The Hellfire Club(36)



“Package on the stoop here,” he bellowed. Her previous encounters with the milkman had taught her that he spoke only at top volume.

Charlie appeared in the doorway between the stairwell and the kitchen. “I’ll get it, honey.” Margaret turned on the radio.

“—dent Eisenhower has asked the Republican Senate leadership to put an end to Senator Joseph McCarthy’s one-man prosecutorial hearings,” the newsman intoned. “Reliable sources tell this reporter that the president has beseeched McCarthy’s GOP colleagues on the subcommittee, including Senator Everett Dirksen of Illinois, to be present any time McCarthy is presiding over a hearing. Eisenhower’s secretary of the army, Robert Stevens, last week accused McCarthy of browbeating and humiliating army off—”

Charlie turned off the radio and placed a large box on the kitchen counter. On the side was emblazoned the Janus Electronics logo. Charlie retrieved a steak knife from its drawer.

“What is it?” Margaret asked.

“It’s…” said Charlie, uncertain. He cut open the box, reached into it, and handed her two electronic contraptions. “Um…” He took the instruction manual out of the box. “It’s a baby monitor!”

“A what?”

“A baby monitor,” Charlie said.

“What’s that?” Margaret asked.

“Do you remember a few years ago Zenith had the Radio Nurse? Basically a radio from the kid’s room to the living room so parents could hear the baby?”

Margaret thought about it for a second. “I don’t think so,” she said.

“Apparently it was designed after the Lindbergh baby kidnapping. The original product wasn’t very good; it kept picking up other radio signals. Anyway, this is the new technology.”

“Who’s it from?”

“I think it’s from my father,” Charlie lied. He thought of LaMontagne’s file on Boschwitz, sitting on his office desk, and how whatever he did with it might be wrong.



He was holding that dossier roughly an hour later as he made his way from his congressional office to the House Chamber, where he and his fellow members had been called for a vote on a bill allowing more Mexican migrant workers into the country. Stopping for a cup of coffee at the House Restaurant, Charlie ran into one of his poker buddies, Congressman Chris MacLachlan. The Indiana Republican was devouring a cruller while waiting in line for the cashier in the take-out section of the eatery. In his left hand, he held yet another pastry, this one with some sort of red and purple preserves.

“Hungry?” Charlie asked.

MacLachlan chewed until it was safe to speak. “A tad.”

The cashier rang them up and MacLachlan nodded his thanks as he patted his belly, which to Charlie’s eye had expanded in the previous month or so. He now looked like someone who had eaten the version of himself depicted in his most recent congressional portrait. MacLachlan seemed to be reading Charlie’s thoughts and a sheepish expression crept across his face. “I’ve got to stop,” he acknowledged. He indicated his half-eaten pastry to Charlie. “Want it?”

Charlie shook his head. “I’ve already had breakfast.”

They walked out of the restaurant. Members of Congress and their aides, journalists, and lobbyists filled the hallways. The two congressmen took a left and proceeded up a narrow staircase to the second floor. MacLachlan gestured to a step beneath their feet. “See those stains?” he asked, pointing out clusters of a dozen dark brown splotches on the seventh and eighth marble steps. “Congressman William Taulbee’s blood.”

“What?”

“A reporter killed Taulbee in 1890, shot him dead right here. Long and seedy story, but bottom line: The reporter wrote about an affair Taulbee had. Taulbee beat him up. And then one day the reporter brought a pistol to the Capitol and shot him.”

They began walking up the stairs again, MacLachlan breathing heavily, removing his pocket square to blot beads of perspiration starting to form on his upper lip.

“I definitely do not recall hearing about Taulbee being murdered right here during my high-school tour of the Capitol,” Charlie said. “But then again, they didn’t talk much about the ugly bits.”

“Ha, no, the tour guides don’t talk about it. I’ve been visiting the members-only collection at the Library of Congress. Fascinating stuff in there—as a scholar, you should really check it out. An incredible collection of history nobody seems to know about.”

“And there’s a section on Taulbee?”

“On him and others whose ghosts haunt these halls. Civil War soldiers and the like.” He lowered his voice dramatically. “Some people claim to have seen Taulbee’s ghost right on the stairway.”

“I never understood the whole ghost phenomenon,” Charlie mused. “People only claim to see historic figures or those killed under horrific conditions. But what about all the old people who died? If there’s a world with ghosts, shouldn’t we be constantly walking through hundreds of apparitions of just regular old people?”

“You raise a decent point,” said MacLachlan. “And it cannot be mere injustice that provokes a haunting—why, there have been people killed for unjust reasons all over this city; we’d all be haunted day and night. Perhaps it’s the specialness of the death that creates the need for a ghost to haunt. And this was odd, a journalist killing a congressman at the Capitol!”

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