Red Rag Blues (36 page)

“Not until I get my ten percent,” Julie said. He flung the poker at her. Not even close. “No back-lift,” she said. “Poor follow-through.”

Cohn and Schine came up with some good new ideas, so they said. Ways to get the senator back in the headlines. He hated them. “The good shit isn't new,” he told them, “and the new shit isn't good. We got to regain the initiative, goddamn it. Draw blood, Commie blood. Keep leaning on Arabel. He's gotta deliver. Twenty-five grand, for Christ's sake.”

Cohn telephoned Luis.

“I've got some hot projects in the pipeline,” Luis said.

“Pipeline.” Cohn sucked his teeth. “How long is this pipeline?”

“My source can't be hurried. He's in a very delicate position. It's not like inserting a coin and getting a bottle of Coke.”

“And how hot is hot?”

“Red hot,” Luis said. “In both senses.”

“We're not talking picayune politics here. We're in a war to save America.”

“In a must-win situation,” Luis said, “there can be no room for complacency.” Cohn couldn't argue with that.

*

Stevie was alone at Metal Exchange. She sat at her desk and wondered what James Stewart was doing that very moment. Making a movie in California, probably.

Riding a horse. Tipping his hat to a lady. Not boozing, not jumping off a bridge, not putting bullets into passersby, and not the kind of man that she would ever,
ever
get a chance to meet.
Growing up in northern New Jersey put her out of reach of James Stewart permanently.

The fact hit her like a jolt of static. She was trapped in her family. No matter where she went, she would never be happy, because she was the daughter of a wop mobster and if James Stewart ever saw her, he would be the DA and she would be lying dead, cut down by wild crossfire in a raid on a spaghetti joint. What a bummer.

Without knowing what she wanted to say, she phoned her father in New Jersey. The elderly manservant knew her voice. Her father was in conference with his attorney. Would she like to leave a message?

“Tell him … Oh, Jeez, I dunno … tell him I'm in DC an' I'm workin' for Luis Cabrillo, government work. Tell him Chick Scatola had a really bad accident. Say I'm sorry McCarthy's leanin' on him but he criticized me plenty times, now he knows how it feels. You want the number here?” She rattled it off and hung up. She knew he wouldn't call her back. Never did.

*

Everything was done politely. A man in a polite suit knocked on the door and politely asked to see Mr. Jerome Fantoni. He was politely frisked and escorted to Mr. Fantoni whom he politely served with a subpoena to appear before the Permanent Sub-Committee on Investigations of the Senate Government Operations Committee, in Washington DC, two days hence.

“Plead the Fifth,” Jerome's attorney advised. “Stonewall. Bore 'em to death.”

“No. The less I say, the worse I look. I won't duck and dodge like some frightened filmstar. This grubby senator has blackened my character. I'll stand up and fight like a man.”

“And you'll fall like a log. They've got your party membership card, haven't they?”

“It wasn't illegal then. How can they—”

“Forget it, Jerome. Plead the Fifth. And take a dozen handkerchiefs. Those TV lights are damn hot, and sweat has a way of making a man look awfully guilty.”

*

Kim Philby read transcripts of the meeting in McCarthy's office, reduced them to a summary, gave it to Mikhail.

“I don't like this,” Mikhail said. “McCarthy's morale is weakening. And your Mr. Cabrillo is dragging his feet. At this rate, fear will lose its grip on America. I'm appalled.”

“Can't your people do something helpful?”

“Such as what?”

“A small war, maybe. Invade a corner of Turkey, or a bit of India. Just for a little while.”

“No, no, Kim. Foreign affairs don't interest Americans. One Korea is enough. Reds under their beds, that's what they want, and so do we.”

*

“If I was Cabrillo, I'd get out of town,” Fisk said.

“If I
were
Cabrillo. The supposition takes the subjunctive. Why is it a supposition?” Prendergast began throwing paper clips at Fisk, one at a time.

“Um … because … well, it assumes that Fantoni still thinks Cabrillo is guilty of—”

“Wrong. It assumes that Cabrillo
knows
he is guilty. If innocent, why flee?”

