Original subtitles

A wheel speeding along man's modern miracle, a superhighway.

Each revolution, $2,000 to $16,000 of a taxpayer's money. $1 to $10 million a mile.

Suddenly, the highway ends. A bottleneck.

Jamming rush hour traffic spilling in and out of the metropolitan area

of a large New England city on a Friday afternoon in late October.

Two years ago, a survey from the Department of Public Works recommended

immediate condemnation and rebuilding of this tunnel.

No work was ever done.

Out of nowhere...

A disaster.

But to others, to the corruptors who could have prevented it, no disaster at all,

but a golden road to riches.

¶¶

The Greenville Sentinel, one of the subscribers

to my syndicated column, The Corruptors.

My name is Paul Marino, and once a year,

Frank and I get together for a hunting trip.

But this time, things didn't turn out as we expected.

Marino, that's right.

I want to confirm my reservation on flight 614 for Miami tomorrow afternoon.

5.45. Thanks a lot. How do you like it?

That's a beautiful gun.

How was the hunting?

Oh, just great. It's been a good four days, Frank.

I want to thank you for setting it up.

Yeah, I wish I could have made it with you myself. Bad timing. The paper.

What's the chance you stay on over for a couple of days? No chance.

I got this press convention down in Miami.

I'll match their booze with mine. It'll be just as free,

and you can stay out at my place. Plenty of

room since Eva died, just Frankie and me.

Sounds wonderful, but I gotta get to that convention.

All right, I'll sweeten it up even more.

I'll put you on the Sentinel's payroll, $39.50 a week.

I'll do the price for a Pulitzer Prize columnist whose

attack on corruption is one of my public of millions.

All right, I'll give you all the corruption in Greenville.

Those disappearing barber poles.

I could do a big thing on that.

Frank, the old colleague, come on in. Frank, the Gorman Tunnel, it just collapsed.

The kids with the high school band, they're in it, trapped in the cave-in.

No.

My boy, he's on that bus.

All right, folks, let him by.

Ladies and gentlemen, it's been two hours since the cave-in.

The rescue workers have just succeeded in digging out the third car.

They're trying now to break through the rear of the bus with torches.

A tremendous crowd is beginning to appear as the word disaster spreads.

I see an official car coming through, being waved through by the police officers,

and I think it's, yes, it's Senator Cannon. Maybe we can get him to our microphone.

Excuse me, sir. Excuse me.

Senator, may we have a word, sir? Ladies and gentlemen,

this is State Senator Walter Cannon,

who is head of the Powerful Committee on Highway Appropriations. Sir?

Shocking.

It's terrible.

How many dead? Three so far, sir.

What about the school bus? They're working on it.

The only thing we do know is that part of the roof is caved in.

How a thing like this could happen?

I don't have the answers now, but I'll have them soon.

They're coming through!

Senator, they've broken through the bus. Go right ahead, sir.

The senator has gone on ahead, and we'll try and get closer. Senator!

Senator Cannon! Senator, please!

May we have a statement, Senator?

In just one moment, please.

Let me through! Let me through! My girl! On that bus, please, let me through!

All right, go ahead, lady. Let us go through, my son.

Let me through! Two hours.

Sorry, buddy, only officials and the press. He goes through, Al. Frank McKay,

Greenville Sentinel. Okay.

Let me go through now.

All right.

Wasn't work authorized on this tunnel, Senator?

Yes, it was. Why wasn't it done? I have some notions about that.

They're not very complimentary, I can tell you.

Then you plan an investigation? Of course. I've already notified my committee.

We're meeting at 9 in the morning.

There'll be only two items on the agenda. First,

to ensure that something like this never happens again.

My boy was on that bus, do you realize that?

My boy was on that... Leave him alone, officers.

His boy's hurt.

Let him go. What do you make of that?

That sure was a surprise. Yeah.

Holder and McKay and Cannon.

13 dead, 21 injured, four still on the critical list.

That's an appalling statistic to me.

Two years ago, I went before the legislature and requested, begged...

