Ex Officio Page 10

  They started walking toward the house, she setting a brisk pace. He said, “It’s nothing serious, I hope.”

  “We all do,” she said. “About three months ago, he had an attack. We were in California. Uncle Joe said—that’s his doctor.” She looked at him doubtfully. “You don’t know him, do you? Dr. Joseph Holt. He’s my uncle.”

  “No, I don’t.”

  “Well, he said it was what they call a little stroke. Not a real stroke, because it doesn’t do any permanent damage. He explained this all to me, but I’m afraid a lot of it just sank into my head and disappeared without a trace.” She was walking briskly and talking in hurried spurts, telling him this more out of a nervous need to talk than for any other reason. “He said there could be others like it,” she said. “Or Bradford could have a real stroke, and then God knows what would happen. He might even die.” Her voice grew suddenly faint on the word die, and he looked at her in alarm. Her face was white still, with patches of color on the cheeks, but she didn’t look as though she was going to collapse.

  He said, “Is that what happened now? Another attack?”

  “Yes. A little one, thank God, he was only unconscious for a very few minutes. In fact, I talked with him on the phone.”

  “That’s good, then,” he said.

  “Oh, if I lost him, too,” she said, but didn’t say any more, and when he glanced at her he saw that that had been the complete sentence. She was walking grimly, staring at the house as they neared it.

  Sterling and Elizabeth were in the front room, and Robert stopped off with them while Evelyn went on. He said, “Evelyn told me about it.”

  “It seems he had one once before,” Sterling said. He and Elizabeth both looked helpless and worried, and he imagined the same expression was on his own face.

  “Yes, I know,” he said. “Do you suppose we ought to go?

  “Not without saying goodbye,” Elizabeth said. “Brad wouldn’t like that at all.”

  But then there didn’t seem to be much of anything to say. Sterling and Elizabeth sat in chairs near one another, occasionally saying a word or two to each other, but Robert found it impossible to sit. He went over to the window and looked out at the front of the house, Sterling’s Lincoln parked there next to Howard’s white Mercedes-Benz 28OSE, the Mercedes sports car. Beyond the gravel driveway and the cropped lawn stretched the woods. Somewhere in there was the dead town, and he found himself regretting not having looked at the gravestones there, because he wanted to know if the names could still be read on them.

  He heard Bradford’s voice say, “Here you are! Good God, don’t start a wake for me yet.” He turned around and Bradford had come in, with an anxious Evelyn beside him. Bradford was limping slightly, which Robert couldn’t remember having seen him do before.

  Everyone tried to be cheerful, but no one’s heart was in it. Bradford was obviously tired, too, and he seemed a little confused once or twice in the conversation. It was clearly a relief to everyone when Sterling suggested it was time they start back.

  Howard had joined them, and he too was leaving now. “Give me a call when you feel up to it,” he told Bradford. “And don’t worry about deadlines. I’d rather have a late book than a late Brad.”

  On their way out, Bradford paused to take Robert’s hand and then hold it for a minute, studying him. It seemed to Robert the older man had forgotten something, was trying to remember something he’d meant to say or do, but then Bradford said, “You know the way now. Come back. I enjoyed talking with you.”

  “Thank you, sir. I have the feeling I shot my mouth off, though, telling you what I think of international politics.”

  “Don’t feel that way at all,” Bradford assured him. “Good minds are good to listen to, whatever the background. I do want you to come back again, don’t forget.”

  “Thank you, sir.”

  Robert shook hands with Evelyn, also, saying, “Thanks for the guided tour. If you ever get up to Lancashire, allow me to return the favor.”

  “Thank you, I will.”

  Howard drove away first, still in a hurry, and Sterling steered the Lincoln through his son’s descending dust out toward the highway.

  Elizabeth half-turned in the seat so she could look back at Robert. “Well, what did you think of Bradford?”

  “I was fascinated by him, I like him very much. I just hope he doesn’t think I’m some sort of big mouth.”

  “I’m sure he doesn’t.” Then, too casually, she said, “And what did you think of Evelyn?”

