“Seems to me,” asserts Harding, “every people has a right to be governed by their own bastards. If we’re gonna manage without twelve battleships, so can they.” He points to a squadron of huge Japanese ships. “Now what’s all these, Admiral?”
Denby, whose rise to pre-eminence has been viewed by at least a few as a direct challenge to basic Darwinian principles, stares uncomprehending at silhouettes of Japanese flattops, their shapes new and unfamiliar. An aide comes to his rescue.
“Just Japanese transports, sir,” the aide says, dismissively.
“Transports,” repeats Harding.
Hughes provides explanation. “Yes sir. The Japanese seem quite an agreeable lot. Courteous. Accommodating. Not like our European allies. They’ll give up almost all their old battleships and cruisers, if we just let them retain their transports.”
Harding turns back to Denby. “Admiral?”
“I think we could go along with them on that, Mr. President. Transports are very slow. Lightly armed.” He shrugs. “All they do is carry equipment.”
“Mm. What kind of equipment?”
As Denby fumbles for an answer, his aide once again fills in. “Er, aeroplanes, primarily. Yes, I believe they’re aircraft carriers, sir.”
A second naval attaché backs up the first. “That’s correct. Their only use is to shuttle a bunch of dinky little Japanese bi-planes around the Pacific.”
Denby chuckles. “Glorified freighters, really. Hardly a threat, Mr. President.”
The meeting ended. Fall and Denby walk down the corridor together. Fall has learned to speak to Denby very slowly, leaving the admiral persuaded that here was one civilian cabinet member who actually talked sense.
“I guess with the fleet to be cut in half,” Fall smoothly observes, “all those navy oil reserves of yours are something of an albatross.”
Denby nods. “It’s the biggest damn nuisance trying to run a naval base in Teapot Dome, Wyoming — twelve hundred miles from the nearest ocean.”
“We could take them Wyoming oil fields off your hands, if you like,” suggests Fall, magnanimously.
“Off my hands?”
“Why not? We just bring Teapot Dome back to my department. Where it belongs. Interior.”
Denby nods thoughtfully. Seems perfectly reasonable. “Well, Mr. Secretary, if it wouldn’t be too much bother —”
Fall slaps Denby on the back. “That’s what the Secretary of Interior is paid to do, you know. Conserve America’s natural resources. In the unlikely event war breaks out, the petroleum will be sitting there for you, safe and sound. I’ll have one of my people draw up the interdepartmental transfer. Oh — and Admiral? Why don’tcha call me Al.”
Behind his desk at 1625 K Street, Jess Smith is overseeing a little transfer of his own. He attempts nonchalance as his latest pigeon, Tim Tyler, nervously counts off a stack of five-hundred dollar bills. Faces of Harding and Daugherty smile down at the transaction.
But unexpected problems pop up in every business, however well connected. There’s a commotion just outside the door as a very angry Sicilian bursts free of Burns’ efforts to restrain him, and crashes into the room, Burns on his heels.
“You crooked bastard! I oughtta break-a your . . . !”
Burns grabs the Sicilian before he can throw himself on Jess. “Easy now,” counsels Burns, his hands firmly gripping the interloper’s shoulders.
“What in hell’s happened, Marco?” asks Jess, his light tenor up an octave.
“What’s happened? I been indicted. Seventeen violations of da Volstead Act.”
Tim Tyler, his congenital nervousness greatly enhanced by this interruption, eyes his money anxiously. “I could come back later, Mr. Smith.”
“Hold on, Timmy,” says Jess. “Look, Marco — these high-profile cases, the Justice Department has to follow certain procedures. As does the Bureau, isn’t that right, Mr. Burns?”
Burns nods.
The Sicilian looks shocked. “’Burns.’ You’re head of da F.B.I.?”
Burns nods again.
“You sons of bitches busted up my still!”
Tim Tyler stands. “I think I’m going to go.”
“Timmy, sit!” commands Burns. Timmy sits. Jess returns to the bootlegging problem. “It’s just a formality, Marco.”
“Formality . . . ?!”
