“Perhaps accounted for; can they be justified?”
“That would depend on who seeks justification.… Yes, they can be justified. I justify them.”
“How?”
Green pressed his back into the chair. The patriarch about to dispense wisdom, thought Trevayne. “To begin with, a million dollars in today’s purchase market is not what the average citizen thinks it is. General Motors alone bills twenty-two million annually in advertising. The new Post Office Utility, seventeen.”
“And they happen to be the two largest consumer corporations on earth. Try again.”
“They’re infinitesimal compared to the government. And since the government is the predominant client—consumer—of Genessee Industries, certain scholastic logic might be applicable.”
“But it isn’t. Unless the client is, in fact, his own company. Its own source. Even I don’t believe that.”
“Every viewpoint has its own visual frame, Mr. Trevayne. You look at a tree, you may see the sun reflected off its leaves. I look at it, I see the sunlight filtering through. Two different trees if we described them, wouldn’t you say?”
“I fail to see the analogy.”
“Oh, you’re capable of seeing it; you simply refuse to. You see only the reflection, not what’s underneath.”
“Riddles are annoying, Mr. Green, set-up riddles, insulting. For your edification, sir, I’ve gotten a glimpse of what’s underneath, and that’s why I’m here under these unusual circumstances.”
“I see.” Green nodded his head. The patriarch again, thought Trevayne; this time tolerantly accepting the inconsequential judgment of an inferior. “I see. You’re a tough fellow. A very hard man.… You have chutzpah.”
“I’m not selling anything. I don’t need chutzpah.”
Suddenly Aaron Green slapped the flat of his hand against the hard metal of his chair. The slap was loud, ugly. “Of course, you’re selling!” The old Jew shouted, his deep voice seemed to echo, his eyes glared at Trevayne. “You’re selling the most despicable merchandise a man can peddle. The narcotic of complacency. Weakness! You should know better.”
“Not guilty. If I’m selling anything, it’s the proposition that the country has the right to know how its money is spent. Whether those expenditures are the result of necessity or because an industrial monster has been spawned and become insatiable. Controlled by a small group of men who arbitrarily decide where the millions will be allocated.”
“Schoolboy! You are a schoolboy. You soil your pants.… What is this ‘arbitrary’? Who is arbitrary? You set yourself up as a judge of necessity? You imply that from-sea-to-shining-sea there is some great intelligence that is all-knowing? Tell me, Wise Rabbi, where was this mass intellect in nineteen seventeen? In nineteen forty-one? Yes, even in nineteen fifty and sixty-five? I’ll tell you where. Standing in weakness, in complacency. And this weakness, this complacency, was paid for. With the blood of hundreds of thousands of beautiful young men.” Green suddenly lowered his voice. “With the lives of millions of innocent children and their mothers and fathers, marching, straggling naked into the cement walls of death. Do not speak to me of ‘arbitrary’; you are a fool.”
Trevayne waited until Aaron Green calmed himself. “I submit, Mr. Green, and I say it with respect, that you’re applying solutions to problems that belong in another time. We’re faced with different problems now. Different priorities.”
“Fancy talk. The reasoning of cowards.”
“The thermonuclear age doesn’t have very much room for heroes.”
“More garbage!” Green laughed derisively. He put his two hands together, his elbows at his side. The patriarch toying with an unenlightened adversary, thought Trevayne. “Tell me, Mr. Subcommittee Chairman, what is my crime? You haven’t made that clear.”
“You know as well as I do. Using funds inappropriately—”
“Inappropriately or illegally?” Green interrupted, separating his hands, holding them out with their palms up, his deep voice trailing off.
Trevayne paused before answering. By doing so he made clear his distaste. “The courts decide those questions, when they’re capable of it.… We find out what we can and make recommendations.”
“Just how are these funds used … inappropriately?”
“For purposes of persuasion. I suspect an enormous barrel of pork that’s distributed to retain support or eliminate opposition to Genessee contracts. In a dozen areas. Labor, talent, Congress, to mention three.”
“You suspect? You make charges on what you suspect?”
“I’ve seen enough. I chose those three on the basis of what I’ve seen.”
