The Head of the House

by Al Zuckerman

  “The hearing will please come to order.”

  Linda’s flesh crawled.

  That softly modulated twang, it was Senator Kefauver himself starting things. “In today’s hearing, the Committee feels that it should express appreciation to Judge McQuill for his consideration in relinquishing this courtroom for the use of the Committee. …”

  She sat in the last row, in the corner, masked somewhat under a kerchief and sunglasses. She was worried that without them someone might recognize her: Leroy, or Reuben Silverberg, or especially Pop. She hadn’t asked him about coming. Odds were he’d’ve said, “No, not for you,” and if he had, that would’ve finished it. Going against his word, she just couldn’t.

  “What is your full name? . . . Address? . . . Business? . . .”

  Kefauver, his hands clasped on the desk, was quiet now, attentive, while Rudolph Halley, the Chief Counsel, a harder, more citified-looking man, drummed out the questions.

  The courtroom was packed. Linda, peering around, gave thanks that of the people nearby, she recognized no one.

  The man now on the stand, a youngish though retired New York deputy police inspector, seemed to have forgotten his whole life, and pretty plainly was dodging the questions, mostly about someone falling from a hotel window back in 1941. Pathetic, Linda thought, the whole business, a police inspector who wouldn’t give a straight answer, and a Committee that couldn’t force him to. And what did any of it matter now, eleven years later?

  Suddenly Pop was up there. She hadn’t heard his name called even. Reuben was sitting next to him.

  “Mr. Hargett, do you solemnly swear the testimony you will give this Committee will be the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help you God?”

  Small-stuff questions and equally routine answers droned back and forth. Pop seemed subdued.

  “May I ask you if this is the subpoena?” Pop was pointing to something. His voice abruptly had hardened. Suddenly he seemed big as any of them up there, bigger even. “I want it known on the record that I was subpoenaed.”

  Why? Why’d he insisted on saying that? Who on earth would go up there to have dirt slogged at himself unless he’d been subpoenaed? Unless, might there be someone suspicious that Pop had waltzed up there of his own volition, so he had to establish that he hadn’t? But who?

  Next to Linda a fat woman was slurping coffee from a cardboard container and gobbling donut after donut. Linda, a bit nauseous, wished the woman would choke.

  “What about Salvatore Pirone,” Hailey probed on, “also known as Sally Happy or Happy Pirone?”

  “What about him?”

  “Were you ever in business with him?”

  “I decline to answer on the ground that it may tend to incriminate me.”

  Linda’s breathing quickened.

  “Oh come, sir. Pirone’s been out of the country for years now, long enough for the statute of limitations to apply. So really, I cannot see in this instance where you’d have grounds for calling on that Constitutional right.”

  Pop leaned over to Reuben, and they whispered.

  Linda, worried, was twisting her fingers.

  Finally Pop straightened up. “Well, I have information that I’m being investigated for income tax. …”

  Wasn’t Pop pretty much always being investigated for tax?

  “. . . So I must take the position that anything I say about my business could lead to future questions which might tend to incriminate me.”

  “Mr. Silverberg?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “As the witness’s counsel, I trust you realize that for responses like this one your client may be cited for contempt.”

  “Mr. Hailey,” an older white-haired man interrupted, “allow me for a moment, if you would.”

  The Counsel nodded. “Yes, Senator.”

  “Sir, it seems to me,” the old gentleman who Linda felt sure hailed from New England addressed Reuben, “are you not the same attorney who defended Pirone at his trial?”

  “Yes, I am, Senator.”

  The hoary New Englander shook his head, “I just can’t understand a thing like that.”

  “I don’t follow you, I’m afraid.”

  “You’re a member of the bar, a man who’s taken an oath to uphold the law. In all conscience, how could you represent that dirty rat?”

  Linda had heard of Pirone, but not from Pop, only from mentions in the papers, as a former crime lord who’d been deported to Italy. She was aghast. Was Pop in business with Pirone? Cousin Reuben his lawyer?

  “I am shocked that you, a Senator, in your position, should ask such a question.”

  “And I am shocked by—by your very existence.”

