He did, but he didn't know what he could do about it. "We were
supposed to wait here until--"
That one I'd heard before. "Until the hotel freezes over, sure. But I
don't want to freeze. Do you?"
No, nor to rust. You could see that he liked his job of body-guard and
factotum, and yet....
I pushed him over the edge. "Tell you what to do," I said. "You call
up and say that I'm getting restless. Say that you're afraid I'll ease
out of here when your back is turned. Say anything you like, as long
as you lay it on thick, and I'll back you up. Okay?"
He weighed it awhile. He liked inaction, no matter how sybaritic as
much as I. Then, "Okay," and he reached for the telephone.
The number he gave answered the first ring.
"I'm calling for Mr. Robertson," he said. "This is Mr. William
Wakefield. W. W. Wakefield." He paused. Then, "Ordinarily, I wouldn't,
but Mr. Robertson felt that I should get in touch with you at once."
The other end squawked, nervously, I thought.
Stein thought so, too. "That's quite possible. However, Mr. Robertson
feels that his time here in Washington is valuable. So valuable that
he thinks that his business is soon going to call him back to
Wisconsin Dells, if the merger referred to is delayed any longer. I
beg your pardon?"
* * * * *
He twisted to throw me a wink over his shoulder as the telephone
chattered frantically.
"That's exactly what I told Mr. Robertson.... Yes, he knows of
that.... Yes, I have assured him that, in these days of business
uncertainty and production difficulties, mergers are not as easily
arranged as--" That Stein had a sense of humor when he wanted to use
it.
"Is that right? I'm glad to hear it. One moment, while I check with
Mr. Robertson." He held his hand over the mouthpiece and grinned at
me. "They are ready to have a stroke. This man I'm talking to has no
more authority than a jackrabbit, and he knows it. He wants to check
with his boss, and call us back later. All right with you, Mr.
Robertson?"
I laughed out loud, and he clamped the mouthpiece tighter. "I think
so, Mr. W. W. Wakefield. As long as he puts the heat on that merger."
He went back on the telephone. "Mr. Robertson thinks he might be able
to wait a trifle longer. He asked me to warn you, that as he is a very
busy man, every minute of his time can cost a considerable amount of
money and goods.... Yes, I'll tell him that.... I'll be waiting for
your call.... Yes, I will. Thank you, and good-bye." He hung up the
telephone with a flourish.
"Satisfied, Mr. Robertson?"
I was satisfied. "Quite, Mr. W. W. Wakefield. Wouldst care for ein
bier?"
Ein bier haben. He would.
The telephone rang about an hour later, and I answered it. It was the
Old Man's voice.
"Mr. Robertson?" he said cautiously.
"Mr. Robertson speaking," I said. "Yes?"
"I'm calling," he told me in a voice that said he was annoyed, but
didn't want to show it, "in reference to the Wisconsin Dells merger."
"Yes?" I gave him no help.
"You understand, Mr. Robertson, that such an important merger can
hardly be arranged at a moment's notice."
Yes, I understood that. "But two days notice is more than sufficient,
even allowing for an enormous amount of red tape." I put real regret
into my voice. "It is not that I wouldn't like to let nature take its
course, but other things must be taken into consideration." I hoped I
sounded like the busy executive. "I believe that Mr. Wakefield, Mr. W.
W. Wakefield, has explained that I am a very busy man, and that I can
hardly be expected to wait indefinitely in even such a pleasant
atmosphere."
The Old Man forced a cheery--and false--heartiness. "There are, or
there might be, Mr. Robertson, other things that might induce you to
stay. Many other things."
Threaten me, would he? "That, I doubt very much. I'm afraid I must
insist--it's now two-twenty. If a merger, or at least a meeting cannot
be arranged by tomorrow at the very latest, the reason for having a
meeting will, for all practical purposes, have ceased to exist. Do I
make myself clear?"
I certainly did. With a short-tempered bang, Smith hung up, after
saying that he would call back later. I relayed the conversation to
Bob Stein, and we sent down for lunch.
