Gay Place (15 page)

“Mah dyemond one,” Hoot Gibson repeated.

Jay McGown sat nearby, telephone receiver in hand, holding for a long distance call. He looked at the Governor. “I think you did all right downstairs,” he said. The Governor did not reply.

“Yew made good speech, Arthur,” Hoot Gibson said.

“I don’t think they heard a word of it,” the Governor said. “All of ’em sittin’ there half drunk, thinkin’ how important they were, greatest group since the goddam House of Lords …”

“They heard you, all right,” Jay said. “You nearly scared ’em to death with that talk about taxes and spending. It wasn’t exactly what they were expecting from their own candidate.”

“I’ll deal them the blow of an enemy,” Fenstemaker said, “the punishment of a merciless foe …”

“Mah goddam dyemond one …”

“Because their guilt is great and their sins are flagrant …” He looked down at his brother and said: “You look in your trouser cuff?”

Hoot Gibson examined his trouser cuffs. The Governor twisted round on the sofa, reached down and retrieved the shirt stud next to the leg of a coffee stand. Hoot Gibson got to his feet and went into the kitchen to make drinks. Jay brought the telephone over. “Here’s your call,” he said.

Fenstemaker took the receiver and said, “Hello-Charley-how-in-hell-are-you-anyhow?” He listened for a moment. “I’ll be damned,” he said, and then repeated himself, “… I’ll be damned.” He looked at Jay, holding a hand over the receiver, and said: “Charley’s very special client’s asked him to rig a jury for him.” He laughed and talked into the phone:

“Well now listen now, didn’t I warn you about this bird? He’s not just rich — he’s mean and stupid. You should never have got involved … I don’t care how much he offered. You’re the best trial lawyer round here and there’s no need for you to —” Again he broke off, listened, and spoke to Jay McGown: “Charley thought the bastard was innocent!” He listened for a few seconds more and then went on.

“Charley, they’ll drink your blood if you let ’em. That insurance company of his just didn’t happen to collapse — it wasn’t the goddam law of gravity … He milked the business dry and stuffed the profits somewhere — I don’t know where, maybe up his ass — no tellin’ where — but he got away with it for four years and now he’s hired a smart lawyer like you thinkin’ he can buy his way out … All right? Now listen. You tell him you’ve gone and bought off two or three of ’em and you got two or three more on the jury who’re waverin’, can’t make up their minds. Then you take his money an’ give it to the orphan’s home or the Salvation Army shoe fund or somethin’. Just do that and then go ahead and try the case best you can. Your conscience’ll be clear … You got your ethics intact … All right …? All right …”

He hung up the receiver and lay back on the couch, holding his head. “Jesus,” he said. “All my ruined cities …”

Hoot Gibson returned with the drinks. The Governor put the glass to his mouth and swallowed hard. “I think I’ll talk to Roy Sherwood,” he said. “See if you can get Roy for me, Jay.”

Jay took the phone again. He looked at the Governor and said: “You going to tell him about this afternoon?”

“I dunno.”

“How’s he doing? You think he’ll be all right?”

“No way tellin’,” Fenstemaker said. “No way at all … Just goin’ on a hunch. Can’t ever tell about these far-out boys. You dump a responsibility on them, and sometimes all they’ll produce is a very wet bowel movement … Git ’im on the phone.”

Jay dialed the number.

T
HE QUESTION CAME TO
him forcibly that morning, a little before noon, as he stood outside the Governor’s Office in the Capitol building. He had with him an enormous black notebook, its thick pages neatly indexed with pink tabs, and a freshly inked speech, eight pages triple spaced, strange words dazzling him in oversized type — a “reading copy” Jay McGown said. Jay stood next to him, fumbling with manila folders and copies of the committee report, law books and news releases. Roy stared at Jay and at the bundle of printed matter and the gleaming marble corridors down which Arthur Fenstemaker had just now slouched. He wondered about those times in the past when he had asked himself the question, when some abstract force seemed to have separated him from awareness of what had gone before, leaving him bereft of reason, all justification, to grapple with the bald moment.
What,
he would ask himself,
What am I doing here?

