‘That’s not necessarily against him,’ said Logan, smiling.
‘He could have been part of the Oman operation,’ offered Margaret Lowell. ‘And that’s not negative, either.’
‘Hardly,’ agreed Jacob Mandel.
Sundstrom spoke again. ‘He must have considerable influence with Kendrick,’ he said, writing on his pad. ‘Wouldn’t you say, Milos?’
‘I would assume so. My only point is that I want you to know when I don’t know something.’
‘I’d say he’s an asset,’ stated Samuel Winters. ‘From any point of view. Proceed, Mr. Varak.’
‘Yes, sir. Knowing that nothing must leave this room, I’ve prepared the congressman’s dossier for slide projection.’ The Czech pressed the remote control unit and the dual photographs of the disguised Kendrick on the violence-ridden streets in Masqat were supplanted by a typewritten page, the letters large, the lines triple-spaced. ‘Each slide,’ continued Varak, ‘represents approximately a quarter of a normal page; all negatives, naturally, were destroyed in the laboratory downstairs. I’ve done my best to study the candidate as thoroughly as possible, but I have omitted certain points that might interest some of you. So do not hesitate to question me on them. I will watch you, and if each in turn will nod his head when you’ve finished reading and making your notes, I will know when to advance the slide… For the next hour or so, what you will see is the life of Congressman Evan Kendrick—from his birth to last week.’
With each slide Eric Sundstrom was the first to nod his head. Margaret Lowell and Jacob Mandel vied for the honour of being last, but then they made nearly as many notes as did Gideon Logan. The spokesman, Samuel Winters, made almost none; he was convinced.
Three hours and four minutes later, Milos Varak snapped off the projector. Two hours and seven minutes after that moment, the questions ended and Varak left the room.
‘To paraphrase our friend out of context,’ said Winters, ‘a nod from each of you signifies consent. Shake your head if it’s negative. We’ll start with Jacob.’
Slowly, pensively, one by one the members of Inver Brass nodded their consent.
‘It is agreed, then,’ continued Winters. ‘Congressman Evan Kendrick will be the next Vice President of the United States. He will become President eleven months after the election of the incumbent. The code name is Icarus, to be taken as a warning, a fervent prayer that he will not, like so many of his predecessors, try to fly too close to the sun and crash into the sea. And may God have mercy on our souls.’
* * *
Chapter 17
Representative Kendrick from Colorado’s Ninth Congressional District sat at his office desk watching his stern-faced secretary as she kept chattering away about priority mail, House agendas, pre-floor position papers and social functions he really must attend, his chief aide’s judgment notwithstanding. Her lips opened and closed with the rapidity of machine-gun fire, the nasal sounds emanating not much lower in the decibel count.
‘There, Congressman, that’s the schedule for the week.’
‘It’s really something, Annie. But can’t you simply send out a blanket letter to everyone saying I’ve got a social disease and don’t want to infect any of them?’
‘Evan, stop it,’ cried Ann Mulcahy O’Reilly, a very determined middle-aged veteran of Washington. ‘You’re being sloughed off around here and I won’t have it! You know what they’re saying here on the Hill? They say you don’t give a damn, that you spent a bundle of money just to meet girls as rich as yourself.’
‘Do you believe that, Annie?’
‘How the hell could I? You never go anywhere, never do anything. I’d praise the saints if you got caught naked in the Reflection Pool with the biggest tootsie in Washington! Then I’d know you were doing something.’
‘Maybe I don’t want to do anything.’
‘Damn it, you should! I’ve typed your views on a dozen issues and they’re light years better than those of 80 per cent of the clowns here, but nobody pays any attention.’
‘They’re buried because they’re not popular, Annie; I’m not popular. They don’t want me in either camp. The few who notice me on both sides have pinned so many labels on me they cancel themselves out. They can’t pigeonhole me sot hey bury me, which isn’t very difficult because I don’t complain.’
‘God knows I don’t agree with you a lot of the time, but I know a mind at work when I see it… Forget it, Congressman. What are your replies?’
