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SEVENTEEN

Howard Kreiner and Louis Grosberg walked across the Senate dining room and took seats next to a window. Two days of showery weather had passed, and hazy autumn sunshine lit the capital grounds.

On the table, the flowers of the day were something blue. Neither man paid attention to them. Grosberg, as president pro tern of the Senate, and Kreiner, as minority leader, both had their attention very much on something else.

A waiter had started toward them with coffee pot and menus before they'd even sat down. "The usual, Marty," Grosberg said, as the waiter poured. Kreiner matched Grosberg's order, and the waiter left with the menus still under an arm.

Grosberg shook his head. "Werling's the biggest problem on my side of the aisle. And he has more favors owed him than almost anyone in the Senate." He flashed a grin. "Except for you and me. His pitch is that Haugen's using his powers a lot more broadly than intended."

Kreiner grunted. "What makes that sonofabitch the authority on what was intended?"

Grosberg nodded agreeably. "But that's how he's pitching it. Surely you're getting some of that too?"

"Not much. Probably because I was on the committee that brought the bill out in the first place. And of course, we're not in the same situation on my side that you folks are. We're not in the position of seeing a term as majority party being diluted by a president who can decree his own laws."

He sipped his scalding coffee carefully. "If it comes down to it and the bill gets out of committee, how do you read the votes on your side?"

"Not serious yet," Grosberg replied. "As of yesterday, only maybe twenty-two to forty for repeal. But tomorrow—Who knows? There's an awful lot of pressure on them, from just about every business lobby in the capital. The kind of thing that can convince people, some of them, that black is white—or at least light gray."

Kreiner grunted. "I read it about ten to twenty-eight on mine. What I'm hearing mostly is that the emergency is actually over because there hasn't been any shooting for a few weeks."

He grinned then, and took a stout envelope from the attaché case he'd brought in with him. "Seen this morning's Times yet?" He pulled a photocopied article from the envelope. "It's probably in just about every other paper, too."

"What is it?"

Kreiner handed it to him. "Food for thought, Louie, food for thought. A survey by Morrisey and Spencer on what people think of Haugen's performance so far. Marquez saw it this morning and had copies made; brought 'em to me."

Grosberg adjusted his glasses and read. It was from a "stratified systematic sample" numbering 2,874 respondents in seventeen states, questioned at food lines, bus stops, and by telephone. And made since the speech on labor and management. There'd been two questions. The first was, "Would you say the president is doing a good job or a poor job?" The answers were: good, 73%; poor, 12%; neither or undecided, 10%; refused to answer, 5%. Six to one liked Haugen, Grosberg said to himself. It was very rare for a president to get that kind of public approval. And only 15% were undecided or wouldn't answer. Allowing for some people's automatic refusal to answer questions, that was pretty unusual too.

The second question was, "Do you consider that the future looks hopeful or not hopeful?" The answers were: hopeful, 64%; not hopeful, 13%; undecided, 18%; refused to answer, 5%.

The standard error of the estimate was supposed to be 7% for both questions. Grosberg snorted. You couldn't calculate a standard error for that kind of sample; not unless probability theory had changed since he'd gone to college. For this survey, you couldn't even define the population you'd sampled, for chrissake. But they were probably decent estimates. He scanned on.

Those who felt that Haugen was doing a good job fell almost entirely in the hopeful and undecided categories, the surveyors said. Those who felt he was doing a poor job fell almost entirely into the "not hopeful" group. And almost all who were undecided about Haugen were undecided or "not hopeful" about how the future looked.

He looked up at Kreiner. "Interesting. You know what this looks like to me?"

Kreiner nodded. "Most people like Haugen, and most of them are hopeful or not hopeful according to whether they like him or not."

"And," Grosberg added, "it's a little like Franklin Roosevelt said in 1932 or three: 'All we have to fear is fear itself.' That's not true of course, but with hope, the country's got a chance. Otherwise..." He made a thumbs down sign across the table, then held up the Xeroxed sheet. "I'll get copies made of this. Most of my people will see it today anyway, but I'll give them copies, just to make a point."

"Yeah," said Kreiner. "Maybe it'll cool things for a while."

***

Raphael Dietrich came abruptly awake in the dark room and spotted the vague grayness of the door opening.

"Rafe!" It was a whisper.

"Come in and shut the door," he murmured.

Mary Vizzini stepped in and pulled the door closed behind her. He could hear the bolt click shut, saw her dim form cross the bedroom toward him. "Mark called, collect," she murmured. "From Dover." She lifted the quilt and crawled under it. "He won't be back till two or three o'clock—maybe even till tomorrow afternoon. The computer there was really fucked up and he's still working on it. Making overtime."

"Good." He pulled her to him and bit her ear. His hands found only a long shirt covering her, and stroked the curve of her back.

"Rafe?"

"Yeah?"

"How long is it going to be before your contact gets the hot stuff?"

"Baby, the only hot stuff I'm interested in now is you."

"Um... But Rafe, it's really on my mind. Getting the stuff."

"Hell, baby! I told you guys at supper yesterday: I don't know. He doesn't know. All he knows is that his source has put it off for now. Without telling him why." Rafe's hand caressed the back of her legs. "He says not to worry; he'll get it. That kind of thing is tricky, for chrissake."

"I was thinking," she said. "Maybe we could blow it off in D.C. Take out the White House."

The thought alarmed him. "No way, baby. For two reasons. First we don't want the army running the country. Plus our source is giving this to us for one reason: to blow a nuke plant. He don't want the army running the country either, and I don't want the goddamn mafia or something looking for me for crossing him up."

"And you really don't have any idea who the source is?"

"My contact does. But me? I don't give a shit. Why should I?"

"I'll bet it's an Arab."

He chuckled, his hand beneath her shirttail now. "You'd like to be in bed with an Arab I'll bet," he said. "A rich one."

"Uh-uh. Not an Arab, rich or otherwise. I like being in bed with you."

"How about Mark?"

"Mark's okay. Is it a Russian?"

"It's an American. With a big dick."

She giggled, then sobered. "Rafe?"

"Yeah?" His fingers fumbled with shirt buttons.

"When you leave here, can I go with you? I like you a lot better than Mark."

"Don't tell him that, for chrissake! It could screw the whole project."

"I wouldn't tell him. I'm not that dumb." She paused and, half sitting up, shrugged out of the shirt. "I don't suppose your contact would tell you anyway."

"He told me, all right. We've done stuff before, different times; he knows me. We got stoned together and he told me."

"Is it really an American?"

"Yeah. Unless he was shitting me, it's really an American. But I don't know if his dick is big or not. He's too old for it to make any difference anyway."

She giggled. "Old? I'll bet it's the president then."

He almost laughed out loud. "Then you'd lose your bet. Now cut the goddamn questions. I've had enough of them."

"Just one more, Rafe. You didn't answer me. When you leave here, can I go with you?"

"If you promise to quit the goddamn questions, yeah. You can go with me."

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Framed