The Porkchoppers Read online

At a quarter to one, Coin Kensington was waddling back and forth in his hotel suite between the kitchenette and the coffee table, laying out the snack that he planned to munch on during the interview program and the game that followed.

  It was going to be a long afternoon and Kensington didn’t want hunger to make him miss anything exciting so he had decided to set out an ample supply. Arranged on the coffee table were half a pound of kosher salami, a pound box of Sunshine soda crackers, three half-pound chunks of Swiss, cheddar, and Monterey Jack cheese, two containers of Sara Lee Brownies, a pint of stuffed olives, an immense bowl of potato chips, a can of Planter’s mixed nuts, half a loaf of sliced pumpernickel, a plate of fried chicken, and a quart container of potato salad. Kensington’s final trip to the refrigerator was to get a quart of buttermilk and a jar of dill pickles.

  At ten minutes to one Kensington went to answer a knock at his door. Standing there in a blue, double-breasted cashmere jacket, dove-gray trousers, and figured silk shirt was Walter Penry who, Kensington decided before he said hello, had sure come a hell of a long way from the FBI.

  “Come on in,” Kensington said, “I was beginning to wonder if you’d be late.”

  “Not a chance,” Penry said.

  “Got a little something to eat here, if you get hungry,” Kensington said, making a vague wave toward the laden coffee table.

  “No, thanks.”

  “Got beer in the icebox.”

  “I’ll take a beer,” Penry said.

  “You mind getting it? I been up on my feet all day.”

  “Sure,” Penry said and took a can of beer from the refrigerator, deciding against a glass because he knew Old Man Kensington would like to see him drink it from the can.

  He took a swallow of the beer and watched Kensington lower his immense bulk onto the sofa within handy reach of the coffee table. “If you’ll just turn up the sound, we’ll be ready to go,” Kensington said.

  Penry walked over, turned up the sound on the 24-inch color television set, and then settled into a comfortable club chair.

  “So you think it’s gonna be an interesting program?” Kensington said.

  “It had better be,” Penry said. “We spent ten thousand bucks to make it one.”

  In his Baltimore living room, Truman Goff switched on the television set and went back to an article in The New York Times that was a wrapup of the battle between Cubbin and Hanks and ended with a paragraph describing how each candidate would cast his vote on Tuesday, Cubbin in Pittsburgh at Local Number 1 where he still maintained his membership, and Hanks in Washington at the Headquarters Local. Goff tore the article out and put it in his wallet.

  His wife came in from the kitchen carrying two cans of beer. She handed one to Goff and said, “You gonna watch that talky program?”

  “I thought I might.”

  “All they do is scream at each other.”

  “It gets pretty hairy all right sometimes.”

  “What time you leaving tomorrow?”

  “I don’t know,” Goff said. “About ten.”

  “Well, be sure to tell your mother hello for me when you get down to Lynchburg.”

  “Okay. You need some more money?”

  “No,” his wife said, “you already give me plenty.”

  Donald Cubbin used the union-supplied limousine to drive out to the network studio in northwest Washington. Fred Mure drove with Kelly beside him. In the rear with Cubbin were Oscar Imber and Charles Guyan. On the jump seats were Peter Majury and Ted Lawson.

  Mickey Della drove Sammy Hanks out to the studio in Della’s five-year-old Ford Galaxie. “You’re going to make Cubbin feel like a shit if you don’t bring along a big crowd,” Della said.

  Hanks and Cubbin met face to face for the first time in two months on the steps of the studio. They looked at one another warily, each suspicious of the hidden knife, until Cubbin growled, “Hello, Sammy.”

  “How are you, Don?”

  “Who you betting on?”

  Hanks looked slightly surprised, but grinned hastily and said, “Me, of course.”

  “I meant the ball game, stupid,” Cubbin said and brushed on past.

  Mickey Della fell into step with Peter Majury. “I’m surprised that you decided to crawl out of the woodwork where the light can get at you,” Della said.

  “Ah, Michael, it’s good to see you up and about,” Majury whispered. “I’d heard you were in a rest home.”

