Adler, Warren - Banquet Before Dawn Read online

  "Thirteenth."

  "It can't be done."

  "The man's a walking flaw. He owes money. He maintains a phony

  marriage, and his secretary has been his mistress for fifteen years. His son is a homosexual. He never pays a bill. He drinks. He's aging. He's old-fashioned. He's Irish."

  "Irish is bad?"

  "It is now. Irish is now no factor in this district. I've only given you a surface picture. None of these factors could really hurt that much at the primary polls. The Establishment Democrats will not be easy to move. The problem for him is himself. He may perceive himself a loser; then all the other factors become operative, and his effectiveness as a candidate declines. If we hit him really hard, pressure him, he might resign or, at the very least, just give up. A man with all those problems could become desperate."

  "How can that be done?"

  "We'll orchestrate a crescendo of happenings, events. We'll put pressure on him from all sides — personal, media, public pressure. We can take him, Aram. All it will take is money and guts. There are, however, some unanswered questions."

  "Oh?"

  "Aram, you're not cold-blooded enough. You're too …"

  "Soft."

  "Yes. Soft. If I thought you could be ruthless, I know we could do it. If you falter in midstream, we'll drown."

  Sandra, who had been listening quietly, a rare pose, suddenly interjected. "Aram. Why not? You can do it. You know you can do it."

  He was silent for a moment. Hell, they were exaggerating. After all, they weren't talking murder. It was only a political race, a simple political race.

  "Why should soft or ruthless be a consideration? I don't understand."

  "You will," Alby said. "People just don't realize the extent of the combat. It will be bloody. Sully is a deeply rooted tree. You can't kill him by cutting down branches. You got to go into the trunk, right into the lifelines."

  "He's an old drunken phony anyway," Sandra said. "He'd be no loss."

  "Why wouldn't they want to replace him with a black?"

  "Because there are no 'theys.' This is a doomsday area. It has no structure, no organization. It's in total decay. In that kind of situation, rhetoric has no credibility, and yesterday's leaders, like Sully, are vulnerable. We'll rub a little hope in their noses and squeeze Sullivan real hard. We'll put him in here" — he opened his palm and closed it slowly — "and simply squash him."

  Soon after, Aram met Norman, who had been a top executive in Alby's computer company.

  "We need a black Machiavelli," Alby said. Even then, Aram saw him as a shadowy figure, self-confident, cocky, contetuous.

  "He's Shockley's great exception, a shvartse without mashed potatoes for brains." He paused. "That's not quite accurate. But you do get the message."

  Even Norman smiled at that one.

  "The trip might be fun," he said, taking Aram's hand.

  "Norman will handle intelligence with primary responsibility in the minority community," Alby said.

  He let the intelligence part pass quickly, knowing only vaguely what it really meant. Finding out what the other side was up to. It seemed to be a perfectly proper tool at the time.

  "It sounds like war," he told them.

  "It is," Alby said.

  Standing up in front of people and holding them in his hand, owning their attention, like tonight, crowded out some of Aram's misgivings, but not all.

  "Are you sure it's necessary to exploit Sullivan's personal problems?"

  "It's absolutely necessary."

  "It's wrong."

  "It's not wrong. It's exploiting an advantage."

  "It's not an issue."

  "Issues? My God, a challenger doesn't hit issues, a challenger attacks."

  "Alby, it's wrong."

  "Wrong is losing," Alby said.

  Yet it was he, Aram who had made a major contribution to the cause. A little information thrown into the flowery perfumed air of Mrs. Margolies' dining room one evening during dinner, long before he determined to run.

  "I was at Mr. Handleman's today," Mrs. Margolies said. Mr. Handleman was her financial manager, a tiny wizened man, a genius, she had said. "We have a building in Brooklyn, an old hotel, the Grand Dutchman. Very broken-down, but someday, Mr. Handleman says, it will be very valuable as property. A Congressman owes us a fortune. Imagine, a Congressman, Mr. Sullivan."

  An offhand blip on a radar screen. He barely listened at the time, coming as it did in a rush, sandwiched between Mrs. Margolies' endless torrent of information delivered nonstop at dinner, a running catalogue of her every move.

  He mentioned it early in the game, equally offhand, knowing without having seen it, how Alby looked at Norman and Norman made a note in the little pad, always carried in the inside pocket of his jacket, in which he made jottings with a short gold pen. He never pursued how they traced it to the management company, then to Deegan's bank.

  "Nothing to it," Alby said. Aram would not probe deeper. "A minor tactic in our war."

  Norman removed the rubber band and counted out the checks and cash in three piles on the coffee table. Checks were in one pile and cash in the other two. Aram watched curiously as he counted out ten hundred-dollar bills in a pile, neatly folded it into a small wad, and stuffed it into his pocket.

  "My cut," he said, looking into Aram's eyes. "You think I'm doing this for love?"

