“Good to see you, Mr. Victor.” His hand was an over-refrigerated flounder.
Rhino’s presence rated only a brusque nod of acknowledgement. Putnam indicated that Rhino and I should be seated in deep, red plush arm-chairs. Three of them had been arranged about a small, round redwood table. Putnam sat in the third chair without disturbing the crease of his trousers and signaled a waiter. “Brandy, gentlemen,” he suggested.
“I’d rather have scotch,” I said, just to watch him grimace.
He took that in his stride but had trouble controlling the muscles dilating his nostrils when Rhino requested bourbon with a beer chaser.
“So how’s the discrimination suit going?” I asked. There has always been something about Putnam that pushes me into needling him when the opportunity comes up.
“'Could you lower your voice, Mr. Victor. I don’t wish to distress our other members.”
“The suit distresses them?”
“Of course. It threatens our traditions.”
“Traditions . . .” I glanced around the mahogany-paneled room. Across from us, I spied the Secretary of Defense of the United States chatting over a plate of crackers and genuine Russian caviar with the president of a concern seeking a contract to manufacture atomic warheads for the government. The chairman of the board of a major oil company being sued for an off-shore oil spill which had destroyed the recreation possibilities of two-thirds of a coastal state’s beaches was lighting a genuine Havana cigar for the State Attorney General in charge of investigating the spill. A major national building contractor was sniffing rare Chinese brandy with the chairman of a Senate sub-committee considering his petition for a waiver of restrictions protecting the environment. “It’s nice,” I told Putnam, “that the club’s traditions jibe so well with the members’ self-interest.”
“That is nonsense, Mr. Victor. Because we are a private organization and shun publicity, a myth has grown up that the Baroquian Club is a front for international power brokers, and that all sorts of high-level political and business deals are made here. Nothing could be further from the truth. In point of fact, it is a sanctuary from such concerns.”
“I guess that explains why the membership includes at least one officer from forty of the fifty largest manufacturing concerns in the country, one director from twenty of the twenty-five largest banks, and one ranking executive from more than half of the nation’s largest life insurance companies.”
“It is no secret that this is a rich man’s club.” Putnam’s tone turned very frosty.
“But within its hallowed walls, neither business nor politics is ever discussed,” I said sarcastically. “Is that it?”
“Exactly.”
“Then why are we here?” My smile lacked sincerity. “Isn’t it to talk business about the Whittier Stonewalls?”
“A philanthropic enterprise. I told you that over the telephone, Mr. Victor. I will concede that the members of the Baroquian Club frequently discuss such charities among themselves during their visits here.”
I eyed the Secretary of Defense and the munitions contractor, the oil company board chairman and the State Attorney General, the Senator and the building contractor. “I can see that must be it,” I agreed.
“And we should get down to our own discussion.” Putnam ignored the irony.
“Concerning the Whittier Stonewalls.”
“Of course.”
“Which the Baroquian Club financed to have enfranchised as a tribute to-—”
“No, no, Mr. Victor!” Putnam interrupted me. “The Baroquian Club did no such thing. It has no official connection with the Whittier Stonewalls whatsoever. A few gentlemen met in private to arrange this matter. Believe me, the meeting was quite informal.”
“But it took place here?”
“Well, yes.”
“And the gentlemen involved are all members?
“Yes.” Putnam’s sigh was painful, the sound made by a parent hearing for the hundredth time the query “Why, Daddy?”
“But that’s mere coincidence,” I summed up for him.
“You may think what you like, Mr. Victor.” Putnam reacted to my tone. “But I would ask you to restrain your cynicism when we meet with the other gentlemen concerned with this matter.”
“Why should I do that?” I felt like being difficult.
“There are certain proprieties to be observed,” his parent informed my child.
“Nuts to the proprieties!”
“If you do not behave, Mr. Victor, your services may have to be dispensed with. I would really regret that.”
“Dispense away!” I waved a hand airily.
“So, too, would the services of Mr. Dubrowski.”
I looked at Rhino. His basset hound eyes said he needed the job.
“Okay.” I owed Rhino. “I’ll behave.”
“Then, if you’re finished with your drinks, gentlemen, I suggest we join my associates in the conference room.”
“ ‘Associates’? ‘Conference room’? How unbusinesslike can you get?”
“Mr. Victor—!”
“Sorry. Sorry. It won’t happen again.” I stood up and fell in with Rhino to follow Putnam from the library.
En route we passed another former President of the United States11 . “Charles!” He stopped Putnam by stepping directly in front of him. “Ah want yew to know Ah tol’ Mama not to let Billy play with them Libyans!”
“I’m sure you did, Mr. President.” Putnam’s tone was soothing.
“Billy ought to of known not to do his own brother thataway!”
“He certainly should have, Mr. President.”
“An’ that business with the Shah, Charles. Why, that was jus’ plain ol’ Southern hospitality!”
“Of course it was, Mr. President.”
“An’ David12 an’ Henry13 an’ that Helms fella14 , why, they all said how he did for us an’ so now we had to do for him. Why, hell, what could be more bipartisan than that?”
“You’re absolutely right, Mr. President.”
“Also, Ah’m a good daddy, Charles. An’ a good daddy, he talks about current events with his little girl. An’ he listens serious to what she has to say.”
“That is most certainly what a good parent should do, Mr. President.”
“Then answer me somethin’, Charles. Jus’ how come Ah’m not the President of these here United States anymore?”
“Vox populi, Mr. President. Public ingratitude.”
“The people didn’t ’preciate me, Charles.”
“Indeed not, sir.”
“They’ll be sorry, Charles. Look what they got. Aged ham15 ! They’ll be wishin’ Ah was back!”
“They already do, Mr. President.”
“Amen!” I echoed, all politicians being relative.
We continued on our way. Putnam ushered us into a small, comfortable room with a round oak table surrounded by well-padded chairs. There was also an oak sideboard, glowing with the inevitable brandy and snifters. A cloud of cigar smoke rich as OPEC hung over the room.
There were four men already seated around the table when we entered. One, as conservatively dressed as Putnam, although his grey suit had a muted pinstripe, sported a belly as rotund as a bank vault, along with a moustache which had shaped itself like feline whiskers. A fat cat!
Beside him was a ruddy-faced man wearing plus-fours and a golfer’s tam. He was chatting with a small, trim, square-jawed man meticulously clad in the uniform of a three-star General of the Army of the United States. The fourth man, in Arab robes and burnoose, sat with his fingers folded in an arrangement that might have been prayer or might have indicated that his mind was occupied with calculating a per-barrel price raise in keeping with the latest equipment depreciation allowance granted American competitors.