Acts of Mercy Read Online Free Page A

blacks are concerned, and right away people twisted his words into something totally alien to what he meant. That is exactly what is happening to me right now: I’m being convicted of a crime I didn’t commit on the basis of semantics. The truth is, what I said in yesterday’s press conference is absolutely defensible.”
    “Anything is defensible, Mr. President,” Dougherty said. He was a thin deliberate man in his early forties, like Briggs a bachelor, though not for much longer if Elizabeth Miller had her way: they had been keeping steady company for the past year. “But certain defenses create more complications than others.”
    “Yes,” Briggs agreed, “and with the convention only two months ahead at that.”
    “History has a way of accelerating nowadays,” Elizabeth said. “This will all be forgotten news by the time we convene in Saint Louis.”
    “Will it?” Wexford shook his head. “I doubt it.”
    “What do you think I ought to do then, Julius?” Augustine asked with forced calm.
    “What I said earlier. Call a meeting with members of the Jewish community—the senators from New York and Connecticut, the heads of B‘nai B’rith and the Council of Rabbis and the United Jewish Appeal. Issue a clarification.”
    “There’s nothing to clarify, how many times do I have to tell you that? Any so-called clarification is going to look defensive, as if we’re conceding fault. We’d lose all respectall self -respect.”
    Briggs said, “We’ve got to have something to give to the press. They’ve been relentless, and all I’ve had to say to them are no-comments or referrals to previous statements. I’m beginning to feel a little like Ron Ziegler and I can’t say I like that very much.”
    Augustine looked at him with increasing dislike. Young (thirty-seven, wasn’t it?), boyish-looking with his overlong hair and his freckles, glib most of the time, but with a nasty penchant for whining in moments of stress; the kind of man who, if he had been on a derailed train, would have rushed to save himself first and to hell with everyone else. Augustine wondered what the hell possessed him to give Briggs the press secretary’s job in the first place.
    As if interpreting his thoughts, Claire said to Briggs, “If you don’t like your position, Austin, you can always resign.” Her voice was soft, pleasant, but there was an undercurrent of toughness in it that Augustine knew well.
    Briggs seemed taken aback. “Excuse me?” he said.
    “After all, Austin,” she said, “you don’t have to run the Presidential press office if you’d rather not. You could certainly go back to work for the Los Angeles Times, if that’s what you’d prefer, and the deputy press secretary could assume your duties. I’m sure Frank Tanaguchi would be delighted at the promotion.”
    Briggs blushed, coughed, and lowered his gaze to his water glass; he had been put in his place and he was intelligent enough to realize it.
    Claire turned to look at Augustine, a long, searching look that seemed to have some meaning he could not quite grasp. Then she smiled and said, “Now I think this discussion has gone far enough for one evening. This is supposed to be a quiet dinner party, not a shouting match. Why don’t all of you sleep on the matter and discuss it again tomorrow?”
    The anger inside Augustine faded. Claire had always had a calming effect on him. She was a strong woman; sometimes he thought she was stronger than he was, and more stable, and more perceptive. Sometimes she intimidated him just a little, because he never knew exactly what was going on inside her head, while she always seemed to know what was going on inside his.
    He said, “I suppose you’re right.”
    Wexford nodded reluctantly, and Ed Dougherty said, “Yes, we might as well table it.”
    “Fine,” Claire said. “Then we’ll have coffee and dessert. Edmund.”
    But she kept on looking at Augustine, and it was only after the table was cleared that she