Scruff

by Robert Ludlum

  Vicarson felt tired, exhausted, and depressed; he thought about stopping off at a bar for a few drinks. But he knew he wouldn’t.

  He’d get roaring drunk, and that wouldn’t do anyone any good.

  Especially not Joshua Studebaker.

  Alan Martin stared out of the car window. He was alone; Andrew had left the meeting with I.T.T.’s subsidiary early, without explanation. Sam Vicarson had called from the airport; something was the matter.

  The sign on the highway read: “Boise, Idaho; State Capital; Population 73,000; Heart of the Columbia Basin.”

  It was difficult for Alan Martin to think of Boise, think of the unnecessary conferences they were holding, for cover.

  He couldn’t get his mind off Pasadena. Pasadena and a fiery little man named Ernest Manolo. An incredibly young fiery man. Andrew didn’t want to discuss Manolo until they all got together that night. There was logic in that; save the information, don’t lose details in the retelling. Andrew was right; they could all trigger each other.

  It wasn’t so much Manolo; Andrew was right again. Manolo was only a cog, a single spike in a frightening wheel.

  Ernest Manolo, AFL-CIO negotiator for the entire district of southern California, had his own considerable fiefdom.

  How many others were there across the country?

  Michael Ryan sat at a booth in the hotel’s coffee shop. He was annoyed with himself. He should have known better than to be so obvious; he should have gotten a room and just stayed there until Trevayne called him.

  Goddamn!

  He just wasn’t thinking!

  The first goddamn person he’d run into in the goddamn coffee shop was Paul Bonner!

  Bonner was surprised, of course. And when he, Ryan, couldn’t come up with a decent explanation, Bonner’s surprise turned into something else.

  It was there, in the soldier’s eyes. That something else.

  Goddamn!

  His carelessness, Ryan realized, was due to an old friend, Ralph Jamison. Stupid, insane, crazy-head Jamison! Falsifying designs to get Genessee Industries a hundred and five million of Defense funds.

  How could he have done it? How could he do it?

  Sold lock, stock, and barrel to Genessee Industries. Jamison, with his three ex-wives, his four kids from who-knew-which, his middle-aged peccadilloes that were right out of some goddamn fifth-rate porno movie.

  Genessee took care of Ralph Jamison. Jamison told him it was standard operating procedure. “Ma Gen” took care of its talent.

  Bank accounts in Zurich!

  Insane!

  It had been three days since Trevayne and his subcommittee aides had left San Francisco, but James Goddard couldn’t get them out of his mind. Something had gone wrong. The final two conferences were merely prolonged embarrassments.

  Without the accountant. The accountant hadn’t been there. And it didn’t make sense for this Martin to be absent. Alan Martin was the cost man; just as he, Goddard, was a cost man. Without Martin, too many details were overlooked; Martin would have caught the details.

  Trevayne had joked about his aide. The subcommittee chairman had laughed and said that Martin was holed up at the Mark Hopkins with a bad case of “San Francisco water.”

  After the last conference, Goddard decided to inquire. He could do so easily, even be solicitous. He called the hotel.

  Alan Martin had checked out two days ago.

  Why had Trevayne lied? Why had the other aide, Vicarson, lied? Where had Martin gone?

  Had he suddenly gone to get follow-up data on information revealed during the conferences?

  Revealed by him; revealed by James Goddard, president, San Francisco Division, Genessee Industries?

  Which? What?

  How could he find out what it was without others becoming alarmed?

  That was important. Mario de Spadante said some might have to hang so that those farther up could remain untouched. Goddard knew he was considered vital. Good Lord; he was vital! He was the figure man. He arranged the numbers, created the projections upon which the decisions were made. Even he wasn’t sure who ultimately made those decisions, but without him they couldn’t be made.

  He was the keystone … a keystone.

  But he also knew that underneath the attention they gave him, the respect they surfacely rendered, there was a certain contempt. The contempt associated with a man who could only propose, never dispose.

  A “bookkeeper.”

  But this bookkeeper wasn’t for hanging.

