‘Cut it out, Manny,’ said Evan. ‘There are too many areas where Langford Jennings and I differ for a President to be comfortable with someone like me who might possibly succeed him—and the thought of that scares the hell out of me.’
‘Lang knows all that!’ cried Weingrass.
‘Lang?’
The architect shrugged. ‘Well, you’ll learn soon enough—’
‘Learn what soon enough?’
‘Jennings kind of invited himself out to lunch here a few weeks ago, when you and my lovely daughter were winding things up in Washington… So what could I do? Tell the President of the United States he couldn’t nosh a little?’
‘Oh, shit!’ said Kendrick.
‘Hold it, darling,’ interrupted Khalehla. ‘I’m fascinated, really fascinated.’
‘Go on, Manny!’ yelled Evan.
‘Well, we discussed many things—he’s not an intellectual, I grant you, but he’s smart and he understands the larger picture, that’s what he’s good at, you know.’
‘I don’t know, and how dare you intercede for me?’
‘Because I’m your father, you ungrateful idiot. The only father you’ve ever known! Without me you’d still be hustling a few buildings with the Saudis and wondering if you could cover your costs. Don’t talk about my daring—you were lucky I dared—talk about your obligations to others… All right, all right, we couldn’t have done what we did without your balls, without your strength, but I was there, so listen to me.’
In exasperation, Kendrick closed his eyes and leaned back on the couch. Suddenly, Khalehla realized that Weingrass was unobtrusively signalling to her, his lips in exaggerated movement; the silent words were easily read. It’s an act. I know what I’m doing. She could only respond by looking at the old man, bewildered. ‘Okay, Manny,’ said Evan, opening his eyes and staring at the ceiling. ‘You can cut it out. I’m listening.’
‘That’s better.’ Weingrass winked at the agent from Cairo and continued. ‘You can walk away and nobody’s got the right to say or think a bad word because you’re owed, and you don’t owe anybody anything. But I know you, my friend, and the man I know has a streak of outrage in him that he keeps running away from yet never can because it’s part of him. In short words, you don’t happen to like rotten people—present older company excepted—and it’s a good thing for this meshugah world that guys like you are around; there are too many of the other type… Still I see a problem, and to put it in an eggshell, it’s that not too many of your kind can do a hell of a lot because no one listens to them. Why should anyone? Who are they? Troublemakers? Whistle-blowers? Insignificant agitators?… They’re easily disposed of, anyway. Jobs are lost, promotions withheld, and if they’re really serious they wind up in the courts where their whole lives are soiled—dirt dug up on them that’s got nothing to do with what they’re there for by expensive lawyers who’ve got more tricks than Houdini—and if all they end up with is a dole card and usually no wife and kids, maybe it could be worse. Maybe they could be found under a truck or down on the tracks of a subway at an inappropriate time… Now you, on the other hand, everybody listens to you—look at the polls; you’re the top cardinal of the country, granting the fact that Langford Jennings is Pope—and there’s not a shyster in or out of sight who’d take you on in the courts, much less the Congress. As I see it, you’ve got the chance to speak from the top for a hell of a lot of people down below who can’t get a hearing. Lang will bring you in on everything—’
‘Lang, again,’ muttered Kendrick, interrupting.
‘Not my doing!’ exclaimed Weingrass, palms outstretched. ‘I started right off the right way with a “Mr. President”, ask the nurses who all had to go to the bathroom the minute he came inside—he’s some mensch, I tell you. Anyway, after a drink, which he himself got for me from the bar when the girls were out, he said I was refreshing and why didn’t I call him Lang and forget the formal stuff.’
‘Manny,’ broke in Khalehla, ‘why did the President say you were “refreshing”?’
‘Well, in small talk I mentioned that the new building they’re putting up on some avenue or other—it was in the New York Times—wasn’t so hotsy-totsy, and he shouldn’t have congratulated that asshole architect on television. The goddamned renderings looked like neoclassic-art deco, and believe me, the combination doesn’t work. Also, what the hell did he, a President, know about square foot construction costs that were estimated at about one-third of what they’re going to be. Lang’s looking into it.’
