Death of a Political Plant Read online

  He smoothed back his barely thinning blond hair, and realized he didn’t have the moxie he had back then. He had seen Louise that day twenty-one years ago in Washington and got carried away by a combination of lust and good judgment. He’d decided right then he would marry this luscious creature. And just by being his easy self, though a little more rooted than the mercurial Jay McCormick, and full of talk about his sexy new job with State, he had won the lady.

  Louise had given their guest a tour of the house and he commented on how much he liked the antique furniture. He had smoothed the wood of the pine dining room table with knowledgeable, sensuous fingers and told Louise how he himself made furniture in his workshop. Louise was impressed. It figured: Bill himself hardly knew how to handle a handsaw.

  Now, Jay sat across from him with a Scotch and water and looked, if anything, like a better bet than twenty years before. He had a lot going for him. He had a certain quiet poise. He also was five years younger than Bill, the same age as Louise. He was still good-humored and witty. And, most important, he had suffered: Louise liked to crawl right under the skin of suffering people in order to share their misery.

  Jay had a track record for saving people. That always appealed to Louise, who liked nothing better than to save people herself. The two of them were like a couple of Don Quixotes.

  But the man certainly was desultory-looking: For some reason, he had slept in his car last night. Despite this, he still had that careless Irish attractiveness and graceful way of handling his body.

  Suddenly Bill became aware that he had been carefully watching Louise watch Jay while he ran his paranoid scenarios over in his mind. He took a large sip of his Wellers on the rocks and pulled himself together. Jealousy was profitless, he’d always read, and after a couple of moments indulging in it, he knew it was true. The fact was, he liked Jay McCormick.

  Louise had been giving their guest a rundown on the Eldridge family’s recent moves, and how they came to buy this, their first house.

  “There’s lots more I want to hear about,” said Jay. “How’s your job, Bill? Do you think you’ll stay stateside, or are there more foreign assignments ahead?”

  “That’s still up in the air,” he replied. “It’s more complicated now, with Janie still to finish high school. And Louise, of course: Kind of hard to say to Louise, ‘Give up your job.’ So we have lots of decisions to make.” That was enough to tell him about the family. He said, “Now, Jay, maybe I missed this: What are you doing in Washington?”

  Their guest, who was slowly nursing his drink, put it down on a nearby table, careful to see it rested straight on its coaster. He folded his hands loosely across his chest. “Bill, I’m writing. But I’ve told Louise next to nothing about what I’m writing, and that’s what I want to tell you, if I can prevail that much on your friendship.”

  “Sure, but what’s this about being in some kind of hot water?”

  Jay frowned and was silent, probably surprised that Louise had filled Bill in so thoroughly in the few minutes they had alone since the two had reached the house. Then the man appeared to make a conscious decision to relax, bringing a leg up and crossing it over the other, resting his arms against the sofa cushions. “I have a story to finish, Bill, and I want to do it here, out of sight of everybody, not back in Sacramento, because when it’s finished, I can pick up my daughter and we’ll return home together.” He grinned at Louise. “It will be in a new car I plan to pick up here, by the way, not that junker I’m using right now.”

  Bill persisted. “Is someone giving you a hard time?”

  The man gave him a tense look. Here he was, thought Bill, at age forty-three still clinging to the role of an adventurer. Christ, Bill had lived through scores of dangerous adventures during his twenty-year career with the Company, but he never dramatized them, even with colleagues who knew about his operations. Jay had been a well-known antiwar activist at Columbia during his undergraduate days, right there in the middle of things when the students closed down the Administration Building. This activist luster had carried over into grad school. Probably had been part of McCormick’s attraction for Louise, who had done her share of work for the antiwar movement while at Northwestern. But by grad school, the world was changing. Bill remembered Jay frantically trying to switch gears and make a place for himself in mainstream American life, and finally choosing journalism. That idealism of his must have worn thin, for he apparently moved on to a more lucrative career in speech writing.

  Right now the guy was clutching his secret around him as tightly as Dracula clutched his cloak. What were all the dramatics about? Bill narrowed his eyes. He had the answer: Jay was back to his old pursuit of tilting at windmills. He was either breaking the law for justice’s sake, or back to investigative reporting—or maybe both.