It was as if the question had been poised on his lips for years, always asked and forever unanswered. It had come to him once in Alaska, as he stalked a bear, cold and blinded with tears, on a hunting trip with his father; and, again, one evening in 1945 at a squawling party given in the U.S.O. in Norfolk, Virginia, as he perspired in his dark sailor suit and danced with his bride of three days. And even before that he had asked himself the question: fumbling in the cramped darkness of a Model-T Ford, barking his shins against the pine dashboard, in his first fantastic attempt at seduction.

The question had been coming to him for so long it had become a sort of ritual, a trick of the imagination, in which he was thrust back in time and then forward again, coming upon the moment as a stranger and viewing whatever experience was at hand with the limited awareness of one who might just now have stumbled on the scene. How come I’m
here
of all places? he would ask himself.

He turned to Jay McGown and repeated the question.

“Makin’ goddam history,” Jay said. “You heard the Governor …” He stared at the speech copies and added: “You see any errors in this stuff?”

Roy shook his head. “How should I know?” he said. “I’m just the author of the bill.” He stared at the print. “You write the speech?” he said.

Jay nodded. Roy said: “I never in my life had a speech written for me.”

“Then this here’s a moment of unparalleled magnificence,” Jay said. “You got yourself a ghost — you’ve arrived as a major public figure.”

They walked down the marble hall and into the chamber of the House of Representatives. Jay began distributing copies of the bill and the committee report and Roy’s remarks, yet unuttered. The chamber was steamy and half filled. It was a time just before convening when lobbyists and secretaries and newsmen and people with any sort of authority were permitted on the floor to pursue the legislators. Roy went to his desk and began his last-minute studies, checking notes, thumbing reference books, making penciled changes in the speech. He stared around, glancing at the back of the chamber, watching the clock. Arthur Fenstemaker came upon him from behind. He pulled over a chair and sat down. He asked Roy how he was. Roy said he was wondering what he was doing there.

“I never thought, when I was growing up, about getting into politics,” Roy went on. “And when I did, finally, right after college, I never thought I’d take it seriously. Just a means to an end. I forget what end.”

“I remember,” Fenstemaker said, “selling Real-Silk Socks — that’s a trade name — durin’ the summers at college. The limit of my ambition then was to sell enough of those goddam Real-Silk Socks to be manager of district sales and sleep with my secretary. The district manager had a secretary … You ready to take a little run?”

“Yes.”

“It’s all set up,” Fenstemaker said. “I had to talk to the Speaker. About puttin’ the bill up on the Calendar, ahead of some minor stuff.”

“I thought he was against the bill,” Roy said.

Fenstemaker showed his marvelous teeth. “He’s an honorable and reasonable man, Roy,” the Governor said. “All I had to do was threaten to ruin him.” He got abruptly to his feet and headed up the aisle without looking back, pausing occasionally to whisper in a member’s ear. Roy resumed his studies. A pageboy brought a telephone extension to his desk and plugged it in. Roy picked up the receiver.

“Where’ve you
been
?” Ouida said to him. “I called all yesterday afternoon and half the night, and —”

“I fell asleep — passed out actually,” Roy said. His voice sounded timorous. He thought suddenly about how nice it would be on the lake that afternoon; the emotion was unsettling. He was quickly, peculiarly charged with desire — right there in the middle of the day, on the floor of the House of Representatives — and the hell, he thought, with Earle Fielding and Fenstemaker and —

“I called five or six times,” Ouida said. “Where were you?”

“In bed … Unconscious … I didn’t wake up until … it was too late to call.”

“I’m going out to the ranch a day ahead of time,” Ouida said.

“Ahead of what?”

“That insane tennis tournament. I’ve got to get out there early to clean up the place. Arrange for a cook, have the courts rolled …”

“Courts?”

“
Tennis
courts. They’re playing tennis, remember? That’s the kind of tournament it is.”

“I’m still asleep,” Roy said.

“What I called about — what I was calling about last night — was to ask you to come with me. We’ll be miles and miles from everything. I’ve already got a baby sitter to stay in town with the boy. We can be alone out there — we’ll have the whole evening and night and next morning together. The others won’t be arriving until the afternoon.”

“I don’t know,” Roy said.

She wanted to know what was the matter and he tried to explain, and then she still wanted to know.

“What’s all this got to do with Fenstemaker?” she said. “I’m not in love with Fenstemaker. You in love with Fenstemaker? You obligated in any special way? I don’t understand any —”

He tried again to explain. “I happen to
want
to do this,” he said.

