“I’m sure the cabbie will be able to find it,” Lowell said.
“I’ll leave your name at the door,” Newburgh said. “Give them mine, and they’ll pass you right in.”
“Thank you,” Lowell said, and hung up.
He took a shower and changed into civilian clothing, a tweed jacket, gray flannel slacks, a dress white shirt with a foulard in the open collar, and loafers. Then he took a taxi to Burning Tree Country Club.
“Major Lowell, as the guest of Colonel Newburgh,” he said to the porter at the door.
The porter looked confused, checked his file, and announced: “I don’t seem to have any record of that, sir. But I believe the colonel may be here, and if you’ll be good enough to have a seat, I’ll see about straightening this out.”
“How about this?” Lowell said, handing the porter a card. It was the personal calling card of the executive vice president of the Riggs National Bank, who was also chairman of the Burning Tree House Committee. On it was written “Mr. C. W. Lowell. All privileges, pending action of membership committee.”
“Oh, yes, sir,” the porter said. “We’ve been told to expect you, sir. Go right in. I’m sure our manager would like to explain our facilities.”
“Just point out the bar, please,” Lowell said, with a smile.
“Yes, sir. Up the stairs, through the double glass door.”
“Thank you,” Lowell said, and found the bar.
There was a stand-up bar and a number of leather upholstered chairs before small tables. Lowell sat down at one of the tables. A waiter in a white jacket appeared immediately.
“Scotch, not much ice, and water,” Lowell said.
“You’re Mr. Lowell, sir?” the waiter asked.
“That’s right.”
“Your first night with us, sir, you’re a guest of the club. And our manager just called to say he’s tied up at the moment, but he looks forward to meeting you personally in just a few minutes.”
“That’s very nice,” Lowell said. “Thank you very much.”
When the waiter delivered his drink, a good stiff shot in one glass, a glass with ice, a bowl of ice, a small pitcher of water, and a plate of salted almonds, Lowell asked the waiter if he knew Colonel Newburgh.
“Yes, sir,” the waiter said. “That’s the colonel at the end of the bar, sir.”
“Would you give the colonel another of what he’s drinking, with my compliments?” Lowell asked.
“Yes, sir, Mr. Lowell, be happy to.”
A minute later, Colonel Carson Newburgh, a tall, ruddy-faced man in his late fifties, in a splendidly tailored glen plaid suit, walked to Lowell’s table. Lowell stood up.
“You one-upped me, Lowell,” he said, offering his hand. “I guess I asked for it.”
“What was the little game at the door?” Lowell asked. Newburgh sat down, and motioned for Lowell to sit.
“My intention was to teach by example,” he said. “The point I was trying to make was that it is very hard for most people to gain access to these exalted premises. How’d you get in?”
“I had lunch with the chairman of the house committee in New York a month ago, and when he heard I was coming to Washington…”
“You’re up for membership?”
“Yeah. He said the committee meets only once every three months.”
“And decides which of the applicants, who applied two, three years ago, is the most worthy,” Newburgh said.
“Some pigs,” Lowell said, “as Mr. Orwell pointed out, are more equal than other pigs.”
“It’s nice to be rich, isn’t it, Lowell?”
“It’s way ahead of whatever is in second place,” Lowell said. “I gather you are ‘comfortable’ too, Colonel?”
“I think you could say that,” Newburgh said, and smiled at him.
“I’m really curious to know what this is all about,” Lowell said. “Until you played games with me at the door, I thought my cousin was somehow involved, that he wanted me to meet the respectable people.”
“No, the only contact I’ve had with Porter was to find out where you were staying,” Newburgh said. “I don’t really know him. But we have some mutual friends.”
“So do we, you said,” Lowell said.
“Bob Bellmon’s coming over,” Newburgh said. “He should be here right about now. I think the plane gets in at 5:55.”
“Don’t forget to leave your name at the desk,” Lowell said.
