“Conclusion?” Sam leaned back on the couch. “Either old Josh wandered back through the legal gymnastics to the essential truth with all of its human imperfections, or he had an ulterior motive. Frankly, I can’t subscribe to the latter. No … ‘compatible motive,’ to use the judge’s own words. Lastly, he’s a stand-up legal encyclopedia. Even though a lot of us are convinced there are holes, he might just be able to fill every one.”
“So much for Bellstar.” Trevayne wrote a note to himself on the back of the envelope in his hand. “What else, Alan?”
“Goddard was angry—I mean he blinked and smiled and damn near tore his fingernails on the wood—when you skirted the question of Armbruster. The Senator’s off-limits with him. I don’t think he knew what you were driving at. Neither did I, to tell you the truth.… Armbruster’s been a thorn to big corporations, especially monoliths like Genessee. He couldn’t understand your question about Armbruster being consulted about employment statistics.”
“Because Armbruster wasn’t consulted. He did the consulting.”
“I still don’t understand.”
“The liberal Senator did some rather illiberal cogitations during the last election.”
“No kidding?” Vicarson’s eyes were wide.
“I wish I were,” answered Trevayne.
“The last thing I put down—I left the legal stuff to Sam—was the downright evasions they all gave us, in unison, on the aircraft lobby. They were primed on this one. By their percentage figures they’re accountable for a maximum of twenty-two percent of the lobby’s funding. Yet according to the lobby’s own stats, Genessee’s responsible for twenty-seven percent that we know about, and probably another twelve that’s buried. If I really ran a subsidiary check and pulled in the Green Agency in New York, I swear I’d find an additional twenty percent. I know goddamned well Genessee plies a minimum of seven million into the lobby, but they refuse to admit it. I tell you, they’ve got more labels for public relations than Sears Roebuck has in a catalog.”
Labels. A nation of labels, thought Andrew Trevayne.
“Who runs Green in New York?”
“Aaron Green,” answered Sam Vicarson. “Philanthropist, patron of the arts, publisher of poetry at his own expense. Very high type.”
“A co-religionist of mine,” added Alan Martin. “Only he came from Birmingham’s ‘Our Crowd,’ not from New Britain, Connecticut, where us yids ate Kielbasa or got rapped by Polack knuckles.… That’s all I wrote down.”
Labels, a nation of labels.
Andrew Trevayne unobtrusively made another notation on the back of the Mark Hopkins envelope. “Grade A, pass, Rabbi Martin. Shall we bar-mitzvah young Sam?”
“After all my erudition? You’re a hard man, Mr. Chairman.”
“We grant you’re erudite, don’t we, Alan? We also grant your exquisite taste in gifts.” Trevayne picked up his shark lighter from the lamp table and pressed the dorsal fin. No light appeared in the mouth. “You owe me a battery.… Now, what has the learned counselor deemed to provide us?”
“Crap.… Funny, I don’t even like the word, but I use it a lot. Now, it fits.” Vicarson rose from the couch and walked toward the hotel television set and fingered the top.
“What’s the crap?” asked Trevayne.
“The term is no-volotore. At least it’s my term.” Vicarson turned around and faced Martin and Trevayne. “Goddard had a lawyer there this afternoon, but he didn’t know what the hell was transpiring. No-volotore; he couldn’t offer anything. He was there to make sure no one contradicted himself legally—that’s all. He wasn’t allowed to know much of anything. It’s one hell of a position.”
“Christ, I’m repeating myself,” said Martin, “but I don’t understand.”
“Dumb yiddle.” Vicarson lobbed an empty ashtray at Martin, who caught it effortlessly with his left hand. “He was a front. A surface front who watched both sides like a biased referee. He kept picking us up on phrases, asking for classifications—not on substance, only on verbiage. You dig?… He made sure some future record was clean. And take my word for it, there was nothing said this afternoon that anyone could use in court.” Vicarson leaned against the back of a chair and feigned a push-up on it.
“All right, Mr. Blacks tone. Why does that disturb you so?” Trevayne shifted his position so he could give young Sam the benefit of his full attention.
