Collins, Max Allan - Nathan Heller 14 (12 page)

“No imagining necessary. Really, that’s my main reason for coming to Washington…to try to reason with Joe McCarthy.”

“Well, then you’ll be the first one to manage that unlikely feat.”

I frowned. “Your relationship with McCarthy has completely soured?”

“It verges on war. Even he and Jack aren’t friendly, anymore.”

It might seem unlikely that Pearson and McCarthy had ever been soulmates, but the archliberal columnist and the ultraconservative senator had a shared interest in weeding out federal corruption. Pearson’s credentials in that arena were impeccable: he cracked the Russian spy ring in Canada; he exposed the Silvermaster Communist spy ring; and he ferreted out miscellaneous congressional skulduggery, ruining the careers of a number of powerful legislators.

Wisconsin’s McCarthy—elected to the Senate in 1946, in part by courting Communist support (“Communists have the same right to vote as anybody else, don’t they?” he’d asked rhetorically)—had been for several years a key Pearson source of inside info about his congressional colleagues and their secrets. I knew McCarthy because I followed leads he provided Pearson, about the so-called “five percenter” influence peddlers.

But earlier this year, after a national magazine rated him our nation’s worst senator, McCarthy bragged to Jack Anderson that he had come up with “one hell of an issue.” Shortly thereafter, McCarthy gave a speech to the no doubt bewildered little old ladies of the Republican Women’s Club of Ohio County, declaring to have “in his hand” a list of 205 members of the Communist Party, currently operating in the State Department, with the secretary of state’s blessing.

Never mind that within a day the list had dwindled to “fifty-seven card-carrying Communists”…or that Communist Party members hadn’t carried “cards” for years. McCarthy had made himself an instant household word…and a feared man in Washington.

Only, Drew Pearson didn’t fear anybody in Washington or anywhere else.

“Before he’s through,” Pearson was saying, “no one’s reputation will be safe—the whole political process will be poisoned.”

“He’s got a real, rabid following.”

“That’s why he’s got to be cut down now, before he becomes a walking national disaster area. Frank Sinatra? A Communist? Good Lord, where would such lunacy stop?”

“You’re losing a hell of an informant.”

“My best on the Hill,” Pearson admitted. “A good source, but a bad man…. McCarthy’s already caught up in the demagogue’s compulsion toward escalation. He upgrades ‘fellow travelers’ into Communists, and pro-Communists into spies!”

“Well, your friend Estes has provided him the blueprint for witch-hunting. You have that coonskin cap to thank.”

Pearson’s nostrils flared, his eyes hardened. “Don’t compare the two, for God’s sake! Estes is a sincere, honest man, a true servant of the people. There’s something…pathological about McCarthy, some inner demon that pushes him to take extravagant risks.”

I shrugged. “Maybe he’ll undo himself.”

An eyebrow lifted. “Waiting until that time would be a risk too extravagant for me to take. I’ll handle this in my own fashion.”

“How?”

He nodded toward his battered old typewriter. “With my usual weapon—my column, my radio show. Within the coming weeks, every American will learn that their esteemed Redbusting hero has committed a laundry list of transgressions.”

Pearson began to enumerate: State Judge McCarthy had sold “quickie” divorces to campaign contributors; he had violated the Wisconsin constitution by running for Senate without resigning from the bench; his disbarment had been recommended by the State Board; he’d falsely attributed lavish campaign contributions to his father and brother, who didn’t make five grand a year between them; he retained his judgeship while serving in the Marines; he’d cheated on his income taxes; and he’d exaggerated his war record, a much publicized “wound” a phony….

None of it seemed terribly impressive to me, frankly— McCarthy sounded like a typical politician. But Pearson knew just how to parcel this stuff out, and really put a guy through the meat grinder.

As I watched the tips of Pearson’s waxed mustache rise ever higher as the columnist smiled, listing the Wisconsin senator’s various sins (assembled by Anderson, no doubt)—soon to be shared with the American public—it came to me that Joe McCarthy was about to really find out what smear tactics were all about.

