While he knew it troubled Sue that they had already been in Washington a month, and he missed the children as much as she did, he found that he was neither annoyed nor impatient over their protracted visit. More than ever, Washington was stimulating. The fact that he and Sue had enjoyed the opportunity to dine in the White House three times since his private reunion with Doug Dilman had made his stay doubly interesting. Of course, if his negotiations with Gorden Oliver continued at this snail’s pace, he had promised Sue that she could go back to Chicago and the children this week. He was positive he would not be much behind her.
The half-dozen meetings with Gorden Oliver had been profitable. What had caused the delay was the fact that Oliver did not possess final authority to approve of Abrahams’ demands and revisions. Whenever a contractual clause came under discussion, and Abrahams requested improvement of it, or clarification, Oliver would promise an immediate answer and then disappear for several days. It was clear to Abrahams that Oliver was consulting not only with the Eagles Industries Corporation crowd in Washington, but with Avery Emmich in Atlanta. Abrahams suspected that Oliver had even flown off to Eagles’ main headquarters to meet with Emmich once or twice. Then Abrahams had read that Emmich had been out of the country last week, and that had explained the most recent delay. Despite this, Abrahams felt that his last meeting with Oliver might have concluded the preliminary give and take. He expected that the next time he saw Oliver, there would be copies of the contract ready for his approval. Then he would be able to take Sue home and help her wind up their affairs, before moving the family to Washington. In fact, he had encouraged Sue to occupy herself by looking for a roomy brownstone to lease in the city.
It was not Oliver’s telephone call last night that had surprised him, but rather the fact that Oliver wanted to see him about a matter other than the contract.
“The contract is routine now, Nat,” Gorden Oliver had said. “It’s at the home office for final review and retyping. It should be here any day. You can assume you are now a representative of Eagles Industries. No, what I want to see you about, Nat, is not the contract-I’m as sick of it as you are, old boy-but something pertaining to your first duties here in Washington. I’ll go into it when I see you tomorrow. Why don’t you meet me in the private Speaker’s Lobby of the House at noon? I’ll leave your name with the Capitol police.” Abrahams had accepted the invitation.
Now he found himself, as he had so many times in the years past but for the first time on this trip, standing before the elevator beneath the Capitol. When it arrived, he followed a woman and two men into it. In seconds, he was upstairs. He went past the sign members only to the swinging doors leading into the Speaker’s Lobby, gave his name to the uniformed policeman, and was admitted. He reflected briefly on the power of a lobbyist like Oliver, who was able to get his friends and associates past that excluding sign so easily.
The long lobby, with its rich red carpet, contained only a few visitors studying the Department of Commerce weather map and the framed portraits on the walls of former Speakers of the House, the one of MacPherson still draped in black. None of the visitors was Gorden Oliver.
Puzzled, Abrahams turned left and entered the Members’ Reading Rooms that ran parallel with the lobby. He saw a group huddled beneath the globular light fixtures, once picturesque gas jets, near the teletype machine. Gorden Oliver was not among them. Abrahams inspected several members standing before the library stands of newspapers, reading the front pages. For a moment Abrahams was diverted. These newspaper stands fascinated him. There was an individual rack for each state of the fifty in the Union, and every day upon these racks were hung the newspapers from the leading cities in that state. Abrahams paused before the stand with the sign MISS. above it. Tilting his head, he cast his eyes down the file of dangling newspapers from Greenville, Columbus, Vicksburg, Meridian, Natchez, Hattiesburg, Biloxi. The majority of the headlines were several days old, and were devoted to Judge Gage’s sentencing of the Turnerite demonstrators, or to the debate of the Minorities Rehabilitation Program Bill in the House, or to the announcement of Dilman’s first State Dinner to entertain a fellow black man from Africa. Before many days the rack would carry the dated headlines screaming of Judge Gage’s abduction by Negro terrorists, and segregationists’ vows of retaliation, which Washington newspapers had carried only an hour before.
Nat Abrahams continued through the Members’ Reading Rooms, but nowhere was Gorden Oliver to be seen. He realized that a burly, blue-coated Capitol policeman was observing him. He went over to the policeman. “I’m Mr. Abrahams,” he said. “I was to meet Mr. Gorden Oliver here. Have you seen him around?”
“Oliver? Is he the columnist-?”
“No, he’s-”
“I’m new on the force,” the policeman apologized. “Let me check with someone else.”
As the officer left for the lobby, Abrahams thought that he heard a familiar voice. Even as he pivoted, he recognized it was Doug Dilman’s voice, low and strained, competing with the hum of a television set. The small set was on a reading table, and several representatives had pulled up chairs and were watching and listening. Nat Abrahams came up behind them, to see how his friend was faring in his first press conference.
The picture projected on the screen, momentarily wavy, showed President Dilman seated at the mahogany Cabinet table, flanked by Flannery and Governor Talley. He had reached the last page of his prepared speech, and was reading the final news announcement: that he deplored the kidnaping of Judge Gage, that the FBI was on the trail of the terrorists, that there was no information yet as to whether the abduction was the work of individuals or an organization, that he had already appointed the Reverend Paul Spinger, head of the Crispus Society, as the President’s personal representative, and that Spinger was to investigate the possible participation of any extremist organization in the crime, and to sort fact from rumor.
As the camera pulled back for a full shot, the battery of microphones before President Dilman was revealed, and then the forty to fifty journalists with their pencils and note pads pressed around the far side of the table, and the still photographers taking their pictures.
Dilman put down his prepared statement and looked up tightly. The distortion of the television screen made his Negroid features seem broader and blacker than they were.
Dilman said, in almost a whisper, “That completes the news announcements, gentlemen. Do you have any questions? Hold up your hands, and Mr. Flannery will recognize you in order.”
Like marionettes’ limbs jerked by strings, at least a dozen arms shot up and a dozen hands beckoned for recognition. Flannery acknowledged each with a nod, and scrawled the name of each on a sheet before him. Finishing his jotting, Flannery called out, “Mr. Blaser, of the Washington Citizen-American and Miller Newspaper Association.”
Nat Abrahams searched the mass of reporters on the television screen, and then could make out a short, stocky middle-aged man with a high pompadour and an unattractive carbuncle of a face-“I don’t mind most of those reporters,” Dilman had told Abrahams at their last dinner, “but that Reb Blaser is like a toad in a flower bed.” Blaser was elbowing through the crowd of reporters to get closer to the table.
“Mr. President,” Blaser began, his wheedling, oiled tongue seeking to cover his renowned cantankerous, liverish manner, “about your announcement of that dastardly Turnerite kidnaping in Mississippi-”
To Abrahams’ surprise, Dilman leaned forward and interrupted. “Mr. Blaser, I did not announce that the kidnaping was done by any organization. I believe I made that point clear. We can make no accusations until our investigation is completed.”