Seven and a half million dollars for the repair of 11 critical highway projects,

among them the Gorman Tunnel.

That appropriation was fought as wasteful by a clique of independent

newspapers in this state who thought to service their own ends.

By seeming to be the watchdog of the public purse.

When the bill was finally passed, $1,850,000 had been paid,

leaving scarcely enough for seven of the 11 projects needing attention.

That is why no work was ever done on the tunnel.

We are all to blame for this tragedy.

But most of all, it is you, the public, that is to be blamed.

For your complacency. No, I'll give you a better word, your negligence.

In refusing to investigate for yourselves the particulars

of an appropriation before you condemn it.

If that isn't the oldest wheeze in the world for copying a plea.

Just transfer the guilt out to the public.

Cannon?

Why, you don't think it...

Why, there isn't a man in the state with Cannon's reputation.

You heard what he said. Oil. Every word.

Grease and oil.

Don't try to sidestep it, Frank.

You know it.

You'll, uh... You'll miss your plane.

Why did you attack Cannon the way you did the other day?

I was upset.

And his just happened to be the first throat you could find.

You were ready to kill him, Frank, with your bare hands.

Why? For what?

Yes.

Thank you.

Your cab's waiting, Paul. I...

I don't want to rush you, but I have to write an editorial.

Eighteen months ago you wrote an editorial, remember it?

Not one, but five. Blasting Cannon's appropriation.

Claiming two-thirds of the amount was more than

enough for all the projects in that bill.

Suddenly you began to switch your whole policy.

You changed from attacking Cannon to supporting him.

Why?

I changed my mind.

A week after your big switch,

your paper carried four new pages of upstate advertising.

What would that come to, another 20,000 a year?

Just enough to keep your paper from going into receivership, wasn't it?

I know you're under a lot of pressure, Frank.

But helping a man steal millions of the people's money.

Steal, that's the wrong word.

It's murder.

Those 13 kids were murdered.

Your own boy may be number 14.

I want you to tell me everything you know, Frank.

Cannon had enough money for all 11 projects,

yet four like that tunnel were completely untouched.

Almost a million and a half dollars worth.

Cannon allocated that money.

I want to know where it went.

Frank McKay?

Yes?

Yes, I... I heard you out.

I'll be up there in an hour.

You made it, Paul.

He made it. He's going to live.

Thank God for that.

I'll drive up to the hospital with you.

Well, like I told you, I have to get out an editorial.

That's no bother. I'll wait.

You'll miss your plane.

Frank.

Say hello to the boys in Miami for me.

There must be some of them there who remember me.

You're sending me off, Frank. Don't do it.

Help me to get into this thing.

Paul, I just learned that my boy is going to live.

I'd like to enjoy that thought by myself, if you don't mind.

Enjoy it, Frank.

The thought of your boy.

The dead ones you can forget.

Hello?

Flight 614 for Miami this afternoon.

That's right, I'd like to cancel my reservation.

All right, I'll hang on.

Pushed by thousands of telegrams from angry citizens throughout the state,

the legislature quickly acted upon and passed

Cannon's massive highway appropriation.

Immediately, consulting engineers were interviewed for the project.

For Cannon, this was the crucial step.

For upon this choice lay the success or failure of his fraud.

It's only a tentative figure, of course, but my engineers...

We estimate the entire project to average out under one million seven per mile.

That's excluding the memorial bridge, of course. The bridge will run into money,

as I'm sure you'll understand.

Now, if you'll just look at this sketch.

Yes, Sellers?

A message, sir. If it is convenient, the governor would like to see you at four.

Aren't we seeing consulting engineers throughout the day? Yes, sir.

Richards and Bixley are waiting now. Jessensen, Appley,

and Donner at 445 and Beckworth.

I can delay the last two appointments, sir. No, no, no, no.

I can delay the last two appointments, sir. No, no, no, no. I want to see Beckworth. There's

I'll phone the governor after I see him. Yes, sir.

You were saying, Amber?

Yes, about the memorial bridge.

I began with a concept that we would want something lasting and unique.

You know Mr. Amber's work, Senator.

