The Man

For Eaton, the trial was all but ended. Except for a few bad moments in the afternoon, when his own name had been bandied about in the low exchange between Abrahams and Sally Watson, it had been a glorious and heady day. Even when President Dilman had unexpectedly taken the witness stand, no doubt denigrating himself further in the public esteem by his undignified self-pleading, and collaborated with his counsel on that defensive pap about Eaton attempting to usurp his powers, Eaton had not been dismayed. He had known that Zeke Miller would, when his turn came, demolish the President, and Miller had succeeded in so doing. Much as Eaton had formerly disliked the Southern legislator, he had been forced, more and more, to admire him for his clever (if barbaric) forensics. In fact, Eaton had told himself while watching the House manager make mincemeat of the President, if Miller were not handicapped by his inherited racial intolerance, he might make, very well might make, an excellent Attorney General in the Cabinet of a new Administration.

Eaton surmised that not only for himself, but possibly for the millions viewing the live spectacular on television, the dramatic climax of the trial had been the foolhardy exhibition of President Dilman on the witness stand. Why had he risked it? Had he expected, under his counsel’s soft guidance, to sway the Senate and public to his side by his posture of persecuted martyr? If so, he had failed miserably. Zeke Miller had shown him for what he was, for the entire nation to see, not martyr but satyr, not public official but pitiful fool. That had been the high point: Dilman’s fall.

All else that had followed before and after the di

Arthur Eaton wondered which suit he should wear tomorrow afternoon.

The doorbell sounded, followed immediately by the heavy clanging of the antique brass front-door knocker.

Eaton came out of the armchair, perplexed. He had expected no visitors tonight. And Kay, it could not be Kay. He had sent the car to the airport after her only twenty minutes ago, and besides, her flight from Miami was probably not in yet.

Eaton opened the door, and then, to his amazement, he found himself staring at Sally Watson.

“Well, President-elect-by-the-Senate, aren’t you going to let me in?” she asked.

“I’m sorry, Sally. Of course, please do come in. I guess I was surprised. I thought you’d be busy, and-I was expecting someone else. I’m going to be tied up in a little while.”

“Goody for you, my hero,” she said. “Well, I’m not tied up, only fit to be tied.”

She went into the living room. Eaton closed the door and hastily followed her. She opened her leopard coat but did not remove it.

Pirouetting on a spiked heel to confront him, she jerked her thumb toward the television set. “Licking your chops, Arthur?”

“What does that mean?”

“Don’t be senile, Arthur.” She considered him. “I haven’t been made very welcome. I guess it has been as long as I thought.”

Unhappily, he stepped toward her and kissed her lightly on the lips. Her breath was acrid with the fumes of whiskey, and he stepped back quickly, fighting to hide his reaction.

“Don’t tell me, Arthur. Let me guess. Multiple choice. Is she drunk, or sorta drunk, or very drunk?” She tried to snap her fingers, but they missed. “Very drunk. Kee-rect!”

“Sally, what’s going on with-?”

She lifted her hand for silence. “Multiple choice number two. Is she drunk because she hasn’t seen or heard from him for eight days, or because he has broken three standing dates, or because he hasn’t answered six calls she made in forty-eight hours? Answer-not one but all, all, kee-rect! Fooled you, didn’t I?”

“Sally, be reasonable. With this trial going on, every move I make is watched. Besides, I’ve been busy-”

“I know, darling, busy and ill-what is the illness called?-oh yes, Presidential fever. That’s all that is ailing you, my hero.”

“Well, what the devil is ailing you?”

“Happy to tell you.” She walked farther into the room. “Am I allowed to take off my coat?”

“Sally, I wish you could, but I am expecting company in a very short time.”

“Okay. A drink, then.”

He was reluctant to go to the bar. “Sally, don’t you think you’ve had enough?”

“You bet I’ve had enough-enough of everything-so one more of anything won’t hurt.” As he reluctantly started for the bar, she added, “And shut off that damn television.”

Eaton quickly complied. Then, as quickly, he poured a Scotch on ice for Sally, and a soft drink for himself.

“Here you are, dear,” he said, handing her the Scotch.

Accepting the drink in one hand, she tapped his glass with the other. “You used to do better than that, when you asked me to take off my coat and more.”

“There is a conference tonight. I’ll have to have a clear head.”

She drank at length, then she said, “All right.” She brooded over the glass, then she said suddenly, “Let’s have it out, Arthur. Are you trying to give me the brush, or what?”

“Give you the brush?”

“Are you trying to drop me? You know, you know, Galileo’s law or whoever it was. You hold something. You get tired holding it. You let go. It falls down and goes plop. You’re free of it.”

“What a mind you have. Of course not, Sally. Don’t be silly. You know how I feel about you.”

She brought her long fingers to her crimson lips in a feigned pose of profound reflection. “I want to see if I can remember-how you feel about me, I mean. Ah yes, that last time in bed-when was it? Twelve nights ago? That was quite a session, wasn’t it?”

Eaton wanted to squirm. There was something about her, her too blond hair, her too darkly shadowed eyes, her too powdered cheeks, her too red lips, something about her flippant and coarsened speech, and something left over from the way she had behaved on the witness stand; there was all that which seemed to cheapen her and make her less attractive than she had ever been.

And now, her vulgar reference to their last time together. He wanted only to be done with her, to file her in his history as finished business, and be left alone to go on with life. But here she was, unfiled, and the vulgar question hung between them.

“Yes,” he said, “I-I won’t ever forget that evening.”

“How could you? I knew you wouldn’t. And I knew you hadn’t forgotten what you promised. You haven’t, have you?”

He had forgotten. The Lord save him from women. They remembered everything, everything. How could they expect a man to remember what he said-men said anything, they were all Alexanders promising empires-under those circumstances? What in the devil had he said? He could guess, but he would not, aloud. He waited. She would tell him.

“I’ve been waiting for you to call me, Arthur. I’ve been living for that call. What happened when you asked her? Will she give you the divorce, or will you have to go out to Reno and get it?”

Divorce, he thought. That was it. He must have been out of his mind. If treaties were made in bed, he thought, women would own the world. What in the devil could he say to her now, to be rid of her? The diplomatic truth, that was best; that was his style, and none exceeded him at it.

“Yes, of course, Sally, it has been on my mind, too, but you know, divorce is not that simple a matter,” he said pedantically. Almost instinctively, he was moving them away from the heated, irrational atmosphere of the bedroom into the cooler, logical surroundings of the civil courtroom. “You know my feelings about Kay, and you’ve known my feelings toward you, Sally. I have desired a divorce, and kept it no secret from you. However, I’ve suddenly come up against one hard mathematical fact of life. It takes two to accomplish a divorce, not one. I broached it to Kay on the telephone a few days ago, and she would not have it. She is adamant. Separation she will abide, but not a divorce. So all I can do, until I have definite grounds against her, is to work on her, wear her down, and trust that her own sense of decency-”