The Hellfire Club Read online

  This is a work of fiction. The events in this novel are imaginary, including those featuring historical or public figures, except for the events and quotes specifically noted at the end of the book.

  Copyright © 2018 by Jake Tapper

  Cover design by Allison J. Warner

  Cover photographs: car by Superstock; Capitol Building by Alberto Zamorano / Shutterstock

  Author photograph © CNN

  Cover © 2018 Hachette Book Group, Inc.

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  First ebook edition: April 2018

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  ISBN 978-0-316-47233-3

  E3-20180328-NF-DA

  Table of Contents

  Cover

  Title

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Epigraph

  Chapter One: Friday, March 5, 1954—Dawn

  Chapter Two: Thursday, January 14, 1954

  Chapter Three: Friday, January 15, 1954—Morning

  Chapter Four: Friday, January 15, 1954—Afternoon

  Chapter Five: Monday, January 18, 1954

  Chapter Six: Sunday, December 7, 1941

  Chapter Seven: Wednesday, January 20, 1954

  Chapter Eight: Saturday, January 23, 1954

  Chapter Nine: Thursday, February 18, 1954

  Chapter Ten: Saturday, February 27, 1954

  Chapter Eleven: Monday, March 1, 1954—Morning

  Chapter Twelve: Monday, March 1, 1954—Afternoon

  Chapter Thirteen: Thursday, March 4, 1954—Morning

  Chapter Fourteen: Thursday, March 4, 1954—Evening

  Chapter Fifteen: Friday, March 5, 1954

  Chapter Sixteen: Saturday, March 6, 1954

  Chapter Seventeen: Monday, March 8, 1954—Morning

  Chapter Eighteen: Monday, March 8, 1954—Afternoon

  Chapter Nineteen: Wednesday, March 10, 1954

  Chapter Twenty: Wednesday, March 10, 1954

  Chapter Twenty-One: Tuesday, March 16, 1954

  Chapter Twenty-Two: Tuesday, April 20, 1954

  Chapter Twenty-Three: Friday, June 5, 1772

  Chapter Twenty-Four: Wednesday, April 21, 1954—Morning

  Chapter Twenty-Five: Wednesday, April 21, 1954—Afternoon

  Chapter Twenty-Six: Wednesday, April 21, 1954—Evening

  Chapter Twenty-Seven: Thursday, April 22, 1954— Early Morning

  Chapter Twenty-Eight: Thursday, April 22, 1954— Early Morning

  Chapter Twenty-Nine: Thursday, April 22, 1954—Morning

  Epilogue: Friday, April 30, 1954

  Sources

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  Also by Jake Tapper

  Discover More Jake Tapper

  To Jennifer,

  my lodestar

  We are not reformers. We are reporters. As such we will take you with us through a metropolitan area of 1,500,000, living in what should be a utopia, but which is a cesspool of drunkenness, debauchery, whoring, homosexuality, municipal corruption and public apathy, protected crime under criminal protectionism, hoodlumism, racketeering, pandering and plundering, among anomalous situations found nowhere else on earth.

  —Jack Lait and Lee Mortimer,

  Washington Confidential, 1951

  Chapter One

  Friday, March 5, 1954—Dawn

  Rock Creek Park, Washington, DC

  He snapped out of the blackness with a mouth full of mud.

  Charlie Marder coughed up grime and spat silt, then raised himself on his elbows and tried to make sense of where he was.

  Sprawled on the leafy banks of a creek, he wore a tuxedo that was insufficient to combat the March chill. A wispy fog hovered; sporadic chirping came from nearby families of wrens rising with the sun.

  A stone bridge and paved road lay in front of him. Wincing with the effort, he hoisted himself onto his knees and turned. Behind him, a semi-submerged Studebaker sat in the creek’s muddy bank, its driver’s door open.

  He squinted and could just make out, downstream, the recently restored old Peirce Mill and its waterwheel. He was in Rock Creek Park, 1,754 acres of woods, trails, and road tucked in Northwest Washington, DC, far from his Georgetown brownstone.

