Echo House (29 page)

"Big scandal," Ed said. "Red Lambardo's work. Alec's known him for years. He moonlights here and there, always free lance, always per diem, you know the type; sweeps up more dirt than a vacuum cleaner, doesn't care who he works for. Lambardo somehow got the itemized bill from Kempinski's, the cocktails, the caviar, the sea bass, the Sacher tortes, the Mumm's, the Cognac and the cigars, and of course the car and driver we hired. Spies' Night Out, he called it and leaked the memo to one of the papers, and I go up to the Hill to testify because the director asks me to. 'Explain to them what you were doing but not why you were doing it,' the director said, and I replied, 'Aye, aye,' and did what I was told. And I got hung out to dry." He drummed his fingers on the table and took out a cigarette, holding it lengthwise under his nose. "It was a good thing that Alec knew this Lambardo, because the affair could have been much, much worse than it turned out to be."

"What did Alec do?"

"Probably there was something that Lambardo wanted, and Alec got it for him."

Sylvia said, "Was it money?"

Ed said, "Probably not. It would lead to money but it wouldn't
be
money. Maybe it would lead to something else, and the something else would lead to money."

Sylvia was silent a moment. Then she said, "Is that what Alec does? Get things for people?"

"He's a lawyer. That's what lawyers do."

Sylvia managed a smile and shook her head. "Elizabeth Bishop says that this is our worst century so far, and I think I agree with her."

"Bishop. Isn't she over at the Democratic National Committee?"

"She's a poet, Ed."

"And she doesn't know squat. You think this century is bad, try the fourteenth."

"Isn't it great how things have improved?"

"Alec and Lambardo were friends back in the Kennedy administration. That was quite a bond for people who were in government for the first time; they never forgot it. The friendships were forever and they took the assassination personally, like a death in the family, and never forgave poor Lyndon. It was like being comrades in the war except that the war ended in triumph and the Kennedy administration didn't and later when they thought about it—I think it gave them an excuse for their own inattention. And it was all so public, you see, on television day and night, their grief so palpable and exposed." Ed lit his cigarette with a brass lighter, then slid the lighter across the table to Sylvia. It bore an unfamiliar insignia and the inscription
To E.P. from A.B.,
the letters almost effaced now from years of use. "Maybe it gave them a regard for publicity that the rest of us don't have."

"Alec was never in the government," Sylvia said.

"When you live in Washington, you're in the government."

"He's a lawyer," Sylvia said.

"A lawyer who charged me a hell of a fee."

"Well," she said, and began to laugh.

"I didn't have to pay it. Others paid it and God knows he earned it, but, Jesus, it was a hell of a fee." He looked away, and then back at her. "Actually it was Axel's idea to get Alec involved, because Alec and Lambardo knew each other and could talk without finishing their sentences, as Axel put it. It's a kind of code they have. You know how these things work."

Sylvia turned the lighter over, the brass soft beneath her fingers. She murmured, "Not really."

"I have a code in my business, too. We all do in this city, and each code's different so you need all the ciphers."

"Axel," she began.

"Was quite insistent," he said. "And no question, it's always better if there's a relationship between adversaries, some sort of shared past. Water seeks its own level. The point's to reach an agreement without breaking too much crockery. You have to know where the fault lines are and when to use smoke and when to use mirrors, and when a simple
yes
or
no
suffices, and what those words mean beyond what they say. Meaning:
what they lead
to. Alec calls it the art of testimony, and you need as many colors on your paintboard as Sandro Botticelli. Believe me, Sylvia, you concentrate and you concentrate hard."

