The Little Tokyo Informant

by Andrew Rosenheim

  ‘Yeah?’ said Guttman encouragingly. ‘Who was that?’

  ‘Another Yalie, but a little after my time there.’

  ‘Small world.’

  ‘It gets better. He was also a Whiffenpoof and, yes, he went on the European tour the summer before I did. When they got to Vienna, he met a girl …’

  ‘Don’t tell me. Kristin?’

  ‘Yes, and tragically she was killed by the Nazis, though the version he was told had it happening in Linz.’ He shook his head and chuckled. ‘At some point they’re going to run out of ways to kill her off.’

  ‘How did you find this out?’

  ‘There was a Whiffenpoof reunion at the Yale Club in New York. The present group sang, then we all gathered in the bar. I got to talking to this guy, and he mentioned Vienna. Then he told me about this girl he’d met and she sounded kind of familiar – unsurprising, since she had the same name. Kristin Pichel.’ Palmer didn’t seem to realise he had supplied the surname. ‘I didn’t know whether to sock the guy or laugh; I think he felt the same way. Fortunately, we both had a sense of humour and we got to be friends. It took a while before the other stuff came out.’

  ‘So they approached him too?’

  ‘Yes.’

  He hesitated, as if uncertain whether to cross a line. Guttman guessed what it was. ‘But unlike you he said yes, right?’

  ‘Right,’ said Palmer through tight lips.

  ‘Does he know you’re talking to me?’

  ‘No, and I don’t feel so good about it. He’s got more to lose than I do. He works for a bank in New York and he’s married and has a family to feed; I’m not and I don’t. Plus, he has one credential I never had. He joined the Party after he came back from Vienna. If that came out he’d lose his job lickety-split, whatever FDR likes to say about democratic bygones. The Russians have that over him. He wasn’t happy helping them, but he had no choice.’

  ‘What did he do for them?’ What could a banker have done for the Russians?

  ‘He told me he was asked recently to send a money order to the Coast.’

  ‘That’s all?’ Guttman said. Even the Russians had the right to move money around.

  ‘It went to a Jap bank in LA. A big sum too.’

  ‘Who was getting the money?’

  ‘Some Russian, I assume.’

  ‘Then why a Jap bank?’

  ‘That’s the funny thing,’ said Palmer. ‘The Russians have put some people on the Coast. The banker knows that much – he just doesn’t know why.’

  They all say that, thought Guttman; not even the most voluble informant ever spilt all the beans at once. ‘He’s the only other recruit you know?’

  ‘Yeah, though he knew of another one. A scientist at Princeton – a real whizz-kid.’

  ‘Albert Einstein,’ said Guttman facetiously. He must be tired. ‘No, though the guy did work with Einstein once.’

  ‘I could use these names.’

  Palmer thought about this for a moment. ‘I don’t know the scientist’s,’ he said at last.

  ‘The banker then?’

  ‘I wouldn’t feel comfortable giving it to you just yet.’

  Comfortable? Jesus Christ. Guttman wondered momentarily if this was all horseshit. He said gruffly, ‘You said this Yalie is one of the reasons you’re here. What’s the other?’

  Palmer exhaled noisily and when he spoke he sounded depressed. ‘They’ve approached me again.’

  ‘Recently?’

  Palmer nodded. ‘When I was in Argentina, there wasn’t much I could do for them there – so they left me alone. That was for almost five years, but then the wizards of Foggy Bottom decided they required my talents back here; I was recalled two months ago. I didn’t tell anyone I was back, except my parents. But the Russians knew. Oh yes, they knew all right. Three days ago I found a note from someone who said he was a friend of Milnikov. It had been pushed under the door of my apartment, even though I never told them where I lived.’

  ‘What’s this new guy’s name?’

  ‘Kozlov. He wants to meet me next week.’

  ‘Okay,’ said Guttman neutrally.

  ‘I’m not going to show. They’ll name another time, and I won’t show then either. Then they’ll turn on me. That’s why I wanted to see you.’

  ‘What will they do? They can’t say you spied for them, for one thing, and for another you didn’t, and for another it’s not as if they could reveal to the US government that they have a spy network anyway.’

