New York Station

by Lawrence Dudley

  “Stress? We can scarcely credit he survived—”

  “He’s a remarkable man. Quite exhausted, close to burnout. Obviously, he’s upset about the Nazi victory, deeply angry, wants to know why, who’s responsible, who to blame.”

  “Aren’t we all,” almost growling, leaning over her.

  “Ye-s-s, that’s true. But I see no evidence of undue paranoia—given his job—or any incipient psychosis or dissociative thought patterns. There’s a cynicism I suspect wasn’t there before. The extreme isolation of the kind of life he’s been leading is beginning to grind on him. That’s a vulnerability. But it’s the sense of fatalism that I find most worrisome, and a complete lack of affect when he was talking about killing the duke and duchess, or not surviving the war.”

  “Affect? Affect what?”

  “Affect is the total sum of your feelings—mood, which is the way you feel in general, it’s not specific to any event, and emotions, which are reactive to things that happen. When he said he had no chance of surviving, or offered to kill the duke and duchess by taking the plane down, that wasn’t bravado. The dead flat way he talked about it, I’m certain he really meant it.”

  “Good. That’s what we want.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “It’s an interesting option, a plane crash. We’ll need to do something like that if Britain falls. It may well be necessary for him to sacrifice everything, even his own life.”

  “You can’t be serious. Hawkins—”

  The general’s reaction was instructional, but firm. “Flight Lieutenant. Remember, you’re a Royal Air Force officer first, then a psychologist. We’re here to win the war, not make people feel better. The mission comes first.”

  “Yessir.”

  “Anything else?”

  “He’s latently suicidal, he needs a good vacation and some counseling—”

  “He’s not getting it, dammit. Can he keep it up and maintain his grip?”

  “Yes. He hasn’t cracked. Yet.”

  “He damn well better not. A lot’s riding on him—he’s the only bona fide we’ve got. Big risk we’re taking. What about the accent?”

  “Rather transatlantic, but only to us. He’ll easily pass as a top-class Yank from an elite private school.”

  “Good. Did that goddamn Swiss bugger even peek out the porthole?”

  “No.”

  “Bloody hell of a thing. Neutral rights. Neutral rights my arse.” He angrily searched down and around for something to kick, found nothing. “Fuck that! Fuck them! Why the bloody hell aren’t we interrogating him? What are they thinking? Who knows who he could be!” Stroud had a slightly shocked expression on her face. He sighed and glanced down. “Oh. Damn. Sorry. Shouldn’t have—maybe we’re all a bit burned out.”

  “Yes. I know. It’s quite all right.”

  The general started back inside. “I’ll let New York know. U-boat in sight of the dockyard. Damn, anyway.” As they turned the Clipper began climbing over the harbor. They stopped and grimly watched it circle and fly overhead, heading north. “An awful lot riding on him,” he said, his voice hushed.

  -19-

  “You sure you don’t want to go to Parke-Bernet?”

  Hawkins plucked the sugar bowl from the counter and pointed to the marks on the bottom.

  “Bruno, when’s the last time you saw one of those? That’s Louis XVI’s signet. From the royal chateau at St. Cloud.”

  Gravity claimed him. Bruno slid down from his stool. Try as he might, he couldn’t hide his fascination. “To be honest, I’m glad my wife’s not here, it’d be going back to Queens. Either that or I’d be sleeping on the sofa until New Year’s.”

  Hawkins well knew Parke-Bernet. Sent them things before. Don’t want to say so, he thought, but there are problems with that. For one, you have to wait for the right sale. Then you have to wait nine or ten months to get paid. But that wasn’t the really bad part. No, the real problem was that no big auction hall paid in cash. Some asinine tax regulation. After the visit to that basement in Bermuda, it was going to be cash only from here on out. That meant small dealers like Bruno in the downtown antiques district between Greenwich Village and Union Square.

  “Two thousand? That’s cash?”

  Bruno spread his hands out as if to say, Are we all fools here?

  “And fifty for the watch?” Bruno nodded. “I’ll take it.”

