Acts of Mercy

Nine

The conference room, adjacent to the President’s study in the manor house, was a large, oblong enclosure with a stone fireplace at one end. On Sunday morning a podium was set at the other end, and in place of the broad circular conference table which normally sat in the center of the room were several centered rows of folding chairs for the press. Another row of chairs reserved for the staff was arranged along the west side wall, facing the press rows.

Justice sat near the far end of the staff row and looked at the thirty or more reporters who crowded the room. Most of them were from the wire services, the television networks, and California’s large daily newspapers; they stood or sat now in small groups, talking among themselves, waiting as Justice was-It was just ten o’clock-for the announcement that the President was ready to begin.

Their voices were muted and interrogative, creating a low rumble of noise that seemed to reverberate off the redwood walls and the high, beamed ceiling. Justice knew they were asking each other the same questions he had asked himself during the night. Why had the President called this press conference, the first at The Hollows in nearly two years? Was he going to make general statements of no particular news interest, or was he going to drop some sort of bombshell?

He turned his head, glanced over at the study door; it remained closed. Three seats to his left, Maxwell Harper was also looking at the door, looking at it and rubbing his hands back and forth along his trouser legs. There was an air of nervous expectancy about him that Justice had never seen before.

Justice’s face was damp under the hot room lights; he used the sleeve of his jacket to wipe it dry, to dislodge grains of mucus that clung to his eye corners. Tension and lack of sleep had made him logy. He had spent most of last night patrolling the grounds, maintaining a personal vigil that yielded nothing out of the ordinary-and worrying, worrying, because it had become obvious as time passed and there was no tightening of security that the President had not believed him after all.

Augustine had only been patronizing him on the patio, not in an unkind way but patronizing him nonetheless, as if he thought Justice were suffering from hallucinations. Justice could understand his skepticism-without substantiating proof he might have been skeptical himself if their roles had been reversed-but the fact remained that nothing was being done. The responsibility for the safety of the President and those close to him still rested solely on his shoulders.

He had considered going to the First Lady, telling her of his fears as he had told the President. But if she didn’t share those suspicions, if he had misread her motives in calling Director Saunders here to The Hollows, he would only succeed in alarming and even alienating her. Still, he desperately needed an ally, and if there was one person who could persuade the President to take action, it was Mrs. Augustine. Maybe The study door opened in that moment and Frank Tanaguchi stepped through and over to the podium. The babble of voices subsided instantly. “If you’ll all take your places, please,” Tanaguchi said, “the President is about ready to begin.”

Those reporters still standing took chairs. When they were all seated, Tanaguchi returned to the study for half a minute, then came out a second time and claimed a chair for himself. The room was completely silent now-an anticipatory, almost eager hush.

It was another sixty seconds before the President appeared; the First Lady was at his side. He wore a suit and tie, as he seldom did at The Hollows, and carried a small sheaf of notes. To Justice, his presence seemed a commanding one; but when he put the notes down on the podium and gripped its edges, his hands might have been trembling a little. Mrs. Augustine stepped behind him to his right, and although there was a chair behind her she did not sit down. She folded her hands at her waist and her eyes did not once leave the President. Her expression was unreadable.

Augustine cleared his throat. “Thank you all for coming, ladies and gentlemen,” he said in clear, strong tones. “I won’t keep you long because the statement I have to make is brief and I will take no questions at this time. When I return to Washington later this week I will call a major press conference at which I will respond to all questions pertaining to the statement I am about to make, and to other matters as well. Please bear with me on this.”

As a body the reporters seemed to lean forward.

The President cleared his throat again. “It is my belief,” he said then, “that I have been a good President, that in some ways I have taken the office beyond politics and instilled in it a frank humanism generally lacking in previous administrations. It seems, however, that many of you and many of your colleagues, as well as the opposition party, certain members of my own party, and a large segment of the country-at-large do not concur with these personal beliefs. So be it. I make no apologies, I offer no excuses for anything I have done or said during my term in office. But neither do I wish to endure the continued disfavor of the evident majority of my fellow American; neither do I wish to foment divisiveness by pursuing at length the paths of endeavor which my heart and my love for this nation have told me were the right ones.”

Surprise and excitement rippled through the crowd. Justice’s chest felt tight, as if a hand had bunched all the muscles there into a ligature. He was aware of Harper sitting on the edge of his chair, hands fisted whitely on his knees; aware of the tense expressions on the faces of the other aides. Behind the President, the First Lady still stood immobile and emotionless.

Augustine raised his eyes from his notes, and as if reciting from painful memory he said, “That being the case, ladies and gentlemen, after long and prayerful consideration I have decided to withdraw my name as a candidate for reelection to the presidency. Under no circumstances will I seek or accept my party’s nomination at the forthcoming convention in Saint Louis. I intend during the final seven months of my administration to devote all my time and all my energies to the execution of the duties of my office, with particular reference to domestic affairs…”

There was more, but Justice did not hear it. A sense of numbness had come over him; he seemed to be hearing the President’s voice as if from a great height or distance. He saw the reporters moving in their seats like people straining against invisible bonds, ready to surge upright as soon as they were released. He saw Mrs. Augustine close her eyes, open them again-her only movement, her only reaction. He saw Harper sitting in such a rigid posture that he might have undergone some sort of seizure. He saw the President finish speaking and stack his notes neatly in front of him, looking both melancholy and relieved, like a minister who has just delivered a poignant eulogy.

He saw all of these people, all of these things, without really seeing them, and he thought: No. Just that one word. No.

The President gathered up his notes and started to turn from the podium. One of the reporters, unable to restrain himself, called out, “Mr. President, you can’t just deliver a statement as momentous as that without-”

“No questions at this time,” Augustine said firmly. “I made that quite clear.” And with the First Lady at his side, he walked out quickly through the study door.

As soon as he was gone the room came alive with swarming movement. Everyone was on his feet: Harper and Dougherty and Tanaguchi and the other aides hurrying to the study door to escape the reporters, some of the press milling around and others rushing for the outside exit. But Justice only sat immobile in his chair, listening to their voices pound against his ears, the words indistinguishable but the sense of them reaching him clearly.

“He did it by God never thought he’d actually do it the pressure finally got to him it finally wore him down never thought he’d do it…”