Goods as Gold

Nothing Succeeds as Planned

Everything in Ralph Newsome's office in Washington had a bright shine but the seat of his pants. Bruce Gold had been greeted at the elevators by a young girl with a pretty face who turned him over to a stunning woman near 30 with straight black hair and a sheer, very expensive dress that clung bewitchingly to her incredibly supple figure, who conducted him at length to Ralph's secretary, a sunny, flirtatious woman of arresting sensual warmth who won his heart instantly with her seductive cordiality and caressing handshake. Everything in view gleamed with a polished intensity that made electric lighting, on these premises, seem superfluous.

Ralph had aged hardly at all. He was tall and straight, with languid movements, freckles and reddish-brown hair parted on the side. What Gold remembered most clearly about Ralph was that he never needed a haircut or ever looked as though he'd had one. He wore a tapered, monogrammed shirt and his trousers looked freshly pressed. He was still, somehow, the only graduate of Princeton University Gold—or anyone Gold knew—had ever met.

"I hope you had fun last night," Ralph opened innocently. "This town is just bursting with good-looking women who will do almost anything for a good time."

Gold curtly answered, "I was tired when I got in. I wanted a rest."

This was a lie. Rather, he had spent the evening roaming dismally from one public room of his hotel to another, hoping in vain that someone might recognize him and take him somewhere else to girls as lovely as any one of the three who'd just welcomed him.

"Gosh, Bruce, I'm happy to see you again," Ralph said. "It's just like old times again, isn't it?" Gold was silent. It was not at all like old times. "The President will be pleased I'm seeing you today, if he ever finds out. You sure do boggle his mind. He has a framed copy of your review of his My Year in the White House under the glass top of his desk in the Oval Office so he can reread it all day long during vital conversations on agriculture, housing, money, starvation, health, education and welfare, and other matters in which he has no interest." Ralph was in earnest. "I'm told he already has a blowup of your proverb 'Nothing succeeds as planned' on a wall of his breakfast room right beside a quotation from Pliny. It's a daily reminder not to attempt to do too much."

Gold was guarded in his reply. "I'm glad," he said, and hesitated. "There's still much about his book I don't understand."

"That's one of the things he likes best about your review. He was afraid you might see through him."

"See through him?" Gold shifted his feet uneasily.

"Well, we all knew he really didn't have much to write about his one year in the White House, especially since he was so busy writing about it. He probably wants you working here as soon as you can make the necessary arrangements, although he probably doesn't want you making any yet. That much is definite."

"Working as what?" asked Gold.

"As anything you want, Bruce. You can have your choice of anything that's open that we're willing to let you have. At the moment, there's nothing."

"Ralph, you aren't telling me anything. Realistically, how far can I go?"

"To the top," answered Ralph. "You might even start there. Sometimes we have openings at the top and none at the bottom. I think we can bypass spokesman and senior official and start you higher, unless we can't. You're much too famous to be used anonymously, although not many people know who you are. Got anything else in the works?"

"I'm doing a book for Pomoroy and Lieberman and there's a short piece on education I have in mind."

"How I envy you," Ralph murmured. Gold eyed him with hostility. "What's the book about?"

The question gripped Gold by the throat. "About people in America, Ralph, about Jewish people."

"I gather you're in favor. I would rush that one out while there's still time."

"Still time for what?"

"Still time to risk it. The article on education should help. We'll be organizing another Presidential commission on education soon and you'll be appointed." Ralph buzzed his intercom. "Dusty, darling, bring in our file on Dr. Gold, will you?"

"Sure thing, honey." The beautiful woman gave Ralph a folder containing a pad on which was written absolutely nothing. "Here you are, sweetheart."

"Thanks, love."

"She's gorgeous," said Gold, when she left. "And Dusty is an exciting nickname."

"That's her real name. Her nickname is Sweets."

"You didn't call her Sweets."

"In a Government office?" Ralph childed benevolently. "Now, let's see where we are." Ralph addressed himself to the blank pad and wrote "Spokesman, Source," and "Senior Official." "We considered beginning you as a press aide, but one of the first things the boys from the press would want to know would be where does someone like you come off being a press aide? Would you like to work as a secretary?"

