Q Clearance

  There were four Formica tables in the rear of the shop, served by a slight Vietnamese who might have been thirty or fifty. He greeted Eva with a genial "Bonjour, mademoiselle," and she replied, "fa va, Tuan?"

  "Where did you learn about Vietnamese food?" Burnham asked as he sat down.

  "The war was still going on when I was a teenager. My girlfriends and I had no way to protest. We couldn't resist the draft. We couldn't go to North Vietnam, So we dressed like Vietnamese and ate like Vietnamese. Cultural empathy." She smiled. "It made us feel good."

  The menus were in French as well as Vietnamese. Burnham read French, but because the French words were translations of Vietnamese descriptions, he recognized nothing. The menu might as well have been in Aramaic.

  "See anything?" Eva asked.

  "I'll have two Saltines and a cup of tea."

  Eva studied the menu. "Is there anything you react violently to, that makes you choke or fall into a fit?"

  "Beets."

  "That's it?"

  "Far as I know. But go ahead and surprise me." Burnham laughed. "We'll have an adventure in dining."

  Eva summoned the waiter and began to order, snapping off complex instructions in rapid-fire French.

  Somewhere far back in the building—in the kitchen, perhaps, or a storeroom—a phone rang and was answered.

  A reflex was triggered in Burnham. He interrupted Eva and, in French, asked the waiter where the pay phone was.

  "Dans le W.C.," said the waiter, pointing in the general direction of the kitchen.

  Burnham found the men's room to the left of the kitchen door. It was small, clean and remarkable only in being completely free of graffiti. To distract his itchy-fingered clientele, the proprietor had hung a poster-sized photograph of Nguyen Cao Ky which had been appropriately desecrated by pens, pencils, erasers and blood.

  Burnham dialed the White House number and said to the operator, "This is Timothy Burnham."

  "I know."

  "You do?"

  "Just kidding." The operator snickered. "Keep you on your toes."

  "Right." Burnham told her where he was, gave her the number on the pay phone, and hung up.

  By the time he returned to the table, the waiter had departed. Eva was sipping a glass of tea. "Calling Big Brother? she said.

  "Just checking in."

  "Everywhere you go?"

  "Everywhere. Twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week.'

  "Suppose you forget."

  "Odds are, that'll be the one time something hits the fan and they have to reach you."

  "What can they do to you? I think I'd give them the wrong number just to see what happens."

  "Once, you might." Burnham smiled. "Not twice. There' a chain reaction. Whoever's trying to reach you—and God forbid it's the President—first screams at his assistant, who screams at his assistant, who screams at your immediate boss for having such an irresponsible half-ass on the staff, and he screams at the secretary who placed the call to you, and she screams at the telephone operator who couldn't reach you. By the time they finally find you, half a dozen people have been yelled at—and they've all been told that the President himself is pissed purple, whether or not it's true—and they're all convinced that their jobs have been placed in jeopardy because you, you thoughtless schmuck, forgot to call in. Now you've got a handful of new enemies, and if there is one thing you do not need, it is more enemies on the White House staff. The quota you have already is quite enough to make your daily life a thrilling parade across a bed of hot coals."

  The waiter brought two bowls of steaming soup. It was khaki-colored and contained floating bergs of something squooshy.

  "What's in it?" Burnham asked.

  "Don't ask. Eat."

  "You mean I don't want to know."

  "No." Eva smiled. "I mean I'm not sure."

  "It smells . . . good." The steam that rose from the soup smelled exotic and pungent, spicy and ripe.

  The taste was entirely alien to him—not vegetables, not fish, not meat. But it wasn't unpleasant. It tasted . . . nourishing.

  Eva said, "Can I ask you something rude?"

  "Sure."

  "When we were playing squash—or mud wrestling, or whatever it was we were doing—I noticed that ..." She stopped.

  "What?"

  She was blushing. "I can't believe I'm saying this."

  "You're not. Yet."

  "I noticed that you don't . . . smell."

  Burnham laughed—not a harsh, arch laugh, but a laugh of true amusement.

  "That's funny?" She was perplexed.

  "What do I smell like?"

