The Diplomatic Coup

by Alan Elsner

  Dayton returned to the first photo. According to the credit printed in tiny letters, it had been shot by an Associated Press photographer identified by the initials AB. An Internet search of photographers from that era eventually produced a name – Al Bauman. He was probably an old man by now, she thought, long retired if he was still alive. Still, it was worth a try. Photographers are fanatical about keeping their negatives. He’d probably shot dozens of pictures that day. Perhaps there was one that offered a more definitive view. Delphine called the AP bureau in D.C. and asked to be put through to the photos desk. The duty editor had never heard of Bauman, but one of his colleagues had been around since the seventies and remembered him well. He was happy to pass on Bauman’s home number. Delphine dialed it.

  “Yes?” A tired, elderly voice.

  “I’m looking for the former AP photographer Al Bauman.”

  “Yes?”

  Delphine explained that she was doing research into the anti-Vietnam War movement and was interested in some pictures he’d shot back in the sixties.

  “You’re the third person to ask me in the past few weeks. For years, nobody cared any more about my work. Now suddenly …”

  “Who were the others?”

  “First there was a young lady, couple of months ago. Said she was a reporter from Time or Newsweek. Showed up with a bottle of whisky … Cute but skinny.” He spoke in a clutched-throat staccato.

  “Lisa Hemmings?”

  “How’d you know?”

  “Um, we’re friends.”

  “And then, couple of weeks later, young man calls from a photo archive in New York City. Offers to buy the entire collection, negatives and all for a nice price. Could have knocked me down with a feather.”

  “Did you sell?”

  “Well sure. What use are they to me? Better off in an archive. I was glad to have the money.”

  “So you gave him everything?”

  “He took the whole collection—prints, negs, the lot. Kept asking if there was more, wanted to be sure he had it all.”

  “What about the AP? Don’t they keep a record of your work?”

  “Well sure, in the photo library, but they only keep shots that were transmitted on the wire. All the rest was mine. Good thing I kept them. He paid cash—hundred dollar bills. Felt like winning the lottery.”

  “Did he leave a name or contact number?”

  “Yeah, he gave me a card. Let’s see, gotta be somewhere. Wait a minute.” Delphine heard him shuffle away; a moment later he’d returned, breathing heavily. “Thomas Allstott of the Democritus Foundation.”

  “The which?”

  He spelled it out. “Been meaning to call him, tell him I forgot the contact sheets, but you know how it is – never got around to it.”

  “Contact sheets?”

  “Clear slipped my mind at the time.”

  “You’re telling me you still have little thumbnails of the pictures you took?”

  “That’s right.”

  “Could I come round to see them?”

  “My calendar isn’t real crowded these days.”

  “How about this afternoon?”

  “Sure, come on down.”

  Delphine wrote down his address which was only a few miles away, thanked him and rang off. Even a contact sheet could be valuable, she thought. Maybe she’d find something new once she’d blown the pictures up.

  Next, she called Andrew Cushing to ask if he was going to Erik’s funeral.

  “Not me. I’d have to pay my own expenses.”

  “Is anyone going from our group?”

  “Doubt it.”

  “He doesn’t deserve this. He wasn’t a bad person.” There was nothing sadder than a sparsely-attended funeral, as Delphine knew from experience.

  “Apparently, he liked ogling little boys.”

  She didn’t buy it. The whole thing didn’t sit right.

  Delphine decided to walk to Al Bauman’s address in a quiet neighborhood of single family homes in the north of the city. His small front yard was overgrown with weeds, the wooden floorboards on the front porch were splintered and the paint on the building was flaking away. A rubber plant in a large pot by the front door had died long ago. She rang the bell but there was no answer. The windows were covered with thick curtains. She knocked a few times, then gave up and returned home by taxi.

  When Delphine looked up the Democritus Foundation on the Internet, there was no trace of it. She couldn’t find it mentioned in The Washington Post database either. That’s when she started getting anxious about Mr. Bauman.

