The Assassins Gallery - [Dr Mikhal Lammeck 01]

by David L. Robbins

  In the hotel parking lot, Lammeck opened his car. He checked the glove compartment. For three months he’d driven little more than slow circles around the White House. Mostly, he’d walked.

  He’d accumulated more than enough gas ration coupons to drive to South Carolina.

  * * * *

  Warm Springs, Georgia

  MADAME SHOUMATOFF LEFT THE Cadillac to join Mrs. Rutherfurd in the President’s car. When Mr. Robbins took the wheel of the big convertible, Judith asked him to raise the top against the cold. She stayed in the backseat, lowering her face against curious eyes and the day’s failing light.

  On the drive away from Manchester, one Secret Service car led the way, while the other filed in behind the Cadillac, bracketing it into the motorcade. Judith kept watch on the roads and turns leading to Warm Springs. On the way, Mr. Robbins attempted conversation. Judith maintained her shyness to quash it.

  Darkness overtook them by the time the convoy reached Pine Mountain. The four cars slowed but did not stop for a raised barrier at the head of a gravel road. Two Marines saluted the vehicles. Judith watched Roosevelt, surrounded by women, lift a thin white hand to the soldiers.

  The road wound downhill through pine forest and uncut scrub. Judith marked the direction and landscape. No man-made light broke through the branches and night; Roosevelt’s retreat had no neighbors. The gravel road to the cottage threaded more than a mile from the main highway through the wooded dark. Judith could not spot security patrols or sentries.

  Minutes later, electric glows cut through the leaves. The cars rounded a last bend. Down a mild slope, in a break in the trees, stood a white cottage, lit up and hospitable. Both Secret Service vehicles braked outside one final raised barrier. The President’s car and the Cadillac proceeded past the Marines, crunching along a circular drive to the front door of the Little White House.

  Beside the drive, an entourage waited in the grass. Three men wore suits; two others stood in naval officer blues. They were joined by seven women. Everyone together descended on the President’s car, greeting Mrs. Rutherfurd and Madame Shoumatoff. Mr. Robbins got out of the Cadillac, neglecting Judith in the rear. She let herself out and stood motionless, hands behind her back, to draw no attention. Mr. Robbins strode to the welcoming party and received introductions to the President, his staff, and the other guests. Judith watched the Secret Service agent who’d driven Roosevelt’s Ford reach into the open backseat to lift the President, then deposit him into a wheelchair. Roosevelt appeared limp in the bulky agent’s arms. No one in the crowd seemed surprised or distressed, least of all Roosevelt, who never took his happy eyes off Mrs. Rutherfurd while he was boosted into the air. All the women smiled grandly. The men watched, measuring every aspect of the President. Judith stood beside the Cadillac, ignored until Mrs. Rutherfurd addressed one of the ladies, a stout black woman, before joining the group moving indoors. With a pleasant demeanor, this woman approached Judith.

  “You’re Desiree?”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  The woman, wide as a teapot, reached to shake hands. Handshaking was not something Judith had seen an American woman do.

  “I’m Lizzie McDuffie. I do the housekeeping when the President’s in town.”

  “Pleased,” Judith said with a short curtsy.

  “Mrs. Rutherfurd asked me to show you where to unpack her suitcase. Then I can show you where you’ll be staying with me and Daisy Bonner, the cook. Daisy’s right over there.”

  Lizzie pointed out another woman, white and cut from the same dumpy, friendly cloth. Daisy Bonner waved. Judith smiled in return. She reached into the trunk for Mrs. Rutherfurd’s suitcase.

  “That looks heavy,” Lizzie said. “You need help?”

  Judith hefted it in one hand. “No.”

  “Great.” Lizzie grinned. “Your Mrs. Rutherfurd says Annette is feeling poorly. When you get home, please tell her I asked after her.”

