“And did they do that? Did they, Sadie?”
“They sent the dog, and they sent the man. The dog’s name was Laika, remember? It died up there. Poor doggy. They won’t have to send up the two men and the bomb, will they? They’ll use their missiles. And we’ll use ours. All over a shitpot island where they makecigars.”
“Do you know what the magicians say?”
“The—? What are you talking about?”
“They say you can fool a scientist, but you can never fool another magician. Your ex may teach science, but he’s sure no magician. The Russians, on the other hand, are.”
“You’re not making sense. Johnny says the Russianshaveto fight, and soon, because now they have missile superiority, but they won’t for long. That’s why they won’t back down in Cuba. It’s a pretext.”
“Johnny’s seen too much newsreel footage of missiles being trundled through Red Square on Mayday. What hedoesn’tknow—and what Senator Kuchel doesn’t know, either, probably—is that over half of those missiles don’t have engines in them.”
“You don’t… you can’t…”
“He doesn’t know how many of their ICBMs blow up on their launch pads in Siberia because their rocketry guys are incompetent. He doesn’t know that over half the missiles our U-2 planes have photographed are actually painted trees with cardboard fins. It’s sleight of hand, Sadie. It fools scientists like Johnny and politicians like Senator Kuchel, but it would never fool another magician.”
“That’s… it’s not…” She fell silent for a moment, biting at her lips. Then she said, “How couldyouknow stuff like that?”
“I can’t tell you.”
“Then I can’t believe you. Johnny said Kennedy was going to be the nominee of the Democratic party, even though everybody else thought it was going to be Humphrey on account of Kennedy being a Catholic. He analyzed the states with primaries, ran the numbers, and he was right. He said Johnson would be Kennedy’s running mate because Johnson was the only Southerner who would be acceptable north of the Mason-Dixon line. He was right about that, too. Kennedy got in, and now he’s going to kill us all. Statistical analysis doesn’t lie.”
I took a deep breath. “Sadie, I want you to listen to me. Very carefully. Are you awake enough to do that?”
For a moment there was nothing. Then I felt her nod against my upper arm.
“It’s now early Tuesday morning. This standoff is going to go on for another three days. Or maybe it’s four, I can’t remember.”
“What do you mean, you can’tremember?”
I mean there’s nothing about this in Al’s notes, and my only college class in American History was almost twenty years ago. It’s amazing I can remember as much as I do.
“We’re going to blockade Cuba, but the only Russian ship we’ll stop won’t have anything in it but food and trade goods. The Russians are going to bluster, but by Thursday or Friday they’re going to be scared to death and looking for a way out. One of the big Russian diplomats will initiate a backchannel meeting with some TV guy.” And seemingly from nowhere, the way crossword puzzle answers sometimes come to me, I remembered the name. Or almost remembered it. “His name is John Scolari, or something like that—”
“Scali? Are you talking about John Scali, on the ABC News?”
“Yeah, that’s him. This is going to happen Friday or Saturday, while the rest of the world—including your ex and your pal from Yale—is just waiting for the word to stick their heads between their legs and kiss their asses goodbye.”
She heartened me by giggling.
“This Russian will more or less say…” Here I did a pretty good Russian accent. I had learned it listening to Lee’s wife. Also from Boris and Natasha onRocky and Bullwinkle.“?‘Get vurd to your president that ve vunt vay to back out of this vith honor. You agree take your nuclear missiles out of Turkey. You promise never to invade Kooba. Ve say okay and dismantle missiles in Kooba.’ And that, Sadie, is exactly what’s going to happen.”
She wasn’t giggling now. She was staring at me with huge saucer eyes. “You’re making this up to make me feel better.”
I said nothing.
“You’renot,” she whispered. “You really believe it.”
“Wrong,” I said. “Iknowit. Big difference.”
“George…nobodyknows the future.”
“John Clayton claims to know, and you believehim.Roger from Yale claims to know, and you believe him, too.”
“You’re jealous of him, aren’t you?”
“You’re goddam right.”
