The Hellfire Club(47)



“I didn’t know they let dogfaces in here!” Congressman Pat Sutton, the navy man and Kefauver challenger, slapped Charlie on the back with more aggression than seemed necessary. Half of Charlie’s martini spilled onto his pants and the thick Oriental carpet.

“Hello, Pat,” Charlie said, annoyed, surveying the damp damage below.

“Charlie, you tell your friend Kefauver that I am going to whip his ass!” Reeking of gin, Sutton wrapped the crook of his elbow around Charlie’s neck and pulled him closer, then kissed the top of his head. Charlie concentrated on preserving what was left of his martini.

“Good luck to ya,” Charlie said. “Unseating an incumbent is tough for anyone, let alone in a primary. But what do I know, I’m new here.”

“Oh, you know stuff, Charlie,” Sutton said earnestly, mistaking Charlie’s false modesty for legitimate humility. “Your book was a great read!”

“Thanks.” Charlie seriously doubted that Sutton knew the book’s title, much less that he had cracked its spine. “Listen, have you really thought this through? Kefauver has a national following. Why not wait for a better moment? Why risk ending your trajectory so soon?”

Sutton snorted. “Charlie, Kefauver isn’t going to know what hit him. I’m getting tons of support from folks who want to send that pansy packing.” He pointed vaguely toward the crowd. “You see that man with the waxed mustache? Made a killing when General Kinetics bought those defense contractors after the war. He told me I could travel the state using his helicopter! They’re lining up to back me. And believe me, a lot of cash is going to come my way from Chicago. Estes made a lot of enemies there during his last crusade!” He held up his tumbler in a salute, then poured the remaining whiskey down his throat and stumbled off.

Information was ammunition in Washington, Charlie thought, and Sutton had just given him some that could be used against him. It was amazing how foolish, how reckless, people in this town could be. The copious amounts of booze with which politicians regularly pickled themselves played a significant role in this, of course.

He looked around the room, surveying the other guests. A leather-faced politician from out west, bearing more than a slight resemblance to the desert tortoises indigenous to his congressional district, sat on a cushiony sofa, his enormous gut protruding over his crotch. Charlie watched as he grabbed a passing waitress and pulled her onto what little lap could be found. She tried to laugh it off, but her eyes revealed her revulsion.

I’ve got the world on a string, sittin’ on a rainbow, Sinatra sang over the suite’s hi-fi system.

Charlie walked to one of the immense windows and stood staring out at the White House, five blocks away. Should he tell Kefauver what Sutton told him? Saying cash would flow in from Chicago was essentially a confession that Sutton would find his campaign coffers filled by mobsters still angry with Kefauver for his hearings against organized crime. Charlie was trying to ingratiate himself in this world and Sutton had just sloppily handed him the coin of the realm.

He had to consider his own motives. Why would he run to tell Kefauver about Sutton but blanch when asked to share the Boschwitz dossier with Bob Kennedy? Just because Kefauver had been nice to him? What kind of principle was that?

“You seem like the kind of guy who thinks too much,” came a flat voice with a Bronx accent. Charlie turned around to see Roy Cohn, McCarthy’s chief counsel on his committee. With dark and deep eye bags that belied his twenty-seven years and a crooked nose that made him look like he’d been punched in the face a few times, Cohn exuded a confidence that perplexed Charlie.

“Roy Cohn,” the attorney said, putting out his hand to shake Charlie’s. Charlie greeted him, trying to keep a neutral expression that wouldn’t betray what he thought of Cohn and McCarthy.

“Nice to meet you,” he said reflexively. He could almost see Margaret’s disapproving face hovering in the background. “Charlie Marder.”

“I know your dad,” Cohn said. “A good man. He gets it. He gets it.”

In ’46, as a favor to a Wisconsin power broker, Winston Marder had hosted a fund-raiser for McCarthy’s first Senate race. When McCarthy was up for reelection in ’52, two years after he launched his crusade against Communists real and imagined, Winston continued his support for him out of inertia more than anything else. Or so he had rationalized it to Charlie.

Over Cohn’s shoulder, Charlie noticed Senator Kennedy and Ambassador Lodge, opponents in a fierce U.S. Senate race two years before. They were smiling and warmly toasting each other with martini glasses. Bygones, Charlie supposed. A third man came up to Kennedy and Lodge.

“That’s Joe Alsop,” Cohn told Charlie, following his line of sight. “The columnist. You know him?”

“I know of him,” said Charlie.

A waitress approached them. Charlie and Cohn swapped their empty glasses for fresh and ice-cold dirty martinis.

“You might recall that Senator McCarthy called Alsop a queer in that letter to the Saturday Evening Post,” Cohn remarked.

“I do,” Charlie said, still focused on Kennedy, Lodge, and Alsop, who were now joined by a tall man with a mustache and round glasses: Central Intelligence director Allen Dulles.

“Part of our campaign to remove perverts from the government,” Cohn said. “Alsop is a queer, you know.”

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