  Robert looked at her, and began to grin. “Well, I’ll be damned,” he said.

  Her innocent expression didn’t entirely work. “What’s the matter?”

  “It was a set-up,” he said. “You were all in on it.”

  “In on what? For Heaven’s sake, Robert, don’t be paranoid.”

  “You didn’t get me down there to meet Bradford Lockridge, you brought me down there to meet Mrs. Evelyn Canby. You people are matchmaking!”

  “How can you say such a thing?” But the indignation didn’t quite work either.

  Robert laughed, saying, “The funny thing is, I was wondering if Bradford realized how much she’d buried herself out there with him, and if he was trying to do anything about it. And he is, isn’t he?”

  “Sometimes,” Elizabeth said tartly, “it’s possible to be too smart for one’s own good.”

  “I just hope Evelyn doesn’t find out,” Robert said. “She’d be very embarrassed.”

  Sterling, keeping his eyes on the road, said, “I doubt Brad will make Elizabeth’s kind of mistake. He’s had more experience at international intrigue.”

  Elizabeth could be seen to restrain an angry rejoinder. She finally shook her head and said to Robert, “The point is, she’s a very nice girl.” She kept looking at Robert, and a few seconds later insisted, “Isn’t she?”

  “She is,” Robert said sincerely. “Very nice.”

  “And that’s all that matters,” she said. “Not who arranged what, or said what, or did what. Isn’t that right?”

  “Perfectly right,” he said, grinning at her.

  She grinned back, trying not to. “We’ll see,” she promised, “we’ll see.” And faced front.

  5

  AT LUNCH, WELLINGTON CALLED the CIA a “stalking horse,” and Evelyn looked at him in some surprise. She considered Wellington the most colorless person she knew, male or female, in or out of the family, and it was startling to hear him use a phrase even that vivacious. His normal conversation was about on a par with a stock prospectus.

  They were six at lunch, one of those rare occasions when both of Bradford’s sons were at the house simultaneously. Plus the omnipresent Howard, here to begin pushing Bradford to work on The Coming of Winter, volume five of the memoirs. The Temporary Peace was finally complete, and scheduled to be published in October: late enough to get some of the Christmas gift buyers, as Howard had explained, but early enough not to be lost in the flood of Christmas books.

  The sixth person present was Uncle Joe, here to reassure himself that the Paris trip would be all right for Bradford to take.

  But it was Wellington who had suddenly come into the center of Evelyn’s awareness, and with some surprise she realized that one almost never saw Wellington. One was aware of his presence, of course, but not really. He was like a bland painting that has been hanging on the same wall for fifty years; no one ever really looks at it any more.

  But Evelyn looked at him now, forcing herself to really see her Uncle Wellington Lockridge. He was Bradford’s older son, a man in his middle forties, of average height, somewhat stocky build, his black hair receding slowly from his forehead. The distinctive Lockridge eyes and nose and shape of head, most prominent in Bradford, were least evident in Wellington, who seemed to have virtually no specificity or individuality in his face at all, as though it had been built from parts in one of those identikits the police use when trying to reconstruct a fugitive’s appearance from witnesses’ descr
iptions.

  And his speech—except for this rare and out-of-character stalking horse—was a verbal equivalent of the identikit. It wasn’t that he was silent, he was worse than that. A silent man is noticeable simply because he doesn’t speak, whereas Wellington did speak, but his sentences were white bread, bland and tasteless and immediately forgotten.

  The other brother, Bradford, Jr., called BJ, was just the opposite. A career Army man, now a major, he was the youngest of Bradford’s three children and the one who physically resembled him the most, though BJ was more burly in his build and ramrod straight in his posture. An Army man of an old-fashioned and almost extinct variety, BJ came close to being the family character. He had never married, the Army evidently being all the wife he needed, and he habitually spoke in a parade-ground bellow. He wore his uniform everywhere, and the first time Evelyn had heard Bradford characterize BJ as ‘shy’ she’d laughed, thinking he was joking. But he wasn’t; the Army had given BJ more than a uniform to hide inside, it had given him a full persona as well, and it was only with great difficulty that one could reach through to the incredibly shy and insecure man within.

