Corruption of Blood

by Robert Tanenbaum

  “I’ll take it.”

  “Seriously? It’s tacky in the extreme.”

  “No problem.”

  “Well, well. You must have flunked bureaucrats school. I thought you looked like class,” she said, beaming a smile that showed large teeth and a significant spread of pale pink gum. “I bet you do find out who killed Kennedy.”

  Later, on the short walk up the slope to the Rayburn, Crane, now in a slick gray suit, said, “Let me fill you in on George Flores. Six-term rep from the Twentieth District. That’s Dallas, by the way, and probably not by accident. Flores was not a big enthusiast for starting this committee, but once it got the go-ahead from the House leadership, he moved in fast. Why? Who knows? It may just be that he doesn’t want anyone stirring up his patch without being able to look over their shoulder.

  “As far as the rest of the committee goes, they’ll be inclined to let Flores take the lead. Frank Morgan’s a solid guy, he’s a black caucus leader, but he’s mainly interested in the MLK side. On your side, I’d have to say the main guy would be Hank Dobbs.”

  “Who is … ?”

  “Representative from the Second District in Connecticut. He’s Richard Ewing Dobbs’s kid, by the way.” Karp gave him a blank look. Crane shook his head in amazement. “How soon they forget! Richard Ewing Dobbs? Doesn’t ring a bell? How about Alger Hiss? Julius and Ethel Rosenberg?”

  “Them I know. His father was a spy?”

  “Accused spy. One of the great liberal cause célèbres of the bad old fifties. We don’t discuss it with Hank, incidentally. He’s a little raw on the subject. Anyway, of the committee as a whole, he’s probably the strongest supporter of the way we want to do things.”

  “A friend, in other words,” Karp ventured.

  Crane sniffed, “I wouldn’t go quite that far. You know the saying—if you want a friend in Washington, buy a dog. But an ally, at least—and I think you and he will get along.”

  They reached the undistinguished sugar-white pile with the acromegalic statues flanking the entrance and went in. Walking down the broad corridors toward Flores’s office, Karp was gratified to see actual lobbyists plying their trade, speaking in small confidential groups to one another or surrounding a striding representative in a slowly moving pack, like hyenas tugging at a dying wildebeest.

  They arrived at the appointed hour and were told to wait in an anteroom. Karp looked around with interest. He had never been in a congressman’s office before. On the walls, posters showed the Dallas skyline and a rodeo. There was a Lone Star flag on display and a Remington knockoff of a buckaroo on a side table, which also held a selection of magazines devoted to Texas, Dallas, government, and Mexican-Americans, several in Spanish. The walls of the waiting area were paneled in dark wood and there was a rug on the floor emblazoned with the congressional seal.

  A head-high wall of frosted glass ran across the width of the room, and looking over it Karp observed that it was crowded with cubicles so small that it seemed incredible that any normal human beings could work in them.

  He observed as much to Crane, who chuckled. “Those are congressional staff, not human beings. Congressional staff have the worst working conditions and longest hours of anybody in the country. The whole place is one huge sweatshop. The laws of this great nation are written by twenty-five-year-olds in the last stages of exhaustion, breathing the farts of their neighbors. That’s why the government works so well.”

  He glanced at his watch and then at a clock embedded in a bronze longhorn on the receptionist’s desk. “George is showing he’s a congressman and we work for him. If we were voters, he’d’ve been out here ten minutes ago.”

  Flores made them wait for fifteen minutes. When he emerged it was behind a group of elderly ladies chattering in drawls, patently voters all. The congressman pumped schmaltz without stopping in a thick Texas drawl until the last of the ladies had cleared the outer door, at which time the broad smile, very white against his tan face, faded to mere cordiality.

  He shook hands with Crane and turned to be introduced to Karp. The smile lost a few watts as he shook hands. The congressman was only five feet five. Karp had observed this before, the reflexive pugnacity of the short when confronting someone of Karp’s size. Flores squeezed a little harder than necessary; Karp pretended to flinch, conscious of being on his best behavior and not wanting to screw things up for Crane.

