He was getting so worked up that the maître d’ began shooting looks at us, and I tried to quiet him down. “Hold it,” I said, “I agree that Freeman might well have stepped aside and let someone else write on Longstreet, but, after all, Longstreet is dead and Lee is dead and Freeman is dead. It’s your turn now, but bury the dead, why won’t you?”
“You have no objection, then?”
“What objection could I have?”
“You’re furnishing me with money, which could give you the idea that you control what I say. Well, get this, Dr. Palmer, I control what I write. I do, not you! Sir, did you hear what I said?”
“Hey, hey, hey.”
He shut up and I told him: “The Hortense Garrett Institute passes no judgment on what you write, nor does the Institute try to control it in any way. All we ask in return for our help is a book.”
“Then you accept my way of doing it?”
“I accept your writing your own book.”
That’s how things stood until he was invited to address a convention of the United Daughters of the Confederacy in Atlanta. There he not only shot off his mouth about his book but repeated his remarks about Lee and what Freeman had done to Longstreet, one of Georgia’s eminent sons. Then he dragged me into it, claiming that I had accepted his “whole idea” as proof of the gains he was making “in swaying scholarly opinion, so justice can be done at long last to a great man’s reputation.” He spoke along these lines for an hour, with photographers taking his picture, reporters taking notes, and ladies taking exception. Because some were fans of Robert E. Lee and one or two were fans of Freeman, there was an argument, which was fine with the newspapers, and not just those in Atlanta, but papers that subscribed to the Associated Press. The story appeared in Washington and Wilmington.
Mr. Garrett called, wanting to know what was up. When I told him, he said: “We’re in for it, then. Sam Dent just reported. We’re to be peeled tomorrow, have our shirts ripped off by old blabbermouth himself, Senator Pickens of Georgia, who’s going to let us have it on the floor of the Senate. He’ll wave the Confederate flag. What else he’ll wave, we don’t know, but I wouldn’t put anything past him. He’s up for reelection this year, and to have this drop in his lap — a chance to defend God, the Confederacy, and Robert E. Lee all in one fell swoop, while being racist and yet pretend he’s not — that’s something he could have prayed for but never believed could happen. So keep your head down. It could be bad.”
Sam Dent was in and out all day, but around five he came in and sat down, looking sullen. “That stupid son of a bitch,” he growled, “we pay him a hundred a week, give him a girl, room, phone, and free phone calls, and this is his way of showing his gratitude. And it’s a mess, Lloyd. That rotten Pickens is milking it. He’s going to give us the works.”
“All right — but what works?”
“Hearings... before his subcommittee.”
That meant the Subcommittee on Internal Revenue, or whatever its title was, of the Senate Finance Committee, which Pickens was chairman of. They had been looking into tax-exempt foundations, some of which had unquestionably been getting away with murder. So far, they hadn’t bothered us, but legally we were under their jurisdiction. I said: “I guess we’re in for it, then.”
“I would say you are.”
“Me? Personally?”
“I hate to upset you — but yes, you are.”
“How? In what way? What have I done?”
“I don’t really know, Lloyd, but if there’s one worst way you can think of, that’s the way it’s going to be. This guy is a rat.”
I could think of a way.
And from the way Sam looked at me, so could he.
The hearing was held in Room 2227 of the Senate Office Building, which is the Finance Committee’s room. Since it met on Wednesday, our hearing was scheduled for Monday of the following week. I received a subpoena to testify, which was served by a man who seemed not to have any face. He touched my coat with it, dropped it on my desk, and left without saying a word. Mr. Garrett also got an invitation, delivered the same way by the same man. By this time he had come down from Wilmington and checked in at the Hilton, “so you won’t be bothered by endless phone calls,” he told Hortense. “Actually,” she explained to me, “so I can stay with you without his seeming to know. He’s so sweet.”
“If you stay with me.”
“Well, that’s nice! Don’t you want me?”
“Hortense, it’s not a question of wanting. Of course, I want you. I’m hungry for you — always. But we could be under surveillance. Sam has already warned me: This guy is a rat. Senator Sam Pickens probably already knows about you.”
“You mean, Sam knows?”
“Let’s assume everyone knows.”
“But how could anyone know? I’ve never been seen—”
“Using your keys, no; but right here in this restaurant, now” — we were at the Royal Arms — “they all know... by the way I look at you, the way you turn your head, the way we talk, and most of all, by the way we don’t talk. That’s when they show it — two people in love. They just sit there saying nothing, with a vacant look on their faces. That’s it. That tells the world.”
“Tells the world what?”
“What do you think?”
“Then I may as well come... tonight.”
“O.K., then... I love you.”
Mr. Garrett, Sam Dent, and I went downtown in my car, which I left in a parking garage on Constitution. Senator Hood, who was on the subcommittee, had invited us to stop by his office before the hearing so he could “have the privilege of escorting you in.” This suited us fine. At 9:30 we were at his office, and he immediately took us into his inner sanctum where he knocked off the amenities and gave it to us straight.
“To begin with,” he said, “this undoubtedly is going to be bad. Lloyd is marked up to go, and he may have to go as a sacrifice—”
“Why?” I said. “What does he have against me?”
“Weakness, for one thing. You’re an employee.”
“And that makes me weak?”
“If he can shake Mr. Garrett’s confidence in you—”
“He can’t,” Mr. Garrett said in that toneless voice of his, causing a warm surge to sweep over me. But Senator Hood cut him off. “I’m giving it to you straight — from Pickens’ point of view. He thinks Lloyd’s scalp can be had, as a rotten anti-Robert E. Lee, anti-God, anti-motherhood, pro-nigger, and pro-man-eating-shark creep. And he needs a scalp in the worst way. He doesn’t dare attack the Institute, which is a project everyone admires. But a worthy project’s faithless employee—”
“But, Senator, I have—”
“Lloyd, we have only a few minutes, so let me finish. He’s a master cross-examiner, so I beg you, whatever he does, keep your cool. Don’t slug it out with him. Don’t for one second try! He knows all the dirty tricks in the book, and I doubt that you know any. He’ll give that crazy writer his head, and—”