  How did I get here?

  Charlie said it to himself, first in his head and then as a whisper and then repeating it aloud: “How did I get here?” His voice was gravelly. He stumbled as he tried to stand, and realized that he was drunk. His mouth was parched. Where had he been drinking?

  He looked at his Timex, adjusting his wrist to catch the light: 4:55 a.m. Memories began to emerge—a party, a celebration, a club of some sort. Frank Carlin, the powerful House Appropriations Committee chairman, encouraging a young, attractive waitress to do something. What was it? She poured ice water onto a sugar cube held on a flattened perforated spoon over a glass. And the glass contained absinthe. “This is how the French do it,” Carlin said. And from there the night went dark.

  Charlie staggered forward. Looked back at the Studebaker. Muddy tracks traced the car’s path from the road to its final resting place on the riverbank. Okay. I skidded off the parkway. This was a problem. But nothing insurmountable. An accident. Maybe he could just walk away. He didn’t recognize the car, had no recollection of being behind the wheel. “Absinthe,” he muttered under his breath.

  He took stock of the situation. This was not even a ripple in the ocean of atrocities he’d witnessed in France during the war. He was not a person of poor character. He was someone who tried to do good; he was currently fighting for his fellow troops from the turret of his congressional office. In the grand scheme of things, would it be so wrong to just leave the scene and spare himself a litany of questions he might not be able to answer?

  And then he heard it: a low din, a car’s motor heading toward him. Ah, well, Charlie thought. Fate is making the decision for me. I’ll stand here and face whatever happens. He exhaled, steeling himself.

  With relief, he recognized the spit-shined baby-blue Dodge Firearrow sport coupe. It belonged to someone he knew, a friend, even: well-connected lobbyist Davis LaMontagne. It was a car perfectly suited to its owner, glossy and stylish. LaMontagne pulled the car to a stop at the side of the road and rolled down his window.

  “Charlie,” he said, “Jesus Christ.”

  He opened the door and emerged, looking as though he’d just stepped out of the pages of a magazine ad for cigarettes or suits. His hair slicked back, his blue hip-length bush jacket hanging loosely from his broad Rocky Marciano build, he briefly surveyed the scene, then began to negotiate his way carefully down the rocky, muddy decline toward Charlie.

  “Davis,” Charlie said. “I have no idea—” He spread his arms to finish the sentence for him.


  Before LaMontagne could respond, they heard a sound in the distance.

  Another car.

  Its windows must have been open despite the morning chill; as it drew closer, they could hear the bark of a radio newscaster. LaMontagne didn’t move, as if he were freezing the action in his world until this problem took care of itself.

  And it did. The sounds of car and radio changed pitch, suggesting the car, off in the distance, was now driving away from them.

  Unruffled, LaMontagne continued his approach and arrived at Charlie’s side. Charlie was hit with a whiff of his smoky, woody cologne.

  “Are you all right?”

  “Fine,” Charlie said, though his head was throbbing and he would have given his left arm for a glass of water. “Do you have any idea how I got here?”

  “Last I saw you was at the party,” LaMontagne said. “You were snockered. Then you made an Irish exit.” He raised his hand and made an elegant illustrative explosion with his fingertips: poof. “You okay? Jesus. Thank God you’re alive.” LaMontagne looked over his shoulder at the Studebaker. “Whose car is that?”

  Charlie suppressed a wave of nausea; when it passed, he rubbed his chin and shrugged. “I have no idea.”

  LaMontagne pulled on his black leather gloves, took a folded handkerchief from his suit pocket, and leaned into the driver’s seat of the Studebaker. He wiped the steering wheel, the gearshift, the radio knobs, and the window roller; on his way out, he removed the keys from the ignition, then wiped the door handle. Sliding the keys into his pocket, he stood up straight and put a hand on Charlie’s shoulder.

  “Let’s burn rubber,” he said.

