Mark Coffin, U.S.S., page 7
“Twelve applicants for office positions, tomorrow morning at nine,” Mary Fran said.
“Do I have to see them all?” he asked, beginning to feel the first of what he knew would very soon become an avalanche of official pressures. “Can’t you two decide?”
“I think you’d better see them,” she said, “just in case you have to mediate.”
“Surely not between you two!” he said with a smile, though it was obvious he would, and probably on many occasions, too. “What have you got for me, Brad?”
“The party caucus at ten-thirty. Better get there early. And don’t talk to the press.”
“For heaven’s sake, Brad,” Mary Fran said sharply. “Let the man make his own decisions!”
“The man will,” Mark promised amicably. “Anything else for the moment?”
“Yes,” Brad said stiffly. “A delegation of Girl Scouts from Anaheim will be in late this afternoon. You’re to greet them for photographs on the Senate steps and sign autographs. After the caucus meeting tomorrow you’ll of course be on the floor for your swearing-in, and then you have a lunch with the other new senators in one of the private dining rooms in the Capitol—I’ll find out and let you know which one. Back to the session if it’s still going, which it probably won’t be, since the first day is mostly formalities. Then at three p.m., back over here, a group of farmers from the Central Valley, and after them a group of concerned citizens opposed to further defense spending. You’ll tell them what you think.”
“What do I think?” Mark couldn’t resist asking, and Brad had the grace to look embarrassed. He also looked annoyed for just a second before he concealed it.
“Whatever you like, Mark,” he said calmly. “I could make some suggestions, but you obviously have your own thoughts to express.”
“Good,” Mark said blandly. “I wasn’t sure … Mary Fran”—sternly suppressing his urge to answer the amusement in her eyes—“is there anything else on your mind?”
“A few thousand congratulatory wires and letters already, which I’d suggest we answer with a form letter you can work out. We have a signature machine, you know. I’ll get a new logo with your signature on it and we’ll run them through.”
“No,” he said, “I think I’ll sign these first ones myself. I don’t want to start using phony gimmicks until I absolutely have to—which no doubt I soon will, for lack of time. But for now, let’s let ’em have the Real Me. Anything else?”
“Yes, Lyddie Bates called to remind that you and Linda are coming to dinner with the President-elect tomorrow night.”
“Ah, our famous hostess with the mostest.”
“She’s really a delightful old lady,” Mary Fran said. “You’ll love her. Hopefully, she’ll love you. In fact, I know she will.”
“Linda tells me this is very important.”
“She can be a great help.”
“Careers are made and broken at Lyddie’s,” Brad agreed. “Treat her right and she’ll be your friend for life.”
He grinned.
“I guess I can ride on my wife’s coattails.”
“She’ll love you just for yourself,” Mary Fran assured him, and suddenly looked flustered at her own earnestness.
“Well, thank you,” he said with a smile that gently saved the moment. “Now I really must go and see Jim Madison. And then I must stop by and pay a courtesy call on my father-in-law. Tell the President-elect,” he added, joking, not really meaning it, “that I’ll be back by five, if he calls.”
“He may,” Brad said. “He just may. I’ll give him a message, if you like.”
“Just that I’ll be back by five,” Mark said, grabbed his coat, shrugged into it and hurried out. Outside, not quite closing the door into the corridor, he paused and listened.
“Watch yourself, Brad,” Mary Fran said coolly. “I have a feeling if you get too pushy our new man may push you right back.”
“Which would please you, wouldn’t it!” Brad snapped.
“I’d be absolutely delighted,” she said, and sailed out to the reception room, not even noticing the slightly opened door as she passed. Through the crack he could see Brad standing beside the Senate desk, his face a study in anger and frustration. Currents and depths here, he told himself: Sailor, beware! He eased the door shut and went on his way, through still more corridors crammed with the clutter of restlessly migrating senators, to the office, in the old, tradition-hallowed Richard B. Russell Senate Office Building, of his senior colleague, the Honorable James Monroe Madison.
