“He tries to be.”
“Well, Cubbin does that pretty well with that voice of his when he’s a mind to.”
“It goes over better when you’re on the attack.”
“How long’s Hanks been secretary-treasurer?”
“Six years.”
“Wasn’t he sort of a protégé of Cubbin’s at one time?”
“Yes.”
The old man nodded. “At least we got us a familiar pattern. The president’s out acting big shot and shooting his mouth off on ‘Meet the Press’ while the secretary-treasurer’s out meeting with the locals, doing favors, building up his political capital until wham, the president’s out of a job and the secretary-treasurer’s got it. It’s happened before often enough.”
“I know.”
“Their contract runs out when, October thirty-first?”
“Yes.”
“And the election’s October fifteenth?”
“Yes.”
“So whoever’s president is going to be doing the final negotiating when it comes to nutcracking time. What’s Cubbin got his mind set on?”
“Well, he already got thirty percent over the next three years from fabricating and processing.”
“That’s fabricating and processing. What about the basics?”
“He figures he can get twenty-one percent from the basics without a strike. Maybe twenty-four percent with one.”
“It ain’t worth it then.”
“No.”
“And Hanks wants to go for thirty percent?”
“More.”
“So he’ll pull ’em out.”
“It looks that way. He says there’s no reason why they shouldn’t beat or match the auto workers.”
Kensington sighed. “Well, Hanks has got a point, but those people over in the White House ain’t interested in it. They don’t want any strike and they sure as hell don’t want any thirty-percent wage increase because they think it’ll hurt the economy which, translated, means it’ll hurt their own chances of getting reelected.”
“So?”
“So over there in the White House they’ve decided that they’d like to see Don Cubbin reelected president of his union. Can you fix that?”
“It’ll cost.”
“Yeah, well, anticipating just that we had a little meeting in Philadelphia last week. Some of the boys were there from Chicago and Gary and Los Angeles and New York and. Denver and all and they agreed to get up a little kitty to help Cubbin out, although it’d be best if he don’t find out too much about it.”
“He won’t.”
“So how much you gonna need to get him reelected? Just roughly.”
“Three quarters of a million.”
“That all?”
“His own people will come up with another quarter of a million.”
“So that’s how much it takes nowadays, huh, about a million?”
“About that. We’ve heard that Hanks is going to try to get by on five hundred thousand.”
The old man grew interested. “Where’s he getting his?”
“From banks, the ones that he’s kept those big, low-interest union deposits in. They’re grateful. So are the outfits that he’s loaned money to from the pension fund. He’s tapping them hard, too, we hear.”
“What’s he call that committee of his?”
“Hanks?”
“Yes.”
“The Rank and File Committee.”
“Well, just how much can he count on from the rank and file? In other words, how much will the membership cough up to get themselves a new president?”
“Not much. Maybe fifty thousand.”
Kensington shook his head slowly. “Trade-union democracy will never cease to amaze me. Or amuse me, maybe I should say. How much you want for your fee?”
“A hundred thousand.”
“Including expenses?”
“It’s going to be a short campaign and they’ll be low so I’ll donate them to the cause.”
“And you won’t have any trouble working yourself into the thing?”
Penry smiled for the first time and Kensington wished that he hadn’t. It was an animal’s smile, the rogue kind who has left the pack and gone off on his own. “I owe Cubbin a few favors. I’ll just let him know that I’d like to pay them back.”
“What do you think his chances are?”
“Without our help?”
“That way first.”
“Six-to-four against.”
“And with?”
“Better than even for reelection, but it’ll be close.”
Old Man Kensington rose slowly and with effort, wheezing a little. “Well, I’ll take care of the money; you take care of the election.”
“All right.”
“About this fellow Hanks.”
“What about him?”
“What’s his problem?”
“I’m not sure I—”
The old man made an impatient gesture, flicking his left hand down and out. The fellow was simple, after all. “Cubbin’s a drunk. What’s wrong with Hanks?”
“I see. Well, not much really, although there is one thing.”
“What?”
“They say he’s just a bit crazy,” Penry said, smiling again, but the old man didn’t see it because he had already turned away, heading for the refrigerator.
5
A little over five blocks away that September afternoon in Washington, in another hotel, a cheaper one at the corner of Fourteenth and K, Samuel Morse Hanks was having a fit.
It was really more of a tantrum than a fit, but he was lying on the floor, face down, pounding his fists into the carpet and screaming something that sounded like “cawg.” He screamed it over and over while the spit trickled down his chin. Four men sat around in chairs and watched him with expressions that registered a little interest, if not much concern.
The bed and bureau had been removed from the hotel room and now it contained a scarred wooden desk that looked rented and was, a couch, eight or nine folding gray metal chairs with padded seats, two telephones, one of them with an outside line, and a green metal filing cabinet whose drawers were doubly secured by a built-in combination lock and a metal bar that ran through their handles and that was fastened at the top with a padlock that looked tricky.
The room was one of twelve on the hotel’s third floor that had been rented as its campaign headquarters by the Rank and File Committee whose candidate for union president now lay on the floor, pounding the carpet with his fists, and screeching the word that sounded like “cawg” again and again.
Finally, one of the four men stubbed out his cigarette, rose, and walked over to where Sammy Hanks lay screaming. He nudged Hanks in the shoulder with the toe of his shoe. “All right, Sammy,” he said, “you’ve had your fun.”
The screams stopped. “For Christ’s sake, get up and go wash your face,” the man said. “You’ve slobbered all over it.”
Sammy Hanks pushed himself up to a kneeling position, hiccupped once, and then rose to his feet. Saliva glistened on his jutting chin that at one in the afternoon already looked as though it needed a shave. Hanks glared at the four men, three of them white and one black. “You know what you bastards are?” he said.
The black man, the one who had shown the least concern while Hanks lay screaming on the floor, smiled lazily and said, “What are we, Sammy?”
“You’re fuckin pathetic, that’s what,” he said, snarling the words so that their tone nicely matched his scowl. Before any of the men could reply, he turned quickly and darted into the bathroom, making sure to slam the door.
The four men looked at each other, exchanging glances of exasperated commiseration. The one who had nudged Hanks with a toe sat back down and lit another cigarette.
The four men were near enough in age and size and demeanor almost to have been cut from the same pattern. They were all in their late thirties or early forties, bigger than average, all of them over six feet, carrying a little too much fat, with shrewd eyes set in seamed faces that weren’t aging well, especially the black’s, whose face looked as if it had been hastily chiseled out of some dark, porous stone.