Ed remembered the immense near-empty hearing room, with its high ceilings and wainscot paneling, indirect lighting too dim to read by, Lambardo at one end of the curved dais, speaking quietly into the microphone, staring all the while at Alec even though his questions were not directed at Alec, speaking through a little curl of a smile. He felt an oppressive sense of occasion, something momentous, as if the ghosts from hearings past had begun to gather round, McCarthy and Welch, Hoffa and Bobby Kennedy, vicious little indoor duels conducted under klieg lights. He thought he could hear them whispering in the corners of the room, a sound like the rustle of leaves; and then he understood that it was only the hum of the air conditioner. Lambardo was superbly relaxed, wearing a red tie and red suspenders and speaking in an unidentifiable drawl, part Bronx, part Boston, with Richmond there somewhere. He habitually dropped his
g's.
Five senators, three from the majority and two from the minority, lounged back in their chairs while Lambardo interrogated. Occasionally they shook their heads or lit a cigarette but said nothing, because the hearing was closed, no press and no spectators, and Lambardo was the designated inquisitor. It was his investigation. He was following the paper trail piece by piece, and when he approached the bank itself and the use the government had made of it, his questions became longer and vaguer and—off the point. Lambardo concentrated on the one open account, and the committee members drifted away. Ohio began to doze, and Michigan and Idaho to read documents from their briefcases. No aides were allowed, because the hearing was operating under the strictest security procedures. He remembered receiving a nudge from Alec, the signal to enter into the
yes
and
no
phase of the dialogue, the moment of maximum danger, each answer leading him farther into the swamp. He concentrated fiercely, considering each question for a few moments before replying, often adding "to my knowledge" or "to the best of my recollection." That was the art of testimony, crafting simple answers to complex questions; you had to decide which part of the question you were answering. As the questions became increasingly ambiguous, he felt Alec relax. All the time he sat at the long table, sweat dribbling down his back, leaning forward to speak clearly and to give an impression of forthrightness, although his memory was necessarily limited owing to the passage of time. He thought of himself hanging from a limb, the noose tightening, the stallion beneath him rearing. And abruptly they were back in the pleasant ambiance of Kempinski's, the banquettes and the chandeliers, the Champagne, the
Brunnenkresse Salat mit Kalbsbries und Trüffel,
the
Seebarsch mit Sauerampfer,
the
Kaffee,
and Cognac later.

"And that wasn't the only time you dined lavishly at the expense of the taxpayers, was it?"

Hard to keep a straight face now, but he answered in the same monotone. No, it wasn't. And he gave the opposite answer when asked if the open account at Longfellow's was for the exclusive use of senior officers on duty in Europe, the question that went to the heart of the matter, though its phrasing was clumsy.

"What was the nature of the relationship between your agency and the Longfellow bank?"

And he had replied, "The usual relationship. It was reciprocal."

"You mean, between a bank and its customer?"

"That's correct," he'd said.

"So your agency had an interest in Longfellow's bank."

This was statement, not question, and he had paused again, looking at Lambardo, remembering Alec's observation that verbs were not always the weak links in the enemy order of battle; nouns were cowardly as well, and now he focused on the noun
interest,
a word that could mean either
curiosity
or
stake,
and chose a Schweik-word of his own in reply.

"Certainly," he'd said.

Lambardo spoke softly into the microphone. "Isn't it true then that, strictly speaking, your agency was operating outside its own guidelines in"—and here Lambardo hesitated, having become mired in his own trench—"maintaining this unusual interest, wouldn't you agree?"

"Strictly speaking," he replied. "Yes."

"And you were the responsible officer?"

Now the answer that he had rehearsed with Alec, an answer that was both true and false. The senators were alert, Ohio and Michigan lighting fresh cigarettes, Idaho tapping his pencil impatiently, the three of them frowning at him from their great height; he remembered the American flag hanging limply from its standard behind them. Lambardo waited.

He said, "I was the responsible officer, yes," adding, as if to ensure precision in the effort to be entirely candid, "at that time."

Lambardo said quickly, "And could this be characterized as a rogue operation?" Perhaps he did not realize that there was no antecedent to "this." "This" what? But Ed was able to answer no. It was perhaps unwise. Certainly mistakes had been made. But, no, it was not a rogue operation. He would give them most of what they wanted, but he would not give them that. And when Lambardo asked him whether he was aware of the penalties for perjury, he replied that he was.

"Would you then reconsider your answer?"

Alec nudged him again but he was calm in his answer, a simple no.

