Night Watch

by David C. Taylor

  EIGHTEEN

  When Brian woke up, he remembered almost nothing of the day before. He vaguely remembered the meeting with Harry Gallien, but the details were gone. He remembered being at Congressman Williams’s office but nothing of what was said there. He did not know where he went after he left Gallien’s office. ‘But a lot of that stuff will be in my notes.’

  When Cassidy told him there were no notes, no clothes, that he had been found naked and disoriented, Brian looked at him without comprehension and then lay back on the pillows and closed his eyes. ‘Tell me.’

  He told him what he knew.

  ‘Naked? I was naked? Jesus, what happened to my clothes? My notebook, everything is in my notebook.’ His eyes opened for a moment and then closed again, and his face twisted with pain and embarrassment. ‘What happened to me?’

  ‘You were set up.’ Cassidy told him about the photographer’s refusal of credit in the paper and Cassidy’s meeting with O’Malley.

  Brian opened his eyes. ‘He was right. He couldn’t give up a source.’

  ‘The photographer was part of the setup.’

  ‘Still, O’Malley couldn’t give him up. I have to know who they were. We have to find them. I have to know what happened.’ His voice was full of pain.

  ‘We will,’ Cassidy said, and wondered if he believed it himself.

  Brian called Marcy, and Cassidy left the room to give them privacy. He called Sam Watkins at the DCPD from a booth near the elevators, but Watkins had nothing new to report. Dispatch had gotten an anonymous call reporting a crazy man at Rock Creek Park. The patrol car was in the neighborhood. They hadn’t seen anyone but Brian.

  Kay brought clothes from the house, and over the doctor’s protest, they checked Brian out of the hospital. Kay insisted they use her car and driver. They dropped her at her office near the Hill, but they did not go home. Instead they drove to the Congressional Office Building. Brian and Cassidy got out of the car and went up the steps to the front door. They turned and walked down the steps, duplicating Brian’s departure from Williams’s office. Brian stopped at the bottom.

  ‘Where did you go from here?’ Cassidy asked.

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘Can you remember if you turned right or left?’

  Brian looked first one way, then the other. ‘I don’t know. Left? Maybe. No. Right? Jesus, Mike, I don’t know. Maybe right.’ He sounded lost and scared.

  ‘It was lunch time when you left. Maybe you went someplace to eat.’

  ‘But where?’

  The driver took them past the restaurants nearest to the Congressional Office Building. It was mid-afternoon and the day was warm and bright, and the sidewalks were crowded with people enjoying the weather. Brian stared out the window. Every time they passed a restaurant he leaned toward the window in hope. Sometimes he asked the driver to slow down as he examined the front of a building, and then he would shake his head, and they would go on. Once he put his hand on Cassidy’s arm and squeezed, and Cassidy said, ‘Hold on,’ and the driver stopped the car opposite a French bistro. Brian relaxed his grip on Cassidy’s arm. ‘No. No. I was there a couple of months ago for lunch with Aunt Kay.’

  ‘Are you sure? We can go in and see.’

  ‘No. No. It’s no fucking good. It’s like something just wiped part of my brain clean.’ He slapped the door in frustration.

  ‘It’s okay,’ Cassidy said. ‘It’ll come back. The doctor said it’ll come back.’

  ‘The doctor said it might come back. Might.’

  Cassidy asked the driver to take them to Rock Creek Park. He smoked cigarettes and left Brian to his troubled silence until they got there.

  The driver pulled over at the intersection of Broad Branch Road and Ridge Road where a stone bridge crossed Broad Branch stream, a narrow rill of thin autumn water over mossy stones. The breeze kicked up dry fallen leaves and swirled them across the pavement.

  Brian stood uncertainly on the bridge. ‘This is where I was?’

  ‘According to the police report, you were against that stand of trees by the side of the road. The photo pretty much shows that, which means you didn’t move much between when the guy took the shot and when the cops arrived. Do you want to see it?’

  ‘No. Maybe later. I’m not ready for that. Jesus.’

  ‘Whenever you want.’

