The Lasko Tangent Read online

  “Because I have to live with myself.”

  This last echoed back to me with an unhappily pompous ring. Suddenly I was tired of McGuire, tired of the argument, and tired of myself. Most of all I was tired of feeling cynical, and wishing I didn’t.

  McGuire was just tired of me. “Maybe people like you don’t have to pay your dues,” he said in a flat oblique voice. McGuire had never had money; he’d had a lifetime to consider his attitude toward people like me. It wasn’t hard to see how the former Deputy Secretary had cut his deal. He was a fine old WASP who treated McGuire with deference. The deference was McGuire’s reward; it made punishment negotiable.

  The insight didn’t help me. I felt superior and disliked myself for it. The fight had taken on a whining undertone of buried resentments older than Hartex and bigger than the ECC. I tried to end it. “OK, I’ve said what I wanted to say.”

  McGuire hesitated, as if distracted by his failure to have the last word. The thought got the best of him. “You think because you’re a hotshot, I have to put up with this. I don’t.”

  “That’s true. You don’t.” One day, I thought, I would push it too far. But I had Feiner to remind me of what I didn’t want to be. His face was a frozen mask of attention, turned to McGuire. I figured he must spend his nights chiseling McGuire’s every word in marble.

  McGuire was looking me over, as if sizing me for a firing. “You’d better get with it,” he finally said.

  There was nothing more to say. I left, his sourness trailing after me.

  I walked back to my office. I wasn’t happy. The Lasko case came complete with White House interest, a meddling Chairman, and a supercilious female lawyer. I was on a very short leash, and didn’t know who was holding the other end. So I decided to call Jim Robinson.

  “Hello?” he answered.

  “What’s Mary Carelli?”

  “I don’t know, Chris. Maybe if you take penicillin it will go away.”

  I laughed. “I’m especially interested in political connections, how she got her job-stuff like that.”

  “You a lawyer or a reporter today?”

  “I just want to know what I’m dealing with.”

  He paused. “I’ll see.”

  “Thanks. Catch you this afternoon.”

  I depressed the receiver and called Lane Greenfeld at the Washington Post. After that I got the Lasko file. I riffled it for an hour or so. Then I checked my watch and left the building.

  Three

  Greenfeld and I had agreed to lunch near the Hill.

  I beat him to the restaurant and secured a table which was jammed to the side of a darkish room. The decor was instant men’s club: brick walls, stained brown beams, and heavy furniture. I ordered a light rum and tonic and looked over the clientele. The faces moved through intense talk, explosive laughter, and professionally amiable smiles. In one corner a squat man with a lobbyist’s beefy confidence was jabbing a stubby finger at an obscure and worried-looking junior senator. I resolved out of boredom to watch whether the senator’s attention broke. He was still hanging on when Greenfeld cut off my line of sight.

  He grinned. “Is this deja vu, malaise, or ennui?”

  I considered my answer with mock gravity. “Fin de siecle,” I concluded. I inspected his Cardin suit. “Are you bucking for Paris correspondent?”

  He sat down. “Just fashion editor.” Greenfeld was a taut testament to good metabolism. He had black hair, large, perceptive eyes, and a faintly amused look. The eyes suggested that he was amused because he understood more than the rest of us. “Now, you”-he stretched out the words-“look the very figure of entrenched capitalist privilege.”

  I smiled. The banter was typical. Greenfeld’s reporting was spartanly self-edited; the excess found refuge in his speech. He liked wordplay, sonorous phrases, and verbal sparring. His conversation was a pleasure which sometimes required strict attention. I had the pleasure fairly often; we were what passed for close friends among people too busy to achieve intimacy. The knowledge reminded me unhappily of how little time I’d had since school.

  Greenfeld ordered an old-fashioned. “How are things at the commission?”

  “Kafka lives.” I tried to contain my problems with the place. “And the Post?”

  He turned his palms upward in a little shrugging gesture. “They keep the pressure on.” He didn’t seem terribly impressed. It was one of the things I liked about him.

  I hadn’t seen him for a couple of weeks and had to stretch for his roommate’s name. I retrieved it. “How’s Lynette?”

