*
Kim Philby read transcripts of the meeting in McCarthy’s office, reduced them to a summary, gave it to Mikhail.
“I don’t like this,” Mikhail said. “McCarthy’s morale is weakening. And your Mr. Cabrillo is dragging his feet. At this rate, fear will lose its grip on America. I’m appalled.”
“Can’t your people do something helpful?”
“Such as what?”
“A small war, maybe. Invade a corner of Turkey, or a bit of India. Just for a little while.”
“No, no, Kim. Foreign affairs don’t interest Americans. One Korea is enough. Reds under their beds, that’s what they want, and so do we.”
*
“If I was Cabrillo, I’d get out of town,” Fisk said.
“If I were Cabrillo. The supposition takes the subjunctive. Why is it a supposition?” Prendergast began throwing paper clips at Fisk, one at a time.
“Um … because … well, it assumes that Fantoni still thinks Cabrillo is guilty of—”
“Wrong. It assumes that Cabrillo knows he is guilty. If innocent, why flee?”
“I bet Fantoni whacks him.” Fisk began catching the paper clips. “These things go in threes. Sammy, Chick, now Cabrillo.”
“Neatness. You are obsessed with neatness.” Prendergast slung the box at him, and paper clips sprayed everywhere. “That’s reality! Chaos! Crime is like that, random and unpredictable, otherwise we would see it coming and prevent it!”
“Of course, Cabrillo might whack him first,” Fisk said.
2
Julie and Luis slept in separate beds again. He woke at six, utterly lost in time and space, not knowing dawn from dusk, bewildered by the room and the sounds. His brain had to hunt down this town, which grudgingly explained the apartment, and then a barren yesterday swam into memory, so this must be a new day.
Exhausting.
He dozed for an hour. Got up, and was on the balcony drinking coffee, wondering more or less simultaneously if he was cut out for marriage and why McCarthy had never accused the New York Jewish community of being Communist, they were powerful enough, and how birds knew all about flying without having to practice, when did you ever see a bird crash; when the phone rang.
Bobby Kennedy. Meet the senator in half an hour at the Confederate Memorial in Arlington National Cemetery. Luis asked why. “Because nobody dares bug Arlington,” Kennedy barked, high-pitched and half a tone flat. Wasted in politics. Should have been a high school football coach.
Luis took a taxi.
McCarthy was sitting on a bench under a tree, with Cohn and Kennedy. His elbows were on his knees, his fingers were linked. When Luis approached, he raised his eyes. No other part of him moved.
“Fantoni will plead the Fifth,” he said. “The man will sit there with his thumb up his ass and his brain in neutral and he’ll plead the Fifth to the end of time.”
“Won’t that make him look guilty?” Luis asked.
“Worse. It’ll make him look boring,” Cohn said. “Pleading the Fifth is not news.”
“We’ll be lucky to make page five,” McCarthy said. “TV ratings will stink. I’ll be down there with the soaps.”
Luis said, “Fantoni has turned himself into a dummy. Our problem is how to make the dummy talk.” They looked at him with no hope in their eyes. “Give me a minute,” he said.
He turned away and walked slowly around the Confederate Memorial; slowly because it was a small monument and he had only the beginnings of an idea. Halfway around the memorial, his mental superchargers kicked in. He saw the solution, bright and clear. He began to stride.
“Here’s the scenario,” he told them. “Fantoni’s on the stand. I play the senator. Mr. Cohn is Fantoni.”
McCarthy flapped a hand: proceed.
“Mr. Fantoni: is a member of a political organization committed to the violent overthrow of the US government fit to be a citizen?”
“I decline to answer on the grounds—”
“Yeah, we know,” McCarthy said.
“In your line of business, Mr. Fantoni, how many card-carrying Communists do you know? Apart from yourself.”
“I plead the Fifth Amendment,” Cohn said.
“I have here the Party cards of you and two of your colleagues in New York. Are there more than three?”
“I plead the Fifth.”
“More than five? More than twenty?”
“Plead the Fifth.”
“More than fifty? More than one hundred active Communists known to you?”
“Plead the Fifth.”
