The Hellfire Club

by Jake Tapper

  Jesus, thought Charlie, was that only just yesterday? It felt like a month had passed; this was a whole new Washington, DC, reality to which he hadn’t yet adjusted, one where death wasn’t something that happened just to our boys in Korea.

  The tiny room was crowded: House Speaker Joe Martin was standing off to the side talking to majority leader Charles Halleck from MacLachlan’s home state of Indiana and Democratic leader Sam Rayburn of Texas. Near them stood the vice president, Richard Nixon, with a complexion almost as wan as the patient’s.

  Charlie and Street introduced themselves to MacLachlan’s wife, Henrietta, who struggled to maintain her composure. She raised her hands helplessly. “The idea that he could survive the Nazis in France but not the Puerto Ricans in Washington…” Her eyes darted toward Street, presumably to see if he might have taken offense. But Street’s face revealed only sympathy.

  “I’ve known him for only a short while,” Charlie told her, “but he is one of the most principled men I’ve ever met. And he’s strong. If anyone can fight this and survive, it will be him.” The words rang hollow as he said them. In France, he had seen the mightiest fighters perish in pathetic accidents and the weakest cowards make it through the grisliest of conflicts. None of it meant anything.

  “Oh, Congressman Marder, he has such nice things to say about you,” she replied.

  The room settled into silence for a few moments until two staff members poked their heads in the doorway to retrieve Vice President Nixon, followed not long afterward by aides collecting the Speaker of the House. Charlie and Street engaged in some small talk with Halleck and Rayburn.

  “How are the others?” Street asked.

  “They’re okay,” Rayburn said. “Better ’n Mac.”

  “We just saw Davis and Jensen at Bethesda,” said Halleck. “They’re sharing a room. Doctors say they’re going to be fine.”

  “Sumbitches were arguing.” Rayburn chortled softly, casting a cautious glance toward Mrs. MacLachlan before he lowered his voice. “Davis wanted to listen to The Lone Ranger on the radio. Jensen wanted music, said he’d had all the shooting he could take for one day.”

  Charlie smiled politely, too aware of the gravity of MacLachlan’s situation to feel comfortable joking at his bedside about survivors. He and Street sat down on two metal folding chairs and stared at the patient as he labored to breathe. They didn’t know what to say or where to look.

  “Mrs. MacLachlan, Sam and I need to stop by and visit some of the other wounded members of Congress,” Halleck said, “but we’ll be back soon. If there is anything at all we can do for you, please don’t hesitate to call.”

  She accepted his farewell absently, with a small nod. The congressmen made their way out of the room and Charlie turned his attention to the bed. In addition to the oxygen mask, MacLachlan had two IVs that were dripping clear fluids into his forearms. Charlie was following the trail of a blue tube from MacLachlan’s arm through a mess of cords and wires when Street nudged him.

  MacLachlan’s eyes were open.

  His wife jumped to her feet. “Christian?” Mrs. MacLachlan asked “Christian?”

  MacLachlan didn’t move his head or neck. He blinked rapidly, a look of incomprehension on his face. His gaze shifted from right to left, taking in Charlie and Street, and then to his wife. His right hand slowly rose from the bed, and she clasped it with both of hers; tears began to stream down her cheeks.

  MacLachlan struggled to speak; he laboriously yanked the oxygen mask from his face. His wife gasped and looked at Charlie and Street, alarmed. MacLachlan, grimacing with pain, turned his eyes to Charlie and sent him a piercing glare.

  “Jen…Jennifer,” MacLachlan said. “Under Jennifer.”

  He looked depleted by the effort; his eyes closed as the oxygen machine suddenly emitted alarmed, loud beeps. Two nurses and a doctor raced into the room. A nurse replaced the oxygen mask, then looked over her shoulder at Street and Charlie. “Gentlemen, we’re going to have to ask you to leave,” she said firmly. Charlie and Street barely had time to grab their coats before the door slammed behind them.

  “Jesus,” Street said.

  Charlie was shaking his head, trying to make sense of what they’d just heard.

  “‘Under Jennifer’?”

