“Enlisted,” I said. “Most of the recruits in the Civil War didn’t have any motivation for enlisting. There was a war, and they signed up on one side of it or the other.” I tried to hand the scene back to him. “I don’t think you need a new scene.”
He put the poker back in the stand. The cat lay down in front of it, tail switching. “Anyway, I’d like you to read it,” Broun said. “Did you call your roommate?”
“Yes.”
“Is he coming.”
“I don’t know. I think so.”
“Good. Good. Now we’ll run this dream thing to ground. Be sure and tell me when he gets here.” He started out the door. “I’m going to go check on the caterers.”
“Hadn’t you better shave?”
“Shave?” he said, sounding horrified. “Can’t you see I’m growing muttonchop whiskers?” He struck a pose with his hands in his lapels. “Like Lincoln’s.”
“You don’t look like Lincoln,” I said, grinning. “You look like Grant after a binge.”
“I could say the same thing about you, son,” he said, and went downstairs to talk to the caterers.
I tried to read the new scene, wishing I had the time to run a few dreams of my own to ground. I felt tireder than I had before the nap. I couldn’t even get my eyes to focus on Broun’s typing. The reporters would be here any minute, and then I would stand propped up against a wall for endless hours telling people why Broun’s book wasn’t ready, and then tomorrow I would go out to Arlington and poke around in the snow, looking for Willie Lincoln’s grave.
If I could find out where he was buried, I might not have to spend tomorrow out wiping snow off old tombstones. I put down the rewritten scene and looked for Sandburg’s War Years.
Broun has never believed in libraries—he keeps books all over the house, and whenever he finishes with one, he sticks it into the handiest bookcase. I offered once to organize the books, and he said, “I know where they all are.” He might know, but I didn’t, so I had organized them for myself—Grant and the western campaign in the big upstairs dining room, Lee in the solarium, Lincoln in the study. It didn’t do much good. Broun still left books wherever he finished with them, but it was better than nothing. I had at least an even chance of finding what I needed. Usually. Not this time, though.
Sandburg’s War Years wasn’t where I’d put it, and neither was Oates. It took me almost an hour to find them, Oates in the upstairs bathroom, Sandburg down in the solarium underneath one of Broun’s African violets. Before I even got upstairs with them, a young woman from People snowed up and tried to pump me about Broun’s new book.
“What’s it about?” she asked.
“Antietam,” I said. “It’s in the press release.”
“Not that one. The new one he’s starting.”
“Your guess is as good as mine,” I said, and turned her over to Broun and went back into the study with the books I’d found and looked up Willie Lincoln. He had died in 1862, when he was eleven years old. They had had a reception downstairs in the White House while he lay dying upstairs. And probably people had kept ringing the doorbell, I thought, when the doorbell rang.
It was more reporters, and then it was somebody from the caterer’s and then more reporters, and I began to think Richard wasn’t coming after all, but the next time the doorbell rang it was Richard. With Annie.
“We can’t stay very long,” Richard said before he even got in the door. He looked tired and strung out, which wasn’t much of an endorsement for the Sleep Institute. I wondered if the way he looked had anything to do with his having called me when I was in West Virginia.
“I’m glad you both could come,” I said, turning to look at Annie. “I’m Jeff Johnston. I used to room with this guy back Before he became a hotshot psychiatrist.”
“I’m glad to meet you, Jeff,” she said gravely.
She was not at all what I’d expected. Richard had dated mostly hot little nurses when he was in med school, and Washington’s Women on the Way Up since he started working at the Institute. He had never so much as glanced at anyone like Annie. She was little, with short blonde hair and bluish gray eyes. She was wearing a heavy gray coat and low-heeled shoes and looked about eighteen.
“The party’s upstairs,” I said. “It’s kind of a zoo, but…”
“We don’t have much time,” Richard said, but he didn’t look at his watch. He looked at Annie, as if she were the one in a hurry. She didn’t look worried at all.
“How about if I bring Broun down here?” I said, not at all sure I could get him away from the reporters. “You can wait in the solarium.” I motioned them in.
It was, like every other room in the house, really a room for Broun to misplace books in, even though it had been intended for tropical plants. It had greenhouse glass windows and a neater that kept it twenty degrees hotter than the rest of the house. Broun had stuck a token row of African violets on a table in front of the windows and added an antique horsehair loveseat and a couple of chairs, but the rest of the room was filled with books. “Let me take your coats,” I said.
“No,” Richard said with an anxious glance at Annie. “No. We won’t be here that long.”
I tore up the stairs and got Broun. The caterers had just set out the buffet supper, so he wouldn’t even be missed. I told Broun that Richard was here but couldn’t stay and herded him toward the stairs, but the reporter from People latched on to him, and it was a good five minutes before he could get away from her.
They were still there, but just barely. Richard was at the door of the solarium, saying, “It’s almost nine. I think …”
“Glad to meet you, Dr. Madison. So you’re Jeff’s old roommate,” Broun said, putting himself between Richard and the front door. “And you must be Annie. I talked to you on the phone.”
“Yes,” she said. “I’ve been wanting to meet you, Mr. Brou—”
“I understand you wanted to talk to me about Abraham Lincoln,” Richard said, cutting across her words before she even got Broun’s name out.
“I do,” Broun said. “I appreciate your coming. I’ve been doing some research on Lincoln. He had some mighty strange dreams,” he smiled at Annie, “and since you told me Dr. Madison here tells people what their dreams mean, I thought maybe he could tell me about Lincoln’s dreams.” He turned back to Richard. “Have you had supper? There’s a wonderful buffet upstairs if the reporters haven’t eaten it all. Lobster and ham and some wonderful shrimp doodads that…”
“I don’t have very much time,” Richard said, looking at Annie. “I told Jeff on the phone I didn’t think I could help you. You can’t analyze somebody’s dreams just by hearing a secondhand account of them. You have to know all about the person.”
“Which Broun does,” I said.
“I mostly need some information on what the modern view of dreams is,” Broun said, taking hold of Richard’s arm. “I promise I’ll only take a few minutes of your time. We can all go up to my study. We’ll grab something to eat on the way and—”
“I don’t think …” Richard said, with another anxious glance at Annie.
“You’re absolutely right,” Broun said, his hand clamped firmly on Richard’s arm. “Why should your young lady have to be bored by a lot of dry history when she can go to a party instead? Jeff, you’ll keep her company, won’t you? Get her some of those shrimp doodads and some champagne?”
Richard looked at Annie as it he expected her to object, but she didn’t say anything, and I thought he looked relieved.
“Jeff’ll take good care of her,” Broun said heartily, like a man trying to make a deal. “Won’t you, Jeff?”
“I’ll take care of her,” I said, looking at her. “I promise.”
“The dream I’m having trouble with is one Lincoln had two weeks before his assassination,” Broun said, leading Richard firmly up the stairs to his study. “He dreamed he woke up in the White House and heard somebody crying. When he went downstairs …” They disappeared into the roar of noise and people at the top of the stairs. I turned and looked at Annie. She was standing looking up after them.