The Accidental Agent

by Andrew Rosenheim

  31

  HE WOKE TO the phone ringing. He looked at his watch, which had belonged to his father. It was two-thirty. It wouldn’t be Guttman calling at this hour; it could only be Stacey. He wondered how often she’d called since receiving his letter.

  Eventually it stopped. He knew he wouldn’t get back to sleep, so he got up and put his clothes on. He was just dressed when the phone started ringing again, and he had left the apartment before it stopped.

  He walked up to 57th Street, where the street lights made the shut storefronts and empty sidewalk look like a movie set before the actors had arrived. He walked all the way to Ellis Avenue before he even heard the sound of a car. At Stagg Field the guard was sitting behind his desk, awake, but making no effort to show he was alert. Nessheim couldn’t blame him; he himself was still feeling more whisky than hangover, but knew it was going to be downhill for the next few hours. Hours? His heart sank at the prospect of the days and weeks and months ahead, as he struggled with the knowledge of Stacey’s betrayal.

  Zinn and his crew of young men from the stockyards were busy in the court that had become a workshop. Saws sang out in a screechy chorus, joined by the basser notes of the power drills used to bore holes for the insertion of uranium in the graphite blocks. The blocks were being carried by hand to the court next door, where Anderson was directing junior scientists on their placement. He held a big sheet of paper, on which each level of blocks had been drawn and numbered, and the alternation of plain graphite with uranium-loaded ones marked as well. A massive airtight rubber cover, commissioned by Anderson from Goodyear, enveloped the back half of the Pile on three sides like a vast balloon. It was intended, once sealed, to exclude neutron-absorbing air, though Nessheim had overheard Szilard say that there was no point to it, and that it only got in the way.

  He went up on to Fermi’s command post and found a director’s chair with a canvas back by the instrument console. He pushed it against the wall and sat down. No one below took any notice of him. He knew now the basic outlines of the project, and recalled enough from his one physics course in college to understand that it involved a chain reaction, one which had to be controlled. Somehow the energy released was going to be harnessed to a weapon; he assumed it would have to be a bomb. It must be a very big bomb, he thought, as he leaned back in the chair, doing his best not to think about Stacey. He hoped Guttman had alerted Fermi to Kalvin by now.

  He woke with no sense of the hour and, funnily enough, the whisky had not left him hungover. He put it down to the agitation he felt. He had been so gullible – he saw that now. The realisation made him feel terrible, and tense.

  A man was standing a few feet away by the edge of the balcony, with his back to him. It was Fermi. He was dressed this time in the ubiquitous racquets court uniform of grey overalls and was studying the measurements record in his right hand and directing the men down below. When he stirred in his chair, Fermi turned around and smiled. ‘Good morning. You have begun early today, Jim.’

  He realised it was the only time Fermi had ever called him by his first name. ‘Did you have a good trip?’ he asked, trying not to yawn.

  ‘As predicted, even General Groves was satisfied.’ He gave a mock salute and Nessheim tried to laugh, wondering how long it would take really to laugh again. Fermi said, ‘My wife tells me you have been busy while I was away. I want to thank you for your help.’ He looked embarrassed.

  ‘I was just happy the cat burglar turned out to be a cat.’

  It took Fermi a moment to understand, but then he nodded. ‘That is not all you found, I understand,’ he said, looking slightly nervous.

  Nessheim said softly, ‘Your wife explained. There is no problem. Except you need to find a better hiding place.’

  ‘I saw Assistant Director Guttman yesterday. I thought when he called to arrange an appointment, it might be about the money.’

  ‘He knows nothing about it,’ Nessheim said emphatically. ‘There’s no need to tell anyone.’

  ‘Thank you. Mr Guttman explained there was a problem with one of the physicists. I believe you know about it.’

  ‘I do.’

  ‘I will take care of it. The man is not back yet, but I am scheduled to see him as soon as he is.’

  Nessheim pointed to the Pile, which now loomed high above the balcony. ‘Are you just about there?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Will something happen?’

