“You got it.”
By this time they were in the kitchen and Jack was pouring the coffee. It’d be an hour before Cathy got home, and Jack still had time for a little unauthorized afternoon caffeine. “So give me the gossip. I heard the Supreme Court’s giving Kealty fits.”
“You mean not being able to make appointments? Yeah, he’s going quietly nuts about it. During the campaign he promised a seat to Professor Mayflower at Harvard Law.”
“That guy? Christ, he wants to rewrite the Gospel of Saint Matthew.”
“God didn’t go to Harvard. Otherwise He would have been better informed,” van Damm offered.
Ryan chuckled at this. “So: Why this visit?”
“I think you know, Jack. Moreover, I think you’ve been thinking about it yourself. Tell me I’m wrong.”
“You’re wrong.”
“Another thing I always loved about you, Jack: You never could tell a lie worth a damn.”
Ryan grumbled.
“Being a bad liar ain’t a bad thing,” Arnie said. “Kealty is already heading off the rails, Jack. Just my opinion, but-”
“He’s a crook. Everybody knows that, but the papers won’t say it.”
“He’s a crook, but he’s their crook. They think they can control him. They understand him and how he thinks.”
“Who says he thinks at all? He doesn’t think. He has a vision of the way he wants the world to be. He’s willing to do anything to make the world conform with that idea-if you can call it an idea.”
“What about your ideas, Jack?”
“It’s called principle; there’s a difference. You sell the principle as best you can and hope the public understands. Anything more than that and you’re a used-car salesman.”
“A famous politician once said that politics is the art of the possible.”
“But if you limit yourself to what’s possible-to what’s already been done-how the hell does progress happen? Kealty wants to bring back the thirties, with FDR and all that goes with that.”
“Thought much about this, Jack?” Arnie said with a hint of a smile.
“You know I have. The Founding Fathers would turn over in their crypts over what that bonehead is doing.”
“So replace him.”
“And go through all that again-to what end?”
“Edmund Burke, remember? ‘All that is required for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.’”
“I should have seen that coming,” Jack responded. “I served my time. I fought two wars. I set up my own line of succession. I did everything a man is supposed to do.”
“And you did it well,” the former Chief of Staff admitted. “Jack, here’s the bottom line: The country needs you.”
“No, Arnie. The country doesn’t need me. We still have a good Congress.”
“Yeah, they’re fine, but they haven’t generated a real leader yet. Owens, from Oklahoma, he has possibilities, but he has a way to go yet. Not seasoned enough, too small-town and too idealistic. He’s not ready for major league ball yet.”
“You could say the same thing about me,” Ryan pointed out.
“True, but you listen, and mostly you know what you don’t know.”
“Arnie, I
“You’re bored.”
“I’ve earned the right to be bored.” Ryan paused, took a sip of coffee, then tried to change the subject: “What’s Pat Martin doing now?”
“He doesn’t want to be AG again,” van Damm responded. “He’s teaching law at Notre Dame. He does seminars for newly frocked judges, too.”
“Why not Harvard or Yale?” Ryan wondered.
“Harvard wouldn’t have him. They’d like the idea of a former Attorney General there, of course, but not yours. Pat wouldn’t go there anyway. He’s a football fan, big-time. Harvard plays football, but not like the Dame.”
“I remember,” Jack admitted. “They wouldn’t even play us upstart Catholics at Boston College.” And the BC Eagles occasionally got to beat Notre Dame, when the Fates allowed.
“Willing to think about it?” Arnie asked.
“The United States of America chooses her own Presidents, Arnie.”
“That’s true, but it’s like a restaurant with a short menu. You can only choose from what the cook’s cooking, and you can’t leave and go to Wendy’s if you’re not happy with the selection.”
“Who’s sending you?”
“People talk to me. Mostly of your political persuasion-”
Jack cut him off with a raised hand. “I’m not a registered anything, remember?”
“That ought to make the Socialist Workers Party happy. So run as an Independent. Start your own party. Teddy Roosevelt did.”
“And lost.”
“Better to try and fail than-”
“Yeah, yeah.”
“The country needs you. Kealty is already shitting himself. He has his opposition research people digging into you right now. Haven’t you heard?”
“Bullshit.”
“They’ve been at it for almost a month. Georgetown’s got them worried. I’m telling you, Jack, we need to grab this thing while we can.” Ryan started shaking his head. “Listen, you didn’t plan it. People are all over the story because your numbers are still high.”
“Goddamn sympathy votes-”
“It won’t play out that way, believe me, but as far as grand entrances go, this one is golden. So: Got any dirty laundry out there?”
“Nothing you don’t know about.” But Jack managed to pull off that lie. Only Pat Martin knew about that particular legacy Ryan had left behind. He’d never even told Robby. “I’m too dull to be a politician. Maybe that’s why the media never liked me.”
“Those opposition research people will have access to everything, Jack, even CIA documents. You must have left some nasty things behind,” van Damm persisted. “Everybody does.”
“Depends on interpretation, I suppose. But revealing any of it would be a federal felony. How many political pukes would risk that?”
“You’re still a babe in the woods, Jack. Aside from being videotaped raping a girl or diddling a young boy, there isn’t much a politician would not risk for the Presidency.”
“That brings up a question I can’t quite get my head around: Does Kealty like being President?”
“He probably doesn’t even know himself. Is he doing a good job? No, not really. But he doesn’t even know that. He thinks he’s doing as well as any man could, and better than most. He likes playing the game. He likes answering the phone. He likes having people come to him when they have a problem. He likes being the guy who answers the questions, even when he doesn’t have a clue what the answer is. Remember what Mel Brooks said? ‘It’s good to be the king,’ even if the king is a total fuckup. He wants to be there, and for nobody else to be there, because he’s been a politician all his life. It’s Mount Everest, and he climbed up it because it’s there, and so what if you get to the top and there’s nothing you can do there? It’s there, and you’re on top of it, and nobody else is. Would he kill for the job? Probably, if he had the guts. But he doesn’t. He’d have one of his troops do it, deniably, with no written records. You can always find people who do that sort of thing for you, and you kiss them off if they get caught.”
“I never-”
“That guy John Clark. He’s killed people, and the reasons for it would not always have stood the test of public scrutiny. You have to do that sort of thing when you run a whole country, and fine, maybe it’s technically legal, but