  Brian turned a full circle to take in the landscape, the leafless trees stark against the bright sky, the underbrush, the stone walls of the bridge, the shallow stream, the road with its few passing cars.

  ‘Anything?’

  ‘No.’ He turned again. ‘Maybe if I took off all my clothes.’

  Cassidy saw the hint of a smile tug his brother’s mouth and thought, Thank god, he’s coming back. But Brian’s expression turned bleak again. ‘If I had to swear, I’d swear I was never here before. No inkling. No hint.’ He blew out a breath in frustration. ‘Why here?’

  ‘At that time of night there’s very little traffic, so whoever brought you could pull across the bridge and no one on the main road would know they were there. They had to get you out of your clothes. They wouldn’t have chanced driving here with you naked, unless you were in the trunk. But even if you were, they still had to get you out and set up for the photographer. They needed privacy.’

  ‘And the setting makes it look worse somehow, doesn’t it, wilder, more out of control? The trees, the bushes, the fucking wild man of Borneo … Let’s get out of here.’

  ‘He doesn’t know anything. The whole thing looks like a coincidence,’ Spencer Shaw said.

  ‘I don’t like coincidences. I don’t believe in them.’ Allen Dulles dug around in his pipe bowl with the blade of a small silver pocketknife and tapped the char out into an ashtray. ‘Coincidences are for people who don’t have the imagination for a complex understanding of events.’ He looked at Shaw over his wire-rimmed glasses to see if he got the point. It was the same look Shaw’s father used to give him when once again he failed to measure up.

  Shaw had been summoned to meet Allen Dulles at the Alibi Club on I Street. The club was housed in a shabby three-story building a few blocks from the White House and was so secretive and exclusive that few knew about it, and those who did could not decide which of the two buildings was the seat of Washington power. Presidents came and went, but the fifty members of the Alibi were there until death.

  They were in the dining room on the first floor, a room that might have been lifted from a tavern in the mid-1800s. Shaw had been led there by a thin, gray, silent servant, who seemed to have no more substance than a ghost and who had disappeared without a word through a door at the back of the room to be heard no more. A table that could seat thirty crowded the room. The walls were covered with photographs of club members from the last seventy years, oil paintings and water colors (some good, some very bad), a few stuffed heads of dead animals with staring glass eyes, propaganda posters from both world wars, and framed letters from Presidents, princes, and foreign dignitaries. Shaw had time to examine them while Dulles kept him waiting half an hour, a wait that was meant to remind him of his place. In mild defiance, Shaw made himself a large scotch on the rocks from the bar table in a corner. Dulles raised his eyes at the liberty when he came in, but said nothing.

  Shaw took a long pull on the drink and waited for Dulles to go on.

  ‘What’ve you got?,’ Dulles asked. He tamped tobacco into the pipe with his thumb and lit it.

  Shaw opened a small notebook. ‘The snatch team tagged him from Gallien Medical on K Street to Williams’s office on the Hill. They picked him up in a removal van after his meeting there. No muss, no fuss. They were at the safe house twenty minutes later.’ He looked up from the notebook. ‘Do you want to hear about dosages?’ It was always safer to omit nothing without permission.

  ‘Just the results and conclusions.’ Dulles went to the bar and made himself a drink.

  Shaw glanced at the notes, though he knew what was written there. ‘The doctors conclude
that Brian Cassidy knows nothing of the operation. His interest in Gallien was caused only by Congressman Williams returning Gallien’s campaign contribution. He is doing a segment on his television program on the influence of money on the legislative process. Williams is the only Congressman he could find who rejected a contribution. Brian Cassidy has no interest and no understanding of anything that Gallien Medical does.’

  ‘They’re sure?’

  ‘Yes. Actually, they were quite excited. They feel that Brian Cassidy’s willingness to openly answer any question they asked was a breakthrough.’

  ‘What will he remember?’

  ‘Nothing. A brain wipe. That day’s gone from his memory as if they’d used a scalpel. It was my idea to dump him out by Rock Creek naked and stinking of booze. Nobody’s going to believe a word the guy says after that no matter what.’

  ‘And the doctors are sure they got everything?’

  ‘Positive.’