  Two square outbuildings framed the main cottage. Both stood uphill fifty paces from the front door. Lizzie led Judith to the structure on the right. “Up them steps there. Your lady and her painter friend will be bunking above the President’s two cousins. The photographer fella will stay in town at the Warm Springs Hotel with all the reporters. You and me and Daisy are over there, above the garage. I got a cot all set out for you.”

  Judith stepped up into the small frame building. The interior was simply four paneled walls and a heart-pine floor covered with a hook rug, two narrow beds, two cane chairs in the corners. Doilies and lamps rested on two tables, and yellowed framed prints did little to decorate the space. Clearly the President included others in the humble theme of his refuge in the piney woods. Judith admired the lack of opulence; it was not what she expected from a king.

  She carted the weighty luggage up the stairs. Lizzie tagged along, chatting, oblivious to Judith’s lack of response. This room was no different from the one below, equally spartan with twin beds and plain decor. Judith imagined Mrs. Lucy Rutherfurd, wealthy matron, widow, and close friend of the President, curled on one of these cots, sharing the tiny room with an immigrant painter who looked like a snorer. Judith smiled at love and the odd places it could lead. She laid the contents of Mrs. Rutherfurd’s bag in the drawers of an old dresser.

  In quick order, Lizzie led Judith back to the Cadillac to fetch her own luggage. Carrying her cheap valise, Judith followed the housekeeper to the second outbuilding, then up a staircase leading above the garage. Lizzie gestured at an iron cot in the small bare-beam foyer. Lizzie and Daisy had their own little rooms and beds. Beside Judith’s cot waited a chamber pot. She did not unpack her bag under Lizzie’s eyes, but slid it beneath the bed frame.

  The two stepped outside to the cool mountain eve, peering downhill into the cottage windows at the excitement for Lucy’s arrival. In the dark woods around them, Judith heard nothing but the flap of a hunting bat and a warm Georgia breeze.

  “What now?” she asked Lizzie.

  The housekeeper moved forward, eager to get back to minding her guests.

  “Let’s go help Daisy in the kitchen,” she said.

  * * * *

  FRIENDS AND ASSOCIATES SWIRLED around Roosevelt. Judith stood in the entryway looking into the parlor; there’d been no room for her in the kitchen alongside the two hefty servants. Daisy Bonner had ushered her out politely by the elbow. “I’ll have use for you shortly, dear,” the cook had said, adding, “but I will say, you do take up less space than Annette.”

  Everyone seemed glad to see Mrs. Rutherfurd. Even a chubby Scottish terrier panted for her attention. Inside, the cottage was hardly better appointed than the outbuildings. Naval prints adorned the walls, books filled a few shelves, a big stone fireplace awaited colder evenings. The tables and chairs were pedestrian, the carpet just another hook rug. The only ornate possessions were several model wooden ships on the mantel.

  None of the Secret Service agents had come inside the crowded cottage; their job kept them on its perimeter. Roosevelt’s wheelchair faced away from Judith. She caught only glimpses of his profile; he appeared ashen and gaunt with ruby cheeks. But his words sailed above the packed den, a kite of a voice that rose because it was thin. He laughed at something a woman—probably one of the cousins— said. He turned to Mrs. Rutherfurd, seated at his shoulder, and cried, “Don’t you just love it?” Judith caught a glimpse as Mrs. Rutherfurd touched his shoulder at whatever jest had been made. Roosevelt covered her hand with his for a moment. The two shared a gaze as if they were alone. Judith put her hand in her pocket and fingered a small vial of white powder.

  “She’s good for him.”

  Judith turned to look into the handsome face of a dapper black man.

  “Yes, sir.”

  He smiled a palisade of white teeth. The veins in his hands and the width of his shoulders showed strength.

  “You don’t have to ‘sir’ me, girl. I’m Arthur Prettyman, the President’s valet. If you come with Mrs. Rutherfurd, then I’m glad t
o see you.”

  Judith pulled her touch from the bottle in her pocket to take the valet’s offered hand. “I’m Desiree.”

