The Man

away from responsibility be reached?

In fact, Old Chub the Rabbit-Hearted might even renege on the biography now, Poole realized with a shudder. In the last minutes, the biography had become as valuable to Leroy Poole as a First Folio Shakespeare. As an obscure senator, Dilman had been afraid of the biography, recoiling from any attention. It had taken the intervention of the foremost Negro publisher in America, and pressure from several Negro leaders, including Spinger, to convince Dilman that a short, innocuous, political biography would be more useful to him than harmful.

Immediately after Poole had arrived in Washington, he had found Dilman reserved and tongue-tied about discussing his personal life. Cleverly Poole led the Senator into discussions of his public career. Since the facts had been published, Dilman had proved easier, more amiable, more talkative. Recently Poole had led him back to his private life, and Dilman, at last conditioned to these interviews, more trusting of his interrogator (who had not told him of his connection with the Turnerites), had been more helpful, but still not frank and open. If Dilman had been so timorous before, Poole wondered, how would he be now, when his every word might be examined by a suspicious or hostile citizenry? Would he call Leroy Poole in and tell him that the project was finished? Or would he simply evade Poole, postpone interviews, and allow the project to languish and die?

Leroy Poole put aside his coffee container, wiped the crumbs from his mouth as he brought the telephone to it, and put in a call for Dilman’s secretary, Diane Fuller, in the Old Senate Office Building. Told that her line was busy, Poole waited. Presently he heard her harassed voice, her speech ungrammatical as it was whenever she was under tension. Poole had always been flattering to the scrawny, nervous colored girl, because he had long ago learned that personal secretaries were important, sometimes alter egos, and even if Diane did not measure up, it paid to play it safe. As ever, Poole greeted her effusively, and congratulated her on the elevation of her boss.

“Oh, what a day,” she groaned. “Everybody’s callin’, and it ain’t-isn’t-no fun. I don’t know what’s goin’ on here, Leroy.”

“Then I won’t keep you, honey chile,” Leroy Poole said sympathetically. “I just want to know where I stand. I have an appointment with him day after tomorrow, around two in the afternoon. He was going to give me a full hour. But now that he’s moved from the Senate to the White House, I want to be sure the date’s still good and to know where to come. Has he had time to mention it?”

“Leroy, so much is happening, I haven’t even seen him yet. Got to talk to him once on the phone, no more. I don’t know where he is or what he plans. I have your date on the calendar. First chance I get today or tomorrow, I’ll remind him.”

“That’s my sweetie pie. And look, I want to be reasonable. The poor guy’s been hit on the head with a country. If he’s crowded day after tomorrow, you tell him I can wait. But try to get a firm appointment out of him for this week, even if it’s a shorter time.”

“Sure thing, Leroy, I’ll call you… whoa, there’s three other phones. Good-bye.”

Leroy Poole sat back deeper in the chair, still holding the telephone in his lap. Of course, he had almost enough material to do the biography without any additional interviews with Dilman. He could see other people, which he had not done yet, and use clippings. Still, that was not the point. He wanted to maintain his person-to- person contact with Dilman. He must fight for nothing less.

The telephone in his lap shrilled at him, and he juggled it, undoing the receiver, then retrieved it.

“Yeh, hello?”

“Mr. Poole? Sally Watson again. Remember, you told me I could call back.”

“That’s right.”

“Have you heard the news for yourself by now?”

“Miss Watson, I not only heard the news, I’m trying to make some of it myself,” he said cockily. “It’s quite an experience, having someone you know, someone you’re dealing with, become President.”

“That’s why I’m calling you, Mr. Poole. I hope I’m not being presumptuous. If I am, you tell me. To be perfectly honest, even though I hardly know you-well, actually I feel that I do-I’ve read so much of your work-I want to ask a favor of you.” She paused. “There, I’ve said it.”

He puzzled over what on earth he could possibly do for a rich white girl whose father was a senior powerhouse in the Senate. “You name it, Miss Watson. If it’s something I can do, I’ll be glad to oblige.”

“I mean, I don’t go around asking people favors like this,” she said. “I’ve never done this before. But maybe you won’t mind. I know a lot of people on my own. Maybe one day I can be of help to you-not that you need it, with your genius.”

Impatience nudged Leroy Poole’s curiosity. “Like I said, name it.”

She seemed to exhale her request through the earpiece. “I want you to help me get a job with President Dilman.”

The request bewildered him. “A job with him? Why, I don’t know that I have all that much standing with him, Miss Watson,” he said. “Can’t your father do that better for you? After all, they were fellow senators, on the same side of the aisle.”

“Yes, I know,” she said hastily, “but that would be awkward for a hundred reasons. Besides, my father doesn’t know President Dilman as well as you do, and even if he did, it would be a little difficult for him to pop right in and ask for Party patronage.” Her tone became a plea. “You’ll be with the President constantly. It would be easy for you. I’m sure he’d listen.”

Leroy Poole straightened, gratified to have become Dilman’s adviser. He weighed her request. Her background was important. Intervening on her behalf was no skin off his ass. You did a favor, you had a debtor. It was good to have investments outstanding. When he saw Dilman-if he saw him-he could just toss it out, and if Dilman said yes or no, at least he had his debtor. “Miss Watson, I think you’d better tell me, what kind of job have you got in mind?”

“I want to be his social secretary.”

“Forgive me for being naive, Miss Watson, but exactly what does that mean?”

“Every President has a White House social secretary. Sometimes his wife has one, too. But now there’s no First Lady, so the President will need someone competent and experienced for both jobs. The social secretary helps the President with his-well, his social life, getting up lists, sending invitations, calling around to arrange cocktail parties, dinners, informal gatherings in the White House. Both T. C. and President Johnson had marvelous social secretaries, but President Dilman needs someone even better. His problems are more complex. Not having a wife or daughter, he’ll have to have someone who knows all levels of Washington society. And, well, the fact that he is colored, he may want someone who-well, Mr. Poole, you know-who is understanding, and so forth. I fill the bill.”

She had entered Poole’s grounds, and he challenged her. “Where you from, Miss Watson?”

She sounded disconcerted. “You mean where I was born and raised? I was born in Louisiana. My mother lives in New Orleans. Well, now she’s in Rome, but-and my father, well, you know, he’s-”

“How’s it going to look, Miss Watson, a daughter of the Confederacy working so close to a Negro?”

“I told you how I feel. I don’t have those die-hard sentiments. I was educated in the East. You saw me at the party last night. I like your people.”

“I don’t mean how’s it going to look to you, Miss Watson. I mean how’s it going to look to your father? Even if Dilman took you on, do you think your father’d allow it?”

“Mr. Poole, not my father, not anyone, waves me around like a Confederate flag,” she said with a tinge of anger. “I’m over twenty-one. I’m an American like you and the President. I belong to me and I do as I please. I want a job where my background can be useful. I think that’s the right job for me. Above all, I think I might be of use to the President. I can send you a resume of my experience and abilities, to show to him. I can send you a list of persons, high up as Cabinet members, who would recommend me. Won’t you help me?”

“Miss Watson, I like your sound, and I dig you. Yes, I’ll try to make a pitch for you. I’ll do my best.”

“When? Do you have an idea? I’d like to apply before everyone else begins pestering him.”

“I’m supposed to see him this week. If we speak on the phone earlier, I’ll mention you right off. Like I said, I’ll do my best. Whatever happens, I’ll call you.”

“Let me give you my number-”

“Wait, I don’t have a pencil.”

“Well, no matter, I have my own phone. I’m listed as Watson, Sally, in the Arlington book. I don’t know how to