Permanent Interests (19 page)

We both have to fight the media as well. I think you'll agree with me that they constitute a serious menace to our respective work."

Al had become more relaxed. He sat back taking in every word of Dennison's homily. The Secretary spoke the same language as Al. Indeed, they were both purveyors of power who used their power to safeguard essential interests.

"And sometimes we do what we've gotta do to make sure things go in the right direction," Al offered. "Just like 162 JAMES

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Uncle Sam went after Castro. We went after Joey Gallo.

Bad apples."

"Exactly."

"Who

are

you

after?"

Dennison leaned back and took a deep breath. "You read the
Washington Post
?"

"'Fraid not, Roy. But I watch CNN and the networks.

And my pals are all talking about these stories about our late friend Mortimer. About his ties to 'organized crime figures' and to your boss too."

"You're quick, Al. And very perceptive. How'd you like an ambassadorship to a nice place?"

Al snickered at this tongue-in-cheek suggestion. "Hey.

God knows I'm paying you enough. I deserve a nice job like that after all I've been through. Naw. Money's no good and I got no patience for the government."

Dennison laughed. "See? You
are
a smart fellow."

There was a light tap on the door. Bags entered briefly to deliver two cups of foamy cappuccino and then departed.

"But you've got the picture. This guy, Toby Wheeler, keeps digging deeper and deeper. He's good at what he does. Eventually, somebody's going to talk. He'll stitch pieces together and be able to blow the lid off things. Then the Congressional committees will kick in. Next thing you know, we're dead meat. And you and I can swap jokes in jail."

"Let me get this straight, Roy. For today's take, I give you two-hundred grand. But for the UN vote, you don't want any money. You want a favor."

"That's

correct."

"Just like when we took care of Mortimer."

Dennison became flustered. "No! Not 'just like'

Mortimer. You know I didn't condone what happened to him! That was wrong. Just plain wrong!"

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"I admit things got out of hand. I didn't want it to happen that way either. But the people I contracted it out to, they got carried away. I've straightened them out. Don't worry. But you, Mr. Secretary, gave the nod."

In a carefully modulated voice, Dennison said,

"Mortimer had to be removed from the picture. I couldn't fire him. He was getting loony. All of a sudden, finding religion. Said he lived a 'sinful life' too long. Needed to change and all that crap."

"That's no reason to grease a guy."

Dennison was making an effort to stay calm. He stirred his cappuccino languidly, staring at the cup, pondering his next words.

"Mortimer was planning to change parties. And put his considerable fund-raising and campaigning talents to use for the opposition."

"Christ. Do you guys play hardball, or what?"

"There's more. Having found God, the son of a bitch was going to tell the press everything about how we do things. 'Bring down this administration,' he said. Reveal all the details about all the less-than-kosher ways we obtain and channel funds. About our links with crime figures.

Including you, Al. I told you that then. Don't start getting amnesia on me. Jesus, he actually told me that he was going to write a book about it. And donate the royalties to the Nebekhenezar Church of Salvation. What would you have done in my shoes? Shit, Al, you had your own reasons for wanting the guy out of the way."

Al contemplated Dennison carefully. He had this man in his palm. He could make him do anything he wanted to.

But his stomach churned queasily. Who said government was a license to steal? Also to kill. The Ollie Norths and John Ehrlichmans were boy scouts. Mere patsies and chumps set up for a fall. Dennison and his cohorts might 164 JAMES

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also stumble and be exposed one day. But chances were better than even they wouldn't be. History had found out only a fraction of the nefarious deeds of our leaders.

Politics was just another racket and the government just another gang to deal with.

"Yeah. Mortimer had to go all right. No argument there. Who's next?"

"This Toby Wheeler fellow…"

Al leaned forward on the table suddenly, his fists clenched, eyes wide and defiant.

"Look, Mr. Secretary. Roy. Contrary to what you read in the magazines and see in the movies, we, and certainly I, am not Murder Incorporated. When we go after a guy, he's either a traitor or a rival who's declared war on us. Just like how the government does it. What we don't do is go after any swinging dick and knock him off just because he's saying nasty things about someone else!"