This, he told himself five minutes later, was a senatorial office that was a senatorial office. Busts and pictures were everywhere: big busts, little busts, big pictures, little pictures. Seven of the busts were of Washington, Jefferson, Lincoln, James Monroe, James Madison, Teddy and Franklin Roosevelt. Seven more, resting here and there in casual display, were of James Monroe Madison. Similarly, the photographs included a scattering of Senate colleagues. The rest were James Monroe Madison alone, James Monroe Madison with wife, two daughters, two sons-in-law, three grandchildren; James Monroe Madison with party leaders; James Monroe Madison with dog and cat; James Monroe Madison with foreign dignitaries; James Monroe Madison with subcommittee members inspecting redwood groves in California, oil and gas pipelines in Alaska, Israeli fortifications in the Sinai, Egyptian pyramids at Giza; James Monroe Madison with Presidents; James Monroe Madison against the Capitol, the Supreme Court, the White House—several of these, Rose Garden, Truman Balcony, East Portico, etc.
Two flags, that of the United States on one side, California on the other, flanked the high-backed leather chair in which sat that silver-topped edifice, the man himself, James Monroe Madison. When Mark entered he was living up to his cloakroom reputation, cruelly echoed from a famous senator of an earlier day, as “the only senator who can strut sitting down.” But when Mark appeared he leaped to his feet and came forward with a bound, arms outstretched to clasp both of Mark’s hands in his.
“Mark, my dear boy!” he exclaimed. “How marvelous to have you here! What a sensational introduction you have had to the Senate and to national life! How glad we all are to have you join our ranks as we work and strive for this great democracy of ours! And how glad I am to have such a young, vibrant, intelligent, and I may say attractive—oh, I hear the ladies are eying you already!—colleague to help me as I serve the people of Our Great State of California! Sit down, dear boy, sit down! Helen! Hold all calls until further notice, if you please! Mark and I must talk! ….
“Well!” he said, resuming his seat at the desk while Mark, looking a trifle dazed, sat slowly down in the chair across. “What are your plans for California, my dear boy?”
“Why—” he began, and paused. “Why, just to do the best I can, I guess.”
“And it will be ample, my dear boy, ample,” cried James Monroe Madison, “of that I am absolutely sure. But what I mean is, specifically, what about the new President’s decision to appoint Charlie Macklin to be U. S. Attorney General?”
“Macklin!” Mark exclaimed. “Charlie Macklin?” For a moment his dismay was entirely apparent. Then he masked it with a determined effort and said cautiously, “I hadn’t heard about that yet.”
“You hadn’t?” Senator Madison cried. “You mean he didn’t consult the new junior senator before he—ah, well, you are new, very new, and so perhaps he felt that he would discuss it with me first and then tell you. I’m sure he will—I’m sure he will. Probably before the day is out, I suspect. It would be a great discourtesy to you not to. After all, one does consult senators from a state before appointing someone from that state. I mean, I would, as all sensible Presidents do. So I’m sure he will. Anyway, what do you think about it?”
“Well, I thought,” Mark said, still very cautiously, “that one of the reasons for choosing me for the nomination instead of Charlie Macklin was that Charlie had been too rough on civil liberties when he was district attorney of Los Angeles County, and also that his stand on civil rights was perhaps a bit—inflexible, shall we say. Or am I mistaken?”
“Oh, I—I don’t know whether you’re mistaken or not, Mark. I really don’t. There may have been other reasons, probably there were dozens. Was that your impression, that that was why you were selected? That good old Charlie has been too much law-and-order and racist, as it were, as the popular phrase has it?”
“You know he has,” Mark said levelly, beginning to recover a bit. “You know exactly that he has. Are you going along with his appointment?”
“Well, now,” Jim Madison said, clasping his fingers together and staring at Mark solemnly over them. “Well, now, let’s see. We must consider these things very carefully, of course. We must look at all the angles, both those affecting California and those affecting the United States; and, of course, our image in the world, which is also very important. But above all, of course, we must look at what Our Great President wants, mustn’t we, now. Musn’t we!”
Mark fixed him with a solemn and unimpressed eye.
“Must we?”
