I looked at the map and wondered what was going on in those border strips. I had the room to myself; the Cabinet was meeting and the President had taken the Old Man with him. Rexton and his brass had left earlier. I stayed there because I had not been told where to go and I hesitated to wander around in the White House. So I stayed and fretted and watched amber lights blink red and, much less frequently, red lights blink amber or green.
I wondered how an overnight visitor with no status managed to get breakfast? I had been up since four and my total nourishment so far had been one cup of coffee, served by the President’s valet. Even more urgently I wanted to find a washroom. I knew where the President’s washroom was, but I did not have the nerve to use it, feeling vaguely that to do so would be somewhere between high treason and disorderly conduct.
There was not a guard in sight. Probably the room was being scanned from a board somewhere; I suppose every room in the White House has an “eye & ear” in it; but there was no one physically in view.
At last I got desperate enough to start trying doors. The first two were locked; the third was what I was looking for. It was not marked “Sacred to the Chief” nor did it appear to be booby-trapped, so I used it.
When I came back into the conference room, Mary was there.
I looked at her stupidly for a moment. “I thought you were with the President?”
She smiled. “I was, but I got chased out. The Old Man took over for me.”
I said, “Say, Mary, I’ve been wanting to talk with you and this is the first chance I’ve had. I guess I—Well, anyway, I shouldn’t have, I mean, according to the Old Man—” I stopped, my carefully rehearsed speech in ruins. “Anyhow, I shouldn’t have said what I did,” I concluded miserably.
She put a hand on my arm. “Sam. Sam, my very dear, do not be troubled. What you said and what you did was fair enough from what you knew. The important thing, to me, is what you did for me. The rest does not matter—except that I am happy again to know that you don’t despise me.”
“Well, but—Damn it, don’t be so noble! I can’t stand it!”
She gave me a merry, lively smile, not at all like the gentle one with which she had greeted me. “Sam, I think you like your women to be a little bit bitchy. I warn you, I can be so.” She went on, “You are still worried about that slap, too, I think. All right, I’ll pay it back.” She reached up and patted me gently on the cheek, once. “There, it’s paid back and you can forget it.”
Her expression suddenly changed, she swung on me—and I thought the top of my head was coming off. “And that,” she said in a tense, hoarse whisper, “pays you back the one I got from your girlfriend!”
My ears were ringing and my eyes did not want to focus. If I had not seen her bare palm, I would have sworn that she had used at least a two-by-four.
She looked at me, wary and defiant, not the least apologetic—angry, rather, if dilated nostrils meant anything. I raised a hand and she tensed—but I just wanted to touch my stinging cheek. It was very sore. “She’s not my girlfriend,” I said lamely.
We eyed each other and simultaneously burst out laughing. She put both her hands on my shoulders and let her head collapse on my right one, still laughing. “Sam,” she managed to say, “I’m so sorry. I shouldn’t have done it—not to you, Sam. At least I shouldn’t have slapped you so hard.”
“The devil you’re sorry,” I growled, “but you shouldn’t have put English on it. You damn near took the hide off.”
“Poor Sam!” She reached up and touched it; it hurt. “She’s really not your girlfriend?”
“No, worse luck. But not from lack of my trying.”
“I’m sure it wasn’t. Who is your girlfriend, Sam?” The words seem coquettish; she did not make them so.