The Henderson Equation (40 page)

Henderson stood up to greet him with a strong, pumping
handshake, embellished by a squeeze to the biceps, as if to underline to those
present that theirs was a tight friendship, not a casual encounter. Nick
noticed that Henderson was nursing a half-finished straight-up martini, served
with a little pile of olives in an adjoining shot glass.

"Drink?" he asked politely, his blue eyes
glistening as they encountered a shaft of sunlight. Nick nodded, pointing to
the glass.

"Benny, bring us a round," Henderson said,
turning to the middle-aged waiter. Nick sliced a pickle into small pieces as
they waited for the drinks which arrived quickly. Duke's was noted for its
swift service and the independence of its waiters, who might have been rushing
their service chores so that they could get back to handicapping, their
notorious group affliction.

"You can't imagine how it's taken a great weight off
me to know your decision, Nick. I'm really grateful." He finished off the
dregs of his first martini and carefully sipped the second.

"Apparently your future means a lot to Myra,"
Nick said.

"She's quite a wonderful person, Nick. Politically
quite mature."

"You've apparently become good friends," Nick
said, careful to appear bland, disarming. Let him appear to be winning my
confidence, he told himself smugly.

"Right in front she said that all editorial decisions
were yours to make, that she didn't interfere with that aspect of the paper.
She said you were your own man, Nick. That's quite a compliment."

"I suppose it is," he said cautiously.

"But apparently both you and she think alike
politically. There are those that think you're too damned liberal. Like me.
What they don't understand is that the old labels are fading. Oh, there are
still knee-jerk liberals around, but they're no longer a factor. Today you've
got to be eclectic in your ideology to make any sense at all."

"I quite agree," Nick said, sipping his martini,
watching Henderson, noting the deep blue in his checked shirt, chosen with
meticulous care to match the incredible blue of his eyes.

"Many of our friends in town think of the
Chronicle
as arrogant, too powerful."

"And you?"

"It depends on whose ox is gored. I'm one of your
fans. That's why I felt so put out by your investigation. It was like being
stabbed in the back by your best friend. Frankly, I felt a bit victimized. The
staff beat it around for weeks. We felt that you were reacting from this thing
with the ex-President, the resignation. There were those that thought you might
hit me simply to show your nonpartisanship, your objectivity. You can't imagine
how helpless you can feel against that kind of action."

"I can imagine."

"A politician is made or broken by the way he appears
to the public, through the media. It's a damnable way to live. It's a
curse." He paused. "But that's the name of the game. Harry Truman
said it all when he talked about the heat in the kitchen."

"The polls seem to be quite favorable for you,"
Nick said.

"I'm grateful," Henderson agreed. His gratitude
suddenly seemed cloying, his humility stultifying.

"With the right breaks you might actually be moving
around the corner. They say the facilities are quite good. They even have a
swimming pool again."

Henderson smiled broadly. He sipped his drink, then shook
his head. "I'm really sorry about that little visit you had
yesterday," he said. "The one from my wife."

"You knew?"

"After the fact. I'd never put her up to that. It was
her own idea. I can assure you she felt like a damned fool." He tossed
down an olive. "Hell, she meant well."

"I'm sure she did."

"It's a tough row to hoe to be a wife of a politician.
She has me in bed with every broad in town. Bet she told you that Myra and I
were playing around." He said it casually, as if fishing for an answer.

Nick's caution increased. "Not at all," he lied.
"Besides, I wouldn't have believed it."

"I'm glad," Henderson said, as if he were
intending to swallow the lie. "We have a fine relationship, Myra and I,
purely platonic. She has a remarkable grasp of events. Her interest in me is
purely political. We see eye to eye on the future."

"I'm sure you do."

"If I didn't feel that I can make a contribution, I
wouldn't spend another minute in this business." It was the routine plaint
of all ambitious politicians, a common refrain. "And if I thought I had
something in my past that would make my candidacy questionable, I can assure
you that I would never have submitted myself to the grueling possibilities of
the campaign."

