Chicago Confidential

8

Washington, D.C. — the seat of political power in the western hemisphere — was also the hub of the mightiest industrial and military machine in the history of the world. The White House, the Capitol, various imposing monuments and a multitude of marble buildings swimming in seas of manicured green, were dignified symbols that imparted a stateliness, a nobility to the terrible powers certain men in this town possessed — men who charted the strategies and movements of armies and navies all over the world, who dispatched diplomats and spies to every corner of the earth, who controlled the man-made cataclysm of the atomic bomb.

I had come to our nation’s capital to see two men who wielded power of a different sort — the power of information... or sometimes misinformation. A few well-placed words — truth or fabrication, it didn’t seem to matter much which — could destroy lives as surely as any bullet or bomb... and without the mess.

One of those powerful men resided in a townhouse on Dumbarton Avenue in Georgetown, a quaint neighborhood of cobblestone streets, reconditioned slave quarters, and Early American shutters. This was a cool, overcast Sunday afternoon, and the well-shaded lane was alive with fall colors — coppers and yellows and oranges and reds (not the card-carrying variety).

I’d flown in this morning, arriving at the National Airport, on the Virginia side; from my window seat, as we glided over the city, the pilot executing a tourist-pleasing swoop, I’d taken in the grand obelisk of the Washington Monument and the familiar Capitol dome, dominating a distinctive skyline they and other monuments formed, no skyscrapers to compete with — buildings over 110 feet were banned by law, locally.

I had spent a lot of time in D.C. over the years — particularly on various jobs I’d done for the late James Forrestal, our nation’s first secretary of defense — and was quite used to Washington’s old-fashioned Southern sensibilities, its spacious avenues, tree-shaded lawns, the landscaped green (some of it dyed to stay that way year-round). What the hell — green seemed to symbolize the power in this city even better than stately marble.

At the townhouse in Georgetown, I trotted up the half-dozen steps to the landing and used the polished brass knocker. The golden-tressed young woman who answered smiled in recognition.

“Mr. Heller,” she said, playfully, because in other circumstances she had called me Nate, “you are expected.”

She had a perfectly delightful middle-European accent.

“Hi, Anya,” I said, stepping at her invitation into an entrance hall that fed both the residential and office areas of the townhouse. “You look swell.”

“You look good, also.”

Anya was a Yugoslavian war refugee in her early twenties, with big blue eyes in a heart-shaped face. She wore a businesslike blue dress with white trim and a white belt, an ensemble that played down her bosomy shape. We’d had a brief fling a while back, but her boss didn’t know it — because he was in the midst of a longer fling with his “secretary,” himself.

Anya was the office’s current “fair-haired girl,” as the staffers around here dubbed them, “cutie-pies” in her employer’s own terminology. Since her English was limited, her secretarial duties ran not to taking dictation but accompanying her married boss to cocktail parties and out-of-town speaking engagements.

A living room loomed straight ahead, with a formal dining room off to my left; but this was not a social call — the lady of the house, Luvie, spent most of her time at the family farm, anyway. Anya led me down the right a few steps, into the office area, ushering me — wordlessly — into a book-, paper-, and memento-flung study where her boss sat typing furiously at a stand to one side of his big wide wooden desk. Wearing a purple smoking jacket, fingers flying, the tall, bald, sturdy-looking journalist seemed oblivious to our entrance.

Beyond an open double doorway opposite the desk, a larger office area hummed with activity, a file cabinet-lined bullpen with three women and two men, typing, talking on the phone, interacting. Anya smiled and nodded to me, as she went out and joined them, shutting the doors behind her, though I could see her through the panes of glass, positioning herself at the wire service ticker, watching stories come in, doing her best to read them.