Al paused and, with a low voice, added, "And we don't do Uncle Sam's dirty work either."

The air in the little room seemed dense, as if the molecules were converging at the speed of light and the accumulated pressure would explode the atmosphere.

Finally Dennison stirred. He appeared intimidated and weakened. In a barely audible voice, he said, "I only want him hurt. Put out of action."

"So, I see. You want the guy alive, but not functioning.

Is that it?"

Dennison nodded mechanically.

"So, then, what else is there in it for me?"

"Self-preservation, my friend. Same as me. If we don't act, we each face destruction."

Al untensed. "Yeah. You're right. You don't need an Ivy League education to figure that one out." Al shifted gears. "Let me ask you one question."

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165

Dennison

nodded.

"You're a rich guy. Very rich, I would guess. You come from a nice, old family. Am I right?"

Dennison nodded again.

"Why would a guy like you be on the take for cash?

You don't need it. How much richer do you need to get?"

Dennison shook his head. "Al, I'm not 'on the take.'

You don't get it, do you? This cash that exchanges hands from you to me doesn't stay with me. I don't keep it."

Al looked at him quizzically.

"The campaign season begins, next year is an election year, remember? Congress has tied our hands on campaign funding over the years to such an extent that they have undermined the Constitution's intent for free and fair elections. You don't think the other party isn't up to its own shenanigans? We know they are. So, we have to counter that with our own measures. You're naive if you think that fifty million conscientious citizens marking the box on their tax return for a three-dollar contribution to the election fund is going to make everything democratic and peachy.

This is not Plato's Republic, Al. It's America."

A smile of comprehension forced itself onto Al's face.

As Dennison was preparing to leave, Al called out, "One last question, Roy. After Wheeler, then who?"

"One thing at a time, Al. One thing at a time."

The U.S. Secretary of State ventured back out into the cold, busy streets of Astoria.

166 JAMES

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CHAPTER FOURTEEN

The government always takes crackpots seriously. It has to. They pay taxes too. And the system is set up in such a way that the taxpayer is always right. This is especially so in the area of government information. Armies of graying, semiretired bureaucrats are paid millions to pore over yellowing files on everything from U.S. diplomacy during the Russo-Japanese War to CIA plans to kill Fidel Castro.

Armed with black pens, they excise anything deemed to be potentially damaging to living sources or posing a threat to U.S. national security. Millions of man-hours are spent on this process at costs that would have drained the exchequers of previous empires.

"I, Mrs. Thelma Tucker, of no. 2 Sacajawea Lane, Austerlitz, North Carolina, request all the documents that our goverment (sic) has on US-Isreal (sic) relations, including all secret treaties to help the Jews take over the Holy Land. Thank you and the Lord Bless You." Bob Innes pressed the heels of his hands into his brow, rubbing his sore eyes to increase the blood flow. He had been in the Freedom of Information Affairs, or "FOIA," office for three weeks and it was taking its toll on him. Bureaucratic Siberia will do that to a person and this particular gulag PERMANENT INTERESTS

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was pretty much as bad as it got. He faced the immediate prospect of forwarding Mrs. Tucker's request to the overworked people in the office of Arab-Israeli affairs. As they rode herd on a volatile Middle East, monitored terrorist attacks in Gaza, sought to cool tempers of mutually mistrustful Israeli and Palestinian leaders, fought interagency policy turf wars, and contrived yet more ways of getting the Saudis, West Europeans and Japanese to cough up yet more cash for aid programs, the small, elite corps of Middle East specialists would have to find time to examine hundreds of aging documents for the reading pleasure of Mrs. Tucker.

Thelma Tucker was too much this day. Innes needed to escape. He and Colleen met for an early lunch at Mama's Soul, on New York Ave.

"Bob, you don't look good. You're pale and easily distracted. When was the last time you got a haircut?"

"Hey, lay off." Innes's face was directed downward at a mound of French fries, which he ate one at a time with his fingers.

"Please don't talk to me like that. I love you. I care about you. I just want to help you. You know that."