  The guy looked at him with a dramatic expression in his washed-out blue eyes. “Let’s just say I’ve been living a rather troublesome double life lately. I’d rather be invisible during this coming week and avoid any semblance of trouble.”

  Bill looked at Louise, who was looking at him. Jay was staying a whole week. That week they were to spend alone, shot. At least she had the good grace to look crestfallen. Then, he rose to the duties of gracious host: “You can be invisible here, Jay, that’s for sure. Sylvan Valley is a backwater, not much traffic, just neighbors and their friends. We want you to feel welcome.”

  Bill wasn’t a hundred percent sure of that. Maybe ninety percent.

  “Thanks, Bill. And thanks to you both for keeping the lid on what I’m doing here, and not asking me too many questions—for both your sake, and mine. I’ve got a computer and clothes in the car. I won’t bother you otherwise. I can eat out.”

  “You can eat with us” insisted Louise. “What are friends for?”

  He grinned at her, a strange kind of lopsided grin that, Bill thought, might have been the effect of Bell’s palsy, or some other nerve problem. It had a warming effect on his wife, he could tell: her eyes were shining, and she was sitting forward attentively listening to his every word. The man was a bit of a magician, and he hoped Louise had her feet on the ground enough not to get emotionally confused.

  To add to his concern was the fact that he had to take a brief and very sensitive trip to Vienna next week, a trip that involved a certain amount of danger at both ends of the journey, and required Louise’s complete confidentiality. In fact, his responsibilities with the Company were all over the lot: He consulted on force protection of troops abroad, and at home studied the “off-normal occurrences” that kept dogging the transport of nuclear materials from one state to another. Worst-case analysis was that there was a tie-in to a worldwide nuclear smuggling ring. That was the subject of his imminent trip. It was like dealing with quicksilver, these international gangsters, who seemed not to realize the stakes were global destruction.

  But on another level, there was danger at home, too: He wasn’t at all sure he wanted to leave Louise in the house alone with this lonesome polecat, Jay McCormick.

  “Uh, Louise,” he said, stiffly, “hadn’t you better change out of that costume, and then maybe I can help you with dinner. I bet Jay is hungry.”

  “No, please,” said Jay, leaping up from his chair. “Let me help Louise—I’ll feel better if you do. Less like a mooch.”

  “All right with me.” Bill’s tone was brisk. “But first let me help you carry your things in. By the way, we’ll have to tell the neighbors in the cul-de-sac something.”

  Louise smiled broadly. “I’ll just tell them the truth: We’re entertaining one of my old boyfriends.”

  They were all standing now, ready to disperse, when Jay dramatically put his hands up to stop them. “Uh, there’s one more thing you both need to know. As I said, Bill, I need to keep my presence at your home a secret. But I have an assistant, a kind of a leg man. He travels some and does research for me. He’s the only one who should know I’m here.” Their guest had that quirky smile on his face, so that Bill couldn’t tell w
hether he was serious or not. “The pity is, I’m not sure I even can trust him.”

  “What’s his name?” said Louise.

  “Charlie Hurd. He’s a young fellow, fearfully ambitious: one of those small, quick men who are going to make it in this world, damn the torpedoes. I read his stories in The Arlington Herald, this twice-weekly paper in northern Virginia—you probably subscribe to it. I hired him to moonlight for me; it keeps him busy now, day and night, even weekends.” Now the grin was for real. “He’s so ambitious that he wants me to call him ‘Charles’ now. His real name’s Charles Hurd II.”

  Bill chuckled. “Sounds like a bit of a prick to me—sorry, Louise. What’s the matter, is the guy realizing he’s part of a big story?”

  Jay looked at Bill admiringly. “You hit it right on the nose. Mind you, while Charlie’s found me a lot of good background stuff, I’m not at liberty to share the whole story with him by a long shot, and he doesn’t like that one bit. But he figures the story’s huge, that it’s his ticket to the big time.” Their guest suddenly sensed he had opened up too much, even if it was to old, trusted friends. “I don’t want to say more, just that Charlie may be phoning me.”

