Mulch Read online

  She tried to relax her hands against the metal arms of the deck chair.

  What she thought was pompous was obviously everyday fare for Richard. He didn’t blink an eye. “You’re so right, Louise. We shouldn’t be here at all.” He slid an arm around the back of her chair. “Mary and I were planning to be in Austria, but we had to postpone it.”

  As he talked, she noted that he slyly looked her over, from her breasts to her legs. She wondered if his slight drunkenness would go beyond the garrulous level; she guessed not. As he examined her, she did the same to him, noting that he was not a healthy-looking man. Maybe fifty. He probably had smoked and drunk much more than a person should all through what Bill told her had been a solid if not illustrious career in foreign service.

  “In Foggy Bottom,” Richard continued, waving his highball glass in a northerly direction, “where your husband and I both work, we have always called Washington a hardship post—”

  “Too bad we don’t get hardship pay,” finished Louise, smiling.

  “Oh, come on, Richard,” said Roger, a balding, professorial man with surprising red plastic frames on his glasses. “A little hardship is in order for you guys. It makes up for all those years you were posted to Paris and Bonn, drinking fine wines and taking in all the good rathskellers and restaurants.”

  “Yeah,” agreed Eric, the host. Eric was big, blond, muscular. According to what Louise had heard, he drove his family into the hardest sports. “While Roger and I were back here solving the problems of the city and the country, respectively, you were across the pond collecting wines.”

  “And that brings us to the subject of wine tasting,” said Laurie, Roger’s handsome red-haired wife. Understandably, she advertised her boutique on her back. A layered look with checks, in an array of patterns—a little hot for tonight?—matching perfectly with her patterned shoes and patterned earrings. Louise noticed she wasn’t sweating; what was her secret?

  Laurie prodded Richard: “When are we going to have a wine tasting again?” She made a wide gesture. “Oh, why do I ask you when it’s Mary who will plan it. Mary, we’re overdue. Set a date, and we’ll all bring something for dinner.”

  Mary was pale and quiet. Louise guessed her blond hair once was beautiful, but now, untouched by dyes, was faded comfortably to half white. This made Louise like her before she uttered a word.

  Mary leaned forward and began. “I’m afraid—”

  “She’ll do it,” interrupted Richard. “She’ll do it in mid-September. Won’t you, honey?”

  “As I was saying—” She gazed amiably at her husband. “—I’m afraid we’ll have to make it later, Richard. I think you’re forgetting Austria.” She looked at the others and gently shook her head in regret. “Our light bags are all packed for Austria. It’s been an exhausting summer, with so much travel involving our latest fund drive.” She looked straight at Louise. “I raise money for world hunger, I don’t know if you knew that. It’s extremely satisfying, if enervating, with all the travel and the speeches. So now, Richard and I are going to recuperate for a couple of weeks—hide in Vienna with old friends.” Louise was entranced. The woman, so small in stature, had a deep, mellifluous voice. Then she remembered hearing that Mary was a singer when a young woman. “How about doing it in mid-October, instead?” She smiled over at Louise. “But I hope you and I have a chance to get together before then. Can I come over and spend a minute with you?”

  “I’d love it,” said Louise.

  The bourbon-damaged Richard no sooner unwound himself from the chair than it was commandeered by Eric. He sat erect but slightly swaying, no more immune to the heat and alcohol than his guests. After Richard’s low current, Louise found his athletic presence high-voltage, and he had a faint aura of a gutsy men’s cologne clinging to him that she rather liked.

  Eric opened up with a little host speech: “Louise and Bill, we are happy to welcome you here in Dogwood Court. It’s obvious by Bill’s long, compulsive working hours and Louise’s energetic enhancement of the woods, you fit into this place like a couple of old shoes. Why, from the very moment you moved in, it was obvious nothing would remain the same over there. And it doesn’t really intimidate us too much the way she reels off the Latin names for all those new trees and bushes: Why, we just run home and call up the library reference department and plead with them to tell us what a Lobelia syphilis is, and assure us it isn’t contagious.” This was followed with appreciative laughter. Louise remembered the day Eric had come over and hung around while she laboriously planted a half-dozen of the plants.

