White House June 26
The President would like to see you.
The note was on Addis’s desk. He logged on his computer to check Mumfries’s schedule. NO DATA AVAILABLE, the screen read. New security precautions, he assumed.
Next he called the Office of White House Administration and asked how White House telephone records were kept. Could he look at the records of his long-distance calls in order to find an old number? It was all in the computer, he was informed. Yes, he could review his own records. Could anyone else? Not anyone; only a few senior staff had access.
On the way to the Oval Office, Addis passed Mike Finn and Dan Carey outside McGreer’s office. “The Georgetown event—something, wasn’t it?” Carey asked Addis. He was beaming. Addis noticed how well Carey’s suit fit. Why didn’t his wig?
“The President was fine. He—”
“Not him,” Carey interrupted. “Margaret. That was something. I wasn’t in the room. But on TV … .”
Which for you is all that matters.
“ … it was something, really something.”
And all because of Dan Carey, right?
“She handled herself very well,” Addis said.
“Sounds like something Kelly would say,” Carey replied and laughed.
Finn was tapping his cane gently against his shoe. McGreer was in the doorway, frowning. Addis could tell the lineup remained the same. McGreer was holding on to Mumfries. Carey was pushing Margaret. And Finn was waiting—and probably talking to both camps. But with no declared candidates, there were no declared allegiances.
“Talk to you later, Nick,” McGreer said and shut the door.
Mumfries was at his desk, when Addis entered the Oval Office. His right hand was squeezing a golf ball. The books that Hanover had kept on the table behind the desk—a biography of Theodore Roosevelt, a history of New Orleans, and a first edition of Let Us Now Praise Famous Men—were gone.
“Sit down, Nick,” Mumfries said.
Addis took a seat in the wooden chair facing the desk.
“Can Millie get you anything? A Coke?”
Addis shook his head. He was surprised. In the hundreds of meetings he had had with Hanover here, the President had never offered him a drink in the Oval Office. It felt odd.
“Nick”—Mumfries leaned forward—“all the pundits and party hacks, and the god-damn weed pickers at the Post have been on my hump for me to say if I’m running. Of course, I intend to. But hell, I thought it was decent to wait a piece. The body’s not even—sorry, you know what I mean.”
“I do, sir, and I appreciate that.”
Mumfries rolled the golf ball across the desk and caught it with his left hand.
“I’ve been considering options, and I want your advice.”
“Yes, sir,” Addis said.
“You boys did a pretty good job making sure there was no competition in the primaries. And I know Pratt won’t be a problem in the general … .”
Addis wondered if Kelly already had run a poll matching Mumfries against Wesley Pratt. The onetime country-and-western crooner had suspended his campaign and called for a fortnight of prayer.
“But the convention is going to be full of Hanover delegates. Who’s going to be controlling them?”
Mumfries was pumping the golf ball with his left hand.
“I don’t know, sir.”
“The Reelect? State chairs? Should we start working on the delegations now, one-by-one, the old-fashioned way?”
“That would be one strategy.”
“Or wait until the convention next week? Out of respect to Bob.”
“You could do that.”
“But there’s a risk. Someone else might get into it before then.”
Mumfries mentioned no names. He placed his hands together, with the golf ball between them. He was waiting, looking for information from Addis.
“I think you’ve laid it out pretty well, sir,” Addis said.
“Nick, I’m going to have to make an announcement soon. All those
son-of-a-bitch gnats won’t stop buzzing until I do. And I’d like to announce that the senior staff will stay on. You know, I’ll have to do a little shuffling. Get something else for Brew. Fiddle with the Cabinet. Maybe find an official slot for Margaret. An ambassadorship, maybe one of those U.N. outfits that does all that children’s stuff. That’s if she wants it. Maybe she just wants to go home with Jack.”
Mumfries paused; he was asking for advice, without asking. Offering a job, and hoping for something in return.
“That sounds very generous, sir. And I think it will be well received by most of the staff. I’ll stay until the election, but I’m leaving after that.”
“Already made up your mind?”
“Have other things I want to do” Addis lied.
“In politics?” Mumfries asked.
“Hopefully not,” Addis replied, knowing that was the truth.
“You’re still young. My daddy once told me a man should have three careers … . But you’re aboard until the election?”
He was—and that surprised Addis. Why am I staying on? he wondered. Because it was the default position? He could think of only one reason not to leave: to see what was going to happen. After years of access, he was not yet ready to be an outside observer. How god-damned clinical, he thought.
It also was hard to look into the face of a President and not say what the President wanted to hear. Addis was still bemused by this fact. But it explained much of what had gone wrong in the Oval Office throughout history.
“These days,” Addis said, “I feel like I’m drifting. But if I can be of service in the months ahead, I’ll try. I hope you understand.”
“I do.”
Because that means there’s one less person on Margaret’s side?
Mumfries stood up and left the golf ball on the desk. Addis was not sure if Mumfries did understand. But then he didn’t care what the President thought.
Kelly was waiting outside the office. His ears were red. Addis noticed a blue ink stain on Kelly’s white shirt just above the waistline.
“A nice chat?” Kelly asked.