Ed realized now that he had been silent. What had she said to him? It was something about Axel.

He smiled. "So when you enter the swamp, you need a friendly guide. Not that every little bit of quicksand is marked. Sometimes the guide knows only one trail in a swamp of many trails."

Sylvia smiled back, nodding as if she understood. She was trying to pick her way through the thicket of water levels, shared pasts, fault lines, and swamps. Ed had quite a way with a metaphor, except that his metaphors tended to cancel each other out. But he was talking to her as an equal or near-equal, and she knew that if she listened carefully, somewhere beneath the fleshy folds of his language she would hear a heartbeat, the soul of some living thing. She said mildly, "So it was Axel's idea to bring my son into it, for his friendships, and for his smoke and his mirrors."

Ed nodded. "I was of two minds," he said.

"And what was the other one?"

"I thought it would be better to have someone more visible, someone who'd make the senators sit up a little straighter, pay attention to the proceedings, treat you with respect, because maybe, sometime in the future,
they'd
need help from Mr. Visible. A dubious campaign contribution, sexual mischief, a grand jury summons, malfeasance or misconduct, the usual petty blackmail or extortion. At that time it's mighty handy to have Mr. Clifford or Mr. Williams on your side, explaining things. I thought I could use someone of that distinction and weight. But Axel argued that that was precisely the wrong approach, because the Washington Visibles come with a reputation and an entourage. Word gets around that they've been retained; it's a bullhorn to the god damned press. Wait a minute, this is serious, there's something nasty afoot, something embarrassing to the government, perhaps to the President. Clifford or Williams guarantees publicity and sometimes that's what the client needs. Sometimes you want to try the case in the press because you sure as hell don't want to try it in front of a jury or judge, or the Select Committee on Intelligence. But that wasn't what we wanted. Axel didn't want it and I guess I didn't want it, either. My superiors didn't want it. The habits of a lifetime die hard, Sylvia. People in my business live comfortably in the shadows. We do not care for daylight. Moreover, it was obvious that Lambardo was the key. He was running the investigation. So when Axel pointed out that he and Alec had the kind of relationship where they didn't have to use verbs in their sentences, et cetera, I went along. We put the case in Alec's hands."

"Yes," she said slowly. "I see."

"And the truth is, you can always rent a Visible for an hour to make a telephone call and explain what the situation really is as opposed to what it appears to be. These proceedings are always political and therefore it's a question of point of view. It has nothing to do with law and nothing to do with ethics. It has to do with optics. The lawyer's job is to make absolutely certain that everyone understands that there's more than one point of view, each with its own primary colors. The Visibles are experts at building up one and tearing down the other. My Botticelli is superior to your Picasso, that figure with two noses and three eyes and a hole in her stomach. They aren't lawyers, really. They're opticians, each with his own eye chart."

She said, "I suppose Alec wouldn't be good at that."

He looked at her strangely. "He's very good at it. And he'll be better still when he has some age, gray in his hair, and can stand with them on an equal footing. Washington's a hierarchy; everyone knows that. He needs a shared past with Senator X or Congressman Y, so he can call them on the telephone and invite them to the Metropolitan Club and say, Bill, let me tell you what this is about really. Let me show you the skeletons in these closets. When he can do that, he'll become a Visible. Until then he has Lambardo and I suppose other Lambardos here and there. And pretty soon he'll move on from Red Lambardo to the chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee. When he has that, he can expect calls from the White House asking his advice on matters of some sensitivity."

"In all this," she said hurriedly, "the hearing and the preparation for the hearing and so forth and so on"—she caught herself, realizing suddenly that she was beginning to sound like him—"where was Axel?"

Ed leaned across the table and laughed his half-laugh, more grunt than laugh. "Where was Harold Grendall?"

"No, really," she said.

"Yes,
really,
" he mimicked, not unkindly but amused that he was obliged to explain Axel to Sylvia, of all people. Sylvia had the usual female blind spots, but she wrote the book on Axel. "When the hearing began, Axel was out of town. He was in Spezia with La Bella Figura. She was filming."