The Chancellor Manuscript: A Novel

  “Before you go on,” interrupted Harris, “did you make any agreement with him?”

  “He doesn’t want anything. I gave my word I’d never identify him.” Peter stopped, his eyes on Joshua Harris. The literary agent had made the inquiries; he had placed the call to Washington. “As a matter of fact, you’re the only one who could. By name. But you can’t. I’ll hold you to it.”

  “Go on,” said Joshua Harris.

  “Several years ago a few men in Washington became alarmed over what they considered a very dangerous situation. Maybe more than dangerous, maybe catastrophic. J. Edgar Hoover had compiled a couple of thousand dossiers on the most influential people in the country. In the House, the Senate, the Pentagon, the White House. Presidential and congressional advisors, leading authorities in a dozen different fields. The older Hoover got, the more concerned they became. Stories began to leak out of the bureau that Hoover was actually using those files to intimidate those who opposed him.”

  “Wait a minute, Peter,” broke in Morgan. “That story—and variations of it—has been around for years. What’s the point?”

  Chancellor leveled his eyes on Morgan. “I’ll jump. Hoover died four months ago, and no autopsy was permitted. And those files were missing.”

  There was silence at the table. Morgan leaned forward, revolving his glass slowly, the ice cubes circling in the whisky. “That’s quite a jump. Hoover was damned near eighty years old; he had a heart condition.”

  “Who says those files are missing?” asked Harris. “They could have been destroyed, shredded. Or buried.”

  “Of course, they could,” agreed Peter.

  “But you’re implying that someone killed Hoover for them,” said Morgan.

  “I’m not implying, I’m stating it. As a fictional premise, not as fact. I didn’t say I believed it, but I think I could make it believable.”

  Again there was silence. Morgan looked at Harris, and then at Peter. “It’s a sensational idea,” he said cautiously. “A powerful hypothesis. Perhaps too powerful, too current. You’d have to build a solid foundation, and I don’t know if that’s possible.”

  “This man on the beach,” said Joshua. “This man neither of us will identify. Does he believe it?”

  Chancellor stared at his drink. He realized that when he answered Harris, his voice was as tentative as his judgment. “I don’t really know. I have an idea—and it’s just an idea—that he thinks the killing was on a drawing board somewhere. That was enough for him. Enough for him to give me two sources to check out.”

  “Connected to Hoover?” asked Morgan.

  “No, he didn’t go so far as to claim that. He said it was only speculation. One name’s related to that group in Washington who were nervous about the files, and Hoover’s use of them. The other’s pretty farfetched. It concerns lost information over twenty years old.”

  Morgan held Peter’s attention. “They could be your foundation.”

  “Sure. But if there’s any truth at all about that group, I’d have to fictionalize completely. He’s that kind of man. The other I don’t know anything about.”

  “Do you want to tell us who they are?” asked Joshua. “Not yet. I just want your reaction to the idea. To a novel about Hoover’s assassination. Killed by people who knew of those files and wanted them for their own purposes.”

  “It’s sensational,” repeated Morgan.

  “It’s going to cost you,” said Harris, looking at the editor.

  9

  Congressman Walter Rawlins of the Roanoke Rawlinses, dynasty without substance, political manipulators of the Commonwealth of Virginia, sat in the library of his suburban Arlington home. It was past midnight; the single source of light was a brass stirrup lamp on the desk beneath enlarged photographs of various Rawlinses astride various horses in various stages of the hunt.

  He was alone in the house. His wife had gone to Roanoke for the weekend, and it was the maid’s day off, which meant night out; the black bitch couldn’t wait for Thursday night to hustle her black ass. Rawlins grinned and raised a glass to his lips, taking several deep swallows of sour mash. It was goddamned sweet nigger ass, and he would have told her to stay except that he didn’t trust the other bitch in the house. His wife had said she was taking the Cessna to Roanoke, but she could just as easily tell the pilot to turn around and head back to the field in McLean. His goddamned bitch wife could right now be down the street in a car, waiting for just the right moment to walk back into the house.

  She’d love to catch him humping away on the nigger.

