Part 8

"Listen, Riddie," I said, "I know you can't tell the Monolithians without a scorecard, they're so assimilable, but what the good hell is the object of all this? For what greater gain is the tab being picked up? What's the deal, old pal? Spill, will you?"

"You're too suspicious, Sam. This is conviviality rampant. We drink and be merry and ask not the reason why. Live, man! Pluck the daisies while you may. How _is_ Mae, by the way?"

"Just fine," I said. "Just absolutely fine. That's an interesting philosophy you have there, about plucking."

Riddie gave me a close look. "How many have you had, my friend? How about a sandwich?"

"Don't worry," I told her. "I'm not going to disgrace anybody. I've had three, is all." Besides miscounting I was ignoring the three I'd had at lunch with Joy Linx.

"Well, maybe," Riddie said. She acknowledged a high sign from somebody (an alien?) at the other side of the room and said quickly, "Don't worry about a thing. If you have any problems, just take them to Mox or Frij. Or me. I've got to run now, Sammy."

And she was off.

I made for the farther bar across the room, where I'd spotted Joy Linx.

Joy had changed from her severe lunchtime suit into a low-cut black satin which matched her hair and did all kinds of things for her figure. I cannot tell a lie and say I hadn't noticed this figure heretofore, but hadn't had the opportunity to notice it to such advantage. Bee-lining, I reached her side.

"Your recent acquaintance presents his compliments," I said, "and don't you look lovely."

Joy smiled hello and said, "You look just the same as at the Algonquin, which is all one could ask. Do you know Mr. Masters? Mr. Kent, formerly of World Wide--Mr. Masters of Hollywood and all over."

Everybody knew Spookie Masters, the comedian, singer, dancer, dramatic actor and husband of beautiful women.

"Not personally," I said, shaking hands, "but I'm a long-time fan. How do you do."

"It's a pleasure, Kent," Masters said. "Joy tells me she's taken the vows and joined the Martians. I envy her. Their coming is probably the most exciting thing that's happened since the wheel."

"They're a pretty lively bunch, all right," I said. "I don't know where it's all going to end, but it should be fun while it lasts."

"They sure beat the beatniks," Spookie Masters said, and I remembered that he'd been on a beatnik and bongo drums kick for a while. "I've got half a mind to take out a card myself. Who's the head alien, Joy? Where do I get the poop?"

"I think you're pulling my leg, Spookie," she said ("Love to," he said), "but if you're serious I'll speak to Frij. Just what is it you'd like to do?"

"Oh, just be an altar boy. Sit at the feet of the high priests and absorb their philosophy. I did that in Tibet once and I've never got over it. There's something more to life than chasing the old dollar. I've learned that much."

This Spookie Masters was a pretty charming guy. He was about forty, maybe five-feet-ten, and slender. Not handsome, but honest-faced.

A sort of cult had grown up around him. Spookie Masters was more than a million-a-year (net) entertainer. He was, to innumerable moviegoers and TV fans, a way of life. They'd followed his career from his beginning as a poor boy whose father had died in the electric chair. They knew about his several marriages to, and subsequent divorces from, some of the world's most glamorous women. They'd followed his rise to fame and plunge to obscurity and his comeback.

They knew about his coterie of big-name hangers-on, and they parroted the group's own special language. They marveled that his intimates and admirers included not only the mayor of a big city, the head of the philosophy department of an Ivy League university, the president of one of the world's biggest industries and the pretty sister of a reigning queen, but that he also had plenty of time for people who rode in subways and went to ball games and boxing matches. Spookie usually dressed like a prince, but when the whim took him he got into sport shirt, dungarees and sneakers and lounged through the streets, keeping in touch, as it were, with the life he'd known before fame struck. He'd browse in book stores, talk to panhandlers and sit in the bleachers and boo the Yankees. He had a man-next-door face and wasn't often recognized when he didn't want to be.

Spookie, Joy and I had wandered off the subject of the Monolithians and were discussing old movie stars when somebody banged a gong to get attention, then announced:

"Ladies and gentlemen, the President of the United States."

15 (AUG. 5, TUES.)

The deliberate aim at Peace very easily passes into its bastard substitute, Anaesthesia.

