Atropos Read Free Page A

was, would look down and forgive him. The alternative was too horrible to contemplate.
    “Senator?”
    “Yes, Ainley. That’s exactly what happened. To the letter.”
    “It’s a talent I have. I can put myself in another person’s place. Let me get myself presentable, and we’ll go to the fire department and talk to the press. Are you ready?”
    “I will be,” Hank promised.
    “Don’t get too calm. You’ve had a terrible experience.”
    I certainly have, Hank thought.
    “And don’t get too rattled, either. This is going to be sticky. Most of the press loves you, but they’ll latch on to this like a terrier and shake. Be contrite. Mourn her as a worker and a friend. Get indignant over suggestions of anything improper.”
    “Of course, Ainley.” Hank was feeling better already. He could do this. Once someone gave him a program, he could stick to it and look good in the process. He was almost eager to get on with it.
    While he was changing, Ainley called from the bedroom. “Oh. And, Senator, you have a talent I admire.”
    Hank was surprised; it was so rare for Ainley to admit admiring anything. “What’s that?”
    “Timing. On any other day, this would be the news story of the decade. Now it will get just a corner of the front page.”
    “Why?” Hank knew it was silly, but he was almost disappointed.
    Ainley reappeared, knotting his tie. He smiled sardonically. “I take it back,” he said. “It’s not your timing I admire, it’s your luck. I’ve got this from Washington, absolutely solid. Nixon’s resigning the Presidency at noon tomorrow. Come on, let’s go.”
    Ainley was reaching for the doorknob when Hank grabbed his hand. “Ainley, is this going to work?”
    “Why not?” Ainley said. “It’s worked before.”
    Ainley, as usual, had been right. It was sticky. It was a lot worse than sticky. At times, it was agonizing. There was an autopsy (inconclusive—too little soft tissue remained unburned). There was interrogation by fire marshals and policemen. They’d learned the fire had been started by the space heater.
    Senator, why would someone be using a space heater on a warm August night?
    For one suicidal moment, when a fire marshal first asked him that question, Hank had been tempted to make up an answer. Then he’d realized that this was a matter about which an innocent man would be completely ignorant. He proclaimed his ignorance, indignantly.
    But Ainley was also right about his other assertion—the story worked. Eighty percent of the ranking police and fire officials in the state owed something to the Van Horns, as did ninety-five percent of the judges, and a goodly number of the journalists. Most of the rest could see the futility of mixing it up with that kind of power over one little Italian-American social climber. The few remaining were easy to paste a label on—vindictive bastards who were out to smear, not only a Good Man and a dedicated public servant, but worse, an innocent young girl who could no longer defend herself.
    A lot of that labeling was done by Mr. and Mrs. Aogostino Girolamo, recently retired from the gray, industrial town of Irondale, downstate from the capital, to a lovely condominium in Boca Raton, Florida, courtesy of a sympathetic Van Horn family. In the expressed opinion of Mrs. Girolamo, Senator Henry Van Horn was “a saint,” and their Giuseppina had been blessed to know him.
    So while there were some sneers, especially out of state, when the inquest ruled Death by Misadventure in the case of Josephine Ann Girolamo, there was a minimum of harm done. Some said it might have cost the Senator any future chance at the White House, but the Van Horns, unlike some political dynasties, knew the White House was not an essential base of operations for steering the country in the direction you wanted it to go.
    After all, Hank was reelected, and continued to be reelected, growing in seniority and power.
    Mr. Nixon was long, long gone.

Chapter Two
The