  Rawlins blinked. Then he focused his eyes toward the desk, at the telephone on the desk. The goddamned thing was ringing. It was his office line, the private Washington tie. Goddamn!

  The phone kept ringing. It would not stop. Goddamn! He hated to talk on the telephone after he had a little juice in him. He lurched out of the chair, holding onto his glass, and walked unsteadily to the desk.

  “Yes? What is it?”

  “Good evening.”

  The voice on the telephone was a whisper, high-pitched and flat. He couldn’t tell whether it was a man or a woman.

  “Who the hell is this? How did you get this number?”

  “Neither question is relevant. What I’m about to say to you is, however.”

  “You’re gonna’ say nuthin’ to me. I don’t talk to—”

  “Newport News, Rawlins!” The whispered voice spat out the words. “I wouldn’t hang up if I were you.”

  Rawlins froze. He stared through the haze at the telephone in his hand. Slowly he brought it up to his ear, his breath suspended. “Who are you? What do you mean? Newport …” His voice trailed off; he could not finish the name.

  “Three years ago, Congressman. I’m sure if you think very hard, you’ll remember. The Newport News coronor estimated the time of death to be twelve thirty in the morning. Just about now as a matter of fact. The date was March twenty-second.”

  “Who the hell are you?” Rawlins felt sick to his stomach.

  “I told you it’s not important. No more important than that little black girl in Newport News. How old was she, Congressman? Fourteen? Was that it? It was grotesque, wasn’t it? They said she was cut up, beaten rather badly.”

  “I don’t know what you’re talkin’ about! It’s got nuthin’ to do with me!” Rawlins brought the glass swiftly to his mouth and drank. Most of the sour mash rolled down his chin. “I wasn’t anywhere near—?”

  “Newport News?” interrupted the high-pitched whisper. “On the night of March twenty-second, 1969? I think you were. As a matter of fact, I have in front of me a detailed flight plan of a Cessna aircraft flying in and out of a private field ten miles north of Newport News. There’s a description of the passenger: bloodstained clothes, drunk. Shall I read it to you?”

  Rawlins dropped the glass. It shattered on the floor. “You … stop … it!”

  “There’s nothing to worry about. You see, you’re chairing a committee in the House that interests me. It’s just that I don’t approve of your opposition to bill H.R. three-seven-five. You’re going to change that position, Rawlins. You’re going to throw your full support behind that bill.…”

  Phyllis Maxwell walked past the front desk in the Hay-Adams toward the Lafayette Room. There was the usual luncheon crowd waiting to be seated; it did not concern her. The Lafayette captain would spot her and usher her past the others to her table. She was fifteen minutes late; that was good. Her lunch date would be nervous, worried, wondering if she had forgotten; that was very good. He would be on the defensive.

  She stopped by a full-length mirror, pleased with what she saw. Rather not bad, she thought. Not bad at all for a once plain, overweight girl named Paula Mingus from Chillicothe, Ohio, who was a good forty-seven. She was … well, elegant was appropriate. She was slender, the legs tapered, the breasts firm, the neck long—almost Grecian, really—nicely accentuated by the pearl choker. And it was a good face. Again the word elegant was quite applicable
. Her eyes, of course, were striking; everyone remarked about them. Speckled, curious, the eyes of an experienced newspaperwoman. She used her eyes well, boring into whomever she interviewed, carrying the message: I don’t believe you for a second. You’ll have to do better than that.

  She had pried a lot of truth from a lot of liars with her eyes. More than once she’d stunned Washington with a confirmed story many knew existed but never thought they would see in print. She had forced confirmations, often by remaining silent, letting her eyes do the work.

  Of course, there were times when the eyes did more than doubt; they often promised. But she did not fool herself. Forty-seven was not twenty-seven, elegant or no. As the years went by, there were far more probes than promises. For a number of reasons.

  Phyllis Maxwell was the name, not Paula Mingus of the Chillicothe Minguses; the first editor who let her have a byline had changed that a quarter century before. And she was good; she took her job seriously. She went after the hard news.

  like today. There was something rotten, deeply rotten, in the ongoing election campaign. Money was being gathered in staggering sums from reluctant contributors. Threats undefined and assurances impossible to guarantee were being used as weapons.

