The Matlock Paper Read online

“Hold it, Sam.” Matlock raised his hand off the arm of the chair. Kressel’s sudden antagonism seemed uncalled for. “Sealfont said we had the option to refuse whatever he wants. If we exercise that option—and we probably will—I’d like to think we did so out of judgment, not blind reaction.”

  “Don’t be naïve, Jim. You receive restricted or classified information and instantly, post facto, you’re involved. You can’t deny receiving it; you can’t say it didn’t happen.”

  Matlock looked up at Loring. “Is that true?”

  “To a degree, yes. I won’t lie about it.”

  “Then why should we listen to you?”

  “Because Carlyle University is involved; has been for years. And the situation is critical. So critical that there are only three weeks left to act on the information we have.”

  Kressel got out of his chair, took a deep breath, and exhaled slowly. “Create the crisis—without proof—and force the involvement. The crisis fades but the records show the university was a silent participant in a federal investigation. That was the pattern at the University of Wisconsin.” Kressel turned to Matlock. “Do you remember that one, Jim? Six days of riots on campus. Half a semester lost on teach-ins.”

  “That was Pentagon oriented,” said Loring. “The circumstances were entirely different.”

  “You think the Justice Department makes it more palatable? Read a few campus newspapers.”

  “For Christ’s sake, Sam, let the man talk. If you don’t want to listen, go home. I want to hear what he has to say.”

  Kressel looked down at Matlock. “All right. I think I understand. Go ahead, Loring. Just remember, no obligations. And we’re not bound to respect any conditions of confidence.”

  “I’ll gamble on your common sense.”

  “That may be a mistake.” Kressel walked to the bar and replenished his drink.

  Loring sat on the edge of the desk. “I’ll start by asking both of you if you’ve ever heard of the word nimrod.”

  “Nimrod is a Hebrew name,” Matlock answered. “Old Testament. A descendant of Noah, ruler of Babylon and Nineveh. Legendary prowess as a hunter, which obscures the more important fact that he founded, or built, the great cities in Assyria and Mesopotamia.”

  Loring smiled. “Very good again, professor. A hunter and a builder. I’m speaking in more contemporary terms, however.”

  “Then, no, I haven’t. Have you, Sam?”

  Kressel walked back to his chair, carrying his glass. “I didn’t even know what you just said. I thought a nimrod was a casting fly. Very good for trout.”

  “Then I’ll fill in some background.… I don’t mean to bore you with narcotics statistics; I’m sure you’re bombarded with them constantly.”

  “Constantly,” said Kressel.

  “But there’s an isolated geographical statistic you may not be aware of. The concentration of drug traffic in the New England states is growing at a rate exceeding that of any other section of the country. It’s a startling pattern. Since 1968, there’s been a systematic erosion of enforcement procedures.… Let me put it into perspective, geographically. In California, Illinois, Louisiana, narcotics controls have improved to the point of at least curtailing the growth curves. It’s really the best we can hope for until the international agreements have teeth. But not in the New England area. Throughout this section, the expansion has gone wild. It’s hit the colleges hard.”

  “How do you know that?” asked Matlock.

  “Dozens of ways and always too late to prevent distribution. Informers, marked inventories from Mediterranean, Asian, and Latin American sources, traceable Swiss deposits; that is restricted data.” Loring looked at Kressel and smiled.

  “Now I know you people are crazy.” Kressel spoke disagreeably. “It seems to me that if you can substantiate those charges, you should do so publicly. And loud.”

  “We have our reasons.”

  “Also restricted, I assume,” said Kressel with faint disgust.

  “There’s a side issue,” continued the government man, disregarding him. “The eastern prestige campuses—large and small, Princeton, Amherst, Harvard, Vassar, Williams, Carlyle—a good percentage of their enrollments include VIP kids. Sons and daughters of very important people, especially in government and industry. There’s a blackmail potential, and we think it’s been used. Such people are painfully sensitive to drug scandals.”

