“Wadda ya think, Ken?” Tim’s voice was thin and urgent.
“Ya mean about this?” Ken held the card up by the corner. “Ya mean why don’t I just take a match and incinerate it, right here and now, and good-bye-Charlie, the hell with it, let’s hold our breaths, fellas, and hope to Christ no one else in the whole entire world ever gets wind of the fact that our Marvin L. Schneiderman, our good white knight in clear and shiny armor, had at one time, under whatever circumstances, for whatever reason and toward whatever end, written in his own handwriting a little ‘anytime I can be of service’ to little Kitty Keeler? And in parenthesis, in his own hand, printed out for the lady his unlisted and private home telephone number?” Ken shook his head, then winked at me. “Tell him some of your ‘reality common sense,’ Joe?”
“I think he can figure it out himself, Ken.”
Tim nodded and wiped sweat from his upper lip, “Jesus, Ken, what are we going to do now?”
“Well, number one, what we’re going to do now is, tomorrow morning after a good night’s sleep tonight I’m paying a visit to good old Marv, the poor dumb bastard. Jeez, never saw a guy wanted to be Mayor so bad as Marv.” Ken shook his head sadly. “He’s not gonna make it. No way. We’re not about to live in fear and trembling waiting for someone to announce in headlines or not announce in headlines what we’ve all three of us just learned today. Including the lady herself, which is a bit of a puzzle. She hasn’t made it known or gotten in touch with Marvin L. as far as I know.”
“And then what?” Tim asked. “After you see Schneiderman.”
“Ah, well, Tim, whyn’t you just leave that to me?” Ken got up from the table, began collecting bits and pieces of leftover cookies and cakes from some plates near the sink. He shoved his collection into his mouth; crumbs stuck to the corner of his lips. He looked like an overgrown version of one of his own kids.
“Just leave it to you, Ken? Leave
what
to you? What the hell is there left to leave to you?”
Ken Sweeney poured himself a glass of skimmed milk. “Half the calories of whole milk, and healthier for you, to boot.” He put the container back into the refrigerator. “Ah, Tim, I’d hate to be in a foxhole with you when the bullets start flying. You’re ready to give it all up at the first sign of enemy fire. There’s more than one way to come up on top in every and any situation. What about you, Joe? You curious, too?”
“I’d like a chance to learn from the pro, Ken.”
“Ah, that’s the boy. A man after my own heart.” He drank some milk, licked his lips and said, “Well, our poor Marvin has a heart condition. A strange and terrible malady he didn’t even know about; and he’ll have a seizure, probably in about two days. And have to be rushed off to the hospital where his own brother is a cardiac specialist, thank God. He’ll be able to save our Marvin, but he’ll also order him to take a long, long rest. Maybe in Florida. Which means he’ll have to withdraw from the primary.”
Tim smashed out his cigarette and shook his head.
“Ah, c’mon, now, Tim. It won’t be as bad as all that. You leave it to me to handle.”
“Not bad as all that? Jesus Christ, Ken. I was counting on that state job. With Kelleher as Mayor, you know what’ll happen to me?”
“Why, sure I do, Tim, sure I do.” Ken sat down and leaned back comfortably. His blue eyes glittered and a small smile twitched at his milky lips. “When Jeremiah Kelleher himself becomes the Mayor of the City of New York, Timmy-me-boyo, why, ’tis yourself as will be his Police Commissioner of the City of New York.”
As it turned out, Marvin L. Schneiderman had met Kitty Keeler three years ago when he had taken his two little daughters and himself for a week of winter sunshine in the Bahamas after the month-long ordeal of his wife’s illness and death. Along with about two hundred other guests at an adjoining hotel, he had been invited to enjoy the facilities of the New World Health Spa, a public-relations gimmick that was to be very costly for Marvin.
Prodded by Ken Sweeney, Marvin vaguely remembered a long, active day topped off by a languid tropical night when apparently the unaccustomed consumption of liquor had rendered Marvin wistful, maudlin, boastful and generous. Staring at his own handwritten message to “Kitty” from “your pal, Marvin,” he recalled sitting around a circular bar with many others, listening to some beautiful girl complain about the difficulty the State Liquor Authority was giving her husband, who owned a pub in Queens. She also complained about corrupt city officials, Health Department shakedowns and the senselessness of making complaints. Marv had given her his card and his unlisted number to ensure that no one would ever trace her calls to him: he personally would institute any investigation into any of her charges.
