The American Ambassador (20 page)

Baum, Fein, and O'Reilly, Harry said, making a little tune of it.

Dad, Elinor said.

And they've made their presence felt, first week. They've brought in a fat account, account we've been trying to get for years. Know how they did it? Maynard O'Reilly arranged to have some foreign aid money moved around. The account, the fat account, is a small bank in the Loop. Small, but profitable. It's money for the Philippines. The Philippine account. Doesn't sound like much, but it's quite a great deal of money. It's the money for the weapons. What the hell are they buying from us, Bill? Or are we buying from them? Everything's gone to hell in a hack since MacArthur died. You get my meaning?

Not exactly, the ambassador said.

Dinner's served, Louise Ballard said.

Maynard O'Reilly confided a few of the details, not all of them, 'course, because, Christ, I can't be trusted. I've only been a partner in the firm for forty fucking years, I'm this innocent who lives on the North Shore, votes Republican, pays taxes. I've never been indicted by a federal grand jury, for instance.

The ambassador turned to his father again. Was O'Reilly ever indicted?

There was some trouble in Boston, Jerome North replied. But he was never indicted, no.

He has pull, Harry said.

Jerome opened his mouth to say something, then didn't.

Anyway, the deal works like this, Harry said. It's the money for the weapons. Has to go somewhere. Money goes into this bank in the Loop, stays there for a few days, interest-free. Bank uses the money to factor. Swiss francs, Deutschmarks, fucking escudos. Then they send the money on to Manila or wherever it goes, and keep the profit. Risk-free. It's interest-free money, thanks to Maynard O'Reilly and his contacts at Treasury. Little favor we do our friends. And Mister Henry Fucking Baum and his fixer go over, have a cocktail with the chairman of the board of the bank in the Loop, first thing you know, we've got that account. They've got the money for the Philippines and we've got the account. That chairman's been in my foursome at the member-guest for ten years, but that's forgotten now because he can factor escudos for forty-eight hours, make twenty, thirty K risk-free, because it's a lot of money we're talking about, re-arming our plucky little democracy in Asia. Not that I'm against holding the line against the Commies—

Gert
, Wolf said, and began to laugh, a kind of mirthless chuckle.
I was at the top of the stairs, listening to this, watching them. Grandmother North suddenly comes to the stairs, and calls for me, “Dinner's ready!” She looks up and there I am, listening. We stare at each other a minute. She knows I've heard every word. I smile, and she smiles back. Then she goes away, telling Elinor that I'll be down “momentarily. ” It's as if she
wants
me to hear them, uninterrupted, unedited, because they aren't ready to go in yet. Harry is making himself another drink, ice in the glass, gin over the ice, olive on top. Jerome still hasn't moved, he's stiff as an iceberg in the middle of the room. From time to time he brings the glass of sherry to his nose and sniffs it, like smelling salts. He's immaculately groomed, and he's wearing a thick tweed suit, looks to be about a hundred years old. Harry Ballard's casual, a bit disheveled, but with his blue eyes and light hair, his white shirt and his blazer and striped tie, he looks like an overage college boy. He has the kind of looks that are called boyish, but are really just unformed. A handsome man, but not a
mensch.
You know the difference, Gert. The worried ambassador is moving back and forth between them, father and father-in-law, trying to find common ground. It's shuttle diplomacy. The ambassador is trying to salvage the day. Meanwhile, the women are wringing their hands, except for Elinor, who's standing in the entrance to the dining room, looking at the ambassador. I know the look. I've seen it often enough. “I told you so.” But she saw her father getting the worst of it, and she didn't like it. She didn't have much respect for him, but she didn't want to see him beaten up, either. The patriot's dilemma in any decadent nation. I came down the stairs halfway, the better to see the action. They had forgotten all about me. Where do you suppose they thought I was ? It's disgusting.
Gert grinned, her eyes bright; she was avid for information of life in American ruling circles. How they fought for what they believed in.

You say he was one of Kennedy's people, Harry said.

Yes, Jerome said.

