Establishment (47 page)

“And how much are you asking for it?”

“Three hundred thousand dollars,” Jean said blandly.

Eloise turned away and clasped her hands tightly.

“You can't be serious!” Lucy exclaimed.

“Oh, I am, indeed.”

“I don't understand this, Mrs. Lavette. I really don't understand it at all, unless you take me for an utter fool. I was reading only last week where they sold three Picassos at Parke-Bernet in New York, and the highest price was thirty-seven thousand.”

“My dear, there are Picassos and Picassos.”

“Well, I certainly have no intention of paying three hundred thousand for that ridiculous painting.”

“I understand,” Jean said gently. “One should never purchase a painting one doesn't love, and since I know your reaction to it, I'll be the first to say, ‘No, Lucy, it's not for you.'”

After Lucy had marched out of the gallery, Jean and Eloise stood and stared at each other. Finally Eloise said, “Oh, you're wicked, Jean. You are so wicked.”

“Ha!” Jean exclaimed. “I am wicked? If ever there was a case of the pot calling the kettle black! Who was it marched back there so calmly and came out with that silly Braque collage?”

“Only because I expected you to explain to her that we don't have a Picasso and that Braque was a close associate of his in those days.”

“Eloise, your golden locks will turn purple if you lie like that. Did you say it was a Braque?”

“You're the senior partner. Jean, after all, you did go into a detailed explanation, and it was you who told her the price was three hundred thousand. Suppose she had bought it? Suppose she had said yes? Would you have sold it to her?”

“What are we asking for it?”

“Fourteen thousand. But hold on; my dear Jean, didn't you tell me to go back there and bring out the Picasso?”

“We're neither of us to be trusted, are we? Would I have sold it to her? I think I would have—just to see what would happen when, as Dan would put it in his own inimitable manner, the shit hit the fan. Ah, well, perhaps we're better off this way. We don't have the three hundred thousand but we do have our integrity.”

***

It was a night when Barbara could not sleep. She had not imagined that she would be nervous when this night came, but the others had warned her. “It is a bad night,” Annie Lou had said to her. “It is a night when you is sure you is going to die.” And it was. She was afraid to sleep; if she slept, she could die sleeping and never know.

The hours were endless. For months time had been her enemy; now time, in its last spasm of anger and resistance, stood still; and Barbara cringed, surrendered her defiance, and pleaded for the night to be over. With surrender came a sort of half-sleep, and when she awakened, the first gray of dawn was in the sky. She rose, made her bed for the last time, washed, combed her hair, and walked quietly through the dark barracks out into the open. She walked across the exercise ground to the sea wall and stood in the misty dawn, watching the sunrise. A tugboat came steaming by slowly, dragging a barge behind it. A man on the barge waved to her, and she waved back. The sea breeze was cold and clean on her face. In the light of day, her fears were dissipating. She examined her hands. She had cut her nails carefully; they were short but clean. The red soreness had worked out of her hands; they were hard and brown. The day before, the girls in the beauty salon, where they were taught hair dressing and skin care, had done her hair. On her little finger was a silver ring, a gift from Ellie, who had pleaded with her to accept it.

She heard a step and turned to see Captain Cooper, who joined her at the sea wall and stood looking out over the harbor. After a moment, Cooper said, “Well, Barbara, it's not the worst place in the world, is it?”

“It's a prison.”

“So it is. We have prisons. There's nothing you or I can do about that. I like to think that it's better than most.”

“I imagine it is.”

“It's been a strange experience for you, hasn't it?”

“Very strange.”

“It's an odd thing for me to say, Barbara, but I will say it. I'm glad they sent you here and not somewhere else.”

“Thank you.”

“Have your breakfast. Then go to admissions. They'll give you your clothes and your paycheck.”

“Paycheck?”

“We do pay wages, not much but still something. We're not a slave labor camp. Is someone coming for you?”

“My father. I asked him to be at admissions at ten o'clock.”

“That will give you enough time.” Cooper thrust out her hand, and Barbara took it.

Barbara picked up her basket of clothes at the admissions desk and walked slowly back to her room. A cluster of inmates were waiting for her, ignoring Officer Hurley. “Break it up!” Hurley was saying. “Come on now, break it up, or I'll put you all on report.”

They were embracing Barbara. “Bug off with that shit, Hurley,” Annie Lou whispered, hugging Barbara. “What the fuck do I do without you, honey child? You are the only black white woman in the joint.”

“Now this is the last damn time I tell you to break this up!” Hurley shouted.

“Oh, I am going to miss you, Officer Hurley, you and Officer Davenport,” Barbara said. “But I shall dream about you. You'll be right there in all my nightmares.”