  Chapter Thirteen

  Thursday, March 4, 1954—Morning

  Capitol Hill

  Charlie felt as spent as a wrung dishrag. He pushed himself up from his chair and dragged himself out of his office to walk to the Capitol. A joint session of Congress awaited him, where he would be treated to a bipartisan welcoming of the governor-general of Canada. Part of Charlie couldn’t believe—indeed, was appalled—that so many folks proceeded as if there hadn’t been a mass shooting in the House Chamber just three days ago. It felt as though they were behaving as if the shooting was a normal, if unfortunate, event—a fender bender, a coffee spill, though all six wounded members of Congress remained in the hospital, MacLachlan in a coma. Charlie tried to continue his day-to-day activities in a barely awake zombielike state he hadn’t experienced since France.

  From the end of the hallway, he heard a familiar voice. “You okay?” He turned around to see Davis LaMontagne and was instantly reminded of the lobbyist’s request and the damning folder about Boschwitz, the one Charlie had last seen right before the Puerto Ricans started shooting. In the previous three weeks, Charlie had studiously avoided saying anything other than a brief hello to LaMontagne, and here he was to finally force the matter.

  “Davis,” Charlie said. “Damn.”

  “You didn’t give it to anyone?” LaMontagne said.

  “I lost it on the House floor during the shooting,” Charlie conceded.

  LaMontagne’s face was hard to read. “I gave you that folder three weeks ago. You were still carrying it around Monday?”

  “Yes,” said Charlie. “Sorry.”

  “And you don’t know where it is, I presume?”

  “I don’t.”

  LaMontagne’s eyes narrowed.

  “You do know six congressmen got shot?” Charlie asked, an edge in his voice. “And that MacLachlan’s probably going to die?”

  LaMontagne turned around without answering and walked away down the hall. Charlie shook his head in disbelief.

  “What was all that about?”

  Charlie turned; Isaiah Street emerged from around a corner of the hallway, where apparently he’d heard the exchange.

  “You know how once you get this job, everybody wants something from you?” Charlie asked as the two proceeded down the four flights of stairs.

  “You bet,” said Street. “Everybody from the Speaker to my aunt Estelle. So?” Street prompted as they both stopped on the second floor to light cigarettes. “What’s LaMontagne after you for?”

  “He wanted me to provide the McCarthy Committee with some pretty damning information about one of his business competitors.”

  “And is the competitor a Red?”

  Charlie shrugged as he put away his German lighter. “Dunno. Maybe. I was supposed to give it to Bob Kennedy. Three weeks ago.”

  “Just taking your time.”

  “I don’t know why I was waiting so long.”

  “Yes, you do.”

  “Yes, I do.”

  Cigarettes in hand, they proceeded down the stairs.

  “Listen, speaking of requests, I was just about to make one of you,” Street said. “I want you to use your Manhattan connections to block permitting on a General Kinetics factory they’re trying to build in Harlem. Civil rights activists in New York are making this a national cause, so I’m getting heat back home too.”

  “They want to stop it? They don’t want the jobs? I can’t imagine Congressman Powell trying to stop any employment opportunities in Harlem.”

  “No, you’re right. Powell isn’t on board with me here.”

  “So why are you and the civil rights activists opposed?”

  “It’s a chemical plant, Charlie. Vinyl chlorid
e.”

  Charlie looked at him blankly.

  “Have you ever heard of Mossville, Louisiana?”

  “Where?”

  The two exited the House Office Building, where tourists were gathering, many living up to their stereotype in gaudy and inappropriately casual dress, Pentax cameras hanging like albatrosses around the necks of the dads. In an apparent show of force in the wake of the shooting, two Capitol Police officers stood at the corner; they nodded at Charlie and ignored Street. A chill remained in the air, for which the coatless congressmen braced themselves, but the sun was blinding, and spring had unmistakably arrived.

  They stopped at the crosswalk of Independence Avenue, where the driver of a red convertible Mustang honked at them. It took them a second to realize it was Strongfellow; he stopped his car even though he had a green light. “Hey, boys!” he shouted. “You coming tonight?” Other cars began steering around him on the four-lane road, some honking angrily. The Capitol Police ignored the transgression.

