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By MARGARET CARLSON

Hardly any time elapses between the onset of a political scandal in Washington and the search for the smoking gun. No one is culpable until such explicit proof is found, and it hardly ever is: the cagey Washington player wipes off his fingerprints and heaves the weapon into the river.

That is why the scandal involving five U.S. Senators and the Arizona businessman who gave them more than $1 million is tantalizing: the smoking gun is being waved for all to see. Charles Keating is a former owner of California's Lincoln Savings and Loan and a defendant in a lawsuit involving racketeering, fraud and conspiracy in using the institution's funds. After the smoke clears, bailout of this S&L is expected to reach $2.5 billion, making it the nation's costliest thrift failure. When asked whether his fat contributions to the five Senators influenced them to take up his cause, Keating replied, "I want to say in the most forceful way I can: I certainly hope so."

Keating sought to keep his savings and loan operating even though the Federal Home Loan Bank Board (FHLBB) in San Francisco had found enough bad loans and shaky business practices to shut it down. After Keating purchased Lincoln in 1984, he switched from investing in safe, single-family mortgages to go-go deals in raw land, junk bonds and huge development projects like the $900-a-night Phoenician Resort in Scottsdale, Ariz.

He asked for help from the five Senators, all beneficiaries of direct and indirect contributions from him: Arizona Democrat Dennis DeConcini (who had received $55,000), Arizona Republican John McCain ($125,433), Ohio Democrat John Glenn ($234,000), California Democrat Alan Cranston ($897,000) and Michigan Democrat Donald Riegle, chairman of the Senate Banking Committee ($76,100). In addition, according to the Arizona Republic, DeConcini's top aides received more than $50 million in real estate loans. Keating also gave McCain and his wife trips, including vacations in the Bahamas valued at $13,400, which McCain paid for after they became public knowledge.

Four of the five Senators met for an hour with FHLBB head Edwin Gray on April 2, 1987. In a letter written to McCain last May, Gray referred to this unprecedented intervention as "tantamount to an attempt to subvert the regulatory process," and subsequently branded DeConcini a "consummate liar" for not admitting that he attempted to cut a deal for Keating. His charge was buttressed when the Arizona Republic published a confidential memo prepared by DeConcini's staff for the meeting listing Keating's bargaining positions.

On April 9, 1987, all five Senators met with bank examiners summoned from San Francisco to DeConcini's office. DeConcini is quoted in notes from the meeting telling the examiners that "actions of yours could injure a constituent." Glenn said, "To be blunt, you should charge them or get off their backs." Riegle asked, "Where are the losses?" The federal banking agents pointed out that Lincoln was "flying blind on all of their different loans and investments," that there was no underwriting on most loans, that the bank's practices "violated the law, regulations and common sense" and that a $49 million profit reported for 1986 was a result of bookkeeping trickery.

"What's wrong with this," DeConcini demanded, "if they're willing to clean up their act?" Replied the agent: "This is a ticking time bomb."

The bomb was allowed to keep ticking for two more years. Fortunately for Keating, FHLBB head Gray was replaced by the very sympathetic M. Danny Wall, a former aide to Utah's Republican Senator Jake Garn. Wall transferred responsibility for Lincoln from San Francisco to Washington. At House Banking Committee hearings on Oct. 17, L. William Seidman, head of the Resolution Trust Corp. and chairman of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, criticized Wall for keeping Lincoln open. As a result, the federally guaranteed cost of paying back Lincoln's depositors went up $1.3 billion, to $2.5 billion. Nationwide, the whole debacle of rescuing failing S&Ls will end up costing taxpayers about $300 billion.

The RTC has sued Keating and other insiders for bilking Lincoln of $1.1 billion. Among other things, the suit alleges, Keating, his wife, his daughter and five other insiders sold 1 million shares of American Continental Corp., which owns Lincoln, to the employees' stock-ownership plan for nearly $8 million, more than they were likely to get on the open market.

Keating is also being sued by Lincoln customers, who claim they came into the bank to make insured deposits but in a classic bait-and-switch were steered into buying uninsured securities issued by ACC to keep the institution afloat. In hearings held by the House Banking Committee, Congresswoman Marcy Kaptur of Ohio read a letter from a 65-year-old man who was persuaded by a Lincoln saleswoman that the ACC bonds were just as safe as insured certificates of deposit, paid a point more in interest, and ran only ten months. "If ACC goes under in ten months," she told him, "our whole economy is in trouble." Seven months later, ACC filed for bankruptcy and the retiree lost all his $65,000 -- "$1,000 for every year of my life," he wrote. Some 22,000 other customers hold $250 million worth of worthless ACC bonds.

Common Cause has asked the Senate ethics committee to appoint an outside counsel to investigate the five Senators' efforts for Lincoln and their alliance with Keating, who has been in trouble with federal regulators once before. In 1979 the SEC cited Keating for receiving illegal loans and using corporate funds for the personal benefit of insiders.

How did five respected U.S. Senators get mixed up with such an operator? In a word, money. They are obsessed by it at the rate of about $10,000 a day -- the amount it takes to fuel a Senate campaign every six years. Glenn, who was carrying a $2 million debt from his 1984 presidential bid, solicited $200,000 from Keating for a political committee he controlled. Cranston ! solicited $850,000 from Keating in 1987 and 1988 for voter-registration drives. In Cranston's tight 1986 Senate race against former Republican Congressman Ed Zschau, Keating gave the California Democratic Party $85,000. Of the need for campaign money, Cranston says, "I have tried to change that situation but have been unsuccessful." Incumbents, however, don't try as hard as they might, since the high cost of elections and the ability to raise money from the likes of Keating give them a formidable edge over challengers.

Keating's attorney Len Bickwit says his client has the right to contribute to like-minded Senators, although the only philosophy the conservative Keating shares with liberals like Glenn, Riegle and Cranston is a regard for the Lincoln S&L. Four of the Senators defend themselves by saying they were only helping a constituent (Keating lives in Arizona, is incorporated in Ohio, and the S&L is in California). Keating, however, was not merely asking for assistance in tracking down a lost Social Security check. It cost Keating nearly $1.4 million to get the Senators' help. It cost U.S. taxpayers $1.3 billion more than it had to when he got his way.

With reporting by Hays Gorey/Washington