J.T. Read online

  “It’s J.T. Wright, for his three o’clock appointment,” she said.

  “Who?”

  “The young lawyer that joined the counsel staff for your Judiciary Committee. Big Jim Wright’s son.”

  “Oh, right, right. Put down on my list that I want to give Big Jim a call and chew some fat with him when I get a minute. What’s the young man want?”

  “I don’t know, Senator. He called and asked for an appointment with the chairman of his committee. I told you about it, and you said to give him an appointment.”

  “I did? When was that?”

  Lucy lifted a notebook she had been holding at her side, and thumbed through the pages. She always marked down the precise time and date of each instruction. The senator could never remember the instructions he gave, and sometimes denied giving them when they conflicted with something else he wanted to do.

  “It was three-thirty on Thursday, March twenty-first. You were sitting at your desk. You had just dictated a letter to Congressman Kruger.”

  “All right, all right. You know,” Anders said, smiling, “I hate that damn note-taking habit of yours. You always make me look bad.”

  The senator and Lucy had been together as employer and employee for a long time. They had also been together for other, more intimate reasons. But that had been a long time ago. Somehow their dalliance had been able to survive that well-known dictum in the political and business worlds, don’t fool around with the people who work in your office. The senator’s former personal relationship with Lucy never interfered with their working relationship. And now it was so many years ago that they each occasionally wondered if it had ever really happened.

  “Shall I show him in, Senator?”

  “I guess so. What else do I have on the schedule?”

  “Just a massage at the athletic club.”

  “Just a massage! At my age, that’s the closest I get to having a party.” He laughed, mostly because Lucy knew that despite all his protestations of age and seniority, which sat well with his constituents, there was still plenty of the devil in him—particularly in regard to the wife of a certain representative on the Judiciary Committee. The representative didn’t know, or didn’t let on that he knew, that the reason he was so favored by the chairman with key assignments was that it gave the chairman more access to the representative’s wife.

  Lucy walked out of the large paneled office and returned with J.T. Wright.

  The senator studied J.T. He knew J.T. was on staff. In fact, after Big Jim had called, the senator had personally directed J.T.’s appointment to the staff. Although he had seen J.T. in passing occasionally, the senator had never really taken a good look at the boy before. Must look like the mother, the senator thought to himself. Doesn’t look a damn thing like Big Jim. J.T. was wearing a gray herringbone suit with black unshined penny loafers. He looked small, unmuscular.

  “Well, well,” the senator said jovially, “the linchpin of my committee’s legal staff.”

  “Not quite, Senator,” J.T. said diffidently, although he was sure the description was accurate.

  “Sit down, sit down. How’s your old daddy?”

  “Really well, sir,” said J.T. in his most respectful tone.

  “What can I do for you, young man?”

  “Well, sir, I have an idea that would be both beneficial to the American people and at the same time very advantageous to you personally.”

  “That sounds like one hell of an idea, son. What is it?” The senator winked at Lucy, who was standing back from the desk, silently taking notes.

  “Well, I’ve been doing a lot of reading into the workings of past Senate committees …”

  “That’s very commendable. Very.”

  “Thank you, sir. Recently I’ve been studying the Committee on Un-American Activities. Those McCarthy hearings excited and engrossed the public at the time.”

  “Yes?” The senator wanted to get to his massage.

  “And they made an unknown senator from Wisconsin a very famous man.”

  “You think I’m an unknown senator?”

  “Not at all, sir. But I believe that the Judiciary Committee could conduct hearings that could have the same, or greater, impact on the public. And with network television coverage, which McCarthy didn’t have at the beginning, such hearings could make the star of new hearings—yourself, sir—a household name.”

  “You’re thinking that might help me if I were interested in the presidential candidacy, is that it?” The senator’s eyes narrowed on J.T.

  “I have no idea about the presidential candidacy, sir,” J.T. lied. He knew the senator was jockeying every day to enhance his presidential field position. “But it certainly couldn’t hurt your political reputation to be in everybody’s home on television every day.”

  “Just what do you imagine will absorb the public’s interest in such fashion?” the senator asked, trying to let an appearance of calm serenity mask his curiosity.

  “A subcommittee to investigate organized crime. Full hearings, with all stops pulled out. Charts with the names of the major criminals in the United States, the cities they blight, the whole works.”

  The senator looked at Lucy, who in turn looked at J.T. Neither said anything. J.T. took this as his sign to continue.

  “The committee has subpoena power. Big-name crime figures would be dragged into the light to be exposed. No one’s ever done it before. Everyone hears about the syndicate, the mob, the Mafia, but no one knows who or what it is. And no one has ever been able to bring it to light before. With these hearings, you, a man of integrity and courage, will be able to expose this diabolical organization to the American public.”

  “Let’s say these criminals do respond to the subpoena. What makes you think the public will become involved in such hearings?” asked the senator.

  “Humanity’s perverse fascination with the unknown, with evil and immorality.”

  “The evil that men do lives after them, eh?”

  “Exactly, sir. Why people have this perverse fascination, I don’t know—but it’s there. Another really important reason the public will be fascinated by the hearings is that these slimy characters will refuse to testify.”