  She responded before she could stop herself. “It’s Lobelia siphilitica, actually, a kind of wildflower category. Has unobtrusive blue flowers, spreads well, and is much more reliable than Lobelia cardinalis.”

  Eric put his arm around her shoulders and everybody applauded. “See, the woman cannot stop talking about plants even at a dinner party.” Louise blushed and grinned, and he settled easily back into his welcoming speech. “Well, we hope you have us all straight now. It’s easy. Just think of all the men here as dreamers, working somehow for the perfection of man; metro Washington, the EEC, the State Department, the—whatever The Washington Post stands for, the Pacific Rim—that’s Ron’s specialty, and a very damned profitable one, too.” More laughter.

  “While the wives, now”—he saluted them—“and I salute you—do the important jobs. They’re the realists. Teacher, merchant, fund-raiser—”

  “Wait a minute,” said Roger. “Mary funds idealistic causes. That surely throws her into the column of those working for the perfection of man, doesn’t it?”

  “And how about Nora?” asked Bill. Louise immediately tensed. “What do we say about her?” He looked at the woman sitting beside him in a way Louise hadn’t seen before. It was the way she was used to him looking at her.

  All eyes turned to the smoky woman. Even in her worn, sleeveless dress, gray denim, it appeared, plainer than all the other dresses, the woman was utterly striking. Louise felt embarrassed to look at her and yet did not know where to turn her eyes. She was not accustomed to this feeling, which she realized was jealousy.

  As if reading this, Nora looked straight at Louise and locked in the connection. “I think the whiskey is talking in all of us. With that disclaimer, I can say this: As a poet, I hope I can communicate with both the realists and the dreamers.”

  “Hear, hear,” said Sam, chortling. He was a slight but handsome man Louise and Bill had talked to several times in the yard. They had stood as if on either side of a nonexistent fence—fences were not fashionable in Sylvan Valley—while his friendly little dog did figure eights around their legs. “You’ve expressed a noble sentiment, Nora. It’s dated nonsense to divide people into categories, especially us. Although of all of us, I’d identify Nora as one of the true dreamers of this world.” He turned all his attention to her. “I can tell from your garden alone—all those lilies, and thistles, pretty little white things scrambling over the rocks …”

  “She is a dreamer, indeed,” said her husband, Ron, in a lazy baritone voice. Large, elegant, with white hair, he seemed much older than his wife, whom Louise had pegged to be about her own age. “Any person who can back our new car into a concrete wall at the rear of a parking lot because she was thinking so hard about a poem surely qualifies as a dreamer.”

  Everyone laughed. Nora smiled and put a garden-worn hand gracefully on her husband’s knee. “Darling,” she said in a soft, low voice that caused the others to lean closer to hear, “please don’t give Louise and Bill a distorted picture of us.” She looked first at Bill and then at Louise. “Despite his remarks, he is not a chauvinist, and I don’t want you to think that he is. As for the women being the realists, I see more than just that: I see in Jan and Laurie and Mary people who help other people achieve their dreams, whether they’re schoolchildren, or shoppers, or people in developing countries. As for myself, well …”

  All ten of them waited, silent, while she paused. “I am not
just a poet; I am a published poet with an agent who gets fifteen percent—which places me, just like all of us here, with one foot in the order of dreamers and the other foot in the order of realists.”

  Merry applause greeted her words. Nora smiled gently at them. Ron grinned and reached over and massaged his wife’s supple arm. Eric took final drink orders.

  This woman could make an interesting friend … or would it be enemy?

  4

  Lunch at Pomodoro

  PETER SCOOPED IN THE LAST FORKFUL OF creamed herring, then carefully patted his mouth with the white linen napkin. His eye caught that of one of the other diners, and he realized this person and probably others in the restaurant were watching. It wasn’t him; it was because the president’s well-known chief of staff, Tom Paschen, sat opposite him. They occupied Paschen’s favorite table at Pomodoro, apparently the man’s favorite restaurant.