“And what have you seen? Men growing wealthy beyond their abilities to earn? Worthless endeavors paid for by Genessee Industries? Come, Mr. Subcommittee, where is this moral decay? Who, may I ask you, has been so hurt, so corrupted?”
Andrew watched the calm but nearly triumphant expression on Aaron Green’s face. And understood the pure genius behind Genessee’s use of the bribe. At least with regard to the enormous sums dispensed by Green, the most important commitments. Nothing was paid out that couldn’t legally, logically, or at least emotionally be justified. There was Ernest Manolo, the infant labor baron of southern California. What could be more logical than to contain the spiraling national union demands with petty-cash vouchers and jurisdictional guarantees for certain geographical areas? And the brilliant scientist, Ralph Jamison, Ph.D. Should such a mind stop functioning, stop contributing, because it was troubled with real or imaginary problems? And Mitchell Armbruster. Perhaps the saddest of all. The fiery, liberal Senator pushed into line. But who could argue the benefits of the Armbruster Cancer Clinic? The mobile medical units traveling throughout the California ghettos? Who could term such contributions corrupt? What manner of cruel inquisitor would manufacture connectives that surely would cause the generosity to cease?
Inquisitor.
We don’t want an inquisitor. Big Billy Hill.
There was Joshua Studebaker, too, plaintively searching for a way to make permanent his past emancipations. But that wasn’t Aaron Green’s domain. Studebaker belonged somewhere else. Yet if Sam Vicarson spoke the truth, Studebaker and Green were alike. In so many ways; both brilliant, complex; both hurt yet giantlike.
“So?” Green was leaning forward on the chair. “You find it difficult to be specific about this mass depravity you’ve uncovered? Come, Mr. Subcommittee. At least a for-instance.”
“You’re incredible, aren’t you?”
“So?” Green was perplexed by Andrew’s abruptly inserted question. “What’s incredible?”
“You must have volumes. Each case a history, every expenditure balanced. If I picked an isolated ‘for-instance,’ you’d have a story.”
Green understood. He smiled and once again sat back in his chair. “I have learned the lesson of Sholom Aleichem. I do not buy a billy goat with no testicles. Select, Mr. Subcommittee. Give me an example of this degeneracy and I will make a telephone call. Within minutes you will learn the truth.”
“Your truth.”
“The tree, Mr. Trevayne. Remember the tree. Which tree are we describing? Yours or mine?”
Andrew pictured in his mind some steel-encased vault with thousands of carefully annotated insertions, a massive directory of corruption. Corruption for him; justification for Aaron Green. It had to be something like that.
To even begin to unravel such an encyclopedia—if he could find it—would take years. And each case a complication in itself.
“Why, Mr. Green? Why?” asked Trevayne softly.
“Are we talking, as they say, not on the record?”
“I can’t promise that. On the other hand, I don’t expect to spend the rest of my life on this subcommittee. If I brought you in, brought in this extraordinary source material of yours, I have an idea that we’d become a permanent fixture in Washington. I’m not prepared for that, and I think you know it.”
“Come with me.”
Green got up from his chair; it was the effort of an old man, a tired man. He walked to a glass-louvered door that led to the back lawn. On the wall by the door were several ornate coat hooks, a woolen muffler hanging from one of them. He reached for it and wrapped it around his neck. “I am an old woman; I need my shawl. You are young; the cold air will be invigorating. The snow beneath your feet won’t hurt good leather. I know. When I was a child in the Stuttgart winters, my shoe leather was ersatz. My feet were always cold.”
He opened the door and led Trevayne out on the snow-covered grass. They walked to the far end of the lawn, past burlap-covered bushes and a marble table which stood in front of a white latticed arbor. Summer tea, thought Trevayne. They went just beyond the arbor to the edge of a tall Japanese maple and turned right. This section of the lawn was narrow, bordered by the maple and a row of evergreens on the other side. It was actually a wide path.
The flickering immediately caught Trevayne’s eye.
At the end of the wooded corridor was a bronze Star of David raised perhaps a foot above the ground. It measured no larger than twenty or twenty-five inches, and on each side there was a small recessed casing in which a flame burned steadily. It was like a miniature altar protected by fire, the two jets of flame somehow strong and fierce. And very sad.