Sunday was one of Drew Pearson’s deadline days — he had his weekly radio broadcast tonight and he and his staff were prepping frantically for it. (One key figure around here, legman Jack Anderson, was not present: a Mormon, he didn’t work on Sundays, though he toiled his ass off on Saturday.) About twenty years ago, Pearson had gone from being a journeyman Washington newsman to a national figure by appropriating the technique of Manhattan and Hollywood gossip columnists for his “Washington Merry-Go-Round.”

That syndicated column — growing out of a book not unlike the Confidential series by Mortimer and Lait — was an immediate smash, and Pearson was soon America’s preeminent crusader for liberal causes. From time to time I had done background investigations for him, particularly those involving Chicago or California; but we had a rocky relationship — he was a cheap bastard, slow to pay his bills, plus he had an ends-justifies-the-means approach that troubled even a cynical Chicago heel like myself.

Speaking of Chicago heels, I stood rocking on mine, my hands in my suitpants pockets, waiting for Pearson to come up for air and notice my existence. This study had dark plaster walls decorated with photos of Pearson with show business figures (Sinatra among them) and national political luminaries, including a couple presidents and Senator Estes Kefauver; a few political cartoons, lampooning Pearson and his sometimes controversial stands, were framed and hanging here and there, as well. I was thinking about what an egomaniac this guy was until I realized these reminded me of my own office walls.

This was homier than my Monadnock suite, however, cozier — snapshots lined the mantelpiece of a working fireplace, and windowsills were stacked with books and magazines and one sill was occupied by a slumbering black cat. A primitive rural landscape and an oil painting of Pearson’s late father — neither very good — shared wall space with the framed photos and political cartoons.

Pearson stopped typing, heaved a sigh, and flipped the fresh page of copy on a desk lined with paper-filled wooden intake boxes. He had still not acknowledged my presence. He glided over, backward, on his swivel chair and got behind the desk, and turned to me, finally bestowing that foxy grin I knew so well.

“Must you always come by on broadcast day?” he asked, standing to his full six three, extending his hand. Just as he typed rat-a-tat-tat style, he talked the same way, having trained himself to sound like an elitist version of Walter Winchell, for the radio version of “Washington Merry-Go-Round.”

Reaching across his messy desk to shake with him, I said, “Remind me — what is your slow day around here?”

The bustle of the bullpen provided background music.

“No such animal, as you well know.” He gestured for me to sit and I took a hard wooden chair across from him.

Pearson settled back in his chair. He had an egg-shaped head, close-set eyes, a prominent nose, and a wide mouth adorned with a well-waxed, pointy-tipped mustache. Under the purple smoking jacket, a white shirt and brown-and-yellow bow tie peeked out. Gentlemanly, aloof, he would have made a fine British butler.

“Thanks for making time for me,” I said.

His arms were folded; he was rocking gently in the swivel chair. Then he halted in midrock and he reached for a jar of Oreo cookies on the desk, took off the glass lid, and dug himself a couple out; then he told me to help myself.

I passed. This — and cheating on his wife, and not paying me promptly — was his only vice. He was a Quaker and did not smoke, though he took hard liquor, albeit not to excess. He also did not pepper his speech with “thee” and “thou,” which would have been a little hard to take, considering his superior manner.

“I understand you’re not cooperating with my friend Estes,” he said.

Suddenly I felt as if I’d been summoned by Pearson, even though it had been me who arranged the appointment.

“I haven’t even met Senator Kefauver yet,” I said. “But I’m sure you’ll appreciate, Drew, that I don’t intend to compromise the privacy of my clients.”

An eyebrow arched. “You won’t testify?”

“If the committee calls me, I will, sure. But they won’t learn anything except name, rank, and serial number. If you could pass that info along to your ‘friend’ Estes, that would be swell.”

“Your visit does have something to do with the Crime Committee, though,” he said.

On the phone, I had indicated as much, if vaguely. Arguably, I could have handled this — and the other conversation I’d come to D.C. for — over the long-distance wire; but Pearson was one of the most paranoid men in a paranoid town, and refused to talk frankly on the telephone. He had his office swept for bugs on a weekly basis, and made most of his own calls from pay phones.

