I couldn’t blame him, either. But now it was time to suss out Himmel, to make his actions add up. I was ready to lay it out, fingers crossed tight, hoping that two plus two finally produced four. “Okay, partner, take it easy. Remember I said Himmel’s got almost everything?”
“Yeah?”
“Means he’s not gonna run today. He’s got one more pick-up to make, and he’s gonna do that in person. That message just says ‘Yes’? That’s to tell him the meeting’s on, but I don’t even think Himmel needed to get it, because he was counting on the Bureau taking me in and not letting me go. On the off-chance I made it, he gets confirmation but there’s nothing in the envelope to incriminate him.”
“So who’s he meeting?”
“I don’t know. But I’m gonna try to find out right now. You go back in and get Durkin, get over to H & H and arrest Nadine Silva. If she’s not there, try her flat.” I gave him the address.
“What’re we supposed to do with her?”
“Nothing. Stick her in a cell, don’t let her call a lawyer. When we can’t put her off anymore, we’ll grill her, see if we can get her to turn on Greene. Then we’ll do the same to Greene. One of ’em cracks, then we can build a case against Himmel.”
“How we gonna know what you find out about Himmel?”
“Don’t worry, I’ll call Paslett soon as I know something, tell him where you can find him.”
“I don’t know, Ellis, we might be a little off the reservation here—”
“Trust me, partner, okay? I haven’t let you down yet, have I?”
HE DID TRUST ME, NOT HAPPILY, SHAKING HIS HEAD AS I GOT OUT. NO offer of a ride, or money—I was on my own. I hailed a hack, had him take me to the Riggs Bank across from the Treasury Building. Left the meter running as I went in to make a withdrawal. O.N.I. had paid for my splurge with Liv at the Willard, least I could do was cover my remaining expenses. I paid the driver and started walking. Eventually, I’d catch a bus, but I had time to spend, I needed to think. Tried to think, jumbled observations didn’t count. Almost twenty-six years old, eight years in the Navy. Didn’t want a promotion, didn’t want to stay in uniform. All these years, striving to prove my worth and talents, begging for undercover work before the war ended, like a second-stringer during the fourth quarter. Put me in, coach. Careful what you wish for, right? Now that I’d been undercover, now that I’d seen firsthand what you had to do to succeed—just ask Miriam—I’d lost my stomach. Or nerve. Both, probably. If Barston and I could pull it off, if we could bring down Himmel’s spy ring, could I leverage that score into a decommission? But then what? Hadn’t seen Mom, Pop, and Eddie in two years. Take the train back to Chicago, stay in my old room? Christ, that was no life for a grown man.
But neither was the one I had. Lived alone, two suitcases would pack me up. Had a cat, sort of. More flings than girlfriends. Couldn’t quit hoping for more with Liv, couldn’t evict Delphine from my dreams. Be funny if it wasn’t pathetic: seven to one, women outnumbered men in D.C., and I wanted two women I couldn’t have for very different reasons. What if I couldn’t get out of the Navy before the Japs called it quits? Liv wasn’t going to wait, not her style. Live free, rest will follow. If I really wanted to go with her, then I needed to leave the same day she did, damn the consequences. Plunge means plunge. Maybe Liv didn’t want me to go? Maybe just muster out at the Navy’s pace, get married, go to school. Normalcy. Even though I sensed, deep down, that would just be a different type of undercover assignment. Thought of the Austrian novel I’d never finished reading the year before. Der Mann ohne Eigenschaften. The man without qualities. Ladies and gentlemen, Ellis Voigt, a.k.a. Theodore Barston, a.k.a. whoever he cannot commit to be, today, tomorrow, forever.
At Longfellow’s statue, a decision: being namby-pamby was for the namby-pamby. Hopped on a northbound Connecticut Avenue bus, let the view distract me. Fountain at Dupont, bustling shops, churches, McClellan’s statue, lions at the foot of the Taft Bridge. No trace of my crime, the accident long-cleared, the boys from the Bureau gone. Couldn’t see if they were still afoot in the Parkway, retrieving clippings, but I hoped Boy G-man, at least, was still down there, snagging his trousers on brambles.
