help you?'
Equally exasperated, I said, 'You can do your duty by calling Mr.
Dalton, telling him that Jack Flynn said he has a significant story running in tomorrow's paper on the presidential assassination attempt that requires an adult's attention, and asking him to please call me at the number you just dialed. Tell him I'll be here for ten more minutes.'
Sure enough, about three minutes later, Dalton was on the other line, himself exasperated. 'It's the day before the election,' he said in that thin voice of his. 'What could you possibly be doing?'
'Trying to hold this democracy together, a task that you people aren't making any easier,' I said. 'Here's my problem. I need to talk to Hutchins. I need to talk to him about a subject that only he knows about and that only he will want to know about. I need to talk to him tonight-'
'Absolutely no way. We just gave you time with him on Saturday, and best I can tell, you haven't done anything with it.'
I said, angry, 'Well, we've had a few things happen since then, like a car bomb and the death of my colleague.' I paused. He stayed silent, so I asked, 'Where are you?'
'We're at Kennedy. We're about to board Air Force One back to Andrews.'
I said, 'Would you relay a message to Hutchins? Tell him I'm doing a story about Curtis Black, with some new, crucial details that could prove, well, explosive.' Much as I enjoy my own puns, especially those with a double entendre, I didn't particularly like that unintended one.
He replied in that superior tone of his, 'What in the world are you talking about? I'm not going to relay a message like that, even if I could. Tell me what you're working on, and maybe I can get someone else at the White House to help you out.'
I said, 'I'm going with a story tomorrow. It's potentially devastating to Hutchins, especially if his own staff prevents him from responding.
If you don't tell him I'm trying to reach him, you're going to be screwed. Take my word for it, Royal.'
'You know I can't go to him on the night before the presidential election with no information.'
'On this one, you have to, or you'll regret it for a long time to come.
Have him call me. I'll be here.'
He didn't reply, leaving another moment of gaping silence. I added,
'Remember, Curtis Black, crucial details, explosive. Tell him that.'
Now I'd be lying if I said I wasn't getting any satisfaction from this, working the telephone, putting pieces together, inching closer to the answers that Havlicek and I had pursued to his death. I was back in my element, even if no one wanted me there. But it doesn't matter if they did or didn't. In newspapers, at the end of each day, the only thing that matters is what you can get into print.
The telephone rang. I picked it up, and it was Lincoln Powers, the chief of staff.
'Young man,' he said in a spare Texas twang, 'I brought your request to the president and the president said, verbatim, that he doesn't know what you're talking about and has nothing to say.'
I replied, 'Well, could you tell the president, verbatim, that tomorrow's Record will carry a story detailing the transformation of Curtis Black, and it will no doubt have a profound impact on the election. I'll be at my phone for a short time only.'
Well, that last part was a lie. Actually, I'd be glued to my phone waiting, but why give them the confidence rooted in your own anxiety?
About ten minutes later, the telephone rang again, and miraculously, or not so miraculously, it was that familiar voice of President Clayton Hutchins. Every half-cocked bluff was working like a charm. Without introductions, or even enthusiasm, he said, 'Curtis Black. What the hell does that mean?'
'I think you know, sir,' I said, trying to sound sympathetic to someone who was about to be found in a life- defining lie. 'I uncovered some crucial new information on Curtis Black and his current identity.'
'I don't know what the hell you're talking about, young man,' he said.
He sounded sincere, but politicians usually do.
I replied, 'Sir, I've talked to other members of the gang on that Wells Fargo job. They know who you are. They are willing to go public with their information.' Well, not exactly, but why get bogged down in the mundane details of sourcing a story?
'Young man, I don't have the slightest fucking idea what you're fucking talking about, but be aware you're talking to the president of the United fucking States of America.'
Employing an old reporting trick, I let that hang out there, my implicit accusation, his pathetic response. This wasn't so much a pause as a protracted silence. I pictured him sitting in his office on Air Force One, the plane preparing for takeoff, a small army of aides and servants outside his study door. He was the most public and most private man in the world.
Now I understood what Stemple was saying on that very first day he spoke to me, all that stuff about nothing being as it seems, the strange complex motives involved. At least, I think I understood.
More important, I think I was about to know in such a way that I could write about it.
Then, in a tone I had never heard before, his voice so thick it barely sounded like him, he said, 'I'm in New York now, on my way to the airport. Why don't you come over to the White House when I get back, and we'll talk.'
'That would be helpful, sir,' I said. 'What time?'
'Seven.' We hung up, leaving just one immediate question, at least for me: would someone try to kill me before I could get in?
At this point, I had no choice but to call Peter Martin, who snapped up the telephone on the first ring as if he had been waiting for my call all day. Just as Havlicek preserved the story in the moments before he died and passed it on to me in the form of Stemple's address, I needed to make plans in case I came in harm's way.
'Well, we were right about one thing,' I said. 'Curtis Black was definitely involved in the shooting. Only he was the victim, not the attempted assassin.'
Martin said, 'What? What are you talking about?'
I said, 'Here's the short version. Curtis Black is the president of the United States. One of the guys from his old criminal gang told me so today.' I paused and added, 'Take this one to the bank.'
'I don't understand.' You don't hear Martin say that all that often.
I said, 'Curtis Black became a federal witness. He came out with a new identity, that of Tony Clawson. A few years later, he ditched the name Clawson and assumed the name Clayton Hutchins, who, I have a raw hunch, was an actual person who had died very young. He's a smart guy. He went off and made a fortune in computer software. He came into politics almost unwittingly. He became governor of Iowa at the last minute, and then he rose up almost in spite of himself. And when it was time to run for president, think about it. He had a fabricated background. It was real, but it wasn't. It was chosen as a best-case scenario, so there could be nothing wrong with it, except it was a lie.
Remember when David Souter won confirmation to the Supreme Court? One of his best qualities was that no one knew anything about him because he was such a recluse and never wrote anything down. This is like that. In a media age when all we do is look for scandal, he didn't have any because his whole life was made up. And fortunately for him, we all found scandal in his opponent, so we were distracted.'
I could hear Martin breathing heavily into the phone, playing out every angle of this story, every possible thing that could go wrong versus what might be right.
'You have it firm enough to go with?'
'No. But Hutchins has agreed to see me. I'm heading over there in about an hour.'
'Is it safe for you to go?' Good question; Martin getting his bearings.
'Don't know, but it's even less safe not to go.'
'All right. I'll be in the office when you get back. Be careful, and be good.'
When I paged Drinker next, he returned the call before I could even lean back in my chair.
I said, 'I need to speak with you soon. I'm ready to go with a story and want to go over some angles. You know as well as I do that I wasn't the intended target at Congressional. I'll give you one final chance to help.'
He replied, sounding sincere, 'Go ahead.'