  Peter knew most celebrities liked tables in corners. But this one was in a bay window overlooking the restaurant’s on-the-street herb garden, where even now through Belgian lace curtains Peter could see a Mexican planted in midstoop, picking large basil leaves off thriving two-foot bushes. These were for use in their renowned hors d’ocuvre, toast with fresh tomato slice and fresh mozzarella, topped with basil leaves and drizzled with olive oil. Which Paschen was finishing right now. Peter wished he’d ordered it rather than the herring.

  He leaned back and in the process dwarfed the captain’s chair with his large frame. He peered down through thick-lensed aviator glasses to be sure no herring had landed on his tie. Satisfied that there was none, he looked over at his diminutive host. Time to open business.

  “So, Tom. To what do I owe the honor?”

  “Let’s say it’s that long line of people who have lusted after big government jobs—Supreme Court, Cabinet, federal judge—or even lower-level jobs, like deputy secretary of defense …” Paschen’s eyes glittered maliciously at Peter as he wiped traces of olive oil off his fingers. His British tailored suit could not conceal the taut energy in his body, a tiger’s energy, caged in serge.

  Peter waited.

  “… and fell on their asses because they somehow screwed up.”

  “Yeah?” said Peter belligerently. “You’ll forgive me if I don’t identify with that.”

  Paschen smoothed his already smooth hair in a gesture familiar to watchers of Sunday morning TV news shows, where this guy was the president’s Answer Man. He settled his forearms on the table and gazed straight at Peter. “Normally, Hoffman, as you and I both know—or maybe you don’t—these approvals at deputy secretary level are pro forma, not to be compared with higher-level positions. You know the drill—or do you? One senator plus you and your sponsor in a Senate hearing room. A written statement, which you need to read with sincerity. A few good words from Senator So-and-so, and that’s all there is to it.”

  “Unless, of course—”

  “Unless the nominee tends to talk to the press, which is what you’ve done this week. Now, I have the utmost respect for you”—Paschen put up a hand as if to indicate his utmost respect—“and I know you did this in total innocence, without realizing the harm that could be done.”

  “Jesus Christ, Tom, I was just putting a little color into a story of how an honest arms dealer operates—”

  Paschen threw both hands up wide. “See what I mean? What could arouse more interest in the press than that kind of story? A hotdogger: The press can smell one a mile away. And what happens to hotdoggers? They eventually take a real bad fall and break their goddamn necks.” The chief of staff leaned over the table, pointing his finger in Peter’s face. “You have to learn how to use the press and not let them use you.” The eyes were shining with superior knowledge. “The press, Hoffman, is a monster, a big, unkempt monster. You’ve got to know how to keep it in check. You can use it like your pet, if you know how, like me. I jolly it, push it, con it, and use it to my purposes. I don’t feed it too much red meat like you are doing right now. It goes crazy if you do, and latches on to you and”—Paschen sat back in his chair and snapped his fingers—“gobbles you right up.”

  Peter was restraining a smile. The guy was living up to his reputation, every inch of the way.

  He continued. “Let’s not further belabor the Middle East situation with stories like the one you gave the press. You are not privy to exactly where we stand these days on the area because you are not yet in the loop. Although we were tilting one way, this has changed somewhat over the past days, and we don’t like indiscreet stories in the media—we want to do nothing to tip our hand.” He folded his hands in front of him and leaned forward conspiratorially. “And in any event, even if you have been a resourceful arms peddler, drop ‘arms sales’ from your vernacular. We phrase it differently; it’s termed ‘security-enhancement agreements.’ Got that? ‘Security-enhancement agreements.’ You’ve got to get the phraseology down. Things are a little more complicated when you get to this level. I hope you realize that.”

  Peter smiled and dislodged a piece of herring from his front tooth with his tongue.

  The president’s chief of staff gave him a sour look. “And another small problem: You’ve got to keep your old war stories to yourself—including the intelligence stuff. Everybody knows what intelligence is. We’ll tell you when, if ever, those war stories will be suitable for publishing, so to speak.”