  “How on earth can you afford those wheels?” Street asked him.

  “Rights to my life story paid for it,” Strongfellow said. “What do you think of James Dean for the movie?”

  “As the car?” Charlie quipped.

  “Har-de-har-har,” Strongfellow said. A dairy-truck driver shook a fist out his window as he leaned on his horn, while more cars backed up behind him. Strongfellow maneuvered his way closer to the curb, making it only slightly easier for anyone to pass him. “I was going to call you, Charlie, to make sure you’re coming tonight.”

  “To what?” Charlie asked.

  “Party in Connie Hilton’s suite at the Mayflower. Invitation only. Black tie.”

  “Hilton’s throwing a party?” asked Charlie. “What for?”

  “Let me guess,” said Street, knowing that he wasn’t invited for obvious reasons. “For reauthorizing the Mexican migrant workers. So he can keep paying pennies to his hotel maids and kitchen staff.”

  “Winner!” shouted Strongfellow, cheerfully oblivious to the traffic chaos he was still causing. A moving-van driver blared his horn, leaning out his window and cursing at Strongfellow. It was tough to make out every word of the explosive monologue but certain terms were loud and clear. Charlie wondered how long Strongfellow might sit there tying up traffic, since law enforcement seemed uninterested in the matter. Strongfellow ignored it all completely.

  “Bill got through the Senate and is now on its way to Ike,” he said. “I’m not exactly sure who’s throwing the party. Some club that Carlin is a member of? Hey—did you hear Senator Lehman claimed that a hundred Commies cross the Mexican border every day?”

  “A hundred a day?” asked Charlie as another car honked at Strongfellow; Charlie felt slightly embarrassed to be part of this spectacle of entitlement. “Where does a claim like that even come from?”

  “One’s nether regions, I suppose,” said Strongfellow.

  “And Humphrey backed him,” said Street. “He said the Reds have one of their strongest infiltration programs out of Mexico.”

  “Mexico?” asked Charlie incredulously.

  “Kennedy voted against the braceros bill,” Street said. “Kefauver too. Big labor flexing some muscle.”

  A heavy-duty Mack truck pulled up behind Strongfellow, and its driver started pounding on the horn.

  Strongfellow sighed as if to say, Impatient drivers will be the death of us all, and eased his car into first gear. “So nine p.m. at the Mayflower?” Strongfellow asked as he pulled away. “See you there, Charlie.”

  “Wait, Phil—” Charlie began, but it was too late; Strongfellow was already a full city block away, driving as if he were in the Grand Prix.

  The light turned green and Charlie and Street crossed the street, resuming their walk toward the Capitol. The white and pink flowers of the cherry blossom trees were beginning to bud. Groundskeepers unfurled rolls of sod to cover the acres of barren, frozen dirt surrounding the Capitol grounds; turf harvesting was a postwar agricultural development that significantly enhanced the appearance of the capital’s tourist spots.

  “What did you want to ask him?”

  “It’s dumb. This note I found in my desk maybe belonged to Van Waganan,” Charlie said. “Scribbles about broadleaf crops and the University of Chicago. My intern called and wasn’t able to get any information about it because of wartime secrecy laws. Phil said he’d look into it for me.”

  “Sounds pretty random.”

  “It is. I don’t know much about Van Waganan. It’s probably nothing.”

  “All I know about him is that his body was found in a cheap hotel room next to a dead hooker. That might be as much as I need to know, to be honest.”

  Charlie stopped walking and looked at Street, stunned. “Really? A hooker? Everything I’ve heard made it sound like it was suicide.”

  “Nope,” said Street. “They kept it out of the papers, a friend of mine with connections told me. To spare his family, they put the hooker’s dead body in a different room.”

  “And what do they think happened?”

  “They have no idea,” said Street. “It remains an open case.”

  “Amazing. A dead congressman is an open case.”

  “In company towns, like this one or Hollywood or Detroit or Nashville, police are often encouraged to let some crimes go unsolved. People in power don’t want them solved.”

  “What?”

  “Someday, for kicks, go to the homicide division here in DC and see how many dead young women are in the cold-case files. Attractive ones. You’ll be stunned.”

