By W.M. Dean
[The novel is set in the 1970s of Watergate. Chapter 2. “Making It Happen,” appeared last month.]
The taxi brought Austin and Melissa to the door of a well-kept old brownstone on the east side of Central Park.
Melissa looked up at the house and along the tree-lined street. “I thought you might live in a place like this…I’m as curious as anybody was today to find out just what you do—”
“You postponed your bus trip back to the Pocanos because you were wondering whether I really have a camera?”
They stepped through the heavy carved oak door. Inside, the air smelled of leather and wood. Persian wool carpeted the hall and climbed the broad staircase straight ahead.
Austin hung his hat next to a half-dozen others on a walnut hat-knob board, fixed to the wall next to a full-length mirror.
A door on the right opened. Out stepped a small, energetic black man of indeterminate age from fifty to seventy-five. He wore a vest and pants of a smartly cut pinstripe suit, which, like his round horn-rimmed glasses, appeared to be some years old. His white shirt gleamed in the magenta darkness of the hall.
“The…prospective client is here.”
“Early?” Austin looked at Melissa.
“This is my assistant, George Washington.”
Melissa might have been Monalisa. Her lips curled in ever so subtle bemusement.
Austin looked meaningfully at George and nodded toward the second door, next to the one behind George.
“Shall I entertain – Miss McKenna from the talk show, I believe? – while you—?”
“Ah yes, very good. Would you, my dear?”
Melissa frowned, but then smiled and walked through the second doorway ahead of George.
A few moments later George returned through the first doorway with the prospective client.
Austin was conscious of the contrast between himself and the Vice-President, whose gray sharkskin suit was hard and crisp. He was freshly barbered – shaved, trimmed, and manicured. The fragrance of bay rum brought an inward chuckle to Austin – whereas the Vice-President looked a lot like a horse, Austin probably smelled a lot like one.
“Hello, Mr. Froth. I arrived early and had the pleasure of seeing you on television. If I had missed The Simon Sample Show today, I might never have had another chance to see it.”
“It’s an honor, Mr. Vi—”
Melissa appeared around the edge of the second door. “Oh, I wondered—”
Austin narrowed his eyes and stared at her. She must have wondered whether his prospective client was female.
Melissa turned to go back and bumped into George, who looked apologetically at Austin.
Austin and the Vice-President mounted the stairs.
“Mr. Washington didn’t get to see the best part, when Simon Sample left and you took over. He had to go to the bathroom.”
Austin looked at the Vice-President with the expression of a fish.
“Is that what Sample had to do too?” The Vice-President’s grin broke into a wry smile that revealed his great teeth.
“I believe so. Very irregular.”
The Vice-President was shown into a spacious apartment that transported him two centuries into the neo-classical past.
“This delectable nymph coyly running from the lusty swain was painted from memory by Boucher. A tactile artist.” Austin wriggled his fingers.
“Your collection has little in common with the one at the White House.”
“I don’t go in much for early American portraiture.”
“Oh, it has more than portraits—”
“I was facetious. I’ve never been in the White House.”
“Oh, would you like me to arrange a tour?” The Vice-President was enthusiastic, but he immediately became thoughtful: “I’d like to go on one too, if it could be arranged.”
Austin conducted the Vice-President through rooms whose paintings and sculptures commanded attention in part because each of them was specially lighted.
They stopped in the library. It was lined all around with shelves of books, many bound in leather. They rose from the brown sheepskin rug to the beginning of the curve at the edge of the tall Victorian ceiling.
Austin’s French Empire desk and chair stood in front of the only window. Two Madison arm chairs, a cushioned settee, and a large wooden work table with several straight-backed chairs stood asymmetrically about the room. Opened books and papers cluttered the table top.
The Vice-President sat down underneath a shelf of New York Times indexes. Austin sat at his desk and took out a yellow pad and a Mont Blanc Diplomat, his fat, black cigar of a fountain pen.
The Vice-President wasn’t so talkative now. He scrutinized Austin’s face, then looked reverently about the room.
Austin was in no hurry. This moment was as good as any other. He breathed deeply and imagined himself a few stone heavier than he already was. He was in this chair at precisely this time, and everything existed now that had ever existed or would ever exist. Whatever this man had come to him for, he would either get it or not get it.
“I’m going to be frank with you, Mr. Froth. I’m not satisfied with the way my job is going. There’s a lot more I could be doing for this country, but the President wants everything – wants to do everything. He won’t let me help. He won’t even use me against the opposition, the way Dixon used Torpedo.”
“You want me to talk with the President?”
“Is that what you’d suggest?”
