Sharky's Machine

Chapter Five

The man who arrived at one o’clock at the private suite in the Regal Hotel was short and unkempt. He needed a shave, his greying hair was frazzled and uncombed, his fierce grey eyes ringed with circles, lie wore a pair of baggy slacks, a mismatched sports jacket, and his tie was a disaster. He carried a cheap plastic snapshut briefcase under his arm and a copy of The New York Times he had brought with him on the early morning flight from Washington. And he was hyper; energy vibrated around him. He sucked noisily on an empty pipe, walking in tight little circles waiting for someone to answer his knock.

His appearance was deceiving. Julius Lowenthal, former advisor to two presidents and a gnawing antagonist for a third, had once been described by a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist as having the appearance of a burlesque comic and the mind of a Borgia.

One did not court Lowenthal’s services; he offered them. On this morning he was about to meet Senator Donald Walden Hotchins, Jr.

He was greeted at the door by another political curiosity. Physically, Charles Roan was Lowenthal’s alter ego: a tall, husky, pleasant man with an ebullient personality, boundless energy, and a taste for three-piece tailored suits. He was an open, buoyant man, unlike the caged lion that was Lowenthal. As Hotchins’s campaign manager Charley Roan had overcome two major drawbacks: he was a former All-American football player — a jock — and he had been Hotchins’s room-mate in college. Sixteen years earlier, when Hotchins had challenged one of the strongest old-line machine politicians in the state for governor, his appointment of Charley as campaign manager had been regarded as a joke. Nobody laughed any more. Roan had been the architect of a remarkable success, had guided Hotchins through two terms in the statehouse, a term as governor and finally had helped him defeat the state’s senior senator. It was Roan who had discreetly let it be known to Lowenthal that Hotchins needed him.

The suite was modest, a living room furnished with comfortable but undistinguished hotel furniture, a bedroom with a king-size bed, and a small kitchenette. Only a few of J-Hotchins’s closest confidants knew he maintained the suite. The senator was standing near a window when Lowenthal entered the room, He smiled and limped across it with the aid of a highly polished shillelagh, a tall, lean, handsome man, well-tanned, with blond hair and penetrating blue eyes. He was casually dressed in flared slacks and a dark blue sports shirt. He shook hands with Lowenthal.

‘How’s the foot?’ Lowenthal asked.

‘It’s okay. Occasionally it acts up when the weather’s bad.’

Lowenthal smiled. ‘Can you run on one leg when the weather’s bad?’

‘He can run on his bands if he has to,’ Charley Roan said. ‘I appreciate your coming,’ Hotchins said. ‘Do you think I’m crazy?’

‘Sure- I do,’ Lowenthal said. ‘Anybody who runs for public office is crazy. Anybody who runs for this office is mad as a hatter.’

Hotchins smiled. ‘Okay, welcome to the tea party. How about some coffee?’

‘Cream and sugar,’ Lowenthal said. ‘I stayed in the airport motel in Washington last night and sneaked out. I don’t think anybody knows Pm here. Once the press finds out, the cat’s out of the bag. Pd like to forestall that as long as possible.’

‘You can stay here. Nobody knows about this suite but a few of us. My press secretary. Pete Holmes, is at a luncheon. He’ll be along in an hour or so. He’s very good at handling the media.’

‘So I’ve heard.’

‘Well,’ Roan said, rubbing his hands together, ‘what do you think?’

‘What do I think?’ Lowenthal said raising his eyebrows. ‘What do I think about what?’

‘I think what Charley means is, What do you think of our chances?’

Lowenthal stuffed tobacco into his battered pipe and lit it, almost disappearing in a nuclearean smoke cloud. He waved the smoke away with a hand.

‘I think if you can survive until the convention, once you’ve made the announcement, you’ve got a chance. I also think that is one big if.’

‘I’m not a pussyfooter, Julius,’ Hotchins said. ‘Are you interested in working with us?’

‘That’s why I’m here, Mr. Senator.’

‘Great. That’s great!’ Roan said and slapped his hands together. Lowenthal felt a moment of annoyance before remembering that exuberance was one of the prices one paid for youth. ‘I took the liberty of talking to Bob Fitzgerald at the National Committee yesterday,’ Lowenthal said. ‘I hope you don’t object. I realize it was a bit unorthodox going ahead before we talked, but the timing seemed right to me. I operate on instincts, been living with them a long time. Usually don’t take time to question them, Ijust go.’

‘And how does Fitzgerald feel about us’?’ Hotchins asked.

‘Well, you got to remember that Fitz is an old party bull. He’s been chairman of the NC for ten years. He’s tough, probably the best machine politician this country’s seen since Tammany. He’s like an odds maker. He adds it all up and then he makes his bet.’

‘And?’ Hotchins said.

‘And he’s still betting on Humphrey.’

