Gideon (49 page)

“From this moment on, we are writing the rules as we go along,” White House chief of staff Taylor Chapin conceded. “Mrs. Adamson, in consultation with the president and several religious advisors, is weighing the proper, dignified course of action. She very much wants to do what the voters would wish. My own view is that whatever she chooses to do will be the proper thing to do.”

Phone calls and messages of condolence continue to pour in from the world’s leaders to the White House, where Mrs. Adamson will remain in residence “for just as long as she wants,” according to President Bickford. The president will maintain his residence at Blair House, the vice presidential home, for the foreseeable future.

President Bickford did not offer any new information on President Adamson’s suicide at this morning’s news conference. Advisors close to the late president continue to maintain that they had no indication that he was unduly troubled or depressed. Chief of Staff Chapin did acknowledge that President Adamson seemed “preoccupied” at the cabinet meeting he attended moments before he shot himself in the Oval Office. But, Chapin insisted, this was nothing out of the ordinary. “He was the president of the United States, for God’s sake,” Chapin said. “The man had a lot on his mind.”

President Bickford, a four-term senator from Ohio, was widely viewed as President Adamson’s political mentor, first encountering the younger political hopeful when he served as a summer intern in his office while attending Harvard Law School. It was Senator Bickford who advised young Tom Adamson to return to his native Mississippi and seek office there, guiding him from the state legislature to the governorship, and eventually helping to throw national party support his way for a presidential bid.

Long considered the ultimate Washington insider, President Bickford was widely known to enjoy a father-son relationship with the late president, who never knew his own father. Advisors described him as “devastated” by President Adamson’s death and “concerned” about his own physical condition.

Among its other symptoms, Bell’s palsy affects salivation, which required the president to dab frequently at the corner of his mouth with a folded white handkerchief during the news conference.

According to Dr. David Kaminsky, a neurologist on the staff of the Bethesda Naval Hospital who is treating the president, Bell’s palsy, also known as facial palsy, is a paralysis of one side of the face that is brought on by an inflammation of a facial nerve. The cause is unknown, although stress is believed to play a part in it. The condition is usually temporary. Symptoms include the characteristic sagging of one side of the face, including drooping of the eyelid and one corner of the mouth. Ear pain, slurred speech, and changes in salivation are common. The president is currently receiving oral corticosteroid drugs to reduce the inflammation of the nerve and analgesics for the pain.

Dr. Kaminsky vigorously denied that the president had suffered a minor stroke, as had been previously speculated when the symptoms first appeared.

According to Dr. Kaminsky, Bell’s palsy is an uncomfortable condition, especially for someone who is in the public eye. But it is not life-threatening, and a full recovery is expected within two to four months. President Bickford is otherwise in robust health for a man his age. His mind is alert and his reflexes are sharp. Until recently, he was known to swim one hour daily.

Still, prompted by his illness, he recently announced that he was going to relinquish his vice presidential spot on the ticket to a younger candidate who could better withstand the rigors of the immediate presidential campaign as well as a bridge to the party’s future.

From the front-page story syndicated by Apex News Service, carried by the
New York Herald,
the
Washington Journal
, the
Chicago Press
, the
Loss Angeles Post
, the
Denver Tribune
, and the
Miami Daily Breeze:

POLL SHOWS STRONG SUPPORT FOR FIRST LADY

Washington, July 14 (Apex News Service)—
A new Apex News Network—
Washington Journal
poll of over 5,000 registered voters across America shows unexpectedly strong support by voters of both parties for Elizabeth Cartwright Adamson to carry on her husband’s work in the White House next year by running for the presidency herself.

The poll, in which voters gave the former First Lady an overall approval rating of 82 percent, showed Mrs. Adamson beating Republican Senator Walter Chalmers of Wyoming by a convincing 52 to 37 percent margin were she to face off against him as the Democratic challenger in November.

Her lead in the poll was even greater than the comfortable 10 percent margin enjoyed by her late husband in the days before his death, and substantially greater than that enjoyed by President Bickford. The poll has a margin of error of plus or minus 3 percentage points.

