15 (AUG. 5, TUES.)
The deliberate aim at Peace very easily passes into its bastard substitute, Anaesthesia.
—Alfred North Whitehead
It was about one o'clock in the morning. I'd called Mae shortly after nine to tell her I was delayed and not to wait up for me. The party apparently was still going strong, but diffused. The Monolithians had provided a number of side rooms for their guests to retire to from time to time to recuperate and freshen up before returning for more food, drink and talk. It was no Roman orgy—there were no beds in the rooms, for one thing—but it gave every indication of lasting till dawn.
I was sitting with my feet up on a couch. I'd loosened my tie and was drinking black coffee. I was beat.
Joy Linx came in. "Better start pulling yourself together. The President wants to see you."
"Me? Now? Why?"
"He's in the mood, I guess," Joy said. "I am but the bearer of the tidings. Are you sober?"
"Disgustingly," I said. "Where is he?"
"I'll take you there. Some party, eh, Sam?"
I couldn't agree that the party was in any way spectacular except in length, so I merely grunted. It had been sort of fun before President Allison arrived, and I'd enjoyed meeting Spookie Masters. But after Gov got there it collapsed into a formal gathering of anticipatory groups standing awkwardly and waiting for the President to notice them. After an hour or so of this I had fled to one of the recuperation rooms.
My face was a bit bristly with one o'clock shadow, but my tie was back in place and I asked Joy if I looked presentable. She ran her hand through my hair, presumably to tidy a cow-lick, and said, "You'll do nicely. Good luck, Sam. I hear he's very easy to talk to."
It was kind of her; Iwasfeeling a bit nervous. I'd never had a great deal of respect, politically, for Gov Allison, but it's one thing to be a distant critic and another to be ushered into a Presence.
"Thanks," I said. "Which way?"
Joy led me down the hall and around a corner to a door outside which two men stood with seeming casualness. Secret Service, I supposed. They nodded and one of them opened the door for us when Joy said, "Mr. Sam Kent."
There was one other man in the room with the President. I recognized him as Rupert Marriner, the Secretary of State. Joy introduced me to Marriner, who introduced me to the President. Allison said, "How do you do," and I said something like, "It's a great pleasure, sir," and then Joy and Marriner left and I was alone with the President.
It was a medium-sized room equipped with a desk and straight chair, two easy chairs, a couch, a sideboard on which stood a big tray with bottles, glasses, an ice bucket and soda, a bookcase with sets of books uniformly bound (I noticed later that they were the complete works of Zane Grey and Edgar Wallace) and a Remington painting, or excellent reproduction, on the wall. Allison sat down in one of the easy chairs and invited me to take the other.
"Forgive the hour, Sam, but I wanted to see you here where we could have a private chat rather than in the White House for the first time, where there always seems to be something of an urgent nature coming up to take my attention and leaving me little time for the niceties, as I am sure you'll appreciate," the President said in one of his usual marathon sentences.
"Of course, sir," I said. "An excellent idea."
"First let me say this," he said: "There's no need to stand on formality with me in private. I'm a plain man, having been raised on a farm in Indiana and having mingled with all kinds in my calling, before politics, as a country lawyer. So when we're together alone—that is to say like now, in private—I want you to call me Gov. I've always been called Gov, though I never held the office of Governor, as you probably know (though I ran for it in, let me see, I think it was 1948, and was pretty soundly beaten by that fellow what's-his-name), and Gov I want to be to my friends and associates except when the formalities of the occasion so decree. Will you go along with that, Sam? It will make us both more comfortable and engender a closer working arrangement, I feel."
"Yes, sir," I said. "That's fine—Gov." I felt thoroughly uncomfortable and hitched around in my chair. I wished I'd shaved. Allison himself looked spruce and freshly pressed, and his pink cheeks showed no trace of recent growth.
"Why don't we both have a drink, Sam?" Allison said. "If you wouldn't mind pouring me a vodka and orange juice or something, and you have whatever you'd like, I think we'll break the ice a bit faster. I don't particularly like vodka, but a man in my job has to beware the breath of scandal, to coin a phrase, and I do mean breath."
He smiled, and I smiled back dutifully as I got up and went to the sideboard. I made him his orange blossom and took myself a healthy hooker of Scotch, with a bit of soda.
"Now we're relaxed," Allison said, smacking his lips over a big swallow. "It's good to kick your shoes off, so to speak, and settle down among friends. You're probably wondering how I happened to pick you for the job of press secretary. A natural curiosity. Let me say this, before I go any further: I've heard of you. Your work has come to my attention now and again and of course I have an acquaintance with the Washington people on the staff of World Wide—McEachern and Sylvester among others. I know you to be a professional, and I think I can pay you no higher compliment."
The President paused for another swallow of his orange blossom and I said, "Thank you, sir."
"Gov," he said, smiling.
"Gov," I said. "Yes, sir."
"Naturally, when Josh was forced by the exigencies of the situation to bow out, I looked around for someone to fill his shoes. You were very highly recommended to me. I decided on the spot that you would be the man, without even having to see you. You're a smart lad and maybe you can guess who recommended you."
