My King The President (6 page)

“I don’t know, Liz. But I’ll find out, if it’s the last thing I ever do.”

Promising to help her in any way possible, I got away as quickly as I diplomatically could. Cal used to say walking in the rain helps tamp down the fires of anger. It did, but not by much, especially since I’d had no chance to ask her the same question. No matter, since the way she’d asked it of me showed she knew nothing. Nothing at all.

My first official day on the job was rapidly going south, but my disposition improved a little when I got back to the hotel and found Walt Erikson asleep in one of the lobby chairs, briefcase resting on his skinny chest. Over a tasteless room service lunch we washed down with Heineken, I started to read the enormous printout he’d brought. After three pages, plus the inability to shove Liz McCarty to a back burner, I gave up. “I don’t have the patience for this right now, Walt. Hand me the short version, and please don’t say ‘no problem.’ ”

I was doubly impressed with Walt’s work when the short version turned out to be
very
short. I scanned the high points, already highlighted in yellow:

I put the single sheet down. Concentration was slipping badly. I’d have to go back over it tonight, when I’d cooled off. “Did you bring the tapes?”

“Yessir. Got ’em right here.” He fished them out of his briefcase and laid them on top of his printout. “And Mr. Latham says to tell you he set up the interview with the Judge for the day after tomorrow. I’m to tag along as the photographer. Don’t worry, I have some experience.”

“Good old Ernie. Thinks of everything. Thanks, Walt. You better go on back to your family. I’ll call you if I need you.”

Walt left, and I sat down to make another attempt to study his long printout. After half an hour, I gave up again in frustration, made myself a drink, and had started to the bathroom when I heard a knock on the door. I quickly looked around to see if Walt had forgotten something. He hadn’t, so I slammed the glass down, took three steps and yanked on the doorknob, my mood now blacker than the inside of a stovepipe. It took a couple of painfully mortifying, speechless seconds before I recognized the former First Lady, Jean Tyndall!

“Well, Mr. Willard, are you going to invite me in or not?”

Chapter 5

Once I had gotten over my pubescent crush on big-breasted Edith Conway way back when at Tryon’s Cove Middle School, there hadn’t been many times when I’d been at a loss for words around women, even Washington women, whether they were wives of Senators, ambitious pages, or cocktail waitresses. Now, within the relatively small space of twenty-four hours, I had been practically struck dumb by two; the new lady President, and now the widow of the man whose place she’d taken. I must have managed some kind of reflex gestures, though, since I quickly found myself sitting across my coffee table from her, an actor’s smile on my face, silently praising the dependable Mayflower housekeeping staff, and listening to her explain the unannounced and totally unexpected visit.

“Ernie Latham’s editorial today mentioned you were back in town and doing a series of articles on people close to my husband. Do I qualify?” Her teasing laughter was light. Like a dab of Cool Whip.

I found my voice, and promptly lied through my teeth. “Top of the list. I wanted to talk to Abby, too, but I guess that’s not possible right now.” I told her about Thurmond Frye’s little house call.

I didn’t understand her question at all, but I responded the way I thought she wanted me to. “Why, yes, ma’am. That’s a given.”

“Then you’re as wrong, as duped as everyone else. Buck Tyndall’s death was the best thing that could ever happen to these United States.”

I hoped my face didn’t show the astonishment I felt hearing those words. Here was this tiny wisp of a woman who had been a gracious White House hostess, a charming and attractive personality who had, at his elbow, buffered many of her husband’s rough edges while tirelessly championing women’s rights, now in essence telling me to my face that his murder was good for the country! This time, I made no response at all. Cal would have been proud of me.

Again came that frilly, lilting laugh. “Because you and I both know Ernie Latham doesn’t have the journalistic courage to print one word of it. My husband was close to turning this country into a police state. No one in America knows just how close. You know what I called him?”

“What?”

“Every morning—those mornings I saw him, I mean, I’d say, ‘What do you want for breakfast today, my King the President?’ I’m sorry about the way it happened, but at last I’m free of the bastard, and so is the rest of the country.”

“Are you telling me you
hated
him?”

“With every fiber of my being. But I wasn’t alone, was I? Where have you been these past few years, Mr. Willard? Except for soldiers and cops, every thinking person in this country hated his guts. Especially Snow White and his smart-ass dwarfs. Boy, did Buck turn the tables on them!”

She abruptly stood up. Dropped a card on the coffee table. “Well, I can see by the look on your very handsome face that I’ve told you enough to entice you to my suite at the Watergate next Monday at four for cocktails and a long talk. It’s Absolut you drink, right?”

She was gone before I could gather wits enough to react. I felt like a confused victim picking up pieces of his brain after a tornado had blasted through it. My rip sheet would need revising, and right away, too. I decided to do it in my favorite place; the ancient claw-footed bathroom tub—the only one I had ever seen long enough for me to stretch out in. I made myself a drink, went in, turned the water on, and then looked at my watch. It was past time for Cecil’s shift to begin, and I needed his expertise. I called the desk.

He hadn’t changed. “Hel-
lo
, darling. I think it’s marvelous you’re back. I have truly missed you. How may I be of service today?”

