The Porkchoppers (26 page)

They all realized that their new prestige and popularity depended on their continuing appearance on “The Whole World Is Watching,” and they also knew that Neal James would go on paying each of them $500 an appearance only as long as they continued to be nasty. And so nasty they were, even vicious, and each week they competed among themselves to see who could produce the most sordidly embarrassing questions.

The program actually had turned them into much better reporters because to come up with the right questions they had to do an immense amount of spadework, something that none of them had ever bothered with before. But they also found that as their prestige rose so did the level of their sources and the four of them were now considered to be among the best informed reporters in Washington.

After the introductions, the questioning was started by Neal James. His first question, a slam-bang one, went to Sammy Hanks.

“Mr. Hanks, how long have you known that your opponent here, Mr. Cubbin, was an alchoholic?”

“For several years,” Hanks said and thought, God, I didn't know it was going to be like this. Della warned me, but I didn't think it would start off this bad.

“And that's why you decided to run against him, because you thought that you could beat a sick man?”

For twenty-two minutes the questions came much like that, first to Hanks and then to Cubbin. At the end of ten minutes, Hanks was yelling his answers. Cubbin, using every bit of his acting ability, managed to answer most of the questions crisply although once he snarled at Neal James: “I'm not going to answer that.”

“Why not?”

“Because it's a damn-fool question.”

“Well, perhaps your opponent, Mr. Hanks, will answer it for you.”

“Sure,” Sammy said, grinning happily, “I'll be glad to.”

At twenty-two minutes past one Arnold Timmons took a deep breath, thought once more of the $10,000 that had been paid him in cash by Peter Majury, and said, “My next question is for Mr. Hanks.” Timmons paused and Hanks looked at him curiously before he smiled and said, “Go ahead. It can't be any tougher than the ones I've already answered.”

“Your father was a graduate of Princeton, Mr. Hanks,” Timmons said, “yet you barely finished high school—”

Nobody ever did find out what the last of Timmons' question was because at the mention of his father, Sammy Hanks shot to his feet. “You!” he screamed, pointing at Timmons. “You're the worst man I've ever met. You're rotten! Oh, God, you're rotten!”

Hanks had now moved between Neal James and the four reporters and still aimed an accusing finger at Timmons as he screamed, “I'm going to get you! I'm going to get you! You'll be sorry!”

In the control room the program's director was talking happily to his number-three cameraman, “Oh, beautiful, beautiful! Keep it right on him, baby, all the way even if he flies out the window.”

In the studio Sammy Hanks had sunk to his knees and was pounding the floor with his fists, screaming the word that sounded like “cawg!” over and over again. Then he looked up at Timmons and some forty million persons got a good close-up view of Hanks's face, now made incredibly ugly by the lips that were drawn back in a dog's snarl, by the tongue that flicked in and out of his mouth, and by the spittle that trickled down his chin. Sammy Hanks crawled across the floor toward Timmons, pounding the floor and screaming as he went and the camera followed him all the way.

Well, shit, Donald Cubbin thought, nobody deserves this, not even Sammy. He rose and walked over to Hanks and stood there for a moment, a tall, dignified man with silver hair, wearing an expression of infinite compassion, which was only half put on.

In the control room, the director was still yelling his instructions, “Three on Cubbin, close and hold, now two on Hanks, hold, and back three to Cubbin and cry for us a little, Sammy, baby, oh God, that's beautiful.”

Hanks was still crawling slowly, screaming his one word scream, when Cubbin bent down and said, “Come on, Sammy, let's get out of here.”

Hanks looked up at Cubbin and also up into the number three camera. “Cawg!” he screamed and the tears ran down his cheeks to mingle with the spit on his chin.

Cubbin helped Hanks to his feet, turned, and started to lead him away when Neal James said, “How many votes do you think that'll win you, Mr. Cubbin?”

Cubbin turned slowly and glared at James. He put a lot into the look: scorn, contempt, a little hurt, and the camera caught it all nicely and the microphone faithfully carried the deep baritone when it softly said, “I'm not thinking about votes; I'm thinking about another human being.”

