Fixers (6 page)

But performance, as it turns out, isn’t what Mankoff is looking for. All he cares about is how OG stacks up as a candidate.

I shrugged. “I’m not sure what I think about him. I know people whose opinions I value have been impressed when they met him.”

“Do you think the race issue will matter?” he asked. OG is half black.

I shrugged again. “Might, might not.” What do I know?

“Would it affect the way you vote?”

“Of course not.” And it wouldn’t.

“Here’s where I come out right now,” I said. “The guy gives dynamite podium. I thought that keynote speech in 2004 was great; it certainly established him as a player. But since he’s been in Washington, what’s he done, really? He could turn out to be another Mario Cuomo, a one-speech wonder, as my old man used to say. Plus there was that big-time flip-flop on Iraq.”

Mankoff responded with a shrug of his own, a “so what?” gesture he really ought to patent. “I’ve looked pretty hard at this guy,” he told me. “I think he’s the kind of person most people will vote for on faith, without asking the hard questions, because he looks good and sounds good and after eight years of Bush-Cheney, people are desperate for a chance in White House style. Plus, I think there’s still enough idealism left in this country to be a force.” He pronounced “idealism” in a way that said he doesn’t put much stock—literally—in the concept.

“OK,” I replied. “Whatever you may think of the guy, what you’re really trying to figure out is: how can he get past Hillary?”

Mankoff nodded, then said exactly what I expected him to say. “I think it can be made to happen. Provided he gets his hands on enough money now.”

I could see where this had to be going. “And since you mentioned West Congo when you called last night, I’m guessing whatever you’ve got in mind involves discreet, untraceable transfers of large sums of cash? How much?”

“I’m thinking $75 million for openers. Think you can handle it?”

Before responding, I did the X’s and O’s on my mental blackboard. Twenty years ago, at the Agency, $75 million would have been considered real money, but today, it’s chickenfeed—a drop in a global torrent, especially now that China’s in the equation, and that’s good. Thanks to connections at Langley and elsewhere, I fancy I’m pretty state-of-the-art when it comes to the tradecraft of laundering money. The transfer points are pretty much the same today as twenty years ago: Andorra, the Caymans, American Samoa, Vanuatu, Malta. As regards conduits, transfer points.

When I was at Langley, we liked to use closely held offshore corporations that own a lot of McDonald’s and other cash businesses; $1,000/day added to the day’s receipts between the cash
register and the bank and who’s to know? Enough of these and you’re talking real money. We had special software that mashed up tax registers, phone books, voting records, and so on to create the illusion that what was actually five people at keyboards in a Washington suburb was an entire demographic of smallholders. There are also certain foundations where—for a slight commission—the administrator will be helpful in setting up a cutout. In its heyday, if you added up the assets of the not-for-profits the CIA used in this fashion, you’d’ve been looking at one of the largest charities in the world. The gap between then and now is mainly one of scale and digital technology.

The trick is to break the money up into bites sufficiently small and scattered to fly under the electoral regulators’ radar, and digital technology has made this a no-brainer.

“You think $75 million will get the job done?” I asked. U.S. politics has become the most expensive game ever thought up. You need enough money to set up a multistate campaign infrastructure, involving thousands of people ringing doorbells and hitting the phones and computer keyboards. Enough money to buy game-changing media exposure. Enough money to finance all kinds of events and functions. Enough money to pay for hundreds of hours aloft in hired jets.

“It’ll be a start,” Mankoff said.

“Let me ask you this, then. Am I right? Do I recall reading somewhere that the guy’s pledged to limit his campaign spending to public money?”

He assured me I shouldn’t worry.

“OK,” I said. “Next question. You’ve told me where the money’s going, but I also need to know where it’s coming from. In general terms, that is. I can’t handle—I won’t handle—anything dirty. Mexican drug money, money from countries under sanction, Russian oligarchs: none of that shit. You know what I’m talking about?”

He chuckled. “Well, I guess that lets out HSBC.” Then he turned serious. “I assure you the money’s clean.”

“That’s good enough for me.”

So there’s the proposition. Mankoff wants me to negotiate and execute an arrangement by which $75 million will be made available to the senator’s campaign.

