Foxcatcher

by William H Hallahan

  Ney did.

  Rus said, “Today, we have to use all the modern tricks—telemarketing, videotex, new channels of communication, training programs for arms salesmen, marketing studies, closed circuit and portable video, pull-through and program selling. Is that not so?”

  Ney shifted in his chair, became more attentive. “What is program selling?”

  “The wave of the future, my dear friend,” Rus said. “The days of selling on price alone are gone. The client no longer buys from the lowest bidder; he buys a total package. Before he issues a purchase order, he must know that the supplier can supply the matériel he orders; has the inventory, the delivery system, the staff, the entire infrastructure. You not only ship to him but you maintain his inventory for him; you give annual analyses of his military equipment, showing him ways and means to update before he falls behind. In short, the supplier acts before the purchase order is issued.”

  Ney rubbed his chin thoughtfully. “My present suppliers never move until I give them a purchase order.”

  “Ah! That’s exactly my point. I don’t wait for such things. I’m on the inside; I can do in-depth studies, a complete analysis of the assignment. Every detail. Things you’d never think of. Do you see what I’m saying? It is no longer enough for me to go schlepping from capital to capital, living on airlines, asking ‘Any orders today?’ I analyze your needs. Then I take your low-percentage shot and turn it into a winner. This is program selling, and it truly is the wave of the future in the arms world. Fortunes will be made, Ney. Fortunes.”

  “I see,” said Ney.

  Rus poured more brandy. “Here’s what I propose. Take me to your most difficult client. Let me analyze his needs and discuss them with him. Then let me make a proposal—it will make him happy, you happy, and me happy.”

  Ney scratched his chin again. “Are there any conditions you haven’t told me?”

  “No. None at all. I ask only that you let me make a serious bid for those Israeli tanks. I have a superb offer that will make your client beam.”

  Ney savored his brandy. “Mmmmm,” he sighed appreciatively.

  “Come with me, Ney,” Rus whispered. “I can make you rich.”

  6

  Attashah had the nocturnal habits of all conspirators. He was making each successive appointment with Brewer later than the one before.

  He chose to meet Brewer at Murray’s Pool Hall at eleven at night. And Brewer found him there in the midst of a small crowd watching a game of nine ball.

  Brewer stood beside him. “You ever shoot pool?”

  “No. No.” Attashah was shocked.

  Brewer said, “You know what the Koran says about idleness and foolish games.”

  Attashah’s eyes didn’t smile. Deep in their sockets, they were filled with self-reproach. Have I, the eyes asked, lapsed even momentarily into frivolity or silliness? The eyes were scanning the pages of a memorized Koran.

  “Do you know the Koran, Mr. Brewer?”

  “My instructor is Mr. Clivedell Rine of Sweetmeadow, New York.”

  “I’m not sure I find anything in the Koran that—” He frowned at Brewer’s smile. “Ah. Levity.”

  Ah. Levity. That was as close as Attashah came to humor—a faint acknowledgment of its existence. Not once had there been even a shade of a smile on the man’s face. At an auto-da-fé, Attashah would be the one who remembered to bring the matches.

  In his now familiar black suit and polka-dot tie, he led Brewer on foot through the night streets to a basement restaurant in an old brownstone building.

  Even before they reached the steps that led down to the door, Brewer’s nostrils were filled with the odors of garlic and lamb shish kebab. Syrian. Faintly through the door he heard the weepy tones of Arab music. Inside, the place was crowded with men, all drinking tea and watching a belly dancer.

  Attashah stepped past three musicians and walked around the tables to an empty one in the back. A tent card on the tablecloth said RESERVED. He gave an order in Arabic to a waiter, then cast his eyes over the faces that crowded the room. Each face was examined carefully. Next he studied the belly dancer. She had a lithe, voluptuous body which the men watched with rapt attention.

  Attashah leaned over and murmured to Brewer: “She’s dancing an ancient love poem to a lover who is far away.” Then he pushed a spiral-bound book across the table to Brewer. “For you.”

