The Porkchoppers

10

Cubbin didn’t have to ask either Charles Guyan or Oscar Imber how he had gone over. He could see it in their faces. Fred Mure, on the other hand, was beaming. “You done real good, Don,” Mure said.

“Just give me a drink, stupid.”

“Sure, Don,” Mure said and handed Cubbin an opened half-pint bottle. Cubbin drank deeply, but didn’t hand the bottle back. “Let’s get the hell out of here,” he said.

Mure drove back to the hotel. Cubbin sat next to him in the front seat, nipping steadily at the bourbon. His dignity had deserted him now. He huddled against the right-hand door, his raincoat collar up around his ears, trying not to remember what had just happened, trying to make the whiskey make him forget.

After they had driven for five minutes in silence, Guyan said, “Well, at least it wasn’t network.”

“You already said that about fifteen times,” Imber said.

“I should never have let you guys talk me into it,” Cubbin said, anxious to blame someone else for the horror that had befallen him. “I didn’t want to go on his goddamned show. The guy’s a louse. Everybody knows that. Everybody.”

Guyan thought about reminding Cubbin of whose idea “Jake’s Night” had been, but he knew it wouldn’t do any good and might even do more harm. It had been Cubbin’s idea, of course. “I know how to handle Jake,” Cubbin had told Guyan. “Not everybody knows how to score points on his show, but I do. You just have to keep him a little off balance and keep coming up with the unexpected.”

But Guyan couldn’t think of anything to say so he said what he had been saying. “Well, hell, at least it wasn’t network.”

“Don’t give him that crap,” Imber snapped. “Tell him how bad it really was. Tell him what an ass he made of himself.”

Cubbin twisted around in the front seat to look at Guyan. His blue eyes were wide and almost pleading. The son of a bitch is going to cry on us, Guyan thought.

“Was it really bad?” Cubbin said, his face imploring Guyan to tell him that it wasn’t.

Guyan looked out of the car window. “It was bad,” he said after a while. “I know what I’d do with it.”

“What?” Imber said. “Tell our leader here what you’d do with it.”

“I’d use it on the blacks. That’s where it’s going to hurt you, with the blacks. The whites don’t give a shit whether you resigned or not from some fancy club because it wouldn’t let some spade in. In fact, it might even win you a few points with some of them, maybe all of them, I don’t know. I don’t know what whites think about blacks anymore. But the blacks aren’t going to like it. That’s for damn sure.”

“Sammy Hanks will have a transcript of that show in the mail special delivery to every local by noon tomorrow,” Imber said. “That’ll be just the start. Sellout’s going to be the issue. Sammy’ll tell the blacks that you’re ready to sell them out for membership in some snotty club. He’ll tell the whites that you pal around with the bosses and how can you expect a guy who sucks up to the bosses to know anything about the needs of a working stiff. Christ, Don, you’ve just handed him his whole campaign on a silver platter.”

“Country-club unionism,” Guyan said in a musing voice.

“Huh?” Cubbin said, lifting the bottle to his lips again.

“Country-club unionism. That’s what I’d call it.” A true professional, Guyan grew mildly enthusiastic about a good idea, no matter that it could wreck his client’s hopes. “Christ, I’d dig up every picture I could find of you with a golf club or a tennis racket in your hand. ‘What Kind of Deal Will This Man Make for You on the Seventeenth Hole?’”

“That’s not bad,” Imber said.

“It wasn’t a country club,” Cubbin said weakly.

“It doesn’t matter,” Guyan said. “All Sammy had before was some vague kind of charge that you’d lost touch with the rank and file. Now he can pinpoint where you lost it.”

The liquor had begun to come to Cubbin’s rescue. His face had taken on a deep flush. “Look, fella, you’re working for me — not Sammy Hanks. So instead of sitting there shelling out ideas about how he can beat me, why don’t you come up with a few for our side? That’s what I’m paying you for and I’m getting pretty goddamned sick and tired of listening to you tell me what a wonderful campaign you could do for Sammy Hanks.”

“I was just trying to anticipate what he’s going to do.”

“Well why don’t you try anticipating what I’m going to do?”

“Because you’re on the defensive, Don. You’re the incumbent and to get your job Sammy has to attack and you have to defend. If you know how he’s going to attack, then you not only defend, but you also counterattack.”

“You sound like some goddamned general.”