"It's a far cry from what I had in mind," said Gold stiffly. "I can't type."

"Oh, not that kind of secretary," Ralph laughed. "I mean"—he groped—"what do you call it? The cabinet. You wouldn't have to type or take shorthand. You'd have girls like Dusty and Rusty and Misty to do that for you. Would you like to be in the Cabinet?"

Gold was more than mollified. "Ralph, is that really possible?"

"I don't see why not," was Ralph's reply. "Although you might have to start as an under."

"An under?"

"An under is a little bit over a deputy and assistant, I think, but not yet an associate. Unless it's the other way around. Nobody seems sure anymore."

"Could I really begin as an undersecretary?"

"In Washington, Bruce, you rise quickly and can't fall very far. How would you like to be Secretary of Labor?"

Gold, on firmer ground now, hesitated deliberately before evincing repugnance. "I think not."

"I can't say I blame you. How about Secretary of the Interior?"

"That sounds rather dark."

"I believe they work with coal mines. Transportation?"

Gold made a face. "That smacks of labor."

"Commerce?"

"It sounds a little bit like peddling."

"You're showing excellent judgment. What about Ambassador to the UN?"

"Don't make me laugh."

"What do you think about Secretary of the Treasury?"

Gold pricked up his ears. "What do you think?"

"It has more tone."

"What would I have to do?"

"I think I could find out. Harris Rosenblatt would know. Most of them are very rich and seem to care about money."

"I care about money."

"But they know about it."

Gold declined with regret. "I'm not sure I'd be comfortable. I'm supposed to be something of a pacifist and a radical reformer."

"But a conservative radical reformer, Bruce," Ralph reminded.

"That's true."

"Imagine what a blessing it might be to have you in the Department of Defense."

Gold had an inspiration. "How about Secretary of Defense?"

"That's good, Bruce. Especially for a pacifist."

"But I'm only a pacifist in times of peace."

"We'll put it down." Ralph added to his list. "And then there's head of the FBI or the CIA to consider."

"Would I have to carry a gun?"

Ralph didn't believe so and wrote those down, too. "These are all good, Bruce. Someone with your flair for publicity could probably get your name in the newspapers almost as often as the Secretary of State."

"What about Secretary of State?" asked Gold.

"That's a thought," said Ralph.

"Wouldn't I have to know anything?"

"Absolutely not," Ralph answered, and appeared astounded that Gold even should ask. "In Government, Bruce, experience doesn't count and knowledge isn't important. If there's one lesson of value to be learned from the past, Bruce, it's to grab what you want when the chance comes to get it."

Gold asked with distress, "Is that good for the world?"

"Nothing's good for the world, Bruce. I thought you knew that. You've more or less said the same in that last piece of yours. Now, Bruce," Ralph continued (continued on page 158) Goods as Gold (continued from page 98) awkwardly, "I have to be honest. You might have to get a better wife."

"Than Belle?" Gold was elated.

"I'm sorry." Ralph was solemn. "Belle would be OK for Labor or Agriculture. But not for Secretary of State or Defense."

"Belle and I have not been close," Gold confided.

"In that case, I'm happy," said Ralph. "Try someone tall this time. You're rather short, you know. It would add to your stature if you had a tall wife."

Wouldn't a tall wife make me look smaller?" inquired Gold.

"No," said Ralph. "You would make her look taller. And that would add more to your stature and make her look smaller. Andrea Conover would be perfect."

"I'm seeing her tonight. Is she tall enough?"

"Oh, easily. And her father is a dying career diplomat with tons of money and the best connections. Propose."

"Tonight?" Gold demurred with a laugh. "I haven't seen her for seven years."

"So what?" Ralph laughed back in encouragement. "You can always get a divorce. Andrea's doing a great job with the Oversight Committee on Government Expenditures. She's the reason we can't make personal phone calls anymore. You know, Bruce"—Gold rose when Ralph did—"these are really our golden years, that period when men like us are appealing to all classes of women between sixteen and sixty-five. I hope you're making the most of them. A lot of them go for your kind."

"My kind?" Whatever currents of euphoria had been coursing through Gold's veins congealed.

"Yes," said Ralph.

"What do you mean by my kind?" Gold asked Ralph.

