The Language of Cannibals Read online

  Culhane had cut his political teeth as a fund-raiser in the political twilight world of Lyndon Larouche, a fact he denied but which had been confirmed by a number of reporters, then left when Larouche’s ship began to sink under the combined weight of too many preposterous conspiracy theories, charges of wide-spread mail and credit card fraud, and increasingly frequent visits from the IRS.

  He landed on his feet, running, when, through powerful connections he’d made while working for Larouche, he was taken on board by successive conservative administrations that found him, at least for a time, useful as a bulwark against right-wing critics. Then Kevin Shannon was elected president—an event in which Garth and I played no small part, albeit by default, and through no choice of our own—and Culhane was out.

  Out, maybe, but by no means down. Quite the contrary. Within a short time after Shannon’s inauguration, Culhane was signed for a syndicated column, and began popping up all over the place on various television news and talk shows as a “spokesman for the right.” He certainly caught on in this post-Vietnam world among a segment of the population living in an America that no longer quite fit their notion of what America had once been, and should be. Culhane’s was an “us against them” view of the planet—and by “us” he by no means meant all Americans, but only those who shared his views; those who perceived things differently were “dupes of the Russians” at best, and at worst traitors.

  It was a song-and-dance revue that played very nicely in Peoria, and a good many other places as well. While I might consider Elysius Culhane a monumental pain in the ass, a national embarrassment, and a transparent demagogue dispensing apocalyptic visions that bore no relationship whatever with reality, a very large mass of people considered him little less than a potential savior of America.

  According to the PBS documentary, stating an opinion reflected in a number of articles I’d read since then, the éminence grise behind Elysius Culhane’s relatively rapid rise to his present position of celebrity, power, and wealth was none other than the mysterious, rarely seen Jay Acton. Acton was the strategist who’d found the right formula to successfully mix hot air, flaming oratory, flammatory ideas, and uncanny skill at obfuscation into a potent brew that fueled an increasingly powerful political infernal medicine of divisiveness and hatred.

  I wondered what Jay Acton was doing in Cairn, at this art exhibition.

  “Dr. Robert Frederickson, I presume?”

  Ah, again. Jay Acton was in Cairn, at this art exhibition, because his boss was here.

  I turned around to face Elysius Culhane, who was standing directly behind me. I was used to seeing him in close-up on a television screen, perspiration filming his high forehead and upper lip as he leaned forward to launch into one of his harangues about “cleaning up the soul of America.” On television he always loomed large, and I was surprised to find that he was no more than five feet six or seven, stocky. He was wearing an expensive gray silk suit with a cream-colored shirt, patterned silk tie, and black alligator shoes. His graying black hair was combed straight back. He had piercing black eyes, a nose that looked as if it had been broken at least once and not properly set. There was a comma of scar tissue at the corner of his right eye. His deep tan nicely highlighted the unnatural white of his capped teeth. I thought he looked like a Hollywood version of a mobster, but then I was prejudiced.

  “Elysius Culhane,” I replied. When I shook the hand he extended I noted a slight tremor.

  “I’m flattered that you recognize me,” he said with a disingenuous smile that indicated he certainly wasn’t surprised I’d recognized him.

  “Do I detect a note of false modesty? You’re the celebrity here, Mr. Culhane, not me.”

  “From what I’ve heard about you, I wouldn’t think that you’d be one of my viewers.”

  “I don’t know what you’ve heard about me,” I said with a little bit of my own disingenuous smile, “but the fact of the matter is that you’re pretty hard to avoid these days if you watch any news shows at all.”

  He smiled thinly and nodded, obviously pleased with my observation. “Well, you and your brother aren’t exactly just faces in the crowd, are you? It seems to me that I’ve been reading and hearing about the exploits of Mongo the Magnificent, ex-circus headliner turned criminology professor and private investigator, for years. You’re quite a colorful character, and I’m pleased to meet you.”

  “Likewise,” I said, trying as best I could to mask my lack of enthusiasm.