On this cool, quiet Sunday night in September, under a starless sky, the Mall—that wide expanse of green, extending a mile and a half up from the Washington Monument to the Capitol Building—was bathed in light by streetlamps, thousands of luminous orbs lining the pavement, crisscrossing this most accessible of parks. The Capitol Building seemed a glowing crown in this sweeping array of marble, grass, and floodlights. Unencumbered by the rush of people—save for a few tourists attending the church of their government—the Mall gave Washington a sense of pageantry, of elegance, of order. How Joe McCarthy fit into this was anybody’s guess.

One of three white marble buildings facing the Capitol grounds, the Senate Office Building—inevitably nicknamed the S.O.B.—was at First and B Street, near the northeast corner. Capitol Hill was all but deserted, and even nearby Union Station—where I’d parked my rental Ford—seemed underpopulated.

I trotted up the broad flight of steps on the southwest corner, to a terraced landing, then on to the main doorway, which opened onto the second floor, depositing me in a marble two-story rotunda with a balcony, conical ceiling, and armed security guard. Fortunately McCarthy had seen to it my name was on the guard’s clipboard list, and—after my ID was examined, and I’d signed in—he allowed me to clip-clop across the marble floor, creating disturbing echoes in the vast, underlit chamber. It felt wrong, being here after hours, and eerie, the long shadow I cast resembling an intruder skulking unbidden into the hallowed halls of government.

Through an arch, down a white marble corridor, I crept along, like a ghost haunting the place. I was not entirely alone, however: now and then, slashes of light at the bottom of doors indicated Senator McCarthy was not the only person taking advantage of the peace and quiet and lack of hubbub a Sunday night could afford.

But only McCarthy’s office seemed to be going more or less full throttle. When I entered the anteroom, a secretary and two staffers were bustling about, much as Pearson’s crew had been—typing, filing, poring over research materials.

Delores—an efficient, pleasant-looking woman in her thirties who McCarthy called “mother”—recognized me from previous visits. She smiled in a harried manner, said I was expected, and hustled me in to the senator’s spacious, rather underfurnished office.

McCarthy was on the phone, seated behind his big square government-issue desk, which was piled with file folders. He was in a white shirt with the sleeves rolled up, his food-stained red-and-green splatter-design tie loose around a bull neck, the suitcoat of a double-breasted ready-made dark blue suit (he seemed to buy them by bulk) flung over a hardback chair. He was the kind of guy whose socks matched his tie only by accident.

In his early forties, McCarthy—who was chummily talking with “Dick”…Nixon, it soon became clear—had a blue-jowled, barrel-chested, unchiseled masculinity that was close enough to handsome for government work. His dark hair was just starting to thin, and his muscular physique seemed fleshier than when I saw him last, maybe a year before.

My host, in his nasal Irish baritone, was working on Nixon, trying to get him to share current Un-American Activities Committee files. McCarthy kept referring to the “cause.”

His manner made me recall the first night I’d played poker with him. McCarthy had invited me along to the National Press Club. Sitting down with seven men he’d never played with before, he tried to bluff each one of them out of a pot; and no matter what he had—even a pair of deuces—McCarthy would bet heavily.

He also tried to bluff me, and I won a healthy pot of mostly his money; I heard whispering that McCarthy was a “sucker,” and that was when I caught on. He’d been acting the hayseed, and when the cards started to run in his favor, he bet heavily and everybody stayed in—assuming he was bluffing. At one point down five hundred bucks, he wound up winning twelve hundred.

I wondered if Drew Pearson knew that this grinning, blue-jowled ape was far more resourceful than his enemies gave him credit for. Watching him twist Nixon’s arm over the phone, I could see this son of a bitch played politics like he played poker—committing well-calculated highway robbery.

The office, by the way, was barren of the sort of celebrity photos and mementos that characterized Pearson’s study— though McCarthy was every bit as big a public figure. The only item on display was a baseball bat on a little pedestal, on a counter at left, between file cabinets.

The bat had the name “Drew Pearson” burned into it.

McCarthy was hanging up the phone. He grinned at me, rising to his six feet, and reached a long arm across his cluttered desk, offering me a big square hand.

I shook that powerful paw, and when he told me to sit down, I did, in the hard wooden chair opposite him—next to the one with his suitcoat slung over it.

He was still grinning after he sat back down—but the grin seemed strained, almost a grimace. He said, “Should I have agreed to see you, Nate?”

“Why not, Joe?”

