Red Rag Blues (34 page)

“Well, I wasn't sure whether your target was Mr. Cabrillo or the assassin on the next roof.”

Philby looked where the man was pointing. “Nobody I know,” he said.

“Nor me.” The man raised Philby's rifle and shot Wagner through the head. Wagner tumbled sideways as if someone had hooked his feet. His finger jerked the trigger and he fired at the sky. The tenor sax was reaching for a high F sharp; he heard nothing. The table-tennis kids were battling furiously through a long rally; they dimly heard shots but they were so excited they
ignored them. Luis, Julie and Stevie heard noise, but they also heard echoes bouncing off apartment buildings, and they weren't sure which way to look. Cities are full of inexplicable bangs, a lot of them much louder than rifle fire. Nobody screamed. They quickly forgot about it.

“And who are you?” Philby asked.

“Mikhail. But you can call me Michael.” He was chunky, fortyish, cleanshaven, well dressed in a dark blue lightweight suit and knitted white tie. Already he had taken the rifle apart and stowed it in the bag. “We can leave now. Even in Washington, I don't think more than two people will try to shoot Mr. Cabrillo tonight, do you?”

“I don't know what I think. I need a large drink.”

“Easily arranged. We'll go to the embassy.”

“I thought we might. May I ask your title there?”

“Cultural attaché.”

“Of course.” They made their way down to the elevator. “I wonder who on earth he was,” Philby said.

Gregg DeWolf knew his stuff. By noon he'd found a small but smart suite on the fifth floor of a new office building on 8th Street and Pennsylvania Avenue, until recently occupied by a music publisher, now bankrupt. Luis got the rest of the lease, including furniture and fittings, for a song. Well, a sing-song. By midafternoon, a signwriter had painted
Metal Exchange Inc.
on the door. “The metal is money, right?” Julie said. “Exchanged for what?”

“My genius,” Luis said.

“I had a boyfriend was a genius, once,” Stevie said. They waited. “With hair,” she said. “Erik had magic hands with hair. With my body, I never found out. Dad would've killed him if he touched me.”

“Because he was a hairdresser?” Luis asked, surprised.

“No.” Stevie's eyelids were heavy with regret. “Because he was Norwegian.”

“Life with you is one long soap,” Julie said.

“Go back and marry him,” Luis suggested.

“He quit the salon. Went to Brooklyn and joined the Bonanno gang. They didn't know Norway from Rockaway.”

“So where is he now?” Luis said.

“Oh …” She sighed. “You know.”

“Jeez, that's depressing,” Julie said. “Look, here's five bucks. Go to Alaska, men outnumber women ten to one up there, find a lumberjack who's hung like a horse, keep the change. I'm going back to the apartment to read a history of bubonic plague for laughs.” She left.

“She's mad at me,” Stevie said.

“We're all mad at you. Every man you touch turns to mashed potato. It's unhealthy. It's un-American.”

She wasn't listening. “I wouldn't have married those jerks if I'd known they were such creeps,” she said.

Soon the man from the telephone company came and hooked up Metal Exchange Inc. Luis's first call was to McCarthy's secretary, to give her the address and phone number. Then he put his feet on the desk and began planning what McCarthy might like to buy next. He could hear Stevie practicing on a typewriter. She wasn't going to Alaska. She'd made herself the company receptionist.

*

The man took off his hat, but even so he ducked instinctively as he came through the door. He wore a lightweight rust-red blazer and tan slacks, with a soft shirt in a green check and a bottle-green bow tie. He was built like a heavyweight and dressed like a golf professional. Behind him came Senator McCarthy, built like an ex-middleweight and dressed like a crow. But McCarthy had the gun.

All this Luis took in as he swung his feet off the desk. Stevie had gone; it was early evening; the building was quiet. The gun was a military pistol. McCarthy's forefinger was hooked through a ring set in the base of the butt. So nobody was about to get shot; not without three seconds warning, anyway.

“Colonel, meet Mr. Arabel, my Chief Co-ordinator of Intelligence,” McCarthy said. “Or COORDINTEL, as the jargon has it. Mr. Arabel, Colonel Washington.”

“How d'you do, Colonel,” Luis said.

“The privilege is entirely mine, sir.” Washington's grip made Luis's knuckles slide like ballbearings.