  Neal James met his two guests, shook hands with them, and then sent them off to makeup. The girl who worked on Cubbin told him that he looked like an actor. After he caught the one who was assigned to him biting her lip, Sammy Hanks said, “What do you say we try a paper bag?”

  After Cubbin came out of makeup, Charles Guyan drew him aside. “Just one word of advice, Don. Keep your answers short and don’t let them needle you.”

  “What about making a little joke when I’m introduced? You know, something about since I’ve been accused of spending most of my time at country clubs, maybe I should have brought along my golf clubs.”

  Guyan couldn’t keep the pained expression from his face. “No, Don, please. No jokes. Just be dignified.”

  “You don’t think it’s funny?”

  “No, I don’t think it’s funny. Sorry.”

  “Yeah, sure,” Cubbin said and decided to make the joke anyway if he got the chance. It would help ease the tension, he thought.

  Peter Majury sidled up to Cubbin and tugged him away from Guyan. “Be kind to Sammy, Don,” he whispered. “Don’t be too hard on him.”

  “What do you mean don’t be too hard on him? I’ll be as hard as I can on the son of a bitch.”

  Majury smiled sadly. “Just remember what I said, Don, please. Be kind. Compassionate.”

  “What the hell are you talking about?”

  Majury shrugged and again smiled sadly. “Just remember what I said.”

  After Cubbin was ushered onto the set, Ted Lawson moved over to Peter Majury. “You give him the word?” Lawson said.

  “I told him as much as I could.”

  “It’s sure as hell an iffy thing.”

  “It’ll work,” Majury whispered, as though trying to convince himself. “I just know it’ll work.”

  Kelly Cubbin sat next to Fred Mure, watching on a monitor as the guests and the reporters were seated on the studio set.

  “Old Don looks great on TV, don’t he, Kelly?” Mure said.

  “Fine.”

  “And he’s only had two drinks today, too. I offered him one just before he went in there, but he didn’t even want it.”

  “You’re nothing but kindness, Fred.”

  Mure nodded comfortably. “I try to look after him.”

  On the set four reporters, nicknamed “The Cutthroats,” sat behind a curved table on a raised dais, looking down on the guests, or victims, as Neal James sometimes called them. The two guests sat in plain, straight, armless chairs that gave them no place to rest their hands other than in their laps, which made them look silly, or folded across their chests, which made them look frightened. However, Cubbin knew what to do with his hands. He sat straight in his chair, his chin up, his legs crossed, his right arm casually resting on his crossed left leg, his left hand loosely grasping his right wrist. He looked attentive, casual, relaxed, and above all, dignified, and he knew it.

  Sammy Hanks used the only weapon he had, his delightful smile. He turned it on and kept it on except when he thought it would be better to look serious and concerned. As for his hands, he forced them to hang straight down at his sides and Mickey Della thought it made him look like a man waiting to be strapped into the electric chair.

  Neal James sat on a raised podium behind a small desk between his two guests. He had a round, almost cherubic face that made him look younger than forty-six. He also smiled frequently and the smile was at its sweetest just after he had asked a particularly nasty question.

  James had chosen his panel of reporters more for their abrasive per
sonalities than for either their looks or their journalistic abilities. Before they had started appearing regularly on the program, they had been small-time Washington correspondents with cubbyholes in the National Press Building who worked for various newspapers in states such as Louisiana, Texas, Idaho, and Nebraska. Now two of them, Ray Sallman and Roger Krim, had their own syndicated columns and the other two, Frank Felix and Arnold Timmons, were getting requests for articles from such magazines as Playboy and Esquire, although Timmons didn’t think he was getting his share.

  They all realized that their new prestige and popularity depended on their continuing appearance on “The Whole World Is Watching,” and they also knew that Neal James would go on paying each of them $500 an appearance only as long as they continued to be nasty. And so nasty they were, even vicious, and each week they competed among themselves to see who could produce the most sordidly embarrassing questions.

  The program actually had turned them into much better reporters because to come up with the right questions they had to do an immense amount of spadework, something that none of them had ever bothered with before. But they also found that as their prestige rose so did the level of their sources and the four of them were now considered to be among the best informed reporters in Washington.

