Permanent Interests (2 page)

question. He was fed up with low-paying, bureaucracy-freighted government work. Wentworth wanted change.

He wanted to work in a big city. He wanted a challenging job with room to exercise initiative and make improvements.

Al wanted to meet Wentworth. He felt instinctively that he had found his man. One last question. "I notice that your middle name is Taliaferro. Do you by any chance have Italian blood in your family?"

"Oh, well, sir. That comes from my mother's side. You see, her great, great granddad was Gen. W.B. Taliaferro.

He was a distinguished Confederate commander during the Civil War."

"Oh," Al said, "Way back."

"Yes, sir, way back."

Al flew the young man up for a personal interview at the gray, lusterless, yet functional office at his construction company in a Teaneck industrial park.

"You gotta understand. Doing business here in New York…New Jersey…is cutthroat. Especially the construction business. There's always more bidders than contracts. And it's the guy who's there firstest with the mostest that gets ahead. The slow-pokes, the dummies, they fall by the wayside like pins in a bowling alley. This is what a businessman faces here, you follow me?"

Wentworth nodded assent with a bemused smile. He hadn't been instructed in such a patronizing manner since high school.

Al began plodding mechanically back and forth like one of the bulldozers featured on calendars dotting the colorless office walls.

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"Besides the competition, you got all kinds of rules: Federal -- all that environmental crap. You know, if it wasn't for those goddamn hippies in the '60's and those flaming-ass liberals in Congress, we wouldn't have to put up with all this shit today. I always said that George Wallace was right. We should've put those goddamn protesters in jail. That would've given them something to think about…"

Al could see Wentworth beginning to fidget and stare out the window at the bleak office-scape dotted with single-story block buildings housing enterprises with names like Coralsco Heating Co., North Jersey Electrical Supplies, Inc., Dutch Boy Wire & Tubing.

"But that was before your time, huh, Mr. Wentworth?"

"Chuckie, my friends all call me Chuckie."

"Good, I like that. We're all on a first-name basis here.

Call me Al. Where was I, anyway?"

"Rules and regulations," Wentworth replied.

"Oh yeah. You also got your state and city governments to deal with. Some rules are okay, but most are on the books to screw the honest businessman. They all want their pound of flesh. But the worst bastards are the unions.

Just like you got heaven and hell, angels and devils, you got businessmen and unionists."

Al's large face flushed, his neck arteries pulsed as he picked up speed in pacing the room and decrying the injustice in the business world. Obviously, this was a sensitive topic for the boss and Wentworth focused on his every word.

"Businessmen -- actual angels I admit we aren't. But we create wealth for the nation and jobs for the people. And that's the American way!" Al swung around on his heels and directed a stubby finger at the young man's face to drive home his point.

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"The union devils, on the other hand, suck the blood out of free enterprise. And they sap the spirit out of the working man. I'll tell you something about myself. When I was sixteen, my uncle got me a union job in construction. I couldn't believe what I saw. You had one guy who would only screw in light bulbs. Another guy would install wire, but wasn't allowed to connect it to a light socket…not in his

'job description.' I swear, if the first guy saw a beam about to fall on the head of the second guy, he wouldn't lift a finger. Union rules would prohibit it. Not his job!"

Al's earthy manner and overblown descriptions reminded Wentworth of the good ol' boys back in Spartanburg -- minus the quick Brooklyn clip and Italian cadence that underlay Al's speech.

"Here I had this cushy union job. I was making good money, good benefits and none the worse for wear either.

Whether I busted my ass or merely showed up to work and went into a coma, I got paid. Hey, can't beat that right?

Got it made for life, right? So what'd I do? I quit. It was crazy! This is what communism must be like, I thought."

Wentworth was struck by Al's passionate commitment to his principles. His delivery blocked out everything in the listener's mind but the issue at hand. The young man felt that he was witnessing the performance of a great actor, a Brando, or a DeNiro.

"So, I decide to go into business for myself. I'll keep the unions out and make more dough doing better work faster.

I start small: landscaping, building repairs, that sort of thing. Just me and some buddies. Mac McNamara was one of them -- Al-Mac Construction, get it? -- he's gone now but his niece works here. She's the cute dish who arranged this interview. I'll introduce you. In any case, we grew and grew and kept the troublemakers in the unions 12 JAMES

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out. And we got contracts, including from the government."

