The blocks of logic here will have to be built carefully, so that no other solution appears to be at hand. I think the acceptance of assassination will come with two events “rearranged” from recent history: the withdrawal of the most qualified man from the presidential race, and the resignation of an innovative justice of the Supreme Court.
The Nucleus recognizes both of these catastrophes as the work of J. Edgar Hoover. Irreparable damage is being done to the body politic.
The pencil broke, its point shattered under the force of his pressure. He was getting angry again, and the rage should be used later, when he was writing the novel itself. Now was the time to think.
History had provided a peaceful solution. A madman’s death and the destruction of his recorded poisons had allowed the Nucleus—if Sutherland was right—to disband. The alert was over.
These were the facts. But he was not dealing with historical reality. What would such a group of concerned, decent people do if faced with the collapse of the checks and balances so vital to the open form of government? Would such a group consider execution? Assassination?
In one sense they would have no alternative. Yet in taking that action, they would be plunging themselves down to the same level as the murdered man. Therefore, not all would subscribe to such a solution, and no such solution would be openly proposed.
But two, or perhaps three, might consider it the only decision that could be made. And here would be the Nucleus’s flaw. Murder is murder, its definition altered only by specific conditions of war. Those who employ murder as a solution are ultimately no better than their targets. The Nucleus would harbor two or three members who would become committed killers.
As Peter conceived it fictionally.
In the Nucleus are two men, and perhaps a woman (the dramatic possibilities here are interesting), of stature, dedicated to the principles espoused by the rest of the group. What we see, however, is a gradual change in their perspectives. It is born of frustration and anguish, a genuine detestation of Hoover’s progress and the Nucleus’s apparent ineffectiveness. It is brought to a head by the manipulation of a presidential election and the repressive shaping of the court. They have been pushed to the wall; no alternatives remain. There is only assassination.
But that would remove only half the cancer, the other half being Hoover’s files. They must be taken. They cannot be allowed to fall into the hands of his successor after his death.
These rebels within the Nucleus conceive of a plan of execution and theft I think it should be written in a crosscut documentary style, the suspense heightened by the ingeniousness of the plan itself and the realization that at any moment an error of timing or reaction could blow it all apart.
This is as far as I want to go with the plot line at the moment.
Peter stretched his arms, wincing as a sharp pain shot through the muscles of his left shoulder. He did not give it an instant’s thought His concentration was on the page in front of him. Now it would begin. The people.
He started with shadows, formless shapes slowly coming into focus. And then names. As was his custom, he would sketch out his cast of characters, restricting each to a couple of pages, knowing that each in turn would lead to his or her own friends and enemies, known and unknown. Characters gave birth to other characters; it was often as simple as that.
In addition to those he had already considered—the soldier in the prologue, Alexander Meredith, Hoover’s gun-slinger, the senator, and the cabinet member—he would flesh out the group—the Nucleus—first. There would be several from outside the government: a scholar, a lawyer, perhaps. And unquestionably a judge, but not a Negro judge—that he could not do. There was only one Daniel Sutherland. And the women: They would have to be thought about carefully. The temptation to invent too close a fictional counterpart of Phyllis Maxwell had to be resisted. But some aspects of her would go into the book. He leaned forward and began.
There is a man in his seventies, an attorney named …
He could not tell how long he had been writing. Time was blurred, his concentration absolute. The sun was at quarter point in the sky, its rays streaming through the north window.
He looked at the pages next to the yellow pad; he had sketched no fewer than nine characters. His energy was flowing; he was grateful beyond words because the words were there at last.
The telephone rang, disorienting him. He walked across the room to answer it.
“Hello?”
“Is this here a writer by the name of Chancellor? A Peter Chancellor?” The man on the line spoke with a thick southern accent.
“Yes. This is Peter Chancellor.”
“What are you trying to do to me? You got no right—?”
“Who is this?”
“You know goddamned well who ah am.”
“I’m afraid I don’t.”
“Fun-nee. Your friend Longworth come to see me in Washington.”
“Alan Longworth?”
“You got it. And you’re huntin’ in the wrong fields! You want to start a Nigra’ version of 1861 all over again, you go right ahead. But you better know what you’re doin’.”
“I haven’t the vaguest idea what you’re talking about Now, who the hell is this?”
“Congressman Walter Rawlins. Today’s Wednesday. I’ll be in New York on Sunday. We’re goin’ to meet.”
“Are we?”
“Yes. Before we both get our goddamned heads shot off.”
13
He had done something he’d never done before: He had started writing the book before Morgan approved the outline. He could not help himself. The words kept leaping from head to paper.
With a twinge of guilt Peter admitted to himself that it did not matter. The story was everything. Through the story, a monster named Hoover was being revealed. It was important to Chancellor—somehow more important than anything he had ever tried to do before—that the Hoover myth be shown for what it was. Just as quickly as possible, so that it would never happen again.
But the work had to be interrupted for a day. He had agreed to meet with Rawlins. He did not want to meet with him; he had told Rawlins that whatever Alan Longworth had said to him, whatever threats he had made, Longworth was no friend of his. Peter wanted nothing further to do with him.