“Yes. And I told him I would stay until the election. Then I’m gone.”
Addis guessed that Kelly had opposed Mumfries’s intention to issue a blanket invitation to Hanover’s senior staff. But Mumfries, for all his ego, bore a streak of insecurity. Most of them did, Addis supposed. Those pols who every few years had to plead for the public’s support—they all wanted to be hoisted on to the shoulders of people they did not know.
“So you already got something worked out for after the election?”
You can’t believe I’m not signing up with Margaret. You want to know why, but you don’t have the balls to ask.
“Not really,” Addis said, “but his offer was on the clumsy side.”
“It was straight up. He’s hoping you’ll stick with him.”
You didn’t say “us.”
Kelly ran his fingers through his two patches of fine blond hair.
“Hell,” Kelly said, “you know he thinks he’s responsible for you being here in the first place.”
What the hell are you talking about?
Kelly read Addis’s face.
“You don’t know?” he asked.
“Know what?”
“Shit,” Kelly said. He laughed and then checked his tie pin. “I probably shouldn’t tell you.” He stepped into the hallway, and Addis followed, hating himself for chasing the bait.
“What are you talking about?” Addis asked.
“Nick, this is like the prime directive on Star Trek: Don’t fuck with the past. Forget it.”
“Just tell me.”
“Alright. It’s not a big deal. I assumed you knew. But you know how you got your job with Hanover?”
“Yeah, I do.”
“Well, maybe not all of it. When Hanover was thinking about running early on, he called Mumfries. He knew Sam was thinking about running, too. And they’re almost family. That is, the Mumfries and the Masons. Think he almost went out with Margaret, after he came back from Laos or somewhere—you should get him to tell you the stories about when he was with the Special Forces—before he moved to Texas and got into politics. Too much, isn’t it?”
Kelly was enjoying this. He hooked both thumbs behind his suspenders.
“Anyway, Hanover called him up. I know because I was in the room. He wants to ask Sam not to run against him, but he can’t really do that. But he’s trying to scare Sam out, let him know he’s going to do the deed. So he asks Sam for help. Like, ‘Hey, Sam, I’m starting to pull together a lil’ ol’ campaign staff. Got any bright ideas for me?’”
A security patrol passed by. Two bomb-sniffing German shepherds were part of the unit.
“So Sam covers the phone,” Kelly continued, “and tells me what Hanover wants. ‘Think I’ll recommend you,’ he says to me, and we both laughed. Then he says to me, ‘Hey, what about our favorite S.O.B. who screwed us on Honduras?’ And he says into the phone, ‘Well, Bob, there’s
this sharp young man up here who works for Palmer.’ And that’s it. He hangs up the phone and says—and he’s talking about you—‘He’ll never be on our team. Better if he’s out there with Hanover whizzing against the tent than being around here and making it rain.’ And this was when nobody, Sam included, thought the President could be beat.”
Kelly stopped talking to see how this was registering. Addis did not say anything.
“So you see, Sam got you your job and look what happened.” He extended an arm. “All this … . Now, I’m not saying you wouldn’t have hooked up with Hanover one way or another. Maybe his next call was to Palmer. And maybe Palmer—since he wasn’t running—was going to send you off to him wrapped up with a pretty bow. Maybe this. Maybe that. But who knows? Who the fuck knows?”
“Thanks,” Addis said.
“It’s funny, don’t you think? I just assumed that Hanover told you about that.”
He never got around to it.
“Maybe he didn’t want to give Sam credit for such a good decision,” Kelly said, an edge in his voice.
“Thanks,” Addis said. “That’s one for the history books.”
“Sure is,” Kelly said. “See you later with those historians, right?”
He bounded toward the Oval Office. Addis had to think a moment about what to do next. His days used to be overloaded with meetings. In the absence of pressing official duties, he went to the East Wing to find Margaret Hanover.
Margaret’s office was almost completely disassembled. The desk was gone. The books were packed in boxes. The filing cabinets were covered with packing quilts. She sat on a crate. M. T. O’Connor was perched on another, reading from a folder.
“The invitations keep coming in,” O’Connor was saying, when Addis rapped on the open door.
“Not yet,” Margaret told O’Connor. She looked tired. She held a Bible, and caught Addis looking at it. “He took his inaugural oath on this Bible,” she said.
“How’s Jack?” he asked.
“He’s pretty quiet. But he’s always quiet.”
“I told him we should go to a ball game.”
“That would be good. I don’t think Security will let that happen for a little while, but then … He’s with Lem, now. They’re watching a movie downstairs.”
She put the Bible in a box.
“What can I do for you, Nick?”
He didn’t want to say in front of O’Connor.
“Didn’t have much to do,” he said. “Thought I’d come by to see if you needed any help.”
“Cleaning out my office?” she asked. “We can talk with M. T. Pull up a crate. Nothing but the finest accommodations.”
O’Connor patted a box next to her. “Health and Human Services budgets,” she said.
Addis hiked up his pants and sat on the box.
Was it only two months ago, he thought, that we were on Air Force One, flying back from Ireland? President Hanover was napping, and Margaret and M. T. were contending with the raving sister of the senior senator from New Hampshire. She could not find her panty hose and was shouting at the First Lady, demanding that Margaret determine who had stolen her panty hose.