  Charlie let himself be guided briskly up to the road and the Dodge, where he collapsed with relief in the passenger seat as LaMontagne shut the door firmly.

  Halfway around the front of the car, the man suddenly stopped. Through the windshield, Charlie saw him looking down at the narrow shoulder of the road.

  “Charlie,” LaMontagne said, a seriousness in his baritone Charlie had never heard before. “You need to see this.”

  Charlie exited and joined LaMontagne, who was staring at what at first appeared to be a bundle of discarded clothes in a narrow drainage ditch but upon closer examination proved to be a young woman lying on her right side, facing away from the road, her left arm twisted awkwardly behind her. Blood had soaked through the back of her low-cut dress.

  Charlie’s heart thudding into his lungs, he slowly knelt on the grass and gently rolled the woman toward him; she fell onto her back. She had red hair and couldn’t have been more than twenty-two. Charlie had vague memories of her from the night before. Is she a cocktail waitress, maybe?

  He looked up at LaMontagne in disbelief, but the man’s gaze was elsewhere, back toward the spot where he’d found Charlie. “I didn’t think anything of it before, but the passenger door of that Studebaker is open. Jesus. Do you think she fell out of your car?”

  Fighting his rising anxiety, Charlie gingerly placed two fingers on the side of the woman’s neck. She was porcelain pale and still. Her eyes were closed, sealed by thick fake lashes. Her body was cool to the touch. He could feel no pulse.

  He looked at LaMontagne and shook his head slowly.

  “Christ,” said LaMontagne. He squatted and put two fingers on the woman’s neck to see for himself. Then on her wrist. He hung his head briefly, then seemed to collect himself. He stood, moved behind the young woman’s lifeless body, bent down, and threaded his arms beneath her shoulders.

  Charlie was numb, motionless.

  LaMontagne looked at him with gravity and impatience.

  “Congressman,” he said sharply. “Grab her feet.”

  Chapter Two

  Thursday, January 14, 1954

  Arena Stage, Washington, DC

  The self-satisfaction was almost like a physical presence in the theater lobby, a distinct mélange of aromas exclusive to the halls of power—high-priced perfume and expensive hors d’oeuvres, top-shelf liquor and freshly minted cash. It all billowed into a rich toxic cloud that made Charlie Marder’s throat constrict.

  Charlie generally prided himself on his ease in social settings, but tonight he was on edge, feeling oddly exposed while he waited for Margaret to return from the powder room. As a professor at Columbia, he’d given countless lectures, attended dozens of professional functions, and even made a few TV appearances when Sons of Liberty, his book on the Founding Fathers, hit the bestseller list four years before. Tall and broad-shouldered with piercing blue eyes, Charlie had found it easy to navigate the worlds of academia and literary celebrity. But he felt out of his element here, surrounded by political and press powerhouses drinking and smoking and chortling among themselves.

  He rubbed the back of his neck, scanning the room for any sign of Margaret. The crowd, of course, couldn’t have cared less about his anxiety, busy as they were with their own competing agendas. He ambled around the auditorium to pass the time; bits of conversations flew by his ears:

  Let’s just say my respect for the congressman knows bounds.

  If the court rules to desegregate, it’s going to get ugly.

  No, I don’t hate musicals. I just don’t understand them. Why would people break out in song? And even suspending disbelief, the songs are seldom any good.

  No kids. She’s a work nun.

  Has anyone actually gotten a look at the naval records of PT-109?

  I’ll say it: If Ike was as weak against the Krauts as he is against McCarthy, we’d all be speaking German right now.

  Did you see it? First issue came out last month. Naked Marilyn Monroe.

  No, when I said they were bums, I meant the baseball team the Senators, not actual senators.

  We still have troops in Korea, darling. We’ll have them there forever.

  Miserably self-conscious, Charlie gulped his martini, swallowed wrong, and coughed loudly just as Senator Jack Kennedy made his entrance. Heads turned as the handsome senator glided past Charlie, glamorous new wife in tow. Charlie caught a strong whiff of bandages and ointment. He wondered which of them had recently sustained an injury. From his earliest days, Charlie had possessed an abnormally keen sense of smell. He did not consider it a gift.