I said, “Yes — I would appreciate your insights on a couple of matters related to Kefauver.”

His response was to bite into an Oreo. Seeing the chunk of cookie disappear into that prissily mustached mouth was amusing, but I kept a straight face.

“I spoke to Lee Mortimer the other night,” I said.

“Mortimer.” He shook his head disgustedly, chewing his cookie. “What a pathetic little creature.”

“Lee claims he’s been shut out of the Crime Committee’s inside circle. Apparently he deluded himself into thinking they’d take him, a reporter, on as a paid, government investigator... just because he was the guy who inspired Kefauver to look into—”

But I never finished that thought, because Pearson lurched forward, and anger glistened in his close-set eyes. “Mortimer is a self-aggrandizing liar. I am the one who got Estes interested in organized crime — how many exposes have I written over the years, anyway? Louisiana, New York, Chicago... Damn it, Nathan — you contributed your investigative prowess to a number of them.”

“I guess I hadn’t made that connection.”

He made a sweeping gesture. “Isn’t it enough that Mortimer and his fat friend Lait plagiarized my approach in their trashy Confidential books? Must this iguana now lay claim to my efforts to help launch the Crime Investigating Committee?”

I knew Pearson was a booster of Kefauver’s, and the columnist had even been talking up the Tennessee senator as a possible presidential candidate. But I didn’t realize Pearson was — or anyway thought he was — a prime mover behind the mob inquiry.

Pearson was saying, “Hell, I was delighted when Estes introduced his resolution to investigate the rackets on a national scale. But then it got stalled in the Senate for lack of support — until I put the pressure on.”

“Who was trying to block it?”

“McCarran, for one — though technically McCarran is Kefauver’s boss, you know.”

Senator Pat McCarran of Nevada, home of Las Vegas, was — no shock here — in the mob’s pocket. McCarran was a Democrat who voted like a conservative Republican, one of the rabid anti-Commie crowd.

I was confused. “How in hell can McCarran be Kefauver’s boss, particularly when he tried to stop the investigation before it even started?”

Pearson shrugged, smiled his insider’s smile. “Kefauver’s committee ultimately reports to the Judiciary Committee, of which McCarran is chairman.”

“Christ.”

Pearson shifted in his seat. “And of course without the support of the Senate majority leader — Lucas, of your home state — Estes could never have launched his probe, in the first place. And initially Lucas was dead set against it.”

Pearson was referring to Scott Lucas, currently campaigning against Everett Dirksen.

“So I simply spoke to my good friend Scott,” Pearson continued, “and reminded him of certain rumors that he’d received big campaign contributions from Chicago gamblers. Pointed out that it would look very bad, if he continued to block the Kefauver investigation... and he graciously granted his support — Mortimer my ass! He’s a hack, a conniving hack.”

“What about these accusations he’s making about Halley?”

“Jack’s investigated Halley thoroughly...” Pearson meant Jack Anderson. “...and the man is a straight arrow. A partner in Halley’s law firm did indeed represent the railroad in question, the Hudson & Manhattan line, the one with the supposed gangster investors — a relationship that ended some time ago. Halley had no contact himself, and he’s been a dogged investigator, a relentless inquisitor in the hearings thus far.”

“What about his so-called Hollywood connections?”

“Nothing of substance there, either. His firm represents a distillery whose publicist has a few Hollywood clients. Typical Mortimer and Lait yellow journalism.”

Drew Pearson complaining about yellow journalism was like an infected mosquito bitching about yellow fever.

“Drew, do you have influence with Estes?”

Tiny shrug, twitch of the mustache. “Certainly.”

I nodded toward a certain photo on the wall. “Can you ask your friend from Tennessee to steer clear of our mutual friend Frankie?”

His eyes narrowed. “That might be difficult. An inquiry has to go wherever the truth leads.”

