Callie turned to Yocke and said, “I’ve been reading your stories on Cuba. They are very, very good.”
“Thank you,” Jack Yocke said, genuinely pleased by the compliment.
Callie led him on, and in a few moments Yocke was talking about Cuba. Toad even tore his attention away from Rita to listen and occasionally toss in a question.
At first Yocke’s comments were superficial, but it seemed as if the company drew him out. Even Jake began to pay attention.
“… the thing that impressed me was the sense of destiny that the people had, the common people, the workers. They were gaining something. And then I realized that what they were talking about, what they wanted, was democracy, the right to vote for the leaders who made the laws. You know, we’ve had it here for so long that we’ve become blasé. It’s fashionable these days to sneer at politicians, laugh at the swine prostituting themselves for campaign money and begging shamelessly for votes. And yet, when you’re up to your eyes in dictatorship, being ordered around by some self-appointed Caesar with big ideas in a little head, democracy looks damned good.”
His listeners seemed to agree, so Yocke developed the thought: “It’s funny, but democracy rests on the simplest premise that has ever supported a form of human government: a majority of the people will be right more often than not. Think about it! Errors are part of the system. They are inevitable as the political currents ebb and flow. Yet in the long run, a shifting, changing majority will be right a majority of the time.”
“Will these countries which are embracing democracy for the first time have the patience to wait for the successes and to tolerate the errors?” Jake Grafton asked, the first time during dinner that he had spoken.
Yocke looked down the table at the captain. “I don’t know,” he said. “It takes a lot of faith to believe in the good faith and wisdom of your fellow man. Democracy will stick in some places, sure. I think it needs to get its roots in deep though, or it’ll get ripped up by the first big blow. There’s always someone promising instant salvation if he could just get his hands on the helm and throttle.”
“How about democracy in America? A fad or here to stay?”
“Jake Grafton!” Callie admonished. “What a question!”
“It’s a good one,” Yocke told her. “One of the common errors is to get rid of the system. We’ve got a lot of problems in America and two hundred and fifty million people advocating solutions. I should know — I make my living writing about the problems.”
“You didn’t answer the question,” Toad Tarkington said, and grinned.
“I don’t know the answer,” Jack Yocke told him.
“I don’t think anything could make us give up our republic,” Callie declared.
“What do you think, Captain?” Tish Samuels asked.
Jake snorted. “The roots are in deep all right, but if the storm were bad enough…. Who wants coffee besides me?”
As Callie poured coffee, Jake saw Rita speaking softly to Amy. The youngster listened, her face clouding heavily, then she abruptly fled the room.
Jake folded his napkin and excused himself. He didn’t get past Callie. She thrust the coffeepot at him, then followed Amy into the bedroom.
“How do you want it, Toad?” Jake leaned over the lieutenant’s shoulder.
“In the cup, if possible, CAG.”
“Rita, have you picked up any new lines to teach this clown? His act is getting real stale.”
Rita grinned at Jake. “I know. I was hoping that since he works in your shop now you could give him some help.”
“You work for Captain Grafton?” Jack Yocke asked Toad.
“Maybe I should go visit with Callie and Amy for a minute,” Rita said, and rose from her chair. She came out of it supplely, effortlessly. Toad and Jake watched her until the bedroom door closed behind her.
“Yeah,” Toad said to the reporter. “CAG can’t get rid of me. Actually I have been of some small service to Captain Grafton in the past in his epic struggles to defend the free world from the forces of evil and all that. I suggested yesterday that he buy a Batmobile and I’d keep it over at my place until he needs it. He doesn’t have a garage here.”
“What do you two do over in the Pentagon?” Yocke asked.
“It’s very hush-hush,” Toad confided, lowering his voice appropriately. “We’re drafting top-secret war plans to go into effect if Canada attacks us. We figure they’ll probably take out the automobile plants in Detroit first. Surprise attack. Maybe a Sunday morning. Then—”
“Toad!” Jake growled.
Tarkington gestured helplessly at Tish Samuels, who was grinning. “My lips are sealed. Anyway, it’s a real dilly of a tip-top secret, which as you know are the very best kind. If the Canadians ever find out …”
As they cleared the table, Jake said to Toad, “Rita seems to be fully recovered from that crash last year.”
“She’s got some scars,” Toad said, “but she’s amazed the therapists. Amazed me too.”
They had the dishes in the washer and were in the living room drinking coffee when Amy and Rita came out of the bedroom holding hands. Both looked like they had been crying. Callie headed for the kitchen and Jake trailed after her.
“What was that all about?”
“Amy worships Rita and has a crush on Toad.” Callie rolled her eyes heavenward. “Hormones!”
“Ouch.”
Callie smiled and gave Jake a hug. “I love you.”
“I love you too, woman. But we’d better get back to our guests.”
“Aren’t you glad we invited Jack Yocke?”
“He’s a good kid.”
Fear increases exponentially the closer you get to the feared object. Harrison Ronald made this discovery as he drove toward Freeman McNally’s northwest Washington house.
He could feel it, a paralyzing, mind-numbing daze that made him want to puke and run at the same time.
He was paying less and less attention to the traffic around him, and he knew it but couldn’t do better. That was another thing about fear — a little of it is necessary, keeps you sharp, makes you function at peak efficiency in potentially dangerous situations. But too much of it is paralyzing. Fear becomes terror, which numbs the mind and muscles. And if the ratchet is loosened just a notch, the terror becomes panic and all the muscles receive one message from the shorted-out brain — flee.
He drove slower and slower. When the traffic lights turned green he had to will himself to depress the accelerator. A man in a car behind raced his engine and gunned by with his middle finger held rigidly aloft. Ford ignored him.
In spite of everything, he got there. He eased the car down the alley and into a parking place behind McNally’s row house. The guard was standing in the shadow of a fence. Ford killed the engine. He was not going to retch, no sir. Under no circumstances was he going to let himself vomit.
“Now or never,” he said aloud, comforted by the sound of his voice, which sounded more or less under control, and opened the door. The guard walked toward him with his hands in his coat pockets.
Oh, damn! This is it!
“You Z?”
“Yeah, man.”
“Ain’t nobody in there. You’re supposed to go over to the Sanitary and pick up a load.”
He stood there beside the car staring at the man. It didn’t compute. Think, goddamn it! Think! The Sanitary Bakery …
“The guard’ll meet you there.”
Ford turned and reopened the car door. He seated himself, then tried to remember what he had done with the key. Not this pocket, nor this … here! He stabbed it at the ignition. Turn the key.
With the engine running a tidal wave of relief rolled over him. He pulled the shift lever back a notch and let the car drift backward, toward the alley.
Everything’s cool. Everything’s cool as a fucking ice cube.
Look behind you, idiot. Don’t hit the pole.