The Porkchoppers

21

Sunday was feast day for Mickey Della. It was the day that he rose at seven to devour The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Sunday Star, The Baltimore Sun, and the New York Daily News in approximately that order.

Della lived in the same large one-bedroom apartment on Sixteenth Street N.W. that he had lived in since 1948. It was an apartment from which two wives had departed and whose goings Della had scarcely noticed. Now he lived alone, surrounded by hundreds of books, some mismatched but comfortable enough furniture, and six green, five-drawer filing cabinets that were crammed with articles and features that Della had ripped from newspapers and tucked away for future possible reference.

The apartment was cluttered, but not messy. The ash trays were all clean, except for the one that Della used as he read his twenty-five pounds or so of newspapers. Only one coffee cup was visible. An old wooden desk with an equally old typewriter in its well had no litter on its surface. Della had cooked his own breakfast at seven-fifteen that morning, but there was no evidence of it in the kitchen. His bed was made and his pajamas were hung neatly behind the door of the bathroom whose tub was innocent of a ring. It was the apartment of someone who had lived alone long enough to learn that it was easier to be neat than not.

At noon Della crossed to the phone and dialed the home number of the man he bought his liquor from. “Mickey Della, Sid... I’m fine. Sorry to bother you on Sunday but I want to place a standing order with you and I’ll be out of town for a few days... Yeah. What I want is a fifth of real cheap bourbon, I don’t care what kind, to be delivered personally and gift wrapped to the same guy every day for the next month. And I want the same card to go with it each time. Now he’s going to be out of town most of the time so you’re going to have to arrange it with American Express or Western Union or whoever you work through... Yeah, it’s kind of a joke. I want it to start today, if possible. He’s in Chicago. Okay. Now I want the card to read, ‘Courage, a Friend.’ That’s all. Hell, I don’t remember whether they sell booze in Chicago on Sunday. It’s not famous for its blue laws... Yeah, well, the guy I want you to send it to every day for the next month is Donald Cubbin. Today and tomorrow he’ll be at the Sheraton-Blackstone in Chicago. Thanks, Sid.”

Della chuckled as he went back to his newspapers. Later there would be other needling harassments that would be far better and much more vicious. But it was okay for a start and just right to set the tone for another Mickey Della campaign.

At Baltimore’s Friendship Airport Truman Goff pulled his Oldsmobile Toronado up to the entrance and turned to his wife. “I’ll be back in about a week,” he said.

“Well, have a good time.”

“Yeah, thanks. You need any money?”

“No, you already give me plenty.”

“Well, I guess I’ll go on in now.”

“Give your daddy a kiss, honey,” Goff’s wife said to their daughter who leaned forward from the back seat and pecked at her father’s cheek.

“You want me to pick you up when you come back?”

Goff shook his head. “No, I’ll just take an airport bus on in.”

“Well, all right, hon. Have a good time in Miami.”

She leaned over and gave Goff a dry kiss on the cheek.

“You all take care,” he said as he got out of the car and lifted his suitcase from the rear seat. “Bye, now.”

“Bye,” his wife and daughter said.

Goff entered the airport and checked his bag through to Chicago. He had thirty minutes to wait so he went over to the paperback-book stand and studied the titles until he found a Louis L’Amour western that he didn’t remember reading. He glanced at the first few pages and then at the last two, but he still couldn’t remember reading it. It don’t matter, he told himself as he handed the cashier a dollar and waited for his change. Sometimes when you read ’em twice they’re even better the second time.

In Washington on Sixteenth Street, about a mile south of Mickey Della’s apartment, Coin Kensington was pouring coffee for his visitor in the hotel suite that had a view of the White House. Kensington sat on the couch, squashing its cushions with his bulk. In front of him was the coffee service and a large dish that held the contents of a twelve-ounce can of Del Monte cling peaches. After pouring coffee for his guest, Kensington picked up a can of Hershey’s chocolate syrup and poured most of it over the peaches.

“I got sort of a sweet tooth,” he explained, trying to keep the defensive tone out of his voice, but not succeeding too well.

“So it would seem,” his guest said.

