“What’s the plan?” asked Karp when Crane told him.
“Committee meeting today. Hank thinks they can get this reversed. I’d like you to attend it.”
Karp did so, and in the late afternoon reported back to his boss.
“I think Flores has become unhinged,” Karp concluded. “He was behaving like a kid in a sandbox when some other kid grabs his toy truck, like this committee was his personal property. He bluntly accused Morgan of trying to steal the committee from him and become chairman. He was flinging insults at Hank too. The upshot was they reversed the firing letter. After they finally adjourned, Flores talked to a bunch of press people. He called you a rattlesnake.”
Crane chuckled. “That’s what they call ‘colorful’ on the Hill. It’s a synonym for deranged.”
“Bert, why is he doing this? I don’t get it.”
Crane made a helpless gesture with his hands. “He wanted a puppy dog. They all did, except maybe Hank and some of the King assassination people. Somebody who’d go through the motions and essentially reproduce the Warren Report, or even better, say that Oswald did it, and ‘probably’ there were some others but we didn’t know who they were. Something vague like that, enough to take off some of the heat from the critics. What they definitely did not want was a big, expensive, freewheeling investigation involving the CIA, the FBI, and the Dallas Police Force. That was my big mistake; I thought that they definitely did. That’s why I got involved and why I got you involved.” He looked sadly into Karp’s eyes. “For which I apologize.”
At four-thirty, Bea Sondergard burst into Karp’s office without knocking. She was pale and wide-eyed. “Flores sent the cops. They want Bert out by close of business. They say they have orders to seal his files.”
Karp leaped to his feet and dashed out into the corridor, heading to the door of Crane’s office. He stood in front of the door, feeling vaguely foolish, but unable to think of anything else to do. Two men in the uniform of the Capital Police, the security forces that answer to Congress, came striding purposefully down the hall.
They stopped in front of him, and one of them, a large moon-faced man of about fifty, said, “Is Mr. Crane in there?”
“Yes,” said Karp.
“Well, we got orders to remove him and take charge of all government material in his possession.”
“No,” said Karp.
“What?”
“You can’t.”
“Why not?” said the cop.
“Because I won’t let you. That’s an illegal order anyway. The full committee rescinded Mr. Flores’s order a few hours ago.”
“I didn’t hear nothing about that,” said the guard. “The shift captain told me to come down here and remove Mr. Crane, and escort him off the premises, and that’s what we’re going to do.”
As this took place, Bea Sondergard had been playing Paul Revere. The staff had gathered in murmuring clumps at both ends of the corridor, and several of the male members of the staff, and Bea herself, now moved to stand in the doorway with Karp.
The cop tried out a false smile and a pleading tone. “C’mon, mister, we’re only trying to do our job.”
“I know,” said Karp. “Nothing personal, but we’re not going to let you past. You can try to remove us by force, but in that case, if the order you’re carrying out is in fact illegal, I will press charges of assault against you, and sue both you personally and the Capital Police for damages. And if you choose to get physical there will certainly be damages.”
Karp hunched his broad shoulders and widened his legs to a fighting stance, demonstrating how the potential damages were likely to occur. There was some eyeball work between him and the cop, who was suddenly conscious that the eyes he was staring into were seven inches higher than his own. After a tense half minute, the cop said, “I’ll have to check with headquarters.”
He backed off a few yards and consulted his portable radio in low tones. Then the two cops left without a backward glance. A burst of applause from the staff. Karp was clapped on the back as he walked back to his office. Bea Sondergard, grinning, said, “A famous victory!”
“Yeah,” replied Karp sourly. “Like the Alamo.”
The next morning, early, Karp was called into Crane’s office.
“Well, I’m gone,” Crane said without preamble as Karp took a seat.
“What?”