  Dulles looked at him without expression. ‘What happened with the brother, the cop?’

  Shit. ‘The snatch team fucked it up. The guy was good. We didn’t know how good. Four guys, and they couldn’t take him. Lorburg’s got a concussion. Sanchez has a broken arm. The fucking cop bit through his arm bone.’

  ‘What does he know?’

  ‘According to his brother, nothing. He wasn’t sure Williger was a suicide, but the cops have closed the case. It’s over. He knows nothing about the operation.’

  Dulles studied him while he thought about it. ‘All right.’ Dulles swallowed the rest of his drink, put the glass on the bar, and left the room.

  You’re welcome. Any time. Glad to be of service. What a prick. Shaw finished his drink and looked around the room to see if there was something worth stealing, a little trophy, a little screw you. He put the bottle of scotch in his pocket and left the club.

  Kay Lockridge’s car delivered Brian and Cassidy to Union station in the late morning over her protests that Brian needed more rest, and they caught the noon train for New York. Brian spent the ride leaning against the window and staring out blankly. A spark in him had been stamped out, and Cassidy wondered if it would ever reignite. Whatever had happened to him had cracked his understanding of who he was. He was sinking.

  Marcy met them at Penn Station. She offered Cassidy a brave smile and hugged Brian tight. He kissed the top of her head, and they walked through the great, echoing marble lobby with their arms around each other. Cassidy turned down their offer to join them at home for a late lunch, and put them in a cab. He walked down through the garment district for fifteen minutes to stretch his legs, and then waved down a taxi and went home.

  The apartment was full of stale air and silence. His coffee cup and plate were still in the sink. There were no lipsticked cigarette butts in the ashtrays. The clothes he had left on the chair in the bedroom were as he had left them, and the bed was unmade, a laziness Rhonda rejected. She had not been here since he left. What did he expect?

  He called the New York Post, but she was not at her desk, and no one had seen her in the last couple of hours. He tried her apartment, and left a message with the answering service that he was home.

  NINETEEN

  Mid-afternoon, and the low angle of the sun turned the river silver. The Fulton Fish Market was not yet awake. The metal shutters were up on the fish stalls and shops where trucks maneuvered on the cobblestones to deliver ice. Gulls, bright white in the sunlight, flicked and swooped overhead or stood on wharf pilings and building roof peaks.

  Rhonda, following directions, found the Amy Lou, a Grand Banks trawler tied up to a pier near the foot of the Brooklyn Bridge. She was a high-bowed, broad-beamed, wooden boat battered and scarred by wind and weather. The rails were splintered in places, and the cabin superstructure needed paint. Tires roped to the side as fenders squeaked and groaned with the rub against the pier.

  Rhonda stepped through the open gate in the trawler’s rail and was suddenly reminded that she lived at the edge of the living sea. She went from solid, unmoving pavement to a tar-seamed wooden deck that was alive under her feet from the river surge. She had to clutch the rail for balance in her high heels. The air smelled of fish and salt. Nets lay in piles near the stern, and the trawl booms slatted and banged in the wind against the slack of their tie downs. Bill Long stepped out onto the bridge wing and called to her and pointed to a metal stairway that led to the bridge. She climbed it, hobbled by her skirt, annoyed and a little embarrassed that she felt so out of place.

  ‘How are you?’ Bill Long asked. ‘You found me okay. That’s great.’ He sipped from a thick china mug of coffee. ‘Do you want some coffee?’

  ‘No, thanks, I’m fine.’

  ‘Meet Jug Cousins. He owns the boat.’ He waved his mug at a man standing just inside the bridge door.

  ‘The bank and I own the boat.’ He was a thick, powerful man in his mid-forties. He wore blue jeans tucked into rubber boots, a worn and stained canvas jacket over a plaid wool shirt, and a black wool watch cap. He had dark eyes, and a dense, closely cropped beard beginning to show strands of gray. He shook hands with Rhonda, and then nodded to Bill Long. ‘I’ll see you when you bring the truck for the fish.’ He disappeared down an interior companionway.

  ‘A good fisherman. It’s in his blood. Fifth generation. He could find cod in a mud puddle.’