Kensington spooned one of the chocolate-drenched peaches into his mouth and smiled at its taste. “Sort of my breakfast dessert, you might say.”

“Yes,” his guest said.

“Well, I must say you sure remind me of your daddy.”

“Thank you,” said the president of Gammage International, A. Richard Gammage III.

“He was sort of a maverick, too, you know.”

“Yes.”

“We did some business together back in the late thirties.”

“Yes, I remember Father describing it to me.”

“He wasn’t too complimentary about me, I guess.”

“No, I can’t say that he was.”

“Well, that’s all over now.”

“Yes.”

“We got other fish to fry now.”

Gammage looked at the fat old man and nodded. Dear dead Daddy warned you about this terrible old man, Richard the Third, which was how Gammage often addressed himself because he thought it was a bit ironic and he was fond of irony because it was such a rare quality nowadays. Daddy warned you that this old man was bad, brilliant, and a bullshitter. He must be, if he took dear old dead Daddy.

“You must be talking about money,” Gammage said.

“Now how did you know that?”

“Because you smiled, Mr. Kensington.”

“Well, now, that’s an interesting point because some people think that money’s nothing to smile at.”

“It has never failed to delight me,” Gammage said.

“Well, it’s been my life study.”

“Yes.”

“Do you know what money is, Mr. Gammage?”

“Technically?”

“Philosophically.”

“Power? Security? Greed? Avarice? War? Treason?”

“Well, you’re on the right track except you’re a little negative.”

“Sorry.”

“Money, Mr. Gammage, is love.”

“Oh.”

“Think about it.”

“I shall.”

“Money is love. People who say it ain’t just don’t have enough. But let ’em have to make a choice between principle and a dollar and ninety-nine percent of ’em will go for the dollar. The other one percent are just damn fools.”

“Which, I suppose, brings us to your point.”

“Well, I thought that since you had to come down here from Cleveland today anyhow, we might get together to see how you’re coming.”

“It takes a little time,” Gammage said with a shrug. “But there’s no problem. I think I’ll have at least four hundred thousand by Tuesday and the rest by the end of the week.”

“Well, that’s good because they’re getting a might skittish over there,” Kensington said, jerking his thumb in the general direction of the White House.

“Mr. Kensington, I have not the slightest interest in what anyone over there thinks. I know the man who occupies the White House. Unfortunately I’ve known him for years and I’ve always found him to be a singularly odious man — vulgar in thought, opportunistic in deed, offensive in manner, and frankly terrible in appearance. God, those suits of his!”

“Well, I didn’t vote for him either,” Kensington said.

“The only reason that I’ve agreed to coordinate the fund-raising for Cubbin is because he’s the devil I know and he poses less of a threat to my company than this Hanks person. And quite frankly, Cubbin can be pleasant company, if it weren’t for his tendency to toady. He also drinks too much.” Christ, you sound like a prig, Richard the Third, Gammage thought.

“Well, like I said, money is love and it’s gonna take a lot of love to get him reelected. But it’s also gonna take a little something else.”

“I don’t think I follow you.”

“Well, if you want Cubbin elected, you could help a lot by doing something that’s gonna please him.”

“What?”

“Well, I think you should head up a committee.”

“What committee?”

Kensington smiled. “The Committee for Industrial Stability. Its only business will be to endorse and support the election of Sammy Hanks.”

He’s not stupid, Kensington thought. It’s going to take him about five seconds to make up his mind because that’s all he’ll need to sort out the ramifications. His old man was like that. Smart. But not quite smart enough. Not always.

“The kiss of death, to counterfeit a phrase,” Gammage said.

“Exactly.”

“You were right; it will please Cubbin.”

“You’ll do it then?”

“Of course.”

In a second-floor sample room of a Loop hotel in Chicago, Marvin Harmes watched as the room filled up with thirty-one men, seventeen of them black, the rest white. Harmes nodded at each as he came in. They filled the rear rows first, not sitting next to each other until they were forced to by a shortage of folding chairs.

