He selected a file — whether randomly or not, I couldn’t say. He thumbed through it and, either referring to it or pretending to, he said, “I’ve been approached about you. About your background.”
“What?”
“Your father was a Communist, wasn’t he? Ran a Commie bookstore on the West Side of Chicago? You grew up there, among those radicals?”
I felt like I’d been sucker punched in the belly. I managed, “He was a Wobbly, Joe — a pro-union guy. He killed himself, back in ’32.”
“Terrible tragedy. Terrible.”
“He killed himself because I wasn’t like him — I wasn’t idealistic. I just wanted to make a buck.”
“That’s the American way.”
My head was swimming. “Jesus — what are you saying to me, Joe?”
He heaved a huge sigh; shook his head, sorrowfully. “There are people... powerful people... good Americans, like my friend Pat McCarran... who would like me to take a hard close look at you, and your background.”
“...Are you saying, somebody’s told you to paint me with a red brush?”
His beady eyes turned into slits. “Let me say this. This fellow Kefauver, he’s like a bull in the china shop. He’s causing trouble for a lot of fine Americans. He’s abusing the system, with these hearings of his — I can’t abide seeing our fine system, the most nearly perfect system of government ever to find a place under God’s blue sky, abused for personal aggrandizement. That Tennessee turncoat will never be president if I have any say in it.”
The panic had been brief, but terrible — I’d had a tiny glimpse of the horror of having your world imperiled by government-sanctioned lies.
But that panic was gone.
“McCarran,” I said, smiling just a little, nodding. “Senator from the great state of Nevada. As in, Las Vegas. Joe — do you have friends who don’t want me to testify in the Kefauver hearings?”
He cleared his throat. “If you’re called, you’ll have to testify. That’s the law. But what you choose to share with these witch-finders, that’s another matter entirely.”
I laughed; the laughter was genuine but tinged with hysteria. The great Commie hunter was mobbed up!
He folded his hands, prayerfully; he had knockwurst fingers. “Nate... I couldn’t let this happen to you. I was so pleased when you called, and wanted to meet. After all, you were friends with Jim Forrestal... another great man Drew Pearson assassinated with his pen.”
That was why Pearson and I had fallen out: the columnist’s unremitting, merciless attacks had contributed to Forrestal’s suicide.
“Jim was my mentor,” McCarthy said. “He was the one who informed me about the Communists high up in our government.”
Forrestal was also a delusional paranoid schizophrenic.
I folded my arms. “Joe, I’ve already talked to the committee, who I basically told to go fuck themselves... and to Charley Fischetti, and Sam Giancana, given them my assurances that I’m not talking.”
“Those names mean nothing to me.”
“Yeah, right. You tell McCarran I’m no problem. And Christ, neither is Sinatra. You’ve got to give that kid a pass, too, Joe. You’ll destroy his career.”
“Mr. Sinatra is also on Kefauver’s list.”
“Oh. Wait... I think I’m finally getting this.” I shook my head, not knowing whether to laugh or cry. “You’ll lay off Sinatra, if he doesn’t cooperate with the Kefauver Committee.”
He twitched a humorless smile. “You make this sound like a quid pro quo... I can tell you that Senator McCarran admires Mr. Sinatra, has enjoyed his many appearances in Las Vegas.”
I raised a hand, as if I was being sworn in. “Frank won’t give those guys the time of day — even if they put his ass on TV and embarrass him in front of the entire nation.”
“You can speak for him?”
“I am speaking for him.”
McCarthy thought about that. Then he grinned, and it didn’t seem strained. “Great. Great! Jesus, Nate it’s nice seeing you. You want to go out for beer and steak? I’m ready for a break.”
“No thanks,” I said. “Rain check.”
I was the one with the strained grin, now.
I stood, he stood again, and we had another handshake, and I went quickly out. At first I was pissed off, although relieved; but then the humor of it hit me.
The other shoe had finally dropped.
I’d thought Fischetti, Giancana, and company had too easily accepted at face value my assurances not to help Kefauver. I mean, hell — I was Bill Drury’s friend and almost partner! Yet there’d been no intimidation — just one bribe, from Tubbo, nothing from the Outfit itself.
Until this Sunday evening screening of Mr. Heller Goes to Washington, that is.
This had all been just another scam, courtesy of the mob and that poker-playing ape back there. Sinatra was a friend of the Chicago/Nevada gambling interests, after all; they wouldn’t want to insult him, not directly. And me, better to keep me a friendly nonwitness.
So they had reached out to Senator Joe McCarthy, that great Red-hunting all-American boy, to squeeze Frankie and me into silence.
No silence right now: I was laughing, loud and hard, and it was echoing through the rotunda of the S.O.B., filling the hollow, hallowed halls, startling the guard.
9
The flight from D.C. took maybe three hours, the bag handlers at Midway managed not to lose my suitcase, the ride to the Loop clocked thirty-eight minutes, and I was back in my suite at the St. Clair before noon on Monday.
Unfortunately, I was alone: no sign of my new roommate.
Not only was Jackie Payne absent from my apartment, so were her things — the clothes she’d hung in my bedroom closet, her toiletries, suitcases, everything. Gone. Like she’d never been here...
...except for the lingering fragrance of Chanel No. 5., in the bedroom particularly.
I got the front desk on the phone and asked the clerk to round up Hannan, the house dick. Hannan sometimes did jobs for me, and he was supposed to have been doing me a favor, while I was away.
Leaving Jackie even for twenty-four hours had been problematic. we’d spent Saturday together, mostly at my suite, loving each other, me assuring her that I was going to get her the best help for her problem. We’d gone to a picture show — a matinee of All About Eve, at the State-Lake, holding hands like high school kids — and had a light, early supper at the Tap Room, back at the St. Clair. The rest of the evening had been consumed by passion worthy of honeymooners, intermingled with bouts of doubt and paranoia on her part, worry about me leaving even for just a day (and night), fear that Rocco would barge in and beat her, or worse.
“I’m afraid of him,” she’d said.
We were in bed, and the only light was courtesy of the lakefront and the moon through the window; she was nestled against me, her face against my chest. I was fooling with her hair, scratching and rubbing her scalp.
“No need,” I said, lying only a little. “Rocco’s going to have to watch himself where we’re both concerned.”
She looked up at me, eyes a-glimmer with worry. “Why do you think that?”
“His brother Charley will keep him in line. Baby, Charley knows I’m capable of dishing out the same kind of... medicine as his brother. And one thing these goombahs don’t want right now is bad publicity.”
“Bad publicity...?”
“I’m the friend and associate of an ex-cop who’s going to testify against them in this crime inquiry. The curtain on that roadshow is going up soon — probably after the election, but soon — and the Fischettis of this world... the smart ones, anyway... don’t want the papers filled with stuff out of an old Jimmy Cagney movie.”