The Proxy Assassin

by John Knoerle

  “Shake up two, Winston,” I said.

  “Yes suh. Maraschino cherries?”

  “Well it’s not a proper Manhattan without a cherry, now is it?”

  “Not rightly suh,” said Winston with a quick blinding grin.

  We watched Winston work his magic in silence. He set the chilled martini glasses on the coffee table and poured right up to the rims and just beyond, the icy surface tension keeping the drink from overflowing.

  “I’ll be downstairs, Mistah Hal. Give a quick call when you need another,” said Winston and let himself out.

  Harvey and I leaned over to sip our drinks, two birds at a birdbath. The cocktails did not disappoint.

  “What else did you and Wisner gas about?”

  “The weather, Bill. We talked about the weather.”

  Harvey told me to do something that is biologically impossible, then sat back and waited for the bourbon to do its work.

  ‘Trust no one’ is what they preach at spy school. But it’s unalloyed bullshit, unless you fancy living in a cave with a crate of K-rations and a Browning automatic. At the end of the day you have to trust somebody.

  I decided I would trust Bill Harvey. It had something to do with his fondness for food and drink. Hitler was a strict vegetarian who didn’t imbibe. Harvey would go to his final reward with a pork chop in one hand and a highball in the other. And I admire that in a person.

  “Could be I told Frank Wisner too much,” I said. “I told him that Hoover called me in.”

  “He would’ve heard about that sooner or later.”

  “I also told him I got the sense Hoover was trying to make me his snitch.”

  Harvey shook his head, lugubriously. “Now you’ve done it.”

  “What?”

  “You’ve gone and dangled your tender testes in between the two meanest yard dogs in D.C. Now that Wisner knows Hoover’s courting you, he’ll want to send you back with slop buckets full of disintel that’ll have Hoover chasing his tail for years.”

  “You have a very active imagination, Mr. Harvey.”

  “Like how, smartass?”

  I threw Harvey a brush back pitch.

  “Well, like ‘Hoover will want to know why you called on Julia at the Dewey rally.’ Like ‘Wisner will drop you like a hot rock and Dulles and his black knights will dump you in the Potomac.’ Like that.”

  Harvey parked my beanball in the upper decks.

  “We’re wrong about everything in counterintelligence, Schroeder. Until we’re right.”

  We nibbled our drinks and enjoyed the quiet.

  “That mug shot in the newspaper was my OSS induction photo.”

  “That jibes with my latest theory.”

  “I’m done with guessing games, Harvey. Spit it out.”

  Harvey extended his pudgy legs and crossed his ankles. “Frank Wisner secretly authorizes the release of your classified induction photo. All bureaucrats like good press. But what he’s really doing is lathering you up with pig fat.”

  “You’re going to have to explain that one.”

  “Bear hunters up in northern Michigan have a trick I saw work a time or two. They smear their lead dog with bacon grease and turn him loose in the deep brush, hoping to scare up a big one.”

  “The big one in this case being J. Edgar Hoover.”

  Harvey grunted.

  “And I’m the lead dog.”

  “Obviously.”

  Well, it beat being a prize porker. I guess. The fat bastard might be on to something. Maybe this was why Wisner was giving me the royal treatment.

  Harvey fought to lean forward in his pillowy chair. “Lab techs at the Bureau will determine your newspaper shot was classified. Wisner knows that, knows Hoover will conclude that Wisner released the classified photo because he doesn’t consider you to be a true member of the secret brotherhood. And Wisner assumes that Hoover will try to get you all hot and bothered about that insult to your sacred honor.”

  Bill Harvey gave up and let his overstuffed chair reclaim him. “Wisner will tell you to play along so you have motive, in Hoover’s mind, to give the Director a shitpot of highly-classified OPC intelligence.”

  I stifled a yawn. “How you do go on.”

  “You’ll see.”

  “I don’t wanna see, Bill,” I said, sober as a parson. “I’m no longer interested in working for Frank Wisner. I want you to give me a job in counterintelligence. You said I had CI potential.”

  “Convince me.”