His firm built the Empire Bridge south of Wild Oak. You designed it?

Yes.

Well, partially.

I think you'll notice the basic similarity of

design between this and the Empire Bridge.

Personally, I found it extreme.

Well, excuse me, Senator,

but it was nominated for the best of class by

the Association of... Yes, yes, I'm sure.

Well, if you'd care to see an alternate design.

Now, this one here is... We have a perfectly

clear idea of what you can do, Mr. Ember.

You'll understand I have other interviews.

You can rest assured your presentation will receive full consideration.

Please leave your sketches here.

I'd like to have met you. You'll be notified in due course.

Senator? Mr. Sable?

You understand that figure, one million seven, was purely an estimate.

If it seems... A few days, Mr. Amber, you'll hear from us then.

Gentlemen.

Let's hear it.

Philip Harvey Amber Jr., graduate, School of Engineering, 38, born to the purple,

married, one boy at prep school, another entered, board of directors,

half a dozen charities, golf clubs, lives in

Sale Heights, only 18 rooms, but it's a home.

I know all that Blue Nose stuff.

I know his daddy built the firm, the Frank Lloyd Wright of road construction.

I know he's retired and left it all to Junior.

But what do we know?

Well, it's still the old man's people they want when they hire his son,

which is something Junior's never learned to swallow.

He's a crack engineer, but he's never had a chance to prove it.

He'd give the bone off his tail to do something

that was all his own. Especially a bridge.

That's right.

He's cooped on the subject of winning an award for one.

When I mentioned the memorial, he went right through the ceiling.

What was your presentation?

Well, I told him one man was needed to engineer the whole project.

I said I knew people who could influence the choice.

Tell them we're interested. No, no.

Wait till tomorrow, then tell them.

Dangle it.

Tell them it needs pressure.

You know the right people.

The ones who can push it, but they're expensive.

How expensive?

He's to take you on as his personal assistant.

Fee 10% of his salary if he gets the contract.

I don't know.

What don't you know?

Well, he's rock rib, back bay.

So?

Well, you know these guys. They've got a code. They're thick with his stuff.

Like mother's milk, they're weaned on it.

That froth on his mouth isn't mother's milk, Sable.

He wants this contract, Sable. He wants it so badly he'd sell his soul for it,

and I'll tell you why. Because it gives him a chance

to do the one thing he could never do on his own.

The bridge.

A lasting monument to his existence.

Not his daddy's.

His.

I'll phone him. Tomorrow. No, Thursday. Wait till Thursday.

Let him think about it.

Sit there and sweat.

I like to think of him blowing his golf game to 105.

Jumping half out of his $300 suit to the sound of a phone.

I always wondered what made you run. No offense, admiration.

You set up the car, and I collect it and pass

it on to the guys that keep you where you sit, back at that desk.

Where you're running to with this hunk of mahogany, that's my wonder.

As far as I have to, Sable.

To what?

Till there isn't one man left who doesn't have to stand.

He comes up to it.

Philip Amber Jr. was given the contract, and the work began.

And with it, the fraud, the corruption.

The concrete surface, by specifications to be

four inches thick, was laid three, even less.

Test samples taken from roadbeds by authorized state engineers.

The samples below specifications were entered as passing inspection.

The saving to corrupt contractors on materials and supplies was enormous,

as was the kickback paid out in cash.

The result?

Roads that will one day crack, become unserviceable.

The cost for this fraud and waste, as always, passed on to the unsuspecting public.

Observing the fraud and corruption was one thing. Being able to prove it, another.

What was desperately needed was proof.

To get it, I needed a man on the inside. Someone I'd

used before. His name, Jack Flood.

How can I fit into this thing? Amber's hiring security officers.

You've still got your old police credentials.

They'll flip for a guy with that kind of experience.

They don't build these things in a week.

Guess what am I supposed to be looking for?

If Cannon runs true to form,

a sizable hunk of that 26 million will not find its way into that road.

I want to know where it goes.

Amber?

My guess is the whole thing will blow off right under his nose.

