Collins, Max Allan - Nathan Heller 11 (11 page)

“No. It’s her day off.”

“Make some excuse and fire her. The girl’s feeding information to Pearson’s guy, Jack Anderson.”

“What? Fuck!” She flew to her feet and hurled her glass against the wall, narrowly missing a framed Currier & Ives, taking a chunk out of the painted plaster. It wasn’t anywhere near me, but I ducked reflexively, anyway.

“That little nigger bitch!” she shrieked. “And to think I treated her like a daughter!”

The Filipino houseboy, summoned by the crash of glass, peeked his head around the corner, observed the cursing Mrs. Forrestal, and disappeared like a turtle into its shell.

She raved and ranted as she crossed the Axminster carpet to a liquor cart, building herself a martini, surprisingly heavy on the vermouth. Then in mid-rant she stopped, turned and said, with no apparent irony, “I don’t mean to be a shitty hostess. Can I get you something to drink, Nate?”

“No thanks.”

“You think I won’t drink alone?”

She was drinking before I got here, but all I said was, “Just a little early in the day for me. Don’t let me stop you.”

“I’d like to see you try to stop me,” she said acidly, strolling back to her chair, sipping from the tumbler. “That fucking Pearson, anyway. You have a gun, don’t you?”

“Not on me.”

She sat again, tucking her legs back under her. “Well, you’re on the job—why don’t you go get it and do the world a favor and shoot that evil cocksucker.”

“That’s extra.”

She laughed hysterically at that, tears rolling down her apple cheeks.

“It wasn’t that funny, Jo.”

“I know,” she said, and her laughter stopped cold, like a switch had been thrown. Her face tightened with rage, but she was controlled as she said, “Do you know what that son of a bitch Pearson said about me? That I was a snob for enlisting Mainbocher! A snob!”

“Who’s Mainbocher?”

“You are hopelessly unschooled, aren’t you? Mainbocher is only one of finest purveyors of fashion in the world, you dumb fucking cluck. And I got him to help me design new uniforms for the Waves! Which are so much more chic than those Wac rags; but that bald bastard Pearson has the balls to criticize me for it!”

I was vaguely aware that Forrestal had attempted to involve Jo, to make her feel she had a role in Washington, and the war effort; and it didn’t surprise me that Pearson had crucified her for it.

Her eyebrows rose and the big eyes got huge. “You know what I was being paid to be a consultant to the Waves? Nothing! Not a red fucking cent! So I quit…. I told Jim he could fight the goddamn war by himself, and Pearson and the rest of the columnists could kiss my ass!”

“Was that columnists or Communists?”

Her expression froze, and then she broke out into brittle, near-hysterical laughter. Holding her stomach, rocking in the easy chair, laughing. I was a riot today. Maybe Jack Benny needed a new writer.

“Oh, I could use you around here, Nate. You would definitely cheer me up. You wanna go to Florida with us?”

“Jim wants me to, but I’m not sure …”

“We have separate bedrooms down there, just like up here. You can slip into my room late, and fuck me till my eyes pop out of my head.”

“Well, that’s nice to know …”

“And no one the wiser, not that anyone would give a shit.” She rose and wobbled over to me and sat in my lap. “Of course, there’s always right now—upstairs. Jim won’t be home till after that banquet tonight, and I’ll be long gone, on my way to Florida.”

She was long gone now.

Her hands were locked behind my neck as she wiggled her bottom into my lap. “Or are those awful little men of yours still snooping about?”

The scent of Chanel No. 5, and her still slenderly appealing figure, almost made it tempting, no matter how drunk she was. But in a way I still thought she was bluffing: those years of “open marriage,” with Forrestal banging half the good-looking broads in D.C., were a one-sided affair. That was my instinct, anyway.

“Jo, you’re a lovely woman,” I said, not exactly lying. “But let’s not rush things.”

“Why? Which of us is getting younger?”

I kissed her, tenderly, and it wasn’t half bad. “Let’s wait for a better moment.”

She shrugged. “All right,” she said, in a small voice, slipping off my lap. But once she got on her feet, she bellowed, “It’s your fucking loss!”

Then she wheeled and pointed a finger right at me; remarkably, it didn’t tremble at all. Auntie Jo wanted me.