"The kind of person you are, Bruce. Why?"

"As opposed to what other kinds, Ralph?"

"The kinds of person you aren't, Bruce. Why do you ask?"

"Oh, never mind," said Gold, and then he decided to take the inky plunge. "Lieberman thinks you're anti-Semitic."

Ralph was stunned. "Me?" His voice was hurt and astonished. "Bruce, I would feel just awful if I thought I ever did or said a single thing to give you that impression."

Ralph was sincere and Gold was contrite. "You haven't, Ralph, I'm sorry I brought it up."

"Thank you, Bruce." Ralph was placated, and his handsome face fairly shone with grace when he grinned. "Why, I copied your papers at Columbia. You practically put me through school. It's just that I don't feel Lieberman is an especially nice person."

"He isn't." Gold laughed. "And I've known him all my life."

The strain gone, Ralph said, "Let me take these notes to Dusty and have her type them up. We've really covered a lot of ground today, haven't we?"

Gold was not certain, but never in his lifetime had he felt more sanguine about his prospects. He glanced out the window at official Washington and caught a glimpse of heaven. Through the doorway, the view of the open office space was a soothing pastoral, with vistas of modular desks dozing tranquilly under indirect fluorescent lighting that never flickered; there were shoulder-high partitions of translucent glass, other offices across the way as imposing as Ralph's and the dreamlike stirrings of contented people at work who were in every respect impeccable. The women all were sunny and chic—not a single one was overweight—the men wore jackets and ties, and every trouser leg was properly creased. If there was a worm at the core in this Garden of Eden, it escaped the cynical inspection of Gold, who could find detritus and incipient decay everywhere. Gold could look through a grapefruit and tell if it was pink.

"You'll like it here, won't you?" said Ralph, reading his mind.

"Is it always like this?"

"Oh, yes," Ralph assured him. "It's always like this when it's this way."

Gold succeeded in speaking without sarcasm. "How is it when it isn't?"

"Isn't what, Bruce?"

"This way."

"Different."

"In what way, Ralph?"

"In different ways, Bruce, unless they're the same, in which case it's this way."

"Ralph," Gold had to ask, "Don't people here laugh or smile when you talk that way?"

"What way, Bruce?"

"You seem to qualify or contradict all your statements."

Do I?" Ralph considered the matter intently. "Maybe I do seem a bit oxy-moronic at times. I think everyone here talks that way. Maybe we're all oxy-moronic. One time, though, at a high level meeting, I did say something everyone thought was funny. 'Let's build some death camps,' I said. And everyone laughed. I still can't figure out why. I was being serious."

"I think it's time for me to go," said Gold.

"I'm afraid it is. I'd give just about anything to lunch with you, Bruce, but I can't pass up the chance to eat alone. It's a pity you can't stay through the weekend, although I can't see how that would make any difference. Alma would love to have you out to see her terrarium, but Ellie would be upset."

"Alma?"

"My wife."

"What happened to Kelly?"

"I think you mean Ellie."

"Yes?"

"She got a year older, Bruce. And there was that thin scar from her Caesarean. Ellie would prefer that Alma and I don't start entertaining as a married couple until people first find out I've been divorced." To the blonde woman outside his office, Ralph said, "Dusty, please tell Rusty and Misty I'll be showing Dr. Gold to the elevator myself. Ask Christy to step inside my office. Tell her I'm horny."

"Sure, love. Bye, sweetheart."

"Who's Christy?" Gold asked.

"The nice-looking one. I don't think you've seen her."

"And what's all this Dr. Gold shit?"

Ralph lowered his voice. "It makes a better impression. Everyone knows professors don't make much money and doctors do. Oooooops—there goes one. Did you, see that beautiful ass? Bruce, give my love to Andrea. You might find her a trifle prudish, but she's really as good as gold. It wasn't easy being the only child of Pugh Biddle Conover, with all those riches and horses. They ride them, you know." Ralph pronounced this last detail as though describing a tasteless practice. "And give my love to Belle, too. How are the children?"

"Fine. One is still at home."