“All right. Forget it. Go back to sleep.”

“Look,” he said, “I’ll try to get loose later this afternoon. I can’t promise but I’ll try to —”

“Forget all about it,” Ouida said. She hung up.

He put the receiver down and sat there still holding onto it, wondering if he should call her back and attempt once again to explain the curious, the very trying circumstances. Look, he would say to her, I don’t know why I’m here about to make a speech. I never in my life thought I’d be. Or that I’d get a phone call from a lovely married lady with girl-sized bosoms and hair the color of maple syrup and just about the most desirable shin-bones I ever in my life saw. Calling to argue that I ought to be out in the country to watch her walking barefoot, wearing cotton underpants, all around a ranch house that’s having its … its
tennis
courts rolled. I don’t know why, lady. I’m not now and never have been a well man …

The boy returned and disconnected the phone extension. Willie England came down the aisle and sat next to him. “How’s it feel to be a member of the Governor’s team at last?” Willie said.

“I’m on nobody’s team,” Roy said with finality. “Wouldn’t drink a cup of coffee with some of the buggers and fourteen-carat sons of bitches that swoon and genuflect around the Governor. I just happen to —”

“Okay …
Okay,
” Willie said. “I think it’s fine.”

They sat in silence for a moment, looking round the great hall. Red and white lights flashed on a large board behind the Speaker’s rostrum. A slim young man moved along toward the front, stepped up on the raised platform and banged a gavel.

“This House is coming to order,” Willie said. “Suppose I’d better clear out.” He hesitated and then added: “You know anything new about Rinemiller?”

“A little,” Roy said. “Fenstemaker called me last night. He call you?”

“No,” Willie said. “Guess he thought he’d given me enough miseries … I
still
don’t know what to do about it. Am I supposed to expose my own employer? Chairman of my own board? You think Fenstemaker might do something himself? What’d he call you about?”

“The fellow with the recording machine. Looks like he’s back doing more business. According to Fenstemaker, anyhow.”

“Oh, Jesus,” Willie said. “Who is it this time? I hope to God it’s not another friend of the family.”

“Another House member,” Roy said. “He wouldn’t tell me who. Just said the fellow had taken another member up to his hotel suite and spent part of the afternoon. Fenstemaker must have spies everywhere. Nobody’s safe. He thinks the guy’s given up on trying to work through the Governor’s Office and is back buying votes again.”

“I’m not going to think about it,” Willie said. “I got to go look for a new job.”

Willie retreated up the aisle. Roy studied his legislation until Huggins appeared beside him. “What’s all this I hear about you and Fenstemaker?” he said.

“It’s true,” Roy said. “Come round tomorrow and share my mess of pottage.”

“How’d all this happen?” Huggins said.

“I haven’t the foggiest idea,” Roy said. “Maybe he just knows real class when he sees it … You give me some help?”

“Help? What kind of help?”

Roy wrote down the names of some members with whom Huggins might have influence. “Help me pass a bill, for chrissake,” he said. “You don’t want to be an obstructionist all your life.”

“Sure … I’ll help,” Huggins said, looking mystified. He turned and moved up the aisle, picking out members to visit. A succession of speakers, from the rostrum and then from the floor microphones, inveighed against one thing and another. Their voices droned on; House members wandered in and out, drinking coffee from paper cups, reading newspapers, waving to friends in the gallery. Fairly soon the Speaker gaveled for order and called up a series of minor bills that were briefly described and passed without objection. Willie walked past alongside a committee chairman, talking and taking notes. Roy bent over his notes, trying to remember all of Fenstemaker’s instructions. Voices raged around him. Rinemiller and Earle Fielding came down the aisle and stood next to his desk.

“Hey, Roy,” Rinemiller said. “
Hey,
Roy …”

He looked up at Earle and Alfred. The two of them stood there, pursuing him, like old debts. “Just trying to get this stuff set right in my mind,” he said. “Before I have to get up there and make a fool of myself.”

“Wanted to let you know I got a little amendment,” Rinemiller said.

“That’s fine,” Roy said. Rinemiller smiled. Earle Fielding stared at him tragically for a moment and then turned away, focusing his attention on the speaker’s rostrum.