Acts of Mercy Read online

  By Bill Pronzini and Barry N. Malzberg

  The Running of Beasts

  Night Screams

  Prose Bowl

  Acts of Mercy

  Bill Pronzini

  Barry N. Malzberg

  SPEAKING VOLUMES, LLC

  NAPLES, FLORIDA

  2011

  ACTS OF MERCY

  Copyright © 1977 by Bill Pronzini and Barry N. Malzberg

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means without written permission of the author.

  9781612321288

  Table of Contents

  Also by

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Dedication

  Prologue

  Monday, May 14

  PART ONE - The Capitol

  One

  Two

  Three

  Four

  Five

  Six

  Seven

  Eight

  Nine

  Ten

  Eleven

  Twelve

  Thirteen

  Fourteen

  Fifteen

  Sixteen

  Seventeen

  Eighteen

  PART TWO - The Presidential Special

  One

  Two

  Three

  Four

  Five

  Six

  Seven

  Eight

  Nine

  Ten

  Eleven

  Twelve

  Thirteen

  Fourteen

  Fifteen

  Sixteen

  Seventeen

  Eighteen

  PART THREE - The Hollows

  One

  Two

  Three

  Four

  Five

  Six

  Seven

  Eight

  Nine

  Ten

  Eleven

  Twelve

  Thirteen

  Fourteen

  Fifteen

  Sixteen

  Seventeen

  Eighteen

  For Bruni and Joyce

  &

  For Clyde Taylor

  No one can examine the character of the American presidency without being impressed by its many-sidedness. The range of the President’s functions is enormous. He is ceremonial head of state. He is a vital source of legislative suggestion. He is the final source of all executive decision. He is the authoritative exponent of the nation’s foreign policy. To combine all these with the continuous need to be at once the representative man of the nation and the leader of his political party is clearly a call upon the energies of a single man unsurpassed by the exigencies of any other political office in the world.

  —Harold J. Laski

  The American Presidency

  Being a President is like riding a tiger. A man has to keep on riding or be swallowed.

  —Harry S. Truman

  Prologue

  Do you want to check over these appointments, Mrs. Augustine? Not particularly. Oh all right, Elizabeth, let me see them. Yes, yes. What about this United Jewish Appeal luncheon tomorrow? Do you think I really have to attend?

  How can I tell you that, Mrs. Augustine?

  I suppose you can’t, can you. It’s just that there are so many decisions to make and it would be nice to have someone help me make a few of them. The small ones, at least.

  I understand.

  Do you? Then give me your opinion on the UJA luncheon. Should I attend?

  Well, yes, I believe you should It was scheduled three months ago, remember. And after the President’s press conference this morning, it might create the wrong impression if the First Lady were to cancel out.

  You’re right, of course. Elizabeth?

  Yes, Mrs Augustine?

  About the press conference. What did you think of the President’s remarks on Israel?

  Oh, well, I’m sure he didn’t mean them as they were interpreted by the press.

  Certainly he didn’t. It’s just that he’s been under a terrible strain recently. We’ve all been under a terrible strain these past few months.

  Yes, I know.

  Why do you say it like that?. So gravely, with that troubled look in your eyes.

  I’m not troubled, Mrs. Augustine.

  But you are. You’ve been my confidential secretary for a long time; I know you fairly well. Something is bothering you.

  It’s ... nothing I can explain, exactly.

  I’d like you to try.

  Well, it’s just a feeling that something is ... wrong here in the White House.

  Wrong?

  Yes. It’s like an undercurrent, a feeling of ... oh, this sounds melodramatic, but a feeling of strangeness, of impending tragedy.

  Tragedy? What sort of tragedy?

  I don’t know, Mrs. Augustine.

  Does it involve the President?

  I’m not sure. I suppose it must, in some way.

  Nothing is going to happen to the President, Elizabeth.

  Oh, I didn’t mean to say that. Of course nothing is going to happen to him.

  Is there anything specific that makes you feel the way you do? No, nothing specific. I guess I just wish ...

  What? What do you wish?

  That everything was the way it was up until six months ago. That the media hadn’t turned against the President, that so many things hadn’t been going wrong and the administration wasn’t under so much pressure. That Peter Kineen and his people weren’t trying to split the party again, the way it was four years ago. Maybe it’s all of those things that make me feel so ... uneasy.

  Yes. Maybe it is.

  Are you all right, Mrs. Augustine? You look a little pale.

  I’m just tired, Elizabeth. All this talk about strangeness and tragedy—it’s enough to unnerve anyone.

