One of the wealthiest, most powerful, best-connected men in America, William Lasko gets what he wants, when he wants it, whatever it takes to get it.
But now the Economic Crimes Commission wants the corrupt, untouchable Lasko brought down. Young, ambitious U.S. Attorney Christopher Paget is the man chosen to take on the job. To gather enough evidence against him without alienating Lasko's friends in the White House, Paget has to go by the book. But Lasko makes his own rules. And survival and elimination of his enemies are the most important of them all ...
The Lasko Tangent – the unstoppable thriller of one man's fight for justice, the man who became the hero of Richard North Patterson's international bestsellers Degree of Guilt and Eyes of a Child.
Richard North Patterson’s eleven novels include the international bestsellers Degree of Guilt, Eyes of a Child, The Final Judgment, Silent Witness, No Safe Place and Dark Lady. His novels have won the Edgar Allan Poe Award and the Grand Prix de Littérature Policière. A graduate of Ohio Wesleyan University and the Case Western Reserve School of Law, he studied creative writing with Jesse Hill Ford at the University of Alabama at Birmingham. He and his wife, Laurie, live with their family in San Francisco and on Martha’s Vineyard.
Dark Lady
No Safe Place
Silent Witness
The Final Judgment
Eyes of a Child
Degree of Guilt
The Outside Man
Escape the Night
Private Screening
Protect and Defend
For Aileen Taylor
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This edition published by Arrow Books in 1998
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Copyright © Richard North Patterson 1994
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First published by Arrow Books in 1994
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About the Book
About the Author
Also by Richard North Patterson
Title Page
Dedication
Introduction
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
Chapter Twenty-Six
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Chapter Thirty
Chapter Thirty-One
Chapter Thirty-Two
Chapter Thirty-Three
Chapter Thirty-Four
Chapter Thirty-Five
Copyright
Eighteen years ago, at the age of twenty-nine, I set out to write a novel before I turned thirty. I don’t know what made thirty seem so important or, more fundamentally, what made me think I could write a book. But I found that I took great delight in creating a character, Christopher Paget, and the milieu that I had experienced during an affiliation with the Watergate Special Prosecutor.
The result was THE LASKO TANGENT, which, to my deep pleasure and surprise, won the Edgar Allan Poe Award for Best First Novel of 1979. What I did not know then was that, fourteen years later in my own life and that of Christopher Paget’s, I would revisit him in DEGREE OF GUILT—a book that became an international bestseller and, to put it somewhat grandly, the second book in a Christopher Paget trilogy which will conclude with a final novel to be published in January 1995.
During those fourteen years, Christopher Paget matured quite a bit, and my narrative strategies changed. But on rereading, I found THE LASKO TANGENT not only fun for its own sake, but that Christopher Paget seemed very true to himself—a twenty-nine-year-old version of the mid-fortyish trial lawyer and father found in DEGREE OF GUILT. And the edgy relationship between Paget and Mary Carelli prefigures the heart of DEGREE OF GUILT, where Paget—albeit filled with doubt—defends Mary against a charge of murder.
For me, rereading LASKO was interesting for another reason. Without meaning to back then, I realized that I had set Christopher Paget on a journey through many of the experiences that have defined our times, from government corruption to political compromise; broken marriages to second families; the problem of rape to the abuse of wives and children; even the media-fed self-consciousness that pervades our society—true-life murders into movies, felons into celebrities, etc. In the end—at least for me—the three novels seem to cover quite a bit of ground, yet form a satisfying whole.
All that aside, I think THE LASKO TANGENT remains timely and exciting on its own. I hope that readers will agree, and am very grateful to all of them for helping me share my imaginings of the life and times of Christopher Paget.
R.N.P.
October 1993
IT WAS THE Monday morning before they killed him. I didn’t know then that he existed. Or that I would help change that. I dealt with swindlers, not killers.