The Old Man called back about seven, when I was washing up, and Bob
answered the telephone. By the time I came out he had all the
information we needed, and was calling room service to clear the
dishes.
"Meeting tonight," he said when he was finished. He was pleased with
himself.
"Good." It was getting a little tiresome being cramped up. "When?
Where?"
He shrugged. "Where? I couldn't say. Someone will call for us,
somewhere between nine and ten. And," he added slowly, "it might be a
good idea to wear the best bib and tucker, with Sunday School
manners."
"Oh?" I said, "that kind of a party? Fine. I'm all ready now. Better
get your hat."
At ten-thirty, the telephone rang. I answered it.
"This is the desk," it said. "Mr. Wakefield?"
"He's here," I said. "Wait a minute," and I passed the phone to Stein.
"Wakefield," he said. "Yes?"
The receiver chattered briefly.
"All right," and he waved at me. "Be right down." He turned. "Car
waiting." It didn't take us long to get downstairs.
It was a sedan with a neat little drive-yourself tab on the right-hand
door. Before we got near the car, Stein was careful to see who was the
driver. He evidently was someone he knew, so Bob nodded curtly, and we
got in and pulled away from the curb.
* * * * *
I don't know Washington at all, so I can't say where we made port. Not
too far a drive, I imagine, if we had gone there directly. It was a
good forty-five minutes before we ended our erratic turning of corners
and sped up a long tree-bordered driveway.
"Nice place," I said to Stein as we braked to a stop in front of a
long white-columned Southern portico. "Who lives here?"
He smiled and shook his head. "That's something I don't know. Does it
matter?"
It didn't.
As we strode up the steps the Drive-Yourself pulled away, tires
crackling on the white gravel. We both reached for the knocker at the
same time, but before we had it, the door swung open. Stein recognized
the young fellow who opened it and took our hats. A message passed
between their eyes, and the young man almost imperceptibly shook his
head in negation.
"Will you come this way, please?" and he led us down the hall.
The house was smaller than the outside had led me to expect. The
builder had gone whole hog on the giant Greek columns and the wide
sweep of the porch, and the inside of the house showed the results of
the skimping. Not that it wasn't a far bigger and a far more expensive
house than any average man would hope to have, but the limited space
inside didn't go with those sweeping curves of the drive. I wondered
who lived there.
The room where the doorman left us went with the inside of the house.
So small it reminded me of the times when I tried to sell brushes
during the depression, in Grosse Pointe, I expected every moment to
have an underpaid maid, laundress, and butler come in to tell me that
the lady of the house was out. In keeping with the faded appointments
of the tiny room, a Chinese table held, for those who wait and read,
an ancient collection of "Spur" and "Town and Country." As we sat and
smoked, far off through the thin walls we could hear the soft rumble
of voices. Occasionally a bass would rise above the sound, and a
baritone would slide softly and soothingly across the pained roar. The
front door opened and closed twice during the fifteen minutes or so we
waited, and the footsteps that came in went past our room and pattered
further down the hall. Each time, when the steps were out of reach of
hearing, another door would open, and the distant voices would become
almost distinguishable until the door again was shut. I looked
curiously around the walls. Decorated with prints and pictures they
were, yes, but with that faded permanency that to me spells the
furnished house. The rugs were worn, worn to the shredding point, worn
until the spurious Oriental design seemed an eerie Dali drawing. All
it needed was the faroff smell of secondhand ham and cabbage.
The doorman slipped in and beckoned to us, a grim conspirator if ever
I saw one. We followed him back to the entrance hall, back, back, to
where the voices grew louder at every step. A double door--golden oak,
or I don't know wood--barred the end of the hall, and the young fellow
preceded us to throw it open with a semi-flourish. We walked in.
The place was blue with smoke. That was the first thing we saw. Lights
there were in plenty, hanging around, hanging over the great oval
table in the center of the room in a fiery glitter of glassy
brilliants. The room was enormous, and I began to realize why this
house was still in existence. Who cares about rugs if there is just
one single room in the house where a ball or a party could be
comfortably accommodated. Or a conference. I didn't know whose name
appeared on the tax bills, but I would bet that it would be any other
name besides the United States Government.