“Did it ever occur to you, shithead, that maybe I had the idea people were after me because my husband
made
me think that? He’s been nuts longer than I have! He was the one who saw Reds under the bed! I just caught the sickness from
him,
I just didn’t wear it as well as he did … still waters running deep and all. Because I’m a little more
outgoing
than he is, because I’m a mother and got concerned about my children being kidnapped, because I believed the paranoid rambling fucking delusions of a man who was supposed to be a goddamn fucking tower of strength, a powerful man who oughta know whether somebody’s out to fucking get us or not, well then … what was the question?”

“I don’t think I asked one.”

“Don’t mind if I do.”

“Don’t mind if you do what?”

“Have another drink.”

And she ambled over to the liquor cart and built herself another one; again, the vermouth outdistanced the gin, but that didn’t help much, as many as she was throwing down.

“So,” she said, falling into the chair but not spilling a drop, “is anybody
really
trying to kill the great former Secretary Forrestal?”

“I don’t believe so, no…. I, uh, think I’m gonna see how my men are doing.”

“You do that. You do that.”

I did that, and when I came back, she’d fallen asleep in the chair. Her tumbler—which was empty—I plucked from her hands and set on the coffee table.

When she woke up, a little over two hours later, with a kind of spasm, eyes snapping wide open, she asked, “What time is it?”

“Three-fifteen,” I said, checking my wristwatch.

I was sitting on the sofa, reading an old issue of
Time
with her husband’s picture on it. Bob Hasty and Jack Randolph had pronounced the residence free of bugs—at least the electronic kind—and were fifteen minutes gone.

“Shit!” She slapped the arms of the easy chair. “Why didn’t you wake me?”

“Was I supposed to?”

She jack-in-the-boxed to her feet, glaring at me. “My flight’s in an hour; cab’ll be here any minute.”

She hustled off, almost ran up the steps, and came down several minutes later, with a flowing black jacket over her white blouse and black slacks; she’d added some jewelry—black-and-white round earrings, a jeweled brooch, some rings—and had freshened her makeup. It wasn’t hard to remember that she had once been extremely beautiful, enough so to pose for
Vogue.

I met her as she reached the bottom of the stairs. “You look swell,” I said.

“Thank you.” She had a watch on now, and was winding it. “I’m, uh … sorry if I seemed rude, earlier. I have a bad habit of speaking my mind—particularly to people I like.”

“I thought you’d decided not to like me.”

She touched my face with a slender hand. “I changed my mind. Would you see if my cab is out front? I have to leave some instructions with Remy.”

“I haven’t seen him since you tossed that glass.”

Her tiny smile was an odd mix of embarrassment and pride. “He retreats to his rabbithole when I’m on a rampage.”

The cab indeed was waiting, and I went out and told the cabbie his fare would be along shortly. In the meantime, I carried out her bags and the cabbie helped me load them in his trunk, though they wouldn’t all fit; a few had to go in the backseat.

Inside, I found her snugging on some white gloves; a big black patent-leather handbag was slung over her shoulder, and she looked rather stylish—as chic as a well-dressed Wave.

“Have a good trip,” I said. “I’m making a full report on my investigation to your husband, tomorrow. Any message for him?”

“Just that I hope he’ll join me soon.”

“Is that concern I hear?”

“I love Jim, in my way, as I’m sure he loves me in his.” She kissed my cheek, tickled the side of my face with gloved fingertips. “You’re really a very sweet man.”

“You know, you haven’t cursed in something like five minutes; it makes me uneasy.”

She laughed and this time it lacked the brittle hysteria. “Well, then, Nate, why don’t you go fuck yourself.”

“That’s extra, too.”

She laughed some more and, as if she were a duchess on her way to the ball, I escorted her to the cab and waved as she drove off. She waved from her backseat window, and smiled, but if I’d ever seen a sadder expression, I couldn’t remember when.

My day’s work was done; I’d be leaving Washington tomorrow, I’d decided. The evening was mine, and I had a date with Anya, the blonde in Pearson’s office, who in that wonderful accent had requested I not tell her boss.

Well, if she insisted.

Anyway, it was nice to know Drew Pearson wasn’t on top of everything that went on in this town.