  “We had a good network of White Russian informers in Berlin until Leonid peached them out to the Blue Caps. We had Nikolai willing to list all the Soviet illegals in country till our MI6 dearies got him tossed in the drink. We even had half a chance to launch an insurrection in Transylvania before Princess Stela blew the whistle.”

  I rattled this off with little effort, surprised I had all that cordwood stacked so neatly.

  “And those leaks came from outside. What if the Reds penetrate the CIA at staff level? Just one mole turns every operation into bloody disaster!”

  I reached for my drink. It was empty. Bill Harvey was similarly embarrassed. We eyed the dark brown jug on the cocktail cart. No need to bother Winston.

  “Two fingers, neat,” said Harvey.

  Done and done. We marinated in blissful quiet in the Woodrow Wilson Suite, the car horns and sirens of the city a distant music.

  “A fella could get used to this,” said Harvey.

  “Um hum.”

  Harvey looked heavy-lidded, half-asleep, but his words were crisp. “Do you know the difference between counterintelligence and counterespionage?”

  “Sure.”

  “Dazzle me.”

  I took a wee nip and plunged ahead.

  “Counterintelligence is playing defense against attempts at penetration by enemy agents intent on espionage, sabotage or intelligence collection. Counterespionage, on the other hand, is offensive-minded. It attempts to identify, contact and convert the enemy’s own agents in order to use them against the sponsor government.”

  “Well said. And where do you fit in?”

  “Beats me.”

  “Don’t be a dumbshit. Why would I hire a battle-tested operative to fact check field reports? Like it or not, Schroeder, you’re stuck with yourself.” Harvey shifted on his overstuffed chair and farted loudly. “And I say that with some authority.”

  We nibbled our drinks. The evening sky outside the terrace purpled into night.

  “I’m shipping out to Gay Paree next week,” said Harvey after a time. “To sniff out Commie spies and turn them with promises of dancing girls and filthy lucre. Your job would be to run them.”

  “I’d be a case officer?”

  Not something I had ever pictured myself doing. I hated my World War II case officer, the jerk kept trying to get me croaked.

  A case officer is something like a football coach. You draw up the plays, give a fiery chalk talk, send your guys onto the field and pace the sidelines. On the plus side you don’t have to worry about getting carried off the field on a stretcher. I could put what I’d learned to good use and live to see my 30th birthday.

  “I’m in, Bill, with one stipulation. I want Winston to accompany me as my personal bartender.”

  “Can’t do it, Schroeder, wouldn’t be right,” said Harvey, drink in hand. “We’re still finding our way in this screwy world. Winston is right where he is supposed to be.”

  We nodded in solemn agreement.

  I looked at the Steuben crystal bowl on the end table. It was engraved with a dozen leaping gazelles. The smaller, finespun bowl on the opposite table was rimmed with swan’s necks that curved up like handles. Even Harvey knew not to use them for ashtrays.

  I took a wee nip of BN/127 and asked William King Harvey a question seldom heard in the Woodrow Wilson Suite of the Mayflower Hotel.

  “You got twenty bucks I can bum?”

  Chapter Forty-four

  I was excited about the opportunity to be a
case officer in a foreign capital. My only hesitation was Julia, which surprised me. I was supposed to be mad at her for turning me into a walking box of Wheaties. But if you can’t ruthlessly exploit your friends for career advancement what good are they?

  I called her at home. I had a double sawbuck in my wallet now. I would ask her out to dinner and tell her I’d been offered a job overseas and see if she gave a hang.

  “I’d like to Hal but I can’t,” is what she said.

  “Why not?”

  “We’d be spotted together.”

  “You turn me into Hal the Hero and now you can’t risk being seen with me?”

  “It would look like we were on a date. I’m supposed to be objective.”

  “We could meet someplace out of the way.”

  “Hal, I’m sorry, I can’t risk it.”

  “You said we were on the same team.”

  “We were, Hal. We were.”

  “So,” I said, not taking the hint, not wanting the conversation to end, “how was Jeannie?”

  “Who?”

  “Jeanne Pappas, my high school sweetheart.”

  It had been profoundly disorienting to think of Julia, talking to Jeannie, about me.

  “I called her at home, at dinnertime. She said she was busy. I said it was important and gave her my home number and told her to call collect.”