“The Attorney General has no interest in an actual prosecution. You’ll see. When you come up for trial . . .”
“Trial? You sell me dis ten thousand dollar insurance policy. You tell me it’s guaranteed. I don’t quibble about price, I don’t-a negotiate. I just cough up da dough. So what happens is I get arrested, I get indicted, my brewery’s all smashed up by Burns here and his boys, now you fuckers are telling me . . . !”
“Hey Marco, will you calm yourself? Please. Believe me. This trial is strictly show. You gotta trust me on this.”
Tim Tyler scoops up his money and edges toward the exit.
“Smart move, fella,” says the Sicilian. “’cause these guys are fuckin’ whores. First they take-a your money, and then you’re gonna get screwed.”
Tim Tyler’s out the door like a scalded dog, along with Jess’ deal of the week.
But Jess’ involvement with the Sicilian is just beginning.
Part Five
24.
One of the curious things I learned about Washington is that it grants each new President a sort of “honeymoon” — even his bitterest opponents leave him be when he’s first starting out, and almost everybody says they want him to succeed in whatever he’s trying to do. But eventually the grumbling returns. Enemies accumulate. Before long it’s politics as usual, and they’re all ganging up on him.
Fortunately, President Harding was so much admired that his honeymoon lasted a lot longer than most. And of course he always went that extra mile not to ruffle anyone’s feathers, even those individuals he strenuously disagreed with. You couldn’t help but love a man like that. But as his third year in office approached, I’m sorry to say, the lines were drawn. Attacks on him had begun in earnest. And they took their toll.
Harding, his hair distinctly grayer than when he took office, sits at his desk, now cluttered with stacks of position papers, legislation, proposals, fat reference tomes, documents and briefs of every kind — and a generous breakfast tray, neglected save for the coffee. He’s reading three things at once, making notes, struggling to sort it all out.
As the clock chimes 8:00 A.M., there’s a knock and Mrs. Samson enters, carrying more papers. She closes the door behind her.
“Good morning, Mr. President.”
“Morning, Betsy.”
“Senator Lodge is here, sir.”
“God, he’s prompt,” observes Harding, without pleasure.
“And your schedule for today.” She hands him a list of appointments.
He looks it over. “Hmm . . . any of these urgent?”
“I believe all of them, sir. Mr. President, you’ve hardly touched your breakfast. Shall I have something fresh sent up for you and the senator?”
“Not hungry. And Lodge doesn’t eat breakfast. In fact, I’ve never seen him eat. I think he’s an entirely self-contained unit. Er, tea — he does like tea. Have Wally bring up a pot. And ask the senator to come in, please.”
“Yes sir. Er, if you have a moment — Secretary Fall asked if you could sign these this morning.”
She hands him a sheaf of documents. Harding thumbs through them with little comprehension. “What are they —’Teapot Dome’ —? ‘Surplus oil —?’”
“Secretary Fall says he’s worked out all the details for you with Mr. Daugherty and Admiral Denby. Just need your signature.”
Harding scribbles his name. “God bless Al Fall. That man carries his own weight and then some.” He hands the papers back to her.
&nb
sp; “Yes sir. Secretary Fall seems to work almost as hard as you, Mr. President. I’ve heard from security he’s in his office past midnight sometimes. I’ll collect the senator . . .”
“Thank you, Betsy.”
She’s just barely opened the door when Lodge fairly bursts into the room. “Er, Senator Lodge, sir,” says Samson, startled, then withdraws.
“Good morning, Warren,” says Lodge with even less warmth than usual.
“Good to see you, Henry.” He rises to shake hands. “It’s been entirely too long.” He points to a chair. “Please —”
Lodge makes his own choice of seat, and wastes no time on ceremony. “Mr. President: the Senate, that is, the Party, and many of our most important constituents . . .”
“You mean contributors . . .”
“There’s consternation everywhere about the direction you appear to be taking.”
“Really,” says Harding, mildly.
“To begin with, your proposed naval cuts would leave us virtually defenseless.”
“Not in a world where nations sit down man to man and work out their differences . . .”