  Bruno hung a CLOSED sign in the window. They made a quick trip down Broadway to the bank. It was as packed with people as a small train station, nearly ten minutes in line merely to reach a teller. Hawkins had been in this bank before. He’d spent his two and a half years of college at nearby NYU. There’d never been more than a handful of people in it before. The torrent of cash flowing in and out required a bit of an adjustment after the austerity of Europe.

  Hitler created an artificial prosperity in Germany with his military buildup. But in broad terms Europe had never recovered from the Depression. In Britain every penny was still pinched. You could see it in people’s faces as they entered stores, an expression of worry and tension at the prospect of having to spend money. And when was the last time anyone put up a new building? London might have been the seat of the world’s greatest empire, but it was basically a Victorian construction. Paris, nearly untouched from before the Great War.

  And at that moment a small downtown New York antiques dealer left the counter and handed over a little green and white envelope filled with a wad of cash that, just a few years ago, only the biggest galleries uptown could’ve come up with. And Bruno had done it quickly. Hawkins pocketed the cash, shook hands with the dealer and left.

  Out on the corner the smell of money being made and spent was in the air everywhere. The men in threadbare coats selling apples from boxes—gone. Empty shop windows—now full. Every other person crossing the street carried a bag or a package. Happy smiles all over, delivery men pushing pipe racks of bright new clothes over from the garment district as grocers restocked fresh produce. Half the flooding river of cars coming down the street looked sparkling new, gleaming with bright chrome.

  Standing and watching on the street—incredibly enough, he could do it that easily—told Hawkins he was in a different country from the one he’d left more than three years before. Shared hardships then brought people together. Now people clutched their bags and packages and smiled to themselves. Mine.

  The country had pulled itself out of the ditch of the Depression, a New Deal done. Now it was roaring down the highway in unspoken celebration. That was the sense it gave. For a moment Hawkins felt a bit melancholy, as if he’d just learned he’d missed a great party.

  At least an hour before the pickup, he thought. Got to kill some time. Might as well walk down Broadway to the hotel. He slowed and gazed at the menu in a deli window. Pastrami on rye. Always partial to that. Always reminds me of New York. But, then, here I am. The people inside seem so very distant, almost in another world, he thought. Talking and smiling. Smiling about what? Behind the glass in more ways than one. Another party I didn’t hear about.

  Simply don’t feel like eating, somehow. Repelled by the idea of food? No, he thought. Not a sick feeling. More like there’s no room inside for anything. Well, why? The money can’t have triggered it. Made a good profit. Ought to be happy, even thrilled. But the money hadn’t brought happiness. Guilt at taking advantage of Madame Delage? No, not that, either.

  Bringing out the vermeil set brought up Paris. That was the problem. It was the mental camera iris closing in again. Try as hard as he could, the same dialogue he’d had on the road all the way from France through Spain, from Portugal to Bermuda, on the plane last night, still kept coming up. It kept churning over and over in the mind. So stupid. So senseless. And Marie, gone, too. How could it all have happened?

  He flowed with the busy crowd down to the corner of Tenth Street by his hotel, the Brittany House. Grace Episcopal church, the best Gothic building in the Western Hemisphere, towered right across the street. A
comforting little piece of old England.

  Hawkins was the kind of ordinary low church man who never went, maybe Lessons and Carols on Christmas Eve. He stood on the corner a second, watching the cars.

  Without any actual conscious decision, he ducked across Broadway and passed through the familiar red doors. A choir was rehearsing out of sight, back in the nave. He dropped a mess of coins in the box out of habit. Then he lit a candle, then a couple more. He sat down and numbly watched them burn like a late-night campfire, oblivious to the choir and Gothic splendor. The door opened. A bus roared by, shattering the illusion of a country church in Devon or Kent. The choir stopped, then restarted the passage, with the choirmaster nosily singing a note for a boy with a breaking voice who couldn’t get the pitch right.

  Hawkins shifted in the straight pew, legs in the aisle. What will the Germans do once they get across the Channel? he thought. No horses. Won’t need churches like this for stables. Maybe use them for jails.

  He closed his eyes, listening to the singers. Then he saw the faces, Dodier, LaDue, Champigny … and Stéphanie, always Stéphanie. He startled up, looking around, not at the faces.

