'And what about this Graham and Wilkerson tip?' Martin asked.
'Been pursuing it, but I've gotten nothing back. Nothing. I just don't see it being true, or someone, somewhere would have given me a wink or a nod.'
We both fell quiet for a moment, until he said, 'Does this shooting ultimately win the election for Hutchins?'
While I considered an answer, he provided one of his own. 'It seems like Hutchins has gotten a modest boost over this whole thing, but maybe not as good a boost as they expected. The public really doesn't seem to know what to make of all this confusion over the investigation.
They've edged toward Hutchins in the polls, but it's been anything but decisive. I bet it's driving the White House crazy.'
I nodded and said, 'Yeah, I think you're about right. After the shooting, I know I thought Hutchins would jump ahead, especially with that Reaganesque quote that the ambulance driver remembered, though wrongly. The White House thought the same thing. And now, I don't know. I can't get my mind around how this is playing out, or even if the election had something to do with the assassination attempt.'
'I suspect we'll find that out soon enough,' Martin said. 'I want you to hang in here today, mop up with Havlicek, and late tonight or tomorrow, you get on up to Chelsea and work like a tyrant on this guy Black. I have a hunch we'll know whether this information is any good in the next days or so.'
I said, 'Sounds like a plan.' At least, it was the closest thing I had to one in this topsy-turvey thing we call life.
thirteen
It was around 1:00 P.m. when White House Press Secretary Royal Dalton slid open the pocket doors that separate the press office from the briefing room and walked awkwardly up to the podium. He was about an hour late.
Hutchins was laying over in Washington amid a week-long campaign trip.
The room was electric this day. There is nothing that makes reporters happier than catching the government, especially a law enforcement agency, in a mistake or a lie, and this one about Tony Clawson could cut either way. Sure, other print reporters were frustrated at having been beaten to the story. The hell with them. Television reporters, they don't really care. The hotter the story, no matter who breaks it, means the more air time for them, and that means greater recognition-on the streets, at family weddings, and on the telephone with any of the young blond hostesses at the city's hottest restaurants when they call at five in the afternoon hoping for an eight-o'clock reservation, table for four.
Every seat in the room was filled with a reporter. Every inch of wall space was taken by cameramen who appeared layered on top of each other, creating a terrace of lenses, ready to beam this scene around the world in a matter of minutes. The lights were bright and hot, causing that unique-and, yes, unpleasant-odor of sweat and wool.
Dalton looked particularly uneasy today, his already pasty features washed even whiter, with the sole exception of the darkening circles under his beady eyes.
'I have a couple of policy announcements,' he said, trying to maintain a casual demeanor as he looked around the room in something that more accurately approached fear. He went on to talk about a Medicare reform proposal that Republicans had been trying to sell for years, recycled, obviously, in time for some campaign season coverage.
After that, he opened the session to questions, and first up was Moose Myers, senior White House correspondent for CNN. Moose was actually anything but. On the screen, he looked big and foreboding, usually because the camera shot him from close range, so he'd fill the picture.
In person, he was five foot six, maybe five-seven in his favorite heels. I don't know why I bring this up. Whenever I talk to television guys, I tend to dwell on their features and come to the inevitable conclusion that aside from my reportorial pride, I could do that.
Moose asked: 'Has President Hutchins talked to the FBI director this morning, and has he lost faith in the FBI'S ability to conduct this investigation, given the revelations in today's Boston Record?'
Sitting smack in the middle of the room, about three rows behind him, I made a mental note to extend my thanks for that high-profile mention.
It doesn't get much better than that. I actually had the feeling that a few of my colleagues were looking at me, and trust me when I say this is a tough lot to impress. You could walk on water, and the first thing most of them would want to do is inspect your shoes, and, finding them wet, ask, 'Any reason why you went out and ruined a perfectly good pair of Cole-Haan wing tips?'
Dalton had obviously patched together a precisely worded answer to this question with senior White House aides and probably even Hutchins himself, then rehearsed it frontward and back over the past several hours. Here it came:
'The president,' he said, 'has spoken to Director Callinger of the FBI by telephone this morning. They had a pleasant and informative talk.
They have been keeping in regular contact since the assassination attempt. You've all seen reports'-the Record stories, I'd point out-'that there has been a security alert here at the White House, and the president has been receiving regular updates on that.
'The president was assured today that the investigation remains on track and is moving ahead with significant progress. The president is obviously in no position to discuss the particulars of the investigation. He was the victim. He is not a detective. But I am told the FBI will have something more to say on this shortly.'
Immediately, a dozen hands and as many voices filled the air. Myers, the CNN reporter, talked down his colleagues. Asking a question in this kind of setting is like a verbal fencing match. You have to stay at it longer and harder, and eventually the vanquished sit down and shut up. 'Royal, you didn't answer me. Has the president lost faith in the abilities of the FBI, given what the Boston Record is saying today about the misidentified shooter and the fact that they had previously identified a specific militia group, but were unable to stop the assassination attempt?'
Every time he mentioned my paper, I subconsciously felt myself push my shoulders back a bit further. I also felt the urge to hug him, but those are my own private issues. If I really had, I could see CNN using that footage in a commercial for how revered Moose is by his colleagues.
'Look,' Dalton said. 'The president believes today what he's always believed, and what, I would argue, most of America believes: that the FBI is the most talented, most exhaustive, most prestigious law enforcement agency in the world. He hasn't changed his opinion because of a newspaper story in Boston.'
Dalton spit out those last words as if they were some distasteful bit of phlegm that had worked its way from his throat into his mouth. But if he thought he could outsmart the gathered press-and pathetically, he probably believed he could-he was about to learn the folly of his ways. Immediately, the Associated Press reporter shouted out, 'So the president believes that the FBI was right, that the dead man is actually Tony Clawson?'
Good one. Dalton hesitated at the podium. You could see him twitching if you watched closely enough. 'As I indicated before,' he said, gathering a dismissive tone, 'the president is the president of the United States. He is not a detective. He does not involve himself in the particulars of this investigation. He leaves that up to the trained inspectors with the most successful, most notable law enforcement agency in the world.'
The Washington Post reporter asked loudly: 'Does the president still have faith in that agency and its director?'
Dalton: 'He does not see any reason, at this juncture, not to have faith in the FBI. He wants to let them proceed with their investigation, which is certainly difficult to do, given the intense publicity and the second- guessing that we're seeing now in the news media.'
My first inclination was to stand up and tell him that the story wasn't second-guessing, it was just laying out a set of obvious facts, most notably, that the FBI misidentified a would-be presidential assassin.
My second inclination, the winning one, was that it might be unbecoming to stand and defend my own story.