“Bosh,” says Lodge. “That’s a fairy tale, sir. A fairy tale.”
“I’m sorry you think that, Henry.”
“Well I do think that, Mr. President, I do. And I’m hardly the only one.” Lodge removes his monocle and begins to polish it obsessively with a handkerchief. This is a quarrel he might have had with Woodrow Wilson — had the two been on speaking terms — but certainly not with the man he had come to imagine as his having personally groomed to be Wilson’s successor.
Harding waits, allowing Lodge’s agitation to subside. When Lodge speaks again, it is more in sorrow than anger.
“You know, he says, pensively, “I turned seventy-eight last week. Seventy-eight. Suppose I’ve just about run the course.” He sighs. “Each year voices seem more indistinct. My eyes dimmer. Seems I’m forever misplacing things.” Ruefully, he shakes his head. “I keep five fountain pens lying around now so that I can lay my hands on at least one when I need it. The world is fast fading away from me, Warren. But I’d come to have expectations of you, sir. High expectations that you would grow into the presidency, and pick up the torch.”
“Thank you, Henry. I do appreciate . . .”
“Only to find that you’ve totally lost your moorings. ‘Disarmament.’ ‘World Court.’ Inflammatory speeches about ‘Worker’s rights.’ ‘Negro equality.’” Another sad shake of his head. “Fine notions, perhaps, in the abstract. But in the real world, they’re prescriptions for anarchy. Look at Russia. Mexico. Hell, look at Italy . . .”
“Henry, as much as anyone I know, you’ve always been ready to personally lend a helping hand to those less fortunate . . .”
“Of course. I know where my duty lies. And for those same reasons of duty, this nation has established great charitable trusts. For reasons of duty, Gladys and I freely donate thousands of dollars . . .”
“But suppose it were possible to get beyond individual charity, to change the entire system a bit — so people were less likely to get into a jam in the first place . . .”
“There you go, Warren,” says Lodge, his bile again rising, “sounding like a goddamn Bolshevik . . .”
“Oh, come. Just that, sitting in this chair has finally opened my eyes a crack to some hugely painful things in this world, monumental problems I’d simply been unwilling to look at most of my . . .”
“Sitting there in that chair, you’ve turned your back on us, that’s what you’ve done!” Lodge grips his arm rests, knuckles white. “Slapped me in the face!”
“Henry, for heaven’s sakes . . .”
“Must be something about this room. Some — microbe the previous President left behind. May I remind you that the constitution provides for an executive branch, understood to mean that the President executes legislation crafted by congress. He has not been elected to go off on some tangent of his own and turn the country upside down.”
Harding can see that further discussion is not likely to lead to anything fruitful. “All right. Henry. Let’s leave it at that, shall we? Perhaps in time, you’ll see what I’m getting at.”
Abruptly, Lodge stands. “In time? Time is precisely what I don’t have!”
Harding rises as well, searching his mind for a way to ease the tension. As Lodge turns sharply for the door, Harding gently palms the older man’s elbow and tries giving him escort. “So,” he asks, lightly, “what’s Mrs. Lodge had to say about all this? Must be quite a comfort to have someone at home who entirely agrees with you — straight down the line, as I recall.”
“In point of fact, Mrs. Lodge has lately shown no sympathy whatever,” he snaps, pulling his arm away. “Mrs. Lodge says I’m getting exactly what I deserve —” he jerks open the door — “for having put some colored in the White House. Good day to — oops . . .” Lodge runs smack into Harding’s black steward, knocking a tray out of his gloved hands. A porcelain tea service smashes to the floor. “Why don’t you be more careful — !” Lodge snarls, and encased in his rage, flies down the hall.
Harding is taken aback by Lodge’s parting volley, but the steward is positively frozen by shock, his wide eyes locked incredulously on Harding’s facial features and skin tone.
Harding recovers first, kneels down, and begins picking up the pieces of crockery, laying them out on the steward’s tray. “Well, Wally, it just became clear to the senator which of us was elected President. I’m afraid he took it badly.” Wally remains transfixed as Harding smiles up at him. “Might you give me a hand with this? We negroes got to work together, don’tcha think?”