“And what exactly do you think you’re going to buy with this?” I asked. “You’re sure as hell not going to get any promises in writing.”

He smiled. “The money will go into the campaign in return for certain policy and personnel understandings.”

“Such as what?”

He reached into his pocket, took out a standard three-by-five index card, and handed it to me. Three names were written on it:
Harley Winters. Thomas Holloway. Eliza Brewer
.

The first name was instantly recognizable: Harley Winters, former deputy treasury secretary (international affairs) and adviser to presidents, MIT star economist, former provost of a major university, former
Time
and
Forbes
cover boy. He’s a “public intellectual” who gets $100,000 a speech, a guy universally known as “the smartest guy in the room, just ask him.” He’s also what influence peddlers value most, he’s what they call “flexible”: finger in the wind 24/7, changes his stance more often than he changes his shirt.

If Winters is a high-profile type, Holloway’s not one at all. He’s the officer at the New York Fed who oversees the big Wall Street finance houses, including STST. From what I’ve been told, Holloway’s policies are so aligned with Wall Street’s desires that if he left the Fed tomorrow he’d have his pick of $5 million/year employment offers.

“The deal will be this,” Mankoff explained. “Assuming the
senator makes it to the White House with our help, he’ll appoint Winters and Holloway to head up his economics team. Winters in the White House, and Holloway high up at Treasury.”

This was a no-brainer. Winters and Holloway have a 99.9 percent Wall Street approval rating. They’ve drunk the Kool-Aid. To them America is all about freedom of capital to do whatever the hell it wants without Uncle Sam laying on a finger. Anyone with a reform or prosecutorial agenda is going to have to go around them or through them and they can be counted upon to oppose it or stall it to death.

“And Eliza Brewer?” The third name had me completely stumped. Not a clue.

“A very smart securities lawyer. We need to get her a key slot at Justice where she can play backup just in case anything gets past Winters and Holloway.”

“Like what? Inconvenient criminal prosecutions?”

“That’s the idea.”

“I think I dig,” I said, and handed the index card back to him. He tore it into little pieces.

At this point, Gentle Reader, I know what you’re thinking. If I agree to do this job—and it’s odds-on that I will (I’ll get to that)—and if I pull it off, it’ll be one of the biggest political scams in American history, probably the biggest ever. Corruption at a level never before scaled: Boss Tweed or Teapot Dome with six zeros. I can’t say I ever considered myself hall of fame material in the political corruption department, even though some of our CIA gambits were pretty virtuosic, but then again, there’s always a first time.

“OK,” I said. “Suppose I sign up. Where do I start?”

“The guy who’s calling the shots is named Homer Orteig. Old friend of the candidate, from the University of Chicago. You’ll
need to get with him. Ideally, the deal you’ll cut will be strictly between you and Orteig. The senator doesn’t even need to know. In fact, it’s probably better if he doesn’t.”

“And how do I do that?”

“We’ll figure it out. We have time. Right now it’s early days. You know how it is: people get overexcited. The usual early adopters—Soros and that lot—write checks in order to get on the inside track, just in case. The first quarter money-raising numbers for both Clinton and the senator should be pretty spectacular. The second quarter will most likely show a huge drop-off, and that’s when we should make our move.”

Mankoff was making a good point. Political enthusiasms are like overnight fevers. The camps of both Clinton and OG are in the throes of that first, fine, careless rapture when everything seems possible and money drops from trees, from $10,000 Hermès handbags and from the pockets of $5,000 Kiton suits. This top-table ecstasy will probably last another month or so. Then people will start to get real, will sit down and calculate the odds—and the money flood will slow down. That’ll be the time to float a tasty $75-million fly under the trout’s nose.

“OK,” I said, “assume we figure out how to get to the campaign. We’ve been talking about $75 million. Is that my limit?”

“Consider yourself to have discretion up to $75 million. Beyond that, we’ll need to talk. So there we are. You up for this?”

I told him I’d let him know within twenty-four hours. There was still stuff I needed to think about. Stuff I didn’t want to talk about with him—ethics-type stuff I thought he’d understand only in theory.

