Missionary Stew

Chapter 36

Nine days after Thanksgiving, a Saturday, Draper Haere awoke in his enormous room at his usual time of 6:30 A.M. Hubert, the cat, was perched on Haere’s chest, staring at him balefully. The cat was often there when Haere awoke. “Morning,” Haere said. Hubert purred loudly.

Haere pushed Hubert aside, got out of bed, moved to the kitchen, plugged in the Bunn coffeemaker, and headed for the large bathroom. When he came out nine minutes later he was showered, shaved, and dressed in gray slacks, tweed jacket, and blue oxford-cloth shirt, but no tie. It was his Saturday costume and, in Haere’s opinion, almost daringly informal.

After two cups of coffee and three cigarettes, Haere donned a denim apron and cracked two eggs into a pan in which the butter was already sizzling. Just as the eggs were beginning to fry, the downstairs buzzer sounded. Haere went to the intercom, pushed the button, and asked, “Who is it?”

A woman’s voice replied in Spanish, but Haere couldn’t quite understand what she said. He pushed the unlocking button and went back to his eggs. A few seconds later there was a soft knock at the door. Haere went to the door and opened it. There were two of them,neither more than seventeen years old. They were also a little plump and fairly pretty and completely terrified.

“Senor Haere?” one of them said.

Haere nodded. The one who spoke thrust a brown paper sack at him.

“One moment,” Haere said in Spanish, hurried back to his eggs, and flipped them over with a spatula. He returned to the two young women and said, “Please,” indicating that they should come in. They came into the enormous room warily and stared at everything with wonder.

Haere opened the paper sack and took out the spiral notebook. He flipped it open to the first page and read: “Draper: Please pay the bearer (or bearers) $2,000 for this — or more, if you like their looks. Regards, Morgan Citron.”

Haere turned another page and saw that it was written in French. He flipped a few more pages. It was all French. Because of his almost nonexistent French, Haere said, “Shit,” smiled at the two young women, said, “One moment,” in Spanish again, turned, went back into the bathroom, and removed $2,000 from the false bottom in the medicine cabinet. He started out of the bathroom, but stopped, turned back, added another $500, and went to his desk, where he slipped the sheaf of bills into an envelope.

He went over to the two still-terrified young women, bowed slightly, said thank you very much in Spanish, and presented the envelope to the plainer of the pair. She looked inside the envelope and giggled. She showed it to her friend. The friend also giggled. Draper Haere smiled, went to the door, and opened it. The two young women started through it, but the prettier of the two grasped Haere’s hand, raised it to her lips, and kissed it. Haere told them to go with God. They went quickly down the stairs, giggling all the way. Haere closed the door and smelled his eggs burning.

He hurried over to them, dumped them down the garbage disposal, lit another cigarette, picked up the kitchen wall phone, and dialed a number. On the fifth ring, Governor-Elect Baldwin Veatch himself answered with a sleepy, muttered hello.

“This is Draper, Baldy. Let me talk to Louise. I’ve got something of an emergency.”

“Aw, Christ, Draper. Hold on.”

A moment later Louise Veatch came on the line. “Well?”

“Citron came through,” Haere said.

There was a brief silence and then Louise Veatch said very softly, “No shit.”

“I need you,” Haere said.

“Give me an hour,” she said. “It might take two.”

“All right,” Haere said, hung up, turned, and put some more butter into the pan.

The downstairs buzzer rang again as Haere was washing the last of his breakfast dishes. Again, he went to the intercom, pressed the button, and said, “Yes?”

A man’s voice said over the speaker, “This is MacAdoo, Mr. Haere. We met down in Houston. At the airport.”

“Woodrow Wilson’s kin?”

“Yes, sir.”

“What d’you want?”

“Five minutes of your time. That’s all.”

“That’s all you’ll get,” Haere said and pressed the unlocking buzzer.

When MacAdoo came into the enormous room he looked around with frank appreciation. “Now, by God, this is something, isn’t it?”

“Coffee?” Haere said.

“Appreciate it.”

“Sit down.”

MacAdoo moved into the living-room section and took his seat in the Huey Long chair. His eyes roamed over the room and its eclectic furnishings as Haere poured coffee into two mugs.