  Was Wellington also hiding inside a false persona? If so, who was he, down in there?

  Stalking horse. What he had said, in response to a bitter wisecrack from Howard about the global ineptitude of the Central Intelligence Agency—“Girls in the steno pool have kept their engagement rings more secret.”—was that it was naïve to expect the United States government to survive with only the assistance of an admittedly bumbling and impulsive espionage agency. “Those fellows are only a stalking horse,” he’d said. “I’m surprised sometimes that isn’t obvious to everybody.”

  It was Uncle Joe who responded, turning to Wellington and echoing, “Stalking horse?” His expression was thoughtful. “You mean you think there’s another agency behind the CIA?”

  Evelyn was watching Wellington now much more closely than she had ever done before in her life, and she was sure she saw an expression of annoyance touch his anonymous face. Annoyance at Uncle Joe? Or annoyance at having for once in his life called attention to himself? Evelyn, watching him, realized that among all her relatives Wellington was the one she knew the least. He was a stranger sitting at lunch, her mother’s brother. She didn’t even know what he did for a living, not precisely. Only that he worked somehow in Washington, for the federal government.

  He answered Uncle Joe with some hesitancy, his eyelids half-closed as though he hoped by masking his eyes to lose everyone’s attention more rapidly. “It just seems sensible to me,” he said. “Of course, it might not be true. I suppose they’d have trouble getting funded.”

  “Not at all,” Howard said quickly. “If the CIA is a front for a more secret agency, it would be a funnel for the same group. CIA funds are never targeted in the budget, the appropriations are kept nice and vague.”

  Wellington, who had suggested the idea with such conviction, now began to argue against it, saying, “But doesn’t that seem overly complicated? How would they decide which agency did which jobs? They wouldn’t say, ‘Here, this operation looks like it’ll fail for sure, let’s give it to the CIA.’ If it looked as though it would fail, they wouldn’t do it at all.”

  “I would imagine,” Howard said, “that the routine espionage work would all be done by the CIA. But when something really difficult or important had to be done, it would be this other group. And if they goofed it, the CIA would step in and take the blame.”

  “Now you’re going into sensational fiction,” Wellington told him, smiling slightly. Evelyn didn’t believe the smile at all. “Television programs, or James Bond movies.”

  Uncle Joe said, “Still, it’s an interesting notion.” But not with much conviction.

  “I suppose so,” Wellington said, carelessly.

  Neither Howard nor Uncle Joe seemed to be ready with another comment immediately. Evelyn saw them glance at one another, and she felt that slight silent shifting that means a subject has died and is about to be replaced by another. But she didn’t want it to be replaced, she wanted them to keep talking about the same thing so she could keep studying Wellington. She was meeting this uncle, really meeting him, for the first time in her life, and she wanted to learn as much as possible right now.

  So she kept it alive herself. “Bradford would know,” she said.

  Everyone looked at her, and it seemed to her that something impatient—no, hostile—was in Wellington’s eyes briefly as he turned her way, but then it was gone and his expression was bland again.

  Uncle Joe said, “He’d know what?”

  “The President knows what organizations there are,” she explained, and leaned forward to look down the table at Bradford, who was somewhat glumly studying his plate. “Bradford,” she said, “you’d know for sure. Is there another agency?”

  He looked up reluctantly, and his expression was indecisive. “I’m not sure the question can be answered,” he said. “Of course there are other agencies. Is the Central Intelligence Agency consciously a distraction for them? I should think not, not in any usual circumstances. But I suppose if one of the other agencies needed that sort of bailing out, the CIA would be the one to do it.”

  Uncle Joe said, “What sort of other agencies do you mean, Brad?”

  “Well, the services have their own espionage and counterintelligence groups, of course. The FBI does some counterintelligence work within the boundaries of this country. The Secret Service has some responsibilities in that area, particularly in guarding against assassination attempts. I suppose the service agencies. Army and Navy and Air Force, they’d be the most likely to have occasion to be bailed out by the CIA overseas. Though I don’t suppose it happens often, do you, BJ?”

