Democracy: A Novel Part 7

5.

IT was Billy Dillon who told Inez.

In the kitchen of the house at Amagansett.

To which he had driven, two hours in the rain on the Long Island Expressway and another hour on the Montauk Highway, flooding in the tunnel first shot out of the barrel and then construction on the L.I.E., no picnic, no day at the races, directly after he took the call from d.i.c.k Ziegler.

d.i.c.k Ziegler had called the office and tried to reach Harry.

d.i.c.k Ziegler was not yet on the scene, d.i.c.k Ziegler had been on Guam for two days trying to run an environmental-impact report around the Agana-Mariana Planning Commission.

Janet was not dead.

It was important to remember that Janet was not dead. Janet had been gravely injured, yes, in fact Janet was on life support at Queen's Medical Center, but Janet was not dead.

Wendell Omura was dead.

Inez must remember Wendell Omura, Inez would have met Wendell Omura in Washington, Wendell Omura was one of those Nisei who came out of the 442nd and went to law school on the G.I. Bill and spent the next twenty years cutting deals on a plane between Washington and his district. Silver Star. D.S.C. Real sc.r.a.ppy guy, had a triple bypa.s.s at Walter Reed a few years back, a week out of the hospital this spade tries to mug him, Omura decks the kid. The kind of guy who walks away from the Arno Line and a triple bypa.s.s, not to mention the spade, he probably didn't antic.i.p.ate buying the farm on Janet's lanai.

Eating a danish.

Go for broke, see where it gets you.

The details were a little cloudy.

Don't ask, number one, how Wendell Omura happens to be on Janet's lanai.

Don't ask, number two, how Paul Christian happens to be seen leaving Janet's house with a .357 Magnum tucked in his beach roll.

The paper boy saw him.

The paper boy happened to recognize Paul Christian because Janet's paper boy is also Paul Christian's paper boy. Don't ask how the paper boy happened to recognize the .357 Magnum, maybe the paper boy is also a merc. There we are. Paul Christian has definitely been placed on the scene, but n.o.body can locate Paul Christian.

Paul Christian was the cloudy part.

Paul Christian was a f.u.c.king typhoon, you ask Billy Dillon.

Inez remembered listening to all this without speaking.

"I left word in Florida for Harry to call as soon as he checks in," Billy Dillon said. "Of course it's on the wire, but Harry might not hear the radio."

Inez lit a cigarette, and smoked it, leaning on the kitchen counter, looking out at the rain falling on the gray afternoon sea. Harry was on his way to Bal Harbour to speak at a Teamster meeting. Adlai was with Harry, earning credit for what the alternative college in Boston that had finally admitted him called an internship in public affairs. Jessie, at this hour in Seattle, would be just punching in at King Crab's Castle, punching in and putting on her ap.r.o.n and lining up the crab-cups-to-go, shredded lettuce, three fingers crab leg, King Crab's Special Sauce and lemon wedge on the side. Inez knew Jessie's exact routine at King Crab's Castle because Inez had spent Christmas with Jessie in Seattle. Jessie had cut her hair, gained ten pounds, and seemed, on methadone, generally cheerful.

"I was kind of thinking about going somewhere and getting a job," Jessie had said when Inez asked if she had given any thought to going back to school, possibly a cla.s.s or two at NYU to start. "I understand there are some pretty cinchy jobs in Vietnam."

Inez had stared at her.

Jessie's information about the jobs in Vietnam was sketchy but she supposed that they involved "cooking for a construction crew, first aid, stuff like that."

Inez had tried to think about how best to phrase an objection.

"I got the idea from this guy I know who works for Boeing, he hangs out at the Castle, you don't know him."

Inez had said in as neutral a voice as she could manage that she did not think Vietnam a good place to look for a job.

Jessie had shrugged.

"How's the junkie," Adlai had said when Inez walked back into the apartment on Central Park West a few days after Christmas.

"That's unnecessary," Harry had said.

Inez had not mentioned the jobs in Vietnam to either Harry or Adlai.

