A President In Peril

Chapter Twenty-Two V₄ I₁ S₁ A₁ G₂ E₁ (n) the face, esp. of a human being, usually with reference to shape, features, expression, etc; countenance

I heard talking, coming from far off. Whoever it was, they seemed to be discussing someone. I tried to listen to them, but the sound kept fading in and out like a radio struggling to pick up a station with a weak signal. I realized then that I was lying on my back, and I tried to get up but couldn’t. I had no strength, none whatever. I seemed weighed down.

“Oh, please don’t try to sit up.” It was a female voice, soothing, concerned. “He’s waking up,” she said.

“I’ll wait if you don’t mind. But don’t bother him, I’m not in any hurry,” answered a husky voice I vaguely knew I had heard before but couldn’t seem to remember where.

I tried hard to open my eyes, but they kept wanting to shut. Finally with effort, I was able to keep them from closing. The first thing I saw was a white ceiling with a circular fluorescent light. The second thing, looking down at me, was a strong, square, blurry face that registered concern. Each time I blinked, the focus became sharper, and I finally recognized the visage.

“Hello, Snap, how are you doing?” asked Chief of Detectives Fergus Sean Fahey.

“I... what? I’m... wh-where?”

“Cook County Hospital,” Fahey answered, and as I tried to move, I realized my left arm was trapped by something. I couldn’t move it. I felt a knifing pain in my left side.

Now I saw another person in the room, a middle-aged nurse with a concerned expression. It was the other voice I had heard. “Your arm is in a cast, sir,” she said in a soothing tone. “And you have sutures in your chest.”

“Where the bullet went in,” Fahey said, pulling up a chair and sitting next to the bed.

“Bullet! That hotel room! It’s... what time is it?” I yelped, wincing in pain.

“Please take it easy, Mr. Malek,” the nurse urged. “You’ve been through surgery and were unconscious for more than twelve hours.”

“Twelve hours! Then—”

“It’s ten A.M. Tuesday,” Fahey supplied, then turned to the nurse. “Do you mind if I stay long enough to fill him in on what’s happened?”

“As long as he doesn’t get excited again,” she answered in a serene tone. “The doctor should be coming to see him in just a little while.”

“All right, Snap,” Fahey said. “First off, I have now had the privilege of meeting your lovely wife, although how you managed to get her I’ll never know. She was with you all night, ever since I had a car pick her up at home and bring her here. I sent her down to the cafeteria a little while ago to get some breakfast and coffee. She’s totally exhausted.”

My head was gradually clearing. “Fergus, tell me... what happened. Is Truman—?”

“The president should have left town by now,” he said, looking at the clock on the wall. “Gone on to yet another campaign stop.”

“Then nothing happened after...”

“Plenty happened. I don’t know how much you remember, but—”

“I remember knocking down the door to that hotel room and seeing Becker. That’s his name. He works for a printing company. Then he shot me someplace and I tried to hit him with a baseball bat.” I moved my right hand gingerly across my left side.

“You did hit him, thank God,” Fahey said. “Here’s how we’ve reconstructed the scene: This Becker — more about him in a minute — was part of The New Reich bunch, all of whom we’ve rounded up, including a printing executive named Jones whom Becker worked for. He, Becker, rented a room at that Argo firetrap on West Madison. How you found him there I’d love to know.

“Anyway, Becker was an Army sharpshooter in the Pacific Theater during the war, winning a batch of medals for valor and such. But somehow he turned bad and became part of this Nazi bunch, apparently because he hated Jews. We haven’t found out why yet, and maybe never will. As you probably figured, he was in that room to kill Truman when the motorcade came by. He then figured to make a fast exit from a back door of the hotel in the midst of all the excitement and confusion of the shooting.”

“But he never got off a shot?”

“Only at you. Seems you had enough strength left, or maybe momentum, to lunge at him and smash him across the face with that baseball bat.”

“I remember running toward him with the bat, but that’s all.”

“I’m not surprised, given your wounds. But the doctor is the one to fill you in on that. Anyway, after you cold-cocked the shooter, he fell backward out of the open window with his rifle clutched in his hand and landed on the sidewalk about ten feet below, just missing a couple of winos. Broke his back. That’s on top of the black eye, the broken nose, and a couple of teeth knocked out, probably courtesy of your home-run swing.”