“What you are seeing here is a sympathy vote,” Chalmers campaign coordinator F. Price Stingley said in response to the surprising poll numbers. “The inherent kindness and decency of the American people are on full display. But believe me, when the time comes to pull the lever, they will vote with their pocketbooks, not their hankies. Besides, as much as they pay lip service to equality between the sexes, what they want at the helm is a strong hand, not a velvet glove.”

The polling numbers contradict his contention. When asked if they considered the matter of a woman serving in the White House a critical issue, only 18 percent of voters said they thought it was. Fifty-two percent said it was not an issue. Thirty percent had no opinion.

“The fact that she is a woman is a nonissue,” countered Democratic pollster Elise Marion. “Margaret Thatcher ran Britain successfully for a number of years, and a woman can and will run this country as well. What these numbers tell me, more than anything else, is that Walter Chalmers scares people. Voters are more in tune with President Adamson’s agenda. And much more comfortable with Lizzie.”

Mrs. Adamson’s support was especially high among women voters, who preferred her to Chalmers by a 68 to 22 percent margin, with 10 percent undecided, and by African-American voters, who gave her a resounding 72 to 20 percent thumbs-up, with 6 percent undecided. Support among the young and the elderly was equally strong.

Even among white male Republicans, who are considered the backbone of Chalmers’s support, Mrs. Adamson fared somewhat better than her late husband, losing to Chalmers by 58 to 34 percent. President Adamson trailed Chalmers for the so-called Joe Sixpack vote by a 59 to 32 percent margin.

Poll respondents cited Mrs. Adamson’s stirring speech after her husband’s death and her strong record as an advocate of social issues as reasons for their support. They also cited her “humanity” and “personal integrity.”

A surprisingly low 11 percent of Democratic voters said they would prefer the party to run a different candidate.

Mrs. Adamson, who remains in seclusion at the White House, has not indicated that she has any interest in running or would consider doing so if drafted by the party. “She is a widow,” said one staff aide. “People seem to forget that she wants to grieve, not think about running for office.”

If she was to run, she would be the first woman to head a major party’s presidential ticket in American history.

In response to questions, Democratic Party chairman Miguel Rodriguez continues to maintain that the Democrats will put forward a strong ticket capable of beating back the conservative Chalmers agenda. But behind closed doors, there is every indication that unless Mrs Adamson takes the reins, the party’s prospects will be bleak and that next week’s wide-open convention will be “a no-holds-barred food fight,” in the words of one White House aide.

Elizabeth Adamson has never been the prototypical First Lady, content to smile demurely at her husband’s side and confine her activities to social events. A graduate of Duke Law School, she has long been outspoken on controversial policy issues such as federally insured health care for the poor and the use of land mines by the U.S. military. She has chaired international summits on global warming and family planning, and authored three best-selling books. White House insider knew her to be President Adamson’s most trusted advisor and sounding board.

If she was to run, her candidacy would revive a spirited and sometimes rancorous give-and-take between herself and Senator Chalmers, who once labeled her a “tree-hugging, bra-burning feminist extremist.” In response, Mrs. Adamson called Senator Chalmers “the point man for the far right” and “a dinosaur determined to lead America back into the nineteenth century rather than ahead into the twenty-first, where we belong.”

The thirteenth cardinal was in total agony.

Dear God, the pain, the throbbing
. Not to mention the humiliation at being unable to perform so basic an animal function as taking a blessed pee. Cardinal O’Brien knew these symptoms only too well. And he had no one to blame but himself for how he felt right now. Because he was not supposed to drink anymore. Not with his enlarged prostate gland.

He was for certain not supposed to try to keep up with someone like young Father Patrick, who drank as if he were trying to put out a raging fire down below.

But Cardinal O’Brien had done exactly that. It was almost a week ago that he had sat up most of the night drinking Bushmills and beer chasers with the troubled young cleric, trying to soothe his tortured soul. And for several days now it was he who’d been the tortured one, filled with dread, the kind that came with knowing that first thing the next morning his urologist would be sticking his entire hamlike fist up the cardinal’s rectum and attaching a catheter to his penes so as to drain his bladder for him.