“The Colonel has motored here from South Carolina especially to give me what he calls clandestine information.”

“How interesting,” Luis said. “Some CLANDINFO, as the jargon has it.”

“I heard the senator's speech,” Washington boomed, “regarding the threat of Communist agents in government departments where they operate under new identities.”

“Operation Cuckoo,” McCarthy said.

“I know the names of twelve traitors. Both their real names, that is the names they were born with, and the new identities invented for them by the KGB.”

“They're all in the Pentagon.” McCarthy slumped on a couch so heavily that he hurt the springs. “A massive example of Soviet infiltration at the heart of the military.”

“What we call SOVINFIL,” Luis said. He was working hard to keep up with them. “This is crucial intelligence, colonel.”

“Well, sir, there are times when a man must run with the ball or lose the game, and I reckon this is one of them. Now, to look at you, I'd guess you were a quarterback, sir.”

“Damn right he was,” McCarthy said. “Prince of the Pigskin, they called him.”

“Modesty forbids,” Luis murmured.

“Last time I was in Washington was for FDR's second inauguration. Extremely cold, that day. Gentlemen, I have a train to catch. I say: no mercy. Shoot the traitors in the head. In the head, sir.”

“Depend on us, colonel.” McCarthy got up, with an effort.

“Operation Goodnight Vienna, we call it,” Luis said. The colonel stared so hard that Luis's eyes went out of focus. “Huh,” the colonel said. They all shook hands. He left.

“No jokes,” McCarthy said. “Guys like him got no sense of humor.”

“It's an operetta.
Goodnight Vienna.
Very popular. Very apt.”

“Fuck operetta. Jesus, I'm bushed.” He stretched out on the couch. “What a day. What a night
and
a day. You and your goddamn Mafia Reds are killin' me. All last night, TV interviews, radio, the Press, they never stopped, when the East Coast went to bed the Midwest was askin' for more and the West Coast was just hittin' its stride. I got a couple hours sleep at four in the a.m. and then the breakfast shows started up, and after that…” He yawned, hugely. “I must have done a hundred interviews. Even the
Ladies Home Journal
wanted a slice of me.” His eyes had bags like inkwells. His body lay where it had fallen. His voice was husky but still strong.

“So the Mafia thing worked,” Luis said.

“Oh, it worked, Jack. Worked too damn well. Look: I don't enjoy formality, Mr. Arabel. I'm Joe. Who are you?”

“Luis.” He got his feet back on the desk. “How could it work too well?”

“Listen. Politics is news, and news is politics, and we run around like convicts shackled to each other. I have to keep runnin' because every ten minutes I get a new partner chained to me. News is a colossal business in America, Luis. You got three-year-old kids out there watchin' TV, for Christ's sake. All those networks, all those newspaper chains, all those smart-ass magazines like
Time
and
Newsweek
and
Dog's Life
and
Muckshifting Monthly,
and ten thousand others, they all eat news, it's what keeps 'em alive, but they're a
monster,
Luis. A goddamn monster. And I'm chained to it. The more you give, the more it wants. Exhausting.”

“Plenty of senators stay out of the news, Joe. They survive.”

That made him chuckle.

“They hide in the Party, Luis. Do what they're told, vote as they're told, crap in their pants if the Whip says so. I'm not smooth enough for that living death. I was the runt of the litter, Luis. Nine kids in my family, dirt-poor Irish, and the ugliest and the dumbest was me. So how did I get to be a United States senator at the age of 38? Not by bein' a nice guy. I climbed that greasy ladder fast by stampin' on my opponents' fingers. Kickin' 'em in the teeth. Bootin' 'em in the balls. Picked up a deal of scar tissue on the way. I'm a survivor, see. Kick a man when he's down, that's the best time to do it, so he won't get up an' bother you again … Where was I?”

“Clawing your way into Congress.”

“Getting in was one thing. Getting
on
was another. The Republican Party had no time for me until I exposed the new and deadly threat to our national security.”

“Communism wasn't new, Joe.”

“Not Communism, pal. The Democrats. We'd had a Democrat in the White House since 1932. Thirteen years of FDR, then seven years of Truman. The Republicans were in black despair. And all the while, the Democrats were covering up their Commie pals who were selling America short. Well, I exposed those twenty years of treachery, Luis. My anti-Communist crusade blew the lid off the Dems, gave the Republicans the lever they needed to get Eisenhower into the White House, and saved America from betrayal, disgrace and spurious infamy.”