"d.i.c.k calls, he's still on Guam," Billy Dillon said. He had found a chicken leg in the refrigerator and was eating it. "He says he 'thinks' he can get a flight up to Honolulu tonight. I say what's to 'think' about, he says Air Micronesia's on strike and Pan Am and TW are booked but he's 'working on' a reservation. He's 'working on' a f.u.c.king reservation. A major operator, your brother-in-law. I said d.i.c.k, get your a.s.s over to Anderson, the last I heard the Strategic Air Command still had a route to Honolulu. 'What do I say,' d.i.c.k says. 'Tell them your father-in-law offed a congressman.' 'Wait a minute, fella,' d.i.c.k says. 'Not so speedy.' He says, get this, direct quote, 'there's considerable feeling we can contain this to an accident.' "

Inez said nothing.

"It's Snow White and the Seven Loons down there. 'Contain this to an accident.' 'Considerable feeling.' Where's this 'considerable feeling' he's talking about? On Guam? I try to tell him, 'd.i.c.k, no go,' and d.i.c.k says 'why.' 'Why,' he says. A member of the Congress has been killed, d.i.c.k's own wife has been shot, his father-in-law's been fingered, his father-in-law who is also lest we forget the father-in-law of somebody who ran for president, and d.i.c.k's talking 'containment.' 'd.i.c.k,' I said, 'take it on faith, this one's a hang-out.' "

Inez said nothing. She had located a telephone number chalked on the blackboard above the telephone and begun to dial it.

"We're on the midnight Pan Am out of Kennedy. There's an hour on the ground at LAX which puts us down around dawn in Honolulu. I told d.i.c.k we wouldn't-"

Billy Dillon broke off. He was watching Inez dial.

"Inez," he said finally. "I can't help noticing you're dialing Seattle. I sincerely hope you're not calling Jessie. Just yet."

"Of course I am. I want to tell her."

"You don't think we've got enough loose b.a.l.l.s on the table already? You don't think Jessie could wait until we line up at least one shot?"

"She'll read about it."

"Not unless it makes Tiger Beat."

"Don't say that. h.e.l.lo?" Inez's voice was suddenly bright. "This is Inez Victor. Jessica Victor's mother. Jessie's mom, yes. I'm calling from New York. Amagansett, actually-"

"Oh good," Billy Dillon said. "Doing fine. Amagansett to King Crab."

"Jessie? Darling? Can you hear me? No, it's a little gray. Raining, actually. Listen. I-"

Inez suddenly thrust the receiver toward Billy Dillon.

"Never open with the weather," Billy Dillon said as he took the receiver. "Jessie? Jessie honey? Uncle William here. Your mother and I are flying down to Honolulu tonight, we wanted to put you in the picture, you got a minute? Well just tell the crab cups to stand easy, Jess, OK?"

"Oh s.h.i.t," Billy Dillon said on the telephone in the Pan American lounge at the Los Angeles airport, when d.i.c.k Ziegler told him that Paul Christian had called the police from the Honolulu YMCA and demanded that they come get him. "Oh Jesus f.u.c.king Christ s.h.i.t, I better let Harry know." By that time Harry Victor had already spoken to the Teamsters in Bal Harbour and was on his way to a breakfast meeting in Houston. Billy Dillon had hung up on d.i.c.k Ziegler and tried three numbers in Florida and five in Texas but Harry was somewhere in between and there was no time to wait because the flight was re-boarding. "Oh s.h.i.t," Billy Dillon kept saying all the way down the Pacific, laying out hand after hand of solitaire in the empty lounge upstairs. Inez lay on the curved banquette and watched him. Inez had watched Billy Dillon playing solitaire on a lot of planes. "Why not trot out the smile and move easily through the cabin," he would say at some point in each flight, and the next day Inez would appear that way in the clips, the candidate's wife, "moving easily through the cabin," "deflecting questions with a smile."

"I have to admit I wasn't factoring in your father," Billy Dillon said now. "I knew he was a nutty, but I thought he was a nutty strictly on his own case. In fact I thought he was still looking for himself in Tangier. Or Sardinia. Or wherever the f.u.c.k he was when he used to fire off the letters to Time demanding Harry's impeachment."

"Tunis," Inez said. "He was in Tunis. He moved back to Honolulu last year. A mystic told him that Janet needed him. I told you. Listen. Do you remember before the Illinois primary when you and Harry and I were taken through the Cook County morgue?"

