'Oh, shit,' repeated Evan, defeat in his voice.
'Back to the point I'm trying to make,' said Weingrass, his face suddenly very serious as he stared at Kendrick while pausing for several long intakes of breath. 'Maybe you've done enough, maybe you should walk away and live happily ever after with my Arab daughter here making lots more money. The respect of the country, even much of the world, is already yours. But maybe also you've got to think. You can do what not too many others can do. Rather than going after the rotten people, by which time there's so much corruption and loss of life, maybe you can stop them before they play dirty—at least some of them, perhaps more than some—from the top of the mountain. All I ask is that you listen to Jennings. Listen to what he has to say to you.'
Their eyes locked, father and son acknowledged each other on the deepest level of their relationship. ‘I’ll call him and ask him for a meeting, all right?'
'That's not necessary,' replied Manny. 'It's all set up.'
'What?'
'He'll be in Los Angeles tomorrow at the Century Plaza for a dinner raising scholarship funds in honour of his late Secretary of State. He's cleared some time before then and expects you at the hotel at seven o'clock. You, too, my dear; he insists.'
The two Secret Service men in the hallway outside the Presidential Suite acknowledged the congressman by sight. They nodded at him and Khalehla as the man on the right turned and rang the bell. Moments later Langford Jennings opened the door, his face pale and haggard with dark circles of exhaustion below his eyes. He made a brief attempt at his famous grin but could not sustain it. Instead, he smiled gently, extending his hand.
'Hello, Miss Rashad. It's a pleasure and a privilege to meet you. Please, come in.'
'Thank you, Mr. President.'
'Evan, it's good to see you again.'
'It's good to see you, sir,' said Kendrick, thinking as he walked inside that Jennings looked older than he had ever seen him.
'Please sit down.' The President preceded his guests into the living room of the suite, towards two opposing couches, a large round glass coffee table linking them. 'Please,' he repeated, gesturing at the couch on the right as he headed for the one on the left. 'I like to look at attractive people,' he added as they all sat down. 'I suppose my detractors would say it's another sign of my superficiality, but Harry Truman once said, “I'd rather look at a horse's head than his ass,” so I rest my case… Forgive the language, young lady.'
'I didn't hear anything to forgive, sir.'
'How's Manny?'
'He's not going to win, but he's putting up a fight,' answered Evan. 'I understand you visited him several weeks ago.'
'Was that wicked of me?'
'Not at all, but it was a little wicked of him not to tell me.'
'That was my idea. I wanted to give us both time to think, and in my case I had to learn more about you than what was written in several hundred pages of government jargon. So I went to the one source that made sense to me. I asked him to be quiet until the other day. I apologize.'
'No need to, sir.'
'Weingrass is a brave man. He knows he's dying—his diagnosis is wrong but he knows he's dying—and he pretends to treat his impending death like a statistic on a construction proposal. I don't expect to see eighty-one, but if I do, I hope I have his courage.'
'Eighty-six,' said Kendrick flatly. 'I thought he was eighty-one, too, but we found out yesterday he's eighty-six.' Langford Jennings looked hard at Evan, then, as if the congressman had just told an extraordinarily amusing joke, he leaned back on the couch, his neck arched, and laughed quietly but wholeheartedly. 'Why is that so funny?' asked Kendrick. 'I've known him for twenty years and he never told the truth about his age, even on passports.'
'It dovetails with something he said to me,' explained the President, speaking through his soft, subsiding laughter. 'I won't bore you with the details, but he pointed out something to me—and he was damned right—so I offered him an appointment. He said to me, “Sorry, Lang, I can't accept. I couldn't burden you with my graft.”'