"That's too bad," said Ralph. "Let me give you some good advice, Bruce, from an unofficial opinion of the U. S. Supreme Court. It was seven to one, with the other member abstaining because he was under heavy anesthesia. When you get your divorce, don't fight for custody of the children, or even visitation rights. Make them all ask to come to you. Otherwise, they'll think they're doing you a favor by letting you spend time with them, which you will quickly discover they are not." Nearing the elevators, Gold could (continued on page 182) Goods as Gold (continued front page 158) contain his curiosity no longer. "Ralph," he said, his fingers clenching nervously, "what do you do here?"

"Work, Bruce. Why?"

"I need some assurance, Ralph, don't I? Before I start making changes, shouldn't I find out a few things?"

"I don't see why not."

"What kind of job do you have?"

"A good one, Bruce."

"What do you do?"

"What I'm supposed to."

"Well, what's your position exactly?"

"I'm in the inner circle, Bruce."

"Does that mean you can't talk about it?"

"Oh, no. I can tell you everything. What would you like to know?"

"Well, who do you work for?"

"My superiors."

"Do you have any authority?"

"Oh, yes. A great deal."

"Over who?"

"My subordinates. I can do whatever I want once I get permission from my superiors. I'm my own boss. After all, I'm not really my own boss."

"Well," said Gold, "what are my chances?"

"As good as they ought to be."

"No better?" Gold inquired facetiously. "Not at this time."

"When should I get in touch with you?"

"When I call you," said Ralph. "Pugh Biddle Conover can help while he's alive," Ralph shouted into the elevator car as the doors were closing.

Gold's mind was shimmering with fantasies of approaching eminence as the car descended. Secretary of State? Head of the CIA? A voice inside cautioned, Zei nisht narish. Where does someone like you come off being Secretary of State? What's so crazy? he answered it brashly. It's happened to bigger schmucks than me.

By the time he was outside, only one disquieting thought survived. He'd been fawning.

•

Seven years back, when Gold had his fellowship at the Senator Russell B. Long Foundation and she was a research assistant doing advanced work in home economics, Andrea Conover had been too old for him. Now, nearing 35, she was just right. Gold was no longer attracted to very young girls. With everybody doing everything to each other now, Gold had only his middle age and his large reputation as a minor intellectual to recommend him as a lover. It was all he wanted. He had never really liked going down.

Andrea was taller than he remembered. Or he had grown shorter. She paid for the drinks and dinner with a credit card, shyly confiding she would charge the expense to the Oversight Committee on Government Expenditures. Gold wondered what in the world she saw in him. She was easily the most beautiful woman he had ever been with, the richest, his first society girl. Her hair was blonde. She had blue eyes, a small, straight nose, a broad forehead. Her complexion was light, her skin unmarred. To Gold, who was still shepherding the last of three children through orthodontia, her splendid teeth were of transcending symbolic importance. Her posture and muscle tone were good.

"You must learn to think more of yourself," he told her at one point during dinner, and took her hand lightly for a few seconds. "After all. if you are not for yourself, who else shall be for you?" A self-conscious prudence deterred him from attributing the paraphrase to Rabbi Hillel.

Andrea was timid and deferential, and he was not certain how to proceed with a woman of such quality. In the taxi outside her condominium, he asked if he might come up for a drink. She consented with evident relief, grateful, it seemed, for his pre-emptive move. The apartment was large for a single person, even for one so tall, and the unexpected good order suggested the daily ministrations of an efficient cleaning woman. The furniture was ghastly, the pieces outsized.

"It was left this way when I bought it," he was pleased to hear her explain.

Gold took it as propitious that she seated herself on the sofa near him after bringing him his cognac.

"All that year together at the Senator Russell B. Long Foundation," she said with some bashfulness, sipping her vodka, "I thought you didn't like me."

"Really?" said Gold. "I always liked you. I thought you didn't like me."

"I always liked you."

"You should have said something."

"I thought you hated me. I never thought you even noticed me."

"Oh, come on."

"Really, Dr. Gold——"

"Call me Bruce," he interrupted. She blushed. "I'm not sure I can."

"Try."

"Bruce."

"You see?" he laughed.

"You're so much fun."

"Why did you think I hated you?"

"Because you knew I liked you," she answered.

"I didn't know you liked me," he said. "I thought you hated me."

She was moderately overwrought, as though charged with something heinous. "Why would I hate you?"

