Interface (59 page)

As he talked, Marshall was unable to hide his extreme pain. He
became so angry about the pain and so intense in his conversation
that he accidentally knocked over his coffee, spilling the contents
all over the top of the desk. "God-damned son of a bitch," he
screamed.

Patty poked her head around the corner and said, "Did it again,
Your Grace?"

"Bitch," he said, throwing the coffee drenched
Washington
Times
at her. Then he grimaced, doubled over in his chair, and
rested his forehead against the desktop for a moment, his
shoulders heaving.

Eleanor, horrified, looked at Patty for a cue. Patty didn't seem to
notice. She winked at Eleanor and said, "We have a very formal
office."

While Patty cleaned up the mess, Eleanor helped Caleb to a small
conference room next door and let him collapse in a chair. Then
she sat down across the table from him.

Marshall, slumped down low in his chair, said, "In all seriousness,
Eleanor, I thought long and hard about this appointment. I have
very little time left. My problem is not arthritis. It's galloping bone
cancer. I have, maximum, three months of useful activity left."

"Oh, god, Senator, I'm so sorry-'

"Spare me. And call me Caleb."

"Is there anything-"

"Yes. Shut up and listen for a second."

"Okay," Eleanor said.

"I'm stuck in a party that was once for the individual, and now
it's dedicated to controlling the individual. The Bible thumpers and
the single-issue people and all of those other control freaks have no
idea of what the United States is all about. And they are going to
win. But I will make my contribution. And here it is."

Resting on the table was a book, bound in leather, Western-
style. Imprinted on the cover in gold leaf was:

POLITICAL WILL AND TESTAMENT
SEN. CALEB ROOSEVELT MARSHALL

Marshall put his hand on the book and shoved it across the table
at Eleanor. She caught it before it tumbled into her lap. "I have a
press secretary, of course," Marshall said. "And he has a whole
goddamn staff of flacks. I'll continue to use them for the run-of-
the-mill announcements and contacts with local bubble heads. I
want you to work on this and wait for the phone to ring."

"Senator, I thought you were going to bury me in a corner of
your staff somewhere."

"Well, I'm not."

"But your constituents are going to hate you."

"Eleanor, I don't give a good fuck. Get to work."

Eleanor carried the book into an adjoining office, a small but
nice one with a view of the Capitol. Patty was already in there, straightening a few things up. Eleanor's stuff had been moved in and unpacked. Her personal things all looked humble and shabby in the magnificent building.

Patty was sniffling. "I love that man, Eleanor," she said. "He's
the most decent person in this town, and he's dying."

"How many people know?"

"Most of the Hill."

Eleanor settled into her leather chair behind the immense
wooden desk and looked at the walls, decorated with Hopi and Navajo art. On one corner of the desk was a recent photo of both
their kids, and on the other corner, from Ray del Valle, a dozen
roses with the note, "Knock 'em dead, tiger."

Before she could open the Senator's book, the phone rang. It was
Patty.

"Dr. Hunter P. Lawrence on the line for you, Eleanor."

"Okay, put him through."

Eleanor heartily disliked the professor. He was one of the new
breed of talking heads who had turned civilized shows like
Meet the
Press
into the intellectual equivalent of the World Wrestling
Federation. The format of Lawrence's show was simple: a victim
would be invited to sit in the center chair and then two
commentators from the alleged left wing and two from the alleged
right wing would abuse them. If they weren't abusive enough, the
Professor would step in and stir them up. It got great ratings.

"Hello?" she said.

"Ms. Richmond, this is Dr. Lawrence of
Washington Hot Seat.
Welcome to town."

It was strange to hear that famous voice coming out of her
telephone. She felt as if she knew the man, even though she didn't.
"Thank you Dr. Lawrence. How may I be of service to you?"

"We'd like you to appear on our show next week," he said
cheerily.

"Oh, that's very flattering, but I'm sure that I wouldn't be of
much interest."

"Oh, on the contrary. You gained great visibility when you took the neo-Nazi apart. Your advocacy for the Hispanics also was impressive. Your relationship with that troglodyte Marshall is a
subject of conversation. And let's be blunt, there aren't that many
highly visible black women. We're so tired of the usual suspects."

Eleanor had come to work in a state of new-job euphoria. If Dr.
Lawrence had reached her a few minutes earlier, she might not
have taken offense. But hearing about the bone cancer had changed
her mood. She hadn't even had time to process the bad news yet;
she felt edgy and deranged.

"What's the matter, Dr. Lawrence? Did Aunt Jemima cancel at
the last minute?"

A long silence. "Uh-"

"If all you want is a black female, why don't you just go east of Rock Creek Park for once in your life, and just pick one off the
street? Some of those girls clean up real nice."

"We don't really want just anyone."

"I could recommend a few nuns from my old school who
might be able to give you some pointers on treating other
people with common courtesy. Once you've learned all about
that, why don't you call my token black female ass back up and
talk to me again." Eleanor hung up so hard that the telephone
bounced.

Marshall, in the conference room next door, howled and
wheezed with agonized laughter.

"You have a problem, Caleb?" Eleanor shouted.

"You're some P.R. whiz," he shouted. "He even called you
personally - he usually has one of his munchkins do the
scheduling."

