Majic Man nh-10

by Max Allan Collins

  Then she wheeled and pointed a finger right at me; remarkably, it didn’t tremble at all. Auntie Jo wanted me.

  “Did it ever occur to you, shithead, that maybe I had the idea people were after me because my husband made me think that? He’s been nuts longer than I have! He was the one who saw Reds under the bed! I just caught the sickness from him, I just didn’t wear it as well as he did … still waters running deep and all. Because I’m a little more outgoing than he is, because I’m a mother and got concerned about my children being kidnapped, because I believed the paranoid rambling fucking delusions of a man who was supposed to be a goddamn fucking tower of strength, a powerful man who oughta know whether somebody’s out to fucking get us or not, well then … what was the question?”

  “I don’t think I asked one.”

  “Don’t mind if I do.”

  “Don’t mind if you do what?”

  “Have another drink.”

  And she ambled over to the liquor cart and built herself another one; again, the vermouth outdistanced the gin, but that didn’t help much, as many as she was throwing down.

  “So,” she said, falling into the chair but not spilling a drop, “is anybody really trying to kill the great former Secretary Forrestal?”

  “I don’t believe so, no…. I, uh, think I’m gonna see how my men are doing.”

  “You do that. You do that.”

  I did that, and when I came back, she’d fallen asleep in the chair. Her tumbler-which was empty-I plucked from her hands and set on the coffee table.

  When she woke up, a little over two hours later, with a kind of spasm, eyes snapping wide open, she asked, “What time is it?”

  “Three-fifteen,” I said, checking my wristwatch.

  I was sitting on the sofa, reading an old issue of Time with her husband’s picture on it. Bob Hasty and Jack Randolph had pronounced the residence free of bugs-at least the electronic kind-and were fifteen minutes gone.

  “Shit!” She slapped the arms of the easy chair. “Why didn’t you wake me?”

  “Was I supposed to?”

  She jack-in-the-boxed to her feet, glaring at me. “My flight’s in an hour; cab’ll be here any minute.”

  She hustled off, almost ran up the steps, and came down several minutes later, with a flowing black jacket over her white blouse and black slacks; she’d added some jewelry-black-and-white round earrings, a jeweled brooch, some rings-and had freshened her makeup. It wasn’t hard to remember that she had once been extremely beautiful, enough so to pose for Vogue.

  I met her as she reached the bottom of the stairs. “You look swell,” I said.

  “Thank you.” She had a watch on now, and was winding it. “I’m, uh … sorry if I seemed rude, earlier. I have a bad habit of speaking my mind-particularly to people I like.”

  “I thought you’d decided not to like me.”

  She touched my face with a slender hand. “I changed my mind. Would you see if my cab is out front? I have to leave some instructions with Remy.”

  “I haven’t seen him since you tossed that glass.”

  Her tiny smile was an odd mix of embarrassment and pride. “He retreats to his rabbithole when I’m on a rampage.”

  The cab indeed was waiting, and I went out and told the cabbie his fare would be along shortly. In the meantime, I carried out her bags and the cabbie helped me load them in his trunk, though they wouldn’t all fit; a few had to go in the backseat.

  Inside, I found her snugging on some white gloves; a big black patent-leather handbag was slung over her shoulder, and she looked rather stylish-as chic as a well-dressed Wave.

  “Have a good trip,” I said. “I’m making a full report on my investigation to your husband, tomorrow. Any message for him?”

  “Just that I hope he’ll join me soon.”

  “Is that concern I hear?”

  “I love Jim, in my way, as I’m sure he loves me in his.” She kissed my cheek, tickled the side of my face with gloved fingertips. “You’re really a very sweet man.”

  “You know, you haven’t cursed in something like five minutes; it makes me uneasy.”

  She laughed and this time it lacked the brittle hysteria. “Well, then, Nate, why don’t you go fuck yourself.”

  “That’s extra, too.”

  She laughed some more and, as if she were a duchess on her way to the ball, I escorted her to the cab and waved as she drove off. She waved from her backseat window, and smiled, but if I’d ever seen a sadder expression, I couldn’t remember when.