“You’re the general, Don,” Guyan said, “I’m just a lieutenant colonel a little overage in grade.”

“Yeah, well, Colonel, you’d better come up with something that’ll make Sammy... uh... sound a retreat, that’s what.”

“I’ll work on it.”

Cubbin emptied the half-pint into his mouth. “Give me the other one,” he said to Fred Mure.

“That’s all there is, Don.”

“Don’t give me that shit, just give me the other bottle. I can still count.”

Mure sighed loudly and handed Cubbin the last of the four half-pints. Imber and Guyan watched glumly as he unscrewed the cap, tipped up the bottle, and drank.

“You got any more of them around?” Imber said.

“Any more of what, these?” Cubbin said, waving the bottle a little.

“Any more skeletons in your goddamned closet is what I mean.”

“Let me tell you something, sonny boy,” Cubbin said, turning his deep baritone into a harsh, grating noise. “I’m the fuckin president of this fuckin union and if you want to keep your fuckin job you’d better start worrying about how long I’m gonna be president because if I’m not, you’re gonna be out on your ass.”

“I worry about it all the time, President Cubbin, sir,” Imber said, not trying to keep any of the sarcasm out of his tone. “I worry about it so much that I make myself sick, but not half as sick as I’ll be if we’re slipped another little surprise like we were slipped tonight. That’s why I asked about skeletons. Have you got any more of them banging around anywhere?”

Cubbin’s face was flaming by now. “Just what d’you mean by that, Oscar, that I’m some kind of a freak, maybe some kind of a closet queer or something, is that what you mean?”

“I don’t know what I mean, Don,” Imber said. “Let’s forget it; it’s late.”

Cubbin turned around in his seat, the scarlet fading from his face as he took another drink. “Well, there’s nothing wrong with me, nothing bad anyhow. I might have made a few mistakes in my life, but hell, who hasn’t? But that doesn’t mean a man has to be turned inside out in public just to see whether he’s fit to be president of some fuckin labor organization. Christ, I shoulda gone to the coast that time when I had the chance.”

“You’da made a damn fine actor, Don,” Fred Mure said as he smoothly slid the car to a stop in front of the Sheraton-Blackstone.

“Who the hell asked you?” Cubbin said.

“Well, I got my own opinion and I think you’da made a hell of a good actor, that’s what I think.”

“What are you just sitting there for?” Cubbin growled. “Why don’t you go in and get the goddamned elevator ready?”

“Sure, Don,” Mure said. “I was just going.”

Cubbin continued to sit in the car while Mure went into the hotel. He tipped the bottle up, drained most of it, felt a little better, and turned to the two men in the back seat. He grinned at them. He was all good humor again. “I wonder what I’d do if I didn’t have that dumb cluck to kick around?” he said and then turned back still grinning, but not expecting an answer.

By the time Cubbin reached his twelfth-floor suite he had drunk the last of the four half-pints of Ancient Age, making his total consumption for the day a drink or two over a quart.

He was still on his feet, still talking, and apparently still lucid when he strode into the suite demanding a drink.

“Come on, Don,” Fred Mure said. “Let’s go get your pajamas on while Sadie fixes you a drink.”

Cubbin turned to his wife. “You mad at me, honey? These guys are mad at me,” he said, indicating Oscar Imber and Charles Guyan.

“I’m not mad at you, darling,” Sadie said and went over and put her arms around him.

Cubbin looked at Guyan and Imber over his wife’s shoulder. “I want you guys up here at eight o’clock tomorrow morning. We’ve got a lot of work to do. Eight o’clock. We’ll have breakfast.”

“Sure, Don,” Imber said, “eight o’clock,” and thought, you’ll be lucky, fella, if you’ve finished throwing up by ten. He looked past Cubbin and his wife, who were still involved in an embrace, to Fred Mure who stood by the door to the bedroom. Imber lifted an eyebrow and Mure nodded.

“Well, we’ll let you get some sleep, Don,” Imber said.

“Eight o’clock,” Cubbin said. “We’ll have breakfast.”

“Sure, Don,” Guyan said.

After the two men had gone, Fred Mure said, “Let’s get those pajamas on, Don, and then we’ll all have a drink.”

Cubbin looked down at his wife. “You saw it, huh?”

She nodded and smiled. “I saw it.”

“I fucked up, didn’t I?”

“Get your pajamas on and we’ll have a drink and then we can talk about it.”

