Yellow-Dog Contract

Chapter Nineteen

I flew back to Dulles the next morning and called Ruth from a pay phone. After we asked each other how we were she said, “Everybody missed you.”

“I was only gone a day.”

“We still missed you.”

“Who?”

“I, for one, and all the dogs and cats, especially Honest Tuan who’s been disconsolate.”

“He’ll recover.”

“Then there’re the goats. They miss your firm but gentle touch. And so do I.”

“We’ll do something about that when I get home. How’s Audrey?”

“Better, I think. She doesn’t seem quite so morose. She seems more pensive than anything.”

“She’s probably smoking a new brand of dope.”

“No, I don’t think so. I think she’s resolving a lot of things.”

“You mean about Arch Mix?”

“About him — and about Sally Raines. And herself, too. She’s said a couple of things that lead me to believe that she may be on the verge of discovering that Audrey isn’t as bad as Audrey thought.”

“Self-acceptance, huh?”

“Don’t knock it.”

“I don’t. Another ten years and I might have some myself.”

“You have plenty. If you had any more, you’d be arrogant.”

“Instead of the way I am, right? You know, genial, solicitous, and easy to get along with.”

“Exactly.”

“I sound perfect.”

“You are,” she said, “and popular, too. You had some phone calls this morning. Three, in fact.”

“Who from?”

“Senator Corsing called again. Himself. He said it was quite important for you to call him.”

“All right.”

“Then Slick called.”

“Okay.”

“And Mr. Vullo. Or rather his secretary. He’s most anxious for you to call him. You want the numbers?”

“I think I’ve got them all. I may have to go see one or two of them so I’m not sure when I’ll be able to get home.”

“Make it soon,” she said.

After talking to Ruth I called Slick, but he wasn’t home. His answering service said that he would be back by noon. I called the Senator’s office and the sweet-voiced Jenny put me right through to him.

“You’re back,” Corsing said when he came on the phone. “Good. He wants to see you.”

“Who’s he?” I said.

“I keep forgetting, Harvey, that you’re not exactly caught up in the great sweep of politics anymore.”

“Not exactly.”

“Well, he still wants to see you. You know, our standard-bearer. The man who. Our next president.”

“Oh,” I said, “him.”

“Uh-huh. Him.”

“What’s he want to see me about?”

“There’ve been some rumblings from the outback. What we were talking about the other day. He called me about it and I said that you were looking into it out in St. Louis and that you might be willing to fill him in on what you’d found out. Are you?”

“For free?”

“Harvey.”

“What?”

“There’s no need for me to remind you, is there, that now is the time for all good men to come to the aid of the party?”

“There’s no need, but it doesn’t mean I have to vote for him, does it?”

“Do you still vote? I didn’t think you still did anything like that.”

“I vote against. I voted against Nixon twice. I don’t think I’ve voted for anyone since I voted for myself twenty years ago down in New Orleans. I won, too.”

“You told me. Well, will you fill him in?”

“It’ll be bad news.”

“Then that won’t be any different from what he’s become accustomed to.”

“Okay,” I said. “When?”

“Right away?”

“All right. Where?”

“Why don’t you come by here and pick me up. He’s got a borrowed hidey-hole out in Cleveland Park that he thinks nobody knows about. They wouldn’t either, if it weren’t for the swarm of Secret Service and press types that have to dog him.”

I looked at my watch. “I’m out at Dulles. I can pick you up outside in an hour.”

“Fine. I’ll call and tell him we’ll be there in an hour and a half.”

After Corsing hung up I called Roger Vullo’s office and talked to his secretary who said Vullo was out, but had left a message. The message was that it was imperative that I see him at his office at two.

“Did he say imperative?” I said.

“Yes, sir. He was quite explicit about the phrasing,” Vullo’s secretary said.

“Tell him I’ll be there at two-thirty.”

Corsing was waiting for me on the steps of the Dirksen Senate Office Building but I had to honk four times and even wave a little before he could bring himself to believe that he was going to have to ride in a pickup.

When he climbed in I said, “What’d you expect, the Bentley?”

“No, just something with a back seat maybe.” He looked around the cab of the pickup and said, “Where’s your gun rack? I didn’t think any of you hoot and holler West, by God, Virginia-type ridge runners would be caught dead in their pickups without a gun rack.”

“I live in Virginia, not West Virginia. We’re more sedate over there. More cultivated, too.”

“Where’d I get the idea that your farm was in West Virginia?”

“Probably from my sly country ways.”

“Probably,” the Senator said. “Well, did you see Freddie Koontz?”

“I saw him.”

“How was he?”

“Pissed off. Embittered. Dispirited. And perhaps a bit bemused by fate. He was just a few months away from his pension when they dumped him.”