  Why do I want to go back in? Do I want to get killed? Maybe I don’t really care anymore. Maybe that’s why I’m willing to go back in. Escape the pointlessness of it all, one way or the other. Or is it that I just can’t let go? Maybe there’s no difference.

  Someone came in and left the door wide open. The sound of horns and truck engines blared. A deacon or vicar came up the aisle, watching Hawkins as he passed by, closed the door, and came back. He paused.

  “You should take your hat off.”

  “Yeah.” Hawkins didn’t move.

  “Can I help with anything?”

  “Got any burning bushes?”

  “I’m afraid not. Are you trying to be funny?”

  “No. Nothing is funny these days.”

  “I suppose not.”

  “Do you always feel God in here? Because I’m not feeling a thing.”

  “No. That’s too much to expect.”

  “Thanks.”

  The man hesitated, unsure whether to leave or not.

  “I’ll be out back,” he finally said and went up the aisle.

  Going back. It’s the only thing that makes any sense. Got to get out of here and go back in.

  -20-

  The frosted glass door already bore simple new black characters: BRITISH SECURITY CO-ORDINATION. Hawkins pulled the knob. Two burly movers were blocking the door, bellowing at each other nose to nose. “Oh—all—right! Jeez …” the first man shouted. With an irritated, self-conscious flourish he carelessly slapped a bookcase flat on top of a desk and stepped aside. The other man grunted in irritation, either at him or at the idea of the performance—it was impossible to tell which. Then he hoisted a file cabinet on a dolly and propelled it down the aisle with a rumble. A padlocked chain running through the drawer handles rattled loudly as he went.

  Up and down the long airy room several competing furniture rental companies manhandled more desks, chairs, file cabinets, shelves and typewriters in a manic game of musical chairs. Staff members in suits or dresses rushed after them, pointing and gesticulating, here, there. Then they resumed the main business: arguing with each other over the seating arrangements.

  The usual unruly drill of bureaucracy in a crisis, Hawkins thought. Everyone trying to do everything simultaneously and getting in each other’s way. All the scene lacks is the Marx Brothers swinging on a tippy ladder.

  Was it only late winter I was going up the creaking stairs to C’s office in Queen Anne’s Gate? Now this show. Incredible balls, Hawkins thought. Or something.

  A short man, midforties, with a full crop of graying blond hair and a hard but sharp look emerged from the crowd. He waved, a big grin. For a split second Hawkins started to call his name. But the man held a finger up to his lips, softly whispering, “W!” He seized Hawkins’ hand, gripping it in a delighted shake.

  William Stephenson, now officially known as W—the same as the chief of the Service was known as C—was the last man Hawkins expected to see in New York.

  There were certain givens in their closed world. One was that the real name of a top intelligence executive was only used in a secure office or conference room. Even then, you only used it if you enjoyed a privileged status yourself. Clearly, Bill had now acquired such a doubtful but undeniably elite distinction.

  His friend had been, to a considerable degree, erased from the world. For security reasons the Service had been scrubbing the public records of traces of Stephenson’s life for several years. Now, with this designation, the process was complete. William Stephenson was once one of the most powerful and successful industrialists in Britain. He’d invented the telephoto machine used by newspapers all over the world. Parlayed that into an industrial empire that included Pressed Steel Company, the largest manufacturer of auto bodies in Britain. Now he had vanished into a parallel shadow world. It was a scary and weighty moment. In a way, a man had ceased to exist, very much the way Hawkins had.

  The large corner office enveloped them in calm. Stephenson strode to a refrigerator humming in an alcove. He began pulling bottles of gin and vermouth from the icebox.

  “So. It’s W now.”

  “Yes. Also 48100.”

  “I should have known you were behind this. Little obvious, isn’t it? The International Building?”

  “Would it make more sense to hole up in the Bowery? At least here people are used to crowds coming and going. Hide in plain sight. That’s the plan.”

  “Well, I’ll grant that. Still, to actually do it, Bill, some balls, there.”

  “Thanks.”

  “Bit of a step down, isn’t it? The New York station?”

  “Not anymore. We’re now formally responsible for the entire Western Hemisphere and all of Asia. And more.” He handed Hawkins the fresh martini and half sat on the front of his desk. Hawkins took a sip. Perfect icy vapor going down. “Here. Have a seat.”