I was crossing Capitol Hill, the part that looks down Pennsylvania Avenue toward the White House. It was only ten minutes since I’d left my apartment, but already the morning clung to my shirt. The air felt like steam in a closed bathroom after a hot shower. A torpid sun seeped through a haze of humidity and fetid exhaust fumes. Washington August, thermal inversion time.
Three years had programmed me for the walk. It took me across Constitution Avenue toward D Street, past the fountain and the reflecting pool. The cherry trees which lined the walk had long since lost their blossoms and had a tired disappointed look. On the other side of D Street sat the square opulence of the white marble Teamsters office, built for deserving officers by grateful members.
I turned down D Street and walked toward a huge cement building of New Deal vintage with hundreds of glass windows. A blue and white sign in front read “United States Economic Crimes Commission.” Pushing through the glass doors, I flipped my ID card to the black, uniformed officer who guarded the agency from the public and other subversives. Cerberus at the gate. His obsidian eyes regarded me impassively. Daily, I tried to imagine what he thought. Daily, I failed. He pushed back the card.
“Thank you, Officer Davis.”
“Thank you, Mr. Paget.”
I cut through the artificial wood lobby and took the elevator to the third floor, marked “Prosecutions Bureau” by a smaller blue and white sign. The bureau handled the big stock frauds, consumer swindles, and political corruption cases, choice stuff for the dedicated public servant. But the three years had made a difference. I straggled toward my office, in no hurry.
On this floor, the paneling had been swapped for grey cinder blocks which lined corridors as crabbed as a rat’s maze. I walked through the grey catacombs and past the door marked “Special Investigations Section.” Inside was a large open room jammed with metal desks and secretaries and bordered by offices.
The section was packed; two happy faces peered out of each office. I glanced over my shoulder at the schoolroom-type clock. 9:15. I was late again. I went to the office marked “Christopher Kenyon Paget, Trial Attorney,” walked across my grey tile government rug to my armchair of specially molded indestructible grey plastic, and sat at my antique grey metal desk.
My secretary peered in gingerly, as if testing the atmosphere with her forehead.
“Good morning, Chris.”
“Good morning, yourself.” But I smiled. I liked Debbie—and she could type. Among the ECC secretaries, that was a rare combination. She smiled back and stood in the doorway.
“How have you been?”
“Peachy. As a matter of fact, I was just surveying my kingdom. How’s the coffee this morning?”
“What’s this thing you have about the coffee?”
“If I’d ever tasted Woolite stirred with a cow chip, I imagine I’d know.” The corners of her mouth cracked upwards, then broke into a smile. She was dark and pretty and had a prettier smile. I liked to see it.
“You’re in a good mood.”
“I spent last night thinking about what McGuire did to the Hartex case. I shouldn’t let myself do that.”
She shook her head in exaggerated disapproval. “Misplaced idealism. Have you ever thought about chucking it all and joining the Reverend Moon?”
“That fat little maharishi is more my type. Anyhow, I’m probably too large a spiritual problem for any one religion.” She smiled again. “Speaking of which,” I added, “if you have to perform an exorcism on that coffee, do it.”
“You can try the coffee at McGuire’s office. He called for you ten minutes ago.”
I wasn’t in the mood. “What’s it about?”
“He didn’t consult me,” she said dryly. “Just sounded annoyed that you were late.”
I got up and headed reluctantly out the door.
McGuire’s office was located off another central area. These offices had wooden desks, upholstered chairs, and, as further marks of federal status, featured single occupancy and an unobstructed view of Capitol Hill. The blue sign near McGuire’s door read “Joseph P. McGuire, Chief, Prosecutions Bureau.” Next to the sign was Joseph P. McGuire himself, staring fiercely out of a framed Newsweek cover entitled “The ECC’s Tough Enforcer.” Grouped around this were several pictures of McGuire in conference with other great men, such as Lyndon B. Johnson. The bare spot in the middle of the collection represented Richard Nixon, now an unperson.
