The Devil May Dance by Jake Tapper (books to read fiction txt) 📗

Touché—he’d admitted, and not for the first time in their nearly seventeen-year marriage, that she was right.

Margaret had been eagerly anticipating Dwight starting kindergarten so she could return to her work in clinical research as a postdoc in zoology at Brooklyn College, specifically studying equine behavior. She’d always found animals easier to understand than humans; they were so refreshingly straightforward and real. Lately, reading Runaway Bunny or watching animated shorts featuring Daffy Duck and Porky Pig or arranging the stuffed bears on her children’s beds, she felt she was going out of her mind.

The car pulled over on the east side of Fifth Avenue in front of St. Patrick’s Cathedral. Charlie and his Justice Department sentries removed their hats as they walked through the massive, intricately carved bronze doors and into the sanctuary. Charlie heard the choir rehearsing for Christmas and winced.

Wahr Mensch und wahrer Gott,

hilft uns aus allem Leide,

rettet von Sünd und Tod

The last time he’d heard German, he’d been in France, listening to defeated prisoners of war. He could understand the lyrics: “True man and true God / It helps us from all trouble / Saves us from sin and death.”

Sin and death. Charlie’s already foul mood darkened. He needed that drink.

Addington White guided Charlie past men, women, and children in winter coats lighting candles. In the distance, lit brightly, was the main sanctuary, which contained the crypts of past archbishops. An organ of nine thousand pipes filled the chamber with the kind of music that always unsettled Charlie, calling to mind Lon Chaney unmasked in Phantom of the Opera. He followed his escorts down the main aisle, passing dozens of empty darkened wooden pews and a white marble baptistery, a place of purification where worshippers were absolved of their sins.

White patted Charlie’s shoulder, less a friendly gesture than a way to guide him down a pew, at the end of which, next to a white marble column, was a familiar silhouette: a nest of hair, a beaky nose, and an overbite. The man’s elbows rested on his knees, his head hung low, and his unruly bangs flopped forward; it was hard to tell if he was deep in prayer or lost in thought.

Charlie eased himself next to the man. “I hope I’m not interrupting you, Mr. Attorney General.”

Kennedy raised his head and forced a smile. “Hello, Charlie,” he said. The attorney general reached down into the briefcase next to his feet and withdrew what appeared to be a sandwich wrapped in tinfoil. Dispensing with any further pleasantries, looking toward the altar rather than at Charlie, Kennedy spoke quietly. “I’m sure you’re concerned about your father.” He peeled back the tinfoil and took a bite. To Charlie, whose olfactory gifts were a constant curse, the smell of fried egg was unmistakable.

“I’m not quite clear what the charges are,” Charlie said. “How can an attorney get in trouble for consorting with known criminals if the alleged criminals are clients?”

“I’m not certain how steeped you are in organized crime, but Sam Giancana is, one, a murderous thug and, two, not one of your father’s clients. And we’re not talking just consorting—there is evidence of conspiracy.”

Charlie knew who Giancana was, of course, primarily because two years ago, Robert Kennedy himself, as Democratic counsel on the Senate committee investigating labor racketeering, had chastised the mobster for laughing while invoking his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination.

“I thought only little girls giggled, Mr. Giancana,” Kennedy had said.

The choir abruptly began rehearsing another song, “Hark! The Herald Angels Sing,” startling both men. Kennedy chuckled; Charlie, whose heart had been pounding since his father called him that morning, exhaled. What did Kennedy want? But voicing that rage would only hurt his father. He tried to relax and listen to the choir. He held no cards.

“He’s an old man,” Charlie said. “It doesn’t make any sense. Does Rockefeller know?”

“I’m sure there’s very little that goes on in New York that the governor is unaware of,” Kennedy said dryly. “This is very simple, really. We need help combating organized crime, help that your father is refusing to provide. Information.”

Kennedy took another bite of his sandwich. Chewed slowly. Swallowed. The casual arrogance drove Charlie mad. And meanwhile, his father, his poor sad dad, was in a dank cell downtown.

The attorney general was as ruthless as he was effective. He’d been an aide and loyal friend to Senator Joe McCarthy through the years of McCarthy’s witch hunts right up until the senator was censured. Then it was as if his time as chief Democratic counsel on the McCarthy Committee had never happened. Afterward, as chief counsel of the Senate Labor Rackets Committee in the late 1950s, Kennedy pursued Teamsters boss Jimmy Hoffa by starting with the suspect and then proceeding to find the crime. Kennedy ran his brother’s 1960 presidential campaign with the same single-mindedness; Democratic primary rival Senator Hubert Humphrey once expressed outrage over “that young, emotional, juvenile Bobby” paying off local West Virginia pols with “wild abandon.” Humphrey was hardly the only suspicious Democrat; the entire civil rights community, including and especially Martin Luther King Jr., eyed the Kennedy brood warily.

Liberal wariness hadn’t slowed the Kennedys’ sprint to power, and they now had the levers of government to use as they saw fit. Charlie had never fully trusted the younger Kennedy, who had Charlie and his dad in his sights.

“We need information,” Kennedy said. He took another bite and this time seemed to chew even more slowly.

Excruciating. And yet Charlie had to remain silent. He hadn’t been aware that his father was in contact with Giancana, though such an allegation was not a surprise; his dad had spent decades overcoming previously insurmountable hurdles. Often that required knowing some unsavory characters. He knew that his father occasionally had to communicate with members of the Five Families, not to have anyone rubbed out but to guarantee the availability of union labor.

“I’m trying to figure out how I can help, but I’m drawing a blank,” Charlie said. “I don’t know anything