ON PATCHEN’S BIRTHDAY, A WEEK AFTER HIS WALK ALONG THE MALL with Christopher, the O. G. gave a supper for him. The only other guest was Christopher, and the three men sat down at ten o’clock, hours after the rest of Washington had dined. The food was cold, smoked trout accompanied by a sentimental bottle of Montrachet, followed by rare roast beef and raw vegetables and a decanted Bordeaux that had been breathing in a beaker for precisely one half-hour. The O. G. had converted the entire basement of his house into a wine cellar, refrigerated to a perpetual fifty-eight degrees Fahrenheit, and installed a heating and cooling system in the dining room that maintained a temperature suitable to the red wine being served.
Tonight the thermostat on the wall was set at sixty-six degrees. The O. G. filled Patchen’s glass.
“All right,” he said, and stepped back with an air of expectation.
Omitting the usual eucharistic flourishes of the wine taster, Patchen sniffed and sipped in a matter of two seconds. “Château Pétrus, 1961,” he said.
“Hurrah,” said the O. G., greatly pleased by the correct identification—after all, he had given Patchen his first glass of wine, all those years ago in Boston. “Happy birthday. I’ve only got six cases of this left—enough to get you through your sixties if you take care of your health.”
Patchen was almost never stumped by a wine. He had an exceptionally keen sense of taste and, provided it was served at the correct temperature, which was almost never the case when he dined anywhere but at the O. G.’s, he could readily identify any French wine by region and château, and, in the case of great vintages, by year.
Patchen’s beeper went off and he left the room to talk on the secure telephone in the O. G.’s library that was one of the perquisites of being a former Director. They both knew he was calling the duty officer on the ad hoc Beautiful Dreamers desk to check on developments.
The O. G. believed, though he had never mentioned this to Patchen, that the latter’s extraordinary palate was a compensation for the loss of his left eye. He took advantage of his absence to pay him a compliment. “David tastes wine,” he said, “like a blind man reads Braille.”
Christopher smiled politely and said nothing in return; although he knew what the O. G. meant, he thought in his writerly way that this was a strange way of putting it. Did he taste it with his fingertips?
Usually the O. G. scrupulously avoided any talk about old times in Christopher’s presence. Tonight, however, while Patchen lingered on the telephone, he departed from habit.
“I don’t want to rouse painful memories,” he said, “but David tells me you say that the important question about this Beautiful Dreamers business is not how or what or even who, but the everlasting ‘why?’. It took me back.”
“Took you back?” Christopher said. “Where to?”
“To your great days as a thorn in the side of the mighty. You said the same blessed thing when the President was assassinated all those years ago—forget about puffs of smoke on the grassy knoll and all that folderol, just find out why. And look what that led to.”
For a long moment Christopher watched the O. G.’s amiable, unreadable old face. Then he said, “What did it lead to?”
“I’m not sure I know. What’s your opinion?”
“Nothing,” Christopher said. “It led to nothing.”
“I thought that might be the way you felt about it.” The O. G. compressed his lips. “But it led to ten years in a Chinese jail for you and disgrace and death for Barney Wolkowicz. For the Outfit that was like losing Ruth and Gehrig in a train wreck. Most people would say all that adds up to more than zero.”
The O. G. wasn’t smiling. This was such a rare event that it changed the whole atmosphere. Christopher was surprised by the O. G.’s peevishness, and by the direction this conversation was taking. The O. G. had never before mentioned his imprisonment in China or the reasons behind it.
“All that came of asking the question, ‘Why?’,” the O. G. said.
“I’m not saying the question shouldn’t have been asked in that case, but most people sure as shooting didn’t want it answered.” “As far as I know, it never was answered,” Christopher said. “No, by golly. But that wasn’t for lack of trying on your part.” “Then maybe you should have given me the benefit of all this worldly wisdom at the time.”
In fact the O. G. had made it plain that he did not want to know anything about Christopher’s theory or his operations while they were going on; he let Patchen handle it.
“Sometimes I wish I had given you a talking to,” the O. G. said. His frown lifted; his customary carefree twinkle returned. “But that’s water under the bridge. Anyway, I know you: You wouldn’t have listened; you were too busy romancing the eternal verities. And besides, I respected your instincts; they were the best instincts, in the business, except, maybe, for Wolkowicz’s. He must be burning in Hell, poor fellow … What’s keeping David?”
The O. G. heaved himself out of his chair and fetched a bowl of walnuts and a silver tray holding a carafe of port wine and four glasses from the sideboard, where the dirty dishes were stacked. They were alone in the house, and the O. G. had buttled the supper himself.
Patchen returned, closing the door swiftly behind him so as not to let the heat in. “All quiet on the western front,” he said, sitting down and spreading his napkin over his lap.
“No new victims?” the O. G. said.
“Not yet.” Patchen looked his friends over. “Why the long faces?” he asked. “What have you been talking about?”
“Paul’s ability to see things that others don’t,” the O. G. replied. “And the consequences thereof.”
“No wonder you’re glum.”
“You used to believe in this gift of Paul’s,” the O. G. said. “Do you still think he’s got second sight?”
“I wouldn’t call it that,” Patchen said.
“All right, then—blood wisdom.”
“ ‘Fucking genius’ is what Wolkowicz called it,” Patchen said. “I don’t think Paul has lost it, whatever it was. Although a hell of a lot good that does anybody since he won’t use it.”
“You don’t mean it,” the O. G. said. “Look what Paul’s done already. Pointed the way.”
“That’s true,” Patchen said, pouring himself a glass of port and sliding the bottle across the table to Christopher. “My apologies, Paul. You’re a patriot after all.”
“Well, then,” the O. G. said, “we’re unanimous, with Paul not voting. He’s still able to say the sooth. He’s asked the right question and made the right suggestion to clear up this Beautiful Dreamer business. So let’s shake a leg and get going.” He rubbed his hands together so briskly that the other two could hear the chafing of skin. He said, “Boy, this is going to be fun.”
“What is?” Christopher said.
“Building a better mousetrap,” the O. G. replied. “Catching this fellow by the tail, Paul, and asking him why he’s been running up our pants leg. But how do we do it? What kind of cheese do we need? That’s where you come in.”
“Oh, no I don’t,” Christopher said.
The O. G. ignored Christopher’s protest. “You’ve done it before, Paul—picture book stuff,” he said. “Tell us how you’d do it again.”
The O. G. radiated enthusiasm. He hadn’t gotten to be the grand old man of dirty tricks by taking “no” for an answer from reluctant collaborators. Christopher shook his head in amused recognition; he had seen this virtuoso performance many times before.
Now, raising his eyebrows to summon forth Christopher’s answer, the O. G. cracked a walnut, ate the meat to clear his tongue of the taste of the splendid Pomerol he had just finished drinking, and lifted his glass.
“To the next time,” he said.
Christopher did not drink. “Uncle,” he said, “I wouldn’t do it again for all the rice in China.”
“Then I guess you’ll have to do it for some other reason,” the O. G. replied, lifting his glass of port an inch higher. “Absent friends,” he said.
They all drank. The O. G.’s eyes misted behind his pince-nez like a headmaster standing before his school’s roll of old boys who had died in a war just ended. Then he recovered. “Now, Paul, David,” he said. “Put on your thinking caps. How are we going to smear cold cream on this invisible man so we can see what he’s up to?”
In spite of himself, out of some troublesome old code he had thought was foresworn and gone forever, Christopher answered the question.
“There you are!” the O. G. said. “Simple as pie, if you’ve got the mind for the Work.”