“Do you like that brand of bourbon, Mr. Holland? I’d like to send you a case of it,” he said.
“Thanks. I’m a Jack Daniel’s man myself, and I get it on order straight from Lynchburg.”
“You must have a very good relationship with the whiskey manufacturers, then.”
I smoked a cigar and finished my drink in silence while we moved through the late traffic toward the downtown district. When I noticed that Williams was irritated by the smoke I made a point of leaving the cigar butt only partly extinguished in the ashtray. Originally, the Senator had planned for the three of us to have dinner together, one of those charcoal steak and white linen and pleasant conversation affairs that the Senator was fond of; but now it was understood between us that Williams should be dropped off at the Hilton, where he kept a permanent suite.
He stepped out of the car onto the sidewalk and bent over to shake hands with me through the open door. In the hot air there was a tinge of his perspiration mixed with the scent of talcum and cologne. The shadow of the building made his skin look synthetic and dead. His sunglasses tipped forward a moment, and I caught a flash of color like burned iron.
“Another time, Mr. Holland.”
“Yes, sir,” I said.
We drove to the airport and I waited for the Senator to begin his subtle dissection. I was even looking forward to it. I felt the whiskey in my head now, and I would have liked an extension of last week’s tennis match. But he surprised me completely. His attack came down an entirely different street, and I realized then that he probably disliked Williams even more than I did, although for different reasons.
“You weren’t in a car accident last week, Hack. You were put in jail with several members of that Mexican farm union.”
I had to wait a moment on that one.
“The sheriff could have charged you with attempted assault on a law officer.”
“Your office reaches much farther than I thought, Senator.”
“You might also know that I made sure the story wouldn’t reach the wire services.”
“As a longtime friend of our family you probably also know that I’ve had other adventures of this sort.”
“Another one like it could end your career in Texas.”
“I don’t think either one of us believes that, Senator.”
“I’m not talking about a drunken escapade. If you involve yourself with a radical movement, you’ll find yourself on the ticket as an independent. The party won’t support you. I don’t think your father would enjoy the idea of your associating yourself with people who are trying to destroy our society, either.”
He was after the vulnerable parts now.
“It always seemed to me that my father’s work with the New Deal was considered pretty radical at the time,” I said. “However, I don’t have any connection with the United Farm Workers. I was trying to help a friend from the service.”
&nb
sp; The sun was starting to set among the purple clouds on the horizon, and through the car window I could see airplanes approaching Dulles with their landing lights on.
“I think you should turn over your friend’s case to someone else.”
“Well, in eight years of practice I haven’t lost a criminal case, Senator, and I’m usually a pretty good judge about what clients our firm should handle.”
“I hope you are, Hack, and I hope that we don’t have this same kind of discussion again.”
The chauffeur pulled into the terminal drive, and I went into the restaurant and had a dozen steak sandwiches made up while the Senator waited for me at the passenger gate. His plane taxied out of the hangar and rolled along the apron of the runway toward us, and in minutes we were back aboard and roaring toward the end of the field.
We lifted off sharply into the sun, the city sparkling below us in the twilight, and the interior of the plane was filled with a diffused red glow. My glass of bourbon and ice rattled on the table with the engines’ vibration.
“Who is he, anyway?” I said.
“John Williams? He owns the controlling stock in two of the government’s largest missile suppliers.”
CHAPTER 6
I SPENT THE NEXT week working on Art’s appeal while the July days grew hotter and my broken air conditioner cranked and rattled in the window. The temperature went to one hundred degrees every afternoon, and the sky stayed cloudless and brilliant with sun. The sidewalks and buildings were alive with heat, and sometimes when the air conditioner gave out altogether I’d open the window and the wind would blow into my face like a torch. In the street below, people walked under the hot shade of the awnings away from the sun’s glare, their faces squinted against the light and their clothes wet with perspiration. The humidity made your skin feel as though it were crawling with spiders, and when you stepped off a curb into the sun the air suddenly had the taste of an electric scorch.