“Well, this has been real interesting, Mr. Blaine, and I don’t want to take up any more of your time. I’d just like to ask: do you have any material you think would be useful on this project—from the case, or from your association with Mr. Dobbs? And could you give me the names of anyone who might’ve been familiar with the case that I could talk to?”
There was a pause while the man thought. “No-o, as for the papers, I think I already sent the case papers and all some years back, when Hank started this thing. I told him then I didn’t think it was a good idea to dredge all this up again, but he was determined, so I just sent him a whole stack of stuff.”
“Films too?”
“I guess there might’ve been some films. Hell, Dick and I could hardly ever tell which of our stuff was whose. He’s probably got nearly everything I do. On the people side: hell, it’s been a quarter of a century, near about. Like I said, judge, prosecutor, and defendant all in their graves, and the defense’s got one foot in. The little fry? Well, any of them who had something to say, they’ve said it already in books and such. Look, miss, I got to go. This damn nurse’s pestering me again, I reckon she found some poor inch of my hide without a needle hole in it and it offends her.”
“Oh, sure, sorry—one last thing. Would you know how I could find out what happened to either Reltzin or Gaiilov? Even if they’re dead, they might have had friends or family. There might be papers left behind… .”
“Oh, Lord! I couldn’t even guess at how to help you there. Reltzin probably got shipped back to the Soviets. They got most of their nationals back in exchanges. Gaiilov? I heard he passed on, the lucky man.”
After she’d hung up, Marlene paged through her notes, puzzled. She found it odd that a man who recalled the exact words of a judge’s decision a quarter century past should be so hazy about so much else, for example, about what had become of the Russians. Of course, he was obviously ill, and memory got funny when that happened; for all Marlene knew he had a brain tumor. But that business about overhearing the two CIA guys in a bar—that sounded funny too. She drew a circle around that section of her notes, and around the Russian names, and then made a note to herself to call on Mrs. Selma Hewlitt Dobbs. The Widow.
Karp got through to Ray Guma in New York late in the day.
“Goom? Butch.”
“Butch?” said Guma in exaggerated puzzlement. “Do I know a Butch?”
Karp said, “I’m sorry, perhaps I have the wrong number; I was trying to reach the Association of Chubby Italian Attorneys with Mob Connections.”
“Oh, that Butch. You never call, you never write… . So, how the hell are ya, buddy? You solve the big one yet?”
“We expect an arrest momentarily. Actually, that’s why I called. I’m gonna offer you a rare opportunity to serve your country.”
“Wait a minute, let me put my hand on my wallet. Okay, I got it. Shoot—what can I do for you?”
“The Buonafacci kid you got on that rape charge. I could use a little favor from Tony and I thought it might be better if the ask came from you.”
A loud noise, like the sucking of a gas pump at the dregs of a tank, came through the receiver.
“What’s the joke, Goom?” snapped Karp.
“The joke, sonny boy, is that you got to take a number on that one. Stand behind the velvet rope. Narco’s drooling, racket’s got their nose so far up my ass I don’t have room for my hemorrhoids. I’m the queen of the prom on this one. I got to pick and choose.”
“Goom, for Chrissake, it’s not the Gambinos’ next smack shipment; it’s a lousy phone call to a retired wise guy, a soldier, is all. We just want to talk to him, and not about anything that’s going to involve Tony or anybody current in any of the families.”
“Who’s this soldier?”
“Guido Mosca. Jerry Legs.”
“Oh, yeah! V.T. called me about him a while back. So you found him, huh? I personally never had the pleasure. What, he’s in Miami?”
“Yeah. We figure it’ll jog his memory if Tony asks him.”
“Yeah, I guess,” said Guma reflectively. “What do you want to ask him about? Like, did he pop a cap on JFK?”
“No, just some other stuff. About some things that went down in New Orleans in sixty-three. Mosca’s name showed up on some documents. He was pally with some guys that Oswald was pally with—it’s just background, painting in some of the numbers.”
“You’re not off on this horseshit that it was a Mob contract on Kennedy, are you?” Guma asked.