  My day’s work was done; I’d be leaving Washington tomorrow, I’d decided. The evening was mine, and I had a date with Anya, the blonde in Pearson’s office, who in that wonderful accent had requested I not tell her boss.

  Well, if she insisted.

  Anyway, it was nice to know Drew Pearson wasn’t on top of everything that went on in this town.

  9

  The day after he reluctantly stepped aside as Secretary of Defense, James Forrestal was honored by a rare special meeting of the House Armed Services Committee, at which he was lavishly praised by committee chairman Carl Vinson and ranking minority member Representative Dewey Short. Forrestal was presented with a silver bowl, “engraved with our names in testimony of our regards-a regard also indelibly inscribed in our hearts.”

  The flustered Forrestal of the day before, struck dumb by surprise and emotion, was replaced by a prepared, dignified statesman who delivered several brief, gracious speeches.

  Also attending-and celebrating Forrestal’s accomplishments in public life-were his successor, Louis Johnson; Secretary of the Army Kenneth Royall; Secretary of the Navy John Sullivan; and Secretary of the Air Force Stuart Symington. The press made much of the kind words the latter said about Forrestal, and vice versa, as the onetime friends had become bitter adversaries over matters of budget, among other things, with the Air Force Secretary’s disloyal, harsh criticism of Forrestal in a notorious New York Times interview almost getting Symington fired.

  The warmly positive press coverage of Jim Forrestal and the honors bestowed him on that Tuesday morning held no hint of the bizarre, even tragic turn the rest of that day would take.

  My appointment with Forrestal, to report on my investigation, was in the afternoon, three o’clock, and shortly before that time I rang the bell of Morris House on Prospect Street. A light, pleasant breeze ruffled my lightweight tropical suit and my hat was in my hand when the Filipino houseboy, Remy, again wild-eyed, answered; but this time Remy was not annoyed, but visibly upset.

  “Mr. Heller,” Remy said. “So glad to see you.”

  “What’s wrong?”

  “Please come in.”

  I did. The house was dark-every light was off, all the blinds drawn.

  “’Cept for cook, I am alone of staff,” Remy said. “Mrs. Forrestal give Miss Brown, Mr. Campbell week off. Because of Florida trip.”

  Stanley Campbell was Forrestal’s butler/valet, a trusted right-hand man.

  Turning my hat in my hands, I asked, “Where’s your boss?”

  Remy pointed a tremulous finger, toward the living room. There, seated in the same easy chair Jo Forrestal had curled up in yesterday, sat Forrestal, but on the edge of it, rigidly erect. He was wearing his hat, and looked small in his well-tailored gray suit, which was only a slightly darker gray than his complexion; he seemed even thinner and more haggard than he had in his golfing attire, collar hanging loosely from a creped neck. His hands were on his knees, his eyes staring straight ahead, unblinking. He might have been a statue; he might have been dead.

  Before him on the coffee table was the engraved silver bowl.

  Then I realized he was saying something-muttering-though the thin line of his mouth barely moved.

  “Hello, Jim,” I said, taking off my hat, moving into the room.

  Now I could hear him. “You’re a loyal fellow,” he was saying, with no inflection whatsoever. “You’re a loyal fellow.”

  I pulled over a fan-back
chair and sat opposite him, with the coffee table between us; his eyes showed no sign of registering my presence.

  “We had an appointment, Jim,” I said. “I need to make my report. I think you’re going to be pleased.”

  He blinked, once, and now his eyes seemed to land on me, instead of look right through me.

  But he still said only, “You’re a loyal fellow.”

  Was he talking about me, or himself? Had he discovered my affiliation with Pearson, and was this a sort of shell-shocked sarcasm?

  Remy was standing in the archway between the living room and the entry hall; he called out, “Mr. Forrestal! It’s Mr. Eberstadt again! He says you must come to phone.”

  Forrestal’s head turned slowly on his neck, like a well-oiled moving part.

  “No,” he said.

  Then just as slowly, his head returned to its forward staring position.

