Wound in stomach appears not to need stitches. Things not going well.
—JOURNAL, OCT. 15, 1991
Four days after my meeting with Mr. Angullas-Villanueva, the First Lady asked me to stay after the morning staff meeting. She appeared more tired than I had ever seen her, except on the campaign trail. The bluish circles beneath her eyes were more accented. I confess to wondering how a man married to such a woman could bear to sleep in another room, even the Queen’s bedroom. I decided I would urge her to take some time off, what with the busy holiday season looming ahead.
After the others had left, she turned to me and, in a voice suddenly cross, demanded, “Did you tell Billy not to come see me anymore?”
I was caught completely off guard. “Ah,” I fumbled. “It’s rather complicated.” I should have known I couldn’t trust Mr. Angullas-Villanueva. Lord, what a mess.
“Well?” Her arms were folded, her eyes boring right into me. As best I could, I explained about the call from Socks. I said I suspected Lleland or his people were bruiting it about, and that I’d gone up to New York to try to spare Mr. Angullas-Villanueva—and myself—the humiliation of being linked romantically in the press.
She listened intently. When I finished, she began laughing. She laughed for some time. I was even tempted to join in, but I detected something wrong with her laughter. It was—well, it was uncontrolled.
“You?” she said. “And Billy?” She went on laughing.
“Yes,” I said, “it’s rather unlikely, isn’t it?”
Presently she dried her eyes. They were moist, and dark as thunderclouds.
“You bastards!”
“I beg your pardon?”
“You and Lleland and him—my husband. You made this up?”
“Madam,” I said, “I assure you—”
“So you could drive my friends away!” She was standing and looking rather menacingly at me. I got up and edged backward.
“No, no, no. The President likes your friends. I like Mr. Villa—”
“Damn you, Herb!” With this she picked up a large chintz pillow and struck me. Struck me! On the side of the head. And with surprising force. My glasses were knocked off.
“Mrs. Tucker!” I couldn’t see much without my glasses, but I managed to make it behind an armchair and crouched low. “Please! This is undignified!”
“Undignified! I’ll tell you what’s undignified. Making up this ridiculous lie to hurt me, to hurt Billy.” There was a whoosh over my head which I soon recognized as another pillow being hurled in my direction.
No oil will calm these roiling waters, Wadlough, I said to myself. I began to back toward the door. Mrs. Tucker was only an agitated blond blur.
“I’d never do anything to hurt you. I’d rather—”
I felt a thump against my abdomen and it became necessary to double over in order to facilitate breathing. As I did this, she began to belabor me with the wretched pillow on either side of the head. Deducing that this was not the time to explain I was not in a conspiracy against her with Lleland and her husband, I decided to try and make my escape. I turned and, still hunched over, stumbled in the direction of a dark rectangular shadow I took to be the door. But after a few steps my head came into contact with an object. It yielded after causing only moderate cranial discomfort, but as it did I found my feet caught up in something. There followed a crash and a rending of fabric and I fell to the ground.
The blows resumed, this time augmented by sharper pains about my calf and shin, which I took to be her shoes. (I was grateful she was not wearing high heels.) My immediate concern was for a prompt egress, but I did give some thought to the fact that I had in all likelihood upset the Japanese screen, a very fine example of Yosaku Era workmanship which had been presented to the President and First Lady by Prime Minister Kundo. The Smithsonian had appraised it at $12,000.
I thought I might buy some time by appealing to her feminine instincts.
“Mrs. Tucker, the screen!”
“Fuck the screen!” she said. She was still drubbing me with the cushion. In an attempt to protect myself, I put my head through the screen with a further tearing of silk.
I grasped the base of a lamp in an attempt to pull myself up, but the lamp came down, and with it, me. I felt screen remnants in my eyes, so the First Lady’s outline was now even less distinct. My hope at this point was that she would tire out. Unfortunately, she kept very fit.
I regained my bearings by dead reckoning. I found the wall and groped my way along it, keeping my head low so that my upper torso would absorb the brunt of the blows. It was with considerable relief that I felt the door molding. Then I found it was the hinged side, which gave the First Lady the advantage of leverage. She swung the door against me, pinioning me between it and the wall. This did, however, make it impossible for her to continue striking me, for which I was grateful. I could hear her exertions on the other side as she leaned against the door, attempting, I would guess, to inhibit the flow of oxygen into my lungs. She was in part successful, although by this point my breathing was irregular anyway.
“I helped you,” she said. She was crying. “They were out to get you and I protected you. And you do this. You and them.”
My heart went out to her. “Oh, Madam,” I said, “I’m not with them!”
“I trusted you.”
She stood back from the door. It swung back.
I was on the verge of making one last plea when I was propelled backward through the open door. My legs gave out from under me and I fell over. The door slammed shut.
