“Beats me.” Now Garner sounded almost cheerful. “The law we’ve got now doesn’t say, not in the spot we’re in here. Constitution says Congress can make a law picking who comes after the President and Vice President, but a law is something the President signs. How can you have a new law if you ain’t got no President?”
“I have no idea, sir.” Charlie’s head started to ache.
Mike turned on the television. He’d bought it secondhand. The screen was small and the picture none too good, but some inspired haggling had brought the guy who was getting rid of it down to forty bucks. Now he could watch Lucille Ball and Sid Caesar and baseball games with everybody else-or so it seemed.
And he could watch the news. Washington kept boiling like a kettle of crabs. Nobody seemed to remember how to play politics the old-fashioned way, the way people had done things before Joe Steele was President. The new game, when seen from close to two thousand miles away, seemed a lot bloodier. They were playing for keeps-for keeps all kinds of ways.
As it went in the United States, so it also went in the wider world. The East Germans rioted against their Russian overlords. Trotsky preached world revolution, but not revolution against him. The news showed smuggled film of Red Army tanks blasting buildings and machine-gunning people in the streets of East Berlin.
“President Garner has issued an executive order eliminating the restricted zone for people released from labor encampments,” the handsome man reading the stories announced. “GBI Director J. Edgar Hoover publicly deplored the move, stating that it endangers the nation’s safety. And leaders of the impeachment drive in the House say the order will have no effect on their insistence that Garner be removed. More after this important message.”
Music swelled as the commercial started. Over it, Midori said, “I understand that right? He says wreckers can now live anywhere in the country?”
“That’s what he said.” Mike thought about going back to New York City. Hell, he didn’t even know if the Post was still in business. He’d been away more than fifteen years. Picking up the city’s frantic pace after so long wouldn’t be easy.
“You want to go somewhere else?” she asked.
“I was just thinking about that. I don’t know,” Mike said. Midori might like the Big Apple. If any place in America could remind her of her crowded homeland, New York City would be it. “How do you feel about it?”
“Where you go, I will go,” she said. She wasn’t a Christian; she’d never heard of Whither thou goest, I will go. If you had that thought, though, the words would follow directly.
Before Mike could reply, the newsman came back. Next to him was a photo of a familiar face. “Vincent Scriabin, Joe Steele’s longtime chief assistant, died last night at the age of sixty-three. He was struck and killed by an automobile while crossing the street after eating dinner at an Italian restaurant in Washington. Because Scriabin was not in a crosswalk, the driver, who police said showed no signs of intoxication, was not held.”
“Oh, my,” Mike said softly as the fellow went on to the next story.
“Nan desu-ka?” Midori asked.
How could you explain the Hammer to somebody who hadn’t been here while Joe Steele was President? Charlie might have been able to. Why not? Charlie’d worked side by side with him for years. Mike reminded himself he needed to let his brother know Midori would be having a baby. He’d had that thought before, had it without doing anything about it.
How accidental was Scriabin’s death? As accidental as Franklin D. Roosevelt’s? Probably just about. Scriabin hadn’t gone off into exile without any trouble, the way Kagan and Mikoian had. He’d stayed in Washington and kicked up a fuss. John Dennison guessed he was behind the House’s stab at impeaching Garner. It wouldn’t have surprised Mike. Like the man he’d served for all those years, the Hammer went in for revenge.
Mike realized he hadn’t answered his wife’s question. “He was one of Joe Steele’s ministers,” he said, which put it in terms she’d get. “The new President didn’t want to keep him. He didn’t like that. Now he’s dead. He walked in front of a car-or the guy in the car was hunting him.”
Midori’s eyes widened. “I did not think American politics go that way?”
“They didn’t used to,” Mike said. “Now? Who knows now? Everything is all different from the way it used to be.” He’d been away from politics since early in Joe Steele’s second term. In political terms, that was a lifetime, if not two.
“People would kill politicians on the other side all the time in Japan,” Midori said. “It made politics too dangerous for most people to try. The ones who did always had bodyguards with them.”
“It may wind up like that here, too,” Mike said. “English has a word for killing people in politics. When you do that, you assassinate somebody.”
“Assassinate,” Midori echoed. “I will remember. Assassinate. If English has this word, it needs it, neh?”
“Hai,” he said. Neh? meant something like Isn’t that right? Japanese used it all the time. He wished English had such a short, handy word for the same phrase. It would have been useful.
As far as Mike knew, Charlie was still at the White House, working for John Nance Garner. The new President hadn’t canned him, the way he’d canned Joe Steele’s California cronies. To Mike, that said something good about his brother, anyhow. Working for Joe Steele hadn’t made all of Charlie’s soul dry up, turn to dust, and blow away. Hard to believe, but it could be true.
“You say-you have said-you lived in New York City.” Whither thou goest or not, Midori came back to it. “You do not want to go back to New York City, now that law says you may?”
“No, I don’t think so, not unless Casper drives you crazy,” he said.
She shrugged. “It is a strange place, but to me any place in America is strange. It starts to seem not so strange. If you want to stay here, we can stay here.”
“We’ll do that, then,” Mike said. Fighting for work against guys half his age didn’t appeal to him. Joe Louis had stayed in the ring too long, and got badly beaten up several times on account of it. And, after being away from New York City for so long, going back might make his head explode. He nodded. “Yeah, we’ll do that.” He got up, went into the kitchen, pulled two bottles of beer from the icebox, opened them with the blunt end of the church key, and brought them back to the TV.
John Nance Garner sounded disgusted. “You know what the trouble is?”
Sure I do, Charlie thought. The House is gonna impeach you, and then the Senate is gonna convict you and throw you out on your ass. After that, you can spend all your time at the tavern around the corner again. But that wasn’t what Garner needed to hear. “What is it, Mr. President?” Charlie said dutifully. “Is it anything you can fix?”
“I only wish I could,” the President said. “But I don’t hardly know anybody in the House any more. That’s what’s wrong. None of the boys I was in there with is still around, or damn few, anyways. Some lost. Some got old and died. Some went into the encampments. And some of the ones who’re still there, them bastards never did cotton to me.”
“Hoover could clean them out,” Charlie remarked. Had Joe Steele ever found himself in this predicament, the Jeebies would have cleaned out the House. But Joe Steele had intimidated Congress too much for it to rise against him. The new President didn’t.
“Nah.” John Nance Garner shook his head. “I ain’t gonna do that. If I did that, Hoover’d be running the show, not me. Fuck him, Sullivan. I may go down, but by Jesus I’ll go down swinging.”
“Okay.” Charlie was more glad than angry. He thought a deal with J. Edgar Hoover was a deal with the Devil, too. But he and Garner had made deals like that before. The one who hadn’t made a deal was Mike. And how did virtue get rewarded? He’d gone through years of hell in the encampments, years of worse hell in the Army, and now he was living in Casper goddamn Wyoming married to a Jap. All things considered, the wages of sin seemed better. Charlie asked, “Can you give them anything to get them off your back?”