“Yeah, I just came from Morgan’s office. Hank was there and a few others. The deal is, Flores will be replaced as chairman by Louis Watson, who’s been chairing the King operation. It’s something of a coup for the black caucus, which is how they got the leadership to go along with it. But they want a new face in my slot. They didn’t actually fire me, but it was real clear that that’s what they wanted. For whatever reason, they think I’ve shot my bolt here. And if I were to stay, the press would keep pecking at me, Flores’s friends would keep doing it too, and I’d be spending all my time answering these ridiculous charges. What do you think?”
“Yeah. I think resignation is your only option at this point.”
“I agree. The question is who replaces me.” He looked straight at Karp, who had some difficulty in meeting the other man’s gaze.
“Well,” Crane resumed, “do you want it?”
“No,” said Karp without an instant’s thought. “I don’t. If I took the job, it would be almost an endorsement of the way you’ve been treated. And I agree with you. Even with Flores gone, there’s no real political will to run a serious investigation.”
Crane nodded several times and then swiveled to look out across the railroad tracks. When he turned back to Karp he said, “Yeah, I kind of thought that’s what you’d say. But, I’ll tell you, Hank Dobbs, for one, is going to be real disappointed. He had his little heart set on you.”
That evening Karp brought home a small film-editing machine and a large red manila folder. In the folder was a copy of all the material that had been stolen plus the Depuy film and the Guel envelope and ledger. He had decided to remove it from the office entirely and carry it with him. He knew this was dumb, but he couldn’t think of anything else to do with it. It gave him something to hold on to, like a talisman. And if they tried to take it away from him, at least he’d get a look at one of the shadowy creatures who had dogged his steps for the last six months.
“I’m at National,” said Caballo.
“Good,” said Bishop. “Read the papers?”
“No, what happened?”
“The investigation just collapsed as planned,” said Bishop. He sounded pleased.
The thin man hoped that this would mean he could go back to Guatemala, where it was warm. “So that’s it?” he ventured.
“Not quite. I think we can get a tame dog in there, and then it’ll just peter out, but there’s still some sensitive material lying around. It’s basically a broom job. Take a cab to this address and stay there.” He read off an address in Alexandria. “I’ll be in touch.”
Caballo copied it down on a page ripped out of the phone book.
“Uh, Bishop. In Miami, I think that big guy, Karp? I think he might’ve seen me. Do you think we should …”
“No, no,” said Bishop, chuckling. “He’s going to be the tame dog.”
EIGHTEEN
In the morning Karp found a message waiting for him at the office telling him that Hank Dobbs wanted to see him. Karp dutifully trudged up the Hill, the red folder enclosed in a cheap government briefcase.
Dobbs greeted him warmly and led him into his private office. Dobbs seemed to have expanded since Karp had last seen him; he filled more space, his motions were more abrupt, more decisive, his eye harder. The various manipulations that had led to the downfall of Flores had added to his stature as a man to be counted in the inner workings of Congress. He had saved the leadership from embarrassment, and that was always a consideration when the plum assignments were handed out. This new status showed in his mien, more subtle than the fruit-salad ribbons oh the chest of a soldier, but as reada
ble to those in the know.
After giving Karp a brief appreciation of the politics of the committee, Dobbs began speaking of “your” staff, and “your” plans, as if offering the job of chief counsel to Karp obliquely, as if they had already agreed that Karp was already installed.
Karp interrupted. “Hank, I don’t know if you’re planning to formally offer me Bert’s job, but just to clear the air, I want you to know that I’ve decided not to take it.”
Dobbs stopped with his mouth open, and the color drained from his face. “What! Why not?”
Startled by the force of this reaction, Karp stumbled through a version of the explanation he had given Crane the day before.
“But that’s crazy!” said Dobbs, and now color flooded into his face, making the freckles stand out like nail-heads. “You have to take it! What do you think all this has been about?”
“I’m not sure I know what you’re talking about,” said Karp.