  Kressel interrupted. “Granting what you say is true, and I don’t, we’ve had less trouble here than most other colleges in the northeast area.”

  “We’re aware of that. We even think we know why.”

  “That’s esoteric, Mr. Loring. Say what you want to say.” Matlock didn’t like the games some people played.

  “Any distribution network which is capable of systematically servicing, expanding, and controlling an entire section of the country has got to have a base of operations. A clearing house—you might say, a command post. Believe me when I tell you that this base of operations, the command post for the narcotics traffic throughout the New England states, is Carlyle University.”

  Samuel Kressel, dean of the colleges, dropped his glass on Adrian Sealfont’s parquet floor.

  Ralph Loring continued his incredible story. Matlock and Kressel remained in their chairs. Several times during his calm, methodical explanation, Kressel began to interrupt, to object, but Loring’s persuasive narrative cut him short. There was nothing to argue.

  The investigation of Carlyle University had begun eighteen months ago. It had been triggered by an accounts ledger uncovered by the French Sureté during one of its frequent narcotics investigations in the port of Marseilles. Once the ledger’s American origins were established, it was sent to Washington under Interpol agreement. Throughout the ledger’s entries were references to “C-22°–59°” consistently followed by the name Nimrod. The numbered degree marks were found to be map coordinates of northern Connecticut, but not decimally definitive. After tracing hundreds of possible trucking routes from Atlantic seaboard piers and airports relative to the Marseilles operation, the vicinity of Carlyle was placed under maximum surveillance.

  As part of the surveillance, telephone taps were ordered on persons known to be involved with narcotics distribution from such points as New York, Hartford, Boston, and New Haven. Tapes were made of conversations of underworld figures. All calls regarding narcotics to and from the Carlyle area were placed to and from public telephone booths. It made the intercepts difficult, but not impossible. Again, restricted methods.

  As the information files grew, a startling fact became apparent. The Carlyle group was independent. It had no formal ties with structured organized crime; it was beholden to no one. It used known criminal elements, was not used by them. It was a tightly knit unit, reaching into the majority of New England universities. And it did not—apparently—stop at drugs.

  There was evidence of the Carlyle unit’s infiltration into gambling, prostitution, even postgraduate employment placement. Too, there seemed to be a purpose, an objective beyond the inherent profits of the illegal activities. The Carlyle unit could have made far greater profit with less complications by dealing outright with known criminals, acknowledged suppliers in all areas. Instead, it spent its own money to set up its organization. It was its own master, controlling its own sources, its own distribution. But what its ultimate objectives were was unclear.

  It had become so powerful that it threatened the leadership of organized crime in the Northeast. For this reason, leading figures of the underworld had demanded a conference with those in charge of the Carlyle operation. The key here was a group, or an individual, referred to as Nimrod.

  The purpose of the conference, as far as could be determined, was for an accommodation to be reached between Nimrod and the overlords of crime who felt threatened by Nimrod’s extraordinary growth. The conference would be attended by dozens of known and unknown criminals throughout the New England states.

  “Mr. Kressel.” Loring turned to
Carlyle’s dean and seemed to hesitate. “I suppose you have lists—students, faculty, staff—people you know or have reason to suspect are into the drug scene. I can’t assume it because I don’t know, but most colleges do have.”

  “I won’t answer that question.”

  “Which, of course, gives me my answer,” said Loring quietly, even sympathetically.

  “Not for a minute! You people have a habit of assuming exactly what you want to assume.”

  “All right, I stand rebuked. But even if you’d said yes, it wasn’t my purpose to ask for them. It was merely by way of telling you that we do have such a list. I wanted you to know that.”

  Sam Kressel realized he’d been trapped; Loring’s ingenuousness only annoyed him further. “I’m sure you do.”

  “Needless to say, we’d have no objection to giving you a copy.”

  “That won’t be necessary.”

  “You’re pretty obstinate, Sam,” said Matlock. “You burying your head?”

