by Thomas Ross
That got a splatter of applause and another strident call from Hazie to, “Tell it like it is, Freddie!”
And Koontz did, or at least he told it as he thought it was. He warned that a strike would lead to a voter reaction at the polls which could set the union’s organizational efforts back thirty years. He spoke of increased workloads because of layoffs by attrition and by firings. He counseled the members that collective bargaining was their best bet, and if the bargaining process broke down, they should demand compulsory arbitration instead of a strike.
“Lemme tell you something about this here compulsory arbitration,” he said. “If we got a dispute with the city, well, the city’s gonna be just as scared of what might come out of compulsory arbitration as we are. Shit, they don’t know what kind of a deal might come out of it. Maybe they’d have to pay more than they would if they sat down with us and hammered out a contract. And that fear of the unknown is what we oughta count on. Because it’ll drive the city back to the bargaining table and make ’em work out a settlement that we can both live with.
“Now if that don’t happen and we go out on this strike that they’re talking about, well, a lot of you people right here in this room aren’t gonna have jobs to go back to when the strike’s over. And the ones who do have jobs to go back to might be given a little piece of paper to sign. And you wanta know what that little piece of paper is gonna be? Well, I’ll tell you. That little piece of paper is gonna be a yellow-dog contract and that’ll be the end of your union because the city’ll have you by the balls.”
Koontz was just going into his peroration when the six men came in. They looked cool and hard and confident. They were also young, mostly in their late twenties or early thirties, and they had a look-alike quality about them, probably because of the dark suits they wore.
They came in quietly and scattered themselves through the audience. Koontz went on with his speech until one of them called out, “Hey, Freddie, I think you’re full of shit.”
Koontz stopped his speech and stared at the man who sat in the third row. It wasn’t the first time Freddie Koontz had been heckled.
“Well, maybe you oughta know, pal, because you sound like you got a mouth full of it.”
“Hey, Freddie,” another one of them called out, “is it it true you and the mayor are still sleeping together?”
Freddie shifted his gaze to his new interrogator. “If I went in for boys, Rollo, I’d pick one with a real sweet little candy-ass like yours.”
“Why don’t you shut up and let Freddie talk?” This came from Hazie Harrison who was now on her feet, swaying a little, and glaring balefully at one of the hecklers who had taken a seat beside her. The heckler used his foot to turn over an empty chair. The chair fell in front of Hazie. She stumbled against it, lost her balance, and went down in a heap on the floor. It was a nasty fall and a murmur went through the crowd. One man said, “Why don’t you guys knock it off?” but he said it weakly.
The hecklers started tipping over the empty chairs then. Finally, one union member, a slim young black, rose and went up to the heckler who seemed to be the ringleader. The black said, “Look, all we’re trying to do is hold a nice, peaceful meeting. If you wanta stay, you gotta behave.”
The ringleader was about six feet tall with cold, wet blue eyes and short-cropped blond hair that was trying to curl itself into ringlets. He looked hard and well-muscled. He smiled once at the black and even from where I sat I could see that his teeth were white and shiny and even. The blond man said something to the black, but I couldn’t hear what it was. Whatever it was made the black swing at him, but the black’s blow didn’t connect because the blond man ducked it easily. The blond man then smiled again and hit the black hard in the stomach. He hit him twice. The black went whoosh and then sank to his knees as he doubled over and clutched his stomach.
The blond man looked around the room and said, “Folks, I think this meeting’s just about over, don’t you?”
Murfin turned to look at me. I saw the question in his eyes and I nodded. Murfin got up and moved over to the blond man with the cold blue eyes who now was nudging the bent-over black with his toe. Murfin’s right hand rested in his hip pocket.
“Excuse me, sir,” Murfin said, “but I think these folks would sorta like to go on with their meeting.”
“Who asked you?” the blond man said.
“Well, I guess what I’m saying is that I think you guys oughta leave.” Murfin smiled just a little as he said it. I stood up and started toward Murfin, an empty bottle of Falstaff in my right hand.
The blond man looked Murfin up and down carefully. The five other hecklers moved quickly across the room and formed a half circle behind the blond man. I glanced at Freddie Koontz who still stood behind the podium. Freddie gave me a small, almost imperceptible nod.
“You think we ought to leave, huh?” the blond man said to Murfin.
“Yes, sir, I think you should,” Murfin said and smiled his polite little smile again.
“Well, here’s what I think,” the blond man said and threw a hard left at Murfin’s throat. Murfin did a small, almost tiny dance step, ducked a little, and the left sailed past his right ear. The blond man just had time to look a bit puzzled before Murfin’s right hand came out of his hip pocket. In the hand was a woven leather blackjack. Murfin smashed the blackjack against the blond man’s upper left arm. The blond man howled and clutched the arm.
The five other hecklers started moving toward Murfin who stood, half crouched, waving the blackjack back and forth with his right hand, beckoning the hecklers on with his left. I cracked the bottle of Falstaff against the back of a folding metal chair. It shattered, leaving me with the top half of the bottle and some nicely jagged glass. A very wicked weapon. I moved up beside Murfin and let the hecklers look at the sharp, shiny edges of the jagged glass.