Harmes waited until they stopped coughing and scuffling their feet. He walked to the center of the room and picked up a paper bag. Behind him was a blackboard on an easel. He looked at the men for several moments and let them look at his cream suede jacket, his black and white checked trousers, his faded blue chambray shirt open at the throat, and his polished black ankle boots that still gleamed like patent leather. He had tried for an elegantly casual effect and he was particularly proud of the faded blue work shirt.

“You all know who I am,” he began. “But in case maybe you’ve forgotten, I’m gonna pass out my calling card.”

Carrying the brown paper bag in his left hand, Harmes moved down the rows of men, stopping before each one and dipping into the bag. Each time his hand came out it held five one-hundred-dollar bills clipped to a four-by-five-inch sheet of paper which bore the date and the Xeroxed message: “Received $500 from Marvin Harmes for services rendered.”

“Just sign your name,” Harmes told each man. When he had passed out all the money and collected all of the receipts he moved back to the front of the room and stood once again before the blackboard.

“Now that five hundred bucks you just got is the down payment. We’re gonna have about six more sessions up here and you’d better not miss any of them because it’s gonna be just like school except there ain’t no excuse for being absent. I’m gonna be your principal and your teacher. I’m also gonna give you your final report card and if you pass your final test, then you’re gonna get a report card that’ll consist of five more pictures of Mr. Benjamin Franklin like you just received. Any questions?”

A large black in the rear held up a bare, hard-muscled arm. “The money’s fine, Marv, but who we gonna have to kill to get the rest of it?”

That brought a laugh, but not much of a one. “You’re not gonna have to kill anyone.”

“Then what we gonna learn how t’do?”

“You,” Marvin Harmes said, turning to the blackboard, “are gonna learn how to steal an election. And you’re gonna start learning right now.”

That Sunday had been a day off for Donald Cubbin. He had gone to bed fairly drunk the night before, but he had slept late that morning and when he awoke he felt better than usual. Not well, but not sick. He had had only two double Bloody Marys before breakfast, a meal that for him had been surprisingly sizable.

Glancing through the Tribune he had seen an advertisement for a film he had missed in Washington that starred James Coburn, an actor who Cubbin thought to be seriously underrated. There was a show beginning at five o’clock so Cubbin decided to make it a family outing and invited his wife, his son, and Fred Mure to go along. Fred had already seen the film, but he didn’t say anything.

In the theater lobby, Sadie and Kelly Cubbin waited while Fred Mure and Cubbin ducked into the men’s room so that Cubbin could have a quick one from a half-pint of Ancient Age. The four of them found good seats together in the theater itself and Cubbin enjoyed himself immensely as he always did at films.

After the motion picture they went to an Italian restaurant for dinner where the proprietor turned out to be a personal friend of Fred Mure’s and both the service and the food were exceptionally good. During the dinner, Cubbin drank a little too much red wine, but not enough to really bother him, and he told some amusing stories and anecdotes, some of which even Fred Mure hadn’t heard before.

It was a pleasant evening and Cubbin was in fine spirits when they arrived back at the Sheraton and waited in the car for Fred Mure to go in and arrange for the elevator. Mure sent a bellhop out to tell the Cubbins that the elevator was ready and while he waited he scanned the lobby as he always did. They were the usual bunch, he decided. People who’re stuck in a hotel on Sunday night, but who don’t want to spend it by themselves in their rooms alone so they come down and bunch up together in the lobby. Like sheep. Mure was thinking that they all looked like sheep until he saw the lean, young man with the pinched features and the bitter eyes who sat motionless in one of the chairs, watching the revolving door. He’s no sheep, Mure thought, he’s the weasel among the sheep, if that’s where weasels hang out. The lean, young man seemed to feel Mure’s eyes because he glanced that way and for a moment their eyes met and Mure decided that he didn’t like what he had seen. He wasn’t sure why he didn’t like it, but he kept his own eyes on the man as Cubbin swept into the lobby trailed by his wife and son.

Cubbin’s glance roved around the lobby, on the prowl for anyone he should speak to. Finding none, he waved at the desk clerk who waved back. Then Cubbin saw the lean young man staring at him, so as he went past, he said, “Hi yah, pal.”

“Hi,” Truman Goff replied.