(1964) The Man (46 page)

“You might be right,” said Dilman. “I think it would be a greater mistake to act in haste.”

Talley had sidled up alongside Kemmler. “Mr. President, I’m still inclined to agree with the Attorney General. Reconsider, please. The appointment of Spinger only delays the inevitable. It may make the administration appear weak and vacillating and—and even encourage more lawbreaking and violence—I mean, giving the Hurleys encouragement to go on and commit more crimes because we’re reluctant to do anything but talk.”

“I’ll have to take the gamble, Governor.” He looked at Kemmler, who was still seething. “Give Spinger twenty-four hours,” Dilman said in a conciliatory voice.

“Then give me twenty-four hundred more FBI agents,” Kemmler snapped. “Okay, you do it your way, Mr. President. I’ll be in my office, sitting on my hands. The responsibility for whatever this leads to is in yours.”

Dilman suffered a sudden ache of abandonment and a sinking heart, as he watched the Attorney General stalk out of the Oval Office.

As he lowered himself into his swivel chair, he met Tim Flannery’s questioning eyes. Dilman’s fingers touched the loose-leaf folder. “I guess some revisions are in order for the press conference, Tim. What are they going to ask me
now
—and what am I supposed to say?”

After drawing up to the curb in his rented Ford, a block from the Capitol, Nat Abrahams kissed his wife, reminded her where to pick him up and when, and then relinquished the wheel of the car to her. He waited until she had safely driven off, then he walked to the stairs of the Capitol and slowly mounted them.

While he knew it troubled Sue that they had already been in Washington a month, and he missed the children as much as she did, he found that he was neither annoyed nor impatient over their protracted visit. More than ever, Washington was stimulating. The fact that he and Sue had enjoyed the opportunity to dine in the White House three times since his private reunion with Doug Dilman had made his stay doubly interesting. Of course, if his negotiations with Gorden Oliver continued at this snail’s pace, he had promised Sue that she could go back to Chicago and the children this week. He was positive he would not be much behind her.

The half-dozen meetings with Gorden Oliver had been profitable. What had caused the delay was the fact that Oliver did not possess final authority to approve of Abrahams’ demands and revisions. Whenever a contractual clause came under discussion, and Abrahams requested improvement of it, or clarification, Oliver would promise an immediate answer and then disappear for several days. It was clear to Abrahams that Oliver was consulting not only with the Eagles Industries Corporation crowd in Washington, but with Avery Emmich in Atlanta. Abrahams suspected that Oliver had even flown off to Eagles’ main headquarters to meet with Emmich once or twice. Then Abrahams had read that Emmich had been out of the country last week, and that had explained the most recent delay. Despite this, Abrahams felt that his last meeting with Oliver might have concluded the preliminary give and take. He expected that the next time he saw Oliver, there would be copies of the contract ready for his approval. Then he would be able to take Sue home and help her wind up their affairs, before moving the family to Washington. In fact, he had encouraged Sue to occupy herself by looking for a roomy brownstone to lease in the city.

It was not Oliver’s telephone call last night that had surprised him, but rather the fact that Oliver wanted to see him about a matter other than the contract.

“The contract is routine now, Nat,” Gorden Oliver had said. “It’s at the home office for final review and retyping. It should be here any day. You can assume you are now a representative of Eagles Industries. No, what I want to see you about, Nat, is not the contract—I’m as sick of it as you are, old boy—but something pertaining to your first duties here in Washington. I’ll go into it when I see you tomorrow. Why don’t you meet me in the private Speaker’s Lobby of the House at noon? I’ll leave your name with the Capitol police.” Abrahams had accepted the invitation.

Now he found himself, as he had so many times in the years past but for the first time on this trip, standing before the elevator beneath the Capitol. When it arrived, he followed a woman and two men into it. In seconds, he was upstairs. He went past the sign
members only
to the swinging doors leading into the Speaker’s Lobby, gave his name to the uniformed policeman, and was admitted. He reflected briefly on the power of a lobbyist like Oliver, who was able to get his friends and associates past that excluding sign so easily.