‘Later. Has Manny called?’
‘I put him off twice. I wanted to get in my session with you.’
Kendrick leaned forward, his light blue eyes cold, bordering on anger. ‘Don’t ever do that again, Annie. There’s nothing so important to me as that man in Colorado.’
‘Yes, sir.’ O’Reilly lowered her eyes.
‘I’m sorry,’ said Evan quickly, ‘that wasn’t called for. You’re trying to do your job and I’m not much help. Sorry, again.’
‘Don’t apologize. I know what you’ve been through with Mr. Weingrass and what he means to you—how often did I bring your work to the hospital? I had no right to interfere. On the other hand, I am trying to do my job and you’re not always the most co-operative boss on the Hill.’
‘There are other hills I’d rather be on—’
‘I’m aware of that, so we’ll cross out the social functions; you’d probably do yourself more harm than good anyway.’ Ann O’Reilly got out of the chair and placed a folder on Kendrick’s desk. ‘But I think you should look at a proposal from your senatorial colleague from Colorado. I think he wants to chop off the top of a mountain and put in a reservoir. In this town, that usually means a lake followed by high-rise condominiums.’
‘That transparent son of a bitch,’ said Evan, whipping open the folder.
‘I’ll also get Mr. Weingrass on the phone for you.’
‘Still Mr. Weingrass?’ asked Evan, turning over pages. ‘You won’t relent? I’ve heard him tell you to call him Manny dozens of times.’
‘Oh, now and then I do, but it’s not easy.’
‘Why? Because he yells?’
‘Mother of God, no. You can’t take offence at that if you’re married to a two-toilet Irish detective.’
‘Two-toilet—?’ Kendrick looked up.
‘An old Boston expression, but no, it’s not the yelling.’
‘What, then?’
‘A whimsy of humour he keeps repeating. He keeps saying to me over and over—especially when I call him by his first name—”Kid,” he says, “I think we’ve got a vaudeville act here. We’ll call it Manny’s Irish Annie, what do you say?” And I say, “Not a hell of a lot, Manny,”‘ and he says, “Leave my friend, the animal, and fly away with me. He’ll understand my undying passion,” and I say to him that the TT cop doesn’t understand his own.’
‘Don’t tell your husband,’ offered Kendrick, chuckling.
‘Oh, but I did. All he said was that he’d buy the airline tickets. Of course, he and Weingrass got drunk a couple of times—’
‘Got drunk? I didn’t even know they’d met.’
‘My fault—to my undying regret. It was when you flew to Denver about eight months ago—’
‘I remember. The state conference, and Manny was still in the hospital. I asked you to go see him, take him the Paris Tribune.’
‘And I brought Paddy with me during the evening visiting hours. I’m no centrefold, but even I’m not walking these streets at night, and the TT cop’s got to be good for something.’
‘What happened?’
‘They got along like a shot and a beer. I had to work late one night that week and Paddy insisted on going to the hospital himself.’
Evan shook his head slowly. ‘I’m sorry, Annie. I never knew. I didn’t mean to involve you and your husband in my private life. And Manny never told me.’
‘Probably the Listerine bottles.’
The what?’
‘Same colour as light Scotch. I’ll get him on the phone.’
Emmanuel Weingrass leaned against the formation of rock on top of a hill belonging to Kendrick’s 30-acre spread at the base of the mountains. His short-sleeved checked shirt was unbuttoned to the waist as he took the sun, breathing the clear air of the southern Rockies. He glanced at his chest, at the scars of the surgery, and wondered for a brief moment whether he should believe in God or in Evan Kendrick. The doctors had told him—months after the operation and numerous post-op checkups—that they had cut out the dirty little cells that were eating his life away. He was clean, they pronounced. Pronounced to a man who, on this day, on this rock, was eighty years of age with the sun beating down on his frail body. Frail and not so frail, for he moved better, spoke better—coughed practically not at all. Yet he missed his Gauloise cigarettes and the Monte Cristo cigars he enjoyed so much. So what could they do? Stop his life a few weeks or months before a logical ending?