The Hellfire Club(4)
“There’s Carlin.” Charlie gave a friendly wave to a tall and wiry man with slicked-back gray hair: Congressman Franklin Harris Carlin, the GOP chairman of the all-powerful House Appropriations Committee, which disbursed almost fifty billion dollars each year. The Republicans had recaptured control of the House in 1952 in the Eisenhower landslide. With discretion over the distribution of such largesse, Carlin was one of the most popular men in town. Even in a city built on the swampy foundation of transaction, Carlin was notorious for always seeking out ways he could gain even more advantage.
Carlin saw Charlie’s wave and responded with a cold look of disdain before he turned his head.
“Goodness!” Margaret gave a short laugh of surprise. “Did you kill his puppy or something, Charlie?”
Although reeling a bit from the snub, Charlie had a feeling he knew its source. “My first Appropriations Committee meeting was today,” Charlie said. “I said one thing. One thing! There was a company I didn’t think deserved taxpayer dollars.”
“What company?”
“Goodstone,” Charlie said. “They made the gas masks. The ones that didn’t work.”
“Oh dear,” said Margaret.
As an army captain in Europe during World War II, Charlie had led a platoon in battle for almost a year. In France there had been a tragedy caused by defective gas masks; Margaret knew little about the catastrophe other than the fact that Charlie remained haunted by it. Only twice in the nine years since the war had ended had Charlie tried to describe any of the horrors he’d witnessed, and both times he’d become so shaken by emotion, he had to leave the room. This was the first time she’d heard the masks were made by the famous Goodstone Rubber and Tire Company.
A waiter with a tray of martinis was passing. Charlie snagged two glasses and handed one to his wife. He gulped down his as if it were water from a canteen.
“One of the Democrats on the committee said, ‘That was a decade ago.’” Charlie shook his head. “I reminded him that Truman as a senator raked a bunch of companies over the coals for profiteering and shoddy workmanship.”
“That’s right,” Margaret said. “Carnegie sent steel that caused the hull of that ship to crack.”
“Right,” said Charlie, “and there were cruddy plane engines, dud grenades. Those companies were punished. Of course, Democrats don’t much like talking about Truman these days.”
“How come I never read anything about Goodstone?” Margaret asked, sipping her drink.
“I guess journalists don’t know about it. And I don’t know if there were any other incidents. I tried to get information after the war but I hit a wall. Maybe I should try again; maybe the calls of a congressman will get returned.”
Margaret peered into the crowd. “Isn’t that Joe Alsop?” She tilted her chin toward a dark-haired man in his forties gracelessly gesturing as he explained something to a small group. Alsop and his brother wrote an influential syndicated newspaper column.
“Yep,” said Charlie. “Navy man. POW.”
“Well, tell him about Goodstone!” she said. “Now’s your chance!”
“Oh no, Margaret,” he said. “This isn’t the time or place.” He paused, thoughtful. “It was probably naive of me to think I could get my way so soon; I don’t have enough capital here yet to push anything. I just said I wasn’t going to vote to give Goodstone any money after their masks failed me and my men.”
“What happened after you told them that?”
“The discussion kind of just stopped, and they all started talking among themselves, pretty much ignoring me. Lots of murmuring. Then Chairman Carlin said we would reconvene at a later date. When I approached him after to try to smooth matters over, he gave me the brush-off.”
“Hmm,” Margaret said. She sipped her drink and met Charlie’s gaze.
“Actually, come to think of it, some of the other vets—Strongfellow and MacLachlan and a few others—were the most, um, murmury. Is that a word?”
“It most certainly is not.”
“Look over there,” said Charlie, discreetly pointing through the crowd to a plain-looking man with a wide smile who was leaning on metal crutches. “There’s Strongfellow by the bar.”
“The war hero, right?”
“Every veteran in politics claims to be a war hero,” Charlie said. “But Strongfellow really is one.”
“Well, you’re all heroes as far as I’m concerned,” Margaret said. “Either way, you should convince him and all the other veterans in Congress to block this nonsense. We don’t need the next generation of American soldiers dying in Indochina or Hungary because of war profit—”
Margaret was interrupted by a clamor at the door; Vice President Richard Nixon and his wife, Patricia, had arrived. A coterie of photographers and reporters began peppering the Second Couple with questions and requests for posed pictures. The Nixons obliged, after which the vice president made a beeline for the Kennedys. Jack shook Nixon’s hand while Bob Kennedy patted him on the back.
Margaret placed her empty martini glass on the windowsill and pulled a cigarette from the pack in her purse; Charlie deftly lit it for her with an aluminum trench lighter he pulled from his pocket. It was a souvenir he’d taken from a dead German soldier in France, though he was the only one who knew its provenance.