  The rest of the afternoon she spent in the database trying to put together a list of all the companies Schuyler controlled or had stakes in. Of course, she knew about his stake in the construction company Bourbon et Orléan which had played such a big part in her own life. Every so often, she broke off to call Bauman’s number but nobody picked up.

  Schuyler’s businesses formed a complicated web. He had interests in frozen foods, plastics, packing, real estate and half a dozen other fields. Lately, he’d been investing in shipping and oil. Some companies he controlled directly through Stafford; others were held through subsidiaries or third parties.

  She also found reference to his best-selling book in which he’d expounded his economic philosophy. In business, Schuyler said, you needed luck and determination—but they did not guarantee success. At some point, every company will face a crisis, where forces beyond the entrepreneur’s control would threaten everything he had built. Of course, the book assumed the CEO would be a male. How should he respond? By employing the ‘Six D’s,” said Schuyler: “Delay, distract, defend, demoralize, defeat and destroy.”

  The phone rang. When Delphine picked up, a woman introduced herself as Devon Dawson, an editor from the Heathgate Publishing Company in New York City, one of the biggest and most prestigious in America.

  “Yes,” Delphine said warily.

  “I hear you’re writing a book about Julia Dayton.”

  “How did you hear?”

  Ms. Dawson chuckled knowingly. “Let’s say a little bird told me. We at Heathgate are very interested in this project – intensely interested.”

  The little bird could only have been Dayton herself or someone close to her speaking with her knowledge.” Isn’t this premature?” Delphine asked. “I haven’t even started writing yet.”

  “We see major potential here. The marketing possibilities are very promising. I’ve seen pictures of you and they fit exactly the image we want to present. You’re young, you’re smart, you’re more than presentable and you speak English almost like a native but with a sexy accent. Dayton’s a hot commodity—and she’ll be even hotter next year when she’s running for president. It all adds up to one thing.”

  “What?”

  “Ka-ching!”

  “Excuse me?”

  “Big bucks – or Euros if you prefer. That’s why you need the right publisher. And Heathgate is the absolute best.”

  This was too much for Delphine to swallow in one bite. Apparently, without writing a single word, she was about to become a successful author.

  She said, “I’m not even sure I can write an entire book. I’ve only written newspaper articles.”

  “Of course you can. The main thing is to get things moving. I need something to take to the Board of Directors, a one-page summary will do. After that, we can start talking contract, probably high six figures.”

  “You mean just under a million?”

  “That’s right.”

  “Dollars or Euros?”

  “Already negotiating are we? Maybe we could go to the low sevens. I have to be in D.C. later this week; why don’t we sit down together?”

  Delphine agreed to meet. By the time the call ended, her head was spinning the way it did after two or three glasses of ch
ampagne. She turned back to her laptop to look up the company on the Internet and quickly discovered that Heathgate was owned by International Publishing Inc., a company in which Stafford Holdings had recently acquired a 35 percent stake, making Elton Schuyler the largest single shareholder.

  Delphine was tired of research but there was one further topic she wanted to explore: the Nixon White House. Schuyler’s ‘Oval Office’ had aroused her curiosity. She wondered what exactly it was that had drawn the industrialist to Tricky Dicky? She did a little reading on Watergate, then called Bauman again. Again, no answer. Just then, Jason showed up.

  “I’m ready for a tall cold one,” he said.

  “It will have to wait. We need to go somewhere.”

  “Where?”

  Delphine explained about the photographer and how he’d sold his work to someone from a mysterious foundation, which she’d been unable to trace, who’d paid in hundred dollar bills.

  “Bauman said he’d meet me at his home this afternoon but he wasn’t there,” Delphine said. “I’ve been phoning him every hour but nobody answers. I think we should take a drive over there and check all is well.”

  “Now? I’m hungry.”

