Seven Days in May

Wednesday Night

Jiggs Casey woke up hot and sticky in his room at the Sherwood Hotel in New York. The light filtering through the window curtains was fading. He looked at his watch. It was 6:30. He'd have to get moving, for he was due at Shoo's apartment at seven.

He had called Eleanor Holbrook at her office as soon as he checked into the hotel. He hadn't heard Shoo's voice in two years, but it was just as he remembered it, the brittle quality of her tone offset by the haphazard pattern of little breathless rushes of speech.

"Hi, Shoo," he said. "You remember a fellow named Casey?"

“Jiggs!”

"What time do you get through work?" he asked.

"Not so fast, Colonel." He heard her quick intake of breath and remembered how she would swallow a cloud of smoke from her cigarette. "I don't make plans for men who vanish from the earth and then come back suddenly, like in a parachute."

"I want to take you to dinner," he said.

"Oh, just like that? And suppose the lady has a date, Colonel, which she happens to have."

"Gee, I wish you'd break it." Casey lowered his voice and promptly felt like a heel for feigning romantic intentions. But he had to see her. There was no place else to begin. "I have to talk to you, Shoo, really."

"Poor little misunderstood married man?" She was sarcastic now.

He could imagine her at her desk, her arms all but bare in a short-sleeved work dress, little golden hairs glinting on her forearm as she tapped ashes from the cigarette held with two fingers in a ridiculous angle. He could see the brown hair fluffed over her forehead; the nose, small and narrow; the full lips that never quite closed over her teeth. She'd be twenty-eight now, this tall, proud girl who hurried so to taste all of life. She was the woman who liked to speak wistfully of a cottage in the country, but who lived in perfect rhythm with the staccato tempo of New York-her world and her hypnosis. In the brief week that Casey had known her, Eleanor Holbrook's lack of affinity for the simple things had irritated and finally (and fortunately) estranged him, but her appetite for the city swept him along. His blood had warmed with the excitement even as he cursed the fascination. She was, indeed, the original Cloud Nine girl.

Now he could feel certain nostalgic tremors and he found it hard to phrase the lighthearted answer that he knew she expected.

"Cat got your tongue, Jiggs?"

When in doubt, charge, he thought. "I'm no traveling salesman, Shoo. I've got two boys at home and a wife I love. What's that got to do with us? I want to see you tonight."

"Where are you?" she asked. He gave her his room number at the Sherwood.

"Wait right there," she said, her words very clipped and businesslike. "I'll call you back. My date tonight was half business anyway. I'll see."

Half business? thought Casey. Mine is all business, honey. Or it was when I called you. Damn General Scott for messing up a man's life like this, anyway. What did I ever do to you, General?

Shoo called back promptly. "Come over to my place, sort of sevenish," she said. "We'll have a drink and worry about dinner later."

"What's the address again, Shoo?" It occurred to him that Marge at least would have been pleased that he couldn't remember it.

"Go to hell, Colonel." The voice was brisk, but the little snort was not without affection. "Look it up in the phone book-and I don't mean the yellow pages, big operator!"

He found the number, jotted it down and then went out to saunter along Madison Avenue in the warm May sunshine. Normally the fever of New York repelled him, but today a south wind had blown away the smog and he felt exhilarated. He watched with amusement as sullen, hurried figures pushed past him and the trim legs of the stenographers clip-clipped ever faster along the sidewalks.

He wished he could do something useful before evening, but when he ran through the short list of his friends in New York it added up to nothing. He couldn't approach the military officers he knew, and his few civilian acquaintances worked in fields far distant from Millicent Segnier's magazine Cherie or MacPherson's Regal Broadcasting Corporation.

Casey walked on idly, over to Fifth Avenue, up past the Plaza and into the corner of Central Park, then across to Madison again and back to his hotel. He went into the men's bar, now filling with noon-hour trade, and ordered a double martini. The thing to do, he thought, is knock myself out and get a good sleep this afternoon. He was short about ten hours' sleep this week and he realized he couldn't go much longer on reserve energy. Besides, it wouldn't be very smart to get drowsy tonight.

