The American Chronicle - Hollywood Part 34

"I divined that. Why," asked Caroline, "does Charlotte have a gun?"

"Southern ladies are used to protecting themselves and their honor, from violation." Taylor was light.

Caroline was even lighter. "In the case of Charlotte Shelby, I suggest a softly murmured 'no' would do the trick. Or, perhaps," she elaborated happily, "an enthusiastic 'yes' might cause even the most devoted rapist to flee."

"We must find you a comedy," said Taylor.

"I have found it," said Caroline. This was later proved after dinner. Taylor put one hand on her shoulder, as if he knew exactly how ready, indeed eager, she was. "Yes, William," she whispered. "Yes?"

The fingers burned through the silk of her blouse. "A penny a point," he whispered and led her to the backgammon table.

ELEVEN.

1.

"MY G.o.d, HOW THE MONEY ROLLS IN!" sang Jess, tonelessly. Try as he might he could never learn the rest of the song or, indeed, anything other than the one line of chorus that perfectly summed up his situation. In the small parlor of 1509 H Street, Ned McLean was sound asleep on the sofa. Long before midnight when the poker game had broken up, Ned had pa.s.sed out; and Daugherty had telephoned Evalyn to say that Ned was being well looked after. Now Daugherty was asleep upstairs while a colored cleaning woman removed bottles and overflowing ashtrays from the stale-smelling parlor.

Jess sat at a rolltop desk, doing sums. He was, he knew, handsomely turned out in a chocolate-brown suit with a lavender vest. Had it not been for a nagging ache in the lower right quadrant of his paunch, he was in the pink of condition, both chronic diabetes and asthma at bay. Then he made the first of several telephone calls to his-their-broker Samuel Ungerleider, formerly of Columbus, Ohio. "Whaddaya know?" Jess announced. But Ungerleider knew no more than the previous day's stock market figures. Sam handled investment accounts for the Hardings, Daugherty, Jess and a number of other Ohioans. As Jess was involved in a complex series of speculations, he was always in need of quick cash to cover his margin calls with Sam, who was as honest as Jess was punctilious about coming up with the cash on time. "You'll need eleven, twelve thousand by noon," said Sam.

"You've got it. How's Mr. Daugherty doing?"

"Fine. He don't play dice like you do, Jess."

"And the President?"

"A regular old widow woman ..."

"That's the d.u.c.h.ess. She won't let him gamble on nothing."

"Lot of money to be made ..."

"You're telling me. Let's keep it rolling in."

The first caller of the day arrived at seven-thirty. "Whaddaya know?" Jess sprayed the air between them but the man, a lugubrious Virginia bootlegger, seemed not to notice.

"Very kind of you I'm sure, Mr. Smith, to see me so early."

"Any friend of ... of what's-his-name's a friend of mine." Jess opened and reached into one of the desk's pigeon-holes. From a drawer to which he alone had the key, he withdrew a Treasury Department form. "Now then, I am making you the Virginia-District of Columbia agent for the General Drug Company, with headquarters in Chicago, and in that capacity you would like to withdraw from the Federal custody, for medicinal purposes-how much?"

"One thousand cases of Scotch whisky. Five hundred of the best gin. Seven-"

"Whoa! Whoa! Hold your horses. I can only write so fast."

"Please to forgive me, Mr. Smith. But the thought of having the best to sell to my customers means a whole lot to me ..."

"Them, too," said Jess. "It's a wonder half the state of Virginia isn't dead from all that illegal hooch they been drinking. There ought to be a law ..."

The Virginian said, sadly, "Oh, there's a law all right, but no one cares about law these days."

Jess whistled a line or two of "April Showers" as he forged the name of an imaginary Treasury official to the form. "All right, sir, there you go. Present this at any one of the government's bonded warehouses, and they'll hand over the merchandise upon receipt of this bona fide Treasury Department order."

"I'm real grateful, Mr. Smith."

"Alexandria's the easiest warehouse. If there's any trouble, you call me at my office in the Justice Department. That'll be two thousand five hundred dollars, please. In cash like always."

The Virginian counted out the money; and was on his way. The next two callers were in need of inside guidance to political office or preferment. Each paid two thousand dollars for interim instructions. Then as the Attorney General of the United States came down the stairs, the last caller was shown the door. Jess never told Daugherty about any of his private business, and Daugherty never asked.

