“And Clendennen doesn’t know this? Or at least suspect it?” Radio & TV Stations asked.
“I don’t think he would care if he did.”
“That’s surprising. I would have thought — he’s big in the ego department — that he’d really be concerned with his legacy.”
“There’s that word again,” the Widow Alekseeva said. “What are you talking about?”
“You used the word, Chopper Jockey, you explain it to the lady,” Charley said, chuckling.
“The way that works, Mrs. Alekseeva—”
“My Carlito likes you,” she interrupted. “You may call me Sweaty.”
“The way that works, Sweaty,” Radio & TV Stations said, “is that the minute someone gets elected President — and I mean someone of whatever political party and sexual preference — he starts thinking of how he’ll be remembered twenty, fifty, a hundred years from now. He starts thinking of his legacy.”
“I don’t think I understand,” Sweaty admitted.
“Let me have another shot at it. I guess it started with Roosevelt, Franklin D. What they do is have a presidential library. Roosevelt’s was built in Hyde Park, New York, where he’s buried. Ronald Reagan’s is in California. So is the Richard Nixon library. And they’re buried at their libraries.”
“They’re buried in their libraries?” the Widow Alekseeva asked incredulously.
“Usually, my darling, in sort of a garden just outside their libraries,” Charley qualified.
“Even Jimmy Carter has a presidential library,” Radio & TV Stations said. “With, I suppose, a lot of empty shelves.”
Charley and Hotelier chuckled.
“That’s unkind,” Annapolis said.
“You’re only saying that because you both went to that school for sailors,” Castillo said. “You’ll have to admit that Carter’s library has to have a lot of empty shelves.”
“The Harry S Truman Library is in Missouri,” Radio & TV Stations said. “One of the better libraries, really.”
“They all have libraries?” the Widow Alekseeva asked. “What’s that about?”
“Their legacies, Sweaty,” Radio & TV Stations explained. “They appoint some guy to run their libraries, and he spends his time filling them with books and newspaper stories and other material proving their guy was the best President since George Washington.”
“And collecting and then burning books and newspaper stories and other material proving their guy was the worst President since Millard G. Fillmore,” Charley contributed.
This time all of them chuckled.
“Either that,” Annapolis chimed in, “or they send the non-flattering stuff to the Library of Congress.”
“Where it will be misfiled,” Radio & TV Stations said.
“And absolutely will never again be read by anyone,” Charley concluded for him.
All the men were now chuckling, visibly pleased with their own humor.
“Before you all grow hysterical and incoherent,” the Widow Alekseeva said, “tell me where President Clendennen has his legacy library.”
“He doesn’t have one yet,” Charley said. “But he’ll get around to preserving his legacy, Sweaty, sooner or later. His ego — and Belinda-Sue’s ego — will demand it.”
“Not later, my darling,” the Widow Alekseeva said. “Sooner. Now.”
“Excuse me?”
“Now. Right now,” she said.
“I don’t understand,” Charley confessed.
“I’m not surprised. Tell me, my darling, what do you think just might take President Clendennen’s mind off putting your beloved Delta Force into Clan Clendennen kilts?”
There was silence.
All the men shrugged.
“I will be damned,” Radio & TV Stations said finally.
“She’s a genius!” Hotelier said.
“Supervising the design and construction of the Clendennen presidential library,” Aloysius Casey said.
“The Joshua Ezekiel and Belinda-Sue Clendennen Presidential Library and Last Resting Place,” Annapolis corrected him.
“Sweaty, I love you,” Charley said.
“I figure we start off with initial anonymous contributions of ten million dollars,” Casey said.
“Where are you going to get ten million dollars?” Annapolis said.
“Well, I’ll throw in a million,” Casey said. “It’s worth that much to me to keep Delta Force from having to wear skirts. The rest we get a million a pop from other public-minded citizens like an insurance tycoon I know.”
“I’m in,” Radio & TV Stations said.
“Me, too,” Hotelier said.
“The other people in Las Vegas will, I’m sure, be willing to contribute to such a noble cause,” Annapolis said. “But I have to ask, isn’t the President going to be suspicious that this suddenly popped up? You said he was paranoid, that he even suspected Secretary Cohen wasn’t really playing golf when she went to the Greenbrier.”
Castillo took out his CaseyBerry and punched the ON button. When the green LEDs glowed, he punched the loudspeaker and one of the autodial buttons.
“Charley, thank God!” Secretary Cohen’s voice bounced back from space.
“Good morning, Madam Secretary.”
“I’ve been trying to get you for hours!”
“Sorry. My CaseyBerry was turned off. I just turned it on a moment ago.”
“Why did you turn it off?”
“Truth to tell, I didn’t. I guess one of the jailers turned it off when they took my personal property from me.”
“Jailers? What jailers?”
“The ones at the Clark County Detention Center.”
“Clark County, Nevada?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“So you are in Las Vegas with Roscoe J. Danton?”
“Who told you I was?”
“What were you doing in the Las Vegas jail?”
“It was a misunderstanding. We were released two hours ago.” He paused and then asked, “Who told you I was out here?”
“President Clendennen told me. The First Lady told the President and he told me.”
“How did she find out?”
“Does it matter?”
“I’m a little curious, that’s all.”
“The First Lady was watching television with the First Mother-in-Law, watching Hockey Puck with Matthew Christian, and there was Roscoe in a brawl with a porn queen.”
“Actually, it wasn’t a porn queen in that brawl. It was my fiancée, Mrs. Alekseeva, not Red Ravisher.”
“And it wasn’t a brawl,” the Widow Alekseeva objected. “My Carlito and the others were defending my honor.”
“Excuse me?”
“What would you do, Madam Secretary,” the Widow Alekseeva demanded, “if some pimply-faced French pervert pointed his television camera at you and demanded that you show him your… you-know-whats? Wouldn’t you expect Mr. Cohen to defend your honor?”
The secretary of State considered the question for a long moment, and then, in the finest traditions of diplomacy, decided a reply could be put off until there was more time for consideration of the question and all its ramifications.
“Let me put a question to you,” she said instead. “The last time I spoke with the President, just a few moments ago, in a conference call in which DCI Lammelle, Generals Naylor and McNab, and DNI Ellsworth participated, the President had some interesting things to say. I recorded the conversation. Listen to it, please, Charley, and then tell me what you think I should do.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
President Clendennen’s voice came over the loudspeaker:
“I told you all last night, after Belinda-Sue told me she and the First Mother-in-Law saw Roscoe J. Danton on Hockey Puck cavorting with a porn queen in Las Vegas, and I’m telling you for the last time now. Danton is supposed to be with Castillo and Castillo is supposed to be in Hungary getting ready to go to Somalia. I want to know where they are and what they’re doing and I want to know now. Unless I get a satisfactory answer within the hour, I shall have to presume what I have suspected all along, that there is a coup to drive me from office under way, and I will take appropriate action. By that I mean I will have you all arrested pending trial for high treason.”