  The boyish face became guarded and he stared at his cuffs. They seemed to interest him. Finally he spoke to his old-fashioned. “She hasn’t been around lately.” The words were uninflected, as if someone had unplugged his personality.

  It seemed less awkward to finish than to switch subjects. I stumbled on. “What happened?”

  He shifted slightly in his chair. “It wasn’t working.” Greenfeld was an observer, not a revealer; he discussed the personal only by indirection. I guessed that he had called it off. But his friendship required recognition of limits I probably understood better than most. I tried to slide out on a light note.

  “You’re a hard man, Lane.”

  Greenfeld gave me a wry, sour smile. “I guess it’s just part of ‘being cool in the seventies.’” He used the phrase to mock his own detachment. But he could already identify a time when he had liked himself better. I wondered if that were the problem.

  Greenfeld snapped to the realization that his second persona was warring with his first. “I can give you a pretty good rundown on Lasko. He’s a splendid fellow.” Quickly Greenfeld was back on balance, his voice animated, as if his own working competence had given him a foothold.

  “One of America’s heroes,” I smiled. “Give me what you’ve got.”

  “Tell me what you know and I’ll fill in the rest.”

  “OK. Lasko’s about forty-five. Very smart. Son of a steel worker from Youngstown, Ohio. Nice place. Ran with a pretty tough crowd when he was growing up. Apparently he’s kept some for friends. Got drafted and became a Korean War hero of sorts, based on a not-too-surprising talent for killing people. He went to college on the GI Bill and then got an M.B.A. So far, a heartwarming but typical story of upward mobility. Then he somehow managed to get himself involved in Florida real estate, which is where he made his first money. Also did some land deals in Arizona. Supposedly, these were pretty sleazy-a lot of it involved selling undeveloped land to Mom and Pop pensioner types, although presumably he had no inherent objection to ripping off widows and orphans either. Things got sticky for him after a while, so he sold out his interests and bought a chain of nursing centers. Apparently he’d decided to make a specialty of the aged. From what I hear the nursing centers were better than Bergen-Belsen, but worse than Fort Benning. He sold them at a profit just before the state legal authorities decided to investigate. Which left him wealthy, but underemployed.” Greenfeld had reassumed the amused look. Occasionally, his eyes would focus on a fact, as if indexing it in proper order with his own information. I paused. He nodded me on.

  “The next part is more directly relevant. Lasko decided to become a captain of industry. In the early sixties, he bought a small outfit in Boston called Technical Instrument, which was into computer and electronic equipment. Lasko renamed it Lasko Devices, and built it up. Among his supposed techniques were strong-arming and blackmailing competitors, as well as industrial espionage. None of that has ever been proven. When the company got larger in the mid-sixties, he came out with a public stock offering. It’s traded on the New York Exchange. He also joined the conglomerate movement, and was sued for looting one of his acquisitions. He settled that one out of court.

  “Lasko Devices is still his main interest, though. He’s landed some good contracts with the Department of Defense and the company has increasingly taken over certain parts of the electronics industry. He’s also gotten more respectable. His success was helped along
by mere garden-variety violations of the antitrust laws, like price-cutting. About four years ago, the Department of Justice sued to force Lasko to give up certain holdings of Lasko Devices so that he couldn’t monopolize parts of the electronics market. That would really hurt him and he’s fighting it in court. Other than that, Lasko has cleaned up his act. He’s traded in his white shoes for pin-striped suits. Lectures at business schools. Visits the White House. Has audiences with the Pope. Holds seminars on world poverty. He’s famous. He’s a prince. I love him.” Greenfeld smiled. I was out of material. “Does that do it?”

  “Well, it’s a decent start.” This was said with the cheerful condescension of the bright boy upon whom the teacher would call when no one else knew the answer. I didn’t mind. Greenfeld’s arrogance had an engaging ingenuousness about it.