“Well … I’d say it’s still on the table. Why?”
“Because it’s total garbage,” said Guma angrily. “The Mob whacks their own guys or guys who take their dough and then try to fuck them. If they whacked people who just pissed them off or put them in jail, Tom Dewey and Estes Kefauver wouldn’t have lasted long, not to mention you and me. You know why that is? Back in the nineteen-tens, I forget where, Cincinnati, or Columbus, some old-time wise guys knocked off a crusading police chief, a straight-up guy, just like they used to do in the old country, and what happened was a mob came stomping into the Italian section of town and burned it down and lynched any guinea they could get their hands on. So, since then, it’s been a no go: don’t fuck with the government guys, except with bribes. The other reason is, the Mob couldn’t pull it off, not like whoever actually did it did it.”
“I don’t see why not,” said Karp.
“Come on, Butch! It ain’t their style. They don’t go in for long-gun shots. Bugsy Siegel excepted, I don’t know a case in this country where a Mob hit used a rifle. Short range is what they like, or a big bomb.”
“What about Jack Ruby? That was short range.”
Guma chuckled. “Ah, well, Jack Ruby. I’ll give you Jack Ruby.”
“So why did he kill Oswald, if the Mob wasn’t involved in the JFK thing?”
“I didn’t say they weren’t involved. Fuck I know if they were or weren’t involved. They’re involved in everything else, they might’ve been involved in this too. They do stuff for money, you know? What I said was, the JFK hit wasn’t a Mob contract.”
“Okay, whatever,” Karp said. “I still need to talk to Jerry Legs. And don’t tell me I got to stand on line, because if you do, I’ll get on a plane and fly down to Miami and talk to Tony Bones myself, and if your name should come up in the conversation, I don’t know, some of the smart shit you’ve pulled on him over the years might slip out… .”
“Ah, Butch, come on, don’t even joke about that business,” said Guma, genuine alarm in his voice. Guma had for years walked the delicate line between relations with the Mob for which armed response was highly unlikely and those for which it was far too likely for comfort. Karp remained silent, and after a long moment, Guma breathed out a sigh and said, “Okay, you rat, I’ll see what I can do.”
“How was your trip?” asked Bishop. His voice over the phone seemed to come from far away, although he could have been in the next room in the Alexandria motel.
“It’s fucking cold here, Bishop,” said Caballo. “I hate the cold. I’m a sunshine soldier.”
“It’s only about forty.”
Caballo ignored this. “What’s the deal?”
“You need to pick up a package.”
“Black bag?”
“No, our contact will collect the necessary material and give it to you.”
“I can’t believe this! You brought me up here to be a fucking courier?”
“No, of course not! They made a copy of the film. The other items, the documents, are neither here nor there and can be explained away. Not the film. So …”
“That’s the black bag.”
“Yes,” said Bishop. “A man named Karp. It should be easy.”
THIRTEEN
“What do you mean he won’t allow a contempt citation?” Karp shouted.
Bert Crane, in whose office Karp had shouted this, recoiled, and then flushed with anger. “Could you keep yourself under control, please!” he snapped.
Karp resumed his seat, from which he had sprung when Crane informed him that George Flores had point-blank refused to cite Paul Ashton David for contempt of Congress.
“Did he give you any reason?” Karp asked in a tight voice, but at a lower volume.
“Not as such,” said Crane. “The congressman and I do not have a cordial relationship. ‘Witch-hunt’ was the word he used to describe your citation. It’s irrational. I simply don’t understand what’s going on.”
Which was just the problem, thought Karp uncharitably. He asked, “What about Dobbs? He’s on our side, isn’t he? Can’t he get it moving?”
“I spoke with him this morning,” said Crane. “He’s rallied a minority of the Select Committee over to the way we see things, but he can’t oppose Flores openly yet. And you need a clear majority to vote a contempt citation, and you’ll never get that as long as Flores is recalcitrant.”
“So what do we do, give up?”
“We wait for a break. Maybe something will turn up that’ll give Hank the leverage he needs to roll a majority in spite of Flores. Meanwhile …” He left it hanging, like, it seemed, the investigation itself.
