Page 202 of Edge of Eternity (The Century 3)

hoped, the president's broadcast was the main item. He went to bed and fell asleep.

The phone woke him. It was Verena Marquand. She was weeping and barely coherent. "What happened?" George asked her.

"Medgar," she said, and then something he could not understand.

"Are you talking about Medgar Evers?" George knew the man, a black activist in Jackson, Mississippi. He was a full-time employee of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, the most moderate of the civil rights groups. He had investigated the murder of Emmett Till and organized a boycott of white stores. His work had made him a national figure.

"They shot him," Verena sobbed. "Right outside his house."

"Is he dead?"

"Yes. He has three children, George--three! His kids heard the shot and went out and found their father bleeding to death on their driveway."

"Oh, Christ."

"What is wrong with these white people? Why do they do this to us, George? Why?"

"I don't know, baby," said George. "I just don't know."

*

Once again, Bobby Kennedy sent George to Atlanta with a message for Martin Luther King.

When George called Verena to make the appointment, he said: "I'd love to see your apartment."

He could not figure Verena out. That night in Birmingham they had made love and survived a racist bomb, and he had felt very close to her. But days had gone by, then weeks, without another opportunity to make love, and their intimacy had evaporated. Yet, when she had been distraught with the news of the murder of Medgar Evers, she had not phoned Martin Luther King, nor her father, but George. Now he did not know what their relationship was.

"Sure," she said. "Why not?"

"I'll bring a bottle of vodka." He had learned that vodka was her favorite booze.

"I share the place with another girl."

"Shall I bring two bottles?"

She laughed. "Easy, tiger. Laura will be happy to go out for the evening. I've done it often enough for her."

"Does that mean you'll make dinner?"

"I'm not much of a cook."

"How about if you fry a couple of steaks and I make a salad?"

"You have sophisticated taste."

"That's why I like you."

"Smooth talker."

He flew there the next day. He was hoping to spend the night with her, but he did not want her to feel taken for granted, so he checked into a hotel, then got a taxi to her place.

He had more than seduction on his mind. Last time he had brought a message from Bobby to King, he had felt ambivalent about it. This time Bobby was right and King was wrong, and George was determined to change King's mind. So first he would try to change Verena's.

Atlanta in June was hot, and she greeted him wearing a sleeveless tennis dress that showed her long light-tan arms. Her feet were bare, and that made him wonder whether she had anything on under the dress. She kissed him on the lips, but briefly, so that he was not sure what it meant.

She had a classy modern apartment with contemporary furniture. She could not afford it on the salary Martin Luther King was giving her, George guessed. Percy Marquand's record royalties must have been paying the rent.

He put the vodka down on the kitchen counter and she handed him a bottle of vermouth and a cocktail shaker. Before making the drinks he said: "I want to be sure you understand something. President Kennedy is in the greatest trouble of his political career. This is much worse than the Bay of Pigs."

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