“Is he... dead?”

Fahey shook his head. “Nope, fortunately for us. He’s in this very hospital, and we, along with the FBI and the Secret Service, have learned all kinds of interesting things from him. It’s amazing how easily a man in great pain will part with his secrets.”

“So the motorcade went on by?”

“Yes, although it speeded up when it passed the Argo Hotel. Two uniformed men were on that block of Madison when Becker went flying out of the window as a result of your baseball bat. One patrolman stayed with him, the other one ran up to the room, figuring there might be someone else in there with a gun. He found you lying on the floor, unconscious and bleeding, with the bat on the floor next to you. Given the shape your left arm was in, I’d have to figure you only used your right one to swing that Louisville Slugger, but you must have had enough behind the swing.”

“I guess so. I sure as hell can’t remember.”

“Well, the Feds will probably want to have a chat with you.”

“No doubt.”

“I don’t want to take much more of your time, and I know this fine lady—” He gestured toward the nurse. “—says you need your rest. But I have to ask you just one more thing.”

“Shoot.”

“What made you go into that Argo dump in the first place?”

I told him about hearing the supposed New Reich code word and how Catherine and I reversed it to be Argo. “But we finally gave up, figuring we were barking up the wrong tree.”

“Did you, now?” Fahey said, his tone oozing doubt.

“Honestly, Fergus, I’m giving it to you straight. When I made my way along Madison Street working on the feature story that will never run, I had given up any hope of figuring out how, or even if, The New Reich would try to kill Truman.”

The chief still looked doubtful.

“Catherine and I had gone through the phone directory looking up businesses called Argo, but the hotel wasn’t listed because it recently changed its name from something else, I can’t remember what anymore, something to do with Regal, I think. There had been a fire some time back, apparently set by one of the roomers, and the owner wanted to make a fresh start, or so the night clerk told me.”

Fahey snorted. “Those flophouses change their names all the time, but a skunk by any other name still stinks.”

I started to laugh, but it hurt and the laugh came out as a cough. “Very poetic, Fergus. You Irish all have a literary bent.”

He got up to leave. “Well, there’s one thing I don’t have to worry about for a while,” he said.

“What’s that?”

“You getting into trouble. You can’t do much bundled up like that.” He threw me a lopsided grin, popped a homburg on his head, and walked out.

Fahey hadn’t been gone for more than a couple of minutes when a tall balding gent wearing wire-rimmed glasses and a white coat walked in clutching a clipboard to his chest.

“Ah, good to see you awake and alert,” he said with a smile. “I’m Dr. Gilliam.”

“Are you the one who has... worked on me?”

“The very same,” he said cheerfully. “You have been though a lot these last few hours, Mr. Malek.”

“Tell me about it. I’m just getting caught up on all that’s happened. As I guess you know, I’ve been pretty much out of it since getting shot.”

He nodded. “Well, to start with, the rifle bullet tore through your left forearm, shattering both bones, the radius and the ulna. They got ripped up pretty badly. That bad news was also good news, however, because your arm was slightly raised, possibly in self-protection, and the bones slowed and altered the trajectory of the bullet, which was likely headed for your heart. It ended up lodged between two of your lower ribs, doing almost no damage there.”

“And the bullet is...?”

“Out. You can have it as a memento, if you like. That’s the reason for the sutures on your left side, which no doubt will give you some discomfort for a while.”

“And my arm?”

The doctor’s expression became somber. “That is much more problematic at the moment,” he said, spacing his words. “We have tried to set the breaks, which were severe, but it remains to be seen how well they will knit. As you can see, you’re in a cast. I assume you’re right-handed?”

“Yes.”

He nodded, and the unspoken message I picked up was, “It’s a good thing.”

“I must say, I’ve gotten better news,” I told him, forcing a smile to show there were no hard feelings.

“I’m sure you have, Mr. Malek. But given what might have happened, I would have to say the news all in all is very good.”

All in all, I couldn’t disagree with him.

The doctor left and I found myself alone in the ward, the other bed being currently vacant. I tried to adjust myself, but the pain in my left side prevented me from much movement. As I lay back, exhausted from the effort, Catherine appeared in the doorway, tears in her eyes.

As she came over and leaned down to kiss me, I began to tear up myself, but not from the pain.