Trevayne (50 page)

“Otherwise,” added Aaron Green with a gesture, “poof!”

Senator Knapp did not pursue the subject.

Walter Madison couldn’t help but smile at the old Jew, but his smile faded quickly as he spoke. “Let’s grant, hypothetically, that everything you say is possible. Even probable. How do you propose to handle the current President? It’s my impression that he intends to run for a second term.”

“By no means conclusive. His wife and family are very much against it. And remember, Genessee Industries has removed scores of major problems from his concerns. We can easily re-create them. Finally, if it comes to it, we have medical reports that could finish him a month before the election.”

“Are they true?”

Hamilton lowered his eyes. “Partially. But I’m afraid that’s irrelevant. We have them; that’s relevant.”

“Second question. If Andrew is elected, how do you control him? How can you stop him from throwing all of you out?”

“Any man who sits in the President’s chair learns one supreme lesson instantly,” replied Hamilton. “That it’s the most pragmatic of all jobs. He needs every bit of help he can get. Instead of throwing us out, he’ll come running for assistance, try to convince us to come out of retirement.”

“Retirement?” Knapp’s confusion was paramount, but Walter Madison’s expression conveyed his understanding.

“Yes. Retirement, Senator. Walter knows. You must try to grasp the subtlety. Trevayne would never accept the proposition if he thought it was engineered by Genessee. Our position will be made clear. We’ll be reluctant, but ultimately he has our backing, our endorsement; he’s one of us. He’s a product of the marketplace. Once he’s elected, we have every intention of leaving the scene, living out the remainder of our lives in the comforts we’ve earned. We’ll convince him of this.… If he needs us, we’re there, but we’d rather not be called.… Of course, we have no intention of leaving at all.”

“And when he learns this,” summed up Walter Madison, attorney-at-law, “it’s too late. It’s the ultimate compromise.”

“Exactly,” agreed Ian Hamilton.

“My people behind the tight-shut doors have created a very effective campaign phrase.… ‘Andrew Trevayne, the Mark of Excellence.’ ”

“I think they stole it, Aaron,” said Hamilton.

Trevayne read the newspaper story as a wave of relief swept over him. He never imagined that he could be so filled with joy—there was no other word but “joy”—over a man’s death, a man’s brutal murder. But there it was, and he was consumed with a sense of deliverance.

“Underworld Chief Slain in Ambush Outside New Haven Home.”

The story went on to say how Mario de Spadante, while being transferred from an ambulance into his home on Hamden Terrace, was dropped to the ground and fired upon by six men who had been waiting on both sides of De Spadante’s house. None of those carrying the stretcher or the others at the scene, presumably the gangster’s personal guards, were injured. Thus the police authorities speculated that the killing was a multiple “contract” issued by “bosses” unhappy over De Spadante’s expanding associations outside the Connecticut area. It was no secret that De Spadante, whose brother allegedly was killed by an Army officer—a Major Paul Bonner—had displeased Mafia chieftains with his involvement in government construction projects. There seemed to be a general agreement among underworld powers that De Spadante was exceeding his authority and courting widespread danger for organized crime with his Washington endeavors.

As a side issue, the daylight slaying lent considerable credence to Major Paul Bonner’s claim that he was assaulted prior to having killed August de Spadante, the brother of the above. Reached in Arlington, Bonner’s military defense attorney stated that the New Haven murder was further evidence that his client was caught in the crossfire of a gangland war; that Major Bonner performed
outstandingly to protect Andrew Trevayne from attack. Mr. Trevayne, the article pointed out, was chairman of a subcommittee investigating corporate relationships with the Defense Department; the De Spadantes were known to have profited from several Pentagon contracts.

There followed four photographs showing Mario de Spadante in various stages of his career. Two were police identification shots separated by fifteen years; another on a nightclub floor in the early fifties; and one with his brother, August, in which both were standing in front of a construction crane, grinning the grins of Caesars.