  ‘They’re cleverer than that – they’ll claim I offered to spy for them. Naturally, they’ll say they turned the offer down, and as a gesture of good faith they want to let my superiors know about it. It will be something like that. So I figured I’d better act first; I want it on the record that I reported their approach right away.’ He looked up and added suddenly, ‘I’m going to have to go soon.’

  ‘Right,’ said Guttman. If they could set it up properly they could catch the Russian in the act – not at this next meeting, but in future when Palmer had something to give him. ‘I think you should meet Kozlov,’ he said.

  ‘Why?’ Palmer asked. For the first time he sounded genuinely worried. He wasn’t acting any more.

  ‘Play him along, see what he wants. You said yourself, if you don’t show, he’s going to try and do you in, one way or another.’

  ‘But he’s going to want me to have something.’

  ‘We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it. You don’t have to promise him the moon – you can say security’s tighter than before you went to Argentina. Say whatever you want – just don’t turn him down flat.’

  ‘I don’t know …’

  ‘Listen. If you want the Bureau to help you, then you have to play it our way. Don’t think you’re off the hook because you’ve spilt your guts now. We should have been having this conversation five or six years ago.’

  He watched Palmer until at last the man nodded his assent. Guttman said, ‘Now, when are you supposed to be meeting him?’

  ‘Next week – we haven’t set a day yet. He’s going to call me.’

  ‘Do you know where you’ll meet?’

  ‘I suggested here,’ said Palmer. He gestured behind him. ‘About a quarter of a mile in.’

  ‘What? You’re meeting this guy here, in the park?’

  ‘Sure,’ said Palmer stiffly, as if his judgement had been impugned. ‘I told you, nobody I know is going to see me here. What’s the matter?’

  Jesus Christ, thought Guttman, where do I begin? ‘I want you to call me after you’ve seen him.’ He reached into the side pocket of his jacket and took out a card, which he handed to Palmer. ‘Then I’ll want to know the arrangements for your next meeting.’ He was thinking that’s when the Bureau could pounce.

  ‘I better get going,’ said Palmer.

  You and me both, thought Guttman. They rose simultaneously and Palmer extended his hand. Guttman shook it, trying to hide his unease.

  ‘There’s one thing I don’t understand.’

  ‘What’s that?’ asked Palmer, anxious to go.

  ‘How did the Austrian woman know to single you out? I mean, why you?’

  Palmer looked startled. ‘I don’t know for sure. It might have been someone at Yale who tipped them the wink. Or somebody out West – you know, that summer I told you about.’

  ‘You can give me names, can’t you? Who it might have been.’

  ‘Not yet. I have to know you’ll keep me in the clear. I better go now.’

  And without even saying goodbye, Palmer walked away. Guttman stared as the big figure moved slowly into the dark of the woods.

  Guttman himself turned and went back to the path, peering ahead of him as he picked his way carefully towards his car. His hesitant progress matched the uncertainty he felt. What Palmer had told him was on the face of it downright crazy. The Russians were a ragtag outfit, one step out of the peasantry, none more so than Stalin himself. It’s true they were relentlessly paranoid – look at Tro
tsky, hounded by assassins until one had succeeded last year. But the Russians were barely familiar with America; they had only established diplomatic relations after Roosevelt became President.

  He stopped short as he neared the car park, not knowing exactly why, until he realised he had heard something. Someone, he decided – it had been the sound of a footstep off to one side of the path he was on. He peered into the darkness and there was a sudden movement, of a dark shadow – no, it was two shadows. Then the two shadows merged into one. Were they embracing? Another couple like the two he’d seen in the car. Time to get out of here, he thought, as the shadowy figures stayed in a clinch. Then they unattached themselves, the shadow split in two, and Guttman saw they were walking into the park – away from the car park, he thought dumbly.

  He heard a voice, low and quiet, yet it came over crystal clear. What had it said?

  He moved on to the car park and was unlocking the Buick, ready to start up the car and race for home before Isabel’s helper blew her stack, when suddenly he thought about what he’d heard. A monosyllabic word like Duh. Or was it Da? Yes in Russian. Was he imagining things?