No group of men or women could produce that much smoke in a short
time. That meeting had been going on for hours. As we stepped in
through the double doors I tried to pick out anyone I knew, but the
glare flickered in my eyes and I saw no face as more than just a pale
blur against a background of tenuous blue. Tentatively I got inside
the doors and they shut behind me with an abrupt finality. Two steps
forward, three, four, five, and Stein drifted away from my side, away
from the eyes that grew in size as I got closer to the table rim,
toward the vacant chairs I saw slightly pulled away and ready for
occupants. I stumbled over nothing and a reassuring hand touched mine.
I felt callow, self-conscious, awkward. I never thought I'd be so glad
to see Old Man Smith.
He stood alongside me as I sank gratefully into my ready chair.
"Gentlemen," he announced quietly, "Mr. Peter A. Miller."
I half-bowed automatically, the proper thing to do, and the Old Man
gave me his moral support by sitting next to me. He leaned over to
say, "I won't introduce you formally. Point out who you want to know
and I'll tell you who he is."
"Okay," I muttered, and felt in my pockets for cigarettes. I had to do
something with my hands. I blew a cloud into the air and felt better.
Settled back into the chair, I sent my glance around the table. Did I
know anyone there?
* * * * *
At my right, the Old Man. His suit was wrinkled and his eyes were
red-rimmed and tired. The large paper pad in front of him was covered
with crisscross lines. On his right, a quite old man, bald and
beetle-browed. His collar was open and wrinkled, his vest twisted
under the lapel of his coat. I leaned toward Smith, and indicated his
companion with my eyes.
"Morgan, Undersecretary of State," he said softly.
Morgan heard his name spoken, and shot a questioning glance my way. He
realized what had been said and the beetlebrows slid upwards in a
movement meant to be conciliatory. He bobbed his head with a cursory
jerk and went back to staring across the table. I followed his glance.
The object of his affections seemed to be--yes, it was. Five-Star
General Oliver P. Legree, not so affectionately called Simon by the
men who served under him. I had been one of them. Trim and rigid and
oh, so military he was, the very figure of a modern five-star general.
His poker-stiff back thrust the tiers of ribbons to a sparkling
glitter under the tinkling glare of the massive chandelier overhead.
His face--well, it's been in enough rotogravures worldwide. The cigar
was there, the big black cigar he never lit and never lost. His
trademark was that cigar; his trademark was that and his jutting jaw
that to everyone but his compatriots spelled determination and grit.
To his staff and his men--me--it meant an ill-fitting lower plate.
That prognathous jaw was tilted, aimed at Morgan, and Morgan knew it.
What had gone on just before I had come in? Just as I started to turn
my glance away, the General threw his famous scowl directly at me. For
one long second our eyes clung, almost glared. Then, without a sign of
emotion or recognition he went back to staring at the Undersecretary
with an intensity almost violent. Shaken back into self-consciousness
by that grim stare I tried to fit together some of the other faces
about the table.
Admiral Mason-Nason-Lacey--Admiral Lacey. I'd met him just a few days
before, in that ill-fated conference in the White House. What was the
other name? Jessop. He was there, too, alongside Lacey. But where was
the Army, outside of Simon Legree? That was like Simon, at that. Let
the Navy stick together; Legree was the _General_, and as such was
himself the Army.
Who were the others? I knew none of them, certainly, although some
trick of memory made me sure that I had seen or heard of them before.
Like faces in an old school album they presented themselves to me, and
for a long fraction of a minute I delved deep, trying to recall. A
voice, that deep barking bass I had heard while waiting, boomed across
the table.
"Mr. Morgan!" and the table seemed to quiver. "Mr. Morgan!" and the
tenseness seemed to flow back into that huge room like a warm current.
The Old Man leaned over and answered my unspoken question.
"Senator Suggs, Foreign Affairs Chairman."