‘Humphrey!’ Roan bellowed. ‘Jesus Christ, he’s already been whipped once. Does he want to hand the election to Ford?’

‘The way he sees it, it’s going to be a free-for-all in New Hampshire, Wisconsin, West Virginia, and all the early runners are going to burn out in the stretch. We’re talking about a Jot of money and a lot of endurance. Hubert can afford to wait it out until May, maybe even June, then jump in at the last minute after all the shooting’s over and walk off with it.’

‘So,’ Hotchins said, ‘what it’s going to take is a long- distance runner with a lot of money.’

‘That’s it,’ Lowenthal said.

‘And he’s writing us off, right?’ Roan said.

‘He thinks Carter’s going to be the man in the South. And he doesn’t even give him a chance. He doesn’t think either one of you has a chance nationally. Doesn’t think you have the clout. You’ve stepped on too many toes. The insurance companies, the lobbyists, nuclear power. You’ve kicked a lot of ass, Mr. Senator.’

Hotchins smiled. ‘And there’s still plenty of kick left in my good foot,’ he said.

‘But that’s where the money is,’ said Lowenthal.

‘We got the money,’ said Roan.

‘We’re talking big money. Big money.’

‘We have big money. And we have stamina.’

‘How about Carter?’ said Lowenthal.

‘Well, how about him?’ Hotchins said..

‘He’s going to run. I talked to his people last week.’

‘We can take Carter,’ Roan said. ‘He hasn’t got the charisma Hotch has.’

‘And he’s soft on some key issues. I know Jimmy. We get along fine. I like him. But we can take him,’ Hotchins said. ‘We can beat him right here in the back room before be gets started. I guarantee it.’

Lowenthal nodded. ‘I agree. I think you can. But you’re going to have to beat him out of the gate and that means starting the race too soon. It’s dangerous.’

‘He’ll have to do the same. It’s a question of who comes out first. And we’re coming out next Monday,’ said Roan.

‘Next Monday!’ Lowenthal looked shocked.

‘We’ll lock the state before Jimmy gets out of bed,’ Roan said. ‘Then hit New Hampshire like the blizzard of ‘88.’

Lowenthal shook his head. ‘You’ll be on oxygen before spring,’ be said.

‘No way,’ Hotchins said and the intensity of his retort surprised Lowenthal. ‘I can hop faster and farther than any of them can run on two legs. I’ve been training for this for too long. Let ‘em think we’ll burn out. Let Fitzgerald think so.’

Lowenthal nibbled on his pipe. He was seeing a new side to Hotchins. Tough. Obsessed. A man who did not consider losing. Maybe he could do it. Maybe be just had the fever to do it. He decided to try another approach, another test. ‘Let me put it this way,’ he said, ‘You know how the National Committee works. They control party finances. They can also play hell with the convention, with delegates’ votes, simply by screwing with the convention rules. They browbeat, cajole, threaten, blackmail, call in favours

there are a hundred ways they can steal committed votes.

You could go all the way to the wire and see it vanish in a two- or three-ballot donnybrook.’

‘They tried it on Kennedy and got their ass handed to them,’ Roan said.

‘And Harry Truman,’ Hotchins added. ‘Talk about stamina. He whistle-stopped Dewey to death. We can do the same thing. To Carter, Udall, Frank Church, even Humphrey if we have to. We know all this. The question is, Do we need the committee?’

‘Academic question,’ Lowenthal said. ‘We don’t have ‘em, so why worry about it? Fitz’ll fight you all the way to the final ballot. I know him. I’ve been up against him before. He wants a winner; that’s the name of the game this year. And he doesn’t think you have a chance in hell. Look, you’re running, okay? You need money. If you’re a good party hack, they back you. If you’re a maverick, played by your own rules, voted against a few big party bills — which you have they run out of money just when you need it. So you can forget the committee for money and support. And it can get very lonely out there if the party strongarms are against you. They’ll throw everybody in the party at you in the early primaries. They may even quietly support some weak sisters to split the vote, throw it into a runoff. Make you spend more money. And what Fitz is looking for is for you to run out of breath in the stretch. He plays for longevity. Longevity is what counts.’

‘We’ll be waiting for him in New York come July,’ Hotchins said, with more than just confidence. The way he said it, it was a statement of fact.

Lowenthal shook his head and chuckled. ‘Well, if confidence alone could win it, you’d be on the way to Washington right now,’ he said. ‘But I must tell you, I don’t agree with this plan to announce on Monday. Hell, at least wait until after the New Year.’

‘We can’t,’ Roan said. ‘Carter’s getting ready himself.’

Lowenthal shook his head. ‘It’s Christmas. Nobody gives a damn about politics right now.’

‘They will,’ Hotchins said.

‘Damn, you’re determined!’ Lowenthal said.