“Oh, don’t play innocent, for God’s sake, Butch! Crane has been doomed for months, ever since those stories broke and he put in that crazy budget, and I’ve been busting my hump trying to make sure that when the crash came, you’d be wired for the job.” He got up from behind his desk and paced in agitation. “Jesus! I’ve been goddamned horse-trading with half the committee to get you positioned, and now you have the gall to tell me you won’t take it?”
He stared at Karp, his blue eyes like gas flames. “What else’re you going to do, huh? You have a wife and a child. Hell, I even arranged for free day care for your kid and gave your wife something to keep her busy. God, man, think! You haven’t got a dime. What do you think’s available to you in this town? A GS-thirteen U.S. attorney job? You know how many of those guys would commit murder for this kind of chance? Running a big investigation—it’s a launching platform, it’s national recognition: the sky’s the limit here, Butch.”
Dobbs began to expatiate about how high the sky was, and as he spoke, illumination struck Karp like a slow, painful dawn after a night of bad dreams. He knew this was an important moment in his life, a place of many branchings. Part of him wanted badly to take this job, to be friends with people like Hank Dobbs, and Hank Dobbs’s friends, to have a nice house in McLean, or Kalorama, or Cleveland Park, to do this little job they wanted him to do and then wait around for an assistant AG slot when the administration was right, or when it wasn’t, a high-visibility job on a congressional staff. He could write legislation; he could go after big-time criminals; the FBI would jump when he cracked the whip; he could even have the FBI some day.
The only hitch was that the part of him that wanted the job would become, should he take it, the whole of him. His father would like that. Karp would know senators. He might even know the president. He would be on television behind the podium with a cabinet agency seal on it, pointing at charts, and he would be driven around in large cars, the kind with the little reading lamp behind the rear seat, provided so that important people might not lose even a few minutes of precious study time as they were driven to and from home during the hours of darkness.
And Marlene, what would she make of the new Karp, the wholly owned subsidiary Karp, the great success? Well, she would get used to it. There would be advantages for her too, she’d already received some and would get more, if she’d only learn how to behave… .
Suddenly, almost without consciously willing it, Karp found himself on his feet.
Dobbs stopped talking and looked up at him in surprise.
“No,” Karp said, and again, “No. Sorry, but I can’t do it.” He really was sorry and he really couldn’t do it.
Dobbs struggled to control himself, being enough of a politician and student of human nature to realize that shouting and bluster would not work with this one. In a meliorative tone he said, “Butch, come on—sit down, we’ll talk it through. If you have problems, or questions, or concerns, I’m sure we can work them out.”
Karp remained standing. He said, “Actually, Hank, I do have some questions. I’d like to know who you told that I was going to Miami and who I was going to see there.”
“What? What are you talking about?”
Karp ignored this protest. “Whoever you told, he told somebody else, and two critical witnesses were killed right in front of our noses. I know the leak had to come from you because you’re the only one besides Bert and my immediate staff who knew why we were going to Miami. I told you myself, dummy that I am, remember? Another question: did you know my apartment was bugged? Your buddy Blake Harrison sure did; he located me over the weekend with information he got from that bug. So he’s connected to the people who want this all derailed. What is he, CIA? He was nearly as forceful as you in urging me to take this job. So I’ve been asking myself why two such well-established and powerful people want me to be chief counsel.”
“Butch, sit down… .”
“I mean, it’s not like I’m going to be allowed to do any real investigation—I don’t think that’s on anyone’s agenda right now. So it can’t be my legal brilliance; Bert is brilliant too, and you didn’t like him too much.”
“Butch, will you just sit down and listen?”
“So it must be you think I’m hungrier than Bert, hungrier and more desperate. The trouble with Bert is that he’s from a Main Line family and he’s got an independent income and a big law practice. Karp, on the other hand, as you just put it so well, doesn’t have a dime—no, wait, I’m almost finished. So you think when you get me in there, with the salary and all the perks, and all the promises, like you just explained it to me, you figure I’ll just kind of roll over and let you have the kind of whitewash you want.”
