Hennessey leaned toward Betsy, venting his booze breath into her face. “Want some coffee?”
“Sure. That’s okay, I’ll get it—”
“Siddown!” he grunted. “Muffin?”
“Yes, sir.” Hennessey lurched from his chair, squeezing among the Schedule-C appointees who were adjusting their sleeves so that Millikan, when he graced the room with his presence, would see the proper amount of cuff showing, held together with presidential-seal cuff links. He filled Betsy’s Styrofoam cup, too full. He poured his coffee about halfway and filled the rest with cream and with spoonfuls of sugar. Then he remembered that he had to get a muffin for Betsy. “Goddamn it,” he said to no one in particular. “I never eat before noon.” He turned to the nearest cuff-link person, a Wharton School type from Treasury. “Bud, would you stick one of those things in my jacket pocket?”
“What?” spat the Ivy Leaguer, too stunned to be offended. His gaze traveled down to Hennessey’s nametag. Then, suddenly, he was delighted to be the recipient of this folksy treatment. “Be glad to give you ahand, Mr. Hennessey.”
“Very kind of you,” said Hennessey with no apparent irony. He walked back to Betsy, the corners of his jacket swinging with their loads of pastry and asthma medication.
Washington was the best place in the country to watch bureaucratic strangers trying to scope each other out without seeming to. But as Hennessey approached Betsy, everyone in the room stared at him openly,and when he reached her, everyone seemed to look at her. She felt her face get hot. Hennessey handed her her coffee, and she spilled some on her hand.
“What the hell,” he said. “We’ve got fifteen minutes, might as well be comfortable.” He grabbed another vacant chair and slapped it down in front of her like a coffee table. He arranged the coffee and muffin on it, then pulled his own chair away from the wall and turned it ninety degrees so that he and Betsy were half facing each other, their heads close together like a couple of lovers having a tête-à-tête at a sidewalk café. “So,” Hennessey said in a quiet, conversational voice, “King has nabbed your place at the High Table so that he can be nearer to greatness. You’re here anyway, probably at Spector’s insistence. Spector probably figures that King’s going to be so conspicuous, because of his incompetence and his sartorial deficiencies, that he’ll grab all the attention. Meanwhile, you can be his fly on the wall—the cool, detached observer who reports to him later. Does that sound about right? That’s okay, toots, you don’t have to answer—I know you’re scared shitless.” He slurped his cool, pale, syrupy java. “So now’s your chance to observe. What are they doing?”
“Staring at us.”
Hennessey began to whisper, “M-i-c, k-e-y, M-o-u-s-e…”
Betsy felt the corners of her mouth twitching back and pursed her lips to counteract it. Hennessey hissed, “Look serious! You’re on the inside of the inside of the inside, and there is nothing here.”
McDaniel and Millikan entered the room.
“Case in point,” Hennessey said, and scooted his chair back to its original position.
Undersecretary McDaniel sat down at the head of the table, opened his leather folder, and said, “Is everybody here?” The eyes of everybody in the room swung to the empty seat reserved for the Agency. “Is there anybody here from our brethren up the Potomac?”
“Up shit creek, is more like it,” Hennessey whispered. “What you waiting for? Go sit in the chair, sister.”
Betsy’s heart flopped wildly a couple of beats before she realized that this was an example of Hennessey’s cadaverous sense of humor. He had spent more years in the Agency than Betsy had been alive, and he knew perfectly well that if she usurped King’s spot at the big table, he’d rip her head off.
The silence became unbearable when the door blew open and in walked King. He had always prided himself on being able to find a parking place anywhere in town. This time he’d clearly had trouble. He was sweating, muttering to himself, and staggered to his seat. “Sorry to be late, had some late cable traffic,” he said.
Hennessey made a noise deep down in his throat. Betsy couldn’t keep herself from glancing over at him. He was regarding King with a look of undisguised loathing and condescension, like a veteran theater critic watching a hack understudy blow his big entrance. King looked around the room as he pulled his chair back, trying to get a fix on Betsy’s location. A moment after he picked out her face, he recognized Hennessey. His jaw literally fell open, and he sank into his chair with an afflicted look on his face.