  Flores ushered them into his office. Whatever constraints applied to staff space obviously did not apply to the elected representatives of the people. The private office was large, darkly paneled, and supplied with broad windows looking out across Independence Avenue. Flores sat behind a large mahogany desk, flanked by the flags of his state and nation. Karp and Crane arranged themselves in comfortable chairs facing the desk, which was covered with papers and the sort of knickknacks that public figures accumulate over the years.

  There was a side table with various awards and plaques on it, and the usual wall full of framed photographs showing Flores with people even more prominent than he, that or doing something notable, like posing in a hard hat digging a spadeful of earth with a silvery shovel. The three men exchanged pleasantries. Karp thought that he had already discovered one difference between New York and Washington: the social bullshit segment of meetings seemed to go on longer down here. Flores and Crane chatted on about some people Karp did not know and he felt his attention wander.

  On the surface of the desk in front of Karp, amid the commemorative medals, flag stands, and objects embedded in Lucite was a rough-looking tool, a dark, mattocklike blade attached to a stumpy handle. Flores caught him looking at it and smiled. “You know what that is?” he asked.

  Karp did not.

  “It’s a short hoe. La cortita. The backbreaker. My grandfather used one of those all his life, migrant labor; when he was an old man he was bent over like a question mark. And my father, before he got out of it. And me too, a summer. I keep the goddamn thing there to remind me where I come from.”

  There did not seem to be anything to say to this revelation, so Karp smiled politely and waited for what would come. In any case, the social preamble seemed to be over.

  Flores leaned back in his high-backed leather chair and laced his fingers. He had a large square face the color and texture of worn leather, set off by extravagant gray-shot sideburns and a thick Villista mustache. His hair was dark and swept back, and he had black, shiny eyes that seemed to be all pupil. These now bored in on Karp.

  “I’ve heard a lot about you,” Flores began. “Bert here’s filled me in and I’ve asked around. Y’all have quite a record. You seem to be a hard charger.” He paused. “And that concerns me. I’ve already mentioned this to Bert when he brought up your name, and I’m going to have to say it to you. This investigation is not the same kind of thing as a New York street shooting. The whole country’ll be looking at what you do. Every move you make’ll be raked over by the press and squeezed to see if it’s got any political juice in it. Not only that, y’all’re working for the Congress now. It’s a whole different branch of government. It has … different ways of doing things. Political ways. You following me?”

  The word “sure” formed on Karp’s tongue, but he could not bring it into the air. There were limits, after all. He said instead, “No, as a matter of fact, I don’t follow you at all. I’m a homicide investigator and prosecutor. I look at the evidence and shape a case. I don’t see what politics has to do with it.”

  Flores smiled at this statement as he might have at the burbling of a small child. “Son, this is Washington, D.C. Ain’t nothing happens here doesn’t have some political angle. You might think it don’t when you do it, but there’s sons-of-bitches make it their whole life’s work to find some politics in it and beat you over the head with it.” He paused to let this wisdom settle.

  “Now, the reason I’m telling you this is that if you want to work for me we got to get one thing straight from the get-go. Y’all work for Bert Crane here, and Bert Cra
ne works for me. Not only do I expect to be kept informed about what you’re doing, but I expect that you and the professional staff of the Select Committee will be, let’s say, guided, by me in all of your work. That means one thing’s more important than anything else: no surprises. Your chairman does not want to get a call one evening from the Post or CBS asking me what I think of the latest thing y’all’ve done and me not know what the hell they’re talking about. You following me now?”

  Karp nodded. “Right. No surprises.”

  The conversation then turned to the details of staffing and logistics. There was some confusion here and Karp could tell that Crane and Flores were fencing. Neither said anything solid about how much staff he could expect and what his budget was going to be. This was something of a shocker; Karp had supposed that it was all greased and ready to go.

  The two men got into an argument about parking spaces and then one about how the letterhead of the investigation staff was going to read. Karp felt he had nothing to contribute to this discussion and remained silent, growing ever more bored and irritated, and thinking that working with a short hoe was probably good preparation for this sort of work, although perhaps more stimulating.