Dobbs sprang to his feet as well and slammed his fist down on his desk. “God damn it,” he shouted, “that’s horseshit and you know it! If it wasn’t for me, there wouldn’t be a serious investigation at all.”
Karp leaned across the desk and placed his face within a foot of Dobbs’s. Quietly, speaking quickly in the frozen moment, he said, “Yeah, I know. That’s what Bert said too. And I can’t figure it out. You want a real investigation; I know you don’t believe in Warren; but you’re also working a game, Hank. For whatever reason, you’re trying to steer the investigation in a certain direction—toward something or away from something, I don’t know which. I tell you what, Hank: I’ll make a deal with you. You tell me the full story, who you told and who he’s really working for, and why you’re doing what you’re doing, and I’ll take the job.”
Karp had been staring into Dobbs’s eyes as he said this, so he could see the fear come into them.
“My God!” said Dobbs. “You’ve turned into some kind of paranoid maniac.”
Karp stood up and turned to go. Almost as an aside, he said, “By the way, Hank, one of my people saw your boy Charlie Ziller swipe a bunch of evidence from the office a couple of weeks ago. Who did he give it to?”
“They couldn’t have—,” Dobbs blurted, and then stopped short, his face blanching.
“No? Why couldn’t they have? Because he did it late at night? Because he swore that no one was watching? I don’t think you ever actually practiced any criminal law, did you, Hank? And for sure you were never a prosecutor. Otherwise, you would’ve learned that trick the first week. So, who got the package? Harrison? The CIA? It doesn’t really matter because I have copies of everything.”
In a strangled voice he said, “Get out!”
“Okay, but one thing, Representative Dobbs, some advice. You ought to make sure that whoever you hire to replace Bert is someone who never saw the inside of a courtroom. It’ll make things a lot easier on you.”
Karp walked back down the Hill through a cold, light drizzle, feeling on the one hand pretty good and on the other like a prize schmuck, not an unfamiliar combo to him.
In the office, he told Crane he’d turned down the job, leaving the other conversation out of it. Then he went to see V.T.
V.T. was on the phone. When Karp walked in he said into the receiver, “Oh, wa
it a sec, he just walked in.” He held the receiver out to Karp. “It’s Fulton in Louisiana. He wants to talk to you.”
“Clay. You find out anything?”
“Yeah,” said Fulton, “I found out folks in Baton Rouge don’t like smart nigger cops from New York.”
“Ah, shit, Clay, I’m sorry. You got into trouble, right?”
“A couple of the local redneck cops rousted me. I flashed my buzzer, but they thought I stole it. I had to do my Sidney Poitier impression.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Hey, it was interesting, what can I say? Pete Melchior saved my ass. Anyway, we’re still looking into this P. X. Kelly guy. So far, no connections with any Cubans. We’re trying to get hold of his bank records—that’s what I was talking to V.T. about—to see if we can match those transfers to Guel. What’s going on up there? I heard about Crane.”
“Well, we’re sort of on hold here, Clay. Dobbs just offered me Crane’s job, and I turned it down.”
“You what?”
“I turned it down. Dobbs is our leak. No, I can’t get into it now, it’s a long story, and besides, I’m not sure that this line isn’t bugged too.”
“As bad as that, huh?”
“Maybe worse. Look, meanwhile, keep working the PXK angle. There’s got to be something; I can feel it. Oh, see if you can find any connection between Kelly and Henry Dobbs, or his family.”
“Yeah, right. We’re gonna get yanked, aren’t we?”
“Probably, but let’s get as much done as we can until the ax falls.”
Hanging up, Karp turned to V.T. and told him what had happened at Dobbs’s office. V.T. took it with his typical aplomb. “Well, well, Hank has a taste for conspiracy, just like dear old dad.”
“I thought he didn’t do it. That’s what Marlene’s been trying to prove—oh, that reminds me. Marlene mentioned a name that rang a bell and I said I’d try to track it down. Gaiilov? Did you mention it?”
Corruption of Blood Page 35
