“I’m not here to keep your patience intact!” he shot back. “I’ve tried the gradual approach, tried to let you get used to the idea of me. And all you do is moan and complain.” His eyes narrowed. “But I’m through, Lad. This is serious business I’ve come on, and it’s time we talk.”
Bryce looked around quickly. Then he turned back, his voice a low growl. “I don’t want to talk to you. Especially not here.”
“Fine,” Gorham snapped. “I’ll see you at the office.” He raised a hand, one finger up, as though he were hailing a taxi. Then he was gone.
“Wait!” Bryce looked around wildly, suddenly picturing the results of having Gorham show up in Senator Hawkes’s office. “Come back!”
“What?”
He jerked around. Gorham was sitting in the passenger seat of the car, arm resting comfortably out the window.
Bryce sighed. “All right. You win.”
“Good. I’ll ride as far as the Capitol with you.”
Muttering angrily, Bryce collected his money, stabbed at the keypad, waited for his receipt, then stalked to the car.
“That would sure make life a whole lot easier,” Gorham said slowly as Bryce got in beside him.
“What?”
“Having your own money machine.”
Bryce stared at him, then suddenly roared with laughter.
Gorham looked surprised, then instantly his mouth tightened. “What’s so funny?”
“Nothing,” Bryce said, trying to hold it in. “Just welcome to the twentieth century.”
“Well, so much for the twentieth century.”
Bryce looked over at his traveling companion to see what had drawn the comment. They were moving slowly, one of the tens of thousands of cars carrying the army of federal workers to their battle stations in the central city. There was an occasional honk, and now and then someone would spurt forward, cutting in and out, trying to pick up a space or two in the traffic jam, but for the most part the drivers were docile and patiently inched forward at a stop-and-go pace.
“What’s that supposed to mean?” he asked.
Gorham swung his head to look back on the long lines of cars. “I could drive my wagon from Boston to New York faster than this.”
“It’s only like this at rush hours.” Gorham snorted. “I’ve seen your so-called freeways. What an ironic name that is! I don’t know what hell is like, but I would think that New York City at five o’clock is enough to make any sinner totally repentant.”
Bryce chuckled. “Except for about eight million New Yorkers.”
“You think the twentieth century is so hot?” Gorham pushed on, obviously still smarting from Bryce’s comment fifteen minutes earlier. “Well, you can have all your fancy little gadgets and your money machines. You’re the instant-on, instant-off generation. Everything’s got to be fast for you people.” He lifted his hand in disgust, waving at the sea of cars around them. “I guess it’s only right that this is where it all gets you.”
There were several seconds of silence as Bryce, sobered, considered that. Then his curiosity got the better of him. “So you watch us?”
There was no response, and he decided to push it a little. “What do you do up there?”
“What makes you think it’s up?”
That startled him. “You mean it’s not?”
“You’ll find out for yourself, soon as not.”
Bryce’s head snapped up. Gorham ignored his questioning look, but Bryce wasn’t about to let that pass. “Do you know how soon…I mean, do you know when I’m coming up—uh,… or over, or whatever it is?”
There was a faint smile. “Don’t know when. But you are, sometime, sure as Molly’s cow gives white milk.”
Bryce relaxed, feeling a little ridiculous for the sudden rush of fear that had grabbed him.
“Now,” Gorham said, “let’s get on with what I’m here to talk about.”
“The amendment,” Bryce said flatly, feeling any enthusiasm go out of him.
“That’s right. Why is it you can’t see the long-range implications of what you’re about?”
“I guess for the same reason you can’t see that the document you drafted, good as it was for your time, needs some revision.”
“Ah, yes,” Gorham drawled sarcastically. “My time. Tell me again how wonderfully advanced you people are, how far you’ve come since we simple folk inhabited the earth.”
Bryce flushed a little. “I’m not saying you were simple, but can you really sit there and tell me that the age of the musket and the bayonet is the same as the age of thermonuclear weapons and the B-1 bomber?”