Hotchins fixed himself a cup of tea and put half a spoonful of sugar into it. He stirred it slowly, looking at Lowenthal with his crystal blue eyes.

‘What’s your interest in me, Julius?’ he asked.

Lowenthal smiled. ‘Plain and simple? You’re a maverick and I like that, always have. I’ve been watching you for years. We believe in the same things.’ Then: ‘So much for idealism. Now we’ll get to the bottom line. You have style. You have a hell of a war record. But the big thing is, I don’t think Humphrey can beat Ford and I think you just might. Ford’s the weakest incumbent president the Democrats have ever run against, but that doesn’t mean he’s a pushover. He can shake the Nixon thing. He’s already done a pretty good job of that. My personal opinion is that a dark horse is going to take him. And they don’t come any darker than you right now.’

Hotchins and Roan both laughed.

‘Besides,’ Lowenthal said, ‘maybe, just maybe, you could make one hell of a president.’

Hotchins smiled warmly. Then he laughed out loud. ‘I’ll be a son of a bitch,’ he said. ‘That’s one hell of an answer.’

‘Good,’ Lowenthal said, ‘now let’s get to the nut-cutting fast. You got any secrets. Anything in the closet we ought to know about? Any illegitimate kids, bad friends, vices that may upset the little old ladies in Nebraska?’

Hotchins smiled to conceal a tiny shock that hit him in the stomach. A picture of Domino flashed past his eyes. ‘Of course not,’ he said casually.

‘We’ve been through this before,’ Roan said. ‘If there was anything, it would have been turned up by now.’

‘Not like this time. This time they’ll be all over you — into your business deals, your war record, your family life. Both parties in the beginning. I don’t want any surprises popping up at the last minute.’

‘What else?’ Hotchins said, killing that conversation.

‘What’s your net worth?’

Hotchins thought about that for a few moments. ‘I suøpose I’ll show close to a million dollars when my CPA finishes the audit. But most of that’s on paper. Investments, stock in trust to protect me from conflicts of interest.’

‘How much liquid?’

‘Less than two hundred thousand dollars.’

‘Our credit position is very strong,’ Roan said. ‘We can tap several banks. I’d say we can raise a million, maybe more to start with.’

‘Not enough.’

‘What is enough?’ Hotchins asked.

Lowenthal tapped dead ashes out of his pipe. Then he said, ‘Two million, minimum. It could go higher depending on how rough it gets. And no big contributors. It could hurt you later. It also could be illegal.’

Hotchins stared at the lawyer. He had to be careful with Lowenthal. No matter how tough he might talk, Lowenthal was known for his integrity. It was one of the traits that gave him credence and had ever since he had first appeared on the political scene during the Kennedy campaign. But Hotchins was thinking, Illegal? It was only illegal if they got caught and he knew DeLaroza well enough to know Victor would never get caught. Hotchins’s big concern was two million dollars. Vas his finance minister prepared to raise that kind of money? He thought he knew the answer.

‘We’ve got it,’ he said suddenly. ‘And without that son of a bitch Fitzgerald. I don’t want his money. I don’t want him until we get to New York. Then I want him with his hat in his hand, begging to get on board.’

He limped to the window and looked down at the street, at the little people scurrying back to their offices and after- lunch Alka Seltzers. The voters. ‘they were little people to him, humiliated by the routines of life, badgered by the banks and the mortgage companies and the institutions, running one step ahead of failure. His contempt for the common man was a deeply guarded secret, a flaw which could destroy him. And looking down at them he felt a deep rage that his future lay in their hands. But the emotion passed quickly.

‘So it’s Humphrey we have to beat,’ he mused aloud.

‘Hubert’s a fine man,’ Lowenthal said. ‘And a hell of a campaigner.’

‘He had his chance in ‘68,’ Hotchins said, and there was a snap to his voice, like a whip cracking. To Hotchins, he was a loser, a failure, like the little people below, a man who smiled in defeat and cried in public. Happy Warrior, hell. But he said nothing, for he sensed Lowenthal’s respect for the Minnesota senator.

Lowenthal walked over to him. ‘Look, you got a lot going for you. You’re handsome, honest, got a great record.

You’re a war hero; you left a foot in Korea and came back with the Distinguished Service Cross and a Purple Heart. You took a little nothing business and an SBA loan and parlayed it into a national franchise, You’re a lawyer, a soldier, a businessman. Got a great family. Mr. Clean. And it’s all beautiful and great. What it gets you, it gets you into the gate, period.