  “Miss Maxwell! So good of you to join us.” It was the Lafayette captain.

  “Thank you, Jacques.”

  “Right this way, Miss Maxwell. Your party is here.”

  He was. A cherub-faced, bland-looking young man with scrubbed skin and eager eyes sprang to obsequious attention at the booth. Another clean-cut liar; they were everywhere. Stroke her. Phyllis could hear the instructions.

  “Sorry I’m late,” she said.

  “Who’s late? I just got here.” He smiled.

  “Then, you were late, weren’t you.” It was a statement, accepted with a clumsy smile. “Never mind, Paul. Have a drink. You need one, and I won’t snitch.”

  He did. Three. And he barely touched his eggs Benedict. Instead, he could not bear the waiting. “I’m telling you, Phyl, you’re barking up the wrong tree! You don’t want to saw yourself off the limb!”

  “You’re mixing your metaphors. You people do that a lot, Paul. Usually when you’ve got something to hide.”

  “We’ve got nothing to hide.”

  “Then let’s get to business,” she interrupted. Small talk irritated her; plunging in was one of her most effective techniques. “My information is as follows: Two airlines seeking new routes were told—not very subtly—that the CAB might look unfavorably, et cetera, et cetera, unless sizable contributions, et cetera. A major trucking firm was reached by the Teamsters. Contribute heavily or face a possible strike. The largest pharmaceutical company in the East was threatened with an investigative inquiry from the FDA two days after it was solicited. They paid up. There’ll be no inquiry. Four banks. Four leading banks, Paul. Two in New York, one in Detroit, one in Los Angeles—all seeking mergers—were told their petitions might be tied up for years unless they reached sympathetic people. Contributions were made; favorable responses were received. Now, this is all documented. I’ve got names, dates, and figures. I intend to blow a very shrill whistle unless you’ve got answers that isolate—and I mean isolate—these eight examples from the rest of the campaign. You’re not going to buy this or any other election. My God, you damn fools! You don’t have to!”

  The cherub paled. “You’ve got it all wrong! The radical posture expressed by the opposition would tear this nation apart. Weaken its very foundations, its fundamental liberties—?”

  “Oh, stop it, you ass!”

  “Miss Maxwell?” It was Jacques. A telephone was in his hand. “A call for you. Shall I connect it?”

  “Please.”

  The captain inserted plug into jack. He bowed and left.

  “This is Phyllis Maxwell.”

  “I’m sorry to disturb your lunch.”

  “I beg your pardon. I can’t hear you.”

  “I’ll try to speak more clearly.”

  “Who is this?” The voice on the telephone was a whisper. Eerily flat and in an upper register. “Is this a joke?”

  “Most emphatically not, Miss Mingus.”

  “Maxwell’s my byline. The fact that you know my given name doesn’t shock me. It’s on my passport.”

  “Yes, I know,” came the oddly horrible, whispered reply. “I’ve seen it registered at Immigration on the island of Saint Vincent. In the Grenadines, Miss Mingus.”

  The blood drained from Phyllis Maxwell’s face; a terrible pain shot through her head. Her hand trembled. She thought she was going to be sick.

  “Are you still there?” asked the horrible whisper.

  “Who are you?” She could barely speak.

  “Someone you can trust. Be assured of that.”

  Oh, God! The island! How was it possible? Who could care that much? What filthy mentality would take the trouble?… In defense of righteousness! But the righteous were wrong. It was freedom. From furtiveness and suspicion. Whom did they hurt?

  Every year, for three weeks only, Phyllis Maxwell left Washington ostensibly for total seclusion at a retreat in Caracas. But Paula Mingus did not stay in Caracas; she—and others—flew to the Grenadines, to their island. And there they were themselves. Women who found the fullest expressions of love. With other women.

  Paula Mingus was a lesbian. Phyllis Maxwell—in the interests of professionalism and at great, great cost to her well-being—did not acknowledge that word.