Directly below sat the curator of this cult of personality, McGuire’s secretary, blonde, chubby, and fortyish. As always, she looked like a complacent munchkin. She swiveled her round little body in my direction. “Mr. McGuire is waiting for you, with Mr. Feiner,” she said in her round little voice. In this case, it carried a tinge of disapproval.
“Am I late?” I asked innocently.
Her round little eyes narrowed, and her tone flattened out. “You can go right in.”
I complied.
McGuire’s office was standard federal executive: plastic wood paneling, a money green rug, wooden desk and conference table, and Venetian blinds. Save for an inscribed pen set—a gift from his staff—the desk was bare of personalizing touches, and the walls were as stark. The total effect was that of a room rented by the month.
The only fixture in the place was McGuire. He sat at the end of the conference table, fidgeting with an air of impatient expectancy. McGuire was the only man I knew who could pace sitting down. But for this and piercing blue eyes, he could have passed for a struggling encyclopedia salesman. He had red-brown hair and a middle-aging potbelly hung on an average frame. His clothes were a baggy afterthought. But McGuire somehow invested these plain materials with an arresting vitality. Even his paunch seemed aggressive.
My immediate boss was there to provide an audience. Feiner had black curly hair and the rapt ascetic look of a man seized by some compelling inner vision. It had taken me about two months’ acquaintance to perceive that the inner vision involved McGuire’s job. McGuire was either too self-obsessed to notice or too secure to care; he let Feiner dog him like a skinny shadow. I suspected that McGuire was fonder of pets than people.
“We’ve got something big here.” McGuire spoke in bursts, as if complex sentences required too much patience. “Where the hell were you?”
“Conferring with my secretary.” I sat facing McGuire and tried for an expression of polite interest. “What have you got?”
McGuire stared at me a moment longer, as if I’d insulted him. Then he leaned back from the table and eyed the ceiling, as if gathering his thoughts. Feiner assumed an expression of grave attention. “This is a very sensitive thing,” McGuire began.
I was surprised. “Sensitive” was not in McGuire’s standard lexicon, in any context. “Why?”
“Do you know William Lasko?” McGuire asked.
“Sure. The President’s favorite industrialist.”
McGuire nodded. “We got a tip while you were gone that someone was playing some games with the price of his company’s stock.”
“Who’s ‘we’?”
“Me. Someone called me last week.”
I was interested in spite of myself. “And that’s all he told you?”
“Yes.”
I glanced at Feiner. “What about Ike’s market watch people? They spot any pattern in the stock?”
“No.”
“Any idea who called?”
“No. He wouldn’t say.”
“Did he tell you enough to let you guess?”
“No.” McGuire looked edgy, like a man being forced to play Twenty Questions with his twelve-year-old son. “He disguised his voice. I’ve told you all I know.”
“It’s not much.”
It was intended as a statement of fact. But McGuire took it as criticism. His eyes bored in. “We can’t let this go. Lasko’s controversial. If I don’t check this out and then get caught with my pants down, I’ll have to answer over on the Hill.” McGuire was using his usual institutional “I.” The motive had a tired familiarity. “This thing has to be done carefully. No wild charges and no one pissed off. And I want a report on every new development.”
I nodded. McGuire leaned back, hands folded on his belly, taking in Feiner with a tight smile. The smile looked like an invisible hand was stretching his mouth sideways at both ends. “Now,” McGuire was holding school, “what are you going to do?”
My three years made the question insulting. McGuire knew it; he was reminding Feiner that he could make me do tricks. I wondered if I should roll over and beg or stick my paw out to shake hands. “What are you going to do?” he demanded again.
“I’m going to call up Lasko and ask him to confess.”
McGuire’s reaction was surprisingly mild. “Seriously.”
I selected a civil answer. “Seriously, I’ll get trading data from the major brokerage houses in New York to see who’s been buying and selling Lasko Devices stock and when. I’ll have our local office—Lasko’s in Boston, I think—lay a subpoena on the company for trading data. If any stock trades look strange, I’ll haul in the trader for questioning. And I’ll check the stock’s price history in the Journal.”