‘After that, it’s a balls-out race. What I can do for you, I can bring in some real heavyweights. Joe McGuire, Angie Costerone, John Davis Harmon. They’ll come aboard if I’m aboard. I can work the demographics, tell you how to get the Chicano vote in L.A., the blacks and Puerto Ricans in New York, the Irish vote in Boston, the Polish vote in Chicago, deal with the unions, the city machines, the state hacks. We can do all that. But it won’t mean a damn unless we come off big. You got to open up your campaign lilce a winner and run like one. When we announce we have to take the biggest hail in the state and fill it with the kids, the senior citizens, blacks, reds, yellows, greens, pinks, Wasps. We want bands and noise and, uh, what we can’t do, we can’t come out with bupkus. You know bupkus? It’s Yiddish. It means nothing, zilch. A quiet noise. You sneak into this campaign and Fitz figures he’s got you dead already. You come out big, with me and McGuire and the rest, it’s gonna scare him to death.’

Hotchins grinned. He was going to come out big, all right. That, he could guarantee.

Phipps Plaza was one of the city’s more elegant shopping centres, located a few minutes from Victor DeLaroza’s office, its parking lot three storeys deep and under the mall. At two that Thursday afternoon there were only a few cars on the lower level. One of them was a brown Rolls- Royce which sat facing the exit ramp, its motor mumbling softly.

Hotchins guided his Buick down the ramp and parked beside it. As he got out of his car the rear door of the Rolls swung open and Hotchins got into its elegant interior. DeLaroza was sipping a cup of espresso, an enormous Havana cigar smouldering in his fist. He grinned as the senator sat beside him and he pressed a button in the armrest near his elbow. A window rose silently between the front and back seats.

‘Bom dia,’ DeLaroza said.

Hotchins shook his hand warmly. ‘I feel like I’m in the CIA,’ he said, ‘sneaking around parking lots just to have a chat. You should have come to the hotel. I want you to meet Lowenthal.’

‘All in time,’ DeLaroza said. ‘I still put a high price on my privacy. When it becomes necessary for me to become a. more public person, then I will deal with that problem at he time. So, what is so urgent?’

‘Lowenthal’s in.’

‘Excellent, excellent!’ DeLaroza cried.

‘And he’s bringing in McGuire, Casterone, and Harmon with him.’

‘Ah! Even better. That is splendid news. More than you had hoped for, eh?’

Hotchins’s voice became flat and hard. His eyes narrowed. ‘I was counting on it,’ he said. ‘Lowenthal is like an ace in a poker game. Without help he could be beat by a pair of deuces.’

‘An interesting analogy. And who are these deuces?’

‘Fitzgerald and Humphrey.’

So, the National Committee has made its choice.’

‘Yes.’

‘It is no surprise, my friend, right’?’

‘No. And I like it this way,’ Hotchins said. ‘When the convention’s over, we’ll have Fitzgerald at our feet. That’s what I want. I want them all to line up and kiss my ass.’

DeLaroza’s eyebrows arched as he listened to Hotchins’s venom spii1 out. He said, ‘I am sure Fitzgerald is aware of this threat.’

‘Sure he is. They’re going to fight us hard and dirty. That’s all right. It’ll make the victory that much sweeter. .1 tell you, Victor, I can taste it. Taste it.’ Hotchins’s eyes burned with almost sensual delight as he spoke.

‘Easy, my friend. Save that energy, it is a long time between now and July.’

But Hotchins’s ardour could not be stemmed. He bad contained himself in Lowenthal’s presence, not wishing to reveal his need. Now he let go, savouring what he felt was a sweet victory.

‘1 can feel it in my bones,’ he said. ‘Lowenthal’s committed. He’s excited, enthusiastic. And he’s a brilliant tactician. Just what we need to go up against the committee. Now we can beat ‘em, I know it. We can grind the sons of bitches under.’

DeLaroza stared at the senator and puffed on his Havana. Somewhere within the immaculate framework of the Rolls an exhaust fan quietly sucked the smoke from the rear compartment.

‘You remember a movie with Brando called One-Eyed Jacks?’ DeLaroza said.

‘Why? What’s the point?’

‘You remind me of a one-eyed jack. The rest of the world sees only half your face. They see the veteran hero, the warm family man, charging windmills, tilting with the political machines. How many people ever see the other side, the hidden face of the jack?’

‘Why, what do you see there?’ Hotchins asked cautiously.

‘A barracuda. A competitor with big needs, big hungers. it is what attracted me to you, Donald. That is why you will win. It will not be because of Lowenthal or Casterone or any of the others. You will win because you have an instinct for the jugular and that will surprise them.’

Hotchins leaned forward in the seat, tense and suddenly uneasy. They had never talked this openly before. Finally he said, ‘Takes one to know one, right, Victor?’

‘Oh, I am not a barracuda,’ DeLaroza said. ‘The barracuda is selective, it picks its victims to appease its appetite. I am a shark, Donald. I will eat anything that comes in my way.’

‘Sounds like a warning,’ Hotchins said.

‘No. I want to make sure you are aware that I too have big appetites. And I also go for the throat.’

Hotchins pondered the comment for a few moments and then laughed. ‘All right,’ be said.

