Franklin Affair (9 page)

“I won't do anything or say anything until I hear from you, R, OK? Clearly you're feeling the strain of Wally's death—and possibly other things.”

“ ‘Haste makes waste,' ” R replied.

“Also, for the record, may Wally rest in peace or not, I am going to take a close look at
Ben Two,
” Rebecca said, and she left R alone in the library, still holding the metal statuette of Ben.

SEVEN

R returned to the tent to say some quick farewells before leaving to proceed with what he had believed might be the stormlike onset of a serious breakdown—of his life as well as his mind.

The only good sign was that he was on the verge of huge bursts of laughter, not of tears. There he'd been, pondering the murder of a blackmailing plagiarist with a statue of Benjamin Franklin while reciting bits of wit and wisdom from Benjamin Franklin, until recently the least appreciated of the Founding Fathers.

Funny? Yes,
very
funny.

There in front of him stood Johnny Rutledge, the man of BFU Press and the obsession with William's mother.

“I may call you sooner than I thought,” R said to him. “Maybe in the next day or so, if that's all right?”

Johnny Rutledge said anything R wanted was terrific with him. But he gave R a look of annoyed curiosity. What are you up to? was the message.

R found Elbow Clymer in a circle of people, all of them rejoicing in the success of Wally Day.

“You were right,” said R. “Wally deserved a public sendoff. It was perfect.”

Clymer thanked R for his help and support.

“Sorry about the size of the crowd, though,” added R. “You didn't make the twenty thousand target—not by a long shot.”

Clymer, as he had done at the first meeting, motioned for R to come with him for a private word.

“Yes, I did,” Clymer whispered as they walked, smiling the same way he had this morning when R raised the subject. It was as if he had just eaten something delicious—and secret.

He guided R over to a TV set that had been set up in a corner of the tent.

“I have this cued to the proper place on the tape.”

A local television reporter was standing in front of the iron bars at the Franklin grave site. People could be seen milling about behind and around him.

Said the reporter, “A Philadelphia police spokesman estimated the total crowd for this Wally Day celebration and memorial at twenty-one thousand five hundred people.”

“That's total nonsense,” R said to Clymer.

“The official police estimate is all that matters.”

“But it's not true. There weren't more than a thousand people out there—if that many.”

Clymer put a shushing finger to his lips. “Who cares?”

“Wally would.”

“No, he wouldn't. Who knows that twenty thousand were really there for Ben's funeral?”

“That's part of the historical record.”

“Now, now, R. You of all people should know better than to rely on something like that. Can you really rule out the possibility that some Philadelphia cop in 1790 didn't want to do a favor for his hero Ben Franklin just like one today might do for his hero Wally Rush?”

Who was it who said,
History is nothing more than the accepted lie
? thought R. Whatever, the historical
television
record for Wallace Stephen Rush will reflect forever that 21,500 people turned out on April 21, 2003, to mourn his passing.

Blocking R and Clymer's way was Harry Dickinson. “I've had an idea for a new book,” he said to R. “The title:
Ben Three.
There was
Ben One
and
Ben Two
and now comes
Ben Three.
”

“Sorry, Harry, but maybe you didn't notice: The author of the first two is now a bowl of ashes.”

“
You
write
Ben Three.
”

“Great idea!” Clymer said.

R tried to shake off what he'd heard. “That wouldn't work. What would it be about?”

“What was in your
Post
op-ed—which was very good, by the way—only more. It would be about the ever-changing state of regard for Ben, but also about the knowledge and research, the growing interest, and the work Wally did. Describe in detail what happened today on the college green and just now at the burial ground: the ashes, the penny, the whole bit. See it as an update, an account of the latest news from the American Revolution and the remarkable life of the amazing Benjamin Franklin, of Philadelphia and London and Paris and the world.”

R said nothing.

Clymer said, “I can't think of a better way to launch the new center—”

Harry interrupted to press his case to R. “Only you could write this book, R. Wally's protégé—and, according to what Clymer here just told me, maybe even his successor, with, as he says, a new center. I might be able to get you a nice advance. Think about it, and we'll talk seriously in a few days. OK?”

R smiled and nodded. “I've got to run.” And he meant that literally. He really did want to race away from Harry and this tent and these people and his own life as fast as he could.

Harry wasn't finished. “You've already written a couple of books, haven't you? Ben's life at Craven Street and something about Ben and his bastard son, William. I'll give them a quick read.”

“Our own BFU Press published them,” Clymer said. “I've read them both and they're terrific.”

“Do you have a committment to BFU Press?” Harry asked.

R said he had talked to them about his early presidency project, but there was no contract. Johnny Rutledge had told R he might publish such a book, but only if R could work Ben into it as a player.

“Maybe we do a two-book deal, R. You do
Ben Three
for me; I do the presidency thing for you.”

Now Harry was done. He said goodbye to R and Clymer and headed off toward the bar for more vodka.

From across the tent, R saw Clara headed his way. In a sudden burst of words, R said to Clymer, “I accept your offer to create the Wally institute on Ben.”

R did not hug men and did not like being hugged by them, but here he was returning a warm one from Elbow Clymer. “What a day,” said Clymer. “What a day indeed!”

