that occurred to him when he didn’t have time to do anything about them,” said Carlson. “He had a rotten memory and had the sense to know it, so he wrote things down.”
“Did it work?”
“Most of the time he’d remember to keep the rest of us informed. The appointments would get transferred to his calendar and so on. Sometimes he’d forget. Sometimes he’d even forget where he’d put the notebook—leave it in some hearing room or a press conference or someplace. But it always turned up.”
“I’d like to go through a few portions of it and see if you can help me understand it,” said Elizabeth.
“Sure,” said Carlson. He glanced at his digital wristwatch as though he were going to charge for his time beginning now. Then he opened the notebook and began to read it aloud. “Dinner the seventh—S.A. That’s the dinner the Saudi Arabian ambassador gave on the seventh of January. He never could remember the ambassador’s name, which is Ruidh, so he gave up trying. Call R.T.T., that’s got to be Ronald T. Taber, the congressman from Iowa. They were in on a farm bill a few years back, and now and then one or the other would call to compare notes on how it was working.”
Elizabeth wrote quickly, trying to catch as much as she could, and hoping that the order of it would help her put it back together later. Carlson went on, looking and talking as though it were a family album full of vaguely familiar faces. He was good, she had to admit. He seemed to know what everything was and how it came to be that way.
Finally he came to the list and stopped. “I don’t know what all this is,” he said. “It must relate to the tax hearings that he was planning for the fall.”
“Relate in what way?”
“Well,” said Carlson, “there was a special staff for the committee, which handled details for the hearings. They’re more likely to be able to tell you for sure than I am. This isn’t anything I handled.”
“But what does it look like?”
“It’s a list of corporations—all sizes and shapes. See? Bulova, General Motors, Eastman Kodak. Then you get ones nobody ever heard of—Gulf Coast Auto Leasing, Standard Hardware. North Country Realty. A few that are utilities: PG&E, Commsat, FGE, Con Ed.”
“What do you think he was going to do with them?”
“Maybe use them in a speech, maybe subpoena their books, maybe call somebody to testify. I don’t know. They have a staff for that.”
“Who would know?”
“Justin Garfield would. Staff counsel. This list is over a month old and if it has anything to do with the committee, he’d probably have been in on it by now. You can’t call in General Motors and tell them to be there next week with a shoebox full of receipts and tax forms. It takes time to get it together in a form that one person can look at.”
Elizabeth turned the notebook toward her and glanced down the list. “What does PG&E stand for?”
“Pacific Gas and Electric. Oh, yes, I forgot. You’re from the East.”
“And FGE?”
“Probably Florida Gas and Electric.”
“Where do I get in touch with Justin Garfield?”
Carlson pulled a leather address book out of his inside pocket and read, “(202) 692-1254, extension 2. Should we go on?”
“Please.”
Carlson returned to his translation, moving from page to page with renewed confidence. It was clear that senators didn’t get much time for solitude or much privacy either. Carlson knew whom the Senator had seen, whom he’d called, and what they’d talked about. Twice he had to turn to his own address book and match a telephone number with an initial, but that was only to verify. At last they reached the end of it and Carlson said, “Is that all you wanted from me?”
“Yes, Mr. Carlson. Thank you for your cooperation. Where can I reach you if we need to ask anything else?”
“For now, in the Senator’s office. If my situation changes, I’ll let the FBI know.” He glanced at his watch again and said, “Good-bye.” They didn’t shake hands before he went out, closing the door behind him.
AT THE CONSTELLATION HOTEL the only sign that there was anything that hadn’t been planned and provided by a solicitous and efficient management was that the elevator wouldn’t stop at the fourth floor.
It wasn’t until she closed the door to her room that Elizabeth realized she had forgotten to stop at the Bureau to return the Senator’s notebook to the lab. She cradled the telephone in her lap while she rummaged through her purse for Lang’s number. When the telephone rang she felt it and heard it at the same time. Her startled jump knocked the phone to the floor.
“Hello?” she shouted into it.
“Hi, clumsy,” said the voice.
“Hello, Padgett,” she said. “What have you got for me?”
“A sore finger. I’ve been calling all day.”
“I was at the FBI working.”
“You don’t have to tell me. I don’t handle travel expenses. Making any headway?”
“We’ve got a little to go on, but it’s mostly hunches and shaky physical evidence. Enough to keep us busy. Have you got anything new on the Veasy thing?”
“Just what you asked for. The company pension fund has been mishandled, from the look of it.”
“Ah—”
“Just mishandled. Stupidity, not crookedness. They’ve dumped most of it into pie-in-the-sky stuff, hoping for a killing. A lot of it’s gone to the outfit you asked about—Fieldston Growth Enterprises. It looks legitimate, but they’re speculators, pure and simple. Buying up a lot of undeveloped land in resort areas, things like that. Been at it about eight years, picked up a lot of paper profit but not a dime you or the union or the IRS for that matter could put your hands on.”
“Where’s their office?”
“Las Vegas.”
“Why did I ask? Who owns it?”
“Biggest stockholder is Edgar Fieldston himself, at forty-two percent. There’s not much information on him. No arrests, pays his taxes and all that. He’s chairman of the board and draws a salary of seventy-five thousand. Second is the Machinists, who own fifteen percent. The rest are individuals, a couple of banks, all small percentages.”
“Where’d you get all this?”
“It’s all public information—their annual report, ‘FGE for the Future.’ Then I checked with a few people in the SEC and the FTC to corroborate—”
“FGE.”
“Sure. Fieldston Growth Enterprises.”
“Is Brayer nearby? I’ve got to talk to him.”
He woke up to his own face; as though it were a separate entity that had moved into the room during the night and now filled a corner like a piece of furniture that would somehow have to be moved aside before anything else could happen. It was dry and angry and hot to the touch. He made his way to the mirror and confronted it.
It wasn’t as bad as it felt, he thought—not infected, anyway. But it was going to take some time and even then it would leave a scar. The bruises and bumps would go away in a couple of weeks, but not the cut. The knee was stiff, but he could feel the blood beginning to course through it and loosen it a little.
He looked at his watch. Eleven o’clock already. He carefully shaved, ran the shower over his wounds, put on clean clothes, and went out into the corridor. It was time to pick up the watchers and get something to eat. They’d