  “And she called back late.”

  “Yes, quite late.”

  When the old man was sawing logs.

  “She seemed eager to talk this time but something cut our conversation short. I think it was a crying infant in another room.”

  Had Jeannie had another baby? I didn’t know. I had been a good boy, kept my distance since our Kelleys Island adventure.

  “Oh,” was all I managed. That was followed by a long awkward pause. We were done.

  “It has been a distinct pleasure to make your acquaintance, Miss Hammond.”

  “And yours as well, Mr. Schroeder.”

  Miss Julia took a moment before she hung up to say, “You know how I feel about you, Hal.”

  I didn’t. Know how she felt about me. But that’s the thing about women, you never know from one minute to the next.

  And I never got to so much as nuzzle that perfumed neck.

  Oh, boo hoo, Schroeder. Is the poor famous hero feeling sorry for himself?

  Well yes, as a matter of fact, he was.

  I was going to have to reject Frank Wisner’s job offer tomorrow morning, check out of the Mayflower and return to my third-floor walkup in Mrs. Brennan’s rooming house in Cleveland till it was time to ship out with Bill Harvey. Provided he could slide that by the powers that be.

  Tomorrow, that was tomorrow. Tonight I had a taste for a thick juicy ribeye with cottage fries and a chocolate sundae chaser.

  I dialed room service one last time.

  Epilogue

  I don’t know what it is about me and women. Seems like every time I start to find my rhythm with a girl the Grim Reaper cuts in.

  Jeannie witnessed two fatal shootings on a snowy pier on Kellys Island. Anna was blown to bits when an NKVD officer and I played hot potato with a live grenade. And Miss Julia had to split Leonid’s skull after finding her neighbor’s bloody corpse. These were all miseries of my making in one way or another. I wasn’t a suitable escort maybe.

  Killing a person for the first time leaves a nauseating stench in your nostrils and a aching hole in your gut. It’s a hard feeling to shake. I suspect that Miss Julia didn’t spurn my invitation to a night out because she thought it would damage her career. I suspect Miss Julia didn’t want me around to remind her of that awful night.

  I’d scoffed when my case officer Victor Jacobson called me a ‘lifer’ at our first meet in Berlin.

  ‘Settled down in a cozy cottage with a doting wife, are you?’ was his reply.

  No, I was not. And I wasn’t likely to find the homespun apple-cheeked girl of my dreams while riding herd on a bunch of career turncoats in Europe. More likely I’d become another balding, chain-smoking loner who works right through the weekend because he’s got nobody to tell him not to. Another Victor Jacobson.

  I wanted to be my own man on my own terms but that didn’t mean I had to wake up alone on Sunday mornings. Sunday is a lousy day to be alone.

  What the hell, I had time. I might still get lucky. Could be I already had.

  But forgive me, I’ve gotten ahead of myself.

  Bill Harvey had gotten authorization from the Director of Central Intelligence to hire me on as a case officer. I had Frank Wisner to thank for that. He could have insisted on claiming rights to his prize thoroughbred. But the gracious Southern gentleman wished me well when I told him I wanted to accept Bill Harvey’s offer. Wisner even paid to have my meager effects Railroad Expressed from Cleveland.

  Bill Harvey was not so generous. Counterintelligence, he explained, was ‘back of the house’ and a funding afterthought. Money was tight. We negotiated.

  I was intent on a stopover in County Cork to visit the Mooney Brothers. I had debts to pay. To cover the extra cost I agreed to book passage on a bulk freighter from New York to Dublin. It was quite a comedown from the penthouse suite.

  The Shannon Gail was a rusty bucket that took on water in rough seas, so much so that the 35,000 tons of barley in her hold started to ferment. By the time we docked in Dublin she smelled like a Friday night at Finnegan’s.

  I walked down the gangplank before dawn on Tuesday, November 16th, 1948. I took the train south to the city of Cork which, you will not be surprised to learn, is the county seat of County Cork.

  I checked into the first rooming house I came across, a few blocks north of the train station. The lady behind the counter could have been Mrs. Brennan’s younger sister, gruff and merry in equal measure. I parked my grip in a cozy room. The featherbed beckoned but I knew if I crawled in I’d wake up at three a.m. craving hot food and strong drink. I took a cold shower instead.

