27

Mary Barton was so preoccupied with the disappearance of her grandfather’s body that it was not until Christmas Eve that she realized she had not had a report from Charley on his power breakfast at the White House.

They had a quiet Sicilian sort of dinner, cooked by Charley in the Sixty-fourth Street house after refusing twenty-three social invitations because, quite suddenly, Mary Barton, in addition to the shame and grief over her grandfather’s disappearance, had begun to show her double pregnancy in a spectacular way.

“What happened at the breakfast with Heller, Charley?”

“At the breakfast, nothing. Four of the other people he had there froze out the president trying to make me notice them.”

“You never got a chance to talk to Heller?”

“Before. They sent me upstairs to where he lives. He was genial in a sour way.”

“Of course he was genial and sour. He’s a politician. What did he say?”

“He said he would appreciate my support.”

“He wants you to set up some PACs?”

“Yeah. What’s that?”

“Political Action Committees—a license to bribe.”

“Where do I get them?”

“Pop has them.”

“Anyway, he’s going to send his people to see me in New York for the pickup. And he asked me if I wanted Treasury in the next administration.”

“Treasury? What kind of a dead end is that?”

“Dead end?”

“Did you ever hear of anybody ever going from Treasury to the White House? And I am talking even Andrew Mellon.”

“I never followed that stuff.” He straightened up with alarm. “What do you mean?”

“I mean Herbert Hoover went from Commerce to the White House, but that was a freak thing. Through the cabinet is the wrong route.”

“Wrong route for who?”

“You.”

“Me?”

“Why not? Eduardo isn’t going to make it—he has a lousy personality and he’s a widower. Eduardo is the next attorney general, but, even if I’m wrong and he does make it, by law he’s good for only eight years. You’ll be only 64 in the year two thousand and one, which is exactly the right age for a president.”

“What the fuck is this, Mae?”

“Watch the language, Charley. And my name is Mary, remember? You’ll have eight years experience at running Barker’s Hill. How is running Barker’s Hill different from being president of the United States? But we’ve got to bring you up the right way—like if you started as vicepresident—Coolidge, Truman, Johnson, Nixon, and Ford made it on that route—or through solid foreign policy experience, like ambassador-at-large, because the voters will know that you know the domestic thing.”

“Mae, lissena me—”

“I’m not saying you should get State. After all, they gave Al Haig State and look what happened. Let me think about it for a while.”

“Are you nuts, Mae?”

“Charley, fahcrissake! Anybody can be president! Look at Reagan! When are you going to understand that all it takes is an organization to keep up the heavy day-and-night PR, big PACs, and some good comedy writers. Hype and money. And we got both of those more than even Reagan ever had.”

The twins were born on February 16, 1992. Suddenly, to his horror, Charley was on his own. Mary Barton lost all interest in Barker’s Hill operations, in Charley’s career, in the pressing decisions he had to make every day with which she had always helped him, even during the chaotic period of her grandfather’s disappearance. For three months, ever since they had returned to New York, their routine had been to confer on the problems of Charley’s day from 4:00 P.M. each afternoon until dinner, then for three hours after dinner. They had refused invitations. Mary Barton just dropped out as her husband’s counsel, seeking forgetfulness of the shame that had happened to her grandfather by using her babies as an excuse.

“Charley, fahcrissake!” she said when he protested that he needed her to make the right decisions. “They’re your kids, too! You think I’m gonna let them eat cow’s milk when I got these two jugs on me?”

“But millions of dollars are involved here!”

“So the company will only make seventy million tomorrow instead of seventy-two. What is this? You are surrounded by the most expensive business talent in the country. So if one of them asks you a question, you ask one of the others for the answer. How do you think Eduardo ran the company?”

Mary Barton spent most of her waking hours with her children. She rolled them in the double pram to Central Park every morning and every afternoon, trailed by Al Melvini for security. Melvini was in his early sixties. He had a big paunch and heavy jowls. He was devoted to Maerose, whom he no longer dared to call Maerose, but Mrs. Barton. He carried two pieces, one in a back holster and one at his ankle. He kept ten to fifteen yards between himself and Mrs. Barton. She sat on a park bench, rain or shine, while the babies got their required time in the open air. She talked to them, beamed at them, and on mild days, changed their diapers in the carriage. At home, she supervised the nannies and took no calls until the babies were sleeping. She knitted their garments, sat up with them if they cried at night and, endlessly, plotted their future, having enrolled them at Groton and Harvard at birth.

And Charley came into his own. He felt the power. He was no longer the petticoat president of Barker’s Hill Enterprises. After the twins had been weaned, Mary Barton turned her terrible concentration upon New York’s nouvelle society to launch herself (and her husband) in fullest battle regalia.