McGuire’s rubber smile restretched, this time for me. “While you were out of town, I had Ike”—he gestured at Feiner with his thumb—“get out a subpoena to Lasko Devices. They are in Boston. Jim Robinson has checked the Journal and gotten the trading records. And I’ve asked Central Records to send you the Lasko file.”
I smiled back, half at McGuire’s one-upmanship and half to admit that he knew his job. “Assuming those idiots in Records haven’t lost the Lasko file,” I said, to remind him that nothing was perfect. His smile strained wider. It was a good time to leave.
“Is that it?” I asked.
“No.” McGuire looked at his watch. “I’ve got Mary Carelli at ten o’clock.”
It didn’t ring any bells. “Who’s she?”
“Mary Carelli is special assistant to Chairman Woods.”
“And?”
McGuire surprised me by sounding defensive. “Look. All our cases have to be approved by a vote of the commissioners who run this place. They stop approving, we stop prosecuting. The Chairman runs the other commissioners, and Woods is just over from the White House staff. Lasko’s the President’s friend. If we hurt Lasko, it hurts the White House, and that hurts us. So I tell Chairman Woods what we’re on to. We have to get along or my program goes down the drain. So,” he concluded, “don’t fuck up.”
I considered that. “Maybe you’d better clue me in, Joe. Who’s running this case—us, Woods, or the White House staff?”
McGuire looked stung. “There’s nothing wrong with talking to our own Chairman,” he snapped. Technically, he was right about that. But the repetition of the words “White House” seemed to diminish him. The restless body slumped. For the first time I wondered whether McGuire wanted to be a commissioner.
McGuire snapped out of his reverie. “You’re to get along with Ms. Carelli. I’ve put you on this because you’re good. Don’t screw it up.”
He had said that before. “I haven’t yet,” I answered quietly.
He knew that was true. Some other people knew it too. It was the main fact that kept me sitting in McGuire’s office instead of cleaning out my own. But the problem was bigger than Hartex or I. Something had gone sour in McGuire’s psyche. The drive to achieve had turned into an addiction to praise. His staff aped him and outsiders plied him with obsequies. It was as if McGuire were presiding over his own memorial service. Newsweek had done him in.
MCGUIRE’S MUNCHKIN OPENED the door, breaking the uncomfortable silence. “Miss Carelli’s here,” she bubbled.
She was eclipsed by a striking young woman. Tall and slender, her long hair was as black as her eyes, which took us in with a quick, opaque stare. The eyes were her startling feature; they were wide set on high Indian cheekbones. I figured her for my age, twenty-nine, but she threw off a primal force.
The impact was softened a bit by her delayed smile; the flash of white teeth gave her an amused adventurous look. “Gentlemen,” she nodded. The word was faintly sardonic. I watched her as the gentlemen said their hellos. It struck me that she thought she was slumming.
Feiner whisked out a chair with the expertise of a butler. She sat, long legs flashing as they crossed under her simple white dress. The dress set off a dark tan which had been acquired with some trouble. The little vanity was curious; it made her seem less remote. I filed the thought away and sat back.
“I appreciate your time, Mr. McGuire.” Her voice was low and carefully modulated. The effect was almost consciously well bred.
McGuire was unusually formal. “Of course. The Lasko case is a complicated matter.”
She nodded. “Chairman Woods has asked me to monitor the case. I’d like someone here to keep me up to date.” The language and tone mixed command with request. But the eyes didn’t miss anything. I revised my opinion. She wasn’t slumming; she was an anthropologist.
McGuire’s interest in Carelli was strictly derivative; he spoke through her as if she were a microphone wired to the Chairman’s ear. “We’ll be happy to do that. I’ve assigned Chris here”—his thumb jabbed at me—“to keep your office informed.”
She had forgotten my name. She looked at me now with the cool appraising air of a scientist touring a dog pound, searching for experimental subjects. I hoped she would pass me up.
“Now you’re who?”
“I’m Christopher Paget.”
