The Porkchoppers (7 page)

Bitter Campaign

Seen in Fight for

Union's Presidency

Donald Cubbin's second wife was waiting for him when he eventually made it to his four-room, two-bath suite on the Sheraton-Blackstone's twelfth floor. Cubbin hadn't seen his wife in three days, but they greeted each other as if it had been a couple of years.

“How's my darling little girl?” Cubbin said, booming the words out as he wrapped his arms around his wife and picked her up about three or four inches off the floor before he set her back down and kissed her wetly on the mouth.

“Honey, it seems months,” his wife said, smiling up at him with the handsome teeth that a Beverly Hills dentist had capped for $1,700.

“How've you been, sweetie?” Cubbin said, taking off his raincoat.

“Fine, darling, but I missed you so much.”

“I missed you, too, honey.”

It went on like that for a while, the terms of endearment punctuating every phrase. Fred Mure stood a little back from the couple, smiling as he watched them greet each other.

Oscar Imber and Charles Guyan had also come into the room and they tried to avoid looking at what Imber called “The Don and Sadie Show.” But there was nothing else to look at and after a while both men watched with a certain amount of detachment as the couple exchanged endearments and traded some more wet kisses that involved what Guyan thought of as “too much tongue work.”

Cubbin's first wife had died seven years before, leaving him with their only child, a nineteen-year-old son, and a surprisingly dim memory of a vague, shy woman who had been a vague, shy girl when he had married her when she was nineteen and he was twenty-four.

Six months after his wife's death, Cubbin had married Sadie Freer who was nearly three decades younger than he. There had been nothing either shy or vague about Sadie who had first met Cubbin when the UPI bureau in Pittsburgh sent her to interview him.

The last time they had tried sex together had been seven months before. It hadn't been any good, in fact, it had been rotten, with Sadie at first doing all of Cubbin's favorite tricks and even inventing some new ones. But nothing had worked and finally Sadie told him, “You've had too much to drink, honey. Why don't we wait till tomorrow.”

But somehow they had never got around to trying again and Cubbin was relieved that he no longer had to make the effort or endure what he considered to be the shame of failure. Cubbin found that if he drank enough, he didn't even dream about sex. After a month or so, Sadie had also discovered a satisfactory substitute. In the meantime their display of public affection continued, even more cloying than ever, because they were, after all, genuinely fond of each other.

After the greeting of his wife was over, Cubbin turned to Imber and Guyan. “Now I'm going to have one big drink of that Canadian whiskey I bought.”

“One won't hurt you,” Imber said.

“Well, that's all I'm going to have till after that interview.”

“I'll fix it, Don,” Fred Mure said. “Sadie?”

“Anything,” she said. “A bourbon and water's fine.”

“You guys?” Mure said to Imber and Guyan. They both asked for bourbon and water.

As Mure turned to go for the drinks, Cubbin said, “And send Audrey in here.” Mure nodded that he would as he went through the doorway.

Cubbin settled himself in an upholstered, low-backed chair and looked at Guyan. “So you really think it went okay, what I said to that TV guy in Hamilton today?”

Guyan nodded as he sat down on the room's green couch. “You slanted it just right for the Canadians, I think. You won't have to change too much tonight. He'll probably ask you the same thing.”

“You mean why do I think Sammy's running and whether I think I've lost touch with the rank and file?”

“That's what they've all been asking so far,” Guyan said.

“Did you notice who that TV guy in Hamilton walked like?” Cubbin said.

“Walked like?” Imber said.

Cubbin rose. “Like this,” he said, bending himself backward and holding his arms a little out from his sides as he pranced across the room in a pigeon-toed gait.

“Christ,” Imber said. “You're right. Cary Grant.”

Cubbin beamed. “The older ones like Grant and Wayne are easy. But the new ones all act like Burton and—”

Cubbin was interrupted by Fred Mure with the drinks. Mure was followed by a forty-year-old blonde who carried a slim, black attaché case. She was Audrey Denn who had been Cubbin's secretary for fifteen years. She put her attaché case down, went behind Cubbin's chair, and said, “Okay, handsome, relax.”