  He turned to Louise. “And don’t mind him: he’s kind of—rude.”

  “Rude?”

  “Apparently he comes from one of the old families of Virginia, but for some reason he has no manners at all. But he’s a darned good researcher and writer.”

  “Okay,” said Bill, trying to mask his impatience, “Charles third’s in the loop. Let’s get those bags.”

  As he and their new guest walked through the pergola on the path to the street, Jay seemed oblivious to the pergola, the woods, and Louise’s little garden areas, even the one near the path with those tall yellow-and-white flowers that looked so attractive right now. “Uh, Bill, I see your garage is full, Is there anywhere I could park my old heap that’s out of sight of the street?”

  “Well, sure, just drive it into the area alongside the addition, behind those hollies. I know it’s not visible back there from the street, because that’s where Louise hides the trash cans.”

  “Thanks. That will do it.”

  Bill could see the man striding next to him was even paler and more distracted than he had first thought. A pale, ravaged former lover of Louise. Or boyfriend, rather, according to what she told him. Well, it fit: she always did like to collect stray animals and people.

  Louise had changed a lot in the last year. She had become less a foreign service wife and more of a personality unto herself. A healthful change, Bill thought, even though her language had gone straight downhill, and sometimes now she even shouted “Asshole!” at drivers, but in the privacy of their closed car. And she didn’t suffer fools as gladly as she used to: She was the personification of gentility at one time, but now, instead of listening, she was apt to sound off with her own opinions, like one of those pugnacious pundits on TV. Was such a woman ready or willing to get involved again with her attractive former lover? He frowned, and rethought that: boyfriend, not lover, he was pretty sure.

  • • •

  “You’re like a succubus, you know,” Bill said.

  They were cuddling before going off to sleep, with Louise molding her body to his, and resting a light hand on his waist. They wouldn’t stay attached long, for the bedroom windows were open and the weather was a bit warm.

  “What’s a succubus?”

  “An evil female spirit that sexually vanquishes men during their sleep.”

  “Oh. But I have no sexual designs on you tonight. Had too hard a day.”

  “Hard, isn’t it, to bring an old flame back into your life? Takes a lot of energy.”

  That came out harsher than he had intended.

  Louise let go of his waist and flopped like a giant fish to her side of the bed. Her voice was muffled but dangerous. “Bill, we went to that reception last night, and then I had to get up early and work my ass off all day, running from pillar to post, from Manassas to Fairfax.”

  “Ass?” he repeated sarcastically.

  “Ass. Can’t you handle the word? And then, at five, Jay arrives, and I entertain him over coffee for a while, bring him home, rush over to feed chopped worms to Mary’s fish, make your dinner, and then do the dishes while the two of you discuss his favorite death row cases from his days as a reporter. Why wouldn’t I be tired?”

  “Said something like that, didn’t I?”

  Now they had both flopped on their backs, staring up through the skylight above their bed, at the view of a swaying sweetgum tree and a fingernail moon. Normally, this would have encouraged romance, but Bill was afraid he had poisoned the mood.

  “Don’t try to squirm out of it, Bill Eldridge: You were just being sarcastic and mean, making innuendos about Jay and me like that.”

  “Sorry.” He reached out a tentative hand and put it on top of hers, and after a few seconds she reluctantly turned hers over and entwined his fingers in hers.

  After a moment, he said, “I know one thing about Jay.”

  “Yeah, what?” There were still icicles in her voice.

  “This guy is only going to rate about a D with you, in your rankings of houseguests.”

  “How so?”

  “Because I happened to go by his room once he’d unpacked, and I can tell already: he’s a slob.”

  “He is?”

  “Yeah. Clothes strewn around. Only thing neat is his desk, and he’ll probably muck that up once he gets to writing.”

  “Oh.” He knew she was tired of cleaning up after house-guests.

  “Yep, Louise, you’re going to have a whole bunch of left-behind items of Jay’s—socks, shoes, papers—to put in the morgue.”