  ‘You said you wanted to talk,’ Rhonda said.

  ‘Yep.’ Long offered Rhonda a cigarette and lit one for himself when she refused. He leaned against the rail of the bridge wing while he sorted his thoughts. ‘I’ve been thinking about what you said the other night, what we talked about. The government bringing Nazis into New York City. What kind of country are we? I was in that war. They did really awful things to people. I mean, I get that we’re at war with the Reds, but why do we need these guys? We’ve got the best scientific minds in the world. It’s nuts. We don’t need them. It’s just wrong.’ He sucked hard on his cigarette. ‘I started thinking about it after that drink with you, started thinking about those guys who came and put pressure on my dad, came and threatened my brother’s widow because of the story I wrote. He gave his life for this country, goddamn it, and they came and pushed her around. That is not who we are. That is not what Americans do.’ He shook his head at the thought.

  ‘Okay,’ Rhonda said. Somewhere in the boat a clock struck the bells of the hour.

  ‘I don’t want to get you in trouble,’ Long said. He flipped the dregs of his coffee from the mug overboard.

  ‘No. There won’t be any trouble.’

  ‘I don’t know. The guys who picked me up sure looked like trouble to me. I’ll tell you flat out, Rhonda, they scared me. I mean, I was halfway out the door at the Post anyway. I don’t know what I said to you the other night, but that’s the truth. I was probably going to quit in a few months anyway, but they made it easier.’ He flicked his cigarette away. His face twisted in disgust. ‘I kind of hate to think they made me run. Anyway, I don’t remember exactly the number of the house they took me to. I was pretty nervous in that car, not knowing what was going to happen. But I’m pretty sure I remember the block.’

  Long walked Rhonda to Water Street and hailed her a cab. He held the door while she got in. He started to close the door, and then stopped and leaned down so he could see her. ‘Hey, uh, listen, I don’t know, but would you like to have dinner or something one of these days?’

  She hesitated for a moment. ‘Yes. That would be nice.’

  ‘Great. Great. Okay. I’ll call you.’ He grinned and shut the door and slapped the cab roof to send it on its way.

  Bill Long could not remember the exact address of the house where he had been taken. He knew it was on West 4th Street north of Bank Street and south of Eighth Avenue, because when they let him go, he walked north to Eighth to find a cab. The house, he was sure, was brick, but that did not narrow Rhonda’s search by much, because many of the houses on West 4th were brick. Some of them were well kept with window trim and doors
shiny with new paint. Others showed crumbling stoops, peeling doors, bare wood beginning to crack and separate on windowsills, glazing chipping from the window mullions. Would a government agency maintain its house, or would it let things slide? What face would it offer the street to hide what went on inside?

  Rhonda wore a large ‘I LIKE IKE’ button and a rosette that said VOLUNTEER, which she bought at a five-and-dime on Seventh Avenue. She carried a clipboard of old Census Bureau forms and a yellow legal pad covered with indecipherable notes. A row of cheap fountain pens was clipped to the breast pocket of her overcoat next to the rosette. She had pulled her hair back in a severe bun and scrubbed her face clean of makeup. She was now a serious-minded volunteer for the Eisenhower Re-election Committee intent on getting out the vote. There were lights on in most of the houses on the street. People were home from work, preparing dinner, reading the evening paper, chivvying the children to do their homework. Some windows glowed with the blue light of a television. It was the time of day when people were, for the most part, relaxed, open to a few innocuous questions about the political campaign.

  Rhonda began ringing doorbells at the corner of Bank and West 4th on the east side of the street, because Bill Long was sure the house they had taken him to was on that side. Sometimes the door was opened by the man of the house, sometimes by the woman, sometimes by a child. People were happy to answer her questions. Yes, they were going to vote for Ike. They thought he was doing a good job. Yes, they knew where their polling place was. Three houses were staunch Adlai Stevenson supporters. And at one an irascible old man with wild eyes and hair, and a prophet’s beard told her he would never vote for that fascist bastard Eisenhower, he was voting for Eric Hass of the Socialist Labor Party, and she was to get the hell off his stoop.