That subject being dead, Karp asked, “Any word on the budget?”
“Yeah, the word is no. Not until this cockamamie comptroller general investigation is finished. It shouldn’t be too long.”
There was a blitheness in the tone of this last remark that annoyed Karp. Crane was independently wealthy and had besides just come from a lucrative private practice, which he still spent a good deal of his time tending.
“It’s been too goddamn long already!” snarled Karp. “I have no money. I’m cashing in CDs. We’ve been paying for consultant services out of our own pockets. If there’s no closure within the next week or so, I’m going to have to start looking for another job, one with a paycheck.”
Crane seemed taken aback by this outburst. “I’m sorry,” he said, “I hadn’t realized that you were so pinched. Would a loan help?”
Karp shook his head, suddenly embarrassed for both Crane and himself. “No, no, I’ll survive. The main problem is the consultants and the travel. We may be assholes, but the labs and the docs and the airlines aren’t.”
“Well, I’m sure it’s just a matter of days,” said Crane soothingly. “This crisis can’t continue indefinitely. Flores can’t want the public to see him as an obstructionist, and Hank will keep up the pressure on him to get the project rolling. Honestly, I think time is on our side.”
Karp had his doubts. Later in the morning, these were confirmed when he received an unexpected call from Hank Dobbs—unexpected because Dobbs usually dealt officially with the staff through Crane, and unofficially through his minion, Charlie Ziller. The congressman came quickly to the point.
“I understand you’ve had a breakthrough,” said Dobbs. “This mobster, Guido Mosca.”
“I don’t know about ‘breakthrough,’ ” said Karp cautiously. “It’s an interesting lead.”
“But you’re pursuing it?”
“Yeah, right now we’re looking into the best way of getting Mr. Mosca to talk to us. Speaking of which, Bert tells me that you’re pushing Flores for a contempt citation on David.”
“He does, huh? I wish Bert would learn that he’s supposed to run the staff, and not speculate on, or involve himself in, the politics of the Select Committee. My God! The man is a bull in a china shop. And he hasn’t cleared up this Philadelphia Mob connection business yet either.”
“But that’s nonsense!” protested Karp.
“Of course it’s nonsense. Bert Crane is as honest as a brick. But it hasn’t been laid to rest, and obviously, if there’s even a hint of an organized-crime angle to the assassination, as it now appears to be with this Mosca character, we’re in deep trouble unless it is resolved, permanently. Also, he’s still spending a couple of days a week in Philadelphia on private issues, and that doesn’t look good either. Sometimes I wonder whether he really wants the job.”
“This is pretty awkward, Hank, you telling me stuff like this. Why don’t you tell it to Bert?”
“You think I haven’t? I have, again and again. I’m on his side, and believe me, if I wasn’t, he would have been out of here weeks ago. Look, I have a quorum call and I have to run. But I want to get together with you soon, or a long talk. Maybe a dinner at my place; God knows, the girls are thick as thieves lately, you’re the only one who’s missing. And one more thing: I appreciate the work you’ve been doing over there under very stressful conditions. And I’m going to see that you get proper recognition for it.”
“I could use some actual money,” said Karp, but Dobbs seemed to ignore this remark and got off the line before Karp was able to ask him what he imagined proper recognition to be. Also left unresolved was the relationship of Dobbs and Crane; the congressman was obviously not the staunch ally Crane thought he was. Karp wondered what Dobbs wanted to discuss at the intimate dinner he was planning.
He turned his mind with an effort to more concrete maneuverings. Guma was out, or feigning absence, when Karp called him in New York, so Karp left a message: “Tell him it’s about my trip to Miami; he’ll understand.”
A few hours (spent on desultory paperwork) later, Karp’s phone rang.
“It’s all set up, wiseass,” Guma said without preamble.
“He’ll talk to us?”
“He’ll sing ‘La Donna è Mobile’ in the key of C—whatever. Don’t say I don’t come through for you.”
“I’d never say that, Goom. My only problem is how to pay for getting him up here. We’re having a little problem with our budget. You don’t think Tony would spring for a couple of round trips?”