  "Nothing! That's the point. You sweat just like a human being, but you don't smell. I sweat, and I smell like a goat."

  "Not exactly," Burnham said, and he believed he could still taste her ponytail in his mouth.

  "You don't smell at all, of anything."

  "Well ... I had taken a shower, and my clothes were clean."

  "Not even soap. Or laundry detergent. You have a non-smell."

  "That's why WASPS have trouble with girls. We don't leave a spoor."

  "You had trouble with girls? I don't believe it."

  Burnham was flattered. He didn't delude himself about his looks. He was good-looking, in an antiseptic, Protestant way— tall, well proportioned, symmetrical, unblemished. But not intriguing-looking. He didn't turn heads.

  The main course arrived, which was fine with Burnham, because the conversation was traveling into undiscovered country from which, he worried, he might not find a return.

  The food was as mysterious as the soup—multicolored vegetable-like things bathed in a spicy sauce and dotted here and there with chunks of meat-textured delicacies. Like the soup, it tasted nourishing, worthy. But it also contained surprises: hidden bits of pepper that ambushed the tongue and made Burnham gasp.

  "'Are you married?" Eva asked suddenly.

  "I guess."

  You turkey! Burnham assailed himself. Why did you say that? What do you want to do, spill your guts about your troubles with Sarah, about the bug in the car, about the fact that she kicked you out of your own house?

  "You guess!''

  "I said 'yes,' " Burnham said. "My mouth was on fire.'

  "Oh." She nodded. "The good men are."

  The conversation was escalating in spite of him. He knew he should try to turn it around, but, at the same time, he didn't want to.

  Suddenly he noticed that his fingertips felt warm. Not tingly, as they did when he hyperventilated, just warm. His earlobes, too, and a patch down each side of his neck. He assumed that these were the first signs of an allergic reaction to something in the food. He put down his fork, and he waited.

  "Something wrong?" Eva said.

  "I don't know." He paused. "No, I don't think so."

  And then a rush of warmth, of mild euphoria, flooded his guts, as if a dam of goodness had burst inside him. He was suffused with a sensation of calm and well-being and—as he looked across the table at Eva—gratitude and generosity and affection. None of which made any sense.

  "What's in this stuff?" he said.

  "Nothing. Why?"

  "I feel . . ."

  "What?"

  "I don't know. Fabulous!"

  "What, you mean high?"

  "No! Yes! I'm not . . . Just fabulous."

  Eva looked at him, and in her eyes Burnham saw a great deal more knowledge than she was willing to share with him. "I told you to trust me," she said.

  "Holy smokes." Burnham sat back and closed his eyes, letting the wonderful feeling wash over him.

  "Hey!" a man's voice called out, shattering Burnham's peace. "Somebody here named Bums?"

  Burnham opened his eyes. The man stood in the door of the men's room.

  "Anybody here named Bums?" the man said again.

  "I'm Burnham."

  "Yeah, well, whatever. There's a call for you."

  Under his breath, Burnham whispered, "Shit." He took a couple of deep
breaths and stood up, holding onto the table just in case.

  Eva stood up, too, and took his hand. "Are you okay?"

  "Sure." Burnham grinned. "My pretty poisoner."

  The receiver was dangling from the phone box. Burnham picked it up and said, "Hello."

  "Mr. Burnham?" It was a White House operator.

  "Yes."

  "One moment, please, for the President."

  The word "No!" burst unsummoned from Burnham's mouth. He couldn't talk to the President, not here. You don't talk to the President of the United States from a public toilet in a Viemamese hashhouse.

  "I beg your pardon?"

  "I . . ."

  "One moment, please."

  There were two clicks on the phone line, and then a voice said, "Timothy?"

  Evelyn Witt. Thank God.

  "Hi, Evelyn."

  "Where are you?"

  "Ah . . . around the corner. Getting a sandwich."

  Peter Benchley

  "How soon can you be back?*'

  "Couple minutes."

  "Good. The President wants to see you."

  "When."

  "Five minutes ago."

  "I'm on my way."

  "Good."

  Burnham had almost replaced the receiver when he heard Evelyn say, "Timothy?"

