Hillerman, Tony (23 page)

Later Korolenko had stopped him in a statehouse hall and said simply: “Thank you very much.” And a dozen times since then, Korolenko had suggested he would like to return the favor, wipe out the debt. It was one of the oldest and most necessary rules of the game. No successful politican could afford to forget either a favor or an offense. Both had to be repaid or the system wouldn’t work.

Now he would make an appointment, call in the IOU, pass the information on to Danilov to exhaust any debt he owed the
Tribune.
And that would tie a string around it. He would be finally finished, done.

On the fourth ring, someone picked up the phone. It was Korolenko’s soft voice.

“This is a hell of a time to be calling, Governor,” Cotton said. “I hope I didn’t interrupt your breakfast. But I need to talk to you.”

“Old men rise early,” Korolenko said. “What do you need?”

“Probably about forty-five minutes of your time. Just as soon as possible if you feel up to it.”

“I’m fine. Come on out to the house.”

The sleet started as the taxi pulled onto the freeway, an icy flurry which rattled off the windshield and inspired a curse from the cab driver. The driver fiddled with the dial of the transistor radio on the front seat beside him and finally found a newscast. An oil slick from a leaking tanker was fouling Virginia beaches. Governor Roark had signed seven bills into law, including a measure authorizing the transfer of the criminally insane from the state prison to a new maximum-security facility at the state mental hospital. Senator Eugene Clark was addressing the annual convention of the State Dental Association at noon today—at the Senate Downtowner Hotel. He was expected to officially announce his candidacy for reelection. The Secretary of Defense warned—in a speech before the U.S. Chamber of Commerce—that the growth of the Soviet missile submarine fleet was a critical threat to national security. The first serious storm of winter was invading the state. Highways in the northern counties were icing and sleet and snow was expected in most counties during the day. The weather bureau forecasts . . .

Cotton hardly heard the forecast. He was hearing Janey’s voice. “Who gets hurt this time?” Those were the words. But what was the tone? Not angry. Not until he lost his temper, and not even then. He shook his head. He shouldn’t have left her with the decision. It wasn’t fair. A senseless act of anger.

The cab took the interchange ramp leading to Hillsdale Avenue. The sleet was steady now—tiny granules of white tapping the glass, whipping across the concrete in grainy flurries. Without the newsman’s conditioning to deadlines, Janey would probably decide by not deciding—by putting it off until time made its own automatic, negative decision. Or perhaps she would call Paul Roark. That would be the second inviting compromise. But he wasn’t sure, because he wasn’t sure he knew Janey Janoski. He would know when the
Tribune
mail edition hit the newsstands. Either it would carry the story or it wouldn’t. This would mean simply that he would send his carbon copy to Danilov and that he would have one more day of hiding to survive. And it would confirm that he had failed in his effort to make Janey understand him.

Korolenko’s curving driveway, protected from the wind by a high wall and a double row of poplars, had collected enough sleet to cause the taxi to slide as it braked to a stop. Cotton stood for a second, hunched in his coat, admiring the house. It was a graceful place, warm and dignified, fitting its occupant.

Korolenko met him at the door, hung his coat in the entryway closet and ushered him through the dark living room. In the light from the door to the den, the bigger room looked formal and unused and somehow lonely. No logs in the fireplace, no magazines on the coffee table, every chair exactly in place. Cotton remembered that Mrs. Korolenko had died five or six years ago. Did the old man live all alone in this big house?

“If you haven’t eaten,” Korolenko said, “I can get you something like a sandwich. But Mrs. Ellis is always off on Tuesdays. Goes to visit her sister.”

“Thanks,” Cotton said. “I’ve eaten.”

“A drink then? You still take a sip of bourbon and no water?” He waved Cotton toward a deep leather-covered chair.

“You’ve got quite a memory, Governor. It’s been three years since I’ve been here.”

Korolenko poured, his back to Cotton. “Too long. Much too long. But I even remember you don’t have that uncivil prejudice against whiskey in the morning.”

The den was a startling contrast to the living room. Here, obviously, the old man lived. A fire burned in the grate. Sections of the
Morning Journal,
yesterday’s
Tribune
and the
Capitol-Press
were scattered on the worn sofa and the table beside it. A coffee cup sat on a
Newsweek
atop the television set. A chair beside Cotton’s was stacked with bound editions of county-by-county voting tabulations from past elections. The walls were lined with framed photographs of bird dogs and paintings of ducks; the parts of a disassembled shotgun, oily rags and a cleaning kit littered Korolenko’s big desk.

