The Henderson Equation (21 page)

"I thought that's what you wanted."

"I'm not so sure anymore." Charlie mused.
"I'd be the damned Son-in-Law."

"So what?"

"It's more complicated than that." He finished
his beer and looked at Nick. "It's an odd arrangement," he continued.
"The old man won't put Myra in the business but he's fixed it so that the
Chronicle
's
ownership stays in Myra's hands after his death." He shook his head.

"Apparently he believes in bloodlines and property,
but not in women," Nick said.

"Which makes me a kind of surrogate for Myra, a
stand-in. What the hell happens when the old man dies?"

"You'll be working for your wife," Nick
responded.

Charlie shrugged. A nerve palpitated in his jaw. "I'm
not afraid of the responsibility," he said suddenly ignoring the response.
"I've got a lot of ideas for that paper, but it requires absolute control,
no democratic bullshit, one man at the helm. You can't run a newspaper by
committee."

Apparently he had given the matter a great deal of thought.
Nick sensed he was merely debating with himself now. He remained silent as
Charlie moved to the bar and found another beer.

The Press Secretary darted back into the suite. Dewey was
sufficiently rested to make his appearance, he told them. Photographers ran for
their Speed Graphics. Then, on signal, they rushed into the corridors, jostling
the Press Secretary as he attempted unsuccessfully to discipline their
movements.

Pushed from behind, Nick and Charlie moved with the crowd.
Charlie held his beer bottle up over the heads of the mob as it came to a halt
in front of the elevator banks.

"What's the latest results?" someone asked.

"Dewey's winning."

The elevator door opened. Cameras popped and a short
smiling man with a heavy squared moustache and a shiny face walked into the
center of the group, like a trained monkey about to perform. Questions burst
from the crowd.

"How do you feel?"

"Confident."

"Where's your wife?"

"She's still in the suite."

"What did you have for dinner?"

"A piece of pie. I wasn't very hungry."

"Are you glad the campaign is over?"

"Are you kidding?"

"Will you vacation after your victory?"

"I haven't won yet."

"Who will be your Secretary of State?"

"That's being presumptuous."

"Are the returns going as expected?"

"Exactly."

"When can we expect a victory statement?"

"When victory comes."

"And suppose defeat comes?" It was Charlie's
question. Dewey squinted into the crowd, lights bouncing over his glistening
forehead. Nick suddenly caught the anxiety in the man, the greediness for
success. He seemed frightened, trapped. He stood in the midst of the crowd,
small and vulnerable, a lonely figure. Charlie's question was never answered as
Dewey pressed on down the corridor in a trail of popping flashbulbs, beefy
policemen making a path through the newspaper crowd. Then the group made a rush
for the telephones. Charlie made the call this time, embellishing the story out
of his own specially tinted observations. When he hung up the phone, he stopped
again at the bar for a beer.

"What did you tell them?"

"I said he looked worried."

"Christ, Charlie," Nick said. "That could
change the focus of the story. One simple observation like that."

"I know."

"It didn't seem that way to me."

"He
is
worried, Nick," Charlie said.
"They tell me at the
News
that the returns are beginning to show
slippage."

The other reporters were getting the same information,
prompting a nervous reaction in the crowded room. Newspapermen were always
catching things from each other: enthusiasm, depression, cynicism. The tone of
the group began to change. The Press Secretary came in carrying notes. He was
sweating, his arrogance dissipating. He read a statement.

"We have every reason to believe that the results are
still favoring Mr. Dewey. The Western returns, just coming in, indicate the
strength of our thrust."

"What the hell does that mean?" Charlie shouted.
The beer was beginning to have some effect.

"It means," the Press Secretary said, with an
effort to regain his former aplomb, "that the final Western returns will
assure our victory."

"Baloney," Charlie said. "You're starting to
lose and you're scared as hell."

"That is simply not true," the Press Secretary
responded, glaring, the sweat beading on his forehead.

"How is Mr. Dewey taking it?" someone asked. The
dam had burst. The tide of the press optimism had turned.

"Mr. Dewey is confident."