  ‘Like a big bang? No, you can feel comfortable. It will merely show on this machine here when the event has occurred.’ He pointed to one of the counters on the table next to Nessheim. ‘It will not be a drama like Shakespeare.’ He smiled, almost sadly. ‘But it is,’ and he paused, as if trying to put in words just how momentous it all was, ‘a most important event. Szilard is sure it will change the world for ever. And not for the better.’ Fermi was sombre for a moment. Then to lighten things, he said, ‘Tell me, how is your Miss Madison?’

  Nessheim found himself suddenly so pained that he could not pretend. ‘She is not my Miss Madison any more, Professor.’

  ‘No! What has happened?’ He looked concerned. Nessheim couldn’t bring himself to speak, and Fermi said gently, ‘My wife says that woman adores you.’ Nessheim found that his heart was pounding, and his pulse made a mockery of his stillness, sitting in the chair. Watching him closely, Fermi said, ‘Of course, if you do not feel the same, then all I can say is …’ He stopped for a moment, seeming to search for the phrase.

  ‘Yes?’ asked Nessheim, expecting an Italian exposition on the merits of true love. Charming and utterly irrelevant.

  Instead Fermi said bluntly, ‘I would advise you to change your mind.’ And he turned on his heel and went down the stairs.

  32

  WHEN NESSHEIM GOT back home late that morning, the phone was ringing again. This time he went to the kitchen, took the earpiece off the wall hook and waited, not even saying hello.

  ‘Don’t worry, I’m not coming over,’ Stacey said. When he didn’t say anything, she said, ‘Nessheim, you can’t end it this way.’

  ‘I thought I had.’

  ‘Your letter – it’s not right.’

  ‘Sure.’

  ‘It’s horrible. I know you don’t care about that, but it’s all wrong. If you want to end it, you can’t do it believing these things.’

  ‘Watch me.’

  ‘You have to give me a hearing. That’s only fair. That’s only honest.’

  ‘Honest? Where do I start? A husband supposedly in Reno? Your Party membership? Or your new friendship with Laura Fermi?’

  ‘I’m not in the Party.’

  ‘So who is then? Or is it a case of mistaken identity?’

  ‘Someone is telling you lies.’

  ‘Yes, and we know who that is.’

  She was silent for a moment. Then she said quietly, ‘You’re the one who wouldn’t give.’ She paused. ‘I don’t know what to say.’

  Was this a confession? He didn’t really care, though there was something so bare about her voice that he could not help but be touched a little.

  ‘Just see me once,’ she said. ‘That’s all I ask. Whatever you think after that, at least you’ll know the truth – whether you believe it or not.’

  As if, he thought bitterly.

  ‘Okay, I’ll come over,’ he said. ‘I’ll be there at two.’

  He showered and dressed, then sat at the dining-room table, steeling himself for his encounter, trying to decide if there could be any reason Guttman was wrong. But all he could see was that Stacey had lied to him, again and again.

  He heard steps coming up the back stairs. They stopped at his landing, and he wondered if Stacey was pre-empting things by coming over. Somebody pounded heavily on the back door; it couldn’t be her.

  He went through to the kitchen where the wall clock read five past twelve. He jerked open the door and found Winograd standing there in an oversized, red-and-black plaid Mackinaw jacket, carrying a brown grocery bag.

&nbs
p; ‘Hey, fella,’ Winograd said. ‘I brought you a few beers to make up for drinking all of yours last time.’ He shook the bag until the bottles inside clinked.

  ‘Sorry, you’ve caught me at a bad time. I’m working.’ He did not ask him in.

  ‘For Fielding?’

  ‘Constitutional Law. I’m two weeks behind.’ It was safe to say this since Winograd wasn’t in his class.

  ‘What if I come back in a while? Say two o’clock?’

  Nessheim shook his head. ‘Sorry. I’m going out then. Seeing Stacey.’

  Winograd’s eyes widened. ‘You still dating her, huh? You must have some secret charisma you keep hidden from the rest of us.’

  Nessheim wished he hadn’t mentioned her. It wasn’t any of Winograd’s business, and Nessheim wasn’t going to theorise about what Stacey saw in him. He shook his head impatiently. ‘Sorry, got to get back to work.’

  ‘Okay,’ his classmate said reluctantly.