“Bullshit. Drew, this investigation has all sorts of political strings, and you damn well know it. Look at the emphasis on gambling — I don’t see the mob’s influence on big-city machine politics coming under the microscope.”

A more elaborate shrug. “...I can try.”

I leaned forward. “Certainly you can understand it would be devastating to Frank’s career right now, if he were called in front of TV cameras to testify about gangsters he met on his summer vacation.”

Nodding slowly, Pearson said, “Yes. I can understand that... I can but try.”

“Thank you. I’ll let him know — he’s under a hell of a lot of pressure. You see, Frank’s also got a problem with another Senate inquiry... courtesy of a certain old pal of ours.”

Pearson knew at once who I was talking about. “I can well imagine. Frank has a good heart — and he believes in the right causes. That’s enough to make him a ‘pinko’ in some circles. I can well imagine that ‘Tailgunner Joe’ might relish lining the Voice up in his capricious sights.”

“No imagining necessary. Really, that’s my main reason for coming to Washington... to try to reason with Joe McCarthy.”

“Well, then you’ll be the first one to manage that unlikely feat.”

I frowned. “Your relationship with McCarthy has completely soured?”

“It verges on war. Even he and Jack aren’t friendly, anymore.”

It might seem unlikely that Pearson and McCarthy had ever been soulmates, but the archliberal columnist and the ultraconservative senator had a shared interest in weeding out federal corruption. Pearson’s credentials in that arena were impeccable: he cracked the Russian spy ring in Canada; he exposed the Silvermaster Communist spy ring; and he ferreted out miscellaneous congressional skulduggery, ruining the careers of a number of powerful legislators.

Wisconsin’s McCarthy — elected to the Senate in 1946, in part by courting Communist support (“Communists have the same right to vote as anybody else, don’t they?” he’d asked rhetorically) — had been for several years a key Pearson source of inside info about his congressional colleagues and their secrets. I knew McCarthy because I followed leads he provided Pearson, about the so-called “five percenter” influence peddlers.

But earlier this year, after a national magazine rated him our nation’s worst senator, McCarthy bragged to Jack Anderson that he had come up with “one hell of an issue.” Shortly thereafter, McCarthy gave a speech to the no doubt bewildered little old ladies of the Republican Women’s Club of Ohio County, declaring to have “in his hand” a list of 205 members of the Communist Party, currently operating in the State Department, with the secretary of state’s blessing.

Never mind that within a day the list had dwindled to “fifty-seven card-carrying Communists”... or that Communist Party members hadn’t carried “cards” for years. McCarthy had made himself an instant household word... and a feared man in Washington.

Only, Drew Pearson didn’t fear anybody in Washington or anywhere else.

“Before he’s through,” Pearson was saying, “no one’s reputation will be safe — the whole political process will be poisoned.”

“He’s got a real, rabid following.”

“That’s why he’s got to be cut down now, before he becomes a walking national disaster area. Frank Sinatra? A Communist? Good Lord, where would such lunacy stop?”

“You’re losing a hell of an informant.”

“My best on the Hill,” Pearson admitted. “A good source, but a bad man... McCarthy’s already caught up in the demagogue’s compulsion toward escalation. He upgrades ‘fellow travelers’ into Communists, and pro-Communists into spies!”

“Well, your friend Estes has provided him the blueprint for witch-hunting. You have that coonskin cap to thank.”

Pearson’s nostrils flared, his eyes hardened. “Don’t compare the two, for God’s sake! Estes is a sincere, honest man, a true servant of the people. There’s something... pathological about McCarthy, some inner demon that pushes him to take extravagant risks.”

I shrugged. “Maybe he’ll undo himself.”

An eyebrow lifted. “Waiting until that time would be a risk too extravagant for me to take. I’ll handle this in my own fashion.”

“How?”

He nodded toward his battered old typewriter. “With my usual weapon — my column, my radio show. Within the coming weeks, every American will learn that their esteemed Red-busting hero has committed a laundry list of transgressions.”