“Simple, my leader. No one puts a lawyer, especially a corporate lawyer, in that kind of position unless he’s frightened out of his tree. You tell him something!… That man didn’t know anything. Believe me true, Mr. Trevayne, he was in a much darker area than we were.”
“You’re employing Judge Studebaker’s tactics, Sam. Abstractions,” said Trevayne.
“Not really; that’s for openers.” Vicarson suddenly stopped his juvenile gyrations and walked rapidly back to the couch. He sat down and picked up one of the pages on the coffee table. “I made a couple of notes, too. Not so elaborate as Al’s—I was dodging the evil people—but I figured out a few things.… For a first raise, what would you say to collusion?”
Both listeners looked at each other, then at Vicarson.
“I thought nothing was said this afternoon that could be used in court.” Trevayne spoke while lighting a cigarette.
“Qualification—not by itself. In conjunction with other information, and a lot of digging, there’s a good possibility.”
“What is it?” asked Martin.
“Goddard dropped the fact that he—‘he’ being Genessee Industries—hadn’t been apprised of the steel quotas set by the President’s Import Commission in March of last year before the official release date. The fact that Genessee had an armada of Tamishito ingot shipped from Japan just under the wire was ascribed to favorable market conditions and an astute purchasing board. Am I right?”
Trevayne nodded; Martin toyed with his grotesque little flashlight. “So?” he asked.
“In August, Genessee floated a bond issue. Some one hundred million dollars.… We lawyers keep an eye on such things; we always wish we were a member of the firm that gets the job. That’s big-bonus time. I stray.… The firm which took on the bond issue was a Chicago office, Brandon and Smith; very big, very aristocratic. But why Chicago? There are a dozen tried-and-trues just down the street in New York.”
“Come on, Sam,” said Trevayne. “What’s your point?”
“I have to tell it this way. I need the background.… Two weeks ago, Brandon and Smith took on a third principal partner. One Ian Hamilton, an irreproachable member of the bar and—”
It was as far as Vicarson got. Andrew sat forward, holding the envelope in his hand. “Ian Hamilton was on the President’s Import Commission.”
“The commission was formally adjourned after the report was given to the White House. In February; nine months ago. Although no one knew whether the President would accept the recommendations, the five members of the commission were expected—legally required—to keep silent about their findings.”
Trevayne sat back and wrote another note on his envelope. “All right, Sam.… It’s a traceable item. What else?”
“Minor stuff, mostly. You may pick up something though.”
The three men talked for an additional forty-five minutes. Trevayne wrote nothing further on the back of the Mark Hopkins envelope. During the conversation Andy made martinis from the ingredients ordered from room service.
The dissection of the Genessee conference was nearly complete.
“You’ve picked our—laughingly called—brains, Mr. Trevayne,” said Vicarson. “What did you think?”
Trevayne rose from his chair and held up the envelope. He approached the two aides on the couch and dropped it on the coffee table. “I think we’ve got what we came for.”
Vicarson picked up the envelope and held it between himself and Martin. They read the carefully printed names.
ERNEST MANOLO—Pasadena
RALPH JAMISON—Houston
JOSH
UA STUDEBAKER—Seattle
MITCHELL ARMBRUSTER—D.C.
AARON GREEN—N.Y.C.
IAN HAMILTON—Chicago
“Very well-rounded list, Andrew,” said Alan Martin.
“Very. Each is intrinsic to a Genessee operation involving unusual and expensive circumstances. It’s across the board; that’s what makes it interesting. Starting with Manolo, there’s a labor settlement; Jamison: project design, production; Studebaker: a highly questionable legal decision—federal, too; Armbruster: right into the Senate—there are others in that area, but none have dealt directly with Genessee in California; Aaron Green is distributing a large part of a national lobby’s finances—courtesy of G.I.C. … Ian Hamilton? Who knows? But I get nervous when a man with his presidential ties is that close to a hundred-million-dollar bond issue with a major Defense contractor.”
“What do you want to do?” Martin took the envelope from Sam. “We can get background material on each, I would think.”
“Can we get it without arousing undue interest, though?”
“I think I can,” said Sam Vicarson.
