The Porkchoppers (11 page)

Mure turned toward the other twin bed. Sadie was already in it, the covers drawn up to her chin. “Hurry, darling,” she said.

Mure stripped off the rest of his clothes and crawled in beside her. As Mure's hands touched her, Sadie thought what she always thought, that as a substitute husband, Fred was a little untutored, but he made up for that with enthusiasm. And then she stopped thinking altogether.

11

They let Donald Cubbin sleep the next morning, which was a Friday. And while Cubbin slept, his enemies and friends alike were up and at work, doing whatever they thought must be done either to reelect him to office or to assure his defeat.

In Chicago on the tenth floor of the Sheraton-Blackstone Hotel, in room 1037, Charles Guyan, the public relations man, sat before the writing table that came with the room and stared at a blank sheet of paper that he had rolled into his Lettera 32 portable. He had been staring at it for an hour, four cups of coffee ago. For fifteen minutes of that hour he had thought about how he should compose his letter of resignation. For the remaining forty-five minutes he had thought, and thought hard, about what kind of a campaign he could put together for Donald Cubbin. After scratching some figures on a sheet of paper, he began to type a memorandum that read:

FROM: GUYAN

TO: CUBBIN

SUBJECT: HOW TO WIN YOUR ELECTION FOR ONLY $1.01 PER MEMBER OR A MERE ONE MILLION DOLLARS.

A million dollars was the lowest figure that Guyan could come up with. If we spend that much, he thought, he might make it. If we don't, then it will be ex-President Cubbin.

In room 942 of the same hotel, Oscar Imber was on a long-distance call to a man in Philadelphia whose letterhead claimed that he was “The Keystone State's Largest Ford Dealer.” Cubbin's union leased nearly a hundred Ford Galaxies from the dealer, turning them in when their speedometers reached the 5,000-mile mark. It was a profitable arrangement for the dealer and Oscar Imber was calling to remind him that if Cubbin was defeated, the arrangement would come to an end, and how much did the dealer feel he could spare for Don's campaign?

“Well, Christ, Oscar, I don't know anything about union politics, but I consider Don my friend and I'd like to do something to help him out.”

“Well, you can help him out about five thousand bucks' worth.”

“Jesus!”

“I was just talking to Don yesterday about this leasing contract we have with you,” Imber lied. “It's on a year-to-year basis, isn't it?”

“Yeah, that's right. Year-to-year.”

“Well, Don and I were thinking that after the election's over it might be advantageous to put it on a five-year basis. That would be after the election, of course.”

“Yeah,” the Ford dealer said. “That would be real fine. Well, what do you want me to do, send a check?”

“We'd like it in cash, Sam. We'll send somebody around to pick it up. Would tomorrow morning be okay?”

“Well, yeah, I suppose so. You wouldn't want to send me a letter or memo or something about the five-year deal, would you?”

“No, I don't think I want to do that, Sam.”

“Well, hell, can I at least get a receipt?”

“Sure,” Imber said, “you'll get a receipt.”

After he hung up the phone, Oscar Imber added up a column of figures. Thus far that morning he had raised $19,000 for Cubbin's campaign and he was down to those whom he considered to be the nickel-and-dimers, the small suppliers who were willing to contribute a little money, but only a little, to the campaign because the union was a valuable customer and if Cubbin was reelected, it would continue to be so. Weeks before Imber had tapped what he considered to be the flushbottoms, the ones who dealt in some way with the union's sizable financial resources. He had raised money from them, large chunks of it in a few places, but in each instance he felt, or even knew, that Sammy Hanks had been there first, throwing his weight around as secretary-treasurer of the union. Imber knew that the flushbottoms were contributing to both sides, hedging their bets, but he also had the feeling that they were contributing more to Hanks's campaign than they were to Cubbin's. They can smell a loser, Imber thought, just like they can smell money.

He sighed and started to direct-dial another number in Washington, this time the president of an office-supply company who might be willing to part with a couple of thousand. One thousand's more like it, Imber thought as he listened to the phone ring in Washington. And that'll be more than he ever gave anyone else in his life.