“What've you got?” Cubbin said to Audrey Denn as he reached for the drink that Fred Mure handed him.

“Take a sip first,” she said.

Cubbin took two large swallows.

“All right?” she asked.

“Fine,” he said.

Audrey placed her hands on his neck, down near where the muscles started up from his shoulders. She started to massage the neck muscles skillfully. “You've got some letters to sign, I mean right away, and above five phone calls that can wait till tomorrow and one that can't wait. You'd better take it pretty soon.”

“Who from?” Cubbin asked.

“Walter Penry. He called from Washington and said it was important.”

“Get him for me, will you?”

“Relax, goddamnit,” she said and went on massaging Cubbin's neck muscles while his wife watched with a slight smile and wondered, as she always wondered, how many years it had been since Don had stopped taking Audrey to bed. Ten years at least, she thought, probably when Audrey had finally got married. Now the two of them shared the easy intimacy of former lovers who don't have to bother with pretending anymore. It must be a relief, she thought, not pretending, and then she thought about something more pleasant, about when her own married life would improve. That would be after the election, of course. Everything was going to be after the election. In the meantime—well, in the meantime she would accommodate herself as best she could. Which wasn't bad really.

“Okay,” Cubbin said, “that's good. Now get Penry for me.”

Audrey Denn tapped him lightly on the shoulder, like a barber telling a customer that it's all over, and said, “You can take it on my phone.”

“Fine,” Cubbin said and finished his drink in three swallows. “Now what else?”

“I've got a delegation from Local 127 stashed away in room C,” Fred Mure said.

“One twenty-seven,” Cubbin said. “That's Wheeling, West-by-God-Virginia. That's the bunch I saw downstairs. The guy in the lobby I spoke to's name is—” Cubbin looked up at the ceiling. He prided himself on his memory. “Phil. Philip Emerey. Right?”

“Right,” Mure said.

“What do they want?”

“They got their local to pass a resolution backing you. They want to give it to you along with some money.”

“How much?”

“I don't know, probably a coupla hundred.”

“Christ, it cost them more'n that to fly up here.”

“They didn't fly,” Mure said. “They drove all night.”

“No shit?” Cubbin said, surprised and pleased as always that anyone would do anything for him that involved physical discomfort and not much in the way of reward. It wasn't humility that made Cubbin feel that way. It was a nearly total lack of it. “I'd better spend a little time with them then.”

“You'd also better spend some time with Lloyd Gar-field and his welcoming delegation,” Oscar Imber said. “They want to give you a little money, too. About twenty-five thousand dollars' worth.”

Cubbin rose and shook his head impatiently. “I've already talked to them,” he said. “Hell, I rode in with them from the airport and spending that long with Old Man Garfield is worth twenty-five thousand. Jesus, what an idiot!”

Oscar Imber was lying almost prone on the couch, his drink balanced on his chest, his eyes on the ceiling. “It's the biggest local contribution we've got so far, Don.”

“Well, what am I supposed to do, go down on my god damn knees to him? I never could stand the old prick.” Lloyd Garfield was sixty-three, thirteen months older than Cubbin.

“Spend another five minutes with him,” Imber said. “Give him as much time as you give the Wheeling delegation. That's five thousand a minute.”

“You'd better, darling,” Sadie Cubbin said, deciding that she'd better say something before Cubbin became petulant. “Oscar and I'll talk to Garfield while you talk to the people from Wheeling. Then maybe all you'll have to do is thank Garfield.”

“See if you can get the money from him first, Oscar,” Cubbin said. “I don't want to have to ask him for it and I don't want to handle it. Christ, that's all he talked about on the way in.”

“I'll place that call to Walter Penry in ten minutes,” Audrey Denn said. “That'll get you out of your meeting with Garfield.”

“Yeah, that's good,” Cubbin said and turned to look for Fred Mure. “All right, Fred, let's go.”

The two men left by the door that opened on to the twelfth-floor corridor. “They're in C, so we'll go in through D and make a stop in the john,” Mure said.

Cubbin only nodded and followed him. Inside the bath room that separated rooms D and C of his four-room suite, Cubbin drank from the remainder of the open half-pint of bourbon that Mure handed him. “I can only let you have one more belt before the broadcast,” Mure said.

