By Reason of Insanity (57 page)

“Just make sure you find out what he’s up to.”

“I already know what our young man is up to. I was aware of it almost from the beginning.”

“And when will we get the benefit of your knowledge?” asked the editor-in-chief sarcastically.

Klemp shrugged. “It is quite simple. He is a maverick, a rebel who must always tilt at windmills. He sees a chance to investigate the company and perhaps slay a few dragons, and he cannot resist. He is an idealist, incorruptible and full of moral rectitude. He cannot bend, and so one day a windmill will break his fool neck. Until then he is the most dangerous animal on earth.”

“But can he find this Vincent Mungo?”

“Possibly. He is really very good at what he does.”

“Then he had better do it on his assignments instead of snooping around the company.”

Klemp went to the door. “He’ll probably do both. By the way,” the security head said on the way out, “he asked about the Western Holding Company.”

He didn’t turn around to witness Dunlop’s startled reaction.

ACROSS THE river, in an office of the Board of Health and Vital Statistics, an official copy of Thomas Wayne Brewster’s birth certificate, complete with the raised seal of Jersey City, was being mailed to him at his residence, 654 Bergen Avenue.

Both buildings were in the same mailing zone and the envelope would normally arrive the following day.

JONATHAN STONER had put in three tough days in as many places starting with Kansas City, and he was now in D.C. still working hard. He had a lot of people to meet, big people, and a lot of talking to do. He hoped to hear some big talk in return. That was very important at this stage. He had come a long way, and there were people from the West and Midwest power centers who believed he was going far and were ready to back him. Now the eastern power bloc would look him over but Stoner wasn’t worried. He was riding high and his time was at hand.

He had expected to call on the Vice-President for publicity purposes. To be greeted officially by the Vice-President was a symbol of one’s coming of age in the Washington political arena. But Agnew had resigned earlier in the month, and Gerald Ford of Michigan had not yet been confirmed by Congress. There was no one to greet him.

Roger Tompkins, who was handling the advance work for the tour, did the next best thing and got him invitations to all the good parties during the three days he would be in town. Which suited Stoner just fine since they promised to be the only bright spots in an otherwise endless round of meetings and talks. Even better, a California congressman had promised to fix him up with one of the young girls on the Senate office staff. He was told they all did it like rabbits. A small-game hunter himself, Stoner could hardly wait.

After Washington he would be heading for New York on Tuesday, where he was to appear on a TV news program Wednesday evening and then on
Meet the Press
the following Sunday. It was national exposure of the most vital kind and he fully expected to be a smash. Of course he would say all the right things and conduct himself in a very virile masculine manner. Smart and sexy. How could he fail?

The possibility never seriously entered his mind.

ON SUNDAY night Adam Kenton dreamed that he and Chess Man finally came face-to-face. They were on the Golden Gate Bridge, on the same streetcar coming into San Francisco from Mann County. Only the streetcar somehow ran without rails and had enormous windows, all of them painted black. People constantly walked back and forth in the dingy, crowded aisles. At some point Kenton and Chess Man came together. They immediately recognized each other.

“You!”

“You!”

Accusation was in both voices. Kenton saw Chess Man reach for a weapon and quickly pounced on him. The two men struggled as the streetcar swung wildly out of control and smashed through guard rails until it plummeted from the bridge, falling finally in an endless arc through time and space and black bottomless ether.

When Kenton awakened from his disturbed sleep the strongest impression was of Chess Man’s face, his identity. Kenton had known him right away. It was Otto Klemp.

CAPTAIN BARNEY HOLLIMAN was a good cop and a staunch Republican. When he got the letter from his friend Alex Dimitri in New York he noted with particular interest the part about the
Newstime
reporter who was trying to corner Vincent Mungo before the police. That sounded like interference with police business, or so it seemed to Holliman. Such interference was illegal and could lead to embarrassing consequences for the magazine.

The captain didn’t know the politics of
Newstime
since he wasn’t a reader, but he regarded most of the media as liberal and therefore highly suspect. On that basis he thought he might pass along his item to a friend on the President’s internal security staff.