He won't even know what they're pulling. I want to know.

It's how they do it. That's what we need.

Look for a crack and gouge it as deep as you can.

For the next four months, Flood, proceeding carefully, gathered information.

Some of it valuable, most of it supplementing my own.

But still, we did not have the tangible evidence we desperately needed

upon which to build a case against Cannon and his operation.

For a while, it appeared we might never get it.

It now became a period of watchful waiting and hoping.

Wallace, will you take those concrete samples and put them in the shack?

We're on a CBT on the AMP samples, Mr. Amber.

Pick up the compaction test of the new load of concrete

over on the Cumberland the first thing in the morning.

All I need from you now is your signature on a couple of 375s.

I've got them in the office.

Mr. Hammer.

Let's see, I'll need these signed in triplicate, Mr. Hammer.

I don't even have to measure these samples to

know they're an inch under specifications.

I'll measure up to specifications.

A quarter of an inch more.

These samples?

Those, the ones they'll file.

You don't miss a trick, do you? Mr. Shattuck has a pretty busy schedule, Mr. Amber.

You don't want to keep him waiting if you'll just leave the envelope.

The envelope.

You do have it, will you?

Nothing in bills larger than 20s.

Where does this go, Sable? $10,000 last week, $30,000 the week before.

Where? To whom? For what?

Incidental expenses.

You told me it wouldn't cost me more than 10% of my salary.

An estimate?

A pretty low estimate, considering how much you've already got in cash in hand.

Twice my fee for the project.

Who knows what else from graft and kickbacks from

subcontractors you've shoved down my throat.

Let's have the package.

You know what I've gone through trying to write this off, trying to cover it?

You may be control of the state, the people behind you,

but not the federal government. What happens to me if they run an audit on my taxes?

I can only write off so much of this as personal income, as business expense,

and you know it. We've been through this whole bit before, Mr. Amber.

You don't listen. I've listened.

You're covered, protected. By whom?

Let's have the package.

Look at this, Sable.

This bridge.

Do you know what it is?

I'll tell you.

You won't understand. I couldn't expect that of you.

I'll tell you.

It's an idea.

Transmission of a thought into the clean, smooth lines of concrete and steel.

Something larger than life.

Something lasting.

Making that idea immortal.

And everything, all you have done, made me do to myself, has turned it ugly.

No more.

You can tell Cannon he's had his last lousy red cent.

Tell him that, Sable.

You built a good bridge, Mr. Amber.

I was out there yesterday.

There were a lot of guys from the papers with pictures and questions.

They were taking shots of that plaque with your name in big letters.

That quickly.

You and this bridge come down.

I hereby certify that the above test samples

have been accurately taken and duly recorded.

In triplicate, Mr. Amber.

Triplicate, of course.

Hey, Lou, find the gate for me, will you? I have

to put this in the shack. Yeah, sure. No sweat.

The samples and signed certificates I needed to show corruption

between the inspector and the contractor were still just theory.

Then one day late in June...

Flood was able to gain access to the shack again,

even under the nose of Sable's men.

This time, he was to strike pay dirt.

What's out of your lock of the gate?

Who told you to use violence?

He had the stuff in his hand, the samples. Can he talk?

No, he's still out.

Don't try to revive him. Take him down to the hospital.

The hospital? That's what I said. Take him down to receiving.

If they ask what happened, you caught him trying to break into the shack.

He tried to take off. You hit him. That's all you know.

He's been working on that gate for months.

And I want to know who put him there.

The first call he makes out of that hospital, I want to know where it goes.

You slipped the forms inside the ledger on his desk.

You're sure of that?

Was Amber there when you got the treatment? No.

One of his people?

Yeah.

What's his name? Mr. Marino.

Sir.

Sable.

If you want to do him a favor... Yeah, that's just what I'm going to do.

Oh, well, it's been a while.

Been quite a while, Frank.

Yeah, my boy, uh, my boy's having his fourth operation this afternoon.

Brought a specialist up from New York. Kravner, you may have heard of him.

Yeah, I've heard of him.