  Brewer flipped the pages and found what he expected: column after column of proscribed-parts numbers. He looked at Attashah. “All these parts are on the American shit-list. None of it can be exported. Even domestic shipments are monitored by Washington.

  Attashah nodded. “I understand.”

  “I don’t think you do. Uncle Sam doesn’t want your people to have this stuff.”

  Attashah put a finger to his lips. Silence.

  Brewer leaned closer to Attashah’s ear. “Are you an idiot? You can’t buy any of this stuff except through standard invoicing. You have to have Certificates of Exception. Waivers of Regulations. Notarized Bills of Lading. End Users’ Declarations of Application, and on and on. It’s a nightmare of red tape. It takes months to process and even then you’ll be refused.”

  “Yes. It is a difficult assignment.”

  “And that’s just gathering the material. If you think that’s tough, try to smuggle it out of here to Iran. It’s a goddam nightmare. It can’t be done, Attashah. Iran is going to have to find another way of being a troublemaker.”

  Attashah leaned over and whispered, “Can you hear me, Mr. Brewer?”

  Brewer nodded.

  Attashah said, “I assure you, Mr. Brewer, my country does not need instructions on how to conduct its foreign affairs. You understand?”

  Brewer nodded.

  Attashah said, “You will do this—for me and for yourself both. I am giving you no choice, Mr. Brewer. You will do it. Do you understand my exact meaning?”

  Brewer beckoned him to lean closer again. “Just how do you think I’m going to accomplish this?”

  “You are more capable of doing this than any other person in the entire world. The Koran says God does not require any man to do more than he has been given the ability to do. And God has given you more ability in this area than any other mortal. For us, there isn’t even any second choice. It’s you or no one.”

  “Don’t overestimate me, Attashah.”

  Attashah said, “Delivery will be made in Damascus, Syria.”

  “Syria? I will get it to the nearest U.S. seaport and you take it from there.”

  “That is as useless to us as a half-built bridge, Mr. Brewer. You must make delivery in Damascus.”

  “How? How do you think I can do that?”

  “Ah, Mr. Brewer, it is not given to me to know that. You are a leading expert on smuggling. Not I. That is your assignment. Delivery must be in Damascus, Syria, and we will take it from there. We will expect the parts within the month.”

  “Month? You want me to get all these parts from—what?—a hundred different companies? And smuggle them into Syria, all in a month?”

  “We feel you can do it, Mr. Brewer.”

  “You people are a bunch of wackos, Attashah. I’m telling you it can’t be done.”

  “Mr. Brewer, once you accept the idea that it must be done, your eyes will find the way. Necessity is the mother of invention.”

  “Necessity is the argument of tyrants.”

  “So be it.” He took out a pencil and a pad. “I am no longer at that same phone number.”

  “The Merritt Hotel,” Brewer said.

  “Yes. I felt it prudent to move just in case you had decided to turn me in. Here’s my new phone number. And—” Picking up his small leather portfolio, he held it open for Brewer to peer into. It contained packets of American currency.

  Brewer nodded at it, then flipped the pages of the parts document. Columns of numbers: the stuff that wars are made of. He shook his head at it, a dreary poem of hatred. It was a formidable list of failures of th
e human heart.

  Attashah concentrated on the dancer as she swayed through her dance of love. His face wore the same expression it had when he looked at the parts document.

  Delivery in a month. Every time he thought of the deadline, Brewer shook his head. He knew he was going to need help. But he also knew that finding the right man was going to be as difficult as getting the parts.

  First he went out and rented an address. That was easy. The newspapers were filled with classified ads for mail drops. It was all done by telephone. He called a number in one of the classified ads, described his needs, and contracted for Plan Two: For his fictitious company name—Manifold Technologies Ltd.—he got a telephone number, a telephone answering service, and a mailing address, all for one monthly charge. When he received the contract in the mail, he signed it and returned it with a money order.

  Then he went to a printer and ordered some letterheads. Then he went to the main branch of the New York Public Library on Fifth Avenue. In the Reference Room he got a copy of Standard Rate and Data Services’ Business Publication Rate & Data. He turned to the section on electronics magazines and read through the summary of each publication. He selected six likely candidates.