On a monitor Mickey Della watched Cubbin lead the weeping Hanks out of camera range. Della took the cigarette from his mouth, ground it into the studio carpet, turned and walked down a hall and out of the building to his car. Mickey Della had no use for crybabies.

In his hotel suite Coin Kensington crammed a heaping spoonful of potato salad into his mouth, his eyes fixed on the television screen. “Oh, my God, that's awful, that's just awful,” he said from around the potato salad.

“That's what we paid ten thousand bucks for,” Walter Penry said.

“Yeah, I know but it's just God-awful.”

“It still won't win Cubbin the election.”

Old Man Kensington tore his eyes from the screen long enough to glare at Penry. “Well, it sure as shit ain't gonna lose it for him.”

When Cubbin led the still weeping Hanks out into the corridor, he looked around and asked, “Isn't there anybody around who can take care of him? I'm not his goddamn nurse.”

“Della walked out,” Majury said.

Kelly Cubbin stepped up to his father. “Let me have him, chief.”

“Well, somebody take him.”

“Come on, Sammy,” Kelly said. “I'll take you home. Give me the keys, Fred.”

“How're we going to get home then?” his father asked.

“It'll come to you,” Kelly said and led Sammy Hanks off down the hall.

“That was a damned fine thing you did, Don,” Oscar Imber told him. “Damned fine.”

“It didn't lose any votes either,” Charles Guyan told him.

“You think I handled it all right, huh?” Cubbin said.

“You were perfect, Don,” Guyan said, “perfect, and God you should have seen it on the monitor. Great TV. Simply great.”

“Maybe we can get a tape and run it sometime,” Cubbin said.

“Jesus, you were good,” Ted Lawson told Cubbin and clapped him on the back.

“Very nice, very nice indeed,” Peter Majury said.

Cubbin winked at him. “Was I compassionate enough for you, Pete?”

“Nicely so, very nicely indeed.”

Considerably buoyed not only by Sammy Hanks's misfortune, but also by his own noble reaction to it, Cubbin turned to look for Fred Mure. “Let's go find the can, Fred.”

“Sure, Don.”

Inside the men's room, Cubbin first checked the stalls to make sure that they weren't occupied. He then took the half-pint from Mure, drank deeply, and closed his eyes and sighed.

“I thought you looked great, Don, real great.”

Cubbin opened his eyes and looked at Mure. “Fred,” he said.

“Yeah?”

“I want you to do me a favor.”

“Sure, Don, what?”

“Stop fucking my wife.”

26

On the day of the election, October 17, a Tuesday, the two cops came for Marvin Harmes at seven o'clock in the morning. They were from the Chicago detective bureau and one was a lieutenant and the other was a sergeant.

The lieutenant, who identified himself as Clyde Bauer, was bald and having trouble with his weight. His partner, the detective-sergeant, was a thirty-eight-year-old redhead whom everyone called Brick. His real name was Theodore Rostkowski.

Lieutenant Bauer first informed Harmes that he was under arrest and then he told him about his rights and even let him look at the two warrants, one for his arrest and the other for the search of his home.

“What're you expecting to find?” Harmes said.

Bauer shrugged. “A little pot, maybe even a little heroin.”

“Go ahead and search.”

“We already have,” Bauer said and smiled. “I'm afraid we're gonna have to take you downtown, Mr. Harmes.”

“Why the rig?”

Bauer smiled again. It was the tired, resigned smile of a man who was weary of his job, perhaps even weary of life. “Just get dressed, Mr. Harmes.”

“Can I make a phone call?”

Bauer looked at Rostkowski who shrugged. “Go ahead.”

Harmes turned to his wife who stood, shivering a little in her robe, although it wasn't cold. “Don't worry,” he told her. “Just go upstairs and see to the kids. I'll fix it.”

He watched her climb the stairs and then crossed to the phone and dialed a number. Harmes wasn't calling his lawyer; he knew that a lawyer wasn't going to do him much good. He was calling Indigo Boone.

When Boone muttered a sleepy hello, Harmes wasted no time. “This is Harmes. There's a couple of cops here who're gonna bust me on a rigged-up dope charge. Man, this is one day I can't afford to be busted.”