  “They’ll be awfully short hearings then, won’t they?” the senator injected.

  “Not at all, sir. See, the committee has subpoena power, but not the power to grant immunity from prosecution. The criminals we subpoena will all hide behind the Fifth Amendment, just like in McCarthy’s hearings …”

  “Where does that get you, if the witnesses refuse to answer questions?”

  “Their refusals make this organized crime syndicate all the more sinister. The press will plaster them all over the front page and on the television screens. If a person knows his way around the newsmen—and, with all due modesty, sir, I made it my business to get to know the newspapermen in this town very personally—they’ll write their stories well larded with the right important names, the right slant.”

  The senator looked at this young lawyer very keenly. “How’d you get to be so conniving, so young?”

  “I learned from my daddy where the real power was,” J.T. said in a kind of down-home way.

  “That figures.” The senator smiled.

  “So, with the newspaper people ready to play ball with us, and with the right questions asked the right way, when some criminal refuses to answer, the American public will clearly see how dangerous these people really are.”

  “Listen, I have an appointment a few blocks from here. Why don’t you walk with me and tell me more about this idea of yours?” the senator said, standing.

  “My pleasure, sir.”

  “Lucy …” The senator started toward the door. “J.T. and I are going to walk a bit. If anyone needs me, you know where we’ll be.”

  “Yes, Senator.”

  April 10, 1960

  The door to the lavish suite in Washington’s Ambassador Hotel opened on a vestibule that led into two rooms: one was a bed
room, the other a sitting room with a convertible sofa and stuffed chairs. Loud talking and laughing escaped from the closed door to the suite. As guests arrived, and the door was opened, loudness, laughter, smoke, and the smell of booze flooded into the corridor.

  “Who the hell is there now?” called a voice from the crowded sitting room as the door buzzer sounded.

  “Hey, it’s Jim Duneden,” called another voice from the same room as J.T. opened the door.

  A fully stocked folding bar was set up in the sitting room, with a bartender in a white jacket in attendance. Music drifted from a radio.

  “Hello, Jim. I’m glad you could make it.”

  “Oh, yeah, J.T. Glad you asked me,” Duneden said, gazing eagerly into the two rooms to see what was happening and who was there.

  In the bedroom, a group of six or seven men and three women were drinking, exchanging gossip and dirty jokes. Duneden recognized Bill Crean from the Washington Post, as well as Joe Wasnak, a photographer from the same paper. He recognized some of the other men. He didn’t know the women; he could see they were kind of flashy, overly made up, with tight clothes and good tits. Duneden stared at a young blonde girl who had her back—and a nice ass—to him. He started for the room with the bar.

  “Hey, Jim, you son of a bitch, where the hell have you been?” called “Slats” Peabody, a city editor at CBS, from his perch at the bar. With Slats was Mac Baron from AP. A stunning older blonde woman stood with them. She looked like she could sing Wagner.

  Duneden waded into the room enthusiastically, aiming right for Brunhilde.

  J.T. didn’t mind being left unceremoniously at the door. He wanted all his newly cultivated friends from the press and television world to enjoy the booze and women he provided at his monthly meeting of the Mountaineers’ Club. J.T., in fact, had founded and funded the Mountaineers’ Club singlehandedly, for the very purpose of entertaining members of of the Washington press corps. The first time he had come down on the train to Washington, to be interviewed for the associate counsel position, he had decided that an occasional party to entertain the guys in the press room would go a long way. J.T. even had cards printed up, with the name Mountaineers’ Club imprinted over twin mountain peaks. Except, if one studied the vague mountains in the background of the membership cards, one realized they weren’t mountains at all; they were a woman’s breasts. The overt sexual tone of the Mountaineers wasn’t exactly to J.T.’s taste, but he knew the guys in the press room would go for such things. There were only two requirements for membership in the club: you had to be connected with the news media in some capacity—mostly in reporting or editing—and you had to get a membership card from J.T. Wright.

  “Boy, J.T., those three in there are something,” said Joe Wasnak, coming out of the bedroom on his way to the bar for a refill.

  “I’m glad you think so,” said J.T., flicking him a smile. He stood in the vestibule, from which he could keep an eye on the activities.

  Wasnak got his drink and started back to the bedroom. “Are there going to be more dames?”

  “There may be, later,” J.T. lied. “Aren’t five enough for you?”

  Wasnak laughed. “I guess you’re right, J.T.”

  Of course I am, J.T. thought to himself. Otto Wright is never wrong. What sophomoric shit, J.T. silently reprimanded himself.

  The blonde woman joined J.T. in the vestibule.

  “I’m going to set up the phonograph in the bedroom,” she said. “Is it okay to start now?”

  “Whenever you say, Lana,” J.T. replied. “I’ll leave that stuff up to you.”

  “Say, J.T., why are you monopolizing the girls?” said Duneden, coming over to them, drink in hand. He was blatantly eyeing Lana. “That’s not being a good host.”

  “Lana, in case you weren’t introduced, this is my friend Jim,” J.T. said, purposely not giving his friend’s last name. “He’s the fellow I told you about.”

  “Oh?” said Duneden with surprise.