  “You’re forgetting, it seems to me, that our Constitution guarantees every man the right to be presumed innocent until he’s proven guilty.”

  “Really, sir. A hoodlum of international notoriety, a man whose name stinks to the sky, arrives at your office, and asks to retain you. Can you tell me you didn’t know with whom you were dealing?”

  “That question, I feel, has no relevance to this hearing, so I don’t consider myself bound to answer it; but you must recognize that under law every man called before the bar is entitled to his day in court.”

  Linda knew her cousin was right in principle. Deep inside herself, though, she felt shame—as if the Senator’s aspersions were soiling her too.

  “As I understand it, you maintained a relationship with Pirone even after he had been found guilty and sent to prison.”

  “Am I being considered a separate witness, or am I before the Committee still as counsel to Mr. Hargett?”

  “You will see where the two join up in a minute. Now Mr. Silverberg, is it not true that while Mr. Pirone was incarcerated in New York State, you visited him, and on quite a few occasions, and generally in company with Mr. Hargett?”

  “Yes, that is true.”

  A low buzz began spreading through the room. Linda’s mouth felt parched.

  “What was the reason for those visits?”

  “That was a secret, an official one, but since the War is over and has been for some years, I suppose I can tell you that those visits were on Government business and at our Government’s behest.”

  Suddenly the buzzing was everywhere, while up on the dais the two Senators and Mr. Halley huddled to confer. Senator Kefauver banged his gavel. The room quickly grew hushed.

  Kefauver himself took up the questioning. “Mr. Silverberg, this uh Government business, what was it specifically?”

  “The U.S. Navy, specifically Naval Intelligence, was trying and not succeeding in making certain security arrangements in the New York dock and waterfront areas. The Navy considered this to be rather crucial, and at a certain point realized that it could possibly be accomplished through the good offices of Mr. Pirone. He, when called upon in prison, in fact did agree to help. The person he chose to represent him in this matter of importance to the War Effort was Mr. Hargett.”

  “Can you verify this?”

  “The officials involved, as far as I know, are all alive and reachable. But while we are on this subject, I would like to relate to this Committee that Mr. Hargett, quite apart from anything to do with Mr. Pirone, in 1943 was twice invited to meet with President Roosevelt. And this, I am certain, can be verified in White House records.”

  Senator Kefauver had to bang his gavel three times before the noise faded.

  “Would you—or might Mr. Hargett himself care to elaborate on those meetings?”

  Linda, watching Pop and Reuben put their heads together, felt calmer, almost hopeful that Pop might come out all right.

  Reuben resumed. “Mr. Hargett feels that since at the time the President requested he keep this private, he’d be somewhat more comfortable if I were to speak for him now.”

  “Well then, please do.”

  “You’ll recall, I’m sure, that during that period we were having a terrible time in the Caribbean with German submarines. To d
eal with them, we had to have the full cooperation of all governments in that area, which we did, except for the Cuban Government, despite strenuous efforts by our ambassador there and by other emissaries.”

  “Go on, please.”

  “We kept losing tankers, freighters, even warships. Eventually push came to shove, and it was clear that Washington was still not getting Havana to budge. So someone—and I have no idea who that person was—suggested approaching Mr. Hargett, who for years had been the American closest to the President of Cuba, and asking him to be an intermediary, which at President Roosevelt’s personal request, my client agreed to become. And Mr. Hargett did in fact secure for us the complete cooperation of the Cubans, so much so that after May 1943, Allied shipping loses in the Caribbean ended almost completely. …”

  Linda felt her heart swell. Tears welled up under her eyes in relief, gratitude to Reuben.

  A dozen or so men were streaking for the door, reporters rushing for phones.

  She’d heard enough. So what if Pop’s businesses might contravene some dumb, out-of-date ordinances somewhere? What did that matter really, compared to how good he was? And their trying to drag him through mud couldn’t change that. Exulting almost, she too rose, and began edging her way out.