“Now you’re being asinine. You know I’m not saying that.”
“Well, then. Our society faces a set of challenges that are much different than the ones your generation faced.”
“No question about that,” Gorham said tartly. “I mean, all we had to do was try to keep people free and happy, see that they had good honest work to do, tame a continent, fight off a big superpower that was trying to colonize the world. Nothing really unique like your generation faces.”
“All right, all right!” Bryce cut in. “I get the point.”
“Do you?” Gorham retorted, peering at him. “Every generation has tended to look on the past with an air of condescension. I call it historical snobbery, and your generation is smitten with one of the worst cases ever.”
Bryce had no answer for that.
Gorham stopped, shaking his head. “Good land, Boy, are you really that naive? Can’t you see that the real question isn’t whether it’s bombs versus muskets or wagons versus automobiles? It still comes down to more basic things like people’s right to life, to liberty, and to peacefully enjoy the fruits of their labor.”
They were moving into the city now, and Bryce slowed to a stop as the light turned red and pedestrians streamed across the walk in front of them. He glanced at them, then at Gorham, then solemnly put his hand over his heart. “Amen, Brother!”
Gorham’s mouth tightened into a hard line.
“Well,” Bryce said, as the light changed and the sports car accelerated smoothly again, “isn’t that what I’m supposed to do when I hear the words, ‘life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness’? Come on, Gorham! You know this amendment does not take away those basic human rights. Not in the least.” Gorham gave him a long, searching look, then finally said quietly, “And that is where you are wrong, my young and very foolish friend.”
“No!” Bryce retorted sharply, suddenly tired of it all. “That’s where you’re wrong. Regular elections and a congress and president hammering out national policy were fine when there were thirteen colonies and a population of less than five million. You haven’t seen the docks of Boston lined up with acres of Toyotas and Hondas. You haven’t walked through the empty steel mills of Pittsburgh.”
He threw up his hands. “You accuse me of being narrow minded. Well, maybe it’s time you opened your eyes, Mr. Colonial America. Maybe it’s time this tired old democracy you created got a new shot of adrenalin.”
“We didn’t create a democracy,” Gorham said softly.
That cut Bryce’s next sentence off before he even started it. His mouth opened, then clamped tight again.
Gorham just shook his head, sadly and with infinite weariness. “You still can’t see it, can you?”
“All right, so you created a republic and not a democracy. It still is supposed to represent the voice of the people.”
“Do you really understand the difference between a republic and a democracy?”
“Yes,” Bryce snapped right back. “First class in law school, thank you.” He lifted his voice, as though reciting. “In a democracy, authority is derived directly from the masses, through mass meetings or other forms of ‘direct’ expression of will. In a republic, authority is derived from elected representatives who best represent the people they serve.”
Gorham snorted in disgust. “Yes, that sounds about like the depth that your modern universitie
s are teaching it. Land a mighty, Boy! Can’t you look any deeper than that?”
Bryce opened his mouth to fire off a sharp retort, but Gorham’s eyes were suddenly snapping fire. “Don’t you know why you’ve got a national debt big enough to build every man, woman, and child in the solar system a solid-gold outhouse?
And why half the world is on the verge of bankruptcy? Don’t you see the basic flaw in a true democracy?”
There was no response from the driver of the BMW.
“A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government because sooner or later the people come to realize that they can vote themselves direct benefits out of the public treasury. From that moment on the majority always votes for the candidate or the program promising the greatest benefits from the public treasury. That’s what killed Rome. Even the emperors couldn’t keep up with the constant demand for bread and circuses. Sooner or later the government goes bankrupt. Democracy always collapses over a loose fiscal policy, and inevitably, no matter how long it may take, it will always be followed by a dictatorship.”
