"I know. I had something to do with it," Walgreen said. The district man looked at him with mild surprise.

"Anyway," the district man said, "it didn't do anything because there was no way we could have stopped a guy getting in a shot like Oswald did, but we had to look like we made some changes so we could tell Johnson that the Secret Service that lost Kennedy isn't the same as the one guarding you now. In the shakeup, some good men, really good men, quit. They were very bitter. And I can't blame them. They have their own security agency now . . ."

"I don't need some retired policeman in a blue uniform to discourage shoplifting."

"No, they're not your normal corporate security. They do super stuff for super people and I'm talking about protecting foreign heads of

11

state too, designing their palaces and everything. They're even better on protection than we are because their clients don't have to go running around to every airport crowd shaking hands. God, that terrifies me. Why couldn't a Howard Hughes hermit be ' President instead of some damned politician? It's always a politician." He paused. "What'd you mean, you had something to do with the shakeup?" he asked.

Walgreen shrugged. "I did some work for the President," he said, "in the security area."

"Which President?"

"All of them. Until this one."

The firm name of retired Secret Service people was Paldor. He said the Secret Service had sent him and he was ushered into the kind of offices he was used to, a touch of strong elegance with a good view.

Cherry blossoms and the Potomac. A friendly Scotch on the rocks. A sympathetic ear. The man's name was Lester Pruel and Walgreen knew something about him. He was six feet one, tanned and healthy, with sharp, discerning blue eyes. He had a comfortable smoothness about him that government employees, in contrast, seemed to lack, the sort of manner that indicated he made decisions. The decision he made for Ernest Walgreen was 'no.'