“I’ve looked at the records, made a few calls,” he said to Margaret.
She picked up an ornamental mortar and pestle—the bowl bore a snowy forest scene—and placed them in a box.
“From the First Lady of Estonia,” she said. “If it’s under a hundred dollars in value, I can keep it.”
“What do you remember about the land deal?” he asked. “As far as I can tell, you bought the parcel from a limited partnership for about $30,000. Held it for two years and then sold it to another limited partnership and made about $120,000. How did you and”—Addis stumbled as he referred to Hanover—“he come to—”
“You can call him Bob,” she interrupted.
“—come to invest in this property?”
“It was Bob’s deal. A friend of his brought it to our attention. It was near a river. Said it could be a good investment. Then, it turned out, they were going to expand the nearby airport and Southern Chicken was going to build a big processing plant there. We sold the land to some people who I think were putting this deal together. I don’t remember the details.”
“This all happened when he was governor?” Addis asked.
“Yes, and there was an ethics officer who reviewed all of our finances. So I presumed this was checked out.”
“Good. We should find him. What’s the ethics officer’s name?”
“Flip will know.”
Addis took a breath.
“And any connection with your father? This scummy reporter’s been asking about him.”
“Nick, you know I had no contact with Chasie after the AG campaign … . I wonder what he’d be thinking now, if he were still here.”
Margaret’s eyes were becoming moist. O’Connor placed a hand on Margaret’s arm. She moved out from under it.
“Damnit, I’ve cried enough,” Margaret said. She tucked a strand of hair into her bun.
“So nothing sticks out to you?” Addis asked. “There’s nothing there?”
“There’s always something, because there’s always someone who’s busy making anything into something. We should know what people are saying about it. That can be more important than what really happened. Right?”
“I suppose,” he said.
“So you’re going down there?”
He nodded.
“Without having to say why?”
“I have an idea. And it will be good to get out of here for a few days.”
Shit, I shouldn’t have said that.
O’Connor shot him a look that screamed, “You insensitive bastard.” But Margaret did not pay attention to his remark. He got up. “I’ll let you finish here,” he said.
“Thank you, Nick,” she said.
“Don’t worry about it,” he replied.
She began rummaging through another box. “Old calendars,” she explained.
O’Connor accompanied Addis back to the West Wing.
“Is she doing alright?” he asked.
“She’s strong. A fighter.”
“You know, I don’t think it’s a good idea.”
Shit, I can’t bring myself to say it: Margaret running for President.
“Not good for who?” O’Connor asked. “Not good for Mumfries, Kelly, and their cronies?”
“I don’t care about them.”
“Not good for her? How condescending is that?”
“She can do what she wants, but it won’t go well for her. She’ll look too ambitious.”
“And a woman can’t do that?”
“Not easily, unfortunately. But there are other reasons: She’s never held office; she’s a magnet for too much shit.”
“And I suppose it’s not good for Nick Addis, who has checked out of the game and is now above it all?”
“I don’t matter.”
“Spoken like a true self-pitying martyr.” She finished the sentence with a chuckle, trying to take the sharpness off her words.
“And what about Jack?” he asked.
“Maybe we ought to pack him and Margaret off to a wax museum in New Orleans,” she replied. “That will be great for him.”
“Okay, okay, you’ve convinced me. Go for it. Have a blast. Smite all foes.”
O’Connor hugged him.
“That’s it?” she said with a smirk. “I have your blessings? Thank you, padre.” He laughed at her and said good-bye.
Addis went back to his office. He returned a few calls. His parents were not in their offices. He spoke to a few friends scattered throughout the administration. They each wanted to know what was going to happen. He reported that he did not know. He did the same with a couple of journalists he respected. He answered a call from Senator Palmer. The senator was on the floor.
Then he called Holly Rudd.
She was with a client, the receptionist said, but she would be right with him. He listened to Muzak.
“Hi,” she said.
“Sorry I’ve been hard to get.”
“Are you okay—”
“You busy?”
“Not really. Had a president from one of the unions in here, and I had to explain why he couldn’t postpone a union election he’s not going to win … . So, how are you?”
“Pushing through the muck.”
“I’m sorry—”
“Yeah, I know. Everybody is.”
“Yeah,” she muttered.
“Well, here we are … talking.”
She didn’t reply. Addis could tell she was considering what to say next.
“If there’s anything I can do.”
He felt a slight shake in his knees. Why was this so god-damn hard? How much time does it take?
“I was kind of hoping you’d say that.”
There was silence on the other end.
“I need a favor,” he continued.
“Okay.” Her voice was tentative. He wanted to hang up. This is dumb, he told himself. But it was the best idea he could concoct. Or was he fooling himself?
“I do need it.”
“Okay, what?”
“I’d rather tell you in person. Besides, in a minute, I’ve got to have
cocktails with a bunch of historians and discuss the nature of national tragedies.”
They arranged to meet later. Then Addis called his travel agent and asked her to book two tickets to New Orleans.
“To be billed to the party?” she asked.
“No,” he said, “it’s personal.”