  Aram knew enough about Norman's finances to know he was joking: his own brand of sardonic humor. But even Norman understood he was going too far this time.

  "Media placement," he said, smiling thinly.

  "You mean Petrucci? — the _Post_ guy?" Aram whispered. "Jesus Christ."

  "Comes under the heading of making things happen," Alby said.

  "It's wrong," Aram said, feeling his cheeks grow hot.

  "Immoral? Yes," Alby said. "Wrong? No. Wrong is only if you lose."

  "Just a down payment," Norman said. "He's rather expensive, though when you consider what he can do with Fountain's research…."

  "Fountain's research!"

  "Of course, Aram. It's a legitimate news story," Alby assured him.

  "How did you get it?"

  Norman held up the money — checks in one hand, cash in the other.

  "That," he said, "was more expensive."

  _I must get used to this_, Aram thought. _They must not see my squeamishness._ "I just don't want it to come back to haunt us," he said, his voice quavering.

  Alby shrugged. "It's the risks we have to take. I think we're protected, but nothing is perfect."

  "We're passing cash only," Norman said. "And the media always protts its sources. Hell, they're proud of it. They'll go to jail before they talk."

  "They're all whores," Alby said. "Once you finally understand that,

  you'll make a fine politician."

  "I've got good teachers," Aram said bitterly.

  "Nobody's twisting your arm," Norman said.

  "It's all right, Aram," Alby said, flashing Norman a severe look. "Even a whore can have a heart of gold."

  "Nice of you to leave me that," Aram said, but he was feeling silly.

  "Many a whore started out as a victim of rape," Alby said, his Adam's apple jumping as he stifled a giggle.

  "You and your fucking bons mots."

  "Just the voice of reason and reality."

  "We'd better get some sleep," Norman said, yawning. "Tomorrow afternoon we've got a big shoe-leather number in the district. Lots of folks to meet."

  "We're opening a major storefront," Alby added.

  "And now that Sullivan's in town," Norman said, "things will heat up a bit." He took a sheaf of files from a table. "Here, look these over — speeches, press-release stuff from the agency. We're just burning Sullivan a new asshole."

  "He does deserve it," Alby said. "He really is a terrible man."

  "I suppose," Aram mused, still queasy.

  Later in Sandra's old room at Mrs. Margolies' apartment, Aram and Sandra lay side by side watchi
ng the ceiling and the reflection of the city lights creep through the drapes like the rising sun in the distance.

  "We're on our way," Sandra said. "I feel it. I can see it in the way you carry yourself. At last, we'll be in the thick of the action."

  "I'm beginning to get used to it," Aram admitted. "I t's beginning to come through to me that I've got a talent for this sort of thing. There's a magnetism in it … a strange feeling."

  She reached over to him and brushed her hand gently along his stomach, reaching gently downward until she felt the beginning of his hardness. He watched her hand move, her fingers caress him.

  "There could be something erotic in it," he whispered.

  "Erotic?"

  "I can't quite explain it … not yet."

  He came to full erection, and she caressed him with greater tension as he reached for her, feeling her breast and thighs, his finger searching for her moist organs. She rolled over, squatted across his pelvis, and inserted him, holding it inside herself without moving, looming above him, displaying her lovely form, letting him see her in the semidarkness. Controlled, she looked at him, her dark eyes watching his, her hair charmingly disheveled.

  "My beautiful Armenian prince," she said, beginning to move her body in a practiced circular motion, slowly, then swiftly, and slowly again. "My beautiful prince," she repeated, looking at him. He watched her body move above him, flattered and joyous.

  "I feel the strength of you in me," she said. "Do you feel my strength, too?"

  He watched her above him, taking her pleasure, her dark eyes still watching his, her hands tightening their grip on either side of his hips, and he wondered, even now, whether he was truly the passive figure being pushed, manipulated, used. The question occurred to him with new intensity. He could not discern whether he was the user or the used, and suddenly knowing became important to him.

  Eyes closed now, Sandra undulated on his phallus, breathing heavily, her mouth slightly open, her head thrown back. He knew she was reaching the threshold of orgasm, multiple orgasms, abandoning herself to abstract feeling.

  Aram watched the spectacle, feeling no sexual pleasure in it himself, marveling at her apparent helplessness. Sandra's eyes rolled in their sockets, and her fingers worked feverishly on her own clitoris as she

  rocked and circled over his body. "Come with me," she pleaded. "Come together." He willed himself to sustain his erection, letting her have only that and no other part of himself.

  Instead, he thought back in time, crawled back to the image of himself walking on the hot sand, trouss rolled, following the dark man who was holding the plate of Turkish candy and shouting in a shrill, plaintive voice, "Candy two cents. Candy two cents." And in the act of summoning the image, he imagined that he had preserved his sense of self.

