The Art of the Devil (11 page)

Drifting for a time, he had difficulty separating fantasy from reality. A truck or similarly large vehicle stopped on the road overhead, brakes squealing; he heard tinny voices engaged in discussion. Or was that just a dream? The night sky wheeled dizzyingly, streaking the stars until they looked like shreds of tinsel hanging from a Christmas tree. He felt warm, then cold. A shooting star crossed his field of vision; and he took aim through his scope at a Nazi commander who wore glistening black boots and many decorations; and he took aim from a ridge above the George Washington Memorial Parkway at President Eisenhower, who cowered inside his bubble-topped Chrysler; and he foolishly followed the will-o'-the-wisp, the ghost-fire of legend, the pixie light, which beckoned lost souls; and the old fortune-teller bent close and declared, her voice like a seething nest of vipers, that he would have a short life, a pity.

Then he turned his head, slowly, and saw the sun starting to rise behind jagged mountains.

The light in the sky was unmistakably real. Cars passed on the road above, regularly if infrequently. Daybreak was near. The humming in his head was back, a nest of mad bees.

Isherwood was gone.

And Hart had survived the night.

He began the process of getting his functioning leg beneath himself: painstakingly, using his one good arm as a lever. By the time he realized the task was impossible – if he wanted to move, he would need to crawl – the sun had risen higher in the sky, the low clouds beyond the mountains shading from pink to yellow.

And so he struck off in a clumsy slither, dragging his wounded leg behind himself, flopping his ruined arm uselessly, moving in the direction of the scenic overlook and his waiting Buick. He would survive this, he told himself. And next time, he would not underestimate his target. Next time, he would pay more heed to the warnings of the fortune-teller and the will-o'-the-wisp.

He slithered: scowling, cursing, weeping with the pain that now flooded his body, overwhelming, all-encompassing; and with every excruciating movement he cursed Jesus, Mary, Joseph, his own errors of judgment, and most of all Agent Francis Isherwood.

THE TREASURY BUILDING: NOVEMBER 17

B
ehind his desk at 1500 Pennsylvania Avenue, Max Whitman stared philosophically into space, his broad mouth forming a thoughtful moue.

He pictured a beautiful young girl with hair the color of autumn dusk, sitting just on the other side of the desk.
You're so handsome, Max
.
Letting you go was the worst mistake of my life. I'll never leave you again. I love you …

The door to the reception area leaned open; and there stood Francis Isherwood, looking even less rested and more bedraggled than the last time Max Whitman had seen him. For an instant, the secretary couldn't keep the surprise off his face.

Then he recovered. ‘Ish,' he said, managing strained bonhomie.

Stepping into the office, Isherwood let a long moment fall away. At last he said darkly: ‘Need to see the Chief.'

‘He's in a meeting. You, uh, should have called ahead.' Max glanced around furtively. Leaning across the desk, he dropped his voice. ‘Where the hell were you last night? I was standing out in that damned pumpkin patch until the cock crowed.'

‘Just let the Chief know I'm here.'

‘He gave specific instructions not to be—'

‘I'll wait.'

For the next quarter-hour, Isherwood shared the reception area with Max Whitman without once looking in his direction. At last a man wearing pinstripes emerged from the inner sanctum; Isherwood promptly stood. ‘Better let me give him a holler,' Max started, but Isherwood had already breezed past him, moving into the office and closing the door resoundingly.

Max tried to distract himself by shuffling papers around the desk. If worse came to worst, he thought, it would be Isherwood's word against his. Unless, that was, they had evidence he didn't know about. Perhaps he had been photographed visiting the senator's mansion in Charlottesville, or talking with someone at the bar of the Mayflower Hotel. Perhaps he should just leave his desk, walk out of the building, and make a run for it. But those would be the actions of a guilty man. He would ruin any future he might still have in Treasury. And there was his wife to consider, his two precious daughters—

Sitting across the desk, the ghost of Betsy Martin wore her default expression, of concerned benevolence. But there was a distracted quality to it, Max noted, as always. Of course, that was how she had been in life too. Sitting alone with him in a parlor, she'd forever given the impression that half of her mind was elsewhere.

