Undertow Read online

  It was an endless mountain of paper, like lava coming down from Mount Olympus, covering everything. Like the library of position papers, computerized, a staff of fifteen was required just to keep the input catalogue. How does DBJ stand on Pakistan, the Middle East, devaluation—it was an endless potpourri of issues, all carefully boiled down into options, simple enough to evaluate during the time it takes to produce a good shit. All these geegaws are fucking necessities if you want to get elected president. The days of bulling your way through are over. You can’t stand up in front of the media and leave the audience with gaps. You’ve got to know the bare rudiments of everything and have enough style to embroider the facts. Hell, you’re not expected to have any deep knowledge. We’ve got an army of professor types writing position papers. This makes them feel like they’re making a contribution and gives us the aura of expert knowledge. Who the hell has time to read all that shit? We’ve got all those smart-ass young people reading and writing and talking, but the name of the game is to boil down and squeeze out the essence—just enough essence to give DBJ a good whiff, enough to go on. Throw old Don a cue and he’s beautiful. Who the hell is watching that old boob tube anyway? If they were so damned smart, they’d be reading books.

  The whole operation had begun to develop a life of its own under the sure hand of Barnstable. Jack Barnstable was indefatigable. The best compliment you could give him was to call him a pro—even better, a real pro.

  It was an organization that fed on itself. We all knew that when you called Jack Barnstable in, and it was absolutely essential, you were bringing in the whole root of the iceberg. If there were enough time, which there wasn’t, Jack would have the whole pattern of options on a computer readout.

  Unfortunately, there just wasn’t enough time. The revelation would be a savage blow to the organization. The big question was, What was the recovery potential? Even the language of this business was peculiar unto itself, as if it were some new semantic technology that had gotten encrusted onto our language. Don literally had to check himself to prevent his speech from reflecting these new words. Input, for instance. Don and I talked a lot about these things. How, with this mass of information and knowledge, could our country’s leaders make such dumb decisions? Like the Viet Nam war. Incredible. Which brings us to another subject—the “DBJ Manual of Attack Positions.” This was literally an arsenal of words, or paragraphs, neatly arranged to provide DBJ with an attack on every conceivable position that could embarrass an opponent, particularly the incumbent; for while the researchers were putting together DBJ’s positions, a parallel team was putting together his anti-positions.

  So here we were with all the heady benefits of this efficient organization. And now the whole menagerie was trapped, out on a limb because of a simple human need—to love (that may be too strong in this case), and a simple human experience—death. I must admit that I was satisfied that we had come up with the right decision, that we had picked the right options. It is always good to be secure in the decisions you make. If you psych yourself up to believe you made the right decision you have more strength.

  None of us could have lived with the idea of hiding the body. That was a ghoulish thought. I’m even ashamed of having made the suggestion.

  Christine finished her memo and gave me a copy. It was two pages long, and under the text was written: Destroy after reading.

  XI

  Karen and Barnstable made the trip in three hours flat. I automatically looked at my watch as I heard their car crackle over the pebbles in the driveway and come to a halt. They must have been going at a pretty fast clip. Don was up in a moment, bounding toward the door, opening it, gathering Karen in his arms. She just stood there, rooted to the floor, like a statue, not moving, not returning his caress. Who could blame her? She was wearing a turtleneck sweater and slacks, and her soft blonde hair was tied back with a long kerchief over it. She wore, appropriately, dark glasses, although I couldn’t help thinking that it was an affectation. She barely looked at me or Christine.

  Don led her into the bedroom—ours, again. He couldn’t bear a confrontation with us looking on. I led Jack, looking as if he had slept in his clothes, to the other end of the house, in an effort to shut out the sounds of Don’s and Karen’s voices, although I had this tremendous urge to listen. Jack saw the bottles lined up outside the screen porch. He went out, poured himself a Scotch, and sat down heavily at the kitchen table. He looked lost and defeated. Finally he looked up at me.

  “You stupid bastards,” he said. “You stupid bastards.”

  “It was a freak,” I said. “A one-in-a-million chance.”

  “I was driving along and thinking. Karen wouldn’t open her mouth. How stupid can you be? Then I began to feel sorry for myself. Hell, I gave that son-of-a-bitch all those years, nearly twenty fucking years, and because he can’t keep his cock in his pants, we’ve all got to suffer.”

  I didn’t answer him. It would have been futile. What did he expect? Christine looked particularly disturbed. He went on for ten minutes in that vein, getting it all out, letting the words tumble over, his big frame shaking with anger as he poured out more drinks for himself and gulped them down. Finally I had no choice but to stop him.

  “Okay, Jack. We’ve listened. Now it’s time to stop and get back on the tracks. We went through all this earlier. We’ve got a plan. Christine’s got a memo.”

  “A memo? Jesus K. Christ—” She handed him the memo. He put on his horn-rimmed glasses, which he had laid carelessly on the kitchen table, and read the memo. When he was finished, he shook his head. “I can’t believe you put this in writing. Are you crazy?”

  “We had to put it down,” Christine said. “We had to.”