“I’m not sufficiently informed to suggest anything. I’m only trying to learn what you want.”
“Oh. Well, I don’t know what you should do—”
“You don’t have to tell me what I should do. I’ll think of what to do after I know what you want.”
“But you asked me whether I wanted you to talk with the President.”
“Yes, I wanted to know what you wanted.”
“But you don’t want me to tell you what to do?”
“That’s right.” Austin examined the gold stripes around his fountain pen.
“I think of what to do, and I charge a modest fee for the thinking – much less than it’s worth actually. But I charge more for the doing, and there’s where I earn my living. If you retained me by paying a cogitation fee, I would be professionally obligated to do what I thought, if you wanted me to do it. But if you try to avoid the cogitation fee by suggesting your own ideas, then I’m not professionally bound. I may, that is, decline to carry out your ideas.”
“Huh?”
“On the other hand, if I agreed to some idea of yours, I’d be spared the relatively underpaid task of thinking up ideas myself. What are your ideas?”
“I don’t have any ideas.” The Vice-President was frantic.
“Ah, so. Then you had better tell me what you want. But remember, I’m not professionally bound to accept you as a client – no money has crossed hands. In fact, even when money has crossed hands, I make no guarantees. Cogitation may or may not yield any ideas. I subcontract, you see, and I have limited control over the subcontractress.”
“The subcontractress? I thought you operated confidentially.”
“My muse. She never speaks a word to anybody but me. But sometimes she won’t speak even to me. It’s those times that necessitate the no-guarantee clause.”
“Well, couldn’t you give me a money-back guarantee? No idea, no fee?”
“No. A client has the upper hand. If he wants me to carry out an idea, I’m bound to•do so. But he isn’t bound to have me do so. If a client didn’t want me to carry out my idea, his ready excuse would be that he didn’t like it. He could argue that he didn’t like it because it wasn’t any good. And from there it would be a short hop to the conclusion that it was no idea at all. You see what that amounts to?”
“But a client wouldn’t do that. He’d want you to do the thing you thought of, so he’d get results.”
“You might be surprised, Mr. Vice-President, how much opinion differs on whether an action would or would not achieve a desired result. Have you heard the story of the fat queen? She asked her advisers how she could lose weight. She beheaded the adviser who suggested she eat a chocolate nougat twenty minutes before each meal. But later, out of curiosity, she tried his idea. In two weeks, she lost fifteen pounds – the chocolate nougats spoiled her appetite.”
The Vice-President nodded gravely.
Austin abruptly stood up. He clapped his hands and folded them together. “I say, let’s have something. Coffee? It’s a good mind-straightener. Not recommended for musing, but not bad for problem definition.”
They went down to the kitchen. Austin didn’t encourage conversation, to avoid attracting Melissa again.
The kitchen was very modern. A whole corner was glassed, in marked contrast to the rest of the house. Generous fluorescent light bounced joyously around and glanced off the stainless steel, the copper, and the high-gloss white paint.
Austin set the water kettle on the range and ground a handful of beans.
“Colombian Maragogipe.” He held out the grounds for the Vice-President to sniff.
The Vice-President moved his head back, laughed uncomfortably, then moved in for the smell.
“Umm. Nice.”
Austin dumped the grounds into a conical filter.
“I bet you work here a lot.”
Austin nodded. “My muse gets high in here. All the light. But thinking of ideas is play – the work is avoiding treating it as work. Also, deferring judgment is work, till you acquire the knack.”
“Your library— Isn’t research work?”
“Yes, but I can produce more new ideas by combining the facts I already have than by researching new facts…Take the kaleidoscope. Drop in one more piece of colored glass—it doesn’t do much, right? Now, twist the cylinder. What do you see?”
“I see” – the Vice-President laughed with delight – “I don’t have a kaleidoscope, but I really do see lots of new patterns.”
Austin scalded the glass container and inserted the filter. He poured water over the grounds and into the cups to scald them.
The Vice-President squeezed a coffee bean and seemed surprised he couldn’t crush it. He became serious.
“Now I’ll tell you what I want, Mr. Froth. And I have no intention of depriving you of your cogitation fee.” He glared at Austin. “What does your muse do with the money anyway?”
Austin took the Vice-President’s tone for evidence that he’d made a decision. “Let’s take our coffee back to the library.”
“I want people to know who I am…That girl downstairs – she didn’t even recognize me.”
“It’s just as well. I want our relationship kept confidential.”
“That’s fine, but why couldn’t she have said ‘Wow!’ and asked for my autograph?” The Vice-President got up and paced back and forth.
He stopped and raised a pointed finger. “I want to have a rating.”