  Goddard signaled a cab, and as it pulled up to the curb he made his own decision. He’d return to his office and remove a number of highly confidential papers. He would carefully put them at the bottom of his briefcase and take them home.

  Numbers. His numbers. Genessee’s numbers. Not names.

  He knew how to deal with numbers.

  A man had to protect himself. Perhaps against names.

  Andrew Trevayne jumped out of the cab and walked into the hotel lobby. He’d promised Sam Vicarson he’d meet him in Vicarson’s room. But before he did, he knew it was time to talk to Bonner. Regardless of what was learned from Sam and Alan and Mike Ryan, he had to get on Pace’s Lear jet tonight and go to Washington.

  And depending on what was learned from his three aides about Manolo, Jamison, and Studebaker, he might well go from Washington to New York and on to Chicago.

  Mitchell Armbruster. Aaron Green. Ian Hamilton.

  Either way, it was time to use Paul Bonner.

  Bonner was waiting for him in the cocktail lounge. The meeting would be brief.

  Trevayne was of two minds. He knew he had to do what he was doing; by using Paul Bonner, Washington would be convinced of the “legitimacy” of his temporarily abandoning his subcommittee, but there was another aspect.

  He was actively, willfully engaging in much the same type of manipulation he’d been recruited to expose—calculated deception. The difference, he rationalized, was the absence of financial profit, and for a while he accepted this rationalization as fundamentally justifiable. But there were other “profits,” equally important rewards. He didn’t need money.… Was he somehow applying the intensity others used for making money to reach something else?

  He couldn’t dwell on it; the decision had been made.

  He was going to relive—for the record—one of the most difficult periods of his life. It would give flexibility to time.

  Six years ago Phyllis had entered the hospital for an exploratory. It was before mammography had been perfected, and she had developed lumps on her breasts. He had been beside himself, trying his best to be outwardly confident, knowing the children suspected something far more serious than what they’d been told—perceiving his anguish.

  Now, six years later, Paul Bonner was to be given a current variation of the incident. An unspecific account, clouded with doubt and filled with apprehension. And a request: would Paul sit in on the upcoming subcommittee conferences with two subcontractors of General Motors and Lockheed? They were in Denver the next few days. The conferences needed the “weight” of his, Bonner’s, inclusion. San Vicarson was simply too young, Alan Martin seemingly too lacking in authority. The aides would fill him in.

  So that he, Andrew Trevayne, could get home to his wife.

  Phyllis was entering a private hospital Friday afternoon. No one knew anything about the exploratory other than Sam and Alan. Even the two men from 1600 who stayed on the Barnegat property knew only that Phyllis was going for a checkup. One way or the other Trevayne would return to Denver on Monday.

  When the drinks were finished, Andy found it difficult to look at Paul Bonner. The Major was so genuinely concerned for him, he agreed to do anything, take whatever worries he could from Andy’s mind.

  Oh, God! thought Trevayne. In this nation of labels this man is my enemy. Yet look at his eyes! They’re frightened—for me.

  Paul Bonner walked slowly down the hotel corridor to his room. He unlocked the door, entered, and slammed it shut
. He swung it with such force that two paintings—poor reproductions selected by a tasteless Boise management—vibrated on the wall. He crossed to his bureau, where there was the ever-present bottle of bourbon, and poured himself a large drink.

  He poured himself another and drank it rapidly.

  It was entirely possible, he reflected, that he might just stay in his room the remainder of the day, order another bottle, and get quietly, thoroughly drunk.

  But then, that would preclude the charade. He’d be too hungover in the morning for his meeting with Alan Martin and Sam Vicarson, during which time they were to give him the background on the subcontractors in Denver.

  Horseshit!

  The beavers were so inept. And the head beaver was playing a dirty game—a very personally dirty game—of dam building. He hadn’t thought Andrew Trevayne could roll in that kind of filth. Even the possessors of hatred—they might use their women to run guns and contraband, alert the jungles, smuggle narcotics, but they wouldn’t use them this way. They wouldn’t trade in painfully intimate confidences. There was no dignity in that, no essential strength.

