The Hellfire Club(101)

Carlin shook his head admiringly at Street. “I’d have to be some kind of goddamn genius to pull off what you’re insinuating!”

“See now?” Street said with a smile. “You’re not so modest after all. It’s too bad they don’t give Pulitzers for assassinations.”

“All the things we do to keep this nation safe from the kinds of Reds who tried to kill Margaret just a few hours ago,” Carlin said. “And still these idiots don’t get it.”

“We get it,” said Margaret. “But General Kinetics is killing Americans in the process.”

“Look,” said Carlin, “in retrospect, could our friends at General Kinetics have exercised more caution, spent more money on safety measures and such? I suppose, but it would have slowed down production. Like with the need to rush gas masks to the front lines. As we said—omelets, eggs. You know.”

“I do indeed,” Charlie said grimly, fists clenched at his sides.

“And who won the war, Charlie?” asked Carlin.

“Those of us who actually fought in the war didn’t have this in mind,” Charlie said.

Carlin frowned theatrically, looking doubtful. “Oh, really?” he said. “Street fought in that war. Strongfellow fought in that war.”

“You sure about that?” Charlie asked.

“Aha!” Carlin said, almost pleased. “So you’re not a perfect angel. You read This Is Your Life’s investigation into Strongfellow here! The one you stole from your father!”

“What?” Strongfellow asked.

“The file we have on you proving that you never served with the OSS,” Carlin said. “Charlie purloined that from his father. His dad is a lawyer, does work for NBC, and they found out right before your episode of This Is Your Life aired, the one that shared the story of your glorious, if entirely concocted, heroism. They buried it. Charlie’s dad had it. Charlie stole it. And here we are!”

“You son of a bitch,” Strongfellow said to Charlie. “That true?”

Charlie winced and turned his head around to look at Strongfellow.

“I did it for the same reason you’re presumably doing this,” Charlie said. “I thought they had dirt on me. Turns out it was all a setup, that I didn’t do what they told me I’d done. But in any case, yes, I swiped the NBC investigation from my dad’s office.”

“Ooo-eee,” exclaimed Street. “What does it say?”

“It goes into detail about how for the entire war, Strongfellow was a machinist. Stateside. There’s a letter from Dulles stating he was never OSS. Letter from the Pentagon saying he was never overseas.”

Strongfellow appeared to be grinding his teeth.

“Why’d NBC run the episode, then?” Street asked.

“You’d have to ask them why they sat on it,” Charlie said. “I assume ratings. Currying favor with Republicans. Are the presidents of the networks in the Hellfire Club?”

Carlin turned to Street and waved a hand in Charlie’s direction. “We need to wrap this up, Mr. Street.”

“That’s fine,” said Street, “but I’m not going to clean up any messes.”

“Of course not,” Carlin said.

“That’s what Catherine’s henchmen over there are for,” Street said, drawing angry glares again.

Charlie looked straight ahead at Margaret, her arms bound behind her back, her face a mask of pure panic.

“At what point does your construction of this Potemkin village start undermining your ability to build the actual village?” Charlie asked. “If your leaders are frauds like Strongfellow and demagogues like McCarthy, at what point do they supplant real leaders? At what point are you killing and hurting more Americans than you’re saving?”

“Be quiet,” instructed Carlin. “You hold no cards here.”

“So who else is in the Hellfire Club?” asked Margaret.

“They’re just stalling, Frank,” Leopold said.

“Mr. Street?” Carlin said. “Ticktock.”

Street gripped Strongfellow’s .38 with two hands and began to raise it.

“Mr. Chairman?” Charlie asked. “Can I at least kiss my wife one last time?”

“Oh, sweet baby Jesus,” said Leopold. She took a gun out of her jacket pocket. “I’ll shoot him if you need me to.” The two men standing with her took their guns out of their jackets, presumably in case their services were required as well.

“Go ahead and kiss her, Charlie,” Street said. “Make it quick.”

Charlie raised his hands in surrender and slowly walked over to Margaret, looking at Carlin for the okay. Carlin nodded. Her eyes were wild with fear and fury. “Charlie!” she said. “They—”

He lowered his hands and silenced her with a kiss, feeling her angry resistance until he broke away to whisper in her ear.

She swallowed and nodded.

They kissed each other again, tenderly.

Charlie then turned to Street, his hands back up near the sides of his head.

“Okey-doke, Isaiah,” he said.

Street nodded. Aimed the gun at Charlie.

“Okey-doke, Charlie,” Street said.

“Roger,” Charlie said.

“Shoot him already,” Carlin said.