by Ward Just
When the Senate was in late-night session he often drove to the Hill and slipped into the visitors' gallery. These sessions came at the end of the term, the rush to adjournment, legislation fed into the mill helter-skelter, everyone exhausted, the chamber filling with blue smoke from cigars and cigarettes. A man with a connoisseur's nose could detect the odor of whiskey as well. The Senate chamber had an antique feel to it, all carved hardwood and figured carpets, tiny mahogany desks, each with its own brass spittoon, pages in black knickers standing at attention near the rear doors like obedient sons, scribes in business suits taking shorthand on folio-sized sheets of creamy foolscap, earnest as bishops. The scribes were constantly in motion, gliding from one member to the next, recording the colloquy. The lamps were dim, as if to emphasize the obscurity of the proceedings, unintelligible to anyone not familiar with the matter at hand, an arcane parliamentary tongue as stylized as a sonnet. Axel was put in mind of the medieval holy fathers who published the Scriptures in Latin, a language the faithful could not read. The Mass was mysterious, the Bible more so. Ordinary Christians depended on the good faith and learning of their priests, the translators; and when they were disappointed, they turned to sorcery and witchcraft.
When the voices rose in legislative incantation, Axel could identify the various American regions, Mississippi and Louisiana, Maryland and Virginia, Massachusetts and Vermont. The accents had not changed since his father was in the Senate, and his father claimed that even then they had not changed since the Civil War. Illinois and Kentucky were easy enough, Cook County and its satellites, and downstate in the first; eastern and western in the second; and any state of the old Confederacy, thirteen varieties of molasses. The farther west you went, the more anonymous the accent—Arizona indistinguishable from New Mexico or Colorado, California—Califamya—as bland as the Dakotas. Texas was monstrously distinct, however.
They were indoor men, drawn to enclosed spaces, whatever their private dreams of a day at the races, or on the golf course, or hip-deep in a trout stream, or in bed with a secretary. Their words rarely gave a hint of rivalry or petty jealousy, still less of the need for the windowless chamber and its many comforts and amenities, its consolations. His father told a story of a senator who had suddenly and most unexpectedly lost his wife, and in his grief and confusion rushed immediately to the floor to sit at his desk, grieving all day and all night, apologizing later for any disruption. But where else was he to go? Axel sat back and let the voices wash over him, a murmur like the sea in a soft breeze, the vessel barely making way. The sodden language of government had a beat and a rhythm to it if you knew the score. The lobbyists and their principals crowding the front rows had a rhythm also as they leaned forward in their seats trying to decipher whether a vote to move the previous question was a victory or not; and leaning far over the balcony's edge, they would search the face of the majority leader, who would wink or not, depending on the likely outcome. They listened for the great solos as attentively as any aficionado at Carnegie Hall and when the words died they would laugh or applaud, not raucously, because a certain decorum had to be maintained; their laughter recalled the crinkle of money.
Axel always sat in the rear row of the gallery, where he could watch the lawyers for the sugar producers, the man from the corn belt, the vice president of the railroad union, and the airplane manufacturer cup their hands to their ears when they heard something familiar—the quota, the price support, the tax break, the subsidy—and watch as the votes were tallied, ticking off the yeas and nays on their own scorecards and rising wearily at the conclusion, smiling or not, according to the vote, relinquishing their seats to the lobbyists whose legislation was still being marked up for the decisive vote. The moment had aspects of the bazaar and the auction block and the trading floor and the burlesque house, all business conducted in an arcane tongue with its special rules of grammar and syntax, assisted by a lifted eyebrow or a pointed finger. Axel knew the Senate chamber as well as he knew the garden room at Echo House. He knew the feel of the mahogany desks and the nap of the figured carpet, and knew also what the galleries looked like when a senator raised his eyes, the crowded rows filled with anxious men in rut. No wonder, in their crazier moments, senators wanted to be fitted for togas.
Axel sat alone by cioice but occasionally one of the lobbyists would amble up the aisle for a chat, the latest gossip or headline. They were always interested in which item of legislation had brought him to the gallery and nodded skeptically when he said nothing special. He liked the spectacle; it reminded him of his schooldays, when his father allowed him to wander around the cloakroom during the final days of the session. He didn't know until later that he was wearing a leper's bell; the moment he appeared the whiskey bottles would be put to one side. The old senator was sending him around to spy, and more than once he was told to get his ass out of the private rooms, the senator not knowing who he was and apologizing later when he found out.
Axel was surprised one evening when he saw Ed Peralta making his way along the gallery aisle.
"Thought I'd find you here," Ed said. "What's going on?"
"Jimmy Longfellow's nomination to Lisbon. I got it this far; I thought I should be in the chamber for the vote."
"The nomination's not in trouble?"
"Not anymore. But I hear that Alfalfa Bob will have something to say about it. I sent down word that I'd be present so he could say it to my face. I want him to know I'm in the gallery."
Ed Peralta eased himself into the chair next to Axel. "Never cared for Congress. My father loved the House and always wanted me to come listen to the debates, but they never made any sense. Curly said that if you listened carefully enough you'd hear the nuance of the deal. Never appealed to me, all that open talk. Easy to get burned."