  Bonner carried his glass to his bed, sat down, and reached for the hotel telephone. He gave the operator the private Washington number of Brigadier General Lester Cooper.

  It took Major Bonner less than a minute to get to the basic information.

  “… the cover is his wife. He says he’s flying east to be with her. She’s supposed to enter a quote—private hospital—unquote; cancer exploratory. It’s a lie.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Damned near positive,” answered Bonner, swallowing the remainder of the bourbon in his glass.

  “Why? That’s pretty hairy.”

  “Because it follows!” Bonner realized he spoke too sharply to his superior; he couldn’t help himself. His anger with Trevayne was too personal. “Alan Martin disappeared for a day and a half; Vicarson was gone for two. No explanation given, just subcommittee business. Then this afternoon, who the hell do I run into. In Boise.… Mike Ryan. Something’s going on, General. It stinks.”

  Brigadier General Cooper paused before speaking. His fear carried over the wire. “We can’t afford to be mistaken, Bonner.”

  “For God’s sake, General, I’m an experienced man; I’ve interrogated the best of them. Trevayne’s learning, I’m sorry to say, but he’s still a bad liar. It hurt him to look at me.”

  “We’ve got to find out where the other three were.… I’ll put out tracers with the airlines. We’ve got to know.”

  “Let me do that, General.” Bonner didn’t want the Pentagon amateurs coming on the scene. “There are only half a dozen lines coming in here. I’ll find out where they flew in from.”

  “Call me as soon as you learn something. This is priority, Major. In the meantime, I’ll put surveillance on his wife. To be sure; in case he shows up.”

  “You’re wasting your time, sir. She’s a cooperative girl. The ‘1600’ team will vouch that she’s going for a checkup. Trevayne’s a rotten liar, but I’m sure he’s methodical about this sort of thing. He’s in new territory now; he’ll be thorough.”

  22

  Sam Vicarson leaned against the writing desk as Trevayne settled into an armchair.

  “All right, Counselor,” said Andrew, looking up, “why the private conference? What’s the matter?”

  “Joshua Studebaker made a mistake forty years ago. They’re making him pay for it. He thinks thirty years of judicial decisions will go out the window if he’s called. As he put it, the source of his decisions would become suspect in every court in the land.”

  Trevayne whistled softly. “What did he do? Shoot Lincoln?”

  “Worse. He was a Communist. Not the radical-chic variety, but a real card-carrying, cell-organized, Kremlin-instructed Marxist.… The country’s first black judge west of the Rocky Mountains spent five years—again, as he put it—in dimly lit rooms preparing cases for his practicing colleagues that tied up the courts with manipulative language. For the cause.”

  “His practicing colleagues?”

  “He was disbarred in Missouri. He’d won one appeal in the State Supreme Court; he wasn’t welcome after that. He went underground, landed in New York, and became part of the movement. He got the Red fever; for five years he really believed it was the answer.”

  “What’s that got to do with Genessee Industries? With the Bellstar decision?”

  Vicarson pulled the chair out from under the writing desk and straddled it, his arms resting on the back. “The Genessee attorneys got to him. Very subtly. Veiled but explicit threats of exposure.”

  “And he sold out. He sold the bench.”

  “It’s not that simple, Mr. Trevayne. That’s why I wanted to see you alone, without the others.… I don’t want to write up a report on Studebaker.”

  Andrew’s voice was clipped, cold. “I think you’d better explain, Sam. That decision isn’t yours to make.”

  And Sam Vicarson tried to explain.

  Joshua Studebaker was in his seventies. A large, magnificently gifted Negro, he was the son of an itinerant crop hand named Joshua, as his father before him was Joshua. In 1907, during one of Theodore Roosevelt’s last-gasp reform programs, young Joshua was selected to receive some minimum schooling.

  Studebaker’s government-sponsored education lasted an extraordinary seven years, six more than the counter-reformers anticipated. During those years the young boy crammed an equally extraordinary amount of knowledge into his previously illiterate head. But at sixteen he was told there was no more; he was to be grateful for what he’d been given. It was certainly no birthright, not in the year 1914 in the state of Missouri, U.S.A.