  I returned to the parlor and told the lady of the house I was looking to find the Mooney Brothers – Ambrose, Sean and Patrick. She said they were close by, ‘a wee stumble’.

  “In a favorite pub no doubt.”

  “None other,” she said with a twinkle.

  I walked two blocks south as instructed. Well, I’ll be damned. I had passed right by while looking for a place to flop. The Mooney Brothers Bar & Grill!

  I ankled in and looked around. A jukebox blaring Tommy Dorsey, framed photos of Bob Feller and Bobby Waterfield and a recent Cleveland Press front page: Tribe Wins World Series! Polished brass rails and red checkered tablecloths. Home sweet home.

  I sat at the far end of the bar, by the window with its café curtain. It was three o’clock or so, no crowd yet. Nobody but me.

  I had handed fifty-thousand dollars in newly-minted banknotes to Ambrose Mooney on Whiskey Island in December of ’45. The boys had earned their pay so far as I was concerned, but they wouldn’t be the first young men to piss away a windfall.

  And they sure as shit weren’t going to turn a profit without a bartender to serve a thirsty man a beer. I looked around, I called hello. I parked my cheek on my fist and waited.

  “Sir?” trilled a lovely voice. “Sir?”

  I opened my eyes to see a riot of green eyes, red lips, white teeth and curly black hair.

  “We discourage sleeping at the bar,” said the prettiest girl in all the world.

  This was Ambrose’s lady love, had to be.

  “Sorry. Had a long trip, I’m all in.”

  She cocked her head at my Yankee accent.

  “I’m Hal Schroeder from Cleveland, Ohio.”

  “You are not.”

  “I’m afraid I am.”

  “No!”

  “Yes!”

  “Well jaypers,” she said, extending her hand, “I’m Lilly.”

  We shook. Touching her hand sent a jolt up my arm.

  “Uh, are the boys here?”

  “Ambrose is in his office.�
�

  Sheesh McGeesh, Ambrose Mooney had an office.

  “Okay, here’s the plan. I’ll go off to the little boy’s room, you drag Ambrose out here with some question or problem and I’ll sneak up behind.”

  “Perfect,” she said with a dimpled smile. “Off you go.”

  Off I went on heavy legs. Young Hal would have seen something he coveted and schemed and plotted – You know, Lilly, I’m moving to Paris and, gosh, I sure would like to show you around the City of Light. But Hal the Elder would never do such a despicable thing.

  The dope.

  All such thoughts gave wing when I returned from the loo and saw Lilly and Ambrose together at the bar, she behind, he in front, leaning over to examine some bill or order form. It was a dull moment of daily commerce but something about the way their heads spilled into one another made it clear they were a matched set.

  Lilly was good. She never once shifted her eyes in my direction as I crept up behind. She even raised her voice to cover my footsteps as I got close.

  “What’s a guy gotta do to get a beer in this shithole?” I said in a gravelly voice.

  Ambrose spun around with a scowl on his face. A scowl that went away.

  “I owe you a handshake, my friend.”

  Ambrose had offered me his hand after we sprung him from the Soviet Armory in Berlin. But it’s bad luck to celebrate in the middle of an operation so I told him we’d do that later, then never got the chance.

  “Yes you do, Hal.”

  I had always been Chief before, or Boss. But Ambrose was his own boss now. We shook hands, climbed onto barstools and started in.

  He knew about my adventure in D.C., it was in all the papers. I promised to tell him the full story once his brothers wandered in. I congratulated him on his new business. He told me they’d been open for six months and weren’t breaking even.

  “I serve the best hamburger and French fries – fries, not chips – this side of the Atlantic, for ten feckin’ pence. That’s forty cents. I sell a few to the local swells but the working stiffs will drop a pound on beer and go home hungry.”

  “Maybe a hamburger is something new to them.”

  “That’s the point! Stupid bloody Micks. I always thought meself an Irishman when I lived in Cleveland but here in Cork I’m feckin’ Yankee Doodle Dandy.”