Corruption of Blood (30 page)

“Gaiilov?” asked Marlene.

“Hah! See, you’ve wormed it out of me already. Yeah, that was the boy. Armand Dimitrievitch Gaiilov. Talk about your conspiracy! My Lord, you couldn’t start a conspiracy in this country if your life depended on it; folks here just like to talk too much. They ain’t comfortable with secrets. How it happened, I was sitting in the Navy Club in Washington worrying about how I was going to get Dick out of this mess, when I heard two fellas talking. They were huddled together at the bar and I was sitting in a club chair about six feet away with my back to them. They were sort of arguing in a polite way about something or other and then I heard a name that made my ears perk up. I had good hearing back then; getting deaf as a post now. I got this thing makes the phone louder. Anyway, one of ’em said something like, ‘But he says that Weinberg was the only contact,’ and the other one said, ‘Well yes, that’s the point. He’s trying to protect Dobbs. It means he’s a mole.’ And the other one said, ‘Damn it, Gaiilov’s no mole. He’s given us loads of stuff that checks out,’ and then he went on to name all kinds of stuff with names like Hatrack and Boneyard, secret files of various kinds, I imagined, but by then I wasn’t really paying too much attention. When they left, I asked the barman who they were and he gave me a couple of names and I checked them out and sure enough they were CIA.”

“How did you do that—check them out?”

“Oh, it wasn’t much of a problem. Washington was still a small town back then. I’d had some connection with naval intelligence, being a former naval person and all, and I asked some friends and they asked their friends and that’s how it was done. What it was, anyway, was that an employee of the Soviet mission to the UN in New York had just walked out one day and stopped in at FBI headquarters and said he wanted to defect. He claimed to be KGB. Of course, the CIA got into it right away, and of course they leaned on this guy something fierce to make sure that he wasn’t a phony defector. It stirred up quite a ruckus in the Agency, so I learned, because one faction, Bissell and them in operations, thought he was genuine, and another faction, Angleton and his friends, thought he was a phony, a double agent. Anyway, the real kicker was that this joker, Gaiilov, said he knew all about Reltzin and Weinberg, and yeah they were spies, but he’d never heard anybody in the KGB mention Dick Dobbs.”

“The point being,” Marlene put in, “that if you thought Mr. Gaiilov was a double, then you’d expect him to try to cover for Dobbs, the master spy, but if you thought he was on the level, then Dobbs had to be innocent.”

The man chuckled, a dry rustling sound. “Yep, you got it. I reckon you can figure out the rest. I called a meeting in Judge Palmer’s chambers with the U.S. attorney, Paul Gerrigan, and I told him that I intended to call Armand Gaiilov as a witness. Well, when that got back to the CIA it let the skunk loose in amongst the choir. There was a great gnashing of teeth, I expect, and it must’ve brought the internal battle to a head. The last thing they wanted was a fella who they didn’t know whether he was a spy or not getting hauled up in open court under oath to testify about Dick Dobbs. So they said they wouldn’t do it, couldn’t do it, for national security reasons, and I said in that case, I’d settle for a
subpoena duces tecum
—the transcripts of all their debriefs of Gaiilov. Well, of course, they said I couldn’t have that either. Judge Palmer hemmed and hawed, and I got shouted at a good deal, and accused of being a Red communist myself, but after Palmer had stared down the barrel of the Sixth Amendment for a while, he told them they had to let Gaiilov testify. He said, ‘Gentlemen, the Constitution in the instant case allows me no leeway. The witness may indeed refuse to answer on grounds of national security or prior oath, at which point I will make a determination as to whether such refusal is justified, but there can be no prior bar to Mr. Dobbs’s right to call whomsoever he will to his defense.’ ”

“And the government dropped the case.”

“They did.”

“Very fancy,” said Marlene, with sincerity.

“Why, thank you kindly, miss. I thought so myself at the time.”

“Weren’t you worried that he might get up on the stand and lie for the Agency and say that Dobbs was the one?”

“Oh, that was a possibility, of course. On the other hand, a good half of the CIA had staked their reputations on the idea that Gaiilov was genuine. If he lied about Dick, I would’ve treated him as a hostile witness, and then I’d’ve had reasons to call the CIA big shots up there to confirm, or try to deny, Gaiilov’s original exculpation of Dick. No way they were going to open up that bag of cats. They’d’ve looked like a bunch of fools. And, my dear, if there’s one thing the CIA can’t stand, it’s public embarrassment. They don’t mind one bit walking out there to the wall with a blindfold and a last cigarette, but make ’em look like a horse’s ass? Hell, they’d do anything on God’s earth to stop that.”

