In his early drugged fantasies he had hunted Ruby down and punished her, or meant to punish her, for the fantasies had always ended with his embracing her nude, flawless, coffee-colored body. In moments of clarity he had wondered if he would ever see her again and, if their paths crossed, how he would behave.

Then, slowly, in his recuperation, Ruby had receded to some hazy dream of make-believe, and Gertrude, less sharp-featured, less baggy, better groomed, and more kindly than at any time since their early married years, and ten-year-old Ogden, and eight-year-old Otis, as awed by their father as when they were younger, had taken over and dominated his real world. They had visited him early every evening, and every few days the boys proudly presented him with a cardboard box of newspaper clippings which they had cut out themselves or received from friends, clippings proclaiming the heroism of Otto Beggs. The seven boxes of clippings stood piled against the wall. Except for the first box, which he had undone to find out what was inside, he had not bothered to open them. He was pleased to have these from his sons, but the contents no longer interested him as once they might have.

For Otto Beggs, each clipping was not a new merit badge proclaiming his courage, but an obituary. He could not bear to read the last of himself that he would ever see in print. For Beggs, the assassin’s bullet had, to all intents and purposes, ended his useful life. While Admiral Oates had considered the surgery a great success-because his smashed right leg had been repaired and not amputated-Otto Beggs had considered the medical victory a hollow one. His leg had been saved, true; but for a man of action, for a Secret Service agent, it was no longer an effective limb but a paralyzed appendage that could do no more than give him the appearance of being a man, when he was, in fact, a cripple. Admiral Oates had assured him that he would be able to walk under his own power, with the aid of a crutch or cane, and he would be able to drive a specially modified car. But never in his remaining years would he be able to run, jump, crouch, to be the Otto Beggs of West Coast gridirons and Korean battlefields again. Or even the Otto Beggs who had sprinted toward the President, brought him down with a flying tackle, taking the assassin’s bullet and answering with the fatal shot of his own. Gone forever the whole Beggs. Left merely the half Beggs.

“Hey there,” he heard the colored registered nurse say to him. “What you got your face so crunched up for in that nasty look? You in pain?”

She was offering him the tiny paper cup with its pink pills, and a glass of water.

“I’m okay,” he said.

“Well, take these anyway. Good for digestion. Hey, is this a new fad, looking at television without the sound? You should turn it up. Whole ward’s seeing and listening. That smart lawyer fellow for the President, he’s giving back as good as he got. He’s closing his speech.”

Beggs washed the pills down, and after the nurse had gone, his thumb manipulated the remote control, and the volume came on full blast.

On the screen, the President’s attorney, Abrahams, had paused. The camera closed in on his worn countenance. In measured sentences, he began to speak once more.

Dutifully, because all the others on the hospital floor were listening, Otto Beggs watched and listened, too.

“Honorable gentlemen of the Senate, allow me to conclude my opening address to you by quoting from the words spoken over a century ago by that legendary member of Congress upon whom the opposing manager lavished so much affection earlier in the day,” said Abrahams. “I refer to Thaddeus Stevens, and to his last anguished tirade before the Senate, after that Senate had rejected his demand for conviction and had acquitted President Andrew Johnson.

“Gentlemen, I quote Thaddeus Stevens’ bitter words following that other trial. ‘After mature reflection and thorough examination of ancient and modern history, I have come to the fixed conclusion that neither in Europe nor America will the Chief Executive of a nation be again removed by peaceful means. If he retains the money and the patronage of the government it will be found, as it has been found, stronger than the law and impenetrable to the spear of justice. If tyranny becomes intolerable the only resource will be found in the dagger of Brutus. God grant that it may never be used.’ ”

Abrahams seemed to weigh this, then he appeared to address the camera lens and its unseen audience. “Gentlemen, these are words worth pondering tonight. For little could Thaddeus Stevens, that champion of the colored people, yet enemy of the executive branch of government, have known how a future generation would distort his warning to its own ends. For today, at the bar of justice, stands a Chief Executive of the United States, unarmed with money or the power of dispensing government patronage, weakened by unconstitutional laws that have been devised to do him harm-today he stands alone to oppose the intolerable tyranny of his accusers, who, literally, have attempted to wrest control of his office from him, and have defied his necessary resistance by wielding, figuratively, the dagger of Brutus.

“Yes, honorable gentlemen of the Senate, this trial of impeachment, instigated by members of the House as a vengeful means of slaying a lawful leader so that he may be replaced by one of their own choosing, this trial of impeachment is the true dagger of Brutus. The blade has been drawn from its sheath today, by the opposition, for all the world to see. With its challenge to reason, to law and order, to democracy itself, the naked dagger of Brutus is being flourished, ready to be plunged again. I entreat you, I implore you, to heed the plea of Thaddeus Stevens: ‘God grant that it may never be used.’… Thank you for the courtesy of your attention.”

Otto Beggs’s thumb pressed the remote control key, and the television screen went dark.

Disturbed-for he suffered the curious sensation that a second assassin, weapon bared, was approaching the President and he was helpless this time to intervene-Beggs reached for his package of cigarettes on the medicine table. As he fumbled for it, he was surprised to see Gertrude, one arm around Ogden, the other around Otis, standing in the doorway. She was in her best dress, the boys spick-and-span in their going-out suits, and their unexpected appearance at this time of the day, before visiting hours, made no sense.

“What are you doing here?” he demanded, trying to sit upright, but pinned down by his suspended leg. “What’s going on? Is something wrong?”

“Otto,” Gertrude called out, “are you wide-awake-?”

“What do you mean-am I wide-awake? Of course I am.”

She was mysteriously beckoning to someone in the hospital corridor, and then she came into the room, pushing the boys before her. “Otto, this is a special occasion.”

Puzzled, he watched the sudden parade of Very Important Persons through the doorway into his hospital room. First came Secretary of the Treasury Moody, and then Chief Hugo Gaynor and Lou Agajanian, and then came Admiral Oates and Tim Flannery and Edna Foster, and finally, disregarding protocol, preceded and followed by more of the Secret Service men, came President Douglass Dilman.

The room was filled with smiling faces, and Otto Beggs’s head swam.

“What’s going on here? What’s going on?” he demanded worriedly.

President Dilman had circled the bed to the right side, and even he was smiling, which was incredible to Beggs, considering the impeachment trial he had just been watching.

“How are you doing, Mr. Beggs?” the President asked.

“I’m okay-I guess-” Beggs gestured in bewilderment at the roomful of people. “I don’t understand what’s going on.”

President Dilman nodded, digging both hands into his coat pockets, and extracting a black box with one hand and a small sheet of paper with the other.