  Walking out of the courtroom, escorted only by his own people, Iz smiled to himself, wryly. These shnooks here must think he was feeling pretty good. Kefauver was now crucifying some other poor clown, while Hargett had got off with not having to say beans about things that mattered, nor had he been hit with contempt. But he was not feeling good. He was seething. Some of this, he knew, came from the jitters. He hadn’t been this scared for twenty years almost, Florida, when first he’d pushed in down there. He’d forgotten how to live at the edge of rage. But this seething now, some of it also came from the insult. Who were they to stick him up there like some small-time chucklehead—the conniving grafters! Hyprocrites. No more, never again would he shake with a government. A man, if he welshes, you can deal with. A government? . . . And more aggravating than today’s screwing was all the hoopla about these hearings. Until today, hardly anyone but people who should know, who he wanted to know, knew of him. Suddenly he was in everybody’s living room, as well known as Gary Cooper, Yogi Berra, which could become a headache. And worse, the nut from Princeton couldn’t help but know where he was.

  Of course he’d arranged some security. An old acquaintance who these days ran the gaming at Andrews Air Force Base was providing the fast finger boys whom Iz had seen discreetly posted around the court-house. And for the first time in his life, Iz wore an undershirt of steel alloy plates, tempered and forged with the month-long differential heat processing of battleship armor. It weighed nearly forty pounds. He ached in his shoulders, back, even his calves. But it’d be who knew how long before he could be comfortable about taking the dumb thing off.

  At the lobby floor, the two other passengers had walked out of the elevator, and Reuben and Leroy were waiting for him to go.

  “No,” he murmured, “let’s stay on.” He pressed the “A” button.

  Reuben looked at him quizzically but kept his mouth shut.

  Leroy asked, “Come out through the basement?”

  Iz nodded. “That buggy of ours out front, just sitting, could give someone ideas.”

  At the “A” floor, which was actually street level, Iz led them down a pipe-lined corridor. He was unsure which exit it might lead to. But if he were surprised, chances were an enemy might be more surprised.

  And the odds were tipped in Iz’s favor, he estimated, because of that pint-sized transmitter Leroy didn’t even know he was carrying in the attaché case. Its beam would pick up on a receiver Morris had three blocks away in a plain black Chevy, and would guide Morris to the right spot when Iz was ready to be picked up. Iz just wished he really trusted the cockamamie gadget. The thing’d probably go on the blink.

  He felt a little like he was hamming it up in a dumb movie, but it didn’t figure not to be cautious, not after the whole month of dead ends: he’d put the squeeze on hypsters and legits, small operators and big ones all around the globe, and for all his efforts knew bubkes about who his would-be killer might be. It was ghoulish. And worrisome too—as if he were being knocked off anyway, bit by bit.

  They came to an exterior door with barred windows, but it was locked. Leroy whipped out a little set of jimmies and skeleton screws and had it opened in a jiffy. Iz took out the radio gimmick, flicked it on, and plopped it outside. Hidden back of the door, they waited.

  Reuben shook his head, looking disgusted. “This sneaking and crouching at our age—I don’t know, like kids playing games.”

  Iz smiled ruefully. “Well, maybe that’s all it is, which would be nice.”

  “Think Morris’ll be long?”

  “Any second. Rube, you notice someone in the back looking like Linda?”

  “My noticing was all going to Halley and Kefauver.”

  “You, Leroy?”

  “Nah.” His young helper shook head. “Can’t say I did.”

  Iz would have bet money: he knew that sunglasses girl was her. Gave him a sweet feeling, his daughter coming all the way to Washington, skipping school, being near him at so rough a time, and her spunkiness in daring to do it.

  Abruptly Morris’s Chevy was out there. Iz filed out first, then Reuben, and Leroy last.