"I don't know," said Gold, and noticed his hands moving about restlessly. "I had so little to offer a single girl like you who was so sensitive and intelligent and even had her own Ph.D."

"I wouldn't have cared," she said in soulful apology. "I was so impressed with you. Everyone was. You were always so quick and domineering and sexy."

"Sexy?" Gold was astounded.

"Of course. All the girls thought so."

"Do you still," asked Gold, "think I'm sexy?"

"Oh, yes." She blushed again.

Gold wondered what to do next. He laughed loudly and punched her lightly on the arm, as one good fellow to another, and then brushed the back of his fingers against her cheek, as though in unpremeditated extension of his jocular disbelief. Her reaction surprised him. Instead of stiffening or withdrawing, as he more or less expected her to do, she leaned into his hand and continued bringing herself toward him on the sofa. In a moment, they were kissing. Brandy splashed onto his knees as he blindly divested himself of his glass and took her in his arms. Her fingers were clasping the back of his head. Again, he was at a loss to proceed with a girl like her. He moved his lips about her ears and neck, as though in thirsting search of an erogenous zone. A waste of time, he knew from experience. Erogenous zones were either everywhere or nowhere, and he meant to write about that someday, too, when neither Belle nor his daughter would be scandalized by his knowledge. With a guilty start, he realized his mind had been wandering and refocused his attention upon Andrea. He clutched her all the harder to compensate for moments lost in digression and feigned a gasping shortness of breath. Moaning softly, he kissed her eyes and waited for something to happen. Andrea dropped her hand into his lap and took hold of his penis. Then he knew he had it made.

•

Gold woke up in love and a believer in miracles. Andrea did not seem to mind his scrawny chest and sinewy, hairy legs and arms. He showered and, after breakfasting with just a yellow towel knotted raffishly about his waist, began to dress lazily. Gold had made the coffee, while Andrea sliced overripe bananas into breakfast cereal. At his suggestion, she added raisins. On his next trip, he would bring her a coffee grinder, a pound of his favorite blend and a French drip coffeepot of ceramic. Gold could cook when he had to. He would introduce her to Irish oatmeal.

"Will you want to see me again?" she asked from her dressing table.

"Of course," said Gold.

"Lots of men don't."

"Lots of men?" Gold, sitting on the edge of her bed, paused with a sock halfway up his ankle.

She nodded, turning faintly pink. "I don't mean lots in here. But lots of men take me out and say they'll call me and then they never do."

"Why not?"

"I don't know. Do you really want to see me again? I'll understand if you don't."

"I'd like to come back next week."

"You could stay here with me in the apartment," she said. "I won't be in the way."

"I was hoping you would ask."

She was pleased. He was mystified. "I'm so glad you liked me," she told him. "Was I all right?"

"Andrea, you must never ask that," he instructed. As a matter of fact, she had not been all right, but Gold was far too astute to delve into that can of worms now. "And I think I'm in love with you."

Gold was struck afresh by the number of stunning tall women who fell in love with shorter men like himself who were rapacious, egotistical and calculating. Andrea might not be expected to know he was rapacious and calculating. Surely, though, she must suspect he was shorter. The explanations that came most readily to the lore were anything but complimentary to either of them. Was it possible that someone so self-assessing as himself had qualities of attraction he was not aware of? It was possible, for Andrea in the nude was as gorgeous as he'd imagined, and she seemed to adore him.

In morning light, her eyes were lavender. Her legs were long and straight, her hips small, her grip strong, and all her fair flesh was imbued with a golden tinge that contrasted beautifully, he thought, with his own swarthier pigmentation. She loved his darker color. She was charmed by the hair on his chest. He watched with the possessive air of someone special as she slipped a tasteful print dress over her head and shook out her hair. That she was rich added an extra dimension of vitality and eroticism to the quixotic passion he felt for her. Nothing equals the foot for ugliness, Gold remembered Ernest Becker had written in The Denial of Death, but hers, both bare and shod, were as unremarkable to him as his own.