"The aliens?"
"Right the first time." Allison took a long swallow and handed me his empty glass. "If you don't mind."
I finished my own and went to the sideboard and made us two fresh ones. Vodka, in addition to being odorless, is supposed to be tasteless, so I gave Gov a double one, hoping he wouldn't notice and that he'd drop a few clues to the state of interplanetary affairs. I made my second Scotch a weak one.
"Here you are, Gov," I said, handing him his glass. I was getting into the groove.
"That's the stuff, Sammy boy," the President said. He'd probably had a few before he saw me. "Now, as I told you, I'm in the habit of speaking plainly. I see no reason to change that habit with you, here, now this minute, especially since one of your jobs, as press secretary, is to project the Presidential image the way people want it seen, regardless of what I really am."
The President took a long drink and went on. "You're a bright boy, as I've mentioned, and you may have suspected the truth about me. Lots of people have, but, frankly, as long as the press goes on exercising its self-censorship and it doesn't come out in print until after I've gone—and that may not be too long now—I frankly don't give a damn. What I'm doing is coasting through my second term. Under the Constitution I can't be elected again, and let me tell you this: if anybody should propose re-amending it, I'll fight it."
"I think I know how you feel," I said, to give him time to take another drink.
"Of course you do," he said, having drunk. "Now let me go on. I've worked as hard as I had to for nearly six years, but now I'm tired. I'm 68 years old and there's never been a time in the last thirty years when I wasn't up to here in public office of one kind or another. It's a very tiring thing, that kind of responsibility, and I'm sick of it."
"I can understand that, sir," I said. I added quickly, "Gov."
"That's better," he said. He handed me his glass. "Not so much orange juice this time, Sam. Too much acid's bad for the system."
He went on talking while I fixed him his third drink. I decided to nurse mine along, though I went through the motions of freshening it.
"I've gathered a good team together," Allison said, "and from now on I'm going to let them do the work. They've been doing most of it anyhow. From now on I don't want to be bothered. I'll continue to make public appearances and sign the bills they don't want me to veto, but I'm damned if I'm going to aggravate my ulcers any more with problems. That's what you and the others are drawing your salaries for. It's enough, isn't it, what you're getting? Beats the World Wide pay scale, doesn't it? And that tax-free allowance is nice, too, isn't it?"
"Yes, sir," I said. "I've got no complaints, Gov."
"Good. That's your job then. Project the Presidential image and keep me off the hook. Do I make myself clear?"
"Absolutely. I understand perfectly." And don't let on, I added to myself, that the Monolithians are running things.
"Good. I'm sure I'm not shattering any of your illusions, as I said before. Every newsman worth his salt knows I've been easing off for the past year at least. I've reached the top. There's no place else to go. So I'm just going to sit in the big plush seat and try to enjoy it for the two years that are left. If I can last that out without busting a gut, I'll be seventy. Then maybe I can retire to a few more years of peace and quiet. Hire a ghost and sell my memoirs toLifefor half a million or so. At any rate, from here on out it's all downhill for me, Monolithians or no Monolithians."
"I understand, Gov, and I certainly think you deserve a rest. I'll do everything I can." I didn't say what that everything would be.
"I'm sure you will. Let's have a nightcap now, and go easy on the orange juice. I don't know if you've been told, but I'll expect to see you in Washington in a couple of days. Somebody'll fix up a house for you. You have a wife, haven't you?"
"Yes. She's—we're going to be parents."
"Fine, fine. I'll see that they fix up the house with air-conditioning. That Washington climate is murder. You'll have a secretary, too. It's all been arranged. That Mix girl. She's in the picture."
"Linx," I said. "Joy Linx."
"She's the one. She doesn't know it yet. You can tell her if you like. About the secretaryship. She knows about the bigger picture, as I've mentioned." Allison leaned back and took a long swallow. "Any questions? Any at all?"
I decided it was time to say it. "The truth is, Gov, that the Monolithians are running things, isn't it?"
The President smiled. "I was afraid for a minute that I'd made a mistake. But I can see now that you're really the bright boy they say you are. You're right. The Monolithians are running it. And if you're as perceptive as I hope you are, you'll understand that this is the way it has to be." He paused, then added, "For now, anyway."
He took another swallow of his drink, looking at me over the top of his glass.
"One last thing," Gov said. "If you have any major questions or problems when I'm not handy, there's an old friend of mine who thinks very much the way I do. He'll be glad to advise you. He's Mr. Avery. Remember the name: Avery. Here's his telephone number." Gov passed me a slip of paper with a New York number on it. "But don't call him unless it's really important."
He finished his drink and set the glass down decisively. I took this to mean that the interview was at an end and got up.
"Yes, sir," I said, "good night, sir," intuitively reverting to formality. I had guessed correctly. He replied, "Good night, Kent. See you in the Big House."
The President had had a few, but I felt that his choice of words for the Executive Mansion was deliberate.