In Washington that morning, in his two-story red brick home in Cleveland Park three blocks west of Connecticut Avenue, Sammy Hanks was listening on the telephone while someone in Chicago read him a transcript of Cubbin's appearance on “Jake's Night.”

“He said that, huh?” Hanks would say from time to time and smile delightedly. His five-year-old daughter, Marylin, came into the living room and stood watching her father gravely. “Come here, honey,” Hanks said and the little girl moved over to him, climbed into his lap, and put her arms around his neck.

“No, I wasn't talking to you, Johnnie, I was talking to my kid. Keep on reading. You were where Cubbin says that he didn't resign from the club because he could work from within or some such shit. Yeah. That's it.”

Hanks went on listening to the reading of the transcript, holding the phone away from his mouth so that he could use it to make funny faces at his daughter who laughed and squealed and sometimes hid her eyes behind her hands. Marylin didn't think her father was at all ugly.

Finally, Hanks said, “Well, hell, that's nearly perfect, isn't it? I mean it couldn't have been any better unless old Don had taken a pratfall or something. And you say you've already got it run off?”

He listened for a moment, made another funny face at his daughter, and said, “Okay, now I want that to go out to every local special delivery. Yeah, I know special delivery's not any faster than regular mail anymore, but it's still more impressive so let's do it. Okay?… Okay. Now I want you or somebody else in Chicago to write the letter that goes with it. I don't want it to come from me. I don't give a fuck what it sounds like or whether the grammar's any good as long as it sounds hurt, you got me? Now whoever writes it is all sad and hurt because Cubbin didn't help that black out and because he's sucking up to the bosses, you know what I mean? Fine. You guys are really on the ball up there. I'm surprised…. Well, hell, Johnnie, I'm not that surprised. You did a good job and thanks for calling…. Yeah, I'll talk to you later.”

Hanks hung up the phone and made another face at his daughter. “You're funny, Daddy,” she said and giggled when he made another one.

“Didn't you know, honey? I'm the funniest man in the world.”

It was not quite 9
A.M.
in Cleveland, but A. Richard Gammage was already at his desk on the twenty-seventh floor of the Gammage Building which had a view of Lake Erie and downtown Cleveland and Gammage sometimes wondered which was the more depressing, the dying city or the dying lake.

He was the third A. Richard Gammage to head his company and he sometimes felt that his major contribution had been to change the firm's name from The Gammage Manufacturing Company to Gammage International.

Gammage International manufactured various home and industrial equipment and A. Richard Gammage had little faith in any of it and even less interest. He felt that his products were no better or worse than those manufactured by his competitors and that they would all wear out at approximately the same time. He was always faintly surprised whenever
Consumer Reports
gave any of his household products an acceptable rating.

Gammage had first come to know Donald Cubbin well on one of those committees that are always being formed by the Federal Government in Washington. Cubbin had represented Labor and Gammage had represented Industry. They had hit it off together because neither was quite sure what the real purpose of the committee was, but only that its recommendations would be steadfastly ignored.

They had lunched a few times together in Washington after that because Cubbin could be a genuinely amusing companion, especially when he talked about other labor leaders and the early days of the CIO and the motion-picture industry and the peculiarities of various politicians. Gammage tried to remember whether they had ever talked about the contract that Cubbin's union had with his industry and decided that they hadn't, probably because neither of them was really interested in it and probably because both of them were equally bored with their jobs.

So after one of those lunches during which Cubbin had been particularly amusing, Gammage had felt that he would like to do something for him. Gammage seldom had been impulsively generous and he had rather enjoyed the feeling it gave him. He had asked Cubbin if he would like to become a member of the Federalists Club and Cubbin had made a small joke about it and Gammage had said that he would submit his name. He had, a week or so later, and he had been surprised and even a little mortified when Cubbin had been blackballed. He had been even more surprised by the letter that Cubbin had written him, that awful, begging letter that almost made Gammage squirm as he read it. With reluctance, Gammage had re-submitted Cubbin's name after a suitable interval and after Cubbin had been accepted, Gammage had avoided the Federalists Club whenever he was in Washington.