He says he thinks there's a chance he can fix Frankie's

legs and he may be able to walk again.

They go into surgery at 3 o'clock.

I wish you well, Frank.

I mean that deeply.

Uh, Paul?

About that highway thing, uh...

I hear you've been trying to... Any breakthrough yet?

I didn't know you were that interested.

Look, Paul, since that day in my office, I lived for one thing.

To give my son a world he can walk in again.

What kind of a world, Frank? Cannons?

I'm just little people, Paul.

You can't ask little people to fix it.

No one else can.

Do you have help for you? I'm looking for a man named Sable.

You know where I can find him? He's in that shack.

Is he expecting you?

He ought to be.

Something for you?

Which one of you is Sabo?

Me? I'm Sabo. Why?

I'd like to speak to you alone for a minute.

Sure.

Why not?

In here, I'll do fine, if you don't mind.

Howie?

What's this all about? This would be just about what you use, wouldn't it, Sable?

Hm?

One in each hand.

You didn't waste much time getting up here.

Did you, Marino?

Your fist wrapped around a three or four pound weight.

Do quite a job in a guy. Do you know how to use it?

Show me.

Well, the trick is in how you hold your thumbs.

That was a sword with a deadly weapon. You can get five years for that.

Get him off me, Everett! Get him out of here! Go over there.

Go ahead, call him.

Captain, too, while you're at it. Let's have a whole rotten clan in here.

Who are you? Paul Marino.

We talk.

No. You and me, now.

Or you can read it in the papers.

All right? Get out of here, all right?

Tell me, Amber.

How do you sleep?

A basically decent man?

Extortion, bribery, crime all around you?

How do you live with it?

There are laws against slander, Mr. Marino. I have lawyers.

Then you better call them.

Tell them to get out there and blast them.

What are you doing?

Certification of highway sentence.

Duly and properly taken.

Your signature, son. Give me those!

You know what this does to you, Amber?

It places the whole rotten racket square on your head.

Your head, Amber. No one else's.

I'm licked with Ken, and I know it.

I try to reach him, I can't.

The only ones I can reach are the ones he's corrupted.

You.

You're a sick second best.

But you're the best I've got.

You haven't got me. Now let's hear it.

It's Cannon and you together or just you alone. There's nothing to tell.

I've had a man on you for months.

Riding that gate.

Who do you think it was they put in the hospital?

What could he know? There's nothing to know.

Falsification of records?

Test samples taken below specifications?

Let me tell you something, Amber.

You've got a sickness in this state that rivals any

disease I've ever seen, and I've seen them all.

Its name is canon.

I can't cut it out, not alone.

But with you, I can try.

You're not going to try with me. You can't.

If I give you what you want, what would be left of me?

What's left of you now?

I'll be at the hospital.

Room 413. I'll look for your coordinates.

Mr. Hamburg, come in.

Come in.

Senator Cannon, I'm here because we... we both face an embarrassment.

The kind of embarrassment I'm sure you understand.

You know, Mr. Amber, we officeholders have great responsibilities.

In my case, as chairman of the committee on highway

appropriations, $26 million. That's a lot of money.

Yes, of course, I understand, but...

Our policy is to let out contracts to private concerns

such as yours with talent, ability, and reputation.

You can well understand, then,

the enormous disappointment and disgust I feel

to learn of your efforts to defraud this state

these past months through the vilest network of

chicanery and deceit I have ever witnessed.

My efforts?

There were roads built under specifications. You knew about that?

I knew?

You knew. You passed them.

I went to see Mr. Amber. What would you say, Mr. Sable?

A dozen times.

All of a dozen. I told him what was going on, that I knew about it.

I gave him every chance to rectify the error, to relay the pavement properly.

You passed them. You signed the certifications.

I didn't sign them, Mr. Amber. I couldn't have.

None of those test samples met specifications.

He lies. He's lying! Scarcely a lie, Mr. Amber.

The forms were on my desk, not one of them bearing Mr. Shattuck's signature.

He signed them. I saw it.

Where are they, Mr. Amber?