“Well, now, my dear boy, my dear boy! Surely you know—surely you understand—surely in your own brilliant studies of the American government, you yourself know and have stated that a President’s party members, barring the most extreme reasons of conscience, are really expected to go along with him, now, they really are! You don’t want to begin your Senate career by opposing your own President, do you? To say nothing of the governor—”
“What? I don’t believe it!”
“Yes, the governor,” Jim Madison said solemnly. “Oh yes, oh yes. I understand that he also is most anxious for this appointment to be approved. So you would be opposing both your President and your governor, Mark. That would be a frightful error! California would never forgive you! The governor would never forgive you! HE would never forgive you. Oh no, Mark. I can’t let you do that. I simply can’t!”
For several moments Mark did not reply. When he did it was in a grim tone of voice.
“I’ll worry about California, and I’ll worry about the President—and the governor too, if I have to. But I may not let that stop me when it comes time to vote on dear old Charlie Macklin.” He stood up abruptly. “Is that all you wished to see me about? I don’t mean to be rude, but I do have to stop in and see my father-in-law also, so perhaps if you’ll forgive me, Senator—”
“Oh, Mark! Mark—Mark—Mark! I—is this what you want me to tell the President-elect and the governor? That you’re going to oppose Charlie, our old friend Charlie? It may put us in opposition to each other, you know. Because I may—I may have to go along, you know. I like old Charlie, for one thing, and also, if Our Great President and Our Great Governor want him—there is such a thing as party loyalty, you know!”
“I know that,” Mark said evenly, “but I’m going to think about it pretty carefully.”
“Then you do want me to tell him—”
“If he asked you to sound me out instead of coming to me direct,” Mark said, his anger, dismay and bewilderment finally spilling over into his voice, “then you tell him I am damned annoyed about it and I may or may not support his nominee. That’s what you can tell him. Take care, Jim. I’ll see you around.”
And he shook hands brusquely with a seemingly flustered Senator Madison and stalked out. But Senator Madison was not really all that flustered.
“Ah, youth!” he said with a curiously pleased little smile, lifting the receiver and preparing to dial. “Ah, silly, headstrong youth. Hah!”
Silly he did not feel, but headstrong he certainly looked as he strode down the corridor, this time glancing neither to right nor left, exchanging no greetings, his face a study that caused some comment, to the nearby office of James Rand Elrod, senior senator from North Carolina, chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee.
There he found Linda with her father. She kissed him with great warmth and stood back to survey him with satisfaction as he made his expression suitably bland to meet her experienced scrutiny. He expected her to detect his concern but he found at once that she had concerns of her own.
“Who is this scarlet woman I hear is going to be in your office all day?” she asked lightly—lightly but prepared, he could see, to become more serious if she felt she had to.
“What?” he demanded, sounding annoyed for a second but managing a quick change to a wryly amused smile.
“You’ll learn,” Senator Elrod said comfortably. “Who is it, that little Grayson girl?”
“How did you know?” he asked, taking a chair and acting more at ease than he really felt, suddenly.
“She goes after everyone,” Jim Elrod said, “particularly the young ones. They’re always such good subjects for her special interviews, she says. I suspected she’d be after you, first thing.”
“She is,” Mark admitted, “but”—turning to Linda—“how did you know?”
“A little bird told me,” she said, again lightly but obviously still prepared to do battle if necessary. “A little bird named Lisette. She saw me in the hall on my way over here and sailed right up to me. ‘I’m going to borrow your husband for a day,’ she told me. ‘I hope you don’t mind.’”
“And do you?” he inquired, while her father looked increasingly concerned. She gave him an appraising glance.
“I don’t quite know, yet. Should I?”
“Linda! For God’s sake, what is this nonsense?”
“You just watch out for her, that’s all,” she said, still trying to pretend she was being humorous but getting the little strain lines around her mouth that he knew very well. “Maybe I’d better come along to keep you company.”
“You certainly will not!” he said, more strongly than he intended. “You’d make me feel like a damned kid. Stop worrying! She’s just a reporter out to get a story. I’ve had her type in class—they always want to stay after and talk to teacher.”
“And have they?”