It was a poor joke but they loved it, and they broke away laughing and giggling. “You don't give up, do you?” Hurley said to Barbara. “Jailhouse smartass right to the end.”

“Right to the end.”

“Well, don't ever forget that you've been here, lady bountiful. You can tell that to your classy San Francisco friends.”

“Oh, I shall,” Barbara agreed, and unable to resist, she added, “And do you know what else? I shall tell them that while I am gone, you, my dear, are still here—with a life sentence.” Then she fled into her room, slamming the door behind her, upset because she had allowed herself to be provoked. But the mood passed, and she was overtaken by a sort of melancholy. “Good God,” she said aloud, “I really think I'm reluctant to leave this place, and that is absolutely crazy.” Yet she knew that she had found something there that she had never found anywhere else. “Well, it's over. That's the main thing.”

She stripped off her prison clothes for the last time and stuffed them into her pillowcase. Then she dressed herself in the same white blouse and gray flannel suit that she had worn when she arrived. The clothes were loose. According to the scale, she had lost only a few ounces, but her whole body must have tightened up. She wondered whether her shoes would fit after months of wearing oversized clogs. The shoes were tight but not too uncomfortable. The heels, however, were strange, and they took some getting used to.

Looking at herself in the mirror, she faced a stranger. “Barbara,” she said very seriously, “you will simply have to get used to the way I am now. I have served my time and paid my debt to society. I have no apologies to make.”

Dan was in the waiting room at admissions when Barbara entered, and he took her in his arms.

“Poor daddy,” she whispered. “I never gave you an easy time of it, did I?”

Driving to the ferry, Dan said, “This is a rental. We drop it at the airport and make the noon plane. Sammy is with Jean, waiting in your house. That's the way you wanted it, isn't it?”

“Just the way I wanted it, daddy. It couldn't be more perfect.”

At a few minutes past two o'clock, Barbara opened the door of her house on Green Street and walked into the living room. Jean had been reading to Sam, who was seated on the couch next to her. When he saw Barbara, he leaped off the couch and started toward her. Then he paused, staring at her. His face wrinkled and the tears started. She went down on her knees and embraced him.

“You won't go away again?”

“Never,” she said. “Never, never, my darling.”

Some say that since the nature of God is unknowable, He takes visible form in terms of worship. Norman Drake paid off his taxicab and stood in front of Tom Lavette's residence, the old Sommers mansion, in an attitude of respectful obeisance. In all truth, it was less the house that he worshipped than what it stood for. His wife, however, would have been quite content with the house.

His wife was not his most enthusiastic admirer. When the business of Barbara Lavette had first occurred, she had said to him in no uncertain terms, “You are a fool. With the whole country to choose from, you pick the Lavette family.”

When he dined with Tom and Lucy and reported back to her, she said, “Are you an idiot? Why didn't you tell them that you would drop the whole thing?”

“They didn't want me to. The truth is, he doesn't give a damn about his sister.”

“Coming from anyone else, I might believe that.”

He had undertaken, in the course of years, two plaintive liaisons with sympathetic women in Washington, a city with no shortage of sympathetic women, and in each case, he had evaded divorce with the plea that it would destroy his political career. Then he gave up sympathetic liaisons for a tolerable relationship with a blowsy woman who worked in his Washington office. He wife found out about it. “Can you give me one good reason why I shouldn't divorce you?” she demanded of him.

“One, yes—I think,” he begged her. He could be humble and beseeching.

“Just let me hear it, and if it concerns your political career, you can take it and stuff it. I am past giving a damn about your political career.”

“I don't think you should say that,” he pleaded. “I mean, it is my political career, but it goes beyond that. I think I have a chance to be vice president.”

“You are out of your mind.”

But he was able to convince her that he was not entirely out of his mind, and tonight, standing outside of the Lavette mansion, he was a good deal closer to the incredible goal of vice president. His wife might have asked herself with some cynicism why they had chosen him; for himself, he could find reasons. He felt he had resources that had never been tapped, a breadth of understanding he had never put to use, and above all, imagination. He felt certain of that. He did have imagination.

Well, this was not the time to indulge in dreams. Whatever the decision would be, whatever Lavette's hints would lead to, tonight would provide him with definite answers. He had been assured of that.

He pulled the iron chain that hung from one jamb of the ornate doors and heard the gong echo throughout the house. No cheap electric doorbells here. A butler opened the door and took his hat and coat.

“The gentlemen are in the library, Mr. Drake,” he said. “They are expecting you.”

He followed the butler, swallowing nervously, and then trying not to swallow. His doctor had warned him that this nervous swallowing of air was the chief cause of his flatulence, and flatulence was the last thing he desired tonight.

