Adler, Warren - Banquet Before Dawn Read online

First there were the unions, which spread their money like peanut butter, chunky with reminders that pro-union action was like money in the bank. Then there were the private-interest bagmen who descended on Capitol Hill during each session like a band of geese dropping golden eggs into every nook and cranny. Age and political longevity had increased both Sully's appetite and their honorariums, but his greed had become an affliction over the years, appeased now only with free vacations, tons of booze, an avalanche of picked-up checks, and wide- ranging gifts.

  But times were closing in on them, at least for the moment. The hard- eyed reformers were back in vogue, pure as scented pink virgins. He chuckled bitterly. _The better for future violation,_ he thought. But at the moment they were a formidable intimidation.

  "The unions were the first lists I worked," Perlmutter told him, as though reading his mind. "While we were still in Washington."

  "They're scared shitless," Sully replied. Yet, at the same time, he understood the political realities of their position.

  But there was still many a chit left among the pols. Perhaps it was this belief, filed deep beneath his political epidermis, that kept his courage from eroding. People always came through for their own breed. Christ, it was an axiom of his life. Only an Irishman knew just how much pain and burden another Irish heart could take. Only a long-term politician, with the bloated asp of ambition in his gut, could know the torment and anguish of pre-election tremens.

  Unfortunately, his cronies in the House, plagued by the damnable short-term system, were locked in their own duels, scratching in the parched exhausted soil for the same meager harvest. And he already had tapped the party fund in the House for a sparse dole.

  As for the Senate, both New York Senators were from the other party and had other axes to grind. Which brought him full circle back to Fun City, where, he felt, he could always count on Ben Lasser, the "people's cherce," the modest party-hack mayor of the Big Apple. He had stood by Ben through two defeats, bearing t burden of Ben's own self-doubt in those terrible hours after the word came; old Ben cried in his arms like a baby. He'd labored hard in Ben's campaigns, except perhaps the last one, the winning race. He'd come up twice to appear on platforms. Surely Ben could shake the money rafters and call in the reserves to help.

  "Get me Ben Lasser on the phone."

  "I've been in touch with his people," Perlmutter reported as April dialed. "They've been reasonably helpful so far, although they seem timid."

  "You think Ben would let old Sully down?"

  "Depends on what you ask him to do," Perlmutter replied.

  Sully drained his glass and refilled it himself as April began to cut through the shield of mayoral secretaries.

  "They couldn't buy Ben away from Sully. Not Ben. He's no goddamned Deegan."

  "He's in a meeting," April said finally.

  "Ask him to be interrupted." Was he pushing it too far?

  "It is rather urgent," April said into the phone. She looked up at him and shrugged. "Please," she said into the phone, and repeated the number twice. "He'll call back," she said to Sully. "He'll get the message."

  "I would have come to the phone," he mumbled, looking out into the cold afternoon. _If the tables were turned, I would have come,_ he thought. "We said it was urgent," he said aloud.

  Without taking his eyes off the street, Sully knew that Perlmutter had retired to the far end of the room and that soon he and April would find some excuse to get out of earshot, to discuss the "problem." He stood up and faced them both.

  "Where's Ramirez?"

  "Yomarian is opening storefronts. I asked him to monitor."

  "And Fitz?"

  "Checking for storefronts and places to put posters."

  "But we haven't ordered posters yet."

  "No, I guess not."

  He noticed that he still had the check in his hand.

  "Tell that bastard Marshit to come up here and get his blood money."

  The telephone rang. April answered it.

  "Harry Melenchuck." (They had been trying to get him all day.) Sully took the phone. He noted a tremor in his hand.

  "Harry, you Polack son of a bitch. How the hell are you?" Sully smiled nervously into the phone.

  "How are things, Sully?"

  "Good. Great in fact. The race looks about like last time. We just had some research done. Says we got it made, but you know how it is…. I'd rather run scared."

  "That's smart, Sully."

  "We've got a little primary opposition. No sweat. Like a flea bite on

  a cow's ass. It's going to take a little extra. More than we budgeted."

  "Like how much?"

  Sully paused for a moment. How much could he get? Melenchuck was the bagman for the big Laborers' Union. Sully knew he could make his own discretionary contributions through the union slush fund.

  "Ten thou," Sully said.

  "Chrissakes, Sully, that's a lot of dough."

  "Hell, Harry, I got ten thou last time. Considering inflation you're getting off easy." Sully laughed, clanked the ice in his glass, and drank the dregs. He held out the glass for April to refill. She took it reluctantly.

  "I'll have to check, Sully."

  "Check? Check with who?"

  "The boys, Sully. Things are different this year. George is clearing everything."

  "You didn't have to last time, Harry," Sully said. "Or the time before that. Come on, Harry. I really need it this time." He was surprised at the panic in his voice.

  "Take it easy, Sully. Besides, primaries are different."