“I bet Fantoni whacks him.” Fisk began catching the paper clips. “These things go in threes. Sammy, Chick, now Cabrillo.”

“Neatness. You are obsessed with neatness.” Prendergast slung the box at him, and paper clips sprayed everywhere. “That's reality! Chaos! Crime is like that, random and unpredictable, otherwise we would see it coming and prevent it!”

“Of course, Cabrillo might whack him first,” Fisk said.

Julie and Luis slept in separate beds again. He woke at six, utterly lost in time and space, not knowing dawn from dusk, bewildered by the room and the sounds. His brain had to hunt down this town, which grudgingly explained the apartment, and then a barren yesterday swam into memory, so this must be a new day.

Exhausting.

He dozed for an hour. Got up, and was on the balcony drinking coffee, wondering more or less simultaneously if he was cut out for marriage and why McCarthy had never accused the New York Jewish community of being Communist, they were powerful enough, and how birds knew all about flying without having to practice, when did you ever see a bird crash; when the phone rang.

Bobby Kennedy. Meet the senator in half an hour at the Confederate Memorial in Arlington National Cemetery. Luis asked why. “Because nobody dares bug Arlington,” Kennedy barked, high-pitched and half a tone flat. Wasted in politics. Should have been a high school football coach.

Luis took a taxi.

McCarthy was sitting on a bench under a tree, with Cohn and Kennedy. His elbows were on his knees, his fingers were linked. When Luis approached, he raised his eyes. No other part of him moved.

“Fantoni will plead the Fifth,” he said. “The man will sit there with his thumb up his ass and his brain in neutral and he'll plead the Fifth to the end of time.”

“Won't that make him look guilty?” Luis asked.

“Worse. It'll make him look boring,” Cohn said. “Pleading the Fifth is not news.”

“We'll be lucky to make page five,” McCarthy said. “TV ratings will stink. I'll be down there with the soaps.”

Luis said, “Fantoni has turned himself into a dummy. Our problem is how to make the dummy talk.” They looked at him with no hope in their eyes. “Give me a minute,” he said.

He turned away and walked slowly around the Confederate Memorial; slowly because it was a small monument and he had only the beginnings of an idea. Halfway around the memorial, his mental superchargers kicked in. He saw the solution, bright and clear. He began to stride.

“Here's the scenario,” he told them. “Fantoni's on the stand. I play the senator. Mr. Cohn is Fantoni.”

McCarthy flapped a hand: proceed.

“Mr. Fantoni: is a member of a political organization committed to the violent overthrow of the US government fit to be a citizen?”

“I decline to answer on the grounds—”

“Yeah, we know,” McCarthy said.

“In your line of business, Mr. Fantoni, how many card-carrying Communists do you know? Apart from yourself.”

“I plead the Fifth Amendment,” Cohn said.

“I have here the Party cards of you and two of your colleagues in New York. Are there more than three?”

“I plead the Fifth.”

“More than five? More than twenty?”

“Plead the Fifth.”

“More than fifty? More than one hundred active Communists known to you?”

“Plead the Fifth.”

“More than five hundred? A thousand? If you knew over a
thousand
Communists, knew them
professionally,
Mr. Fantoni, as part of your business, wouldn't you remember five? Fifty? Several hundred?”

“Plead the Fifth.”

“Okay, Mr. Fantoni, you're afraid your answers might incriminate you, we all understand that. Let me ask you about your leader, your hero, Josef Stalin. In your professional opinion—and you are an expert in this field—were Stalin's massacres of millions of innocent Russians a criminal act?”

“Plead the Fifth.”

“Oh? Meaning you're not sure? Let me help you out. All your Red friends in New York, are they bigger crooks and killers than Stalin?”

“The Fifth.”

“There's a split in the New York Communists, isn't there? That's why Trotskyites recently killed your nephew Sammy Fantoni and his cousin Chick Scatola?”

“They did?” Cohn was startled.

“Blood relatives, Mr. Fantoni! Your family! Murdered by Moscow! And you call yourself an American?”

“Fifth,” Cohn muttered.

“Enough, Mr. Arabel.” McCarthy stood and stretched. “I catch your drift.”