Tom Lavette rose to greet him as he entered the library. Seated comfortably around the room, some with cigars and brandy, were six men.

“Good of you to come and join us, Drake,” Tom said, as if there had been an alternative to his coming there tonight. “I'll introduce you. This is Joseph Langtrey. Congressman Drake.” Langtrey nodded without rising. “Mark Fowler,” Tom said.

“Evening, Drake,” Fowler said. They knew each other. Fowler rose slowly, offering his hand.

“Ira Cunningham,” Tom said.

“Just so you know where the chips are stacked, young feller,” Cunningham said, “I am president of Lakeland Steel. Mr. Langtrey runs the First New York City Trust Company, and Louis d'Solde over there has a finger in half the chemical companies in this country.”

“I think you know Mr. Culpepper and Mr. McGinnis,” Tom said.

If he didn't know them personally, he knew very well who they were and what they represented. He took the seat that Tom indicated. He accepted brandy and a cigar, which he left unlit. And he waited.

McGinnis was talking about Kuwait and its oil resources. He had four hundred million dollars invested there, and he was wondering how the new State of Israel was going to affect the whole balance of oil and nationalism. Drake followed the conversation that came out of this, waiting from moment to moment for them to ask his opinion. But they didn't, and finally Culpepper turned to him and said, almost casually, “Lavette here thinks you'd be a good bet for the vice presidency. Do you want the job?”

“Yes, sir, I do. But then, won't it depend on who'll be President. I mean, who'll be the candidate, his choice?”

“Our choice,” said McGinnis.

“How clean are you?” Fowler asked. “I don't mean women or little peccadilloes. I mean fraud. How clean are your campaign funds? I'm not going to ask whether you ever took a bribe. What is there on paper? What kind of bank deposits are there that you can't account for?”

“I've been scrupulous about my bank deposits, and there's nothing on paper that could be embarrassing.”

“What about Internal Revenue?” Langtrey asked him. “Do they audit you?”

“Not for the past four years, no, sir.”

“Well, you will request an audit. As soon as possible. Providing you can come out of it clean.”

“I can. No problem in that direction.”

“You have a safe deposit box?”

“Yes, sir.”

“What do you keep there?”

“I have some bonds and stock certificates.”

“No cash?”

He hesitated, then nodded. “Yes, some cash.”

“How much?”

“About eighteen thousand.”

“Get rid of it.”

“How?”

“How the devil do I know? Give it to your wife. Spend it. Spread it around—a few hundred here, a few hundred there. Buy her a fur coat.”

“What's the situation with your wife? Do you get along?”

“Oh, yes, it's a good marriage.”

“And your kids? No fancy escapades?”

“Oh, no. They're fine kids.”

“Now understand us,” Fowler said. “If we win the election and you stand in as Vice President, it's a dry run, so to speak, a test run. The future will depend on how you conduct yourself, and the future means the top job. Do you follow me?”

“I think so.”

“As far as this House committee of yours is concerned, we've had enough of it. It's meaningless and nonproductive, and the same goes for McCarthy's shenanigans. You'll change the image. I think the less subpoenas from here on in, the better. Now there are certain things we are interested in, not only for our good but for the good of the nation. McGinnis there wants to unlock the offshore oil. We need it. Louis is deeply interested in the advancement of the space program. Lavette wants transcontinental and European franchises. Cunningham is worried about the growing bias against new aircraft carriers. These are only indications. There's no point in going through a detailed list tonight. Plenty of time for that. The only thing we are really interested in this evening is an area of understanding. Do we have it?”

“I would say we do,” Drake agreed.

After Drake left, Fowler said to Tom, “I do hope your judgment stands up, Lavette. I don't like that little sonofabitch.”

“I think,” Tom said, “he has the quality of loyalty that you would find in a well-trained whipped dog. I can't think of anyone else down there in Washington who could be purchased as completely. Also, for reasons I must confess I don't understand, he is one hell of a vote-getter. Apparently the people who do the voting love him.”

“I don't love him,” Culpepper said. “When I think of that man as potentially President of the United States, I wonder what in hell this country is coming to.”

***

That night in bed, having given Lucy a blow-by-blow account of what had taken place in the library, Tom said, “After all, Lucy, we haven't done too badly, our little combination of Lavette, Seldon, and Sommers. We're still the smallest apple in the basket, but we're in there, aren't we?”

“It goes further than that, Thomas. We shall one day have shares in the man who runs the most powerful nation on earth. It's not simply owning a politician—it's owning the whole beautiful thing.” She reached out and touched him tenderly. “That is power.”

Suddenly, he was away from her, lost in his own thoughts.