Still, Longworth had been in Washington four days ago when Rawlins telephoned. He was not back in the Hawaiian Islands. The enigma had reappeared. Why?
Chancellor decided to stay the night in his New York apartment. He had promised to have dinner with Joshua Harris.
He drove north on the old road parallel to the banks of the Delaware, through the town of Lambertville, and swung west up the long hill into Route 202. If he hit a minimum of country traffic, he’d reach the turnpike in forty-five minutes; from Exit 14 it was another half hour into New York.
There was almost no traffic. A few hay and milk trucks came cautiously out of dirt roads onto the highway, and speeding cars overtook him intermittently: salesmen who had covered the day’s territory, racing to the next motel. If he cared to, he could outrun just about anything on the road, he thought, fingering the thick steering wheel. His car was a Mercedes 450 SEL.
Fear had determined his selection of a car. He chose the heaviest he could find. As it happened, the car immediately available was a dark blue. That was fine; anything as long as it was not …
Silver?
Silver! He could not believe what he saw! Behind him! In the wide convex mirror outside the window, the image magnified by the curvature, the shining grill immense! It was a silver automobile! The silver Continental!
His eyes were playing tricks on him. They had to be! He was almost afraid to look at the driver; he didn’t have to. The silver car pulled alongside him, the driver in his direct line of sight.
It was the woman! The same woman! Two hundred miles away! The wide hat, the long dark hair, the sunglasses, the pale white skin punctuated by bright red lips above an orange scarf. It was insane!
&nbs
p; He jammed his foot on the accelerator; the Mercedes lunged forward. Nothing on the road could keep up with him!
But the Continental did. Effortlessly. Effortlessly! And the macabre driver was staring straight ahead. As if nothing were unreal, nothing out of the ordinary. Straight ahead. At nothing!
Peter glanced at the speedometer. The needle wavered over a hundred. It was a dual highway; cars on the other side were blurs. Cars. Trucks! There were two trucks up ahead! They followed one another around a long curve in the road. Chancellor moved his foot off the accelerator; he would wait till he was closer.
Now! He pressed the brake pedal; the Continental shot ahead, pulling to the right side of the highway to block him.
Again, now! He stabbed the accelerator, turning the wheel counterclockwise, swinging to the left side of the road, the engine thundering as he sped past the terrible silver thing and the insane woman who drove it.
He raced past the two trucks in the curve, stunning the drivers, the Mercedes’s wheels half in the center island of autumn grass, the tires screaming.
Ringos. The sign on the road said Ringos! There was a Ringo years ago, at a place where death had occurred, a gunslinger firing in a burst of fury. Gunfight at the O.K. Corral.
Why did he think of such things? Why did his head ache so?
Buffalo Bill’ s
defunct.…
Jesus
he was a handsome man
… e. e. cummings. Why did he think of e. e. cummings? What the hell was happening?
His head was splitting.
In the distance, perhaps a mile away, he could see an amber circle of light suspended in the air. For a moment he did not know what it was.
It was a traffic light at a highway intersection. Three cars up ahead were slowing down, one on the left, two on the right. He could not pass. They were half a mile away now. He slowed the Mercedes.
Oh, God! It was there again!
The Continental was approaching rapidly, its grill growing larger in the rearview mirror. But the traffic light was directly ahead; both cars would have to stop.
He had to control himself, control the pain in his head, and do what he had to do! The madness had to stop!
He pulled to the right side of the road behind the two automobiles and waited to see what the Continental would do. It swung into the left lane behind the single car but stopped directly alongside his Mercedes.
Chancellor snapped up the handle and leaped out. He raced over to the Continental and grabbed the door handle, pulling with all his strength.
The door was locked. He pounded on the window.
“Who are you? What are you doing?”
The impassive face—a macabre mask of a face—stared straight ahead behind the glass. There was no acknowledgment whatsoever.
Peter shook the handle and smashed his hand against the window. “You can’t do this to me!”
The drivers in the other cars peered out their windows. The light had turned green, but no one drove away.
Chancellor ran around the hood to the driver’s window, yanking the handle, hitting the glass.
“You crazy bitch! Who are you? What do you want?”
The terrible pale face, concealed by the hair and the glasses and the hat, turned and stared up at him. It was a mask, horrible and totally impassive. White powder and set, tight lips outlined in fiery red lipstick. He was studying some obscene giant insect made up to look like a ghastly clown.
“Goddamn it, answer me! Answer me!”
Nothing. Nothing but that terrible stare from the mask of that terrible face.
The cars ahead started to move. Peter heard the gunning of engines. He held onto the door, mesmerized by the macabre sight behind the window; he pounded the glass again.
“Who—?”
The Continental’s motor roared. His hand loosened its grip, and the Mark IV lurched forward, speeding through the intersection and up the highway.
Peter tried to read the license. There was none.
“You crazy bastard! I’ll break your head open, Motherfucker!”
