by Jake Tapper
“Can’t think of many good ones,” Charlie replied. “Hey, where are the Senate bathtubs, the place where Vice President Wilson fell asleep, nearly froze to death, and then died of a stroke?”
“In the basement somewhere,” MacLachlan said. “The basements here are confusing and they go on forever, like ancient caves.”
“I’ve heard that sometimes late at night, right outside the room where Vice President Wilson died, folks can catch a whiff of the soap they once used.”
“Yes, I’ve heard those tales as well,” said MacLachlan. “And some people claim they hear Wilson coughing. All very silly. Like the wails of agony from the ghost of the Union soldier who died in the Capitol Rotunda. The tales are nonsense. But the deaths are very real. And those are just the ones we know about. Think of all the…inconvenient people over the years who must have met their ends in this building or nearby and then vanished forever.”
Charlie was too startled to ask what in the hell MacLachlan was talking about, and anyway they were now walking onto the House floor, where hundreds of members of Congress were convening. They joined a small circle of friendly faces. No one seemed to be paying much attention to the debate at the front of the room about whether or not to allow more Mexican migrant workers into the country. Democratic congressman Ray Madden was railing against the bill, which he claimed would allow Mexicans to “take over jobs that millions of unemployed Americans are entitled to.”
On the floor, House Speaker Joe Martin, a Republican from Massachusetts with a boyish face and a mass of hair he always had to brush away from his eyes, was diligently trying to buttress his narrow seven-seat Republican majority by enlisting the support of Southern Democrats eager to help the farmers and big businesses who relied upon cheap Mexican labor.
Strongfellow swung himself over to Charlie on his crutches.
“Ted Williams broke his collarbone today,” Strongfellow said.
“How?” asked Congressman Ben Jensen. He was a mousy Midwest Republican who had served in World War One and loved talking about Iowa.
“Shoestring catch,” said Strongfellow. “Line drive.”
“He’s about twenty pounds overweight,” noted Charlie.
“Ike is dropping another H-bomb on the Marshall Islands today,” said Democratic congressman George Hyde Fallon, a machine politician from Baltimore. “And you fools are talking about Ted Williams’s collarbone.”
They tried and failed to look contrite. The debate over the migrant-worker bill continued, with various House deputy whips dispatched to corral votes.
Charlie leaned closer to Strongfellow and said in a low voice, “Phil, I need a favor.”
“Anything,” he said.
“I’m trying to find out about a Pentagon-backed study done at the University of Chicago,” Charlie said, reaching into his inside suit pocket to retrieve the notes Bernstein had handed him earlier that day. “Something to do with cereal grains and broadleaf crops. It’s blocked by wartime secrecy laws. I thought maybe your Armed Services Committee connections could help me get it unblocked.”
“Done,” said Strongfellow, seemingly unsurprised by the request and uninterested in its origins. Charlie imagined he was used to doling out random favors and just as used to calling them in when he needed to. Strongfellow took the paper Charlie handed him and slipped it into his inside suit pocket, nodded, and shuffled away to talk to someone presumably more important. Charlie took a seat and listened to the conversations fluttering around his head like a flock of startled pigeons:
I’m not going to do it if you’re not.
I said at least buy me dinner first if you’re going to fuck me, Mr. Chairman.
What do we care about cheap Mexican labor in Maine?
Technically he’s a socialist, not a Communist, but that’s an argument for him to make, not me.
My constituents couldn’t give a shit about Syria.
Doris Day, I think.
That hairdo might be the worst cover-up in political history.
MacLachlan eased himself into the chair next to Charlie’s; it creaked under the sudden weight. “How are you going to vote?” he asked.
“Not too many crops on the Upper West Side,” Charlie said.
“That’s fine if you don’t have national ambitions,” MacLachlan said. “Jack Kennedy’s going to get screwed in the Midwest in ’56 because of his hostility to my people.”
“Your people?”