“Come on, Don,” Fred Mure said.

Cubbin turned slowly from his wife and moved carefully toward Fred Mure. He now had to concentrate on moving his feet so that he wouldn’t weave and stagger. When Mure reached for his arm, Cubbin jerked it away and snarled, “I can make it.”

“Sure, Don.”

When he came out of the bedroom a few minutes later, he was dressed in a scarlet-silk bathrobe, pale blue pajamas, and fleece-lined black slippers. He was also walking steadily, with long, firm strides. Sadie estimated that that would last for all of five minutes.

She handed him a glass that contained three ounces of whiskey, three cubes of ice, and two ounces of water. If she was lucky, he would never finish it. Cubbin took the drink and gulped at it. “That’s better,” he said and looked around for some place to sit. He chose a deep armchair and lowered himself into it.

“You saw me on that shit’s program, huh?” he said to his wife who was handing Fred Mure a drink.

“I saw you.”

“How was I?”

“You were good, darling, but his questions were unfair.”

“He’s a louse. You know I’ve done that guy favors. Lots of favors. He didn’t have any cause to—”

There was a knock at the door and Cubbin broke off. “What time is it?”

“A little after two, Don,” Fred Mure said.

“Who the Christ is coming around knocking on my door at two in the morning?” He tried to get up, but Sadie said, “I’ll get it.”

She moved over to the door, put the chain on, opened it a crack, said, “My God!” and closed the door long enough to take the chain off and swing it open wide. Standing there, a scuffed black leather one-suiter case in his left hand was a tall young man, around twenty-six or twenty-seven, with old sad, wise eyes that were a startlingly pale blue, a white grin that belonged to a merry six-year-old, and a tan that a Miami lifeguard might have envied.

The young man put the suitcase down, cried, “Mommie!” in a deep baritone and took Sadie in his arms and kissed her on the mouth with what began as mock passion, but which was almost beginning to turn into something more when he released her. He turned from her to the still seated Cubbin whose face was now brightened by a genuine smile of pleasure. “And dear old Dad, God’s gift to the hard hats. How are you, my father? Back on the sauce, I see.”

Cubbin stopped smiling his delighted smile only long enough to take a deep swallow of his drink. Goddamn, he’s a good-looking bastard, Cubbin thought, and then said, “It’s past two in the morning. What the hell are you doing here?”

The young man waved an arm at the hotel room. “Why, Dad, I’ve come home.” He turned to Fred Mure who was also grinning. “And Filthy Fred Mure, our own Stepin Fetchit. How are you, Freddie?”

Mure moved quickly to the young man and stuck out his hand. “Jesus, Kelly, it’s good to see you. Let me getcha a drink.”

Kelly Cubbin, his father’s only child, smiled at Mure and said, “Just tell me where it is, Fred. I can get it.”

“Hell, no. What’re you drinking, Scotch?”

“If you’ve got it.”

“Sure,” Mure said and hurried from the room to the bedroom where the bottles and glasses were kept out of the sight of visitors. Mure kept them out of sight because he felt that it wasn’t dignified to have them sitting around when visitors came. “They might get the wrong idea,” he told Cubbin.

“All right, let’s have it,” Cubbin said to his son, his words slurring a little.

“Have what, chief?”

“You’re supposed to be in Washington. You’re supposed to be on the job there. What the hell you doing in Chicago? I didn’t ask you to come to Chicago.”

“And I thought you’d be glad to see me. My, it is a wise child who can predict his own father.”

“Hell, I’m glad to see you, Kelly. You know I’m glad to see you. But Christ, you’re supposed to be in Washington, working and—”

Kelly turned his back on his father and looked at Sadie. He lifted one eyebrow questioningly and she nodded slightly. Kelly turned back to his father. He studied him for a few moments and said, “Father, dear Father, drink up because whatever I tell you tonight, I’ll simply have to say all over again tomorrow.”

“What the hell are you talking about?” Cubbin said.

“I mean you’re soused and you won’t remember tomorrow.” He turned back to Sadie. “Have you got a place for me?”

“Sure, honey. Take room E, it’s the last one down the hall.”

“What brought this on?” Kelly said, moving his head slightly toward his father.

She shrugged. “The campaign, I suppose. He’ll go along fine for three or four days and then — bang. He dives back in a bottle.”

“Just because I’ve had a few little drinks,” Cubbin said, starting to rise. “Just because I might have had a drink or two, just because I might have done that, well, it’s no reason why you have to talk about me like I wasn’t even here.”