Bryce’s mouth had opened again, but now it shut slowly. Gorham sat back, staring out the windshield into space, breathing hard. “And all this talk about giving more say to the people. That’s what’s happening here. In the last few years the primary function of the United States government has become the redistribution of wealth—taking money through taxation from one segment of society and giving it to another. And all of those who keep wailing about giving more power back to the peoplemen like Mannington and Sterling Jennings, men like Senator Hawkes and the other bubbleheads up there on Capitol Hill— they think they can stay in power by continually gratifying—” his voice grew heavy with sarcasm, “—the will of the people.”
Finally, he turned and looked at Bryce, his eyes grave. “Let me tell you something, Sherwood, and if I can’t get one other thing through your head, you let this one stick. The real movers behind this amendment, the ones who drive those long black cars and live in the luxurious apartments in Georgetown, don’t give a tinker’s dam about the voice of the people. They’re after power, pure and simple. The Constitution stands in their way, and their sole purpose is to remove that and every other stumbling block that prevents them from reaching their goal.”
Bryce blinked. “That’s a little strong, don’t you think?”
“You think you’re in some game of mumblety-peg here?” he roared. “They’re users, Sherwood! You can help them achieve their ends, and so they’ll use you. Oh, they’ll reward you handsomely in the process—until your usefulness ends. Then they’ll cast you aside, just as they’re doing to Senator Hawkes.”
That snapped Bryce’s head up sharply.
Gorham gave a short, bitter laugh. “Your myopia is something to behold, Boy. You think Senator Hawkes wants to retire next term?”
“He’s…he’s almost seventy.”
“And how many senators do you know who are currently over seventy and still serving well?”
Again Bryce started at that. There were at least a half a dozen, maybe more. And with their seniority, they were some of the Senate’s most powerful voices.
Gorham just shook his head. “You know what your problem is, Sherwood? The other day Elliot Mannington stuck stars in your britches and you haven’t been able to sit down comfortably ever since.”
Bryce felt like he was standing at the bottom of Niagara Falls, trying to look up. Gorham’s words cascaded over him one burst after another.
Gorham took a deep breath and finally turned to Bryce. When he spoke again, his own voice was low and tinged with sadness. “It’s bread and circuses all over again, Lad. And your amendment is one more step on the long road to so-called democracy. If you can’t see that, and get others to see it, then may God help you, Son. God help you all.”
Chapter 9
As Bryce drove up to the Marriott Hotel and gave the BMW to the parking attendant, his mind turned to Nathaniel Gorham. Since their confrontation in the car the previous morning, Gorham hadn’t reappeared. Bryce was on his way in now to listen to Elliot Mannington give a speech on the proposed amendment to the League of Women Voters, and what Gorham had said about Mannington kept running through his mind. “After power pure and simple. He’s put stars in your britches. They’ll cast you aside once they’ve used you.”
He shook it off angrily as he walked into the hotel, realizing that this was exactly what Gorham had meant to do—sow seeds of doubt. True, the old man had made some good points. His analysis of the weakness of a democracy had been sobering, and Bryce was still weighing it in his mind. But the attack on Mannington showed that Gorham still ignored the hard realities of the day. He had never gone through a session of Congress and watched the paralyzing crawl at which it moved. He hadn’t lived through the “imperial presidencies” of a Johnson or a Nixon.
Bryce entered the banquet hall and scanned it quickly. There were several empty places at tables up nearer the front, but before he could start for one, a waiter approached. “Good evening, sir.”
“Good evening.” Bryce handed him the ticket Mannington had sent over.
“Just a moment, sir. The tables are preassigned. I’ll get your number from the maitre d’.”
“Fine.” Bryce had known he would likely end up at a table with someone he didn’t know. He really didn’t look forward to that, but he could hardly miss a major speech by his future boss.
Suddenly he started. The waiter had gone to a small desk where a man in black tie and tails was sitting with a book open in front of him. Several other waiters were also there, waiting to get their assignments. But it was not the waiters that Bryce was staring at. It was the maitre d’, who looked very much like Nathaniel Gorham. Someone stepped in front of him, blocking Bryce’s view. Unable to believe what he thought he had seen, he started toward the desk, but suddenly his waiter was back. “This way, sir.”
