Red Rag Blues (35 page)

She came out five minutes later, completely calm. She had changed her clothes and packed an overnight bag. Again. Twice in two weeks. “Don't tell me you're sorry about Billy,” she said. “You don't give a shit about Billy. And I don't give a shit about you. If I stay here I'll probably kill you.” She left.

He made himself another drink and replayed in his mind all that had been said. He mentally rewrote parts of his dialogue. The changes were unconvincing. He gave up.

Stevie came out of her bedroom, yawning and combing her hair. “Reckoned you'd be hungry,” she said. “I made a whole mess of shrimp Jambalaya.”

“Bloody hell. We had that last night.”

“You said you liked it. Certainly ate enough.” Luis grunted and turned away. “Huh,” she said. “No pleasin' some folk. Where's Julie?”

“Oh, you know,” he said.

He fished out
The New York Times
and found the obituary. Suicide. Shotgun. The body had been lying in the bungalow for at least a week before it was discovered. Easy to imagine the scene. Difficult to forget it.

That was why she'd bought the papers. Not for McCarthy. For Billy Jago.

“Checklist,” Prendergast said. “What you got?”

“First is Philby,” Fisk said. “Not in the British Consulate or the Harvard Club. Gone where?”

“Do we care? The Brits have retired him. What harm can he do? Next.”

“Man called Wagner, ex-Nazi, now CIA, shot dead. Only reason I included him is it happened opposite Cabrillo's apartment.”

Prendergast took a stroll around the room, tossing a coin from hand to hand, while he analyzed the incident. “First of all, CIA is stiff with ex-Nazis. Secondly, Washington is the place to go if you want to get shot. Thirdly, I don't give a damn. Next.”

“This Colonel Washington that McCarthy brought to Cabrillo.”

“Loony.”

“He gave the senator a gun.”

“First positive thing you've said. With luck, they'll all shoot each other.”

“You're thinking of the Profacis and the Gambinos,” Fisk said. “Different spelling altogether.”

*

“History is an implacable debt-collector,” the minister said. “Long after the peace treaties are signed, war still claims its casualties. We may never know what battles of the mind our dear departed friend and colleague was fighting at the end, but none can doubt that he fought them with a dogged determination. And now, in the sure and certain knowledge that his soul has found eternal peace, we release his body to its everlasting rest.” He pressed a button. The conveyor belt trundled Wagner into the furnace. The minister had more to say, but Manfred Sturmer wasn't listening. He was thinking that his friend Wagner, a brigadier of infantry, was the last man in the world to shoot himself with his own rifle. The CIA had the best firearms experts in the world. They had dropped Wagner's rifle a hundred times, with the safety off, and it hadn't fired. Nobody could examine the bullet that killed Wagner: it had gone through his head and vanished. But Manfred was certain that it came from another gun.

He had accumulated a month's leave. If he left now, today, he could be in Frankfurt tomorrow. He knew Frankfurt well, he would be safe there. Yes.

Gregg DeWolf suggested the Duncan Hotel. Clean and quiet, he said. Guests hardly ever got drunk and shot out the lightbulbs.

Julie was finishing breakfast when Bobby Kennedy came in and sat at her table. “The senator wants a brainstorming session this morning,” he said. His voice was like a crack in a piece of slate.

“Uh-huh.” She drank some coffee. “How did you know I was here?”

“You and Mr. Arabel are valuable to the senator's team.”

“You mean someone's snooping on the apartment.” Kennedy almost shrugged. “What makes this brainstorming so urgent?” she asked.

“Not here,” he said. “I'll tell you in the car.”

“Sinister,” she said. “Irresistible.”

*

Kennedy drove a 1948 Chevy. It chugged like a locomotive leaving Union Station. The seats sagged. The gear stick shuddered. “Your old man gave you a million bucks when you were twenty-one,” she said. “I read about it in
Pravda”

“It's a car, it gets me there.”

“I should care. What's the panic about?”

“The senator's getting some flak over this Red Mafia stunt. He'll explain.”

“Why me? I'm the agent, not the principal.”

“The senator trusts your judgment.”