“What kind of rating do you want? You want people to like you. I suppose you really want to be President? This is your play to get ready for the next election?”
“No, no, no! Absolutely not!”
“Don’t bullshit me, Mr. Vi— Hell, may I call you Fred?”
“Of course. I’m sorry I didn’t—“
“Think nothing of it. Call me Austin.”
Austin pounded his fist on the desk. “Most politicians affirm or deny according to the effect they want, not according to the facts. But the public is going to believe what it wants to believe. No politician, advertiser, salesman, or promoter makes anybody believe anything. He simply focuses events to sharpen the image that people, with their varicolored glasses, are going to see anyway.”
“What about when a salesman lies?” The Vice-President was tense. “Or, a politician. In all honesty I have to admit that some of them lie.”
“Oh, come on, Fred!” Austin chuckled.
“Well, okay then. What about that?”
“In the first pl ace, not that many people believe a politician anymore. Politics is a dying sport, though the politician doesn’t seem to be an endangered species. In the second place, those who do believe all want to believe all. They want to believe everything the President says, for instance. Can we blame the President for helping them believe what they want to believe? In a nation of skeptics, lying wouldn’t be profitable. But skepticism isn’t popular in America – it takes too much effort. People either believe or quit listening altogether.”
Austin stood up and stretched. “Bah. Theory! My services don’t include lectures on the theoretical foundations of my art.”
He sat back down. “Come on, Fred, level with me – don’t you want to be President?”
“No, you’ve got to believe me. You must do nothing that would promote a Noemann candidacy.”
“Anything that increases your popularity promotes your candidacy. That’s the way it works in America. You’re the Vice-President. Thirteen Vice-Presidents have become President.”
Austin could see that the Vice-President was becoming ill. “On the other hand, there’ve been twenty-eight that haven’t. As long as the President finishes his term, you have no constitutional duty to become President. You can become as popular as you want.”
“Really?” Fred brightened. “As popular as I want?”
“Exactly. The only thing, of course, is that you have to work within the world as it is. Everything has a price – something you have to give up to get what you want. Wanting something means being willing to pay the price. You’ll pay as much for popularity as you want – no more, no less. As a result, you’ll be just as popular as you want – no more, no less.”
“There’s a cold-blooded logic to that.” Fred’s eyes hardened. He seemed to be willing to pay.
“I need to know something else.” Austin examined Fred coolly. “Why do you come to me? You’re an In. Why don’t you use the leverage of your office to promote yourself? An In in the White House has any number of ways to get in the news: travel, speeches, lifting dogs by the ears—”
Fred’s unamused laugh interrupted the recitation. “I’m an In, but when it comes to the White House, I’m under it, not in it. The President opposes any following I might win. That’s something you’re going to have to deal with. It’s part of the problem.”
“Hmmm. I was only partly aware of that.” Austin’s eyes focused on a far distance for a few moments.
“Okay. I’ll accept you as a client. The cogitation fee is five thousand dollars.”
“Yes, my wife told me. A bargain, you say? – You should say ‘only five thousand.’…Anyway, she’s paying.”
Austin pursed his lips and slowly nodded his head at the revelation. “You can be even more popular than you want with someone else paying.”
“What was that?”
“Nothing really, just a straightforward deduction from the good old cold-blooded logic.”
“What does the five thousand buy me? My wife spoke of miraculous schemes, master strokes, fanciful designs. What do these flowery phrases mean?”
Austin enjoyed the epithets. “I’m glad you aren’t taken in by headlines. The five thousand buys you no guarantees.”
“But customers have been happy?”
“By and large. Apparently your wife has known some of my clients.”
“She said you hadn’t promoted any politicians before, but she seems to think you can help me.”
“I make no promises. For thirty days I research, hypothesize, fantasize, brainstorm, brood, muse, simulate, and synthesize.”
“All that?”
Austin smiled. “At the end of thirty days, we meet again. We discuss my better ideas. If you tell me to go ahead, I am professionally bound to do so, and you will pay me in the neighborhood of fifty thousand dollars, plus expenses. Or will your wife pay me?”
Fred scowled. He took out his billfold and handed Austin five crisp engravings of Grover Cleveland.
“You came unescorted, of course?”
“Of course.” Fred was sour. “You’d have to point me out to the Secret Service.”
Austin called a taxi and walked down with the Vice-President.
T0 Austin, the Vice-President seemed a bundle of desires and fears, a suggestible man who didn’t understand the relationship between what he wanted and how much he was willing to pay.
Austin doubted the Vice-President would have come to him on his own, even if he had his own money. What did Mrs. Noemann want?
| Copyright © 2015 by W.M. Dean |
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