"Of course," Nick said. If Henderson had bothered
to probe beneath the surface, get to know him better, he would have understood
how platitudinous he was sounding.

"I mean raking up what might have happened years ago,
at a different time, a different climate, a wholly changed environment, would
have been meaningless, a useless bit of information."

"Frankly," Nick said, "that's exactly what I
concluded. What would be the point?"

"Myra understood immediately," Henderson said,
growing expansive, unsuspecting. "To her credit, she said it was your
decision to make. Obviously, Gunderstein must be getting too big for his
breeches. How is he taking it?"

"I don't think he's too happy about it."

"Do you think he might leave and take the story
elsewhere?" Nick could feel his anxiety.

"I doubt it," Nick said. "But let's face it.
You've made enemies. The intelligence community is under fire. Don't expect
this to be the end of it."

"I don't," he said. "But the appearance in
the
Chronicle
would have given it credence at exactly the wrong time.
Later, its impact would not be as formidable, as the campaign jells."

"As we have learned. Besides, it wouldn't be such an
easy story to run down. Your intelligence boys have a tight club working. They
don't crack so easily."

"Thank goodness for that," Henderson said
quickly. Nick could see a brief chink in the protective wall. Was he beginning
to open up?

"Anyway," Nick said, cutting another pickle,
"the Diem business hardly made a difference. The Viet Nam debacle was
inevitable. Besides, Diem had already lost power. It wasn't as if he were
assassinated while still in power. Although the probably perceived it as
insurance. Dead is dead."

"It was overkill. In the final analysis, sheer
stupidity."

"You sound bitter," Nick probed, deliberately
averting his gaze.

"The whole business was regrettable. I wished it had
never happened." He motioned the waiter to bring them another round.
"The whole idea of it is obnoxious. To have to suffer for it so many years
later, for such a stupid act..." His voice trailed off. Looking up, Nick
saw in Henderson a distracted, regretful look, eyes glazed as if they were
searching inward.

"What's done is done," Nick said quietly, his
voice modulating, not wishing to interrupt Henderson, obviously on the verge of
revelation.

"The fact that the whole sordid mess was official business--it's
hard to comprehend. The blind fools. As if the elimination of a man would
eliminate the problem."

Nick could feel the man's discomfort, a personal thing,
tightly walled in. Suddenly he had no desire to know, since knowing would
somehow make him a party to the conspiracy, forcing his confidence. It was the
curse of his business, this knowledge surreptitiously received, as a tendered
gift, humanizing the information. He could feel his heart beating heavily, his
palms begin to sweat. He wanted no special rights to the knowledge. He would
rather accept the man's denials, the empty protestations, the self-serving
protective machinations. Don't trust me! he wanted to scream out, but the dikes
were already opened.

"How can you be so sure you'd make the moral decision
if you were president? Considering the times, Kennedy may have considered his
act as moral. The coup, I mean. The assassination would have required a
different view of morality. The ends justifying the means."

"When you see it from the underside as I did, you can
understand what it means. There is never any justification. By engaging in an
immoral act, you become immoral. You can't fling mud without getting some of it
on your hands."

He wondered who was the cleverer of the two. There was an absolute
ring of sincerity in Henderson's tone, in his distracted manner, in the whole
aspect of concealed pain. He could see how Myra might have been seduced;
mind-fucked, as the younger generation might put it. It was a heavy-gauged
appeal. You could be easily suckered in, as he was now, almost. He searched the
man's face for some validation of his own cynicism. Was it possible that this
politician could exercise a great sense of moral responsibility? The test of a
good leader was his conduct in office, Myra had said. He cursed the obvious
fact that he had become what he had feared he would become, a judge. That was
the one role he must avoid at all costs.

"You know, Senator," Nick said, "I would
have preferred that you let sleeping dogs lie."

Henderson looked up from the contemplation of his drink,
frowning. "We're family now," he said simply.

"How can you be so sure?"

