The Last President. Michael Kurland

you like,” Peterson said.

      “Yes, well. Let’s talk about your problem,” the woman said. “Maybe I can help. We’re trained, you know, to help.”

      “My problem is, I need to talk to someone. On the phone.”

      “Yes, well, what about?” the woman asked. “Where are you calling from?”

      “I don’t think that’s relevant.”

      “Are you feeling depressed?” the woman asked.

      “No.”

      “You must be honest with me if you expect me to help you,” the woman said. “And I do want to help you, you must believe that.”

      The walkie-talkie made a churping sound, as of suppressed laughter. Then came St. Yves’ voice: “Phone check okay.”

      “I have to hang up now,” Peterson said into the phone.

      “Let me help you!” the woman said. “You mustn’t give up!”

      “Good-bye,” Peterson said in his flat voice. “Thank you for trying.” And he hung up the phone.

      Schuster walked through the Embassy mansion and out into the greenhouse. She was sitting there waiting for him. Her hands, folded demurely in her lap, were covered by long white gloves that made her arms look too slender to be real, too slender for the remembered strength of passion. The blue dress with its almost conservative neckline in this day of daring wives made her prim and proper and gave little hint of the exciting body it sheathed. She was in earnest conversation with the undersecretary of something or other when he came out, but her eyes caught his and did not let them go.

      He walked past the two of them, and stood with his back to her, admiring flowers he wasn’t sure were there, waiting for her to come.

      Then her hand was on his arm. “Ralph.”

      “Hello.”

      “Just ‘hello’? That’s not very friendly.”

      He turned to look down at her. “Hello, my love,” he said. “If I get more friendly I’ll screw you here in the greenhouse, and your husband will challenge me to a duel.”

      “Can’t you take me away and screw me somewhere else?” she said, her gray eyes staring intently up into his brown eyes, just the hint of a smile on her face.

      “Say the word,” he said.

      “My husband couldn’t come,” she said. “He’ll be here at one to have a drink with the French Ambassador and let me drive him home. Can we be back at one?”

      “That,” Schuster said, taking her arm, “is the word.”

      “We mustn’t leave together,” she said. “Go out the side door and walk toward the Circle. My car’s in back. I’ll pick you up.”

      “I hate this!” Schuster said. “Couldn’t we—”

      ”Later,” she told him. “Right now, this. Later, your more direct approach, perhaps.”

      “All right,” he said. “We can’t talk about it here. Besides, that’s just one of the things we can’t do here. Pick me up. I’ll be the man with the chattering teeth and the blue thumb.”

      Curtis glanced up as a man came out of the side entrance to the Embassy, but he headed off in the wrong direction, and he wasn’t wearing a camel’s-hair overcoat. A minute later an old MG, driven by a woman with a light-blue scarf around her head, came from around the building and headed after the man, who was already out of sight. Curtis sank further down into his seat and turned on the engine again to blow some warm air into the car.

      “That man is crazy,” St. Yves said, taking off his earphones. “But the phone tap works fine.” He rewound the tape on the voice-activated recorder.

      Kit had his chair up against the window and was leaning forward, resting his forehead against the frame and peering out at the building across the street. “How’s that?” he asked.

      “He called up the Suicide Prevention Center for the phone check.”

      “Maybe he knows something we don’t,” Kit commented.

      “Damn, the batteries on this tape recorder are low. I don’t know if I have replacements.”

      “Plug it in.”

      “It doesn’t plug in. Yes, here. No, damn, they’re the wrong size.”

      Kit watched the empty street while St. Yves struggled with the equipment. In the Company, he reflected, they checked out equipment before they used it, but he decided it would be more politic not to mention it. “Say,” Kit said, “there’s a sports car pulling up in front of the building. Parking by the red line at the curb.”

      “Diplomat,” St. Yves said, uninterested. “Those bastards park on the sidewalk when they want to. Why diplomatic immunity should extend to parking tickets is something—”

      ”That’s him!” Kit said. “Getting out of the car—that’s Schuster!”

      “You sure?” St. Yves shouldered Kit aside and pulled two venetian-blind slats apart. “Son of a bitch!!” He grabbed for one of the walkie-talkies, then realized that he had pulled the batteries to see if they fit in the tape recorder. Dropping it, he ran across the room to his little canvas case and pulled out another. “Red Bear, Red Bear—quick!”

      “Yes?”

      “Get the fuck out of there. Hibernation is over—repeat, over. Head for roof. Subject is going in front door now, repeat now.”

      “Right.”

      St. Yves put the instrument down. “Now, how the hell did that happen?”

      “Your man is somewhere right now, guarding an empty car,” Kit said. “What now?”

      “Go get the license number of that MG,” St. Yves said.

      “Okay.” Kit went outside and strolled over to the car, then strolled back.

      “They made it out okay,” St. Yves said. “Let them stay on the roof for a couple of minutes, then we’ll bring them down and split. Peterson thinks Schuster won’t notice anything disturbed, but he’s not sure. At least he retrieved all the equipment. Wouldn’t do to give Schuster another camera to find. What about the car?”

      “License number DPL one-four-five-three.”

      “Good!” St. Yves grabbed for the phone. “If it was a regular plate, we’d have to wait for DMV to open in the morning, but I think we have a list of DPL plates somewhere in the office.” He talked on the phone earnestly for about five minutes, and when he hung up there was a gleam in his eyes. “The car is registered to the wife of a Canadian cultural attaché,” he said. “Cultural attaché. How nice. ‘Chaste to her husband, frank to all beside, A teeming mistress, but a barren bride.’

      “Mr. Schuster doesn’t know it now, in the position he’s in, or will shortly be in, but I think we have him by the short hairs. By the very short hairs, indeed. Come on, get those people off the roof. Let’s get the fuck out of here.”

      CHAPTER EIGHT

      THE OVAL OFFICE, Tuesday, June 26, 1973 (10:15-11:05 a.m.)

      MEETING: The President, Vandermeer, Ober, and St. Yves.

      AUTHORIZED TRANSCRIPTION

      FROM THE EXECUTIVE ARCHIVES

      Following a discussion about new staff appointments with Vandermeer. Ober and St. Yves enter.

      P. Hi, Charlie, Ed. (unintelligible) are you?

      O. Yes, sir.

      P. I saw the press coverage on the opening of the institute.

      O.