‘Oh, shit,’ repeated Evan, defeat in his voice.
‘Back to the point I’m trying to make,’ said Weingrass, his face suddenly very serious as he stared at Kendrick while pausing for several long intakes of breath. ‘Maybe you’ve done enough, maybe you should walk away and live happily ever after with my Arab daughter here making lots more money. The respect of the country, even much of the world, is already yours. But maybe also you’ve got to think. You can do what not too many others can do. Rather than going after the rotten people, by which time there’s so much corruption and loss of life, maybe you can stop them before they play dirty—at least some of them, perhaps more than some—from the top of the mountain. All I ask is that you listen to Jennings. Listen to what he has to say to you.’
Their eyes locked, father and son acknowledged each other on the deepest level of their relationship. ‘I’ll call him and ask him for a meeting, all right?’
‘That’s not necessary,’ replied Manny. ‘It’s all set up.’
‘What?’
‘He’ll be in Los Angeles tomorrow at the Century Plaza for a dinner raising scholarship funds in honour of his late Secretary of State. He’s cleared some time before then and expects you at the hotel at seven o’clock. You, too, my dear; he insists.’
The two Secret Service men in the hallway outside the Presidential Suite acknowledged the congressman by sight. They nodded at him and Khalehla as the man on the right turned and rang the bell. Moments later Langford Jennings opened the door, his face pale and haggard with dark circles of exhaustion below his eyes. He made a brief attempt at his famous grin but could not sustain it. Instead, he smiled gently, extending his hand.
‘Hello, Miss Rashad. It’s a pleasure and a privilege to meet you. Please, come in.’
‘Thank you, Mr. President.’
‘Evan, it’s good to see you again.’
‘It’s good to see you, sir,’ said Kendrick, thinking as he walked inside that Jennings looked older than he had ever seen him.
‘Please sit down.’ The President preceded his guests into the living room of the suite, towards two opposing couches, a large round glass coffee table linking them. ‘Please,’ he repeated, gesturing at the couch on the right as he headed for the one on the left. ‘I like to look at attractive people,’ he added as they all sat down. ‘I suppose my detractors would say it’s another sign of my superficiality, but Harry Truman once said, “I’d rather look at a horse’s head than his ass,” so I rest my case… Forgive the language, young lady.’
‘I didn’t hear anything to forgive, sir.’
‘How’s Manny?’
‘He’s not going to win, but he’s putting up a fight,’ answered Evan. ‘I understand you visited him several weeks ago.’
‘Was that wicked of me?’
‘Not at all, but it was a little wicked of him not to tell me.’
‘That was my idea. I wanted to give us both time to think, and in my case I had to learn more about you than what was written in several hundred pages of government jargon. So I went to the one source that made sense to me. I asked him to be quiet until the other day. I apologize.’
‘No need to, sir.’
‘Weingrass is a brave man. He knows he’s dying—his diagnosis is wrong but he knows he’s dying—and he pretends to treat his impending death like a statistic on a construction proposal. I don’t expect to see eighty-one, but if I do, I hope I have his courage.’
‘Eighty-six,’ said Kendrick flatly. ‘I thought he was eighty-one, too, but we found out yesterday he’s eighty-six.’ Langford Jennings looked hard at Evan, then, as if the congressman had just told an extraordinarily amusing joke, he leaned back on the couch, his neck arched, and laughed quietly but wholeheartedly. ‘Why is that so funny?’ asked Kendrick. ‘I’ve known him for twenty years and he never told the truth about his age, even on passports.’
‘It dovetails with something he said to me,’ explained the President, speaking through his soft, subsiding laughter. ‘I won’t bore you with the details, but he pointed out something to me—and he was damned right—so I offered him an appointment. He said to me, “Sorry, Lang, I can’t accept. I couldn’t burden you with my graft.”‘