Daugherty gazed upon Ned McLean and shook his head sadly. "That boy had better get a good hold of himself or they're going to put him away. We should've sent him home last night."

"Well, this is his house, too, isn't it?" Jess was most protective of his friend Ned, who moaned in his sleep. "You want breakfast?"

"No. I'll get something at the Department."

"This a poker night?"

Daugherty grunted. "Ask the d.u.c.h.ess when you see her. I got me a busy day." Daugherty opened the front door. Outside in the street, the Attorney General's car was waiting. The chauffeur saluted Daugherty, and called him "General," the usual t.i.tle for the nation's chief enforcer of the law. Daugherty quite liked the t.i.tle; job, too. He got into the car and was driven off to the nearby Department of Justice.

The previous day, Jess had received a message from the White House that the First Lady of the Land wanted him to help her select materials; and so, having given instructions to the grim-faced colored woman on what to do when the owner of the house awakened, Jess stepped out into the bright spring morning and gazed nearsightedly upon the dogwood abloom in the front yard opposite and then, in a mood close to perfect contentment, he walked the short distance to the White House.

The contrast between the mansion now and as it was during the Wilsons' last days was vivid. A few weeks ago, the main gates were padlocked, the public kept away, and only the west wing transacted any business. Now the gates were open; and tourists filed in and out of the state apartments. ("It's their White House," the d.u.c.h.ess had proclaimed, as she took over.) The guards at the north gate waved Jess through even though he had his Federal Bureau of Investigation badge in hand, a gift from the obsequious a.s.sistant director, J. Edgar Hoover, a young man fearful of replacement by one of Daugherty's creatures. But Daugherty had gone by the book; obeyed all laws and most customs.

In many ways, the Harding Administration was the most capable and distinguished of the century, at least according to those editorial writers who did not care for Harding himself. True, one of the country's richest men, Andrew Mellon, was secretary of the Treasury, but his very wealth made it a certainty that he would not have to sell off contraband whisky to cover his broker's margin calls. Also, everyone knew that Mellon would create an atmosphere in which the country's best elements could do well. Although Harding had wanted to raise the income tax on the rich, Mellon had gently dissuaded him, and Wall Street and its newspapers had cheered Mr. Mellon. Also admired was the secretary of state, Charles Evans Hughes, who had run against Wilson in 1916. Equally rea.s.suring was the presence at the Commerce Department of the country's most popular public figure, Herbert Hoover, famed for his competence and honesty while Will Hays, as postmaster general, pursued his high destiny. The secretary of the interior, Senator Fall, had been unanimously hailed by the Senate. Only Daugherty had inspired the cry of cronyism; but then every president was allowed to have at least one political manager on the payroll.

Jess entered the main door. An usher greeted him with the message that Mrs. Harding was in the upstairs family parlor. As Jess crossed to the elevator he was aware that the long line of tourists moving from Red to Blue to Green to East Rooms were staring at him, and wondering who this powerful man was, wearing a new Chesterfield coat and thick-rimmed owl-like-for wisdom-gla.s.ses. There was a sigh of ecstasy when the private elevator arrived and he stepped in.

In the oval parlor the d.u.c.h.ess had draped materials over every piece of furniture. In attendance was a frightened clerk from Woodward and Lothrop's Department Store.

"Jess Smith, you come in here and get to work. Is this real velvet or is it velveteen?" The clerk dared not speak. Jess fingered the material. There was very little that he did not know about fabrics. "It's velvet, all right."

"Just wanted to make sure. I'm sure Donald Woodward would never try to cheat us but sometimes mistakes," she glared at the clerk, "get made."

Jess helped her pick out several bolts of material that he was certain would look good on her. Now that Florence Kling Harding was First Lady of the Land, she intended to dress up to her new role. The result was not entirely pleasing in Jess's eyes. For one thing, she had taken to wearing clown spots of rouge on her gray cheeks while her hair was, regularly, mercilessly, marcelled. As diplomatically as Jess could, he steered her away from gold and silver threads for daytime wear and pale pastel chiffons for evening wear. "More suitable, maybe, for the boudoir," said Jess, a.s.suming, unconsciously, his Smith's Emporium wheedling voice. Then, orders given, the clerk departed.

"Sit down, Jess. Warren wants to play poker tonight at H Street. So tell the usuals. I'm not going. That means you make sure he's home before twelve."

Jess said that he would do his best, as always.