The words, roared in anger, were not his words. The first of the two trucks he had insanely passed in the curve of the highway had come to a stop twenty yards away. Above the step to the driver’s cabin, a door opened and a barrel-chested trucker climbed out, a lug wrench in his hand.
“You son of a bitch! You damned near ran me off the road!”
Peter limped to the Mercedes. He threw himself into the seat and slammed the door, his fingers slapping down the lock. The trucker was within feet now, the wrench held high.
The Mercedes’s motor was still running. Chancellor reached for the gearshift and pulled it back, his foot hard on the accelerator, his hand on the wheel. The 450 SEL exploded in a burst of power; Peter gripped and swung the wheel to prevent the car from jumping the curb. He straightened it out and sped up the road.
It was a nightmare. A goddamned nightmare!
He sat alone in the living room of his apartment for over an hour. The lamp on top of the piano was the only source of light; sounds of the New York night came through the partially opened window. He wanted the air, and the sounds were reassuring. He was still perspiring, and the room was cool.
He had to control his panic. He had to think. Someone was trying to drive him out of his mind. He had to fight back; he had to trace the terrible mask of a face. He had to go back—to a country road in Maryland where the terrible face had first appeared.
What was the name of the patrolman in Rockville? Connelly? Donovan? He’d given it to the rental agency at Dulles Airport; he would call them and find out. Then he would call the patrolman and ask—?
The telephone rang. He winced and got up from the chair. The caller had to be the congressman from Virginia. No one else knew he was in town. Rawlins had said he’d telephone during the evening and they would set up a time and a place to meet.
“Hello?”
“Peter?”
It was Joshua Harris. Chancellor had forgotten completely about him. “Hey, I’m sorry, old friend. I had some problems. I just got in.”
“What’s the matter?” Alarm was apparent in Harris’s voice.
“I—” No, he would not tell Joshua. Not now. Everything was too confused. “Nothing serious. Car repairs. It took longer than I thought. Where are you?”
“I was about to leave for the restaurant. The Richelieu, remember?”
Yes, he remembered. But he could not sit through the leisurely pace of a meal at an elegant restaurant. He’d go out of his mind, wanting and not wanting to confide in his literary agent.
“Would you mind if we postponed for a day if it fits your schedule? To tell you the truth, I worked from four thirty this morning till four this afternoon. Then the drive.… I’m whacked out.”
“The Hoover book’s coming along, then?”
“Better and faster than I ever thought possible.”
“That’s fine, Peter. I’m happy for you. Strange, Tony didn’t tell me.”
Chancellor interrupted quietly. “He doesn’t know. It’s the longest outline I’ve ever turned in; it’ll take him days to read it.”
Why didn’t he just say he’d started the damned book?
“You’ll bring me a copy, of course,” Harris said. “I don’t always trust you two, left alone with all those words.”
“Tomorrow night, I promise.”
“Tomorrow night, then. I’ll switch the reservation. Good night, Peter.”
“Good night” Chancellor hung up and walked to the window overlooking Seventy-first Street. It was a quiet, tree-lined block, the sort of block that people associated with another time in the city.
As he looked out the window, he was aware of an image coming into focus. He knew it was not real, but he was incapable of stopping it. It was the macabre face in the Continental. He was looking at that terrible mask of a face! It was in the glass, staring out at him, unseen eyes behind the enormous dark glasses, the bright red lipstick p
ainted with precision in a sea of caked white powder.
Peter shut his eyes and brought his hand up to his forehead. What had he been about to do before Josh called? It had something to do with that horrible image in the glass. And the telephone. He was going to use the telephone.
The telephone rang. But it had just rung a few moments ago. It could not be ringing again.
It was ringing. Oh, Christ! He had to lie down; his temple ached, and he was not sure—Answer the telephone. He limped across the room.
“Chancellor?”
“Yes.”
“Rawlins. How good are you in the morning?”
“Is that supposed to be a funny joke?”
“Huh?”
“I work in the morning.”
“That don’t concern me. You know a place here in New York called the Cloisters?”
“Yes.” Peter held his breath. Was that, too, a horrible joke? The Cloisters had been a favorite of Cathy’s. How many summer Sundays had they walked over its lawns? But Rawlins could not know that. Or could he?
“Be there at five thirty tomorrow morning. Use the west entrance; the gate will be open. There’s a path about four hundred feet north that leads to an open courtyard. I’ll see you there.” The phone went dead.
The Southerner had chosen a strange location, a stranger hour. They were the choices of a frightened man. Alan Longworth had once more triggered the fear; he would have to be stopped, this “retired” agent, this gun-slinger filled with remorse.
But it was no time to think about Longworth. Peter knew he had to rest. Four thirty would come quickly.
He walked into the bedroom, kicked off his shoes, and unbuttoned his shirt. He sat nearly at the edge of the bed. Involuntarily, his body slowly fell backward, his head sinking into the pillow.
And the dreams came. The nightmares.
The grass was moist with dew, the early light breaking in the eastern sky. Relics and statuary were everywhere, and gnarled trees that seemed transported through the centuries. The only thing missing was the music of a lute or gentle voices singing madrigals.