“I won’t have to,” Newburgh said. “Bellmon’s a member. His grandfather was a member.”
“I shall have to remember to be nice to him,” Lowell said. “Until after his chance to drop a blackball has passed.”
“Barbara wouldn’t let him do that,” Newburgh said. “Barbara likes you.”
“Just who the hell are you, Colonel?” Lowell asked. “And what the hell is going on?”
“My name is Carson Newburgh,” he said. “As in the Newburgh Corporation.”
“Then you are ‘comfortable,’” Lowell chuckled.
“It’s also been Lieutenant Newburgh,” he said. “And since I did such a superb job as E. Z. Black’s housekeeper in Korea, Colonel Newburgh.”
“Now I know who you are,” Lowell said. “Sure.”
“And I know who you are, of course,” Newburgh said, and chuckled. “You have been described to me as the consummate fuck-up.”
“I’ve heard that,” Lowell said.
“And also as a brilliant combat commander with a real genius for logistic planning.”
“That would have to be Barbara Bellmon.”
“Actually, it was Paul Jiggs.”
“I’d love to be able to quote that to him, and use it as a lever to get me the hell out of the Pentagon.”
“We now get to the point,” Newburgh said. “You can, if you’re willing to, make a greater contribution to the army sitting on your ass in the Pentagon than you made leading Task Force Lowell,” Newburgh said.
Lowell’s eyebrows raised in mocking disbelief.
“In case you’re wondering,” Newburgh said, smiling broadly, “why I called this little meeting.”
Lowell chuckled, and held up his empty drink for a refill.
“What do I have to do?”
“One thing that will probably amuse you, and give you some satisfaction, and a number of other things that you will probably dislike intensely. Both are equally important.”
“Tell me what will amuse me,” Lowell said.
“There is an H-19 at Fort Lewis, Washington,” Newburgh said, “that has been wrecked. Nearly totaled. You’re going to have to find enough money in your appropriated-for-other-purposes funds to have it rebuilt, and do so without anyone knowing about it.”
“And what happens to the H-19 when I do this? Some general has a flying command post?”
“Mac MacMillan gets a test bed for rocket-armed helicopters,” Newburgh said. When he saw the look on Lowell’s face, he added: “I told you that it would give you some pleasure.”
“Is that why I got that paper shuffler’s job?”
“That’s part of the reason.”
“Drop the other shoe, Colonel,” Lowell said.
“From what I’ve heard about you from the Bellmons,” Newburgh said, “and from my personal observations, you’d make a lousy politician. That’s a shame.”
“Why do you say that?”
“Because what the army needs from you is political influence.”
“Porter refers to our distinguished solon as our distinguished solon,” Lowell said.
“And I have one, actually three, too,” Newburgh said. “But we need more than that.”
“For what purpose?”
“To keep army aviation alive,” Newburgh said. “The air force is going for the jugular.”
“I’m not good at that sort of thing,” Lowell said.
“No. But you’re going to have to try. We’ll help.”
“I don’t really know what the hell you’re talking about,” Lo
well said.
“This town functions over Swedish meatballs and scotch on the rocks,” Newburgh said. “More power is wielded at parties than in the Capitol buildings. It’s pretty revolting, but that’s the way it is.”
“And where do I fit in?”
“The way you walked in here,” Newburgh said. “I made my point with a demonstration, it seems, even if it wasn’t the point I had in mind.”
“I don’t think I follow you.”
“You plan to play some golf while you’re in Washington, do you, Major Lowell?”
“Probably.”
“Here?”
“Unless I can find someplace more convenient.”
“Out there, Major, in Chevy Chase and Silver Spring, in the District itself, are several hundred congressmen, and God only knows how many thousand members of their staffs—and understand, Lowell, right away, that staffers are often more powerful than the men they work for—who can’t get past the porter at the door to this place. And places like it. They would be deeply grateful to be asked to play golf with you, Lowell, and they would not risk losing your friendship by voting with the air force. Get the picture?”