Still: that she would sit with him in a parlor at all had been a pleasant surprise. That had been the year of ‘Brother, Can You Spare a Dime?' and ‘In A Shanty in Old Shanty Town'. Unemployment had reached twenty-four percent, and the suicide rate had risen accordingly. The Depression had worked over the nation like a dog working a bone. Max's world, already painted in squalid shades of gray, had seemed darker every day … and then there in the midst of the gloom had appeared this beautiful young girl wearing a fresh blue-and-white dress, with kohl pencil around her eyes and a sweet, disarming smile.

How had he ever found the gumption to walk up to her, that day on the street, and strike up a conversation? The answer: he had been too young and stupid to know any better. And of course Emil Spooner had been by his side, egging him on.

‘Go on,' Emil had urged. ‘Look how she's standing. Look at those eyes. She's begging for it.'

‘So
you
talk to her,' Max had answered.

Emil laughed at the absurdity. Short and scrawny, he had cultivated, that year, the affectations of a tough guy – the Emil who cared nothing for outward appearances was still decades away – wearing a straw hat far back on the crown of his head, as he had seen Pretty Boy Floyd do in photographs, and holding a Cherry Coke into which he had splashed some of his father's whiskey. Emil and Max had played hooky that day, pitching pennies and shoplifting from Woolworths. Now, in late afternoon, they had found Betsy standing on a street corner at the edge of Hooverville, near a hobo sleeping beneath a newspaper on a bench.

‘She's out of my league,' Emil said. ‘But I can tell she likes the strong, silent type. That's you, glamor boy.'

‘What's she doing there?' asked Max: hazily, as if confused by his own question. ‘What's she waiting for?'

‘I'm telling you, buddy, she's waiting for
you
. She just don't know it yet.'

So Max forced his feet into motion, distracted, nearly getting run down by a streetcar after two steps. Licking his lips, he pressed forward, even as Emil laughed behind him. Approaching Betsy, he smoothed down his bushy cowlick.

As he drew near, she smiled. This confused him. Max Whitman was grindingly poor, even by Depression standards. Nobody would ever mistake him for smart, and his own mother didn't think he was especially handsome – yet, for some reason, Betsy was smiling.

‘Hi,' he said.

‘Hi.'

‘I know you. You're Betsy.' He scratched his cowlick. ‘I'm Max.'

She looked him up and down. ‘I know
you
,' she said. ‘You beat the hell out of Walter Addams, last year, in the school yard.'

Turning, Max gestured in explanation toward Emil Spooner, standing on the other side of the street. ‘He called my friend an Abercrombie.'

‘You sent Walt to the hospital, huh?' Her eyes gave a febrile glitter.

Max only shrugged.

‘Want to buy me a Moxie?'

‘Uh … sure.'

She crooked out an arm. ‘Lead the way, slugger.'

She had no brother or sister to look out for her. Her father worked late hours as a bookkeeper; her mother, occupied with mysterious errands from sunup to sundown, showed no interest in chaperoning. And for whatever reason, Betsy seemed only too happy to give Max a whirl.

They went to movies, sat in chairs of fumed oak in her father's parlor, and walked hand-in-hand around the block. At a local dance hall, they swayed together across a packed floor to ‘Mood Indigo', through smoky darkness and the fragrance of black market booze. She smiled up at him, all eyes and lips. ‘I don't bite, slugger,' she said, and so he stole his first kiss.

And soon enough he stole more: in the back row at the movies, or in dark nickelodeons or public parks when nobody was looking, sneaking his hand up beneath her sweater or skirt until, cheeks flushed, she pulled away with contrived shock. Thus did the spring of '33 pass, with Max happily disbelieving his own good fortune, even as the rest of the nation writhed in agony and hunger pains.

One evening early in summer, she let it be known that she would take his ring. That night Max begged his mother to honor a promise she had made long before. Now that the moment had arrived, however, Mother proved reluctant to relinquish her engagement ring. At last she worked the stone grudgingly from one veined hand, passed it over along with an admonishment:
I hope you know what you're doing, with this girl
. The next afternoon Max slipped the ring onto Betsy's dainty finger. Together they admired the small European-cut diamond, the way it caught the light when she turned her hand.

