Senator

by Richard Bowker

  The next Sunday I met him again and agreed to feed him information. Scanlon was delighted; it would be a wonderful relationship, he assured me. And for the rest of my term I told him whatever came my way about the feds' operations against him. They tried several times to plant bugs at his office, in his car, at his favorite table in his favorite restaurant. Somehow he always managed to find out. They turned one of his dealers, who gave them the information they needed to raid one of Jackie's marijuana-filled warehouses. When they got there, the place was so clean they could have performed surgery in it. They began to suspect there was a leak, but they assumed it was some low-level functionary on the take, or maybe an Irishman in their office with divided loyalties. Jim O'Connor? Don't be absurd. But as long as I was attorney general, their investigations got nowhere, and Jackie Scanlon flourished.

  Why did I do it? Why flout my principles to cover up Danny's lame-brained crime? The reasons were both good and bad. To this day I'm not sure which mattered most.

  I did it for Melissa and the kids. He wasn't a very good father, but he wasn't a terrible one either. And they all loved him, despite his drunken rages, despite the financial mess he had gotten them into. Who was I to say they would be better off with him in prison?

  I did it for Danny. I wasn't inclined to do him any favors at that point, but Scanlon was right, after all. Only a jerk wouldn't help his brother. I could rage at him, but I couldn't feel good about letting him be ruined.

  I did it for my father. That was actually a much stronger motivation. Everyone else might get something positive out of Danny's disgrace—he might straighten himself out, Melissa might find the courage to start another life—but there was nothing in it for my father. It might not have killed him, but surely it would have darkened the rest of his days. He worries about Danny. All the time. Even on a cozy Sunday evening with me, relaxed and sipping his bourbon, a part of my father is worrying. Is Danny drinking too much? Is he in trouble at work? Does he need money? I've always tried to do what I can to soothe his soul. This was just an extreme case.

  I did it for my career. There was danger either way, but if I sacrificed Danny, the problems were real and immediate. I was sure it would cost me the Senate nomination, and I badly wanted that nomination. The voters might not have minded my brother being a reprobate, and they would probably have believed my version of the events over Scanlon's, but I didn't think they'd feel good about my turning in my only brother to the cops. It would leave a sour taste in their mouths; they might agree with me morally or intellectually, but they would no longer like me.

  My probable opponent in the Republican primary for the Senate race was a desiccated Boston Brahmin with a limp, lord-of-the-manor handshake and the usual distinguished career of public service—all in appointed offices. He was a lousy campaigner; he seemed to believe that the Republican nomination should be his by divine right. Harold didn't think he'd give us much trouble. But Yankees still had clout in the state GOP, even if it was no longer their exclusive property. It was clear that a lot of Republicans would feel more comfortable voting for him than for me if I began to look like just another scandal-plagued Irish pol.

  Finally, I did it for me. Because it made me feel superior to Danny. He expected me to be a sanctimonious prig and send him off to jail. I think part of him wanted me to do it, so that I could be the convenient villain to explain the wreckage of his life. But I fooled him; I threw out my principles and broke the law and risked everything I had achieved so that he couldn't find a way to blame me for what he alone had done to himself.

  That about covers it. Were my reasons good enough? To this day I don't know. I shouldn't have done it. I did it. Life went on.

  One good thing about going to Washington was that I couldn't do much for Scanlon there. He asked a couple of times, and I turned him down; it wasn't part of the agreement, and I didn't see how I could live the rest of my life in his back pocket. Surprisingly, he didn't complain or make any threats; a deal was a deal apparently. He did well enough without my help; perhaps he had other sources of information, recruited God knows how. Whatever the reason, the feds never laid a glove on him. He thought about becoming respectable; perhaps he fancied himself turning into another Paul Everson. But Southie had too much of a hold on him. The years passed, and he didn't change. He stayed in the same three-decker, running the same rackets. On Thanksgiving and Christmas his people passed out baskets of food to the needy; he fancied himself a one-man welfare system. I supposed he still went to the ten-thirty mass Sundays at Gate of Heaven.