  “Don’t worry, J.T. didn’t say anything bad about you,” Lana said coyly. “He just said I should be extra nice because you were a special friend of his. He didn’t tell me you were good-looking too,” she said with professional aplomb.

  “Oh, hey. This Brunhilde’s got a good line of you-know-what,” said Duneden, laughing, putting his arm around Lana’s waist. “Anybody ever tell you you were built like Brunhilde?”

  “Is that something like a brick shithouse?” Lana shot back coyly.

  Duneden laughed loudly. “I knew you were my kind of woman the moment—if you’ll pardon the expression—I laid eyes on you.”

  “He’s cute, J.T. You’ve got a good line yourself,” Lana said to Duneden.

  Duneden sipped his drink. “That I do, that I do,” he said.

  “Remember what they say about self-praise,” Lana cautioned as she turned out of Duneden’s arm and into the bedroom.

  “What’s that?” He followed her.

  “Self-praise stinks.”

  J.T. winced at the banal repartee. He planned on leaving as soon as the festivities started. After all, he threw these parties for the others; that didn’t mean he had to stay.

  Lana set up a small portable phonograph on one of the night tables next to the bed. Duneden hovered around her, plugging the phonograph into the wall socket. She put a record on the turntable and set the needle down gently. Pounding striptease music blasted the room.

  “Hey, hey,” said one of the voices from the bar. “Sounds like a little action is starting in the bedroom.”

  Others cheered.

  Everyone quickly drifted into the bedroom. Two of the girls, nodding to Lana, began to dance in place. The men moved back to give them room. The girls moved provocatively to the music. One began to work at the belt of her dress. The men cheered loudly. She unfastened it and threw it into a corner. She was the center of attention as she teasingly slid off her clothes and played to the leering men, coming close to them as she shook her bare breasts in their drinks. She actually wet one of her doorbell-button nipples in Joe Wasnak’s Scotch.

  Howls and cheers.

  Another girl stripped down to a G-string, then danced through the room, making her way to the vestibule. J.T. pressed himself back into a corner as the girl passed him. A few men followed her into the sitting room, watching her teasingly sliding the G-string down, then up, then further down. Her companion soon followed.

  A second pair of girls began a dance routine in the bedroom. The record ended, but the dancers kept bumping and grinding. Lana quietly turned the record over, then joined J.T. in the vestibule to watch her charges. Duneden followed Lana and stood in the vestibule, watching one room, then the other. Soon there were four nude women gyrating, teasing the cheering voyeurs.

  “I’m going to take off,” J.T. said to Duneden. “Lana knows how to take care of things.”

  “I bet she does,” leered Duneden.

  “Why don’t you stay, J.T.? Have some fun,” Lana suggested.

  “I have an appointment with the chairman of the committee,” J.T. lied. “Have to go over some material for the crime hearings.”

  “Right, right,” Duneden said, putting his arm around Lana’s waist.

  The two girls in the bedroom evoked howls and cheers as they began to perform tricks. One balanced drinks on her breasts as she walked across the room. The other, not to be outdone, showed an amazing ability to pick up dollar bills between her legs. The men set up bills for her to pick up.

  J.T. quickly slipped out of the doorway, delighted that this meeting of the Mountaineers’ Club was coming off so successfully.

  April 30, 1960

  Senator Anders was at his desk, hidden behind a newspaper he held widespread. J.T. waited quietly at the side of the desk as the senator read an interview of himself by the celebrated Washington Post columnist James C.R. Duneden. J.T. gazed absently out the window at the Capitol building, its dome alight in the gathering dusk. Spring had blossomed from winter’s gray, and around t
he Capitol, cherry blossoms danced at the ends of delicate branches. J.T. felt great, felt that his life was in blossom too, ready to bloom in a big way. His name was spread across the front page of every newspaper.

  “This is one hell of a column,” the senator commented from behind the paper.

  “Duneden’s a good writer,” said J.T.

  “Very cooperative too. Didn’t put in a thing we didn’t discuss in advance.” The senator lowered the paper. He was smiling. “Son, you can really deliver.”

  “Thank you, sir.”

  The senator put the newspaper up again, then lowered it. “Forgive me for being so rude, reading this here newspaper right in your face,” he apologized.

  J.T. laughed. “Don’t worry about it, Senator. Coverage is what politics is all about, isn’t it?”

  “Right, right.” The senator lifted the paper again.

  The senator’s secretary entered the office. “Senator?”

  “Yes?” the senator said from behind the newspaper.

  “It’s almost time for the committee meeting.”

  “What time is it?”

  “Four thirty. The meeting is at four forty-five.”

  “Thank you, Lucy. I’ll be finished in a minute. You come along with me too, J.T.,” the voice from behind the newspaper said.

  “Yes, sir,” J.T. answered.

  “How’d you like the article?” the voice behind the paper said.

  “Are you asking me, Senator?” asked Lucy.

  “Well, of course I’m asking you.” The senator put down the newspaper, folding it back to its original shape. “I know you’ve read it already. She reads everything before I do,” he said in an aside to J.T., “even my personal mail. She knows what I’m doing, even before I do. Well, what did you think of the interview?”