“Farmers,” MacLachlan said. “Though I suppose this is all going to get wrapped into the farm bill anyway.”
“When you say these issues are all a distraction, the juvenile delinquency hearings, McCarthy naming names, this migrant debate,” Charlie asked, stealing a glance at the file folder on his lap, “you’re leaving out a key part of the puzzle.”
“And what’s that?”
“Distraction from what? You think this is all being done to keep our eyes off the ball. What’s the ball?”
Before MacLachlan could answer, Charlie heard a tumult above him. He followed the sound to the visitors’ gallery, where four tourists were brandishing a Puerto Rican flag.
“¡Viva Puerto Rico libre!” they shouted. “¡Viva Puerto Rico libre!”
Then came sounds—Pop! Pop! Pop! Pop!—echoing throughout the House Chamber.
Charlie heard a colleague mutter something about firecrackers. But Charlie knew the sounds, as did MacLachlan. It was a gun. More specifically, a German pistol, probably a .38. Members of Congress and their aides were shouting, some running for the exit doors, others hitting the ground or seeking shelter behind chairs or tables.
Snapping back to wartime training, Charlie took cover, leaping behind a small oak desk used by House Republican leaders, and assessed the situation. One, then two bullets whizzed past his head.
The shots seemed to be coming from the visitors’ gallery, and they were clearly being aimed at members of Congress standing on the floor of the House Chamber. Were they targeting anyone in particular? He couldn’t tell.
He heard a grunt and turned around to see blood spreading across the chest of Alvin Bentley, a strapping Michigan Republican with a crew cut and glasses; he fell back on the floor, a confused look on his face.
Ben Jensen, whom Charlie had exchanged pleasantries with minutes earlier, fell forward abruptly, blood spurting from his right shoulder.
Shot after shot after shot streamed across the floor. It was all happening in just seconds but it felt endless. Where the hell are the Capitol Police? Charlie wondered.
The scene was chaos. Charlie watched in horror as George Hyde Fallon fell to the ground. Seconds later, Cliff Davis, the old Tennessee Democrat who was a former judge and Klansman, was shot in the leg and went down.
Charlie, crouched behind the desk, was getting his bearings and trying to figure out how to respond. He locked eyes with Congressman James Van Zandt, a Pennsylvania Republican and navy captain who had served in both world wars. Van Zandt pointed to the stairwell that led to the visitors’ gallery.
Charlie tapped his chest, then pointed up and swirled his finger to suggest motion; he would stand and distract the shooters.
Van Zandt nodded. They had a plan.
Three…two…one…
Charlie stood and looked up to the gallery.
All four of the Puerto Rican activists—three men and one woman, in their twenties and thirties—were brandishing firearms. An elderly tourist was frantically trying to grab one of the guns; he was weak but determined. One of the shooters hit him in the head with the butt of his rifle, sending him falling into the aisle. Two of the shooters spotted Charlie and took aim at him. Charlie faked left, then moved right. Van Zandt suddenly appeared in the visitors’ gallery and tackled one of them, and before the shooters could respond, a half a dozen Capitol Police officers entered the balcony and descended on them.
Charlie ran to Jensen; Isaiah Street was already checking his neck for a pulse.
“Medic!” Charlie yelled, as if he were back
in France. “Medic!” But no medic appeared.
Somewhere in the distance, a bit bizarrely, Speaker Martin declared the House to be in recess.
All Charlie could see was a blur of panicked faces of politicians and pages. The gunfire had ceased. Street, crouched over Jensen, was attempting to plug the bleeding hole in Jensen’s shoulder as if he were a sinking ship.
A burly redheaded page, maybe eighteen, approached Charlie and asked if he was all right. It was only then that Charlie looked down and saw that his white oxford shirt was soaked with blood. He patted himself down, found no obvious wounds, and continued trying to tend to Jensen with Street. He suddenly wondered what had happened to MacLachlan and turned his head to the spot where the two had been sitting. There he saw MacLachlan on the floor, a dark stain expanding at the small of his back, prone and as still as a stone.