She nodded briskly. “OK, I’d appreciate it if you would come by my office this afternoon.” It was not a request. The Chairman was becoming a palpable presence.
“I’ll be sure and do that,” I said dryly.
McGuire shifted uncomfortably and looked through the ceiling at the Chairman’s office, four stories up. Ms. Carelli made a quick mental calculation and decided to overlook it. “I’ll call you to set up a time.”
I nodded. She looked at me a split-second more, then turned back to McGuire. She spoke with more assurance, as if knowing that my annoyance signaled McGuire’s compliance. “Anything surrounding Lasko is very delicate. The Chairman wants to clear investigative steps before they happen. He’s concerned that this case not hurt the agency.” Her eyes flashed to me. “We have to keep out of trouble.” I figured she intended to keep me well out of trouble. I kept silent, and made a mental reservation about the frequency of my reports.
McGuire was nodding for me. “Chris will keep in touch. Is there anything else we can do?” His solicitous voice still seemed to waft upwards.
“Not now.” Ms. Carelli knew when to get off stage. She rose quickly. “Thank you for your time.” She swept us with a quick, obligatory smile, and let herself out. The closing door cut off the last probe of the black eyes, looking at me.
“Terrific,” I said, to no one in particular.
McGuire turned. “Just what’s your problem?”
“Other than Typhoid Mary?” It might as well be now. I thought. “The Hartex case. This one is starting like Hartex ended up.”
McGuire’s eyes showed both defensiveness and anger. “Go on,” he challenged.
“Look, I worked on Hartex for a year. I talked to people who had lost their shirts. There wasn’t a week I didn’t have some ruined life haunting my office like Hamlet’s father. I told them we would help. Then I go on vacation for a week. I call in last Thursday and discover you’ve settled the case. While I’m gone, the Hartex people send down a Wall Street type, the one who used to be Deputy Secretary of State. He tells you how much he respects you, and how a lot of trouble can be saved. In return for no jail, he agrees to an injunction promising that his clients will never swindle anyone again. They don’t need to, because they’ve just waltzed into affluent retirement. And we issue a press release that makes this out as the biggest coup since Tricky Dick turned back into a pumpkin. I tell you, Joe, the way we play the game is really amazing.”
McGuire’s eyes were stupid with surprise. He slowly turned to look out at the Capitol, as if calling upon it for support. Apparently, he got it. He pivoted with an expression of righteous contempt. “Look, I don’t run this place just to please you. Every year I have to justify my budget to the commission and Congress—show them I close my cases. How do you think I’ve gotten here?” Now McGuire was shouting; each word thrust him out over the table toward me. Somehow I thought of an earth-mover. “I can’t let you get tied up on a frigging crusade. Your job is to question witnesses and get me the facts, not make policy. So if I don’t have time to consult with you that’s tough shit.”
McGuire’s face was attractive red. Feiner had the bleak satisfied look of a Jesuit who had rooted out a heresy. But disillusion pushed me on. “The Hartex people should have been indicted, prosecuted, and jailed. And we could have helped get some money back. Instead, our settlement shafted the stockholders. The only places it will ever look good are in our press releases and reports to Congress. Both of which are unadulterated bullshit.”
McGuire smashed his palm on the table like a murderer squashing a fly. Feiner winced as if he were the next fly. He was all caged tension with nowhere to go. McGuire stared at the dead invisible fly, then at me. “I don’t get this crap from the other guys.” Feiner nodded on behalf of the other guys.
I shrugged. “They’re not my problem, Joe.”
“So what makes you so courageous?” This was half inquiry, half sarcasm.
“Because I have to live with myself.”
This last echoed back to me with an unhappily pompous ring. Suddenly I was tired of McGuire, tired of the argument, and tired of myself. Most of all I was tired of feeling cynical, and wishing I didn’t.
McGuire was just tired of me. “Maybe people like you don’t have to pay your dues,” he said in a flat oblique voice. McGuire had never had money; he’d had a lifetime to consider his attitude toward people like me. It wasn’t hard to see how the former Deputy Secretary had cut his deal. He was a fine old WASP who treated McGuire with deference. The deference was McGuire’s reward; it made punishment negotiable.