  And when he called me a couple of days before Amanda was murdered and said he had to see me, my blood froze, and I thought: It's starting again. But I was wrong. Something far worse was starting.

  * * *

  We drove out to Castle Island and parked in front of Fort Independence. There wasn't much traffic; the ocean was peaceful. Out on the causeway a couple of men leaned over fishing poles; a bearded man on RollerBlades whizzed past them. Scanlon made himself comfortable in the passenger seat and sighed with happiness. "Look at that view," he said, waving at Pleasure Bay and, beyond it, the Kennedy Library and the buildings of UMass. "What a great town. Who'd wanna live anywhere but Southie?"

  We had parked not far from here for our previous conversation. I had been furious, and I was prepared to turn down his request, whatever it was, even if it cost me the election. His blackmail wasn't going to work anymore.

  I hadn't been prepared for the real reason he wanted to see me. "This woman reporter's been nosin' around about you and me," he said. "I figured I'd better warn you."

  Amanda had tried to interview Joe Costello about my relationship with Scanlon. It probably seemed to her like a reasonable, if risky, choice; for years Costello had been the number two man in Scanlon's organization, but he was rumored to be on the outs with Jackie. My brother could take the story of my involvement with Scanlon only so far; he couldn't confirm that I had actually let Scanlon blackmail me, because I never told him. Someone like Costello might be able to finish the story, might have the proof that I broke the law.

  Unfortunately for Amanda, her choice turned out to be a bad one. Costello knew nothing about me—Scanlon, too, had kept that information to himself—but Costello, in spite of the rumors, was still loyal to his boss and, because of the rumors, was eager to prove it. So he had nothing to tell Amanda but plenty to tell Scanlon afterward. And Scanlon then had plenty to tell me.

  Now there was more to talk about, and none of it was good.

  "Have the police been to see you about her murder?" I asked, ignoring Scanlon's praise of Southie.

  He shook his head. "Don't worry, though. I won't tell 'em nothin'."

  I hadn't expected him to. "This is big trouble," I said.

  He nodded. "For both of us, Jim," he said. The "sir" had long ago disappeared. "Anyway, I hope you don't think I had anything to do with it."

  "No, I don't think you had anything to do with it. And that's why this is big trouble. The worst thing would be if it's just a random killing, and the police come across her notes about us while they're investigating."

  "Nothing's happened yet," Scanlon pointed out. "That's encouraging, isn't it?"

  "I guess. I was thinking—Costello. If he's so eager to show you he's loyal, maybe he killed her, you know, then stole all the notes and tapes, thinking he's doing you a favor."

  "That occurred to me," Scanlon said. "Thing is, Joey isn't the brightest guy in the world, and I can't believe he'd type some weird message on a computer."

  She had to die. I shivered. "Pretty simple message," I said.

  "Simple or not," Scanlon replied, "I don't think Joey has written anything but his name since the fourth grade. If he wanted to murder someone, this just isn't the way he'd do it, Jim. Anyway, I've talked to him, and I think he's straight."

  "Any other ideas?"

  Scanlon shook his head. "I've been askin' around, but I don't wanna seem too interested. I mean, why should I care why this broad
got murdered? There's nothin' on the street about it that I've heard."

  "Any idea who told her about you and me?"

  Scanlon looked surprised. "I assumed it was your brother."

  "Danny talked to her, but he swears she knew about us already, says he was just trying to defend me."

  "Well, meaning no offense, Jim, but—"

  "I know, I know, Danny could be lying. But if he isn't, I have to know who told her. Because I sure didn't."

  "Me neither. And I don't know of anyone else who knows about me and you."

  I wasn't surprised, but it was still disappointing. Scanlon wasn't exactly being a font of information. I considered asking him if he knew anything about Finn's war record, but didn't bother. Not Jackie's area of expertise.