“Well, this has been real interesting, Mr. Blaine, and I don’t want to take up any more of your time. I’d just like to ask: do you have any material you think would be useful on this project—from the case, or from your association with Mr. Dobbs? And could you give me the names of anyone who might’ve been familiar with the case that I could talk to?”

There was a pause while the man thought. “No-o, as for the papers, I think I already sent the case papers and all some years back, when Hank started this thing. I told him then I didn’t think it was a good idea to dredge all this up again, but he was determined, so I just sent him a whole stack of stuff.”

“Films too?”

“I guess there might’ve been some films. Hell, Dick and I could hardly ever tell which of our stuff was whose. He’s probably got nearly everything I do. On the people side: hell, it’s been a quarter of a century, near about. Like I said, judge, prosecutor, and defendant all in their graves, and the defense’s got one foot in. The little fry? Well, any of them who had something to say, they’ve said it already in books and such. Look, miss, I got to go. This damn nurse’s pestering me again, I reckon she found some poor inch of my hide without a needle hole in it and it offends her.”

“Oh, sure, sorry—one last thing. Would you know how I could find out what happened to either Reltzin or Gaiilov? Even if they’re dead, they might have had friends or family. There might be papers left behind… .”

“Oh, Lord! I couldn’t even guess at how to help you there. Reltzin probably got shipped back to the Soviets. They got most of their nationals back in exchanges. Gaiilov? I heard he passed on, the lucky man.”

After she’d hung up, Marlene paged through her notes, puzzled. She found it odd that a man who recalled the exact words of a judge’s decision a quarter century past should be so hazy about so much else, for example, about what had become of the Russians. Of course, he was obviously ill, and memory got funny when that happened; for all Marlene knew he had a brain tumor. But that business about overhearing the two CIA guys in a bar—that sounded funny too. She drew a circle around that section of her notes, and around the Russian names, and then made a note to herself to call on Mrs. Selma Hewlitt Dobbs. The Widow.

Karp got through to Ray Guma in New York late in the day.

“Goom? Butch.”

“Butch?” said Guma in exaggerated puzzlement. “Do I know a Butch?”

Karp said, “I’m sorry, perhaps I have the wrong number; I was trying to reach the Association of Chubby Italian Attorneys with Mob Connections.”

“Oh,
that
Butch. You never call, you never write… . So, how the hell are ya, buddy? You solve the big one yet?”

“We expect an arrest momentarily. Actually, that’s why I called. I’m gonna offer you a rare opportunity to serve your country.”

“Wait a minute, let me put my hand on my wallet. Okay, I got it. Shoot—what can I do for you?”

“The Buonafacci kid you got on that rape charge. I could use a little favor from Tony and I thought it might be better if the ask came from you.”

A loud noise, like the sucking of a gas pump at the dregs of a tank, came through the receiver.

“What’s the joke, Goom?” snapped Karp.

“The joke, sonny boy, is that you got to take a number on that one. Stand behind the velvet rope. Narco’s drooling, racket’s got their nose so far up my ass I don’t have room for my hemorrhoids. I’m the queen of the prom on this one. I got to pick and choose.”

“Goom, for Chrissake, it’s not the Gambinos’ next smack shipment; it’s a lousy phone call to a retired wise guy, a soldier, is all. We just want to talk to him, and not about anything that’s going to involve Tony or anybody current in any of the families.”

“Who’s this soldier?”

“Guido Mosca. Jerry Legs.”

“Oh, yeah! V.T. called me about him a while back. So you found him, huh? I personally never had the pleasure. What, he’s in Miami?”

“Yeah. We figure it’ll jog his memory if Tony asks him.”

“Yeah, I guess,” said Guma reflectively. “What do you want to ask him about? Like, did he pop a cap on JFK?”

“No, just some other stuff. About some things that went down in New Orleans in sixty-three. Mosca’s name showed up on some documents. He was pally with some guys that Oswald was pally with—it’s just background, painting in some of the numbers.”

“You’re not off on this horseshit that it was a Mob contract on Kennedy, are you?” Guma asked.