"Senate's different," Axel said.
Ed propped his feet on the seat in front and said, "Alec got in touch with Sylvia. She's not in London anymore. She moved back to New York last week. Do you know Willy Borowy? She's with Willy."
Axel craned his neck to watch the action on the floor.
"Wedding plans, too. I think."
Suddenly everyone around them was laughing, a colloquy that had turned unexpectedly droll. The president pro tem rapped for order.
"What's on your mind, Ed?"
"Money problems at the firm," Ed said. "I need your counsel."
"I heard you had some trouble."
"The things we're doing," Ed said. "They're ad hoc. We're improvising. It's a damned amateur hour, no fault of ours." Ed lowered his voice, peering down to the floor, where a member was unsuccessfully attempting to move the previous question. "It's our wallet, and they're behaving like it's a mercantile exchange, ten percent per transaction. They're eating us up. What did you hear?"
"Drums along the Potomac," Axel said.
"You're so helpful, Axel."
"Always at your service," Axel said.
"The problem we've got is the problem you'd least expect," Ed said.
"Transfers," Axel said.
Ed Peralta nodded. The money was transferred overseas, sometimes by courier, sometimes by pouch. And there had been some grotesque mistakes, fuck-ups really, embezzlement and theft being only the most embarrassing. The drawing account in Switzerland was safe but expensive and inconvenient in other ways, Geneva in the middle of everything but close to nothing. Swiss law was a briar patch. The banks still held Nazi assets.
Axel listened carefully, trying to see around the next corner.
"We even sent one of our people to visit with the old man up in Armonk. He's been helpful in the past and they're rolling in money and have the ways and means to transfer. But it came to nothing." Ed struggled with his cigarette lighter, zip zip zip zip. "The modalities, Axel"
Axel watched Alfalfa Bob, nonchalant in his chair; he was listening to his legislative assistant, who was speaking urgently into his ear, handing him an envelope. The senator opened it and sat up straight, looking into the gallery until he found Ax
el; his heavy eyebrows and scowl were reminiscent of Adolph Behl. The senator brusquely dismissed his aide, then wrote something on the back of the note and looked around for a page.
"Last month we had a crisis," Ed said. "One of the crises in which someone could've ended up dead or in Siberia, whichever's worse. Our mar. was in London. That bank in the City was closed because they were all off in Yorkshire, shooting grouse. Embassy funds weren't sufficient, and we've had problems with them in the past. They want everything in triplicate. So we had to go to our good friend in Curzon Street and ask him to give us a hundred thousand dollars at once, in greenbacks from his personal safe. Of course he was happy to oblige, as you would've obliged if the shoe had been on your foot. But it was embarrassing. It made us look like idiots. Our friend thought so, too, and let us know it."
"It's inefficient," Axel said.
"No problem with funding," Ed said. "We have funding. We're the drunk in the wine cellar, but we don't have a corkscrew."
"Yes," Axel said.
"We need something that's permanent, reliable, and private, always keeping the paperwork to a minimum. It isn't only them we're worried about; it's us. You know the foundations and philanthropies we've set up to meet the payroll. It's a nightmare to keep straight. Most of the people who are getting the money don't know where it's coming from, or pretending not to know. Reputation means a lot to our novelists, editors, and parliamentarians. And they're walking a tightrope, too. They like the things that money can buy but they don't like it known that the money's coming from Uncle Sam and Uncle Sam wants a return on his investment. We own them, but only so long as we're quiet about it. That's why we're holding this so close, do you see? But it's a time bomb, Axel. We need expertise from a man who knows how it's done, who knows how to keep his own counsel, someone who's been through the mill and knows the score. We need a treasurer in place."
Axel was silent a moment, remembering the story he had heard the week before. "What happened to the one we bought at Echo House last Christmas?"
"The philosopher?"
"No, the editor. Monsieur Straddle."
"He skipped."
"Where did he skip to?"
"Normandy. We know where he is. But what can you do? It was too much for him, poor bastard."
"He cost us, Ed."
"I know that, Axel. But it wasn't so much, and we learn from our mistakes."
Axel nodded sympathetically. Monsieur Straddle was a journalist who had spent the war in Paris maneuvering his newspaper around the Germans, Vichy, and the Resistance. He invented an icy prose of obfuscation and ambiguity and was so successful at it that when the war ended he was unable to adapt. He did not understand that the world had moved on. He had lived in his half-light for so long, he could not imagine another environment; and he was certain that one or another of the authorities he had annoyed would invade his apartment and seize his wife and children. He was recruited on a visit to Washington, invited for a drink at Echo House, and offered a subsidy for his newspaper. He agreed at once, all the while admiring Axel's art and the Persian carpets on the floors and the taste of the twelve-year-old Scotch. Of course he hated the Reds and would bring all his rhetorical powers to bear against them. His subsequent editorials were masterpieces of feint and wry indignation. He still feared the jackboot and the knock on the door at midnight, or the summons to the Conciergerie. Circulation fell and the subsidy went to a tiny property near Ivry; and one day the newspaper ceased publication and Monsieur Straddle and his wife and children fetched up at the farm, where the editor was now writing his memoirs of wartime Paris. Axel remembered him as an anorexic middle-aged Frenchman with a facial tic that grew more pronounced with each swallow of Scotch. He was an editor who had learned to live happily in no man's land, between the lines. His French was beautiful to listen to, as soothing as a lullaby.