Late that day, Surgeon General Sawyer, a glorious vision of white and gold, paces the contrastingly olive-drab ground floor foyer of the Veterans Administration, his eye on the clock.
At 4:58 he stops pacing.
At 4:59 he nods to himself and heads for the stairs and the office of the director.
Up three flights he arrives at a glass door inscribed with “Veterans Affairs, Charles Forbes, Director.” It swings open as Charlie’s clerk, an incongruously glamorous, carefully made-up young woman, is leaving for the day. Reflexively, she gives Sawyer a slightly seductive smile as he enters and she departs, closing the door behind him.
Just inside, Sawyer encounters Charlie’s secretary putting on her coat. Like the clerk, she wears an inordinate amount of make-up for daytime, and her figure could start a war. She glances with fleeting distress at the clock — 5:02 — but dutifully begins to remove her wrap. Sawyer smiles, shakes his head, reassures her that he can manage by himself, and sends her on her way.
She opens the door, pauses in the doorway, and murmurs, “When you’re finished, General Sawyer, just press this button. The door will lock behind you.”
“I will. Thank you, Miss.”
“Have a good evening, sir.”
Watching her through the glass door as she sashays down the hall, Sawyer wonders just where it is that Charlie recruits his office staff — and for what purposes. Then he loosens his tie, takes off his jacket, lays it on a chair, and turns to the first file cabinet.
25.
At almost that precise moment, Leland Sinclair sits on horseback, binoculars focused on the U.S. Navy’s Teapot Dome installation — a collection of oil wells and elephantine storage tanks, standing in the lengthening, late-afternoon shadow of a Wyoming, teapot-shaped mountain. Two marines with rifles guard the chain-link entrance. A third has just lowered the facility’s Stars and Stripes — for the last time.
When he was eighteen, Sinclair had inherited debts of $82,000, along with seven oil wells, from his wildcatter father. One of the wells actually coughed up a little petroleum now and again. The problem with the other half-dozen, Sinclair came to discover, was that even though located in the vicinity of a rich oil field, in fact within sight of several of J
ohn D. Rockefeller’s highly productive rigs, his father had unimaginatively drilled them straight down. Sinclair revisited the wells, put his drillers back to work, and after burrowing about a hundred feet, altered course and headed sideways toward Rockefeller. Soon all of Sinclair’s wells were every bit as productive as those of his giant competitor, who never guessed that the insignificant young upstart across the fence would have the audacity to poach Standard Oil. Thus was established a principle of oil exploration that was to make Sinclair a multi-millionaire: it is far more profitable surreptitiously sucking up other people’s oil than knocking about, trying to find your own.
With his acquisition of Teapot Dome, Sinclair had achieved his apotheosis. He wouldn’t have to raise one rig or drop a single hole. The navy had taken care of all that. All Sinclair need do was open the pipeline.
As the sun eases itself toward the horizon, Sinclair trains his glasses on a small military pickup truck with some dozen or so sailors in back. It rolls to the gate. The three marines toss the folded flag and their rifles to the men in the truck and scramble aboard. The truck pulls away.
Sinclair drops his binoculars back in their case, spurs his horse, and rides forward in an easy canter to inspect his new property.
26.
The following morning, in a crowded Washington courtroom a thousand miles to the east, an exceptionally melancholy Sicilian ex-bootlegger is about to learn the price of putting trust in Jess Smith.
The jury foreman rises, verdict in hand. The Sicilian, seated with his attorney at the defense table, and at the government’s table, Harry Daugherty with his new protégé, boyish J. Edgar Hoover, by his side, all listen for the inevitable.
A devoté of cheap gin, Daugherty certainly harbored no animus for bootleggers. Every so often, however, the Justice Department found itself obliged to log a conviction, and the Sicilian, perhaps lulled by Jess into a false sense of security, had so blatantly thumbed his nose at the Volstead Act, Daugherty saw no choice but to finally exhibit some prosecutory zeal. “Eager J. Edgar” had taken it from there.
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