Establishment by Howard Fast Read Free Book Online

million dollars, so the gesture was not a small one. Somewhat reluctantly, she agreed to become the nominal head of the board of directors of the foundation.
    And it was this foundation that Brodsky spoke about, sitting with Bernie in his office at the garage. Cohen replied that it was out of the question. “I wouldn’t even suggest it,” he said. “This is a case of something being purer than Caesar’s wife. That damn foundation is sacrosanct. God Almighty, Irv, I am married to a very strange and unusual woman, who happens to be married to a sonofabitch. Suppose I didn’t go with you. You could still pull it off.”
    â€œNot without the planes.”
    â€œWhy not take the money out of the two million you have in New York?”
    â€œBecause the deal with those Czech bastards is for two million dollars. We get ten World War II Messerschmitt fighters and the rest in small arms. You’re the best small arms expert I know.”
    â€œWhat are they asking for the Messerschmitts?”
    â€œFifty thousand dollars each.”
    â€œNo.”
    â€œYeah, they’re our friends. But what do we do? Truman put an embargo on anything here. We could pick up war surplus fighters for five thousand dollars, but we’d never get them out of the country, and if we don’t get those C-54s—”
    â€œWe’ll get them.”
    â€œHow?”
    â€œRob a bank if we have to.”
    â€œYou’re kidding,” Brodsky said.
    â€œMaybe. I don’t know.”
    ***
    Barbara sat in her living room and stared at the bulging brown leather briefcase that her father had left on the floor just inside the doorway. Her house was one of those narrow, two-story Victorian structures that still line so many of the streets that descend from Russian Hill. Sam Goldberg, her father’s lawyer and subsequently her own lawyer and friend and protector, had built the house for his bride in 1892. It had survived the earthquake and the fire almost undamaged, and both Goldberg and his wife, childless, had lived there all their lives and finally died there, the wife first and Sam some years later. Barbara bought the house from his estate. It had two bay windows, triptych fashion, one above the other. The doorway, six steps above the street, was framed by wooden columns in a pseudo-Moorish style. The doorway and each of the windows had elaborately carved cornices above them, and each cornice, and the roof too, rested upon rows of dentils, each of which was carved as elaborately as the cornice it supported. The carving on the front of the house was a wonderful, uninhibited mixture of the Ionic, Corinthian, and Moorish styles, sitting upon white clapboard walls.
    Barbara loved the house passionately. After her years in Paris and the time she spent in the Far East and Africa as a war correspondent, it was her safe harbor, her refuge and cave. Many people shunned these old houses because of their small rooms, but Barbara enjoyed the feeling of closeness and intimacy. She had redecorated and refurnished most of the rooms and had installed a modern kitchen, but the little parlor, its walls painted a Wedgwood green, was still furnished in the black, horsehair-covered, tufted pieces that had been there since Sam Goldberg acquired them in the eighteen nineties.
    Barbara sat on one of these plump, comfortable chairs and contemplated the bag of money, herself, her past, her possible future, and her marriage. She had not opened the briefcase. Money did not fascinate her; neither did it repel her. Aside from its use, she was indifferent to it, which she had puzzled over for a long time and had finally accepted as a syndrome of at least some who are born to great wealth. Years ago, when she was a student at Sarah Lawrence and went to New York with some schoolmates, she had without much thought given a five-dollar bill to a beggar. She would never forget the shocked surprise of her friends. Now she stared at a