I disembarked at Calvert and walked the long block to the Wardman Park Hotel, atop a well-manicured hillock, looking over D.C. like a Sphinx. Best view in the city, I’d been told, if you were fortunate enough to have an upper-floor suite, didn’t matter which side—the building’s Greek cross-shape gave all top-dwellers a fair share of the vista. Rates to match, too. I wondered where Himmel’s rooms were, recalling Miriam’s question when she’d told me, on our second date, that Himmel lived in the hotel: How’d he afford it? Communism being what it was, you’d think his Russian overseers would expect a proletariat address, or, if he must keep up appearances, something petit-bourgeois. The Hotel 2400, say, or a flat in a T Street rowhouse.
House dicks are expert at picking out loiterers. On top of that, the Lebanese and Irish embassies were, for the duration of the war, located inside the Wardman, and both legations had guards roaming the halls. I could get a drink in the lobby bar, sure, nurse it, order another, but what were the chances Himmel would pass through? Residents had their own entrances, their own elevators. I didn’t want to stick out, didn’t want anyone to remember my face—I sure as hell couldn’t call Himmel to see if he was in. But a very desperate Philip Greene could.
I strode across the lobby to the telephone booths and shut myself into one. Thought: Greene eats his words, he’s got a low voice, now he’s panicked, he’s going to rush to say everything at once. Had to practice, had to fool Himmel, couldn’t let him guess Ted Barston was playing a game with him. I cleared my throat and said, “Mister Himmel, it’s Philip Greene”—stop. Voice pitched too high, sounded strained, fake. Also, why would Greene use his last name? He was the only Philip in the office. “Mister Himmel, hello, it’s Philip, from the office”—stop. Pitch better, but I was speaking too slowly, still sounded too formal. Greene’s scared, he’s desperate, gotta sell that. “Mister Himmel, it’s Philip, listen, I’m in a jam, the cops arrested me”—stop. Better, much better, the phrasing rang true, the voice was closer. I ran that line four or five times, feeling Greene’s urgency, hearing his voice in my head.
As a precaution, I partially unscrewed the telephone’s speaker—this way, it would rattle when I jiggled the handpiece, making it sound like a bad connection. Then I dropped a nickel to call the switchboard, so it registered as an outside call.
“Wardman Hotel, how may I help you?” a pleasant female voice asked.
“Henry Himmel, please.”
“Guest or resident, sir?”
“Resident.”
“Just a moment, sir.”
A click as she patched me through, three rings, pick-up.
“Yes?”
“Mister Himmel, it’s Philip, listen, I’m in a jam, the cops arrested me”—I tilted my head back, mumbling as I shook the instrument for a moment—“need your help.”
“You have the wrong number,” hanging up.
No matter, he was home; if I’d guessed right, not for long. But how to follow him without being spotted? Had to assume Himmel knew the same tricks, the same tradecraft as I did. He’d be looking for tails when he left the Wardman. If I could see him, he could see me. But if I could find out where he was headed . . . ?
I left the booth, bought a U.S. News & World Report at the gift shop, and took a seat in the lobby facing the residents’ elevators, close enough to hear the doors open. With my penknife, I carefully cut a slit into the center of the magazine’s fold. By tugging the covers apart, I could see through, but an observer would have to look close to notice the peephole. And who lingers on a man reading a magazine in a hotel lobby?
Read an article predicting the Germans would hold out till the end of May. Some news, some report. In the Washington column, a blurb about the closing of the Thomas Jefferson Memorial for renovations. Was halfway through a tearjerker o
n war widows when Himmel exited, a leather satchel in hand. I closed the peephole, kept the magazine close to my face, now turning my gaze to the wall mirror. Himmel exited and said something to the doorman, who promptly whistled for the next hack in line. Looking like a man in a hurry, Himmel got in the rear, no tip for the doorman. I’d eyed that doorman over when I came in—study everyone, everything, the Funhouse had taught me. Pegged him as a swish, not sure why, hadn’t heard him speak, hadn’t caught a lisp. Maybe that little stutter-step when he hopped to, the way he’d checked his reflection to see that his bowtie was straight? No choice but to trust my instinct now. I folded a ten dollar bill into a tight triangle, dropped the magazine, and hustled out.
“Oh, no, he’s gone,” I exclaimed. Trying not to lay it on too thick.
