Franklin Affair (12 page)

Me?

• • •

He went back out to the hallway, grabbed his small black canvas Tumi roller bag, and finally went upstairs. Now he would wash and change.

But before he could do more than take off his coat, shirt, and tie and switch on the shower, he remembered the telephone. He had not checked it for messages.

Gwinnett's secretary wanted to know if 5
P.M.
Tuesday—today—would work for the conference call.

Samantha was “just checking in.” No need to call back. “Hancock is still dead and I may be too, soon. The book's not working. Sorry about missing Wally's big goodbye.” Her voice was subdued, sad—almost sweet.

There were two calls from friends who wanted to make lunch or dinner plans. Jack Hart of the
Post
thanked him for the Ben piece.
Your $300 check is in the mail.
R's brother Rich, a neat kid who worked as a fund manager on Wall Street, said he had to come to Washington late next month. What about a meal?

And there were the usual calls from people who offered opportunities to improve his security and fire protection in Georgetown or wanted to put him on a regular bottled water route.

The last call on the machine was from Harry Dickinson.

R, this is Harry, Harry Dickinson. I just got to Washington. I came solely to see you. I'm at the Four Seasons, just down the street from you. It's urgent that we talk. Call me now. I'm in room 809. You must be back home. Wally's girl—you know, Clara, the one with the legs and the ashes—said you left this morning. Call me, R. Urgent stuff, I promise.

NINE

The Garden bar on the lobby level of the Four Seasons Hotel was an arrangement of plants, tables, discreet lighting, and a piano player that R and Samantha often used as a meeting place when they first met. That was because real privacy was available, along with drinks and a variety of light things to eat.

R told the young woman hostess at the podium that he was meeting a man named Dickinson. When she hesitated, he quickly added, “He resembles a bush”—and she took him immediately to Harry, at a table against the east wall next to a plate-glass window that overlooked Rock Creek Parkway. No one was close enough to overhear anything they said.

Just over an hour had passed since R heard Harry's message on the answering machine. As he sat down across from the editor, the man at the piano began playing a song R liked, Henry Mancini's “Moon River” from the movie
Breakfast at Tiffany's.
R viewed the music as a good omen.

It wasn't.

“I went directly from that party yesterday afternoon to the BFU bookstore, where I bought copies of your two books,” said Harry, launching right into his urgent mission. His dark hazel eyes were beaming in a way R had never seen before.

He had barely said hello and seemed annoyed by the delay of a waiter taking R's order. Harry had a martini—straight up with three olives—sitting in front of him. Half of it was already gone. R asked for a glass of chardonnay and an order of pita bread and hummus.

“I began reading
Franklin at Craven Street
in the taxi on the way to the train station, and I continued with it and then on with
Ben and Billy
until I arrived back in New York. I finished it last night at my apartment. Why did nobody tell me about these books? You're a terrific writer, R, an artist of word and phrase, sentence and paragraph. Your words literally flow. And they do so uniquely—in a way that is identifiable as yours and yours alone.”

R had always felt comfortable about his ability as a writer. But nobody, let alone somebody with the extraordinary credentials and experience of Harry Dickinson, had ever said anything like this to him—at least, not directly.

The waiter, a young Latino man in a short white coat and black pants, delivered R's wine and snack. But before R could touch either, Harry continued talking.

“I am a student and practitioner of the different ways writers use language. It's called style, of course, and I am what's called a style man—a Henry Higgins of writing style, you might say. I told someone once that I could tell the difference between sentences by Updike and Roth or McCullough and Morris at fifty yards. That's not bragging, that's just good reporting. Read me a sentence or two of just about any prominent work, past or present, fiction or nonfiction, and there's a damned good chance I can identify the writer.”

R needed a very large gulp of his chardonnay, but his hand would not move toward the glass.