  We sat silently in the gathering darkness for a while, looking at the lights come on in Dorchester and Quincy across the bay. We were like old friends who have outlasted the need to speak, I thought. We certainly weren't friends, but over the years I had come to realize that I didn't hate Jackie Scanlon either. He is scum, but he had lived up to the deal we made. Unlike Paul Everson, he had never tricked me. I made the deal with my eyes open, and these were the consequences.

  "Cavanaugh's gunnin' for you, I guess," Scanlon remarked.

  "A lot of people are gunning for me," I replied.

  "It's tough bein' on top," Scanlon said. "Look at me. I'm fighting every day. The local cops, the feds, young guys think they're smarter than me and indestructible to boot, out-of-state bosses lookin' to expand. There's always someone I've gotta beat."

  "You're saying we're not that different, huh?"

  "That's it exactly."

  "Well, fuck you, Jackie."

  Scanlon laughed. "Excuse me. I forgot. You're the guy's on the side of the angels."

  "I can be on the side of the angels without being an angel myself," I said.

  "No one's an angel, Jim, and no one's a devil," Scanlon replied. "I'll keep my ears open, let you know if I come up with anything."

  "Thanks." There was nothing left to say; I wasn't about to debate ethics with Jackie Scanlon. I drove him home in the darkness—two old friends returning from a trip to the beach.

  Then I got out of Southie as fast as I could.

  Chapter 16

  Two days after my chat with Jackie Scanlon, I was chatting with the President of the United States.

  Things were getting hectic on Capitol Hill. The Senate majority leader was threatening to keep us in session around the clock to accomplish all the remaining business, and the staff had brought cots and blankets into the cloakrooms as a precaution. Meanwhile, the usual senators were tying us in procedural knots in order to wring every last advantage out of everyone's desire to get the hell out of the place.

  I was baffled by the federal legislative system when I first saw it in action. How could anything ever get accomplished? Carl Hutchins set me straight. "Son, it isn't supposed to work well," he told me. "If we were more efficient, we'd make a hell of a lot more bad laws." We were participants in a legislative process of natural selection; only the strongest bills could make it through the subcommittees and the full committees and the behind-the-scenes bargaining and the votes on the floor and the joint conferences until they made it to the President's desk. It is frustrating to be part of this process, however, and never more so than at the end of the session, when a year's worth of work can go down the drain because your favorite bill has a killer amendment tacked onto it, or it gets filibustered to death, or time simply runs out before it can even be considered.

  This was the first time I'd had to face a reelection campaign at the end of the session, and now I learned how uniquely frustrating that can be. While I was bogged down in Washington, Bobby Finn was back home kissing babies and cutting ribbons and promising everything to everyone.

  Actually, though, to most voters I was now more of a presence than I had been at any time during the past six years. The latest wave of ads was running, the direct-mail pieces were starting to arrive, and bumper stickers and lawn signs were appearing across the state. I was also taking every opportunity to get free publicity; I was more than willing to be interviewed from the Capitol steps live via satellite on the six o'clock news about whatever momentous event had taken place that day, and reporters from local papers who hadn't been able to get ten minutes of my time previously now found me available for in-depth interviews.

  Did my physical presence make a difference then? I believed that it did. It energized the staff, it provided the campaign with a focus, and of course, my charm and wit undoubtedly swayed some of the voters I did meet in person. So I needed to get home.

  My fear of imminent arrest was diminishing as the days went by, but it hadn't disappeared altogether, and that made it even more difficult to concentrate on Senate business. That, and my increasing puzzlement over Amanda's murder. My talk with Scanlon certainly hadn't cleared it up. How had Amanda found out about him? What, if anything, did that have to do with her death?

  Was the person who told her getting ready to tell someone else?

  And on Tuesday the President asked me to stop by for a chat.