  “I heard. You know who any of those people are? Beside the ones you came with?”

  “No.”

  “Alright. The one young fella in the naval uniform is the President’s doc; the other is his pharmacist and masseur. Over by the fireplace that fella is a secretary, just like the two ladies he’s talking to. Now you keep an eye on those other two gals standing either side of your Mrs. Rutherfurd. They’re the President’s cousins. Treat them nice and stay out their way. And you already met Lizzie and Daisy.”

  “Yes. Thank you.”

  “I hear your Mrs. Shoumatoff is going to do another portrait of the Boss. And that other fella’s a photographer, is he?”

  Judith nodded.

  “Seem like nice folks,” Arthur mused.

  “How’s the President feeling?”

  Arthur seemed surprised at the question from a colored maid. He mulled his answer, staring into the room at his charge.

  “He’s alright. He’s good. Listen to him.” Judith saw plainly on the valet’s brown face how hopeful he was.

  Roosevelt’s voice still crowned the room. All the women gave themselves over to his charm. They gazed down at him adoringly, except for Mrs. Rutherfurd, who sat at his level and shared whispers. In return, Roosevelt tossed them brisk words and flicks of his thin wrists, burning the candle as bright as he could with the pale wax of his flesh. Arthur saw this and loved the President for it, fooling himself. All the people in this house fool themselves, Judith thought. Even Roosevelt.

  Lizzie came around the corner, curling a finger to summon Judith to the kitchen. She left Arthur and slipped through the main room, catching snatches of the voices of Shoumatoff and Robbins telling tales about getting lost this afternoon. The President egged the story on with a jovial “No! That’s the wrong turn! Ha!”

  Judith entered the kitchen only a step before Daisy thrust at her a platter of snacks, crackers with tiny meats and pimento cheese. “Serve those,” Lizzie called from the stove where she stirred a great pot that smelled of stew.

  Judith turned to face the room, the tray in front of her. She strode into the gathering. Many hands plucked treats from the tray. She made her way to the President. She stopped, one step from his wheelchair. The two locked eyes.

  “Hullo,” he said.

  Judith bent to lower the platter for him. The President glanced without interest at the snacks, then straight into Judith’s eyes. He froze then, as if he saw something familiar. Judith suspected he did, for she did in him. His face bore the coldness she recalled in the eyes of Agha, the old husband who’d bought her as a child; the icy distance she’d seen, too, in her father’s face when he denied his own daughter her return; then in the many eyes of her assassin teachers; and in the looks of the dozen targets she’d been paid high wages to kill, all powerful men and women. The chill had taken root in her eyes, as well. It could be recognized only by another of the same kind. It was the frigid gaze of one who knows that other people are to be used for a purpose, then discarded. Roosevelt, riveted on her, began to speak.

  Immediately Judith straightened and softened her own expression. The President blinked and paused, surprised at the maid’s abrupt withdrawal. For a second his mouth hung open. Then he began to cough.

  Judith leaned in again. The President covered his mouth with a knotty fist. Mrs. Rutherfurd patted his back, and the gathering paused. The color in Roosevelt’s cheeks fled. The collar of his shirt was at least one size too big for his neck, where tendons bulged from the strain of his hacking. Close, Judith took a deep smell of the living man. She shifted the platter to one hand and reached for the President’s arm, squeezing as if to comfort him. She knew then his weight, his condition, his dose.

  The naval doctor pressed through the crowd. He pushed in front of Judith and knelt to look into the President’s face. As he did this, Roosevelt regained control; the coughing subsided. The doctor hovered, making certain the spell was gone before he stood aside.

  With a linen handkerchief, the President wiped his mouth. Beside him, Mrs, Rutherfurd surveyed him with deep concern, lapping a hand on his forearm where Judith’s had been seconds before. The room regained its lost kilter, growing voluble again. The circle of women around Roosevelt lit their glances on him in fresh competition for his return gaze. Judith held out the tray to Mrs. Rutherfurd. She selected a small hot dog with a toothpick through it. Judith moved the platter again to the President’s reach.