  After the introductions, the questioning was started by Neal James. His first question, a slam-bang one, went to Sammy Hanks.

  “Mr. Hanks, how long have you known that your opponent here, Mr. Cubbin, was an alchoholic?”

  “For several years,” Hanks said and thought, God, I didn’t know it was going to be like this. Della warned me, but I didn’t think it would start off this bad.

  “And that’s why you decided to run against him, because you thought that you could beat a sick man?”

  For twenty-two minutes the questions came much like that, first to Hanks and then to Cubbin. At the end of ten minutes, Hanks was yelling his answers. Cubbin, using every bit of his acting ability, managed to answer most of the questions crisply although once he snarled at Neal James: “I’m not going to answer that.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because it’s a damn-fool question.”

  “Well, perhaps your opponent, Mr. Hanks, will answer it for you.”

  “Sure,” Sammy said, grinning happily, “I’ll be glad to.”

  At twenty-two minutes past one Arnold Timmons took a deep breath, thought once more of the $10,000 that had been paid him in cash by Peter Majury, and said, “My next question is for Mr. Hanks.” Timmons paused and Hanks looked at him curiously before he smiled and said, “Go ahead. It can’t be any tougher than the ones I’ve already answered.”

  “Your father was a graduate of Princeton, Mr. Hanks,” Timmons said, “yet you barely finished high school—”

  Nobody ever did find out what the last of Timmons’ question was because at the mention of his father, Sammy Hanks shot to his feet. “You!” he screamed, pointing at Timmons. “You’re the worst man I’ve ever met. You’re rotten! Oh, God, you’re rotten!”

  Hanks had now moved between Neal James and the four reporters and still aimed an accusing finger at Timmons as he screamed, “I’m going to get you! I’m going to get you! You’ll be sorry!”

  In the control room the program’s director was talking happily to his number-three cameraman, “Oh, beautiful, beautiful! Keep it right on him, baby, all the way even if he flies out the window.”

  In the studio Sammy Hanks had sunk to his knees and was pounding the floor with his fists, screaming the word that sounded like “cawg!” over and over again. Then he looked up at Timmons and some forty million persons got a good close-up view of Hanks’s face, now made incredibly ugly by the lips that were drawn back in a dog’s snarl, by the tongue that flicked in and out of his mouth, and by the spittle that trickled down his chin. Sammy Hanks crawled across the floor toward Timmons, pounding the floor and screaming as he went and the camera followed him all the way.

  Well, shit, Donald Cubbin thought, nobody deserves this, not even Sammy. He rose and walked over to Hanks and stood there for a moment, a tall, dignified man with silver hair, wearing an expression of infinite compassion, which was only half put on.

  In the control room, the director was still yelling his instructions, “Three on Cubbin, close and hold, now two on Hanks, hold, and back three to Cubbin and cry for us a little, Sammy, baby, oh God, that’s beautiful.”

  Hanks was still crawling slowly, screaming his one word scream, when Cubbin bent down and said, “Come on, Sammy, let’s get out of here.”

  Hanks looked up at Cubbin and also up into the number three camera. “Cawg!” he screamed and the tears ran down his cheeks to mingle with the spit on his chin.

  Cubbin helped Hanks to his feet, turned, and started to lead him away when Neal James said, “How many votes do you think that’ll win you, Mr. Cubbin?”

  Cubbin turned slowly and glared at James. He put a lot into the look: scorn, contempt, a little hurt, and the camera caught it all nicely and the microphone faithfully carried the deep baritone when it softly said, “I’m not thinking about votes; I’m thinking about another human being.”

  On a monitor Mickey Della watched Cubbin lead the weeping Hanks out of camera range. Della took the cigarette from his mouth, ground it into the studio carpet, turned and walked down a hall and out of the building to his car. Mickey Della had no use for crybabies.

  In his hotel suite Coin Kensington crammed a heaping spoonful of potato salad into his mouth, his eyes fixed on the television screen. “Oh, my God, that’s awful, that’s just awful,” he said from around the potato salad.

  “That’s what we paid ten thousand bucks for,” Walter Penry said.