“No tears, Mr. Trevayne. No wringing of hands or mournful wails. It’s been nearly half a century now; there’s some comfort in that. Or adjustment, as the Viennese doctors say.… This is in memory of my wife. My first wife, Mr. Trevayne; and my first child. A little daughter. We last saw each other through a fence. An ugly, rust-covered fence that tore the flesh off my hands as I tried to rip it apart.…”
Aaron Green stopped and looked up at Trevayne. He was perfectly calm; if it pained him to remember, the hurt was recessed far inside him. But the memory of horror was in his voice. Its quiet, utter violence was unmistakable.
“Never, ever again, Mr. Trevayne.”
33
Paul Bonner adjusted the brace so the metal collar was less irritating. The flight from Westchester airport, in the cramped quarters of the plane’s bucket seat, had caused considerable chafing on his neck. He’d told his fellow officers in the adjacent Pentagon rooms that he’d jumped the skiing season in Idaho and regretted it.
It wasn’t what he was going to tell Brigadier General Lester Cooper. He would tell Cooper the truth.
And demand answers.
He got out of the elevator on the fifth floor—Brasswares—and walked to his left. To the last office in the corridor.
The Brigadier General stared at Paul’s bandaged arm and neck and tried his best to hold his reaction in check. Violence, physical violence, was the last thing he wanted. They wanted. The Young Turk—accustomed to violence, so prone to seek it out—had taken action without authorization.
What, in God’s name, had he done?
Who had he involved?
“What happened to you?” asked the Brigadier coldly. “How seriously are you hurt?”
“I’m fine.… As to what happened, sir, I’ll need your help.”
“You’re insubordinate, Major.”
“Sorry. My neck hurts.”
“I don’t even know where you’ve been. How could I help you?”
“By first telling me why Trevayne’s Patrols were removed by untraceable orders so Trevayne could be led into a trap.”
Cooper shot up from the desk. His face was suddenly white with shock. At first he couldn’t find the words; he began to stutter, and once again Bonner found the impediment astonishing. Finally: “What are you saying?”
“My apologies, General. I wanted to know if you’d been informed.… You haven’t been.”
“Answer me!”
“I told you. Both sixteen hundreds. White House security men. Someone who knew the I.D. codes ordered them out of the area. Trevayne was subsequently followed and set up for execution. At least, I think that was the objective.”
“How do you know this?”
“I was there, General.”
“Oh, my God.” Cooper sat down at his desk, his voice trailing off inaudibly. When he looked up at Paul, his expression was that of a bewildered noncom, not that of a brigadier who had acquitted himself superbly in three wars; a man Bonner had held—until three months ago—in his highest esteem. A commander, with all that the name implied.
This was not that man. This was a disintegrating, frail human being.
“It’s true, General.”
“How did it happen? Tell me what you can.”
So Bonner told him.
Everything.
Cooper simply stared at a picture on the wall as Paul related the events of the previous night. The picture was an oil painting of a remodeled eighteenth-century farmhouse with mountains in the distance: the General’s home in Rutland, Vermont. He’d soon be there … permanently, thought the Major.
“No doubt you saved Trevayne’s life,” said Cooper when Paul had finished.
“I operated on that basis. The fact that I was fired upon convinced me. However, we can’t be sure they were there to kill him. If De Spadante lives, maybe we’ll find out.… What I have to know, General, is why De Spadante was there in the first place. What has he got to do with Trevayne?… With us?”
“How would I know?” Cooper’s attention was back on the oil painting.
“No Twenty Questions, General. My tour of duty’s been too inclusive for that. I’m entitled to something more.”
“You watch your mouth, soldier.” Cooper pulled his eyes off the painting, back to Bonner. “Nobody ordered you to follow that man to the state of Connecticut. You did that on your own.”
“You authorized the plane. You gave me your consent by not countermanding my proposed intentions.”
“I also ordered you to phone in a progress report by twenty-one hundred hours. You failed to do that. In the absence of that report, any decisions you made were of your own doing. If a superior officer is not apprised of a subordinate’s progress—”
“Horseshit!”