  “Right, but Van Waganan and a dead prostitute—that has to be some form of murder-suicide, no?”

  “All I know is what my guy told me. They think he didn’t kill her and she didn’t kill him. No cause of death. No evidence of sexual contact. There was no evidence of any relationship at all, actually—no phone records, no witnesses. Nothing tying the two together.”

  “Other than their corpses being found in the same room,” Charlie said.

  “Right.” Street laughed. “Except that.”

  “It’s hard to believe the local police wouldn’t care about such a case,” Charlie said.

  “They care,” said Street. “But when there’s a VIP involved, the FBI bursts in and claims jurisdiction and that’s it. We don’t hear about it after that. Hoover’s own private police force.”

  They continued into the Capitol Building and walked up the stairs to the House Chamber. By now Charlie knew better than to ask Street if he was offended at not having been invited to the party that evening. With the exception of the veterans’ poker night, Street shunned most social functions, presumably to avoid the blatant racism so prevalent in Washington. Which wasn’t to say he was a shrinking violet; Street ate daily at the purportedly whites-only House Dining Room, and he didn’t give an inch when bigotry reared its head in his presence, routinely challenging the offhand remarks and “funny stories” that exposed his colleagues’ often unwitting, careless prejudices. Did Street care that he wasn’t invited to the bacchanal tonight? He’d already made it clear to Charlie that he far preferred to spend his evenings with his wife and twin baby boys than with most members of Congress. “Honestly, Charlie, most of them are just imbeciles,” he said once.

  They reached the second floor of the Capitol Building, and Charlie paused to look at the immense oil painting of the Founding Fathers that hung on the wall of the landing. As imagined by artist Howard Chandler Christy, George Washington stood on a dais in Philadelphia’s Independence Hall in 1787, lit and posed as if God had just handed down to him the U.S. Constitution. James Madison sat in the front row, a worried expression on his face, while front and center sat Alexander Hamilton, whispering into the ear of a lounging Benjamin Franklin. It was a complicated portrayal, half class photo of almost forty Founding Fathers, half patriotic rah-rah. Since it had been painted, fourteen years earlier, Scene at the Signing of the Constitution of the United States had become one of the m
ost famous works of art in the country.

  So much had changed since the last time he’d stopped to look at the portrait, a few weeks before. He’d been with MacLachlan and Street, all of them on their way from the House Chamber to their offices after a vote, Bernstein in tow with a sheaf of phone messages for Charlie’s attention.

  “Hold up,” MacLachlan had called out from the second floor as the others headed downstairs. They turned and rejoined him. MacLachlan was staring up at the painting as he reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out a leaflet. “I’ve been meaning to get a better look at this. Christy spent years chasing down portraits of all these men, it says here.” He waved the leaflet toward the painting, then turned with a grin to the others. “Can you name them all?”

  “This a pop quiz, Mac?” Street asked.

  “Thirty-nine people signed the Constitution; you want me to ID all of them?” Charlie protested. But he accepted the challenge and proceeded to rattle off names with ease, aware that he was showing off but unable to resist.

  “Okay, that’s John Dickinson,” Charlie said, walking up a couple of stairs and pointing to the right of Washington’s table. The painting was so enormous, the figures were almost life-size. “But that’s not accurate, he signed the Constitution by proxy. He wasn’t there that day; he was sick.”

  “Not bad,” said MacLachlan.

  “As far as I know, there aren’t any portraits anywhere of two of the signers, Jacob Broom and Thomas FitzSimons,” Charlie continued. “We—history—have no idea what they look like. So on this, one of them must be that guy whose face is blocked by Charles Cotesworth Pinckney’s arm, and the other is next to Dickinson, with just the top of his wig showing? Is that right?”

  “Very nice,” Street said, looking over MacLachlan’s shoulder at the key.

  Charlie had continued to name the signers, frankly enjoying the chance to flex his academic muscles, unused since December exams and, until then, of no interest to his congressional colleagues. He’d been grateful to MacLachlan for allowing the lowliest freshman in Congress a brief moment in the sun.