The Hellfire Club(82)
“A what?”
“A prototype photographic copy machine. You know, xerography.”
“I have no idea what you’re talking about, Congressman.”
“New technology. Have you really not followed this? Haloid Company? Xerography? Photographic copies of documents? It will be huge. You should invest in it if you have any money.”
“I don’t.”
“Seriously, though,” Charlie said, collecting his belongings, “don’t you read the business pages?”
“Not really,” Bernstein admitted. “I prefer to focus on the politicians, not the CEOs.”
“And who do you think,” Charlie asked, walking toward the door, “is telling those politicians what to do?”
Chapter Twenty-Two
Tuesday, April 20, 1954
Georgetown, Washington, DC
Charlie exhaled one last satisfied breath to both begin the process of bringing down his heart rate and signal his immense satisfaction.
“Indeed,” Margaret said.
Their clothes strewn about the living room, the couple lay naked on the couch. In the weeks since they returned from Maryland, they had been reconnecting—first as friends, now as husband and wife, her expanding abdomen no impediment.
“Second trimester is a bit more fun,” he observed.
“Hormones seem to be working for me, not against me, now.”
He stood and looked around the room for his underwear.
“On the lampshade, darling,” she said.
“Only you could make that sound classy.”
“Will you get me a cigarette while you’re up? They’re in my purse. By the closet.”
They’d had an early dinner, during which they’d talked about the baby—Margaret’s appointment with the obstetrician earlier that day had gone well—and Charlie regaled her with tales of the more scandalous members of the House of Representatives: the sot whom the police had saved from drowning after he passed out in the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool; the senator who fancied himself a Lothario and who had hands like an octopus and the breath of a warthog; the young man who’d essentially inherited his congressional seat from his father, though the boy was so dense he could barely write his name in the sand with a stick. They’d laughed together for the first time in months.
Now he lit cigarettes for both of them and handed one to her as she sat naked on the sofa. She reached for a throw pillow to cover herself, but he plunked down next to her and gently stopped her from doing so. She looked at him. He leaned in for another kiss.
“I’m going to ask you to do something for me,” she said.
“What is it? Anything.”
“I want you to get the hell out of here,” she said with a smile.
He didn’t understand.
“Charlie. Ever since that night on Nanticoke Island, you’ve been wonderful.” She grasped his shoulders with a gentle squeeze, lowered her forehead to meet his, then pulled away and said, “But I must tell you—right now I feel exhausted. And I feel guilty.”
“Guilty?”
“Because I know you loved those poker games and Renee told me there’s another one tonight, even though it’s Tuesday. I’m going to make some tea, read my book, and fall asleep almost certainly before you do. Why don’t you go have fun? It will make me feel so much better.”
And so it was that Charlie returned to veterans’ poker night, only to learn that LaMontagne had become a regular attendee. He obviously wasn’t an elected official, but as a veteran who seemingly had connections with every member of Congress, he had wormed his way into the group.
“Congressman!” LaMontagne greeted him with a Cheshire Cat grin, gleaming and pearly, everything else about him fading away. Charlie wondered if LaMontagne’s handshake, firm to the point of pain, was meant to send a message. He faked a convivial enthusiasm as best he could, then looked around to see if anyone else had noted LaMontagne’s phony hail-fellow-well-met routine. No one had. In Washington, Charlie thought, insincerity was the air they breathed. It made him occasionally feel like Holden Caulfield. Which, in turn, felt immature.
LaMontagne leaned close to Charlie’s ear. “Listen, I spoke with Cohn and we may need you to do something with the Strongfellow dossier. Get it to the press. Do you know any national columnists?”
Charlie shook his head, more in wonder at the man’s nerve than in response. In a roomful of Charlie’s fellow members of Congress, LaMontagne had just brought up one of the most sensitive subjects of his professional life and assigned him yet another unethical task. Moreover, he’d proceeded directly to the logistics of it all, bypassing whether or not Charlie was even willing. “I don’t know anyone, really. In the press.”
“We’ll talk,” LaMontagne said confidently, patting Charlie on the shoulder. “I have some ideas.”
Charlie grabbed LaMontagne’s wrist and pulled him closer. “You said ‘we’ need this favor. There’s something that none of you have ever explained to me: Who is ‘we’?”
LaMontagne smiled. “In due time,” he said. “Senator Knowland!” he called jovially across the room. He winked at Charlie as he walked away. Charlie watched him and realized any escape he’d imagined for himself was just that: imaginary. He went to the bar cart and quickly downed a scotch.