Acts of Mercy by Bill Pronzini, Barry N. Malzberg Read Free Book Online

economic council chairman—and then of the grave status of the French franc (during which he had had a fleeting feeling of sympathy for Nixon, who’d at least had the courage to admit that he did not give a damn about the Italian lira). At twelve-thirty, just as he was preparing to go to lunch—alone, because Claire was with Elizabeth Miller at a UJA luncheon downtown—Justice had returned from his errand to the press secretary’s office to tell him about Briggs and Wexford and Kineen. That had spoiled his appetite and he hadn’t bothered to eat at all.
    But he had not had time to dwell on the news. At onefifteen there had been a brief meeting with a ceremonial delegation from the National Council of Ministers, who were in town for their annual convention; the bishop said he would pray for the presidency. At one forty-five there had been a conference with Senate Majority Leader Gordon Parkson on S-1, a dangerous bill authored several years before by Nixon (no sympathy this time) and John Mitchell which would severely repress civil liberties and which was now out of committee after nearly two years and would be put on the Senate floor for debate. Parkson had had no constructive ideas on how to get it back into committee or to otherwise block it.
    At two-thirty Vice-President Jim Conroy had telephoned from Phoenix. Conroy had been making a week-long swing through several Western states, doing a little preconvention stumping, but had been having a fairly rough time of it: in Montana he had had to be hurriedly taken away from his hotel to escape an unruly crowd gathered to demonstrate in favor of a Cheyenne Indian takeover of their reservations; and in Wyoming he had suffered a mild case of food poisoning at a banquet which he was convinced had not been accidental. He said there was radical unrest in Arizona, too, and wanted to know if he could cut the trip short and come straight back to Washington. Augustine told him no, repressing the urge to tell him flat out that he was not only a whiner but a coward.
    No sooner had he broken the connection than Oberdorfer had telephoned from Tel Aviv to discuss the “Israeli crisis.” Which turned out to mean that Prime Minister Stein was angry and demanding an immediate public retraction, and unless he got it was intimating that the Augustine administration would face the loss of financial and political support from the American Jewish community. Oberdorfer said ominously that careful consideration must be given to Stein’s demand “or I will not be held responsible for the consequences”; Augustine said he would be in touch shortly on the matter and then hung up on him, the bastard.
    Now it was after three, and he had a half-hour open before another meeting with Hendricks and Wade and Sandcrane on the damned Indian problem, and what he planned to do was to lie down on the Oval Office couch, just lie down and rest for thirty minutes. So, naturally, George Radebaugh buzzed him from the outer office and said that the attorney general wanted to see him on a matter of considerable urgency.
    Christ, Augustine thought, now what? He picked up one of his pipes, tapped the bit wearily against his teeth. “All right,” he said, “send him in.”
    Wexford entered immediately, and the first thing Augustine noticed about him was that he looked nervous and haggard. There was a thin coating of perspiration on his florid face that gave it a polished sheen, like a block of old carved wood. As he approached, his eyes drifted from side to side, never quite meeting Augustine’s.
    “Thank you for seeing me, Nicholas,” he said, and sat stiffly in one of the facing chairs.
    “What’s the problem?”
    Wexford seemed reluctant to speak. He took a handkerchief from his breast pocket and patted at his damp cheeks; he cleared his throat, seemed to find something to stare at on the terrace beyond the French doors. Intuition touched Augustine, tightened his mouth and narrowed his eyes; he was