“Sure. And he fancies my ass, which isn't for rent or sale. My judgment he can have for a hundred bucks a day.” No response. The Chevy's motor rumbled as if it were running on cobblestones. A tired smell of charred rubber seeped into the car. “Get yourself some decent wheels,” she said. “If you wanna fight the world, you gotta fight the traffic first.”

“Everyone interferes,” he said. “Government interferes, Communists interfere, lobbies interfere, unions interfere, special interests interfere,
you
interfere. This nation's getting interfered to death. The liberals are worse than the Communists. The Reds are fighting for Marx, the liberals are fighting to control the American soul, they want to do us all a heap of good, and when they've got their way, we won't remember how to
live
as free, strong, independent people. Free to succeed, free to fail. You liberals are destroying the freedom to fail. If we can dump the liberals same time as we dump the Communists, America stands a chance.”

“Not my America.”

“Then stand aside,” he said. “One freedom we guarantee is the freedom to get out of our way.”

The flak was financial.

McCarthy was in his office with Roy Cohn and Luis when Kennedy and Julie arrived. She made brief eye-contact with Luis, just to get it over with. They sat on opposite sides. McCarthy looked sober, well shaved and statesmanlike.

“Campaign contributions,” he said. “The Mafia is threatening to pull the plug. They don't take kindly to my recent exposures and allegations. I reckon around half the men elected to Congress will be hurt if the threat becomes reality. At State and city level, of course, Mafia purchasing power reaches a lot deeper. So the risk is, a lot of budgets are gonna feel a lot of pain. Some folk started screamin' already.” He held up a bunch of memos. “This morning's calls. Up to when I told my secretary I'd gone to Mass.”

Luis said, “Is it legal for the Mafia to—”

“Of course not,” Cohn said, impatiently. “Transactions take place indirectly, covertly. It just takes blinds or cutouts to conceal the origin.”

“So the Institute for Moral Welfare gives the mayor a hundred thousand bucks,” McCarthy said. “So he appreciates it.”

“Expose the racket,” Luis suggested. “Get the Mob money out of politics.”

McCarthy let his shoulders sag. “You aimin' to cut my political throat?”

“The racket works,” Cohn said. “People like it. The thing ain't bust, and we ain't gonna fix it. Can we move on? Focus on what matters?”

“You're awful quiet, Miss Conroy,” McCarthy said.

“Just thinking, senator. What's the worst can happen? Is this going to be a big news story?
Politicians Rush To Defend Mafia Kickbacks?
I don't think so. You won't lose votes. Might lose friends. Do you care? Everyone on the Hill hates you already.”

“What a dear sweet lovin' creature you are,” he murmured.

“The Mafia won't pull the plug,” Luis announced.

“Go on, astonish us,” Cohn said.

“They won't because it won't benefit them. It's just an emotional gesture, isn't it? A tiny tantrum. It won't stop the senator's campaign, and it won't help the Mafia get what it wants, because…” He shrugged.

“Because nothing oils the wheels of government like a greasy dollar,” Julie said.

“Ride out the storm?” McCarthy said. “That what you're saying?” The phone rang. “This better not be bad news.” He plucked the receiver as if it were hot.

“Doing nothing won't get us out of this hole,” Cohn said quietly. “We need a counterattack, a bombshell, something to grab everyone's attention so they forget about this Mafia shit.”

“My client has several proposals in hand,” Julie said confidently.

Luis twitched. “Under development,” he said. He cleared his throat.

“A barrage of bombshells,” she said.

“Fully authenticated?” Cohn said. “No bullshit?”

Luis nodded. He was trying to think of something to say, when McCarthy put down the phone. “They got tremors in California,” he said. “All those damn swimming pools are goin' splish-splosh, and some folks are blamin'
me,
because I went on the radio with that San Andreas story. Everythin' was fine and dandy until McCarthy interfered.
Now
look. That's what they're sayin'.”

“They're all crazy in California,” Cohn said.

“I sent them an earthquake, just to further my political career. People will say that.”

“Tremors,” Cohn said. “They get tremors all the time. Mr. Arabel's got something ten times bigger.”

“I need a drink,” McCarthy said.

