sir. But there's one test
I'd—"

 
          
 
"No. No tests. No nothing. Got it?"

 
          
 
"Yes, sir."

 
          
 
"Remember something, Mario: This
country's run for more than two hundred years without your hand on the helm. I
don't care if Tim climbed out from under some friggin' rock. He serves his
President—and without a lot of the pissing and moaning I hear from other pains
in the ass around here."