Oh, the humiliation of old age
, reflected the cardinal, who would be seventy-three in two weeks.
Oh, the loss of dignity
.

But he had done what he felt needed doing. When Father Patrick had phoned him, the young priest had been parked alongside the Potomac, sobbing hysterically and nearly incoherently into his car phone. The older man felt that suicide was a distinct possibility. Father Pat had studied with Cardinal O’Brien some years ago. He was a bright light, a highly promising individual who lately had been facing the gravest of troubles. His beloved sister had been killed by a drunk driver. Father Patrick had come to doubt God’s very existence, putting the cardinal in mind of a favorite passage from the Book of James: “He who doubts is like a wave driven by the sea.” The cardinal had counseled him and prayed with him at the time. And he had told young Father Pat to call him if ever he needed him.

Well, Father Patrick had called. And he had needed him.

Without hesitation, the cardinal had personally driven the forty miles into Washington from downtown Baltimore, picked him up, and brought him back to his private residence, the five-story neoclassical Archbishop’s House, which was connected to the basilica by a sheltered walkway facing onto North Charles Street.

The two of them had sat up in his study drinking and talking for most of the night. Father Patrick had been in great torment. His hands shook and his teeth chattered. From time to time he wept uncontrollably, huge tears that wrenched his entire body. But the poor soul had been unable to tell the cardinal exactly what it was that preyed upon him. They had talked about church politics. They had talked about the cardinal’s beloved Orioles and whether they had enough arms in the bullpen. But not about what tortured Father Patrick. He could not bring himself to put it into words.

He could not inflict that kind of knowledge upon the cardinal—that was what Father Pat had said.

In the morning the cardinal had phoned Father Thaddeus at his retreat in the Great Smoky Mountains and advised him that Father Patrick was on his way down there. Then the cardinal had handed the young priest the keys to his car and sent him on his way.

Father Patrick begged him to tell no one he had been to see him. No matter who came, no matter who was asking the questions. “Please trust me,” Father Pat had said. The cardinal assured the younger priest that his faith in him was absolute, that he would not say a word. And he had kept his promise, even though the Washington police had phone him that very afternoon to inquire if he knew anything about the priest’s whereabouts.

The cardinal made a point of watching the news on television that evening while he ate his crab cakes and boiled new potatoes. Bad news and more bad news. And it kept getting worse. For the past week the broadcasts had been concerned with a serial killer who was still at large, a frustrated aspiring author. It was terrible, the cardinal reflected, what frustration could do to bright, creative young people. Father Patrick’s disappearance had also received prominent mention. The authorities were considering his to be a missing-person case, and foul play was suspected. Now, of course, all other stories had been eclipsed by news of President Adamson’s suicide and the ensuing political turmoil. A tragedy, the cardinal thought. A genuine tragedy. He had known Tom Adamson. Not well, but well enough; he had presided over two or three presidential masses and been to several teas and social functions. A clever man, the president was. And clearly a troubled one. But those two things so often went hand in hand. The cardinal himself often longed for the peace of being a student rather than a teacher, a follower rather than a leader. He remembered a particularly lively conversation he’d had, perhaps a year ago, with Father Patrick on that very topic. They had been talking about the president, as a matter of fact, about the extraordinary pressure he faced on a daily basis. Father Pat had known Adamson, too. Had taken his confession several times, on occasion had served as something of a spiritual advisor.

“Such troubles,” the cardinal murmured under his breath. For the dead and for the living.

It was nearly midnight now. A warm, oily rain was falling. In the distance there was thunder and lightning, moving steadily closer. As he so often did before he retired for the night, the cardinal strolled across to the basilica, hunching slightly from the pain in his groin. He enjoyed walking through the basilica before he headed up to bed. There was a tremendous sense of coolness and peace inside its massive, unornamented granite-faced walls, the great dome loomed overhead. It’s quiet soothed him.