“You two,” the blond man said to a couple of the hecklers. “Take out the guy with the blackjack.” The blond man was still clutching his left arm. “You other guys take out the one with the bottle.”
They started moving toward us carefully, but confidently, as if they had done this sort of thing often before. They probably had. They stopped suddenly at the sound of another bottle being smashed against a metal chair. Freddie Koontz appeared at my side, a broken beer bottle in his big right hand.
“Come on, you cocksuckers,” Freddie said.
The five hecklers hesitated for a moment until the blond man said, “There’re only three of them.”
Out of the corner of my eye I saw a big, heavy-set man in his forties rise from his chair, hitch up his pants over his belly, and move to Murfin’s side. “There’re four of us now,” the big man said.
Another man, frail-looking and grey-haired with glasses, got up, took out his spectacle case, put his glasses into it carefully, and then took up a position next to the big man with the belly. The frail-looking man didn’t say anything.
After that another man got up and joined us and then another and then seven or eight more until we outnumbered the hecklers more than two to one.
“Like I was saying,” Murfin said to the blond man, “these folks would sorta like to get on with their meeting, so I think you’d better haul ass outa here.”
The blond man didn’t say anything. Instead he gazed coolly at the union members who almost formed a half circle around him and his five look-alikes. The blond man, still clutching his left arm, jerked his head toward the door. The five other hecklers started to back toward it, never taking their eyes from the union members until they were halfway across the room. The blond man went with them. Then he stopped and looked back at Murfin and then at me. “I think I’ll remember you guys,” he said.
“I think you will, too,” Murfin said.
The blond man nodded thoughtfully, then turned, and followed the other five out of the room.
Murfin and Freddie Koontz and I had a final drink in The Feathered Nest bar and grill. Koontz hadn’t tried to get the meeting go
ing again. Instead, he had let the members stand around and tell each other what they had seen and what heroes they had been. After they finally got tired of that, they went home.
Koontz now sat with us in a booth staring morosely into his glass of vodka and tonic. “That gave ’em a little boost,” he said finally, looking up at Murfin and me, “but it won’t last. They’ll get home and start thinking about it and wondering what might happen the next time if they’re damn fools enough to stick their necks out like that. Or they’ll start wondering about what might happen if a couple of those guys catch ’em somewheres by themselves.” He shook his head. “Well, at least you guys saw for yourselves.”
“Uh-huh,” Murfin said. “We saw.”
“Whaddya think?”
Murfin shrugged. “It don’t take much more than six guys like that, especially if they’ve got plenty of money.”
“They’ve got it,” Koontz said.
“So what I think is that you’re probably gonna have yourself a strike, if that’s what those six guys want.”
“It’s sure as shit what they want,” Koontz said. He looked at Murfin and me and then dropped his eyes to his drink again. “You guys couldn’t see your way clear to sort of stick around, could you?” He said it without hope, as though he knew what our answer would be.
“I don’t see how we could, do you, Harvey?” Murfin said.
“No,” I said. “It’s just not possible.”
“I didn’t think it would be,” Koontz said. His face screwed itself up into what seemed to be a painful expression and his mouth worked a little as though he wanted to say something that would make him hurt. Finally, he got it out. “I wantcha to know I appreciate what you guys did tonight. I’m much obliged.”
“Forget it, Freddie,” Murfin said. “Hell, me and Harvey enjoyed it. It was almost like old times, wasn’t it, Harvey?”
“Almost,” I said.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
I FLEW BACK to Dulles the next morning and called Ruth from a pay phone. After we asked each other how we were she said, “Everybody missed you.”
“I was only gone a day.”
“We still missed you.”
“Who?”
“I, for one, and all the dogs and cats, especially Honest Tuan who’s been disconsolate.”
“He’ll recover.”
“Then there’re the goats. They miss your firm but gentle touch. And so do I.”
“We’ll do something about that when I get home. How’s Audrey?”
“Better, I think. She doesn’t seem quite so morose. She seems more pensive than anything.”
“She’s probably smoking a new brand of dope.”
“No, I don’t think so. I think she’s resolving a lot of things.”
“You mean about Arch Mix?”
“About him—and about Sally Raines. And herself, too. She’s said a couple of things that lead me to believe that she may be on the verge of discovering that Audrey isn’t as bad as Audrey thought.”
“Self-acceptance, huh?”
“Don’t knock it.”
“I don’t. Another ten years and I might have some myself.”
“You have plenty. If you had any more, you’d be arrogant.”
“Instead of the way I am, right? You know, genial, solicitous, and easy to get along with.”
“Exactly.”
“I sound perfect.”
“You are,” she said, “and popular, too. You had some phone calls this morning. Three, in fact.”
“Who from?”
“Senator Corsing called again. Himself. He said it was quite important for you to call him.”
“All right.”
“Then Slick called.”
“Okay.”
“And Mr. Vullo. Or rather his secretary. He’s most anxious for you to call him. You want the numbers?”