“I need your special shopping skills, Cecil. Like yesterday.”

“Do you now? So what do we need, precious?”

“Two new suits, some shirts, underwear, a sport coat, shoes, socks, ties, pretty much everything, plus I need what I was wearing today dry-cleaned by tomorrow at eight. It’s hanging in the same place. Just let yourself in. I’ll be in the tub.”

Cecil Hathaway was from the Cayman Islands, black as black can be, and gayer than a Rodgers and Hammerstein musical, but he was the world’s greatest procurer. For a price, he could deliver anything, and I do mean anything you want, to your room. And fast. I had not brought many clothes with me to Washington, nor did I have time to shop. To be honest, I didn’t own much of a wardrobe any more, unless you count khaki shorts, tee shirts, and boat shoes—not exactly the proper duds for where I’d be going.

I soaked and sipped; trying to sort out what Jean Tyndall had told me. She apparently had more she wanted to unload, and I found myself looking forward to the coming Monday as much as to my visit tomorrow with Judge Koontz.

Long baths usually make me hungry. I decided to treat myself to a steak downstairs before watching the tapes Walt had brought. I got out of the tub, dried off, and was putting on my robe when yet another knock on the door came. This time, however, I recognized Cecil’s usual; two raps, followed by two more. “Come on in, Cecil.”

I had my back turned to the door when Cecil opened it, and in his most professional voice, said, “Excuse me, Mr. Willard, sir, but you have a guest.”

I turned, and nearly dropped my teeth when my father marched right in ahead of the worried looking night clerk. “Cal? What the devil—?” When he started to tell me, I held up a finger. “Wait just a minute.” I picked up my suit and handed it to Cecil. “You need some money now?”

“Take it easy, pal. Sammy’s on the way with your boat. Pete Suggs was back in Tryon’s Cove with nothing to do, so I asked him to help Sammy. I drove because we needed the car after bringing the boat up. Besides, I thought you might need an extra pair of hands and feet. You think you can use your influence to get me a room here for a few days?”

I was pretty sure that was another thing Cecil could arrange, so I nodded. “Why the car? I told you I’d pay for yours and Sammy’s airfare home.”

“I know you did, but we’re not going back to Tryon’s Cove. Sammy and Pete are going to help me with a few things I need to do at the cabin, so we’re going to drive back together down through the Shenandoah valley and the Blue Ridge Parkway. Pretty this time of year.”

The New York strips were long gone and the excellent bottle of Cabernet down to the last half glass before Cal asked his first question. “So, who do you think ‘Snow White and the dwarfs’ may be?”

“No idea, but they must be people who had a big bone to pick with Tyndall. Possible motive. Maybe I’ll find out Monday. What she said got me thinking like an investigator again. Like, who stood to gain the most from Tyndall’s death?”

Cal’s eyebrows shot up. “A better question might be, who wouldn’t? Like she said, aside from the military and the police, nearly everyone in this country and several others stood to benefit, especially the NRA and every single criminal serving time. The man bred enemies like the ocean breeds fish.”

“You know, that’s close to what she said, too. Where
have
I been lately, Cal? I can’t believe I’ve been so out of touch I don’t know what’s been going on around this town.”

“You never watch TV and you don’t read papers any more. Not even mine. Book writing is a lonely business, and where you’ve been, like Alaska, and deep in the Mexican hills dodging bullets, it’s not too surprising. Tyndall certainly had his own agenda, that’s for sure. No one knew what he was going to do next. He made a lot of people very nervous, from Heads of State down to hired farm hands. But for the last couple of years, he seemed to have backed off some from such extreme moves. Mellowed a little. People were breathing easier, especially those on Wall Street. Anyway, what now?”

“Feel like watching a good re-run?”

It was the shortest major political speech in history, and maybe the most effective. Buford (Buck) Tyndall’s entrance, so unlike that of his predecessors, set the tone for the blockbuster he was about to deliver. Instead of backslapping, shaking hands, and schmoozing with dozens of leaning, smiling lawmakers, the ramrod straight hero of North Korea and the Middle East marched straight to the dais, waited for the thunderous applause to abate, then broke all traditional rules of salutation and got right to it.

“Americans. I am here tonight for the purpose of addressing you regarding the State of the Union. This I shall do, and then I am going to tell you what we are going to do about it.”

Again he waited for the cheering to die down. “I wish I could look out at you tonight, make a few clever jokes, and, like others before me, make a bunch of rhetorical promises that are hollow and hard to keep. It would also be moot, I suppose, to mention a few examples of historical trivia that might be fun for me and interesting for you, since I am not the first soldier to stand here. But I am not going to do that.

“Neither am I going to dwell on the number of things in our country that are in good shape. I don’t need to waste our time mentioning them since you already know what they are, and I firmly believe that if something ain’t broke, we don’t have to fix it. But we have problems that
need
fixing. Big problems. Let me first talk about those abroad.

“Since Vietnam, and in spite of our recent successful actions in the desert, the Balkans, and North Korea, most foreign regimes show us little or no respect. Behind our backs, they call us a paper tiger. A spineless, has-been power. That, I promise you, will cease immediately.