  “Bring your weapon.”

  Ten minutes later they were outside Bauman’s door. There were no lights on inside or out and nobody answered their knocks.

  “So can we go home now?” Jason asked.

  “Just a minute.” Delphine looked under the doormat, then started rummaging in the large flower pot next to the door. “Spare key,” she said, seeing Jason’s puzzled expression. “Old people often hide them in obvious places. Ah, here we are.”

  A second later, she had the door open and stepped inside, gesturing to Jason to follow. She pulled her canister of pepper spray out of her bag. The house smelled like fried bacon and stale cat. They were in a narrow corridor lined by waist-high stacks of newspapers. They crept into the living room which was similarly cluttered with books, magazines and papers piled in unstable towers on chairs and spilling across the carpet. Delphine felt a sneeze coming and held her breath. A supermarket shopping cart filled with canned food stood in the middle of the room. Her shoes crunched on something – glass shards from a shattered picture frame.

  “Careful,” she whispered, bending down to look at the faded black and white picture lying on the carpet which showed a groom in military uniform and a bride clutching a huge bouquet, both smiling bravely into a future that now lay far in the past.

  Delphine set the picture down on a chair and they moved cautiously into the kitchen – dirty dishes in the sink, unpaid bills on the table, a half-empty whisky bottle, the smell of rotting food, a fly buzzing against the window, a saucepan on the stove. Jason dipped in his index finger and licked.

  “Tomato soup, still a bit warm.”

  There was a scurrying under Jason’s feet. He jumped, yelping in surprise.

  “Quiet,” Delphine hissed. “It’s just a cat.”

  Jason grabbed her arm. “You hear that?”

  All she could hear was damned ‘Mission Impossible’ playing in her head.

  Jason drew his weapon and started creeping up the stairs. Delphine followed a few steps behind, her heart beating ferociously. He reached the top and pointed to a bedroom door. In a flash of movement, he swiveled, kicked the door open and burst inside.

  A voice sobbed, “Don’t shoot, for God’s sake, don’t shoot.”

  They found Bauman cowering behind the bed. “It’s OK, I’m with law enforcement; I’m not going to hurt you,” Jason said. He’d put away his gun and stretched out his hands, palms upwards to show he meant no harm. Delphine tried to get the old man to his feet. He weighed as little as a child, his arms as thin and brittle as twigs.

  “I’m Delphine Roget; remember we spoke on the phone yesterday. This is my friend Jason King. We were worried about you.”

  Bauman was breathing raggedly, wheezy, gurgling gasps, and his face was the color of old parchment. Some men grow hairier with age, tufts sprouting from every orifice. Bauman was almost hairless like a wrinkled baby. Delphine lowered gently him into a chair and looked for a napkin to wipe away his drool. Jason left the room; a moment later, he’d returned with half a tumbler of whisky. Bauman tried taking a sip but most of the liquid dribbled down his chin.

  Ten minutes later, he’d regained some color and stopped shaking.

  “Is there anyone we can call to look after you?” Delphine asked. “You shouldn’t be alone.”

  He shook his head.

  “But someone’s been here today, haven’t they? The same person who smashed your wedding picture.”

  Silence.

  “He threatened you, didn’t he?”

  The old man started trembling again. She took his hand gently.

  “You can trust us, Mr. Bauman. We don’t want to hurt you.” His Adam’s apple bobbed in his throat. Delphine could see he wanted to talk but he was scared. She tried again. “A man came here today. He smashed your wedding picture. Who was it?”

  Bauman hesitated for a long moment before taking the plunge. “Fellow from the foundation, Allstott, the one who bought the pictures.”

  “What did he want?”

  He began snuffling. Delphine waited, stroking his hand. Eventually he spoke. “After you called, I felt guilty about the contact sheets. So I phoned him.”

  “Did you say Allstott? Tommy Allstott?” Jason interrupted.

  “Thomas Allstott, that’s right.”

