JEFF WOMACK HAD had made the oval room on the second floor his study, and through his terms in office he had succeeded in changing its decor to one designed to make Reen’s visits torturous and brief.
In the crowded, eclectic room, fleur-de-lis wallpaper did battle with Early American and Santa Fe; and Womack sat in a maple rocking chair, an afghan tucked around his sweat-suited legs. At a heavy table in front of him was a Domino’s box containing the messy, aromatic remains of a pizza. Womack’s long, lushly wrinkled face was lowered, his chin tucked to his chest. Pink scalp shone through his thinning white hair. He was regarding the floor with dull interest.
“Jeff?” Reen said.
The head snapped up. The brown eyes narrowed slyly. “Hi there, termite. Grab yourself some pizza.”
Reen glanced into the box. The pizza was a thick-crusted combination: sausage, green pepper, and black olives scattered at random over the cheese. Reen preferred the dishes that the White House kitchen prepared: asparagus in rows with a neat stripe of hollandaise; circles of scalloped potatoes, all the same size. “No, thank you.”
“So how’d I do this morning?”
Reen walked to the President’s side. “You annoyed me.”
Womack’s smile brightened. “Which bothered you more? The pissing or the drooling? I’ve been practicing, see?” He opened his mouth. A glistening thread of moisture dropped from his lips.
“May I ask you a question?”
“Ask away.” Womack wiped the spittle with his sleeve. Reen took a deep breath. “Does menopause affect women’s ability to deal with logic?”
Womack gave him a sharp look. “Knotty problem.”
Reen steeled himself for the answer. All morning he had been haunted by Marian’s puzzling anger. He had always believed she was intelligent, but females, after all, were females. Perhaps her intelligence was as much of a house of cards as his own.
“Where’d you pick up that idea?”
“Bill Hopkins.”
“Hah!” The President lifted a forefinger. “I guessed as much.”
Whipping off the afghan, Womack stood, then shuffled quickly to the bar. The President was a tall, frail gnome of a man who, when the mood hit him, could move with alarming speed. He took a cigarette from a crushed pack on the fireplace mantel and lit it, leaning gracefully against the wall.
“I wish you wouldn’t smoke.”
“Why? You can grow me another set of lungs like you usually do.” Womack opened a cabinet, took out a fifth of Wild Turkey, and poured himself a drink. “Grow me another heart,” he said grumpily into the glass, “so I can outlive another vice president.”
Shifting uncomfortably on his feet, Reen asked, “And as to my question?”
“Hopkins is after Marian Cole again, right? He’s jealous. Good. Keep ‘em guessing. Just be careful not to show too much favoritism to Marian. If Hopkins discovers you’re in love with her, he’ll use that as ammunition.”
“Thank you. I’ll be more careful,” Reen said, queasily contemplating the chaos inside the pizza box. “Should I also be careful not to show my love for you?”
Womack scowled. “Do me a favor. You like me, okay? You’re fond of me. You’d like to go bowling with me. But let’s not have a kid together like you and Marian.”
As though Womack had taken a swing at his face, Reen flinched. “You know?”
Womack tapped a finger against the side of his patrician nose. “I make it my business to know things. My old political enemies used to call me a snake. But snakes, you know, they see all the dirt. Don’t pay attention to what Hopkins says about Marian. Hopkins is jerking your chain.”
Reen wondered how Womack had learned about Angela.
A too-talkative Cousin? Or was he simply guessing? The President was superb at speculation.
“Listen, I’m still on strike, mind you,” Womack said, “but about that meeting–I thought a little free advice might be in order.” He studied the level in the glass before he lifted it to his mouth.
“Yes?”
“Get rid of Krupner. He’s going to fold under pressure. Anyone who cries in the middle of an NSC meeting . . . give me a break.”
Reen moved to the windows and looked past the Truman balcony’s folding chairs to the Jefferson Memorial, a white marble pimple on the chin of the Ellipse. “The Germans want him.”
“The Germans want a German. Tell them the problem. They’ll replace him. If you want my advice, take it. If you don’t, fuck you. By the way, I’m low on booze.”
A spot of color near the White House fence drew Reen’s attention. That color. That jolly grape-Kool-Aid dot of color. The purple Vespa was back.
“Termite? You listening? My world’s crumbling, don’t you hear? My liquor’s almost gone, and all you can do is stare out the window.”
Reen tore his gaze from the scooter and the watchful, motionless figure beside it. “All right. I’ll send Thural up. You can tell him what you need.”
“Yeah, Thural or Jonis. I like old Jonis. Thural, he just gets one of the Secret Service guys to do it. Jonis is creative. There’s this bum–I guess the hell that’s insensitive–okay, a street person. Okay? A homeless son of a bitch. Old Jonis meets him at the fence, hands him enough money to get me and the bum a bottle. Scratches both itches at the same time, Jonis says.” Womack lifted his glass. “Great guy, Jonis.”
“Jonis has been kidnapped.”
The glass paused at Womack’s lips.
“Who is the homeless person?” Reen asked.
“Never saw him. Don’t know his name.” Womack stared bleakly into the fireplace, then threw the remains of his cigarette onto the burning logs. “Poor Jonis. Think you’ll get him back alive?”
“If he is not back within three days, we may consider him dead.”
The President’s intent eyes flicked to Reen. “Why three days especially?”
