«It was a political manipulation engineered at considerable expense. The country will be paying for it for a long time to come… Yes, I’d say it was bad.»
«Oh, you rich Brahmins are too holy for words! What about the thousands of families I represent? In some areas unemployment had reached the levels of twelve, thirteen percent! It was a constituency priority, and I’m damned proud I was able to help. Do I have to remind you that I’m the senior Senator from the state of California, young man?… If you want to know the truth, Trevayne …» Armbruster paused and looked up at Andy, chuckling his pleasant, throaty laugh. «You sound faintly ridiculous.»
Trevayne returned the good-humored laugh and saw that Armbruster’s eyes weren’t laughing at all. If anything, they were more probing than they had been in the corridor of the Senate Office Building.
«In other words, I’m ridiculous because I don’t recognize that what you did was not only good politics—I mean ‘good’ in all senses of the word—but also sound economics? And in line with defense objectives.»
«You’re damned right. You’re goddamned right, young man.»
«It was a question of priorities? A constituency … emergency?»
«You’re almost poetic. ’Course, you don’t scan.»
«It’s done every day, that’s what you’re saying.»
«It’s done several hundred times a day, and you know it as well as I do. In the House, the Senate, every agency in Washington. What in heaven’s name do you think we’re in this town for?»
«Even with such extraordinary sums of money?»
«That description is relative.»
«Contracts worth hundreds of millions are relative?»
«What in hell are you driving at? You sound like a ten-year-old.»
«Only one question, Senator. How often are these politically sound, economically feasible arrangements made with Genessee Industries? All over the country.»
Mitchell Armbruster stopped. They were on a small wooden bridge spanning one of Rock Creek Park’s many streams. Armbruster stood by the gray-oak railing and looked down at the rushing water. He took his pipe from his mouth and tapped it against the wood.
«That’s why you flew in on your … unscheduled detour.» He made the statement without any emotion whatsoever.
«Yes.»
«I knew it was… Why me, Trevayne?»
«Because I was able to make the practical, provable connection. I think coincidence. Frankly, I wish it were somebody else; but I don’t have the time.»
«Is time that important?»
«If what I believe has happened, it is.»
«I’m minor. I fight for political survival so I can present a point of view that’s progressively disappearing. It’s important that I do that.»
«Tell me.»
Armbruster slowly removed a tobacco pouch from his jacket pocket and began refilling his pipe. He looked up at Trevayne several times, as if searching, wondering. Finally he lit the pipe and leaned his short elbows against the railing.
«What’s there to tell? You join an organization, you understand the bylaws, the fundamental rules. As you go on, you find that in order to achieve certain objectives, those bylaws have to be, must be, circumvented. Otherwise you can’t get the job done. If you’re dedicated, I mean passionately committed, to your objectives, you become a very frustrated human being. You begin to doubt your own capabilities, your political virility. You think you’re a eunuch… Then, after a while—at first very subtly—you’re told that there are ways, if you stop shouting off your big, fat liberal mouth. Stop trying to turn everything upside down with rhetoric. Be a little more accommodating… It’s easy to assimilate; they call it the process of maturing. You call it at-last-achieving-something. You see the good you’re doing; you give just a little, but you get so much more in return… Goddamn it, it’s worth it! Bills are given your name, amendments are named after you. You see the good … only the good…»
Armbruster seemed to weary, to tire of his own logic, obviously circulated and recirculated throughout his ever-active brain. Trevayne knew he had to jar the man, make him respond.
«What about Genessee Industries?»
«It’s the goddamned key!» Armbruster whipped his head around and stared at Andy. «It’s the funnel… It’s accepted; what more can I tell you? It’s the watering hole we constantly replenish, it never runs dry… It’s got Mother, God, Country, Liberal, Conservative, Republican, Democrat, Bullmoose, and so help me Christ, the Communes, all wrapped into one! It’s the answer to every political animal’s hunger… And the strangest thing of all is that it does a good job. That’s what’s remarkable.»
«I don’t think you settle for that, Senator.»
«Of course I don’t, young man!… I’ve got two more years to go; I won’t run again. I’ll be sixty-nine years old, that’s enough… Then, perhaps, I’ll sit back and wonder.»
«With a Genessee directorship?»
«Probably. Why not?»
Trevayne leaned his back against the railing and took out his cigarettes. Armbruster lit one for him. «Thank you… Let me try to put this into perspective, Senator.»
«Do more than that, Trevayne. Drop it from your schedule. Go after the profiteers; what you and your subcommittee should be doing. Genessee doesn’t qualify. It may be too big, but it produces. It’s borne scrutiny well.»
It was Trevayne’s turn to laugh, and he did. Out loud and derisively. «It’s borne scrutiny because it’s too damned big, too complicated to scrutinize! And you know it as well as I know what’s happening in … what did you say?—‘every agency in Washington.’ That flag won’t get up the pole, Senator. Genessee Industries, the ‘watering hole,’ is the fifty-first state. The difference being that the other fifty are beholden to it. Obligated, I think, in a very dangerous way.»
«That’s overstating the case.»
«It’s understating it. Genessee has no constitution, no two-party system, no checks and balances… What I want to know from you, Senator, is who are the princes? Who rules this self-contained, self-sufficient, ever-expanding kingdom? And I don’t refer to the corporate structure.»
«I don’t know that anybody … rules. Other than its management.»
«Which management? I’ve met them; even the money man, Goddard. I don’t believe it.»
«Its board of directors.»
«That’s too easy. They’re place cards at a dinner table.»
«Then I can’t answer you. Not ‘won’t,’ ‘can’t.’»
«Are you implying that it just grew—a Topsy?»
«That may be more accurate than you realize.»
«Who speaks for Genessee to the Senate?»
«Oh, Lord, scores of people. There are a dozen committees in which Genessee figures. It’s the predominant factor in the aircraft lobby.»
«Aaron Green?»
«I’ve met Green, of course. Can’t say I know him.»
«Isn’t he the real account man?»
«He owns an advertising agency, if that’s what you mean. Along with ten or twenty other companies.»
«It wasn’t a pun, Senator. The accounts I refer to go beyond advertising, although they may be considered part of it.»
«I don’t follow you.»
«We’ve established that Aaron Green administers between seven and twelve million a year—conceivably more—for the purposes of convincing the Washington bureaucracy of the patriotic validity of Genessee Industries and—»
«All registered—»
«Most buried. Anyone with that kind of fiscal responsibility generally has the authority that goes with it.»