  I’m sorry, Mrs. Augustine. But you insisted that I tell you what was on my mind

  Yes. I did, didn’t I?

  If you don’t feel well, we could cancel the UJA luncheon today. And I could call Doctor Whiting—

  No. I don’t want to see Doctor Whiting. I’m fine; I’ll go to the luncheon as scheduled

  Do you want to dictate any letters this morning?

  No. You can leave now, Elizabeth. I’ll call you if I need you.

  Just as you say, Mrs Augustine. And I’m sorry again if I upset you; I won’t say anything more about my foolish intuitions. Everything will be all right, I know that.

  Of course it will. Everything will be fine.

  Tragedy. My God. But she’s wrong, there won’t be any tragedy. Nothing is going to happen to Nicholas. Nothing is going to happen. Nothing is going to happen.

  Monday, May 14

  PERSONAL AND CONFIDENTIAL

  The Honorable Nicholas Franklin Augustine

  President of the United States

  The White House

  1600 Pennsylvania Avenue

  Washington, D.C.

  Dear Mr. President:

  I urge you to take what I am about to say in the absolute seriousness with which it is written.

  Despite the necessary anonymity of this letter, I am not a crank. On the contrary I am someone quite close to you, personally and politically—a member of the inmost White House circle. But for reasons which will become clear, I cannot at this time tell you who I am. I must call no more attention to myself than I already gain as a result of my position.

  The tragic realities of the situation are these, Mr. President. Not everyone you trust is as faithful to you as I am. There are those among your staff who are deceitful, who care only for the furtherance of their own positions and not at all for y
ou or for the common good of the country, that same good to which you yourself have been selflessly dedicated since your inauguration. These individuals believe you to be weak and ineffectual, and they have formed a treacherous alliance against you. They are doing everything within their power to undermine your credibility so that you will be defeated for renomination in Saint Louis in July. Secretly, slyly, they have placed their support with the coalition headed by Peter Kineen.

  In all good conscience I cannot at this time reveal the names of these turncoats, for I have no specific evidence against any one person. But I do have very strong suspicions, and it is only a matter of time until I am able to obtain proof.

  But time may be another of your enemies, and that is why we are writing this letter. I mean, why I am writing this letter. You must be alert to the danger confronting you, Mr. President. You must be vigilant, as we are. As I

  We take our fingers from the typewriter keys, cease their clattering; then we rip the letter from the carriage, tear it into tiny pieces and drop the pieces into the wastebasket. It is too painful for us to write in the first-person singular because we are not singular. Other people think we are, of course—as I thinks we are—but we know differently. This is both good and bad. It allows us to observe and to plan in emotionless privacy, but it also hinders our ability to function in what I would call a normal fashion.

  The idea of writing a letter was a poor one in the first place, we know that now. If it was not ignored completely, it would plant seeds of doubt and unease of the wrong type: vigilance for the existence of a “paranoid crank,” rather than vigilance for the true danger.

  No, we must have more knowledge before we can take action of any kind. And when we have that knowledge, the action we take must not be the writing of letters. Nor personal appeals or any other sort of passive endeavor. We are beginning to understand that the strongest of measures are called for, and that we alone must carry them out. Only then can the threat to Nicholas Augustine be neutralized.

  And we are beginning to understand too, as we sit here alone in this quiet room, what those measures must be. After all, as has been demonstrated throughout history, there is only one just way to deal with traitors.

  They must be executed.

  PART ONE

  The Capitol

  One

  When Christopher Justice entered the Oval Office, Nicholas Augustine was standing at the French doors behind his desk, staring out at the White House grounds. He turned as Justice approached, gave him a wan smile. “Sit down, Christopher,” he said.

  “Yes sir.”

  Justice sat on one of the leather chairs facing the desk, buttocks resting on only half of the cushion, feet planted firmly. He felt vaguely ill at ease, as he always did when the President summoned him here. There was something about the Oval Office that instilled a sense of awe and humility in him: the great men who had occupied these premises, the momentous decisions that had been made here, the heads of state who had maybe sat on this very same chair. He put his hands flat on his knees, waiting quietly.

  Augustine remained standing before the French doors, framed between the American flag and the blue-and-white President’s flag, backlit by the wash of hot May sunlight coming through the scrubbed glass. To Justice the President looked imposing in that aspect, larger than life. But then Augustine came forward in heavy movements and sat at the desk, and the illusion vanished and he was just a handsome man in his mid-fifties—cool, sharply drawn features, fine cheekbones, gentle gray eyes. A weary man, too, Justice thought. You could see that in the faint slump of his shoulders, in the crosshatched lines under the eyes and around the wide mouth, in the distracted motions of his hands as he began straightening the clutter of papers in front of him.

