Armageddon (72 page)

The seat of Pudge Whitcomb’s genius lay in his ability to exploit other people’s brains. The inner sanctum proved this point. Counter-clockwise there was Dick Buckley, a lawyer who could be described only as brilliant and who, in his youth, dazzled as a court-room performer. His days were now spent weaving a maze of verbal gymnastics designed to keep Whitcomb Associates and some of their borderline accounts within the hair-split of the law. He was immersed in keeping the Pure Drug and Food people off their backs “because it was run by those Pinks in Washington.”

Next to Dick sat Jerry Church, who, in younger days, won fellowships for biochemical research. He was over his eyeballs in a home in West Hampton and all of his talents became vented in one direction, self-survival. The colors mixed for pre- and after-shave lotions dominated his research.

Charlie Levine was next in line. Charlie once had a love affair with the English language and believed in finding talent to perpetuate its beauty. As an editor he had to prepare twenty-five to thirty books a year by established authors, mostly bad. There was the business of making contracts with literary agents, fighting the blood-curdling inner-office political wars, giving razz-matazz speeches at sales meetings, belting down two and three martinis at luncheons with visiting royalty among the authors.

Once in a while Charlie ran across a promising manuscript, one that would need a few months of dedicated work. Charlie was too damned tired and overworked to give it the devotion it needed.

Charlie took a dislike to himself upon realization that most books were mediocre and a publisher would push a bad one because of its exploitation value. Not that this in itself was evil. It was the pretending of standing on a pedestal that was evil, when one was really just another Madison Avenue whore.

Charlie decided to become a good whore as long as he was one. Pudge Whitcomb ran a good whorehouse. He now used the words he loved to insult the intelligence of the reader and listener, but if pounded into the brain often enough became part of the bastardization of the language he loved.

On the other side of the table was Gustav Von Gottard, a slick Viennese psychiatrist who was retained at an exorbitant salary to associate products with basic human desires for them.

And there was Clinton Loveless, a production genius.

J. Kenneth Whitcomb III made his entrance.... It was alleged he played some thirty minutes or so on Yale’s varsity before he was booted out of the school. It was known that he saw Pat O’Brien portray a famous coach and never got over it.

“This is the big game,” he began, “and that is why you, you, you, and you are here. You are my first-string team.”

Look at the stupid sons of bitches taking notes, Clint thought.

“We’re picking up the ball on our own ten-yard line and we’re going to hit hard, we’re going to hit fast. We’re going to drive, drive, drive, and we won’t stop ... we won’t stop till we score.”

Pudge’s male secretary dutifully, reverently, placed ten bottles of aspirin tablets in a row on the table.

Pudge lifted the product of Robson Drugs and pushed it forward. “Here’s the ball. Duo-Aspro.”

Robson Drugs had been hauled before the courts four times in six years for unpure products and cited for false advertising ... by those Pinks in Washington.

“Professor?”

Gustav Von Gottard stroked his beard, looked off into space dreamily, swung on the swivel chair. “Ve know zat ze deep colors, ze reds und purples iss making people sink of hangovers.”

Clint winced.

“Zerefore ve muss sink softly ... a soft blue of ze sky... ze pink of a voman’s flesh ... ze color must be subtle ... soft ...”

“Got that Jerry?” Pudge asked his chemist

“Check.”

“Go on, professor.”

“I am sinking zat ven man iss in pain he needs varmth ... he looks for ze vomb ... for ze bosom for comfort.”

“Tit-shaped aspirin ... subtly, of course. Charlie, your play.”

Charlie Levine, former editor, chewed on the end of his pencil sincerely, scanning his notes. “How do we hit this? Do we go with a cold-turkey sell or do the science bit? Do we figure on added new ingredients and make it something unpronounceable but highly medical or do we swing with the doctor in the white coat. This is off the top of my head, but why not stick with the pounding hammers, the bubbles being released in the stomach, and call it pain-go or sooth-o.”

Dick Buckley interjected, “We’ve got to go easy on the man in the white coat. The Pinks have been persecuting Robson Drugs ... because old man Robson gave a big donation to the Republican Party.”

“Dick’s our defense,” Pudge said.

“Check,” Charlie Levine said. “I’ll lay out the blurb with drums pounding and
segue
to soft music after Duo-Aspro gets in the blood stream.”