DeLaroza laughed with him. He puffed on the cigar again, then said, ‘Now, what are the complications?’

It was Hotchins’s turn to raise his eyebrows. ‘Complications? Who said anything about complications?’

‘My friend, there are always complications.’

Hotchins rubbed his hands together but said nothing.

‘1 would guess,’ said DeLaroza, ‘that it is money.’

‘You’re a mind reader.’

‘Not really. The last thing one always discusses is the price.’

Hotchins’s blue eyes grew colder. He looked DeLaroza hard in the eyes. ‘The price is two million dollars.’

The big man said nothing for a few minutes. He puffed on the Havana, savouring the taste of the smoke on his tongue, letting the smoke ease from his lips, watching it race towards the concealed exhaust vents. Then be said, ‘Is this Lowenthal’s estimate?’

Hotchins nodded.

‘He’s low,’ DeLaroza said.

‘Low?’

‘Yes, low. According to our computer, it will take four point six million. That is, of course, considering all the variables. Possible run-offs, et cetera. Add on a ten per cent contingency, over five million.’

Hotchins chewed his lips. He looked out the window of the car, staring around the tomblike interior of the parking lot. A Honda pulled in and stopped and a hassled suburban wife lifted a crying child from the car, then dragged him along behind her towards the elevators.

‘I know what you are thinking, DeLaroza said, ‘you are thinking how could Lowenthal make such a sizeable error. Correct?’

‘It crossed my mind.’

‘It is simple. The last time he was involved in a campaign was ‘68. In ‘72 his man lost in the primary, but principle was Involved. We cannot fault him there. The point is, it is eight years since he was involved in a campaign that went all the way. Inflation. New Methods. The cost of television, newspaper advertising, all rising every day. Many things could account for the discrepancy. He is not an accountant. His political acumen is beyond value. With his friends, you have a package worth more than a million dollars. You probably could not buy them for that.’

‘You can’t buy them at all,’ Hotchins said.

‘I would tend to doubt that. It is naive, but also immaterial. We have them, that is what is important.’ He paused, then mused aloud, ‘Five million dollars. A lot of money.’

‘Yes,’ Hotchins said. ‘Now we have some strong bank commitments and...’

DeLaroza held up a hand. ‘Donald, . . Donald, wait. I said a lot of money. I did not say too much money. You have relied on my financial advice for what — sixteen years now? Are you getting nervous because the price is going up?’

‘It has to be done carefully,’ Hotchins said. ‘You know the rules of disclosure. If Fitzgerald can turn up anything

‘Please,’ DeLaroza said, ‘do not tell the bunter how to load his gun.’

Hotchins stopped. Then be patted DeLaroza on the knee. ‘Sorry,’ he said.

‘The money is my problem,’ DeLaroza said. ‘There is this other thing.’

‘It can wait,’ Hotchins said quickly.

‘No, I think not.’

‘It can wait!’

‘No.’

The muscles in the corners of Hotchins’s jaw quivered, then grew rigid. The fiat, hard tone returned to his ‘voice. ‘It is personal, Victor.’

‘It is a dangerous thing now. Before it was merely risky. I could understand it. I know that kind of hunger. But...’

‘It’s still my business.’

‘I have never risked five million dollars on you before, Donald.’

‘Ah, so now I find out where the strings are.’

‘Have there ever been strings attached before?’

‘No. But I knew there must be a price. Sooner or later there had to be a price. I guess now is as good a time as any to settle that.’

‘You are getting off the subject.’

‘This is the subject.’

‘You are getting angry,’ DeLaroza said.

‘You’re damn right. We’re getting into my personal life —‘

‘You have no personal life any more.’

‘Half the politicians in Washington have mistresses.’

‘Half the politicians in Washington are not running for president.’

‘Jesus!’

‘Donald, we are friends. After all it was 1 who introduced you to the woman. I saw the need. Understood it. But now it must wait until after the election.’

‘You think she’s going to wait around until after the election? Hell, you know her better than that, Victor. Besides, it’s not just me, it’s the idea of me that fascinates her.’

DeLaroza nodded. ‘I am glad-you realize that,’ he said.

‘It would he a sign of weakness, asking her to sit in the wings until the election’s over.’

My friend, when you are in the Oval Office, you will have anything you wish. Women will be at your call.’

But I need her now, Hotchins thought to himself. ‘I’m not talking about women,’ he said, ‘I’m talking about her.’

‘Are you in love with her?’

‘Possibly. No, not really. Not in the dramatic sense. But in a way I . . . hell, I don’t know. Don’t push me. Don’t pu.th me.’

DeLaroza scowled. He was on dangerous ground and he knew it, Now was not the time to start pulling the strings. And yet, the issue was crucial to him. ‘Am I to believe that you would risk something like this for a piece of ass?’ be said.

