Don Pendleton - Civil War II (8 page)

She nodded, showed Winston another curious look, and went back the way she'd come.

"Nice," Winston softly commented.

"Very," Fairchild agreed. "Well—that's a nice piece of work there, Mike. For an urban commissioner. Thanks very much for your interest. You can pick up your original in the outer office, if you want it."

Winston growled, "What the hell are you saying?"

The cop finished his drink and went around behind the desk and sat down. "I said it. Thanks. Good seeing you again, Mike. I'm busy as hell. You understand that, I'm sure. Drop in again when you have more time."

In a voice working very hard at remaining level, Winston asked him, "What will you do with that intelligence Tom?"

"We'll investigate, of course."

"Routinely."

"Naturally. You know the channels. We, uh, have the same access to classified data banks as you." He emphasized the
classified
in a voice becoming clearly antagonistic.

What the hell, Winston told himself. The guys thinks I'm trying to set up a competitive shop. He said, "Look, all I want to hear is that you're as upset over this thing as I am. Then I'll bow out. I stopped playing cop a long time ago. The only reason I came here was to—"

"Look, Mike, get the hell out, will you? I've got to clear up some stuff and blow this joint myself. Dinner date, big one. Get on the hell out of my hair, eh?"

"This is one hell of an urgent matter, Tom. Just tell me that you understand that."

He'd said the wrong thing and he know it immediately Fairchild's eyes blazed and he said, "I don't have to tell you a goddamned thing, Commissioner." He got to his feet, looked at the door, and told Winston goodbye.

"I'm not budging," Winston said adamantly. "This is a very serious matter, and—"

"So is mine, Commissioner. That dinner engagement is at the White House."

He said it rather proudly, Winston thought.
Get off my back, nigger-tender, you're talking to a guy who dines with the President.
Yeah, Winston thought, and I'm talking to a guy who undermined
me
out of that very spot.

Winston told him, "Great. Take me with you, and we'll discuss the matter with the man."

"I don't invite people to the White House. You're smart enough to know
that,
Winston."

Sure, but not smart enough to look out for a knife from a friend. "I'm smart enough," he said aloud, "to know that there are going to be twenty million howling niggers pouring out of those towns with blood in their eyes. A military coup is underfoot, I know it now and
you
should have a long time ago. Now you pick up that telephone and clear it with: the man, and then let's go to dinner."

Fairchild showed him a twisted grin and asked, "Are you feeling all right, Mr. Winston?"

"No, I'm feeling like hell. But I can stand it if you can. Pick up the phone, Tom."

The police chief sighed, dropped his eyes to the desk, then raised them slowly to the still figure in the visitor's chair. "I guess I'd better detain you, Commissioner Winston," he said thoughtfully.

"In a pig's ass," Winston replied calmly.

Fairchild smiled. "You understand. A security hold, just until we've had time to check out this, uh, threat. You shouldn't be running around making threats like that, Commissioner. It's against the law."

"Knock it off, Tom. You know exactly why I am here, and that I am not dashing about alarming the populace." Winston stood up. "Now let's end the game. Make the call or I will."

"In all seriousness," Fairchild said smoothly, "I am placing you in security hold. You're trying to mix yourself into something that is way beyond you, and that's all I'm going to say about it. You'll just have to understand."

Winston simply could not understand. He let go from the hip, falling over across the desk-top with an arcing hook that removed the set smile from the cop's face. Fairchild toppled over behind the desk, spinning to hands and knees, and Winston was over the desk with both feet before the cop had completely touched down.

A small nickle-plated revolver clattered to the floor. Winston scooped it up, leaned back against the edge of the desk, and said, "Okay, Tom, come up carefully."

"You're nuts ... totally insane!" the police chief panted.

"Not nuts enough to let you lock me up at a time like this. Now you get on that telephone. You set it up for us to talk to the old man. And you set it up clean. Or else I am going to set you down very dirty, and I have never been more serious in my life."

Fairchild obviously believed him. His eyes receded even farther into the skull and he grunted, "Don't be melodramatic, Mike. You don't think I'd turn a lunatic loose on the old man."

"And you know I'm no lunatic. Something is happening in blackville, and it could be happening at this very moment, the
big
happening. You set it up for the White House, Tom. Set it up right now."

Fairchild glared at
him
through a half-minute of silence. Then he gave a heavy sigh and rubbed the contusion on his chin. "All right. But you'll have to turn over the gun. You're not going to dinner at the White House with a gun in your hand."

"Of course not."

"You're a throwback, Winston."

"I'm a what?"

"You were born several hundred years too late. You belong in King Arthur's court."

"Right now I'll settle for King Arlington's," Winston told him. "The phone, Tom. Pick up the damn phone."

CHAPTER 9

Mike Winston was not often awed by the mere presence of another man. Right now he was trying to decide whether the awe was inspired by the man or the office. Perhaps it was a combination of both, he decided. After all, J. Humphrey Arlington had become an American institution, a "servant of the republic" for more than forty years and nearly eight of those years as President. And this was Winston's first intimate contact with the man.

The old boy was still a handsome and commanding figure, even at this septegenaiian stage of life. The mind seemed as sharp and the eyes as penetrating as any young man Winston knew. Right now the presidential gaze was fastened securely onto one Mike Winston, and the object of that gaze was finding the entire thing entirely uncomfortable. He was even now beginning to wonder what sort of fool it is who demands, at gunpoint, an audience with the President of the United States. It was no coincidence that Arlington had just expressed that same question.

"There seemed to be no other way, sir," Winston explained. "I simply felt that this intelligence should be placed at your disposal at the earliest possible moment."