“Well, that's the story,” said the man who now sat across from Gammage's desk.

“Cubbin's letter is still in our files?” Gammage said.

“Yes.”

“How did Jake Jobbins get it?”

“I don't know. It's probably still in Cubbin's file, too.”

“I see.”

The man who sat across from A. Richard Gammage was Nelson Hardisty, the company's public relations director. Gammage looked at him and wondered whether Hardisty really thought that they were talking about something important. To Hardisty he said, “Well, what do we do?”

“It depends upon how the press reacts.”

“They will react, you think?”

“It's a pretty hot story.”

“I fail to see how it could possibly interest anyone.”

“Politics,” Hardisty said, using the most knowing tone he could produce. “Union politics.”

“And you think I should have a statement prepared?”

“Well, that's why I called you this morning—”

“Yes, at seven.”

“I thought it was important, Mr. Gammage.”

“I'm sure you did.”

“I could draft a statement for you, if you like.”

“No, I think I'll dictate it.”

“Yes, well, it might be good if you got to it right away.”

“I'll dictate it to you now.”

“Well, if you want to make sure the wording's—”

“It's only two words,” Gammage said. “‘No comment.' Can you remember that?”

Hardisty flushed. “Yes, I can remember that.”

“One more thing.”

“Yes.”

“I would like a carefully reasoned memo on my desk by five o'clock tomorrow on why our public relations department should be abolished.”

“Are you serious?”

“Yes. Completely.”

“Well, I really don't think that I'm the one—”

“By five o'clock tomorrow, Hardisty.”

“Am I being fired?”

“It depends on how good a job you do with that memo.”

“I don't think—”

“That's all, Hardisty.”

After he had gone, Gammage swung his chair around and looked out over the dying lake. I wonder why I did that, he thought. It must have been because I enjoyed it.

Four men who desperately wanted Donald Cubbin to be either defeated or reelected had gathered by chance at National Airport in Washington that Friday morning and by the same chance, they were all going to Chicago on the same United flight. Three of the men were white and one was black. The whites were Walter Penry and his principal associates, Peter Majury and Ted Lawson. The black was Marvin Harmes. The whites wanted Donald Cubbin reelected; the black wanted him defeated and none of them had too many scruples about how it should be done, although Harmes was still not quite sure just how an election is best stolen.

Still, Harmes thought, stealing an election's probably just like stealing anything else, the main thing being, like always, don't get caught. There had been a lot of elections stolen in Chicago, Harmes told himself, and you've phoned for an appointment with the man who's probably stolen more of them than anybody else and who's agreed to see you this afternoon at three o'clock. So at three o'clock, Brother Harmes, you're going to be calling on the nation's top election stealer. You're going to be calling on Indigo Boone.

The only one of the three whites to recognize Harmes was Peter Majury who, dressed as usual in his Afrika Korps trench coat, was slinking around the airport, trying to spot someone or something that should be noted and filed for possible future use. Majury always did this at airports just as he always tried to familiarize himself with anyone who someday might become an adversary or opponent. It was a task that kept him constantly busy, but he was diligent and he already had a comprehensive file on Marvin Harmes, both mental and on paper, which included such items as Harmes's skill as a poker player (semipro, Majury had noted, but steadily improving).

Majury thought that it wasn't particularly noteworthy that Harmes was flying to Chicago because that was his base and home. However, it might be interesting to learn what Harmes had been doing in Washington.

In the living room of the hotel suite that offered a view of Lafayette Park and, beyond that, of the White House, Coin Kensington was enjoying what he had described to his visitor as an “old-timey Kansas farm breakfast.” The breakfast consisted of steak and eggs and potatoes, but the steak was a three-inch-thick filet drenched with Béarnaise sauce, the four eggs were Benedict, and the potatoes were what the hotel chef called
pommes de terre dauphinoise
which meant that they were cooked in cream and butter and drenched with Gruyère. The toast was just ordinary toast and Kensington had ordered a “quart of coffee” to wash it all down. He had also asked his visitor to share the coffee, but nothing else.