“Chopin music,” Gustav Von Gottard said.

“Check.”

“Jerry, got everything so far?”

“You want pink, tit-shaped aspirins with baking soda added.”

“Clint, baby, you’re being awful quiet this morning.”

Clinton Loveless got to his feet and looked grimly from one to the other. “Gentlemen,” he said, “I have an important announcement.”

They leaned forward, with bated breath.

“Gentlemen,” Clint said, “the Confederates have fired on Fort Sumter.”

And with that, he departed Whitcomb Associates.

“I’m not going to let you do this,” Judy cried.

“You’re not big enough to stop me. Let’s don’t end ten years of marriage with me knocking you flat on your back.”

“What in the name of God has come over you? What will you do when you come back from Germany?”

“For the next several months Hiram Stonebraker is giving me the opportunity to practice and relearn my chosen profession. Once I saved a little steel mill from going under. I might just do the same thing again.”

“And we ate canned beans for a year while you were doing it.”

“And two hundred people went back to work when I finished the job. Cut it. It’s all talked out.”

“All of it, Clint ... all of it? How about you and me?”

“That’s up to you.”

“I know you love me, Clint.”

“Almost enough to give up my self-respect.”

A half hour later, Clint’s bags were at the front door when the Loveless apartment was graced by the presence of Pudge Whitcomb himself. The slash-mouth smile was more diagonal than usual. Judy said, “Thank God you’re here ... talk some sense into him.”

“Clint, baby, you’ve been playing the game too hard. You’re a little down.”

“Nonsense. I haven’t been working hard enough.”

“You’re our star halfback. Forget the Robson account. One more citation from the Pinks and we’re going to drop them anyhow. In the meantime, here’s a pair of ducats for Nassau for you and Judy and a bonus to cover expenses.”

“I don’t like Nassau. I might want to go someplace crummy, like Atlantic City.”

“Name it.”

“Germany.”

“Clint ... a little over a year ago when I asked you to join the team ...”

“Can it.”

Pudge began to perspire. “Big deal feeding Germans! Don’t you think your own American people come first! This country needs you! The team needs you!”

The doorman phoned up that a taxi was waiting. Clint picked up his bags.

Pudge stood in the doorway. “I’m tearing up the old contract and writing a new one.”

“Spell it out.”

“All right, it goes like this. Vice presidency, stock options, member of the board, twenty-five grand a year, and a five-thousand expense account.”

Judy’s eyes pleaded.

“Ass was always overpriced in New York,” Clint said. He brushed Pudge Whitcomb aside and left.

Chapter Eleven

T
HE SIGN ON THE
desk read:
THE BUCK ENDS HERE.
Hiram Stonebraker had once seen it on the President’s desk, admired its philosophy, and the President sent him a copy.

The men in his office had been assembled from all over the globe. They had created the first miracle of air transport, the Hump.

“You people,” Stonebraker crackled, “were brought here because you once had a reputation as can-do people.”

Perry Sindlinger, now a full colonel, would serve as chief of staff; Colonel Matt Beck, a flyer’s flyer, would run Operations and as such be chief pilot; Lieutenant Colonel Sid Swing was back at logistics; Lieutenant Colonel Jose Mendoza, considered the most ingenious maintenance man in the old Army Air Corps, was there, as was Deputy Chief of Staff Lieutenant Colonel Buck Rogers, who had been spirited away from the Army to supervise cargoes and ground transportation and act as staff liaison with the Army; Lieutenant Colonel Ben Scudder, who set up communications on the Hump, would do it again with the new sophisticated electronic aids.

There was Major Lou Edmonds, a forlorn weatherman; and last, old Colonel Swede Swenson, who had put down a string of airfields in the Assam Valley and Bengal Valley and Kunming and would again supervise air installations.

“In the few days since I have arrived to assume this command you people have treated me to a monumental amount of bitching about living quarters and being torn away from families. This goddamned mission is not part of the occupation country club. You are here to work, and what I mean is, if you don’t have a coronary in two months I’ll know you’re not putting out.”

Hiram Ball Breaker was back in the saddle. He hadn’t changed a bit, they thought.

“This mission is to be considered as war. You might encounter a little less flak, but if the Russians don’t fire it, depend on me. Now, as for getting yourselves out of this mess, consider twenty years ... if you’re lucky.”