  He didn’t wait to think it through. He ran back along the path, inexplicably panicked, scared he was too late. There was no sign of the couple. He called out, ‘Palmer? Are you there?’ He heard nothing. This time he shouted as loud as he could. ‘Palmer? Thornton Palmer! Where are you?’

  He stood hearing only the little bubbling current of the stream that ran along the side of the path. Even the birds had gone down for the night – nothing rustled in the undergrowth. He pulled his weapon, wondering why he was so nervous, holding it out in front of him, ready to shoot – shoot what? He’d end up shooting Palmer by mistake. ‘This is the FBI!’ he shouted out in frustration. It sounded ridiculous. What the hell was he doing?

  ‘Palmer!’ he shouted for the last time. He listened as the sound of his own voice receded into the darkness. Still, the only reply was the sound of water moving through the gravel bed. Guttman felt powerless, which he didn’t like, and afraid, which he liked even less. Especially since he didn’t know what he was scared of.

  Part Three

  Los Angeles End of September 1941

  3

  NESSHEIM LIVED ALONE in a dead-end street on the edge of Laurel Canyon; a winding road that climbed up to the ridge of the Santa Monica Mountains, then toppled into the San Fernando Valley. His place was a ranch house of stone and wood built into the side of a hill, which slanted down steeply from back to front.

  He rented it furnished from a widow lady, who, after her husband died, moved to Glendale to live with her daughter. The place had three bedrooms, which seemed luxurious to Nessheim; he slept in one, used the second as a study and never set foot in the third. He liked having a house to himself and spending his time there alone. He was too old to have a roommate and tired of boarding-house life. A Mexican woman came in once a week to do his laundry, iron his shirts and clean the place; otherwise he could count on the fingers of one hand the times anyone else had been in the house.

  He parked in the open garage, then came out again to climb the stone flight of steps to his front door. He had just put the key in the lock when a woman’s voice said, ‘Did your friend find you, Mr Nessheim?’

  He turned to find Mrs Delaware, his nosy neighbour, standing at the bottom of the steps. She was wearing her customary apron – Nessheim sometimes wondered if she wore it to bed. There was never any sign of a Mr Delaware; Nessheim didn’t know if he had died or just grown tired of the apron. ‘What friend was that, Mrs D?’

  ‘I thought you’d know; he certainly seemed to know you. At first I thought he was a realtor – he was in the backyard.’

  ‘Was he Japanese?’ he asked.

  ‘Oh no,’ she said and Nessheim remembered there were covenants here that kept the Japanese from buying a house. ‘More European-like. I think maybe he was German.’

  ‘Why? Did he sound it? Vere is young Jimmy Nessheim?’ he said, mimicking the accent of his aunt’s late husband – Eric had come over from Germany in the Twenties and never lost his thick Bavarian overlay.

  Mrs Delaware laughed. ‘Gee, you sound like a Kraut yourself.’

  ‘He didn’t leave his name?’

  She shook her head. ‘He acted like you were expecting him.’

  ‘You sure it wasn’t just some guy from the utility company?’

  ‘I’ve never seen one in a three-piece suit before. Besides he was out back and your electric meter’s in front like mine.’

  ‘Well, thanks for letting me know,’ he said and turned back to his front door.

  Inside he checked his mail – a letter from his mother (he got one every week) and the other in the familiar handwriting that set his heart beating hard. He made himself open his mother’s first. It was her weekly missive, full of small-town news and small-town dramas. He’d worried about her when his father had died very suddenly the year before. She’d sold what was left of the farm and moved to town, where she worked part-time in a store and, it sometimes seemed, full-time seeing her friends. He was starting to realise how lonely life must have been for her out at the farmhouse, especially when her husband had been forced to work in another man’s dry goods store. Now Nessheim’s mother seemed to be thriving, and though she thanked him as always for the money he sent her every month, it didn’t sound as if she really needed it. He realised that part of him wished she weren’t adapting so well to life without his father; the part of him that wasn’t adapting so well himself.