--Alfred North Whitehead

It was about one o'clock in the morning. I'd called Mae shortly after nine to tell her I was delayed and not to wait up for me. The party apparently was still going strong, but diffused. The Monolithians had provided a number of side rooms for their guests to retire to from time to time to recuperate and freshen up before returning for more food, drink and talk. It was no Roman orgy--there were no beds in the rooms, for one thing--but it gave every indication of lasting till dawn.

I was sitting with my feet up on a couch. I'd loosened my tie and was drinking black coffee. I was beat.

Joy Linx came in. "Better start pulling yourself together. The President wants to see you."

"Me? Now? Why?"

"He's in the mood, I guess," Joy said. "I am but the bearer of the tidings. Are you sober?"

"Disgustingly," I said. "Where is he?"

"I'll take you there. Some party, eh, Sam?"

I couldn't agree that the party was in any way spectacular except in length, so I merely grunted. It had been sort of fun before President Allison arrived, and I'd enjoyed meeting Spookie Masters. But after Gov got there it collapsed into a formal gathering of anticipatory groups standing awkwardly and waiting for the President to notice them. After an hour or so of this I had fled to one of the recuperation rooms.

My face was a bit bristly with one o'clock shadow, but my tie was back in place and I asked Joy if I looked presentable. She ran her hand through my hair, presumably to tidy a cow-lick, and said, "You'll do nicely. Good luck, Sam. I hear he's very easy to talk to."

It was kind of her; I _was_ feeling a bit nervous. I'd never had a great deal of respect, politically, for Gov Allison, but it's one thing to be a distant critic and another to be ushered into a Presence.

"Thanks," I said. "Which way?"

Joy led me down the hall and around a corner to a door outside which two men stood with seeming casualness. Secret Service, I supposed. They nodded and one of them opened the door for us when Joy said, "Mr. Sam Kent."

There was one other man in the room with the President. I recognized him as Rupert Marriner, the Secretary of State. Joy introduced me to Marriner, who introduced me to the President. Allison said, "How do you do," and I said something like, "It's a great pleasure, sir," and then Joy and Marriner left and I was alone with the President.

It was a medium-sized room equipped with a desk and straight chair, two easy chairs, a couch, a sideboard on which stood a big tray with bottles, glasses, an ice bucket and soda, a bookcase with sets of books uniformly bound (I noticed later that they were the complete works of Zane Grey and Edgar Wallace) and a Remington painting, or excellent reproduction, on the wall. Allison sat down in one of the easy chairs and invited me to take the other.

"Forgive the hour, Sam, but I wanted to see you here where we could have a private chat rather than in the White House for the first time, where there always seems to be something of an urgent nature coming up to take my attention and leaving me little time for the niceties, as I am sure you'll appreciate," the President said in one of his usual marathon sentences.

"Of course, sir," I said. "An excellent idea."

"First let me say this," he said: "There's no need to stand on formality with me in private. I'm a plain man, having been raised on a farm in Indiana and having mingled with all kinds in my calling, before politics, as a country lawyer. So when we're together alone--that is to say like now, in private--I want you to call me Gov. I've always been called Gov, though I never held the office of Governor, as you probably know (though I ran for it in, let me see, I think it was 1948, and was pretty soundly beaten by that fellow what's-his-name), and Gov I want to be to my friends and associates except when the formalities of the occasion so decree. Will you go along with that, Sam? It will make us both more comfortable and engender a closer working arrangement, I feel."

"Yes, sir," I said. "That's fine--Gov." I felt thoroughly uncomfortable and hitched around in my chair. I wished I'd shaved. Allison himself looked spruce and freshly pressed, and his pink cheeks showed no trace of recent growth.

"Why don't we both have a drink, Sam?" Allison said. "If you wouldn't mind pouring me a vodka and orange juice or something, and you have whatever you'd like, I think we'll break the ice a bit faster. I don't particularly like vodka, but a man in my job has to beware the breath of scandal, to coin a phrase, and I do mean breath."

He smiled, and I smiled back dutifully as I got up and went to the sideboard. I made him his orange blossom and took myself a healthy hooker of Scotch, with a bit of soda.

