The Art of the Devil (22 page)

America's Top Cop then regarded Nixon with such a flat and unapologetic stare that the Vice President fidgeted in his seat.

‘John,' started Nixon. ‘There's a matter I want to discuss. But it's … delicate.'

Hoover's gaze was hardly sympathetic. Considering their history together, this was unsurprising. Although Nixon had been careful to speak only admiringly of the Director in public, they had not always been allies behind the scenes. The defining moment of their relationship had come seven years before, after the discovery of top-secret government documents inside a hollowed-out pumpkin in a Westminster field. Whittaker Chambers, the ex-communist who had led investigators to the pumpkin, had identified a former State Department official named Alger Hiss as their source. In the feeding frenzy which followed, Nixon and Hoover had jockeyed ruthlessly for the honor of crucifying Hiss. Only when Truman's Justice Department had tried to quash the case had Nixon and Hoover grudgingly joined forces, resulting in two convictions of perjury against a man who had been one of FDR's closest confidantes. To this day, each resented having shared his prize with the other.

‘Few days ago,' Nixon went on after a brief pause, ‘I had lunch with Joe. And he was talking about Clay and Hoffman and those fellows. And he says, you know, that they'll drop me like a hot potato, if only they can find a reason.'

Hoover's dark eyes betrayed nothing. Again, Nixon was unsurprised. Secrets were what got J. Edgar Hoover out of bed each morning, what he thought about as he drifted off to sleep each night. They were his
raison d'être
, and he bartered them carefully, lovingly, and always to his own advantage.

‘But Clay and Hoffman,' Nixon continued, ‘aren't my concern. In fact, it's the flip side that's got me worried – the patriots, Joe calls them. The men, and I quote, who “won't let Ike get away with this”.'

Hoover's bulldog face revealed nothing.

‘So.' Nixon shot his cuff, fiddled with the link. If Hoover was going to make him come right out with it, they would never get anywhere. That the Club was wired – by Hoover, by Winchell, by Billingsley – was an open secret. Sensible men took care what they said within these bugged walls. He decided to try another approach. ‘I'm here because you know what goes on, John, better than anybody. A man can't take a number off a restroom stall without you hearing about it. And so I'm wondering if you've, er … heard anything. Which you, uh, might care to share.'

The heavy brows rose slightly. ‘Such as?'

‘Well, that's the question, isn't it? Look: what Ike's trying to do to me isn't right, not by a long shot. But if certain men were to – let's say – take action on my behalf – well, that might not be right either. If you follow. Depending, of course, on the nature of the action …'

‘You're talking circles here, Dick.'

‘Joe implied some things.' Nixon shrugged. ‘I'm not sure I liked the sound of them.'

‘You're not sure,' Hoover repeated – slowly, almost mockingly – ‘you liked the sound of them.'

‘That's why I'm here. Sometimes it's hard to know what's real and what's just a man's imagination. But if there's …'

The look on Hoover's face – ironic, half-amused – made him trail off.

Don't forget Hoover
, McCarthy had said.
He's in your corner, Dick. He can make things happen – or he can get out of the way and
let
things happen.

Nixon blinked. He had been driven here tonight by pangs of conscience. If Fighting Joe McCarthy had gone off the rails, if some desperate eleventh-hour plot had been hatched against the President in smoke-filled rooms, then the Director of the FBI should know. For Eisenhower, despite his myriad flaws, was a decent man. He deserved more than a stab in the back from his own trusted generals.

But Hoover, Nixon saw suddenly,
did
know.

Hoover watched understanding dawn; one corner of his solid mouth ticked up with a glimmer of humor. He produced a cigarette lighter embossed with the Stork Club logo – bird wearing top hat, carrying cane – and lit a Chesterfield.

‘Dick,' he said around the filter, ‘it's a tough business we're in. And between you and me: I'm goddamned sick of watching everything we've worked for get handed away to subversives. I've given up too damned much for this country. Now, you're a stand-up fellow, Dick. I think we could do a lot worse, as a nation, than you.'