  He took his list to the librarian and began calling up current copies of the various trade magazines from the stacks. He spent hours going through the pages, reading the “New Products” columns, making notes, then reading the trade ads and making more notes. It took the best part of the day to get all the leads he wanted.

  He drafted a letter for all his leads and took it to the public stenographer. He gave her sixty letters. All to be sent express mail.

  He then went downtown to Federal Plaza where he found the New York branch of the Government Printing Office. In five minutes he walked out with one of the key pieces to his smuggling plan. It was more than an inch thick and was titled “Military Part Numbers and Their Civilian Equivalents.”

  In his hotel room he sat down and began the laborious process of reading every single U.S. military-part number on Attashah’s list and finding its equivalent civilian-part number. Fully a third of the parts on Attashah’s list had equivalent civilian numbers. Now how to get them?

  It was time to get help. He had to find the right man, and soon.

  7

  Brewer needed help. And it had to be someone he knew—a known quantity. Washington was full of men he could use. But he was out of touch with things. He needed an insider’s guidance. Who’s loose? Who’s available?

  So late Thursday, Brewer caught an evening flight to Washington and took a cab to Joanie Walsh’s apartment. It was around ten when he tapped on her door.

  She was stunned. “Charlie. Oh, how wonderful. You’re out.” She took his hand and led him into the apartment. “Oh. I’m so glad.” Then still holding his hand, she studied his face. “I’ve thought about you every day.”

  First they talked about his letter to her. “I tried to get at your personnel file, Charlie, but it would have meant getting permission from Bobby or Borden. I’m sure either one would have given it but you said you didn’t want anyone to know. So I have no idea what’s in it. Someone said your termination was stamped ‘extreme something or other,’ even though Bobby fought against it.”

  “Extreme prejudice.” Brewer hid his disappointment.

  “Charlie, I don’t know about these things. Selling a few guns out of the back of a car. If you say you didn’t do it, then it’s true—you didn’t. If you say you did do it, then that’s true—you did. I mean, it doesn’t mean anything to me, one way or the other.”

  She went to fix them a drink. Her apartment was as usual—neat as a packet of pins. Home. After ten years she still had Warner’s picture on a side table, taken a week before he was killed in a car bombing in Turkey. That’s what you get for marrying an agent.

  On the coffee table were a number of tour folders. “Three Glorious Days in the Great Smokies.” “Walk in Jefferson’s Footsteps at Monticello.” And “Sail the Fabled Chesapeake. Three Bracing Days, Two Star-filled Nights.” Widows’ weekends: In Washington the women outnumber the men ten or fifteen to one.

  “Going on a tour?” he asked her.

  “Of course. Three of us.” She smiled at him. “What else do you do if you’re A Simple Girl from A Good Home in Boston with A Strict Catholic Upbringing?”

  “Bowl,” he said.

  “Oh, you remember. And quilt with my quilting group. And I was just elected treasurer of the Women’s Sodality.”

  He smiled at her. “And two dozen nieces and nephews all with a Boston accent—”

  “And vacations in the summer on Cape Cod with my family. My God. How predictable my life has become, Charlie.” She shook her head. “I can’t believe it’s been twelve years since we both started working there. Where did the time go?”

  She knew: The easy days dropped astern quietly in the dark each night. Twelve years toward her pension and twelve more coming up.

  Brewer knew another side to her. She secretly loved limericks—scatological, sick limericks. She had a hearty, dirty laugh. Liked a glass of whiskey. And was open, warmhearted, caring.

  She hadn’t learned a thing about agents. She had once proposed marriage to Brewer. “We’re as alike as two peas in a pod, Charlie,” she had said. “Two single socks in a drawerful of pairs.”

  “How’s Bobby?” he asked her.

  “McCall? Oh, as softhearted as ever. Borden says he’s softheaded. He turned Dice loose without firing him. Borden is quite buzzed by it. Says Dice should be shot.”

  “So where’s Dice now?”

  “Hanging around. Spends his days at Khyber Pass. So far no takers, I hear. He’d better move his butt. They’re not going to carry him on the payroll forever. Even Bobby McCall has a limit to his patience.”