After six hours' sleep, he felt ready for his delicate encounter with Shoo Holbrook. Casey dressed in a dark-blue lightweight suit, the only civilian summer suit he owned, shaved again with the electric razor, and knotted his red-and-black striped tie. He formed the knot carefully; Shoo once complained that the knot in his Marine uniform tie was too big, and it would please her to think he had remembered.

For Christ's sake, he thought, who'd think I'd ever turn into that kind of an operator?

He took a cab to her apartment house, in the East Sixties off Park. The doorman, the self-service elevator, the narrow hall with its gray carpeting, even the number 315 on her door, all reminded him again of a weekend he thought he had succeeded in forgetting.

Shoo opened the door and reached for his hand. The brown hair, he noted, still framed her forehead in a soft curve and her nose crinkled prettily in pleasure at seeing him. As usual, she wore little make-up except lipstick. She had on gray toreador pants, quite tight, and a yellow shirt. Her feet were bare inside her sandals.

She stepped back, hands on hips, and surveyed him.

"I never saw you before in civilian clothes," she said. "I like you better in uniform, Jiggs. But you'll do as is. You'll definitely do."

Casey grinned and fingered the knot in his tie. "Small enough, Shoo?"

She stepped quickly to him then, held his face in her hands and kissed him lightly. "That's for remembering," she said.

He lit her cigarette and they sat at opposite ends of the window sofa. The questions came in a rush. What was his job now? What was he doing in New York? Did he still like martinis?

"I do, but I seem to recall that they can be awful dangerous for a married man." His mind jumped back two years to the night when they had started with martinis and had never got around to eating at all. Tonight, he promised himself, is going to be altogether different.

"On the rocks," he said as she went to the kitchen.

"My, you are getting older, Jiggs."

This apartment, he thought, is sure the wrong place for resisting the forcible overthrow of the government -or any other institution. Shoe's taste in decor was splashy. In a large semiabstract painting on the wall two bulls, black with green horns, seemed about to charge each other against background slashes of crimson and orange. An ivory-colored floor lamp was topped by four orange shades, each facing in a different direction. Even the coffee table, a solid chunk of pitted driftwood supporting a heavy glass top, ran at weird angles. A bright orange cloth on the dinette table matched the insides of the bookcases. Is a person really supposed to live here, Casey wondered, or just stop by now and then to sin?

The martini pitcher was nicely filled and beaded with condensation. Shoo poured his drink over ice, but took her own with nothing but a tiny olive. They laughed as much as they talked. Shoo gushed stories of the office politics, sponsor demands, and actor tantrums of what she called "my idiot trade." They slipped easily into the casual banter of two years ago.

Finally she fell silent and eyed him for a long moment.

"This atmosphere," she said, "is one of abysmal pal-ship, Colonel. My little girl's instinct tells me you haven't come courting at all, Jiggs, you just don't have your radar turned on tonight. I can see it in that honest face of yours. You want something else. What is it?"

Casey laughed and winked at her. The evidence was certainly plain before them: she had consumed two drinks while his glass still stood half full.

"I knew you'd find me out sooner or later, Shoo," he said. "I'm in New York to find out some things. I thought you might be willing to help me-in confidence."

"Look, dear," she said, "I don't know a thing about bombs or the little things that whiz around the world with men in them. And if you're one of those counterspies, I don't know a single solitary Russian, thank you."

"This is politics, Shoo." He was going to have to be careful here, but he had rehearsed it. "Washington is a very complicated place, and sometimes a military man does things that have nothing to do with guns or missiles."

"How well I know, sweetheart."

"Anyway, I'm doing a little gumshoe work for some Democrats who are afraid General Scott, my boss, might try to run against President Lyman two years from now."

"Oh, delicious." Shoo curled her feet under her and raised her cigarette like a symphony conductor's baton. "Ask me some questions, quick."