  "Like you'd be backing the wrong horse, Harry?" April handed him the glass. He sipped it greedily. He knew what Harry was really saying. "You're thinking that I'm going to be beaten, aren't you, Harry?"

  "Christ, Sully. You know that's not true."

  "How many times have I gone to the well for you fellows, Harry?" He felt gorged in anger.

  "Come on, Sully. We've known each other too many years."

  "A man learns who his friends are."

  "I said I'll check."

  "Go shove it up your ass."

  Sully slammed the phone down heavily, knocking it to the floor. "What the hell is going on?"

  He looked at Perlmutter, who averted his eyes. April got up and took both his hands in hers.

  "You can't do political business while you're in a funk, Sully. They'll come around."

  "The son of a bitch. Just mark him down on my shit list…. They used to kiss my ass."

  "Calm down, Sully. Just calm down. They'll come around. Right, Marvin?"

  "Of course, they will," Perlmutter said. "Everybody is just nervous. Let's face it, the whole complexion of political life has changed, particularly in the area of fund raising. The day of the easy touch is gone. It went down the tube with the seventy-two election. Don't blame Harry."

  "He thinks I'm going to lose."

  "How could he?"

  "I can feel it in his voice."

  "Congressman Sullivan. No one has seen the research. None of the soundings could be accurate without that. He can't possibly make that assumption."

  "Deegan did."

  "That was something different. Deegan is privy to things in this district. He's beholden to certain people. He was acting under duress."

  "Listen to him, Sully," April said.

  "And we've got another problem."

  "What's that?" Sully asked.

  "A candidate evaluation committee. Some Polish-sounding name. Wants to bring up a group to evaluate your record."

  "My record?" Sully asked, but he was only half listening. "Call Ben again."

  "Isn't it too soon?" April looked at him, shrugged, and dialed. She

  followed her usual routine.

  "Did he get our message?" she asked calmly. "He got our message, Sully. He's still in a meeting."

  He could feel a hot flush spread across both cheeks, the beginnings of anger.

  "Let me talk." He reached for the phone. She pulled it back, hand over the mouthpi
ece. "No, Sully, please, not now. He'll call. Why should he duck you?"

  He could feel himself on the edge of panic, looking down over an abyss. _It's the booze,_ he thought, retreating.

  "Of course, darlin'," he said, forcing a smile. "I'm getting edgy."

  "Please be sure he gets the message," she said firmly, the unmistakable sharpness of impatience in her voice. "She got my message," April said. "The little snip."

  At that moment Fitz arrived, pale, puffing heavily. He walked immediately to the liquor bottles, poured himself half a tumbler, smacked his lips, and shook his head.

  "Yomarian, Sully, is one vicious son of a bitch. He is one lousy Arab son of a bitch."

  "Armenian," Sully pointed out. He moved toward the straight-backed wing chair and sat down. Now that Fitz was there he felt calmer, admonishing himself for his edginess. _Not like old Sully,_ he thought. He couldn't remember when he had been more anxiety-ridden. _Got to cut this shit out,_ he observed to himself.

  "Let's hear it, Fitz," Perlmutter said. He put a large yellow note pad on his knee, pencil ready.

  Fitz began pacing the room. "I rode around looking for all the old guys," he said. "Flannigan. O'Hara, Riley, Schwartz, Bagley — "

  "Bagley's dead." Perlmutter interjected.

  Fitz ignored him. "Everywhere I went there are faces of this Yomarian. It's like a sickness, a disease. There must be thousands of them, plastered on abandoned buildings, in store windows, on cars, telephone poles. Even in the shit house of a bar I went to. Everywhere you go his fucking Arab face sticks out at you. It's sickening."

  "He's an Armenian," Sully repeated.

  "Where the fuck is Armenia?"

  "God knows."

  Fitz had crossed the room and was standing in front of Sully.

  "Did you visit any of the clubs?" Sully asked.

  "Yeah. I went to the old club, the old Dublin Demo."

  "Christ, Fitz, that's gone with the wind," Perlmutter said.

  "Now that was a club," Sully mused, remembering the sweet old smell of kegged beer and pretzels and the open reddening Irish face He always got a great reception there. It was like coming home. But four years ago it was already gone, swallowed up, lost.

  "It's a goddamned nigger nursery or something," Fitz reported. "Kids crawling all over the place. It looks like a crapper."

  "Then what was the point of going there, Fitz?" Perlmutter asked.

  Sully knew. Old Fitz wanted to see if, by some miracle, resurrection had occurred and the old clubhouse had come to life again. For years, around election time, there was never any question but that a SULLIVAN FOR CONGRESS sign would flutter proudly above the front porch proclaiming to the world that a fellow Hibernian was out front, a leader of the pack.

  "I went for old times' sake," Fitz said, emptying his glass. "And I saw Tim Callahan." Callahan was a past president of the club. "He was so damned old he could barely walk. I waved to him from the car, but he couldn't see me. Remember Callahan? He was a mean son of a bitch in the old days."