"But how did you actually pull it off, what with the power the big unions wield, not to mention the bigger established competitors and all the government red tape you mentioned earlier?" Wentworth wanted to know.

Big Al's big brown eyes flitted suspiciously from wall-to-wall as he fell uncharacteristically silent. "Next chapter, Chuckie," he declared as he slapped the young man on the back and gestured toward the open door. "Let me buy you a cup of coffee and then I'll introduce you around."

Chuckie Wentworth and his boss made the rounds.

Gruff, broken-nosed job foremen, urbane smooth-talking accountants, simple laborers, thirtyish divorcée secretaries who cast lascivious glances at Wentworth's behind. While such people were all to be found in South Carolina as well, these were different. Tougher, blunter, shrewder, pushier.

And he found no comparison with government people either, the latter generally ranging from sycophantically ambitious to smarmily officious.

Al tasked Wentworth first with revamping the security guards. Too much equipment and stuff disappearing from warehouses and job sites. Next, look into procurement methods. Seems we're paying higher prices than we should be for supplies. After that, payroll. Does everybody on the books really show up for work?

Wentworth plunged into his work. He uncovered a scam in the guard force: they were ripping off supplies and selling them. Big Al fired the guard force. Wentworth drew on his embassy experience in contracting for a new force with an aggressive, up-and-coming firm. Wentworth personally scrutinized the background of each guard.

Contract terms called for regular training of the guards and recertification. The company was indeed overpaying for PERMANENT INTERESTS

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everything from paper towels to axle grease. Fire the company purchaser, Al ordered, and an accountant while we're at it. Sure enough, payroll and personnel didn't jibe.

Make it jibe by firing the goddamn goldbrickers and their foremen, commanded Big Al.

In their place, Wentworth recruited ex-military NCOs and enlisted men. "Great job, Chuckie, here's two grand as a bonus. Spend it all on broads and a good time."

Wentworth was pleased with his new job and the turn his life was taking. True, his greatest youthful ambition had never been to live in or around New York City. He shared the same biases many rural Americans, northerners and southerners alike, have against New Yorkers. Indeed, they were brash, pushy, shifty. But the more he got to know them, the more he felt kindred to them. Folks back home were more solicitous, mannerly. Yet they spat when telling a good raunchy joke just like New Yorkers did. And once a New Yorker took a liking to you, you had a friend for life; not so different from southerners once you got down to it. He began to realize that most differences were superficial. It was a matter of adjusting to dialect, body language, and temperament.

His thoughts about Al were at once warm and perplexed.

The boss was a big-hearted bear of a man, yet, like a bear, potentially dangerous, Wentworth felt. He was a tempestuous and emotional man; almost like an overindulged child. Thus far, Wentworth only saw his good side. He wondered about the bad, the flip side of character that we all possess in varying intensity. It also struck him that Al may have many things to hide. For example, Wentworth knew next to nothing of his boss's personal life. Was he involved with someone? Did he have kids? Mother? Father? And the way the older man would suddenly screech to a halt when discussing certain 14 JAMES

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subjects that aroused Wentworth's curiosity. Finally, the way he just thrust a two thousand dollar bonus on his new minion after a mere two weeks on the job floored the young man. That was almost a month's net take-home pay when he was working for the government. Working for the government was like Al's description of how it was to work under a union: whether you busted your ass or merely showed up for work comatose, you got paid all the same.

Wentworth liked the private sector.

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CHAPTER TWO

CONFIDENTIAL

TO: SECSTATE NIACT IMMEDIATE

FROM: AMEMBASSY ROME

FOR THE SECRETARY

DEPT PLEASE PASS WHITE HOUSE

SUBJECT: AMBASSADOR MORTIMER MURDERED

REF: BALDWIN-CROFT TELCON 5/21

1. CONFIDENTIAL - ENTIRE TEXT.

2. ROME MUNICIPAL POLICE INFORMED THE

EMBASSY AT 0545 TODAY THAT AMBASSADOR

ROLAND MORTIMER'S BODY WAS FOUND IN AN

ALLEYWAY OFF THE VIA VENETO. POLICE

REPORT THAT THE AMBASSADOR BLED TO

DEATH AS A RESULT OF A DEEP GASH ACROSS

HIS THROAT. BODY WAS MUTILATED. NO

SUSPECTS HAVE YET BEEN APPREHENDED.

