“Are you implying that there’s no drug corruption here?” Cohen asked ingenuously. “In America?”
The President and the chief of staff looked at each other.
“What are you saying?” Dorfman asked.
“Mexicans are no different from anybody else. The amounts of money that are right there for the taking — it’s a rare man who can say no. The DEA has been swarming over Mexico for years, so we have a pretty good feel for who, when, and how much. We’re years behind here.”
“The FBI is working on cases against highly placed American officials? Not just county sheriffs and border patrolmen?”
Cohen nodded.
Dorfman sighed. “That really wouldn’t be so bad,” he told the President. “Exposing bad apples is good politics.”
“There are exceptions to that rule. This will probably be one of them.” Cohen leaned forward in his seat and spoke to the President. “A fistful of indictments against some highly placed officials, very high. Think about it. Dorfman can manage the PR impact until hell won’t have it, but the ‘war on drugs’ is going to look like those little red, white, and blue WIN buttons — all show and no attempt to tackle the underlying problems, the real problems. We’re going to get it all thrown back in our faces unless we take effective steps to meet the drug problem head-on.”
The President got out of his chair and stepped to the window behind him. He stood looking out into the Rose Garden. “We aren’t just sitting on our thumbs. I approved the bounty on that Mexican doctor. I approved the use of U.S. soldiers to arrest Aldana. That hasn’t come out yet but it will. When it does the hue and cry will be something to hear. I don’t give a damn what anybody says, we’re doing a lot, all we can, and the voters will see that.”
Cohen spoke. “Mr. President, I’m not questioning your commitment. But the public doesn’t see enough of it. What the public sees is slogans and presentations to sixth-graders. ‘Just say no’ is an obscene joke. Hell, the mayor of Washington couldn’t say no. The chief of the Mexican federal police couldn’t say no. The president of Panama couldn’t say no. Professional athletes and movie stars can’t say no. Cops can’t say no. Congressmen can’t say no. That list is going to grow like a hothouse tomato in radioactive soil irrigated with steroids.”
“Who?” George Bush asked.
“I haven’t asked,” Cohen replied. “I don’t want to know.”
“You don’t?” The President turned slightly and looked at Cohen with raised eyebrows.
“It’s come to that,” the attorney general said woodenly. “If I don’t know I can’t be accused of tipping anyone off, of inadvertently or intentionally warning a suspect under investigation. You don’t want to know either. Believe me, some of them will find out one way or another that they are under suspicion and try to throw their weight around. It’s human nature.”
With the possible exception of journalism students in a university somewhere, no one reads every single word in any edition of The Washington Post. Even if the classified ads were ignored and one were a fast reader, reading all the stories would take hours. Your twenty-five cents usually buys you two and a quarter pounds of paper, ten or more sections full of news, features, articles, and ads aimed at different tastes and interests. Statecraft, politics, murders, rapes, disasters, business, sports, science, gardening, celebrity gossip and gushings, book reviews, movie hype, music tripe, opinions from every hue of the political spectrum, television listings — the entire world was captured every day on thirty-six ounces of newsprint. Or as much of the world as any civilized being at the very center of the universe — Washington — could possibly care to learn about.
Jack Yocke had a secret ambition to be the first human to read the whole thing. He had it on his list for some morning when he was in bed with the flu. But not today. Sitting at his desk he flipped through the paper scanning the headlines and speed reading the stories that looked interesting.
The Soviets’ formal request for foreign aid from the United States was the hottest topic of the day. Senators and representatives were having a field day, as were most of the political columnists. No one denied that the Soviets needed real money — all they could get — but the hard fact mentioned only by the hopelessly practical was that the United States government had no money to give. The cookie jar was empty. There weren’t even any crumbs.
Most pundits and politicians were making lists of things the Soviets would have to do to qualify for American largess, confidently assuming that if America wanted to badly enough, some largess could be found somewhere. After all, do we really need a military in this brave new world? Surely the nations now receiving foreign aid, together with welfare recipients and Social Security retirees, would be willing to share their mite with the Russians, for the greater good.
In any event, to qualify for the American dole the Soviets would need to free the Baltic states, release all their remaining political prisoners, and open borders for U.S. trade and investment. Of course the Russians would also have to permanently cease all financial and military aid to Cuba and Libya and Vietnam and Afghanistan and Angola and every other Third World manure pile where the godless commies had opposed the holy forces of capitalism and democracy. They would also have to disband the KGB and the GRU, quit spying on the U.S. and everybody else. And — this almost didn’t need to be mentioned — while they were at it the Russians would have to disband the entire Soviet military and sell their ships, tanks, and artillery for scrap. If they did all this, well, they would certainly be entitled to some bucks if and when we found some.
Today Jack Yocke scanned the wish lists and moved on. He found a couple of interesting columns by two pundits who had solved the foreign aid issue yesterday. The price of coca leaves in Bolivia and Peru was down from one hundred U.S. dollars to just ten dollars per hundredweight. One columnist opined that this fact meant that George Bush was winning the war on drugs. Another, who had probably stayed awake during his freshman economics class, thought the price drop meant that Bolivian and Peruvian farmers had a bumper crop this year and all the millions spent on eradication efforts had been wasted.
Jack Yocke checked his Rolodex. He found the number he wanted under a code he had made up himself. He called it.
“Yeah, man.”
“Hey, this is Jack Yocke. How’s it going?”
“Too smooth, dude. What’s on your mind?”
“You seen this morning’s paper?”
“I never read that honkey shit. You know that.”
“Question. What’s the street price doing right now?”
“What d’ya mean?”
“Is it going up or down?”
“Steady, man. Five bucks a pop. Some talk about dropping it to four, but nobody wants to do that. Not as much juice for everybody, you know?”
“Any supply problems?”
“Not that I heard.”
“Thanks.”
“Be cool, dude.”
The man that Yocke had been talking to, Harrison Ronald Ford — he had taken to using his full name since that actor became popular — cradled the telephone and went back to his coffee.
The newspaper that he had just told Yocke he never read was spread on the kitchen table in front of him. The story he had been reading when the phone rang had Yocke’s byline. Second Potomac Savings and Loan taken over by the feds, the headline shouted. Recently murdered cashier Walter P. Harrington apparently involved in money laundering, according to an unnamed source. Second Potomac officials aghast. Massive violations of record-keeping requirements. The rank-and-file staff knew something fishy was going on, but no one wanted to speak out and risk his job and pension rights. So now they had neither.