Nixon opened his mouth, closed it again with a snap.

‘Stand-up fellow,' Hoover said again. Leaning across the table, he thumped Nixon's shoulder fraternally. ‘And a bright one, too. Bright enough to realize that sometimes all you've got to do is keep your mouth shut and let the cards fall where they may. We've had our differences. But we'll work things out in the end, when it counts.'

Nixon nodded dumbly. He smiled: first to cover his confusion, and then to cover feeling small. Despite his esteemed title, it seemed that he remained in many ways as unsophisticated as a naif. Although he had shown a willingness to bend ethically when necessary, rising to national prominence along similar lines as Joe McCarthy – baiting Reds, encouraging innuendo and guilt by association – apparently, he was but a schoolboy who had stumbled into a pick-up game with the big kids.

He stood, still smiling, and firmly shook Hoover's hand – a professional handshake, two solid pumps – and then turned away, weaving through the crowd, tossing a rakish, joking salute to Billingsley on his way out.

GETTYSBURG

The more Elisabeth willed herself to sleep, the more awake she felt.

She forced her eyes to remain closed. JESUS LOVES YOU, read the wall plaque; yes, yes, she knew that; she didn't need to be reminded. What she did need was rest. The next few days would tell the tale.

Yet she couldn't sleep; although the last noises from the party were finally falling quiet, her mind kept humming along.

She must have faith – not in Christ, the false prophet, but in the destiny that was her birthright as a pure-blood Aryan. Mastery over subhumans was her inheritance and her due. And so she must believe: she would find success.

To us, the privileged members of the master race
, Karl had said,
belongs the future.

He had not been talking about an ordinary life, with a cross-breed as a best friend. He had been talking about luxury beyond imagining: Mitropa railroad cars and pure-blood lovers, diamonds and precious gems by the heap, mountain chalets and opulent ballrooms. These were her legacy. To settle for less – for coffee and fog and Frenchmen – would be cheating herself.

With the sound of the party quiet at last, the night seemed eerily empty. Something was missing … Josette's radio, of course. Drunk, the girl had fallen asleep without even tuning in her favorite rock and roll station for a nightcap.

Elisabeth did her best to shake her doubts away. Everything she had done, and still would do, would prove worthwhile. All the choices she had made would be vindicated. She deserved more than an ordinary life. She deserved only the best.

Yet still she lay awake, struggling in vain to rest as the sun rose outside her window on the morning of Sunday, November twentieth, staining the eastern sky the color of blood.

In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex.

Dwight D. Eisenhower

GAITHERSBURG: NOVEMBER 20

T
he sight of Betsy's pale lovely neck, as she lifted her hair so that Max Whitman could work the clasp of the necklace, made him ache in a place deeper than his bones.

After she let auburn hair fall back to her shoulders, she turned and smiled. ‘Do you like it?'

In answer, Max took her in his arms. As they kissed, he felt her mouth curve into a smile. He returned the smile, happy and content in a simple, amazed way. He thanked God for his blessings. Life was, after all, so very fragile.

Recently, he'd had a dream – a terrible dream. In the dream, Betsy wasn't truly his at all. She was only a hallucination, brought on by three straight days of degradation and deprivation. And his boss and best friend Emil Spooner had betrayed him, in this dream, and Betsy herself had turned out to be a no-good whore, falling into bed with whatever boy could offer her the fanciest night out on the town … and eventually marrying a haberdasher from Connecticut, of all things.
A
haberdasher from Connecticut
. You couldn't get more ordinary, more compromising, if you tried.

And Max himself had children, in this dream: two beautiful daughters, the most precious little angels a man could ever wish for. A smile from one of the girls could turn a bad day neatly on its head. And the funny thing was, he felt even luckier to have these girls, in the dream, than he felt in reality to have Betsy – and that, it went without saying, was very lucky indeed.