“Yeah, today is the day, ain't it?”

“It sure as hell is.”

“Well, it won't work unless you're there to do the final switching.”

“I know. That's why I'm calling.”

“I'm glad you called me. Lawyer ain't gonna do you no good today.”

“Think you can do something?”

“I'm already doing it,” Indigo Boone said and hung up.

Harmes went upstairs, got dressed, told his wife to call his lawyer, and to tell anyone else who called that she didn't know where he was. As he walked out to the plain black Ford with the two detectives, Harmes asked Bauer, “This is costing somebody a bundle. You got any idea how much?”

Something that looked like anger flicked over Bauer's face, but it didn't last. He smiled his tired smile again. “You may be right, Mr. Harmes, this might have cost somebody a bundle, but I'll tell you something, if you're real interested.”

“What?”

“It wasn't a bundle of money.”

Indigo Boone put down the phone, and moved over to a window, and stared out over the Midway at the gray buildings of the University of Chicago. It was the third call that he had made since talking to Marvin Harmes and he knew there was no use in making any more of them. Whoever rigged this one, he thought, rigged it all the way from the top, the very tip-top, and there ain't nothing can be done for that boy. He's just gonna have to sit it out till seven o'clock. They'll let him go then, after seven. After the polls close.

In Walter Penry's Washington office the phone rang at eight-thirty and Penry answered it himself on the first ring. After he said hello he nodded across his desk at Peter Majury. Penry listened for a while and then said, “Well, I certainly appreciate your cooperation, Ron. And be sure to tell the boss that I appreciate it, too. And Ron, if you get the chance, tell him I'd like to arrange a little testimonial dinner for him sometime next month, if he's got a free date. Thanks again. I'll be talking to you.”

Penry hung up the phone and smiled his rogue smile at Peter Majury. “They picked Harmes up half an hour ago. They'll hold him until seven tonight.”

“Well,” Majury said, “at least they won't steal it in Chicago, not without Harmes to coordinate it.”

Penry nodded. “Can you think of any other mischief we should do?”

“No,” Majury said, “I think we've done it all.”

Donald Cubbin awakened in the Pittsburgh Hilton the morning of October 15 without a hangover. He even caught himself whistling as he shaved, something that he hadn't done in months. He had had only two drinks the day before and only three on Sunday. Not even his broken finger bothered him. Maybe I'll cut it out altogether, he told himself as he patted shaving lotion onto his face. Maybe I don't need that stuff anymore.

One other reason for Cubbin's unusual sense of well-being were the preelection reports that had flowed into his campaign headquarters after his television appearance with Sammy Hanks. They had been encouraging and Cubbin, knotting his tie, stopped halfway through because he had just had a peek into himself and was surprised by what he had found. You really wanted it again, didn't you? he thought. You still wanted it all, the attention, the comfort, the hangers-on, the waiting elevators, all that crap. But there's something else. There's that feeling you sometimes get when they're all sitting there waiting for you to say it, the yes or the no, because you're the man they've chosen to tell them which is right, yes or no. And some of them who're waiting for you to say it are smarter, and a lot of them are richer, but none of them can say it except you and that's really what it's all about. And either you thrive on it or it scares the shit out of you and you try to hide from it in a bottle of booze. Well, Cubbin thought, giving his face a last admiring glance in the mirror, you don't have to hide anymore.

Cubbin enjoyed his thoughts, but he enjoyed the memory of the previous night even more because he had made love to his wife, more or less successfully, at least for him, for the first time in more than seven months and, by God, he was going to lay off the booze today and try it again tonight. That's what had done it, he decided, the booze. There wasn't anything wrong with him. Last night hadn't been bad at all, not for an old crock of sixty-two. Damn near sixty-three, he corrected himself. You might as well start being halfway honest, at least with yourself.

He came out of the bathroom where he had dressed so as not to disturb Sadie, something that had never concerned him before. She was already awake, but still lying in the bed, smiling at him. “Good morning, lover,” she said.

“How're you, sweetie?”

“I'm just fine. Just fine. A couple of more nights like last night and I'll feel so wonderful I won't be able to stand myself.”