  “Your facts are OK,” he went on, “but they don’t make total sense until you appreciate the context. I’ve had the advantage of seeing the man from time to time. He’s an impressive-looking fellow, large and domineering, with a very deep voice. He projects a great deal of confidence. It always amazes me how much size can do for some people.” Greenfeld was short himself. “Of course, I’m always impressed in meeting prominent people how ordinary most of them are. It’s just that they wanted it more-whatever ‘it’ happens to be. Back to Lasko, I’m told that he also has some social charm. It would be interesting to see what a good psychoanalyst would make of him.” The thought stopped him for a moment, as if he were pondering what a good psychoanalyst would make of the rest of us. A waiter wearing a precariously placed black wig arrived to take our order. We made a quick choice, and the waiter retreated to the kitchen. Greenfeld’s eyes followed him. “Nice rug. Looks like something died on top of his head.”

  “What else?”

  “The second thing you need to think about is politics. He was in shady land deals in Florida, but was never prosecuted. He sold out his nursing centers at a profit just before an investigation started. His good luck isn’t the whim of the gods. He clearly had some Florida politicians in his pocket. These days he’s got large defense contracts, takes movie starlets to White House parties, and dines with the Pope. These aren’t just products of his boyish charm. He’s a powerful man, tough and ruthless. He’s given off a whiff of corruption for years, but no one ever catches him.” He paused for emphasis. “No one at all. And now he’s friends with the President. I’m not implying anything corrupt. As far as I can make out, the President just likes him. It doesn’t matter that Lasko’s not a very nice man. The President’s not a very nice man, either. And he admires Lasko because he’s richer than shit. Just like the President always wanted to be, but gave up for politics. And Lasko knows the value of a good friendship. So,” he finished wryly, “I wouldn’t count on this one to make your career.”

  “Then why is Justice trying to break up Lasko Devices? It doesn’t fit.”

  “The lawsuit is why I know all this about Lasko. It was filed during the last administration, before the President came in. He inherited the lawsuit, or it probably would have never been filed. Part of my job these days is to watch that case to see if it’s pushed or dropped. I’m on the lookout for White House pressure, trade-offs between Lasko and the President-stuff like that. The paper’s pretty hot about it.”

  “Find anything?”

  He shook his head. “Just PR. Lasko very much wants Lasko Devices kept together. A breakup would really hurt him. The philanthropic ventures are Lasko’s effort to be the modern Andrew Carnegie-a benevolent image might help ease his legal problems. He’s hired a New York PR firm to work on it. They schedule his speeches, suggest his seminars, and give other helpful hints. This firm could probably market Richard Speck to the mothers of America, and they’ve done a lot for Lasko. He’s started his own philanthropic group, the Lasko Foundation, and made mental health his special interest. Contributes generously to mental health institutions. So if he ever wants that psychoanalysis, he’s got experts on tap.” Greenfeld had psychiatrists on the brain today. He flashed into instant mockery, his voice acquiring a spurious German accent. “And so you see, my students, how every fact,” he raised his finger in the air, “must be viewed in its context to reveal its true depth and meaning. Otherwise, we are just as ignorant and benighted as when we came and have learned nothing.” He banged a fist on the table in satiric emphasis, stared at it in a parody of thought, then snapped his head up smiling. “So there it is, Chris,” he said in his own voice.

  Lunch arrived and surprised us by being good. We ate in grateful concentration, spaced around a discussion of foreign films. We both liked Bertolucci and Truffaut. I thought Fellini was overrated. He thought Bunuel was too bizarre. We ended by agreeing to get dates for the new Wertmuller film. All through it, Lane looked as if he were chewing on a thought with his lunch. The thought popped out over coffee. “Why didn’t you just talk over Lasko with your boys at the commission?” Greenfeld was still on the job; he had a working reporter’s instinct for conflict.

  There was no point in explaining Hartex. “I still have newspaper habits, I guess.”

  Lane didn’t buy it, but decided to pass for the moment. “You mentioned an investigation over the phone. What’s it about?”

  “Off the record, we have an anonymous tip that someone was trying to maneuver the market price of Lasko stock. We don’t know whether it happened, or if Lasko’s involved if it did.”

  Greenfeld fell unconsciously into his press conference rhythm. “So why all this interest?”

