The Last President. Michael Kurland
shouldn’t have mentioned it. I just wish you wouldn’t take your gripes against the policies of this administration out on me. I’m merely a minor bureaucrat. My job is to report facts, not to decide what’s done with them. I just work for the government.”
“The CIA,” Miriam said.
“Intelligence-gathering is not a more intrinsically evil profession than college teaching.”
“If the CIA’s only activity were intelligence gathering, I wouldn’t say a word. But both you and I know that isn’t so. You must know it far better than I.”
“Please get that pedantic tone out of your voice,” Kit said. “I’m sorry I can’t discuss the inner policy-making of the Agency with you, but I’m far too junior for anyone to ever discuss it with me. Technically I’m not even supposed to admit to you that I’m CIA.”
“Come on,” Miriam said. “When Aaron first introduced us he told me you were CIA. It must be a very open secret.”
“Professor Adams is part of what we call the old-boy network. He was in OSS with a lot of people very high up in the Agency now, including my present boss. But since he’s retired from the, ah, government service, he’s assumed the right to discuss many things that we GS types aren’t supposed to talk about—including my work.”
“What’s your point?” Miriam asked.
“My only point is that, since I’m not allowed to discuss my work, it isn’t fair for you to take potshots at it—or me.”
“Bang,” Miriam said. “A potshot’s better than a bullet any day.”
“Listen, I agree with you,” Kit said. “I think the war is a mess and it’s being handled all wrong.”
“Yes, but you also think they ought to go over there and beat the shit out of those nasty North Vietnamese,” Miriam said. “Bomb ’em back to the stone age.”
“Damn right,” Kit said as a way of ending the discussion. And it did. Miriam sulked the rest of the way over to Professor Adams’ Chevy Chase estate.
* * * *
Professor Aaron B. Adams did not maintain his three-story stone house with swimming pool and guest cottage, along with its two acres of very subdividable land, on the salary of a tenured professor in Georgetown University’s Department of Government and Political Science. Not even when that was added to his retirement pay from the various secret branches of the government he had served in. Had it not been for an obscure Adams ancestor somewhere—after the two who had been impecunious but honorable Presidents—who had gone into business in Boston importing Japanese habutae silk and had later expanded into mother-of-pearl buttons, Professor Adams could not even have afforded the guest cottage.
Of course, as Professor Adams himself liked to say, his fondness for money was such that, had he not inherited it, he probably would have occupied himself with making it. In which case the United States would have lost a brilliant intelligence officer and Aaron B. Adams would have led a much duller life.
Miriam parked behind the four other cars in the driveway, groped in the back seat for a large straw tote bag, and preceded Kit into the house. Neither residents nor guests were in evidence as they crossed through the huge living room and through the open French windows to the cabaña area next to the pool, which was one of the most imposing features of the Adams house.
Even compared to the house and grounds surrounding it, the pool was large. The previous owner of the house had been told by a mystic that his son was going to be an Olympic swimmer, so he built a full Olympic pool for him to practice in. This was in 1932 when labor was cheap and Sonny was five years old. Thirteen years later, after paying a lot of money to get his son cleared of charges of draft evasion, the father closed the house and moved back to Iowa.
For nine years, the house and the pool lay vacant. Then Adams bought it at auction and moved in, lock, stock, and unwritten memoirs. After two years of starting his memoirs, Adams decided he was too young for such nonsense and took a part-time teaching position at Georgetown. “You understand this is only temporary,” they told him. “Suits me,” he said.
In his spare time he taught a couple of courses for the newly formed CIA, at the behest of some of his old OSS buddies. He tried to give a sense of historical perspective to the business of espionage, and found himself fighting a growing trend to rely less upon men and more upon gadgets. Gradually his job at the university grew into a full-time position. Then he was offered a full professorship with tenure, and discovered that he had become an academic.
Adams was pushing himself out of the pool as they approached. A short, compact man, he looked in very good shape for his fifty-plus years. “Welcome,” he said, shielding his eyes against the sun to stare up at them. “What’s up? Have you got suits, or do you need loaners?”
Miriam held up the straw tote bag. “Still in here from the last time,” she said. “As a matter of fact, I forgot to take them out.”
“Probably mildewed,” Kit said, “and we’ll come down with some exotic form of crotch rot. But we’ll make do.”
Adams nodded thoughtfully. “Togetherness, even in vulgarity. This here modern generation shows promise, as Plato once said. Pick a cabaña and change. Gerald is inside somewhere decanting for the other guests”—he indicated an assortment of the usual academic and government types scattered about the pool area with a wave of his hand—“and if you’ll indicate a preference, I’ll have him deal you in.”
Gerald was a middle-aged war orphan whom Adams had picked up in one of his trips to occupied Europe during “the Big One,” World War II. It was believed that Gerald could not speak; it was certain that he did not. He could, however, understand in almost every language. He served Adams as a sort of majordomo and secretary.
“Coffee,” Kit said.
“If you could have him mix me a Bloody Mary,” Miriam said, “I’d appreciate it.”
“Whatever you appreciate,” Adams said, “I arrange.” He did his best to affect a lecherous leer.
“If you weren’t the head of my department, I’d tell you what you look like when you do that. And to hell with your togetherness!” And she turned around and strode toward a cabaña.
“An abrupt mood change,” Adams commented, pushing himself to his feet and heading toward the poolside intercom.
“Women,” Kit said, shaking his head sadly in an exaggerated gesture of compassion. “Unstable.”
“I understand they make the best mothers,” Adams said. “I myself have attempted to make an occasional mother, with varying degrees of success.”
“How’d you like to have a talk with me for a few minutes?” Kit asked. “After I change into my suit, so it doesn’t attract attention poolside.”
“We can wander off and look at my petunias,” Adams said. “By the way, when you encounter Miriam in the cabaña, see if you can find out what she thinks I look like when I do that,” he added, once more composing his face into a leer.
“Fair enough,” Kit said, and headed off to change and talk to Miriam.
“Groucho Marx,” he said when he returned in his navy-blue swim trunks.
“Exactly the effect I was trying for,” Adams said. “The two heroes of my youth were Groucho Marx and Bugs Bunny. I’ve given up trying to look like Bugs Bunny. Are you and Miriam having a fight?”
“Not about anything important,” Kit said. “Only about my job and politics.”
“That’s good,” Adams said. “I was afraid it was over food or sex or something important. I like you both, and I’d hate having to see you on alternate weeks. You’d never have stood a chance with Miriam in the first place if I hadn’t thought it destructive of departmental morale to make passes at assistant professors.”
“I