"Now we're relaxed," Allison said, smacking his lips over a big swallow. "It's good to kick your shoes off, so to speak, and settle down among friends. You're probably wondering how I happened to pick you for the job of press secretary. A natural curiosity. Let me say this, before I go any further: I've heard of you. Your work has come to my attention now and again and of course I have an acquaintance with the Washington people on the staff of World Wide--McEachern and Sylvester among others. I know you to be a professional, and I think I can pay you no higher compliment."

The President paused for another swallow of his orange blossom and I said, "Thank you, sir."

"Gov," he said, smiling.

"Gov," I said. "Yes, sir."

"Naturally, when Josh was forced by the exigencies of the situation to bow out, I looked around for someone to fill his shoes. You were very highly recommended to me. I decided on the spot that you would be the man, without even having to see you. You're a smart lad and maybe you can guess who recommended you."

"The aliens?"

"Right the first time." Allison took a long swallow and handed me his empty glass. "If you don't mind."

I finished my own and went to the sideboard and made us two fresh ones. Vodka, in addition to being odorless, is supposed to be tasteless, so I gave Gov a double one, hoping he wouldn't notice and that he'd drop a few clues to the state of interplanetary affairs. I made my second Scotch a weak one.

"Here you are, Gov," I said, handing him his glass. I was getting into the groove.

"That's the stuff, Sammy boy," the President said. He'd probably had a few before he saw me. "Now, as I told you, I'm in the habit of speaking plainly. I see no reason to change that habit with you, here, now this minute, especially since one of your jobs, as press secretary, is to project the Presidential image the way people want it seen, regardless of what I really am."

The President took a long drink and went on. "You're a bright boy, as I've mentioned, and you may have suspected the truth about me. Lots of people have, but, frankly, as long as the press goes on exercising its self-censorship and it doesn't come out in print until after I've gone--and that may not be too long now--I frankly don't give a damn. What I'm doing is coasting through my second term. Under the Constitution I can't be elected again, and let me tell you this: if anybody should propose re-amending it, I'll fight it."

"I think I know how you feel," I said, to give him time to take another drink.

"Of course you do," he said, having drunk. "Now let me go on. I've worked as hard as I had to for nearly six years, but now I'm tired. I'm 68 years old and there's never been a time in the last thirty years when I wasn't up to here in public office of one kind or another. It's a very tiring thing, that kind of responsibility, and I'm sick of it."

"I can understand that, sir," I said. I added quickly, "Gov."

"That's better," he said. He handed me his glass. "Not so much orange juice this time, Sam. Too much acid's bad for the system."

He went on talking while I fixed him his third drink. I decided to nurse mine along, though I went through the motions of freshening it.

"I've gathered a good team together," Allison said, "and from now on I'm going to let them do the work. They've been doing most of it anyhow. From now on I don't want to be bothered. I'll continue to make public appearances and sign the bills they don't want me to veto, but I'm damned if I'm going to aggravate my ulcers any more with problems. That's what you and the others are drawing your salaries for. It's enough, isn't it, what you're getting? Beats the World Wide pay scale, doesn't it? And that tax-free allowance is nice, too, isn't it?"

"Yes, sir," I said. "I've got no complaints, Gov."

"Good. That's your job then. Project the Presidential image and keep me off the hook. Do I make myself clear?"

"Absolutely. I understand perfectly." And don't let on, I added to myself, that the Monolithians are running things.

"Good. I'm sure I'm not shattering any of your illusions, as I said before. Every newsman worth his salt knows I've been easing off for the past year at least. I've reached the top. There's no place else to go. So I'm just going to sit in the big plush seat and try to enjoy it for the two years that are left. If I can last that out without busting a gut, I'll be seventy. Then maybe I can retire to a few more years of peace and quiet. Hire a ghost and sell my memoirs to _Life_ for half a million or so. At any rate, from here on out it's all downhill for me, Monolithians or no Monolithians."

"I understand, Gov, and I certainly think you deserve a rest. I'll do everything I can." I didn't say what that everything would be.

"I'm sure you will. Let's have a nightcap now, and go easy on the orange juice. I don't know if you've been told, but I'll expect to see you in Washington in a couple of days. Somebody'll fix up a house for you. You have a wife, haven't you?"