  “Just a second, Remy,” I said. “I’ll take it.”

  The phone was on a stand in the hallway, but out of Forrestal’s earshot, so I was free to talk.

  “This is Nate Heller, Mr. Eberstadt,” I said. Investment banker Eberstadt was one of my client’s oldest, dearest friends; I’d seen them playing golf together at Burning Tree, Saturday.

  “You seem to know who I am,” he said, in a commanding baritone. “Who the hell are you?”

  “I’m an investigator Jim hired to see who was trying to kill him.”

  “Oh, my God,” he groaned. “I hope by now you know the real nature of his problem.”

  “I’d say I do. Right now he’s sitting in the living room with his hat on muttering about what a ‘loyal fellow’ he, or somebody, is.”

  “What’s your appraisal of the immediate situation?”

  “I’d say he’s about two inches away from falling off Catatonic Cliff.”

  “Damnit.” A weary concern colored Eberstadt’s tone. “I got a similar report from Marx Leva, his assistant at the Pentagon. Seems James was fine at the ceremonies honoring him this morning, but when he returned to his office, he just sat and stared at the wall … with his hat on. I think it may have been that goddamn Symington’s fault.”

  “Symington?”

  “James was supposed to go back to the Pentagon, not to his old office, but another one that’s been set aside for him, so he can deal with the nice letters that’ve been coming in from all over. Symington apparently went out of his way to give Jim a ride back over there.”

  “That sounds like a friendly gesture to me.”

  “I don’t think it was. Leva said Symington told Jim, emphatically, ‘There’s something we must talk about.’”

  “So what did they talk about?”

  “Leva doesn’t know; Symington insisted on privacy. But James was a different man after that ride-Symington must have said something that shattered whatever remained of James’ defenses, that double-dealing son of a bitch.”

  A crazy thought flitted through my mind: Symington, as the Secretary of the Air Force, would surely know about the Roswell incident. Could that “something important” he had to discuss with Forrestal have had to do with a recovered flying saucer and the bodies of little green men?

  And, having had that thought, who the hell was I to question Jim Forrestal’s sanity?

  Eberstadt was saying, “I’m really worried about James. Can you stay there with him?”

  “Sure.”

  “You know, this assistant of his, Leva, called me over at the Capitol, had me paged, really concerned. After sitting there for an hour or so, like you’re witnessing-just staring and muttering, ‘You’re a loyal fellow’-James finally asked Leva to call for his car; he wanted to go home. And that was a problem.”

  “Why?”

  “James doesn’t have an official car, anymore. It’s Louis Johnson’s now; and Leva was afraid if he called a cab, it might upset his boss. So I got Vannevar Bush to send over his chauffeured limo.”

  “Who?”

  “Bush, Vannevar Bush.”

  Christ-Bush was one of the Majestic Twelve! That atom bomb scientist Pearson mentioned who, with Forrestal, was part of the top-secret research and development group supposedly investigating the “flying saucer problem.”

  Maybe Jo Forrestal was right: maybe paranoia was catching.

  “I can’t get away for half an hour, at the least,” Eberstadt was saying. “Will you stay with James, till I can get there?”

  “Won’t let him out of my sight.”

  “Good man.”

  I hung up, went back into the living room, where Forrestal’s posture hadn’t changed.

  “Take off your hat and stay awhile,” I said, gently.

  He gazed at me, gray-blue eyes in a gray face; there was something lizardlike about it.

  Gently, I removed his hat, tossed it next to mine on the coffee table. Then I sat opposite him and said, “I need to make my report. Jim, are you listening?”

  He blinked, several times. “Nate Heller,” he said, obviously noticing my presence for the first time.

  “Hi, Jim. All right with you if I let you know what I came up with?”

  His nod was barely perceptible.

  “You’re aware that we did a full sweep of the house for electronic surveillance, yesterday? You got the note I left to that effect?”

  Another barely perceptible nod.

  “Well, I used the best men in the city; they didn’t find a damn thing. On the other hand, I have learned that Pearson was bribing one of your household staff-Della Brown-for any tidbits of personal gossip; I told Jo yesterday, and, obviously, recommended firing the girl.”