  It wasn't unusual. Charles Kenton is at his best one-on-one, and he knows it. He can appear stiff and defensive in front of groups—when talking to congressional leaders, for example, or in press conferences. But when he gets you alone, with that soft voice of his and those dark eyes boring into you, he is almost hypnotic. You want to listen forever. You feel disappointed in yourself for not agreeing with him, for not giving him what he is asking for. Some of us manage to resist, however.

  He wanted to talk about his farm bill. Now I am hardly an expert in agricultural policy. We have some farmers in Massachusetts—wonderful people, salt of the earth—but there aren't enough of them to make much of a difference in an election, and I'm not the kind of guy who likes to don his overalls and plow the back forty in his spare time. But my vote counted as much as that of a senator from Iowa, so Kenton wanted it. He was making inroads in some of the traditionally Republican farm states, and he needed to solidify his support there to get reelected in two years.

  There is nothing like the ego gratification of being summoned to the White House—except if you are the one doing the summoning. I have gotten used to many things in my career, but I have never gotten used to that. To enter the Oval Office and have the President's face light up as he strides across the room to greet you: "Jim, Jim, good to see you, good of you to come..." The paralyzing handshake, the arm around the shoulders, the offer of something to drink...

  It was all a crock. Everyone knew that Kenton didn't like me. More to the point, he was afraid of me, as Carl Hutchins had pointed out. I was a potential rival, and everything he said had to be interpreted with that in mind.

  Politics and policies aside, I don't like Kenton much myself. Most politicians tend to relax when they are alone with their own kind—no need to act when you're with other actors. But Kenton never let up, at least in my presence. Always the sanctimonious defender of the rights of the little guy. Always the seeker of justice and equality for people of all races. Never admitting that politics might conceivably influence his decisions. There were two possible interpretations: Either he really believed that the role was the reality, in which case he was a menace, or he didn't think I was smart enough to realize he was acting, in which case he greatly underestimated me.

  We sat in overstuffed chairs on either side of the fireplace; a fire was burning, even though it was warm out. He crossed his legs, and I could see an inch of white skin; he should get longer socks, I thought. The flickering of the flames was reflected in his glasses.

  "Jim," President Kenton began, "I wanted to talk to you about the farm bill that's coming up for action tomorrow." He spoke so softly that I had to lean forward in my chair to hear him, a good technique for ensuring that people pay attention. I've used it on juries a few times, but Kenton is a master of it. He had a five-minute spiel that he delivered flawlessly,
his handsome face darkening as he spoke of the problems that today's small farmer faced, then brightening as he explained how his bill would solve them, his arguments marching resolutely to the only possible conclusion: America needed this bill. We would be lost without it. His hands reached out to me as he pleaded for my support: "This isn't a partisan issue, Jim. There's real suffering on America's family farms, and we now have a chance to do something about it. Can I count on your vote?"

  It was a wonderful performance even if you didn't know what he was talking about. Mr. President, I don't give a shit about your bill. That's the sort of thing I wanted to say, but it wasn't quite right for the Oval Office—at least not when talking to someone like Kenton. "I'm afraid that this is a partisan issue, Mr. President," I responded. "The minority leadership has come out against this bill. I generally defer to their judgment on matters like this—unless I'm given a strong reason not to." In other words, What's in it for me?

  "Jim," the President said, "I assure you that these issues affect many citizens of Massachusetts as well as those of other states." There are votes in it for you.

  I decided to be a little blunter. "Farmers vote Republican in Massachusetts, Mr. President. Your bill won't make enough of a difference with them for it to be worth my while bucking the leadership."

  The President smiled. He has wonderful teeth: white and even. But to me his smile always has a phony, Nixonesque quality to it. He smiles because that's what the role calls for, not because he finds something funny. "Well, Jim," he said, "we're not above doing a little horse trading here, if it comes to that." Heh-heh. See, I can be a regular guy, too. "I understand that you're going to offer your prison aid plan as an amendment to the crime bill."