Pearson began to enumerate: State Judge McCarthy had sold “quickie” divorces to campaign contributors; he had violated the Wisconsin constitution by running for Senate without resigning from the bench; his disbarment had been recommended by the State Board; he’d falsely attributed lavish campaign contributions to his father and brother, who didn’t make five grand a year between them; he retained his judgeship while serving in the Marines; he’d cheated on his income taxes; and he’d exaggerated his war record, a much publicized “wound” a phony...

None of it seemed terribly impressive to me, frankly — McCarthy sounded like a typical politician. But Pearson knew just how to parcel this stuff out, and really put a guy through the meat grinder.

As I watched the tips of Pearson’s waxed mustache rise ever higher as the columnist smiled, listing the Wisconsin senator’s various sins (assembled by Anderson, no doubt) — soon to be shared with the American public — it came to me that Joe McCarthy was about to really find out what smear tactics were all about.

On this cool, quiet Sunday night in September, under a starless sky, the Mall — that wide expanse of green, extending a mile and a half up from the Washington Monument to the Capitol Building — was bathed in light by streetlamps, thousands of luminous orbs lining the pavement, crisscrossing this most accessible of parks. The Capitol Building seemed a glowing crown in this sweeping array of marble, grass, and floodlights. Unencumbered by the rush of people — save for a few tourists attending the church of their government — the Mall gave Washington a sense of pageantry, of elegance, of order. How Joe McCarthy fit into this was anybody’s guess.

One of three white marble buildings facing the Capitol grounds, the Senate Office Building — inevitably nicknamed the S.O.B. — was at First and B Street, near the northeast corner. Capitol Hill was all but deserted, and even nearby Union Station — where I’d parked my rental Ford — seemed underpopulated.

I trotted up the broad flight of steps on the southwest corner, to a terraced landing, then on to the main doorway, which opened onto the second floor, depositing me in a marble two-story rotunda with a balcony, conical ceiling, and armed security guard. Fortunately McCarthy had seen to it my name was on the guard’s clipboard list, and — after my ID was examined, and I’d signed in — he allowed me to clip-clop across the marble floor, creating disturbing echoes in the vast, underlit chamber. It felt wrong, being here after hours, and eerie, the long shadow I cast resembling an intruder skulking unbidden into the hallowed halls of government.

Through an arch, down a white marble corridor, I crept along, like a ghost haunting the place. I was not entirely alone, however: now and then, slashes of light at the bottom of doors indicated Senator McCarthy was not the only person taking advantage of the peace and quiet and lack of hubbub a Sunday night could afford.

But only McCarthy’s office seemed to be going more or less full throttle. When I entered the anteroom, a secretary and two staffers were bustling about, much as Pearson’s crew had been — typing, filing, poring over research materials.

Delores — an efficient, pleasant-looking woman in her thirties who McCarthy called “mother” — recognized me from previous visits. She smiled in a harried manner, said I was expected, and hustled me in to the senator’s spacious, rather underfurnished office.

McCarthy was on the phone, seated behind his big square government-issue desk, which was piled with file folders. He was in a white shirt with the sleeves rolled up, his food-stained red-and-green splatter-design tie loose around a bull neck, the suitcoat of a double-breasted ready-made dark blue suit (he seemed to buy them by bulk) flung over a hardback chair. He was the kind of guy whose socks matched his tie only by accident.

In his early forties, McCarthy — who was chummily talking with “Dick”... Nixon, it soon became clear — had a blue-jowled, barrel-chested, unchiseled masculinity that was close enough to handsome for government work. His dark hair was just starting to thin, and his muscular physique seemed fleshier than when I saw him last, maybe a year before.

My host, in his nasal Irish baritone, was working on Nixon, trying to get him to share current Un-American Activities Committee files. McCarthy kept referring to the “cause.”