“More than five hundred? A thousand? If you knew over a thousand Communists, knew them professionally, Mr. Fantoni, as part of your business, wouldn’t you remember five? Fifty? Several hundred?”
“Plead the Fifth.”
“Okay, Mr. Fantoni, you’re afraid your answers might incriminate you, we all understand that. Let me ask you about your leader, your hero, Josef Stalin. In your professional opinion—and you are an expert in this field—were Stalin’s massacres of millions of innocent Russians a criminal act?”
“Plead the Fifth.”
“Oh? Meaning you’re not sure? Let me help you out. All your Red friends in New York, are they bigger crooks and killers than Stalin?”
“The Fifth.”
“There’s a split in the New York Communists, isn’t there? That’s why Trotskyites recently killed your nephew Sammy Fantoni and his cousin Chick Scatola?”
“They did?” Cohn was startled.
“Blood relatives, Mr. Fantoni! Your family! Murdered by Moscow! And you call yourself an American?”
“Fifth,” Cohn muttered.
“Enough, Mr. Arabel.” McCarthy stood and stretched. “I catch your drift.”
“It might be enough to get the bastard deported,” Cohn said.
“I need a drink,” McCarthy said. “That’s helpful, Mr. Arabel. Keep at it. I need more. And fast.”
3
Flying in an airplane is not natural. Strong adult men who can tear a phone book in half are afraid of flying. Takeoff terrifies them. Once airborne, they dare not look out. Landing is one long sentence of death. And the arrival lounge comes, not as a relief, but as a sense of betrayal. All that terror, for nothing. It left Jerome Fantoni feeling angrier than ever.
He despised fear. That was why he flew to Washington, because otherwise fear would have nagged him into taking the train; but now look: fear won anyway. And it would be waiting for him when he flew back to New York. Well, he wouldn’t put up with it. He’d take a gun and blow its gloomy head off.
A man was waiting for him at Washington Airport.
“It’s an office block,” the man said. “8th Street and Pennsylvania Avenue.”
*
“Pull over here,” Jerome said. “I’ll be twenty minutes.”
They were outside a suburban church, St. Brendan’s, not an Italian saint, not by a thousand miles. The bricks had leaked salt, which made the walls look like a cheap liquor store. Any New York building contractor did that to the diocese would get rebuked with a baseball bat. But a church was a church. Jerome went in.
Everything was light oak. The stained glass had cost fifty dollars including tax. Incense was losing a fight with pine disinfectant. He had been in cocktail lounges where the atmosphere was more devout. Still, a confessional was a confessional. He entered the box.
Several minutes passed. He hadn’t slept well, he was tired. The grill banged open and startled him. They made the routine statements. An Irish priest. Not young. Not charming. Well, he wasn’t here to be charmed.
He wasted a few seconds, wondering how to begin. “I’m in a predicament, Father,” he said.
“Is that your car out front?” the priest barked. “The ’52 Lincoln?”
“Um… probably. Yes.”
“It’s illegally parked. Can’t you read? The sign’s as clear as day.”
“I’m sorry.”
“So you say. And when some poor devil has a hear
t attack during Mass and the ambulance can’t get in because a selfish eedjit has parked like you have, what good is sorry?”
“Of course you’re right. Has that happened?”
“Two weeks since. Come on, I have the sick to visit. What’s your problem?”
“It’s a matter of faith, Father. I think I may have lost mine.”
Silence. Then a sigh, perhaps a groan. More silence. Then: “Like an umbrella, d’ye mean?”
“I’m sorry, Father?”
“Where didya last have it? Have ye looked there?”
“Perhaps you misheard me, Father. I said—”
“I know what you said. You’ve lost your faith. Hell’s teeth, I lose my faith a dozen times a week. Preachin’ the Glory a God in this moral bog of a country, it sucks the marrow from a man’s soul, so it does.”
Jerome tried again. “My problem is homicide, Father. Close relatives have died.”
“The police handle that.”
“Yes. But the suspects have died too.”
“Isn’t it enough? You’re lucky the police got that far. Have you no idea of the clear-up rate in homicide? It’s pathetic.”
Jerome had come seeking compassion, and he felt he was getting blame. “All those meaningless deaths, Father. They make life seem pointless.”