The long lobby, with its rich red carpet, contained only a few visitors studying the Department of Commerce weather map and the framed portraits on the walls of former Speakers of the House, the one of MacPherson still draped in black. None of the visitors was Gorden Oliver.

Puzzled, Abrahams turned left and entered the Members’ Reading Rooms that ran parallel with the lobby. He saw a group huddled beneath the globular light fixtures, once picturesque gas jets, near the teletype machine. Gorden Oliver was not among them. Abrahams inspected several members standing before the library stands of newspapers, reading the front pages. For a moment Abrahams was diverted. These newspaper stands fascinated him. There was an individual rack for each state of the fifty in the Union, and every day upon these racks were hung the newspapers from the leading cities in that state. Abrahams paused before the stand with the sign
MISS
. above it. Tilting his head, he cast his eyes down the file of dangling newspapers from Greenville, Columbus, Vicksburg, Meridian, Natchez, Hattiesburg, Biloxi. The majority of the headlines were several days old, and were devoted to Judge Gage’s sentencing of the Turnerite demonstrators, or to the debate of the Minorities Rehabilitation Program Bill in the House, or to the announcement of Dilman’s first State Dinner to entertain a fellow black man from Africa. Before many days the rack would carry the dated headlines screaming of Judge Gage’s abduction by Negro terrorists, and segregationists’ vows of retaliation, which Washington newspapers had carried only an hour before.

Nat Abrahams continued through the Members’ Reading Rooms, but nowhere was Gorden Oliver to be seen. He realized that a burly, blue-coated Capitol policeman was observing him. He went over to the policeman. “I’m Mr. Abrahams,” he said. “I was to meet Mr. Gorden Oliver here. Have you seen him around?”

“Oliver? Is he the columnist—?”

“No, he’s—”

“I’m new on the force,” the policeman apologized. “Let me check with someone else.”

As the officer left for the lobby, Abrahams thought that he heard a familiar voice. Even as he pivoted, he recognized it was Doug Dilman’s voice, low and strained, competing with the hum of a television set. The small set was on a reading table, and several representatives had pulled up chairs and were watching and listening. Nat Abrahams came up behind them, to see how his friend was faring in his first press conference.

The picture projected on the screen, momentarily wavy, showed President Dilman seated at the mahogany Cabinet table, flanked by Flannery and Governor Talley. He had reached the last page of his prepared speech, and was reading the final news announcement: that he deplored the kidnaping of Judge Gage, that the FBI was on the trail of the terrorists, that there was no information yet as to whether the abduction was the work of individuals or an organization, that he had already appointed the Reverend Paul Spinger, head of the Crispus Society, as the President’s personal representative, and that Spinger was to investigate the possible participation of any extremist organization in the crime, and to sort fact from rumor.

As the camera pulled back for a full shot, the battery of microphones before President Dilman was revealed, and then the forty to fifty journalists with their pencils and note pads pressed around the far side of the table, and the still photographers taking their pictures.

Dilman put down his prepared statement and looked up tightly. The distortion of the television screen made his Negroid features seem broader and blacker than they were.

Dilman said, in almost a whisper, “That completes the news announcements, gentlemen. Do you have any questions? Hold up your hands, and Mr. Flannery will recognize you in order.”

Like marionettes’ limbs jerked by strings, at least a dozen arms shot up and a dozen hands beckoned for recognition. Flannery acknowledged each with a nod, and scrawled the name of each on a sheet before him. Finishing his jotting, Flannery called out, “Mr. Blaser, of the Washington
Citizen-American
and Miller Newspaper Association.”

Nat Abrahams searched the mass of reporters on the television screen, and then could make out a short, stocky middle-aged man with a high pompadour and an unattractive carbuncle of a face—“I don’t mind most of those reporters,” Dilman had told Abrahams at their last dinner, “but that Reb Blaser is like a toad in a flower bed.” Blaser was elbowing through the crowd of reporters to get closer to the table.

“Mr. President,” Blaser began, his wheedling, oiled tongue seeking to cover his renowned cantankerous, liverish manner, “about your announcement of that dastardly Turnerite kidnaping in Mississippi—”

To Abrahams’ surprise, Dilman leaned forward and interrupted. “Mr. Blaser, I did not announce that the kidnaping was done by any organization. I believe I made that point clear. We can make no accusations until our investigation is completed.”