“I get it, and I don’t like it. I don’t think it will work.”
“It’ll work.”
“I wouldn’t know our senator if he walked in the door.”
“But he knows you, and you’re going to be invited out by him. And you will go, and you will have a good time, and you will entertain him in return. And he will find himself sitting next to a very charming colonel, who will make our pitch in his ear.”
“Jesus!”
“I don’t want to wag the flag in your face,” Newburgh said. “But this sort of thing is important, Lowell. And because you are—what did you say?—‘comfortable’? Because you are comfortable, you can afford to do it.”
Lowell looked at him for a long moment and then shrugged his shoulders.
“How do I start?”
“Call your friend at the Riggs Bank and tell him you want a nice little town house in Georgetown. Get one with a big kitchen and a big dining room. Nothing ostentatious, but efficient. Two or three in staff. Getting the picture?”
“A well-outfitted brothel,” Lowell said. “I have the picture.”
“And knock out the flip remarks. Act as if you like it.”
Lowell put up his hands in surrender.
“That probably means drinking soda water with a squirt of bitters to give it a little color. Your guests can, and it is to be hoped, will, get drunk. You will not.”
“Will I get an R&R?”
“Sure. Just take somebody valuable with you. Congressmen from Mobile, Alabama, love to go riding in Aero Commanders.”
Newburgh raised his own glass over his head for a refill, and then he glanced at the door, and said, “Oh, there they are.”
Lowell looked over his shoulder and saw Bob Bellmon, in uniform, walking into the bar beside a tall, muscular man in civilian clothing. He had never seen the muscular gray-haired man out of uniform before, and it was a moment before he recognized him to be General E. Z. Black, Vice Chief of Staff of the U.S. Army.
Lowell first thought that it was really very clever. Black’s very presence lent credibility and authority to his new role as a lobbyist. (He had almost immediately had the irreverent thought that he was about to become the male Perle Mesta.) And Black’s hands would be clean. The discussion was over. Black hadn’t told him to wine and dine the provincial congressmen, or to take funds appropriated for one purpose and use them for another, probably illegal purpose. And rebuilding a wrecked H-19 with funds intended for something else, and then arming it, in violation of the Key West Agreement of 1948, which forbade the army to arm its aircraft, was certainly illegal.
But that wasn’t why General Black had come to have a little chat with an obscure major.
An hour later, General Black lifted his eyes from the cracker on which he was spreading Camembert.
“I want you to stay away from Sanford Felter, Lowell,” he said.
“Sir?”
“You heard what I said.”
“May I ask why, sir?”
“Felter is our man in the White House,” Black said.
“I don’t know what that means, sir,” Lowell said.
“I was about to say that it doesn’t matter if you know or not—I gave you an order, and I expect it to be executed—but I suppose you are entitled to an explanation. Felter is the President’s liaison man with the intelligence community. It’s supposed to be a big secret, but he carries the rank of Counselor to the President. I don’t want that role of his compromised in any way. Not by somebody making the connection between this lobbying activity of yours, or this armed chopper business. Clear?”
“Yes, sir,” Lowell said. “But how do I explain this to Felter?”
“You’re a bright fellow, Lowell,” E. Z. Black said. “You’ll think of something.”
(Two)
Georgetown
The District of Columbia
4 July 1958
It was nearly midnight when Lowell’s Eldorado turned onto his street, and he pushed the switch on the dash that triggered the automatic door-opening device on his town house garage. He’d had a little party for a small (30) group of people aboard a rented 55-foot Hatteras. They’d cruised the Potomac starting at half past five. Cocktails, a seafood buffet, and then champagne as they watched the fireworks.
He’d worked in the Pentagon most of the day, and the party had been a real pain in the ass. What he wanted now, desperately, was a drink. He got out of the Eldorado, pushed the button that closed the garage door, and entered the town house through the kitchen. The servants were gone, but there was a stack of bills awaiting his attention on the kitchen table.
