The Icarus Agenda (44 page)

“In all honesty, we didn’t, sir. My crazy lady called over an hour ago and I was able to get here in maybe twenty, twenty-five minutes. I saw the brouhaha in the corridor and figured you might show up. I waited for ya.”

“You might have let
me
know, you lousy mick! We’ve been going crazy in here!”

“And be slapped with a felony charge, darlin’?”

“He really
is
two-toilet Irish, Congressman—”

“
Hold
it, you two,” ordered Evan, glancing at the door. “What the hell are we going to do about this? What’s
happened
?”

“
You
went on the Foxley show,” said Mrs. O’Reilly. “We didn’t.”

“I make it a point never to watch those programs,” mumbled Kendrick. “If I do, I’m expected to know something.”

“Now a lot of people know about you.”

“You were
damn
good, Congressman,” added the D.C. detective. “A couple of boys in the department called and asked me to tell Annie to thank you—I told you, Annie.”

“First, I haven’t had the chance, and second, with all this confusion I probably would have forgotten. But I think, Evan, that your only clean way is to go out there and make some kind of statement.”

“Wait a minute,” interrupted Kendrick, looking at Patrick O’Reilly. “Why would anyone in the police department want to thank me?”

“The way you stood up to Barrish and clobbered him.”

“I gathered that, but what’s Barrish to them?”

“He’s a Pentagon hustler with friends in high places. Also a ball-breaker if you’ve spent a few sleepless nights on stakeout and instead of being thanked you’re dumped on.”

“What stakeout? What happened?”

“
Mister
Kendrick,” broke in Annie. “That’s a
zoo
out there! You’ve got to show yourself,
say
something.”

“No, I want to hear this. Go on, Mr.—may I call you Patrick, or Pat?”

“ ‘Paddy’ fits better.” The police officer patted his stomach. “That’s what I’m called.”

“I’m Evan. Drop the ‘Congressman’—I want to drop it completely.
Please. Go on. How was Barrish involved with the police?”

“I didn’t say that, now. He, himself, is cleaner than an Irish bagpipe, which actually isn’t too lovely inside, but he’s purer than a bleached sheet in the noonday sun.”

“Men in your line of work don’t thank people for clobbering clean laundry—”

“Well, it wasn’t the biggest thing that ever went down; truth be told, by itself it was minor, but something might have come out of it if we could have followed up.… The boys were tracking a mozzarella known to launder cash through Miami and points southeast like the Cayman Islands. On the fourth night of the stakeout at the Mayflower Hotel, they thought they had him. You see, one of those Bally-shoe types went to his room at one o’clock in the morning with a large briefcase. One o’clock in the morning—not exactly the start or the shank of the business day, right?”

“Not exactly.”

“Well, it turned out that the Bally shoes had legitimate investments with the mozzarella, and the Pentagon logs showed that he’d been in a procurements conference until almost eleventhirty and, further, he had to catch a plane to Los Angeles at eight in the morning, so the one o’clock was explained.”

“What about the briefcase?”

“We couldn’t touch it. Much offense was taken in high dudgeon and lots of national security was thrown around. You see, someone made a phone call.”

“But not to a lawyer,” said Evan. “Instead, to one Colonel Robert Barrish of the Pentagon.”

“Bingo. Our noses were shoved in dirt for impugning the motives of a fine, loyal American who was helping to keep the great U.S. of A. strong. The boys were reamed good.”

“But you think otherwise. You think a lot more than legitimate investments happened in that room.”

“If it walks like a duck and talks like a duck and looks like a duck, it’s usually a duck. But not the pair of Bally shoes; he wasn’t a duck, he was a slap-tailed weasel whose name was stricken from our
list
of ducks.”

“Thanks, Paddy.… All right, Mrs. O’Reilly, what do I say out there?”

“Whatever I suggest our boy Phil Tobias will probably object to, you should know that. He’s on his way here.”

“You called off his Monday-morning tennis? That’s courage beyond the call of duty.”

“He’s sweet and he’s smart, Evan, but I don’t think his advice can help you now; you’re on your own. Remember, those vultures out there are convinced you’ve been grandstanding all last week—running a parlay from the committee hearing to the Foxley show. If you had ciphered out, no one would give a damn, but you didn’t. You took on a heavyweight and made him look like a fast-talking thug and that makes you news. They want to know where you’re going.”