"Also, don't let him chew. It's bad for him. Cigars are all right if there's no camera around but keep an eagle-eye on him if he chews."

"How do I stop him?"

"You tell him you'll tell me and Doc Sawyer. That should do it."

"I'll try, d.u.c.h.ess." But Jess expected that this mission would fail. So addicted was Harding to chewing tobacco that Jess had seen him, on several occasions, unravel a cigarette and put the tobacco in his mouth. "How's the household going?"

The thin mouth opened like a letter-box. "I've got the kitchen under control at last. I tell you, the Wilsons just let everything fall apart. So when Mrs. Wilson said to me-first thing-how good the housekeeper was, and after I saw the house, the first thing I wanted to do was get rid of her. But she's turning out all right. The villain was Mrs. Wilson. She just didn't care about anything except that sick husband of hers. They were extremely selfish people."

The d.u.c.h.ess was now at the birdcage which contained the much-loved, by the d.u.c.h.ess only, canary. "Pete, sing for Mummy. Pete!" the d.u.c.h.ess commanded; then she, not the sullen Pete, trilled. "I declare that bird gets more temperamental every day. Sulk. Sulk. Sulk. Why didn't you take that job Warren offered you?"

"Oh, you know I like being out on the floor with the customers, like we say in dry goods."

"You're just about the only person from Ohio I can think of who said no to a job." Jess tried to look modest and above the battle. "Of course you're pretty rich," she added. "Pete sings just like a nightingale when he isn't in one of his moods."

Actually, Jess had been delighted when he had been offered the post of commissioner of Indian affairs; and he had been distressed when the western senators had informally told the President that he wouldn't do. W.G. had then asked him if he'd like to be treasurer of the United States, a ceremonial job which involved little more than allowing his signature to be printed on every dollar bill. But as Jess had other plans for dollar bills, he had thanked the President warmly and said he preferred to be of use to the Administration in less formal ways.

Laddie Boy, the President's collie, stormed into the room; leapt upon Jess and barked at the d.u.c.h.ess, who said, "Shut up. Warren's on his way. Here he is."

But it was not the President but Charlie Forbes. "Hiya, d.u.c.h.ess! Hiya, Jess!" Forbes was the President's jester, a round-faced man with owl-like gla.s.ses and, despite red hair, a pa.s.sing resemblance to Jess. "I'm here for lunch. The President's promised wienerwurstels and sauerkraut, so I left my veterans to their affairs and hurried over."

"Charlie." The d.u.c.h.ess disliked any and all s.e.xual allusions. But Charlie was now playing with Laddie Boy, and Jess envied him his easy charm. Where Jess was only called upon to run errands, Charlie Forbes was asked over to cheer everyone up. A builder from Spokane, Washington, Colonel Forbes was a genuine war hero, who had been awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor, Everyone had agreed he was a natural to be director of the Veterans Bureau. A Wilson Democrat, Charlie had been so charmed by Senator and Mrs. Harding, and they by him, in the course of a senatorial junket to the Northwest that he had shifted parties and organized the region for Harding. Finally, Charlie was the only one of W.G.'s playmates that the d.u.c.h.ess doted on. "I just hope Warren gets the lunch he ordered. The cook makes such a fuss every time he asks for sauerkraut. And toothpicks. Lord, the problems I'm having with Warren. He tells the butler he wants toothpicks on the table, which has never happened before in the White House ..."

"First president to have his own teeth," said Charlie. "They ought to be proud."

"Then the butler comes to me and I say no, and then Warren goes to the housekeeper and raises his voice ..."

Laddie Boy bounded out of the room.

"That means Warren's shaking hands in the East Room. Half an hour every morning, no matter what. He likes it. Imagine!" The d.u.c.h.ess sighed.

Charlie sighed, "I've got a buyer for Wyoming Avenue."

"You know the price?"

"He'll meet it. Don't worry. He's my legal adviser at the Bureau. Charles Cramer. First-rate. From California. Big law firm."

"I'll hate giving up that house ..."

"Busy days." Charlie was so full of energy that he made Jess tired just watching him dance about a room. "We're building, building, building. Hospitals everywhere-Oh, d.u.c.h.ess! We're taking Carolyn on, in Personnel."

"Does Warren know?" The d.u.c.h.ess frowned. "She's his sister, after all."

"He's happy we could fit her in."

