Paolo didn’t flinch. “Really? How interesting. I’m sure the DA or police commissioner would love to know that a bunch of FBI agents are running roughshod through Cincinnati. It’s customary to inform the locals if you’re working a gig on their turf, just so nobody accidentally mistakes you for Al Capone. Be a shame if one of your guys got themselves plugged by a cop, wouldn’t it? I wasn’t told about you guys playing in our sandbox. Why would that be?”
Tanner sighed again, looking at his shoes for a moment. “You know what? Breakfast does sound pretty good right now. Does your offer still apply?”
Paolo shot me a glance, then nodded. “Yeah. Sounds like a great idea.”
Tanner took a step toward Lou’s, but I stopped him by flicking my expired smoke at him. “Not there. You might not survive the food in that joint.” We found a diner a block or two away and took a seat in an abandoned corner. We placed our order and Paolo got right down to business.
“Spill it, Tanner. Why are you following my friend here?”
Tanner looked at each of us for a minute before he spoke. “Look, Belvedere, I just do what I’m told. My superiors say, ‘Follow that woman,’ so I follow that woman.”
I leaned toward him. “Fine; why did they tell you to follow me? I saw you at the auction. I know you’ve been after me at least since then.”
He nodded. “I wasn’t there to watch you, but I did see you there. We decided then, at the auction, you were someone we wanted to know more about.”
Paolo frowned. “Who were you there to watch?”
Tanner held his tongue, so I answered for him. “Gottlieb. Or maybe Braun.”
“It’s interesting that you know those men, Miss Lisbon.” Tanner grinned.
The waitress brought our coffee and I sipped mine before answering him. “It’s not a crime to talk to someone in a public place. Is it?”
“It depends on whether the people you’re speaking to are Nazi spies or not. We are, after all, at war. Certain unpleasant things happen during war.”
Paolo dumped sugar into his coffee. “Things like murder?”
“Yes, undoubtedly.”
“I’ve had two corpses pop up in my town within the last few days. One in Mt. Washington, and one downtown. I think you guys know something about both of them.”
Tanner frowned. “I haven’t heard about the one downtown. Who was it?”
Paolo whispered the name. “John Martingdale.”
“Oh, wow.” Tanner sat back and his eyes glazed over a bit. “That’s ... interesting.”
I mashed out my cigarette. “Why is that interesting?”
Tanner remained silent so long that Paolo began to lose patience. “Look, Tanner. You know me, I’m on your side. We need to work together on this, you need to trust me.”
His eyes moved from Paolo to me. “I owe you a lot, Belvedere, and I’m willing to trust you, but I need to know more about your friend. You help me clear up her part in this mess, and I’ll help you as much as I can. Deal?”
Paolo leaned his head to me. “Kissy? What do you say?”
“Go ahead, but I’m only answering questions about the case. Nothing personal. I don’t like nosy Parkers sticking their snouts into my life.”
Paolo looked to Tanner. “Good enough?”
“For now.” The food came and he occupied himself with it for a few minutes. His enthusiastic use of the saltshaker rivaled Norman’s. “All right, Miss. What is your name?”
“Kissy Lisbon.”
“Is that your real name?”
“It’s short for Cassandra. The FBI’s never heard of nicknames?”
He broke into a grin. “I can neither confirm nor deny that accusation.”
“Funny.” I turned to Paolo. “Feds are a laugh riot, aren’t they?”
“Seems so.”
Tanner tucked away his smile and resumed his interrogation. “Who is Eva Weber?”
“Just a name.”
“Tell me about it.”
I heaved out a mighty sigh and sketched out a rough outline of my night at Shultz’s house and how my quick thinking saved me from Braun’s bullet. Tanner ignored his food as he listened, his mouth hung open like a baby bird.
“Okay, so why were you at the auction?”
“I found a note in Shultz’s pocket with an address and date on it. I thought maybe Kendall was supposed to meet Shultz at that place and time, but it turned out to be the auction. Gottlieb and Braun approached me there, still thinking I was Weber.”
Tanner took a bite of his cold eggs. “Did Gottlieb say why he was there?”