"Will you promise to keep everything we say a secret?"

"Of course. I'd love to be an undercover operative in something sordid and political. They call me Little Miss Mum's-the-Word at the office."

Casey fiddled with his drink and loosened his tie. "Well, we hear that General Scott has been having an affair with a good friend of yours, Millicent Segnier. Remember, I met her once?"

"Oh, Milly." Shoo pouted in disappointment. "That's no secret. They've had a thing since God knows when. You could announce it in ten-foot lights in Times Square and it wouldn't surprise anybody."

"Maybe not," Casey said, "but I don't think it's ever got into the papers. Anyway, we need to know more about it-from you, if possible."

"Who's 'we'?"

"Let's just say some of the President's friends."

"My, my," she said. "Washington is complicated, isn't it? You work for General Scott by day-and against him by night."

"Well, yes, sort of. How about it?"

"I adore President Lyman," Shoo said, "and I think people are being miserable and unfair to him now when he's trying to get rid of that frightful bomb. I mean it, Jiggs."

Casey took a sip of his drink and said nothing.

"Well, Milly and Jim Scott have had quite a time. At the beginning, Jiggs, it was really torrid. I don't know anything about Mrs. Scott, but the General sure fell hard for Milly. And she almost loved him. I'm not sure she ever really loved anybody, but she came close with him. She was forever calling me up and swearing me to secrecy and rattling on about him. I've been at her place several times when the General was there. I must admit he's most impressive, even if he's not my type."

Casey interrupted. "You think Scott ever considered a divorce?"

"Never," said Shoo flatly. "And Milly didn't want that. She's really a career woman. She's insane about that magazine. She likes the excitement of an affair, but marriage, no." Shoo peeked at him over the rim of her glass. "I wonder if I'll get like that, Jiggs?"

"No," he said, imitating the stern father. "We're going to get you married, young lady. Are Scott and Milly still going strong?"

"Not really. Oh, he calls up, and he was here a couple of weeks ago to see her. But it's cooled off some. Milly says he seems preoccupied about something. The last time, she said, Scott had his aide, somebody named Murdock, I think, with him, and they really just used her apartment for some kind of military business. You know, those things always end, and knowing Milly, I'm surprised it lasted this long. I think she's secretly flattered at being the occasional mistress of such an important military man."

Casey's eyes were on the painting of the two bulls. Why green horns? he mused. The talk of this romantic liaison had set his mind wandering and he had to force himself-back to business.

"Is there any evidence of all this?" he asked.

"Evidence? What do you mean?"

"Anything written down on paper or something."

Shoo pulled back her shoulders in feigned distaste. "Now really, Jiggs, if you're suggesting that I stoop to stealing love letters for you ..."

"I don't mean letters," he said, "and I don't want you to steal anything. But is there an autographed picture, or a gift that could be traced to General Scott through a bill of sale or anything like that?"

"Oh." Shoo thought a moment. Then she began to giggle. "I don't suppose I ought to tell you this," she said, "but it's so funny. Milly is really a character. She's so feminine and arty and chi-chi, you know, but, God, is she close with a buck! Anyway, she makes gobs of money, and she was crazy to find some new deductions this winter when she made out her tax return. I don't know whether her lawyer advised her on this- I doubt it-but she deducted three thousand dollars for entertaining General Scott last year."

"She did?" Casey was really surprised. "How could she get away with that?"

"Why, military fashions, dear." Shoo threw back her head and hooted. "Isn't that a scream? She decided if she were questioned she'd say she had to entertain General Scott to get the latest word on what the service wives and girls in uniform, the Waves and all, were wearing. I just loved her for it. Imagine deducting a love affair. I think it's a howl. Nobody but Milly could think it up."

"Did she get away with it, or doesn't she know yet?"

"The story gets even funnier. She filed early, and in March an internal revenue man came around to see her. He wanted her to explain the deduction, and she told him just what I told you. The next thing, she got a note from the tax people saying she couldn't do it and she owed another two thousand or so in taxes.