“Well, maybe I can find him something.”

“I don’t think he’ll settle for something. He wants his old job back.”

“Do you think he has a chance?”

I shook my head. “It doesn’t look that way.”

The hidey-hole that the man who wanted to be president had found for himself was a big, ugly, faintly Norman house down back of the Shoreham Hotel and just across the street from Rock Creek Park on Creek Drive. Corsing showed some identification proving that he was a U.S. senator to one of the Secret Service men who were hanging about outside and who, after giving the pickup a stare of disbelief, directed us to a place where we could park.

We had to make our way past a gaggle of newsmen, or persons, I suppose, since there were a couple of cold-eyed women among them. All of them knew the Senator and several of them knew me and it was easier to stop and lie to them than it was to brush them off.

Three reporters from the television networks stuck their microphones into Corsing’s face. He stopped and the rest of the newsmen gathered around on the off chance that he would say something that they could record or write about.

The ABC reporter was first off the mark with, “Senator, some people say that this campaign is foundering. You’ve got the reputation of being one of the most astute politicians in the country. Are you here to help try to put the campaign back on the track?”

Corsing grinned and brushed back his floppy shock of greying hair. It was a familiar gesture, almost his trademark. He stopped grinning and tried to look grave and perhaps statesman-like, but there was too much twinkle in his eyes to bring it off.

“First of all, I’d like to go on record here and now as being firmly opposed to mixed metaphors. If this campaign were foundering, which it certainly is not, one might man the pumps or throw out a towline, but one most assuredly would not put it back on the track. Actually, Mr. Longmire and I are here not to give advice, but for another highly important reason.”

“What reason, Senator?” CBS asked.

“Lunch.”

“Aw shit.”

They made one more try, this time with me. “Hey, Harvey,” the Baltimore Sun man asked, “are you being asked to jump into this thing?”

“Not that I know of.”

“Would you, if you were asked?”

“I don’t think so.”

“Why not?”

“I’m trying to quit,” I said.

“Who’s he?” I heard a young female reporter ask one of the greybeards.

“Longmire. Harvey. He used to be a hotshot campaign manager.”

“I think he’s kinda cute,” she said.

“He’s married.”

“Who gives a shit?”

Inside the house we were met by a pale young man who wore a slightly harassed expression plus the rather glazed look of someone who’s trying to think of three dozen things at once. He probably was.

“This way, Senator, and Mr... uh... Longmire, isn’t it?”

“Longmire,” I said.

“We’ll go right in,” he said and started off down the center hall that was lined with some highly polished antiques and a number of quite interesting paintings. I thought I spotted a Miró, but I wasn’t sure.

“Who owns this place?” I asked Corsing as we followed the young man down the hall.

“It belongs to our former ambassador to Italy who very much hopes that he’ll be our next ambassador to England.”

“His wife’s got the money, right?”

“Right.”

The man who wanted to be president was seated in his shirt-sleeves behind a large carved desk in a book-lined room that must have been the library. “Hello, Bill,” he said as he got up and stretched out his hand. The Senator shook it and half-turned toward me. “You know Harvey, of course.”

“Harvey,” the Candidate said, “it’s good to see you again.”

“My pleasure,” I said.

“It’s been a while, hasn’t it?” he said. “Six years?”

“Eight, I think. In Chicago.”

“Yeah,” he said, “Chicago. Wasn’t that a fucking mess.

“Wasn’t it though.”

The Candidate turned toward the pale young man who was scribbling something into a notebook. He scribbled furiously as if he were afraid that he would forget it before he got it written down. “Jack, have they delivered that lunch we ordered yet?”

“Yes, sir, it just got here.”

“Can you have somebody serve it in here?”

“Right away,” the young man said and turned to go.

“Wait a minute,” the Candidate said. He looked at Corsing and me. “We’ve got a no-booze rule around here, but I think we could scare up a couple of bottles of beer seeing that it’s August and you gentlemen look thirsty.”

“A beer would be fine — since it’s August,” Corsing said.

“Harvey?” the Candidate said.

I nodded. “Sure.”

He turned back to the pale young man. “You got that, Jack?”

Jack nodded. “Two beers and one Tab,” he said and left.

The Candidate gave his stomach a gentle whack. “I’ve got to keep it down.” He moved over to a burnished oval table and said, “Let’s sit down over here. We’ll eat while we talk.”

He sat at one end of the table and Corsing and I sat on either side of him. I took out my tin box and started to roll a cigarette. The Candidate got up, went over to his desk, and came back with an ashtray that he slid across the table to me. I thanked him.