“So as I finished the last words of
Ben and Billy
I was most impressed. Then something began to gnaw at me. I said to myself, Harry, where have you read this style before? I then recalled a brief conversation I had with Bill Paine the day Wally died. Bill said Wally had granted every cent of the royalties from
Ben Two
to you, R. I had made the original arrangement with our royalty department, of course, for the fifty-fifty split. But now you, R, would get it all. That's a sizable flow of money; most likely it will last forever. That book, in hardback or paper, will never be out of print in your lifetime, either in English or in most other major languages. I thought it interesting at the time that he would give you half for
Ben Two
but nothing for
Ben One,
because I knew you were his researcher and helpmate on that first volume as well. Nothing from the first, half from the second—and then
all
from the second? I wondered.”

R's interest in drinking and eating now gone, he looked over toward the parkway. It was dusk, rush hour, meaning all four lanes were open only one way—north out of the city, just as they all went south in the morning. Most of the cars had their headlights on, but he could recognize some of the car makes and models. Here came a Mercedes 230, a Honda, a BMW 122i, a Ford Taurus. When he was fourteen, he could recognize the make and model of any car, and he was still pretty good at it. Not as good as Harry Dickinson was at picking out writing styles, maybe, but pretty good.

“Then, very late last night, it all began to reveal itself to me. To refresh myself a bit, I took down
Ben Two
from my bookshelf. I have a copy of every book I've edited in my library at home. There are four hundred and seventy-four: all of them for Green Tree, all of them quality. Two-thirds nonfiction, one third fiction; that's the ratio I like to maintain. Eleven Pulitzers, eight National Book Awards. Not a bad record, if I do say so myself.”

Harry paused, for one purpose only: for R to give some signal that Harry was not the only one who would say such a thing about his record.

R nodded and blinked. He had yet to say a word.

And Harry went on.

“Well, there was no question about it. The person who wrote
Ben Two
was the same one who wrote those two books of yours. Since it seemed most unlikely that Wally would go around writing books for you, that left only one possibility—one certainty, really. You, R Taylor, not Wally Rush, are the author of
Ben Two.
”

R put the glass of wine between his two hands and stared at it.

“I know it's true, R,” said Harry. “It
is
a certainty. I am never wrong about things like this.”

R said nothing.

“You remember how impressed I was with those first pages from
Ben Two
? I should have picked up on it then. You
do
remember, don't you, R? I talked about how terrific the writing was, how stunned I was that Wally could produce such terrific stuff.”

R continued staring at his full wineglass. The hummus remained undisturbed; the pita slices were getting cold and stiff.

“I pretty much thought from the beginning, when I read those first few pages, that Wally probably had not written it,” said Dickinson. “I gave a few moments to wondering who—maybe even you—was the real writer, but I couldn't allow myself to linger long on that, of course.”

That got R's attention.
Of course? Why didn't you say something—do something—if you guessed Wally hadn't written the book?
That's what R was thinking. But he continued to hold his tongue—about everything.

“For the record, R,” said Harry, “let's begin with your confirming you wrote
Ben Two.
”

R didn't even raise his eyes.

“I know it's true, but say it. Say, ‘Yes, Harry, I wrote
Ben Two.
' I have a strong feeling it will be good for you. Say it, R. For your own sake.”

R said nothing.

Harry was not a man who handled silences well. He waited only a few more seconds before going on. “I have a proposal. Definitely not a modest proposal. As a matter of fact, it is anything but modest. You want to hear it?”

R didn't want to listen to another word from Harry Dickinson. Not even a word of goodbye. He wanted to leave the Garden of the Four Seasons and return to his wonderful little house, to his wonderful little research on the early presidencies . . . and, yes, even to the awfulness of dealing with the Rebecca Lee problem and, even more, giving serious thought about what to do further about validating—dealing with—the papers in the cloak and the allegations not only of murder but even of statutory rape against Ben!

But his body would not move. He wanted to scoot out of his chair, stand, and walk away from this table, out of this bar and away from Harry.

R really did want to leave. He knew he
had
to.

Harry ended the silence again.