It was so tidy, thought Trevayne. The snuffing out of one life removed so much evil. He had not slept—or if he had, it didn’t seem so—since leaving De Spadante’s hospital bed. He had asked himself over and over again if it was all worth it. And the answer progressively became a louder and louder negative.

He finally had to admit to himself that De Spadante
had
reached him;
had
compromised him. The Italian succeeded because he had forced him to weigh the values, consider the terrible price. The
rifiuti
, as De Spadante had called it. The garbage that would have buried his wife and children, the stench of its conjecture lingering for years.

It wasn’t worth it to him. He would not pay that price for a subcommittee he hadn’t sought, for the benefit of a President he owed no debt to, for a Congress that allowed such men as De Spadante to buy and sell its influence. Why should he?

Let someone else pay the price.

And now that part of it was finished. De Spadante was finished. He could put his mind back to the subcommittee report he had attacked with such energy after he’d left Chicago. After he’d left Ian Hamilton.

Three days ago nothing else had seemed so necessary, so vital. He had been distracted by Paul Bonner’s murder charge, but every minute away from that concern found him back at the report. He’d had the feeling then—three days ago—that time was the most important thing on earth; the report had to be completed and its summary
made known to the highest levels of the government as soon as was humanly possible.

Yet now, as he stared down at the Genessee notebooks piled beside the folded newspaper, he found himself strangely reluctant to plunge back into the work he’d set aside three days ago. He’d traveled to and from his River Styx. Like Charon, he’d carried the souls of the dead across the turbulent waters, and now he needed rest, peace. He had to get out from the lower world for a while.

And Genessee Industries was the lower world.

Or was it? Or was it, instead, only the maximum efforts of misguided men seeking reasonable solutions in unreasonable times?

It was only nine-fifteen in the morning, but Trevayne decided to take the rest of the day off. Perhaps one carefree day—one
free
of
care
—with Phyllis was what he needed.

To get the battery charged again.

Roderick Bruce threw the newspaper across the room and swore at the blue velour walls. That hard-on son-of-a-bitch had betrayed him! That Corn Belt butcher had waltzed him, and when the music stopped, kicked him in the balls and run back to the White House!

Bruce swept his tiny arm across the breakfast tray, sending the dishes crashing to the floor. He kicked the blankets off the bed—his and Alex’s bed—and leaped onto the lime flotaki rug. He could hear the sound of the maid’s footsteps; she was running down the outside corridor toward his room, and he shouted at the top of his lungs.

“Stay
out
of here, you black cunt!”

He ripped his Angkor Wat night shirt—the silk sleeping gown given him by Alex—as he pulled it over his head. Naked on the soft rug, his foot touched the upturned
coffee cup; he reached down, picked it up, and slammed it against the onyx bedside table.

He sat down at his desk and purposely straightened his bare back so that it was flat, hard against the chair. He kept his muscles taut, his posture rigid. It was an exercise he used often to discipline himself. To gain control of excessive feelings.

He’d shown Alex one night; a rare evening when they’d fought. Over some silly thing that was inconsequential … the roommate, that was it. The dirty roommate from Alex’s old apartment on 21st Street. The dirty, filthy roommate who wanted Alex to drive him up to Baltimore because he had too much luggage for the train.

They’d fought that night. But Alex finally understood how the dirty, filthy roommate was taking advantage of him, and so he called him up and told him absolutely
no
. After the telephone call, Alex was still upset, so Rod—Roger—showed him his bedroom desk exercise, and Alex began to laugh. It was a happy laugh; Alex was actually giddy. He told Roger that his exercise in discipline was almost pure Hindu Kantamani, an ancient religious punishment for young boys the priests found masturbating.

Bruce pressed his naked back harder into the chair. He could feel the buttons of the blue-velvet upholstery cutting into his flesh. But it was working; he was thinking clearly now.

Bobby Webster had given him two photographs of Trevayne and De Spadante together in De Spadante’s hospital room in Greenwich. The first photograph depicted Trevayne seemingly explaining something to the bedridden gangster. The second showed Trevayne looking angry—“disgruntled” was perhaps more accurate—at something De Spadante had just said. Webster had told him to hold them for seventy-two hours. That was important. Three days. Bruce would understand.