  After twenty minutes of palaver over trivialities, a call came through and the congressman picked up the phone and snapped at the operator. Then he cradled the phone in his neck and said, smiling, “I got to take this one, boys.” He extended a hand to each of them in turn, and Karp noted that this time Flores did not feel obliged to squeeze hard.

  “What the hell was that all about?” asked Karp when they were in the hallway again.

  Crane placed a hand on Karp’s shoulder. “Welcome to Washington.”

  “No, really. Did he mean that shit about running everything through him?”

  Crane laughed, the booming sound echoing in the hallway, drawing stares. “Oh, God, no! Let me translate. What he meant was, if things go well and we don’t raise any flak, he gets the credit. If we raise any flak, we’re on our own. There’s no conceivable way he can oversee our investigation. He’s got way too much on his plate, like all these jokers. Matter of fact, any involvement with government at all takes him away from his real occupation, which is getting elected every two years. That’s the full-time job. He didn’t really bear down on the staff issues, for which you can be grateful. That’s why I kept him on the stationery and the rest of the horse puckey.”

  “What about the staff?”

  “Well, you’ll be lucky to hire the main people—your personal secretary, the head of research, the chief field investigator. The others … well, congressmen have folks to whom they owe jobs, besides which, everybody on the committee will want at least one personal spy in the organization.”

  Karp was openmouthed. “You must be joking.”

  “Not really. They’re all worried, especially Flores. This Kennedy thing is a can of worms, with no real political payoff for anyone. The House leadership launched into it very reluctantly.”

  “Yeah, you said that before. So why did they go for it at all?”

  “Well, there you have me. My own theory was that it was a payoff to the black caucus in an election year. Launching a King investigation is something they can sell at home, and it’s kind of hard for the House Democratic leadership to buck something having to do with King. Once you’re looking into King, Kennedy kind of follows. Plus the stuff about federal agencies not being forthcoming with Warren, the stuff that’s turning up in the Church committee’s work. And the assassination nuts keep yawping at their heels. A lot of people believe it and it has to be answered. O’Neill’s the key player, of course, and he hates this kind of thing, and consented very reluctantly. Warren is gospel with Tip. The old ‘protecting the family’ business.”

  “This is not good for us, right?”

  “Right, but meanwhile here we are.” Crane checked his watch. “Look, I have to roll. Let me take you by Hank’s place. If he’s in, I’ll introduce you; if not, we’ll set up a date to get the two of you together.”

  This, as it proved, was not necessary. As they entered the elevator, Crane greeted a tall, lean, sandy-haired man already in the car.

  “Hank! This is a piece of luck. I have to run off and here you are to take the pass. This is Butch Karp from New York.”

  One of those Norman Rockwell kids grown up was Karp’s first impression as he shook hands with Henry Dobbs, Democrat of Connecticut. As their eyes met he revised his take. Dobbs had the freckled skin, the even, understated features, the crisp short hair, but the cornflower eyes were not innocent ones. There was a careful intelligence there, a wariness, some complexity of character that was not ever seen on the covers of the old Saturday Evening Post.

  By the time the car had gone two floors, it was agreed that Karp and Dobbs would lunch together. Crane took his leave. Dobbs led Karp to his own office. It was like Flores’s, with different flags, seals, and posters. Dobbs checked his messages, excused himself and made a short call, dealt with several matters pressed on him by staff, and then broke free. He seemed to run a happier and lower-keyed ship than Flores did.

  The Capitol has a restaurant reserved for members and their guests during the lunch hours, and Dobbs took Karp there on the little subway that connects the various congressional buildings.

  “I hear you met George,” he said when they were seated. “What did you think?”

  “A great American and a fine public servant,” Karp answered.

  Dobbs smiled. “You’re learning. Keep that up and you’ll be a big hit in Washington.”

  “Well, about that—I’m starting to think this might be a major misunderstanding, me doing this job.”

  “Oh?”