  “Yeah, I know but it’s just God-awful.”

  “It still won’t win Cubbin the election.”

  Old Man Kensington tore his eyes from the screen long enough to glare at Penry. “Well, it sure as shit ain’t gonna lose it for him.”

  When Cubbin led the still weeping Hanks out into the corridor, he looked around and asked, “Isn’t there anybody around who can take care of him? I’m not his goddamn nurse.”

  “Della walked out,” Majury said.

  Kelly Cubbin stepped up to his father. “Let me have him, chief.”

  “Well, somebody take him.”

  “Come on, Sammy,” Kelly said. “I’ll take you home. Give me the keys, Fred.”

  “How’re we going to get home then?” his father asked.

  “It’ll come to you,” Kelly said and led Sammy Hanks off down the hall.

  “That was a damned fine thing you did, Don,” Oscar Imber told him. “Damned fine.”

  “It didn’t lose any votes either,” Charles Guyan told him.

  “You think I handled it all right, huh?” Cubbin said.

  “You were perfect, Don,” Guyan said, “perfect, and God you should have seen it on the monitor. Great TV. Simply great.”

  “Maybe we can get a tape and run it sometime,” Cubbin said.

  “Jesus, you were good,” Ted Lawson told Cubbin and clapped him on the back.

  “Very nice, very nice indeed,” Peter Majury said.

  Cubbin winked at him. “Was I compassionate enough for you, Pete?”

  “Nicely so, very nicely indeed.”

  Considerably buoyed not only by Sammy Hanks’s misfortune, but also by his own noble reaction to it, Cubbin turned to look for Fred Mure. “Let’s go find the can, Fred.”

  “Sure, Don.”

  Inside the men’s room, Cubbin first checked the stalls to make sure that they weren’t occupied. He then took the half-pint from Mure, drank deeply, and closed his eyes and sighed.

  “I thought you looked great, Don, real great.”

  Cubbin opened his eyes and looked at Mure. “Fred,” he said.

  “Yeah?”

  “I want you to do me a favor.”

  “Sure, Don, what?”

  “Stop fucking my wife.”

  26

 
; On the day of the election, October 17, a Tuesday, the two cops came for Marvin Harmes at seven o’clock in the morning. They were from the Chicago detective bureau and one was a lieutenant and the other was a sergeant.

  The lieutenant, who identified himself as Clyde Bauer, was bald and having trouble with his weight. His partner, the detective-sergeant, was a thirty-eight-year-old redhead whom everyone called Brick. His real name was Theodore Rostkowski.

  Lieutenant Bauer first informed Harmes that he was under arrest and then he told him about his rights and even let him look at the two warrants, one for his arrest and the other for the search of his home.

  “What’re you expecting to find?” Harmes said.

  Bauer shrugged. “A little pot, maybe even a little heroin.”

  “Go ahead and search.”

  “We already have,” Bauer said and smiled. “I’m afraid we’re gonna have to take you downtown, Mr. Harmes.”

  “Why the rig?”

  Bauer smiled again. It was the tired, resigned smile of a man who was weary of his job, perhaps even weary of life. “Just get dressed, Mr. Harmes.”

  “Can I make a phone call?”

  Bauer looked at Rostkowski who shrugged. “Go ahead.”

  Harmes turned to his wife who stood, shivering a little in her robe, although it wasn’t cold. “Don’t worry,” he told her. “Just go upstairs and see to the kids. I’ll fix it.”

  He watched her climb the stairs and then crossed to the phone and dialed a number. Harmes wasn’t calling his lawyer; he knew that a lawyer wasn’t going to do him much good. He was calling Indigo Boone.

  When Boone muttered a sleepy hello, Harmes wasted no time. “This is Harmes. There’s a couple of cops here who’re gonna bust me on a rigged-up dope charge. Man, this is one day I can’t afford to be busted.”

  “Yeah, today is the day, ain’t it?”

  “It sure as hell is.”

  “Well, it won’t work unless you’re there to do the final switching.”

  “I know. That’s why I’m calling.”

  “I’m glad you called me. Lawyer ain’t gonna do you no good today.”

  “Think you can do something?”