The day after he reluctantly stepped aside as Secretary of Defense, James Forrestal was honored by a rare special meeting of the House Armed Services Committee, at which he was lavishly praised by committee chairman Carl Vinson and ranking minority member Representative Dewey Short. Forrestal was presented with a silver bowl, “engraved with our names in testimony of our regards—a regard also indelibly inscribed in our hearts.”

The flustered Forrestal of the day before, struck dumb by surprise and emotion, was replaced by a prepared, dignified statesman who delivered several brief, gracious speeches.

Also attending—and celebrating Forrestal’s accomplishments in public life—were his successor, Louis Johnson; Secretary of the Army Kenneth Royall; Secretary of the Navy John Sullivan; and Secretary of the Air Force Stuart Symington. The press made much of the kind words the latter said about Forrestal, and vice versa, as the onetime friends had become bitter adversaries over matters of budget, among other things, with the Air Force Secretary’s disloyal, harsh criticism of Forrestal in a notorious
New York Times
interview almost getting Symington fired.

The warmly positive press coverage of Jim Forrestal and the honors bestowed him on that Tuesday morning held no hint of the bizarre, even tragic turn the rest of that day would take.

My appointment with Forrestal, to report on my investigation, was in the afternoon, three o’clock, and shortly before that time I rang the bell of Morris House on Prospect Street. A light, pleasant breeze ruffled my lightweight tropical suit and my hat was in my hand when the Filipino houseboy, Remy, again wild-eyed, answered; but this time Remy was not annoyed, but visibly upset.

“Mr. Heller,” Remy said. “So glad to see you.”

“What’s wrong?”

“Please come in.”

I did. The house was dark—every light was off, all the blinds drawn.

“’Cept for cook, I am alone of staff,” Remy said. “Mrs. Forrestal give Miss Brown, Mr. Campbell week off. Because of Florida trip.”

Stanley Campbell was Forrestal’s butler/valet, a trusted right-hand man.

Turning my hat in my hands, I asked, “Where’s your boss?”

Remy pointed a tremulous finger, toward the living room. There, seated in the same easy chair Jo Forrestal had curled up in yesterday, sat Forrestal, but on the edge of it, rigidly erect. He was wearing his hat, and looked small in his well-tailored gray suit, which was only a slightly darker gray than his complexion; he seemed even thinner and more haggard than he had in his golfing attire, collar hanging loosely from a creped neck. His hands were on his knees, his eyes staring straight ahead, unblinking. He might have been a statue; he might have been dead.

Before him on the coffee table was the engraved silver bowl.

Then I realized he was saying something—muttering—though the thin line of his mouth barely moved.

“Hello, Jim,” I said, taking off my hat, moving into the room.

Now I could hear him. “You’re a loyal fellow,” he was saying, with no inflection whatsoever. “You’re a loyal fellow.”

I pulled over a fan-back chair and sat opposite him, with the coffee table between us; his eyes showed no sign of registering my presence.

“We had an appointment, Jim,” I said. “I need to make my report. I think you’re going to be pleased.”

He blinked, once, and now his eyes seemed to land on me, instead of look right through me.

But he still said only, “You’re a loyal fellow.”

Was he talking about me, or himself? Had he discovered my affiliation with Pearson, and was this a sort of shell-shocked sarcasm?

Remy was standing in the archway between the living room and the entry hall; he called out, “Mr. Forrestal! It’s Mr. Eberstadt again! He says you must come to phone.”

Forrestal’s head turned slowly on his neck, like a well-oiled moving part.

“No,” he said.

Then just as slowly, his head returned to its forward staring position.

“Just a second, Remy,” I said. “I’ll take it.”

The phone was on a stand in the hallway, but out of Forrestal’s earshot, so I was free to talk.

“This is Nate Heller, Mr. Eberstadt,” I said. Investment banker Eberstadt was one of my client’s oldest, dearest friends; I’d seen them playing golf together at Burning Tree, Saturday.

“You seem to know who I am,” he said, in a commanding baritone. “Who the hell are you?”

“I’m an investigator Jim hired to see who was trying to kill him.”

“Oh, my God,” he groaned. “I hope by now you know the real nature of his problem.”

“I’d say I do. Right now he’s sitting in the living room with his hat on muttering about what a ‘loyal fellow’ he, or somebody, is.”