Jesus Christ, Swede thought, I’ll bet the old bastard couldn’t wait to get back into uniform so he could start chewing asses.

“I expect a full survey of the situation and your reports within twenty-four hours. Remember, an aircraft grounded is of no value. Until spare parts get here we have to cannibalize. Now get in gear and come back with answers.”

The first blow to Stonebraker was the recall of Barney Root to Washington, with General Buff Morgan named the new USAFE chief.

Hiram, like Chip Hansen, was not a member of the WPPA (West Point Protective Association) and had had innumerable run-ins in the past with Morgan.

“Buff, this is Crusty. What kind of crap are you giving my people on housing.”

“Just hold your water.”

“Hell. My people have been pulled away from their families on twenty-four hours’ notice. I hate to disturb this magnificent occupation plant, but I suggest you move your country club to the suburbs and give us the housing so we can get at our work.”

“Now, you just wait a minute there, Crusty.”

“Got no time to wait. I have a thousand technicians coming in in the next couple of days and I’m not going to hold up this mission because the grand occupation country club won’t get moving. I have to have six hundred billets immediately.”

Buff Morgan grumbled that he would get on it. An old scenery chewer himself, he held the lifeless phone in his hand cursing at it for two minutes after Stonebraker hung up.

Stonebraker had come in like a hurricane. Buff Morgan was upset ... everyone in USAFE was upset.

Stonebraker noticed a young officer pace about in his outer office, had spotted him before the Staff meeting.

“You!”

“Me, sir?”

“You. Get your ass in here.”

“Yes, sir.”

“What the hell are you doing here?”

“That’s what I’d like to know, General. All I know is day before yesterday orders came for me to report here directly to you.”

“Where were you stationed?”

“Andrews Air Force Base.”

“What’s your name?”

“Beaver, sir. Woodrow Beaver.”

“Beaver! Goddammit, you’re not Beaver!”

“Begging the General’s pardon, I regret that I am Woodrow Beaver. At least, I’m quite certain I am.”

“Hell, they sent me the wrong Woody Beaver!”

“It looks that way, General. I suggest, therefore, I return my ass to Andrews immediately.”

“Not so fast, Beaver. What do you do?”

“I’m a PIO officer.”

Stonebraker chuckled. “Two Woody Beavers and both PIO people.” He squinted closely at the young officer. “You don’t look too bright to me.”

“I am extremely bright.”

“I didn’t say you weren’t. I said you didn’t look like it.”

He had learned his first lesson in living with Hiram Stonebraker ... never back down.

“Beaver. I’m going to give you forty-eight hours to learn to be PIO for this mission. Take the office next to mine and come back tomorrow with extremely good suggestions.”

“Yes, sir.”

Perry Sindlinger returned from message center and handed a teletype to the general.

CLINTON LOVELESS AO 359195 HAS REPORTED TO MATS, WESTOVER, REQUESTING SPACE TO WIESBADEN. SAYS HE IS A MEMBER STAFF, MAJOR GENERAL STONEBRAKER. HE HAS NO ORDERS. ADVISE AND FORWARD ORDERS.

“I’ve already answered,” Perry Sindlinger said. “It will be good to have Clint here.”

Clinton Loveless arrived at Wiesbaden in the middle of the night dazed by the sequence of events following his departure from New York. Judy’s tears, Pudge Whitcomb’s asthmatic laugh, the children’s bewilderment all fogged together and an utter weariness was sealed by a bouncy bucket-seat flight across the Atlantic.

Perry Sindlinger was at the ramp to meet him. They drove back to the general’s headquarters in the center of Wiesbaden, where, in the middle of the night, carpenters were knocking walls out of adjoining buildings to expand the work area.

“Hello, General,” Clint rasped.

“It’s about time you got over here. I’ve got a plane standing by at Rhein/Main to run you to Berlin tonight.”

Clint bucketed down a quart of coffee while Perry and the general brought him up to date.

“Hansen’s trouble shooter, a Colonel O’Sullivan, will meet you at Tempelhof. You get together with the Germans in the Magistrat and find out just what it is going to take to feed these people. Cut everything to the bone. Swede and Buck Rogers are in Berlin looking over the air installations and ground facilities. See them. Come back with a rounded, thumbnail picture.”