Cubbin peered critically at himself in the bathroom mirror and patted his silver hair. “Just make sure you're around when I need you,” he said.

Mure tried to look hurt and almost managed it. “Don't I always, Don?”

Cubbin stared at him for a moment. “Yeah, I guess you do at that.”

8

Cubbin spent far more time with the delegation that had $200 to give him than he did with Old Man Garfield and his $25,000 committee. The $200 bunch was composed of working stiffs, he thought, who had had to lose a day's pay to make the trip from Wheeling to Chicago and would now have to show up for work the next morning all worn out from a long night's drive. Besides, they were a little in awe of Cubbin and called him President Cubbin and told him that they were backing him 100 percent and that he was the best thing that had ever happened to the union.

Old Man Garfield and his Chicago welcoming committee weren't in the least awed by Cubbin. They called him Don, talked about how lucky he was to have their support, repeatedly mentioned the sacrifices that had gone into raising the $25,000, and toward the end Old Man Garfield had drawn Cubbin over into a corner where he delivered a nice little lecture on temperance.

Cubbin by then had drunk just enough bourbon to make him almost reckless and he was thinking about how fine it would be to tell Old Man Garfield to take his $25,000 and shove it when Audrey Denn came into the room and told him that his call to Washington was ready. Cubbin stuck out his hand to Old Man Garfield and said, “It's always an experience being with you, Lloyd, and knowing that I can count on you for advice on just about anything.”

“Just you remember that little piece I gave you about you know what,” Garfield said and winked hugely. Cubbin winked back. “You bet,” he said.

“We'll see her through, Don,” Garfield said. “Just keep the faith, baby, like the nigger congressman used to say.”

Cubbin turned from Garfield, not bothering to disguise his wince, and left the task of talking to Garfield and his committee to Sadie and Oscar Imber and Charles Guyan. Followed closely by Fred Mure, Cubbin headed for room B of the suite. As he entered, Audrey Denn spoke into the phone she was holding. “I have Mr. Cubbin for you now, Mr. Penry.”

Cubbin took the phone and waved a hand of dismissal. Audrey Denn nodded and headed for the door. So did Fred Mure. Cubbin covered the phone and hissed, “Not you, Fred.” Into the phone he said, “How are you, Walter?”

In his Washington office on Seventeenth Street near L, Walter Penry had the desk speaker on. His office had all the trappings that W. & J. Sloane thought that a successful executive's office should have. There was a sunburst clock on the fabric-covered walls, some tweedy-looking couches and chairs, a kidney-shaped coffee table, some “English style” prints of Washington scenes, and an immense walnut desk that he had purchased secondhand from a cabinet member whose spendthrift notions on how he thought the government should decorate his office had created such a furor in the press that he had finally had to sell off his fancy fixtures and settle for General Service Administration issue. Penry had also bought the cabinet member's pale gold drapes that were real silk.

Penry was leaning well back in his burnt-orange leather executive chair, his feet cocked up on his desk. Across from him, seated in two tweedy armchairs, were the two principal associates of Walter Penry and Associates, Inc., Peter Majury and Ted Lawson. Majury wore an attentive expression on his thin face. Lawson looked as if he expected to hear something funny, but he usually looked that way.

After Cubbin and Penry exchanged pleasantries about their respective families and the weather, Penry said, “What's all this I hear about you having a little opposition this time out, Don?”

In the Chicago hotel room, Cubbin beckoned to Fred Mure. “It's not too bad,” he said into the phone. “I think we'll be able to handle it all right.”

Fred Mure took a half-pint of the Ancient Age from his pocket, unscrewed the cap, and handed the bottle to Cubbin who took two deep swallows. In Washington, the sound of Cubbin's breathy exhalation came clearly over the speaker and Peter Majury made a careful note about it on a yellow legal pad.

“Well, look, Don, are you going to be in Chicago tomorrow?” Penry said.

“Until Monday or Tuesday.”

“The boys and I would like to get together with you tomorrow, if we could. We've been kicking around some ideas and we might even be of some use to you.”