“If it is,” Joe Holt said angrily, “you did it, you and your daughter.”
The younger Patricia glared at him. “If we’d done it sooner,” she said, her voice raspy, “my husband would still be alive.”
Her mother said, “Don’t think a lot of us haven’t thought about that. Don’t think a lot of those women downstairs won’t start wondering whose husband is next, all to keep Bradford Lockridge out of the insane asylum he belongs in. I hate to be the kind of person who says ‘what have you done for me lately,’ but when I ask Bradford Lockridge that, the answer I get is, ‘I killed your brother and your son-in-law, I drove my son crazy, I made a mockery out of my sister-in-law’s funeral, and I’m going to cost each and every member of my family twenty percent of its annual income for the rest of my life.’ That’s what he’s done for me lately, and that’s what he’s done for everybody in the family lately, and if you think the Russians would be happy to see an American president in the booby hatch, believe me they won’t be half as happy as the Lockridge family!”
Eugene White said, “Patricia, you can’t do this to the family.”
“I can’t? I can and I will. And my daughter will help me. And Marie will help me. And I know half a dozen others who’ll help me.”
Wellington said, quietly, “No.”
As with Marie’s calm statement, this one drew immediate and total attention. But Patricia wouldn’t allow the enemy a pregnant pause; she snapped, “You don’t scare me, Wellington, with your looks and your silences and your cloak and dagger routine. Some of the more impressionable members of the family use you to scare their children to bed in place of the boogie man — ‘You be good, or Uncle Wellington will get you!’ — but I’m not one of them.”
“I know that,” Wellington said, still quietly, as everyone else looked very embarrassed. “And that’s why,” he said, “I’m going to have to do something just a little melodramatic before saying what I want to say. So I’ll be sure I have your attention.”
“Are you going to dance, Wellington?”
“If you will all go to the windows,” Wellington said, “you will see six automobiles parked in a row across the street.” As they hesitated about moving, he said, “Please go look.”
“A show, Wellington?” Patricia saw the momentum being lost, and didn’t like it.
“A very brief show,” Wellington said. “I promise.”
Reluctantly, the other eight all went over to the three windows and looked out at the street. Wellington, still in the center of the room, said, “The driver of the first car is going to wave to you now. The driver of the second car is going to get out of the car now, and kick the front left tire, and get back into the car. The driver of the third car—”
Meredith Fanshaw had turned from the window. “What the hell are you—”
“Bear with me,” Wellington said. “The driver of the third car will get out, fiddle with the windshield wiper, and get back. What would you like the driver of the fourth car to do?”
No one said anything. They kept looking out the windows.
Wellington said, “Well? What would you like him to do?”
Marie, not turning from the window, said, “Take a bow.”
“Fine,” said Wellington. “He will get out of the car, bow in this direction, and get back in. What about the driver of the fifth car?”
Meredith Fanshaw said, “No. The driver of the sixth car. He should start the engine, back up, and drive around the block.”
Wellington repeated the instructions, and said, “Now, the fifth car.”
Eugene White, in a thoughtful voice, said, “He shouldn’t do a thing.”
“He does nothing,” Wellington agreed.
They all turned to look at him. Patricia, still trying to retain her momentum and mood, said, “All right, it’s cloak and dagger. So what?”
“The men in those six cars,” Wellington said, “were guarding Bradford every inch of the way today.”
Eugene White said, doubtfully, “They’re Secret Service?”
“No. Bradford only has two regularly assigned Secret Service guards. It was thought unnecessary to have them come along today. Unusual, but we wanted to prove a point.”
Meredith Fanshaw said, “What point?”
“That Bradford’s family had the desire, the spirit and the brains to take care of him. Patricia, it all seems simple to you. Bradford is sick, put him in a hospital like any ordinary man. But as several of us keep saying, he isn’t an ordinary man.”
“No,” she said sarcastically, “he’s God. Joe Holt said so.”
“He’s an ex-President,” Wellington said, “which is the fact at issue here. Whether he’s done anything for or to anyone in this room doesn’t matter. He’s an ex-President. And there are offices within the governmental structure which will not permit an ex-President of the United States to publicly enter a mental hospital.”
“What do you mean they won’t permit it?”
“I mean they won’t permit it. I mean they will kill him first.”
Harrison said, “That’s the most inane piece of fiction I ever heard in—”
“It is not,” Wellington told him. “I am potentially getting myself in grave trouble by telling you this. The choice is not between my plan and a public institution, the choice is between my plan and Bradford’s dying peacefully in his sleep before he can cause embarrassment to the country.”
Meredith Fanshaw said, “If that were true, don’t you think I’d know it?”
“No. The elected officials of the Federal government haven’t been aware of more than a quarter of the activity of their government since I first went to Washington, and probably not for a good long while before that. Since the First World War, I would imagine. Did you know the CIA was financing all those youth groups and little magazines, or did you hear about it first in the newspapers, along with everybody else?”
“You’re talking about murder, man!”
“There have been a minimum of ten murders so far in this operation, and there may be more. Done by our side, ordered by me. The Chinese agents we replaced at Eustace, what do you suppose happened to them?”
“I assumed they were arrested.”
“A trial? Publicity?”
Joe Holt said, “Wellington, is this on the level?”
“I’m making you all accomplices,” Wellington told them. “I deal in an area where everything is known, we can never get away with euphemisms and little white lies, and I’m dragging you people in with me because it’s the only way I can think of to save my father’s life. This may be my first selfish act.”
Harrison said, “Nobody could get away with a thing like that. They would have — it would have — murder will out!”
“Will it? Joe, I would have gone to you. I would have explained the alternatives. I would have proved to you, Joe, because it would be true, that an honorable death would be better for Bradford than a shameful public moldering in a mental hospital. And you would have agreed with me, Joe, and when I whispered the word euthanasia in your ear, Joe, you would have hated the word, but you would have done it.”
Joe was shaking his head, saying, “I can’t believe you—”
“If not you, there were other ways. Can a doctor kill a patient without anyone knowing, Joe?”
Joe didn’t answer.
Harrison said, “But now that you’ve told us, it can’t work, can it? They wouldn’t dare kill Brad now, not if you told them about us knowing.”
“They already know it,” Wellington said. “This room is bugged, I always take it for granted I’m talking for the microphone. I can do nothing about it, I just accept it. And it won’t stop them. If they decide Bradford has to die for the good of the nation, they will find ways to assure your silence, all eight of you.”