Brigadier General Lester Cooper once more stood up, this time not in shock but in anger. “This is not the barracks, soldier, and I’m not your company sergeant. You will apologize forthwith. Consider yourself fortunate that I don’t charge you with gross insubordination.”
“I’m glad you can still fight, General. I was beginning to worry.… I apologize for my expletive, sir, I’m sorry if I offended the General, sir. But I’m afraid I will not withdraw the question … sir! What has Mario de Spadante got to do with Trevayne’s investigation of us? And if you won’t tell me, sir, I’ll go higher up to find out!”
“Stop it!” Cooper was breathing hard; his forehead had small rivulets of perspiration at the hairline. He lowered his voice and lost much of his posture. His shoulders came forward, his stomach loose. For Bonner, it was a pathetic sight. “Stop it, Major. You’re beyond your depth. Beyond my depth.”
“I can’t accept that, General. Don’t ask me to. De Spadante is garbage. Yet he told me he could make just one phone call to this building and I’d be a colonel. How could he say that? Who was he calling? How? Why, General?”
“And who.” Cooper quietly interjected the statement as he sat down in his chair. “Shall I tell you who he was calling?”
“Oh, Christ.” Bonner felt sick.
“Yes, Major. His call would have come to me.”
“I don’t believe it.”
“You don’t want to believe it, you mean.… Don’t make hasty assumptions, soldier. I would have taken the call; it doesn’t mean I would have complied.”
“The fact that he was able to reach you is bad enough.”
“Is it? Is it any worse than the hundreds of contacts you’ve made? From Vientiane to the Mekong Delta to … the last, I believe, was San Francisco? Is De Spadante so much less reputable than the ‘garbage’ you’ve dealt with?”
“Entirely different. Those were intelligence runs, usually in hostile territory. You
know that.”
“Bought and paid for. Thus bringing us nearer whatever our objectives were at the given times. No different, Major. Mister de Spadante also serves a purpose. And we’re in hostile territory, in case you hadn’t noticed.”
“What purpose?”
“I can’t give you a complete answer; I don’t have all the facts; and even if I did, I’m not sure you’d be cleared. I can tell you that De Spadante’s influence is considerable in a number of vital areas. Transportation is one of them.”
“I thought he was in construction.”
“I’m sure he is. He’s also in trucking and waterfront operations. Shipping lines listen to him. Trucking firms give him priority. He gets cooperation when it’s necessary.”
“You’re implying we need him,” said Bonner incredulously.
“We need everything and everybody we can get, Major. I don’t have to tell you that, do I? Go up on the Hill and look around. Every appropriation we ask for gets put through a wringer. We’re the politicians’ whipping boys; they can’t live without us, and they’ll be goddamned if they’ll live with us. The only supporters we have belong in fruitcake farms. Or in the movies, charging up some goddamn San Juan Hill with Teddy Roosevelt.… We’ve got problems, Major Bonner.”
“And we solve them by using criminals, gunmen? We enlist the support of the Mafia—or aren’t we allowed to use the term anymore?”
“We solve them any way we can. I’m surprised at you, Bonner. You amaze me. Since when did someone’s way of making a living stop you from using them in the field?”
“Probably never. Because I knew I was using them, not the other way around. And whatever I did was pretty far down the line. Dog territory. You live differently down there. I had the mistaken idea that you people up here were better than we were. That’s right, General, better.”
“So you found out we’re not, and you’re shocked.… Where the hell did you people in ‘dog territory’ think you got your hardware, soldier? From little old ladies in tennis shoes who shouted, ‘Support our boys’ and presto, there were ships full of jet fuel and cargoes of ammunition? Come off it. Major! The weapons you used in the Plain of Jars may have been loaded out of the San Diego waterfront courtesy of Mario de Spadante. The copter that picked you up ten miles south of Haiphong might just be the ‘snake’ we squeezed off a production line somewhere because De Spadante’s friends called off a strike. Don’t be so particular, Bonner. It doesn’t become the ‘killer from Saigon.’ ”