The doctors’ diagnosis had been so accurate that over the years he could reasonably predict when, give or take an hour or two, the acid attacks would grip him. During his days on Wall Street they invariably came with wild fluctuations in the bond market or when he fought with peers who were continually trying to thwart him in his drive for both wealth and position. They were all pukey shits, thought Dennison. Fancy boys from fancy fraternities who belonged to fancy clubs that wouldn’t spit on him, much less consider him for membership. Who gave a nun’s fart? Those same clubs let in yids and niggers and even spies these days! All they had to do was speak like fairy actors and buy their clothes from Paul Stuart or some French faggot. Well, he had spat on them! He broke them! He had the gut instincts of a street fighter in the market and he had cornered so much, made so much that the fucking firm had to make him president or he would have walked out, taking millions with him. And he had shaped up that corporation until it was the sharpest, most aggressive firm on the Street. He had done so by getting rid of the whining deadwood and that stupid corps of so-called trainees who ate up money and wasted everybody’s time. He had two maxims that became corporate holy writ: The first was: Beat last year’s figures or beat feet out of here. The second was equally succinct: You don’t get trained here, you get here trained.
Herb Dennison never gave a damn whether he was liked or disliked; the theory that the end justified the means suited him splendidly, thank you. He had learned in Korea that soft-nosed officers were often rewarded with GI caskets for their lack of harsh discipline and harsher authority in the field. He had been aware that his troops hated his proverbial guts to the point where he never dropped his guard against being fragmented by a US grenade, and whatever the losses, he was convinced they would have been far greater had the loosey-goosies been in charge.
Like the crybabies on Wall Street: ‘We want to build trust, Herb, continuity…” Or: ‘The youngster of today is the corporate officer of tomorrow—a loyal one.’ Crap! You didn’t make profits on trust or continuity or loyalty. You made profits by making other people money, that was all the trust and continuity and loyalty they looked for! And he had been proved right, swelling the client lists until the computers were ready to burst, pirating talent from other firms, making damn sure he got what he paid for or the new boys, too, were out on their backsides.
Sure, he was tough, perhaps even ruthless, as many called him both to his face and in print, and, yes, he had lost a few good people along the way, but the main thing was that in general he was right. He had proved it in both military and civilian life… and yet in the end, in both, the creeps had dumped him. In Korea the regimental CO had damned near promised him the rank of full colonel upon discharge; it never happened. In New York—Christ, if possible it was worse!—his name had been floated around as the newest member of the Board of Directors for Wellington-Midlantic Industries, the most prestigious board in international finance. It never happened. In both cases the old-school-tie fraternities had shot him down at the moment of escalation. So he took his millions and said Screw all of you!
Again, he had been right, for he found a man who needed both his money and his considerable talents: a senator from Idaho who had begun to raise his startlingly sonorous, impassioned voice, saying things Herb Dennison fervently believed in, yet a politician who could laugh and amuse his growing audiences while at the same time instructing them.
The man from Idaho was tall and attractive, with a smile that had not been seen since Eisenhower and Shirley Temple, full of anecdotes and homilies that espoused the old values of strength, courage, self-reliance and, above all—for Dennison—freedom of choice. Herb had flown down to Washington and a pact was made with that senator. For three years Dennison threw in all his energies and several million—plus additional millions from numerous anonymous men for whom he had made fortunes—until they had a war chest that could buy the papacy if it were more obviously on the market.
Herb Dennison belched; the chalky-white liquid pacifier was working, but not rapidly enough; he had to be ready for the man who would walk into his office in a matter of minutes. He took two more swallows and looked at himself in the mirror, unhappy at the sight of his progressively thinning grey hair that he combed straight back on both sides, the sharply defined parting on the left, the top of his head consistent with his no-nonsense image. Peering into the glass, he wished his grey-green eyes were larger; he opened them as wide as he could; they were still too narrow. And the slight wattle under his chin reinforced the hint of jowls, reminding him that he must get some exercise or eat less, neither of which appealed to him. And why, with all the goddamned money he paid for his suits, didn’t he look more like the men in the ads his British tailors sent him? Still, there was about him an imposing air of strength, emphasized by his rigid posture and the thrust of his jaw, both of which he had perfected over the years.
He belched again and swallowed another mouthful of his personal elixir. Goddamn Kendrick, son of a bitch! he swore to himself. That nobody-suddenly-somebody was the cause of his anger and discomfort… Well, if he was to be honest with himself, and he always tried to be honest with himself, if not always with others, it was not the nobody/somebody by himself, it was the bastard’s effect on Langford Jennings, President of the United States. Shit, piss, and vinegar! What did Langford have in mind? (In his thoughts Herb had actually pulled himself short, substituting ‘the President’ for ‘Lang-ford’, and that made him angrier still; it was part of the tension, part of the distance that White House authority demanded and Dennison hated it… After the inauguration and three years of calling him by his first name, Jennings had spoken quietly to his chief of staff during one of the inaugural balls, spoken to him in that soft, jocular voice that dripped with self-deprecation and good humour. ‘You know I don’t give a damn, Herb, but I think the office—not me, but the office—sort of calls for you to address me as “Mr. President”, don’t you think so, too?’ Damn! That had been that!)
What did Jennings have in mind? The President had casually agreed with everything Herb had proposed concerning the Kendrick freak, but the responses had been too casual, bordering on disinterest, and that bothered the chief of staff. Jennings’s mellifluous voice sounded unconcerned, but his eyes did not convey any lack of concern at all. Every now and then Langford Jennings surprised the whole goddamned bunch of them at the White House. Dennison hoped this was not one of those frequently awkward times.
The bathroom telephone rang, its proximity causing the chief of staff to spill Maalox over his Savile Row jacket. Awkwardly he grabbed the phone off the wall with his right hand while turning on the hot water tap with his left and dousing a washcloth under the stream. As he answered he frantically rubbed the wet cloth over the white spots, grateful that they disappeared into the dark fabric.
‘Yes?’
‘Congressman Kendrick has arrived at the East Gate, sir. The strip search is in progress.’
The what?
‘They’re checking him for weapons and explosives—’
‘Jesus, I never said he was a terrorist! He’s in a government car with two Secret Service personnel!’
‘Sir, you did indicate a strong degree of apprehension and displeasure—’
‘Send him up here at once!’
‘He may have to get dressed, sir.’
‘Shit!’
Six minutes later a quietly furious Evan Kendrick was ushered through the door by an apprehensive secretary. Rather than thanking the woman, Evan’s expression conveyed another message, more like Get out of here, lady, I want this man to myself. She left quickly as the chief of staff approached, his hand extended. Kendrick ignored it. ‘I’ve heard about your fun and games over here, Dennison,’ said Evan, his voice a low, icelike monotone, ‘but when you presume to search a member of the House who’s here at your invitation—that’s what it had better be, you fucker; you don’t give orders to me—you’ve gone too far.’
‘A complete foul-up of instructions, Congressman! My God, how can you think anything else?’
‘With you, very easily. Too many of my colleagues have had too many run-ins with you. The horror stories are rampant, including the one in which you threw a punch at the member from Kansas who, I understand, flattened you on the floor.’