Acts of Mercy Read Free

and nodded respectfully and went out of the office, past George Radebaugh, the appointments secretary, who did not look up from his desk, and into the outer corridor. The image of the President’s strained face hung heavily in his mind.

Two
     
    In the executive restroom down the hall from the Oval Office, Maxwell Harper was drying his hands on a towel when the door opened and the President’s favorite bodyguard stepped inside. He turned as the man, Justice, said, “Oh, good morning, Mr. Harper.”
    “Justice.”
    Harper watched him cross to one of the urinals, stand there in a stiff, almost military posture of attention. He wondered with dry humor if the Secret Service indoctrinated its men to urinate that way. They were a regimented lot, in any case, and while Harper felt little common ground with any of them—they were like bland sticks of furniture: necessary, functional, unobtrusive—he admitted to an admiration for their unshakable control. He was a controlled man himself; he believed that absolute control, at all times, in all circumstances, was the key to success. It had been the key to his own success, certainly: his rise from political science professor at Harvard to the Wilson chair at Northwestern to Nicholas Augustine’s foremost advisor on domestic affairs.
    When Justice had finished at the urinal he came over to the row of washbasins, one removed from where Harper stood, and began to soap his hands. Harper studied him as he replaced the towel on its rack. Nondescript; average height, average weight, brown hair and brown eyes, no distinguishing features or marks. A cipher in every respect. He knew that the President had been spending a considerable amount of time with the man lately, discussing God knew what as if they were intimate friends, and he wished he understood what it was about Justice that inspired this confidence. That fawning deference of his, perhaps; Augustine had always had a weakness for people who told him he was right, strong, a great leader.
    Harper said, “Have you talked to the President this morning, Justice?”
    Justice straightened, as if coming to attention. “Yes sir,” he said. Colorless voice, too, full of servility. “I just left the Oval Office.”
    “Did he say anything about the press conference yesterday?”
    “Well, he feels people misunderstood his remark on Israel.”
    “Of course. Which is exactly why he should not have made it.”
    “Sir?”
    “Suppose you were a Jew,” Harper said. “How would you feel about the President today?”
    “I’m not a Jew, Mr. Harper.”
    “Do you know any Jews?”
    “Yes sir.”
    “Have you talked to any of them this morning?”
    “No sir.”
    “Maybe you should, Justice. Maybe you should.”
    Harper caught up his briefcase and went to the door. As he turned the knob he glanced back at Justice, saw him standing before the basin and frowning slightly into the mirror. An odd feeling of satisfaction touched Harper; he nodded once at Justice’s reflection and then opened the door and went out.

    The President was on the telephone in the Oval Office; he waved Harper to one of the chairs before his desk. Harper took the closest of them, moving it so that it paralleled to the right corner, and listened for a moment to what Augustine was saying into the receiver. But it was nothing of significance: he was talking to Austin Briggs, the press secretary, about dinner that night, telling him to issue invitations to Attorney General and Mrs. Wexford and to congressional liaison Ed Dougherty.
    Waiting, Harper noticed that the lines in Augustine’s face were deeply etched, that the skin of his neck had a loose, wattled appearance. He recalled his own image in the restroom mirror: carefully trimmed black mustache; romanesque nose, shrewd gray eyes, clear and unlined skin. We’re the same age, he thought, but he looks sixty-five and I look forty-five. He’s an old man, he’s grown into an old man.
    Harper shifted his gaze to the