His manner made me recall the first night I’d played poker with him. McCarthy had invited me along to the National Press Club. Sitting down with seven men he’d never played with before, he tried to bluff each one of them out of a pot; and no matter what he had — even a pair of deuces — McCarthy would bet heavily.

He also tried to bluff me, and I won a healthy pot of mostly his money; I heard whispering that McCarthy was a “sucker,” and that was when I caught on. He’d been acting the hayseed, and when the cards started to run in his favor, he bet heavily and everybody stayed in — assuming he was bluffing. At one point down five hundred bucks, he wound up winning twelve hundred.

I wondered if Drew Pearson knew that this grinning, blue-jowled ape was far more resourceful than his enemies gave him credit for. Watching him twist Nixon’s arm over the phone, I could see this son of a bitch played politics like he played poker — committing well-calculated highway robbery.

The office, by the way, was barren of the sort of celebrity photos and mementos that characterized Pearson’s study — though McCarthy was every bit as big a public figure. The only item on display was a baseball bat on a little pedestal, on a counter at left, between file cabinets.

The bat had the name “Drew Pearson” burned into it.

McCarthy was hanging up the phone. He grinned at me, rising to his six feet, and reached a long arm across his cluttered desk, offering me a big square hand.

I shook that powerful paw, and when he told me to sit down, I did, in the hard wooden chair opposite him — next to the one with his suitcoat slung over it.

He was still grinning after he sat back down — but the grin seemed strained, almost a grimace. He said, “Should I have agreed to see you, Nate?”

“Why not, Joe?”

He nodded toward the baseball bat. “Word is you and Pearson patched up your differences.”

I shrugged. “Only to the extent that I’m willing to take his money again.”

Thick black eyebrows climbed his Cro-Magnon forehead. “Not to look into my business, I hope?”

“No. That’s never happened, Joe... never will.”

The grin relaxed into a smile; he sat forward, leaning on the file folders, brutish shoulders hunched. “I’m going after him, Nate,” he said, still referring to Pearson. “I mean, no holds barred. I figure I’ve already lost his supporters — and now I can pick up his enemies.”

“Do what you want to do.”

“I’m going to break him, Nate — put him out of business.”

I figured long after McCarthy was out of the Senate, Pearson would still be around, destroying careers on the Hill; but I said, “That’s between you and the skinflint.”

The latter made him laugh. “You know, I’d be a hero on the Hill if I could pull a few of his teeth, break his insteps, or maybe bust a few ribs. Say fifteen of ’em.”

“That bat would do the trick,” I said, wondering if he was kidding.

He leaned back, gestured with a big hand. “You know, you could have called me on the phone. You didn’t have to come all this way.”

“Some conversations shouldn’t be sent through the air. Phones can be tapped.”

“I guess you’d know.” He scratched his nose. “A fella in your position can acquire enemies, after all.”

That seemed an odd remark.

But I just said, “That’s true. Not everyone loves me. Listen... I wanted to talk to you about a friend of mine.”

“The pinko singer.”

I sighed. “Joe, he’s no pinko. Frank’s about as political as I am.”

“Is that a good thing?”

Something was crawling at the base of my neck.

“Am I missing something?” I asked.

He selected a file — whether randomly or not, I couldn’t say. He thumbed through it and, either referring to it or pretending to, he said, “I’ve been approached about you. About your background.”

“What?”

“Your father was a Communist, wasn’t he? Ran a Commie bookstore on the West Side of Chicago? You grew up there, among those radicals?”

I felt like I’d been sucker punched in the belly. I managed, “He was a Wobbly, Joe — a pro-union guy. He killed himself, back in ’32.”

“Terrible tragedy. Terrible.”

“He killed himself because I wasn’t like him — I wasn’t idealistic. I just wanted to make a buck.”

“That’s the American way.”

My head was swimming. “Jesus — what are you saying to me, Joe?”

He heaved a huge sigh; shook his head, sorrowfully. “There are people... powerful people... good Americans, like my friend Pat McCarran... who would like me to take a hard close look at you, and your background.”