Blaser was smiling regretfully. “I beg your pardon, Mr. President. I assume—you see, our papers have information that the act was performed by a parcel of Turnerites—”

“Then you should turn your information over to the Department of Justice,” said Dilman grimly. “If it’s not fiction, they’ll welcome it.”

There was some laughter, but, viewing the exchange on the television screen, Nat Abrahams squirmed. Dilman was allowing himself to be baited. He was not standing aloof. Abrahams told himself that he must speak to Doug about this.

Framed in a close-up on the television screen, Blaser’s face had lost its unctuous smile. “I’m fixing to have my editors follow your advice, Mr. President. Meanwhile, I would like to inquire what you instructed Reverend Spinger to find out about, in relation to this dastardly kidnaping. Also, how do you expect to get objective facts from the head of a Negro lobby pressure group, who goes into this with well-known prejudices?”

The camera cut back to Dilman’s face, and Abrahams was relieved that it was outwardly passive and that he was considering his reply carefully.

“I appointed the Reverend Spinger,” Dilman said, “because I felt that the kidnapers, if they are Negro, be they individuals or members of an organization, would trust him more than anyone else. I believe the Reverend Spinger is the best-qualified person I know to reason with anyone so involved, and to gain their confidence. As to his exact assignment, I think it would be unwise to disclose what I have ordered him to do, especially at a critical time like this. When the Attorney General and I have the facts, we shall act upon them without hesitation. . . . Next?”

Flannery called out, “Mr. Paletta of
U.S. News and World Report
.”

“Mr. President, concerning the New Succession Bill now on your desk. Do you expect to approve it or veto it?”

Nat Abrahams felt someone touch his arm, and spun around. It was the burly young policeman again. “Sir, I’m sorry about keeping you, but I found out that Mr. Oliver did leave a message. He’s across the Chamber in the House Majority cloakroom. He said for you to meet him there. Will you follow me?”

Reluctantly Abrahams turned his back on Doug Dilman’s excruciating ordeal by press, and followed the policeman out of the Reading Rooms and lobby, past the elevator, through the library, and into the rear of the mammoth House of Representatives Chamber.

Treading as silently as possible behind the last row of leather-covered benches, Abrahams could see that the House of Representatives was about two-thirds filled with members, some slouched and listening to Congressman Hightower’s speech, others gathered in knotted groups whispering together, and still others reading the daily
Congressional Record
they had found in the compartments under their seats.

Abrahams knew that the Minorities Rehabilitation Program Bill was in its climactic stages of debate. Congressman Hightower, representing the opposition party from a California district, was vigorously endorsing the seven-billion-dollar public-works bill, and especially the apprentice and job-training provisions designed for uneducated and unskilled Negroes, Puerto Ricans, and Americans of Mexican descent.

“When we have passage of this bill,” the Congressman was promising, “we won’t have repetitions of the sort of violence we saw in Hattiesburg, Mississippi, today. Our minority citizens will enjoy a law of restitution to make up for their educational and financial losses under slavery, under segregation, under bondage. They will be trained. They will be gainfully employed. They will be indemnified for their long history of inequality. Thus satisfied, they will know peace of mind, and we will all know the peace of harmony that comes with justice and economic improvement.”

They are slugging the big bill through, Abrahams thought, and in two weeks, less perhaps, it will be on Doug Dilman’s desk. Poor Doug, he thought, how much these elected politicians are throwing at him, and how little time he has had to prepare for the deluge of vital legislation. Still, Abrahams thought, if Doug’s only going to get T. C.’s hat, he has no decisions to make. If he were going to fit a hat for himself, one of his own, that would be another matter. A pity, Abrahams thought, for if Doug Dilman remains as subservient to a ghost as he insists that he must be, his own keen intelligence and fine judgment will be wasted and the nation will never know its loss.

Abrahams looked up at the press gallery above the Speaker’s rostrum, and then at the curved mezzanine of public galleries, almost filled, and he knew that the minorities bill had captured the national interest. It was the most crucial domestic legislation in years.