"The world is still a very dangerous place, Frederickson."
"Made more dangerous by those Ops lads in Langley. This country spends upwards of forty-eight billion dollars a year on its intel- "
"Where did you get that number? It's classified."
"Spare me. The key word in Central Intelligence Agency is central. The director is supposed to coordinate the activities of the dozen other intelligence agencies, from the military to the State Department. That's a good idea. But the CIA doesn't want to supervise and coordinate the show; they insist on being the show. You've got lunatics in Ops over there. I know that because I've also been hunted, shot at, and tortured by the CIA. The KGB is the Russians' problem; the CIA is ours. I'm just trying to do my part to solve that problem."
"You grossly exaggerate the allegedly illegal or harmful acts of the CIA. You have a personal agenda."
"You bet I do. If you ever have a couple of days to spare and are interested in really being briefed on some of the stunts those Ops people have pulled, I'll be happy to oblige you."
"You're wasting your time, you know," Kranes said tersely. "Nothing is going to happen to the CIA. There's almost certain to be a change of administrations in the next election, and the new president isn't likely to act on a single one of any of the recommendations you people make."
"I suspect you're at least half right. But the report will be out there, and don't be so sure nothing is going to happen. If the report is sound, and it will be, and the CIA's misbehavior has been egregious, which it has been, doing nothing in order to preserve the status quo will be an embarrassment to you and your party, not to the commission. I'm not talking romantic Cold War cloak-and-dagger skulduggery here, Kranes; this is about serious criminal activity."
"Diversion of funds from arms sales? Old news. Most of the country applauds what the CIA did in that situation. The goal was righteous."
"Yeah, well, let's see how hard people clap when they find out that the company has been systematically funneling bundles of money into the coffers of right-wing PACs in this country. It may be common knowledge that they try to rig elections in other countries, but I think not a few people are going to be surprised to find out that they try to do the same thing right here on American soil. As a matter of fact, three-quarters of a million dollars that flowed to your very own Get-Back organization was given to you by the CIA."
"That's a lie!" Kranes snapped, leaping to his feet. "Are you accusing me of-"
"Sit down and relax, Mr. Speaker. I'm not accusing you of anything. Neither you nor any of your money managers knew where the money really came from. Then again, you often go out of your way not to look too closely at some of your financial benefactors, but that's a different discussion. The three-quarter mil was carefully laundered-just not carefully enough. The CIA doesn't go around writing 'CIA' on its checks. Does the name Pluto Products ring a bell? They contributed the money. But that company doesn't make any products, Plutonic or otherwise. It's a CIA front, a shell that formally had headquarters in Haiti. That one we can prove. You see, the lads and lassies of Langley make every effort to use and manipulate certain politicians in this country the same as you use and manipulate people. There's a certain irony in that, don't you think?"
Kranes, red-faced, didn't sit, and he didn't relax. Instead he balled up his fists and leaned forward on his desk. "I've never taken any money from the CIA! It would be illegal for them to even offer it!"
"There you go."
"I still say it's a lie!"
"You'll be a better judge of that when the report is released. You can examine the data for yourself. Then we'll see if you're still so anxious to keep things just the way they are."
"You're not this country, Frederickson! I'm this country!"
"You're probably right, and so what? What does that have to do with the need to abolish, or at least drastically reorganize, the CIA? They're certainly not the country either."
"You're working for a bunch of disloyal and discredited ultra-liberal social engineers who still want to tear down this country and its institutions even after the American people have booted them out of office!"
"My, my. I do seem to have touched a nerve. You know, there's something missing in you people. I'm not sure what it is. It's not enough to call you mean-spirited, or hypocritical, or manipulative, or demagogic. It's more than that. First you ride to power by fanning hatred of the poor, blacks, immigrants, and just about everybody else who isn't white and middle-class. Then you work to actually throw all those people overboard. And now, here you are slobbering over the poor old CIA. What the hell's the matter with you?"