“I think I’ve got them all. I may have to go see one or two of them so I’m not sure when I’ll be able to get home.”
“Make it soon,” she said.
After talking to Ruth I called Slick, but he wasn’t home. His answering service said that he would be back by noon. I called the Senator’s office and the sweet-voiced Jenny put me right through to him.
“You’re back,” Corsing said when he came on the phone. “Good. He wants to see you.”
“Who’s he?” I said.
“I keep forgetting, Harvey, that you’re not exactly caught up in the great sweep of politics anymore.”
“Not exactly.”
“Well, he still wants to see you. You know, our standard-bearer. The man who. Our next president.”
“Oh,” I said, “him.”
“Uh-huh. Him.”
“What’s he want to see me about?”
“There’ve been some rumblings from the outback. What we were talking about the other day. He called me about it and I said that you were looking into it out in St. Louis and that you might be willing to fill him in on what you’d found out. Are you?”
“For free?”
“Harvey.”
“What?”
“There’s no need for me to remind you, is there, that now is the time for all good men to come to the aid of the party?”
“There’s no need, but it doesn’t mean I have to vote for him, does it?”
“Do you still vote? I didn’t think you still did anything like that.”
“I vote against. I voted against Nixon twice. I don’t think I’ve voted for anyone since I voted for myself twenty years ago down in New Orleans. I won, too.”
“You told me. Well, will you fill him in?”
“It’ll be bad news.”
“Then that won’t be any different from what he’s become accustomed to.”
“Okay,” I said. “When?”
“Right away?”
“All right. Where?”
“Why don’t you come by here and pick me up. He’s got a borrowed hidey-hole out in Cleveland Park that he thinks nobody knows about. They wouldn’t either, if it weren’t for the swarm of Secret Service and press types that have to dog him.”
I looked at my watch. “I’m out at Dulles. I can pick you up outside in an hour.”
“Fine. I’ll call and tell him we’ll be there in an hour and a half.”
After Corsing hung up I called Roger Vullo’s office and talked to his secretary who said Vullo was out, but had left a message. The message was that it was imperative that I see him at his office at two.
“Did he say imperative?” I said.
“Yes, sir. He was quite explicit about the phrasing,” Vullo’s secretary said.
“Tell him I’ll be there at two-thirty.”
Corsing was waiting for me on the steps of the Dirksen Senate Office Building but I had to honk four times and even wave a little before he could bring himself to believe that he was going to have to ride in a pickup.
When he climbed in I said, “What’d you expect, the Bentley?”
“No, just something with a back seat maybe.” He looked around the cab of the pickup and said, “Where’s your gun rack? I didn’t think any of you hoot and holler West, by God, Virginia-type ridge runners would be caught dead in their pickups without a gun rack.”
“I live in Virginia, not West Virginia. We’re more sedate over there. More cultivated, too.”
“Where’d I get the idea that your farm was in West Virginia?”
“Probably from my sly country ways.”
“Probably,” the Senator said. “Well, did you see Freddie Koontz?”
“I saw him.”
“How was he?”
“Pissed off. Embittered. Dispirited. And perhaps a bit bemused by fate. He was just a few months away from his pension when they dumped him.”
“Well, maybe I can find him something.”
“I don’t think he’ll settle for something. He wants his old job back.”
“Do you think he has a chance?”
I shook my head. “It doesn’t look th
at way.”
The hidey-hole that the man who wanted to be president had found for himself was a big, ugly, faintly Norman house down back of the Shoreham Hotel and just across the street from Rock Creek Park on Creek Drive. Corsing showed some identification proving that he was a U.S. senator to one of the Secret Service men who were hanging about outside and who, after giving the pickup a stare of disbelief, directed us to a place where we could park.
We had to make our way past a gaggle of newsmen, or persons, I suppose, since there were a couple of cold-eyed women among them. All of them knew the Senator and several of them knew me and it was easier to stop and lie to them than it was to brush them off.
Three reporters from the television networks stuck their microphones into Corsing’s face. He stopped and the rest of the newsmen gathered around on the off chance that he would say something that they could record or write about.
The ABC reporter was first off the mark with, “Senator, some people say that this campaign is foundering. You’ve got the reputation of being one of the most astute politicians in the country. Are you here to help try to put the campaign back on the track?”
Corsing grinned and brushed back his floppy shock of greying hair. It was a familiar gesture, almost his trademark. He stopped grinning and tried to look grave and perhaps statesman-like, but there was too much twinkle in his eyes to bring it off.
“First of all, I’d like to go on record here and now as being firmly opposed to mixed metaphors. If this campaign were foundering, which it certainly is not, one might man the pumps or throw out a towline, but one most assuredly would not put it back on the track. Actually, Mr. Longmire and I are here not to give advice, but for another highly important reason.”
“What reason, Senator?” CBS asked.
“Lunch.”
“Aw shit.”
They made one more try, this time with me. “Hey, Harvey,” the Baltimore Sun man asked, “are you being asked to jump into this thing?”
