Better Dead (26 page)

“I'll try,” I said.

She frowned. She could do that without wrinkling her face. It was the goddamnest thing.

“Nate,” she said, “there is one
other
little thing.”

“Yes?”

“Ah'm not a rich girl. Ah understand the per-day rate around here is one hundred fifty dollars, but ah'm guessing you as the big chief must get more than the little injuns. Could we work somethin' out?”

There was absolutely no hint of sexual favors in her tone or her expression. I swear to you. No kidding.

But a man can hope.

“Bettie, let's see first if I can accomplish anything for you. Since I
am
heading to D.C. anyway, there's no harm in me trying. Then we'll talk remuneration.”

That smile dazzled. “Sounds fair, sugah. But either way, when you get back to town? Ah'd like to take you out to dinner. Mah treat. Some real fun spots down in the Village.”

“That's where you live?”

She nodded. “You familiar with that part of town?”

“Somewhat,” I said.

*   *   *

After the televised organized crime hearings made its committee chair a household name, Senator Estes Kefauver seemed a shoo-in for the 1952 Democratic presidential nomination. His New Hampshire primary win shoved sitting President Truman out of the race, with the Tennessee lawmaker going on to win all but three primaries. Campaigning in a coonskin hat and oozing folksiness, Kefauver seemed to have the nod in the bag … until the smoking-room boys chose Adlai Stevenson instead.

There was always 1956, and toward that end the publicity-seeking senator had gone the committee route again, his target this time not crime but juvenile delinquency, which was caused (or so the specious assumption went) by violent TV and movies, comic books, and pornography.

Kefauver's walls in his inner sanctum at the Senate Office Building were as full of framed celebrity photos, awards, proclamations, magazine covers, and newspaper headlines as Joe McCarthy's were vacant. Like McCarthy, however, the senator sat behind a big standard-issue government desk, which was stacked with papers and file folders. In white shirtsleeves, red suspenders, and red-and-white striped tie, this modern-day Ichabod Crane had sharp eyes that lurked behind round-framed tortoiseshell glasses, his beaky nose giving him a hawklike visage.

The busy man did not rise to his full six four, merely stuck his hand out for me to reach across the desk and shake, which I did. I'd been told the senator would only have a few minutes for me, but that was all I'd need. This would work or it wouldn't.

“Nathan,” he said, in an easy, soft-spoken drawl, “it's been some while. I see from the press that your business is flourishing. Coast to coast now. My congratulations. How can I be of help?”

I gave him half a smile with just the right hint of smart-ass in it, and in my tone. “I understand you've moved on from grown-up crime to the juvenile variety.”

A hint of irritation tensed the eyes.

“Our research indicates,” he said with a hint of archness, “that juvenile offenders often grow up to be full-fledged adult lawbreakers.”

I put in more than a hint of archness. “So then you're looking into improving the reform school system, to nip this kind of thing in the bud.”

He leaned back and chuckled. “I think you know what we're looking into.”

I opened my hands, as if showing I had no weapon. “Juvenile delinquency—it's all the rage. But you're going after the root cause—funny books and under-the-counter brown-wrapper smut. And supposedly movies and TV, but Hollywood polices that themselves pretty thoroughly. That's a twin-bed world, and the bullets never make you bleed.”

“Nathan—I made time for you today. Don't make me sorry.”

I sat forward. “Senator, you don't
really
believe you can prove a cause-and-effect relationship between cheap entertainment and juvenile delinquency.”

“It's doubtful,” he admitted, “but we'll listen to the testimony and examine the evidence.”

“You mean a parade of witnesses will come in, experts with their b.s. and scared-shitless publishers and creative types. Some defensive, others apologetic, some both. Along the way, you'll showcase all kinds of racy, tasteless exhibits and you'll be all over the TV again. More power to you.”