Kranes took a series of deep breaths, then slowly sat back down in his chair. "Our business is finished, Dr. Frederickson," he said evenly. "I expect you to keep your part of the bargain, which means I don't expect to hear from you or Thomas Dickens again. Now get out of my office."
I got out, called a taxi to take me to the airport. I was sorry I had wasted my time arguing politics with William P. Kranes, but I wasn't sorry I had flown down to Huntsville, and I wasn't sorry Garth and I had taken on the plagiarism case of Moby Dickens. I had Garth to thank for that. In fact, I felt good-better than at any time since Garth and I had received our invitation and marching orders from the head of the commission and we had plunged headlong into the assignment. The fact of the matter was that I had considerably more affection for the United States of America than I ever would have let on to William P. Kranes, for I believed he cheapened the currency of patriotism. I found America a truly remarkable nation, if for nothing else than its resiliency and the fact that it could survive leaders like Kranes. And I knew I was guilty of more than a little hypocrisy myself, and was not immune from little snits of self-righteousness. I'd told myself that what Garth and I were doing was good for the country. I still believed that, but I hadn't been working out of a sense of patriotism; for months I'd been running on a full head of adrenaline primed by hatred. It hadn't been good for me, and only now, with the peace and calm I was experiencing in the aftermath of this other, very minor storm, did I realize that. Helping Moby Dickens had been a truly righteous act, and I felt pleased with myself. I was ready to return to our report in a more relaxed frame of mind, and I was now confident we would finish it with time to spare. Tracking down a plagiarist had proved purgative.
Chapter 7
It was a good thing that I was enjoying a personal buzz from the quick and successful completion of the poetry business, because it looked, at least from my point of view, as if the electorate was going to get a lot more than it had bargained for in the last election, and the country was going to sink even deeper into a right-wing malaise that could last for decades.
Three days after I'd returned from Huntsville, CNN reported that the Honorable Mabel Roscowicz, the only remaining liberal on the Supreme Court after the death of Richard Weiner, had died in her sleep, apparently the victim of a heart attack. Now the next president would have two Supreme Court vacancies to fill, which meant the Court was going to swing even further past the center, all the way over to the hard right. The ultra-conservatives currently in power, and the very conservative president likely to be elected, were going to leave behind quite a legacy, even if, at some time in the future, the voters began to have second thoughts about their stewardship. Depressing. And it was almost enough to make me forget Garth's little tutorial on the things that were important. Francisco's interruption didn't help.
"Sir?"
"What is it, Francisco?" I asked irritably, glancing up from my computer.
"I'm sorry to disturb you, sir, but there's somebody here who insists on seeing you. He doesn't have an appointment."
"Again? I must be living in sin."
"I told him you're very busy, but he won't take no for an answer. He claims it's extremely urgent."
"Fuck him," I said, turning back to my keyboard. "Let him sit out there as long as he wants. If he keeps disturbing you, have one of Veil's security people throw him
out."
"It's Taylor Mackintosh, sir."
I typed in a line, stopped again, leaned back in my chair, and frowned at Francisco. "The Taylor Mackintosh?"
"Yes, sir. That Taylor Mackintosh."
"I thought he was dead."
"He looks alive to me, sir. He's waiting in the outer office."
"What the hell does he want?"
"He won't say, sir. He demands to talk to you."
I grunted, turned off the computer. "All right, send him in."
The old man who walked into my office was about five feet nine or ten, but he had always loomed larger on the screen-shot from low angles, or mounted on a horse, or with female leads who were always shorter than he was-in the movies I remembered from childhood and which still occasionally showed up on cable TV. Taylor Mackintosh had to be pushing eighty-five, but he was still obviously pretty spry. I'd heard rumors that he suffered from Alzheimer's disease, but his very pale blue eyes seemed clear and in focus as he glared at me from across the room. He was impeccably, if somewhat oddly, dressed in a gray, three-piece Armani suit with snakeskin cowboy boots. He wore a shirt that matched his eyes, and a black bolo tie with a turquoise clip. He looked and carried himself like, well-an old movie star. The only jarring note in his appearance was a cheap, impossibly ill-fitting and badly dyed toupee that made it look like he had a dead or sleeping muskrat on top of his head. A two-thousand-dollar suit and a muskrat toupee made me think that maybe the rumors about his diminished mental capacity were true. Either that, or he needed to hire himself a new dresser.