“Then what do you suggest? You know where I’m going, Annie. What
do
I say?”

Ann Mulcahy O’Reilly looked into Kendrick’s eyes. “Whatever you want to, Congressman. Just mean it.”

“The plaint of the swan? My swan song, Annie?”

“Only you’ll know that when you get out there.”

The uproar in the outer office was compounded by the sudden eruption of strobe flashes and the shifting, blinding floodlights of the television crews swinging their lethal mini-cams in the crowd. Questions were shouted and outshouted. Several of the more prominent newspeople were arrogantly demanding their rights for the closest, most prominent positions, so the congressman from Colorado’s Ninth District simply walked to his receptionist’s desk, moved the blotter and the telephone console aside, and sat on top. He smiled gamely, held up both hands several times and refused to speak. Gradually the cacophony subsided, broken now and then by a strident voice answered by the silent stare of mocked surprise on the part of the shocked representative. Finally, it was understood: Congressman Evan Kendrick was not going to open his mouth unless and until he could be heard by everyone. Silence descended.

“Thanks very much,” said Evan. “I need all the help I can get to figure out what I want to say—before
you
say what you want to say, which is different because you’ve got it
all
figured out.”

“
Congressman
Kendrick,” shouted an abrasive television journalist, obviously upset with his status in the second row. “Is it
true
—”

“Oh, come on,
will
you?” broke in Evan firmly. “Give me a break, friend. You’re used to this, I’m not.”

“That’s not the way you came over on television, sir!” replied the erstwhile anchorman.

“That was one on one, as I see it. This is one against the whole
Colosseum wanting a lion’s dinner. Let me say something first, okay?”

“Of course, sir.”

“I’m glad it wasn’t you last week, Stan—I think your name is Stan.”

“It is, Congressman.”

“You would have had my head along with your brandy.”

“You’re very kind, sir.”

“No kidding? It
is
a compliment, isn’t it?”

“Yes, Congressman, it is. That’s our job.”

“I respect that. I wish to hell you’d do it more often.”

“
What?
”

“One of the most respected members of my staff,” continued Kendrick quickly, “explained to me that I should make a statement. That’s kind of awesome if you’ve never been asked to make a statement before—”

“You
did
run for office, sir,” interrupted another television reporter, very obviously moving her blond hair into her camera’s focus. “Certainly statements were required then.”

“Not if the incumbent represented our district’s version of
Planet of the Apes
. Check it out, I’ll stand by that. Now, may I go on or do I simply go out? I’ll be quite honest with you. I really don’t give a damn.”

“Go on, sir,” said the gentleman often referred to as Stan-the-man, a broad grin on his telegenic face.

“Okay.… My very valued staff member also mentioned that some of you, if not all of you, might be under the impression that I was grandstanding last week. ‘Grandstanding.’… As I understand the term, it means calling attention to oneself by performing some basically melodramatic act, with or without substance, that rivets the attention of the crowds watching—the grandstands—on the person performing that act. If that definition is accurate, then I must decline the title of grandstander because I’m not looking for anyone’s approval. Again, I really don’t care.”

The momentary shock was dispelled by the Congressman’s palms pressing the air in front of him. “I’m quite sincere about that, ladies and gentlemen. I don’t expect to be around here very long—”

“Do you have a
health
problem, sir?” shouted a young man from the back of the room.

“Do you want to arm-wrestle?… No, I have no such problem that I’m aware of—”

“I was a collegiate boxing champion, sir,” added the youthful reporter in the rear, unable to contain himself amid humorous boos from the crowd. “Sorry, sir,” he said, embarrassed.

“Don’t be, young fella. If I had your talent, I’d probably challenge the head of Pentagon procurements
and
his counterpart in the Kremlin, and we’d solve everything the old-fashioned way. One challenger from each side and save the battalions. But no, I don’t have your talent and I also have no problems of health.”

“Then what
did
you mean?” asked a respected columnist from the
New York Times
.

“I’m flattered you’re here,” said Evan, recognizing the man. “I had no idea I was worth your time.”