Korolenko delivered the drink and waited in easy silence while Cotton sipped.

The whiskey was good, warming the mouth and the throat and, finally, the stomach. Cotton hadn’t realized how badly he had needed it. It had been a hell of a long night.

“Drink up and I’ll fix you another. You look shot.”

“Thanks. Maybe later.” Cotton paused, looking for a way to start. What he had to say would be bad news for the old man. It could only reflect on the Roark administration, on Korolenko’s wing of the Democratic party.

Behind his desk, Korolenko polished a part of the dismantled trigger assembly, put on his bifocals, and inspected his work. Cotton took another slow sip of the bourbon, savoring the warmth and the comfortable silence.

“I saw in the
Trib
that you’re on sick leave,” Korolenko said. “I hope it’s nothing serious.” He smiled at Cotton. “If Catherine was still here, she’d be having us both saying prayers for your recovery.”

“It’s nothing serious. In fact I’m not really on leave at all. That’s part of what I want to talk to you about.” He put down his glass. “What I want to do is tell you about some bad business in the Highway Department, and in the Park Commission, and maybe in the Insurance Commission. Then I’m going to remind you that I once ran an errand for you. And then I’m going to ask you to return the favor by backgrounding me on what you guess is behind this bad business.”

“You don’t have to remind me I owe you something. I don’t forget.” Korolenko’s smile was gone now. “But I hope this business isn’t too bad. There’s an election coming up.”

“Here’s what you’ve got. You’ve got bid rigging in the Quality Experiment highway projects. You’ve got one contractor getting these special jobs. Then you’ve got change orders increasing his high-bid items and reducing the parts of the job where he bid low. Then you’ve got . . .”

“Who’s the contractor?”

“Reevis-Smith.”

The old man’s frail hands were still at work on the shotgun parts—polishing cloth on metal. But his eyes were on Cotton, his face totally intent. “Yes,” he said. “It would be Reevis-Smith.”

“That doesn’t amount to a lot of money. Not the change orders. Where it gets big is in cement.” Cotton explained how the cement shipments were diverted into the park improvement, into the Wit’s End projects. And then he outlined his suspicions that another dimension of the affair involved Midcentral Surety, which bonded all of the companies. “I don’t have that pinned down yet,” Cotton said. “But I’m sure it’s there.”’

“So that part’s speculative,” Korolenko said. “How much of the rest of it is guesswork?”

“None of it. Except for Midcentral I’ve got a lock on everything I told you about. It’s solid.”

“So you plan to print it.” It wasn’t a question. It had a toneless quality, a sort of despair that touched Cotton and then touched off a conditioned alertness coupled instantly with a sense of self-disgust. He looked down at his coffee cup, away from Korolenko’s still face.

“Yes,” Cotton said. “The people have a right to . . .”

“Let’s save that,” Korolenko said. It was a tone Cotton had never heard him use before. “Have you thought about the implications if you print it now? The timing? The effect on the election?”

“Sure, I’ve thought about it. It won’t do Paul Roark any good. I can see that. But maybe it won’t hurt much.” He wanted Korolenko to understand. “That’s why I’m here. I want you to tell me what’s behind it. What the implications are.”

“Don’t you see them?”

“I see it with the Roark campaign,” Cotton said. He was leaning forward, his voice earnest. “We nail corruption in the Highway Department and probably in the Park Commission. Roark reacts immediately by firing his commission chairman, rooting some people out of the department, cleaning house over in parks. He calls a series of press conferences. He gets the Attorney General to investigate. On one hand, he’s hurt by it at first. But in a week or so, he’s the man on the white horse. He’s Mr. Clean again, brushing out the stables.”

“Is that what you think?”

“It makes sense,” Cotton said. “What I need to know from you is another sort of implication. Flowers isn’t the brains behind this business. Who is? And where did the money come from to take over Reevis-Smith? Where did the money come from to set this up? That’s the important question.”