  “Did you tell him another journalist was interested in the contacts?” Delphine asked.

  “He asked but I couldn’t remember your name.”

  She sighed in relief. “That’s good.”

  “So I just said it was a Frenchwoman.” Merde! Now they knew she was on the trail, whoever they were.

  “He told me not to show the contacts to anyone until he arrived. An hour later, he was here,” Bauman said. He extracted a grubby handkerchief from his pocket and blew his nose. “He accused me of cheating him, kept asking what else I had hidden away. I swore there was nothing. Then he grabbed my collar, banged me against the wall, held me with one hand like a doll. He’s a beast, built like a linebacker. He was squeezing me like a lemon; I couldn’t breathe. The picture fell off; he smashed the glass with his foot, then held up a piece against my neck.”

  “You thought he was about to cut your throat,” Delphine said.

  He nodded. “Eventually he gave up and left. When I heard you two show up I thought he’d changed his mind and come back.”

  “I doubt he’ll be back,” Delphine said. “He got what he wanted. But I’ll give you my phone number. Call if anything unusual happens, day or night.”

  They spent half an hour trying to clear up some of the mess in the house before leaving. Back in her apartment, they took turns showering and Delphine prepared a salade niçoise.

  “So what’s in those pictures that’s got everyone so fired up?” Jason asked as they sat down.

  “I’ll show you.” Delphine turned on her laptop and pulled up the picture of the young Julia Dayton leading the anti-war march. Jason examined it for a minute shaking his head, clearly not seeing anything untoward. She loaded the next image taken three months later. He still looked bemused.

  “Look, she has a bulge in her belly in the first shot but in the second it’s gone,” she said. Jason examined the photos again, toggling between the two images.

  “So?”

  “What does a bulge in that part of a woman’s anatomy suggest?”

  “You’re saying she was pregnant? I don’t think you can tell from this picture. It’s too blurry.”

  “Which is why I wanted to see the original and all the others Bauman shot that day. Unfortunately a certain gentleman from a non-existent foundation arrived first.”

  “So, no pictures, end of story.”


  “Now I’m asking myself why this man was in such a hurry to get hold of all the pictures, including the negatives and even the contact sheets—to the point that he was ready to threaten to kill poor Bauman. And also: how did you know his name, this Thomas Allstott?”

  “Sharp ears!”

  “Well?”

  “There was a guy on our security detail called Tom Allstott. He quit a couple of years ago. It sounds like the same guy. Bauman said he was a beast. The Allstott I knew spent most of his spare time in the weight room. Probably took steroids. Built like a truck but he wasn’t the sharpest tool in the shed.”

  “What happened to him?”

  “He may’ve gotten a job in private security.”

  “Can you find out who he works for now?”

  “Shouldn’t be too hard. So you think our Julia was a naughty girl all those years ago?”

  “It’s no laughing matter. Suppose it came out that she had an abortion. Remember, this was before Roe v. Wade so it would have been illegal. Among Republicans, that’s like committing a murder. She could kiss her presidential dreams adieu.”

  “So what’s your next move, Sherlock?”

  “I’ve decided to go to Erik’s funeral. It’s in Minnesota, day after tomorrow. I feel bad about the way everyone disowned him. His reputation has been trashed. At least one member of the press ought to be present. Funerals are important. Families shouldn’t have to face them alone. I know this.”

  “Are you speaking from personal experience.”

  No answer.

  Chapter 13

  Next morning, Delphine left early for the airport. She’d just gotten through security when Bauman called on her mobile.

  “I thought you should know – yet another reporter called, this one from the Washington Post.”

  “Did you get a name?”

  “Wrote it down. Todd. L. Trautmann. Told me he’s a big cheese, won a couple of Pulitzers. I told him I won one myself but I don’t go bragging about it to everyone I meet. Point is, he’s interested in the same picture as you.”

  “What did you tell him?”