The kid put me on hold without saying anything, and next thing I heard was a ringing sound, then the voice of Nathaniel saying, "Do you know how hard it is to keep good soldiers inspired in a revolution, Jack?
And you trying to scare my best receptionist right away."
"Sorry about that, old man," I said. "Here's the thing, though. I need some help, and I think you're in a position to give it."
"Jesus H. Christ. A celebrity like you is still doing the pick-and-shovel work for that newspaper? After seeing you on the tube, I figured you'd have joined one of the networks by now and be making a million large a year-half of that stolen in the form of federal taxes." He paused and added, "Go ahead."
"I need to know what you're picking up on this Hutchins assassination attempt. Where'd this Harvey Oswald wannabe come from? He one of your boys? He come from another state?"
"What I have would surprise you," Nathaniel said. "But you know I'm not going to talk about it over the phone like this."
Of course not. Daniel Nathaniel, like every red-blooded militia revolutionary, believed that the federal government, in its role of Big Brother, was listening to every conversation of every citizen every day, even taking pictures of those talking on the telephone with a new technology in spy satellite photography that allowed the lens to penetrate things like walls and roofs. I would have to hotfoot it to Idaho after all.
"What if I pay a social call on you?" I asked.
"That's better. You do that, first beer's on me. Next twenty are on that liberal newspaper of yours."
"You going to be around for the next few days?"
"Where would I go?" he said. "I'm in God's country out here."
"And this information, is it worth the trip?"
"Maybe, maybe not. But the pleasure of my company will make it worthwhile."
"Let's go over some questions," Martin said, once again appearing at my desk out of seemingly thin air. "We have to chase him on this militia angle, find out what he knows, where this investigation is headed.
Would be nice to get him out there on the record on this stuff.
Everyone else, especially the Times, is driving this thing with anonymous sources. Hutchins has avoided the topic in his public events. This is big."
"It is strange," I said, "these investigators now backtracking on what they claimed was such a clear-cut motive. Maybe it's all nothing. But yeah, you're right, Hutchins might be our best avenue to breaking some new ground here."
We talked over some questions. Martin, for all his idiosyncrasies, and they are many, is good at that, cutting to the quick, finding the fault lines, gauging reader interest. I'm good too, and I possess the additional ability that he doesn't necessarily have, of dealing with people, and I'd have to lean heavily on that to steer Hutchins away from what I assumed was the point of this meeting-the offer of press secretary-and over to my purpose-the investigation into the assassination attempt.
At about eleven-thirty, I slipped into my navy blue suit jacket, put a microcassette recorder into my chest pocket, grabbed my White House clearance pass out of my top drawer, and headed for the door. As I walked the two blocks down Pennsylvania Avenue, I thought back to a running joke that Katherine and I had. We were figuring out how to decorate our upstairs study. She wanted colorful soft lines and a veritable jungle of plants. She said it helped her to create, all that growth and brightness. I wanted the feel of an English library, with hunter green walls and a leather club chair. We compromised, shooting for what she described as an Oval Office look. We refinished the moldings in bright white and hung old prints on pale yellow walls, and rather than an overwhelming desk we bought a nice library table at a little storefront antique shop near Middleburg, Virginia. Neither of us had a clue what the Oval Office actually looked like, except that it was probably oval, and our own little office was square and about one tenth of the size. When we were done with the decorations we toasted many hours of creative thinking with a glass of champagne, then effortlessly ended up on the antique rug engaged in a fit of wonderful sex. Nice memories, and soon I was there, at the guard shack, staring inside a sheet of bullet-proof glass at a bored-looking member of the U.s. Secret Service.
seven
At the entrance to the West Wing of the White House, a marine in full dress uniform stands so perfectly straight that visitors think he might be a mannequin, a toy soldier, until he snaps open the substantial door with a flip of his brawny wrist. Inside, in the lush reception area, an inevitably becoming young woman provides callers with an escort to their destination.
I don't know why I bring this up, however, because as a reporter I am required to enter through the press briefing room. It looks nice on television, when presidential spokesman Royal Dalton stands before a deep blue curtain with a White House emblem and rattles off the news of the day at his afternoon briefings, taking questions on anything from the subtlest change in U.s. policy toward Zimbabwe to whether White House aides are serving as the source of negative information about income tax and real estate questions faced by Democratic presidential nominee Stanny Nichols. (they were, despite Dalton's assertions to the contrary.) The podium gleams, the room looks spacious and official, and it appears as if American journalism-indeed, American democracy-is well served in that daily sixty-minute word fight when White House officials stand before a sometimes frothing press.
In point of fact, though, the room is an absolute pit-a bus station, others have called it, though they are quick to add that such a comparison may be slanderous to the well-meaning folks over at Greyhound. Years ago, this used to be the site of the White House swimming pool, where John F. Kennedy swam laps as therapy for his chronically ailing back. Richard Nixon, for reasons that have never been explained, filled the pool in and turned it into a briefing area.
Now, burly cameramen allow their Starbucks coffee cups to pile up for weeks at a time before throwing them away. Their colleagues inevitably come along and choose a cup in which to deposit a wad of old chewing tobacco. The highly paid on-air talent toss their notes on the floor, assuming that someone else, as in the rest of their lives, is there to pick up after them. The threadbare rug is stained by the slush of too many winters and the sweat of too little air conditioning in the strangling Washington summer. And the chair backs are soiled by pencil gouges and graffiti marks, with declarations like "I should have gone to law school."
Sunday noon brought me through this very room, darkened because of the weekend. I climbed the few steps into the West Wing from the press area and announced myself to a uniformed Secret Service agent, who gave me a "So what?" look he seemed to save for all reporters seeking another bit of information to help along another story that was probably not very good for the administration. It was a look that made me want to grab him by his starched white poly-cotton shirt. But my ribs.
"I have an appointment with the president," I said, in what amounted to a verbal cuffing.
This made him take his task more seriously. He picked up the telephone, had a brief conversation that as best I could tell consisted of half a dozen prehistoric grunts, then led me past the Roosevelt Room on the right, past the Cabinet Room on the left, into an anteroom with two secretaries, one of whom greeted me with an enormous smile and unabashed pleasure at our meeting.
"Sylvia Weinrich," she said, holding out a delicate, perfectly manicured middle-aged hand. "It's delightful to see you. I must say, you've carried yourself with great dignity on television after the shooting. I don't know how I would have handled all that."