“I had an idea you could,” replied Andy, smiling. “I want each of these people researched thoroughly, quickly. Then I want Manolo, Jamison, and Studebaker interviewed, confronted with—in order—the AFL-CIO negotiation in Pasadena, the design conversions at the Houston laboratories, and the Bellstar court decision in Seattle. We may get nothing, each may be an isolated action, but I don’t think so. I think we’ll find some sort of outline or pattern of how Genessee operates. Even if they’re not related, we’ll get a very good idea of Genessee’s methods.”
“What about the last three? The Senator, Green, and Hamilton?” asked Martin.
“We’ll hold on them until we interview the others,” said Trevayne. “What’s important now is that we move quickly, without giving anyone a clue as to what we’re doing. To use a Bonnerism, a surprise pincer attack; no one has the chance to create explanations.… We’re on a junket right now; the word is out that the three of us are pulling routine drop-ins at various plants—from San Francisco to Denver. Okay, that’s what the story remains. We continue. Only there’ll be some absenteeism.”
“Absenteeism? What’s that?” Sam Vicarson seemed entranced by Andrew’s rapid manipulations.
“Alan, I want you to go down to Pasadena; reach Manolo. You’ve had experience in labor stats; you and I negotiated union stuff all over New England years ago. Find out how Manolo did it without any of the big labor boys. And how come he’s so quiet about it; why the settlement hasn’t developed as a union guideline. Manolo should have been crowned and moved into the Washington headquarters. He hasn’t.”
“When do I go?”
“Tomorrow morning. If Sam here can come up with enough Manolo biography to give you something to work with.”
Vicarson wrote on his notes. “It’ll be a long night, but I think I can.”
“I’ll get hold of Mike Ryan back east. He’s an aeronautics engineer; that’s close enough to this Jamison’s work in Houston. I want him to get to the Genessee labs, find out how Jamison was able to get away with a conversion that cost one hundred and five million. What kind of man is given that kind of responsibility.… Sam, if we could find more hours for the night, could you dig up material on Jamison?”
Vicarson put down his pencil. “Someone in his position at the Genessee labs has to have clearance, doesn’t he?”
“Definitely,” answered Alan Martin.
“I know a disenchanted friend at the FBI. I went to school with him. He was never in the Hoover camp, but the Hoover contingent doesn’t know it. He’ll help us; no one will know.”
“Good. And now you, Sam. Get out all the information you find on the Bellstar decision, Studebaker’s decision. Read it until you can recite it backwards. As soon as Alan returns, I want you to go to Seattle. Studebaker’s your assignment.”
“It’s my pleasure,” said Vicarson. “That man’s a giant; maybe some of his stuff will rub off.”
“Let’s hope it’s the right stuff,” answered Trevayne.
“Andrew?” Alan Martin seemed concerned. “You say you want this all to be done with no flak, no one knowing what we’re doing. That’s going to be difficult. How do you explain the absenteeism?”
“A few years ago, Henry Kissinger got the ‘touristas’ in Taiwan; instead of being in his hotel room, he was in Peking.”
“Okay,” answered Martin. “That part’s okay. But he had rather special transportation. If anyone’s watching us—and we know damned well they are—airline reservations are easily traced.”
“Good point,” answered Trevayne, addressing both men. “And we’ll have special transportation, too. I’ll call my brother-in-law, Doug Pace, in New Haven. He can arrange private planes here and in D.C. Ryan will be watched also.”
“You haven’t lost your touch, Andrew,” said Martin. “Doug may have apoplexy, but he’ll do it.”
“He still hasn’t forgiven me for kidnapping you, you know.”
“My wife brings him chicken soup at the office. She’s afraid he won’t take me back.” Martin smiled; Andrew laughed.
“Mr. Trevayne?” Sam Vicarson was staring at his notes.
“Yes?”
“I see a problem.”
“Only one?” asked Martin. “I’m relieved.”
“I think it’s a big one. How do we know that the minute these guys—Manolo, Jamison, Studebaker—see us, they won’t throw panic switches and call the Genessee management?”