Taylor Mackintosh had to consider Charlton Heston, a younger man, his bete noire. Mackintosh had been the star of choice for virtually every biblical epic made-until Heston had come along. Mackintosh had played God on any number of occasions, but never Moses-and he was still known to harbor deep resentment over the fact that Heston had been chosen for that part. The irony was that Mackintosh, unlike Heston, was no friend of the arts. Dismissing his own career, he had, in his dotage, announced that the arts were for "lesbians and fairies," and did not ever deserve to be supported with a cent of taxpayers' money. Mackintosh also had a raging passion for guns, any gun, all guns of any size, shape, caliber, or color. He would dearly love to have been chosen as spokesman for the NRA, but again, Charlton Heston had gotten there first. He had comforted himself by agreeing to become TV-and-print spokesman for a tiny but very vocal band of gun lunatics that had thrown religion into the mix and which called themselves Guns for God and Jesus-or "Gingivitis," as they had affectionately been dubbed by certain members of the ultra-liberal media who didn't share their conviction that it was the God-given right of every man, woman, and child in America to own an Uzi and armor-piercing ammunition. Gingivitis was too nutty even for the NRA, which had been known to deny that the group even existed. I had no idea what Mackintosh could want with me.
"Good afternoon, sir," I said, rising and extending my hand. Age has its privileges, and Mackintosh's movies had given me hours of pleasure and much-needed escape from the pain and loneliness of my childhood in the single, shabby movie theater that still stood in my hometown in Peru County, Nebraska.
He marched across the office, stopped in front of my desk. Ignoring my outstretched hand, he reached into an inside pocket of his suit jacket and drew out a gold-plated fountain pen. "I'd just as soon skip the formalities, Frederickson," he said in a voice that had once been deep and resonant but was now raspy with age. "I'll give you my autograph, but I'm here to talk turkey."
I sat back down and motioned for him to pull up a chair. "I'll pass on the autograph, Mr. Mackintosh, but I'll be happy to listen to you gobble-as long as it doesn't take too long."
He didn't much like that, but it was hard for me to tell if he knew why he didn't like it. "I understand you're in possession of certain items that could prove damaging to a very good friend of mine."
I stared up into the angry, watery blue eyes and vaguely wondered if he was referring to the investigation of the CIA, or their Haiti connection. "I don't know what you're talking about, Mr. Mackintosh," I replied at last.
"You've got some so-called poems by some so-called Thomas Dickens."
Now there was a surprise. Mackintosh had not sat down, but was instead leaning on my desk and glowering down at me, so close I could smell his age and aftershave lotion. I stared back into the famous face for a few moments, then shook my head in disbelief and said, "Kranes told you about this?"
"What do you plan to do with these so-called poems?"
"Well, I hadn't planned-"
"Forget whatever you were about to say, because it would only be a lie. I know what you're planning to do, and I'm here to head you off at the pass. Nobody will believe you, but you could prove to be a nuisance. So I'm going to give you and your partner some nuisance money. Every man has his price, and I figure I have a pretty good idea what this business should be worth to you. So I'm going to make you an offer you can't refuse. It's better than you're going to get anywhere else, because the tabloids won't pay for a story about some stupid poems. One hundred and fifty thousand dollars. That's for the two of you."