“Well … I’d say it’s still on the table. Why?”

“Because it’s total garbage,” said Guma angrily. “The Mob whacks their own guys or guys who take their dough and then try to fuck them. If they whacked people who just pissed them off or put them in jail, Tom Dewey and Estes Kefauver wouldn’t have lasted long, not to mention you and me. You know why that is? Back in the nineteen-tens, I forget where, Cincinnati, or Columbus, some old-time wise guys knocked off a crusading police chief, a straight-up guy, just like they used to do in the old country, and what happened was a mob came stomping into the Italian section of town and burned it down and lynched any guinea they could get their hands on. So, since then, it’s been a no go: don’t fuck with the government guys, except with bribes. The other reason is, the Mob couldn’t pull it off, not like whoever actually did it did it.”

“I don’t see why not,” said Karp.

“Come on, Butch! It ain’t their style. They don’t go in for long-gun shots. Bugsy Siegel excepted, I don’t know a case in this country where a Mob hit used a rifle. Short range is what they like, or a big bomb.”

“What about Jack Ruby? That was short range.”

Guma chuckled. “Ah, well, Jack Ruby. I’ll give you Jack Ruby.”

“So why did he kill Oswald, if the Mob wasn’t involved in the JFK thing?”

“I didn’t say they weren’t
involved.
Fuck I know if they were or weren’t involved. They’re involved in everything else, they might’ve been involved in this too. They do stuff for money, you know? What I said was, the JFK hit wasn’t a Mob contract.”

“Okay, whatever,” Karp said. “I still need to talk to Jerry Legs. And don’t tell me I got to stand on line, because if you do, I’ll get on a plane and fly down to Miami and talk to Tony Bones myself, and if your name should come up in the conversation, I don’t know, some of the smart shit you’ve pulled on him over the years might slip out… .”

“Ah, Butch, come on, don’t even joke about that business,” said Guma, genuine alarm in his voice. Guma had for years walked the delicate line between relations with the Mob for which armed response was highly unlikely and those for which it was far too likely for comfort. Karp remained silent, and after a long moment, Guma breathed out a sigh and said, “Okay, you rat, I’ll see what I can do.”

“How was your trip?” asked Bishop. His voice over the phone seemed to come from far away, although he could have been in the next room in the Alexandria motel.

“It’s fucking cold here, Bishop,” said Caballo. “I hate the cold. I’m a sunshine soldier.”

“It’s only about forty.”

Caballo ignored this. “What’s the deal?”

“You need to pick up a package.”

“Black bag?”

“No, our contact will collect the necessary material and give it to you.”

“I can’t believe this! You brought me up here to be a fucking
courier
?”

“No,
of course not! They made a copy of the film. The other items, the documents, are neither here nor there and can be explained away. Not the film. So …”

“That’s
the black bag.”

“Yes,” said Bishop. “A man named Karp. It should be easy.”

THIRTEEN

“What do you
mean
he won’t allow a contempt citation?” Karp shouted.

Bert Crane, in whose office Karp had shouted this, recoiled, and then flushed with anger. “Could you keep yourself under control, please!” he snapped.

Karp resumed his seat, from which he had sprung when Crane informed him that George Flores had point-blank refused to cite Paul Ashton David for contempt of Congress.

“Did he give you any reason?” Karp asked in a tight voice, but at a lower volume.

“Not as such,” said Crane. “The congressman and I do not have a cordial relationship. ‘Witch-hunt’ was the word he used to describe your citation. It’s irrational. I simply don’t understand what’s going on.”

Which was just the problem, thought Karp uncharitably. He asked, “What about Dobbs? He’s on our side, isn’t he? Can’t he get it moving?”

“I spoke with him this morning,” said Crane. “He’s rallied a minority of the Select Committee over to the way we see things, but he can’t oppose Flores openly yet. And you need a clear majority to vote a contempt citation, and you’ll never get that as long as Flores is recalcitrant.”

“So what do we do, give up?”

“We wait for a break. Maybe something will turn up that’ll give Hank the leverage he needs to roll a majority in spite of Flores. Meanwhile …” He left it hanging, like, it seemed, the investigation itself.

That subject being dead, Karp asked, “Any word on the budget?”

“Yeah, the word is no. Not until this cockamamie comptroller general investigation is finished. It shouldn’t be too long.”