“That is a problem. I think the only way to solve it is to use concrete threats. The approach to each should be that he is a small part of a much, much larger concern. The interviews are confidential; to break that confidence could be indictable. Since Defense is involved, maybe we could use the National Security Act.”
“Section three-five-eight!” Vicarson was impressed with himself. “I picked that up from Bonner during an argument.”
“We’ll try it.… Now, you’ve both got a lot to do, and I have calls to make. Was Paul going to have dinner with us?”
“No,” answered Sam. “He said he was going out catting. The son-of-a-bitch didn’t even ask me to come along.”
“He’d be court-martialed for corrupting minors,” said Martin, chuckling.
“Thanks, Father Ben-Gurion.”
“We’ll break, then.” Trevayne reached down for the envelope. “The day after tomorrow we’re in Boise, Idaho; that I.T.T. subsidiary. Try to coordinate and meet us there, Alan. I’ll call your room after I talk to Doug. From Boise, Sam, you head up to Seattle.”
“Join a subcommittee and see the world,” said Sam Vicarson, finishing his martini.
Trevayne leaned back on the pillow and put his feet up on the bed. The telephone calls had been made. Phyllis missed him; she’d gone back to Barnegat while he was away. Life was uneventful. Pam and Steve were surviving at their schools. Pam had won some kind of award this semester in chemistry; how did she ever come by that talent? Phyllis was having the Swansons over for dinner tomorrow. They were still upset over the heroin episode; Officer Fowler at Police Headquarters was no further along than before.
His brother-in-law would take care of the small-plane arrangements. Charter and flight plans would be in his, Pace’s, name, and the first field would probably be the small private airport outside of Redwood City. Not San Francisco International. He’d call back. Further, his brother-in-law would discreetly, but thoroughly, check around the Hartford-New Haven area and uncover the whereabouts of Mario de Spadante. It wouldn’t be difficult; De Spadante delegated very little authority in his company. Any number of problems could be raised—invented—that required his immediate attention.
Trevayne reached Michael Ryan, who was still in his office at the Potomac Towers. Ryan made the evening brighter by telling Andrew he knew Ralph Jamison. Knew him quite well, as a matter of fact. They’d both been called in on the SST mock-up at Lockheed—consulting specialists.
>
“He’s a crazy bastard, Andy. But they don’t come any better in metallurgy. He’s a goddamn genius. And man, does he live! I’ll pump him dry.”
Ryan would be called directly by Doug Pace in New Haven; he understood the reasons, for secrecy and felt certain he could handle Jamison in that area. Ryan would try to complete the job and meet them in Boise. If he wasn’t able to make it by then, he’d get to Denver, the junket’s next stop.
Andrew made a final telephone call to Washington. To Robert Webster on the White House aide’s private line. He eventually reached him at home. He asked Webster to compile everything he could about Mario de Spadante.
Webster agreed to do so.
Trevayne looked down at the envelope in his hand. It was wrinkled, creased by his constant folding and unfolding. But the writing was still clear:
ERNEST MANOLO—Pasadena
RALPH JAMISON–Houston
JOSHUA STUDEBAKER—Seattle
MITCHELL ARMBRUSTER—D.C.
AARON GREEN—N.Y.C.
IAN HAMILTON—Chicago
This was the real itinerary. Six men who might help him understand the apparent majesty of Genessee Industries.
21
Sam Vicarson walked into the small passenger terminal at the Ada County airport, ten miles from Boise. Douglas Pace’s Lear jet had brought him back from Tacoma; while in Tacoma he’d rented a car and driven to Seattle.
To see Judge Joshua Studebaker.
It was a meeting he’d remember for the rest of his life.
It was also a meeting he could describe only to Andrew Trevayne alone. Not with Alan Martin; not with Mike Ryan. It was too private, too terrible, somehow, for any ears but Trevayne’s.
Vicarson knew that Mike had gotten into Boise from Houston several hours ago; Alan had returned from the Manolo interview two days ago, when he turned the Lear jet over for the Seattle run.
They were to meet that night in Trevayne’s hotel room. They were to put it all together then.
Sam had to find Trevayne before the meeting. Trevayne would know what to do.