“It might be enough to get the bastard deported,” Cohn said.

“I need a drink,” McCarthy said. “That's helpful, Mr. Arabel. Keep at it. I need more. And fast.”

Flying in an airplane is not natural. Strong adult men who can tear a phone book in half are afraid of flying. Takeoff terrifies them. Once airborne, they dare not look out. Landing is one long sentence of death. And the arrival lounge comes, not as a relief, but as a sense of betrayal. All that terror, for nothing. It left Jerome Fantoni feeling angrier than ever.

He despised fear. That was why he flew to Washington, because otherwise fear would have nagged him into taking the train; but now look: fear won anyway. And it would be waiting for him when he flew back to New York. Well, he wouldn't put up with it. He'd take a gun and blow its gloomy head off.

A man was waiting for him at Washington Airport.

“It's an office block,” the man said. “8th Street and Pennsylvania Avenue.”

*

“Pull over here,” Jerome said. “I'll be twenty minutes.”

They were outside a suburban church, St. Brendan's, not an Italian saint, not by a thousand miles. The bricks had leaked salt, which made the walls look like a cheap liquor store. Any New York building contractor did that to the diocese would get rebuked with a baseball bat. But a church was a church. Jerome went in.

Everything was light oak. The stained glass had cost fifty dollars including tax. Incense was losing a fight with pine disinfectant. He had been in cocktail lounges where the atmosphere was more devout. Still, a confessional was a confessional. He entered the box.

Several minutes passed. He hadn't slept well, he was tired. The grill banged open and startled him. They made the routine statements. An Irish priest. Not young. Not charming. Well, he wasn't here to be charmed.

He wasted a few seconds, wondering how to begin. “I'm in a predicament, Father,” he said.

“Is that your car out front?” the priest barked. “The '52 Lincoln?”

“Um… probably. Yes.”

“It's illegally parked. Can't you read? The sign's as clear as day.”

“I'm sorry.”

“So you say. And when some poor devil has a heart attack during Mass and the ambulance can't get in because a selfish eedjit has parked like you have, what good is sorry?”

“Of course you're right. Has that happened?”

“Two weeks since. Come on, I have the sick to visit. What's your problem?”

“It's a matter of faith, Father. I think I may have lost mine.”

Silence. Then a sigh, perhaps a groan. More silence. Then: “Like an umbrella, d'ye mean?”

“I'm sorry, Father?”

“Where didya last have it? Have ye looked there?”

“Perhaps you misheard me, Father. I said—”

“I know what you said. You've lost your faith. Hell's teeth, I lose my faith a dozen times a week. Preachin' the Glory a God in this moral bog of a country, it sucks the marrow from a man's soul, so it does.”

Jerome tried again. “My problem is homicide, Father. Close relatives have died.”

“The police handle that.”

“Yes. But the suspects have died too.”

“Isn't it enough? You're lucky the police got that far. Have you no idea of the clear-up rate in homicide? It's pathetic.”

Jerome had come seeking compassion, and he felt he was getting blame. “All those meaningless deaths, Father. They make life seem pointless.”

“Most life is pointless. I have gallstones. What is the point of gallstones? Do they enjoy the pain they give me? They do not.”

“Have them out, Father.”

“I did. They returned. Sonsabitches.”

Jerome made his confession and was told to read his Bible and pray. He said that he had prayed a lot but nobody was listening. “Try again,” the priest said. “You never know, you might get lucky. Now move your damn car.”

Jerome came out of church feeling angry with God. He was 55, he had invested time and money in God, and now God was jerking him around, telling him nothing mattered because life was meaningless, and so was death. Well, that was unacceptable. God made the rules but then he made them meaningless. Okay, that was His privilege. Now Jerome Fantoni was going to break a couple. He was going to kill Luis Cabrillo. That was one death that he, personally, would not find meaningless. And Cabrillo would have all eternity to wonder where he went wrong.

He got into the Lincoln and they drove to 8th and Pennsylvania. The man called Metal Exchange on the car phone. “He's not back yet,” he told Jerome. “Soon, they reckon.”

“All this booze.” Mikhail said. “That's not going to do his depression any good. His crusade needs a kick-start.”