He turned toward her at last. She expected his features to be hardened into anger. She resented that they were only pitying, like those of a father listening to his daughter recount an improbable fib. “I see, Miss Watson. Do you mean to say that you’re in the habit of always packing note cards in your evening purse?”
“No-no, of course not. I was taking those home from my office. I’d picked them up just before dinner, to use before coming to work in the morning.”
He had moved closer to her, and was staring down at her now. “Or did Arthur Eaton put them in your purse, Miss Watson? Was that why you came here? For him?”
She tried to summon up indignation. “Eaton? What ever has he got to do with it? Why would I come here for him?”
“It’s all over Washington, Miss Watson. I don’t listen to gossip, but everyone seems to know about you and Eaton.”
“Filthy troublemakers!” She was truly angry at last. “Filthy, dirty tongues. How dare they!” She was panting, but tried to be as controlled as he. “What would I have to do with that old man? I have my own crowd. Besides-how can you? He’s married, he has a wife. I know him only socially, because he’s an old-time friend of Daddy’s, and-”
Dilman’s expression remained placid. “And he would like my job. In fact, as you now know, he has been trying to do my job, just as you have been trying to do Mrs. Eaton’s job. Very well. Now you can go to him and tell him I know.” He stepped forward to hand her the index cards, and his knee touched hers, and the contact, the proximity of him, his lack of anger, gave her a last mad surge of hope.
“No,” she said, refusing the cards, “I wouldn’t do that to you. I think too much of you.”
He lowered the cards to drop them into her lap, eyes avoiding her eyes and the exposed brassière. With a sob, Sally clutched both his arms, not allowing him to turn away and leave her.
Dilman made no resistance. “Let go of me, Miss Watson.”
“No,” she sobbed. “Listen-all right-I’ll tell you the truth-all right, you’re forcing me to-it’s terrible-but I’ll tell you. I-I didn’t come here to lie down, or for anyone else, but just for you, to be with you awhile alone and talk to you. I deliberately came here to wait, and became lonesome, and poked around-looking at your work-it has moved me, the way you work so hard, and nobody understands you except a few of us, like myself-and the cards, the notes, I did take them to keep busy, for my diary, honestly-that’s what it was. I’m not ashamed, I wanted to be alone with you, to tell you I understand what you go through, that you have a friend in me who-”
Forcibly, he removed his arms from her grasp. “Miss Watson, I suggest you leave here at once.”
“No, listen-” She believed it now. Who had known Secretary of the Treasury Hamilton as well as Mrs. Maria Reynolds? President Cleveland as well as Mrs. Maria Halpin? President Harding as well as Miss Nan Britton? She believed those stories as much as she believed in herself, now and here, and in what was possible. If she were to lose Arthur because of her failure, she might still have more than any woman on earth. Casting the index cards aside, she leaped to her feet, and the room went topsy-turvy, and she almost collapsed, grabbing Dilman’s arms, holding herself erect. She knew she was drunk, but she knew what she wanted. “-listen-I do care for you. I want to help you. Don’t you-don’t you want to know me better?”
She had pulled close to him confidently, knowing the offer of her flesh had never failed her before. She waited for his concession to the inevitable, his embrace, and their friendship.
“Miss Watson, get out of here.”
Her hands released him, and she recoiled, looking at him with disbelief. For the first time, his face was set in pure black anger.
There was one thing left. She’d had her elementary school in Negroes. She knew them too well. “You’re afraid of me, that’s all,” she heard herself say. “You’re afraid of getting in trouble because I’m white, Southern white, and somebody, and you’re colored. Don’t-don’t be that way. I’ve known plenty of Negro men. I consider them to be like-like anybody else-and when they get to know me, they appreciate me. Now you know, so-”
She halted, frightened by the way his red-rimmed eyes protruded and blazed at her.
“You’re a drunken, silly, sick young lady,” he said. “You get out of here, and you stay out of here, and never show your face in this house again.”
As her self-assurance faded, her face became contorted by humiliation and rage. “You-you throwing me out-?”
He turned his back to her, picked up her purse, took the index cards from the bed, fitted them into the purse, and placed the bag in her hand. “I’m throwing you out, Miss Watson. I’m sure Mr. Eaton will take you in.”
She glared at him, reeled past him to the door, held the knob, and over her shoulder considered him contemptuously. “You hypocritical pig,” she cried shrilly. “You-with that nigger girl you’ve got stashed away-I know-I’m not forgetting-no low nigger is going to insult me. You’re damn right I’m going to Arthur Eaton. He won’t be forgetting either… Enjoy this house while you can, because, mister, your lease is running out, and from now on we want only gentlemen on the premises, nothing lower-you hear? No more of your indecent kind, only two-legged beings, you hypocrite!”
Reluctantly Arthur Eaton reopened the concealed wall bar of his Tudor living room and took down the bottles and glasses. He prepared a Jack Daniel’s, with water, for Senator Bruce Hankins, and poured a generous amount of sweet liqueur from the Grand Marnier decanter for Representative Zeke Miller. Behind him, he knew that the elderly Hankins had settled on the sofa across from Wayne Talley, while Miller remained on his feet, spread-legged, in the pose of a public speaker impatient to begin a harangue. Talley, Eaton had observed, still had two-thirds of his Seagram’s whisky, and required no refill.
About to take the two drinks to his recently arrived guests, Eaton, who had not been drinking, reconsidered his own need. The sight of the newcomers definitely left him with a bad taste in his mouth. To remove this taste, a counter-potion was required. Eaton studied the two rows of bottles on the shelves of his bar, brought down the Remy Martin cognac and an amber-tinted snifter that Kay had long ago purchased in Vienna, and he covered the bottom of the glass with the cognac.
His eye caught the Roman numerals of the early English lantern clock on the mantelpiece of the fireplace. It was twenty-three minutes after eleven, too late for this, and too late for Sally Watson. When Talley had come over, after dinner, they had quietly reviewed the entire Baraza situation, from start to the present, as well as the withholding of the single CIA warning from Dilman. They had justified their act, one to the other, and Talley had been reassuring about the safety of their position. Sally’s precious news that Dilman had found out, or at least suspected what they had done, had been useful in alerting them to possible trouble. However, more important would be the degree to which Dilman could confirm, through the Director of CIA, exactly what they had withheld. If Scott was uncooperative or vague, Dilman would have no evidence with which to endanger the peace of the country. (If new evidence came-better, worse-the problem could then be handled by them openly.) On the other hand, if Scott had been informative and explicit this afternoon, Dilman might be foolhardy enough to act both against Talley and himself, and against the Russians, and the rift in foreign policy would have to be taken to the public-T. C.’s public still, he trusted.