By Reason of Insanity (60 page)

“In the future, Bush, in the future do you think you could restrain yourself from such close contact with the enemy?” His voice rose dangerously. “Just so we in the White House could feel comfortable around you? After all, a man is known by the company he keeps. You and this—this
reporter
,” he shouted, “are making us feel very uncomfortable. Do you understand?”

Franklin Bush blew.

“Are you asking me to end a fifteen-year friendship with Pete Allen?” he screamed.

“That’s
exactly
what I’m asking,” Gardner screamed back. “The relationship is
unhealthy
. End it!”

The two men stared each other down, the eyes fierce.

Neither spoke for a long moment. Outside, the sprinklers revolved on the lawn, guards patrolled, tourists gaped. In other parts of the White House men sought to make their work winnings larger or their losses less as each went about justifying his job should a superior summon him to task.

Then, finally, Bush, his eyes glossing over: “I don’t think Pete is as bad as most of the reporters I’ve met,” he said softly, “but I can see what you mean about the enemy and how it looks. From now on”— he sighed—”from now on I won’t ask him for help or give him any or talk about business with him at all.”

“Or even be seen publicly with him.”

“Or be seen publicly with him,” he repeated in defeat.

“Then we have nothing more to discuss,” said Dean Gardner picking up some papers from his desk. “I will handle this matter of the Chessman story. You need not concern yourself further.”

Bush nodded glumly and hurried out of the office. Being himself a veteran of the political wars, though certainly not as battle-hardened as the older officer whose quite magnificent quarters he had just left with his tail between his legs, he had no illusions that his little error in judgment would soon be forgotten. He knew of too many instances in which political mistakes had returned to haunt their owners. Still, he had extricated himself as best he could and with the least possible damage. It could’ve been much worse—his stupid anger flaring up like that. He lived well and had some power and prestige. And he had almost thrown it all away over a dumb friendship. Christ! Maybe he was getting senile at thirty-three. Some bright young man he was! Who cared about reporters? They were all sons of bitches anyway.

For his own part, Dean Gardner had no intention of forgetting the incident. It was to be lodged in his memory like a stone, ready to be hurled should the need arise. And, of course, a memo from the office tape for the files. Meanwhile there was more pressing business. The Agnew resignation aftermath, the GOP fund-raising scandal, the mess over the White House tapes. A dozen things like that, all coming at once.

He frowned at the papers in his hand. Caryl Chessman wasn’t going to hurt the President. The lower-echelon staff people just didn’t have the whole picture.
Newstime
was digging Chessman up as part of a story on Vincent Mungo, which was itself probably a cover for what they were really after. He reached for the other report on his desk. It came from a member of the internal security staff, who in turn had received the information from a Washington police captain. Apparently Newstime was trying to capture Vincent Mungo by themselves, trying to pull off the story of the year. Which could lead to charges of interference in police business and, even more important, manipulating the news. Now
that
was something the administration could use. It was just what Nixon and Agnew had been saying all along. The media manipulated the news to suit themselves. If they did it in a simple thing like the search for a maniac, God only knows how far they went in political news where it really mattered. Something had to be done to stop them, or at least to curtail their power.

It might also serve to take the spotlight off the White House.

But could it be proved? What if the magazine was just digging up a little more dirt on Nixon? Or really doing a story on Mungo? True or not, maybe he could manipulate it somehow to do the most damage where it counted. He would check it out with the President just to make sure. Might be a good opportunity.

“Maybe we can get their tapes,” he mumbled as he pressed the button for his secretary.

“BUT WE already know they taped the White House phones,” said the section chief to one of the editors at the
Washington Post
. “What else do you think Pete can come up with?”

“We know they taped some of the phones and office meetings, like Nixon’s. But suppose it’s even more extensive than we realize? Get Allen to see what he can find out from this guy.”

AT A few minutes past noon the President returned to the White House from a meeting with his foreign policy economic advisers. Dean Gardner was waiting for him.

