He tried to be more attentive to the stage.
Herbie Teele, elastic mouth, brace of white chipmunk teeth, was concluding his routine.
“Well, all that I am, all that I hope to be, I owe to one of the pioneers of topical humor, my fellow Afro-American, Dick Gregory,” said Teele. “He went to jail so’s I could come to the White House. Like Dick used to say, these days I’m gettin’ a couple thousand a week for saying the same things I used to say under my breath. No matter what the goings-on in Mississippi, they’re really not readying to pass a law banning mixed drinks. So, like ol’ Dick, I’m not worried. The President is doin’ his best. He’s got the Reverend Spinger in there, and the Reverend is the only famous man I know who’s given out more fingerprints than autographs. The kids down South used to collect his signature on police blotters. Well, folks, let me bow out with one more to my mentor, Dick Gregory-like he used to think, I was just thinkin’ ”-Teele jumped off his stool and came to the edge of the platform and rubbed his cheeks vigorously-“now, wouldn’t it be a helluva joke if all this on me was burnt cork and all you folks were being tolerant for nuthin’?”
He slapped his hands, reared back and roared, and the audience behind Dilman gave out a great whoop of laughter and joy in unison, and applauded for a half minute as the audacious Teele pranced off the platform.
Dilman clapped halfheartedly, and when he had ceased, the two chandeliers above had dimmed, and Libby Owens, in her tight sequined skirt slit thigh-high, stood center stage, while her colored accompanist slid onto the bench behind the piano.
She drew the microphone to her and announced throatily, “For the finale, I shall render three haunting Negro spirituals by unknown bards.”
She began, and the room was hushed in the soft light. She sang:
“I know moon-rise, I know star-rise,
Lay dis body down.
I walk in de moonlight, I walk in de starlight,
To lay dis body down.
I’ll walk in de graveyard, I’ll walk through the graveyard
To lay dis body down.
I’ll lie in de grave and stretch out my arms;
Lay dis body down.”
The melancholy lyric moved Dilman, sent memory clutching backward for an almost forgotten part of his childhood, and he was too lost in the distant past to realize that someone, bent low, had hurried past the front row and crouched before him. He stirred, then was startled to find Beecher, the valet, on a knee waiting to address him.
“Mr. President,” the valet whispered, “Attorney General Kemmler is in the Blue Room. He must see you at once. He says it is urgent.”
Dilman’s heartbeat tripped. It is urgent. He had been so far away, rocking in the helpless cradle of the past, that he was unprepared to cope with crisis in the world of tall men.
Dilman shivered. “Tell him I’ll be right there.”
Silently the valet slipped away, and Dilman waited for the last of Libby Owens’ lyrics. As she finished the spiritual, and the room rang with applause, Dilman excused himself to Amboko, speaking under his breath, then hurriedly rose and went past the guests sitting in the front row and to the exit. He could see that first Eaton, then Nat Abrahams, were observing his sudden departure, and he shrugged to both. He went into the Main Hall, just as the piano resumed and Libby Owens sang, “Oh, Mary, don’t you weep, don’t you moan.”
Coming into the Main Hall of the first floor, Dilman found himself immediately flanked by two Secret Service agents.
“Why don’t you keep your eye on President Amboko,” Dilman suggested. “I’ll be all right.”
Nevertheless, they accompanied him up the corridor, past the Green Room, until they came to the entrance to the Blue Room, where Otto Beggs was on guard, and Beecher had pushed the door open. Dilman hung back a moment, steeling himself for this crisis that was as yet unknown to him, and then went into the large formal chamber, hearing the door click closed behind him.
There were two of them waiting for him, he observed. Robert Lombardi, the Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, bald as a cannonball and as inflexible and physically round, was pacing in short, quick steps near the velvet-draped circular table in the middle of the room. His usual forced public smile was missing. His forehead was damp. Beyond him, fingers laced together behind his back, loomed the presence of Attorney General Clay Kemmler, still wearing his coat.
“Gentlemen,” said Dilman, announcing himself.
Lombardi’s pacing stopped. He moved to one side of the room in token deference to his superiors as Kemmler spun around from the lofty center window, and as he did so, the spire of the Washington Monument in the distance appeared to emerge from his head, making him resemble a unicorn rearing on its hind legs. Immediately, Kemmler came forward to where the FBI Director had been, and Dilman, advancing to meet him, could see across the circular table that the Attorney General’s cold eyes glittered, but that his tight lips, a slash in his craggy face, were severe and implacable.
“Mr. President,” he said, “what I’ve been expecting has happened. The second that Bob Lombardi received the flash from his field operatives and brought it to me, I came right over. I hated to break in on you, but I think you’ll agree the news is of critical import.”
Dilman placed his fingers on the draped table to steady himself, and then remained immobile.
“We don’t have every detail yet, but the essential news is this,” Attorney General Kemmler said. “The Hattiesburg kidnaping was committed by a gang of Turnerites led by Jefferson Hurley himself. They have since killed Judge Everett Gage in cold blood, and the FBI has apprehended Hurley. The others in his gang got away. But we have Hurley, we’ve got him good, and now you can have no more reservations.”
Dilman allowed the sensational report to sink in, rocking on his heels, cursing himself for not having believed Kemmler this morning and in consequence having been made to look like an indecisive fool-or worse, like a prejudiced black. “You have Hurley?” he repeated woodenly; “And they actually murdered Gage? What more do you know?”
Kemmler jerked his head toward the FBI chief. “Bob-” he said.
Robert Lombardi came back to the table. The dampness on his forehead had spread to the top of his pate. His high-pitched confirmation came out as if strained through his nostrils. “Mr. President, as of a half hour ago, this is what happened, and this much is accurate. My men trailed the kidnapers from Mississippi, across Louisiana, into southeast Texas. They were moving fast, those kidnapers, but they weren’t too hard to follow, being amateurs and, begging your pardon, being of dark skin. They holed up on some ranch before reaching Beaumont, and laid low, and my field agents spread a pretty wide net to catch them in. Then there were a couple of pistol shots on this ranch, and as luck would have it, some of our men were nearby. We sent out an alert, surrounded the farm, and nabbed Jeff Hurley and found Judge Everett Gage’s corpse. The rest of the gang-don’t know how many there were yet-got away. Hurley’s not telling, but evidence indicates there may have been two more of them.”
“You know that it was Hurley who killed Judge Gage?” Dilman asked.
“He confessed it, Mr. President. Well, not at first, of course. What we figured out was he’d stayed behind a minute too long to clean up things-burn some papers and hide his gun. We found the revolver. Two chambers empty, and two bullets were in old Judge Gage, one in his chest and one in his abdomen. Ballistics says the markings on the bullets were made by the barrel of Hurley’s revolver. Then we-we put a bit of pressure on Hurley-he’s a sullen bull-and he finally admitted to doing it. We’ve got his signed confession to the murder. Well, what he said, actually, at first, was that they intended Gage no physical harm, they weren’t killers like Gage and his Southern Klansmen-lots of propaganda like that-but in trying to hide out from us, trying to find a real concealment until they could continue to Mexico, they let down their guard on their victim. Gage worked his wrists free, got his hands on one of their rifles, and instead of trying to escape, prepared to gun them down. Hurley came into the room, and Gage fired at him. Hurley said that it was a matter of self-defense, his own survival, and instinctively he pulled out his pistol and began firing back, got Gage with his first two shots.”