ROBBERY IS APPARENTLY NOT A MOTIVE SINCE

THE AMBASSADOR'S MONEY, WRISTWATCH, ID, ETC. WERE NOT TAKEN. NO TERRORIST GROUP

HAS CLAIMED RESPONSIBILITY. AMBASSADOR

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WAS NOT -- REPEAT NOT -- WITH SECURITY

DETAIL.

3. BODY CURRENTLY AT POLICLINICO UMBERTO

I HOSPITAL. AS OF 0700 LOCAL, WE HAVE

RECEIVED NO -- REPEAT NO -- PRESS QUERIES, BUT EXPECT NEWS WILL BREAK ANY MOMENT.

4. DCM HAS NOTIFIED MRS. MORTIMER HERE.

RECOMMEND DEPARTMENT CONTACT FAMILY

MEMBERS IN CLEVELAND ASAP.

5. MINISTER OF INTERIOR AMBROLINI HAS

INFORMED DCM IN TELCON THAT HE WILL

PERSONALLY LEAD THE INVESTIGATION. DCM

WILL MEET WITH AMBROLINI AT 0730.

6. WILL REPORT FURTHER DETAILS AS THEY

BECOME AVAILABLE.

BALDWIN

As senior watch officer in the State Department's 24-hour Operations Center, Bob Innes had acquired a finely-tuned sense of what constituted news important enough to bring to the immediate attention of the Secretary of State or, in this case, to wreck his sleep at quarter-to-two in the morning.

Innes had been sitting at his work station waiting for Rome's tragic message to flash on his screen. He had already been informed of the news by Robin Croft, a junior watch officer working the night shift. She had received the PERMANENT INTERESTS

17

call about the ambassador's murder from Joe Baldwin, the Deputy Chief of Mission, now Chargé d’Affaires.

Innes didn't mind phoning the Secretary in the middle of the night -- even to bear bad news -- so much as having to deal with the boss's overprotective and scatter-brained wife.

"Hello, Mrs. Dennison? This is Bob Innes at the Ops Center. I'm terribly sorry to disturb you at this hour but I'm afraid that something has come up that Mr. Dennison really should know about right away.

"Yes, I know this is the second time this week that we've had to disturb the Secretary after hours…. No, it isn't the Middle East again…. Uh, no. I'm afraid that you won't be able to help me on this one…. Well, if we do wait till morning, I'm afraid the press might get wind that the Secretary of State was caught with his pants down on a very important matter."

The one sure way of getting past Mrs. Dennison, Innes had learned, was to imply that public embarrassment would come to her husband if he were not told immediately of a late-breaking development. He stifled a smirk at the thought that Secretary Dennison indeed may literally have his pants down.

Innes gave the Secretary a concise readout on the murder.

"This is tragic. Just tragic…" Secretary Dennison said in his patrician New England voice, barely thickened by the vestiges of sleep. "Was anyone with the ambassador?" he added quickly.

"Apparently

not."

"What about his security detail? Where were they?"

Innes hesitated. "It seems that the ambassador gave them the slip."

"Gave them the slip?!"

"Er, yes. He had a habit of doing so."

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Innes heard an extended sigh from the other end of the line. He pictured Dennison sitting on the edge of his bed, rubbing his brow in despair.

"All right. I'll want a full briefing first thing in the morning. Tell whoever is running things over there at this hour that I will personally handle this with the White House. Got me?"

"Yes, Mr. Secretary."

"One other thing."

Innes readied pen and paper as he cradled the receiver on his shoulder.

"I want the full police report, autopsy report -- both translated into English -- with photos, and a detailed listing of every item on his person at the time his body was discovered. I want it delivered to my house along with the classified traffic."

Innes winced. Why the Secretary of State would want all the gory details struck him as strange, but his was not to reason why.

"Yes,

sir."

Innes knew that hell would be paid by those responsible for embassy protection, from the embassy security officer right on up to the chief of diplomatic security at the State Department -- who was number two on his list of officials to be notified this early morning.

"Mr. Innes?" Damn. It was her again.