The other doorman grinned maliciously, my guy shot him a disapproving look. “Can I help you, sir?”
I turned and gave him an imploring look. A knowing look. The doorman’s eyes flickered as he studied me. Sell it! I commanded myself.
“All right, he’s angry—well, so am I!”
“Who, sir?”
“Henry, that’s who. Did a distinguished-looking gentleman carrying a leather satchel just get into a cab?”
The other doorman was shaking his head in disgust. He edged away, in no mood to overhear a swish sob story.
“A guest did just leave, sir. With a satchel.”
“Oh, I knew it.” I lowered my voice, leaned close, smiled conspiratorially. “What’s your name?”
“Jonathan, sir.” Dropping his eyes toward his polished brass nameplate.
“Oh, of course, how silly of me not to notice!”
“Perfectly all right, sir.”
Lowering my voice, I said, “Jonathan, thank you for telling me that Henry left and that he went to the . . .” I held out my hand to shake, palming the bill.
“The Automat on F Street? Is that where you’d like to go, sir?”
“Yes, it is!”
He whistled for a hack, I tipped him a quarter to keep up the show. At swank joints like the Wardman, the staff were under strict orders not to reveal where guests went, but I’d guessed right about Jonathan, had found a way to get his sympathy. Fellows who have to hide who they are ought to look out for one another, right?
CHAPTER 36
THE AUTOMAT, TOUGH BREAK. LOUD, BRIGHT, OPEN FLOOR—TABLES only, no booths, no dark corners. No waitstaff—that was the whole point. Twenty-four hours a day, as long as you had a pocketful of nickels, you could get something to eat from the gleaming glass and chrome cabinets lining the walls: salads, sandwiches, casseroles, soups, pie. Drop a nickel, turn the knob, lift the door. Take your dish, close the door, watch a replacement roll up. Find a table, wolf down your dinner, swill your coffee, and watch others—enlisted men, laborers, G-girls, clerks—do the same. Himmel would be on high alert, for sure, facing the door, back to a wall, using the countless glass doors and cases to observe reflections. He’d be there ahead of me, no time to set up even if there was a place to roost. No time for a disguise, wouldn’t fool Himmel anyway. So what to do?
I told my hack we needed to make a stop before the Automat, anything he could do to gain time would fatten his wallet. Anything turned out to be: running two red lights, cutting off a delivery van, and a nifty detour down Florida Avenue to Twenty-third Street instead of staying on Connecticut.
“Lights are timed, see,” he growled over the seat, slowing down to the speed limit—we hit nothing but green at every intersection the rest of the way.
“Keep the meter on,” I told him as I rushed into the Navy Building, using a side entrance on the Mall. I hadn’t been back since I went under as Ted Barston, I needed to keep my head low and stay unnoticed if I could. Fortunately, the office I needed was on the ground floor.
“Well, look what the cat dragged in,” a gaunt old man in work clothes and a shop apron greeted me. Shock of bristly gray hair like a Fuller Brush, piercing eyes, liver-spotted face. Long arms and a skinny frame made him look gangly but he was as dexterous as a surgeon.
“Good to see you, too, Filbert.”
“Heard you were in—”
“Iceland?”
“Yeah, there.”
“I’m back and I wanna buy you dinner at the Automat.”
“Gee, a two-bit meal, aren’t I glad I got outta bed this morning?” He turned his attention back to the guts of the radio or telephone or whatever the hell was spread out on the table before him. Professor Gadget, we called him, O.N.I.’s expert on all things electrical.
“And give you a chance to field test that miniature transmitter you were telling me about a while ago.”
Looking up, he said flatly, “It’s not ready.” But I could see the interest in his eyes.
“Filbert, do this for me, and I’ll convince Commander Paslett to marry his youngest daughter off to you.”
“The fat one? No thanks. I’ll take a bottle of single malt Scotch from Islay instead.”
“Deal,” I said, though I had no idea what he was talking about.
“S’pose we gotta go right now.”
“How’d you know?”
“Because the day one’a you bastards tells me there’s no hurry is the day I retire.”
I forced a grin and tried not to look anxious as he took down a wooden crate from a shelf packed with tubes, wires, casings, and circuit boards. He set down the box, took off the top, and began inspecting the contents. Turned dials, flipped toggles, snapped a battery into a socket. C’mon, c’mon I wanted to say but I held my tongue. Finally he put the top back on the box and started to untie his apron.