  He went out to the kitchen where he’d had his one luxury installed – a Frigidaire. He liked his drinks cold, and in a place where you could go swimming on Christmas Day this was the only way to guarantee it. He took out a red-and-white can of Acme beer. It tasted thinner than the Wisconsin brews he was used to, but was ice cold. He drank half of it quickly and sat down to read Annie’s letter.

  Annie was too Vermont to indulge in many frills, but she did like proper stationery, heavy, cream-coloured, like that of her great-aunt, Sally Cummings, but without the embossed sender’s address on the back of the envelope. He tried not to tear it too badly as he opened it; he kept her correspondence in a drawer, neatly stacked in their envelopes.

  Dear Jimmy,

  I am sorry not to have written for so long – and do understand how pleased I am to get your letters. Your life seems so interesting these days – and I laughed out loud at your description of the ‘Count’. I am so glad you’ve kept your sense of humour, even if not everything about the job is to your taste.

  We are doing pretty well here. Jeff likes school, though he still prefers football to anything he learns in class. He has grown about a foot in the last six months and eats half a horse a day.

  Otherwise, life is much the same. Justice Frankfurter continues to put up with my non-existent shorthand and has settled in at the Court. Harry pokes his head in on occasion, and I have helped out a few times when his wife’s sitter has let them down. I don’t mind at all, but I have to say that Mrs G does seem to be failing.

  I know I said we hoped to visit for Christmas this year, and I hope you will not feel too disappointed that I’ve had to change our plans. For the first time since – well, since Great-Aunt Sally invited me to live with her – my parents have asked Jeff and me for Christmas. It’s not a reconciliation I have sought, or really even care about, but I think it’s important for Jeff to know his grandparents and where his mother came from. It’s not as if he’s ever going to know his father’s family. So, much as I’d prefer to be catching a train, crossing the country knowing you were at the other end, I think it’s important that we go to Woodstock for the Christmas holidays. I do hope you will understand.

  And I hope you’ll understand when I say that I am worried about you. I sometimes feel you are letting yourself be tied to the past, when you should be making a future for yourself. After all, that’s what California’s for. And I could not forgive myself if I thought I was in any way resp
onsible for keeping you from living life to the fullest.

  Be in touch when you can, and believe me that I am sorry about Christmas.

  Love from Jeff and me,

  Annie

  He put down the letter and took a long pull from his beer. At least she had used his name, since she could just as easily have started the letter ‘Dear John’. He could read between the lines of that and then some. Annie was not freeing him so much as pushing him away, done in the nicest possible way – ‘I could not forgive myself if I thought I was in any way responsible for keeping you from living life to the fullest.’ Which meant, Find another girl, pal.

  Any woman who changed her mind and went to see her parents for Christmas wasn’t in love with the man she’d been planning to visit. Not that Nessheim believed she’d be welcomed with open arms by that grim old couple in Woodstock, Vermont – she’d described them well enough: the penny-pinching storekeeper father who didn’t like to laugh; his haggard wife, who on his account was scared to. Nessheim knew that Annie hadn’t until now seen or heard a word from them for over five years – when she’d taken her illegitimate little boy south to D.C. and joined the household of her powerful socialite great-aunt.

  She didn’t love Nessheim – that was clear as a trout stream. Sure, she was fond of him, but he had an older sister who was fond of him as well. How could he have misread the situation so badly? Had Annie fallen for someone else? He doubted it – a single mother with a bastard child was not a hot ticket in a woman-filled town like Washington, D.C. She’d had a fiancé once before, but he’d had hidden motives to say the least. So there she was, after the bust-up with her great-aunt, living with Jeff as lodgers with some old lady in Arlington, trekking in on the bus to work for the Justice, trekking back, watching every penny, making the light bulbs last. And it didn’t have to be like that at all, thought Nessheim bitterly.

  He stood up and went through to the kitchen, then out down the back steps into the yard, where the scarlet-tinged leaves of the persimmon tree were preparing their autumn finale. He could see that there was going to be an abundance of fruit this year and he made a note to water it. Think of something else, he told himself; think about work. But his was not a job fit for a man in peacetime; it would be even worse when America entered the war, which Nessheim thought inevitable. But even war wasn’t going to change things for him, or get him out of this place.