  BJ’s voice trumpeted out over the table. “Army Intelligence can take care of itself.” Though that would be merely automatic Army pride speaking, since BJ’s work was with the Quartermaster, in the Pentagon.

  Wellington said quietly, “Still, I suppose there’s bound to be inter-service rivalry, just as there is in other departments. Wouldn’t you think so, BJ?”

  “Not to a point of snafu,” BJ declared. “Not to where we’d need to be bailed out by the CIA. The Army takes the credit when it’s done well and accepts the blame when it’s failed. You remember, Bradford, that mess in Panama during your administration. The Army accepted its share of the blame on that without flinching.”

  Bradford looked rueful. “I remember it, all right,” he said.

  Wellington turned to Bradford, still interested. “How did that work itself out finally?”

  Evelyn thought, I should say something. The subject has been changed, and I should say something. But Bradford was deep in an explanation of the complexities of the mess in Panama, everyone else was interested in that now, and the moment had somehow passed. And in any case, she doubted a return to the subject would add any more light. But she did try to keep watching Wellington—to keep seeing him—and for five minutes or so she managed, but the unvarying blandness of his expression, the gauzy invisibility of his speech, induced boredom and a straying attention. The stalking horse slip—if it had been a slip—was over now, and would not be repeated, and Evelyn at last, with some relief, allowed Wellington to ooze out of her attention.

  ii

  AFTER BJ AND WELLINGTON had both left in BJ’s official chauffeur-driven brown Chevrolet, Uncle Joe took Evelyn aside and said, “Let’s talk about this Paris trip.” Bradford was closeted with Howard, as usual, so they had some time to themselves.

  “Let’s go outside,” she said. “I hate to be cooped up in the house all the time when we have such nice weather.”

  So they walked in the garden. It was Tuesday, the twenty-sixth of June, and the Paris trip was scheduled for Friday. Uncle Joe had reluctantly agreed to the idea last month, when it was first suggested, and when Bradford had reminded him that he’d obeyed Joe’s orders and cut down severely for the last few months on his speech-making, his party co
nferences and the granting of interviews to the press. For having been so good, Bradford had pointed out, he deserved a reward: the Paris trip.

  So Joe had agreed, with great reluctance, and had been out to the house twice since then to give Bradford additional examinations and repeat his orders about what Bradford should and should not do. He hadn’t hidden his doubts about the wisdom of the trip, but Evelyn had at one point heard Bradford say to him, “I would rather be useful and in danger than useless and safe.” It was a point of view that couldn’t be argued with, so Uncle Joe was reduced to fretful attempts at preventive medicine.

  And he was also reduced to repeating himself. Nothing he said to Evelyn now as they walked amid Dinah’s flowers was new; he’d given her the same instructions several times before. Bradford should attempt to avoid over-stimulation, if possible. If his insomnia should strike—during his active political career he had frequently suffered from insomnia during periods of crisis—he should under no circumstances take any sedation; the deeper the sleep, the better the conditions for a stroke, and sleeplessness was better than the risk of either another ischemic attack or the real thing. If another attack did occur, Evelyn was to get in touch at once with the Parisian specialist Uncle Joe had told her about, a man Joe knew and trusted and who had been sent a long detailed letter by Joe to prepare him in the event of an emergency. Should there be such an emergency, she was also to cable Joe immediately. During Bradford’s Parisian stay, his blood pressure should be taken at least once a day—for this an ordinary doctor would do, the specialist wasn’t needed—and if it started to climb, corrective measures should be taken, up to and including postponement of Bradford’s meetings with the Chinese. “If he starts with that useful-useless stuff,” he added, “tell him I said there’s nothing much more useless than a corpse.”

  “I’ll tell him,” she promised. She turned to look at the house, and little Dinah was at a second floor window. When she saw her mother looking up at her she waved, and Evelyn waved back. Should she ask Bradford if she could bring Dinah along? No, of course not, that would be silly. The child would be better off at home than stuck in some Parisian hotel room with nothing to do.