  Jack took a match out of his pocket, stood over the sink, lit the end of the papers and watched them burn. Then, as if they were diseased, he flushed the bits of ashes down the drain. He turned to us. “He’s probably right. There doesn’t seem to be any options left on this baby. Besides, I think he’s got enough guts to pull it off. Has anyone been contacted besides Karen and me?”

  “No one,” I said.

  “Good.”

  He went to the phone and called the number he had written down on a piece of paper.

  “Check in at the Rehoboth Motel. Take three rooms. Just stay there until I call. Don’t ask me any questions.”

  “What was that all about?”

  “I’m staffing up.”

  “Do you think that’s wise?”

  “We’re going to need statements. Media people are going to crash down around our heads like hailstones. We’re going to need bodies.”

  “Has Max been called?”

  “Not yet.”

  “We need Don.”

  “Leave them alone, Jack. Give them a little more time.”

  “I’m not so sure we have any left. In a little while, the sun will be rising. If that body is going to pop up, it will ride in on the early tide.”

  “How the hell do you know?” I asked.

  “I grew up in San Diego,” he said. “I’m an old beach bum.”

  Jack rose, went to the bedroom door and knocked.

  “Let’s go, Don. We’ve got to move.”

  There wasn’t a sound behind the door. Then Don opened it. His eyes were red. Karen was behind him, her face like flint. She followed Don out to the living room and sat down on a stiff-backed chair. Don wouldn’t sit down.

  “The way I look at it,” Barnstable said, “there’s no room for wasted, counterproductive action. Karen, do you understand?”

  “I understand,” she said. Her voice was tight. She looked at me. “I understand a lot of things. I’m numb. It’s one thing to be simply betrayed, but to be the victim of an intrigue, a conspiracy—that makes me want to puke.”

  I’m sure everyone in the room felt embarrassed for her, and she knew it. The truth was that she seemed sort of extraneous. Can you believe that? She considered herself the injured party, and yet her injury didn’t matte
r to us at all. She had to be fitted into a specific role, and, beyond that, we could not afford a single drop of compassion for her. About all anyone could be expected to say was “Isn’t that a damn shame?” and pass on to the bigger issue.

  She simply had to swallow her humiliation. She was gagging on it, as we all knew she would. We sat around silently, avoiding her eyes. Don leaned against the wall, nervously running his fingers through his hair.

  “I’m supposed to be ‘Miss Good Girl,’ ‘Miss Keep Your Big Mouth Shut.’ I’ve been in a state of shock since that damned phone call. So you were making a speech in Philadelphia. Some speech.”

  “Karen, please,” Don said. “You promised at least to discuss things calmly—and privately.”

  “Well, would you believe that,” Karen said. She was making a great effort to keep her voice from becoming shrill, holding herself back. “Private. The whole world is going to know about this. What do you think I’m about to become? Have you given that some thought in your calculations?”

  She looked at me and Jack. “Have the two wizards even considered that one?”

  “I,” she had said—that damned first person pronoun that comes shouting at you through the ether. It was that fucking “I.” And she really gave herself a big “I.”

  “—am about to become an object of pity. Can you imagine that? Little Karen Whitford, the perennially pursued female, about to become an object of pity.”

  “Karen, I beg of you,” Don said. “I understand how you feel—”

  “Oh, bullshit. How can you understand how I feel? We had a marriage. We’re a team. We were a team. Haven’t I been good about everything, Don? Haven’t I been the faithful wife? The good political wife? My God, haven’t I paid for your success with all those lonely nights? All those endless lines of people. All those faces. All those bright smiles. I’ve paid my dues.”

  “Christ, Karen, you’ve been marvelous. You’ve been the best.”

  “Apparently not the best.”

  “I know how you feel. I know how I would feel. The question is, Do I stay in this business or get the hell out? Do I make my stand or kiss it off?”

  That thought seemed to sober her.

  “Who cares?” she said, hissing the words. I knew she didn’t mean it.

  “I have mixed feelings, myself,” Don said.

  “What did you expect, that you were going to get away with all this forever?”

  I wanted to say to her, “But you knew. You acquiesced.” I held my tongue. Anyone with any semblance of sanity would have done the same.

  She stood up and put her glasses in her pocketbook. Her eyes were slightly puffy, but for a woman in her early forties, she was quite handsome. Physically, they were both unusually good-looking people. One would have thought that they could have found sexual satisfaction in each other. Think of all the women in America who simply would not understand why he would cut out on this beautiful wife for a—for a nigger.

