The Hellfire Club(5)
“It’s both reassuring and disconcerting to see them all friendly-like,” Margaret said, waving her cigarette toward the circle of the Kennedys, the Nixons, and McCarthy.
The lobby lights flickered on and off, signaling the start of the show. The audience began filtering into the theater, clearing the lobby. Charlie grabbed one more martini from a passing waiter. Margaret raised an eyebrow. “Slow down, tiger, the night is young.”
Charlie shrugged unapologetically. “We’re about to watch a musical. About a union strike. I need all the fortification I can get.” Margaret jutted out her lower lip, mocking a sulk. “And more important, I want to take this occasion to toast you!” Charlie quickly added. “To have you here with me, breathing on me—I count that something of a miracle,” he said, paraphrasing Henry Miller.
He scanned the room again. “Where the devil is Kefauver, anyway?”
“Isn’t that him?” Margaret nodded at a bookish, big-boned man with a broad smile and thick spectacles moving toward them at a rapid pace. He greeted Charlie with an enthusiastic handshake.
“Charlie, what a great pleasure to meet you at last. I’m Estes Kefauver,” he said softly, emphasizing the first syllable of his last name: “Key-fawv-er.” “And you must be Margaret,” he said, enveloping her hand in his while he leaned closer with a genial wink. “You’d better be careful; you’re not allowed to be too beautiful in this town. You’re going to make a lot of enemies.”
Margaret smiled insincerely. She didn’t mind compliments, or tried not to, but she had already been wary of moving south, where she feared she might be viewed as nothing more than a decoration for Charlie’s arm, even more so than she was in New York City. She had her own career—as a zoologist—and it was irritating to be admired for only her exterior.
“You look so familiar,” Kefauver told Charlie. “And not just because you resemble your father.”
People routinely greeted Charlie with a vague sense of recognition. His road to semi-notoriety had begun some years earlier when he’d purchased a heavy wooden trunk for his father’s birthday at a Brooklyn junk shop. He’d brought it home, picked the lock, and found it contained a dozen books from the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, among them the diaries of a former page at the Continental Congress. Nicholas Mezedes had recorded his intimate impressions of the Founding Fathers, some of whom were involved in rather scandalous behavior at the time. With Margaret’s organizational help and editing, Charlie had smoothed Mezedes’s prose into more colloquial dialogue and a compelling narrative. The resulting book—Sons of Liberty—had become a runaway bestseller. Charlie had thrived. Columbia University offered him a path to a full professorship. At the time, the public was infatuated with intellectual celebrities, and Charlie appeared on popular shows such as What’s My Line? and Art Linkletter’s House Party.
“You may have seen me on television a few years ago when my book on the Founding Fathers came out,” Charlie said now.
“Maybe that’s it,” Kefauver said. “I was on What’s My Line? too, you know!” He smiled.
Ushers began circling the lobby with chimes, alerting the crowd that the show was just minutes from starting. “We’d better head in,” Kefauver said, leading them into the theater.
“Maybe the senator can give you some advice on blocking the Goodstone funds,” Margaret said quietly to Charlie. “You need to rally folks.”
Charlie nodded.
“Jack Kennedy might help too,” she said. “He would be a great ally.”
“Great idea,” said Charlie. “And I’ll just join Ike on the links tomorrow and get him on board as well.”
She smacked him playfully on the shoulder.
The lights in the theater dimmed except for those closest to the stage. The crowd, well versed in protocol, applauded for the vice president and his wife, sitting in a prestigious box near stage left. The Nixons at first seemed uncertain the applause was for them, then stood hesitantly. The vice president offered a stiff bow and then a wide grin that couldn’t have looked less sincere.
“Oh dear,” Margaret whispered.
Kefauver nodded toward the vice president.
“Earlier this month, I met a guy who knew Dick during the war. They were stationed at Bougainville Island.”
“Where?” asked Charlie.
“It’s in Papua New Guinea,” Margaret told her husband. “Forgive Charlie,” she said to Kefauver, “they didn’t get much news about the Pacific campaign in the foxholes of France.”
“They don’t have newspapers in France?” Kefauver joked.
“Charlie was too busy trying to keep his platoon alive while they breathed in poison gas because of junky American gas masks,” Margaret said tartly.
“I didn’t get much news about anything when I was in Europe,” Charlie said, lightly squeezing Margaret’s hand. “It left some odd holes in my knowledge.”
“Anyway, Dick basically ran a burger joint for pilots there,” Kefauver said. “Beer, coffee, toast. But the most interesting thing this gentleman told me was that Dick was a cardsharp. He cleaned up. ‘Best poker face you’ve ever seen,’ he said. He bluffed just enough to guarantee that everyone stayed in when he actually had the cards.”