“Yeah, to buy Hirsch’s safe.”
Tanner’s eyebrows rose. “You know about Hirsch?”
“A little. I know he died, and Gottlieb wanted whatever was in the safe.”
“Did he say what was in the safe?”
I tossed back the last of my coffee. “Just some paperwork the Bund didn’t want to get out.”
He shook his head. “You are remarkably well-informed about all of this for someone who blundered into it.” He shot me a quick glance. “No offense.”
I waved him my non-concern. “Gottlieb said the safe might have the identity of Wulf. He seemed to think that meant something to me. Who’s Wulf?”
Tanner threw down his fork. “Unbelievable. That’s top-secret information you have there, you could go to Leavenworth for just mentioning it to the wrong person.”
Paolo smiled at him. “Sounds like you’d better put her on the payroll, Tanner.”
“I’ll see what I can do.”
I lit a cigarette and sucked in a lungful of tobacco. “So, are you convinced I’m not a Nazi spy?”
He studied me for a moment, then broke into a broad smile. “I’m convinced. I think you’ve been lucky so far, and I think you still have a lot to tell me, but I don’t think you’re a Nazi.”
“Thank God for small favors.” I turned to Paolo. “Do you trust him?”
Paolo seemed to consider it. “I think so. He’s always been straight with me. So far, anyway.”
I took a long drag as I watched Tanner watch me. “All right, I guess we can tell him.”
“Tell me what?”
I blew smoke at him. “You know Martingdale? He was deep in this mess, wasn’t he?”
Tanner nodded. “Yeah, as deep as it gets.”
“Somebody murdered him but tried to make it look like a suicide. We think it was an inside job.”
Tanner looked confused. “What do you mean an inside job?”
I held his eye for a long moment. “Tell us what you know about Colonel Greene.”
Chapter Eighteen
Tanner finished off his coffee and waved over the waitress for a refill. He waited until she’d moved away from the table to begin. “Colonel Greene. I hardly know where to start. He’s a big shot in Army Intelligence. When the war started, the Bund chapters went underground almost overnight. Greene had been collecting information about the Bund for years, correctly predicting that war with Germany was inevitable and that the Bund would be a resource that Germany would exploit against us. President Roosevelt put together a group to deal with domestic espionage and deal with saboteurs and the like. He personally put Greene in charge of that group, and he immediately started tracking down Bund members. The thing is, Greene has no official authority over, or position within, the FBI structure. A week ago, he bulled his way into town and took over the whole shebang.”
Paolo’s brows knit. “How did he manage that?”
“Avery Brightman, that’s how.”
“Who?” I looked over at Paolo. “Who’s that?”
Tanner heaved a great sigh. “Avery Brightman oversees the local FBI operation. He’s a bean-counter that kissed up to enough of the right politicians that he landed himself this sweet little gig. He’s smart in his own way, but he’s also in desperate need of a backbone. When Green showed up flashing his presidentially appointed credentials, Brightman rolled over and handed Greene the keys to the kingdom.�
� He poured some coffee down his throat and stared at us. “It’s war, he says, and during war the ends always justify the means.”
I mashed out my smoke. “Does that include murder?”
He nodded. “It seems to. I’m sure Greene would think so.”
“You disagree?” Paolo leaned closer to Tanner, his voice dropping. “You don’t like the way he runs the show?”
Tanner shifted in his seat. “I don’t trust him. Something strange is going on here. He’s got our guys positioned all over the city, but his orders are nonsense. For instance, he has me just standing on the street, watching a building. No car, no hidden position. What he’s doing seems to be designed to make sure we’re kept out of the way. Then there are the murders. The FBI isn’t in the business of murdering citizens of the United States, and while I’ve never been in the Army, I like to think they aren’t either. Hirsch got himself shot. Apparently, so did Shultz. Three enlisted men who served as couriers were found dead just over a week ago. Now you tell me that Martingdale got shot, too. Why were all these men murdered? If they were involved with the Bund and committing seditious activities, we’d want them arrested, not shot. We’d want to interrogate them until we found out who else was working against us. Dead men don’t answer many questions. The only conclusion that can be made is that someone wanted to silence them. Why silence them unless you were afraid of what they’d say?”