The certifications with Mr. Stratik's signature.

Perhaps you have them. I don't seem to.

That's not all, I'm afraid. I had an audit run on your books.

Your fee for this project came to $112,000.

Your ledgers show an additional profit to you of over 300,000.

You formed dummy corporations to hide that profit.

I had no other way of... Of what, Mr. Amber?

The money I paid it to you. I had to account for it.

The money you paid to whom, Mr. Amber? To you.

In cash, you know that. All of it in cash. I gave it to Sable.

Not even a dime.

I gave it to you over $200,000.

Naturally, you can prove that.

No, it can't.

Funny thing about a lie, how hard it is to prove it.

Cannon.

Mr. Amber, it's all there on my desk. Papers, files,

records of fraudulent bookkeeping, padded bills, adjusted record books, bribery.

I'm sorry for you, Mr. Amber. I'm deeply sorry.

I'm a good deal sorrier for the decent people

of this state whom you saw fit to defraud.

Cannon.

Two hours ago, I let Paul Murray know.

He knows what's going on.

How much he knows, I don't know, but he knows he's

going to open up on it on me. No, he won't.

You'll stop him then?

Not stop him. Scoop's a better word, I think.

You seen tonight's paper?

Great big three-inch headlines.

Cannon accuses Amber of fraud and highway construction.

Read it.

If that'll be all, Mr. Amber, I have a rather full schedule.

I'll be here till midnight as it is. Cannon.

Cannon, men such as you and I, we must stand together in these things.

Together, Cannon.

Don't you understand? We're in this together. We must stand together.

Our backgrounds, our families, our reputations, they must be protected.

But you see, we have a responsibility to our breeding.

Breeding?

Our breeding.

My breeding was poverty, Mr. Amber.

Poverty.

You don't know the word. You've read it, maybe, but you don't know the word.

I used to serve tables at a country club.

No member allowed with an income under six figures.

They dropped their tips in the soup, and I had to fish for them.

I learned from that, Amber.

Breeding.

I see.

Mr. Marino, this is Philip Amber.

You told me to call you. Yes?

I'll be in Cannon's office, State Senate building, in 20 minutes from now.

Cannon's office? Yes, he's working late tonight. Wait a minute.

Wouldn't it be better if we got together and talked first?

No.

I would prefer it this way, if you don't mind.

20 minutes.

Amber.

Amber!

Too bad he's such a poor shot, Mr. Maria.

They'll drop him from the clubs.

How's Cannon?

Merry as old King Cole himself, calling for his fittest.

Bullet in his chest, another in his leg.

What's it take to kill a guy like that?

More than I know, that's for sure.

How long before they release you?

Oh, three, four days.

Longer if I can fake it.

There's a little something I'm trying to accomplish.

Well, let's hope one of us accomplishes something,

just so it shouldn't be a total loss. I'll phone you from New York on Thursday.

So you're really pulling out of this one, huh?

Any ideas on how I can stay in?

Amber, my key witness, a dead man, the blame already piling up on him.

No. I'll call you in the morning.

He's a cripple, Paul, for the rest of his life.

They told me last night. I'm sorry.

I went back to the office, tried to write an editorial.

I knew what I wanted to say, but there Words were cloudy, thick.

Half a page. That's as far as I got.

Exactly how much of the appropriation intended for the 11 crucial projects,

among them the Gorman Tunnel, Cannon stole, we have no way of knowing.

But I can personally account for 21,000,

the amount with which he bribed me to support his thievery.

If there's one major tragedy in this, and there are many,

it's Cannon's methodical corruption of small people.

The Ambers, myself.

His ability to find their weakness, exploit them, and thereby gain control...

He'll crucify him.

No more than I have myself.

He'll bury her, Frank. You won't take him with you.

Maybe not all the way, but I'll give him an awful mauling on the way down.

You got an extra typewriter in your office?

A dozen.

And they've all got 26 letters. Then let's go.

How do we lick them, Pa?

The cannons.

There must be a way.

We never do. Not completely.

But God help us the day we stop trying.