“Ask him yourself, you’re such a buddy of his,” snapped Guma, and he broke the connection.
Karp was therefore actually musing on travel budgets, and budgets more personal, when the phone rang again a few minutes later and it was the columnist, Blake Harrison, and thus when Harrison asked him how he was he said, flippantly, “I’m flat broke.”
Harrison chuckled briefly. “Still haven’t been paid? That’s what happens when your boss is an unskillful, rather than a skillful, peculator in the public fisc.”
“Is that going to be the subject of your next column: the great Select Committee paper clip and stationery rip-off?”
“Hardly. Have you thought any more about what I said?”
“Some,” said Karp. “But I think it’s sort of moot at this point. I’ve just about made up my mind to quit.”
“Quit?” said Harrison in a tone of astonishment. “You can’t quit now. Why are you talking about quitting?”
“Um, for some reason I have a hard time getting people to understand this, but I have no money. I haven’t been paid. The prospect of my being paid remains dim. And when I say I have no money, I don’t mean that I can’t afford to lunch at the Palm this week. I mean I can’t buy the necessities of life for my family. I have a few pathetic CDs which I am going to have to cash in early to keep us alive in New York while I look for a job.”
“You’re serious? That’s the hang-up? You’re that broke?”
“Oh, yes,” said Karp, wondering where this was leading.
“No problem, then. Good, very good. I’ll be speaking with you later.”
He hung up, leaving Karp with the uncomfortable sensation that a deal had been closed, in which he himself was a fungible commodity.
“I need a car,” said Marlene, shaking off her raincoat in the Dobbs kitchen. To journey from Federal Gardens to McLean, not a burden when the weather was fair and warm, was a serious trial now that the fall nastiness had set in with damp vigor.
This complaint had been voiced with increasing frequency. Maggie looked sympathetic and said, “Why don’t you buy one, then?”
Marlene shot her an uncharitable glance. “With what for money? And no, I don’t want to borrow from you either. The problem is that transit authorities understand that the only people likely to be trav
eling from Lower Arlington to McLean in the morning are domestic servants, so who gives a shit if they’re waiting for hours and slogging through the freezing rain. Keeps them from getting uppity.”
“Stop it!” laughed Maggie, and then more thoughtfully, “You could probably get the Mollens’ car pretty cheap.”
“Who’re the Mollens?”
“They live down the street. It’s a VW and he’s a Member from Milwaukee.” Seeing Marlene’s incomprehension, she added, “They make auto parts in Milwaukee. Can’t have a foreign car anymore. They’re hot to get rid of it and it’s a darling car. Yellow, one of the kind with a square back.”
“A D Variant,” said Marlene. “What do they want for it?”
“I could call Sheila and find out,” said Maggie helpfully, going for the phone.
The call did not encourage. “Twelve hundred!” Marlene said. “That’s about eleven hundred more than we have in our checking account. Oh, well, fuck it anyway! We were going to go into town today, right?”
So they were and so they did. The children were left with Gloria, and Marlene and Maggie climbed into the deliciously warm and mighty Mercury wagon and headed for the GW Parkway.
They went first to the East Wing of the National Gallery, where Marlene had never been before, and cooed or snarled appropriately at the various treasures, and had lunch in the restaurant there, next to the little waterfall, and then went out onto the sodden and dripping Mall and hailed a cab to take them downtown for some shopping.
Actually, Maggie shopped; Marlene only advised and by dint of sincere argument, delivered with a passion she had not required since last she stood in a courtroom, kept her friend from making the sort of egregious mistakes that had left her with a bale of pricey but useless garments. Marlene found she enjoyed this vicarious shopping. There was no guilt involved, for one thing, and there was the Pygmalion-thrill of reshaping someone who had unlimited money and zero fashion sense.
They spent nearly four hours at it, ending up at Woodies on F Street, and at last, having had most of the packages shipped, and having spent enough to buy two used Volkswagens, the two women emerged, exhausted, onto the crowded streets.
Corruption of Blood Page 24