Korolenko ignored it. “You see Paul being Mr. Clean again,” he said. He got up, stiffly, unlocked the glass door on the gun case behind the desk and replaced the reassembled shotgun in the rack between an automatic with a choke on its barrel, and an old-fashioned-looking pump-action duck gun. “What do you think of Paul?” he asked. “How well do you know him?”

They were not casual questions. Cotton thought before he answered. “Not as well as I know you, I guess. And I like him. I respect him. He’s a good man.”

“Better than Eugene Clark?”

Cotton laughed. “I’d say that.”

The weight of the glass gun-case door was swinging it slowly open. It reflected now Joe Korolenko’s profile, a fragile skull covered with taut translucent skin. In the reflection, Cotton noticed that part of the lobe of Korolenko’s left ear was missing. He had never noticed that before.

“So we’ll start with that, then,” the old man said. “Roark’s better.” He walked around the desk and stood looking out at the rattling sleet. “It would be tolerable if Clark believed in anything. I can respect a man who is conservative. Who believes it. You need the Tafts and the Dirksens, and even the Goldwaters.” Korolenko was talking to the window, his hands clasped behind him. “But Clark believes in nothing but opportunism. Did you notice his vote on the forestry conservation bill last week? He voted with the Republicans. A lot of honorable men voted that way because they think it will bring the price of lumber down. But Eugene Clark voted because the Hefrons and the Federal Citybank are up to their ears in papermill investments.”

“Hefrons?”

“Richard Hefron, Randolph Hefron,” Korolenko said. “And their kinfolks. They own that new shopping center here, and Commercial Credit, and a lot of small loan interests, and real estate, and now big interests with Citybank in paper and lumber.” Korolenko turned away from the window, hands still behind him. “Or take his vote on that second phase of the disarmament treaty. Clark tells the Democratic grassroots bunch that he’ll probably be for it and three days later he has lunch with some people in Washington and they remind Clark that Citybank had underwritten all those defense-industry bond issues. Anyway, Clark votes no.” Korolenko turned now, away from the window, looking at Cotton. “That’s always been the story with Clark since he was the youngest man in the state Legislature. When it counts, Clark’s vote has always been where Clark benefits and to hell with philosophy.” Korolenko paused. “He’s talking to the dentists at lunch today. He’ll be conservative. Next week he speaks at the AFL-CIO meeting. He’ll be liberal.”

Cotton was uncomfortable under Korolenko’s eyes. “No argument,” he said. “Roark’s better.”

“Look at Roark then. City Commission chairman at twenty-nine. Broke the hold of the real-estate people on zoning and planning. Straightened out the Police Department and got rid of the shakedown artists. And on the State Board of Finance he’s the one who forced the holding banks to pay interest on state general-fund deposits. And he’s . . .” Korolenko shook his head. “I don’t have to recite what you already know. Roark’s a dedicated Jeffersonian. He’s . . .”

“O.K.,” Cotton said. “I buy it. I like him. I like his politics. But I don’t let whom I like show in how I do my job.”

“Goddamn it. Listen to me. Only a fool can be neutral. You’re not a fool. I don’t think you’re a fool.”

“Look,” Cotton said. “You listen.” He was tired, exhausted, and feeling the bourbon and his rising anger. “You fault Gene Clark for having no political philosophy. Well, I’ve got one. I believe if you give them the facts the majority of the people are going to pull down the right lever on the voting machine. A lot of them are stupid. And a lot of them don’t give a damn. And some of them have closed minds and won’t believe anything they don’t want to believe. But enough of them care so if you tell them what’s going on they make the right decisions.” Cotton paused, thinking how to say it. “So I don’t believe in playing God,” he said. “I don’t buy this elitism crap. I don’t go for suppressing news because the so-called common man won’t know how to handle it. I don’t . . .”

“Sure,” Korolenko said. “Sure. But in this case that leaves a question. You just print part of the facts. Sometimes there’s a difference between facts and truth. Here you show them the dirt you’ve uncovered in the Roark administration. But you’re not going to say: ‘On the other hand . . .’ You’re not going to say, ‘But this mess is relatively minor. Because Eugene Clark has sold out to Citybank. Because the Senior Senator doesn’t represent you people, he represents only the financial interests which benefit him.’ You won’t say that because that’s another level of truth. It’s not the ‘verifiable truth’ you people talk about in the pressroom.”