  ‘Another time,’ said Nessheim, as Winograd started down the stairs. Nessheim closed the door and went back to the dining room. He could hear Winograd starting to whistle, a series of high notes against the background of his leaden thump thumpa, thump thumpa.

  He had wanted to collect his thoughts, but the unexpected visit left him on edge. He felt jittery, bombarded by odd, stray notions, mostly unpleasant ones. He found himself wondering if Stacey had been seeing other guys while seeing him. He pictured her sleeping with one of her Soviet masters, then wondered if maybe right now one of them was at her apartment. He knew this was all nutty, but the thoughts were like a terrible itch that no amount of scratching could get rid of. He decided that only seeing Stacey was going to make them go away.

  The sooner the better then, he concluded, impulsively deciding to go to her place early. He had to see her right away.

  A slight thaw had set in, and the Dodge started easily enough, helped by a battery Nessheim had had installed in Bremen which the local garage owner had assured him could start a tank in Arctic weather. Most of the Hyde Park streets had now been ploughed, and the odd exception was slushy rather than icy, though he knew the drop in night-time temperatures would ice things up again.

  The sun was quivering against the horizon through a thin white haze as he drove east, and when he turned on to South Shore Drive he could see families out at The Point, building snowmen and chucking chunks of ice against the frozen surface of Lake Michigan. He parked down the street from the entrance to Stacey’s building and locked his car.

  There was no sign of the doorman, and the door to the building was locked. On one side of the entrance there was a list of occupants. Nessheim pushed the button for 6B, but before anyone answered it, an elderly man opened the door on his way out, so Nessheim went in. It was Sunday, the lull day in a building like this. The ground-floor lobby was empty, though a copy of the Tribune lay in a mess of pages on an armchair. When he got to the elevator for Stacey’s wing, he cursed, since a small sign hung from its push button saying ‘Out of Order’. He could have found the freight elevator but wasn’t sure which way to go, so in his impatience he opted for the stairs. It was six storeys to Stacey’s apartment, but he took them quickly, his Florsheims going rat-a-tat-tat on the hard concrete floor.

  On a floor above him he heard a door open, then close with a whine, and when he got to the landing of the third floor he found a white-haired old lady, dressed to go out in a woollen overcoat with a fur collar and fur hat, looking perturbed.

  ‘Are you the elevator man?’ she asked.

  ‘No. Can I help you, though?’

  ‘The elevator doesn’t seem to be working.’

  ‘It’s out of order. You can take the freight elevator instead.’

  ‘Not alone. I can’t open the doors.’

  Nessheim nodded, since the freight elevator would have a latticed metal door that took a man’s strength to open. ‘I can do that for you.’

  ‘Maybe you could just assist me down all these stairs.’

  He tried not to sigh, but knew he’d have to walk her down to the lobby. If the doorman ever showed up, he could take it from there.

  Then they heard the scream.

  It was a high-pitched howl that seemed to come from outside the building, through the solid masonry wall of the staircase. It lasted a long second, then stopped.

  ‘What was that?’ the old lady asked, sounding shaken.

  Nessheim was already mounting the stairs, two at a time. He reached the sixth floor, where he yanked open the door and came into the lemon-coloured corridor. Ten feet along was the entrance to Stacey’s apartment, and as he ran to it he heard from further down the hall a hydraulic whir of belts and cables, and he registered that the elevator was on the move again.

  He was about to pound on Stacey’s door when he saw that it was cracked open. Pushing it, he went into the apartment, calling her name. There was no reply. The air in the place was stuffy and hot, but when he moved along the corridor he suddenly felt a line of cold air coming from the living room. Looking in, he saw that one of the row of sliding windows facing the Lake was wide open.

  There was no sign of Stacey, and no answer when he called her name again. He couldn’t have said why, but he drew his gun.

  He backed up into the little entrance hall, and went down the short corridor that led to the other rooms. The kitchen on one side looked spotlessly clean, and was empty. Next there was a small bedroom which Stacey used as a study – it had bookcases floor to ceiling on two of its walls. It looked as if it hadn’t been used in weeks – Stacey had been doing her studying at his place on Kimbark.