  "Huh?"

  "If he asks, you were in a meeting over at State. That's why it took you a few minutes to get back."

  "Okay. Who was I meeting with?"

  "Anybody. It's just that, in the mood he's in today, our rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of food do not exist."

  "Thanks, Evelyn."

  Burnham hung up, checked in the mirror to make sure his tie was straight, and returned to the table.

  "Problems?" Eva said.

  "Apparently. Himself has been scouring the town for me."

  "I thought you said a writer's life was boring."

  "It is, usually. But for some reason, I've suddenly become a critical cog in the machinery of the Republic."

  "The caterpillar becomes a butterfly."

  "Right." Burnham tried to smile. "And you know how long butterflies live. Anyway, I've got to go. I'm really sorry." He reached for his wallet.

  Eva held up her hand. "Your money's no good here. My treat."

  "Can we play again?"

  "Any time."

  Burnham hurried toward the door, shouldering his way through the crowd at the takeout counter, muttering "Excuse me, excuse me." Halfway down the aisle, he suddenly stopped and turned back, muttering to the annoyed people he shoved aside, "Forgot my wallet."

  "I don't know how to get hold of you," he said to Eva.

  She handed him a slip of paper on which she had written her name, address and phone number, and she smiled warmly and said, "I thought you'd never ask."

  Outside, Burnham ran, for he was not around the comer, he was a full five blocks from the White House.

  Sergeant Thibaudeaux saw him coming from a block away—a tall, thin figure running flat-out toward the West Gate of the White House, hair flying, tie askew, coattails trailing like a cape. He didn't recognize Burnham at first, so he stepped outside the guardhouse, put his right hand on the butt of his pistol and, with his left hand, held the bulletproof door of the guardhouse open between himself and the approaching man.

  Assume everybody's a loon, was Sergeant Thibaudeaux's motto, and you'll make it to supper without being blowed up.

  Burnham tried to dash through the gate without stopping, but Sergeant Thibaudeaux stood resolutely in his way. Even though he now recognized Burnham, he wasn't about to take any chances: For all he knew. Mr. B. had come unwrapped that very morning and got himself fired and had his pass lifted.

  Frantically, Burnham searched his pockets for his pass, spilling coins and lint balls and bits of paper onto the pavement. "The President wants to see me!" he said.

  "Who told you, your hair dryer?" Sergeant Thibaudeaux rocked back on his heels, appreciating himself.

  At last, Burnham found his pass in his shirt pocket, flashed it at the sergeant, and continued up the path.

  The air-conditioning in the West Wing was running on its afterburners, and Burnham felt that he had walked into a meat locker. The sweat on his forehead dried and caked his soaking hair into ringlets. His shirt stuck to his armpits.

  He turned into a lavatory, straightened his tie, dried his face and ran his fingers through his hair. His hands were shaking. He checked his pulse: 140. He had just eaten, so he shouldn't be at risk for a sugar crisis. Trouble was, he had no idea what had been in the food. It had made him feel terrific, but that didn't mean sugar, necessarily.

  Be smart, he told himself. You don't want to pass out in the Oval Office. He found two old Hershey Chocolate Kisses in a jacket pocket, unwrapped them, picked shreds of foil from the brown goo and swallowed them. Insurance.

  By the time he turned into Evelyn Witt's office, his pulse had dropped to 80—higher than his normal resting pulse, but, he reassured himself, that was only natural since he felt neither normal nor restful.

  "What have I done?" he asked Evelyn.

  "I don't know, Timothy. Your speech came over an hour ago—that sweet little girl of yours brought it—but he was in a meeting with the majority leader and then on the phone with his brother, who wants him to write a letter of recommendation for his son to Amherst, so he didn't get to it till about twenty minutes ago. Ever since he read it, he's been bellowing for you. I think his blood pressure's probably two thousand over fifteen hundred. Did you write something naughty?"

  "I don't think so."

  "Well, maybe—" She smiled, and Burnham knew she was hoping to seem encouraging, "Maybe you didn't do anything.''

  "It's been nice knowing you, Evelyn." Burnham started for the door to the Oval Office.

  "Timothy ... do you remember Willa Badham?"