  “You’re in partnership now with your brother, aren’t you?”

  “You’re very well informed, Mr. Culhane.”

  “It’s my business to be informed, Dr. Frederickson, especially as it concerns the waxing and waning of political fortunes in Washington.”

  “You must have the wrong dwarf, Mr. Culhane. Frederickson and Frederickson has nothing to do with politics or power in Washington.”

  Culhane narrowed his eyelids and pursed his lips. “Now I think it’s you who’s displaying false modesty. It’s well known in the circles I travel in that you and your brother are personal friends of the president, as well as of that aging, cagey old fellow who’s director of the Defense Intelligence Agency.”

  Elysius Culhane’s tendency to slur words together was becoming gradually more pronounced, and he seemed slightly nervous. It occurred to me that he was digging for something.

  “You’d better get some new sources, Culhane. Kevin Shannon would probably be highly amused to hear me described as a friend of his. He knows how I feel about politics and politicians.”

  “Oh? How do you feel about politics and politicians?”

  “Anybody who expresses a desire to run for any office should automatically be disqualified.”

  “An interesting notion.”

  “Not original. Power doesn’t necessarily corrupt, but power always holds a fascination for people who are easily corrupted.”

  Culhane’s highly polished manner was growing a coat of tarnish; his smile had wrinkled into something approaching a sneer, and something that looked very much like contempt was glowing like banked coals in his black eyes. “Come now, Frederickson. Would you deny that Frederickson and Frederickson has grown enormously wealthy and powerful because of business that has been steered your way by this administration?”

  “If it has, I don’t know about it. I assume that Mr. Shannon and his associates have better things to do than steer business our way. Sometimes they even make decisions I agree with.”

  “Surely you’re aware that yours is the investigative agency of choice for those corporations and individuals who want to stay in the good graces of this administration.”

  “I’d like to think that Frederickson and Frederickson is the investigative agency of choice for corporations and individuals who want topflight investigatory work done.”

  His sneer was becoming even more pronounced. “I’ve offended you.”

  Ordinarily I would have considered it time for a tart exit line, but I continued to experience the feeling that Culhane was after more from me than casual conversation. I couldn’t imagine what, but my curiosity was sufficiently strong to keep me toe-to-toe with him for a while longer. I glanced over my shoulder, found that Jay Acton was gone. “Not at all,” I said, returning my gaze to the other man. “You were suffering from a misconception, which I hope I’ve corrected. I’ve observed that not many people ever get a chance to get a word in edgewise with you, much less enjoy the opportunity to try to straighten you out on some of your quaint notions.”

  He didn’t much like that, and he flushed slightly. “I’ve even heard it said that you and your brother, with certain knowledge in your possession, could perhaps have prevented the election of this accursed administration; I have to assume that the same information could bring down this administration. It wouldn’t be hard for a neutral observer like myself to conclude that more than natural market forces have been at work in your firm’s huge and relatively recent success. There may be powerful people
who don’t want to see you or your brother … disgruntled.”

  I was going to have to try to ignore the gross insult, because the first part of his statement happened to be true, and Elysius Culhane was the last person in the world I wanted to know. The knowledge he’d referred to could not only topple an administration but send a lot of people, including Garth and me, to prison. The realization that Elysius Culhane, with his complex web of confidants, contacts, and rumor-mongers, was sniffing the shreds of flesh left on these particular political skeletons chilled me.

  I smiled, said, “You’ve got to be kidding me.”

  “Is it true?” he asked in a flat tone. A bead of perspiration had appeared on his upper lip, just as if he were on television, and he quickly wiped it away.

  I smiled even harder, baring my teeth. “If it was, would I tell you?”

  “There might come a time when your sense of patriotism and duty to your country will—”

  “What are you doing in Cairn, Culhane?”

  The interruption seemed to throw him off balance. He stared at me for a few moments, obviously debating whether or not to pursue his examination of my sense of patriotism and duty to country, apparently thought better of it. “I live here,” he said with a shrug. “I moved from Washington to Cairn just about a year ago.”