  “Yeah, I tried to explain to Bert about being politically impaired. It’s a form of epilepsy. If I think an investigation is being screwed up because of politics, my eyes roll up, I foam at the mouth, and I become uncontrollable.”

  Dobbs laughed but Karp went on, deadpan. “I’m serious. I don’t want to mess things up and destroy lives and careers. I want to kiss ass, and go along to get along, and be one of the boys. I just … can’t … do it. It’s my personal tragedy, like being one of Jerry’s kids. And now you know my shame.”

  Dobbs wiped his eyes with his napkin. “Thank you for sharing. Actually, I think you’re just what we need. Look, in all seriousness, here’s the picture on Flores. Like the rest of us, he’s got more committee assignments than he knows what to do with. Two things interest him, Hispanic affairs and migrants—to his credit he’s sincere about helping out his people—and energy, because he’s in the oil patch down there and that’s how he stays elected. His interest in the Kennedy thing is twofold: first, if you do come up with something rich, it’ll get him on TV in Dallas, and two … that’s a bit more complex.” Dobbs took a sip of water and continued.

  “One assumption some people have is that the mystery behind JFK is a Dallas mystery. Oswald’s life there. Ruby and the cops. What really happened in the half hour or so after the first shots. George is connected to the people who run Dallas, and to the extent that the investigation might affect them, especially in a negative way, George has got to be on top of it. Does that make sense?”

  “Yeah, it does. But the question is, if it turns out that one of his associates needs to be leaned on, will he balk?”

  Dobbs grinned. “Oh, yeah. He might balk. He might do worse than that. Which is why you have me.”

  Karp thought about this for a moment, and then, looking into the blue eyes, asked, “And why do we have you, Mr. Dobbs? Are the people of Connecticut burning to find out if old Earl Warren went into the tank on this one? Or what … ?”

  The waiter came and they ordered. When the man left, Dobbs said, “That’s the right question, all right. What’s in it for Dobbs. I like you, Mr. Karp, or, if I may, Butch. I’m Hank. You get right to the point, which is sometimes like a dose of oxygen around here, although I should warn you it’s a violation of the Federal Anti-Confrontation and
Bullshitters’ Protection Act of 1973, As Amended.” He smiled at the small joke and Karp smiled too.

  Dobbs leaned back and looked up at the ceiling. “How to put it? Well, first, my constituents. The people of the great state of Connecticut are mainly interested in keeping the insurance industry happy and making sure that when ships and weapons get built, they get built in the great state of Connecticut, as a result of which I spend most of my time on the Banking and Armed Services Committees. In my spare time, I try to do an occasional favor for the United States. As far as personally goes, in 1963, I was at Yale. I’d worked on the presidential campaign in Hartford, and my family had some connections in the past with Jack Kennedy. I’d actually shaken his hand, once, when he was in the Senate. I remember I told him that I was interested in politics and that I was off to Yale that year, and he laughed and told me that if I worked hard I could overcome even that obstacle. I was in Dwight eating a sandwich when some kid ran into the dining room and yelled out that Kennedy’d been shot in Dallas. I went into shock—well, everybody did, really, but I guess I imagined mine was worse. My dad had just passed on that summer and I suppose I conflated the two losses in my mind. It was an extremely bad year for me; I nearly flunked out, as a matter of fact, and had to repeat the semester. Okay, that’s personal aspects. There’s a political aspect too. I think practically everyone understands that when Kennedy was assassinated, the country started on a downward slope. I think it had more of an effect on the country than Lincoln’s did, because Lincoln had mainly finished his work and Kennedy had barely started his. Not that I’m comparing Kennedy to Lincoln—that’s not the point. The point is that the country was tipped out of one track and into another, which we’re still on and which is no good.”

  “Because Kennedy died?” Karp asked.

  “Actually, as much as I mourn his loss, no, not exactly. It was mainly because of what happened afterward. The government didn’t tell the truth about what happened. Some people decided that a higher national purpose would be served if the facts about the assassination were bent to prove a point. Have you read the Report?”