The Art of the Devil (33 page)

‘Evy's back.'

‘Making up for lost time, eh?'

‘Something like that.'

‘Glad to hear it.' Spooner picked a book of matches from a bowl on the bar, folded back the cover. ‘I was hoping to ask you to swing by Treasury. We'll get the paperwork moving, strike that provisional from your status … Consider yourself fully reinstated, Ish, whenever you're ready.'

Isherwood's response was slow. Four days since his last pill, and five weeks since his last drink, yet still he found himself stringing thoughts together listlessly. Dressing that morning for the funeral, he had lost himself in a dark valley, staring into space for ten full minutes in the midst of putting on a sock. ‘Appreciate that,' he said at last.

‘Well, hell; we can use you. Ike's on his way back to Washington.' Spooner's cigarette described a strained little circle, perhaps at the thought of all the protection Eisenhower might still require. ‘He says Key West was as bad as Gettysburg. Now he needs a vacation from his vacation. I told him, be careful what you wish for; he'll have his hands full, gearing up for the convention.'

‘He's decided?'

‘Funny thing. Rumors aside, he was on the fence right up until the end … but now he's committed. Won't give his enemies, he told me, the satisfaction of doing their job for them.'

Isherwood nodded. In the end, it had proved impossible to shield Eisenhower from the truth. Of course, the President had slammed a lid on the story. The chief executive had to maintain the illusion of invulnerability. Agents Zane and Whitman had officially died in the line of duty – their wives would get the pension – but files with details had been permanently misplaced.

A black-and-white television hanging in one ceiling corner played footage of Soviet trucks carrying missiles. Isherwood watched for a moment, and then looked away. ‘The girl?' he asked.

Spooner shook his head. ‘No match from AFIS, and nothing else to work with. She's plain gone. Same with Bolin. Dead ends and blind alleys, whichever way we turn.' He ground out his cigarette and pushed the ashtray a symbolic inch away. ‘Everything's self-contained; nothing leads out. The puppet masters covered their tracks well. Only thing we've turned up is the missing housemaid from the farm. Found her beneath a bed, once she started to go rotten.'

Isherwood smoked hard, exhaled a clock spring of smoke.

‘But look at it this way, pal: the glass is more than half-full. The President's alive. That's what counts.' But the Chief sounded dubious, as if trying to convince himself, and the nuanced look on his face belied the simple confidence of his words. ‘And the DA finessed that thing. You'll have to present before the grand jury, but it's just a formality – they'll go for necessary force.'

A few empty moments passed. The neon signs flickered and droned. Spooner pulled the ashtray closer again and helped himself to another cigarette. ‘You know who the real winner is in all this? Dick Nixon. Ike's got cold feet, after all he's been through, so he'll stick with a known quantity – Nixon stays on the ticket after all.'

The bartender glided by, read the situation, and kept going. Spooner let the man get some distance and then, with sudden feeling, laughed. ‘Hell, old buddy,' he said, ‘that was a close one, huh?'

Isherwood closed his eyes briefly.

‘Scared the hell out me, I don't mind telling you. When you can't trust your own … That's how they got Caesar. It's the ones inside the wheelhouse you've got to look out for.'

‘We dodged a bullet,' said Isherwood.

‘Pun intended, I trust.' Spooner took out his wallet. ‘Listen, I'm heading back to Treasury. You want to tag along?'

After a few seconds Isherwood slipped off the bar stool, collecting his talismans – leaflet, cigarettes, Zippo – and reaching for his cane.

‘Heading home,' he said. ‘Thanks anyway.'

Evelyn snored lightly beside him.

He smiled slightly in the darkness. The snoring would mortify her, had she been aware of it. And it would keep him awake, as would the lack of space in the bed – after so many nights spent alone, sharing a blanket again was taking some getting used to. But it was the kind of getting used to he didn't mind.

Plink.

His gaze traced a network of cracks in the ceiling. Restlessly, he conjured pictures from the mosaic of ragged lines: boiling oceans, cities of ash, expanding mushroom clouds; corkscrews, bottles, Martini glasses, whiskey tumblers, vials of pills; Zane's squalling wife and baby, the rifle sticking from the top of the silo like a steel snout, the slow tumble of girl and gun falling together off the platform. At length, he closed his eyes.

Plink.

Without whiskey, the wheels in his mind never stopped turning. When he did eventually lapse into sleep, dreams would be waiting – abstruse and perplexing skeins which left him feeling, upon waking, slightly unmoored from reality, one step to the left. But at least he could not recall the details of the dreams during the days. Small favors.

Plink.

He sighed, flipping over. That afternoon he had spent two hours wrestling with wrenches and washers and screwdrivers, but his victory had been short-lived. The bathroom faucet was leaking again. In the morning, he would redouble his efforts. There would be time to kill between morning and afternoon doctors' visits. Until then …

Plink.

… Well, he wasn't sleeping anyway. And Evelyn seemed somehow able to snore right through it.

His mind kept wheeling. He yawned: tired, beyond a doubt, but unable to switch off his troubled brain. Turning over again, he laid an arm across Evelyn's quiescent form. He remembered the Chief's words from what seemed like very long ago.
There's no lack of men in this country today sitting just where you are now – dying for a drink, and trying to get the hell past whatever happened over there. There's no shame in it.

In fact, he thought, there must be more of us now than ever. Korea had produced a new crop of veterans, and thus a new groundswell of baffled wives and families back home. And fresh schisms had opened, in the so-called United States of America, along other fronts: between the big bands and a colored wildman from New Orleans named Little Richard; between the Supreme Court, declaring that state laws establishing separate schools for blacks and whites were unconstitutional, and a determined resistance led by Senator Harry F. Byrd; between the parents of countless new babies born after the war, and those who had to find schoolrooms and teachers to accommodate the sudden boom. At least there was comfort to be taken from the idea that, in passing his sleepless nights staring at cracks in the ceiling, he had company.

He yawned again. Eventually, he would need to figure out what to tell Spooner about the job offer. But for now, he still had time.

He sank farther – away from consciousness, away from Evelyn's snoring and the leaking faucet, away from thoughts of past and future – to a place where dreams and nightmares still churned but, upon waking, went unremembered.

* * *

From The
Anacostia News
. Wednesday, September 12, 1956, Page 28:

Anacostia births:

ISHERWOOD – to the wife of Francis K., 610 Good Hope Street; a son.