The fierce old eyes probed the depths of his brandy snifter, then he swirled the liquid in a gentle motion and commented, "So you think the Negruhs are planning an uprising."

He looked back into the presidential gaze and replied, "Yes, Mr. President, that is precisely what I think."

"And you say this in your official capacity aa National Commissioner of Urban Affairs?"

Winston's eyes flickered. What was the old Hon getting to? "Yes, sir, I do."

"You realize, then, that you are expressing an official view of the United States Government?"

"I am expressing a subordinate view to my Chief Executive," he replied curtly. "I would be remiss not to do so, sir."

"Have you ever considered expressing such views through the regular chain of command?"

The interview was taking on a dreamlike quality for Winston. Or nightmarish. He explained, "I felt this situation lay beyond official courtesies and protocol, sir. My bureau chief is—at the moment . . . personally indisposed."

"Your bureau chief, sir, is drunk," the President said quietly.

Winston blinked. What the hell was going on? Surely, for God's sake, the
President
couldn't be with the
blacks.
The idea was almost laughable. He said, "I neglected to tell you, sir. The incident that turned me onto this investigation was . . . well, I'm certain that I saw General Bogan this morning, in company with Abraham Lincoln Williams. He was in civilian clothes. I came across them in the Oakland Town Hall, and you'd have thought I was the truant officer and they were a couple of kids cutting classes. I—"

"General Bogan has a right to a personal life. Has he not?"

"It's totally out of character, sir. The town niggers supposedly hate the government niggers as much as they hate whitey. I just can't see the two of them—"

"It has been common knowledge for some time, both in the Pentagon and at the White House, that Jackson Bogan is interested in a rapprochement with his less favored brothers. Is there something immoral in that, Commissioner?"

The old bastard. Why was he doing this?
He knew

better.
Winston told the President of the United States, "Talking to you, sir, is as frustrating as talking to Tom Fairchild and Charlie Waring. No, sir, doubly as frustrating. I feel ashamed, sir, deeply ashamed."

Winston was halfway out of Ms chair when the President cackled and said, "Sit down, Commissioner. You've not been dismissed, nor will you be on such a note as that."

"My apologies, sir," Winston muttered. "You have no idea how difficult it is to command any attention in this city. Paul Revere would have never made it in the twentieth century."

The President smiled. "We have our Paul Reveres, Commissioner." He turned to Fairchild. "Well, Tom?"

Fairchild smiled and spread his hands. "I thanked Mike for his alert assistance, sir. I gave him every assurance that the matter would be dealt with." He smiled. "That's when he pulled the gun on me. I thought it best to let you be the judge of the ... uh ... urgency of his intelligence."

The President chuckled. "I suppose I would feel the same way, with a gun at my head. I understand, Tom, that it was your own gun he pulled on you."

Fairchild flushed. "I didn't expect a Washington bureaucrat to come on like a television melodrama, Mr. President."

The President was still chuckling when he turned back to the urban commissioner. "Don't you like your job, Mr. Winston?" he asked. "I mean, aren't you satisfied with it, ministering to the needs of the black community? Do you find yourself continually pulled back into the intrigue of police work?"

Winston was getting a deeper taste of rage. President or no, he'd had a cup full. "What sort of game are you two playing with me?" he asked quietly. His hands were beginning to shake. He clamped them firmly onto his knees and leaned forward tensely in his chair. "Who the hell do you think you're talking to?"

"Here here, sir!" the President cried, in a tone used to scold undisciplined children.

Winston ignored the call to order. "I came here to present facts—
facts,
not vague ideas—which appear highly

critical to the national security. I believe I made an impressive case. And your only reaction is to try to make me feel like an idiot. I am not an idiot, Mr. President."

The old boy had come to a boil, and the eyes were blazing with outrage. "If the President says you're an idiot, sir, then you are an idiot," he intoned haughtily. "And believe me, sir, you
are
an idiot!"

Well, Winston thought, so this is what it's like. This is what it's like for an Abe Williams or a John Harvey, trying to act like a man in the presence of pompous foolishness. His eyes blurred. He wondered if he were going mad. He wanted to get up and hit that old man, knock his goddamn leering old head off. Yes, he must be going mad. His fingers dug into his knees. He took a deep breath, let half of it out, and aaid, "Mr. President, our nation is in peril. You
must
understand that."

"This nation is forever in peril!" Arlington thundered. "When the President places his head upon the pillow at the end of day, the nation is in peril. When the President rises from his bed at end of night, the nation is in peril! Your President has lived for half a century with the daily knowledge of his nation in peril. From within and from without. Does an administrative junior stroll into the White House, fresh from a once-in-a-lifetime self-important game of intrigue, and presume to tell his President that the national is in peril? You, sir, are a
total
idiot!"

The old man had used a lot of wind for that emotional speech, but Winston was too far gone to tread water now. He dived into the uncertain depths with a flaring, "You, sir, are a pompous ass!"

Yeah, he'd gone insane. Arlington's face was white death. The lips were moving without sound. Winston had broken through; he had joined that exclusive inner circle of political suicides. But the Presidential gaze was, at least, of a different quality now. He wasn't toying with Winston any longer.

"I apologize for my outburst, Commissioner," the President said, sucking hard for air.

"And I for mine, sir," Winston replied.

Arlington stared with glassy eyes at an unlit cigar. Tom

Fail-child was trying hard not to smirk and not <|uilr> succeeding. Presently the President sighed and said, "Tom, would you be so kind as to bring some more brandy."