The Hellfire Club(27)
Carlin smiled. Charlie’s military deference seemed familiar to him, perhaps a nostalgic echo from his service at the Department of War. “Permission granted.”
So Charlie told a short version of the recapture of the town of Le Meaune: the French family, the stash of poison gas hidden in the barn, the errant mortar, the shoddy Goodstone gas masks, the deaths of Private First Class Rodriguez and the French father and his two small children.
Carlin listened impassively.
“So I got emotional, I suppose,” Charlie said. “I’m sorry about how I handled this and the last thing I want to do is be disrespectful. I have great admiration for you.”
Carlin paused, then said, “Well, thank you, Charlie. We will figure this out.” He put a paternal arm around Charlie’s shoulders; he reeked of Aqua Velva and anchovies. “A lot of things can happen in this town when people work together. I’m glad we had this talk.”
Relieved to see Carlin walk away but also slightly disgusted by his own obsequiousness, even though it was in the service of a larger goal, Charlie took a deep breath.
“Gentlemen, gentlemen, please take your seats!” shouted Senator Harry Byrd, Democrat of Virginia, into the microphone.
Across the room, Kefauver was waving him toward their long table, and soon Charlie found himself seated between the senator and LaMontagne and across from Conrad Hilton.
“What are we to expect tonight?” LaMontagne asked Charlie. “I’m a virgin here.”
“I am too,” Charlie said. “I believe it’s a mock political convention. They nominate a faux presidential candidate, and he gives a silly speech.”
From the right side of the stage, the Marine Corps band began playing “Hail to the Chief,” and the five hundred or so attendees—Alfalfa Club members and guests—stood and applauded as President Eisenhower appeared onstage, beaming and waving. Some of the generals and admirals, wearing their dress uniforms, saluted as he approached the microphone.
“At ease, dogfaces,” he said, prompting laughter from the crowd, along with the clinking of glass and ice cubes. Eisenhower took his seat at one of the long tables, and Byrd resumed speaking, working through a number of self-congratulatory references to the club and the attendees. Charlie was lost in thoughts of his conversations with MacLachlan and Carlin. Was the Goodstone money going to be killed? He wasn’t sure what Carlin had meant when he said they would figure it all out.
“This is exactly what I hate about coming down here to DC for these rubber-chicken affairs,” LaMontagne whispered, his breath warm and minty. “A bunch of old guys balling each other off and a room of brownnosers laughing like their next performance review depended on it.”
Charlie noted the contrast between LaMontagne’s smooth, polished demeanor when they’d met earlier and his one-of-the-boys crudeness now that he was in different company. Social chameleons were a source of fascination to him; he envied their ability to fit into any situation, a talent he lacked. He’d felt its absence acutely since arriving in the capital.
Onstage, Byrd was “nominating” for president Henry Cabot Lodge Jr., the Eisenhower administration’s ambassador to the United Nations. Lodge, a Republican, had been the U.S. senator from Massachusetts until Jack Kennedy defeated him two years before.
“Did you know Kennedy’s grandfather lost a race to Lodge’s father for the same Senate seat?” Charlie whispered to LaMontagne. “The very same one! In 1916.”
“Jack’s around here somewhere, I saw him hobble in earlier,” LaMontagne said. “I’m hearing a lot of chatter about him making a play for VP in ’56.”
“Good thing we fought that war against royalty.”
“My overprivileged friends,” Lodge began, prompting disproportionate howls of laughter.
“What’s the ratio going to be tonight of laughter to quality of joke?” LaMontagne quietly asked.
“Twenty to one, I’d wager,” Charlie said. He was enjoying LaMontagne’s company as well as the liberal supply of cocktails.
Kefauver, sitting to Charlie’s left, shot Charlie a look that seemed to suggest that he and his new friend needed to pipe down.
“Once I am elected,” Lodge said grandly, “I can guarantee you one thing: It will always look as though big things are happening. Maybe they won’t be happening, but it will look that way!”
Riotous laughter.
“I may be doing nothing to stop the war in Korea, or nothing to balance the budget, or nothing to solve anything, but there’ll be a lot of name-calling, there’ll be all sorts of headlines!” Lodge pledged. “The trivial will reach a new place in American politics and believe me: when you consider the place it has had in previous administrations, that is no idle boast!”
Hysterics in the crowd. Kefauver actually wiped tears from his eyes. LaMontagne slipped Charlie a business card.
“I can only take so much of this,” he whispered. “Give me a call, let’s tell war stories.” He got up and then leaned in one more time. “Enjoy yourself if you can.” He swiftly exited the ballroom, as graceful and stealthy as a leopard. Charlie felt woozy from the booze and the bullshit and the conversational whiplash. He wanted desperately to talk to Margaret, but he’d never felt further away from her.