He sighed, tossing his glasses on the desk, rubbing the bridge of his nose. “Nathan, I know you're a cynic, and as worldly as they come. You know damn well, as do I, that my crime committee didn't put any gangsters away. But we lifted the rock and showed America the squirmy things down under there. I hope to do the same thing this time around. Expose this trash so popular with youngsters. Warn parents and educators. Juvenile delinquency is just a symptom of a greater weakness in our land, in our whole moral and social fabric.”

“I can wait while you jot that down, Senator. Or is that something you've already committed to memory?”

He might have snarled and thrown me out on my ass; but he knew me too well from when I worked for his crime committee in its Chicago phase.

“What are you here for, Nathan? You want something. Everybody in this town wants something. Like the bartenders say, what's yours?”

I smiled. “First, Senator, I want to remind you that you have made no secret of your distaste and even disgust for Senator McCarthy's tactics. Second, I have a specific request about a constituent of yours on your witness list who you are poised to destroy in the reckless McCarthy manner.”

“I'm listening.”

I told him how Bettie Page, “a good Tennessee gal who makes her living by showing off the nice figure God gave her,” had been hassled by two investigators claiming to represent him. That they had suggested they would help her with her testimony against publisher Irving Klaw in a manner that suggested suborning perjury. Further, that she was a dangerous witness because she had the kind of Southern-fried charm and brains that could backfire on the committee in a public interrogation.

“Remember when Virginia Hill testified? Usually she has the biggest boobs in the room. But going toe-to-toe with you boys, she made bigger boobs out of the lot of you.”

He sighed. “You want this woman—Bettie Page—scratched from the prospective witness list.”

“Yes. Talk to her as a resource if you have to, but don't put her on display where she'll become some kind of grotesque fallen woman for American housewives to rip apart. Also, this guy Klaw has been good to her and she doesn't want to finger him—not that he's broken any laws.”

His eyes and nostrils flared. “You've
seen
the filth he puts out?”

“It's a dumb fantasy where men dominate women and sometimes women dominate men. Whips and ropes and leather union suits and what have you. The national audience for that stuff would fit in this office.”

He put his glasses back on. Sighed again, but smaller. “Okay. I'm somewhat in debt to you, so … okay. Consider her scratched from this race. Anything else, Nathan?”

I grinned. “No, sir. Not unless you can put the fix in for me with the income tax boys.”

He grinned back at me. “Just pay the man, Nathan.”

His phone rang, he answered it, and I was gone from his mind before I'd even cleared the chair.

I had another appointment here in the Senate Office Building.

 

CHAPTER

15

In one of his standard dark blue ready-made suits with a shades-of-blue striped tie just waiting to be stained, Joe McCarthy was hunkered over his mashed potatoes, green beans, meat loaf, and coffee, with apple pie chaser. I was having the same, substituting iced tea for the drink. We were in the Senate Office Building cafeteria, on the basement level, and at just past noon the place was bustling. Strange knowing that all around me were famous people, while the only faces I recognized besides McCarthy's belonged to Senator Taft (a newsreel and front-page frequenter) and Jack Kennedy, who I'd once gotten out of a marital jam.

The cafeteria, which might have been in a school or hospital with its white walls and colored help, and institutional food quality to match, took up several interconnecting rooms. A few luncheon conference meetings were under way where two or three or four of the square Formica-topped wooden tables were pushed together.

The senator and I were at a single such table in a quiet corner, where my host sat with his back to the wall, like an Old West gunfighter. The corner was quiet in the sense that the clatter of dishes and the Babel-like conversations surrounding provided the same kind of eye-of-the-storm privacy to be had at that other cafeteria, the Waldorf.

We chatted socially through the meal, him asking about how my boy Sam was doing, me congratulating him on his recent marriage to Jean Kerr. All very friendly, even frothy. Whenever one of his colleagues walked by, he would beam them a squinty-eyed smile and, whether friend or foe, address them loudly by name; in either case, their response would be a strained smile and polite nod.

Then halfway through the apple pie, I said, “I'm a little surprised your mascot isn't along.”

He knew who I meant.

“I invited Roy,” he said, with that familiar tightening of his mouth that was half smile, half grimace, “but he declined, and sends his regrets.”

“Declined why?”

