“She doesn’t appear too upset,” Parrish replied.
“So what’s she going to do?”
Parrish considered his answer. “I’m not sure. I think she’s going to let the press run with it.”
“Why?”
“So someone can step all over his schwanz.”
“I hope it hurts,” Litton muttered.
“When Shaw gets done with them, it will.”
Pontowski was alone in his apartment late Sunday night coming to grips with the intricacies of the Polish language. “There’s got to be some way to pronounce the unpronounceable,” he grumbled to himself. The horrible consonant sequences were driving him crazy. He tried again. “Okay, cz is like ch in China and ch like h. That’s better, w is like v and the funny e is like the French un.” He tried a few words. It was starting to come together. Then he listened to the language tape and tried “thank you.” “Dziękuje.” He laughed and made a mental promise to hire a tutor.
The phone rang, a welcome relief. “May I speak to General Pontowski,” a gruff voice said.
“Speaking.”
“My name is Patrick Shaw and I work for Madeline Turner.”
“I know who you are, Mr. Shaw.”
“We need to speak soonest. In private.”
“Mr. Shaw, all things considered…”
“Like my reputation?”
“Exactly. I would prefer to meet in my office in the embassy. Tomorrow morning. Eight o’clock.” He dropped the receiver into its cradle. “What the hell?” he muttered.
Ewa Pawlik handed Pontowski a note the moment he arrived in his office the next morning. “Mr. James wants to see you immediately. He’s most upset and is with the strangest man.”
“A big guy, curly hair, needs a haircut, flushed face, red nose. Rumpled suit, shoes need polish.”
She nodded at his accurate description. “Mr. James is afraid of him.”
“He’s an eight-hundred-pound gorilla from the White House. Not exactly the kind of visitor a DCM wants dropping in unannounced.” He handed her his briefcase and walked directly into the deputy charge of mission’s office.
James motioned him to a seat. “General Pontowski, I’ve been talking to Mr. Shaw and I must say, I’m disappointed in how you’ve responded to his requests. I take pride in my legation being most prompt, courteous, and responsive.”
“Then it’s all right,” Pontowski said, “for me to meet with someone from the White House without your knowledge?”
James huffed. “I wouldn’t phrase it that way.”
“This is unofficial,” Shaw said, helping James off the hook.
“So, in unofficial matters, I’m free to act in any way I want?”
Shaw enjoyed watching the two men spar. But that wasn’t why he was there. He looked contrite and gave the two men his most hangdog look. “I didn’t mean to stir the waters.” He deployed his heaviest Southern accent. “I’m just a good-ol’-boy way in over his head here. I’d like to have a few words with the general and get the heck out’a Dodge.”
James jumped on the offer. “Thank you for being so understanding. Please, use my office.” He left with as much dignity as he could muster.
Shaw chuckled. “That boy is about to wet his pants. He needs to learn how to take a precautionary piss now and then. Someday, he’s gonna embarrass himself.”
Pontowski ignored Shaw’s rough-cut humor. “How may I help you, Mr. Shaw?”
“It’s Patrick, son. I’m here to help a friend, Maddy Turner.”
“Does the president need your help?”
Shaw nodded slowly. “She’s running for reelection, General.”
“I wasn’t aware she had made that decision yet.”
Shaw’s accent faded. His voice took on a friendly tone with a definite edge. “If your intentions are honorable and you really care for her, you need to put your relationship on a back burner until after the election.” Shaw shifted into his paternal mode. “You’ve got a history and must’ve been pretty wild in your younger days.”
Pontowski accepted the truth of it. He had been wild and irresponsible as a lieutenant and only the prestige of his famous grandfather had saved him from being kicked out of the Air Force. “People change,” he said with quiet assurance.
Shaw agreed but it wasn’t in his plan to admit it. “I’ll never understand why women are attracted to your type. Nothing but trouble and it’s kidney-stone-sized distraction she doesn’t need — the voters don’t need.”
“Let her tell me that.”
“You don’t think I’m here on my own, do you?” Shaw let his words sink in, hoping the lie would take. “General, I’ve been with Maddy since the day she got bitten by the political bug. I know how she works. She doesn’t want to end whatever there is between you two, but this is not the right time for it to become a public issue. So keep talking on the phone and sending letters, but it’s a matter of doing what’s right for Maddy.”
“Are you saying I’m a political liability?”
Shaw heaved himself to his feet, his message delivered. “That’s why I like dealin’ with you jet jocks.” Pontowski ushered Shaw out and waited while a secretary helped him with his overcoat. “We have an understanding?” Shaw asked. Pontowski said nothing but put out his hand. Shaw shook it and left.
James rushed up. “Is there something I need to know?”
“Only that I’ve been dumped, I think.” He walked back to his office.
“Is the eight-hundred-pound gorilla gone?” Ewa asked.
Pontowski didn’t answer. Then, “Ewa I need someone to teach me conversational Polish and help me learn a little about my heritage, where I come from.”
“I would be glad to help,” she replied. “Do you know where your family lived?”
He was caught off guard. He had meant his cultural heritage and not his genealogy. But the more he thought about it, the more appealing it became. “My grandfather said something about a village near Crakow.”
“It’s pronounced Kra’ kov,” she replied.
Shaw hummed a tuneless melody on his way out of the embassy, his mission accomplished. He was slightly puzzled by the sight of a tall and cadaverous man standing beside his car. The man looked surprised. “What a fortunate coincidence. Mr. Shaw, I presume?”
Yeah, right. Shaw thought. “You must be Dr. Livingstone, I presume?”
The man held open the rear passenger-side door of Shaw’s car door. “May I join you?”
“Depends on who you are.”
“My name is Jerzy Fedor and I would like to officially welcome you to Poland.”
Shaw sized the man up. “Get in.”
Fedor said with a smile, “Certainly.”
The limousine drove out the gates and turned left onto Aleje Ujazdowski. “What can I do for you, Mr. Fedor?”
“Perhaps, it’s what we can do for you.”
An image of two used-car salesmen standing hip deep in chicken manure while they stabbed each other in the back flashed in Shaw’s mind. “My business in Poland was strictly personal. Nothing official at all.” He wasn’t about to tell Fedor why he was there.
“Please, Mr. Shaw. It’s not every day that the personal representative of the president of the United States comes to Poland.”
Shaw was impressed. He had been in Poland fewer than twelve hours and the government was checking him out. Time to change the subject. “I take it you’re from security?”
“Of course not,” Fedor lied. “I’m only concerned with economic affairs.” Fedor pointed to a big gray building ahead of them on their right. “That’s the stock exchange where I work.”