“You and I—maybe just you, depending on how you feel about it—have a news conference. Not here but in New York. You say, and I confirm from my own professional observations and judgments, that you are the real author of
Ben Two.
You tell the story—whatever the story is—of how you came to write that book for your late great friend and Franklin historian, Wallace Stephen Rush. I assume you did it out of sympathy and, in a way, as a form of tribute to this distinguished man of history and scholarship. You say that you plan to tell the full story in a book that will include other aspects to the ongoing rediscovery of growing appreciation for the mind and contributions of Benjamin Franklin. You say the title, in keeping with the tradition and in honor of Wally Rush, will be
Ben Three.
”

Strength and movement were returning to R's legs.

“I know I can get you a healthy advance. But, more important, imagine your extrarordinary gifts as a writer, brought to bear in telling this most extraordinary story of an accolyte's extreme loyalty to a diminished mentor resulting in the creation, by you, of a best-selling Pulitzer Prize–winning historical masterpiece. There would most likely be a move to take the
Ben Two
Pulitzer away from Wally posthumously and award it to you. Knowing you, I would guess that you would probably decline, insisting that it always remain Wally's. But it doesn't really matter which way that goes. Think about
Ben Three.
My heart, my whole being—as well as my parent multimedia company's bank account—leaps at the thought of its potential. There would be sales and prizes far beyond anything even
Ben Two
did. But besides that, R, you deserve the credit. Professionally,
Ben Two
belongs on
your
résumé, on
your
list of triumphs and accomplishments. It's simply not fair that Wally, bless his dear departed soul, be forever credited for a book he didn't write. It's not only immoral, it's unethical and maybe—who knows?—illegal. It's the ultimate form of plagiarism. Yes, that's correct. Of course, you wouldn't tell the story that way or come anywhere close to making that kind of allegation. For you, it was not plagiarism, it was creationism for a friend, a hero—”

R was on his feet and gone in the kind of quick, shifting, loping movement he hadn't used since he evaded the pass rush when playing quarterback for the Griswold High Tigers many years ago.

Harry threw some cash on the table and gave chase, yelling at R to stop, to at least talk to him.

But after a couple of blocks, Harry the Bush gave up. “I'll be in touch,” he hollered at R, who did not look back.

• • •

He got a whiff of her perfume the second he stepped back inside the house. Then he heard her crying. He followed the fragrance and the sound into the kitchen.

Samantha was sitting on a stool at the small table next to the stove. Her head was down on her arms, on the table.

“Samantha, what's wrong?” R said, going to her. “What happened?”

She raised her head. Her beautiful face was wet with tears, twisted in agony and pain. Her nose was red from God knows how long this had been going on.

“I can't write, R,” she sobbed, standing and reaching toward him. “I'm no writer!”

He took her in his arms and held her tight. Her small, soft body heaved back and forth against his. He was a foot taller, so her flowing brown hair was in his face—which he loved, because, as always, it was clean and smelled of shampoo. He stroked the back of her head with his right hand.

He knew this woman. He loved this woman.
Hello, Samantha!

Soon, they were sitting on the couch in the study curled up together.

“I just can't make the words come out the way I want them to. I know what I want to say, but I can't put the words together to say it. They're too dense, too hard to understand, too academic, too stupid. When I couldn't compose in longhand
or
on the laptop, I talked into my tape recorder. You suggested that, and I thought I should try it; goodness knows, I'm verbal! But not complete-sentence complete-idea verbal. I talked and talked into that machine, and then played it back and it sounded like—well, lifeless gibberish. Incomprehensible, lifeless gibberish. A doctor writing a prescription for a hemorrhoid salve puts more life into his words. So does a waitress taking an order for a bacon cheeseburger, hold the onions. I just can't do it. And I know now that I never will be able to, either. Not the way I want, at least. I don't want to be just somebody who can write. I can't stand to be an ordinary writer. I want to write superbly. I want to write like you and Wally. I want people to say I write like a dream. I want people to laugh when I write a funny story, cry when it's a sad one. I want, I want . . . and I can't, I can't.”