“Sometimes,” he said calmly. “But that’s all they’ve done. I repeat, Linda—stop acting like this. I’m all right. She’s all right. The staff will chaperone me, I’ll make sure of that. What’s the problem?”
She gave him a suddenly sad and thoughtful look—where in the world was the confidence with which they had discussed this, just a few weeks ago?—and said slowly,
“This is Washington, D.C., and you don’t know it, and I do. And I’m saying, watch out! I don’t intend to be a Capitol Hill widow and don’t you forget it, Mark Coffin!”
“Honey!” he protested, rising and taking her in his arms as he realized that she was now in deadly earnest. “Honey, honey! For goodness’ sake, stop this. Stop it!”
For a long moment they stared intently at one another; then she yielded and moved deeper into his arms.
“I’m sorry,” she said against his chest. “But I know this town and it—it does things to people. I don’t want it to do anything to us, that’s all.”
“But just a while ago—a month or so,” he said, bewildered, “you weren’t so worried about this. You said—”
“We weren’t here then,” she said fiercely. “I don’t want Washington to ruin us, that’s all.”
“It won’t,” he promised solemnly. “It won’t ever do anything to us.”
After several moments, during which he exchanged a troubled glance with his father-in-law, she released him and returned slowly to her chair. Jim Elrod cleared his throat with a loud “A-hem!” and said heartily,
“Well, Mark, how y’all likin’ it here this first day around the United States Senate? Kind of excitin’, isn’t it?”
“Bewildering, I’d put it,” Mark said with a cautious smile. Then his expression darkened.
“I’ve already learned that the President-elect, whom I thought I could trust, in co-operation with the governor, whom I also thought I could trust, is going to nominate a man for Attorney General whom I don’t honestly think I can support—Charlie Macklin,” he responded to Linda’s suddenly alert and questioning look, and she said sharply, “Oh no!”
“Yes,” he said grimly, “and he didn’t even consult me on it, either.”
“The man comes from California?” Senator Elrod asked, surprised.
“Yes, he’s former D.A. of Los Angeles County. Very uptight law-and-order type. Very rough on civil liberties, civil rights, sex, race. Too much for me, I think, although I suspect”—he smiled at his father-in-law—“you may like him.”
“Yes,” Jim Elrod said, “it’s possible. But that does put you in a bind, doesn’t it? Kind of rough for a brand-new senator to oppose a brand-new President of his own party. Are you sure you’re goin’ to do it?”
“I’m not positive yet. But it’s going to take a lot of convincing to persuade me to go along.”
Senator Elrod gave him a shrewd glance.
“And I suppose it’ll take a lot of convincing too, to persuade you to support the new defense bill I’m goin’ to put in, won’t it?”
Mark’s expression became cautious again.
“What’s it going to be?”
An authorization to increase the defense budget by ten billion dollars,” Jim Elrod said crisply. “At once.”
“But why?” he demanded. “Why? I don’t understand.”
“Because the Soviet Union is buildin’ up so fast that if we don’t get busy pretty damned soon, we’re goin’ to be so far back there that they’ll be able to blackmail the world at will—includin’ us—and we won’t be able to stop ’em, that’s why.”
“I don’t believe it,” Mark said stubbornly. “I just don’t believe it. We have plenty of power to stop them any time.”
“I beg to disagree.”
“Okay, disagree, but you aren’t going to convince me that we don’t have such an atomic arsenal—”
“The will, Mark! The will to bluff with it if we have to. The will to use it if we have to. That’s what we don’t have, and they know it. So all the while they’re lullin’ us into thinkin’ A-bombs are the answer to everything they’ve been buildin’ up their Navy and their Air Force and their Army and all their submarines and missiles and rockets to the point where we’re just about outgunned right this very minute. They wouldn’t expect us to use atomic weapons on ’em —they’d go for our throats with conventional weapons. That’s where we’re weak. That’s where we’ve got to build up, and damned fast. That’s why I’m puttin’ in my bill. I’d like to think my son-in-law would support me on it, but I expect he won’t—though I’d hope he’d at least do me the courtesy to listen to my arguments when we get to debatin’ it.”