  “When? When the next little war starts? And what would that be called? Publicity-enhanced memoirs?” He gulped down his sauvignon blanc just as the veal arrived and occupied them both. There was a quiet little clatter, as their knives effortlessly sliced through the flesh of the tender baby steer, and Peter thought reflectively that the little fellow had never had a chance to get big, and even if he had he would never have had the chance to enjoy the fruits of manhood. Then the animal image receded, and there on his plate lay the puny slice of veal. Washington restaurants were notorious rip-offs: For the price he was paying, he should have had twice as much food.

  Paschen pressed on. “Back to these individuals who make it hard for themselves to reach office. You don’t know President Jack Fairchild that well: Underneath his straight exterior is a straight interior. Although his kids occasionally were caught with their pants down or some minor drug thing, this was not a pattern, and they all grew out of it. He doesn’t like drugs and is suspicious of womanizers.”

  “Has to be, doesn’t he, in today’s climate? Funny how I remember him quite differently years ago. Always smart and glib, I’ll give you that. A real stud, for another thing”—he slid a mischievous glance at Paschen—“and full of derring-do back then—huh, he’s changed a bit on that score, hasn’t he? Willing to do anything back then—almost anything for his country.”

  The chief of staff eyed Peter suspiciously but said nothing. Then he turned full attention back to his veal. Peter watched him pile the meat and vegetables meticulously on the back of his fork, continental style. Peter ate the same way, albeit more sloppily, from years of living in Europe. But for this guy it was just bullshit airs.

  Peter drawled, “You sound like you’re suspicious of me and my lifestyle. What do you suspect me of, snortin’ coke or something? Who’ve you been talking to?”

  “I’ve just heard a couple of things—nothing major, a little about women, a little about coke use. What we need is a clean slate.” Paschen grinned. “You know damned well about the political climate these days. I’d like you to get busy and sec that your slate is wiped clean or I’ll just blow you out of the water next time I talk to the boss. So. To summarize: If you fail in this, the worst-case analysis is that you then won’t get confirmed. The best-case analysis is that you will but you’ll forever remain outside the envelope.” He spread his hands open in an appealing gesture. “And then what good would you be to us?”

  Peter stared at Paschen with mouth slightly agape. “I’ve heard about you,” he said. “I guess I didn’t believe it until now. Sure, I can clean my slate—a little. But I am what
I am. I have a past I’m mostly proud of, and a damned lot to offer as deputy secretary. Shit, where would you guys be without the weapons I invented?”

  “No one’s saying you’re not talented,” said Paschen coldly. He set his napkin carefully at plateside and beckoned the hovering waiter for a bill. Peter was disappointed, because the desserts in Pomodoro were some of the best in town. He could feel a distinct space in his stomach that needed filling.

  Paschen scribbled his signature on the bill and said, “Don’t take offense, Peter. I’m only doing my job. Keeping pet whores in apartments is about as dated as romps in the Tidal Basin. Remember way back to Wilbur Mills? Free souls like yourself need to be aware of this.” He pushed back his chair and got up.

  Peter stood up, towering over Paschen. Taking a step closer to the other man, like a shark coming in for a kill, he grabbed his upper arm, pulled him close, bent his head to him, and said quietly in his ear, “Let me tell you something too, Tom baby. Just because I’m signing up again to work for the government doesn’t mean I’m going to take chickenshit from you or anyone else in the White House.”

  Paschen flushed, trying to pull away. Peter held. He said, “Don’t get upset now—everyone’s watching us. Smile as if I were telling you a useful secret or something. One more thing: I know President Fairchild better than you think—from way back in the Diem days in ’Nam. Ask him. And then there’s the money.” He widened his eyes. “Aren’t you aware I’ve become a big contributor? Check that out too. And I’ll be seeing you, but not too soon, okay?” Then he released him and walked out of the restaurant. When he glanced back at the door, Paschen, his face a dull brick red, was still standing where he left him.