Acts of Mercy

Eleven

It was Maxwell Harper’s custom, on his way home from the White House, to stop for dinner at one of Washington’s better restaurants; on Wednesday evening he chose Le Consulat, in the Embassy Row Hotel. Seated in their elegant dining room, he ordered a dry martini with lemon peel and scanned the menu without finding anything that appealed to him because he was not particularly hungry. He settled finally on a Caesar salad and then sat sipping his drink and looking out at the old-Washington facades of the buildings that lined Massachusetts Avenue.

He felt bothered and fretful. The day had been filled with a series of worrisome developments, and together they added dimension to the widening pattern of administration crisis. The discussion with Augustine this morning, the President’s apparent agreement with his analysis of the situation and then the abrupt termination of the meeting, as if Augustine understood what was happening around him but refused to accept the fact that it was having a pernicious effect on him. The statistics released by the Department of Labor that unemployment had reached 7.4 percent nationwide. The damned S-1 bill that was now out of committee. The latest Harris poll on the Israeli gaffe. Augustine’s inability to cope with the Cheyenne Indian demands for improvement of their lot, and the growing and militant support of other Amerinds, as evidenced by what had been happening to Vice-President Conroy in the West-all of which pointed toward a nasty domestic incident that would destroy the President’s credibility on the human rights issue. The increasing hostility of the media. The increasing strength of Kineen and his coalition, not only in the primaries but with special-interest groups; there was a still-unconfirmed report circulating that the AFL–CIO was strongly considering support of his candidacy.

And then there was Claire Augustine.

With all those other major problems, it was probably illogical that he should be concerned about her; but the fact remained that he had not been able to get her out of his mind since their brief dialogue in the Oval Study. Was she or was she not what she had always seemed to be? Could she also be responsible in some way, directly or indirectly, for the President’s weakening posture? Damn it, what went on inside that striking blonde head of hers?

The waiter arrived with a silver cart and began preparing the Caesar salad. Harper watched him distractedly, began to eat the same way when the finished salad was placed in front of him.

The problem was, he thought, Claire Augustine was a total enigma. A completely private person who seemed able to keep her public and personal lives so segregated that nothing of the real woman revealed itself. Except, perhaps, to Augustine, and of course Harper had never discussed her with the President; it was not a liberty even a personal advisor could take with the Chief Executive.

She was the daughter of a lawyer, now deceased, who had worked for the Dan O’Connell political machine in Albany, New York; she had led a somewhat sheltered childhood, having spent much of her time in private boarding schools; she had been a scholarship student at Vassar, had graduated with honors in political science and had promptly landed a secretarial post with a representative from Delaware, moving to Washington at about the same time Augustine was closing out his third term as a northern California congressman; she had been a popular figure at Washington parties, because of her beauty and her intelligence, but the rumor was that she had spurned all romantic advances, making it clear that she was a dedicated career woman.

But then she had met Augustine at one of those social gatherings-at that time he had been considered one of Washington’s more eligible bachelors-and there was no way of telling if she had simply fallen in love with him or had seen in him a means to further her own ambitions. In either case, they had had one of those whirlwind courtships that culminated in marriage after four short months.

Augustine’s father, Philip-a millionaire who had made his fortune as a pioneer in television electronics and who had served one term as governor of California in the mid-1940s-had died of a brain embolism during that courtship, just as Augustine was preparing to mount his campaign for reelection. Philip had been the architect of his son’s political career, and it had seemed to many that Augustine might be in trouble without that strong-willed guidance. Despite her youth, however, Claire had taken an active role in the campaign, and it was generally conceded that she had made the difference between victory and defeat in a close race decided by less than ten thousand votes. Two years later she had worked tirelessly to help him win a senatorial seat-and reelection to the senate twice after that-and she had been instrumental in his successful drive for the presidency.

From all indications their marriage, too, was a happy one. When they were together publicly they interacted with ease and grace and affection, Claire remaining somewhat in the background but in such a way that her presence was always felt. The difference in their ages, as well as the difference in their emotional tendencies, appeared to be insignificant. Even the fact that they had not had any children seemed to have been by mutual consent; there had never been a hint of any incapacity in either of them.

So the upshot was that their two decades of marriage had a storybook kind of gloss: the devoted wife assisting her husband in every way to achieve his goals; the indomitable spirit and faith of the woman behind the successful man. If she had ever done anything or said anything that was in any way a negative influence on Augustine, there was no intimation of it.

And yet Harper could not quite shake the feeling that there was something different about her recently, that that difference might be working against the President. It was nothing to which he could point conclusively. An impression, that was all; a word here, a phrase there, an action or reaction that was somehow inconsistent. Still, those were things he could have misinterpreted.

He wondered if he was imagining a problem where none existed. If he was guilty of witch-hunting. It could be that: the status quo getting to him, leading him into illogical speculation Or was he imagining a problem because at some inner level he wanted one to exist between the President and the First Lady?

That thought was unsettling, but only for a moment. He was attracted to Claire Augustine, he could not deny that-and bewildered and fascinated by her. But the attraction was not that deep or that strong; it would never distort his thinking or affect his intellectual control. He was above that sort of childish emotionalism; he was incapable of it.

Harper pushed the thought away, pushed what remained of his salad away and called for the check. What he had to do, he told himself firmly, was to concentrate on facts, on finding positive measures to counteract the crisis. Action, consequence, machinery.

Before things got out of hand.

Before it was too late.