  “Oh. Nice town.”

  “And you? Would you, uh … be here on business? I can’t imagine what there would be in Cairn that would require or test the keen investigative skills of the famed Mongo Frederickson.”

  “You’re too kind. Actually I’m just visiting; I happened to be passing by here, saw there was an art show, and decided to check it out.”

  “See anything you like?”

  “As a matter of fact, yes,” I replied, turning around in the otherwise empty corridor and pointing toward Jack Trex’s dimly lighted painting. “I was rather taken with that work over there.”

  Culhane grimaced, as if something he’d had for lunch or dinner had just repeated on him. “Really? I don’t like it at all. It doesn’t make any sense, and it’s depressing. In fact, I recommended that it not be included in the exhibit, but since the artist is the commander of this particular chapter of Vietnam Veterans of America, I was overruled.”

  “You recommended that it not be included? What are you, the local censor?”

  “No,” he replied in what I may only have imagined was a wistful tone, perhaps missing my sarcasm. “I underwrite a good many activities of the Vietnam veterans; as a matter of fact, this exhibit was my idea, and I’m sponsoring it. That painting has no place in a show like this. It does nothing to improve the image of the Vietnam veterans; it gives people the wrong impression. I think it was Patrick Buchanan who wrote that the food you put in a man’s mind is at least as important as the food you put in his stomach.”

  “By golly, that sounds almost Marxist. I think most people would rather have food in their bellies and be left alone.”

  “That painting is just garbage, and it’s not good for people to eat garbage.”

  “You think image ranks high on the Vietnam veterans’ list of problems?”

  “Yes. I think their image ranks high on the nation’s list of problems. They’re perceived as a bunch of drug addicts, alcoholics, adulterers, and sissies who can’t handle stress.”

  “I always thought they were perceived as a group of fighting men who have some special problems because they were unfortunate enough to have been caught up in a special kind of war we weren’t really prepared to fight.”

  “They have problems because they fought in a war America lost, Frederickson,” Culhane said with real emotion, his slur once again becoming pronounced. “America now has special problems because it fought a war and lost, a war that was lost because of fuzzy-headed thinking and cowardly actions by leaders like Kevin Shannon. The Vietnam veterans were betrayed; the country was betrayed. Many of these men don’t really understand that to this day. When they do understand it, and when they, or men like them, can be unleashed to fight communists once again and win for a change, they’ll feel better. The country will feel better. When people see a painting like Trex’s, their image of the veterans is that they’re a group of cowards who blame America for what happened to them. It’s defeatist.”

  “An intriguing political and artistic analysis.”

  “You’re patronizing me.”

  “What do you expect me to say, Culhane? You expect me to argue with you? I’m not interested in politics, and I’m even less interested in political discussions. Sometimes I suspect that strong political ideology, like religious fervor, has a genetic as well as a cultural basis. Maybe they’re just two faces of the same psychological phenomenon.”

  “You don’t believe in God? You don’t believe in your country?”

  “I believe in gravity, mathematics, and mystery, as a friend of mine once said. As far as my country is concerned, I’m constantly amazed that our institutions have enabled us, at least so far, to survive the band of fools we keep on elevating to positions of power, not to mention the dunces, liars, thieves, and hypocrites.”

  “You’re naive.”

  “Hmm. Does that mean you don’t agree with me?”

  “What does that painting mean?”

  “I wouldn’t presume to try and second-guess the artist. You probably wouldn’t see it the same way in any case.”

  “What does it mean to you, Frederickson?”

  “It means Jack Trex probably wouldn’t see it the same way as you either.”

  Elysius Culhane studied me for a few moments, looked down at the floor, then back at me. I had the impression that he was making an effort to calm himself. “I’m enjoying this conversation immensely, Frederickson,” he said at last. “May I suggest that we continue it tomorrow? I have a rather nice home on the river. Why don’t you join me tomorrow afternoon for cocktails?”

