«You dispute me? You a caporegima dare to talk back to capo di tutti capi! I say a contract. Ten big ones a contract. Put it out.»
«Uncle Mario, the days of The Godfather are finished.» William Gallabretto spoke calmly, sympathetically, to his relative. «We have better ways.»
«Better. What’s better than tormento lento? A slow death for the pig that took my brother! You know. I know. A knife in the back. Miole. A contract. I say no more.» De Spadante inhaled deeply and rested his head back on the pillow.
«Listen to me, Uncle Mario. This soldier, this Major Bonner, will be arrested. He’ll be indicted for murder—one. He has no defense. It was wanton killing without provocation. He’s been in trouble before—»
«A contract.» De Spadante interrupted, his voice growing weaker.
«No. It’s not necessary. There are a lot of people who want to see this Bonner not only finished, but discredited. Right up to the top… We even have a newspaperman, a famous columnist. A writer named Roderick Bruce. This Bonner is a psycho. He’ll draw life. And then—somewhere in a penitentiary—he’ll get the knife.»
«It’s no good. You talk crap… You stay out of the courts. No lawyer shit. That’s no good. You put out my contract.»
William Gallabretto retreated from the bedside. «All right, Uncle Mario,» he lied. «You rest now.»
34
Trevayne sat on the hotel bed, fighting to keep his eyes open, to keep his attention on the neatly typed pages in front of him. He knew he was losing the fight, and so he reached for the telephone and requested a call for seven in the morning.
He’d left Aaron Green shortly after one o’clock, much earlier than he’d expected. Green had offered him lunch, but Andy had declined, making a feeble excuse that he had to drive into New York—business undisclosed. The truth was that he couldn’t stand being near Green. There was nothing he could say to him. The old Jew had destroyed any argument he might have presented. What words could be found to counter the sight in Green’s back lawn or lessen the motive created nearly forty years ago alongside a fence in Auschwitz?
Aaron Green was no anomaly. He was totally consistent by his lights. He did believe in all the liberal reforms for which he was noted; he was a compassionate man, a generous man, who lavished huge personal sums on causes that strived to better the plights of the unfortunate. And he would spend the last dollar of his fortune, use the last energies of his financial genius to make sure his adopted country would maintain the climate that permitted his philosophy. Such a nation had to be the strongest on earth. Its borders could not be weakened by the necessarily soft flexible interior; the shell had to be impenetrable.
Green was blind to the fact that the more absolute strength permitted the protectors—the shell—the greater the possibility that they would usurp the rights of the protected—the interior. It was the classic manifestation, the a priori conclusion, but Green rejected it. If it were possible to build a fortress from the finances of the marketplace, that power would be penultimate, he thought; the ultimate would remain where it was conceived—in the civilian economy. It was a ludicrous assumption, as ludicrous as the Wehrmacht animals counting off numbers to which the naked dead were to march. But the memory of that sight shattered Aaron Green’s perception.
And there was absolutely nothing Trevayne could say to alter the old man’s thinking.
When the Lear jet had landed at Chicago’s O’Hare Airport, Trevayne immediately telephoned Sam Vicarson in Salt Lake City. Vicarson told him the Ian Hamilton dossier was typed and waiting for him at his hotel. It had been a simple one. The American Bar Association was immensely proud of Ian Hamilton, and its professional biography was extensive. Additional information was supplied by Hamilton’s son. The choice of the son was another Vicarson touch, thought Andrew. The Hamilton boy—young man—was the «now» generation; the break with the family’s long establishment tradition. He was a folk singer with his own group, a graduate of the acid-rock scene who made the transition to the new-new music successfully. He had no hang-ups talking about his father. The son considered—or arrived at the conclusion—that the old man did «his thing» with more intelligence than imagination, but did it well because he was dedicated to the proposition that the elite had to show the way for the unenlightened.
That summation turned out to be the most perceptive analysis of Ian Hamilton that Trevayne would find.
Hamilton came from very old, very secure upstate New York money and traced his ancestry back to the British Alexander and his antecedents in Ayrshire, Scotland, where the Hamiltons were lairds of Cambuskeith. He had attended the proper schools—Rectory, Groton, Harvard—and been graduated near the top of his class at Harvard Law. A postlaw year at Cambridge in England opened the door for him to spend the war years in London as a Navy legal officer attached to Eisenhower’s General Staff. He’d married an English girl from the small social sea of acceptable British fish, and their only child, the son, was born in the Naval Hospital in Surrey.
After the war, Ian Hamilton’s credentials—and brains—secured him a series of enviable positions, culminating in a partnership with one of New York’s most prestigious firms. Specialty: corporate law with heavy diversification in municipal bonds. His wartime associations, beginning with the Eisenhower administration, brought him frequently to Washington; so often that his firm opened a Washington office. In succeeding administrations Ian Hamilton became more and more identified with the Washington scene. Though nominally a Republican, he was not doctrinaire. His working relationships with a Democratic House and Senate were solid. John Kennedy offered him the London embassy—which was a logical and politically shrewd decision—but Hamilton gracefully declined. Instead, he continued his progress up the Washington law ladder to the rung that allowed him the description of «adviser to presidents.» He was experienced enough to warrant attention and yet young enough—in his middle fifties—to be flexible. His friendship was an asset.
And then, two years ago, Ian Hamilton did what no one expected him to do. He quietly resigned from his firm and stated—again quietly, to friends—that he was going to take a «long, I hope deserved, sabbatical.» There were the obvious jokes that he’d make more money managing his folk-rock, guitar-playing son, and less pleasant speculation on his health. Hamilton heard them and accepted them, characteristically, in good grace.
Nevertheless, he left Washington and with his wife took a world cruise for twenty-two weeks.
Six months ago Ian Hamilton again did the unexpected and, again, without fanfare or excessive press coverage.
Hamilton joined the old Chicago firm of Brandon and Smith. He cut his ties with Washington and New York and moved into a mansion in Evanston on the shores of Lake Michigan. Ian Hamilton had apparently decided on a less hectic life and was welcomed—quietly—into the social confines of the Evanston executive rich.
There was the matter of the bond issue raised by Genessee Industries and given to the firm of Brandon and Smith—the result of Hamilton’s breaking silence while a member of the President’s Steel Import Commission.
Genessee Industries now had the services of the most esteemed law firm in the Midwest—Brandon, Smith, and Hamilton. Genessee was covered in the highest financial echelons on both coasts: Green in New York; the company plants and Senator Armbruster in California. So it was logical that they establish a seat of influence in Middle America.