“What’s your appraisal of the immediate situation?”

“I’d say he’s about two inches away from falling off Catatonic Cliff.”

“Damnit.” A weary concern colored Eberstadt’s tone. “I got a similar report from Marx Leva, his assistant at the Pentagon. Seems James was fine at the ceremonies honoring him this morning, but when he returned to his office, he just sat and stared at the wall … with his hat on. I think it may have been that goddamn Symington’s fault.”

“Symington?”

“James was supposed to go back to the Pentagon, not to his old office, but another one that’s been set aside for him, so he can deal with the nice letters that’ve been coming in from all over. Symington apparently went out of his way to give Jim a ride back over there.”

“That sounds like a friendly gesture to me.”

“I don’t think it was. Leva said Symington told Jim, emphatically, ‘There’s something we must talk about.’”

“So what did they talk about?”

“Leva doesn’t know; Symington insisted on privacy. But James was a different man after that ride—Symington must have said something that shattered whatever remained of James’ defenses, that double-dealing son of a bitch.”

A crazy thought flitted through my mind: Symington, as the Secretary of the Air Force, would surely know about the Roswell incident. Could that “something important” he had to discuss with Forrestal have had to do with a recovered flying saucer and the bodies of little green men?

And, having had that thought, who the hell was I to question Jim Forrestal’s sanity?

Eberstadt was saying, “I’m really worried about James. Can you stay there with him?”

“Sure.”

“You know, this assistant of his, Leva, called me over at the Capitol, had me paged, really concerned. After sitting there for an hour or so, like you’re witnessing—just staring and muttering, ‘You’re a loyal fellow’—James finally asked Leva to call for his car; he wanted to go home. And that was a problem.”

“Why?”

“James doesn’t have an official car, anymore. It’s Louis Johnson’s now; and Leva was afraid if he called a cab, it might upset his boss. So I got Vannevar Bush to send over his chauffeured limo.”

“Who?”

“Bush, Vannevar Bush.”

Christ—Bush was one of the Majestic Twelve! That atom bomb scientist Pearson mentioned who, with Forrestal, was part of the top-secret research and development group supposedly investigating the “flying saucer problem.”

Maybe Jo Forrestal was right: maybe paranoia
was
catching.

“I can’t get away for half an hour, at the least,” Eberstadt was saying. “Will you stay with James, till I can get there?”

“Won’t let him out of my sight.”

“Good man.”

I hung up, went back into the living room, where Forrestal’s posture hadn’t changed.

“Take off your hat and stay awhile,” I said, gently.

He gazed at me, gray-blue eyes in a gray face; there was something lizardlike about it.

Gently, I removed his hat, tossed it next to mine on the coffee table. Then I sat opposite him and said, “I need to make my report. Jim, are you listening?”

He blinked, several times. “Nate Heller,” he said, obviously noticing my presence for the first time.

“Hi, Jim. All right with you if I let you know what I came up with?”

His nod was barely perceptible.

“You’re aware that we did a full sweep of the house for electronic surveillance, yesterday? You got the note I left to that effect?”

Another barely perceptible nod.

“Well, I used the best men in the city; they didn’t find a damn thing. On the other hand, I have learned that Pearson was bribing one of your household staff—Della Brown—for any tidbits of personal gossip; I told Jo yesterday, and, obviously, recommended firing the girl.”

He said nothing; but at least he did seem to be listening.

“Now, I’ve learned that the Secret Service has been keeping your home under surveillance. That’s not because they wish you ill, quite the opposite. They learned of your fears that someone was trying to ‘get’ you, and—much as I have—they investigated.”

His eyes left my face, dropping to the silver bowl, where he could stare at his reflection, and it could stare back at him.

“So, you were right, Jim—you were being watched; and your suspicions about Pearson were, to some degree, well placed. But I’ve found no indication at all that your life is in any danger.”

The single line of his mouth twitched in something that was almost a smile. “Really?” He rose, as fluidly and slowly as Bela Lugosi waking up in his coffin. He crooked his finger. “Come with me.”

I followed him to the window across the room; he parted a blind and said, softly, “On the corner.”