"When I was young," she ruminated aloud, adjusting a thin gold necklace, "I wanted to be a model. I guess I still do. Not a fashion model. A sex model." She applied make-up sparingly to her lips and eyes. "I wanted to be a cheesecake model or pose in the nude. Then when all these obscene newspapers and magazines began coming out, I wanted to be a pornographic model or act in dirty movies. I used to sit in front of a mirror for hours and practice sucking dicks. For the camera, I mean. Like those models in cosmetic ads. I got to be quite good at it, I think. Would you like to see?"

"I have to go back to New York," he replied in the steadiest voice.

"It's just a small motion of the mouth."

"I have a one-o'clock class."

"It only takes a second, silly," said Andrea, and made a small motion of her mouth above her cylinder of pale lipstick. "Isn't that good?"

"Yes," said Gold. "That's quite good."

"I was such a ninny as a child, the only child of Pugh Biddle Conover," Andrea went on. "I didn't know anything until I left home. I had to go to two finishing schools before I was ready for college, and then to three colleges. At Smith, the other girls would talk about sex all the time, and I didn't understand. I remember I never could figure out why anybody would want to suck a rooster."

Gold was immobilized. In less than two days in Washington, he was learning to handle with numb amazement the many bizarre surprises to which he perceived he was going to be increasingly subjected. "I can see," he said, "how that might be confusing to someone who did not understand." He straightened his other sock and put on his shoes.

"Once I found out, of course," said Andrea, "I took to it all like a duck to water. Last summer, I was at the swimming pool at Daddy's estate with this new beau, and he did the strangest thing. I was scraping a callus off the bottom of my foot with a callus scraper. He stood up suddenly and said he never wanted to see me again, and he drove away without packing his things or even saying goodbye to Daddy. Do you know why?"

Gold came up behind her and stroked her shoulders. "Were you near each other when you were scraping off the callus?"

"We were together at the pool."

"Does it make a noise?"

"Like sandpaper."

"I might have done the same thing."

"I don't know things like that."

"I will teach you."

Andrea pressed his hand to her lips rapturously. Gold wondered if she were crazy. "Sometime soon," she said, "if you still want to see me again——"

"I will want to see you again."

"Would you like to come out for a weekend to visit Daddy before he dies? It's really a lovely estate."

"What is your father ill with?"

"He won't say. Six years ago, he bought an electric wheelchair, and he's been confined to it ever since. Every weekend, he has mobs of people out to ride and shoot."

"Shoot?"

"Quail and pheasant. Sometimes rabbit and deer."

"No people?"

"Not yet. I think you'll enjoy meeting my father."

"I shall spare you," said Gold, "from ever meeting mine."

•

Ralph phoned the next morning while Gold was making breakfast to tell him the President wanted to see him to congratulate him personally. "He tried phoning you at your hotel, but the switchboard told him you weren't taking any calls."

"I'm staying with Andrea," said Gold. "Registering at the hotel is a way of protecting myself."

From Ralph came a low whistle of homage. "You're deep, Bruce. That's exactly the safeguard we all should use to protect our most vital secrets. Be at the White House at eleven. Use the delivery entrance."

Gold followed directions and was ushered upstairs through a pantry into a private waiting room just as Ralph emerged on tiptoe from a private inner office and led him back out. The appointment was canceled. The President was asleep.

"He's taking a nap," whispered Ralph.

"At eleven in the morning?" cried Gold.

"The President," Ralph explained, "is a very early riser. He is up at five every morning, takes two sleeping pills and a tranquilizer and goes right back to bed for as long as he can sleep."

"When does he work?" asked Gold.

"What do you mean?" said Ralph.

"When does he work?"

Ralph's chief emotion was perplexity. "I still don't get it."

"When does he do what he's supposed to be doing? As President?"

"Twenty-four hours a day," said Ralph. "The poor man is probably working right now, even while he's napping. You've been promoted, you know. He meant to tell you that."

"To what?" Gold exclaimed in surprise.

"We haven't decided, but it's a big step up."

"From what?"

"We never found out, did we? You can just about have your pick now, unless you can't. That much is official, although it has to be approved, and it must remain secret until we announce it, in case we decide we won't. You're way past a spokesman and a source now."

"Will I make more money?" Gold wanted to know.