Innes grunted. He undistractedly munched more fries.

Colleen put her hand on his. "Oh, Bob. I worry about you. Whatever happens, please don't let it affect us."

He slowly turned his face toward hers. "This isn't like I was passed over for promotion, or my car died, or I have a toothache. It's much more than that. My life is being scrambled and turned upside down. It affects everything."

"We'll fight it. Together. With lawyers, if that's what it takes."

Innes looked at her with lifeless eyes. "They're out to ruin my life, Colleen. And they're clever about it. I can sue. It'll take years and money that I don't have. In the 168 JAMES

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end, it'll all be a muddle, I'll have been ruined and bankrupt and my so-called career will go from being a bad joke to living hell. It already has."

"Then leave. Quit. Do something else while you're still young enough!"

His brow furrowed as his fingers held one fat fry between his front teeth.

"No." Innes looked as if he were lost in a trance.

"What do you mean, 'no'? Hello-o, Bob? Are you there, Bob?" She waved a hand in front of his face.

"No. I'm going to fight them. They can't get away with it."

Colleen looked at Innes worriedly. "Bob? Are you okay? What are you thinking of, Bob? Please, nothing dangerous. Maybe you should seek help. From a shrink."

She rubbed the back of his neck.

Life returned to his eyes. "What? No, Colleen. I'm not fantasizing about bringing a chain saw to work and ripping the lunch line to pieces or anything like that."

She looked anxious. "Yeah? Okay. What
are
you thinking of?" she asked hesitantly, almost afraid to know.

"Why am I in this mess now? Christ. Only the public library isn't after me. Yet. My memo. They, whoever

'they' are, see me as a threat. I got too close to the truth on the Mortimer investigation. 'They' don't want it resolved.

There's something terribly putrid in all of this."

"You think there's a cover-up?"

Innes pushed his plate away. He blinked impatiently.

His brain was in overdrive.

"Remember when we were in Rome? You said that the administration might not want Mortimer's murder resolved.

It's an election year and the last thing a weak administration needs is a sordid scandal involving a darling party hack."

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"And Bernie Scher's chasing his tail. Then your memo gets leaked."

"And that's when the roof falls in on me. There's something about Mortimer that some very powerful people want to keep very secret. And it can't just be his libidinous activities in Rome, or the fact that he was useless as an ambassador. Those things were hardly secret."

A pre-adolescent black boy entered the restaurant and boldly commenced to hawk a variety of newspapers to the clientele. Several were the
Globe
, one of the tawdrier tabloids normally sold in vending boxes -- now empty -- in the neighborhood.

"Slasher cuts women's hearts out! Hey, read all about it, mister. Slasher be on the loose! Know how to protect yo'

lady, mister. How 'bout it, man?"

Innes looked as though he'd been struck by lightning.

He yanked a buck from his pocket and gave it to the kid in return for a paper.

"Bob! You really are out of your mind, aren't you?"

Colleen scolded.

Innes eagerly devoured the front-page story about a slasher who maimed women. He then put the paper down and appeared lost in thought.

Colleen got up and grabbed Innes's arm. "Come on, my dear! We're going to see a doctor, now!"

Innes broke her grasp. "Hey! I'm fine. Really," he protested. He grabbed her forearms and held them as he looked at her eye-to-eye.

"Look how Mortimer was killed," he said.

"More like obliterated. Cut to ribbons and then some."

Colleen shuddered.

"Late last year three Teamster guys were killed the same way in New York."

"Bob, that's par for the course in New York."

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"And then a few weeks ago, a Russian SVR guy -- their spy agency -- was also murdered, in Turkey. They could barely recognize him, so badly was his body mutilated."

Colleen's raised eyebrows punctuated a questioning look on her face.

"Don't you see? Two diplomats are cut up, one American, one Russian. Three mob-connected Teamsters are also cut up. And each case is a mystery. No leads. No suspects. No motivations. There's a pattern. I don't know it fully, but a pattern emerges. And somebody's afraid I'm getting too close to discovering it."