The Hellfire Club(56)



Charlie parked; an attendant with an umbrella walked him across the street. He felt outside of his own body, as if he were watching himself in a documentary about himself, he and the attendant in grainy black-and-white, filmed in secret from a third-floor window, the voice of Ed Murrow intoning, Watch the guilty man, fresh from his act of vehicular manslaughter, walking to work just hours later as if nothing had transpired at all…

Leopold was waiting for Charlie outside the door to his House office, an anxious look on her face and a to-do list in her hand.

“Miss Leopold, could you call Congressman Street? I’d like to get together—”

“Sir.” She cut him off firmly. “Mr. LaMontagne asked—”

“Davis called?” Charlie said, taking off his damp overcoat and handing it to Bernstein, who exchanged it for a cup of coffee, light and sweet; Miss Leopold had finally conceded that battle. He took the mug and walked into his personal office.

“No need for me to call,” said LaMontagne, who was draped comfortably on the couch, smoking a Chesterfield.

Charlie was distressed to see LaMontagne; his presence immediately destroyed whatever emotional wall Charlie had managed to build to protect himself.

“As always, Mr. LaMontagne made his way into your office without seeking permission first,” Leopold said.

“He’s like a cat burglar,” Bernstein said under her breath from the receptionist’s desk.

Charlie turned to Leopold. “Okay, thank you.” He shut the door.

“You look surprised to see me,” LaMontagne said.

“Not as surprised as I was earlier this morning,” Charlie said. He took a swig of his coffee and sat down behind his desk.

“You’re fortunate I was up so early. And driving by.”

“Am I going to consider myself fortunate that you’re here right now?” Charlie asked. His mouth was parched, his throat so dry it felt like cacti would sprout up. Images of the Rosenbergs heading to the electric chair sprang into his mind. He told himself he was being melodramatic, but he also knew LaMontagne held his future in his hands.

LaMontagne said nothing, just stretched out on the couch with a faint smile on his face. They looked at each other, the dead cocktail waitress an unspoken presence.

“It was the only option, Charlie,” LaMontagne finally said.

Charlie didn’t want to address it. He didn’t know if anyone was listening in and he didn’t want to think about her. He noticed a manila folder on his desk—a new copy of the Boschwitz file, Charlie presumed, to replace the version he’d lost during the House shootings.

“The latest version of the dossier,” LaMontagne said. “Just as well you lost the old one, since we now have some photos. So it’s all ready for you to turn over to Bob. Or Roy. Though it sounds like you and Roy didn’t exactly get along swimmingly last night.”

“No, we drowned,” Charlie agreed. He looked down at the Boschwitz dossier and opened it, finding inside various incriminating papers, photographs, and memos. He surprised himself by saying aloud what he was thinking: “What I still don’t get is why you haven’t just given this to them yourself. Why do you need me?”

LaMontagne’s grin conveyed annoyance more than humor. “There are so many responses I’m tempted to give,” he said. He stubbed out his cigarette in the ashtray on the coffee table.

“Shoot.”

“The first and obvious one. What I don’t get is why you think after last night, you can respond with anything other than a mad dash to Bob Kennedy’s office, dossier in hand.”

Charlie nodded. “Fair,” he said. “What else you got?”

“You’re awfully flippant.”

“I don’t mean to be,” Charlie said, smiling. “Possibly still a little drunk.” He tried to ease into a steadier pose; his anxiety and terror were manifesting themselves as anger, and that wasn’t doing him any good. He thought of the mental exercises he’d performed back in France, willing himself to be the tough guy he felt nothing like.

LaMontagne put another cigarette between his lips and flicked his lighter; it failed him once, then twice, then a third time. Charlie reached into his suit pocket, withdrew his aluminum trench lighter, and tossed it to LaMontagne, who caught it effortlessly with one hand and lit up another Chesterfield.

“I know I told you that the firm doesn’t want to be tied to this in any way, but the honest answer is that I don’t want any paper trail from this leading back to me. If there are any questions, Bob or Roy will say they got it from a New York lawmaker who got it from a constituent, and it ends there. But from a lobbyist who represents a Zenith competitor? Can’t have that.”

“Why would there be any sort of inquiry?”

LaMontagne took a deep drag, then shrugged. “Winds blow, daddy-o. Things seem good for McCarthy right now, but Ike is setting traps behind the scenes and I have no idea if or when Tail Gunner Joe will get strafed. He’s getting drunker by the day, and Cohn is blinded by…other matters.”

Charlie gamed it out in his head. “So if McCarthy crashes and the Democrats retake the Senate and start looking into everything that went wrong and how McCarthyism took hold, you want to make sure nothing leads back to you.”

“Decidedly so.”

“McCarthy’s thriving. Almost no Republicans and barely any Democrats are even willing to take him on in public.”

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