Then the following afternoon Webster had called him all over town, trying to find him. The White House aide was in a panic—as much of a panic as he allowed himself. He demanded the photographs back, and before he even heard the agreeable reply, began threatening White House retaliation.

And Webster had sworn to impose executive isolation if
one word
about Trevayne’s visit to De Spadante was even
hinted
at in print.

Roderick Bruce relaxed his posture, let his back fall away from the chair. He recalled Webster’s exact words when he asked the White House aide if Trevayne or De Spadante or the photographs would have any bearing on Paul Bonner’s murder charge.

“None whatsoever. There’s no connection; that stands as is. We’re controlling that on all sides.”

But he hadn’t controlled it. He hadn’t even been able to manage the Army lawyer defending Bonner. A Pentagon lawyer!

Bobby Webster hadn’t lied; he’d lost his clout. He was helpless. He used strong threats, but he hadn’t the muscle to carry them out.

And if there was one thing Roger Brewster of Erie, Pennsylvania, had learned in the cosmopolitan world of the Washington orbit, it was to take advantage of a helpless man, especially one who’d recently lost his muscle. Specifically, one who was helpless and had lost his muscle and was close to power and closer still to panic.

Behind such a man was usually a hell of a story. And Bruce knew how to get it. He’d made copies of the photographs.

Brigadier General Lester Cooper watched the man with the attaché case walk down the path to his car. The Vermont snow was deep and the path not shoveled well. But the driveway was fine. The snow plow had done a fine job all the way out to the road. And the man’s car was a heavy automobile with huge snow tires. He’d be all right.

Such men were always all right. Men who worked in skyscrapers for other men like Aaron Green. They moved in cloud-high offices with soft carpeting and softer lights. They spoke quietly into telephones and referred to complex figures—most often with decimal points and percentages within those decimals.

They dealt in the subtleties Brigadier General Lester Cooper abhorred.

He watched the large automobile turn around in the
small parking area and start off down the drive. The man waved, but there was no smile, no sense of friendliness. No thanks for having been treated hospitably in spite of the fact that he had arrived without warning, without announcement.

The subtleties.

And the news he brought to the Rutland farmhouse was a subtlety Lester Cooper felt he would never understand. But then, they didn’t ask him to understand, just be aware of, follow instructions. For the good of everyone. The Pentagon would benefit more than any other area of the government; he was assured of that.

Andrew Trevayne, President of the United States.

It was incredible.

It was preposterous.

But if the man from Aaron Green said it was a realistic consideration, Andrew Trevayne was halfway to his inauguration.

Lester Cooper turned away from the path and started back toward the house. As he approached the thick Dutch door he changed his mind and veered off to the left. The powdered snow was lying loose above a hard base, and his feet sank in up to his ankles. He had no boots or galoshes on, but the cold wetness didn’t bother him. There was the winter of forty-four, when he hopped off tanks into the snow-cold mud, and it hadn’t bothered him then either. Patton, George Patton, kept yelling at him: “… Cooper, you stupid son-of-a-bitch! Get the goddamn regulation boots on! We’re barrel-assing into a Kraut winter, and you act like it was springtime in Georgia! Take that shit-eating grin off your face!”

He’d yelled right back at George; always smiling, of course. Boots inhibited his tank driving. Shoes were fine.

Patton.

This would have been beyond him, too.

Cooper reached the end of the backyard lawn, fully covered with virgin snow. The sky was dull; one could hardly see the mountains in the distance. But they were there, and not treacherous, and he would look at them every day for the rest of his life—in a very short time.

As soon as he organized the logistics of Aaron Green’s
strategy—his part of it, the military end. It wouldn’t be difficult; the combined services were all aware of the enormous contributions of Genessee Industries. They were also aware that the future held the greatest military promise in history if Genessee became—as they wanted it to become—the true civilian spokesman for all of them. And if Andrew Trevayne was Genessee’s candidate, that was all that mattered.