Hotchins glowered at him, his face red, anger boiling in his eyes. ‘What was that?’ he demanded.

DeLaroza shook his head violently and waved his hand in the air. ‘I am sorry,’ he said quickly. ‘That was a foolish remark. Forgive it.’

They sat without speaking and the minutes crept by. Finally DeLaroza said, ‘We will drop it for now. I did not mean to cause harsh words. I was speaking as one friend to another. Just promise rue that you will consider it. Think about it. Will you do that?’ It annoyed him to patronize Hotchins, but he sensed two egos keening the air like duelling swords.

‘Sure,’ Hotchins said, ‘I’ll think about it.’

More silence.

Hotchins felt boxed in, but the furies began to settle down inside him. Perhaps DeLaroza was right. And yet he had never known anyone like her. Her sexuality had given him a new vigour, a vitality that he had missed for years. It was not a motivation; it was fuel for the motivation. And yet if giving her up was part of the key to winning

‘Let us get back to the money,’ DeLaroza said. ‘We have commitments from individual contributors for almost a million dollars. I can call them in today. In the meantime I can make the funds available through my own accounts. Immediately if necessary. Oh, don’t worry, it will be done properly. Nothing would ever appear as a loan.’

Hotchins held up a hand. ‘I trust you, Victor. I am sure it will be done in a way that’s above. . .‘ He started to say ‘suspicion’ but quickly changed it to ‘reproach’. He sank back in the seat. His shoulders drooped and he sighed. ‘I’m sorry too,’ he said. He held out his hand and they shook.

‘There will be many anxious times,’ DeLaroza said. ‘I sometimes forget that we are both emotional men.’

‘It’s forgotten,’ Hotchins said. ‘Look. I’ve got to get back. It’s hard for me to get away at all these days, even for a few minutes. They want an itinerary when I go to the bathroom.’

‘Get used to it,’ DeLaroza said. ‘Your private days are about over.’

‘I’ll be in touch,’ Hotchins said. ‘Thanks.’

He left the car and DeLaroza settled back. The smile vanished from his face. He sat deep in thought for several minutes. Yes, his private days are over, he thought, and so are mine. Thirty years of living in shadows and now, in a few short days, the recognition he bad needed for so long would be his. He had built an empire and was about to create a king and now, finally, he would have what be deserved — applause. An ovation! The plan to emerge from his self.. imposed cell of secrecy had started forming in his mind when he met Hotchins. It bad taken sixteen years to gestate. Sixteen years. And now the blood hammered in his temples. Four more days.

He pressed the button, lowering the window between the front and back seats of the car. Chiang, his chauffeur- bodyguard, handed him a cassette. Another addition to the Gwai-lo file. It was time to discuss matters with Kershman.

Gerald Kershman was sprawled face down on the bed, his hands and feet bound to the corners by velvet cords. Sweat stung his eyes and he gulped for air as the strips of leather bit into his already tortured flesh. He turned his face into the silk sheets that muffled his cries of pain. The naked young man standing over him with the cat o’ nine tails was hard and lithe; his blond hair tumbled in sweaty ringlets over his forehead.

Finally Kershman turned his face towards the youth. ‘Enough,’ he gasped.

The blond, who was in his late teens, lowered the whip and stood over him. Kershman took several deep breaths and shivered involuntarily and then relaxed. ‘Untie me,’ he said.

The young man freed him, and Kershman, his back and rump slashed with red welts, struggled from the bed soiled with his own semen and grimaced with pain as he sat on the edge. He was a small, fat man with thick, contemptuous lips and froglike eyes. Black hair curled obscenely on his shoulders and back. He reached out to the night table near the bed with chubby, trembling fingers, feeling for his thick glasses and putting them on with some effort.

‘Okay I get dressed now?’ the youth asked.

Kershman stared at his naked body for a few more moments and nodded. He wiped the sweat from his face with a towel and watched as the young hustler slipped on a pair of red bikini briefs and arranged himself. ‘You really love t, dontcha?’ he said. ‘1 never seen nobody eat up a beatin’ like that before.’

‘Shut up,’ Kershman groaned. He got up and walked towards the bathroom, a silk bathrobe trailing from one hand.

‘Hey,’ the blond said, ‘how about my bread?’

‘You’re not through yet,’ said Kershman. ‘Come in here.’ He lay face down on a massage table in the opulent bathroom and pointed to several bottles of ointment and balm in a tray attached to the table. The boy spread them on carefully, chattering aimlessly as he did. Kershman turned his face away from the youth. Tears edged down the side of his nose. They were tears of humiliation, not pain. The blond completed his task and Kershman eased himself off the table.

‘All right,’ he said, ‘you can leave now.’

‘The bread, the bread,’ the hustler said, snapping his fingers at Kershman. The small man looked at him and hate filled his eyes. His lip curled viciously.