He slid out of the booth, leaving his usual lousy tip, to which I added $5. He paid the cashier for our breakfast and I followed him out onto Madison Avenue, where his car was waiting.

“Back to Bach?” I asked. He nodded with all the enthusiasm
of a man being led off to the gallows. He has a sprawling old-fashioned house in Woodbridge, Connecticut, on the outskirts of New Haven, where he and his wife Grace go on weekends. She’s a former music librarian he met in Washington during our CIA tour. She can turn the pages for him while he’s learning a new piece, and in return he indulges her passion for decorating. They have two grown sons who live out west—indeed, they’re about to close on a place in Santa Fe near their elder son and his family.

In Connecticut, Grace gardens and reads decorating magazines, and Mankoff practices the harpsichord. He has three: an original Kirkman from 1787 on which Haydn is said to have played, the others modern-built—on which he takes weekend lessons from a member of the Yale Music School faculty who once taught William F. Buckley. By his own estimation, Mankoff’s not bad. Not great—but not bad.

“Bach is proving too much for me,” Mankoff lamented as his driver ran around to open the door. “His
Three-Part Inventions
. I just can’t get certain fingerings.”

“My sympathies,” I said.

As he started to climb into the car, he turned back and said quietly, “If we get Orteig on board, and swing this business, and even if we don’t and there’s a crisis, this may be just one of several … let’s call them “diplomatic” missions I’ll be asking you to carry out. You’re someone I can trust, Chauncey, and you know your stuff. There aren’t many of those.”

“I appreciate that,” I said, adding quickly, “but it’s something I want to think about. I think you understand why. I’ll let you know by Monday.”

“That’ll be fine,” he said. “Take whatever time you need.” He sounded confident that I’d get on board—and why not? He thinks of us as attached at the hip. He had mentored me at the CIA, made important introductions and godfathered a business that lets me
pursue work I like and a lifestyle I enjoy; I owe him. Besides, we were both Skull & Bones, and greater love hath no man, etc. etc.

I watched his car turn east on 76th Street. And that’s when I had the idea for this diary.

So there we are. This puts you up to speed as to why Mankoff summoned me to Three Guys two days ago.

Now all I have to decide is do I do or do I don’t. The decision isn’t as cut-and-dried as I may have made it sound.

I called Mankoff a couple of hours ago and told him to count me in.

Gentle Reader, I know what you’re thinking. What about those civic and communitarian virtues in which I was “marinated” by upbringing and education? If I do this, will I ever again be able to look in the eye those portraits and monuments on chapel walls I used to study during dull moments in prayer services? Am I not betraying where I come from them by accepting Mankoff’s assignment?

The way things are today, 90-plus percent of the electorate don’t think they have a friend in Washington. They’re convinced that the fix is in, that the government is run strictly to promote the interests of the rich and powerful—and they have a point. Provided his message gets out, OG will look and sound to them to be the man to turn the tide: a great leader by, of, and for the people. The man to restore the American Dream. Someone who isn’t all about the money, as one suspects the Clintons are.

Let’s suppose a crisis comes just as Mankoff predicts, with Wall Street as the eye of the storm. The voters will expect that whoever they elect as president next year will go after “the malefactors of great wealth,” just as FDR did in 1933, and they will be entitled to that expectation. They will want justice and justice is what I will have contrived and connived to deny them. Do I want to do that?

That’s the question I’ve debated over the past couple of days. I’ve felt like Larry, the character in
Animal House
played by Tom Hulce, when he is presented with the opportunity to have his way with a young girl he’s gotten drunk at a Delta House toga party.
Animal House
was my old man’s and my favorite movie; we must have watched it together a dozen times, and I still watch it every year on Pop’s birthday. “
Animal House
,” he used to say, “provides
all the tools a man needs to chop his way through the thicket of modern life.”

Anyway, if you’re the cultivated soul I consider myself to be writing for, you’ll remember the scene and the moment when two tiny figures pop up on Larry’s shoulders: on one, a devil who exhorts him to fuck the girl, and on the other, an angel who admonishes him, “Don’t you dare!”