Beggs laughed. Hatcher managed a limp smile.
Beggs stuck a cigar the length of a pencil into his mouth and waggled it back and forth with his tongue. He no longer smoked them, but still used them as theatrical props. The Congressman felt they gave him a manly appearance.
'So? What's up?'
Hatcher gestured to a chair. 'May I?'
'Good heavens, 'course, man, sit, sit. Don't know where I put my manners.'
Hatcher carefully sat and arranged one leg over the other, tending to the crease in his trousers. There was an art to delivering good news, and it took a bit of time and preparation. Just as one did not do it over the telephone, so one did not blurt it out and have done with it, If one was seated, one became a part of the event. The auditors could not dismiss a seated man with a quick handshake and a pat on the back the way they might get rid of a standing courier before rushing off to celebrate with those they cared about. Courtesy demanded that someone seated be treated with deliberation and attention. A standing man was a messenger. A seated man was an equal.
Beggs rolled the cigar impatiently. He didn't like Hatcher, he didn't know anyone who did, but this was Washington and personal tastes were always subordinate to other considerations. The quid pro quo was observed, no matter how little personal regard was involved in the transaction, compromise being the currency without which the political process would be bankrupt. No matter how clumsy a performer Hatcher might be, nor how transparent his motives, it had to be granted that he handled the proper steps, honored the rituals, played the game according to the universally recognized rules. Advancement was a matter of accruing favors owed and then cashing them in, and grace and subtlety were ultimately nothing more than frills. What mattered was whether or not you could deliver the goods, and an outright enemy with his arms full of gifts was more welcome than an empty-handed friend. Not that Hatcher was Beggs' enemy, of course.
Beggs didn't care that much about him.
'You will recall that we had a conversation some while ago concerning a possible lead in a. case that touched you personally?' Hatcher began.
'I do indeed.'
'And I undertook to make that investigation a matter for my personal-ah-consideration.'
'Which I did appreciate, let me tell you.'
'Only too happy to help where I can,' said Hatcher.
What a phoady, thought Beggs. Obsequious and smug at the same time.
He'll go far.
Hatcher continued. 'Naturally I couldn't neglect my other duties, but whenever possible I made the case my own. I flew to Nashville to personally debrief the agents, for instance.'
'Certainly appreciate your efforts,' said Beggs.
'One likes to think one played a part, but of course all credit goes to the Bureau itself. Many dedicated men and women, each doing their bit.'
You made your point-I owe you! Beggs wanted to thunder. Get the hell on with it. Instead, he removed the cigar from his mouth and studied the end of it as if it were actually lighted.
'Fantastic organization,' said Beggs.
'Those of us who are entrusted with the responsibility strive very hard to keep it that way,' said Hatcher. He, too, studied Beggs' cigar as if to discern the mystery of the nonexistent ash.
'We all owe you a debt of gratitude,' said Beggs.
'And I, for one, am a man who honors my debts.' There, it's said aloud, let's get on with it.
Hatcher managed a watery smile, casting his eyes to the floor, too modest to speak. Momentarily.
Beggs cleared his throat before replacing the cigar in his mouth, signaling that the preliminaries were over.
'I'm happy to be able to report some good news,' Hatcher responded on cue. 'Excellent news, most excellent.'
'What!' Beggs said curtly. The man was more longwinded than an Alabama senator.
'We have apprehended the man who abducted your niece.'
'Good God! You've caught him?'
'Yes, sir.'
'After all these years, you've actually caught him?'
'Yes, sir, I'm happy to be able to say that we have him in custody.'
'Christ, that's wonderful! Do you know how many votes that's worth?'
'I knew you would be gratified.'
'Gratified, shit. I'm a — s good as reelected, man! Can I announce this? I mean, is it all wrapped up?'
'I thought perhaps a joint announcement. You and I together..
'Of course, of course-but I mean, is it a done deal?
You actually have him in custody and you can keep him?
We're not going to have some civil libertarian lawyer getting him out on a technicality?'
'Naturally he has to be tried in a court of law..
'I'm not going to wait three years for a goddamned verdict and have him get off on insanity or some such shit. Hatcher, I'm asking you, is this wrapped up? Can I go public? We… can we go public?'
'Yes, sir,' said Hatcher. 'Not only do we have the perpetrator in custody, the man has confessed.'
'Beautiful,' said Beggs.
'Did you wish to contact the girl's parents, or shall we?'
'The girl's parents?'
'The parents of the deceased,' said Hatcher. 'Your niece.'
The dead girl had been the daughter of Beggs' wife's brother, an unemployed mine worker who had deserted the girl and her mother when the girl was six years old.
Beggs had played up his relationship at the time of her disappearance because it gave him a vehicle of public sympathy and outrage that he rode all the way to elective office. He had not heard from the girl's mother in years.
His wife's brother continued to apply for handouts on a regular basis.
'You do that,' Beggs said. 'You deserve the credit.'
Hatcher launched into another round of modest demurral, but neither man paid much attention to it. Both of them were looking forward to the press conference, and beyond.
Becker had prepared a cassoulet, a French casserole dish that called for beans, tomatoes, onions, celery, wine, salt pork, duck drippings, lean pork, lamb, garlic or Polish sausage, and either roast duck or canned, preserved goose.
Improvising to meet the nature of his larder, Becker omitted the salt pork, duck drippings, pork, lamb and duck or goose and substituted hot Italian sausage. He then doubled up on the beans and threw in a package of spinach because it seemed the thing to do. Having brewed the mess for a couple of hours, he sampled it as Jack entered the kitchen.
'Soccer cleats outside the door, for the hundred thousandth time,'
Becker said, pulling the wooden spoon gingerly towards him, blowing away the steam.
'Sorry, I forgot,' said Jack. The boy sat and removed his soccer shoes and left them directly in the middle of the kitchen door. It was a talent that Becker had noted before. School bags, shoes, clothing-all sloughed off Jack's body when he entered the house as freely as if it were so much dried skin, but somehow the pattern was not random. Things did not just lie where they fell. With an inevitability that promised design, every item ended up where it would be most surely in the way.
Shoes were never in the corner, the school bag never behind a chair.
Everything was placed, or tossed, or shrugged off, squarely in the middle of the busiest pathway. Doorways seemed to be a favorite, but the hallways got their share of detritus, too. When Jack was home, it was impossible to walk a straight route to anywhere else in the house.
Becker decided the beans were passable if one were just tasting, better if the consumer was hungry. He hoped that Karen was ravenous.
