The Hellfire Club(91)

The waitress brought their drinks.

“To Dylan Thomas,” Street said. “‘Death shall have no dominion.’”

Charlie raised his glass. “Where better to toast him than in the place where he drank himself to death?”

They allowed their first few sips to settle.

“Did you get a chance to talk about the MacLachlan dossier at the hearings?” Street asked. “Bernstein told me that was your plan, but in the cab just now, on the radio, I didn’t hear anything on the hearings.”

“And you won’t,” boomed a nasal voice. Abner Lance, Chairman Carlin’s right-hand man, loomed above them.

“Jesus, it’s Count Orlok,” said Charlie.

“There isn’t going to be any press coverage of your lies and innuendo, Congressman,” Lance told him.

“At least take a seat, Lance,” said Street, “before you make a further spectacle of yourself.”

Availing himself of an unoccupied chair at an adjacent table, Lance joined them. “Quite a stunt there, Congressman,” he said to Charlie.

Charlie shrugged. “I was asked a question. I answered.”

“With a stolen dossier of classified information,” said Lance.

“With data about the manufacture of pesticides that cause nerve damage and cancer,” said Charlie. “To Americans.”

“Why isn’t this on the news, Abner?” Street asked.

“Because nobody wants it to be on the news. Not the Republicans. Not the Democrats. Not Wall Street. Not the unions. No one. And when no one wants a story to be on the news, it has a way of not being on the news.”

“A lot of reporters wanted to talk to me,” Charlie said.

“They did,” said Lance. “And now they don’t.” He reached down to the floor for his briefcase. He opened it and withdrew a folder. “Speaking of seeing print,” he said, dropping the folder on the table in front of Charlie.

Charlie’s heart sank.

“I assume you know what these are,” Lance said. “Photographs of you behind the wheel of a wrecked car. Apparently, a young woman was in your car with you, and she fell out as you recklessly and drunkenly careened the vehicle into a ditch.”

Charlie felt as if his nerves had seized up, as if he were trapped in a body he couldn’t move. He remembered having this feeling once before, for just a moment, during the war, when he listened to reports of Companies A and B of the First Battalion, 116th Infantry Regiment of the Twenty-Ninth Division, landing at Omaha Beach and getting mowed down by Germans, like wheat cut by a scythe. Charlie and his men would soon enough be sent right into that same spray of death, he’d realized, and he sat as still as a statue until his first lieutenant snapped his fingers in front of his face, bringing him back. Eleven years later, sitting in this smoky Greenwich Village tavern, Charlie snapped himself out of his shock.

“Do you want to see the photographs?” Lance asked.

Charlie eyed the folder apprehensively, formulating a response in his head. His mouth was as dry as a desert. He had chills; he wasn’t sure if anyone else could see him shaking. He kept his hands on his lap to hide any tremors.

Before he could speak, Street produced a file of his own. He dropped it on the table dramatically, then leaned back in his chair and exhaled a plume of cigarette smoke.

“Maybe you should take a gander at my photographs,” Street said. “I took these myself.”

Lance scoffed and made a show of unconcern, but he moved quickly to snatch the folder out of Charlie’s reach, and as he shuffled through the photos inside, his face grew darker and the wrinkles in his scowl sank deeper, almost as if he were aging before Charlie’s eyes. Carlin’s top aide was already an odd-looking man on the best of days, with his red face and white-blond hair, a swollen bullfrog neck and fang-ish eyeteeth; his current shock exacerbated the ugliness.

Charlie desperately wanted to know what had sent Lance into such a rage, but he looked on placidly, betraying no sign of a heart beating fast enough to give Gene Krupa a run for his money while a stifling heat built up inside his shirt collar. Charlie felt a heightened awareness of his surroundings. Somewhere, a waiter dropped a tray of dishes. The door opened, and the rain hitting the pavement sounded like a herd of porterhouses sizzling on the grill. The new customer passed their table, a peaty smell of wet wool wafting behind him. Charlie glanced at Street, who sat calmly, looking for all the world like a man holding a royal flush, waiting for his opponent to recognize defeat.

Finally, Lance was finished with the photographs. He placed them gingerly on the table, facedown, and then covered them with the folder. Charlie looked at Street, who could barely contain his smile. Lance stood.

“Very well, Congressman,” he said. “I hope you’ve given full consideration to what this might mean.”

“What it might mean?” asked Street. “You can’t blackmail Charlie for something he didn’t do. And those photographs prove the whole thing was a setup. You and LaMontagne arranged it all.” He took a final gulp of his bourbon. “Good thing the Three Hundred Thirty-Second Fighter Group of the United States Army Air Forces taught me night photography.” He smiled benignly at Lance, whose face had turned a new shade of red.

Charlie was stunned and starting to feel an ignition of fury. This whole time Street had known that Charlie was an innocent man, and he hadn’t bothered to tell him? But any resentment dissipated when Lance angrily sat back down.