The insight didn’t help me. I felt superior and disliked myself for it. The fight had taken on a whining undertone of buried resentments older than Hartex and bigger than the ECC. I tried to end it. “OK, I’ve said what I wanted to say.”
McGuire hesitated, as if distracted by his failure to have the last word. The thought got the best of him. “You think because you’re a hotshot, I have to put up with this. I don’t.”
“That’s true. You don’t.” One day, I thought, I would push it too far. But I had Feiner to remind me of what I didn’t want to be. His face was a frozen mask of attention, turned to McGuire. I figured he must spend his nights chiseling McGuire’s every word in marble.
McGuire was looking me over, as if sizing me for a firing. “You’d better get with it,” he finally said.
There was nothing more to say. I left, his sourness trailing after me.
I walked back to my office. I wasn’t happy. The Lasko case came complete with White House interest, a meddling Chairman, and the supercilious Ms. Carelli. I was on a very short leash, and didn’t know who was holding the other end. So I decided to call Jim Robinson.
“Hello?” he answered.
“What’s Mary Carelli?”
“I don’t know, Chris. Maybe if you take penicillin it will go away.”
I laughed. “I’m especially interested in political connections, how she got her job—stuff like that.”
“You a lawyer or a reporter today?”
“I just want to know what I’m dealing with.”
He paused. “I’ll see.”
“Thanks. Catch you this afternoon.”
I depressed the receiver and called Lane Greenfeld at the Washington Post. After that I got the Lasko file. I riffled it for an hour or so. Then I checked my watch and left the building.
GREENFELD AND I had agreed to lunch near the Hill.
I beat him to the restaurant and secured a table which was jammed to the side of a darkish room. The decor was instant men’s club: brick walls, stained brown beams, and heavy furniture. I ordered a light rum and tonic and looked over the clientele. The faces moved through intense talk, explosive laughter, and professionally amiable smiles. In one corner a squat man with a lobbyist’s beefy confidence was jabbing a stubby finger at an obscure and worried-looking junior senator. I resolved out of boredom to watch whether the senator’s attention broke. He was still hanging on when Greenfeld cut off my line of sight.
He grinned. “Is this déjà vu, malaise, or ennui?”
I considered my answer with mock gravity. “Fin de siècle,” I concluded. I inspected his Cardin suit. “Are you bucking for Paris correspondent?”
He sat down. “Just fashion editor.” Greenfeld was a taut testament to good metabolism. He had black hair, large, perceptive eyes, and a faintly amused look. The eyes suggested that he was amused because he understood more than the rest of us. “Now, you”—he stretched out the words—“look the very figure of entrenched capitalist privilege.”
I smiled. The banter was typical. Greenfeld’s reporting was spartanly self-edited; the excess found refuge in his speech. He liked wordplay, sonorous phrases, and verbal sparring. His conversation was a pleasure which sometimes required strict attention. I had the pleasure fairly often; we were what passed for close friends among people too busy to achieve intimacy. The knowledge reminded me unhappily of how little time I’d had since school.
Greenfeld ordered an old-fashioned. “How are things at the commission?”
“Kafka lives.” I tried to contain my problems with the place. “And the Post?”
He turned his palms upward in a little shrugging gesture. “They keep the pressure on.” He didn’t seem terribly impressed. It was one of the things I liked about him.
I hadn’t seen him for a couple of weeks and had to stretch for his roommate’s name. I retrieved it. “How’s Lynette?”
The boyish face became guarded and he stared at his cuffs. They seemed to interest him. Finally he spoke to his old-fashioned. “She hasn’t been around lately.” The words were uninflected, as if someone had unplugged his personality.
It seemed less awkward to finish than to switch subjects. I stumbled on. “What happened?”