If he was one of Kennedy's men, how come he's got so much clout in the Nixon administration? I thought we had a two-party system in the United States, or am I wrong? Is it just the same people, no matter who's in the White House? His voice was truculent.

Men of that kind, they tend to know each other, Jerome said.

So do the fixers, it doesn't matter who's in or who's out. Whoever's in, they're in.

Gert
, he said,
I could have laughed out loud. Comrade Ballard, meet Comrade Marx.

Well, it depends, Jerome said.

I don't understand that, Harry said.

It's simple enough, Jerome said.

Maybe to you, Harry said.

Jerome looked up at that moment, Gert, and saw me on the stairs. A shadow crossed his face. I smiled, but he didn't smile back. He turned to the others, then looked back at me. “Hello, Bill. You don't have to hide. Come on down.”

The ambassador didn't like it that I was there. He said, Go into the dining room, Bill. We'll be there in a moment.

But I didn't move, Gert. I stayed where I was, on the fifty-yard line.

Jerome said, Let him stay, Bill. Let him finish listening to our very interesting discussion.

Little pitchers, Harry said.

He's old enough, Jerome said. It's good for him to hear about the way of the world. I was going to explain about Maynard O'Reilly. I believe he knew some Californians who did business in Boston. Los Angeles interests, real estate, the entertainment industry. The Californians naturally knew Nixon, Nixon's people. Maynard O'Reilly was helpful to them in Boston, so they're helpful to him in Washington. It isn't politics. Politics doesn't have anything to do with it, except at fund-raising occasions. It's business. It's the way business is done. Always.

The ambassador shook his head, laughing. Chicago isn't Plato's Republic, Harry. I believe politics has been known to intrude in Chicago business. Jesus Christ, don't tell me you're surprised.

Bill
, Elinor said.

Let's go in to dinner, the ambassador said. But Harry didn't move, nor did Jerome.

It's not a question of surprise, Harry said. I'm not
surprised.
It offends me. The turd Baum and Fein, and the fixer. I think it's disgraceful. It's the way business is done, but I don't have to like it. He was talking to the ambassador but looking at Jerome. It was really between them, but the ambassador didn't see that yet. The ambassador with his great diplomatic skills. It was Jew and Gentile, and one kind of money and another kind of money, and how the ruling classes cut up the pie. Also, it was Jerome North's European nightmare and Harry Ballard's American daydream. And Harry had always figured it was
his
America, his and his father's and his father's father's and their friends, midwestern capitalists, Bourbons. They were people who had always met a payroll. They had the money and someone else could tote dat barge and lift dat bale. As for Jerome North, he was a cosmopolitan; his country was inside him. Wherever he was, his country was also. And Harry Ballard saw this; he did not see much, but he saw this. Who was Jerome North to tell him how American business worked? How long had Jerome North been a citizen of the U.S.A.? Moreover, Jerome North seemed to approve—of Baum, and of Maynard O'Reilly, and the Philippine connection. No outrage or disapproval in Jerome North's voice, his surface was as smooth and slippery as ice. Suddenly Harry realized he had been put at a disadvantage; he was losing the argument he had started. The old Jew was smarter than he thought—well, they were all
smart
, but more worldly, less emotional. And the ambassador, the bureaucrat his daughter had married, was laughing at him. So he thought he would up the ante.
He revved the engines, Gert, and ran the
Titanic
straight into the iceberg.

It's sleazy business, he said.

It's business, Jerome replied. It's the way you've organized your country.

My country, yes. And yours also.

I pay taxes, I obey the law, I am a citizen, and if I went abroad I would carry the passport. I am grateful to this country, but it is not mine. My country disappeared in 1933.

This country has been hospitable?

Hospitable, yes.

Gave you citizenship . . .

Citizenship you earn, Jerome said.

. . . a good living.

You earn that, too.