"Well, Milly got her back up and said nuts, and if the government wanted to sue her, go ahead and sue. I guess the affair was cooling off anyway and Milly was just mad enough to fight. Of course, I knew she didn't have a leg to stand on, but you can't tell Milly a thing where money is concerned."

"So what happened?" Casey tried to make his interest sound casual.

"So they compromised!" Shoo broke down in bubbly giggles again. "Isn't that a riot? A little man in the office downtown, all kind of bashful and double-talky, said nobody would want to embarrass General Scott or Miss Segnier, and what would she think if they let her deduct fifteen hundred and pay taxes on the rest? So, she did. She paid about a thousand dollars-she's in one of those dreadful brackets-but everybody's happy. Milly saved a thousand, the government got a thousand, and so far as I know General Scott never heard anything about it. I just love it."

"I thought they had to make those compromises public," Casey said.

"Oh, those are the big ones, where everybody gets lawyers and sits around with portfolios and things," Shoo said. "This was just a little private thing between Milly and the nice little man in the tax office."

Casey let the talk drift back into personal chitchat. Shoo asked about his boys, and whether he was being a good boy himself in Washington. She herself, it seemed, had been on the brink of marriage last year, but discovered just in time that the young man wanted to be "humdrum and dreary and have a lot of babies and live way out in Fairfield County."

She sighed theatrically. "You just can't trust men, not even the best of them... . And now, Jiggs, instead of going out and spending a lot of money that Marines don't have, I suggest we be cozy here and let me whip up a nice steak from the freezer."

Casey hesitated. He knew he shouldn't be seen in a New York restaurant if he could help it. On the other hand, the aftermath of a candlelit dinner-for-two here might be more than a man on a mission for his country could handle. He had hoped to compromise on some little cubbyhole restaurant with few patrons.

"Okay," he said. "I'd like that, if you promise you won't do anything elaborate."

"I don't know how to do anything elaborate-in the kitchen." She kissed him on the forehead and went out. He could hear the icebox door open and pans rattling.

"Listen, Shoo," he called. "While you're busy, I'll just run down to the corner and make a call. I have to check in with some people."

"Use my phone in the bedroom, Jiggs," she said. "I promise not to listen, even if it's a call to Mrs. Casey."

"No, this is business, and we're supposed to use public phone booths."

Shoo put her head around the door. "My, my, aren't we being mysterious? I don't think it's very nice, but if that's the way secret agents carry on, go ahead. Back soon?"

"Sure." Casey rebuttoned his shirt collar and fixed his tie. He nodded to the doorman as he left the building and walked toward Lexington Avenue. From a phone booth in a drugstore on the corner he called the White House, asked for Miss Chervasi and was switched to Esther Townsend.

"This is Casey, Miss Townsend."

"Well, everybody's busy. We just had a nice call from Paul, from over the water."

"Did he get it?" asked Casey.

"The Man is feeling much, much better, thanks. And you?"

"Look, Miss Townsend, I'll bring back the details tomorrow. But take him this message: Millicent Segnier deducted quite a bit of dough on her federal tax return for entertaining our friend. It's not quite the kind of evidence we're looking for, but it might be very helpful if we get into a jam. I think the Secretary ought to call for that return. That's M-i-1-l-i-"

"I know how to spell it, Colonel. I'll tell him right away. Anything else?"

"Not yet."

"Well, wipe off the lipstick before you come home. 'Bye, Colonel."

Dinner at Shoo's was predictably intimate. One candle flickered on the table, and after a steak and salad, she brought out a bottle of brandy. They sipped it in the living room, Shoo sitting on the floor with her head against Casey's knee.

"I like this, Jiggs," she said. "I've been here before."

Her low voice and the dim light lulled Casey. He had taken off his coat and now he loosened his tie again. Talk about disarmament treaties, he thought, if I'm not careful I'm going to be disarmed without a treaty. He pulled himself out of the peaceful mood.

"Say," he asked, "did Milly ever say whether Scott knows that TV commentator Harold MacPherson?"

