The Sphinx Read Free Page A

and she probably remembered that he
had seen her paralytically drunk at a campaign party, slobbering kisses over
acutely embarrassed party chiefs.
    “Henry, I have
to leave now,” said Gene. “Pressures of state–you know how it is. But truly,
Henry, all my best wishes for the future. I hope you’re both going to be very
happy.”
    Henry shook his
hand again, smiled unconvincingly, and then turned warmly back to his swooning
audience of Washington ladies. Henry liked talking to women, Gene considered,
as he elbowed his way out of the party toward the door. They didn’t answer
back, and they didn’t ask awkward questions like what the hell are we going to
do about multiple-warhead missiles on Turkish soil, and are we going to let the
Communists continue to infiltrate black Africa unchecked? All women wanted to
know was what he wore in bed, or preferably what he didn’t.
    Gene collected
his raincoat and walked across the polished marble hallway of the Schirra’s
grandiose house toward the open front doors. It had stopped raining, but the
streets and the sidewalks were still wet, and there was a warm breeze blowing
that promised more showers before the night was out. Lorie and her chauffeur
were standing on the steps, and as Gene came nearer, it seemed that she was
leaning close to the chauffeur’s ear and whispering something.
    Gene hesitated
for a moment, but then Lorie turned and saw him and smiled. Without a word, the
chauffeur left her side and went down the steps to collect his car, a glossy
black Fleetwood limousine with a coaching lamp on the roof. He climbed into it,
and waited at the curb with the motor idling–not once looking their way, but as
watchful and protective as a fierce dog.
    Lorie tied a
long red velvet cape around her shoulders and brushed back her hair with her
hand.
    “I think my
chauffeur’s nervous,” she grinned. “Mother told him to keep an eye on me, and
he doesn’t like to let me out of his sight.”
    Gene took
Lorie’s hand. “Is he always as cagey as that?” he asked her. “I get the feeling
that if I nibbled your ear, he’d be out of that car and beating me into a pulp
before I could say ‘goodbye, Capitol Hill.’ “
    Lorie laughed.
“He’s very good at his job. Mother says he’s the most conscientious servant
she’s had for years. He’s an expert in kravmaga.”
    “Kravmaga? What
the hell’s that?”
    “It’s a kind of
self-defense thing, like kung-fu. I think the Israelis invented it. You totally
dedicate yourself to the destruction of your opponent by whatever means
possible.”
    Gene raised his
eyebrows. “It sounds like a slightly less hypocritical version of politics.”
    They stood on
the rainy sidewalk waiting for Gene’s car to come around from the car park. A
footman in yellow livery shuffled around beside them, surreptitiously smoking a
cigarette. A few hundred yards away, across the grass, the illuminated spire of
the Washington Monument rose like a spectral tombstone in the damp evening air.
A siren warbled somewhere over on, M Street.
    “You mustn’t
blame Mathieu for doing his job,” Lorie said.
    “Mathieu?
That’s your chauffeur?”
    “He’s mute, you
know. He can’t speak a word. He Worked for the French secret service in
Algeria, and the rebels rugged out all his fingernails and cut out his tongue.”
    “You’re
kidding.”
    “No, it’s
true.”
    Gene turned his
head and looked for a long and thoughtful moment at the Hack Cadillac, still
idling quietly by the curb nearby. In the driving mirror he could see Mathieu’s
eyes, hard and watchful, as if they were floating by themselves in the air.
    “A thing like
that–it must make a guy kind of edgy.”
    Lorie nodded.
“I suppose so. Is this your car?”
    Gene’s white
New Yorker was pulled up to the curb, and the footman opened the doors for
them. Gene pressed a dollar into the discreetly placed palms of both footman
and carhop and then settled himself down behind the steering