“Most life is pointless. I have gallstones. What is the point of gallstones? Do they enjoy the pain they give me? They do not.”
“Have them out, Father.”
“I did. They returned. Sonsabitches.”
Jerome made his confession and was told to read his Bible and pray. He said that he had prayed a lot but nobody was listening. “Try again,” the priest said. “You never know, you might get lucky. Now move your damn car.”
Jerome came out of church feeling angry with God. He was 55, he had invested time and money in God, and now God was jerking him around, telling him nothing mattered because life was meaningless, and so was death. Well, that was unacceptable. God made the rules but then he made them meaningless. Okay, that was His privilege. Now Jerome Fantoni was going to break a couple. He was going to kill Luis Cabrillo. That was one death that he, personally, would not find meaningless. And Cabrillo would have all eternity to wonder where he went wrong.
He got into the Lincoln and they drove to 8th and Pennsylvania. The man called Metal Exchange on the car phone. “He’s not back yet,” he told Jerome. “Soon, they reckon.”
4
“All this booze.” Mikhail said. “That’s not going to do his depression any good. His crusade needs a kick-start.”
“Scandal?” Kim suggested.
“Bigger. We want Americans to wonder why their God has abandoned capitalism when they’re paying an arm and a leg in taxes.”
“Maybe Cabrillo will come up trumps.”
Mikhail shook his head. “Cabrillo is tap-dancing on one leg. He’s about to fall on his face. It’s time the Cossacks rode to the rescue.”
“I suppose this means he’s bugged.”
“We like to call it protective surveillance. It’s for his own good.”
*
Julie and Stevie were at Metal Exchange when Luis came in. “Fantoni will plead the Fifth,” he said. “The senator is not a happy man.”
“That’s too bad,” Julie said. “Any chance he’ll die of despair before sundown?”
“I knew a girl at Bryn Mawr, her father died of a broken heart,” Stevie said.
“Misery kind of follows you around, don’t it, honey?” Julie told Stevie.
“Whatcha mean, misery? He was pissed-off, that’s all. His wife left him, and then he took two slugs in the chest from her boyfriend. Bust his heart wide open.”
Luis briefly forgot McCarthy. “Why?” he asked.
“It was in Texas,” Stevie explained. “You want some coffee?”
Luis waved no. He was eager to show off his creativity. “I found a way around the Fifth Amendment,” he told them. He was re-enacting his dialogue with Cohn, when Jerome Fantoni walked in, his right hand in his jacket pocket, holding a revolver with a silencer as big as a beer bottle. “Nobody move,” he said.
“Hi, dad.” Stevie waved.
“She moved,” Luis said.
“Everyone shut up! You, you’re a homicidal sonofabitch, you took out Sammy and Chick and for that I’m going to blow you away.” He was trying to ease the gun out of his pocket. It seemed to be trapped.
“Quite ludicrous,” Luis said.
“Then die laughing.” Jerome tugged harder. The gun was jammed, perhaps hooked on a tear in the lining.
“Is this a stick-up or a fuck-up?” Stevie asked. Her question sounded funnier when she heard it. She laughed. Jerome glared. He got both hands on the pocket, twisting the gun, making the problem worse. “Take your time, dad. Nobody’s goin’ anywhere. Just remember, if you kill Luis, you kill the father of your unborn grandchild too.”
“You did what?” Jerome demanded. He still gripped the gun but he stopped wrestling with it.
“So I married the guy,” she said. “So what? I can marry who I like. Whom. Whatever.”
“Unforgiveable. Beyond belief.”
“The marriage has been consummated,” Julie said.
“Fourth time lucky,” Stevie said. “Worth the wait.”
Luis had caught up. “They say it could be twins. Two boys.”
Stevie moved to her father and took his arm. “Be happy, dad. It’s what you want. Give me a kiss, at least.” Stiffly, grudgingly, he bent to kiss her forehead. Her foot hooked his leg and her fist shoved his chest, hard. His legs went one way and his torso the other. His left shoulder hit the floor first and a splash of white-hot agony washed through him. A roar like surf rose in his ears. The last thing he saw was people diving for cover. He never heard the string of stunted detonations when his fingers tightened, blew holes in his pocket and massacred Stevie’s desk. Then silence.