“You can do that in the car, Filbert—we gotta go.”
“Aw, for chrissake,” he grumbled, but he picked up the box and I hustled him to the waiting cab.
Soon as we were under way, he was like a kid on Christmas, showing off his loot. “So what we got here, what I did is, I took a Stancor Twenty-P with a C.P. transmitter, but I built the modulator myself—no way ten watts gives you the range you need, and I opened up the frequency range, using Meissner one-tube regenerative receivers, so we can go anywhere from one to seventy megacycles. . . .”
I nodded, repeating uh-huh, uh-huh like it all made sense, waiting for him to take a breath. “Filbert, if you’re sitting at a table next to someone, will I be able to hear what they’re saying?”
“Have you been listening to a word of what I’ve been telling you? The microphone’s got a range of twenty feet and with the amplifiers I got here on the board, you’re gonna . . .”
This time I concentrated and what I thought I heard was: Filbert had custom-built a one-way, wireless radiotelephone. The receiver (me) could hear everything the microphone picked up by listening on an adapted field telephone with a headset. He had designed the microphone to look like a pen—the sender let it jut from a shirt pocket.
“Now, if this works the way it oughta, the next step is, what I’m gonna do is, I’m gonna wire it to a Dictaphone disc, so we can—”
“Filbert, how’re you gonna hide the microphone wire that connects to the board? Our mark, he’s awful suspicious, somebody sits down near him with that gizmo, he’s gonna know—”
“Think you’re the only one who’s ever done field work, hot-shot? All I gotta do is run the wire through my sleeve before I go in. I put the box on the chair next to me and plug into the jack while I’m doing that. This mark, if he looks over, all he’s gonna see is a poor old man stopping off for his dinner after an errand.” He held up his rig. I hadn’t noticed at the Navy Building, but Filbert had installed his contraption inside an old wooden box with Bekin Hardware painted on the side, the letters faded.
“That looks pretty good,” I said.
He shrugged. “Only box I had that was the right size.”
The cabbie pulled to the curb a block away from the Automat, as I’d instructed him. I passed him fifteen bucks on the six-fifty fare and ignored Filbert’s bug-eyed reaction.
“W
ell, look at Mister Moneybags, tipping hacks like there’s no tomorrow while the old man only gets—”
“Two bottles, okay, Filbert? I’ll get you two bottles of that bourbon you want—”
“Scotch! There’s a big difference.”
“Okay, okay, let’s go!”
I flung open the door and led Filbert to the alley behind the Automat. “Lemme do the talking, okay?”
“Yes, your highness.”
Ignoring that crack, I pounded on the metal door marked DELIVERIES. A chunky teenager in a spotless uniform of white pants, shirt, and garrison cap opened the door and looked us over.
“No salesmen,” he began.
“Step aside, sonny,” I cut him off, “we’re here on an important military matter.” I stepped forward, he backed in, we came inside. “Show him your card, Filbert,” I said.
The kid gawked at the out-held O.N.I. identification card as I told him what we were going to do: my partner was setting up a top-secret telephone in the service area, and the kid had to make sure no one bothered us.
“Can you handle that?” I finished.
“Yessir!” he exclaimed, chopping off a not-half-bad salute.
“Good. Where’s the best spot, Filbert?”
The old man was all business now, surveying the kitchen like a cat burglar looking for the silver. “Here,” he ordered, pointing to a long aluminum table cluttered with baking utensils. “Get all this crap outta my way,” he barked at the kid, who jumped to. Filbert assembled the radiotelephone, flicked a switch, grunted approvingly when it began to hum. Walking to the rear wall, the circuit board under his arm, he lifted the pencil microphone to his lips and chin-ticked for me to lift the headset. As soon as I had it on, Filbert whispered, “Got any sisters, Voigt, ’cause that boy looks awful horny and you owe him.”
I grinned and gave him a thumbs-up.
“What’d he say?” the kid asked me eagerly.
“He said you’ll make a fine sailor.”
“For real?”
“Sure thing, kid, now go keep guard for us.”
The Dead Don't Bleed: A Novel Page 28