The Hellfire Club(26)

Fat men in tuxedos stood in a circle. Black waiters hustled out of the kitchen holding trays of Swedish meatballs, shrimp boats, anchovies soaked in wine. Charlie caught snatches of conversations:



So why is it exactly that McCarthy isn’t married?

Thank God we have Nasser. He just locked up three hundred of those fanatics.

Wife is fine. Mistress better.

A Frenchman. Cousteau, I think. Exploring a sunken ship off Marseille. Great television.

Still talking about the goddamn war. It was almost a decade ago.

Well, she’s a nuclear sub, so she can stay out there forever.

Is he smart? Smart enough to be dangerous.

Yeah, yeah, we’re the problem. Us and Wall Street. Everyone’s to blame but the voters.



Standing with Lyndon Johnson against a wall, Bob Kennedy swiped his hair off his forehead and looked around the room, seemingly searching for an escape. Chairman Carlin was horsing around with Gene Tunney, pretending to box with him while a photographer captured the moment for posterity.

“Choose your poison,” said a bartender after Charlie finally settled on a bar, the one farthest from the masses.

“Have any hemlock?” Charlie asked.

The bartender smiled and shook his head.

“Two vodkas, one glass, then,” Charlie said.

“Rough day?” Congressman Chris MacLachlan appeared at his side.

“Just thirsty.” Charlie held up his glass. “Good to see you, Mac, even if you did clean my clock at poker.”

MacLachlan smiled and raised his glass. “May ye be in heaven half an hour afore the devil knows you’re dead.” He took a healthy swallow from a gin and tonic.

“Did you see Carlin?” Charlie asked.

“The old ham can’t resist a chance to pose for the cameras.”

“Well, that old ham knows about my suggestion that the veterans stick together and kill the Goodstone earmark,” Charlie said. “Kefauver told me he’s furious.”

MacLachlan sipped his drink, then exhaled. “Sweet baby Moses, we didn’t even decide to carry out that play.”

“People in this town can’t keep their mouths shut.”

“Keep fighting the good fight,” MacLachlan said. “You’re following the trail Van Waganan blazed.”

“If I’m doing that, it’s not on purpose,” Charlie said. “I don’t know much about him. Just that he was an aide on the Truman Committee and helped him take on Wright Aeronautical.”

“Yeah, the bastards. Shit engines, faked inspections, dead American pilots.” He paused and motioned to the bartender for a refill. “That’s what started him on his mission.”

“Yeah, I remember headlines about Van Waganan challenging various corporations. Malfeasance and such.”

“When he got going, he was like a dog with a goddamn bone,” MacLachlan said.

The din of the all-male crowd—deep, baritone, crescendos of laughter and shouts—highlighted the silence between Charlie and MacLachlan.

“He made a lot of enemies,” MacLachlan noted.

MacLachlan turned to get a better view of the crowd and those around him, then leaned closer to Charlie. “This postwar economic boom, the Long Boom, they’re calling it…it’s wonderful for our standing in the world and for our constituents’ standard of living, but there’s an accompanying madness. A recklessness. So much money being made—like nothing this country has ever seen before. And here in Washington, there are a lot of people working to stop anyone even asking questions about what is sometimes a clear…disregard…for our own people. Van Waganan may have been a victim—”

MacLachlan stopped himself as Chairman Carlin suddenly stepped into his line of sight, perhaps thirty feet away. “Oh, boy,” Charlie said as the chairman started walking toward him with the determination of a crocodile moving in on an oblivious gazelle.

“Don’t forget your oath,” MacLachlan said under his breath. “Protecting America from enemies foreign and domestic. Goodstone counts.” He patted Charlie’s shoulder and vanished into the crowd.

Charlie steeled himself, remembering that he had been through tougher stuff than the ire of a powerful congressman. He leaned into the encounter, throwing his handshake at the chairman like a Robin Roberts fastball and deploying every available ounce of charisma he had as aggressively as he could.

“Chairman Carlin, I owe you an apology,” Charlie said, looking into Carlin’s rheumy eyes, his irises the color of swamp algae. “I should never have spoken up at the committee markup, nor should I have engaged in any small talk about Goodstone with my fellow veterans. Of the former, I can only tell you that I am young and inexperienced—in other words, dumb. Of the latter, well, sir, you served in the Great War, and I’m certain you know what it’s like when veterans get around drink.”

Charlie had read that morning that Carlin had served as a U.S. Army officer from 1917 to 1919, though he had never left the continental United States, having worked in the Department of War procurement office. Still, service was service.

“Why, Charlie,” said Carlin, clearly taken aback after arriving loaded for bear. “That’s mighty white of you.”

“With your permission, sir, I would beg a moment of your time to try to explain myself.”