‘You snap your fingers at me one more time,’ he said, ‘and I’ll have them broken, one at a time.’

‘Hey,’ the blond said. He stepped back, balling up his fists.

‘Your bread,’ Kershman said wearily, ‘is on the dresser.’ The younger man went into the bedroom and emptied the contents of a brown manila envelope, eagerly counting the bills. His eyes lit up. ‘Jeez, thanks,’ he said, ‘ya want me to come back again tonight?’

‘I don’t want to see you again,’ Kershman said. ‘You show your face around this building again and you’ll regret it.’

The hustler looked at him for a moment and then grinned. ‘Wotsa matter, doll, was I too rough on you?’

Kershman stood in the bathroom doorway, regarding him through thick glasses that distorted his already bulging eyes, his mouth still trembling from the combination of pain and ecstasy. He said, ‘If it makes you feel any better, you were magnificent. I happen to prefer one-nighters.’

‘Sure, honey, that’s cool. Different strokes for different folks, right?’ He pulled on his leather jacket and left.

Kershman struggled into his clothes and left his apartment, taking a private elevator down one flight to the eighteenth floor of the Mirror Towers, where the giant computer awaited him. There were only three entrances into the sprawling computer complex which consumed most of the eighteenth floor. One was by private elevator from Kershman’s apartment, the second a private elevator between DeLaroza’s office and the console room. The third was by the exterior elevator, which had to be programmed to stop as it descended from the top two floors. Special keys activated the computers and the elevators.

Only three other people worked in the computer complex, none of whom really understood its complexities or the maze of interlocking information it contained. They were simply technicians.

It was a little after 2:30 when Kershman’s elevator opened and he entered the main console room, the nerve centre of the complex. A young woman wearing a white uniform was stringing a spool of tape on one of the computer banks.

‘Anything unusual? Kershman asked.

‘Not really,’ she answered brightly. ‘We have to complete the annual audit on WCG and L today. I’m running the totals now.’

‘Fine,’ Kershman said and went into his private office. The audit on West Coast Gas and Light Company, when complete, would require Kershman’s final personal touch, since DeLaroza planned to have its directors apply for a rate increase.

It was a measure of Kershman’s financial genius and tenacity that while still an undergraduate at the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School of Business he had once appeared at the office of the president of Ticanco, one of the world’s largest conglomerates, and asked for an appointment. Although he was told it would be impossible, Kershman had appeared at the office every morning at precisely 8:30 and remained there until five in the afternoon. After twenty-six consecutive working days, be had exhausted the executive’s resistance and was finally ushered into his office.

‘You have two minutes,’ the man said sternly. ‘If you can’t state your business by then you’re wasting your time as well as mine.’

‘Oh, I can do it in one sentence,’ Kershman replied confidently. ‘I can show you an absolutely foolproof method that will save you eight million, three hundred thousand dollars in corporate income taxes this year. Are you interested?’

The actual saving was a little under seven million dollars, but it had earned Kershman, an orphan from the slums of East Saint Louis, his tuition and a generous living allowance for the remainder of an educational odyssey that included two more years at Wharton, three years at Harvard, where be earned a doctorate in corporate finance, and a stint at Georgetown Law School, where he received his degree in international law. After completing his studies with distinction at all three universities, Kershman had refused a generous offer from Ticanco, to go to work instead for the Internal Revenue Service where during the next three years he designed an infinite variety of schemes for beating the income tax laws. By the time be was thirty-three Kershman was earning six figures a year as a consultant for several corporations.

To Kershman the world became a giant financial chess board and he took Machiavellian delight in developing methods for circumventing the international trade agreements and treaties which were its rules. In 1968 Kershman had proposed to one of his clients that within a few years the Arab nations would use their control of oil to dominate prices all over the world. Kershman, a Jew, had negotiated a dangerous and volatile deal with two Arab nations which, in exchange for enough guns and ammunition to supply their armies, would provide to the company Kershman represented crude oil at a low fixed price for fifteen years. The arms were delivered by boat to Turkey and from there were shipped overland by caravan to the Mid-east. The oil was sold to a refinery in Jakarta, shipped to a refinery in Yokohama, and re-sold as surplus to the Y and D Oil Company in Philadelphia. By 1975 Y and D had grown into one of the largest U.S. gasoline companies, with its own coast-to-coast chain of filling stations. It constantly undersold all competitors by two or three cents a gallon.

Y and D was owned by Victor DeLaroza. He was amazed by Kershman’s ability, as well as by the alacrity with which a Jew had dealt with Arabs. In the seven years that had followed the oil deal Kershman had become the financial architect of DeLaroza’s tentacled empire, carefully constructing a maze of contracts, stock transfers, holding companies, and silent corporations throughout the world which concealed the ownership of more than three hundred corporations, controlled the prices of three major industries, and had on its payrolls (including several heads of state) more than a hundred thousand people. Only Kershman and the electronic brain on the eighteenth floor understood the complicated corporate polygamy he had created, although two men were being groomed to succeed him if the need should arise.

