Acts of Mercy Read Free Page A

desk, felt a faint distaste at the disorganized spread of papers there. The framed photograph of the First Lady in her inaugural gown caught his attention then, and in spite of himself he let his eyes linger on it. She was one of the most beautiful and alluring women he had ever known; even in that photograph she radiated an aura of restrained sensuality that was unmistakable. Fortytwo years old now—and married to a fifty-six-year-old man who looked sixty-five and who was starting to flounder in office, perhaps seriously. Was Augustine starting to flounder elsewhere as well, in his private relations with Claire ... ?
    Harper dug his nails into his palms, pulled his head away from the photograph. Claire Augustine was the wife of the President; it was indecent, and foolish and pointless, to think of her in any sort of intimate way. Strict control; at all times, in all circumstances, strict control.
    Augustine finally said good-bye to Briggs and replaced the telephone handset. Then he reached across the desk for one of a dozen pipes in a circular rack, put it between his teeth without filling it, and immediately picked up and began fondling one of the railroad collectibles that cluttered his desk and the office. Railroadiana, Augustine called them. Harper had always considered the President’s passion for trains to be a childish and undignified hobby; but then, that same passion had apparently endeared him to the electorate during his campaign for the presidency. It was generally conceded among political experts that Augustine’s use of his privately owned train, the California Special (since redubbed the Presidential Special, of course) to conduct an anachronistic cross-country whistle-stop campaign, the first national politician to do so since Harry Truman in 1948, had won him as many grass-roots votes as his “New America” platform.
    “All right, Maxwell,” the President said at length, “I suppose you’re going to jump on me like everybody else.”
    “I have no intention of jumping on you,” Harper said. “I think you made a mistake yesterday and I think you had better take steps to rectify it, but that’s all I’m going to say. My area of expertise, after all, is domestic affairs.”
    “So it is.”
    “Did you read those briefs?”
    “Briefs?” Augustine replaced the railroad collectible and folded his hands in front of him. “You mean the Indian situation in Montana?”
    “Of course that’s what I mean.”
    “I glanced at them, yes.”
    “Glanced at them? Nicholas, this is a serious domestic issue,” Harper said, and he could not quite keep the exasperation out of his voice. “And in less than an hour you have a meeting with Governor Hendricks and Walter Sandcrane and Leo Wade from the Bureau of Indian Affairs.”
    “Sandcrane? Oh yes, the Indian spokesman. Well, don’t worry about it, Maxwell. I can handle the arbitration. There won’t be any Indian takeover of the Crow reservations in Montana.”
    “Cheyenne,” Harper said. “For God’s sake, it’s the Cheyenne who are threatening to take over their reservations.”
    “All right, yes, the Cheyenne.” Augustine leaned back, closed his eyes for a moment, opened them again. “Do you have any idea how tired I am, Maxwell? How tired I really am?”
    “We’re all tired these days,” Harper said. “But that doesn’t excuse a lack of preparation or errors in diplomacy.”
    “Meaning Israel or the Indian problem?”
    “Both, as a matter of fact.”
    “I told you, I’ll handle things.”
    Harper was silent.
    “But then I’ve got to have a rest,” Augustine said, “even if it’s only for a few days. What I think we’ll do is go out to The Hollows at the end of the week. On Sunday.”
    “Again? We were just out there ten days ago—”
    “I know that, don’t you think I know that?”
    “Nicholas, the media is already accusing you of spending a disproportionate amount of time in California. The Post editorial this