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Authors: Peter Mountford
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the electric saw screamed in the next room. Of the conversation with the doctor who told him that Cristina was dead, he remembered nothing whatsoever, just a hand on his shoulder. And, of this latest incident, telling Walter about the conversation with William Hamilton, Vincenzo would remember mainly that Walter offered him several opportunities to back out, but he continued.
At one point, Walter even said. âGod! Have you talked to Wolfowitz, because I bet heâll take your side.â
âI actually did talk to him. And youâre right. He took my side.â
âSo, whatâs the point?â Walter shot back with unusually stark emotion in his voice. Like so many of the old guard in the DC press, Walter was a wan and debauched preppyâblond and fond of seersucker in the summer, tasseled loafers whenever; he was Buckley-esque. Still, his mind was a ferocious instrument dulled only around the periphery by years of monomania and heroic boozing. That his ex-wife had endurednineteen years with him, sans children, only spoke to her own delicious kind of madness, and his infuriating magnetism. But he was clipped now. That ballooning vein beside his eye was a newer development, and it did, Vincenzo thought, almost irreparable damage to his roguish authority.
âI donât know.â Vincenzo had started going through the drawers of his desk and putting anything he wanted to keep in a plastic garbage bag. Things he kept included several pens heâd picked up at annual meetings, pictures, a dull rock heâd found on a hill in Scotland while on holiday with Cristina, some foreign currency, unread mail from the credit union and from other official organizationsâthen he got up and started shoveling files, his crucial outgoing correspondence, into the bag. Things he didnât keep: everything else. He didnât keep four other drawers of documents, including letters of recommendation that heâd written and all the contracts. He put the painting by his daughter into the bag, along with several of the books on his shelf, but left the rest, which he didnât care about anymore, or not enough to take it past the threshold.
âVincenzo, do you have any idea what youâre doing?â
By now, he was winded. So he paused. The easiest explanation was what Wolfowitz had alluded to, that this was the kamikazeâs strategy. It had an appealingly straightforward quality: he resented the Bank and he despised himself for participating in its work, so he torpedoed himself into the Bank. Unfortunately, that wasnât the truth. Yes, he was exhausted by the Bankâs bloated ineptitude and inefficiency, its inertia, but this wouldnât change any of that. William Hamilton was only as cunning as his job required him to be and his request,in retrospect, wasnât even that inappropriate. Vincenzo had seen worse.
And, contrary to what many onlookers would inevitably assume, it wasnât about ideology, either. The fact that Vincenzo, and more or less everyone else who was paying attention, detested George W. Bush was, in the end, beside the point. Actually, as he saw it, the kind of policies that Evo Morales was proposing made very reasonable grounds for at least a partial suspension of Bolivian aid.
Although even he had trouble understanding why he was doing it, he knew with an immaculate, blank certainty that he wouldnât regret this. Or, alternatively, he knew that it was the right decision, even if he did regret it. This was a problem to be sorted out later. There was an opportunity here, today, and there might never be another. The time to act was now. The way to act was this.
After reconfirming, yet again, that they were going to talk on the record, Walter recorded the conversation. He said that he couldnât wait much later than five or six before the story was a lock for the next day.
Vincenzo told him not to wait at all, but Walter insisted. He said, âIf I
At one point, Walter even said. âGod! Have you talked to Wolfowitz, because I bet heâll take your side.â
âI actually did talk to him. And youâre right. He took my side.â
âSo, whatâs the point?â Walter shot back with unusually stark emotion in his voice. Like so many of the old guard in the DC press, Walter was a wan and debauched preppyâblond and fond of seersucker in the summer, tasseled loafers whenever; he was Buckley-esque. Still, his mind was a ferocious instrument dulled only around the periphery by years of monomania and heroic boozing. That his ex-wife had endurednineteen years with him, sans children, only spoke to her own delicious kind of madness, and his infuriating magnetism. But he was clipped now. That ballooning vein beside his eye was a newer development, and it did, Vincenzo thought, almost irreparable damage to his roguish authority.
âI donât know.â Vincenzo had started going through the drawers of his desk and putting anything he wanted to keep in a plastic garbage bag. Things he kept included several pens heâd picked up at annual meetings, pictures, a dull rock heâd found on a hill in Scotland while on holiday with Cristina, some foreign currency, unread mail from the credit union and from other official organizationsâthen he got up and started shoveling files, his crucial outgoing correspondence, into the bag. Things he didnât keep: everything else. He didnât keep four other drawers of documents, including letters of recommendation that heâd written and all the contracts. He put the painting by his daughter into the bag, along with several of the books on his shelf, but left the rest, which he didnât care about anymore, or not enough to take it past the threshold.
âVincenzo, do you have any idea what youâre doing?â
By now, he was winded. So he paused. The easiest explanation was what Wolfowitz had alluded to, that this was the kamikazeâs strategy. It had an appealingly straightforward quality: he resented the Bank and he despised himself for participating in its work, so he torpedoed himself into the Bank. Unfortunately, that wasnât the truth. Yes, he was exhausted by the Bankâs bloated ineptitude and inefficiency, its inertia, but this wouldnât change any of that. William Hamilton was only as cunning as his job required him to be and his request,in retrospect, wasnât even that inappropriate. Vincenzo had seen worse.
And, contrary to what many onlookers would inevitably assume, it wasnât about ideology, either. The fact that Vincenzo, and more or less everyone else who was paying attention, detested George W. Bush was, in the end, beside the point. Actually, as he saw it, the kind of policies that Evo Morales was proposing made very reasonable grounds for at least a partial suspension of Bolivian aid.
Although even he had trouble understanding why he was doing it, he knew with an immaculate, blank certainty that he wouldnât regret this. Or, alternatively, he knew that it was the right decision, even if he did regret it. This was a problem to be sorted out later. There was an opportunity here, today, and there might never be another. The time to act was now. The way to act was this.
After reconfirming, yet again, that they were going to talk on the record, Walter recorded the conversation. He said that he couldnât wait much later than five or six before the story was a lock for the next day.
Vincenzo told him not to wait at all, but Walter insisted. He said, âIf I
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