The waitress cleared away our plates and refilled our coffee mugs. We sat in silence for a long time. Finally, Tanner asked about Martingdale, and Paolo sketched out what we found in Martingdale’s office the night before, including our theories about Greene. You could see Tanner’s brain twisting in the labyrinth but not finding a way through. He shook his head. “Why kill Martingdale?”
I lit a cigarette and sucked in a lungful of tobacco. “I heard Martingdale mention Greene by name when I was trying to find Shultz’s address. He obviously knew him.”
Tanner waved that away. “Yeah, they knew each other. Martingdale was on the Army end of the information trail.”
“Can you explain that part a little more? I don’t quite understand how all of this spy stuff works.” Paolo spun a tinkling spoon in his coffee. “Sorry if I seem dense.”
“No, it’s a murky mess. The contact in the Bund, known as ‘Wulf,’ would get the skinny on what the Bund was up to, hand it off to Shultz through an unknown intermediary, and Shultz would deliver it to his ‘employer,’ Martingdale, who passed it on to Greene through various couriers. Large sums of money then went backwards through the chain, with each fish in the pool getting a bite.”
Paolo nodded. “Okay, let’s start at the top. Let’s go talk to Wulf, maybe he knows something about Greene’s business.”
I took a long drag on my smoke. “That’s not gonna happen.”
“Why not?”
I looked between each of them. “Because Hirsch was Wulf, and Hirsch is dead.”
Tanner gave me a strange glance, but nodded. “We think so, anyway. The guy at the top of the chain and the guys at the bottom are all dead. That leaves us one link, and we don’t know who that person is. I’m not sure if Greene even knows who that guy is, if he does, he’s keeping it to himself.”
Paolo shot a glance at me. “Shall we tell him about Shultz?” I nodded and he explained about the scar on the ersatz Shultz’s cheek and how we doubted that Shultz was really dead. “So, whoever died in Shultz’s house, it wasn’t Shultz himself.”
Tanner ran his fingers through his short, brown hair. “According to Martingdale, ‘Shultz’ was an assumed name. He told us that when Shultz disappeared.”
“When did Shultz disappear?” My coffee had gone cold.
“I’m not sure, a little over two weeks ago. I think.”
I nodded. “That fits with what Mrs. Kendall told me about Heloise Kendall and Shultz. Kendall left home around that time. Would that have been about the time Hirsch died as well?”
He closed his eyes and did the math in his head. “Yeah, about the same time. A day later, maybe.”
“What happened two weeks ago that set all of this into motion?” Paolo rubbed his forehead with his fingertips. “Something had to have happened to shake up the Bund like that.”
“Richter.” I puffed out a cloud of smoke.
Tanner’s coffee cup clanked onto the tabletop. “Christ! You know about him too?”
I tossed him a grin. “I’m good at what I do. Everyone that mentions Richter seems to be afraid of him. Wexler said Richter was active and had been trained by the Gestapo. I assume that by active he meant that Richter was actively a spy?”
“Exactly.”
I spun it all out as I saw it. “Okay, so Hirsch for whatever reason decides to start feeding information about the Bund to the Feds. Maybe Wexler or some other bigwig in the Bund becomes suspicious and calls in Richter, who tries to work out who the informant is. Somehow he decides it must be Hirsch, so he plugs him. The guy working with Hirsch goes into hiding and so does Shultz, which leaves Martingdale as the only guy in the chain who knows all the players. Then he gets bumped off.”
Tanner nodded. “Yeah, Martingdale is the problem. It seems unlikely that Richter would have even known he existed, or if he did, why kill him once Hirsch was dead? It’s an unnecessary risk to take. The three dead couriers are another problem too, there’s no way Richter could have gotten to them. I can’t even get their names out of Greene, but he’s using their deaths as an excuse to keep a stranglehold on Brightman, and through him, all of us.”
“Then there’s the attempted cover up.” Paolo swallowed the last of his coffee before going on. “Whoever killed Hirsch and Shultz didn’t bother to make it look like a suicide. That points to a different murderer. We’re also left with the corpse in Shultz’s house. If he wasn’t Shultz, who was he? Has anyone mentioned a missing person?”