He shifted slightly in his chair. “It wasn’t working.” Greenfeld was an observer, not a revealer; he discussed the personal only by indirection. I guessed that he had called it off. But his friendship required recognition of limits I probably understood better than most. I tried to slide out on a light note.
“You’re a hard man, Lane.”
Greenfeld gave me a wry, sour smile. “I guess it’s just part of ‘being cool in the seventies.’” He used the phrase to mock his own detachment. But he could already identify a time when he had liked himself better. I wondered if that were the problem.
Greenfeld snapped to the realization that his second persona was warring with his first. “I can give you a pretty good rundown on Lasko. He’s a splendid fellow.” Quickly Greenfeld was back on balance, his voice animated, as if his own working competence had given him a foothold.
“One of America’s heroes,” I smiled. “Give me what you’ve got.”
“Tell me what you know and I’ll fill in the rest.”
“OK. Lasko’s about forty-five. Very smart. Son of a steel worker from Youngstown, Ohio. Nice place. Ran with a pretty tough crowd when he was growing up. Apparently he’s kept some for friends. Got drafted and became a Korean War hero of sorts based on a not-too-surprising talent for killing people. He went to college on the GI Bill and then got an M.B.A. So far, a heartwarming but typical story of upward mobility. Then he somehow managed to get himself involved in Florida real estate, which is where he made his first money. Also did some land deals in Arizona. Supposedly, these were pretty sleazy—a lot of it involved selling undeveloped land to Mom and Pop pensioner types, although presumably he had no inherent objection to ripping off widows and orphans either. Things got sticky for him after a while, so he sold out his interests and bought a chain of nursing centers. Apparently he’d decided to make a specialty of the aged. From what I hear the nursing centers were better than Bergen-Belsen, but worse than Fort Benning. He sold them at a profit just before the state legal authorities decided to investigate. Which left him wealthy, but underemployed.” Greenfeld had reassumed the amused look. Occasionally, his eyes would focus on a fact, as if indexing it in proper order with his own information. I paused. He nodded me on.
“The next part is more directly relevant. Lasko decided to become a captain of industry. In the early sixties, he bought a small outfit in Boston called Technical Instruments, which was into computer and electronic equipment. Lasko renamed it Lasko Devices, and built it up. Among his supposed techniques were strong-arming and blackmailing competitors, as well as industrial espionage. None of that has ever been proven. When the company got larger in the mid-sixties, he came out with a public stock offering. It’s traded on the New York Exchange. He also joined the conglomerate movement, and was sued for looting one of his acquisitions. He settled that one out of court.
“Lasko Devices is still his main interest, though. He’s landed some good contracts with the Department of Defense and the company has increasingly taken over certain parts of the electronics industry. He’s also gotten more respectable. His success was helped along by mere garden-variety violations of the antitrust laws, like price-cutting. About four years ago, the Department of Justice sued to force Lasko to give up certain holdings of Lasko Devices so that he couldn’t monopolize parts of the electronics market. That would really hurt him and he’s fighting it in court. Other than that, Lasko has cleaned up his act. He’s traded in his white shoes for pin-striped suits. Lectures at business schools. Visits the White House. Has audiences with the Pope. Holds seminars on world poverty. He’s famous. He’s a prince. I love him.” Greenfeld smiled. I was out of material. “Does that do it?”
“Well, it’s a decent start.” This was said with the cheerful condescension of the bright boy upon whom the teacher would call when no one else knew the answer. I didn’t mind. Greenfeld’s arrogance had an engaging ingenuousness about it.
“Your facts are OK,” he went on, “but they don’t make total sense until you appreciate the context. I’ve had the advantage of seeing the man from time to time. He’s an impressive-looking fellow, large and domineering, with a very deep voice. He projects a great deal of confidence. It always amazes me how much size can do for some people.” Greenfeld was short himself. “Of course, I’m always impressed in meeting prominent people how ordinary most of them are. It’s just that they wanted it more—whatever ‘it’ happens to be. Back to Lasko, I’m told that he also has some social charm. It would be interesting to see what a good psychoanalyst would make of him.” The thought stopped him for a moment, as if he were pondering what a good psychoanalyst would make of the rest of us. A waiter wearing a precariously placed black wig arrived to take our order. We made a quick choice, and the waiter retreated to the kitchen. Greenfeld’s eyes followed him. “Nice rug. Looks like something died on top of his head.”