"I have great faith in Myra's judgment."

"Don't."

He seemed quizzical, suddenly unsure. He drank deeply,
threw his head back, and smiled. "Look, Nick. I'm laying myself bare. If I
didn't feel I could trust you, I wouldn't have said a word."

Nick shrugged. At least he wasn't denying anything. He felt
the man's vulnerability, the offering of his head to the chopping block. As
much as he wanted not to hear any more, his curiosity was piqued.

"How was it done?"

"Are you asking professionally?"

"You said I was family."

Henderson hesitated, rubbing his chin. "What the
hell," he said, "that's the fucking trouble with this business. Who
can you trust?"

"I know what you mean."

Henderson's eyes looked around the restaurant furtively,
his head coming closer to Nick's, his voice modulated to a barely audible
whisper.

"Actually it was quite simple. The brothers had
enemies who were easy to flush out. It was purely a question of logistics.
Getting the lambs to the slaughter. The release of the brothers was timed so
that their enemies could arrive on the scene at exactly the right moment. We
handpicked the people, although even they never realized it. The motive was
revenge. You'd be surprised how potent it can be. Actually, all I did was serve
as the matchmaker."

"As simple as that?"

"Frankly, I felt quite proud of myself at the time.
Real professional."

"No compunctions?"

"Not one. They were butchers. The jails were filled
with their enemies. They were corrupt, greedy, disgusting men. I felt that I
was on the side of the angels. Besides, I loved that man."

"Who?"

"Kennedy," he said, swallowing, perhaps tamping
down the bile of regret.

"You mean you got direct orders?"

"Not direct in the sense that it was from the horse's
mouth. But I believed the orders came direct from him, through a third
party."

"Who?"

"His brother Bobby. I believed it. I could feel their
agony. It was not an easy decision. They foresaw what might happen, what did
happen. It was a long shot. And it lost. It only drew them in deeper."

"The President was assassinated three weeks
later."

It was like a lion unleashed in a herd of antelope.

"I've thought about that. You can't imagine the
endless nights of wondering if the killings were connected. They keep talking
about the relationship between a plot on Castro and the Dallas horror. But I
can't get it out of my mind that somehow it was the Diem thing."

He could understand now why Henderson's compulsion was so
overwhelming, the terrible sense of guilt.

"We could still believe we were invincible in those
days," Henderson sighed. "It was inconceivable that anyone could
mount a counterattack against us. We were on the right side, the side of
freedom. History might mark the Dallas shot as the beginning of the end of
America."

It was more than the stink of ambition he had scented, Nick
thought. Henderson had revealed a far more powerful obsession, a kind of
fanaticism. But surely the pursuit of the presidency demanded that brand of
single-mindedness, the sense of mission, a searing bolt of lightning that could
strike down anything in its path. He felt like one of the victims now, as if he
had stood in the path of the spear of fire.

"So you see, I would not have been the only
casualty," Henderson said, almost smugly, as if he had won a victory and
was now searching for magnanimity.

The waiter, who had been watching them, came over to take
their order. Henderson put a hand over his glass to signify that he had had
enough liquor.

"And Myra knows all this?" Nick asked,
remembering Charlie.

"Of course."

He felt a sudden feeling of giddiness as the image of
Gunderstein floated into his mind, the infallible Gunderstein and his
remarkable nose for the big story.

"That's the basic problem with the newspaper
business," Henderson said, as if he had been leading up to this. "It
only considers a single dimension. Nothing is ever that simple."

"How would you make us better?" Nick asked,
annoyed at his sudden hostility.

"I'd begin by loosening the trigger."

"We have to move fast."

"I'm aware of that. But if you took just a bit more
time to reflect instead of rushing to fire, you'd be surprised how more
effective you might be."

"You might have the same criticism for politicians."

"Oh, I do, Nick. I do. You put the pressure on us. We
react. Our perceived interests aren't necessarily compatible. After all, we
both have constituencies. You have to sell papers. We have to get votes."