  “I won’t be here that long, Culhane, and I don’t believe you’re enjoying this conversation. What do you really want from me?”

  Again Culhane flushed, and he averted his gaze. His smile had become a grimace. He took a deep breath, slowly let it out. “All right, that’s blunt enough,” he said. “What I’d like is to talk some more about your relationship with Kevin Shannon.”

  “You mean you want me to tell you what you think I know that could hurt the president and his administration.”

  “Some people say you and your brother know more about some of this country’s vital secrets than the director of the CIA.”

  “You know, Culhane, I can never tell if you’re putting me on. I read your columns and listen to you on television; you’re the one who’s the obvious recipient of leaks of classified information. Every time there’s going to be a vote on the defense budget, you come up with some of the most wondrous information.”

  “You may not always feel as anti-American as you do now. You—”

  “Who said I feel anti-American?”

  “There may come a time when your opinions will change.”

  “Meaning that I’ll see things your way?”

  “If and when that time comes, you may want to make some moves that could help your country. If you’ll share information about Shannon with me, I’ll make it worth your while.”

  “You’d pay me?”

  “Of course.”

  “I love it. Is betrayal high on that list of what you call ‘Christian values’?”

  “Supplying information that will hurt the enemies of this country isn’t betrayal.”

  “Do you really believe that Kevin Shannon is an enemy of this country?”

  “Unwittingly, perhaps, but his actions make him a dupe of the communists.”

  “Culhane, has it ever occurred to you that there are people in this country who believe that the American right wing has been, and continues to be, a greater threat to our personal liberties than the communists ever have been, or will be? You guys are always talking about getting government off the backs of the people, but what you re
ally mean is that you want the government to get off the back of business. It doesn’t bother you at all, in fact you like it, when the government goes snooping into our bedrooms and libraries. Total social control has always been a wet dream of the far right. I don’t mind the government auditing my taxes, Culhane, but I sure as hell don’t want it auditing my mind.”

  The color drained from Elysius Culhane’s face. He shifted his weight slightly, like a prizefighter, raised a thick index finger, and stuck it in my face. “You’re what’s wrong with this country, you fucking dwarf communist! People like you are the reason this country is going down the toilet!”

  I was studying the finger in front of my face, trying to decide just what I wanted to do with it, when there was a sudden loud screech of brakes from the street, then movement and shouts from the people in the other room. Culhane turned in the direction of the noise, and I decided it was better to leave his finger alone than risk a lawsuit for assault. I brushed past him in the narrow corridor, went into the main viewing area to see what all the excitement was about.

  It looked as if the house had listed and thrown everyone to the front; people were crowded in the entranceway and at the windows, staring at something outside.

  A woman shouted, “Atta boy, Gregory! Way to clean up the sidewalk!”

  Being of diminutive stature occasionally has it advantages. I was able to slip, sidle, and squeeze through the clot of people in the entranceway and make my way out to the porch, where I maneuvered around more people until I was able to claim a spot at the railing.

  The screech of tires I’d heard had, I assumed, come from the Jeep Wagoneer that was now resting half up over the curb with its nose on the sidewalk at about the spot where the three men from the Community of Conciliation had been passing out their fliers. One of the blue-shirted Community members was sitting on the ground, ashen-faced and stunned, his fliers scattered around him. The other two men were trying unsuccessfully to hold their ground against a heavyset man, presumably the driver of the wayward Jeep, who kept advancing on them, bumping first one Community member and then the other with his barrel chest as he snatched at the fliers in their hands. The big man wore camouflage fatigues and a khaki tank top. He wore his blond hair cut very short on the top and shaved on the sides. I decided he was too young, probably in his early twenties, to be a veteran of anything more serious than Grenada. Except for the black sneakers he wore, and the fact that MPs and commanding officers take a very dim view of servicemen driving up on sidewalks and bullying civilians, he looked as if he might have just stepped out of a Marine barracks or boot camp.