  Before Kressel could reply, Loring spoke. “The dean knows he can change his mind. And we’ve agreed, there’s no crisis here. You’d be surprised how many people wait for the roof to cave in before asking for help. Or accepting it.”

  “But there aren’t many surprises in your organization’s proclivity for turning difficult situations into disasters, are there?” countered Sam Kressel antagonistically.

  “We’ve made mistakes.”

  “Since you have names,” continued Sam, “why don’t you go after them? Leave us out of it; do your own dirty work. Make arrests, press charges. Don’t try to deputize us.”

  “We don’t want to do that.… Besides, most of our evidence is inadmissible.”

  “That occurred to me,” interjected Kressel.

  “And what do we gain? What do you gain?” Loring leaned forward, returning Sam’s stare. “We pick up a couple of hundred potheads, a few dozen speedfreaks; users and low-level pushers. Don’t you understand, that doesn’t solve anything.”

  “Which brings us to what you really want, doesn’t it?” Matlock sank back into the chair; he watched the persuasive agent closely.

  “Yes,” answered Loring softly. “We want Nimrod. We want to know the location of that conference on May 10. It could be anywhere within a radius of fifty to a hundred miles. We want to be prepared for it. We want to break the back of the Nimrod operation, for reasons that go way beyond Carlyle University. As well as narcotics.”

  “How?” asked James Matlock.

  “Dr. Sealfont said it. Infiltration.… Professor Matlock, you are what’s known in intelligence circles as a highly mobile person within your environment. You’re widely accepted by diverse, even conflicting factions—within both the faculty and the student body. We have the names, you have the mobility.” Loring reached into his briefcase and withdrew the scissored page of filthy stationery. “Somewhere out there is the information we need. Somewhere there’s someone who has a paper like this; someone who knows what we have to know.”

  James Barbour Matlock remained motionless in his chair, staring at the government man. Neither Loring nor Kressel could be sure what he was thinking but both had an idea. If thoughts were audible, there would have been full agreement in that room at that moment. James Matlock’s mind had wandered back three, almost four years ago. He was remembering a blond-haired boy of nineteen. Immature for his age, perhaps, but good, kind. A boy with problems.

  They’d found him as they’d found thousands like him in thousands of cities and towns across the country. Other times, other Nimrods.

  James Matlock’s brother, David, had inserted a needle in his right arm and had shot up thirty mg. of white fluid. He had performed the act in a catboat in the calm waters of a Cape Cod inlet. The small sailboat had drifted into the reeds near shore. When they found it, James Matlock’s brother was dead.

  Matlock made his decision.

  “Can you get me the names?”

  “I have them with me.”

  “Just hold it.” Kressel stood up, and when he spoke, it wasn’t in the tone of an angry man—it was with fear. “Do you realize what you’re asking him to do? He has no experience in this kind of work. He’s not trained. Use one of your own men.”

  “There isn’t time. There’s no time for one of our men. He’ll be protected; you can help.”

  “I can stop you!”

  “No, you can’t, Sam,” said Matlock from the chair.

  “Jim, for Christ’s sake, do you know what he’s asking? If there’s any truth to what he’s said, he’s placing you in the worst position a man can be in. An informer.”

  “You don’t have to stay. My decision doesn’t have to be your decision. Why don’t you go home?” Matlock rose and walked slowly to the bar, carrying his glass.

  “That’s impossible now,” said Kressel, turning toward the government agent. “And he knows it.”

  Loring felt a touch of sadness. This Matlock was a good man; he was doing what he was doing because he felt he owed a debt. And it was coldly, professionally projected that by accepting the assignment, James Matlock was very possibly going to his death. It was a terrible price, that possibility. But the objective was worth it. The conference was worth it.

  Nimrod was worth it.

  That was Loring’s conclusion.

  It made his assignment bearable.