  “Well, Christopher,” the President said finally, “I suppose you’ve read this morning’s papers.”

  “Yes sir, I’ve read them.”

  “Do you think my comments at the press conference yesterday were anti-Semitic?”

  “No sir, of course not.”

  “Of course not,” Augustine agreed, and there was heat in his deep baritone voice. “I said, quote, Israel’s decision to conduct their first atomic experiments on the Sinai is as regrettable as Egypt’s similar decision, and I am distressed by the automatic trend of American foreign policy to support Israel in any dispute between that nation and other Middle Eastern powers. It permits us potentially to be held hostage to another’s rather arbitrary actions. In the event of conflict I would not commit this administration at this time to the defense of Israel or any Middle Eastern nation. Unquote. If that is an anti-Semitic statement I’m a steam locomotive.”

  The President shook his head, ran a hand over a fan of cables. “These are communications from the distinguished secretary of state. He thinks I made a dangerous error, but that he might be able to save the situation. That’s how he puts it in one of these cables: ‘I might be able to save the situation.’ Oberdorfer, you know, can be a horse’s ass without half-trying.”

  Justice began to feel uncomfortable. He was, after all, only a Secret Service bodyguard; he was not sure it was proper for Augustine to be talking to him so candidly about issues and personalities. But more and more of late the President had taken to summoning him for brief, off-the-cuff discussions that had become increasingly confidential. Justice was flattered that the President would choose him as a confidante, but he simply did not feel qualified to share the more intimate details of political life.

  Augustine plucked a folded section of the Washington Post from under a pile of folders. “The editorial in here is damned near libelous,” he said. “Did you see it, Christopher?”

  “I skimmed it, yes sir.”

  “They not only infer that I’m a racist, they say I’ve been ignoring foreign policy, implementing superficial domestic programs, and spending too much time at The Hollows. They say I’m retreating from responsibility and insulating myself from the realities of my office.” Irritably the President tossed the paper into his wastebasket. “They want us to believe those are the sentiments of the American people. Well I don’t believe it for a minute.”

  “Neither do I, sir,” Justice said.

  The President fell silent again, staring down at the desk top. The desk was massive, six feet long and four feet wide, made from the timbers of a British sailing barque, a present from Queen Victoria to President Rutherford B. Hayes in 1879—the same desk President Kennedy and then President Carter had used. On one corner of it was a small O-scale brass model of a locomotive, one of several of his collection of railroad items that adorned the office; Augustine lifted it, looked at it for a long moment, put it down again and picked up a gold-framed photograph of the First Lady taken at the White House Inaugural Ball.

  At length he sighed, set the photograph down carefully, and said in a perfunctory way, “I wonder if those media bastards understand what it’s really like for a man in my position, how alone it makes you feel sometimes. I wonder if anyone understands that except my predecessors in this office.”

  “I think I have an idea, sir,” Justice said.

  The President looked across at him again with interest. “Do you really?”

  “I think so.”

  “Maybe you do, at that,” Augustine said. “You’re so supportive, Christopher. I’ve noticed that before, though I suppose I marked it down to the nature of your job. But it’s more than that, isn’t it.”

  “I’m not sure I know what you mean, sir.”

  “How old are you?”

  “Thirty-nine.”

  “I can remember when I was thirty-nine,” the President said. “I was a lot like you are now. A simple man, a man of the people. But that’s all changed.” He paused speculatively. “Maybe you’d be a better person to sit in this chair than I am.”

  Justice blinked. “I, sir?”

  “Yes. A young man, self-contained, in tune with the needs of the people. And what a magnificent name for a President—Justice! Have you eve
r been politically ambitious, Christopher?”

  “No sir. I’m qualified to be a police officer, that’s all.”

  “And you’re proud of your position, proud to serve your country in this capacity.”

  “Yes sir, I am.”

  “You’d give your life for me, if it came to that.”

  “You know I would, Mr. President.”

  “That doesn’t seem just, now does it?” Augustine said. “Why should one common man die for another, eh?”

  “Because if somebody like me dies, the world doesn’t lose much,” Justice said. “But you’re a great leader, the world needs you—”

  “Does it?” Augustine said. “I wonder.”

  Justice could not think of anything appropriate to say; he looked down at his hands. It grew quiet in the office, and when he glanced up again, the President’s head was bowed and he was wearily massaging his temples. Justice felt compassion stir inside him. It wasn’t fair what the media was doing to Nicholas Augustine, he thought; in fact, it was almost criminal.