  As he did before, he paid scant attention to the food. Instead, he looked again at Judith, now with a sudden tired melancholy.

  “No,” he said, “thank you. I haven’t much appetite.” His voice was not that of a dying man, not weak, but firm and misleading.

  Judith smiled, pulling back the tray.

  She would not act tonight. She didn’t know the land, the security layout, or the size of the Marine detail, and couldn’t trust the direction to the main road through the dark forest.

  “Maybe tomorrow, Mr. President.”

  * * * *

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  April 11

  on Route 1

  Sanford, North Carolina

  LAMMECK ORDERED COFFEE AND a steak. A waitress, redheaded and gum-chewing, brought the coffee. She scratched her head with the eraser of her pencil. Outside, a lumber truck hit its brakes to slow for the turn into the diner.

  “Your steak’ll be up in a few.”

  “Thank you.”

  “Where you from, honey?”

  Lammeck dug fingertips into his sockets. His eyes felt dry and were likely red.

  “Washington, D.C.”

  “That’s a ways off. You drive all that today?” “Since dawn.” He’d driven it at thirty-five miles an hour, the national wartime speed limit, behind tobacco, livestock, and lumber trucks. He’d followed old ladies, farm tractors, and military convoys. Another two hundred and fifty miles remained to Aiken. Lammeck expected them to be just like the first two-fifty.

  “Shoo-wee,” she sang and popped her gum. “I been to Washington. Saw the monuments and all. I was a young girl, but I remember it. Jefferson and Lincoln and the Capitol building. It was nice.”

  Lammeck was the only customer in the diner. At four in the afternoon, the day was too early for dinner, too late for lunch. He said, “Actually, I’m glad to be getting out of D.C. for a little while. I’ve been cooped up there too long.”

  “Yeah,” the waitress agreed, “travel’s nice.” She looked out the windows. “That your car with the government plates?” His was the only car in the lot with the lumber truck. “You from the government?”

  Lammeck didn’t feel like explaining himself. His circumstances were complex. He was road-weary and hungry. It was easier to say, “Yes.”

  “What do you do?”

  Again, Lammeck gave her a shorthand explanation. “I’m with the Secret Service.”

  The waitress slapped one palm over her rouged lips and studied him. She filled his coffee mug with a fresh pour.

  “You know President Roosevelt?” she asked.

  Lammeck blinked, trying to decide whether to stop this pretense or string it out. For a moment he envied Dag, who could answer her truthfully, give the woman a thrill, maybe even get a small one back. That would feel wonderful, he thought, after being ostracized and under what amounted to house arrest for a month at the Hotel Carlton. He’d had to put up with a near-fatal poisoning, then the constant threat of Judith’s shadow returning. And the way Reilly had hung him out to dry with the Peruvian embassy. There was Dag’s constant backbiting, Mrs. Beach’s disdain and unvarnished bitchiness. Taking orders, being given nothing in return but stale information. He’d driven from Washington partly to do his job, as little a thing as that had become, but mostly to perform an act of rebellion, because Mrs. Beach would be furious. Mrs. Rutherfurd was off-limits, she’d told him. Lammeck thought:
off-limits, my ass.

  “Sure. I know FDR.”

  The waitress bent to peer between Lammeck’s elbows on the tabletop.

  ”You got a gun in there?”

  Lammeck opened his jacket. He wore the shoulder holster and the pistol everywhere; it had become one of the few sources of esteem left to him. He whispered. “It’s a .38 automatic.”

  He closed the coat over the gun. She gawped. “Can I go tell my husband?”

  ”What’s your name?”

  “Mabel, sir.”

  ”Mabel, I’d rather you keep this between you and me. After all,” Lammeck grinned, stealing from Mrs. Beach, “we are the Secret Service.”