It was the second time in three days I had gaped at somebody in awe and wonder, but this time my reaction wasn't feigned. The old man spoke gibberish in a patois of lines from old movie scripts. It suddenly struck me that Taylor Mackintosh was, indeed, quite insane, and I found myself feeling sorry for him. "Let's back up and waddle around the barnyard a little more slowly, Mr. Mackintosh," I said evenly. "You have to be very specific about what you think is a problem, and what you plan to do about it. I am not going to discuss any client's case with you. You have just this one second chance to get it right, because my time is limited. Now, take a deep breath and tell me why you're here."
He flushed, straightened up. "Bill Kranes is a good friend of mine. He's also one of the best men this country has ever produced. You and your liberal pals have cooked up some half-baked scheme to make him look bad just because he's written and published some poetry. You found out he used a pen name, and so you went out and found some black ex-convict to say he actually wrote them, and that Bill copied his work. Then you phonied up some old poetry magazines to back you up. You're planning to try to embarrass him and damage his reputation with this story."
"Your good friend Bill told you this?"
"He didn't have to. I'm not as naive as some people in this country, and I know what you're up to. I don't care what proof you say you have; I know this Thomas Dickens didn't write those poems of Bill's."
"And just what makes you so sure of that, Mr. Mackintosh?"
"Anybody with a lick of sense knows niggers can't write good poetry."
Ah. There went the last traces of my sympathy for the aged movie star with the bad toupee, and I wondered how much different his views could have been even before plaque had begun seizing up his brain cells. His statement left me not quite speechless. I sighed, shook my head, and said, "You are a clever old fox to figure that out."
"This man's a hero, Frederickson. The country is just starting to get on the right track after you liberals damn near destroyed it. The country needs his leadership, and friends of his are not going to stand idly by while people like you try to sully his name."
"You talk like he's going to run for president. Wouldn't that be a hoot."
"Two hundred thousand dollars, Frederickson. That's the absolute limit of what a group of people I represent are prepared to offer you to make this business go away. In return, you and your nigger partner will declare in writing that this slander about Bill copying the poems isn't true, and you pledge not to try to smear Bill, whether or not he decides to campaign for the presidency. Have we got a deal? You write up the letter, and I'll cut you a check right now."
"Don't you think I should consult with my partner in crime?"
"What nigger garbageman is going to turn down a hundred grand? You can probably give him ten or fifteen, and he'll be happy as a pig in shit. You can keep the rest fo
r yourself."
Try as hard as I might, I just couldn't work up any kind of real mad at Taylor Mackintosh; the famous movie star was now just a deranged old man who had lived long enough to make a total fool out of himself. What I found profoundly puzzling was the question of why William P. Kranes would confide in such a man, one who could prove profoundly embarrassing to Kranes as well as to himself. If Kranes didn't trust me and wanted to risk blowing himself out of the water by using somebody like Mackintosh as a front man, that was his business, but I wasn't going to be any part of it. And I was going to continue to try to shield my satisfied client, who had never even asked if Jefferson Kelly was the plagiarist's real name, and who had indeed refused the "honorarium," which had been returned to Kranes by certified check, along with my bill.
"Look, Mr. Mackintosh," I said quietly. "You've wandered onto the wrong movie set here. The script you think you're following just doesn't exist. There's no plot to embarrass or smear anyone. The problem you're referring to, if there ever was such a problem, has been successfully resolved."
"You expect me to believe that? Do I look like a fool?"
"I don't give turkey shit what you believe," I replied, my patience beginning to wear a bit thin, "and what you look like is between you and your mirror. For the life of me, I can't understand why your good friend Bill discussed this with you-he must be even stupider than I thought. But I will guarantee you this: he will not want you discussing this with anyone else, and he won't be your good friend much longer if you do. You should just forget the whole thing. That's the only free advice I'm giving out today."
"How much money do you want, dwarf?!"
"Cut!" I snapped, leaping up from my chair and jabbing a finger in the direction of the door as I stifled an impulse to burst out laughing. "Get the fuck out of my office before I throw you out! You used the D word!"
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