"Yes. She's--we're going to be parents."

"Fine, fine. I'll see that they fix up the house with air-conditioning. That Washington climate is murder. You'll have a secretary, too. It's all been arranged. That Mix girl. She's in the picture."

"Linx," I said. "Joy Linx."

"She's the one. She doesn't know it yet. You can tell her if you like. About the secretaryship. She knows about the bigger picture, as I've mentioned." Allison leaned back and took a long swallow. "Any questions? Any at all?"

I decided it was time to say it. "The truth is, Gov, that the Monolithians are running things, isn't it?"

The President smiled. "I was afraid for a minute that I'd made a mistake. But I can see now that you're really the bright boy they say you are. You're right. The Monolithians are running it. And if you're as perceptive as I hope you are, you'll understand that this is the way it has to be." He paused, then added, "For now, anyway."

He took another swallow of his drink, looking at me over the top of his glass.

"One last thing," Gov said. "If you have any major questions or problems when I'm not handy, there's an old friend of mine who thinks very much the way I do. He'll be glad to advise you. He's Mr. Avery. Remember the name: Avery. Here's his telephone number." Gov passed me a slip of paper with a New York number on it. "But don't call him unless it's really important."

He finished his drink and set the glass down decisively. I took this to mean that the interview was at an end and got up.

"Yes, sir," I said, "good night, sir," intuitively reverting to formality. I had guessed correctly. He replied, "Good night, Kent. See you in the Big House."

The President had had a few, but I felt that his choice of words for the Executive Mansion was deliberate.

16 (AUG. 6, WED.)

How many scruples in ten drams?

--_The Complete Arithmetic_, 1874

Mae didn't want to fly, so we left early and drove down to Washington. This made it possible to avoid whatever kind of official airport reception might have been arranged for me. We went right to our new house in Bethesda.

It was a beautiful little house, in a wooded section, and air-conditioned, as Gov had promised. The phone was in and Mae called Ann McEachern, Ian's wife, who had said she'd come over from Silver Spring as soon as we got in. Ann was there in half an hour and I left for the National Press Building. I wanted to see Ian and read the news before I checked in at the White House.

Reb Sylvester was on the desk and Ian had just got back from lunch. "Well, well," Ian said, "if it isn't Mr. Kent, back to see his old cronies. Congratulations, Sam."

"Thanks. But what's going on here?" The office was a mess. There was paper all over the floor and tags on the filing cabinets.

"We're moving--haven't you heard? _They're_ moving, that is. I quit this morning."

"What do you mean quit? Did you get drafted, too?"

"No such luck, if luck is the word I want. I just resigned. Tomorrow I start making the rounds to see if they need anybody at the AP or Reuters or the _Times_."

"Look, Ian," I said. "This is all too fast for me. How about going up to the Press Club and telling me about it over a drink?"

"Okay," he said, after the slightest of hesitations. "For old times' sake, okay."

Reb said as we went out, "Have one for me. I need it."

We ordered rum-and-cokes at the bar and I asked Ian, "Is Reb leaving, too?"

"He doesn't know what he's going to do yet. It's all happened pretty fast. One minute we're up there with the world's top news services and the next minute we're a government mouthpiece."

"You mean World Wide sold out?"

"Lock, stock and teletypes. It was one of those top-level decisions. Nobody knew about it till it was all over."

"But why?" I asked him. "They've got the Voice of America. What do they want with another propaganda outfit?"

"The way I see it, they want to propagandize the Americans. The Voice only goes overseas. Besides, it always takes a while for the facts to get around. In the meantime they'll have got their message across. By God, Sam, if I'd wanted to be a flack for somebody I'd have gone into P.R., and that nice money, a long time ago."

I took a slug of my rum coke and asked, "Where are they moving to? I don't see why they have to move at all."

Ian swallowed the rest of his drink and ordered two more. "I'm surprised you hadn't heard. Since you don't know, this will give you a laugh. World Wide is moving into the White House."

"The White House?"

"That's what I said. You'll be right at home. Door A, Executive Mansion, the President. Door B, his press agent, Sam Kent. Door C, World Wide. Nice, huh? Bye-bye free press." He took his new drink. "Bye-bye Constitution. I give you a toast, friend: Here's mud in the eye of the Bill of Rights."