Clymer took something from his coat pocket and handed it to R. “Take this,” he said. It was a key. R recognized it immediately as the key to the front door of Gray House.

“It's yours—the house, the possessions, everything—to use as the first offices of the Wallace Stephen Rush Center for the Study of Benjamin Franklin.”

R took the key.

Clara arrived as Clymer, his show of happiness continuing to escalate, turned to greet another guest.

“I thought you only did women,” said Clara dryly.

So, in addition to having long beautiful legs, she was funny? Not up to Samantha's quality but clearly in the same league. Maybe . . .

“We just closed a fantastic deal—and then some,” R said, the words fluttering out of his mouth like butterflies. “We're going to build an institute dedicated to research on the life and legacy of Ben.”

“That's great,” said Clara, without enthusiasm.

“That means you can cancel that interview in Eastville tomorrow,” said R. “I want you to be part of my team.”

Her face broke out into a Clymer-like smile. The dislike and distaste she showed at Brasserie Perrier suddenly vanished. She reached out and pulled R to her. It was a warm embrace, and he returned it.

“I shoot from both sides,” he said.

They agreed to meet in the morning at Wally's house to talk more.

“Speaking of Wally,” R said, “where's the sugar bowl?”

“I stuck it on a table inside the house,” she said, “but it's empty now.”

“Empty?”

“I tossed his ashes out little by little on the walk back from the burial ground. He's out there somewhere in the Philadelphia air.”

R resisted a temptation to hug her again—and longer. But as Ben wrote in one of his almanacs:

If Passion drives,
Let Reason hold the Reins.

• • •

R was sitting on a bench in the sculpture garden at Penn's Landing, near where William Penn came ashore in 1682 to establish what he originally called his
Greene Country Towne
and later
Philadelphia.
Now the landing area was part of a narrow concrete-covered riverbank separated from the historic part of downtown by a freeway. It was home to a ferry dock, a Vietnam War memorial, maritime museums with dry-docked old warships, a condo, and a thirty-story hotel, among other things.

Without a thought, R had simply come out of Elbow Clymer's party tent and turned east toward the river.

He was breathing hard as if he had run the full six blocks. He was also sweating and feeling the urge to throw up. Or to throw himself into the Delaware. Or to go back to 30th Street Station and board a train to someplace. To where? Certainly not Washington or New York or Boston. Maybe a small town in Maine or Kansas or Idaho, where nobody could find him. He could change his name and get a job in a service station. Or as a short-order cook. Or a printer's apprentice like Ben. Are there still real printshops? Samantha couldn't flush him if she couldn't find him. Rebecca couldn't destroy him. Neither could he help destroy her. He couldn't take Clymer's job offer and hire Clara. Or write
Ben Three.

Or find out for sure if Ben had William's real mother killed.

He looked up and left to the Benjamin Franklin Bridge that connected Philadelphia and Pennsylvania to Camden and New Jersey. He thought of Ben and Billy—the great man and his illegitimate son, William, the royal governor of New Jersey who remained loyal to Britain during the Revolution. It was a decision that caused a ferocious breach with his father that never healed. R had become fascinated by this father-son tragedy that ended with Ben's decision to cut William off from love, money, and dignity. Ben had taken the boy directly from birth and raised him, nourished him, pushed him, protected him. Taken him from birth where? From the womb of what woman? R, like all previous historians of the Ben-Billy story, had to tread lightly through these kinds of questions, primarily because there was no solid verifiable information on William's birth. One theory put out by Ben's enemies held that the mother was a servant woman named Barbara who worked in the Franklin house. Another maintained it was Deborah who gave birth, but because she and Ben were not yet considered married under common law, she helped raise William as her husband's illegitimate son rather than claiming him as hers.

R felt the Gray House key in his pants pocket.

Maybe he would delay the final phase of his breakdown and, before disappearing into the waters of the Delaware or the wilds of Maine, Kansas, or Idaho as a short-order cook, do a little more work as a historian—as Wally's literary executor.

• • •

Somebody had left a few lights on, so he hollered “Hello!” several times before making his way to his final destination—Wally's library. Nobody answered. The place was empty of all living things.

Here he would begin his serious work on those twelve pieces of paper. They were in the briefcase he had picked up from his hotel room on the way over.

Here now he would honor Wally's last request.

He laid the papers out on Wally's large desk as he had with Braxton at the Eastville museum. Next to each, he put a piece of blank white copy paper that he took from a stack next to the printer attached to a computer.

What he had noticed in Eastville, almost with his first glance, as Wally must have too, was that common Revolutionary War spy techniques had been used by whoever did the writing on these sheets. Ben in Paris, and also as part of his official duties in Philadelphia, was one of several Founding Fathers who used them, both as senders and recipients.

In this case, there appeared to be a variety of simple numbers-for-words cypher systems involved, plus an early form of invisible ink, known as a
stain.
Some of it had worn off, so the end result was writing of various forms between the lines and in the margins all around the paper. There was a jumble of seemingly disconnected and often incoherent words, numbers, and symbols.

R began the first important step: bringing forward everything possible to full readable form. He knew the most common of the invisible inks used back then was made by mixing cobalt chloride, glycerine, and water. To make the writing visible required only a heating of the paper.