“What else?”
“The second thing you need to think about is politics. He was in shady land deals in Florida, but was never prosecuted. He sold out his nursing centers at a profit just before an investigation started. His good luck isn’t the whim of the gods. He clearly had some Florida politicians in his pocket. These days he’s got large defense contracts, takes movie starlets to White House parties, and dines with the Pope. They aren’t just products of his boyish charm. He’s a powerful man, tough and ruthless. He’s given off a whiff of corruption for years, but no one ever catches him.” He paused for emphasis. “No one at all. And now he’s friends with the President. I’m not implying anything corrupt. As far as I can make out, the President just likes him. It doesn’t matter that Lasko’s not a very nice man. The President’s not a very nice man, either. And he admires Lasko because he’s richer than shit. Just like the President always wanted to be, but gave up for politics. And Lasko knows the value of good friendship. So,” he finished wryly, “I wouldn’t count on this one to make your career.”
“Then why is Justice trying to break up Lasko Devices? It doesn’t fit.”
“The lawsuit is why I know all this about Lasko. It was filed during the last administration, before the President came in. He inherited the lawsuit, or it probably would have never been filed. Part of my job these days is to watch that case to see if it’s pushed or dropped. I’m on the lookout for White House pressure, trade-offs between Lasko and the President—stuff like that. The paper’s pretty hot about it.”
“Find anything?”
He shook his head. “Just PR. Lasko very much wants Lasko Devices kept together. A breakup would really hurt him. The philanthropic ventures are Lasko’s effort to be the modern Andrew Carnegie—a benevolent image might help ease his legal problems. He’s hired a New York PR firm to work on it. They schedule his speeches, suggest his seminars, and give other helpful hints. This firm could probably market Charles Manson to the mothers of America, and they’ve done a lot for Lasko. He’s started his own philanthropic group, the Lasko Foundation, and made mental health his special interest. Contributes generously to mental health institutions. So if he ever wants that psychoanalysis, he’s got experts on tap.” Greenfeld had psychiatrists on the brain today. He flashed into instant mockery, his voice acquiring a spurious German accent. “And so you see, my students, how every fact,” he raised his finger in the air, “must be viewed in its context to reveal its true depth and meaning. Otherwise, we are just as ignorant and benighted as when we came and have learned nothing.” He banged a fist on the table in satiric emphasis, stared at it in a parody of thought, then snapped his head up smiling. “So there it is, Chris,” he said in his own voice.
Lunch arrived and surprised us by being good. We ate in grateful concentration, spaced around a discussion of foreign films. We both liked Bertolucci and Truffaut. I thought Fellini was overrated. He thought Buñuel was too bizarre. We ended by agreeing to get dates for the new Wertmuller film. All through it, Lane looked as if he were chewing on a thought with his lunch. The thought popped out over coffee. “Why didn’t you just talk over Lasko with your boys at the commission?” Greenfeld was still on the job; he had a working reporter’s instinct for conflict.
There was no point in explaining Hartex. “I still have newspaper habits, I guess.”
Lane didn’t buy it, but decided to pass for the moment. “You mentioned an investigation over the phone. What’s it about?”
“Off the record, we have an anonymous tip that someone was trying to maneuver the market price of Lasko stock. We don’t know whether it happened, or if Lasko’s involved if it did.”
Greenfeld fell unconsciously into his press conference rhythm. “So why all this interest?”
“Just background,” I said. I looked uncomfortably back at Greenfeld. But his eyes were fixed over my left shoulder. They stayed there long enough to make me curious. “What did you see, Lane? The Vice-President in drag?”
“Nothing that interesting. But someone you might run into. Robert Catlow.”
“Who’s he?”