Julie raised her head. “That was slick,” she said.
“Bryn Mawr. Lacrosse. You learn how to protect yourself. I knew dad has a bum shoulder. He mashed it in the Princeton-Yale football game. Never recovered.” The gun had freed itself. She kicked it from his hand. The air smelt like the Fourth of July.
*
They rolled him onto his back. His nose was bleeding. His upper lip was split and also bleeding. It was hard to know which flow was which. He was breathing well enough to blow small red bubbles. By the time they fetched a doctor his eyes were open. “Shoulder,” he said.
“Uh-huh. Keep still.” The doctor did his stuff. “Dislocated it,” he said. “What happened?”
“Beats me. Act of God.”
The doctor had noticed the bullet-holed desk, the lingering cordite aroma. He said nothing. He cleaned up the face and put the arm in a sling. He telephoned the hospital. “Thirty dollars,” he said. “The ambulance will be extra.” Luis paid him. He left.
There was a difficult silence. Julie drank coffee. Stevie picked wood splinters out of her typewriter. Jerome sat on a couch and sucked his fat lip.
“How are those lovely boxer dogs of yours?” Luis asked.
“You planning on killing them too?”
“You are a truly miserable ingrate,” Stevie told him. Luis was impressed. “Yesterday’s crossword,” she said. “An ingrate is a father who never calls you back even when you leave your number.”
“I was busy,” Jerome muttered. “I got subpoenaed.”
“You phoned your father?” Luis said. “You gave him this number?”
“Nothin’ doin’ here. I got bored.”
“Oh, sister,” Julie sighed. The mood was somber.
“These people didn’t rub out Chick. I was there,” Stevie told Jerome. “I saw it all. Chick met some guy, they didn’t agree.”
“So where is Chick?” Jerome demanded.
“West Virginia,” Julie said.
Nothing to add.
The ambulance arrived. Stevie sat in the back with her father.
“What�
��s the matter with you?” she said. “You waste a fortune on violin lessons so I can appreciate Mozart, who in my opinion cannot hold a candle to the Andrews Sisters, and then you bust in and embarrass my friends. What you did with that gun was not a class act, it was crude, and I want to make it clear that I am not married and I am not pregnant.”
“Some lucky man,” he muttered.
“Yeah, sure, go on, be negative. Nobody likes an ingrate. Wait an’ see if you got any friends in the Senate, cus Joe McCarthy’s gonna be gunnin’ for you tomorrow. He is truly mean, and you, buster, are red meat in his sights.”
Jerome’s shoulder felt as if it had been shot. That would teach him for taking liberties with the Almighty.
PURGATORY SHOULD BE A PIECE OF CAKE
1
Luis poked pencils into the bullet holes in the desk. Red pencils, green, blue, brown. “Look,” he said “Modern art.”
“You’re babbling, Luis.”
“I’m entitled to babble. That’s twice the music critic of The New York Times has tried to kill me.”
“He’s not the music critic.”
“And I wouldn’t read the Times if he were,” Luis said. He had run out of babble. The sense of shock that lingered after Jerome left was slowly fading.
“He’s gonna make quite a picture when he takes the stand,” she said. “One arm in a sling, a lip like a banana.”
“He’ll be a basket case when Joe’s finished with him.”
Julie was flicking through a copy of Harper’s Bazaar. How could anyone spend that much on lingerie? “You’re sure he’ll plead the Fifth.”
“Of course.” But he knew that tone of voice. “What else can he do?”
She turned a page and saw a black silk bikini that was sexier than skin. “What would be the worst thing that could happen to McCarthy tomorrow?”
“Brain tumor?” She shook her head. “Give up,” he said.
“Go where the money is, Luis. See if you can get Fantoni out of his hole. After all, you put him there. Okay, I’ve done all the hard work, what I need now is a coffee milkshake.”
She went out. Luis picked up her magazine and let it fall open. On page after page, halfclad women, stunningly lovely, looked insolently into his eyes. Soon a cautious optimism invaded his loins. Perhaps she had forgiven him for Billy Jago’s death. Not that it had been his fault. He dropped the magazine. Time to do what he was good at: cheating.
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