The Book of Fate - Brad Meltzer [47]
“Let me transfer you to the archivist of the day,” the receptionist adds.
With a click, I’m on my way. And while I could just call the head of the entire library, like Rogo said, better to keep it low-key.
“Kara speaking. What can I help you with today?” a soft female voice asks.
“Hi, Kara. This is Wes over in the personal office. We’re trying to get some of Ron Boyle’s old files for a tribute book we’re working on, so I was just wondering if you could help us pull some of those together?”
“I’m sorry, and your name again?”
“Wes Holloway. Don’t worry . . . I’m on the staff list,” I say with a laugh. She doesn’t laugh back.
“I’m sorry, Wes, but before we release any documents, we need you to fill out a FOIA request stating who it’s for—”
“President Manning. He requested them personally,” I interrupt.
Every law has exceptions. Cops can run red lights. Doctors can illegally park during emergencies. And when your name is Leland Manning, you get any sheet of paper you want from the Leland Manning Presidential Library.
“J-Just tell us what you need. I’ll start pulling it together,” she offers.
“Fantastic,” I say, flipping open the thick loose-leaf binder on my desk. The first page is labeled Presidential Records and Historical Materials. We call it the guide to the world’s biggest diary.
For four years in the White House, every file, every e-mail, every Christmas card that was sent out was logged, copied, and saved. By the time we left Washington, it took five battle-sized military cargo planes to haul the forty million documents, 1.1 million photographs, twenty million printed e-mail messages, and forty thousand “artifacts,” including four different Cowardly Lion telephones, two of which were handmade with the President’s face on them. Still, the only way to find the needle is to jump into the haystack. And the only way to figure out what Boyle was up to is to pull open his desk drawers and see what’s inside.
“Under White House Staff, let’s start with all of Boyle’s records as deputy chief,” I say, flipping to the first few pages of the records guide, “and naturally, all of his own files, including correspondence to and from him.” I flip to the next tab in the notebook. “And I’d also like to get his personnel records. Those would include any work complaints filed against him, correct?”
“It should,” the archivist says, now suspicious.
“Don’t worry,” I laugh, hearing the change in her voice, “that’s just to vet him so we know for sure where all the skeletons are.”
“Yeah . . . of course . . . it’s just—what do you need these for again?”
“A book the President’s working on—about Boyle’s years of service, from the White House to the shooting at the speedway—”
“If you want, we have the actual clip—y’know, with Boyle . . . and that young man who got hit in the face . . .”
When John Hinckley tried to kill Ronald Reagan, he hit the President, James Brady, Secret Service Agent Tim McCarthy, and police officer Thomas Delahanty. We all know James Brady. McCarthy and Delahanty became Trivial Pursuit answers. Just like me.
“So how fast do you think you can pull that together?” I ask.
She pants slightly into the phone. It’s the closest thing she’s got to a laugh. “Let me just . . . fourteen, fifteen, sixteen . . . you’re probably looking at something like eighteen linear feet—or about . . . let’s see . . . 36,000 pages.”
“Thirty-six thousand pages,” I repeat, my own voice sinking. The haystack just got eighteen feet taller.
“If you tell me a little bit more what you’re looking for, I probably can help you narrow your search a little better . . .”
“Actually, there’re a couple of things we were trying to get as soon as possible. The President said there were some other researchers on the book who were working with the library. Is there a way to tell us what files they pulled so we don’t overlap?”
“Sure, but . . . when it comes to other people’s requests, we’re not supposed to—”
“Kara . . . it is Kara, right?” I ask, stealing one straight