I didn't drink. Neither did Ian.

"Well," I said.

"And well may you say 'Well,'" said Ian. "A pretty stinking kettle of fish, you might say."

I tried to look at it another way. "Maybe it's not so bad. Look at France Presse. That's government-subsidized."

"This isn't France," Ian said. "We happen to do things differently here."

"Vive l'Amérique," I said. "Once upon a time, eh?"

I toyed with a pretzel from a bowl on the bar. Ian watched me and said, "That pretzel is as straight as a string compared with what's been going on in the last couple of weeks." He picked up a pretzel of his own and bit it in two. "That is, if you want my opinion, Mr. Press Secretary."

I had always valued the opinion of Ian McEachern and I told him so. "I don't like it," I said. "I don't like it at all. But what can we do? I mean what can I do? You've already done it--you've quit, honest journeyman journalist that you are. But what can I do?"

"Don't laugh at my principles," Ian said. "They happen to be sincere."

"I wasn't laughing, Ian." I felt like patting him on the shoulder, but thought better of it. I swallowed half my drink instead. "I admire your integrity," I said, then took the sincerity out of it by adding, "if I can make such a statement in the bar of the National Press Club."

"Are you laughing at me again?" Ian looked hurt and I became absolutely sober.

"Ian," I said, "whatever happens, believe this: you're one of my favorite people. I'm just not in a position now to be as straightforward as you are. I just can't explain, but I want you to know that I haven't sold out to the aliens, and...."

Ian looked surprised. "I never thought you had. For heaven's sake, man, I haven't questioned your patriotism!"

He hadn't, of course. He didn't know all that I knew about the invisible links between the Monolithians and the President.

Suddenly I felt like getting very drunk. "Two more," I said to the bartender. To Ian I said, "You certainly don't owe anything to World Wide. You don't have to go back, do you? Let's get loaded, then get a bottle and go home to Mae and Ann and start all over again."

Ian solemnly finished his old drink. "Sam," he said, "you've had some great ideas in the past, but I am prepared to say that this is the greatest. Bartender, two more."

"I've already ordered two."

"Yes," Ian said. "But two and two make four. I still know that much. Drink up."

"When they don't make five," I said. "I already did. Finish yours and have a pretzel."

He picked up one of the twisted, baked, salted pieces of dough and looked at it critically. "It's an honest piece of work," Ian said. "I now perceive its simple integrity. I shall eat a bowlful while I get drunk with you. Forgive me, pretzel, while I consume you."

Inwardly pretzel-like, I forgave him and proceeded to drink a large number of rum cokes.

17 (AUG. 7, THURS.)

Every day, in every way, I am getting better and better.

--Émile Coué

I had one of those heartbeat hangovers where every pump of blood sent a hammer of pain to my head.

Mae was being very good and gave me coffee and eggs and tomato juice and aspirin, and I managed to shower and shave under my own power.

An expense-account taxi took me downtown to the White House. The guards at the gate glanced at my identification and waved me on. It should have been a proud moment--my first day on the job in the Executive Mansion--but I felt like hell. It wasn't only the hangover, which had begun to recede to a dull throb. It was the disenchantment with the whole picture. Instead of walking in with head high I sort of shuffled in, looking at my feet, and almost bumped into a man in the lobby.

It was Rod Harris of the AP. I'd never met him but I knew him by sight. If there was anybody I didn't want to see right this minute it was a representative of the free and untrammeled press.

"You're Sam Kent, aren't you?" Rod said, introducing himself. I gave him a hearty but phony handshake and said, "I hope you haven't got sixteen questions to throw at me all at once. I'd appreciate it if you'd give me a chance to find my way around first."

"Sure," Rod said. "No hurry at all. I just wanted to say congratulations, on behalf of the White House Correspondents Association."

"That's very nice of you. Thanks. I appreciate it."

"One thing, though," Rod said. "I might as well say it and get it over with. We held a meeting last night and voted to drop World Wide from membership. Nothing personal, and we were sorry as hell to have to do it, but--well, I think you understand."