“Okay,” he said, “let me tell you what I’ve got and how I got it and then we’ll see whether it fits in with what you guys have.”

I nodded and so did Corsing.

“There’s this very bright kid on our staff,” the Candidate went on, “who’s helping handle the labor side of things. About two or three weeks ago he started to get some strange reports — except that they didn’t look strange at the time, not until he put them all together. Analyzed them. Then he wrote up a report and tried to get it to me, but you know how campaigns work.”

“Somebody shortstopped it,” I said.

“Yeah. Not intentionally, but nevertheless it fell between the cracks somewhere. Well, I started getting a howl from here and a squeal from there and so I asked our guy who’s supposedly our liaison with labor what the hell’s going on. He fished the kid’s report out from between the cracks, dusted it off, and tried to pass it off to me as being freshly written. Well, it looked grim, but what the hell, everything looks grim in a campaign like this. But something about the report bothered me so I asked to see the person who’d written it.”

The Candidate ran a hand through his hair that had a lot more grey in it than it did eight years before. “Well, the kid comes in and despite the fact that nobody’s encouraged him to, he’s prepared an update on his previous report. And the update doesn’t look grim, it looks like the blueprint for an unmitigated disaster. If the kid’s information is right, the public employees of ten of the largest cities in the country will go on strike during the first week in September which I don’t have to tell you is just two months away from November second, a date that’s of some importance to me and mine. How’s that jibe with what you’ve got, Harvey?”

“Pretty well,” I said, “except that I think it’s going to be twelve cities rather than ten.”

“Christ,” the Candidate said. “What’s your source?”

“I just got in from St. Louis. There’s going to be a strike in St. Louis unless I’m very much mistaken. They’ve locked themselves into their position and they won’t budge. Or so I’m told.”

“What do they want?”

“For starters, a four-day week. For dessert, a twenty percent pay raise.”

The Candidate looked at Corsing. “Did you know about this?”

Corsing nodded. “Some of it,” he said. “Not the details though.”

“What about elsewhere?” the Candidate asked me.

“There seems to be a pattern. After Arch Mix disappeared the union hired two hundred new guys and gave them International Organizers as their title.”

“Two hundred?”

“Two hundred,” I said. “They fanned out over the country and the first thing they did was dump the local union leadership in the dozen big cities that I mentioned. Money seems to be no problem. They bribed and bought where they had to and if that didn’t work, they used muscle. From what I saw in St. Louis, they’re a pretty mean bunch. Once they had the local leadership dumped, bribed, or intimidated, they took over the negotiations. Except that they don’t really want a settlement, they want a strike.”

The Candidate nodded. “You’re sure about the bribes and the muscle?”

“I’m positive about it in St. Louis. Somebody else is checking it out in Chicago, Philadelphia, New York and probably Baltimore. He’s due back tomorrow.”

“Do I know him?”

“Uh-huh, you know him. It’s Ward Murfin.”

The Candidate started to say something else, but before he could the door opened and a young woman of about twenty-two came in carrying a large tray that was covered with a white cloth. Shepherding her across the room was Jack, the pale young man with the slightly glazed look.

She set the tray down on the table and then spread a white linen cloth. The Candidate, ever mindful of every vote, said, “How’re you today, June?”

The young woman smiled and said, “Just fine, sir.”

She served the two beers to Corsing and me and the Tab to the Candidate. Then she whisked away the cloth that covered the tray. Lunch, I saw, was going to consist of three McDonald’s Big Mac hamburgers. With french fries.

The Candidate served us himself. Then he took a big bite out of his hamburger. Once he was chewing properly June and Jack left. I took a swallow of beer.

Before taking another bite of his hamburger, the Candidate said, “I talked to Meany.”

“What’d he say?” Corsing asked.

“He said it’s a question of autonomy. That was on the record. Off the record, he said that the AFL–CIO’s relations, meaning his, hadn’t been too good with the PEU when Arch Mix was there and now that he’s disappeared, they’re even worse. He said that there wasn’t anything he could do unless he received a specific complaint, which he hasn’t, and even if he did he wasn’t sure that he could do anything to keep them from going out.”

“If he did anything, the PEU might take a walk,” I said. “That would mean that the AFL–CIO would lose its fastest-growing union. Ninety thousand new members a year, the last I heard.”

“That won’t happen,” the Candidate said. “Well, after I talked to Meany I got hold of one of our guys who used to have pretty good connections with the PEU. Excellent connections, in fact. So he went down to see this new guy that’s taken over — the black guy — uh—”

“Gallops,” I said.

“That’s right, Gallops. Warner B. Gallops. Well, as I was saying, this guy who supposedly was in tight with the PEU went down to see Gallops to ask what the hell was going on and to point out that if they struck the ten biggest cities in the country, then I’m going to be stone cold dead on November second.”