IN HIS college days in the Midwest Franklin Bush had been an editor of the undergraduate newspaper, and there were those who could still recall the sting of his biting criticism. Anything liberal or flamboyant was sure to draw his ire. After graduation he had turned to politics, working as a legislative aide to several Republican leaders before joining the White House staff in the spring of 1972. Though he didn’t turn out editorials any longer, his writing now confined to reports and recommendations for proposed legislation, he read actively a wide spectrum of the press and was as easily at home with the
Christian Science Monitor
as the
National Review
.

One of his coeditors on the college paper was a young man who became a professional reporter and was now on the staff of the
Washington Post
. Bush saw him once in a while for a few beers and a sandwich even though Pete Allen’s paper almost daily vilified the President. Allen was on the metro desk handling mostly nonpolitical news, and so Bush did not hold him personally responsible for what the Ben Bradlees and Carl Bernsteins and Bob Woodwards were doing to the Nixon government.

At his invitation the two of them met at a bar near the
Post
on Tuesday afternoon. Bush bought the drinks and steered his companion to a dark booth in the back corner. He was so secretive about it that the bartender wondered if the wrong clientele were beginning to frequent his place.

“I need some information,” Bush said when they were settled. “Thought maybe you could help.”

“What’s it all about?” asked Allen.

Bush told him of the report from the Committee to Reelect the President and the possibility that
Newstime
was working up a hatchet job on the President via Caryl Chessman.

“Chessman?” Allen was startled. “That’s a long time ago.”

“Our second year of college when they executed him. I remember you wrote an editorial blasting the state of California for its action. You called it murder and blamed everyone from the governor on up and down. You were really incensed about it.”

“I remember,” said Allen.

“That’s why I came to you, I need to know if there was any connection between Chessman and Nixon other than the fact that he was Vice-President at the time. You know all about Chessman. Can you think of any tie-up that could be used now against the President? Anything at all?”

“Is this for publication?”

“Christ, no, strictly off the record. I’m asking you for a favor, that’s all. I just don’t want to send this kind of thing upstairs unless there’s something to it. He’s got enough troubles.”

“Chessman and Nixon,” Allen said slowly. “Interesting.”

“Must be, for
Newstime
to pull this Adam Kenton out of California to work on it. I hear he’s the best they got.”

Allen gave no sign of having heard the remark and Bush attributed it to professional jealousy.

“What do you think?” he asked quietly. “Any connections?”

“Might be,” said the other nodding his head. “They’re both from the same general area around L.A.”

“So are Mickey Mouse and Charles Manson.”

“Chessman’s full name,” said Allen deep in thought, “was Caryl Whittier Chessman. Named after John Greenleaf Whittier, the poet. Chessman’s father was a direct descendant of Whittier. There’s a town near L.A. that was also named after the poet. And in the town is a college, again with the same name.”

“Whittier College in California,” whispered Bush. “Nixon went there. He was undergraduate president.”

“Exactly.” Allen smiled. “Just a coincidence of course. Now if I remember correctly, the town was once a Quaker settlement and the college a Quaker school. Caryl Chessman’s family was Quaker, going all the way back to Whittier and even before. And Richard Nixon’s people—”

“—were Quakers too.” It was almost a shout.

No one spoke for a long moment.

“Just another coincidence,” Bush finally said, shaking his head.

“Of course. What else could it be?”

“Lots of people went to that college. And there are millions of Quakers.”

“But not all of them get to be Vice-President,” said Allen, staring into his glass. “You remember how long Chessman was on death row?”

“Nine or ten years, wasn’t it?”

“Twelve. He went through seven stays of execution during those years. Each time his lawyers hoped to get the original verdict set aside. They had plenty of good cause too—everything from outright fraud regarding the trial transcript to denial of due process. While all that was going on year after year Chessman saw dozens of confessed killers get commuted to life or even go free. But his turn never came. The state wanted his life, wanted it badly because he had decided to go outfighting. Finally it seemed he had used up all his chances. The execution was set for February 1960.