Kelly moved over and gently pushed his father back into the chair. “Relax, chief, you’re fading.”

Cubbin started to struggle out of his chair again but sank back unprotestingly at another gentle shove from his son. “I don’t understand,” he muttered.

Fred Mure came into the room again and handed Kelly a drink. “Thanks, Fred,” Kelly said and looked down at his father. He smiled at him but the merriment had gone from the smile. It was replaced by a mixture of sad affection and amused concern. He should never have gone for it this time, Kelly thought. He should have retired and let them fight over it. He doesn’t want it anymore because it bores him. I wonder how long it’s bored him.

“You’re looking good, sir,” he said.

Cubbin peeped up at him, a little shyly. “I think I might have had a couple too many today,” he said, waving his glass around.

“Well, it happens.”

“Yeah, well what happened to you?”

“I was placed on administrative leave. That was after the hearing.”

“What hearing?”

“About my attitude.”

“What about it?”

“It wasn’t quite what they had in mind.”

Cubbin looked at his son, focusing his eyes on the lean, tanned face and his mind on what was being said. Both took a lot of effort. “They tied the can to you, didn’t they?” Cubbin said.

“They did indeed.”

“Why, Kelly?” Sadie said.

Kelly shrugged.

“Well, hell, I can fix that tomorrow,” Cubbin said. “I can make one little phone call and fix that.”

“No, I don’t think so.”

“You want your job back?” Cubbin said. “I’ll get it back for you.”

“I don’t think Kelly wants it back, darling,” Sadie said.

“You don’t want it back?” Cubbin said sleepily, his words slurring badly now.

“No, I don’t think so.”

“Whyn’t you want it back?” Cubbin said and let his chin sink toward his chest. Fred Mure moved quickly across the room and took the half-empty glass from Cubbin’s fingers.

Kelly Cubbin stood looking down at his father for a few moments. Then he drained his drink and turned toward Sadie and Fred Mure. “You need any help with him?”

“No, he’ll walk it by himself,” Mure said.

“Then I’ll see him in the morning and we can go through it again.”

“Give Kelly the key to room E,” Sadie said to Mure.

Mure fished in his pocket, took out a handful of room keys, selected one and handed it to Kelly.

“Thanks,” Kelly said. He turned toward Sadie. “How’s it look for him?”

She sighed. “I don’t know. Not good.”

“You mean he might win?”

She nodded. “I’m afraid he might.”

“You shouldn’t say that, Sadie,” Mure said. “Don’s gonna win okay and everything’s gonna be fine.”

Kelly and his stepmother exchanged glances and then Kelly smiled at Fred Mure. “Sure he will, Fred. I’ll see you both in the morning. Good night.”

“Good night,” they said.

When Kelly had gone, Fred Mure went over to Donald Cubbin and bent down close to his ear. “Mr. Cubbin, the President will see you now,” he bellowed.

Cubbin sat up with a start. “What... what... where?”

“This way, Mr. Cubbin,” Mure bellowed again.

Cubbin rose easily, turned, and guided by Mure headed toward the bedroom door. He walked normally, even purposefully. Mure guided him into the room and over to the bed. “Let me take your coat, Mr. Cubbin,” he yelled in Cubbin’s ear.

Cubbin let Mure slip the bathrobe from his shoulders. “Just get in here, Mr. Cubbin,” Mure yelled again, helping Cubbin to sit on the turned-down twin bed. Cubbin’s eyes were closed now and he made no protest as Mure lifted up his feet and swung them onto the bed. Sadie watched from the doorway as Fred Mure drew the bed covers up over Cubbin.

“Better turn him on his side, Fred.” she said, slipping out of her robe. “He sometimes chokes when he’s on his back.”

Mure rolled the unprotesting Cubbin over on his left side so that he faced the wall. Then Mure started to unknot his own tie. “Are you all right, Mr. Cubbin?” he said in a indent tone. Cubbin only sighed deeply.

Mure turned toward the other twin bed. Sadie was already in it, the covers drawn up to her chin. “Hurry, darling,” she said.

Mure stripped off the rest of his clothes and crawled in beside her. As Mure’s hands touched her, Sadie thought what she always thought, that as a substitute husband, Fred was a little untutored, but he made up for that with enthusiasm. And then she stopped thinking altogether.