Gert, the silence grew as they looked at each other, seeing for the first time the great gulf between them. It was more than Harry Ballard's suburban Jew-baiting, and Jerome North's German superiority. I allowed myself to look closely at my Grandfather North. His face was set hard as stone, and he communicated great physical strength, his shoulders and bald head, and massive hands wrapped around the sherry glass. If I had to guess his business at that moment I would have said gangster, a
capo regime
of the
Cosa Nostra.
But he was not a gangster at all; he fancied himself a scholar, an educated man, and more dangerous by far than Harry Ballard, for he had no illusions. He gave the impression of a man who had seen everything, who knew how insecure things were, how on a knife's edge his own and others' existence. He was the sort of man who was always waiting for a knock on the door, poor bastard.

At least we agree about that, Harry said.

And when I looked at Grandfather Ballard, Gert. I saw something new. He had pulled himself together; he was more resilient than I thought. But he was drunk, too, and angry. He looked like an angry child about to have a tantrum, and therefore unpredictable, like any child.

Dinner's waiting, the ambassador said.

That ended it for the moment. They trooped into the dining room, the table and sideboard laden with the essentials of an American Thanksgiving. The women tried to make light of things; the grandmothers were making a great effort with each other. But Elinor was glaring at the ambassador, and the grandfathers were silent. Harry had brought his Martini with him. Of course he continued to smoke at the table, ashes on his white shirt, and beside the dinky little ashtray next to his plate. But it wasn't ended. The silences were long, though the grandmothers and the ambassador tried to cover them. The ambassador's answer to everything is noise and more noise, aimless chatter, anything to avoid the truth. Which soon showed itself.

They want me to take early retirement, Harry said.

Is that what you want? Elinor asked.

No, it isn't what I want. Why would I want to retire? It's Baum. Baum wants me out. Baum wants to buy me out.

You should have seen him, Gert. He'd held it back as long as he could, then he had to let it out. He was purged, that was what he was telling them. It was Thanksgiving in a city he hated, and he was frightened to death. Fear and trembling. He'd looked around his warm capitalist aquarium one fine day, and saw he was face to face with a shark. Baum. The shark and the pilot fish, O'Reilly, running things to suit themselves. And he was out. Social Darwinism in Chicago. And there was no place to hide.

Is the price right? Jerome asked quietly.

Isn't a question of price, he said. I don't want to get out.

Jerome lifted his eyebrows, but said nothing.

I enjoy working. I have always enjoyed it, going to the office, putting a deal together, making money.

Yes, Jerome said.

Would you? Harry asked. Would you be bought out? A turd named Baum comes into your office, takes it over, decides to buy you out? Bye-bye, Ballard we've got other plans. Government money, a Philippine connection. The golf course isn't where it's
at
, Ballard. You wouldn't like it, you'd fight like hell. You'd go to your friends, fight like hell. Good, close friends, come to a man's aid. And that's what I'm going to do.

Friends, the ambassador said doubtfully.

Yes,
friends.
I suppose it doesn't work that way in the Department of State. Except I always heard it did, the Foreign Service Protective Association. Presidents come and go, the Foreign Service remains. You're secure,
perfectamente.

I'm sorry, Dad, Elinor said.

This is real life, girl, Harry said. There's no security in business. It's not like the government or a university, the Civil Service or a tenured professorship. Or the fixers, on top no matter who's elected. This is free enterprise. It's the bottom line and only the bottom line, and whether or not you fit into their plans. Well, sometimes you can force it. With a little help from a few close friends, as the late Mayor Daley used to say.

Friends can be helpful, sometimes, Jerome said.

Harry's been worried sick, Grandmother Ballard said.

Shut up, Louise, Harry said.

Worried
sick
, she repeated. Insomnia, nausea—

Thanks, Louise.

It's
true
, Harry. You said the other night that it was worse than the Depression. She turned to the table and reminded them that Harry Ballard had saved his father's business. Drove from one end of the Midwest to the other, negotiating with creditors. And he paid them back, every penny. No one lost a cent. The first year we were married, she said, I didn't see him for six months. It was a very painful time. And of course in the end the business had to be sold.

Then I misspoke myself, Harry said. Nothing was worse than the Depression. The Depression was the worst time I have ever seen in my life. The Depression was a holocaust, that god damned Roosevelt. The only thing that got us out of it was the war. It was a hell of a high price to pay.