"You bastard," Shoo said quietly. She tilted her head up toward him, rubbing her cheek on his leg, "Even after dinner?"

"I've got to earn my per diem." By the way, he thought, who does pay for this trip? I guess it'll have to be my contribution to the defense of the Constitution. "Come on, Shoo, I thought you loved political intrigue."

"I do," she pouted. "But there's a time and a place for everything, to coin a cliché. Oh, well. Shoot, Mr. District Attorney."

"Well, did she ever say?"

"She didn't have to. MacPherson and his wife were at one of those little dinners-for-eight where I was. I drew the extra man, and was he a drip! But he was better than MacPherson, at that. Those far-out characters give me the creeps. Besides, he's a single-track bore. Against everything from women's suffrage to Congress."

"Did Scott take to him?" Casey asked.

"Oh, he'd met him before. Yes, they were very chummy. When I said earlier I didn't like your Gentleman Jim I think that's what I meant. I don't have much time for anybody who listens to that maniac MacPherson. He's got the country mesmerized, and he's a regular snake-oil salesman."

"You think Scott and MacPherson are pretty thick?"

"I know they are," she said. "That last time he was here a couple of weeks ago, Milly said Scott spent more time with MacPherson than he did with her."

"Look, Shoo, you really could help me. Who can I talk to who knows MacPherson pretty well? You know, maybe somebody around his shop who feels the way you do about him."

"Morton Freeman's your man," she said without hesitation. "He's one of the writers on the show. Morty makes lots of money, but I know he detests MacPherson and is just waiting for a chance to jump to some other show."

"Could you fix me up to see him tomorrow, maybe at lunch?"

"Sure." Shoo got up and took the evening paper from an end table. She fingered several pages, found what she wanted and folded it for Casey.

"Here," she said. "There have been some rumors about a special MacPherson show this weekend. This column seems to have a little more about it."

Shoo left him with the newspaper while she went to telephone. He turned on the floor lamp, managed to get one of the shades twisted his way, and read the television column she had pointed out.

MAC TO BE OWN SPONSOR? .. . Harold MacPherson, video's angry middle-aged man, is browbeating RBC for a solo hour in the 6-to-7 spot this Saturday night. The political gabster, this colyum hears, is so anxious for the time he's willing to foot the bill himself. He won't tell the network biggies what he wants to do, though he sez-despite his already having a five-a-week news show-that he would use the whole hour for commentary. RBC, which gives away that hour for public-service stuff anyhow, is said to be lending a sympathetic ear.

Best Bet: One round, firm and fully packed hour of Mac's antiadministration opinion on Sattidy eve.

Shoo called from the bedroom. "Rockefeller Center at 12:30 okay? By the skating rink?"

"No," Casey said, "the time's all right, but think of someplace a little less public."

When she returned Shoo hopped onto the sofa, her feet tucked under her. "He'll meet you at The Bowl. That's a little hole-in-the-wall on Fifty-fourth, between Madison and Park. 12:30. You'll know him because he wears big, thick glasses and his hair is always tangled. Very, very, serious all the time."

Casey tore the TV column from the paper. "Have you heard anything about this at the office?" he asked.

She snuggled closer to him as she glanced at the story. "I heard some rumor about it last Monday, but that's all. Yesterday there was a one-line squib in the News. I guess it must be true. Joe is pretty good on the inside stuff in our business. Oh, that awful MacPherson. If I ran RBC, I'd give him five minutes-to pick up his hat and get out."

Shoo reached across and snapped the lamp off, leaving the candle on the dining table as the only light. They had another brandy. The minutes slipped by into an hour. Shoo nipped playfully at his ear lobe. When he put an arm around her and then withdrew it, she promptly pulled it back.

Shoo ran her fingers through Casey's hair and whispered: "I always did like crew cuts. Remember?"

I'm getting too comfortable, Casey thought, getting to like this too well. He could feel a remembered surge in his pulse and found he could not wish it away. As though to break a spell, he excused himself and went to the bathroom.