Gardner was one of the three or four men who could get in to see the Chief Executive almost at will. He exercised the privilege as often as he deemed necessary, usually when there was trouble. In recent months he had been exercising it more and more.

On this occasion he had several worrisome areas to bring up, some suggestions to make, and a few items of possible cheer to relate. One of these was the
Newstime
interest in Vincent Mungo. Perhaps something could be made of it.

At 12:20 the phone in the outer office rang. He waited for the buzzer, then picked up the receiver.

“Mr. Ramsey for you.”

“Put him on.” Pause. “Jack? … Yes, I’m coming over now. Be right there.”

He left his office, on the way telling the male secretary that he would be with the President. When he returned he wanted to talk to Gould in the Justice Department and then to the Attorney General. In that order if possible.

In the hallway he made a left and hurried to the stairs. As always, the corridors were empty, those on business preferring not to linger between their destinations. From the walls portrait faces gazed in fixed expression. Lights shone everywhere, illuminating each square inch of surface.

He climbed the wide staircase quickly and took a right turn at the top. In a moment he was being ushered into a room by a security man who held open the door. Jack Ramsey, the appointments secretary, looked up from his desk.

“Try not to be more than ten minutes, Bob. He’s got a one o’clock meeting of the Budget Council.” He smiled professionally. “We’re running a bit late.”

“Like always,” said the visitor pleasantly.

“Always,” Ramsey agreed. “Go right in. He’s expecting you.”

Dean Gardner strode briskly across the room to a pair of huge ornate doors. He knocked twice before entering the Oval Office.

“Mr. President.”

AT PRECISELY that time in Fresno, California, Don Solis placed a call to San Diego. He was in his room in the ancient hotel, and the number had to be routed through the hotel switchboard. After making the connection the desk clerk wrote down the number because it meant money to him. He was being paid to note all phone calls to or from the occupant in 412.

In Sacramento a young woman tried to call New York City but all the circuits were busy. She decided to do some quick shopping and try again in an hour.

And in Kansas a funeral director with long thin fingers dialed Los Angeles for the hundredth time in recent weeks. He knew the number from memory.

IT WAS almost twenty minutes before Dean Gardner finally got to the small matter of the
Newstime
article. He briefly explained the report from the Committee to Reelect the President which had come to him through Franklin Bush, and the memo from the Washington police captain to a member of the internal security team. If his guess was correct, the magazine might be guilty of withholding information from the police in a murder investigation. Maybe even of aiding a criminal in flight to avoid prosecution, which was itself a Federal crime.

“But the best part is that they might be open to a charge of manipulating the news,” said the senior presidential aide.

The President stopped drumming on his desk.
Newstime
had turned against him, spewing out garbage every week about his administration. They had become part of the superslick liberal press. Traitors all around him! He turned to his left.

“Bob.”

“Mr. President?”

“Find a way we can get the bastards right now.
Right now!
”

IN THE
Newstime
building in New York, Adam Kenton was just leaving for a lunch date. It had been a most productive morning and as he got into a cab at 47th and Sixth Avenue, he wished they could all be like that.

In the space of three hours he had learned more than he cared to know about the Rincan Development Corporation, as well as something about one of Vincent Mungo’s few institutional friends which seemed strange indeed. He intended to look into it further. In addition, he had been given the first twenty-two eligible mail-drop names, all young white men, all possibilities. A dozen detectives were still checking out the original list of recent Manhattan clients, compiled the previous Friday. There were hundreds.

He had immediately sent the names up to Mel Brown to see if one of them matched any of his lists.

Then just before noon a call from Inspector Dimitri. The police had widened their net but found nothing so far. Did Kenton have anything yet?