"As much," said Ralph, "as you can get away with, although the competition is always strong. You know, Lyndon Johnson and Jack Javits were not the only ones to get rich while serving in Government. I bumped into Harris Rosenblatt and found out what the Secretary of the Treasury does," said Ralph as they settled down comfortably in his office. "People of your religious beliefs inevitably do well there."

Gold cleared his throat. "I have no religious beliefs, Ralph."

"You know what I mean, Bruce," said Ralph. "I was trying to be tactful."

"I'm very grateful for your tact."

"There's something mysterious happening with Harris Rosenblatt, Bruce," Ralph said with a furrowed brow. "Each time I see him, he looks more and more like someone like me and less like someone like you."

Once more, Gold found difficulty speaking. "In what way, Ralph, does Harris Rosenblatt look more and more like you and less like me?"

"He gets taller and leaner, Bruce," Ralph answered simply and honestly and seemed unmindful of the frostiness with which Gold had spoken. "And he stands up straight. You remember how short and flabby he used to be. And he seems to be getting paler, too. I saw Andrea at a party the other night and I'm worried about her, also. Didn't she used to be taller?"

"Taller?" Gold searched Ralph's eyes for some beam of shared intelligence. "Taller than what?"

"Than she is. I'd check if I were you. You wouldn't want her to get too short, would you?"

"Too short for what, Ralph?"

"For you, Bruce. I don't think it would add much to your stature if your second wife turned out to be as short as Belle, would it?"

"I'll ask, Ralph, when I have the chance. What does the Secretary of the Treasury do?"

"He reassures the business people."

"I could do that," said Gold.

"Sure you could," Ralph agreed. "And promises to hold down deficits. He doesn't actually hold them down, you understand, but merely promises to. He also looks after the financial interests of himself and his friends so they can continue to live on the level they're used to."

Gold was losing interest. "I'm not so crazy about my friends," he confessed, "and I'm trying to improve the level I'm used to."

"Your heart wouldn't be in it."

"I've been giving second thoughts to chief of NATO, Secretary of Defense, director of the CIA or the FBI, and even to Secretary of the Army, Navy or Air Force, if it isn't too late."

"No, of course it isn't," said Ralph, "unless, of course, it's already too late. Did we come to a decision on Health, Education and Welfare?"

"I'm interested only in my own."

"What about Housing and Urban Development? It helps to know what it's like to be poor——"

"I've been poor."

"And identify with the underprivileged."

"Count me out."

"How about Attorney General, Bruce? That one really packs a wallop."

"I have an open mind," said Gold. "I think I could really get behind such issues as busing and integration, now that my own children won't be affected by them. But don't I have to be a lawyer to be Attorney General?"

"I don't think so. Not as a matter of law."

"Could you find out?"

"I'll ask the Attorney General."

"Let's pass it up."

"How do you feel about the State Department?"

"It's where I think I'd fit in best."

"The President may think so, too." Ralph, rising, stretched contentedly. "I know I can just about guarantee that you'll get the appointment you choose as soon as you want, although I can't promise anything. So please don't hold me to that."

Although there was nothing but pure friendship in Ralph's voice, Gold determined he might bear closer inspection. "Ralph, I find myself listening to things here that I can't believe I am hearing."

"I know just how you feel." Ralph ran his hand through his auburn cowlick. "Now that I've been in Washington awhile, I'm willing to believe almost anything."

Gold wondered if he were being too abstruse. "Ralph, I'm hearing them from you."

"From me?" Ralph spoke with frank surprise. "Bruce, you can believe what I tell you, because I will never lie to you. Everything I've promised has come to pass, hasn't it? Tell me how you're handling your job at the college."

"I've promoted all my students into the honors program," said Gold, "and assigned them term projects. I may never see any of them again."

Ralph gasped approvingly and tapped the side of his nose with his finger. "You're deep, Bruce, deep, indeed. I doubt there's a problem in Government you won't be able to solve with ease. All that remains is for you to leave Belle and marry Andrea. It would be so much better, Bruce, if you did that before your confirmation hearings began. It's always bad for the country when someone waits until after he's made it big in Government before dumping his old wife. That may be acceptable ethics for a Senator or a Congressman, but you're much bigger than that now."

"I am?"

"I thought you knew that," said Ralph, "although there's no way you could have found it out. Leave Belle, Bruce. Do the right thing."