  He gave his empty glass to a passing waiter and watched the celebrity couple as they made their way across the plush maroon carpet to join the senator’s brother Robert. The younger Kennedy was deep in conversation with Senator Joseph McCarthy, the Republican from Wisconsin currently about to start the fifth consecutive year of a reckless smear campaign designed to drive the threat of Communism, real and imagined, from every corner of American society. Charlie knew that Robert Kennedy and McCarthy worked together on the committee McCarthy chaired, and from all appearances, they were pals as well.

  Charlie’s pondering of their seemingly odd friendship ended when Margaret reappeared. Even after nine years of marriage, Charlie still felt his heart jump when he saw her. Her blond hair was swept off her forehead; a simply cut emerald-green dress made the most of her athletic frame, its color highlighting her kelly-green eyes. Eyes that betrayed no sign of the frayed nerves Charlie felt, he noticed, although she was just as new to this scene as he was; they had arrived in Washington, DC, only three weeks earlier, after Charlie was appointed to fill a congressional seat that had suddenly become vacant.

  “This with-child business is murder,” Margaret said, rubbing her still-flat stomach. “It feels like our little one has rented a one-bedroom on top of my bladder.” She was roughly six weeks pregnant, they’d learned a few days ago. “Has Senator Kefauver shown up yet?”

  “Nope,” said Charlie. “But the Kennedy boys have. My mom would melt like a Popsicle.”

  Charlie’s mother somewhat secretly worshipped the Kennedy brood. His father, Winston, a powerful Republican lawyer in Manhattan, had a more skeptical view of Ambassador Joseph Kennedy and, through the transitive property, his scions. He faulted the Kennedy patriarch for wanting to appease Hitle
r. For fun, he’d also bad-mouth him for having made his fortune in bootlegging during Prohibition.

  Margaret glanced sideways, where a very old Herbert Hoover was hobbling through the crowd. She grimaced sympathetically as the former president gripped the golden banister and, with an expression of great pain, made his way slowly up the red-carpeted stairs.

  “Mothballs,” Charlie said of Hoover after he was out of earshot.

  “Poor Charlie,” Margaret said. “That nose of yours.”

  “The world is not primarily peppermint.” Charlie turned his attention to the colorful lobby poster for the show preview they were about to see, The Pajama Game, which was set to debut on Broadway in the spring. “What’s it about, anyway? I mean, besides being about ninety minutes too long.” Charlie was not a fan of musicals.

  “It’s about strikes,” said Margaret.

  “Baseball? Bowling?” He enjoyed playing clueless sidekick to Margaret’s straight man.

  “Unions, dear.”

  “Of course,” said Charlie. “Who wouldn’t look at sweaty longshoremen in Hoboken, New Jersey, and think, You know what? I’d love to see them sing and dance!”

  “This isn’t On the Waterfront, sweetheart, this strike is at a pajama factory.” Margaret straightened his tie. “Remember that book I read last summer? Seven and a Half Cents?”

  “Honey, I can’t keep track,” Charlie said. “You go through more bestsellers than a McCarthy bonfire.”

  Margaret tsked and rolled her eyes. “Anyway, this is based on the book I read. The head of the grievance committee, a lady, falls in love with the supervisor who’s rejecting her pleas for a seven-and-a-half-cent wage increase.”

  “In bed with the opposition,” Charlie said. “This crowd will love it.”

  Margaret gestured toward the Kennedys. “That’s right, I’d read that McCarthy and the Kennedys were very close. And isn’t ‘Tail Gunner Joe’ godfather to one of Bobby’s kids?”

  “Dad says no one who knows him calls him Bobby—it’s Bob,” Charlie said. “I think the godfather thing is just a rumor. It’s odd, though, these Democratic princes befriending my party’s fire-breathing dragon. We’re going to need a flowchart to keep track of all the alliances.”