"Has he got a concession statement ready?"
Charlie asked. The question rattled the Press Secretary. "We intend to win
this election," he said, his voice breaking.

"Answer the question," someone shouted.

The Press Secretary seemed to deflate entirely, a pricked
balloon. "We will prepare any statement that is appropriate," he said
disdainfully.

"Why the hell can't he tell the goddamned truth?"
Charlie hissed. "Why can't he just say that he's scared, that Dewey is
scared, that it's not at all going as they expected? Why do they all have to be
such a bunch of liars?"

Finally the Press Secretary retreated. Nick phoned the
paper. The rewrite man put him through to McCarthy.

"What do they think up there?" McCarthy asked. He
seemed depressed.

"They say that they're hopeful about the Western
returns, although they're not as cocky as they were earlier."

"Shit!"

"Worried about your bet?"

"I just took a chance on getting a victory edition on
the street. Hell, the Chicago
Tribune
is out with a victory extra saying
that Dewey has won. What a goddamned donnybrook!" He had never observed
such confusion in McCarthy. "One edition is already on the street with
O'Donnell's column congratulating Dewey as the new President-elect."

Nick looked around the room. The crowd of reporters was
thinning out. "Where the hell is everybody going?" Nick asked the
waning group.

"To Democratic headquarters," someone answered.
"That's where the action is now."

"I think you better hold that edition, boss,"
Nick said. "There's a mass exodus here."

"I need a drink," McCarthy said suddenly.

"Apparently," Nick said, holding a bulletin of
the latest returns that someone had brought from Dewey's suite, "California
will decide. It looks like a long night."

"Yeah," McCarthy said, hanging up abruptly. Nick
went to the bar and poured himself a shot of Scotch, gulping it quickly,
feeling it burn as it dropped downward. Charlie had sprawled on a couch in the
now quiet room. A tipsy reporter stood in the door.

"I just came from the Ballroom. It's now a wake. Even
the band has stopped playing."

"The fortunes of war," Charlie said. "The
Chronicle
was one of the few papers that supported Truman. The old man was right."

"Stubborn, I'd say. He was a tiny minority."

"The power of the lone voice." Charlie became
silent, staring into space. "It would be one helluva challenge,
Nick," he said after a while. "If only..."

Nick remembered Margaret. He looked at his watch. It was getting
late, nearly two A.M.

"If only what?" he said abstractedly.

"You think I could handle it, kid?" Charlie
asked. It was an appeal. "I want it so badly I can taste it, but I'm
scared shitless."

"Of what?"

"Of myself. Of Myra. Of the kind of commitment required."

"I can't tell you what to do, Charlie," Nick
said.

"Do you think I can handle it?"

"I think you could fuck an elephant if you put your
mind to it, Charlie."

"You're a blind boob, kid. Did anyone ever tell you
that?"

"Yeah, you."

After a while Myra appeared at the door of the press room,
squinting through the stale smoke. She looked neat and cool and bending over
Charlie's sprawled form, she kissed him on the forehead.

"Come to kick the carcass of the Republicans,"
Charlie said, sitting up.

"I thought I might get you to come up to the other
place. They'll be having a victory celebration."

"It won't be definite until California comes in,"
Nick said after he greeted Myra with a kiss on her cheek. Her flesh felt cool
on his lips.

Charlie looked at his wristwatch and got up. "What's
the latest?" he asked.

The Press Secretary came in again and stood before the
thinned-out group of reporters. "We are confident that the returns from
California will assure our victory," he said, tight-lipped, like a little boy
whistling in the cemetery. A wave of chuckles greeted his statement.

"How is Dewey taking it?"

"Mr. Dewey is confident," the Press Secretary
said.

"Bullshit," Charlie hissed. The Press Secretary
turned to him. "There's no need for profanity," he said.

"Why don't you just tell us the truth?" Charlie
said.

"I have."

"Bullshit again," Charlie said.

"I don't have to stand here and take this."

"Well then, don't."

The Press Secretary's humiliation hung in the air.

"Why don't you just say that Dewey is concerned?"

"Because he isn't."