Marvin L. Schneiderman had never seen or heard from Kitty Keeler again. Apparently, she had given his card to her husband, George, who had slipped it, forgotten, into his wallet.
“It’s a damn shame,” Ken said philosophically. “For what the poor bastard’s paying, he sure didn’t get value from Kitty Keeler. Do you know, Marvin has been so totally absorbed by his own future, he never even realized that the beautiful girl he met in the Bahamas was the same girl making headlines for the last few weeks. Poor guy, he kept staring at his card, then at the picture of Kitty in the newspaper. Ah well, that’s the way it goes. It’s all luck or fate or who the hell knows what. Ah, here she is now.” He stood up and came around his desk when his secretary appeared, extending some letters she had just typed. He took them, scanned them, looked up and winked at the girl. “Good, good, Annie. And remember, now, you never saw these, let alone typed them, right?”
The girl’s face froze. “You
really
feel you have to say that to me, Ken?” It was obvious she had handled a great deal of confidential matters for him.
“Ah, touchy, touchy,” Ken said softly. “Go on, take a two-hour lunch for yourself. It’s what you take anyway, but take it with my blessing today.” The girl left without another word and Ken said to Tim and me, “By God, you’d think I insulted her virtue. Not that I haven’t done that at times, but never with visitors in the office. Here, Tim, you fold these up and pop them into the envelopes while I get myself all prepared for my meeting with Mr. Kelleher.”
Ken slipped a Miniphone tape recorder into an inside jacket pocket and adjusted the tiny microphone under his tie clip. Then he reached for the four letters, typed on the letterhead of the District Attorney of Queens County, and prepared for his signature; put the letters in a plain brown clasp envelope, which he carried in his hand. We rode down to the lobby of the building with him and out into the midafternoon spring sunshine.
“Well, a fine day for a stroll along the Battery, isn’t it?” Ken said. “Well, I’ll see you boys back in my office at about four, then.”
Tim Neary trusted Ken Sweeney just about the way that I trusted Tim: completely. With a few reservations. Which is why Tim had me wait a few minutes, then drive down to the Battery, where I was to secretly record, with the help of a powerful long-range movie-camera lens, the walking-along-the-Battery-in-the-sunshine meeting between Ken and Jerry Kelleher.
At 4
P.M.
that day, we returned to Sweeney’s office; he played his Miniphone tape for us and showed us Kelleher’s signature on the four letters.
The next day, I went to Tim’s apartment with the processed movie film and we more or less synchronized the conversations with their actions. There was a good deal of noncommittal banter at the beginning. Ken started reminiscing: old times, good and bad, that they had shared. It was obvious that Jeremiah Kelleher was expecting the worst. He looked tense and anxious, wondering what the hell Ken had dug up on him and how he was about to slip it to him.
Finally Ken said, “I hope you do realize that my objection to your candidacy on the party line was never related to
you
personally, Jerry. It was just a coming together of time and expectation. Those damn half-assed morons in Watergate made every known pol suspect. Even the good ones.” He reached out and tapped Kelleher’s shoulder lightly with his fist. “And you’re one of the best, Jerry. One of the best. So. Well, I’ll get right down to it, no sense in beating around the bush. For reasons of my own,” he leaned closer to Kelleher, “and no questions asked or answered, I’ve decided to switch my support, and the support of my organization, of course, to you.”
Kelleher didn’t move; he had been tensed for a blow and now he just stared blankly.
“To me?”
“Providing of course, that we clear up a few things between us right up front.”
“Clear up a few things? Up front?”
Ken dug into the brown clasp envelope and took out the typed letters. “Here, Jerry, all set and ready for your signature. To save you the trouble of trying to figure this out, I’m gonna make it very simple and clear. There has to be a certain price, of course.”
Carefully, Kelleher said, “Of course.”
“Well, these letters requiring your signature are merely a part of that price. Each letter, dated today and on your stationery—I think of everything to save you the trouble, Jer—spells out your intention, when you are the
Mayor of the City of New York,
to appoint certain well-qualified men to certain positions where they can best serve. For instance, what better-qualified man than Tim Neary, with two college degrees and nearly twenty years of experience, to be your Police Commissioner?”
I glanced at Tim, saw him lean forward slightly toward the movie screen. He held his breath as he watched Jeremiah Kelleher read the letter quickly, then look up, surprised but admiring, at Ken Sweeney.