“That same month the President of the United States, Eisenhower, was due to go to South America on a goodwill and defense-treaty tour. With preparations already made, reports were sent to Washington from a number of South American countries citing the certainty of anti-American demonstrations if Chessman were killed. The word from Uruguay was especially disturbing. Why there instead of Peru or Colombia is another story, but it was serious enough to frighten the striped pants off the State Department. They didn’t know what to do, especially in view of the bad mauling given the Vice-President a few years earlier. You might remember the famous picture of Nixon’s car being shaken by an angry mob, with him still in it. Anyway, communications were suddenly opened between Washington and Sacramento. The next thing anyone knew, Pat Brown had granted Chessman a sixty-day reprieve, his eighth stay of execution but the first time California had done something for him. Eisenhower went to South America and there were no demonstrations. Everybody was happy. Except Chessman. When the sixty days were up Eisenhower was back and Chessman was out. He got the gas and everyone got the message. It had been a political trade-off, sixty days’ grace—allowing the President safe travel—for a promise of noninterference in states’ rights, at least in the matter of one Caryl Chessman. When it was over they pulled the plug. But the thing I most remember was this rumor at the time that the one behind the whole stinking deal was the Vice-President himself, Richard Milhous Nixon.”

Silence seemed to flood the bar as the two men became aware of their own breathing. Each sat stonestill with his thoughts of the political dealing that had gone on during Chessman’s final days. Toward the front the bartender was mixing martinis for a couple of recent arrivals, while several regulars stared moodily into the silvered mirror between the two cash registers.

“Did you ever see any confirmation of this rumor?”

“No, but that doesn’t mean it wasn’t true. I was just a college kid. What did I know?”

“The
Post
might have something on it. Could you check the files for me, on the quiet? Shouldn’t take you long.”

“I suppose so,” said Allen. “But what would it mean now? At the most, it would be embarrassing to Nixon. It’s not like anything illegal was done. That kind of double-dealing goes on all the time in politics, and somebody always gets hurt. You know that.”

Bush shrugged. “I just want to make sure before I send the report upstairs. Do it for me, okay?”

“I’ll let you know what I come up with.”

“Call me at home on this, will you? Not the White House. Too many phones there—have problems.”

Allen looked at him sharply. “You mean the whole White House is bugged?”

“I didn’t say that.” Bush was flustered. “Just call me at home. Okay?”

“Sure, sure. No problem,” said Allen, suddenly thoughiful.

“Much appreciated.” Bush got up from the booth. “I’ll do the same for you sometime.”

“You bet you will,” the
Washington Post
reporter murmured to himself as he followed the White House staff member out the door.

WHILE BISHOP was busily dissecting his fourth New York victim, the third not yet having been discovered, Adam Kenton conducted a long phone conversation with Amos Finch in Berkeley. Wednesday was an early class day for Finch, and Kenton caught him already back home by 1:30 P.M. California time. The
Newstime
investigator introduced himself and mentioned that he was doing a cover story on Vincent Mungo. Reliable sources had told him that Dr. Finch, an eminent criminologist, did not believe Mungo was the maniacal killer. Neither did he.

Would Finch comment on his belief?

Finch would and did, at great length. It was obvious to him that a clod like Vincent Mungo could not commit such a brilliant series of crimes. What was being seen was nothing less than the work of a classic mass murderer, in the very best tradition of Jack Ripper and Bruno Lüdke. Certainly the outstanding example in recent American history and perhaps eventually of the twentieth century. One who apparently began his public life about the time of Mungo’s escape. Perhaps he killed Mungo or the man simply disappeared of his own volition or even died accidentally.

Finch mentioned John Spanner’s theory, now discarded, that Mungo’s partner on the night of the escape was the one they sought. His name was Thomas Bishop.

Bishop? Wasn’t he dead?

Killed by Mungo during the escape. Spanner had once believed it was the other way around. Finch explained the circumcision angle and how it had failed to support the theory. Which left them with no clue to the maniac’s identity.