I snapped my fingers. “Yes! Wexler said Richter was missing. He hinted that maybe Heloise Kendall had run off with him.”
Paolo turned to Tanner. “Do you have a description of Richter? Did he have a facial scar?”
“I’ll get on it, see what I can find out. I’ll get a photo if I can. It won’t be easy with all of Greene’s insane security measures in place. Belvedere, you should know I can’t officially offer you anything. At the moment the local FBI office is acting as an extension of Colonel Greene’s Army Intelligence unit. There are a few of us that smell a rat, but we can’t really do much to help you, not with Greene calling the shots.” He turned his face to me. “Miss, if I were you, I’d check into a nice hotel and stay there until all this blows over. Better yet, go visit some relatives in Minnesota or something.”
I crushed my cigarette in the ashtray. “I’m not that kind of girl, Tanner. I believe your Colonel Greene shot a friend of mine, and until I find out otherwise, he’s the one I’m going after.”
Tanner sighed, but nodded. “It’s your funeral. But get out of the flophouse. Greene has us watching it, and he knows by now you didn’t end up in the nuthatch last night. You’re probably both on the list, and he’ll have you brought in for questioning. Don’t believe you’ll be allowed a lawyer or telephone call; the usual rules and civil rights have been thrown out the window. Once he has you in custody, you’ll stay there until he decides to let you go. It’s war, remember?” He turned to Paolo. “I’m only helping you because I owe you one for ‘39. That, and I don’t like having to tap-dance to Greene’s tune. The ends don’t always justify the means.” He stood. “Get what you need and clear out. That goes for both of you. Where can I get ahold of you?”
Paolo jotted down a number on a slip of paper and handed it to Tanner. “This is the number of a friend of mine. He’s a retired police officer; you can trust him. Name’s Mason. Stephen Mason.”
“Right. I’ll find out what I can and be in touch. Right now, though, I have a building to babysit.” He turned and left the diner.
Paolo threw four singles on the table. “You heard the man, let’s
get you packed up.” We walked back to my building. Tanner stood under the shoe store awning, reading his newspaper and studiously avoided looking at us. We climbed the stairs and I unlocked the door to my room.
“What should I take? Everything?”
“No, just some clothes. And money, if you have any.”
I scowled. “What does that mean?”
His eyes roamed around the room. “Uh, nothing.”
“I’m doing just fine, thank you very much!” I didn’t want to take the trunk, so I pulled my ratty suitcase from under the bed and stuffed my clothes into it. I pulled out the wad of money I kept in a sock. “See?”
His jaw dropped. “Good God, Kissy. If you have all that, why do you stay in this flea trap?”
“I like this flea trap. Mama Jose doesn’t pass judgment, as long as you pay the rent.”
He didn’t have an answer for that, so he crammed his hands into his pockets and watched me finish packing. “Where do you want to go?”
I thought it over. “Have all the cops left the Aristocrat?”
“Yeah, I think they cleared out not long after we left.”
“Let’s go there. They won’t be expecting that.”
He chuckled. “You must like living dangerously.”
“I’ll drive.” I latched my suitcase closed. “You get to carry my luggage.”
“As madame says. I shall carry her valise.” He bowed and picked it up.
I locked the door and we jogged downstairs. Tanner still stood in place with his newspaper open. Paolo placed my suitcase in the trunk and I drove us to the Aristocrat Hotel. He got us a suite under the name of ‘Smith,’ and we rode the elevator to the top floor. The elevator operator was an elderly gent with a crooked back, not Mikey. I tipped him a quarter.
The room had the same faded-glory feeling as the room Ruger had had. Paolo put my suitcase in one of the two bedrooms, joined me in the sitting-room, then called his friend Mason to let him know to expect a call from Tanner. When he hung up, he put on his hat and gave me one of his patented grins. “I’m gonna run home and grab a few things and then come back here.”
I nodded. “I’m going to visit Norman at the hospital. Want me to drop you off on the way?”
Big Shots and Bullet Holes Page 13