Nightwork

A waiter had brought in some sandwiches, and we started on them while the congressman worked at the table. I couldn't help but think how pleasant it all was, a game that continued, in the same room, with the same friends, week after week, everybody knowing everybody's telephone number, everybody's address, everybody's mannerisms and jokes. Whom would I be seeing next week, what numbers would I dare call, what game would I be playing? For a moment I was on the verge of saying that I would be available next week to give them all the chance to get back their money. Put down my roots in a deck of cards, in the mulch of government. How fast did I have to run? If Evelyn Coates had as much as smiled at me, I believe I would have spoken. But she didn't even glance in my direction.

To give her a chance to say a few words to me away from the others, I went over to a window at the far corner of the room and opened it, pretending I was warm and the cigarette smoke was bothering me, but she still did not make a gesture toward me, didn't even seem to notice that I had moved.

The bitch, I thought, I won't give her the satisfaction of calling when I get back to my hotel. I imagined her in her place with the young lawyer, smooth and tallow-faced, and the phone ringing and Evelyn Coates saying, 'Hell, let it ring,' and knowing who it was on the other end and smiling secretly to herself. I wasn't used to hard women. To any kind of women, if I wanted to be honest with myself. One thing, I decided, as I closed the window with a sharp little click, insisting on my presence, one thing I'm going to do from now on is learn how to handle women.

The columnist and the lawyer began a long discussion about what was happening in Washington. The columnist accused the President of trying to destroy the American press, raising postal rates to drive newspapers and magazines into bankruptcy, jailing reporters for not disclosing their sources, threatening to lift the franchises of television stations that broadcast material which displeased the Administration, all stun" that I had read in his columns whenever I had happened to come across them. Even I, who barely read any newspaper but the Racing Form, was overexposed to all possible opinions. I wondered how anyone in that room, battered by arguments from all sides, ever managed to vote yes or no on anything. The congressman, working on a scratch pad, his forehead sweating from the effort, never even looked up. He had showed himself an amiable man throughout the game, and I supposed he voted as he was told, his attention always on party instructions and on the next election. He had said nothing to indicate whether he was a Republican, a Democrat, or a follower of Mao.

When Evelyn Coates brought up the subject of the Water-gate break-in and said it meant grave trouble ahead for the President, the columnist said, 'Nonsense. He's too smart for that. It'll all just be kicked under the rug. Mark my words. By May, if you ask anybody about it, they'll say, "Watergate? What's that?" I'll tell you,' said the columnist, his deep voice and meticulous speech resonant with the assurance of a man who was accustomed to being listened to attentively at all times, 'I tell you we're witnessing the opening move» toward Fascism.'

As he spoke, he munched on a corned beef sandwich, washed down with Scotch. 'The skinheads are preparing the ground. I won't be surprised if they're not called in to run the whole show. One morning we'll wake up and the tanks will be rolling down Pennsylvania Avenue and the machine guns will be on every roof. That hadn't been in any of his columns that I had read. Come to Washington and get the real, authentic, scary dope.

The lawyer didn't seem to be at all ruffled by the charges. He had the calm, good-natured imperturbability of the pliant Company Man. 'Maybe it wouldn't be such a bad idea,' he said. 'The press is irresponsible. It lost the war in Asia for us. It chums up the public against the President, the Vice President, it holds up all authority to scorn, it's making it more and more impossible to govern the country. Maybe putting the skinheads, as you call them, in control for a few years might be the best thing that .happened to this country since Alf Landon.'

'Oh, Jack,' Mrs Coates said, 'the true believer. The voice of the Pentagon. What crap! '

'If you saw what passed over my desk day after day,' the lawyer said, 'you wouldn't call it crap.'

'Mr. Grimes...' She turned toward me, a little cool smile on her lips. 'You're not in the mess here in Washington. You represent the pure, undefiled American public here tonight. Let's hear the simple wisdom of the masses....'

'Evelyn,' Hale said warningly. I half-expected to hear him say, 'Remember, he's our guest.' But he let it go with the 'Evelyn'.