The Hellfire Club(49)



“Right, of course,” said Kennedy. “We met you and your lovely wife at Martin’s Tavern. I just heard you’re working with Estes on the upcoming juvenile delinquency hearings.”

Cohn choked on his drink. It turned out he was laughing.

“You’re part of those bullshit comic-book hearings?” He guffawed dramatically.

Kennedy grinned and looked at Charlie apologetically. Charlie was not particularly amused. He’d had enough of Cohn’s abrasive company by now.

“You were asking me about the Commie symps in this room, Congressman,” Cohn said. “Well, they worry me more than Wonder Woman does.” He took another swig of his drink and stared out the window. “But none of them concern me as much as the Commie symps over there in that big white building,” Cohn said, motioning with his chin toward the White House. “What must the world look like from that address? Must look upside down. Goddamn Ike protects the Commies and fucks with Senator McCarthy.” Cohn looked at Kennedy. “He’s terrified Joe will run for president, you know. Joe could beat him too.”

“Joe McCarthy could beat President Eisenhower?” asked Charlie incredulously. “Beat the smartest general we’ve had since Sherman?”

“Smart? MacArthur called Ike the best clerk he ever had!”

“And Ike said he studied drama under General MacArthur for four years.”

Kennedy chuckled. “Now, gentlemen.”

“MacArthur…MacArthur…” said Charlie sarcastically, pretending to search the skies for a reminder of the general so ignominiously fired by Truman three years earlier. “The name rings a bell.”

“MacArthur is a great man, a patriot,” said Cohn. “I’m sure you have a Medal of Honor under your shirt there.”

“No,” said Charlie. “Just some shrapnel.” He finished the rest of his drink. “Nothing like your paper cuts from the Battle of Torts 101.”

An awkward silence hung like a noose. Charlie had surprised even himself with that one. Liquid courage, he supposed.

Kennedy tried to break the tension. “Why do you think Joe would be a good president, Roy?”

“If Joe were president, the first thing he would do would be to end the Cold War,” Cohn said. “He’d pick up the phone and call Joe Stalin and say, ‘This is Joe McCarthy, I’m coming over tomorrow to talk about things, meet me at the Moscow airport at one o’clock.’ When he arrived in Moscow, he would sit down with Stalin in a closed room. First he’d tell a couple dirty jokes. Then he’d look Stalin right in the eye and say, ‘Joe, what do you want?’ And Stalin would tell him. They would talk man to man, not like pansy diplomats. They’d find out what each of them wanted and settle their differences. But when Joe left, he’d tell Stalin, ‘The first time I catch you breaking this agreement, I’ll blow you and your whole goddamn country off the map.’”

Charlie turned to Kennedy. “He can’t honestly believe this rubbish, can he?”

“You little establishment punk,” spat Cohn, “you think you know anything about defending this nation?” He looked at Kennedy. “Isn’t this the same little shit whose daddy got him his seat? Who was trying to fuck with the General Kinetics acquisition of Goodstone?”

Charlie and Kennedy were both taken aback at Cohn’s outburst; it was delivered with the virulence of a cobra strike, drawing attention from nearby guests.

“Er, uh, that’s not quite how I would put it, Roy,” Kennedy said, patting him on the back, trying to calm him. “But, yeah. Charlie tried to stop the funding for Goodstone. It had something to do with bad gas masks they made in the war that cost the life of one of your men, right, Charlie?”

“That’s right,” said Charlie. “Company made a cruddy product. Clear case of war profiteering.”

Cohn waved his arms as if he were washing a car with two sponges. “Forest,” he said. Then he started pointing at imaginary items in the air. “Trees,” he said.

“Pretty glib talk about the death of an American soldier,” Charlie said. “Though, Bob, I guess that kind of sacrifice is not a subject Mr. Cohn here could understand. Especially these days, when he’s busy maligning the army.”

“You just don’t get it,” Cohn said, shaking his head and taking another swig of his drink. “Alexander Charleston, the CEO of Goodstone, is a patriot. Duncan Whitney, the CEO of General Kinetics, is a patriot. These are men who support Senator McCarthy’s work and the work of his committee. They can see the forest for the trees. The Reds are about more than the loss of one Mexican private.”

“He wasn’t Mexican,” said Charlie. “He was born in New York.”

“The Reds don’t care about the loss of one soldier,” Cohn continued. “One soldier? They slaughter millions. Are you defending that? I mean, you need to have a little respect for Senator McCarthy.”

Charlie squinted, as if looking at Cohn through an adjusted lens would make sense of him. “I do have little respect for Senator McCarthy,” he said.

Cohn’s eyes seemed to redden, turning bloodshot with his internal fury. Kennedy put his arm around Charlie. “I think this conversation has come to its logical conclusion,” he said. “Charlie, why don’t you go mingle, socialize for a while.”

Jake Tapper's Books