  ———— *9* SULLY pulled a chair close to the window, watching, glass in hand, the sparse movement in the deserted streets. His courage had seeped out of him, like air from a pinhole in a balloon. After his meeting with Deegan, he had returned to the hotel, the edge of his anger still warm.

  He still had friends. He'd call them today. They'd come rushing to his side. Hell, he had a lot of markers to collect: his colleagues, the unions, the party guys. They wouldn't count old Sully out yet, not old Sully.

  He called Charlie Devers, chairman of the House Banking and Currency Committee. Charlie, close to seventy, had been returned to Congress by his constituents in southern Georgia for thirty-six years. The soft Southern drawl reassurred him.

  "How's that filthy rotten ayer in Noo Yawk, Sully?"

  "Rotten as ever, Charlie."

  Charlie Devers barely ever campaigned. His constituency rarely changed, had never lost its character and traditions. Family names, a sense of history and community were the important factors in maintaining representation. Hell, it was quite certain that even the most humble illiterate sharecropper knew who "ole Mistah Devers" was.

  "Knew old Devers man and boy," many were sure to say, those who had survived. Because Devers represented a sense of place, a genuine landmark commemorating something that continued to exist. Through all the winds that had buffeted the South, Devers survived. A phenomenon, Sully had assumed. But now he was beginning to see it differently. Devers survived because he had become a symbol of "place." He did, in fact, represent a place. What place did Sully represent?

  "Charlie," Sully said, "I'm in a bit of a jam. The money has dried up. I need some help."

  "Have you called the congressional campaign committee, Sully?"

  "Come on, Charlie, you know they don't mess in a primary, and I've got a real primary problem."

  "Some young buck tryin' to take on old Sully."

  "It's not as simple as that."

  "It never is.

  "The point of this call is dollars, Charlie."

  "Now, Sully, you know ah can't stick mah neck out that far."

  "Come on, Charlie. You can get one of those Georgia banks to extend me some quick credit. I know you can do it, Charlie."

  Sully knew he had done it before. There was a long pause.

  "Ah can't, Sully. No way."

  "I'm asking you as a friend, Charlie. Hell, it's been twenty-five years. "How many times …" But he could not say it, could not invoke past favors, not now. It was too demeaning.

  "Sully, ah truly know how yo-all feel. But it's the wrong tahm, Sully. It's the wrong tahm. Ah'm sorry, truly sorry."

  Sully paused this time, swallowed hard.

  "Okay, Charlie, I understand."

  "Ah hope you do, Sully."

  The phone clicked shut. He held it long after Devers signed off. Old Charlie Devers knew what he meant. A few years ago it all would have been so simple. A few discreet calls to a number of bankers, and the problems would have been at least temporarily alleviated. But now they

  were all in a fervor of self-righteousness, shifting gears, discarding the old ways of doing business. Charlie, after ten years as committee chairman, knew every major banker in the country. Just a raise of an eyebrow could make them shiver, since no comptroller of the currency could ever get appointed without old Charlie's consent. Like most committees of the House, it was the fiefdom of a single man. Banking and Currency was Charlie's. Sully knew that if he could hold on, someday it would be his.

  After the call, Sully refilled his glass. April watched him, saying nothing, knowing his moods, sensing his discouragement. He knew she would not admonish him for drinking too mu, not today. He knew he was drinking much more than usual. But anger somehow changed the brain chemistry, combating the anesthesia of the alcohol. He looked at his watch. It was three o'clock.

  Perlmutter arrived out of breath, sweating lightly above the upper lip, his clothes disheveled.

  "I've called a meeting for six thirty. Here at the suite. I hope somebody shows." He looked at Sully, then at April. "Fitz told me about Deegan."

  "Hell, it's no surprise," Sully lied.

  "They're getting the banners out of storage," Perlmutter said. "I told Marbury he'd get his check by six." He pulled it out of the top pocket of his rumpled jacket. "Here." He handed it to Sully.

  "Ten thousand clams. My God."

  "I still think we were better off getting the hell out of here. We can still do it, Congressman."

  "I suppose we could," Sully said, fingering the check. No, he wasn't ready to change, wasn't ready to make that decision today.

  "This leaves us less than twenty thousand in the accounts. We have got to find some relief."

  "We'll think of something. We've got people still to call."

  "I've called," Perlmutter said. "It's not like it was before, Congressman."

  "You'll see. They'll come through. Won't they, April?"

  "Sure, Sully. They'll come through."

  "Coming through" was still foremost in Sully's aspirations. He felt that he _deserved_ to come through, and that was enough to keep his spirits inflated and his mind whirling through the list of debts to him. Lyndon had called it the art
of the possible, but what he really meant was that politics had its own traditional ways of doing business, its own special products and credit system. Central to its successful working was the process of expanding credit. Let the IOU's flow, let the largess spread until the day when the chits are called and the obligations demanded.