  He said nothing; but at least he did seem to be listening.

  “Now, I’ve learned that the Secret Service has been keeping your home under surveillance. That’s not because they wish you ill, quite the opposite. They learned of your fears that someone was trying to ‘get’ you, and-much as I have-they investigated.”

  His eyes left my face, dropping to the silver bowl, where he could stare at his reflection, and it could stare back at him.

  “So, you were right, Jim-you were being watched; and your suspicions about Pearson were, to some degree, well placed. But I’ve found no indication at all that your life is in any danger.”

  The single line of his mouth twitched in something that was almost a smile. “Really?” He rose, as fluidly and slowly as Bela Lugosi waking up in his coffin. He crooked his finger. “Come with me.”

  I followed him to the window across the room; he parted a blind and said, softly, “On the corner.”

  On that same bench I’d inhabited not so long ago, in front of the weathered gray-brick colonial house with the tours and the coffee shop, sat a couple of pasty-faced kids in their early twenties wearing colorful but soiled T-shirts and dingy jeans and tennis shoes. They were either out of work or avoiding it, and when the next cop came along, they’d no doubt be told to shove off.

  “Russians,” Forrestal said ominously, and let the blinds snap shut.

  “I kind of doubt that, Jim,” I said.

  His head swiveled and he fixed narrowed eyes upon me. “They were waiting for me when I got home.”

  The doorbell rang and he jumped; but hell, so did I.

  The houseboy, moving quickly, went to answer it. Couldn’t be Eberstadt already, could it?

  “I know you mean well, Nate,” Forrestal said quietly, taking me by the arm, “but you haven’t found the truth. They’re after me, they’re still after me.”

  “Who?”

  “All of them. All of those I’ve opposed.”

  “A conspiracy, you mean?”

  He squeezed my arm. “Exactly. Commies, Russians, Jews, as well as certain … parties in the White House. That’s why they’ve fooled you: you’re looking for one villain. But it’s all of them-in concert.”

  Maybe I could start my new investigation at the Water Gate band shell.

  “They’ve united against me,” he said, “their common enemy.”

  I could
hear the muffled sound of the houseboy dealing with somebody at the front door.

  Still latching onto my arm, Forrestal whispered into my ear: “They’re probably in the house right now, some of them.”

  “They’re not in this house, Jim.”

  “Keep your voice down. Don’t you know this house is wired?”

  “It’s not wired. My men went over it, I told you, stem to stern.”

  His eyes tightened and so did his grip on my arm. “If you don’t lower your voice, I’ll be forced to ask you to leave.”

  Remy stood nervously at the archway. “There is a man want to see him.”

  The houseboy was addressing me, pointing to his boss.

  Forrestal clutched my arm, desperately. “I won’t see anyone.”

  I extricated myself, gently, saying, “I’ll talk to him, Jim. Just take it easy.”

  The man on the front stoop was short, plump, with a receding hairline, wire-frame glasses, and though it was a cool afternoon, sweat beaded his round face. He wore a crumpled-looking brown off-the-rack business suit and a blue-and-red tie and carried a battered briefcase.

  “I need to see Mr. Forrestal,” the man said in a thick Southern accent.

  “That’s impossible right now.”

  “I’m Phil Dingel-from North Carolina?”

  Oh, well, hell-that changed everything.

  “Look, sir,” I said. “Mr. Forrestal is not available.”

  “But he knows me-I was an alternate delegate from North Carolina … at the convention in ’48? And Mr. Forrestal promised he’d throw his support my way for my appointment to postmaster, back home.”

  “You want to be postmaster, huh?”

  “Why, yes!”

  “Then write him a letter,” I said, and shut the door in his face. Fucking political worm.

  In the living room, Forrestal was watching at the window, blinds again parted; his face was clenched. “See! You see, Nate?”

  I took a look. The plump would-be Podunk postmaster, who had worse timing than a pregnant teenager waiting for her period, had stopped to talk to the two unshaven vagrant kids on the bench.