I lay there a few seconds, trying to take stock of my injuries. I did not feel at all well.
I felt arms assisting me. It was Hurley, one of the Secret Service agents on the First Lady’s detail.
“You all right, Mr. Wadlough?” he asked.
“Yes, fine, thank you,” I answered. “How are you doing, Joe?”
“Can’t complain.”
With Joe’s assistance, I made it back to my office. I would have had to grope my way there without him.
“Gott!” Mrs. Metz exclaimed. “What is it? Terrorists? In the residence?”
I didn’t want the household staff buzzing about this. “I lost my balance and had a fall.”
“You are bleeding.” She dabbed at my lip with her handkerchief. I gave myself over to her ministrations. My left shoulder felt swollen and stiff. My entire left leg, which had borne the brunt of the kicking, was in pain, and my face felt hot and sore. I flushed most of the Japanese screen particles out of my eyes, and took an aspirin.
“The President wants to see you right away,” said Mrs. Metz with a stricken look when I got back from the bathroom, and she reminded me that I had asked her to send my spare set of glasses to be repaired. She was putting a few finishing touches to me when she said, “Your jacket is ripped behind.”
“Never mind that,” I said. “Hurry up.”
“Your lip is bleeding again. Wait.” I felt a wet handkerchief on my lip followed by an astringent, searing pain, and an overwhelming smell of her perfume, a scent of which I was not fond.
“What have you done, woman?” I cried.
“It will stop the bleeding. And clean the wound.”
The phone rang. It was Betty Sue Scoville, the President’s secretary.
“Yes,” said Mrs. Metz. “He is coming, coming.”
She led me down the stairs, past the family theater, through the long, vaulted, red-carpeted hallway on the ground floor. I was just as glad not to be able to see the looks on the faces of those we passed. Senior staff with ripped jackets, bleeding lips, and reeking of German perfume are an uncommon sight in the White House. We went through the door at the west end of the hallway and through the Rose Garden colonnade, the one visible on the back of twenty-dollar bills.
“Don’t let any reporters see me,” I hissed at her as we went in the door of the West Wing next to the press room.
“We will go this way.”
She took me back through the door and to the right, past the windows of the cabinet room and toward the outside of the Oval Office. The Secret Service gets apprehensive when people even walk on this part of the colonnade. I saw shadows approaching us. Mrs. Metz explained that we desired to avoid the route past the press room. I recognized the voice of Bradshaw, one of the agents on the PPD (Presidential Protection Detail).
He led us through a door into Betty Sue Scoville’s office, next to the President’s. Betty Sue was surprised.
“Mr. Wadlough,” she said. “What’s happened to you?”
“Never mind, Betty.”
She picked up the phone. “Mr. Wadlough’s here, sir. Yes, sir.”
Turning to me, she said, “You can go in now.” Something in her voice worried me.
I had the ladies lead me to the door. “Open the door and point me in the direction of the President,” I said.
“The statue,” whispered Betty Sue. “Look out for the statue.”
I nodded. The President had acquired a sculpture by Frederick Hart called “Javelin.”
The door clicked open. “He’s right ahead of you,” whispered Mrs. Metz.
“Good morning, Mr. President,” I said, striding purposefully toward the desk.
He was gruff, in no mood for pleasantries. “What the hell happened to you?”
“Oh, this?” At that moment my right knee came into excruciating contact with the corner of the Roosevelt desk. I had overestimated the distance. I stifled a moan and staggered back.
“Ah—I—fell. Sir.”
“Fell? Well, sit down.”
I felt my way backward and sat down.
“Where are your glasses? And what’s wrong with your lip? Did my wife do this to you?”
“We had a staff meeting this morning.”
He sniffed. “Jesus. Are you wearing perfume?”
“I can explain that,” I replied.
“My wife just told me she is going to divorce me.”
Oh, dear. I wondered if a President had ever campaigned for reelection in the midst of a divorce, but to my best recollection such a situation was unprecedented.
“She seems a little upset at the moment.”
“Upset? You skinless hot dog, she’s threatening to divorce me!” I was not familiar with the President’s expression, but his tone of voice was clear. “Do you realize what this means?”
“An uphill campaign, sir?”
The President became vehement in his remonstration. No useful purpose would be served by repeating it here.
Our interview did not last long. I assumed the First Lady would no longer be requiring my services, and it certainly wasn’t likely the President did. I suggested that perhaps the time had come for me to take my leave. He agreed. I told him that, despite recent developments, it had been an honor to serve in his administration. He did not keep me long.
I would have liked one last look at the Oval, the room where I had spent so many happy hours; but without my glasses it was just a gauzy mist. Taking my final leave of the President, I turned toward the door, erect and with a dignified, purposeful bearing. I missed the door, however, and became impaled on the Frederick Hart sculpture. I will spare myself recounting the details.