  “Just background,” I said. I looked uncomfortably back at Greenfeld. But his eyes were fixed over my left shoulder. They stayed there long enough to make me curious. “What did you see, Lane? The Vice-President in drag?”

  “Nothing that interesting. But someone you might run into. Robert Catlow.”

  “Who’s he?”

  Greenfeld kept on looking. “One of the unofficial White House talent scouts. Very influential. He helps clear appointments to top federal jobs, like to your commission. Has a private law practice here in town. Also represents your friend Lasko. I wonder which hat he’s wearing today.” He squinted slightly. “You know the guy with him?”

  I half-turned. Greenfeld pointed me to a fiftyish man in a dark blue pinstripe. He was talking easily across a corner table. I felt a small start of surprise at his listener. Apparently, Greenfeld didn’t know Joe McGuire on sight.

  I felt the silence and turned back to my coffee. “Fairly mediocre-looking fellow,” I said casually. It was an effort; I felt as though I had just opened a closet full of dead rats. McGuire and Lasko’s lawyer. It wasn’t a new twist. I’d seen months of work go down the tubes in two hours at the Sans Souci, while the poor sucker who had done the work bolted a bologna sandwich at the agency cafeteria, fighting the flies for possession of the table. Sometimes the sucker had been me.

  Greenfeld looked a moment longer before our waiter reappeared with our tab. I took the check by way of penance for pretending I didn’t know McGuire. In turn, Greenfeld overtipped the waiter. “That was for a hair transplant,” he explained on the way out. McGuire was still hunched in conversation as we passed. The other man was talking intently now. Neither looked up.

  We stopped outside the door.

  “Good luck,” Greenfeld said. “I hear that your what’s-his-name-McGuire-keeps pretty close tabs on you guys.”

  It was droll, in an unfunny way. “I think it’s safe to say that he’s involved.” Greenfeld missed it, as I intended. Still, I felt a little rotten. I was more of a bureaucrat than I realized. Or perhaps I just wanted this one to myself. It was already too crowded, and the McGuire part was pretty thin.

  Greenfeld was looking reflective, as if he were combing through the file drawer he kept in his head. “You know,” he finally said, “back when Lasko was building up, one of his competitors refused to sell his business. One night the guy was stabbed to death coming out of a warehouse. The cops fooled with it and finally wrote it off as an attempte
d robbery. But the deceased still had his wallet. And Lasko bought the business. Cheap.”

  That stopped me. “Is that for real?”

  “As always.”

  I smiled. “In a couple of weeks, you’ll probably find me at the bottom of a lime pit, rooming with Jimmy Hoffa.” It wasn’t my brightest remark. But right then it was just another chat with Greenfeld.

  Greenfeld’s wry look had returned. “Anyhow, let me know how this one goes.” Either Greenfeld was curious, or Lasko was a safe subject.

  I nodded. “What I can. And I’ll call you about the film.”

  He eyed me for a moment. “Good enough.” He smiled. “Well, back to the Hill. I haven’t bagged my daily quota of lies, evasions, cretinism, and horseshit.”

  I wasn’t so sure about the lies and evasions. But he was off, walking with the tensile alertness of the inquiring reporter. I watched him for a while. He was all self-possession. No one would think to ask him about Lynette.

  Four

  I was back at my office before I remembered to check my mail. It was consistent with the rest of the day. The first two letters were from Hartex stockholders reminding me that I had sold them down the river. The less enthusiastic one was from an ex-stockbroker taking exception to my police state methods, with a copy to the American Civil Liberties Union. The return address on its envelope read “Danbury Federal Penitentiary.” I filed it in my wastebasket. Then I scrawled “Attention: Joseph P. McGuire” on the Hartex letters and put them in the interoffice mail. It seemed the least I could do.

  The telephone message was better. Jim Robinson had something for me, it said. I cut through hallways left, then right, and knocked on the door marked “James H. Robinson, Senior Investigator.”

  “Come in.”

  Robinson sat in a rabbit warren of an office, wearing glasses and his habitual look of quizzical bemusement. It changed to a grin when he saw me through the stacks of paper on his desk. “Christopher Kenyon Paget,” he intoned. “Last of the independent men.”