  Hawkins ignored the offered chair, slowly pacing back and forth, back and forth, a nervous hitch in his movements, a tic perhaps. “More?”

  “Yes. A contingency plan’s being set up.” W began speaking almost as if he were musing aloud, fiddling with his glass. “If the Nazis cross the Channel we’re to control and direct resistance in occupied Britain and British territories worldwide.” A level late afternoon light filled the room, piercing the steel blue blinds. It couldn’t relieve the now somber mood. Hawkins’ pacing sped up a bit.

  “How?”

  “The fleet—or what’s left of it—will go to Canada with the royal family and a government in exile. Churchill’s made it as clear as words can we’ll never surrender.”

  “Very good. About time.”

  “Yes. Since the US is a neutral country, we’ll have access to home through here. If Britain doesn’t fall we get other jobs.” His tone cheered a bit. “It’s a good location to get agents in and out of Europe, direct activities. There are people here you won’t find anywhere else. We’re also hoping to coordinate intelligence and technology-sharing with Washington. Their good stuff for ours. And hopefully, we can persuade them to get in, like the last time.”

  “Quite a list.”

  “That’s not all. We’ve also got a big job here in the US. Like a damn cowboy movie. Dodge City with Nazi agents.” He began rubbing his neck. “Or maybe Chicago with gangsters. Spying on our shipping, slipping saboteurs into Canada, routing agents into Latin America and the Caribbean, spying on the Americans—”

  “What’s C think about all this?”

  “I’m getting my marching orders straight from the PM, so not much. I’m Churchill’s personal liaison with President Roosevelt.”

  “Roosevelt? You’ve actually met him? That’s …” For a moment Hawkins’ face began to light up. He stopped for a second, then resumed his agitated pacing with a new energy. “That’s tremendous. What’s he like? What’s he going to do?�
�

  “Very hard to read his mind. He’s in a dicey position with the coming election. The America Firsters, the conservative isolationists, in both parties, are on a tear. Incredible, what they’re willing to say, absolutely ruthless. He’s vulnerable. That’s the problem now.” W paused, watching. “Hawkins, sit down and relax.” Hawkins kept pacing. “Like a bloody tennis match.”

  “An awful lot of people’s hopes hang on him.”

  “I know. In the long run, ours, too.”

  Hawkins wandered over to the windows, curiously peering down at St. Patrick’s Cathedral.

  “So. You’re putting me back into Europe from here.”

  Hawkins’ back was turned. He missed the rapidly shifting expression on W’s face. Regretful. Sad. Sympathetic. But determined. And then hard.

  “Hawkins, I’m sorry. I know you’d prefer the Continent. But I desperately need you here. You know the business. What’s more, you’re half American. You can fit in in a way others can’t. That’s why I paid your airfare myself.”

  “Ah—ah, what? You paid for a Clipper fare? Have you lost your mind?”

  “Remember when we first met?”

  -21-

  Never forget that day, Hawkins thought. Started in the morning at Shepperton Studios, going to Bill’s office across a studio lot teaming with actors, extras and men pushing lights and gear around. Learned that night it was Stephenson who had built Shepperton, the biggest film studio in Europe, along with Alexander Korda, Britain’s leading filmmaker.

  Sold a hundred thousand dollars’ worth of Bolley’s specialty valves. In a stroke Hawkins went from being a junior hire to Bolley’s top man for the British Empire and the Continent.

  “You know what impressed me most?” Stephenson said. “Remember what we spent the rest of the day talking about? Your contacts in key German industries.”

  Never forget that night, either, Hawkins thought. It had been getting on, late afternoon. Stephenson had offhandedly said, “Come and have a bite at my club.” He’d driven them into town in his new Bentley 4¼-liter coupe, pulling up in front of a palatial 1770s Georgian building on St. James Street. Turned out to be nothing less than Boodles, one of those astonishingly exclusive upper-crust men’s clubs. Inside Stephenson began casually chatting with someone he knew. So happened it was the Duke of Devonshire, the new Undersecretary of State for the Dominions. It seemed the duke wanted to pump Winnipeg-born Stephenson about Canada.