  However, the tools had been provided, and Joshua Studebaker took care of the rest. He sought, begged, stole, and fought for the remainder of an education. The years were migrant years, but instead of following the crops, he went to where the classrooms were open for him. He lived in squalor, when it was available; more often in railroad yards and dump shacks with corrugated metal roofs and fires kindled by refuse. At twenty-two Joshua Studebaker found a small experimental college that prepared him for the law. At twenty-five he was a lawyer. At twenty-seven he’d astounded the bar in Missouri by successfully appealing a case before the State Supreme Court.

  He was not welcome in Missouri.

  He was soon thereafter without a practice in Missouri, disbarred over technical preparations. He’d been put in his proper place.

  There followed years of running, eking out whatever living he could—teaching when possible in back-country schools, more often doing manual labor. His prized lawyer’s certificate was next to worthless. Negro attorneys were not sought after in the twenties; a disbarred Negro attorney not at all.

  Studebaker drifted north to Chicago, where he made contact with the disciples of Eugene Debs, living out his last years writing and lecturing among the socialist intelligentsia. Joshua’s talents were perceived by the extremists in Debs’s circles, and he was sent to New York—to the soft, hot core of the Communist party.

  For the next five years of his adult life he was a vital, unknown legal manipulator, hidden by anonymity, doing the work of headlining radicals. He was getting even with the Eden that had cast him so unfairly from its garden.

  Then Franklin Roosevelt was elected President, and the Marxists went into panic. For Roosevelt went about saving the capitalistic system by boldly implementing social reforms the Leninists held as their own.

  Joshua Studebaker was approached by the Marxists to enter into another phase of operation. He was ordered to form an elitist subcell, the end result of which was the training of insurgent teams used for the physical disruption of government reform programs. Offices, job camps, food-distribution centers, were to be sabotaged; files stolen, welfare caseloads destroyed; any and all tactics employed that might cripple or make ineffective by delay the cures for the economic ills of the lingering Depression.

  “It was appalling that they
should have chosen me,” Joshua Studebaker had said to Sam Vicarson. “They misunderstood my zeal.… As a thinker, a strategist, perhaps, I accepted the principle of violence. As an activist I could not accept participation. I specifically could not accept it when the first results were directed at those who were helpless.”

  Joshua Studebaker, after reading in a newspaper the aftermath of a life-taking fire at a CCC camp in New York State, went to the Justice Department.

  It was the time of welcoming back errants; it was also a time of rewarding those who could help the Roosevelt administration wash off the taint of the Red brush. Joshua fit into both categories. He was quietly hired by the government, and all his legal privileges were restored. For the first time in his life Joshua Studebaker could stop running, stop scratching, stop lashing out at the horrors—real and unreal—that had pursued him. Eden became a productive, serpentless garden.

  And finally, as if the circle of experimentation were complete, Joshua Studebaker was awarded the first black judgeship west of the Rocky Mountains. It was a safe experiment—a small appointment with a constituency generously peopled by transient lumbermen and Tacomack Indians, but a judgeship, nevertheless.

  Ironically, it was later, during the McCarthy madness, that Studebaker received his “promotion,” as it were, to Seattle. It was someone’s sense of outrage that a once dangerous though anonymous radical was put forth. It balanced someone’s scale.

  “He’s spent thirty years fighting vested advocacy, Mr. Trevayne. I guarantee you that; look at the law books, at the supportive adjudications used by thousands of Legal Aid attorneys in the ghettos, in the barrios. I know, sir. I’ve been there. From land condemnation to restraints, from undue process to abridged rights. Studebaker’s been a one-man barricade against the self-interest groups. If we expose what he was, all that could be in jeopardy.”

  “Why?” Andrew was annoyed. “For something that happened forty years ago, Sam? You’re unreasonable.”

  “No, I’m not, sir! He never recanted, there was no public confessional, no groveling for forgiveness.… His court decisions have been interpreted as ideologically left of center. If his past is brought up, they’ll be labeled something else.”