  She shoved him over on his side and cuddled close to him again. “I’ll worry about that after he’s gone. Now, be quiet and let’s go to sleep.”

  But then her hand on his waist moved, slid over his relaxed abs and downward.

  “I like that idea of the succubus,” she said.

  Six

  THE NEXT MORNING WHEN SHE woke, Louise grabbed her robe and went to the kitchen to find her husband gone and her houseguest ensconced in his bedroom. At her knock, Jay called out that he had shared bacon and eggs with Bill, and was coming along “just fine” with his work. She could hear the soft tap of his computer keys; they didn’t stop even while he was talking to her through the closed door.

  The obvious message was that he didn’t want to be disturbed.

  She pulled the belt to her robe tighter and walked resolutely back to the kitchen. It was hard to contain her disappointment; she had expected a quiet breakfast together on the patio, another sharing of reminiscences of the summer of ’75.

  But maybe she was being naive, and Jay knew better than she did that there was a limit to how far they could go with those reminiscences. Late last night, after making love, Bill had teased her and said that she still carried a torch for Jay. Nonsense, she had replied. But it was true that when she looked at her pale, rather tired former suitor, she still felt a strange pull. Whether it was attraction, or just a desire to help a lost soul, she didn’t know.

  Her feeling of being excluded was only exacerbated when Charlie Hurd phoned.

  “Good morning, the Eldridges,” said Louise in her usual pleasant way.

  “Charles Hurd, here,” snapped a haughty young voice. “Put Jay on the line.”

  Anger washed over her like a wave. She hung up the phone before she could even think about it. Then she stood there, breathing deeply to regain her good temper before the dratted instrument rang again. In seconds, it did.

  “Good morning. The Eldridges.”

  “All right—I give. Please put Jay on the line.” The youthful voice was larded with sarcasm.

  Without responding, Louise set down the receiver and knocked on Jay’s closed door. He hurried to the kitchen, declining her offer of the cordless phone. Holding the kitchen extension in one hand and notebook in the other, he sheepishly ask
ed, “Louise, would you mind if I talked privately with Charles? I hate like the devil to inconvenience you—were you getting breakfast?”

  “Oh, no, not at all. Actually, I was just going to get dressed.” She waved her hand as if to reinforce the fact that the kitchen was his. “Go for it.” And she strode down the hall back to her bedroom and closed the door like a dutiful hostess.

  It took only two minutes for her to put on her many-pocketed shorts, a gardening shirt, and boots. Then she flicked on CNN news and did stretching exercises while she waited another fifteen minutes. When she opened the bedroom door she heard nothing. There was a hollow feeling inside her: Jay had not had the thoughtfulness to knock on her door to tell her when he was through occupying her kitchen.

  It was clear Jay’s life was to be no part of hers. She set her mouth tightly, and shook her head. Good thing she had a life of her own, and it was high time she was seeing to it. She went to the kitchen and resolutely examined the calendar. Almost immediately, she forgot her houseguest. This was Wednesday already. A broad black line was drawn through two days of next week, and overwritten with the initials P.P.S.: Perennial Plant Society. That meant two nights with three vivacious women as houseguests, who felt it their bounden duty to get acquainted with her and write her up in their newsletter before she became Plant Person of the Year. One of those days would be devoted to a long Channel Five shoot at the P.P.S. convention at the Washington Hilton. With a sudden sense of urgency, Louise looked out at her patio garden. Like the others in the yard, it had still not recovered from the incursions of little Sally.

  Nose to the glass, she stared at the diminished garden and tried to fight the bothersome feelings of pride and vanity that swept over her. What would happen to her professional reputation if the P.P.S. people saw her beds in this state? These women were professional down to their toes. Then she tried to make light of it: After all, what could they do, rescind her honor of being named Plant Person of the Year? Nevertheless, she decided, she could do a little restoration work in the garden without making herself feel like a Mrs. Babbitt, who had to keep up appearances above all else. She got herself a bowl of shredded wheat and a cup of coffee and went out on the patio. As she ate, she noted spots in the garden that needed resuscitation.