In exchange DeLaroza had insured Kershman’s loyalty by providing him with an opulent cocoon, an outrageous lifestyle which Kershman could never have achieved personally a salary of two hundred thousand dollars a year, stock equity in several key corporations, an executive jet, homes in Tokyo, London and on Crete. To satisfy Kershman’s gluttonous appetite for gourmet food, there were open accounts in the world’s greatest restaurants and a personal chef from the Cordon Bleu who created exotic dishes in Kershman’s own kitchen when he was not travelling. And there were bonuses, each one unique, among them an awesome pornography collection that included five priceless volumes stolen from the personal collection of King Farouk by the same thief who had stolen a Picasso from the Musée de l’Art Moderne, a Rembrandt from the National Gallery in Washington, and three Van Goughs from the private collection of a Greek shipping magnate.

Finally, to protect Kershman from the danger of scandal- making indiscretions, a one-time film actor named Tod Donegan, whose sexual deviations had destroyed a promising film career, had been hired as Kershman’s Judas Goat, to cruise the gay haunts and deliver to the financial wizard young lambs for his sexual slaughter and — although he secretly despised the less than attractive Kershman — provide the service himself when Kershman so desired.

The protective shell provided by DeLaroza had done Its job. Kershman had become a pathologically private man, terrified by normal social situations. He had no close friends and seemed irresistibly drawn to the sordid side of life. His need to occasionally escape the cocoon was fulfilled by playing fantasy roles. He cultivated bizarre relationships, subtly exploiting them in order to bolster a veneer of superiority that covered a battered and confused self-image. One was an alcoholic veterinarian who worked for the humane society. Kershman frequently visited him on those days set aside for the extermination of unwanted animals. Kershman often achieved orgasms watching the puppies and kittens in the final spasms of death. Another was a self-defeated police detective to whom Kershman represented himself as a journalist for several foreign news agencies so he could accompany the policeman on assignments or buy him lunch and listen to the gruesome details of some particularly shocking police case.

Kershman had just poured a cup of tea when the red light near his phone began blinking. It meant that DeLaroza wanted him. He picked up the receiver and punched 0. DeLaroza answered immediately.

‘Can you come up here right away, Dr. Kershman?’ he said softly.

‘Of course,’ Kershman answered. He went into the console room and unlocked the private elevator to DeLaroza’s office. He punched out an intricate code in a hidden keyboard and the car rose two storeys.

DeLaroza was seated behind his desk pondering over an open briefcase.

He nodded and handed Kershman the cassette from the meeting with Hotchins. ‘Add this to Gwai-lo,’ he said.

‘Right away.’

‘Are you totally current with the laws regarding political contributions?’ DeLaroza asked.

‘Of course, sir. The full disclosure laws,..’

‘I don’t care for a review,’ DeLaroza said, ‘just make sure that everything we do with the Gwai-lo file from now on will stand the most rigid investigation.’

‘I’ve always been extremely careful on that file,’ Kershman answered.

‘1 want to move five million dollars into the campaign account. We’ll start with a million. I’d like it in today if that’s possible. The rest of the money will be made available to you during the next ten days or so in cash from my personal accounts.’ He shoved the briefcase across the desk. ‘Here is the first million. Any problems?’

‘No, sir. I would suggest we make them all personal contributions. Keep them low, no more than fifty thousand per individual, range from thirty to fifty I would say. We can backdate the contributions arid arrange for Jefferson Trust to loan this million, using the pledges as security. That way it will not appear as if all the contributions were made in a short period of time. I’ll rearrange the accounts and —‘

‘Doctor.’

we can reimburse with bonuses spread out over—’ ‘Dr. Kershman?’

Kershman, who bad been momentarily entranced by his evaluation of the ploy, stopped. ‘Yes?’

‘I’m not interested in how. I assume you know exactly how to handle that. Just keep me informed on the progress. I would like to know which of our people we are going to use, so I can brief them personally.’

‘Right.’

‘I think that should do it,’ DeLaroza said.

‘May I ask, sir,’ Kershman said, ‘are we going to move on the final phase of the Gwai-lo project?’

‘Yes. The cassette is self-explanatory. I may add some personal notes to the file later today.’

‘Well,’ Kershman said, his thick lips rolling back in a fat smile, ‘may I say I am delighted?’

‘It’s been a long time, hasn’t it?’ DeLaroza said. ‘Yes sir. I was hoping it would be this election.’ DeLaroza smiled and leaned back in his chair. Not even Kershman knew that he had been planning this move for more than sixteen years. He felt a sudden surge of excitement. His fingertips tingled.

‘He’s ready,’ DeLaroza said. ‘He’ll never be readier.’