  “Forgive me, boys,” she said. “I’ve not quite learned how to cope with this as yet. It will take a bit of time. Don’t worry, though. I’m a damned good actress. I’ve had a lot of practice out there in front of those cameras. Don’t worry about me. I’ll pull it off. But don’t expect any more of me.” She looked at Don. “At this moment, I can’t stand the sight of you. I’m rather an old-fashioned girl. I don’t really understand what’s going on in the world, you know. Even more than twenty years of marriage hasn’t quite made me callous about the old virtues, like being true blue to your mate. I was thinking about all this in the car coming out here. And you know what’s begun to bug me? My own identity. All these years, I’ve submerged myself for the cause, the great cause of Donald Benjamin James. But who the hell am I? Oh, I admit to plenty of vanity. Who wouldn’t want to be the First Lady of America? Well, maybe there are lots of people who wouldn’t. You know, that’s pretty predictable. After all, I’ve got two sons who worship their father. I guess they’ll be the same way when they go out into the world. Maybe all men are hunters like that. Maybe women are expected to let their men run wild. I just never could bring myself to be unfaithful. It’s like a commitment that you make with your whole being. Maybe men don’t do things like that. I even think that I’ll be an object of pity only to my own age group. Because I don’t think the young people will think it’s wrong. They may even suspect that I, too, was running around. Ha! What a laugh. Look what I’m dwelling on. My own hurt. Perhaps I should be like those big jungle animals who, when injured, crawl into a cave to lick their wounds. That’s what you’d all like, I know. I’m afraid all this talk doesn’t matter much to any of you. I feel so stupid, running off at the mouth.”

  Don walked over to her and tried to take her in his arms. I could see that he was genuinely moved. You don’t cut away twenty years as if you were trimming the fat off a steak. A lot of private, secret things had passed between them in all that time. In his mind, at that moment, she was more important to him than his career. I guess you’d have to have a wife to understand what was going on between them.

  Frankly, I was busy looking at my watch. So was Jack.

  Karen pushed him away. “Just keep your hands off me, Don,” she cried. “I don’t want you to touch me. Please.” She sat down again, took a mirror out of her pocketbook and inspected her face. Jack took it as a sign that it was time to act. Outside in the east, the sky was lightening, although the clouds had continued to thicken. It looked like the beginning of one of those terribly gloomy, beach days.

  “Don,” Jack said. “I’d suggest you get cleaned up. Shave. Comb your hair. Put on some clean clothes. If there are going to be cameras, let them at least get some shots of you looking good, not like some stumblebum. Lou, I guess you should go with him. I’d like to go too, but I’m afraid I would lend an air that was too professional, too studied.”

  Jack had that marvelous take-charge way about him. We all respected his ability. He was especially needed now. Both Don and I were physically and emotionally drained. We needed time to replenish ourselves, and there wasn’t going to be any for the next few hours.

  Christine came out of the bedroom. She had cleaned herself up, trying to look presentable, but the bags under her eyes were beyond redemption. She motioned me to come into the bedroom.

  “I’ve packed up Marlena’s clothes,” she said. “As soon as we can, I want to shift her clothes into our bedroom and you move your things over here.”

  “I never even thought about it.”

  “I’ll tell you something else. She had some pot in a cellophane bag stashed in her valise. I’ve emptied it down the toilet, but I think we’ve got to get rid of this plastic bag.” She held up the plastic bag. I took it from her and burned it in an ash tray. “I also found some strange pills. They’re probably only sleeping pills, but I threw that down the toilet, too, along with the little label.” She held up the vial. I took it from her.

  “I also went through her things pretty carefully. Nothing special. I really feel sorry for that kid. Can you imagine? She’ll be the forgotten person in this whole episode. God, I feel sorry for her.” Tears welled in her eyes.

  Don came in and went into the bathroom without a word. I looked out into the kitchen. Karen was sitting alone now on the screened porch, her coat wrapped around her, looking out to sea, lost in her own thoughts. I shifted the valise quickly into the other bedroom and began to change my clothes. When I had finished, I brought my suitcase into the room that Don had shared with Marlena. The bathroom door was open. He saw me put the suitcase in the closet and nodded.

  XII

  The police station was less than a mile from the beach house, on the main street, which at this moment in time was totally deserted. Even the reception room of the police station was deserted, although we could hear an occasional burst of sound from a police radio. A soggy container of cold coffee and an adventure magazine lay opened on the front desk, indicating that someone was around. A young patrolman arrived from somewhere in the rear of the
station and greeted us with the familiar deadpan look of the disinterested civil servant annoyed by an uncommon intrusion.

  “I’d like to report a drowning,” Don said. He had that sixth sense about just the right tone, just the right look.

  “A drowning?”

  The young policeman looked at us, and then bit his lip. He saw in Don’s face something vaguely familiar.

  “Yes, an ocean drowning. One of the members of my staff. A woman. Age, twenty-four. Black.”

  “Black?”

  “I really think you should check to see if there have been any bodies washed up along the shore around here.”

  “Yes, I’m going to do that. There have been no reports so far, but then, who would be out on the beaches at this time of night. Hell, we’re off season. Don’t I know you from somewhere?” Recognition was slow in coming, but it was coming.

  “I’m Senator Donald James.”

  “Senator James! Holy shit—” The policeman was embarrassed now, the mask of indifference cracking, the boredom now gone. “Now what were you saying about a drowning?”

  “One of my staff—a black girl. She’s missing. We did see her jump into the surf. Mr. Castle and I. This is Mr. Castle—Louis Castle.”