He nodded toward the baseball bat. “Word is you and Pearson patched up your differences.”

I shrugged. “Only to the extent that I’m willing to take his money again.”

Thick black eyebrows climbed his Cro-Magnon forehead. “Not to look into
my
business, I hope?”

“No. That’s never happened, Joe…never will.”

The grin relaxed into a smile; he sat forward, leaning on the file folders, brutish shoulders hunched. “I’m going after him, Nate,” he said, still referring to Pearson. “I mean, no holds barred. I figure I’ve already lost his supporters—and now I can pick up his enemies.”

“Do what you want to do.”

“I’m going to break him, Nate—put him out of business.”

I figured long after McCarthy was out of the Senate, Pearson would still be around, destroying careers on the Hill; but I said, “That’s between you and the skinflint.”

The latter made him laugh. “You know, I’d be a hero on the Hill if I could pull a few of his teeth, break his insteps, or maybe bust a few ribs. Say fifteen of ’em.”

“That bat would do the trick,” I said, wondering if he was kidding.

He leaned back, gestured with a big hand. “You know, you could have called me on the phone. You didn’t have to come all this way.”

“Some conversations shouldn’t be sent through the air. Phones can be tapped.”

“I guess you’d know.” He scratched his nose. “A fella in your position can acquire enemies, after all.”

That seemed an odd remark.

But I just said, “That’s true. Not everyone loves me. Listen…I wanted to talk to you about a friend of mine.”

“The pinko singer.”

I sighed. “Joe, he’s no pinko. Frank’s about as political as I am.”

“Is that a good thing?”

Something was crawling at the base of my neck. “Am I missing something?” I asked.

He selected a file—whether randomly or not, I couldn’t say. He thumbed through it and, either referring to it or pretending to, he said, “I’ve been approached about you. About your background.”

“What?”

“Your father was a Communist, wasn’t he? Ran a Commie bookstore on the West Side of Chicago? You grew up there, among those radicals?”

I felt like I’d been sucker punched in the belly. I managed, “He was a Wobbly, Joe—a pro-union guy. He killed himself, back in ’32.”

“Terrible tragedy. Terrible.”

“He killed himself because I wasn’t like him—I
wasn’t
idealistic. I just wanted to make a buck.”

“That’s the American way.”

My head was swimming. “Jesus—what are you saying to me, Joe?”

He heaved a huge sigh; shook his head, sorrowfully. “There are people…powerful people…good Americans, like my friend Pat McCarran…who would like me to take a hard close look at you, and your background.”

“…Are you saying, somebody’s told you to paint me with a red brush?”

His beady eyes turned into slits. “Let me say this. This fellow Kefauver, he’s like a bull in the china shop. He’s causing trouble for a lot of fine Americans. He’s abusing the system, with these hearings of his—I can’t abide seeing our fine system, the most nearly perfect system of government ever to find a place under God’s blue sky, abused for personal aggrandizement. That Tennessee turncoat will never be president if I have any say in it.”

The panic had been brief, but terrible—I’d had a tiny glimpse of the horror of having your world imperiled by government-sanctioned lies.

But that panic was gone.

“McCarran,” I said, smiling just a little, nodding. “Senator from the great state of Nevada. As in, Las Vegas. Joe—do you have friends who don’t want me to testify in the Kefauver hearings?”

He cleared his throat. “If you’re called, you’ll have to testify. That’s the law. But what you choose to share with these witch-finders, that’s another matter entirely.”

I laughed; the laughter was genuine but tinged with hysteria. The great Commie hunter was mobbed up!

He folded his hands, prayerfully; he had knockwurst fingers. “Nate…I couldn’t let this happen to you. I was so pleased when you called, and wanted to meet. After all, you were friends with Jim Forrestal…another great man Drew Pearson assassinated with his pen.”

That was why Pearson and I had fallen out: the columnist’s unremitting, merciless attacks had contributed to Forrestal’s suicide.

“Jim was my mentor,” McCarthy said. “He was the one who informed me about the Communists high up in our government.”

Forrestal was also a delusional paranoid schizophrenic.

I folded my arms. “Joe, I’ve already talked to the committee, who I basically told to go fuck themselves…and to Charley Fischetti, and Sam Giancana, given them my assurances that I’m not talking.”

“Those names mean nothing to me.”