secretary and two staffers were bustling about, much as Pearson’s crew had been—typing, filing, poring over research materials.
Delores—an efficient, pleasant-looking woman in her thirties who McCarthy called “mother”—recognized me from previous visits. She smiled in a harried manner, said I was expected, and hustled me in to the senator’s spacious, rather underfurnished office.
McCarthy was on the phone, seated behind his big square government-issue desk, which was piled with file folders. He was in a white shirt with the sleeves rolled up, his food-stained red-and-green splatter-design tie loose around a bull neck, the suitcoat of a double-breasted ready-made dark blue suit (he seemed to buy them by bulk) flung over a hardback chair. He was the kind of guy whose socks matched his tie only by accident.
In his early forties, McCarthy—who was chummily talking with “Dick”…Nixon, it soon became clear—had a blue-jowled, barrel-chested, unchiseled masculinity that was close enough to handsome for government work. His dark hair was just starting to thin, and his muscular physique seemed fleshier than when I saw him last, maybe a year before.
My host, in his nasal Irish baritone, was working on Nixon, trying to get him to share current Un-American Activities Committee files. McCarthy kept referring to the “cause.”
His manner made me recall the first night I’d played poker with him. McCarthy had invited me along to the National Press Club. Sitting down with seven men he’d never played with before, he tried to bluff each one of them out of a pot; and no matter what he had—even a pair of deuces—McCarthy would bet heavily.
He also tried to bluff me, and I won a healthy pot of mostly his money; I heard whispering that McCarthy was a “sucker,” and that was when I caught on. He’d been acting the hayseed, and when the cards started to run in his favor, he bet heavily and everybody stayed in—assuming he was bluffing. At one point down five hundred bucks, he wound up winning twelve hundred.
I wondered if Drew Pearson knew that this grinning, blue-jowled ape was far more resourceful than his enemies gave him credit for. Watching him twist Nixon’s arm over the phone, I could see this son of a bitch played politics like he played poker—committing well-calculated highway robbery.
The office, by the way, was barren of the sort of celebrity photos and mementos that characterized Pearson’s study— though McCarthy was every bit as big a public figure. The only item on display was a baseball bat on a little pedestal, on a counter at left, between file cabinets.
The bat had the name “Drew Pearson” burned into it.
McCarthy was hanging up the phone. He grinned at me, rising to his six feet, and reached a long arm across his cluttered desk, offering me a big square hand.
I shook that powerful paw, and when he told me to sit down, I did, in the hard wooden chair opposite him— next to the one with his suitcoat slung over it.
He was still grinning after he sat back down—but the grin seemed strained, almost a grimace. He said, “Should I have agreed to see you, Nate?”
“Why not, Joe?”
He nodded toward the baseball bat. “Word is you and Pearson patched up your differences.”
I shrugged. “Only to the extent that I’m willing to take his money again.”
Thick black eyebrows climbed his Cro-Magnon forehead. “Not to look into
“No. That’s never happened, Joe…never will.”
The grin relaxed into a smile; he sat forward, leaning on the file folders, brutish shoulders hunched. “I’m going after him, Nate,” he said, still referring to Pearson. “I mean, no holds barred. I figure I’ve already lost his supporters—and now I can pick up his enemies.”
“Do what you want to do.”
“I’m going to break him, Nate—put him out of business.”
I figured long after McCarthy was out of the Senate, Pearson would still be around, destroying careers on the Hill; but I said, “That’s between you and the skinflint.”
The latter made him laugh. “You know, I’d be a hero on the Hill if I could pull a few of his teeth, break his insteps, or maybe bust a few ribs. Say fifteen of ’em.”
“That bat would do the trick,” I said, wondering if he was kidding.
He leaned back, gestured with a big hand. “You know, you could have called me on the phone. You didn’t have to come all this way.”
“Some conversations shouldn’t be sent through the air. Phones can be tapped.”
“I guess you’d know.” He scratched his nose. “A fella in your position can acquire enemies, after all.”
That seemed an odd remark.
But I just said, “That’s true. Not everyone loves me. Listen…I wanted to talk to you about a friend of mine.”
“The pinko singer.”
I sighed. “Joe, he’s no pinko. Frank’s about as political as I am.”
“Is that a good thing?”
Something was crawling at the base of my neck. “Am I missing something?” I asked.
He selected a file—whether randomly or not, I couldn’t say. He thumbed through it and, either referring to it or pretending to, he said, “I’ve been approached about you. About your background.”
“What?”