“Tom?”

“Yes.” He stared at her.

“Ugly little beast, but he's all ours.”

“Yes.”

“What on earth—you are pleased, aren't you?”

“I suppose so.”

“What's eating you now?” She was irritated. It was her triumph. She wanted it to be his as well.

“It doesn't matter.”

“Dan Lavette?” she asked softly.

“He's my father.”

“Tom, we've been all through that. He had to find out. Anyway, he doesn't mean a damn thing to you.”

“You really believe that?”

“According to you,” she said. “According to you. And as for Barbara, you didn't send her to prison. That was her own choice.”

“In all my life,” Tom said tiredly, “in all my goddamn stupid life, there was only one thing I wanted and couldn't have. I had all the rest—everything except a nod from that cold bastard who calls himself my father. If once, if only once he had looked at me and spoken to me the way a father does to a son—”

“Oh, stop it.” Lucy was annoyed. “It's been a good day. What are you doing to it?”

“I don't hate him.”

“You're being a damn fool.” She turned off the light and rolled over on her side.

Tom lay awake, a line putting itself together in his mind—the last line of some book he had read long, long ago, when he had been at Princeton: “Of such is the kingdom of heaven.”

***

Alexander Hargasey was taken ill on the set of a film he was directing, and four hours later he died. He was overweight and in poor physical condition, and he was struck down by a massive coronary. By the time Sally arrived at the hospital he was dead, and Sally sat in the hospital waiting room and wept as she had never wept before. She was in the third month of pregnancy. She had loved Hargasey. He had been surrogate father, confessor, teacher, and good friend. Whispering to herself that boy or girl, this child would be called Alexander, she surrendered to a grief that was real and unadorned with any of her romantic trimmings. She had never truly faced life and she had never confronted death as it must be confronted, as the end of something, as a cruel hole in her mind that could not be evaded or healed.

Joe went with her to the funeral. He had his own memories of the director, a fat, bald comical character; he listened to Sally's estimate of the man, and not without a degree of awe and shame. “He was a good man,” Sally said. “It was a kind of decency that I don't even understand because I don't have it. Not a shred of it.”

“I liked him,” Joe pleaded, reminding Sally that he had met Hargasey years before, when Hargasey had commissioned Dan Lavette to build him a yacht. She was thinking that he blamed Hargasey.

“I will not make a picture with anyone else. Never. I'm through. So it doesn't matter what you think of Alex Hargasey. I'm through with it.”

Joe took her home and went on to the clinic. Later that day, at six o'clock in the evening, he returned to the house in Beverly Hills and found Sally sitting in the semidarkness of her bedroom.

“Are you all right?” Joe asked her.

“Sure. I've been thinking.”

“Did you mean what you said before? About never making another film?”

“I'm pregnant.”

“What!”

“It's all right. It's perfectly normal. I'm in my third month.”

“Are you certain?”

“Yes, I'm quite certain, Joe. I went to Dr. Brimmer at the studio. I've had the tests.”

“Do you want the baby, Sally?”

“It's my baby. What do you think?”

“I think it's good. But I don't understand about the movies. God, we've talked so much about it and what it means to you. How can you stop something that means so much to you?”

“Because it doesn't mean that much anymore.” Then she began to cry again.

“Sally, please, don't cry.”

“I'm not crying for Alex now,” she managed to say. “I'm crying for myself. Oh, I feel so rotten, Joe, so lost and so frightened. I'm here, and I don't know what I'm doing here. I don't know how I got here. Joey,” she said pleadingly, “I want to go home.”

“Sure. We'll go up to Napa for a few days. If you want to, you can stay there for a few weeks with May Ling.”

“I don't mean that. I want to go back there for good, and I want you to come with me. Please, please, Joey. You can open an office in Napa. Or in Oakland, if you want to. There are just as many poor, sick people in Oakland as there are here. But I can't stay here. I want three or four kids. I want to be a human being. I want to be able to walk down the street without everyone turning to look and whisper about me. Please, Joey.”

“What about the house?”

“We'll sell the house. The hell with the house! Don't you understand? My own daughter's a stranger to me. I don't want kids who are strangers.”

“I've put so much into the clinic—”

“Joey, let's try to save ourselves. We're part of the human race, aren't we? And the clinic will survive. Just say that you'll give it a try—because if we miss out now—”

He shook his head unhappily.

“Please. Just give it a try.”

He was broodingly silent. He promised nothing. He simply muttered, “O.K. I'll try.”

***

Barbara's decision to go to Israel was very sudden, not anticipated even in her offhand thoughts. Simply her having been away from Sam for so long should have precluded it. Jean took it as a whim.