"So we're in a little bit of trouble, Axel. We need a watchdog."
"An accountant to watch the accountants."
"An accountant with corkscrews," Ed said. "Maybe someone at Treasury."
Axel shook his head
"Well, then," Ed said. "It's only a matter of time before we're blown. And then we get the works, a congressional investigation, political trouble. They'll put us out of business."
"You want a private banker," Axel said. "You want someone who can get your money from Washington or New York to Copenhagen or London and then to Málaga or Trieste with a minimum of fuss and delay. You want funds on hand in a dozen cities, greenbacks when you need them. You need a private bank and a banker who'll know the questions to ask, a banker who has connections abroad, meaning an organization in place. You'd take a piece of the bank as a silent partner. The books would be very carefully kept and cooked if need be, in the very unlikely event of an outside audit. But you'd always know the balance sheet. And there would be a section of that bank dealing with your interests and that section would be separate and staffed by your people with full security clearance. Each disbursement would require two signatures. I know the bank you want. You want Jimmy Longfellow's bank."
"The ambassador?"
"Our soon-to-be man in Lisbon."
"I didn't know he was a banker."
"His father was a great friend of my father and of Curly, too. You remember him, old David Longfellow. The Longfellows have owned the bank for a hundred years. Cousins and in-laws, nephews. There are probably a couple of godsons in their somewhere. They look after kin. They're honest but inattentive, so the bank's not profitable. They don't work hard at it. They're not avid. It's a bank filled with Sunday golfers and their stupid children." Axel shifted in his seat and began to massage the small of his back. "People have to look after themselves."
"I can see the advantages."
"Jimmy wants out," Axel said. "He has his new wife and his embassy. He wants to get Gladys out of New York. He thinks she knows too many people in New York."
"And you think he'd sell."
"He already has. I bought his stake."
"You own the bank?"
"A minority interest, so far."
"This is a creative idea, Axel. It solves all our problems. Trouble is, it's against the law. We can't own and operate a bank. We can buy airplanes but we can't buy an airline. We can buy an editor but we can't buy a newspaper. We can buy weapons but we can't buy Remington. The Treasury can print money and give us some of it but we can't buy a bank to put it in. We have to operate according to the established procedures. And this isn't an established procedure. This is outside our charter."
"Procedures can be changed," Axel said blandly.
"It's a beautiful idea," Ed said.
Axel watched a page enter the gallery and scan the spectators, a worried expression on his face. Axel snapped his fingers, and the boy nodded, relieved, and hurried to his side.
"Mr. Behl? The senator wanted me to give you this."
Axel took the folded piece of paper from the boy's hand, looked at it, and carefully wrote two words in block letters.
"Take this back to the senator with my compliments."
"Yes, sir," the boy said, and was gone.
"What was that about?" Ed asked.
"A note from Alfalfa Bob. The note said, 'Fuck you, Axel.' My note was shorter. Watch."
Ed Peralta heard an animal enthusiasm in Axel's voice and leaned forward to peer into the Senate chamber. The senator was sprawled in his chair, listening to the debate. He smiled when the page approached, but the smile vanished when he looked at Axel's note. He carefully tore it in halves and in quarters and moved to pitch the bits into the spittoon at his feet; then he changed his mind and put them in his pocket, all the while staring bleakly at the surface of his desk. When he touched the white handkerchief peeping from his breast pocket, Ed chuckled.
"That was quick. What was in your note?"
"A man's name," Axel said. "A man who's a great friend of Alfalfa Bob. He didn't know that I knew that. But now he does."
"An inconvenient friend," Ed sa
id.
"Very inconvenient."
"No speech then," Ed said.
"No speech," Axel said. "We can go now."
"You make a bad enemy, Axel."
"I look after my friends," Axel said. "Jimmy Longfellow's a friend. The Man in the White House, he's a friend, too. So if I can make a difference by writing a note, I write the note."
"And they're grateful," Ed said.
"They'll never know. What they will know is that I said I'd help Jimmy and I did, no broken dishes, no commotion. No tie to them, do you see? That's the way to do things, if you can afford to."
"Like the bank," Ed said. "But we've never done anything like that."
"Fact is," Axel said, "you'd be saving the taxpayers money. If you set up the bank as a proprietary, and got serious people to run it, you'd make money as a matter of course. You'd make money the way Morgan's makes money. You'd make a profit on the legitimate operations, real estate in the beginning, other investments later. So we'd have our own funds, for the contingencies, the usual unforeseen emergencies, and so forth and so on. Given the uncertain and illiquid world we live in."
"It would be self-sustaining then," Ed said.
"More or less, yes. In part. In a manner of speaking. With serious people in charge, people who have your confidence. People who understand banking. And you've got them, too. You know who they are."
"Who are the other partners?"