I eyed the redoubtable senator. Short, swarthy skin that belied all
his ranted racial theories, hair that straggled by intent over his
weak green eyes, and a chin that retreated and quivered and joggled in
time with his twitching adolescent eyebrows. Six solid terms in the
Senate; six solid terms of appealing to the highest in theory and the
lowest in fact; six terms of seniority for the chairmanship of
committees far too important for a bigot; six terms of Suggs, Suggs,
Suggs. The bass rumbled on.
"We're no further ahead, Morgan, than we were two hours ago. This,
definitely cannot go on, if it has to be taken to the people
themselves."
Morgan pondered well before he answered, and the room stilled.
"Senator," he said at last; "this is right now in the hands of the
people, if you consider that you are one of the elected
representatives, and the rest of us are chosen, with one exception, by
those same elected representatives. The exception, naturally, is Mr.
Miller."
Five Star Simon snorted. His nasal voice carried well. "People?" and
that brittle snap was only too familiar to me. "What have the people
to do with it? This is no time for anything but a decision, and a
quick one!"
Morgan agreed with that. "Correct, General. The question, I believe,
is not that a decision be made, but the wording and definition of that
decision."
"Bah!" and the cigar jumped to the other side. "Words! Definitions!
Decisions! Words, words, words! Let's decide what's to be done and do
it!"
The Undersecretary coughed gently behind his palm. "Unfortunately,
General Legree, for the sake of speedy action, and as unfortunately
for the sake of all concerned, words mean one thing to one man, and
another thing to a second."
* * * * *
A fine party this turned out to be. In the dark as to what happened
before I came in, and equally at sea as to what was going on, I leaned
toward the Old Man.
"What's this?" I whispered.
He shot a quick retort. "Keep your mouth shut for the time being." He
paused, and then bent in my direction. "You'll get your chance to
talk." He grasped my extended arm tightly. "I'll nudge you when the
time comes. Then talk, and _talk_! You know what I mean?"
Did I? I didn't know. He saw my indecision and motioned for quiet.
Evidently he was expecting me to catch the trend if I waited long
enough. I waited, and I watched, and I listened.
Simon had been right about one thing. Words, words, words. But I began
to get some of the drift. They'd already settled the part of the
problem I thought was supposed to be bothering them. They'd decided
that since the news on me was out, the facts had to be faced--the way
they understand facing them.
I should have been reading the papers or listening to the radio. It
must have been something to hear when the news that I was a new secret
weapon to end them all was confirmed; but they'd confused the issue by
indicating that I was just one of the men with the new power, and that
the country was now practically blanketed with it.
It was fine for them. It meant that the people were happy, and that
Army, Navy and all the other departments were being openly and
publicly adulated for the fine thing they had done for everyone.
The Undersecretary made an answer to one of Simon's remarks. I hadn't
been listening for a few seconds while the scheme sank in, but this
registered.
"You're right, of course, General. Certain foreign information bureaus
won't be deceived by the confusion we've created. And that still
leaves us with the unfortunate need for speedy action on the case of
Mr. Miller."
Suggs rolled his bass across the room. It was the only characteristic
he had favorable to eye or ear.
"Unfortunate, Mr. Undersecretary? Unfortunate is hardly the word to
describe an event so favorable for the fortunes for all."
Favorable. Me? Was I good or bad? I came in just in the middle of the
picture. Keep your ears and your eyes and your ears open, Miller, and
catch up on the feature attraction.
Suggs licked his razor-sharp lips and hooked his fingers in his
stained vest.
"'Unfortunate,' Mr. Undersecretary? Hardly!" He loved to hear his own
voice. "This country, these great United States, these states have
never in their existence been in such a favorable position as
today...."
I would rather have read the Congressional Record. That, at least, I
could have discarded when I became bored.
"No, never in such a favorable position; diplomatically,
economically...."
The Undersecretary coughed politely. It's nice to be tactful and know
how to break in.
"To use your own words, Senator. 'Hardly!' Diplomatically we are at
the brink of one of the worst imaginable pitfalls."