“What’d Gallops say?” I said and took a bite of my hamburger. It was cold.

“Well, he said something and then he did something,” the Candidate said. “First — and I think I’m quoting accurately now — he told my guy, ‘It’s none of your fucking business what we do,’ and then he threw him out on his ass.”

“Literally?” Corsing asked.

“Close enough.”

I took a bite of one of my french fries. It was cold, too. “You’re in trouble,” I said.

The Candidate nodded, put what was left of his Big Mac down, wiped his fingers on a paper napkin, and took a folded sheet of paper out of his shirt pocket. He unfolded it and put on a pair of glasses. I noticed that they were bifocals. “This is the latest poll,” he said. “The private one. Right now we’re running forty-six forty-four with twelve percent undecided. I’ve got the forty-four. That means I’m up one percent from last week. They say we’re going to peak the last week in October. That’d be just about right, wouldn’t it, Harvey?”

“It would be perfect,” I said.

“But if Gallops pulls off these strikes, we’re not going to have to worry about peaking, are we?”

“No,” I said, “if he does that you can start writing your concession speech. Maybe something witty and poignant like Stevenson had in ’52.”

The Candidate stuck a fistful of french fries into his mouth and chewed rapidly. He seemed hungry or maybe he found food a comfort and a solace. Many do. Still chewing he looked at Corsing and then at me.

“I don’t have to tell you what the reaction to these strikes would be, do I?” he said and then went on before we could say yes or no. “I don’t have to describe how the voters feel about strikes by teachers and cops and garbage collectors and hospital workers and what have you. And I don’t have to tell you what frame of mind the voters are going to be in on November second if they haven’t had their garbage picked up in two months, or worse — much worse — maybe they’ve had a friend or relative die because there wasn’t enough help to go around in a hospital. Or maybe their kid, or the neighbor’s kid, got hit by a car at a school crossing because there wasn’t anybody there to help him across the street because whoever was supposed to be there was out on strike. I don’t have to tell you who they’re going to vote for if something like that happens, do I?”

“No,” I said, “you don’t.”

“I’ll tell you anyhow,” he said. “In the big cities they’ll vote us out and them in.”

“That’s a safe prediction,” Corsing said.

“Okay,” the Candidate said, “who’s back of it?”

“That’s simple,” I said. “Find out what happened to Arch Mix and you’ll probably find who’s back of it.”

“The FBI isn’t having much luck, is it?”

“Not much,” I said. “None, in fact.”

“You going to eat your french fries?” the Candidate said.

“No.”

“Good.” He reached over and took three or four and crammed them into his mouth. “Gallops must know,” he said.

“Not necessarily,” I said. “He may be just a tool.”

“The unwitting kind?”

“Who knows? Maybe somebody’s paying him a little money. Or maybe he’s just ambitious. Try this one on. Suppose Gallops came to you about September first and said, ‘There won’t be any strike if you put it in writing that you’ll make me Secretary of Labor.’”

The Candidate didn’t reject the idea out of hand. He thought about it first as he reached for the rest of my french fries. “I’ll deny it if it ever gets out of this room, but if that were to be the price, I might agree to pay it.”

“I don’t blame you,” I said. “But I don’t think it’s going to happen. I think somebody’s steering Gallops.”

“Them?” he asked.

“No,” Corsing said. “They wouldn’t do it. They’re too busy trying to make everyone forget Watergate.”

“If I didn’t know better,” the Candidate said, “I’d say that some of those nuts out at the CIA are up to their old tricks.”

“How about the Mafia or whatever they’re calling it nowadays?” I said.

The Candidate thought about it. “What’s their angle?”

“Extortion,” I said. “The cities will leave them alone to operate wide open in exchange for no strikes.”

“Any proof?”

“None.”

He shook his head. “Put it down to paranoia, if you want to, but I think the stakes are higher than that. I think they’re playing for the presidency.”

“Have you got any idea of who they might be?” I said.

He shook his head again. “None. Do you?”

“It’s somebody with a lot of money,” I said, “although they might not know how it’s being spent. In fact, they might not want to know.”

“That’s cryptic,” he said.

“It was meant to be.”

“You’ve got an idea?”

“Possibly,” I said, “but that’s all it is.”

“But there’s a chance?”

“I’m not sure it’s even that.”

“Can you give me a hint?”

“No.”

“Harvey?”

“Yes?”

“If whatever you’re up to somehow prevents these strikes, I’ll be grateful.”

“I should hope so,” I said.

“How’d you like to be White House press secretary?”

“Not very much,” I said. “Not any at all, in fact.”