“How do you take it?” Haere said.

“Black.”

Haere handed MacAdoo a mug of coffee. MacAdoo took it with his right hand and patted the arm of the chair with his left.

“Nice old chair,” he said.

“Belonged to Huey Long.”

“No kidding. The Kingfish.” MacAdoo sipped his coffee and smiled. “Now that’s good coffee.”

Haere said nothing.

“It’s been sort of your life’s study, hasn’t it, Mr. Haere? Politics, I mean.”

Haere only nodded.

“Your friend, Mr. Citron?”

Again, Haere nodded.

“In case you haven’t heard, he’s in Sri Lanka. With the Keats girl. Woman, I mean. Velveeta. Velveeta Keats. That is sort of pretty, isn’t it, if you forget about the cheese and all?”

“Very,” Haere said.

“You heard about Gladys Citron, I expect.”

“I heard she died in her cell in Kansas City.”

“Heart failure,” MacAdoo said in an almost sorrowful tone.

“Heart seizure,” Haere said automatically.

“What’s the difference?”

“Everyone dies of heart failure.”

MacAdoo thought about it. “You’re right.” He drank some more of his coffee. “I imagine you’ve pretty much got the whole picture by now, haven’t you?”

Haere nodded. The nod was a lie, but he saw no reason to tell MacAdoo the truth.

“You going to run with it?”

“I don’t know yet.”

“We’d like to dissuade you.”

“We?”

“Yes, sir. We.”

“Langley, you mean.”

MacAdoo smiled slightly.

“How do you intend to do that — dissuade me?”

MacAdoo frowned. “We don’t really know, Mr. Haere. That’s why I’m here. To find out what you want.”

“I don’t want much of anything,” Haere said, “except a new President in ’eighty-four. Can you guys handle that?”

MacAdoo sighed, put his coffee mug down, and rose. “I was afraid you’d say something like that. No way I can change your mind?”

Haere shook his head, rose, and walked MacAdoo to the door. The tall man opened it, turned, and examined Haere somberly. “Mr. Haere, I’m sorry, but I just don’t see how we’re going to be able to leave you alone.”

“Try,” Haere said.

MacAdoo nodded, turned, and went down the steps. Haere watched him go. When MacAdoo reached the street door, he opened it, and then held it for someone. Haere could hear MacAdoo’s polite, faint “Ma’am.”

Louise Veatch came through the street door carrying a small suitcase. She started slowly up the steps. When she arrived at the landing, she brushed past Haere and into the enormous room. He closed the door. Louise Veatch looked around the room.

“Which one of those closets can I have?” she said.

Haere stepped over and took her bag. “You left him?”

“I left him.”

“For good?”

“For better or for worse, anyway.”

“What’d he say?”

“About what you’d expect. He was still yelling when I went out the door.” She smiled. It was a sad smile. “Well, are you glad? You haven’t said.”

Draper Haere put his arms around her, drew her to him, and kissed her. It was a long, tender kiss, full of promise. When it was over, Haere made her the one promise he felt he could keep. “It won’t be dull.”

Louise Veatch smiled. “I know,” she said. “That’s probably the real reason I’m here.”

It took Louise Veatch more than an hour to translate aloud for Haere what Morgan Citron had written in the spiral notebook. When she was finished she looked at Haere and said, “Good God! Did you know all this?”

“A lot of it. Not all.”

“Are you going to use it?”

“What do you think?”

Louise Veatch thought about it for more than a minute before she answered. “Use it, Draper.”

He nodded, rose, and went over to the kitchen wall phone. “Get on the extension,” he said.

Louise Veatch waited until Haere dialed eleven numbers. She then picked up the other phone. It rang three times before it was answered by a woman’s voice with a hello.

“It’s Draper Haere, Jean. Is he in?”

“Yes, of course, Draper. Just a moment.”

The Senator came on the phone. “Hello, Draper.” He had a deep, almost harsh voice.

“I need to ask you a question, Senator.”

“Shoot.”

“How would you like to be President?”

Almost ten seconds went by before the Senator softly said, “Very much.”

“Then I think we’d better talk,” said Draper Haere.