“If it's spurious it can't be infamy, Joe.”

“Whatever. I saved the Party, and look, I'm still on the outside, plowin' my lonely furrow. Half the Republicans on the
Hill owe their seats to me. I get no thanks. No job in the Administration—that'll never happen. Ike never mentions my name. What keeps me alive? It's the news, Luis. As long as I can make the news, I've got a place in politics. But it's been three long years, pal, an' I'm beginnin' to feel kinda ground down. It's a monster, Luis. It always wants more.”

The senator stood up, which took an effort. He got his feet on the floor, leaned forward until his belly was above his knees, pushed off with his hands, straightened before he toppled. His face was cherry red patched with white. “Fuckin' doctors,” he said. “Fuckin' useless.” He moved to the door.

“Wait,” Luis said. “What about Colonel Washington?”

McCarthy was too weary to turn around. “He's a loony. I get fifty loonies a week. Some write, some phone, some visit. I reckoned you ought to see one.”

“So his lists of names are … gibberish, then.”

“Hell, no. All those guys played in the Yale-Harvard football game in 1924. The colonel took his real names from the Harvard team. His fake identities, they played for Yale. He gave me the match program as proof. Gave me the gun, too.”

“Truly loony.”

“Yeah. He played right tackle for Harvard in '25. No helmets in them days. I guess he took too many bangs on the head.” McCarthy opened the door. “Remember what I said, Luis. We gotta feed the monster.” He walked along the corridor, his feet at ten-to-two. A man who drank as much as he did learned to keep a steady balance.

The CIA looked after its own, especially when dead. Wagner, it said, had recently shown signs of depression and mental instability. That was enough for the Washington PD to lose interest. The coroner fast-tracked Wagner, had the autopsy report by noon, learned nothing from it, briefly considered suicide, settled for accidental death. Wagner had dropped his rifle, safety was off, impact caused fatal shot. Why was he on the roof? Irrelevant. Cremation authorized. Funeral tomorrow.

Washington is a good place to get out-of-town newspapers. Julie had bought a dozen and she was sitting cross-legged in the middle of the apartment, pages scattered all around. She didn't look up.

“The senator dropped by,” Luis said. “Had a chat.”

She nodded. Went on reading.

He made himself a drink, bourbon and ginger, lots of ice, and wandered back. McCarthy looked up from every front page, stern but just, alongside four-column reports, continued inside. More pix, usually of men hiding their faces with their hats. Features. Editorials. Cartoons.

“Joe's out on his feet,” he said. “Interview, interviews. Most of last night and all day today. He can scarcely walk.”

She didn't even nod.

“He wants to keep up the momentum,” Luis said. “Keep the Press salivating. Lead the crusade to save America, etcetera.”

“How about you?” she said. “What are you crusading to save?”

“Me?” This was getting heavy. “Oh, you know me, sweetheart. I'm just along for the ride. Can I get you a drink?”

“You're only in this for the money.”

“Well, that too. The money goes with the ride. How do we know we've screwed the senator unless he pays up? Anyway, you were the one who hit him for twenty-five grand.”

“Yeah.” She was staring at the papers. “I never thought he'd pay.”

“He got us cheap. Those headlines are pure gold to a politician.”

“He's a thug. All his rant about saving America is selfish, sadistic crap. He's not defending freedom. He's creating tyranny.”

“Well, at least it won't be a Communist tyranny.” Luis had said it before he realized what a blunder it was. Too late now.

“You promised you would make McCarthy look stupid. Now look.” She stirred the newspapers with her foot.

“No, I said if we
inflated
him, he'd burst. That's the plan. And since there's money to be made—”

“Billy Jago's dead.” She still didn't look up, still sat round-shouldered, head down. He was silent. “Billy Jago's dead,” she said in exactly the same, flat voice. “Billy's dead.” Then she was weeping, sobbing, her shoulders shaking. Luis was startled.
Should he kneel, try to comfort her? Before he could decide, she stood up and walked to their bedroom and shut the door. He could hear the sobs. He took a long swig of bourbon and ginger.