IT HAD TAKEN HENRY MORGENTHAU only a few long-distance telephone calls to New York to summon Rex Tugwell to Washington. The overt reason Morgenthau gave Tugwell was to review some ideas the Treasury had; the real reason was for Rex to meet the reporters and especially Louise. While Tugwell was nominally based in Manhattan, his own personal opium once tasted could never be forgotten, so Rex agreed with alacrity. Truth be told, the Wall Street crowd—with their constant demands for real results and profits—had bored Rex, and his work for the Little Flower was tedious and his policies were being blocked. Any excuse to return to his beloved Shangri-La in Washington was a welcome relief.
The same five reporters met Rex Tugwell at the Willard, and many of the questions were actually repeats from the previous dinner with the Treasury Secretary. The handsome British reporter was present. It seemed to Louise that he was more subdued and his entire intake that evening was a single glass of wine. Perhaps his boss had slapped his wrist? Still charming, just sober this time.
For Louise it was a re-run of the first dinner; Morgenthau had told Louise when she had called long-distance from Chicago what to do. (Schneider had sent her to the office in Chicago, which consisted of one bored, but dutiful, German frau who answered the switchboard with a charming German accent.)
Sadly, Peter had his night off, and the bartender who served Louise was a short, fat surly man of Spanish extraction who was losing his hair. Hector fetched Louise her standard glass of champagne, but the man had the conversation ability of the Egyptian Sphinx. Louise was relieved when Tugwell sauntered over and suggested a table by the window.
Louise immediately noticed two things about Tugwelclass="underline" that he was handsome, and that he was “interested.” The second did not mean that she was expecting a pass, but that if a pass came, she would not be surprised. His handsomeness consisted of a number of features—his thick, wavy hair; his open, honest face; his liking of a cocktail; and his genuine sense of adventure. All these things were apparent. The trained agent in Louise later noted with approval that he had downed four martinis with dinner.
Rex explained, with a little too much pride, his history since Washington,
“My office at American Molasses was at 120 Wall Street, that’s just past Water Street; that used to be the old shoreline of the East River, thus the name ‘Water’ Street. So I crossed the Styx, as it were, and joined the underworld. That job was OK, but I prefer working for the Mayor.”
To none of the reporters’ interest, he laboriously explained that “Fiorello” in Italian actually meant “little flower,” and that at all of five feet in height it seemed to fit Rex’s New York boss perfectly.
The dinner droned on and on. A sense of horrible boredom descended on the table, it was like a school class on a dreary, wet Wednesday afternoon when the classroom was filled with the smell of wet and dank clothes. Finally, the dinner finished; the reporters were all relieved; Tugwell didn’t notice the tedium as he had been going on and on about his favorite subject—the President of the United States. The five reporters thanked Tugwell and they left.
Louise sat at her now familiar perch at the bar. The Spanish bartender studiously ignored her, which was just fine with her. A moment later, Tugwell sat down next to her; clearly Morgenthau had briefed him.
With no introduction or small talk, he announced,
“I still come to Washington from time to time. I met with Henry this afternoon. I think you know Henry.”
Louise nodded, and quietly asked,
“So Mr. Tugwell, what is President Roosevelt really like?”
Tugwell, ever the fever-eyed evangelist, skipped the obligatory “call-me-Rex,” and started his spiel,
“He is a genius. It’s that simple, he is a genius and he is kind and gentle, while being tough at the same time.”
Turning her head a little coquettishly to one side, Louise asked,
“So why did you leave?”
As Louise confessed later to Schneider, her question was the height of stupidity. Yes, Tugwell was well and truly liquored up—and this is all that saved her—but the question was too strong, too early. She cursed herself when Tugwell, flushed and flustered, started to spit out a senseless collection of words. Louise saved the situation by quickly answering her question,
“I suppose all your work had been completed with the NIRA and the Relocation Agency, and your great success with the green belts, like the Greenbelt in Maryland, and I suppose you must have felt a little like Alexander the Great when he wept when he realized he had no more worlds to conquer.”
With this reference to antiquity, Tugwell did relax, and the martinis in his gut also helped to calm him.
“Yeah, I guess you could say that. Yeah, that’s the ticket—‘no more worlds to conquer.’ Yeah.”
Louise made a mental note to thank Schneider for Schneider’s complete case book notes on Tugwell. Without this knowledge, Louise would have been sunk. And Louise would reward Schneider in the way that Schneider most liked.
“Well, you know, Miss Koch, you hit the nail on the head,” Tugwell said, emptying his brandy. He ordered another, and asked Louise if she would like more champagne; she shook her head. Desperate to recover the conversation, Louise smiled her most alluring smile and sat back in her chair so as to give Tugwell the full effect of her body and her clearly visible nipples though her peach-colored silk blouse.
Her stars being aligned that evening, she was able to get Tugwell back to his beloved President,
“So Mr. Tugwell, tell me more of this extra-ordinary man.”
At last she was blessed with the “call-me-Rex.”
“Well, let me show you these snapshots.”
He removed a small black lizard-skin photograph wallet and from it he took out two photographs, which he passed to Louise. Both photographs had the regular variegated edges. Both showed the President, but the two photographs could not have been more different.
“Here is the man in all his glory, and these two snaps show the two extremes of his being. Both are quite old, from ’33 as it happens. The first is with the British Prime Minister during a conference on setting money policy, while the second is in Virginia,” Tugwell explained.
“That’s you on the right of the one in Virginia, isn’t it?”
Tugwell smiled and nodded.
Louise studied the two photographs and Tugwell was correct: in the photograph with the Prime Minister, Roosevelt’s countenance was one of boredom bordering on insurrection. Neither he nor any of the 15 other men were smiling. In contrast, the photograph in Virginia had been taken at a lunch table where Roosevelt and his group are seated; behind the seated men stood 40 beaming young men, reveling in the fine weather and their proximity to their President. At the table, all the suited men were also beaming and at the head of the table, Roosevelt, leaning on his left arm rest, was actually elevating himself half a head higher than his lunch companions. His massive shoulders and fine head of hair clearly evident with that trademark gay smile that charmed all, from prime ministers to that crusty old curmudgeon, Irving Fisher of Yale University. On his nose he wore an old-fashioned pair of pince-nez, far too small in proportion to his large beaming face.
“What’s this round thing?”
“Oh, that was the microphone. President Roosevelt had just finished addressing the camp when the photo was taken.”
“These young men all look so fit and happy and healthy. It reminds me of the youth groups we have back in Germany. Why this blond boy at the back looks pure German.”