"Then let him come out here and tell us so."

The Press Secretary shook his head and flushed, then turned
angrily and walked back to the candidate's suite.

"They've probably got him tied down so he won't jump
out the window," a reporter said. Charlie went to the bank of telephones
and called the office. Nick felt a pressure on his elbow as Myra edged him into
a corner of the room.

"Can I ask you a favor, Nick?" she asked quietly,
coolly, with deliberate articulation. Her hair was short, bobbed then, almost
mannish, the green in her hazel eyes accentuated by a kelly green kerchief she
wore tied around her neck.

"Sure, Myra." Even then, Nick thought, she had
the ability to radiate humility.

"We've been trying to get Charlie to quit the
News
and come to Dad's paper," she whispered.

"You mean there is some question about it?" Nick
lied, trying to sidestep the responsibility.

"He vacillates like a pendulum. He's afraid of
something."

"Maybe he doesn't want to be the Son-in-Law."

She looked at him coldly. "That's part of it."
Then she smiled. "Nick, I think you can help him decide."

He could sense her urgency.

"We're offering him a brilliant future," she
said. "It'll all go down the drain if he decides against it. My father
will sell it before he lets me have it," she said bitterly. "Please,
Nick, I'll never forget it as long as I live."

"You're exaggerating my influence," Nick said.

"There's a bond between you two, a kind of male bond
that we females can't penetrate."

"We're friends," Nick protested, as if that might
explain things, "but that doesn't mean..."

"Please, Nick," Myra persisted.

Charlie hung up the phone and came toward them.
"Please," she repeated. Nick was moved by the ferocity of her plea.
It occurred to him that she might be over-killing her cause, since Charlie was
already half-convinced to make the move in his own mind.

"I'll do what I can," Nick said as Charlie moved
toward them in long strides, a beer bottle in his hand again.

"Bless you," Myra said. He felt her sincerity. Often,
later, he remembered the single-mindedness of her appeal, its strength. Nature
had tricked her. The wrong sex in the wrong time.

"Well, that's that," Charlie said smiling.
"Old McCarthy's in a real stew. They're still calling it a cliff-hanger,
although as I see it, Dewey's dead and Harry's going to get up in the morning
and find that he's still the top banana."

"Gold," a reporter called out, holding out a
phone. Nick knew at once it was Margaret.

"What the hell is going on?" Margaret's voice was
angry.

"Dewey's losing."

"I don't mean that. How come you haven't called? I
thought we were going to meet."

"We are."

"Thanks for informing me."

"What are you so mad about?"

"You said you would call."

"I was working. I was busy. So were you."

"I expected you to call."

"Come on, Maggie. Let it go."

"Every time you get involved with Charlie..."

"We're on assignment."

She paused, perhaps ashamed to show her insecurity. Was
Charlie now an issue between them? Could she be jealous of Charlie?

"I'm sorry, Nick. I'm tired. I think I'll go straight
home."

She clicked off the phone. He felt an unbearable sense of
loss. This is ridiculous, he told himself. Why was Charlie disrupting his life?
Who needed Charlie and all his problems?

When Dewey finally emerged it was nearly six A.M. They had
dozed, eaten sandwiches, waiting for the finality of events. Nick had already
lost interest. He was tired and he missed Margaret. Charlie had fallen asleep
on the couch. Myra quietly read a magazine.

Walking into the sporadic clicking of flashbulbs, a sputter
now, Dewey proceeded down the corridor toward the elevator, a ravaged man, his
eyes glazed, his skin puffy, a smile embedded incongruously under his
moustache. He held onto his wife's arm, two lonely, defeated figures. The
reporters remained silent, perhaps out of respect for the terrible finality of
defeat. Nick watched as the couple backed into the elevator, small figures
dwarfed by the large, beefy, red-faced policeman. As the elevator door closed,
Dewey's eyes flickered behind a beginning mist.

"There goes one busted bag of dreams," Charlie
said.

"Life is full of missed opportunities," Myra
whispered; she looked at Charlie and grasped his arm. "Now let's go over
to the winning side," she said, smiling sweetly.