Benchley, Peter - Novel 06 by Q Clearance (v2.0) Page B

family quarters while the
President was away), impress the drawers off girls by arranging to have the
White House telephone operators page him during a date, and, perhaps most
delightful of all, comport himself with an air of polite restraint which
suggested that so full was his brain of classified, supersensitive material
that his every word must be weighed before it could safely be uttered.
                   Even the lowliest member of a typing pool bore
the White House pass as a badge that set him a substantial half-step above his
peers, for the mere existence of the pass suggested proximity to the President,
and proximity was the capital's highest currency.
                   Every member of the White House staff, whether
he worked in the White House or in the Executive Office Building next door, was supposed to wear his pass
every second he was on the premises. This was a club, and as long as everyone
displayed his membership card, the Secret Service was cool, the police mellow.
                   The fact that a White House pass would have
been easy to steal and easier to forge was never mentioned^ It was a symbol.
                   For the first few months that he worked as a
speechwriter for the President, Burnham wore his pass dutifully, clipping it to
his jacket when his overcoat came off, then to his shirt when his jacket came
off, remembering to take it with him even when he went down the hall to the
John. Then he began to notice that the more senior staff were neglecting to
wear their passes.
                   He said nothing, asked no questions, but
observed that while there was distinct status in possessing a White House pass,
there was even greater status in possessing one and not wearing it: It implied
that the bearer was so in at the White House, such a veteran, so well known to
the police and the Secret Service, that it would have been absurd to require
him to wear his pass. After all, did the President have to wear a pass?
                   One morning, he left his pass at home. On
purpose. He went to work early, prepared to be sent home to fetch it. As he
passed through the West Gate, feeling like a priest sneaking into a Marilyn
Chambers movie, he saluted and said, "Morning, Sergeant T.," and the
sergeant glanced up and saw his face and smiled and said, "Morning, Mr.
B."
                   That whole day, Burnham had felt very close to
the seat of power.
                   Nowadays, he always carried his pass with
him—he'd damn well need it if he were summoned to the Oval Office (the chances
of which were about as great as his election to the Papacy), for the phalanx of
Secret Servicemen that guarded the presidential corpus were strangers to him,
and he to them—but he seldom wore it.
                   And truly, once one's face was known around
Fortress White House, there wasn't any need for a pass. No wino would ever get
close enough to the President to sit on the end of his bed and chat him up,
like that guy had done to the Queen. Without a pass, he'd never get upstairs in
the mansion. He'd never get on the grounds.
                   But once in a while something happened that
shook everybody's confidence and made a frappe of the White House routine, and
then one of the staff pygmies, a Special Assistant to the President for Ukases
and Edicts, would snap off a memo to the entire staff, a memo that always began
with the magic words "The President wants ..." and, bingo! Everyone
from the Executive Dog Walker just about up to the First Lady of the Land would
walk around with their passes riveted to their foreheads.
                   Once it had been a woman who had scaled the
fence down by the Ellipse and had triggered the electronic alarms in the
ground. They nabbed her as she was sprinting across the South Lawn carrying a
bird in a paper bag. She wanted the President to bless her parakeet. Its