The Hellfire Club(48)
Charlie nodded and finished his martini, so cold it barely even had a flavor. He was supremely uninterested in Alsop’s sexuality, and he couldn’t help finding it odd that Cohn was pressing the issue, given the rumors he’d heard about the lawyer’s own private life.
“They look like they’re up to something,” Charlie noted.
“Maybe another assignment?” Cohn hypothesized. “Alsop went to Laos a couple years ago to do some work for Central Intelligence, then last year same thing in the Philippines.”
“Alsop did work for Central Intelligence?” Charlie asked, stunned that a journalist would be secretly working for the government. Having first made his name covering the trial of the Lindbergh baby kidnapper and murderer, Bruno Hauptmann, Alsop was one of the most highly regarded newsmen of the day. He’d written a bestseller about FDR’s attempts to pack the Supreme Court, and three times a week he and his brother Stewart wrote a widely read column for the New York Herald Tribune.
“Proudly,” Cohn said, spitting as he talked. “If I may quote Mr. Alsop, ‘The notion that a newspaperman doesn’t have a duty to his country is perfect balls.’ He’s a patriot. And a pervert. A patriotic pervert.” Cohn laughed at his own remark.
Charlie did not know what to say. Homosexuality was not something he gave much thought to, other than when he heard rumors about J. Edgar Hoover or Cohn himself. The two men stood at the hub of the national security apparatus, so powerful that they thrived despite Eisenhower’s executive order from April 1953 that essentially banned homosexuals from the federal workforce, since they were regarded as susceptible to blackmail and were thus obvious security risks.
“You see, Charlie, there are the domestic political fights we Americans have with one another, and then there is the common struggle against the Reds,” Cohn continued as if a microphone had been placed before him. “The Communist Party is not a political party, it’s a criminal conspiracy. Its object is the overthrow of the government of the United States by force and violence when the right time arises. The Communist Party’s most important work until then is espionage on behalf of the Soviet Union.”
“Don’t tell me, let me guess,” Charlie said, attempting to lighten the mood, “you hold in your hand a list of a hundred and twenty-three individuals in this room known to be members of the Communist Party?”
Cohn’s face twisted into something that seemed half smile, half snarl. “Cute,” he said.
Charlie was done trying to be polite to a man who made his skin crawl. He looked away from Cohn. Nearby, four guests—two slick business types and two young women in tight sweaters—laughed uproariously. Senator Kennedy was on his way to the door. The old desert tortoise was helped up from his seat by the young woman whom he had snared earlier. Les Paul and Mary Ford’s “Vaya Con Dios” filled the air.
Now the hacienda’s dark, the town is sleeping, they sang. Now the time has come to part, the time for weeping.
“Vaya con Dios, my darling,” Carlin bellowed from across the room, where he was sitting on a plush leather chair fit for a king and surrounded by hangers-on, his own personal court. “Vaya con Dios, my love.”
One of the young women began mimicking a Mexican dance, raising her dress above her knees dramatically. Carlin’s toadies began shouting, “?Olé, olé!”
“Look at them, celebrating how they’re letting more spics come into the country,” Cohn said. “No doubt with some Reds among them. Disgusting.”
Charlie didn’t disagree with Cohn’s estimation of Carlin and his court, but the ethnic slur shot a bolt of adrenaline and anxiety into his stomach. He hadn’t known many Mexican-Americans in his life except for Private First Class Rodriguez.
“I wish my old army buddy Manny Rodriguez were here so you could say that to him,” he finally said.
“Why isn’t he?”
“He’s dead.”
“Under your command, was he?” Cohn said smoothly. He signaled a waitress for another drink. “Look at the headlights on this one,” he said a little too enthusiastically as the young woman approached. The Rubenesque waitress, barely staying within the confines of her outfit, handed highballs to Cohn and Charlie. Someone bumped into her and she jostled Charlie; her long red hair swept across his neck and cheek but she kept the drink tray steady.
“Arpège,” Charlie said. “By Lanvin.”
“Huh?” said Cohn.
“Very impressive,” said the redhead, a slight Southern lilt in her voice. Charlie smiled.
“What are you talking about?” asked Cohn. “Ar-pej?”
“It’s my perfume,” she said. “I didn’t even put any on today.”
“I have an unusually keen sense of smell,” Charlie said.
“Wow, like a superhero,” said the waitress. “That must be quite a gift.”
“If this were a world where there were more of you than of him,” Charlie said, motioning to Cohn, “it might be.”
“Evening, Roy,” Bob Kennedy said, approaching them. Recognizing Charlie, he nodded. “Congressman,” he said.
“Charlie Marder,” Charlie said, not sure if Kennedy remembered his name. In Washington, Charlie had noticed, people tended to avoid names in case they got them wrong; they tended to say “Nice to see you” instead of “Nice to meet you,” in case they had met you before. New social rules for an egoistic town where every monument and street was named for their predecessors.