It had new wallpaper, printed with little Parisian vignettes: news kiosks, Notre-Dame, bookstalls by the Seine, can-can dancers, sidewalk cafes, and of course the Eiffel Tower. Casey winced at this equation of the natural functions of the lavatory with the gay spirit of Paris.

A little too young and self-consciously naughty, he thought. I graduated from that league two years ago.

A small sign, handprinted by Shoo and stuck to the cabinet mirror, caught his eye: "Gentlemen do not open strange medicine cabinets."

Yeah, Shoo, you're a very attractive girl and a very compelling one, but you're also still a very young one. I'm forty-four years old and I ought to know better, and if I stay another ten minutes I'll be here all night.

Back in the living room, he straightened his tie and stretched lazily. He wanted to make the exit a graceful one.

"Time for me to get back to the hotel," he said. "We've both got to go to work tomorrow."

"Liar," she said. "You can sleep till noon and you know the mornings never bother me."

Shoo walked over and pressed against him, circling his neck with her arms. "Way back on the closet shelf there's a toothbrush that you've only used a couple of times," she whispered. "I thought you might need it again someday."

He kissed her, hard, and felt the warm suggestion of her thighs. I'm sorry, he thought, awful sorry, Shoo, but it really ended the night it began, and that was two years ago. They stood close together in silence. Then he pulled away.

She stood with legs apart, her head tipped back, smiling at him with a touch of bitterness.

"And so the married man goeth," she said.

"Yeah, I guess he does, Shoo. Thanks for all the-"

"Don't thank me, Jiggs. I'm not going to thank you."

He opened the door tentatively, embarrassed at the way he was going. She stood in the middle of the dark room, silhouetted against the flicker of the guttering candle. Her arms were folded and her face showed no expression at all.

"Good night, Shoo."

"Good-by, Jiggs," she corrected him softly. "You sweet bum."

He hurried down the hall, anxious to be out in the fresh air. He walked the fifteen blocks to the Sherwood, his thoughts cluttered. The night two years ago, deliberately suppressed all evening, now came rushing back to him in infinite detail: the unexpected sudden passion, her hands on him, her gasps of endearment and urging, her complete and utter absorption in the act of love. And the long, gentle hour afterward when they shared a cigarette and were too drained even to speak.

Thank God for that wallpaper, he thought, or I'd have started something that maybe wouldn't have ended this time.

Casey's thoughts were still in the past as he snapped on the light in his hotel room. The sudden brightness brought him back to the present. On the dresser stood the little framed picture of Marge and the boys that he always took with him when he was traveling.

Sitting on the edge of the bed, he picked up the telephone. The operator did not answer immediately.

I might as well call Marge, he thought, just to let her know I'm still alive-and in my own bed, alone.

Then he was suddenly angry. The hell with it, he thought, I've done enough for Marge for one night. More than I wanted to, God knows. Let's be honest about it, Casey. You wanted to stay at Shoo's. You wanted to go to bed with her. And you still wish you had, don't you?

"Your order, please?" It was the operator.

"Never mind," he said, and banged the receiver down. He could still taste Shoo's lipstick. It tasted the same as it had two years ago. He could remember that. He could even remember the brand she used, although he had seen her lipstick only once, one morning when she left it on the washbasin in the apartment: "Raspberry Ice."

Damn, damn, damn.

He was still short on sleep, but he tossed fitfully for most of the night. When he awoke his watch showed it was 7:45 a.m. He washed, shaved, dressed, and went down to the lobby to eat, then decided to call the White House first.

When he got Esther Townsend, she sounded strained and tired.

"I'd better put him on," she said when he identified himself. A moment later a voice said: "Yes?"

"Good morning, sir, this is Colonel Casey," he said. "I'm making good progress. I think I'll have quite a bit to report when I get back this afternoon."

"Do the best you can." Lyman's voice was utterly flat and toneless. "The best you can. Paul Girard is dead."