He went out of the kitchen through the dining room, and then through the living room to the bar, where he found a bottle of scotch. He carried it back into the kitchen, mixed a strong drink with very little ice, and sat down at the table and wrote checks. While he wrote the checks, he had two more stiff drinks.
It was hot and muggy, and when he checked the thermostat, he saw that one of the servants, who didn’t like air conditioning, had the temperature set at eighty. It came on with a thud, but when he climbed the stairs to his bedroom, it seemed as if every stair he took raised the temperature another two degrees.
It was too goddamned hot to even try to sleep. On an impulse, he took a pair of swim trunks from his dresser and carried them back downstairs with him. He undressed in the living room, throwing his clothes on a couch, went into the kitchen, and looked out the breakfast nook windows at the pool.
“What the hell,” he said. “Why not?”
He turned on the floodlights and the underwater lights in the pool and walked into the backyard. The backyard was walled with a ten-foot brick fence. He walked down the terrazzo to the deep end of the pool, set his drink down on one of the umbrella-topped tables, and took a running dive into the pool.
Goddamned water must be ninety degrees, he thought. It was like jumping into a hot bath.
He climbed out of the pool halfway down and walked back to pick up his drink.
“Howdy, neighbor!” she called.
Shit, that’s all I need. Constance.
Constance was his neighbor. Constance was the wife of a very important senator. The senator was sixty-eight, and said he was fifty-eight. Constance was thirty-odd and pretended she was twenty-two. Constance had short black hair which she wore pressed close to her skull.
He picked up his drink, put a smile on his face, and turned around.
“Howdy, neighbor!” he parroted. “I hope the lights didn’t wake you up.”
“Couldn’t sleep,” she said. Then she said, “Don’t go away!”
What the fuck is that supposed to mean? he wondered.
He walked back to the house, stopping to look for a towel in the pool house. There was none. He went into the kitchen and toweled himself with dish towels. He hoped t
hat Constance was not going to come over. He waited for the sound of the chimes, and when they didn’t come in a reasonable time for her to have come over, he went and looked out the window. The street was deserted.
He could go to bed. The temperature would be lower, if not cool. He had to go to work in the morning and he needed his sleep.
“Hi!”
Constance, wearing a two-piece bathing suit that would have been appropriate for a late-blooming thirteen year old, came in from the kitchen.
“How did you get over the wall?” he asked, in surprise.
“Love always finds a way,” she said.
He smiled at her and went to look. He was mystified.
“At the end by the house,” she explained, coming to stand close to him. “They made sort of steps in the wall.”
“I never noticed,” he said.
“There’s a lot you never notice,” she said.
He smiled.
“Do you want to be wet outside or inside?” he asked, thinking he was being clever, offering her a choice between a dip in the pool or a drink. Constance chose to misunderstand.
“That’s getting right down to the nitty-gritty right away, isn’t it?” she asked. “Can I have a drink first, or should I just jump in bed?”
“Certainly, you jest!” he said, making that as much a joke as he could.
“I didn’t mind you ignoring me when I thought you were queer,” she said.
“You thought I was queer?”
“You’re so beautiful, I thought you had to be,” she said.
“I’m crushed,” he said.
“And then I saw you paddling around with that newspaper reporter,” she said. “And I just happened to notice that she left her car on the street all night.”
“Engine trouble,” he said.
“Certainly,” she said.
“Would you like a drink?”
“I don’t need one,” she said. “But if it makes you feel any better.”
He went to the kitchen to make her a drink. She followed him, and ran her fingers over a faint, fifteen-inch-long scar on his back.
“Where’d you get that?” she asked.
“A long time ago in Greece,” he said.
“It’s just enough to accent the rest of the perfection,” she said. Her hand ran down his back and rested on his buttock. Either her fingers or her breasts coming out of the negligible top of her suit or the damp suit itself was enough to give him an erection. He was now afraid to turn around.
The Majors Page 28