The President and Laddie Boy entered the room together. "Good morning, gentlemen. d.u.c.h.ess. Pete."

"He won't sing," observed the d.u.c.h.ess.

"Jess, tell Harry we'll meet at H Street after supper. So round up the boys."

"Yes, Mr. President." George Christian appeared in the doorway. "Can you see Senator Borah and Senator Day, after lunch?"

"Well, can I? You're the fellow who knows."

"Yes, sir. I can fit them in. Senator Borah says it's important."

"Everything to do with Mr. Borah's important," said the d.u.c.h.ess. "He's a scandal the way he and Alice Longworth are carrying on, not that Nick cares, but poor Mrs. Borah's a martyr, I say ..."

Harding nodded to Christian, who disappeared; as did Jess. Although he liked to say he hated offices, he very much enjoyed the one that Daugherty had given him on the sixth floor of the Department of Justice. He was paid no salary but he could write letters on Justice Department stationery and, best of all, he had access to the files. In a city where who knew what was all that mattered, he was becoming very knowledgeable indeed. Finally, as right hand to the President's right hand (Daugherty had a private line to the President's office), every door opened for him as he went about his business, which was to keep the money rolling in.

2.

THE FAMILY DINING ROOM SMELLED of wieners and sauerkraut, one of Burden's favorite meals. The President received them at the head of the cleared table. He was chewing on a toothpick and he seemed to Burden to have grown, literally, in office. It was not so much that he was stouter-like a glacier, the high stomach had moved another inch up his rib cage-as the aura of largeness about him, the large bronze face, the thick white hair, the black eyebrows, the sense of perfect equilibrium. Burden wondered if, by design, they had all been led to underestimate Harding-by his design.

Certainly Harding's first message to Congress had made it very clear that not only was he the president but he was not about to yield any of his powers to the legislative branch, particularly to that Senate which was supposed to have created him. Twice, he had publicly made fun of the notion that he had been installed by senatorial bosses, and Burden had studied the faces of Lodge and Brandegee and Smoot, and found in them a degree of sour corroboration. Lately, the cloakroom Republicans had taken to complaining how "the highbrows" of the Cabinet, Hughes and Hoover, were exercising far too much influence over the President. Now Borah, with help from his Democratic friend James Burden Day, was about to do some influencing of his own.

Harding motioned for the two men to sit on either side of him. Coffee was brought. The dog chewed a bone at Harding's feet. "I figured this was the quietest place, on short notice." Harding waited for the butler with the coffee to go. When the door shut behind him, Harding whispered, "Boys, I tell you this place is like something at the time of those Louises of France, or maybe the Borgias. Everybody's listening to you all the time. Half the time we talk in code so what we say won't end up in Hearst's papers." Harding turned to Burden. "Heard you had kind of a tough race."

"Thanks to you, I nearly lost." Burden's majority had been very small indeed, while two of the state's congressional seats that had never been anything but Democratic had gone Republican. Kitty had been indomitable, and Burden had not been himself, energy much lowered since the flu. Would he ever be well again? he wondered. "Jake Hamon also spent a lot of money in our state, which didn't help."

"Poor Jake." Harding shook his head. "Well, if he had to get killed, I suppose it was more becoming that it was his mistress and not his wife that did the deed."

Borah allowed five minutes for presidential small talk. In some mysterious way, at least mysterious to Burden, the lone wolf of the Senate had made himself its greatest power. In fact, when Lodge and his senatorial coven had tried to re-create the League of Nations without Wilson, Burden had overheard Borah warning Lodge that if he tried to support any kind of League, Borah would break him. Lodge had, most icily, said that it was singularly insolent for a young man like Borah to speak in such a fashion to his elder (and, by implication, better), to which Borah had said that there was worse to come if Lodge and his friends tried to betray the electorate. When Lodge had then threatened to resign as majority leader, Borah had thundered, "Resign? Never! We won't let you. We'll throw you out, as an example." Clearly, all the drama these days was on the Republican side. The Democrats were demure; and dour in their electoral defeat.

"Mr. President," Borah began; and Burden felt a chill-thus the great windy tribune addressed the presiding officer of the Senate. Was he going to speak for four hours? Suddenly, Harding was, once again, just a spear-carrier in the Senate, staring, hypnotized, at the greatest of chieftains. "We have had our disagreements in the past. I did not support you until last September when you a.s.sured me that you would never support our entry into any League of Nations." Borah's eyes were fixed on Harding, who blinked, and cupped his right cheek in his right hand and chewed on the stub of an unlit cigar.

