Kennedy in Boston. Even the la-di-das in the archdiocese kept their mouths shut—'course, I let a few of those sanctimonious bastards know that if there was any Church interference during the election, I'd encourage the black radicals and the Jews to raise hell in the House over their holy tax-exempt status. The bishop damn near threw up in apoplexy, screaming all kinds of damnation at me for setting a hell-fire public example but I settled his hash. I told him my departing wife had probably slept with him, too.' The white-haired Speaker with the deeply lined face fell silent. 'Mother of God,' he cried to himself, the tears now apparent. 'I wanted that girl back!'
'I'm sure you're not referring to your wife.'
'You know exactly whom I mean, Mr. No-name! But she couldn't do it. A decent man had given her a home and our son a name for nearly fifteen years. She couldn't leave him—even for me. I'll tell you the truth, I kept her last letter, too. Both letters were our last to each other. “We'll be joined in the hereafter heaven,” she wrote me. “But no further on this earth, my darling.” What kind of crap was that? We could have had a life, a goddamned good part of life!'
'If I may, sir, I think it was the expression of a loving woman who had as much respect for you as she did for herself and her son. You had children of your own and explanations from the past can destroy the future. You had a future, Mr. Speaker.'
'I would have chucked it all in—’
'She couldn't let you do that, any more than she could destroy the man who had given her and the child a home and a name.'
The old man pulled out a handkerchief and wiped his eyes, his voice suddenly reverting to its harsh delivery. 'How the hell do you know about all this?'
'It wasn't difficult. You're the leader of the House of Representatives, the second in line for the presidency, and I wanted to know more about you. Forgive me, but older people speak more freely than younger ones—much of it is due to their unrecognized sense of importance where so-called secrets are concerned—and, of course, I knew that you and your wife, both Catholics, had been divorced. Considering your political stature at the time and the power of your Church, that had to be a momentous decision.'
'Hell, I can't fault you there. So you looked for the older people who were around at the time.'
'I found them. I learned that your wife, the daughter of a wealthy real estate developer who wanted political influence and literally financed your early campaigns, had a less than enviable reputation.'
'Before and after, Mr. No-name. Only I was the last to find out.'
'But you did find out,' said Varak firmly. 'And in your anger and embarrassment you sought other companionship. At the time you were convinced you couldn't do anything about your marriage, so you looked for surrogate comfort.'
'Is that what it's called? I looked for someone who could be mine.'
'And you found her in a hospital where you went to give blood during a campaign. She was a certified nurse from Ireland who was studying for her registry in the United States.'
'How the hell—'
'Old people talk.'
'Pee Wee Mangecavallo,' whispered the Speaker, his eyes suddenly bright, as if the memory brought back a rush of happiness. 'He had a little Italian place, a bar with good Sicilian food, about four blocks from the hospital. No one ever bothered me there—I don't think they knew who I was. That guinea bastard, he remembered.'
'Mr. Mangecavallo is over ninety now, but he does, indeed, remember. You would take your lovely nurse there and he would close up his bar at one o'clock in the morning and leave you both inside, asking only that you kept the tarantellas on the jukebox really quiet.'
'A beautiful person.'
'With an extraordinary memory for one of his age but without, I'm afraid, the control he had as a younger man. He reminisces at length, rambles, actually, saying things over his Chianti that perhaps he would never have said even a few years ago.'
'At his age he's entitled—’
'And you did confide in him, Mr. Speaker,' interrupted Varak.