  "A real mean son of a bitch," Sully agreed, smiling.

  "They came, the damned niggers and spics, and they took away the whole

  fucking t hing. Every time I saw a white face, like Callahan's, an ordinary white face, it was a cause for celebration. Sully, we got to bring 'em back. Where the hell did they run to? Where the hell did they all go?"

  Sully, too, had wondered about that. They had all, indeed, run, modern refugees in mass migrations, like the flight of birds, to phony-sounding places like Burgundy Hills, or Queen's Meadow, or Hunters Glen — fairy- tale names that brought them rushing out from their old places in search of some third-rate fantasy. He wondered what they found there in Burgundy Hills. Were they happy there? Had they found the Holy Grail?

  "We started too late," Perlmutter said. "We're too far behind. We need money. We need people." He banged his fist into his palm. "I'm not too optimistic about the meeting later. I'm afraid no one will show. I'm scared to death about it, Congressman." Sully ignored him. Hell, he was scared to death himself.

  "I got a plan," Fitz said, refilling his drink, his face puffing up like a blowfish. "I've got one hell of a goddamned idea." He paused, savoring the effect he thought he was making. "We hire these colored guys, a whole pack of them. Get them off the street corners. Hell, they don't do anything anyhow. And we give them one buck a sign. Cash on the barrelhead. One buck. That'll get rid of the signs in a hurry. The plan for the storefronts is a little more expensive. Fifty bucks for busted windows. Ten bucks a pound for all his campaign shit. I figure we'd clear him out in two days." He looked at the faces around him. "What do you think?"

  "I think it's one hell of an idea, Fitz," Sully said. "One hell of an idea."

  "Come on, Sully," April said, jabbing him in the ribs.

  "Besides going to jail," Perlmutter said, as though taking them seriously, "we couldn't possibly afford the freight. Yomarian's got tons of material on the street."

  "The bastard deserves it," Fitz said, reaching into his pocket for a handbill. "Look what the son of a bitch says about you, Sully."

  April took it from him and read aloud.

  "A vote for Sullivan is a vote for less of everything. Sullivan is irrelevant. His constituency lives in the suburbs. Throw him out of our district." She threw the handbill on the coffee table. "Pretty raw stuff, I'd say." Perlmutter picked it up and read quietly to himself.

  "Hell, it's only words," Sully said, putting his hand on Fitz's back.

  "We worked so goddamned hard for those motherfuckers," Fitz said. "I hope they all rot in hell."

  "One thing is certain: Yomarian has got lots of money," Perlmutter said.

  "Money. Money. Money. That's all you have on your mind, Marvin. You Jews, that's all you think about," Fitz said angrily.

  "Better than booze, booze, booze."

  "You dumb sheeny."

  "Drunken mick."

  They were always haranguing each other like thatully liked to hear it heat up, knew that it served them both as an outlet for their frustrations. He knew, too, exactly when to step in.

  "Stop belaboring the obvious. You're both right. Besides, it's getting us nowhere," he said, winking.

  Fitz sat down in a corner and turned his face away, pouting.

  There was a knock on the door. It was Marbury, pale, gaunt, still in the same rumpled suit of the night before.

  "Come on in." Sully looked at his watch. "Hey, it's only five o'clock. You're early."

  "I got a message," Marbury said.

  "Have a drink."

  "No, thanks."

  Sully felt the man's embarrassment and determined to string it out. He got up and refilled his glass. He poured lightly this time, feeling his hand shake slightly as he gripped the bottle.

  "We're really not sure if we'd like to make the Dutchman headquarters this campaign," he said turning, conscious that he was showing Marbury a toothy smile.

  "Does that mean that you're not going to pay?"

  Marbury shifted his weight from one foot to the other, jamming one hand into the side pocket of his jacket.

  "Just look around this room. Crummy! The furniture's breaking down. The heating system doesn't work. The place stinks. The plumbing never works right."

  "It's an old hotel," Marbury said.

  "And on its last legs."

  "Nothing lives forever, even real estate."

  "Well, we're not quite sure about it," Sully said. He looked at Fitz, who had finished his pouting and had turned in his chair.

  "Congressman, this is really a shit house," he said, beginning the old routine.

  "Look," Marbury said. "I gave you until six. I could come back then. If you're not going to pay the bill, then just clear out and we'll let the lawyers take over from there. My interest in this matter is purely business. I couldn't care less if you win or you lose."

  "Now there's an emotional man," Sully said. "A man of sentiment and understanding."

  Marbury turned t
o leave.

  "I'll be back at six," he said. _I'm just being cruel now_, Sully thought. The man was just an agent, just doing his job, the eternal cop- out for all base deeds. It was, after all, only an act of sentiment to stay in the old Dutchman. It was the only place in the district where he felt at home. Maybe he was getting old, detesting change, getting sentimental about the past. Hell, he owed the bastards the money.