Again Hawkins was being frank, Thurston thought. He liked it.
“All right. I want to know what kind of pressures have been exerted on you to change your vote.”
Matt wanted to say, “If only you knew,” but he didn’t. What he said was, “Well, Bill Crampton nudges me every now and then, and a few others have talked to me.” Despite his frankness, he didn’t think he ought to tell Thurston about Slanetti. The candidate couldn’t help him and there was no use worrying him by bringing him into it.
“Just people in the House?”
Matt looked up sharply at him. It was almost as if he knew about the White House interview that afternoon. But he couldn’t. Thurston was much too calm to know something like that. He imagined he was just picking up nuances that didn’t exist.
“Well, yes, I guess so,” said Matt.
He watched Thurston closely. He wondered if he would be like Thurston in another ten years. Thurston was young to be a candidate for President. He still had his looks and body. He speculated on the quality of the man’s mind and soul. He knew the urges running through his blood also ran through Thurston’s.
“How badly do you want to be President, Fred?”
“How do you mean?”
“What would you do to be President? What would you give up?”
“Just about everything.”
“And have you?”
“No, I don’t think so. It hasn’t come to that.”
“That’s good, that’s very good,” said Matt, taking a sip of his drink.
“Why do you ask?”
“Just curious.”
“Matt, how strong is your support for me?”
He was bothered by that question. If he decided to support St. Clair and accepted Norwalk’s proposal, he would be despicable in Thurston’s eyes and he didn’t want that. Thurston would still control the Democratic Party, Matt’s party, but beyond that, he admired Thurston very much and didn’t want to lose what little regard he might already possess on such short acquaintance.
“You mean, could I be talked out of supporting you?”
“That’s what I mean, yes.”
“I don’t know. It might depend on what I was offered, or if I was threatened with something.”
“Have you got anything behind you that could be used against you?”
Thurston was amazed that the conversation was getting so deep. He hadn’t talked like this to a colleague in years. He attributed the flow of their talk to Matt’s youth and willingness to discuss such things.
“No, nothing I’m ashamed of—nothing at all.” He knew how he felt about Patricia so this was not a lie.
Thurston wanted to ask if he’d been offered anything to change his vote, but decided not to be so direct. He had no reason to suspect that Slanetti had singled out Hawkins. He wanted merely to judge how vulnerable members were reacting to White House pressure. Hawkins’s inexperience alone made him vulnerable. Every freshman was. Before he could ask anything further, however, Matt asked him something.
“What would you do if you lost?”
“An interesting question. Stay in the Senate, run again for my seat. Maybe try one more time in four years for the White House. St. Clair wouldn’t be that hard to beat after he’d had four years to make mistakes and after he’d won in the House when the popular vote was on my side.”
“Incumbents are hard to beat.”
“St. Clair wasn’t meant to be President. Norwalk picked him. He belongs back in Florida. You can look at him and tell. He just wasn’t meant to be President.”
“And you were?”
“What do you think?” smiled Thurston, raising his glass to drink. Matt smiled back, naturally agreeing.
* * *
Later with Patricia, there was no lovemaking for a long time. They talked when they were in bed. He told her everything that happened to him that day.
“Oh, darling,” she said finally, after he brought her up to date.
“Scary, isn’t it?” he said.
“Frightening. What will you do?”
“I don’t know what to do. I guess it’ll wear off—this numbness at seeing him in the Oval Office under the circumstances, and the offer he made.”
“I know what you feel like. That’s how I felt when he walked up to Jonathan and me at the ball and asked me to dance. Numb, senseless. You have the feeling that he could step on you and no one would notice you were gone.”
“There’s a strange power about that office, you have to admit.”
“I won’t argue.”
“Although I know what you mean, why do you say it’s frightening?”
“Well,” she said, rolling over on her back as the sheet slid down over her smooth breasts, uncovering them, “I just think it’s different in your case. I’ve seen them take a man’s heart and soul and stretch it until you’d swear it would break. Sometimes they don’t. But they can wring every ounce of honesty out of a man, make a shell out of him. If you don’t give in to the White House on something like this, they can make a living hell for you. Investigations, lousy committee assignments, no publicity, a big fight for you when you come up for reelection—they can do a lot. Look what they have to fight you with—the Justice Department, the IRS, the FBI—all those agencies and they all look to one boss and he sits in the white mansion.”
“The thing that makes me want to take him up on his offer is the way it allows me to avoid being a congressman at all. I know how shitty it is for them, especially freshmen. You can’t do squat until you’re there a few terms.”
“That’s very true. As a freshman senator you’d have much more power and prestige.”
He reached over and softly placed a flat hand on her smooth breasts.
“Does that attract you?”
He noticed a certain negative tone in her