“...Are you saying, somebody’s told you to paint me with a red brush?”

His beady eyes turned into slits. “Let me say this. This fellow Kefauver, he’s like a bull in the china shop. He’s causing trouble for a lot of fine Americans. He’s abusing the system, with these hearings of his — I can’t abide seeing our fine system, the most nearly perfect system of government ever to find a place under God’s blue sky, abused for personal aggrandizement. That Tennessee turncoat will never be president if I have any say in it.”

The panic had been brief, but terrible — I’d had a tiny glimpse of the horror of having your world imperiled by government-sanctioned lies.

But that panic was gone.

“McCarran,” I said, smiling just a little, nodding. “Senator from the great state of Nevada. As in, Las Vegas. Joe — do you have friends who don’t want me to testify in the Kefauver hearings?”

He cleared his throat. “If you’re called, you’ll have to testify. That’s the law. But what you choose to share with these witch-finders, that’s another matter entirely.”

I laughed; the laughter was genuine but tinged with hysteria. The great Commie hunter was mobbed up!

He folded his hands, prayerfully; he had knockwurst fingers. “Nate... I couldn’t let this happen to you. I was so pleased when you called, and wanted to meet. After all, you were friends with Jim Forrestal... another great man Drew Pearson assassinated with his pen.”

That was why Pearson and I had fallen out: the columnist’s unremitting, merciless attacks had contributed to Forrestal’s suicide.

“Jim was my mentor,” McCarthy said. “He was the one who informed me about the Communists high up in our government.”

Forrestal was also a delusional paranoid schizophrenic.

I folded my arms. “Joe, I’ve already talked to the committee, who I basically told to go fuck themselves... and to Charley Fischetti, and Sam Giancana, given them my assurances that I’m not talking.”

“Those names mean nothing to me.”

“Yeah, right. You tell McCarran I’m no problem. And Christ, neither is Sinatra. You’ve got to give that kid a pass, too, Joe. You’ll destroy his career.”

“Mr. Sinatra is also on Kefauver’s list.”

“Oh. Wait... I think I’m finally getting this.” I shook my head, not knowing whether to laugh or cry. “You’ll lay off Sinatra, if he doesn’t cooperate with the Kefauver Committee.”

He twitched a humorless smile. “You make this sound like a quid pro quo... I can tell you that Senator McCarran admires Mr. Sinatra, has enjoyed his many appearances in Las Vegas.”

I raised a hand, as if I was being sworn in. “Frank won’t give those guys the time of day — even if they put his ass on TV and embarrass him in front of the entire nation.”

“You can speak for him?”

“I am speaking for him.”

McCarthy thought about that. Then he grinned, and it didn’t seem strained. “Great. Great! Jesus, Nate it’s nice seeing you. You want to go out for beer and steak? I’m ready for a break.”

“No thanks,” I said. “Rain check.”

I was the one with the strained grin, now.

I stood, he stood again, and we had another handshake, and I went quickly out. At first I was pissed off, although relieved; but then the humor of it hit me.

The other shoe had finally dropped.

I’d thought Fischetti, Giancana, and company had too easily accepted at face value my assurances not to help Kefauver. I mean, hell — I was Bill Drury’s friend and almost partner! Yet there’d been no intimidation — just one bribe, from Tubbo, nothing from the Outfit itself.

Until this Sunday evening screening of Mr. Heller Goes to Washington, that is.

This had all been just another scam, courtesy of the mob and that poker-playing ape back there. Sinatra was a friend of the Chicago/Nevada gambling interests, after all; they wouldn’t want to insult him, not directly. And me, better to keep me a friendly nonwitness.

So they had reached out to Senator Joe McCarthy, that great Red-hunting all-American boy, to squeeze Frankie and me into silence.

No silence right now: I was laughing, loud and hard, and it was echoing through the rotunda of the S.O.B., filling the hollow, hallowed halls, startling the guard.