“That the truth or just politeness?”

“I enjoy an occasional cigar myself, you know that.”

“Well, some people get a headache, they get sensitive to things.” The aide withdrew and Brewster laid the cigar in the ashtray by his elbow. “You’re a polite cuss, Dex. I recollect back toward the beginning of the campaign you kept showing up late for appearances and it turned out you kept getting slowed down holding doors open for people. Nobody else got to hold a door when you were around.”

“They cured me of that after a while.”

The President smiled, his eyes closed to slits. But his amusement seemed dispirited. “I wish I knew you better right now.”

“Am I all that mysterious?”

“You’re the Vice-President-elect, Dex. If we don’t get Cliff back alive within nine days you’re the next President of the United States. If I had my druthers I’d like to know you as well as I know m’own sons. It’d make me feel a whole lot easier.”

“You’re afraid of turning it over to me, aren’t you. You don’t know I’ll be able to carry it.”

“Well, I have every confidence in you, Dex.”

“But you’d like reassurance. What do you want me to tell you, Mr. President?”

Brewster made no direct answer. He stood up, moved around the room curiously—as if he were a visitor seeing the room for the first time. Looking at the paintings, the furniture; finally coming back to his chair and standing in front of it, leaning over to pick up his cigar. “Governing the people of this country from the eminence of this White House,” he said slowly, “is kind of like trying to swat a fly with a forty-foot pole. It’s not a question of whether your heart’s in the right place, Dex. I take it for granted your political beliefs aren’t all that different from mine. Some, maybe, but not a whole lot. But you and I served together in that Senate what, twelve years? I never did get to know you very well.”

“I was on the other side of the aisle.”

“There were plenty of Democrats I didn’t know nearly as well as some of the boys over to your side of the aisle.”

“What you’re saying is I’ve never been a member of the club.”

“Not to be indelicate about it, yes. It’s not that you were a maverick or one of those loudmouths nobody could ever talk to. Far from it. But you were an awful quiet Senator, Dex.”

And the presidential eyes swiveled against him like twin gun muzzles. “An awful quiet Senator.”

“Not my style to make much noise, Mr. President.”

“Nine days from now if you step into this house you’ll have to get noisy, Dex. Nobody listens if you don’t make noise.”

“I’ll try to make the right noises then.”

“Think you can?”

“I hope I won’t have to. I hope Cliff Fairlie will be back. But if it comes to that—the answer’s yes. I think I can, Mr. President.”

“Good—good.” Brewster settled into the chair, drawing the cigar to his mouth, crossing his legs. He wore a herringbone Harris tweed sport jacket; his tie was cinched up neatly, his trousers pressed, his shoes shined, but he always gave the impression of a baggy rumpled man.

“I get a feeling I haven’t reassured you much.”

“Dex, a lot of the boys over in my party are pretty worried about you. You’ve been in Washington twenty-four years and nobody’s ever noticed you doing much except pushing legislation that would benefit your Big Three constituents back in Detroit. I’m being blunt now—I guess I have to be. You spent your last eight years in the Senate on the Judiciary and the Finance and the Commerce Committees—domestic seats every one of them. So far as I know you’ve never once stood up on the floor of the Senate to say a word about foreign affairs or defense. Your voting record on foreign affairs is fine, jim-dandy, but the boys on the Hill look to Pennsylvania Avenue for leadership, not voting records.”

“I’m afraid I can’t rewrite my record to suit the circumstances, Mr. President.”

“I’m just warning you what you’re up against. Your forty-foot pole is the Congress of the United States, Dex. If you want to swat your flies you’ve got to learn how to handle that pole.” The cigar moved through a slow arc to the ashtray. “You got a lot of congressional barnacles to deal with. Certified anachronisms, a lot of them. I know Fairlie’s got grandiose plans to ease them out to pasture but it ain’t going to work, it’s been tried before and it never works. You got to learn how to balance that forty-foot pole on one finger, Dex, it’s the only way. You try to hold it up by one end and the thing’ll slip right out of your hands. You’re a Republican, boy, and that’s a Democratic Congress out there.”

Twelve hours earlier the possibility of becoming President of the United States had been vague and distant in Ethridge’s mind. Ever since the election the realization had been there and he couldn’t ignore it altogether but he regarded it much the way he might think about winning a lottery for which he held one ticket. It could happen but you didn’t make plans.

Then Fairlie had been abducted and the Secret Service reinforcements had arrived. For the first time he had realized the significance of his place in the scheme of things. Long odds became short ones. He didn’t dare stop and compute them; it would seem disloyal to Fairlie. But kidnappers often killed. Ethridge might find himself President of the United States for four years.

There had not been time to absorb it fully. The summons to the White House had been peremptory, the President’s greeting filled with aggrieved concern and avuncular sympathy. But then had come the diatribe against radicals, the insistence on the importance of continuing the Spanish negotiations, now the emphasis on Ethridge’s health and the blunt doubts about his fitness.

He turned, a heavy deliberation in the movement, toward Howard Brewster. “Mr. President, when I accepted the nomination at Denver I accepted the responsibility that went with it.”

“You didn’t campaign for that nomination very hard.”

“No. I didn’t. I was a dark horse, admitted.”

“Have you ever campaigned for anything very hard, Dex?”

“I think I have.” He smiled slowly. “Campaigned pretty hard against you, didn’t we.”

Brewster didn’t bat an eye. “That was Fairlie’s campaign.”

“I think I had a hand in it. Am I flattering myself?”

“Not at all. You won him a lot of votes—you probably swung the election. But balancing that forty-foot pole takes a different kind of campaigning.” The President’s cigar had gone out. He found a new one in his pocket. “The hell with it. We’ll have to do the best we can in nine days, that’s all. At least you’ve been a long time on the Hill and you haven’t made too many enemies. FDR came in, he was a state governor, the only people he knew were people who hated him, he didn’t know the first thing about dealing with the club. It worked out—it always does.”

Ethridge had the distinct feeling the President was talking mainly to convince himself—and that he wasn’t succeeding. The pale eyes mirrored that. You’re not FDR, Dex. You’ll never have his drive in a million years.

Well, Ethridge thought, we’ll see about that. And as he reached his decision a surge of exultation lifted him.

The President was on the telephone. “Bill? Update me.” The big face nodding, the eyes brooding into space. He listened for several minutes with an actor’s variety of expressions chasing one another across his face. His replies were mostly monosyllabic; he ended by saying, “Keep me posted,” and rang off.

“Any news?”

“The Spanish police found the helicopter. Abandoned.”

“Where?”

“A farm in the Pyrenees.” Brewster had a deep suntan, the product of lamps, but in this light he looked very old. He had aged a great deal in two or three years. They always did, Ethridge observed, and the thought was tainted by an unwholesome personal regret; Ethridge knew his own vanity.