Since it didn’t matter any longer, he told Dimitri about Carl Pandel. Private detectives had been watching him round the clock for more than a week on a hunch that he might be the maniac. The suspicion was grounded in certain facts that had come to Kenton’s attention while following his magazine story, but was not strong enough to warrant police involvement. When the Third Avenue whore’s body was found late Wednesday night, that let Pandel off the hook. He had been watched continuously and hadn’t been downtown the entire week. No possibility of mistake. He was clear.

What were the facts that had led Kenton to suspect Pandel?

He would rather not say. It was all academic now anyway, and he told it only as a gesture of good faith so Dimitri would reciprocate should the occasion arise.

Dimitri promised he would and Kenton believed him. The police needed all the help they could get. So that too had been a positive part of the morning, even though the Pandel angle hadn’t worked out.

In the taxi he reviewed George Homer’s findings on the Rincan Development Corporation. It was a multimillion-dollar real estate investment company with large land holdings in Washington, Idaho and northern California. Capitalization was adequate and the directors were seemingly above reproach. The firm mainly concentrated on land with valuable mineral rights and lumber holdings. By some complex legal machinery it also was involved with leasing for exploration and buy-back arrangements. Senator Stoner had apparently acquired his land on such terms, which made it doubly desirable should exploration proceed satisfactorily and all options be exercised. Evidently both California and Idaho were close to allowing development.

Through a series of interlocking companies, the real estate outfit had access to related interests from construction to lumber mills, with all of them operating under an umbrella organization based in Boise, Idaho.

Two facts surprised Kenton and bothered him too. The parent combine that had spawned the half dozen separate firms was called the Western Holding Company. And the man who headed it up was named Carl Pandel.

He had told Homer not to go any further with that line of investigation. It was too close to home; no use getting him in trouble with the magazine. Kenton would look into it himself.

After lunch he made a call from a public phone. If he was being followed, then his office phones were surely tapped as well. Which didn’t really bother him that much since he was doing nothing beyond the company’s scope. Except for a few calls here and there, such as the one he was now making. He wanted full information on a Carl Pandel of Boise, Idaho, who headed the Western Holding Company. The usual double price on anyone outside the New York area would be all right. Yes. Delivered to the St. Moritz over the weekend. No office calls accepted. Repeat: no office calls. He hung up.

Two messages awaited him. John Perrone and a Miss Kind from Sacramento. He rang Perrone first.

“John?”

“Everything okay?”

“Far as I know. Why?”

“I’m getting pressure from upstairs. Dunlop and Otto Klemp both. Anything I should know?”

“Just that I’m being followed and my phones are tapped.”

“Who?”

“Inside.”

Perrone hit the ceiling. He’d get back to Kenton.

After a quick cigarette Kenton went into the empty office next to his and called Stoner’s former mistress in Sacramento. She just happened to find one tape of the senator talking—informally. She had made it merely for a keepsake of him. There were no others, of course. On it he did say some rather interesting things, but she would be willing to part with her only keepsake if it could be of value to somebody.

“How much value?”

“Twenty thousand dollars.”

He told her nothing was that valuable. The most he could do was five.

She couldn’t let it go for less than fifteen.

He might be able to dig up ten if it was mostly political and money talk; he wasn’t interested in sex. And of course he’d have to hear it first.

She let him listen to a few minutes of the tape over the phone, enough to satisfy him. If he wanted it all—one hour’s worth—it would cost him ten thousand in cash. Delivered in her hand.

Kenton knew the tape would enable him to do the right kind of story on Stoner. Just as the
Washington Post
was uncovering the Nixon illegalities, he would uncover those of the California senator.

Something else he could tell from his listening. It was a compilation from a lot of tapes. What she obviously had done was to take the most damaging sections from different tapes and run them on one reel. That meant she had a buyer for all the tapes, undoubtedly the senator himself It also meant she had only the one reel left, as she said. But a very valuable one. Smart girl.

He took down her address. If he flew there the next day he could hop down to Los Angeles to see Ding and the others and be back at work on Monday, with no one in New York the wiser.