week from now. Mr. President, about those newshounds yelping outside the door-”
Dilman’s knuckles crept to his forehead. He felt dizzy and displaced. “I-I can’t see them yet, Tim. Get me out of it.”
“What can I do?” Flannery said wretchedly. “They’re fifty feet deep outside the front door and even in back. There’s no-”
Jaskawich clutched Dilman’s arm. “I can help you. There’s a fire exit at the side of this building-no one’ll know-we can slip out of there-give you a two-or three-minute jump on them before-”
Immediately Jaskawich started off, with the President and press secretary following him.
Five minutes later, dusty and panting, Dilman reached the Cadillac limousine behind Jaskawich and Flannery, as the surprised Secret Service agents and Cape security guards closed in from either side.
Quickly Dilman shook hands with Jaskawich. “Thanks for everything, General. Too bad, but I don’t expect I’ll have the authority, very soon, to send for you. You’d have liked Washington.”
“I don’t like it now,” said Jaskawich angrily. “That’s why maybe I’ll show up whether you send for me or not. You’ve still got a big chance-”
“I don’t know,” said Dilman. “I just don’t know.”
As Dilman settled heavily into the back seat, then made room for Flannery, he could observe, through the curving surface of the car’s bubble top, the herd of reporters and photographers on the run in the distance, hurrying to assault him again.
“Patrick Air Force Base,” Dilman ordered the chauffeur, as two Secret Service agents slammed into the limousine. Up ahead, the motorcycles were forming a protective wedge. The Cadillac moved, wheeled right, and pointed toward the exit gate.
“Mr. President, I was just thinking,” Flannery began earnestly, “when you make your last speech in St. Louis tomorrow, you’ll have a chance to answer the impeachment. The minute we get to St. Louis tonight, we can sit down and revise-”
Dilman had been immersed in thought. While the car sped through the gate, leaving the Cape Kennedy missile site, he suddenly said, “Tim, there’s going to be no St. Louis. No St. Louis. Do me a favor, do you mind?” His limp hand indicated the radiotelephone beside Flannery. “Ring the airport for me, and notify the crew we’re changing our flight plans. Have them get clearance to take me straight to Sioux City, Iowa. Then locate Noyes in Washington and have him cancel the St. Louis speech, the whole visit. Tell him to make any excuse. Tell him I’m sick. I
Dilman pointed to the mobile telephone unit again. “Book me into a Sioux City hotel for overnight. No engagements, not that anyone except the reporters would want to see me. I’ve got no patronage to hand out now. I’m nothing more than a politician under criminal indictment, and that’s like being a typhoid carrier. I think we’ll have our privacy in Sioux City.”
Flannery had heard this out with unconcealed anguish. “Mr. President, please reconsider the St. Louis speech. You’ve still-”
“No. I need time to think, and I know what must be done first. After you’ve finished the other calls, get The Judge for me. He lives outside Sioux City somewhere-”
“Fairview Farm.”
“Yes, that’s right. Tell him I’d like to drive out and have breakfast with him tomorrow morning, ham and eggs and a little talk, the two of us, an ex-President and one about to join his club, and nobody else. Tell him I won’t need much of his time, maybe an hour, before I head back to Washington.”
For quiet seconds Douglass Dilman listlessly watched the business section, the stores and offices and nightclubs of Cocoa Beach, flash by. Then, still staring outside the window, he said, “Funny how, the moment everything collapsed around me ten minutes ago, my mind went back to my father. Funny, because I never really knew my old man, except from some pictures and what my mother used to tell me. He died when I was just a child. My mind went to him, I guess, because I felt like a helpless kid they’re after, and I wanted someone old enough and strong enough to stand in front of me, between them and me. But then, I knew I had no father. So I had to adopt one, someone who was tough and sure and unafraid, someone who was-was old enough for me to respect and talk to. So automatically, in my head, I kind of adopted The Judge. Crazy, because he hardly knows me and I hardly know him either. But he’s as irascible and durable as an Assyrian goat. You know, Tim, my first morning as President he called me from his farm, and after he finished lecturing me, he said, ‘Young fellow, you listen and remember, if you ever need my advice or a helping hand, both of which are untaxable and both of which we got plenty of, you come out here and visit the Missus and me, and we’ll have a good farm breakfast and set you straight.’ That’s what he said, Tim.”
Dilman turned away from the window and met Flannery’s eyes. “I’d have no way of knowing, but I guess that’s the way a father would talk… Now, what in the devil’s keeping you, Tim? We haven’t got all day. Get on the phone there and start making those long-distance calls, charged to the White House, while I can still spend the government’s money.”
It was a luminous, pure, autumn-crisp Iowa morning.
Overhead, the disc of sun was too fresh to the new day to have yet warmed the air or the soil, so that the air still livened the flesh and entered the lungs with the bracing coolness of a natural spring, and the patches of grass and springy earth underfoot were damp with the night dew. There was a strange, tangy, life-giving smell all around, a mingling of rural odors of livestock and poultry, of corn and wheat, of red barn paint and crackling skillet.
They made their way back from their hike, in step, without haste, strolling leisurely, the President of the United States and the ex-President of the United States, both holding to their own ruminations as they crossed the barnyard toward the sprawling gray-and-red farm house.
The Judge held his gnarled Irish shillelagh aloft, to greet the arriving farmhand clad in patched blue overalls, and then he brandished the walking stick at an indignant rooster. “Guess you’ve got yourself an appetite at last, eh, young man?” he said to Dilman.
“Yes, Judge, I’m about ready.”
Dilman had been too impatient for a hike when it had begun, and had gone along only out of courtesy to his aged host. Now he was grateful for the tonic of the walk, and his respect for the ex-President’s instinctive folk wisdom was reinforced.
Upon his arrival at Fairview Farm, ten miles outside Sioux City, Dilman had been abashed by The Judge’s unceremonious welcome as they shook hands on the wooden porch.
The Judge had snorted, expectorated, and rasped out, “So, they crucified you up on the Hill yesterday, eh, my friend? Hell and tarnations, I’ve known them for muddleheads and blockheads half my life, and firsthand, but I sure didn’t expect them to take leave of their senses, insulting our office of President, making our Party into a white demagogue’s party, slapping the Negro vote in the face. Couldn’t have done better if they wore white hoods when they indicted you, the blasted fools.”
“I’m glad we’re of one mind,” Dilman had said, his hand still gripped in The Judge’s hand, as they remained in sight of Flannery, the Secret Service agents, the state police.
The Judge had let go of the handshake. “Young man, I hold a strictly zoological view of our legislative branch. Taken as a whole, Congress reminds me of nothing more than a dinosaur-the Stegosaurus, to be specific-a giant body with a peewee head and a collective brain the size of a walnut. Taken individually, the members are either dodoes or dingoes-understand?-the dodo bird pretending to be a bird, yet unable to fly, and heading for extinction because of self-importance, pretension, unadaptability-the dingo dog of Australia, half domestic pet, faithful and serving, other half wild beast, roving in packs and killing sheep. Congress!” He had glared off. “Who in the hell is invading our serenity?”
Three sedans, crammed to overflowing, had come bumping up the rutted main road into Fairview Farm.
“The press,” Dilman had said.
“Let them stew,” The Judge had growled. He had considered Dilman, eyes narrowing. “Young man, you’re not fit to enjoy our food, not yet. Come on, let’s you and me take a brisk half hour’s hike over the farm-show you how the middle of America lives-you’ll find it good for your juices-cleanse out all the spite from your gut before breakfast.”