  4

  Nothing could be written down; the briefing was slow, repetition constant. But Loring was a professional and knew the value of taking breaks from the pressures of trying to absorb too much too rapidly. During these periods, he attempted to draw Matlock out, learn more about this man whose life was so easily expendable. It was nearly midnight; Sam Kressel had left before eight o’clock. It was neither necessary nor advisable that the dean be present during the detailing of the specifics. He was a liaison, not an activist. Kressel was not averse to the decision.

  Ralph Loring learned quickly that Matlock was a private man. His answers to innocuously phrased questions were brief, thrown-away replies constituting no more than self-denigrating explanations. After a while, Loring gave up. Matlock had agreed to do a job, not make public his thoughts or his motives. It wasn’t necessary; Loring understood the latter. That was all that mattered. He was just as happy not to know the man too well.

  Matlock, in turn—while memorizing the complicated information—was, on another level, reflecting on his own life, wondering in his own way why he’d been selected. He was intrigued by an evaluation that could describe him as being mobile; what an awful word to have applied!

  Yet he knew he was precisely what the term signified. He was mobile. The professional researchers, or psychologists, or whatever they were, were accurate. But he doubted they understood the reasons behind his … “mobility.”

  The academic world had been a refuge, a sanctuary. Not an objective of long-standing ambition. He had fled into it in order to buy time, to organize a life that was falling apart, to understand. To get his head straight, as the kids said these days.

  He had tried to explain it to his wife, his lovely, quick, bright, ultimately hollow wife, who thought he’d lost his senses. What was there to understand but an awfully good job, an awfully nice house, an awfully pleasant club, and a good life within an awfully rewarding social and financial world? For her, there was nothing more to understand. And he understood that.

  But for him that world had lost its meaning. He had begun to drift away from its core in his early twenties, during his last year at Amherst. The separation became complete with his army experience.

  It was no one single thing that had triggered his rejection. And the rejection itself was not a violent act, although violence played its role in the early days of the Saigon mess. It had begun at home, where most life-styles are accepted or rejected, during a series of disagreeable confrontations with his father. The old gentleman—too old, too gentlemanly—felt justified in demanding a better performance from his first son. A direction, a sense of purpose not at all
in evidence. The senior Matlock belonged to another era—if not another century—and believed the gap between father and son a desirable thing, the lower element being dismissible until it had proved itself in the marketplace. Dismissible but, of course, malleable. In ways, the father was like a benign ruler who, after generations of power, was loath to have the throne abandoned by his rightful issue. It was inconceivable to the elder Matlock that his son would not assume the leadership of the family business. Businesses.

  But for the younger Matlock, it was all too conceivable. And preferable. He was not only uncomfortable thinking about a future in his father’s marketplace, he was also afraid. For him there was no joy in the regimented pressures of the financial world; instead, there was an awesome fear of inadequacy, emphasized by his father’s strong—overpowering—competence. The closer he came to entering that world, the more pronounced was his fear. And it occurred to him that along with the delights of extravagant shelter and unnecessary creature comforts had to come the justification for doing what was expected in order to possess these things. He could not find that justification. Better the shelter should be less extravagant, the creature comforts somewhat limited, than face the prospects of continuing fear and discomfort.

  He had tried to explain that to his father. Whereas his wife had claimed he’d lost his senses, the old gentleman pronounced him a misfit.

  Which didn’t exactly refute the army’s judgment of him.

  The army.

  A disaster. Made worse by the knowledge that it was of his own making. He found that blind physical discipline and unquestioned authority were abhorrent to him. And he was large enough and strong enough and had a sufficient vocabulary to make his unadjustable, immature objections known—to his own disadvantage.

  Discreet manipulations by an uncle resulted in a discharge before his tour of service was officially completed; for that he was grateful to an influential family.

  And at this juncture of his life, James Barbour Matlock II was a mess. Separated from the service less than gloriously, divorced by his wife, dispossessed—symbolically if not actually—by his family, he felt the panic of belonging nowhere, of being without motive or purpose.