Venom and the River Read Free

Hubert Humphrey when I was little and on a family trip to Minneapolis. Long time ago.”
    It was a nimble and truthful verbal sleight of hand. Geneva brightened. “He was a friend of Terry’s. He’ll want to hear that. But it’ll get him started talking and you can’t let him ramble too long, especially about the sixties.” She shifted the baby to the other hip and headed down a hall. “His memories wear him out.”
    Lucky man, Leigh thought. Mine frighten me.
    *
    Terrance Bancroft swayed from side to side as he hovered over piles of papers and photographs spread across a large table in a spacious dining room. Three gooseneck floor lamps were placed around the room, each aimed at the table.
    His blue dress shirt was crisply ironed, the silk tie expertly knotted, the cuffs of his sharply pressed gray flannel trousers lightly touched soft leather loafers. But you can’t dress up ninety-year-old hands, Leigh thought as one slowly rose from the old man’s side, moved through the air over the table, then slapped down on a manila folder.
    He looked up and smiled. “I liked your revisions of the outline I made, but I think we should start with this instead of the incident at the UN. This will make a perfect first chapter. Krakow Accords.”
    “Terry, this is Leigh, but you obviously guessed that.” Geneva handed the baby to him. “I’ll get coffee ready and take it to the study. You two can get acquainted there.”
    He expertly set the boy on his hip and positioned an arm around his back. “How about some of those butterscotch scones, Geneva? We’ve got company, after all.”
    “She can have some, but you can’t. You had three for breakfast.” Geneva pushed a swinging door with her foot and slipped around it and disappeared.
    “What the hell, let me die young,” he called after her. Tucker laughed and shouted, an infant echo of the old man’s yell. As he crowed, he arched his back and nearly tumbled out of the arm. Leigh reached forward. The baby spotted her movement and curled back securely.
    “Did you read the last batch of books I sent?” Terrance Bancroft asked.
    Leigh nodded. “I brought them with me. When I unpack I’ll—”
    He swatted the air with his free hand. “Keep ’em. I won’t reread them. McNamara’s was the worst of the lot, don’t you think? I put up with all their bullshit for fifty years and it was all I could do to read it again in their memoirs. Apologies and lies, that’s all any of their books were. Not mine, Leigh. We’re writing an honest book. Like my first one was. No apologies. No lies.” He sat down heavily in a chair. Tucker immediately lunged for a roll of stamps that had uncurled on the table. The man blew softly across the boy’s head as he extracted stamps from Tucker’s fist.
    The baby stared into the old face. Terrance Bancroft looked down, his own wide blue eyes locked on the boy’s. “This is Tucker,” he said. “One of those last-name names. Quite a few of those at prep school when I was young. St. Paul’s. It’s in Connecticut.”
    New Hampshire, Leigh thought. You went to college in Connecticut.
    “St. Paul’s,” he murmured. “Then Yale. We used to take the train. Rob and Timmy and me. George and Ted would join us in Chicago. Oh, what a party those trips were.” He closed his eyes and returned to a long-ago train ride. The arm around the baby loosened. Tucker instantly sensed the sudden freedom and lunged toward a red pen. Leigh quickly stepped around the table and caught the baby as he tumbled off the lap. Tucker gave her a resigned look as she secured him in her arms.
    Geneva pushed through the door. “Coffee’s in the study. Why don’t you two go talk there.”
    The former vice president scooped up papers and folders from the table. “Good. We’ll get down to work.”
    “Could I freshen up first?” Leigh said. “I’ll be right there.” He nodded and disappeared.
    “Bathroom’s this way,” Geneva said, pushing the pantry door