Bryce glanced once more over his shoulder, but there were too many people now, and he finally shrugged it off. They threaded their way through the elegantly dressed crowd, drawing some curious looks as they went, but Bryce saw no one he recognized. As the waiter approached a table with two empty seats, Bryce stopped in midstride. A couple was already seated. The man, in his late twenties, was laughing at something his partner was saying. Bryce had never seen him before. But the woman sitting next to him was Leslie Adams.
The man looked up and smiled in tentative greeting. Leslie started to do the same, then her jaw dropped as she saw who it was.
“Here you go, sir,” the waiter said, pulling out a chair.
Bryce swung around. “Uh…” he said in a low voice. “Don’t you have something a little closer to the front?”
“Sorry, sir. All the places are assigned.” He bowed and departed hastily.
Bryce turned around, sighed, then smiled wanly. “Hello, Leslie.”
By the time they were starting on the salad, Bryce had dreamed up and then rejected nearly a hundred reasons for excusing himself from the table. The fact that Daniel Fowler was the associate editor for the American Conservative, a well-known and prestigious national magazine; and the fact that Leslie was there as his partner; and the fact that he was not only very good looking, but a very likable guy; and the fact that when she watched him, her eyes followed his every expression—none of that added greatly to Bryce’s comfort. And he could hardly wait until Mannington started his speech. That would really relax things.
Suddenly the waiter was back. “Mr. Fowler?”
Fowler looked up. “Yes.”
“You have a telephone call. There’s a phone in the cloakroom.”
Fowler excused himself and then walked away. Leslie turned back and began toying with her salad. Bryce took a breath and plunged. “Look, Leslie, I’m really sorry about this. I had no idea you were here. And then to end up at the same table. I can’t believe it.” He thought of the maitre d’ again, and was pretty sure he had his answer now.
She smiled faintly. “It’s
all right. Daniel’s a good friend. He doesn’t mind.”
Good friend, Bryce thought, enviously. Was that what it took to get those eyes to look at you like that?
Leslie said, “I guess if I had thought about it, I should have expected you’d be here.”
Bryce gave her a rueful grin. “Well, I did think about it, and the last place I ever expected to see you was at a speech given by Elliot Mannington.”
She laughed softly. “Daniel’s magazine wanted him to cover this and gave him two tickets. When he invited me, I thought, ‘Why not?’”
“It’s always good to take the measure of the opposition, right?”
She nodded, then dropped her eyes to concentrate on her salad.
Bryce watched her for several seconds, working up his nerve. “Leslie?”
Her eyes came up, wide pools of emerald, watching him carefully.
“Look, this is going to sound crazy, but remember what I said the other day about not playing high-school games?”
“Yes.”
“Well, I don’t know what it is about you…” He stopped. Was that stupid enough? He took a quick breath, and tried another tack. “These last few days, well, we’ve hardly gotten off to the best start.”
Though her face was sober, her eyes were flecked with little sparks of amusement. “And here I was trying so hard to impress you.”
He laughed. “Yeah, me too.”
For a moment both were lost in thoughts of their previous encounters, then Bryce cleared his throat. “Look, this is really tacky. I mean, here you are with Daniel and all, and soon as he leaves I make this pitch.”
“Oh?” Her face was sober, but her eyes were teasing him. “Just what pitch are you making?”
“I’d like a chance to try again.” He held up his hands quickly. “I promise, no philosophical discussions, no politics. I’d just like a chance to get to know you better.”
She took a deep breath, not meeting his gaze, and Bryce felt his heart sink. “I…All right, I’ll be honest too. I would like that. I really enjoyed dinner the other night.” His hopes leaped, but then she pulled a face. “Up to a certain point.” Down they went again.