“Thanks.”
Harrison Ronald Ford hung up the phone and went back to his crossword puzzle. He stared at it without seeing the words. Then he went over to the sink and vomited into it.
It’s out! The word’s out. Hooper—that asshole!
His stomach tied itself into a knot and he heaved again.
He turned on the water to flush the mess down the drain. Saliva was still dripping from his mouth.
He heaved again, dry this time. He looked at the telephone on the table, tempted. No way! That fucker McNally had too goddamn many people on his payroll.
When the retching stopped, he grabbed his coat and slammed the door behind him.
“Hooper, you fucking shithead! What’re you trying to do to me?” Harrison Ronald roared the words into the telephone. “Calm down. What’re you talking about?”
Ford repeated his conversation of six minutes ago with Jack Yocke.
“Gimme your number. I’ll call you back in eight or ten minutes.”
“This is a fucking pay phone, you shithead! Nobody can call this fucking number because Marion fucking Barry doesn’t want fucking dope peddlers taking orders on this fucking phone.”
“So call me back in ten minutes.”
“In ten minutes I may well be as dead as Ma Bell, you blithering shithead. If I don’t call the funeral will be on Wednesday. Closed casket!”
He slammed the phone onto its hook and looked around to see who had been listening to his shouting. No one, thank God!
Hooper used the government directory to look up the number, then dialed. “Senator Cherry, please. This is Special Agent Thomas Hooper.”
“I’m sorry, sir,” the woman said. “Senator Cherry is on the Senate floor. What is this about?”
“I’m not at liberty to say. When could I expect a return call?”
“Well, not today. Perhaps tomorrow morning?” The pitch of her voice rose slightly when she said “morning,” making it a question and a pleasantry at the same time.
“I suggest you send an aide to find the senator. Tell the aide that if the senator does not telephone Special Agent Thomas Hooper at 893-9338 in the next fifteen minutes, I will send a squad of agents to find him and physically transport him to the FBI building. See that he gets that message or he is going to be grossly inconvenienced.”
“Would you repeat that number?”
“893-9338.”
The next call went to The Washington Post switchboard. “Jack Yocke, please.”
After several rings, the reporter answered.
“Mr. Yocke, this is Special Agent Thomas Hooper of the FBI. I understand we have a mutual friend.”
“I know a lot of people, Mr. Hooper. Which mutual friend are we discussing?”
“The one you just talked to, oh, ten or fifteen minutes ago.”
“You say you’re with the FBI?”
“Call the FBI building and ask for me.” Hooper hung up.
In half a minute the phone rang.
“Hooper.”
“Jack Yocke, Mr. Hooper. Trying to be careful.”
“Our friend tells me that you discussed with him a conversation that one of your colleagues had over the lunch hour with Senator Cherry. Who is the colleague?”
“Ott Mergenthaler.”
“And who else was a party to that conversation?”
Yocke gave him the names and the newspapers they worked for.
“Mr. Yocke, is my friend a good friend of yours?”
“Yes.”
“Then I suggest you not mention that luncheon conversation, this conversation, or his name to another living soul. You understand?”
“I think it’s clear.”
“Good. Thanks.”
“Bye.”
Hooper walked from his office to his secretary’s desk. “Is Freddy back yet?”
“From Cuba? He got in about seven a.m. He’s been over at Justice most of the morning.”
“See if you can find him.”
While Hooper was waiting he carefully and legibly wrote the three reporters’ names and the newspapers they worked for on a blank sheet of paper. Freddy came in about five minutes later. “How’d it go in Cuba?”
“We got Zaba. And enough evidence to fry Chano Aldana.”
“Great. But we have a more pressing problem. Senator Bob Cherry had lunch with these three reporters.” He shoved his note across the desk. “Cherry hinted that the government knew everything it wanted to know about that car-bus crash the other night because it had an undercover agent in place.”
“Aww, damn,” Freddy said. “He was just briefed on that this morning and he’s spilled it already!”
“Go to the director’s office, tell the executive assistant what the problem is, and see if the director will telephone the publishers of those newspapers and kill the story. Report back to me as soon as possible.”
“That may keep it out of the papers for a day or two, but that won’t cork it. It’s out of the bottle now, Tom.”
“I’ll talk to Cherry.”
“Good luck. He’s probably told a dozen people.”
Hooper rubbed his forehead. “Go see the director.”
He was still rubbing his forehead, trying to think, when the phone rang again, the direct line. “Hooper.”
“Okay, it’s me. I’ve calmed down a little. Sorry.”
“Forget it, Harrison. Where are you?”
“Why?”
“I’m sending an agent in a car to get you. You’re done.”
“How’d the word get out?”
“We told the President and briefed key members of the congressional Oversight Committees. One of the senators then had lunch with a team of reporters and dropped some hints.”
“Awww, fuck!”
“Where are you?”
“Now you calm down. Freeman patted me on the head after that incident. I’m in real tight now, man. He’s got a meeting sometime tonight with Fat Tony Anselmo. Something heavy’s going down. We’re cunt-hair close, Tom. No shit.”
“You are done, Harrison. I don’t want to see you a corpse. Not only would death be bad for your health, it’d leave me with no case. We’ve got enough to take Freeman and his associates off the street for a few years, and I’m not greedy. You’re done.”
“Now look, Tom. I’m a big boy and I stopped wearing diapers last year. I’m not done until I say I’m done.”
“Harrison, I’m in charge of this case. We can maybe keep Cherry’s little luncheon chat out of the papers for a few days, but he’s probably already run off at the mouth all over town. I don’t know. He’ll probably lie to me about it. This is your life you’re betting.”
“Two nights. Two more nights and then we bust ’em.”
“You are a flaming idiot.”
“That’s what everybody says. Talk to you tomorrow.”
The phone went dead.
Hooper hung the instrument up and sat staring at it.
When it rang again he let the secretary in the outer office take it. She buzzed him. “Senator Cherry, sir.”
He pushed the button. “Senator, this is Special Agent Hooper. We need to have a talk. Immediately.”
“I understand you made some threatening remarks a few minutes ago to one of my staff, Hooper. What the hell is going on over there anyway?”
“I really need to see you as soon as possible on a very urgent matter, Senator. I’m sorry if your secretary felt I was threatening.”
The senator huffed and puffed a bit, but Hooper was willing to grovel, and soon the feathers were back in place. “Well,” Cherry agreed finally, “I’m going out to dinner before I attend a reception at the French embassy. You could come by about sixish?”
“Senator, I know the unwritten rules, but I just can’t come over. You’ll have to stop by here.”
The senator gave him a few seconds of frosty silence. “Okay,” he said with no grace.
“The guard at the quadrangle entrance will be expecting you and will escort you to my office.”