"Twenty-eight appearances in two days in Chicago and those clowns on advance commit us to a shake-hands with the coroner, very definitely I remember. Some metaphor. What about it."

"There was a noise in the autopsy room like an electric saw."

"Right."

"What was it?"

"It was an electric saw." Billy Dillon shuffled and cut the cards. "Don't dwell on it."

Inez said nothing.

"Don't antic.i.p.ate. This one isn't going to improve, you try to look down the line. Think more like Jessie for once. I tell Jessie Janet's been shot, Janet's in a coma, we're not too sure what's going to happen, you know what Jessie says? Jessie says 'I guess whatever happens it's in her karma.' "

Inez said nothing.

"In ... her ... karma." Billy Dillon laid out another hand of solitaire. "That's the consensus from King Crab. Hey. Inez. Don't cry. Get some sleep."

"Watch the booze," Billy Dillon said about three A.M., and, a little later, to the stewardess who came upstairs and sat down beside him, "I'm only going to say this once, sweetheart, we don't want company." When first light came and the plane started its descent Billy Dillon reached across the table and took Inez's hand and held it. Inez had told Billy Dillon in Amagansett that there was no need for anyone to fly down with her but flying down with Inez was for Billy Dillon a reflex, part of managing a situation for Harry, and he held Inez's hand all the way to touchdown, which occurred at 5:37 A.M. Hawaiian Standard Time, March 26, 1975, on a runway swept by soft warm rain.

6.

I WAS trained to distrust other people's versions, but we go with what we have.

We triangulate the coverage.

Handicap for bias.

Figure in leanings, predilections, the special circ.u.mstances which change the spectrum in which any given observer will see a situation.

Consider what filter is on the lens. So to speak. What follows is essentially through Billy Dillon's filter.

"This is a b.i.t.c.h," Billy Dillon remembered d.i.c.k Ziegler saying over and over. d.i.c.k Ziegler was still wearing the wrinkled cotton suit in which he had flown in from Guam and he was sitting on the floor in Dwight and Ruthie Christian's living room spreading shrimp paste on a cracker, covering the entire surface, beveling the edges.

Billy Dillon remembered the cracker particularly.

Billy Dillon could not recall ever before seeing a cracker given this level of attention.

"A real b.i.t.c.h. This whole deal. She was perfectly fine when I left for Guam."

"Why wouldn't she have been," Inez said.

d.i.c.k Ziegler did not look up. "She was going up to San Francisco Friday. To see the boys. Chris and Timmy were coming up from school, she had it all planned."

"I mean it's not a lingering illness," Inez said. "Getting shot."

"Inez," Dwight Christian said. "See if this doesn't beat any martini you get in New York."

"You don't exhibit symptoms," Inez said.

"Inez," Billy Dillon said.

"I add one drop of glycerine," Dwight Christian said. "Old Oriental trick."

"She'd already made a dinner reservation," d.i.c.k Ziegler said. "For the three of them. At Trader's."

"You don't lose your appet.i.te either," Inez said.

"Inez," Billy Dillon repeated.

"I heard you the first time," Inez said.

"What's the trouble here," d.i.c.k Ziegler said.

"About Wendell Omura," Inez said.

"Ruthie's on top of that." Dwight Christian seemed to have slipped into an executive mode. "Flowers to the undertaker. Something to the house. Deepest condolences. Tragic accident, distinguished service. Et cetera. Ruthie?"

"Millie's doing her crab thing." Ruthie began spreading crackers with the shrimp paste. "To send to the house."

"That's not just what I meant," Inez said.

"I hardly knew the guy, frankly," d.i.c.k Ziegler said. "On a personal basis."

"Somebody must have known him," Inez said. "On a personal basis."

Dwight Christian cleared his throat. "Adlai still a big Mets fan, Inez?"

Inez looked at Billy Dillon.

Billy Dillon stood up. "I think what Inez means-"

"Jessie still so horse crazy?" Ruthie Christian said.

"Horse crazy," Billy Dillon repeated. "Yes. She is. You could say that. Now. If I read Inez correctly-amend this if I'm off base, Inez-Inez is still just a little unclear about-"