Two weeks later, after a matinee of
The
Invisible Man
starring Claude Rains, they stopped off at a soda fountain. Perched on a stool behind a marble counter, studying her own reflection in a large gilded mirror backing arching silver spouts, Betsy suddenly asked, ‘Why are you friends with Emil, anyway?'

The question took him off-guard. ‘Why?' he repeated dumbly.

‘Yeah. Why? He's a wet sock.'

Max shrugged heavy shoulders. ‘Long as I can remember, we've been friends.'

‘But what do you
get
from it? You protect him from bullies and moolies. And what does he do for you?'

‘You don't know Emil. One day, he'll do plenty for me. Hell, he already has.'

‘Like what?'

‘Like for starters: if not for him, I never would've met you.'

That piqued her interest. She made a motion with her straw:
Go on.

‘He's the one told me to talk to you. See, Emil's got vision. He's got a lot of things – brains, and personality, and a good family name – but most important, he's got vision. He thinks big.'

‘Huh,' she said.

‘He's going places. And if I'm lucky, he might let me tag along. Best I can hope for without him, between you and me? An apple cart to push. That or the breadlines. But if we stay close – who knows?'

‘Huh,' she repeated thoughtfully.

Looking back, he realized that with this conversation he had sealed his own fate. But with Betsy on his arm, his happiness had been so pure and simple that he had let down his guard, trusting her – and Emil – to behave honorably.

One Tuesday in early autumn, she had suggested a walk 'round the block. Max had gladly agreed. But soon enough, he knew that something was terribly wrong. For the whole first circuit she remained quiet, lost in thought. He talked loosely and foolishly to fill the silence, babbling on about
Grand Hotel
and a new college basketball rule that required the ball to be brought over the midcourt line in ten seconds. But eventually he ran out breath, and then she broke the news: she had decided to go steady with Emil, which meant she could no longer see Max.

He begged, threatened, and cajoled. Betsy only shook her head sadly. No matter what words he flung at her, she offered neither argument nor explanation. She just kept shaking her head, calmly, imperturbably. At the end of the walk, she returned his ring, affecting sorrow. But she seemed distracted, as always, with half her mind far away. At that instant, something curdled deep inside Max's stomach – the same thing which remained festering even today.

Later that night he found Emil sitting on a front stoop, nursing a Cherry Coke. At the sight of his friend coming down the block, Emil immediately read the situation correctly. Standing abruptly, spilling out drifts of sawdust which he used to prevent the jingling of coins in his pockets, he backed away, raising hands defensively. ‘Max,' he said. ‘Listen. She told me it was over with you …'

Max came to a stop at the foot of the stoop. ‘It's not over.'

‘She said she gave you back your ring.'

‘She …' Max faltered, speechless.

‘Buddy, listen. I never would have done it if I'd known you were still carrying a torch.'

‘Well, now you know.'

‘Yeah, but she's made her choice, hasn't she?'

Max waited for Emil to finish his explanation. It took him to a minute to understand that his friend
had
finished.

On the surface, the rift between them quickly healed. Emil swore up and down that he hadn't known Max and Betsy were still a couple, and within a few days, Max reluctantly gave them his blessing. Without Emil's support and contacts, after all, Max had no future worth mentioning. The friendship was one boat he could not afford to rock. And just three weeks later, Betsy met a guy from the Palisades and dumped Emil, and drifted out of both of their lives.

And as Emil's career took off, he indeed brought Max along for a merry ride. Becoming a prison warden, he made Max Whitman his second. Becoming Chief of the Secret Service, he made Max his personal secretary. For weeks, months, sometimes even years, Max would forget Betsy Martin completely. And yet still the vision of the beautiful young girl, with her blue-and-white dress and her auburn hair shimmering, would visit him at the most unexpected moments …
I don't bite.

Eventually had come 1953, and a stretch of dark days by which even the Depression seemed bright in comparison. His marriage had reached a nadir. The vision of Betsy had been with him constantly, and his resentment of Spooner had fermented into something pungent and intoxicating. More than once, after a long week of being bossed around by the Chief, he had shot off his mouth indiscreetly at the bar inside the Mayflower Hotel. With ears everywhere, it had been only a matter of time before certain organized people had heard of his complaints. Making contact, they had offered both a modest supplement to his government salary and a chance for long-awaited revenge against Emil Spooner.