Chapter Twelve
Monday, March 1, 1954—Afternoon
Eastern Dispensary Casualty Hospital, Southeast Washington, DC
Charlie sat in the emergency room examination area, separated from other patients by maroon curtains. A nurse’s brief inspection had ended when she concluded that the blood on his shirt wasn’t his; she told Charlie to relax and wait for a doctor to discharge him. The surrounding cubicles were full of congressmen who were actually wounded; she scurried off to join the other nurses and doctors tending to them. Charlie lay back on the examination table, listening to the conversations swirling around the busy room, sounding as if they were far away.
Where’s the trauma patient?
MacLachlan. OR.
Bad?
One bullet lodged in his spine, between L two and three. Another one shredded his spleen.
How many congressmen were shot?
Six total. Four here. Jensen and Davis at Bethesda.
Let me see. Bentley took one to the chest.
He looked dead when he got here.
He’s critical in the OR. I’d say it’s fifty-fifty. Bullet perforated the right lung, went through the diaphragm, liver, stomach.
Marder is over there; he’s fine. Fallon—bullet through his right thigh. He’s stable. Over there, Roberts, shot in his left leg, bullet entered thigh above knee and went downward. Also stable.
The squeaky wheels of a gurney ripped Charlie out of his dream state; he focused his attention on the examination cubicle to his left, where he could hear Fallon offering faint responses to a doctor’s questions. The hospital intercom blared periodic bulletins: a certain doctor was needed in the OR, a different one was needed in the ER. Background beeps from machines were randomly scattered through the area, like the sounds of birds and bugs around a campsite.
They just caught a fourth Puerto Rican at the bus station.
Suction, please.
I don’t understand. This is about independence?
Something like that.
Doesn’t American Sugar own half the island?
I’m not saying they don’t have a grievance or two. Hemostat. Hold that there. Just like that, right. Good.
They tried to assassinate Truman.
When was that, ’50?
Something like that. Blair House.
Killed a cop.
Yes, I remember because that was the year I got married and we were going to honeymoon in Puerto Rico but we had to cancel because of riots.
Well, you know what they say: One man’s terrorist is another man’s freedom fighter.
Dr. Klein!
He can’t hear us.
Obviously these are murderous zealots.
I’m just saying they see themselves as minutemen.
Dr. Klein!
Harriet, I didn’t say I see them that way.
Didn’t the Puerto Ricans vote not long ago to remain an American commonwealth? Did I dream that?
There are people around—
Whispers…
Hemostat.
Charlie’s eavesdropping was interrupted by a sharp voice he recognized: “Can you please just tell me where my husband is?”
“Margaret!” He stood and poked his head through the curtains. She ran to him and buried herself in his embrace. She pulled away to look at him and then burst into tears.
“Margaret, Margaret, I’m okay,” he said. “This isn’t my blood.”
She wiped her eyes and took a deep breath.
“I’ve never even heard of this hospital,” she said.
“It’s closest to the Capitol.”
She crossed her arms and looked at him sternly. “I was told about your ‘heroics’ today.” And then she punched him with both fists, not hard, but not jokingly either. He grasped her wrists and held them gently, lowered his forehead to meet hers. They stayed there silently, the buzz and hum of the hospital noises surrounding them.
Both Bentley and MacLachlan were still in surgery when Charlie was discharged that evening. In the waiting room he ran into Strongfellow.
“What are you hearing?” he asked Charlie.
“I overheard a doctor saying Bentley is fifty-fifty,” Charlie said. “They’re even less optimistic about Mac.” Margaret tugged him toward the door. He shook Strongfellow’s hand in parting. “I’ll come back in the morning.”
A Capitol Police officer hailed a cab for the two of them. The car radio was broadcasting news about the shooting.