But in this dream, he had done a very stupid thing. He had given in to his baser instincts – jealousy, desire, ambition – and fallen in with some very bad people. And the hell of it was, his beautiful little girls would be the ones to pay the price. Because the last chance to make things right had passed. Now he was caught. If he confessed, he'd fry. If he didn't confess, they'd beat him to death right here in this moldy cellar. And either way, his little angels would be left without a father.

A tear tracked down his cheek, carving a channel from smears of blood.

For a moment, his vision cleared. With his one remaining eye he saw Lou Candless and Eddie Grieg sitting on chairs in front of him, harshly backlit. Lou and Eddie were looking at him pityingly. They knew his daughters; once upon a time they had all been friends, equals. They had played ball together, shot the shit by the water cooler, picnicked with their families. But time was like a river and it rushed on, and sometimes the river took unexpected turns, and then you ended up here, in a dingy little cellar with instruments of interrogation – chains, clamps, baseball bats – hanging from the wall, with your former friends impelled by duty and honor and justice to beat the living crap out of you until you choked to death on your own blood and bile.

Lou and Eddie exchanged a glance. ‘Coming around,' said Lou softly.

Eddie held a cup of water to Max's parched lips. ‘Have a drink, Max.'

Max drank. The water was cold and painful and drove a spike into his brain. He coughed, withdrew, vomited.

‘Help us stop this.' The pleading note in Eddie Grieg's voice sounded genuine. ‘Please, Max. Tell us what we need to know.'

If Max could have chuckled, he would have. It was far too late to stop. He had long since made his choices.

Behind Eddie and Lou sat Betsy Martin, nodding.
That's absolutely right, Max. That's my big, strong fella. Don't let these pricks push you around. That's what I love most about you – your strength.

‘Please,' begged Eddie again.

It's almost over now
,
said Betsy
. Forget your daughters. Forget your wife. Let this end, and you'll be free. We'll start over. We'll start a family of our own. It's okay, slugger; I don't bite.

Ah, but it was sad. Because he did love his little girls, so very much.

Eddie sighed. Finding Lou's eye again, he nodded. Lou stood, blocking out the harsh light. Something in his right hand slithered and jangled.

Max retreated back into fantasy. He and Betsy were going out to dinner, and she was wearing the necklace he had given her. The restaurant was a modest little place with wine bottle candlesticks, with great pools of multicolored wax spreading over the tables. And cockroaches and spiders and maggots climbed over the wax, and when the waiter brought their plates, the meal itself was a dead rat, splayed on its back, pinned open like a student's dissection project.

Betsy took a forkful of entrails and angled it toward his mouth.
Eat up, Max. This is what you've bought, after all. For the wages of sin are death, but the gift of God is eternal life. Let go, Max, and come along with me. And we'll be together like this. Forever.

He shook his head. It was all a mistake. He didn't want this; this was not his fate. He would surface again. And he would tell them everything. It was not too late.

But the candlelight was fading, the darkness closing in.
Too late
, he thought distantly.
Too late, too late, too late …

And Betsy, forcing the viscera and offal into his mouth, was smiling.

Eddie Grieg raised a hand, preventing the next blow before Lou threw it.

Stepping forward, he laid two fingers against Max's thick neck. As he searched for a pulse, something crawled in the pit of his gut. He focused back on the task at hand. With the same two fingers, he lifted Max's chin. The bleared remaining eye was still half-open, but the light inside was dead.

‘He's gone,' Eddie said.

THE TREASURY BUILDING

Entering the office one hour later, Lou Candless deposited a thin dossier on the desk without ceremony. ‘Final report on Max.'

Before picking up the Manila folder, the Chief cultivated a layer of intellectual distance, impenetrable as enamel. He met Isherwood's gaze squarely. Then he looked down and opened the file. The document covered half of one single-spaced page and reported nothing of value. Max had carried his secrets to the grave. Was it wrong that Spooner found that respectable? One thing about Max Whitman: even as a boy on the playground, he had never let anybody push him around.

Covering a cough, Spooner ground out his cigarette and set the report aside. This had not been the way things were supposed to go. He heard, faint with distance and years, a remote echo of an ancient stickball game: whisk-
crack
.