Reen dodged the questioning look. “Did Jonis have other connections we were not aware of?”
“Oo!” The President clapped a hand to his head. “Oo! I wanted to show you something!” Womack rummaged around in the bar’s cabinet. “Shit. Where’d I put it?” Turning away from the bar, he scanned the room.
“What?”
“Something I found in the West Wing.” In four rapid, arthritic strides he was at his knotty pine desk. Sliding open the top drawer, he brought out a folded piece of paper.
With one arm Womack swept the Domino’s box from the Santa Fe table and onto the floor, sending the remains of the pizza tumbling facedown onto the carpet. He opened the paper carefully. On the white page rested a yellowish translucent cone.
Reen cringed.
“Know what it is?” Womack asked.
“Of course I know what it is.”
“Is it yours?”
Reen stiffened. “No! When I shed a claw sheath, I shed it in private. Then I dispose of it, just as any Cousin should.”
“Pick it up. Take a real good look at it.”
“No. And stop playing with it. You don’t know where that’s been.” But he had already caught sight of what Womack wanted him to see. A raised line ran down the cone’s center: the adolescent ridge. There were no more young Cousins, and only one thing left had a claw like that.
“You see?” Womack asked. “How’d that get into the White House?”
“It dropped off. The Taskmaster didn’t notice–”
“Don’t be a dunce! I found it while I was crawling around under the furniture in the West Wing, like I told you. And no one brings Loving Helpers into the building.”
“Yes, yes. This is all very interesting–”
“It’s a mystery,” Womack said, a gleam in his eye.
Reen lowered his gaze. “Congress is insisting that you choose a vice president.” When he glanced up, he was astonished to see dread shadow Womack’s gaunt face.
“There is only so much that regeneration can do. One day you will die, Jeff, and we will be unable to stop it.” They had been friends for Womack’s entire term, fifty-one long years. Never would Reen know another human so well. Despite his special relationship with Marian Cole, never would he love a human so perfectly.
“You said Congress wanted me to. How do you feel about it?”
Reen fought the upwelling of resentment in his chest, hoping that Womack, who sensed things so well, would not suspect that he chafed under the congressional pressure. “Something could happen to you.”
Again those brown eyes picked him apart. “Could it?”
“I hear you have hired another medium.”
“Marian tell you? Or Hopkins?”
Reen raised his head.
“Ah,” Womack said with the heartfelt satisfaction of a glutton sitting down before a seven-course meal. “So it was Hopkins. It doesn’t matter much, though, termite. As many mediums as I hire, as much as they tell me about the other side, the thought of dying still scares me.” He laughed. “It scares me to death.”
With his claw and forefinger Reen plucked the sleeve of Womack’s velour sweat suit. “The mediums are frauds. No one can call up spirits that way. Besides, the Appropriations Committee threatens to make your expenditures public.”
“What? Ted Long behind this? That bastard doesn’t scare me. The press is saying I’m senile. The gossip inside the Beltway is I’m dead. So what? I haven’t stepped outside this room in three months, and my approval rating’s eighty-seven percent. Now that’s what I call presidential. Let Ted Long shove that Harris poll up his ass.”
“Jeff, please. What if war breaks out? Can’t you just sign the bill and have it over with? Must I bring Loving Helpers here to force you?”
Womack yanked his sleeve from Reen’s grasp. His jaws were clenched, his words strangled, his gaze terrified. “Let go of me, you little gray shit!” He lumbered to the rocking chair and sat. “Christ, what a mess. What a bunch of goddamned bad karma. I’m the guy who handed the Earth to you fuckers. Then you stab me in the back.”
A chill fury seized Reen by the nape of the neck. “You’ve never forgiven me for pressuring you to appoint Hopkins. Well, my Brother wanted Hopkins, and it has always been easier for me not to displease Tali. I give you back your own advice: Grow up, Jeff. This is politics.”
For a breathless moment the two glared at each other. Reen was aware of the sickly, jailhouse pallor of the President’s face, the distinctive garlic and tomato odor of the pizza. Then Womack’s expression softened. “Hey. Consider this a learning experience. If you get in over your head . . . well, I have plans. I have agendas. You’ll see.”
“I hate your agendas.” Reen’s shoulders slumped as if the weight of the planet had descended on him.
From the rocking chair a contemplative, wry silence. “Don’t trust me, do you?”
“You taught me every lie, every trick. How can I help but not trust you?” Reen’s voice trembled with the conflict of emotions he felt for the man. Womack had been one of Reen’s longest-running trials–the cost, Reen had always figured, of victory. And yet, for all their arguments, he loved him, loved him with the same despairing love he felt for Marian Cole.
“You know, when push comes to shove, termite, you won’t have the heart to get rid of me. But your Brother will.”
Reen walked hastily out of the room. In the vestibule of the elevator he punched the button hard with his claw. He wanted to get away from Womack, but he wasn’t sure what drove him: anger at Womack or fear of the truth.
“Hey, termite,” Womack called.
Reen peeked around the corner. The President was framed in the doorway of his study, the pizza at his feet, a monarch amid the ruins of his kingdom. “Okay, so you don’t believe in mediums. But you believe in spirits, right? I mean, we picked this spiritualism up from you guys. You’re not just jerking me around?”
The elevator opened with a rumble and shush. “Of course there are spirits.” Reen stepped into the car and let it take him down to safety, away from the torment in Jeff Womack’s eyes.