"You got me in a bad mood."

"It was perfect. This story will spread all over town and you'll be
even more in demand than you are now. You couldn't have done
better."

"Whom should I be nice to?"

Marshall hooted, "Not one of those cold-blooded, cock-sucking
sons a bitches. They crank out these talking-heads programs like
bad sausage. They have to fill air time every night. Their Rolodexes
are full of white men and everyone nags them about it. If they put
you on TV, then they can point to you and prove how radically
diverse they are."

"Oh. I thought it was because of my cogent analysis."

"That too," Senator Marshall said.

The phone rang again a few minutes later. This time it was Anita
Ross of the Style section of the
Post.
"Ms. Richmond, we've heard how you stiffed Dr. Lawrence. We'd like to do a feature on you for
the Style section."

Marshall was still sitting within earshot, apparently having
nothing better to do with his time, so Eleanor hit the mute button and shouted, "It's the
Post."

"Fuck 'em."

"Ms. Ross," Eleanor said, "why not call me in a couple of weeks,
when I've had the chance to get settled in. Why, the ink on my
badge is hardly dry."

"You'd better know that by taking on the Professor, you could
become an instant culture hero. But only if the story gets
published."

"A culture hero in five minutes? Not bad."

"Some have come and gone here in fifteen minutes," Ms. Ross
said pointedly.

"Well, its been nice talking to you," Eleanor said. "Call back in
twenty minutes and see if I'm still around."

"Nicely done," Marshall said. "What do you think of my
thoughts?"

Eleanor realized that Marshall was waiting for her to look into the book. "I really can't say. I haven't had a chance to open it up
yet."

Marshall tottered into her office, audibly grinding his teeth from
pain. "Go ahead, have a look, I'll just stretch out here on this
couch."

Eleanor picked up the book and opened it. The first page was
blank, and the second, and the third. She riffled through the pages.
They were all blank.

"Senator, what is this?"

"It is my
tabula rasa.
A work in progress. You're going to ghost
write it for me. Just like the old song says, 'Ghost writers in the
sky.'"

"What do you want me to write?"

"Don't trouble me with details, woman. I don't have much time
left."

"But I can't just go out and write it."

"Listen to me. When you made the 'Colorado is a welfare queen
state' speech you set me to thinking. I am as much a part of the
problems as Jesse is or Ted Kennedy or for that matter that poor little Shad Harper son of a bitch you nailed in Denver. You know,
I love this country. I never had much trouble with money because
my dad left me a lot of property and I had the privilege of being a
maverick. The one thing I noticed in forty-eight years of public
service, forty-four up here, is that the rarest thing in life is a person
who speaks the truth. The most dangerous thing in life is a person who constantly refers to 'values.' If I was going to write down my
testament, that is it. None of us has the right to tell anyone else how
to live. None of us has the right to hold back anybody else for any
reason - race, religion, income, or what have you. The rest of life
is an open field, a crap shoot. The role of government is to make it
an equal crap shoot for everybody. Not real profound, but real
effective."

"So what do you want me to do?"

"If you feel able to adhere to the general message I just laid
out-"

"I do."

"Feel your way through this P.R. maze, go out and represent me
on TV, and keep writing your best thoughts down in this goddamn book. Represent freedom and honesty - whoops, there I go talking about values again."

"You really think that someone like me is the person to represent
a card-carrying member of the power structure, like you."

"You're goddamned right. I never get co-opted by nobody.
Nobody is ever going to co-opt you. And in this auto-erotic, skill to stay in the Beltway town, that's a huge advantage."

"When I go public, how do I identify myself?"

"Why, as Eleanor Richmond."

"If you want to. Lady, you're my last gift to the country."

By the end of the day, Eleanor's calendar had been filled for the
summer. One major interview show a week, and two print
journalists a week. Her first interview would be with the
Alexandria
Gazette
on Friday. Even Dr. Lawrence called up, full of contrition
about his lack of sensitivity, and tried to take Eleanor out on a date to the Maison Blanche. Eleanor was a hot topic for the rest of May and June.

It didn't take her long to figure out why: she was close to Senator
Marshall, and everyone in town had heard rumors that Senator
Marshall was dying. They would pump her for information about
the Senator, in more or less subtle ways. She would ward off their
questions and then talk about whatever she wanted - which is what
Washington people always did with the press anyway.

35

"Floyd Wayne Vishniak," said the digitized voice from the
computer, and an array of fresh windows popped into life on Aaron
Green's high-resolution video screen. One of the windows was a
photograph, a head shot of a white man with lank blond hair, not short enough to be short and not long enough to be long, sticking
out from beneath a blue baseball cap that were turned down at the
corners, giving him a sad and bedraggled appearance, and his skin was flushed and glossy under the blaze of an electronic flash. This was not a posed shot. It had been taken from a low angle as Floyd Wayne Vishniak rode down an escalator at a shopping mall some
where. He was staring down into the camera with a blank and
baffled expression that had not yet developed into surprise. He was
wearing a tightly stretched, inside-out, navy blue T-shirt with a
couple of holes in it and he had the ropy muscles of a man who got
them by doing physical labor and not by working out at any health
club.