“Could you turn that off, please?” Margaret asked the cabbie, who complied.
They sat in silence for fifteen blocks.
Finally, Margaret said, “I was talking with my sister on the phone when all of a sudden there was someone at the door. It was Jackie Kennedy; she’d heard what happened and ran over to make sure I knew. So I turned on the radio.”
Her bottom lip was quivering; having been tested at such a young age by her father’s death, Margaret was not one for whom tears came quickly. She looked out the window as Charlie reached to hold her hand. She took it, intertwined her fingers with his.
“The reporter on the radio knew nothing. Shooting in the House, at least half a dozen members rushed to area emergency rooms, blah-blah-blah. He seemed far more interested in the assailants than the victims. Puerto Rican extremists, one a woman. A note in her purse said something about her blood, the independence of Puerto Rico, the subjugation of her people…The reporter read every word of the note, as if it explained this, as if it justified it. I turned off the radio. It was making me sick.”
Charlie noticed her absentmindedly place her left hand over her abdomen, underlining why this had shaken her so badly.
“I tried to call your office, the Speaker’s office, House leadership, the cloakroom, all those numbers you gave me, but all the lines were busy,” she went on. “Couldn’t get through to police, couldn’t get through to any emergency rooms.”
“How’d you find me?”
“Sheryl Ann Bernstein called me and told me where you were. While I was waiting for the cab, Miss Leopold called to tell me too. They said they’d been trying to call but the switchboard was jammed.”
He gripped her hand more tightly. “I’m so sorry, Margaret. I had blood on me, so they whisked me away. There was no phone for me to call you from; the hospital said they had to keep their lines open. It was total chaos.”
But she was looking out the window again, distracted and still angry. “Sheryl Ann told me what you did. To draw fire. You didn’t have to be a goddamn hero. Good headlines aren’t going to be of any use to a baby without a father. My father got plenty of headlines after the crash. Worthless.”
She let go of his hand and continued staring out the window as evening fell upon Washington. He looked out his.
It was almost disconcerting, after the violent chaos of the day, to find their tree-lined street and stately town house quiet and unaltered under the street lamps. Life had changed forever a few miles away; here, it was just the same. They got out of the cab and walked silently up the stairs and inside, both too numb to speak more than necessary.
While he took a shower, she made soup, an
d he came down and ate it hungrily. Before long he had passed out on the living-room sofa in front of the gray haze of the television, immune to the comedic charms of Sid Caesar. Margaret woke him and gently guided him up the two flights to their bedroom. Hours later, though it felt like seconds, he was jolted awake by Margaret’s hand on his shoulder. He had been dreaming of Private Rodriguez. “Charlie, Congressman Street is at the door.”
Charlie sat up and rubbed his eyes. His muscles ached. “What time is it?”
“It’s morning.”
“What does he want?”
“He wants to bring you to the hospital. Mac is out of surgery and it doesn’t look good.”
Charlie dressed quickly and headed downstairs to find Street and Margaret at the kitchen table drinking coffee, their faces somber. Street’s eyes met Charlie’s and he gave a small shake of his head, then he stood up and reached for his fedora.
The Capitol Police officer standing guard outside MacLachlan’s room at Casualty Hospital balked when he saw Street. Other than orderlies and the custodial staff, few nonwhites were seen here. Most of the city’s black population went to Freedmen’s Hospital for medical treatment.
“He’s a member of Congress, as am I, and we’re here to see our friend,” Charlie said, and he walked past the guard. Street looked at the police officer, who nodded sullenly in acknowledgment.
Inside the dimly lit room, MacLachlan lay still, an oxygen mask over his face, his chest slowly rising and falling with each struggling breath. MacLachlan’s wife sat by his side, her eyes puffy from hours of weeping. She wore pearls and a pink suit—more Beltway than Terre Haute; she looked as if she’d been at a Daughters of the American Revolution luncheon when she got word of the shooting the day before.