Gold was slightly cowed. "Leaving a wife is not so easy, Ralph."

"You say that to me?"

"And how do I know Andrea will marry me?"

"How can she refuse when you tell her about your promotion?"

"How can I tell her when it has to be a secret?"

"Oh, you can give her a hint," said Ralph. "She's probably been listening in, anyway. Have you met Pugh Biddle yet? He's special, you know, and so is his estate in the hunt country. What are you working on these days?"

"I still have to do that book on——"

"Jewish people?" Ralph showed off.

"Jews," Gold said bravely. "Although it's more in the nature of a personal history now. And I'm organizing material for a humorous book on David Eisenhower and a serious one on Henry Kissinger, although it may turn out the other way around."

"How will you treat Henry Kissinger?"

"Fair."

"I never liked him, either. Oh, yes, die President asked me to find out from you if Russia will go to war if we reduce our military strength."

Gold looked at Ralph through the corner of his eye. "How should I know?"

"Could you find out?"

"From whom? Ralph, doesn't anyone here have an idea?"

"Oh, we have lots of experts. But the President feels your guess might be as good as anyone else's."

"I'll ask around."

"You're aces, Bruce," said Ralph. "The President will be grateful."

"Ralph," said Gold, with skepticism predominating again over a multitude of other concerns, "do you ever really see the President?"

"Oh, yes, Bruce," Ralph answered. "Everybody sees the President."

"I mean personally. Does he see you?"

"The President sees a great deal, Bruce."

"Do you ever see him to talk to him?"

"About what?" asked Ralph.

"About anything."

"Oh, Bruce, you can't just talk to the President about anything," Ralph chided. "The President is often very busy. He may be writing another book."

Gold persisted rationally in the face of a gathering fog of futility. "Well, Ralph, if you did have something of importance to discuss with the President, could you get in to talk to him?"

"About what?" Ralph asked again.

"About whatever you had that was important—no, don't stop me—like war, for example."

"That's not my department," Ralph said. "That's out of my area."

"What is your area?"

"Just about everything I cover, Bruce."

"What do you cover?"

"Everything in my area, Bruce. That's my job." Gold was struggling to keep his voice down. "I've been trying to find out, Ralph, just what your job is."

"Well, I'm glad I've been able to help," said Ralph, pumping his hand. "Please give my love to Belle and my best to Andrea, or my love to Andrea and my best to Belle, whichever seems more appropriate."

Gold stood wearily. "And you give mine," he said, "to Alma."

Ralph looked blank. "Which Alma?"

"Isn't Alma the name of your wife?" Gold demanded.

"It's also the name of the girl I'm engaged to," said Ralph. "She's almost a full year younger. Bruce, take my advice. If a man is going to leave one wife to marry another, it's better if he divorces the first before he marries the second. I've tried both ways. And leave them quickly, before they start getting those tumors and hysterectomies. Yes, it's always practical to leave your wives while they're healthy and young enough to attract another husband to pay the medical bills and make those dreary hospital visits. Oh, yes, I'm supposed to find out if there is anything disgraceful in your life that would be embarrassing to us if it were made public."

"Like what?" Gold watched him shakily.

"I haven't any idea."

"Then I have to say no."

"Have you ever done anything worse than the rest of us?"

"Absolutely not."

"Then you're in the clear." One would have guessed from his serenity of expression and the deep breath Ralph took as he stared out the doorway at the banks of desks on the office floor that he was contemplating a fertile meadow and inhaling breezes enriched by privet and honeysuckle and astir with the seasonal hummings of countless bucolic copulations. "Isn't this breath-taking?" he exclaimed. "It's been said, Bruce, by two out of three of our most dependable think tanks, that if someone stood in this doorway of mine long enough, sooner or later he might see the President walk by. Would you care to wait?"

Gold looked at him askance, doubtful once more that lie had heard his Protestant friend aright. "I have to propose to Andrea."

"The President will be pleased."

First Look at a new novel

" 'These are our golden years, when men like us appeal to all women between sixteen and sixty-five.' "

"He moved his lips about her ears and neck, as though in thirsting search of an erogenous zone."

Another excerpt from Joseph Heller's forthcoming novel, "Good as Gold," will appear in our April issue.