  “You’re obscene,” she whispered to the terrible whisper.

  “Most people would apply that word to you. You’d become your own dirty joke, your career destroyed. If the undeniable story were released.”

  “What do you want?”

  “You must assure that very sincere young man with you that you will no longer pursue the topics you’ve obviously discussed by now. You will publish nothing.”

  Phyllis Maxwell replaced the telephone. Tears welled in her speckled, professional eyes. She was barely audible as she spoke.

  “Is there nothing you won’t do?”

  “Phyl, I swear to you—?”

  “Oh, God! Steal the country!”

  She got up and ran out of the restaurant.

  Carroll Quinlan O’Brien, known as Quinn to his colleagues at the bureau, walked into his office and sat down behind his desk. It was nearly eight o’clock; the night force was well into its shift, which meant half the offices were empty.

  But sixty-four percent of all violent crimes took place between the hours of seven thirty P.M. and six A.M., reflected O’Brien, and the country’s major law-enforcement instrument was half-staffed during that time.

  It was not a valid criticism. The bureau wasn’t a field agency, it was a fact-finding house; and data was most obtainable when the rest of the country was awake. No, it was not a valid point to make, although vast reorganization was taking place; that’s what everyone said.

  They might start with Hoover’s ridiculous term Seat of Government. S.O.G. It was just as definitive to say FBI and far less pretentious.

  There was so much that was antediluvian, thought O’Brien. Confused organization charts. Contradictory and overlapping areas of assignment; strength where it was unnecessary, weakness where strength was mandatory. Dress codes, parameters of behavior—social, sexual, and meditative. Punishments meted out for inconsequential misbehavior, valid reprimands avoided by flattery and obsequiousness. Fear, fear, fear. It had run the bureau for as long as Quinn had been in Washington.

  For four years he had kept his mouth shut. He and a few others who honestly believed they brought a touch of sanity to the upper levels of the Federal Bureau of Investigation. They were also in a position to keep their eyes out for the truly irregular, the conceivably dangerous. And let others know when they had to know.

  He himself had funneled information to the intelligence community on a fairly regular basis when the director’s fury over real or imagined insults prohibited liaison. He was reminded
of the practice as his eyes fell on the small silver shamrock that hung on a chain around his pen set. It was a gift from Stefan Varak over at NSC. He had first met Varak two years before, when Hoover had refused to deliver profile data on Eastern-bloc UN personnel. The National Security Council needed that information. O’Brien had simply walked into Section I, made copies, and given them to Varak during their first dinner together. There’d been a great many dinners since. He had learned a lot from Varak.

  Now Hoover was dead, and things were going to change. That’s what everyone said. Quinn would believe it when he saw the directives. Then, perhaps, the decision of four years ago would make sense.

  He had never fooled himself or his wife. His appointment to the FBI was a political cosmetic. He had been an assistant prosecutor in Sacramento when he’d been swept into the Vietnam War because of his reserve-officer status. He had not been assigned to legal work; he had been put into G2 for reasons vaguely related to criminal prosecution. A forty-plus lawyer suddenly transformed into an investigator for Army Intelligence. That was in 1964. Finally, unexpected combat in the northern sectors, capture, two years of survival under the most primitive conditions, and escape.

  He had escaped in March of 1968 and had made his way through the torrential rains southwest across enemy lines, into UN territory. He had lost fifty pounds; his body was ravaged. And he had returned a hero.

  It was a time when heroes were sought. They were needed desperately. Discontent had spread, myths were decaying. The FBI was not exempt, and Quinn’s investigatory talents were noted; Hoover was impressed with heroes. So an offer had been made. And the hero had accepted.

  His reasoning had been simple. If he could start fairly high up the ladder and learn fast and well, there would he other fine opportunities within the Justice Department. Far more than in Sacramento. Now he was a forty-nine-year-old ex-hero who had learned very well indeed and had kept his mouth shut. He had learned very well, and that was what bothered him now.

  Something was wrong. Something had not happened that should have happened. A vitally important element of Hoover’s dictatorial reign had neither been revealed nor explained.