He read the other letters slowly, without a word. Finally he smiled at Ken. “Well, it isn’t really necessary for me to
sign
anything between us, Ken. We’ve been in business a long time, you and me. Isn’t a handshake between the two of us good anymore?”
“Sure it is,” Ken shot back.
“But a signature is better.”
They stood and looked at each other for about thirty seconds. The tape recorder recorded nothing but the sounds of an airplane and the groans of a tug fighting the waters of New York Harbor.
“How are you going to go about dumping Marv Schneiderman?” Kelleher squinted at Sweeney; he dangled the letters between his fingers.
“Ah, not to worry, Jerry, not to worry. However, you may just learn in the next two days or so that Marv’s had a sudden attack of bad health.”
Gorgeous Jerry cocked his head to one side with a knowing smile. “And if you and I don’t deal, Marv Schneiderman might enjoy continuing good health.”
“There’s no ‘might’ about it, Jerry.” There was a hard sound coming from the recorder even though Ken’s face was pleasant and smiling. He was deadly serious. “You see, the letters with your signature will be a sort of guarantee for me, Jerry. That once Marvin’s health suffers and he has to withdraw, you and me are still in business.” He reached out and flicked a speck off Kelleher’s lapel. “And you’re to deal with me
now,
Jerry. No thinking things over. No ‘consultations with advisers.’ None of that kind of thing. Deal with me now,
right now.”
He glanced at his wristwatch. “Within the next three minutes, or it’s all off. And Marvin L. Schneiderman will be your next Mayor, just like it’s been expected all along.” He grinned, fingered some more lint or something from Kelleher’s jacket. “And incidentally, Jerry. It would be a shame at this juncture of your life, just when the road ahead could be so exciting and successful, for you to have to get involved explaining—to newspapers and grand juries and such—certain activities that you were engaged in over the last twenty-odd years. Bad time in life to start blackening a shining career. Up to you, Jerry, all up to you. I’ll just walk over to that bench and leave you with your thoughts.” Ken gestured out toward the Statue of Liberty. “Look at that Lady in the harbor, Jerry. God, isn’t it an inspiring sight? Aren’t we fortunate to be living in the best goddamn nation in the world?”
Kelleher signed the letters and walked over to the bench, where he stood and watched as Ken Sweeney slid them into the brown clasp envelope, then stood up and thrust out his right hand.
“Well, I’ll be in touch, Jerry, to work out a timetable of announcements and such.”
“Just like old times, Ken, isn’t it?” Kelleher said heartily. “You and me a team again, kid, just like old times!”
“Well, just like old times,
almost.”
Sweeney tucked the envelope under one arm, patted Kelleher’s chest quickly, pulled open his jacket and exposed Kelleher’s Miniphone. “I don’t remember you ever bugging a private conversation between the two of us in the past, Jerry. Or did you, and I just didn’t catch wise?”
Jerry Kelleher shrugged and smiled. What the hell; he was in a good position. He disconnected the Miniphone from the holster under his arm and the microphone from his tie clip and handed it, tape and all, to Ken.
“Here, take the damn thing. You’re welcome to it. The sound is so poor anyway, you wouldn’t be able to make out anything we said.”
Ken slipped the reel from the recorder, which he gave back to Jerry. “Thanks, kid, but I’ve got my own recorder.” He opened his jacket and displayed his model, more up-to-date and efficient and with a better sound. “If you want a copy, I’ll make one for you.”
Both men started to laugh with a genuinely relieved sound of enjoyment. Kelleher, visibly relaxed, apparently had begun to believe his good luck and wasn’t about to question it.
Yet.
He and Sweeney walked together to the railing, and while they both laughed and laughed Ken tossed the reel from Jerry’s recorder, along with another reel of tape, into the choppy waters of New York Harbor.
Jerry Kelleher was under the impression that the second reel to hit the water was the tape from Ken Sweeney’s recorder. Which is just what Ken Sweeney wanted him to think. But it wasn’t. It was an extra, blank reel that Ken had shown quickly to Jerry just before he tossed it away.
Ken had played the tape of their conversation for Tim and me in his office at 4
P.M.
that day.
On
my
hidden Miniphone,
I
made a tape of
Ken’s
tape. Which was the one I played for Tim, in pretty close sync with the movie film, at his apartment.