“Well, he has a full docket right now. Dave Schine, his right-hand man, just got drafted, and we're trying to make arrangements so we don't lose an, uh, valuable asset.”

“Schine—that's the hotel heir? Cohn's book-burning buddy from the European jaunt?”

McCarthy's frown suggested hurt more than displeasure. “That's not fair, Nate.” He sighed heavily. “Frankly, Roy's absence at this lunch meeting of ours has more to do with him being …
embarrassed
 … than anything else. And I assure you the boy doesn't embarrass easily.…
Bob, hello!
… Generally, Roy doesn't seem to care what people think about him. So take it as a compliment.”

“Is that right.”

The big shoulders shrugged as a bite of pie stalled halfway to home. “He only cares what a person thinks of him if he
respects
that person.”

Or needed that person to get ahead.

“Joe, Cohn doesn't like me because he knows I see through him. He's a conniving little shyster.”

The overgrown eyebrows grew together in a frown. “That's overly harsh. He's the smartest boy I ever ran across. I told you before, he's a bit on the excitable side, and can be
rash
at times—”

“Like sending Frank Costello's goons to rough me up.”

His face reddened under and around the blue shadow of his most recent shave. “I talked to Roy about that, as promised. Scolded him severely.…
Jack, how's tricks?
… That's the primary reason he's embarrassed, you ask me. He knows he misjudged you. You came through for us. I could have told him you would.”

And I could have told McCarthy that I considered Roy Cohn the murderer of Ethel Rosenberg. Instead I forked another bite of apple pie.

He read my silence as the accusation of his absent lapdog that it was. “This Rosenberg case isn't over yet, Nate. Not by a long damn shot.”

“Well, they're both dead. That's pretty over.”

He shook his head somberly. “What they set in motion is alive and well. Remember, some months ago, I mentioned an army base in New Jersey we were looking into?”

“Vaguely.”

“Base in question is Fort Monmouth, where Julius Rosenberg worked as a civilian for the Signal Corps … and set up his wartime spy ring—his fellow Commie Sobell was a part of it.…
Bill, how are you doin', pal?
… Two scientists from the base, who took some kind of long-distance powder, were key suspects in the ring. And Roy's investigation has already connected
seventeen
current civilian employees at the base to Rosenberg and Sobell.”

I had another bite of pie, followed by a sip of iced tea.

He was ranting in full nasal speechifying mode now: “We have in our pocket an East German
defector
who has seen fresh information on guided
missile
systems and radar
networks.
This extremely dangerous espionage rocks the very
foundation
of our defense against atomic attack.…
Wayne, sorry I missed that vote! Did fine without me, son!
… This house of
spies
is still in operation and allowed to flourish thanks to the Army's benign
neglect
 … and to subversives within their very ranks.”

“So you're taking the Army on, as promised.”

The heavy eyebrows rose, the sleepy eyelids forcing themselves wider. “The generals have to take responsibility for their actions, like anybody else. Their
inactions,
too.”

“I thought you were gearing up to take on the CIA,” I said, just to goad him.

But he shot right back: “As soon as we're finished with the Army, those birds are next. Actually, that investigation is concurrent and ongoing.…
Mark, you look well, fella!
… If the CIA had done its damn job, this nest of Reds in New Jersey would have been eradicated during the war.”

I could just imagine how much the administration and many of his fellow senators might relish Tail-Gunner Joe traipsing through CIA intelligence files and personnel records.

I raised a palm as if being sworn in. “This isn't anything I want to be involved in.”

“I'm not asking you to. Not … precisely.”

“Well, what are you imprecisely asking, Joe?”

He lips peeled back and his eyes narrowed in a particularly ghastly smile. “You may be sitting there thinking I'm naive to have the gall to imagine I can take on the Central Intelligence Agency. Even
Dick Nixon
has discouraged me, and there are few more vociferous foes of the Commie rats than him. But I say that even the
CIA
is not immune to
inquiry.
Should they be allowed to conduct themselves as they please, under a blanket of
secrecy
?”