  Inside the car, getting himself seated, Iz heard the noise—like a lion-tamer’s whipcrack—twice, as Reuben, propelled by Leroy, fell headlong into him. Iz struggled numbly to disentangle himself, while the car cannonballed into traffic, lurching, careening, snaking corners, at the same time the door was being yanked shut. It seemed a year before Iz could get himself upright. His heart plummeted. Leroy was softly moaning and Iz saw the blood from Leroy’s head oozing, streaming down his ears, neck, soaking his jacket; Leroy was holding his leg, a second wound, blood running down into his shoe, filling it, overflowing. …

  The rifleman, cursing himself for the fuck-up, for pissing away a ten G completion payment, weighed taking more shots—a tire, the Chevy’s rear window. The percentage on thwacking that target now, he calculated, was three–four hundred to one against, so the best move would be to get the hell offa this flat-ass roof. Then he heard the odd whirring, looked up, and Jesus, the whirley bird was dropping right towards him. He bolted for the stairwell door, spitting mad. “Duck soup,” they’d told him, “candy from a baby.” Hooey!

  The burning in his shoulder and back came at about the same time as he heard the crackling tat tat tat. …

  The two-man Air Force crew who’d hired on for the half day to keep an eye out, and specifically to move in real close when the low voltage transmitter began sending, continued on in, and swiftly took their juicy bonus away with them.

  Iz hated hospitals. He hated their hush, their smell, their false cheeriness, and he avoided them. Even when Hannah had given birth, and he’d felt higher than a kite, he’d kept putting off going to visit. And a modern bonehouse like this here one in Washington, with its big, sun-filled windows and grass all around, gave him the creeps just as much as the dreary, carbolic acid-smelling ones he’d first known when Julie Dubrowsky got himself shot.

  But Leroy would be all right. It didn’t seem that serious. Lot of blood though. Iz yearned for the crocus to come out already and give with the bad news. And it damn well had better not be bad.

  Odd. He hadn’t realized how attached he’d become to the young schvarze. Iz remembered the first time he had seen Leroy: Sue-Ellen proudly bringing around her son, four years old, a little fashion plate, velvet knickers, starched white shirt, shoes so shined they hurt to look at, huge round eyes. Sue-Ellen herself had been comely, reserved; and then the reserve had faded as had the black woman’s trim waistline. Gradually she had become both a friend and the manageress of his domestic life. And then suddenly Leroy was an all bones, gangly high school kid looking for part time work.

  Iz had arranged odd jobs for him, then
taken him on steady for a messenger boy, driver; and then Iz was remembering the mad afternoon he’d first seen Leroy as special, way beyond what Iz ever had anticipated of any Negro, or of most any white man.

  It was in Hartford, he recalled, yeah, Connecticut, but what they’d been doing up there had faded clean away. The big thing was that they were driving to catch a plane, Leroy at the wheel. It was Iz who’d spotted the sign, “Bradley Field, 8 Miles.” According to Leroy’s watch, that left six minutes before the takeoff. Iz suddenly felt like he was on a roller coaster. Leroy was zooming that car like Iz had never seen, never again wanted to.

  The highway was two lanes, narrow, curving, dipping, rising, through farm country, rolling meadows, patches of woods, no way to see ahead for any distance. Every few seconds somebody’s jalopy was blocking the way. Leroy climbed onto their tails, passed them, unhesitatingly swinging into the left lane, risking a crash with any vehicle coming the other way. After one guy screeched off onto the shoulder, missing them by maybe a layer of paint, Iz wanted to tell the kid to forget it, slow down. So they’d miss the plane, so what? But the youth’s determination, his refusal to be stopped by other people, even by the fear of accident or death, awoke in Iz a strange joy.

  So Iz had forced himself to keep his yap shut, and had sweated through three, four, he couldn’t remember how many close shaves that trip. He’d shut his eyes, sweating, heart pounding, and just listened to the terrifying honking, swerving, sometimes skidding too.

  Even at the airport Leroy almost instinctively, without seeming to lose a second, nosed right out onto the field to where the plane was, drove right in front of whirring propellors, honking to beat the band, and actually forced the thing to stop. Iz had been amazed.

  For a while after he’d strapped himself in on the plane, Iz still trembled a bit, he recalled. But at the same time, he’d kept marveling at Leroy Logan. The boy, more than Iz had ever dreamed, had it in him to do big things.

  And then later that same year, Iz had discovered that the young kink had other stuff going for him just as important as steel guts. Leroy had proved to have the intellectual bulge on Iz’s own managers as well as on a brace of high-priced accountants.