  "No."

  "I guess she was before your time. Yes, back in our first term. She was a staff assistant in some office or other, about your level, and for some reason the President took a liking to her. He wouldn't let her out of his sight, as if he felt the Presidency depended on her. He does that. Not often, but he does that."

  "Cobb told me. How long did she last?"

  "Oh . . ." Evelyn turned away, fiddling with some papers. "A long time."

  "Six weeks?"

  "Well. . . about." Evelyn added quickly, "But she wasn't fired. She quit."

  "Why?"

  "She had a little . . . breakdown. Well, not really a breakdown, more of a . . ."

  "Collapse?"

  Burnham looked at Evelyn and saw her sneaking a glance at him, and he laughed. And then she laughed.

  "Go ahead in," she said.

  Burnham tapped lightly and opened the door. The President was standing beside his desk, speaking on the phone. He saw Burnham and, with a curt wave of his hand, motioned him in. Burnham stepped into the office and closed the door behind him.

  "Now you listen here. Admiral," the President said into the phone. "I don't give a shit if that sumbitch has got solid gold handles on the pissers and a diamond-studded steering wheel. I'm not gonna pay five billion dollars for a submarine!" He slammed the phone down and snapped, "Where you been, Tim?"

  "At State, sir. The traffic was terrible."

  "Shoulda called a helicopter."

  "Me?"

  "Damn right. When the President wants you, he wants you."

  "Yes, sir." Like a quarterback surveying a defense, Burnham tried to appraise the President's mood, looked for signs that would foretell an imminent blitz. But he didn't know the man. he had no scouting reports. The President seemed calm— icy, maybe, but in control. For all Burnham knew, however, he was like a mamba, a silent killer who struck with no warning, rather than like a cobra who gave showy notice of an impending attack.

  The President reached across his cluttered desk and picked up a few sheets of paper. He held them up to Burnham. Exhibit A.

  "The fella who wrote this, Tim
..." With a mean little grin, the President crushed the papers into a ball. "... that fella, if he had a brain, why, he'd be outdoors playin' with it. That fella does not have his President's best interests at heart."

  Goodbye, Burnham thought. There went my speech, there went my job, there went my life. Now: how to get out of this office without losing something really important, like a couple of quarts of blood or a kidney or two.

  The President cocked his arm and fired the ball of papers at the portrait of Abraham Lincoln that hung over the fireplace. Then he pulled from his jacket pocket more papers, which he dangled before Burnham's glazing eyes.

  "Now, the fella who wrote this, Tim, this fella is a true source of comfort and strength to his President."

  Cobb. Cobb had rewritten his speech. Somehow, he had intercepted Burnham's draft—either in Dyanna's office or Evelyn Witt's—and, in vengeful spite at Burnham's attempt to go around him, had sent the President not only his new draft but also Burnham's draft (its rumpled corpse had bounced off Abe Lincoln's proboscis and now lay beneath a coffee table), no doubt with a note telling the President that he had read Burnham's draft and had found it "a little flaccid" (or something equally sly and condescending) and had taken the liberty of "punching it up."

  The President proffered the papers to Burnham. "Tell me if you don't think this fella is a great American."

  Swell. As his final act in this life, Burnham was being forced to sing a paean to his assassin. As he extended his hand, a sour, metallic taste suffused his mouth, as if he had just had his teeth cleaned.

  He meant to pretend to glance at the first page (once a girl tells you you're ugly, he reasoned, there's not much fun in having to admire the true beauties she parades by you for comparison), but as his eyes swept over the lo-pitch, Bookface Academic IBM type, he saw a familiar phrase. Then another. Then a third. Then he actually read an entire paragraph.

  It was his speech. Verbatim. Cobb hadn't stabbed him. (Guilt for having suspected Cobb fluttered across his mind like a hunting bat and flew away.)

  He was the great American, the source of comfort and strength to the Leader of the Free World.

  He said, "Ah ..."

  "This is the finest toast I have seen since I took my first oath of office." The President snatched the papers from Burnham's fingers. "This is a toast that if they gave noble prizes for toasts, this one would be a shoo-in."