  He saluted her with his glass of scotch. “Here’s to you, Joanie. How have you been?”

  “Grand. And here’s to you, Charlie Brewer. I’m sorry for your troubles. May they end soon.” She tapped her glass against his.

  In an hour, he’d caught up with the shoptalk and had a list of possibles for his Attashah job. Dice headed the list.

  Brewer could see Dice through the window of Khyber Pass. And the way the man was standing at the bar told the story: He’d quit fighting. Hands at his sides. Whipped. There were no takers for Dice in Washington.

  The place pretty much emptied after two; most of the patrons went back to their spooking. And that left Dice bending over his glass, talking to the bartender. Finally he, too, left the bar—about three.

  Brewer followed him for a few blocks, then called his name.

  “Well, bless my big blue eyes,” Dice exclaimed. “Brewer.”

  “How’s it going, Dice?”

  “Very nicely indeed, Brewer. And how is it with you?”

  “Got a couple of minutes?”

  “What did you have in mind?”

  “A chat. A little chat.”

  “Charlie, I had nothing to do with anything that had anything to do with you. Okay?”

  “Sure. That’s not what’s on my mind.”

  Dice led the way to a worn old taproom, and they knocked back a few. Dice was drinking old-fashioneds.

  “I hear you’re on the loose, Dice.”

  “Nothing I can’t handle. When did you get out?”

  “You available for a job? For about two or three weeks?”

  “Yeah? What did you have in mind?”

  Dice had no sense at all. He named a weekly price that must have been lower than his salary.

  “You’ll never learn, Dice.” Brewer doubled Dice’s asking price. “There’ll be a bonus at the end of it, too. Another five grand. Okay?”

  “Okay. What’s next?”

  “I’ll be in touch.” Brewer started toward the door, then returned. “I don’t have to tell you that you didn’t see me today, do I?”

  Dice uttered his insolent guffaw. “Charlie who?”

  “For your own sake, Dice.�
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  Brewer got Dice a hotel room in Manhattan and put him immediately to work. He handed him a thick trade directory. “I want ten printed invoice forms from ten different companies. All fictitious. And each one from a different city. Okay? Go through this directory and pick out ten names, then figure out a similar name for each one and use the same street address. Then take each name to a different printer—that’s ten printers—and get each printer to print one name and address on a standard invoice form. Say a hundred copies of each. Okay?”

  Dice never asked questions. By the end of the day he had created and printed invoices for ten different fictitious companies.

  “Okay, it’s done,” he said. He looked at Brewer’s handwritten list of civilian parts. That was the thing about Dice that Brewer didn’t like. He was openly nosy.

  “Some of these numbers are one point off,” Dice said. “I mean—like—the universal code number for this part is CW 84647 and what you wrote here is CW 84646.”

  “That’s right, Dice. The part I want is CW 84646. Not seven. Okay?”

  Dice shrugged. “If it makes you happy, Brewer, that’s all that matters.”

  “It makes me happy.”

  Dice put the list down. “What’s next?”

  “A little dinner and a little nine ball, Dice. And tomorrow we go to Philadelphia to see the big bad wolf.”

  The next morning they rented a van and drove it down to Canal Street, where they shopped in the electronics and secondhand-parts stores for telephone equipment. By ten they were through the Lincoln Tunnel and on the New Jersey Turnpike.

  Brewer said, “We’re going to see a guy down in Philadelphia, Dice. But before we do, I want you to put a tap on his phone and record everything that happens. Okay?”

  “Sure.”

  “We’ve got to handle this guy with care. He’s a real wacko.”

  “Yeah? Who is he?”

  “His name is Wolf. He’s connected with the family in Philadelphia and the mob in Atlantic City.”

  “So—how does he fit in?”

  “He’s an industrial parts distributor. If I can bring him around, he can clean up a lot of parts on my list in one shot. It could save us weeks of running around. But I have to tell you going in, Dice, he’s the most treacherous bastard I ever met. If he thinks there’s a buck in it for him, he’ll turn us in. We could be looking at a federal rap with a big jail term. Okay?”