A Newsman's Nightmares

VOYEURS EN VOYANT, necrophiles, mystical wizards, and a comparatively sane alchemist--these are the creatures that roam Les Whitten's fantasy Washington after dark. Every night is Halloween, and playtime tricks and treats are almost as bizarre. But Watergate has rendered The Alchemist mysteriously reasonable, and, in the post-Nixon years, this strange novel seems just the sort of writing you'd expect from Jack Anderson's top aide--scandal-ridden, eerie, and oddly credible.

In saner times, The Alchemist would be just plain strange. The battle for high office pits Anita Tockbridge, an ambitious HEW official who tries to win the vice presidency on her back and in other positions, and Martin Dobecker, bureaucrat-alchemist, against the true freaks of a Washington fascinated with the occult.

Waiting to seduce and subvert them are an ambassador, who runs black masses which degenerate into orgies; his 70-year-old mother, who is not above a little devil worship and perversion herself; his butler, who strangles a secretary in the Capitol while clad only in a human skin--not his own; and a vice president, who plans his campaign around Tarot cards.

Years of the bad life have given the kinky Tockbridge a sexual grip over the vice president and half of Washington. She has a shoebox of films to prove it, too-- her way of combining business and pleasure. Along the way, she has also picked up liabilities, however, and as she closes in on the vice presidency, these return to haunt her. Her most dangerous enemy turns out to be the most unusual of all--an incorruptible, determined Justice Department lawyer who has uncovered an Agnewesque construction company plot.

Only an alchemist can save her. Dobecker interrupts his peacefully numb existence as a low official and his dabbling in mystical sciences when he briefly wins Tockbridge, and suddenly finds himself on film 24. Torn between fascination with her and concern for himself, he slips easily into the world of satanism and grave-robbing, where his familiarity with the occult keeps him in good standing. He eventually bugs the lawyer's confessional and saves Tockbridge's future--that's a happy ending in Washington these days. Having failed to find his philosopher's stone in either politics or his alchemical furnace, Dobecker gives up both and marries a nice Catholic girl who already has one child and wants more.

A story like this is just the sort of revenge a journalist would wreak. After years of bridging the gaps between White House prayer-breakfasts and White House horrors, and between Redskin games and carpet bombings, a good newsman must wonder between bombshells whether anything is sacred to men of government.

THERE MUST HAVE been times between the Dita Beard escapade and Wounded Knee--stories in which Whitten played a key role--when he wearily concluded that they knew no limits. And those must have been the times when The Alchemist was written. Whitten does not seriously intend to reveal the power-broking behind the scenes--he only wants to tell a story beside which real government seems reasonable. The Alchemist is a diversion, and no thinly-disguised characters have set Washington astir.

Most real bureaucrats don't have to search for philosopher's stones or even gold. An adequate salary and a dose of power come easily enough, and the passage into a looser morality is smooth and thoughtless. Dobecker, however, agonizes over each new level of depravity, and swears silently and repeatedly to return to his cubbyhole, with its furnace and modest mysticism.

His plight is best embodied by the traditional symbol for alchemy--a snake biting its own tail. As he writhes, he emerges as an attractive character. Wincing at his awkwardness and glorying in his rare verbal victories become comfortable.

The story itself, odd as it is, grows on the reader as its goes along. The book is long enough for a number of late nights' reading, and interesting enough so it is hard to put down. Whitten has written wittily, except for his embarrassing post-coital dialogue, which runs along the line of `"Whew,' she sighed." He would have done better to follow the traditional method of ending the chapter.

But it is a healthy exercise for newsmen to write fiction. It keeps it out of their stories, and preserves their sanity. Whitten seems to have a strong background in alchemy and other occult sciences, so he should continue to let off his steam in literature. It may not be the best way to the philosopher's stone, but at least it may help Whitten find a modest pot of gold.