On that same bench I’d inhabited not so long ago, in front of the weathered gray-brick colonial house with the tours and the coffee shop, sat a couple of pasty-faced kids in their early twenties wearing colorful but soiled T-shirts and dingy jeans and tennis shoes. They were either out of work or avoiding it, and when the next cop came along, they’d no doubt be told to shove off.

“Russians,” Forrestal said ominously, and let the blinds snap shut.

“I kind of doubt that, Jim,” I said.

His head swiveled and he fixed narrowed eyes upon me. “They were waiting for me when I got home.”

The doorbell rang and he jumped; but hell, so did I.

The houseboy, moving quickly, went to answer it. Couldn’t be Eberstadt already, could it?

“I know you mean well, Nate,” Forrestal said quietly, taking me by the arm, “but you haven’t found the truth. They’re after me, they’re still after me.”

“Who?”

“All of them. All of those I’ve opposed.”

“A conspiracy, you mean?”

He squeezed my arm. “Exactly. Commies, Russians, Jews, as well as certain … parties in the White House. That’s why they’ve fooled you: you’re looking for one villain. But it’s all of them—in concert.”

Maybe I could start my new investigation at the Water Gate band shell.

“They’ve united against me,” he said, “their common enemy.”

I could hear the muffled sound of the houseboy dealing with somebody at the front door.

Still latching onto my arm, Forrestal whispered into my ear: “They’re probably in the house right now, some of them.”

“They’re not in this house, Jim.”

“Keep your voice down. Don’t you know this house is wired?”

“It’s not wired. My men went over it, I told you, stem to stern.”

His eyes tightened and so did his grip on my arm. “If you don’t lower your voice, I’ll be forced to ask you to leave.”

Remy stood nervously at the archway. “There is a man want to see him.”

The houseboy was addressing me, pointing to his boss.

Forrestal clutched my arm, desperately. “I won’t see anyone.”

I extricated myself, gently, saying, “I’ll talk to him, Jim. Just take it easy.”

The man on the front stoop was short, plump, with a receding hairline, wire-frame glasses, and though it was a cool afternoon, sweat beaded his round face. He wore a crumpled-looking brown off-the-rack business suit and a blue-and-red tie and carried a battered briefcase.

“I need to see Mr. Forrestal,” the man said in a thick Southern accent.

“That’s impossible right now.”

“I’m Phil Dingel—from North Carolina?”

Oh, well, hell—that changed everything.

“Look, sir,” I said. “Mr. Forrestal is not available.”

“But he knows me—I was an alternate delegate from North Carolina … at the convention in ’48? And Mr. Forrestal promised he’d throw his support my way for my appointment to postmaster, back home.”

“You want to be postmaster, huh?”

“Why, yes!”

“Then write him a letter,” I said, and shut the door in his face. Fucking political worm.

In the living room, Forrestal was watching at the window, blinds again parted; his face was clenched. “See! You see, Nate?”

I took a look. The plump would-be Podunk postmaster, who had worse timing than a pregnant teenager waiting for her period, had stopped to talk to the two unshaven vagrant kids on the bench.

“You see, he’s one of them,” Forrestal said excitedly. “They’re everywhere!”

“Let me check into it,” I said easily.

Soon I was cutting across the street, approaching the boys on the bench. They were both skinny with greasy hair, bad complexions, and worse attitudes.

“What did the fat guy want?” I asked.

The skinnier of the two sneered. “What’s it to ya, pops?”

Knocking their heads together might have agitated Forrestal, so I got out my wallet and flashed my Illinois private investigator’s badge; that usually works.

They both sat up straight, like kids reprimanded in school, and the other one said, “Guy just wanted to know if this was a bus stop. I said no, but he could catch a trolley over that way.”

I still had my wallet out. “How would you fellas like to earn a five-spot each?”

The skinnier one sneered. “Who do we have to kill?”

His pal laughed at that; they didn’t know how funny it really was.

I said, “Just find another bench to park your butts on.”

They looked at each other and shrugged; the skinnier one said, “Okay, pops.”

So I peeled off a couple of fives, and the kids got lost. Strange how cheap Russian agents could be bought off, these days.

When I went inside, Forrestal was not in sight, but I could hear a racket upstairs. The houseboy was at the foot of the stairs, wringing his hands.