“I think you are, and my time’s not that valuable. Where are you coming from, Congressman?”

“I’m not certain, but to answer your first question, I’m not sure I belong here. As to your second question, since I’m not sure I should be here, I’m in the enviable position of saying what I want to say without regard to the consequences—the political consequences, I guess.”

“That
is
news,” said the acerbic Stan-the-man, writing in his notebook. “Your statement, sir.”

“Thanks. I think I’d like to get it over with. Like a lot of people, I don’t like what I see. I’ve been away from this country for many years, and maybe you have to get away to understand what we’ve got—if only to compare it with what others haven’t got. There’s not supposed to be an oligarchy running this government and yet it seems to me that one has moved in. I can’t put my finger on it, or them, but they’re there, I know it. So do you. They want to escalate, always
escalate
, always pointing to an adversary who himself has escalated to the top of his economic and technological ladder. Where the hell do we stop? Where do
they
stop? When do we stop giving our children nightmares because all they hear is the goddamned promise of annihilation? When do
their
kids stop hearing it?… Or do we just keep going up in this elevator designed in hell until we can’t come down any longer, which won’t make much difference anyway because all the streets outside will be in flames.… Forgive me, I know it’s not fair, but I suddenly don’t want any more questions. I’m going back to the mountains.” Evan Kendrick got off the desk and walked swiftly through the stunned crowd to his office door. He opened it, quickening his steps, and disappeared into the hallway.

“He’s not going to the mountains,” whispered Patrick Xavier O’Reilly to his wife. “That lad is staying right here in this town.”

“Oh,
shussh
!” cried Annie, tears in her eyes. “He’s just cut himself off from the entire
Hill
!”

“Maybe the Hill, lass, but not from us. He’s put his not-too-delicate finger on it. They all make the money and we’re scared shitless. Watch him, Annie, care for him. He’s a voice we want to hear.”

Kendrick wandered the hot, torpid streets of Washington, his shirt open, his jacket slung over his shoulder, not having any idea where he was going, trying only to clear his head by putting one foot ahead of the other in aimless sequence. More often than he cared to count, he had been stopped by strangers whose comments were pretty equally divided but slightly weighted in his favor, a fact he was not sure he liked.

“Hell of a job you did on that double-talking prick, Senator!” “I’m not a senator, I’m a congressman. Thank you, I guess.”

“Who do you think you
are
, Congressman Whatever-your-name-is? Trying to trip up a fine, loyal American like Colonel Barrish. Goddamned left-wing bachelor-fairy!”

“Can I sell you some perfume? The colonel bought some.”

“
Disgusting!
”

“
Hey
, man, I dig your MTV! You move good and you sing in a high register. That mother would send all the brothers back to ’Nam for raw meat!”

“I don’t think he would, soldier. There’s no discrimination in him. We’re all raw meat.”

“Because you’re clever doesn’t make you right, sir! And because he was tricked—admittedly by his own words—doesn’t make him wrong. He’s a man committed to the strength of our nation, and you obviously are not!”

“I think I’m committed to reason,
sir
. That doesn’t exclude our country’s strength, at least I would hope not.”

“I saw no evidence of that!”

“Sorry. It’s there.”

“Thank you, Congressman, for saying what so many of us are thinking.”

“Why don’t
you
say it?”

“I’m not sure. Everywhere you turn, someone’s shouting at us to stand tough. I was a kid at Bastogne, in the Bulge, and nobody had to tell me to be tough. I
was
tough—and damned scared, too. It just happened; I wanted to live. But things are different now. It’s not men against men, or even guns and planes. It’s machines flying through the air punching big holes in the earth. You can’t aim at them, you can’t stop them. All you can do is wait.”

“I wish you’d been at the hearing. You just said it better than I ever could with far more impressive credentials.”

He really did not want to talk any more; he was talked out and strangers in the streets were not helping him find the solitude he needed. He had to think, sort things out for himself, decide what to do and decide quickly if only to put the decision behind him. He had accepted the Partridge Committee assignment for a specific reason: he wanted a voice in his district’s selection of the man who would succeed him, and his aide, Phil Tobias, had convinced him that accepting Partridge’s summons would guarantee him a voice. But what Evan wondered was did he really give a damn?