  He went into the bedroom, where he thought he would find her at last. Probably napping under the sheets, possibly hoping he would join her there. The bed was a mess, a tangle of sheets and a single woollen blanket. But unoccupied. On a chair by her dressing table she’d draped a black dress and a pair of nylons. He checked the bathroom, and found some strands of Stacey’s hair in the sink, but no Stacey.

  Puzzled and increasingly alarmed, he headed back to the hallway. From outside, through the open window in the living room, he felt the blast of cold air again. As he went to close it he heard a commotion from below. Holstering his gun so it was out of sight, he leaned out and looked down at the sidewalk.

  He saw the doorman in his long black overcoat standing almost directly underneath. Nearby to him the old lady Nessheim had met on the stairs was approaching from the entrance to the building, waving a beckoning hand, doubtless wanting the doorman to get her a cab. She must have made her own way down after all.

  The doorman was ignoring her and now took a step to one side. No longer blocked from Nessheim’s view, a female figure lay sprawled on her front, lying half on the sidewalk, half on the adjoining strip of winter-deadened grass. She wore only a white slip, and Nessheim could see its contrast with the vestigial California tan on her bare arms and legs. Her position on the ground suggested that she was in a deep sleep, one leg bent at the knee, her arms stretched out on either side of her head, which lay turned to one side. With a beautiful untidiness, her hair flowed across one shoulder.

  At first there was nothing to indicate that Stacey would not wake up, collect herself and continue with her life. Then Nessheim saw the pool of blood on the sidewalk next to her head, and he wondered if his life had ended too.

  Part Six

  33

  THE NEWSPAPERS LEFT no doubt about their view. ‘Heiress Beauty in Death Plunge’ ran the headline in the Chicago American; ‘Fatal Fall on Shore Drive’ in the Sun Times, with a picture of an ambulance and two Chicago Police Department squad cars in front of Stacey’s building. The other papers followed, in varying degrees of sensationalism. Even the stuffy Tribune splashed with the death, noting that the victim’s father had been one of the city’s leading businessmen.

  Guttman had brought the papers when he came over from the Quadrangle Club. He’d put away the whisky bottle and washed the glasses, then fried eggs and made toast while Nessheim show
ered and shaved and put on a suit. Nessheim kept the door to the bedroom shut, where he’d finally fallen into whisky-induced sleep, with Stacey’s nightgown clutched in his hands.

  He sat at the dining-room table now, ignoring his plate while he scanned the news stories. Guttman said, ‘I didn’t know if you’d want to see these.’

  ‘They’re all saying suicide.’

  ‘I know,’ said Guttman unhappily.

  ‘It wasn’t.’ It was about all he could hang on to since Stacey’s death. ‘Somebody pushed her out that window, Harry.’

  Guttman said nothing.

  Nessheim said, ‘I heard a scream on my way up. The elevator was out of order, so I took the stairs. Suicides don’t scream, Harry.’

  Guttman still didn’t say anything.

  Nessheim pressed on: ‘When I got up there the elevator was working again. That couldn’t have been a coincidence – I think whoever killed her was on their way down, having put it out of order so it would be waiting for them on the sixth floor.’

  This time Guttman nodded, but it was half-hearted. Frustrated, Nessheim said, ‘She wasn’t the type to do herself in, Harry. You didn’t know her, but you can trust me about that.’

  ‘Okay.’

  ‘Anyway, why would Stacey bump herself off if she thought I was coming an hour later? If she was so upset that she wanted to do herself in, then why arrange to see me at all? She wanted to see me, but she wasn’t expecting me to come early.’ He tried to control his frustration.

  Guttman said, ‘The police want to talk to you some more.’

  ‘All right,’ said Nessheim wearily. After finding Stacey dead on the sidewalk, he’d spent five hours being grilled, having to give his account over and over again. It had been bearable only because he been forced to react to the constant questioning, which kept him from thinking about what he had seen – and what he had lost.

  A homicide detective named Palborg had arrived and honed in on his relationship with Stacey. Had there been an argument? Was she feeling down? It was obvious the police hadn’t found his note to her, and he had said nothing about it. What good would it do if, like Guttman, the cops thought Stacey was working for the Reds?