Kim Philby moved out of the Hampton Hotel and into the Soviet embassy. As he unpacked his bag and lay on the bed, he realized how dog-tired he was. Hiding while he hunted had drained his strength. Uncertainty, isolation, worry about money had nagged as heartlessly as hungry children. Life was hard outside the solid, reassuring framework of MI6. He was remembering the comfort he had taken from being part of the department even while he betrayed its secrets, when he fell asleep.

Mikhail woke him. It was afternoon. They drank tea in the garden.

“Cottington-Beaufort should never have sent you here,” Mikhail said. “He's been in England too long, he's started to
think
like an Englishman. Trouble in the colonies? Send a gunboat. That's you, Kim.”

“I couldn't hit a bass drum in a phone box, Mikhail.”

“Just as well. Your man Cabrillo is too valuable to lose. We need him here.”

“A fortnight ago he was vermin, to be shot on sight. Now he's a protected species.”

“Let me explain. First of all, he's forgotten about you, Kim. Abandoned his foolish memoirs, moved on, found a new career with Senator McCarthy. That's the second point in his favor. McCarthy is doing more damage to the morale of the American people than Pearl Harbor, the Crash of '29, and the death of Valentino, all combined.”

“A very large claim,” Philby said.

“Think how much money he saves us. McCarthy has persuaded America that there is a Russian spy on every block, a saboteur in every factory, a traitor at every level of government. He's worth fifty infantry divisions to us. Every time he opens his mouth he inflicts further damage on American pride and trust and self-confidence. McCarthy has done what years of Soviet propaganda failed to do: he has made America afraid of its own shadow.”

“Jolly good show.”

“And just when McCarthy was beginning to sound a little tired, lacking the old bite, along comes Cabrillo with a bag full of bright ideas.”

“He always had plenty of those.”

“Divide and conquer. McCarthy is dividing America into little, nervous, suspicious, demoralized pieces, Kim. He mustn't be allowed to stop. Cabrillo's help is crucial.”

Philby felt lost. This wasn't hardnosed espionage. He got up and wandered about the garden. Noisy bees were plunging headfirst into the yellow flowers of a big bush. “Look at this,” he said. “Such a mad rush. And when all is done, they don't even get the honey. Some interloper comes in and steals their glory. Makes a chap wonder if it's worth the effort.”

“Stay at the embassy for a while,” Mikhail said. “Read the transcripts. I don't always get the sense of American slang.”

“Who
was
that on the next roof?”

“CIA. Not quite right in the head, it seems.”

“Not after you'd finished with him,” Philby said.

After the crisis meeting, Julie and Luis went to Metal Exchange Inc. Stevie was there, practicing her typing. She had bought roses to go on the reception desk, a coffee maker, magazines for clients to look at. “You got any work for me?” she said. “I'm gettin' bored.”

“Write your memoirs,” Julie said.

Stevie shook her head. “Story of my life is gonna be called ‘He Died With His Pants On,'” she said.

They left her typing the title to see how it looked, and went into the conference room. “I thought perhaps you'd left town,” Luis said.

“It crossed my mind. Then Bobby told me your pal Joe was in deep trouble, and I had to see the show. Congratulations, kid. Your Commie Mafia exposé was dynamite. I hope it blows his tiny brains out.”

“Tiny brains.” There was a fake fireplace at the end of the room, and he stood on a chair so as to perch on the wooden mantelpiece. It was narrow and uncomfortable, but it gave him height. He felt in need of superiority. “You're the expert there. Why did you tell Joe I have several proposals in hand? That's lunacy.”

“No, it's policy. You said we were going to keep inflating him until he exploded.”

“He'll never explode. The more I give, the more he wants.”

“And the more he pays.”

“I haven't got any damn proposals. I'm burned out.” He flexed his buttocks. “I'm running on empty.”

“Horseshit. I'm your agent, I say when you're empty. Get your ass in gear, Luis. Feed the senator some five-star crap.”

One end of the mantelpiece gave way. Luis crashed. He knocked over a set of fire-irons. Bits of plaster fell on him. He lay on his back and watched a small cloud of dust drift away. “You're fired,” he said. “Take your crass irresponsibility and go.”