Borah took silence for consent. "My fear of foreign entanglements is well-known. But I am hardly an ostrich. I know what will happen should the nations start up an arms-race in a world at peace. Should there be a compet.i.tive build-up of fleets, I am here to tell you that we will be at war with j.a.pan within the next quarter-century, and, frankly, I would regard such a war as nothing less than a crime against humanity, started by us in our neglect." Borah drank a gla.s.s of water.

Harding took advantage of this pause. He sat up straight. "Senator, it is perfectly clear to me and to Secretary Hughes that the troubles with j.a.pan have already begun, specifically in the matter of who will control the island of Yap now that Germany is gone from the Pacific and, generally, in the matter of who will control our common ocean, the Pacific."

Burden was startled by the usually vague President's sudden mastery of the relevant detail. He looked at Borah out of the corner of his eye and saw that the wide mouth was now slightly ajar-with surprise? Usually when Borah was in the room only Borah spoke. "Now then," the President put down the cigar stub, "it is not our wish around here to get the folks upset all over again over the Yellow Peril-like 1913 when we almost had a war with j.a.pan. On the other hand, I take your point, Senator, about the necessity of coming to terms with them outside the League of Nations, which alarms you more than it does me, but then that's the way we are, you and I. For me, the League is a perfectly nice idea which probably wouldn't work even if we were to join ..."

"Mr. President, should we join the League, our liberties would be surrendered ..." The Lion of Idaho had begun to roar. But the President raised his hand, and smiled.

"I hadn't quite finished, Senator. Certainly I know your eloquent views on the subject." Harding looked at Burden as if for confirmation. Burden responded with a nod. The President continued. "I am going to prepare a disarmament campaign pretty much along the lines of your December-fourteenth resolution which authorized-or was it directed?-me," Harding's smile was mischievous, "to ask the British and the j.a.panese governments to join us in cutting back our naval programs by fifty percent or whatever. Mr. Hughes and I have been working on this ever since we got here, though neither of us has had much to say on the subject in public. I've discovered one thing about this job." Harding stretched his arms; then he cradled the back of his neck in his hands. "Someone-in this case you-can come up with a good idea that the President likes, but that's not always enough, because a lot of the time even though he-me-agrees with you on a policy, I have to say no, and sit back, looking sad and forlorn, until you force me to do the right thing."

"In this case, you can count on my forcing you, Mr. President." Borah was somewhat taken aback by Harding's unexpected grasp of the essentials of power. Burden had often noted that for want of good timing, many an excellent policy had failed of enactment. "What's nice here," said the President, "is that disarmament is as popular with the pro-Leaguers like Bryan as it is with you anti-Leaguers. Only Mr. Hearst and Burden's Naval Sub-Committee dislike it, which proves we're on the right track."

Burden smiled. "I like it, even if the rest of the sub-committee wants more and more and bigger and better battleships."

"All those contracts!" Harding shook his head in mock wonder. "All that paperwork! Just makes your head ache, don't it? Now, gentlemen, I want you on both sides of the Senate to keep the pressure on me. I will look grave and concerned and keep on saying you must not force the hand of the executive, and I'll wonder out loud how on earth you think you could ever bring yourselves to trust the j.a.panese and the British to live up to their promise to disarm when you don't trust them enough to join them in a League."

Burden heard Borah inhale sharply as this needle found its mark. But the President was in full control of the situation. "So let's keep in close touch during the next few weeks." Harding rose, as did the two senators. Laddie Boy raised his leg against a chair. Harding gave him a shove and said sadly, "I wish he wouldn't do that." Then he turned to Borah. "Let me wind up my fishing expedition with the j.a.panese. The British are already on board, so they say. We may also have to include the French and the Italians to make them feel good. Then when we're ready, I'll give you a signal to go and put the gun to my head with a Senate resolution, and then, gracefully, I'll give way, and we'll send out invitations for a conference here in Washington, probably some time in July. You see," the President had led them to the door, "I want this country to be known as a defender of the peace, everywhere."

"We're as one on that." Borah shook the President's hand.

"So was Wilson," Burden observed, "but he would've made a brilliant speech prematurely. Then he would've denounced those who disagreed with him and ... well, I suppose he would've declared martial law, if he could."