by Behn, Noel;
Billy Yates finished the last of the now tepid hot chocolate. “Possibility three. Wilkie Jarrel versus Ed Grafton. Grafton and Jarrel have been going after one another for years. Headquarters and even Capitol Hill have tried to intercede, usually on Jarrel’s behalf … tried to either check or replace Grafton. J. Edgar Hoover sticks by his old pal Grafton. No one is sure why. Maybe it’s not important enough for J. Edgar to do otherwise. Maybe there’s nothing to be gained by not standing by Grafton. Mormon State explodes onto the land. Mormon State is important to the FBI. Wilkie Jarrel controls the conglomerate that owns Mormon State National Bank. Wilkie Jarrel’s son-in-law, Emile Chandler, is the president of Mormon State National Bank. An investigation like Romor 91 needs the full cooperation of the victim bank. What with the blood feud between Wilkie Jarrel and Ed Grafton raging hot as ever, Edgar has to choose between facility and friendship. Has to sacrifice one or the other. He sacrifices Ed Grafton. After all, how accommodating would you expect Emile Chandler to be if Grafton showed up in his parlor?”
Yates glanced expectantly at Tina Beth.
“That’s all?” she asked.
He nodded. “Theory number three.”
She pointed ahead. “I see a phone booth.”
… The office ordered him to go to Municipal Airport without delay.
The jet cargo plane from Chicago taxied into the National Guard hangar at Municipal Airport, swung around, stopped. The engines cut off. The nose section opened. The metal ramp behind it lowered. A large, black limousine rolled out of the fuselage hold and down the ramp and on across the hangar to where Yates and Brewmeister and a young FBI agent from Washington headquarters were standing.
“Clean it,” the young man said.
“Clean what?” Yates, like Brewmeister, had been given no explanation as to why he had been summoned here.
“Clean the car. Make it glisten.”
“It’s glistening already,” Brew said.
“There are cloths and a portable vacuum cleaner in the trunk,” the young man said. “Use them. On the outside and inside.”
A second young agent from headquarters, this one with an earpiece leading down to a walkie-talkie in his hand, ran forward, calling, “He’s already there!”
“Where?” the first young man demanded.
“He didn’t land here. He landed by helicopter somewhere else. He’s already at the office and waiting.”
“Jesus H. Christ.” The first young man wheeled to Brew and Yates. “Let’s go!”
“Where?” Brew asked.
“Your office.” The first young man jumped into the rear seat of the limousine followed by the second young man.
Brew shrugged, got in behind the wheel. Yates rode beside him. They reached the downtown residency office twenty minutes later, led the two young men up to the twelfth-floor conference room/television studio.
The speaker’s rostrum and Bureau crest which had been in place the night before when Harry Janks confronted the staff were gone. Standing in their place was the stage set which had not been used since the area was refurbished by Corticun … an exact replica of J. Edgar Hoover’s Washington office. The audience comprised only men from the eleventh floor, all seventeen Prairie Port resident agents, including Strom. The two young agents from headquarters guarded the door. At exactly 8 A.M. the door opened.
J. Edgar Hoover entered. Stopped abruptly just inside the room. Stared hard at the awestruck men seated in the audience. Exuded a presence which frightened even the usually imperturbable Billy Yates.
J. Edgar Hoover strode onto the set. Seated himself behind a reproduction of his own desk. He folded his hands atop the blotter. Looked down at his hands. Remained that way.
“Here it comes,” Donnie Bracken whispered to Strom and Yates, who were sitting directly in front of him. “He’s exiling us to Alaska. I feel it. Nome, Alaska.”
J. Edgar Hoover cleared his throat. Moved his lips silently as if he were saying something under his breath. Squinted up momentarily, then back down at his hands. Blinked. Glanced up and blinked again. Blinked down at his hands once more.
“The Bureau, like Israel, has suffered many hurts,” he intoned. “Its women weep for the fallen. Its children pray for the wounded. It ill behooves one who has supped at the Bureau’s table to damn, with equal fervor and fine impartiality, both the Bureau and its warriors when they are locked in mortal combat. Those who must shall suffer a thousand curses. Shall be smitten by boils and blindness and plague. Their lands shall be parched and flooded. They will take to the hills like scattering sheep.”
Edgar stopped talking, continued looking down at his folded hands.
“What was that about?” Brew whispered to Yates.
“Beats me,” Billy answered sotto voce, “but the first part is a steal from a speech John L. Lewis made in the 1930s.”
“How do you know that?”
“I used to know everything.”
J. Edgar Hoover pinched the tip of his nose. Wet his lips. Gazed up at the resident agents seated before him. Shot his cuffs. Squared his shoulders. Leaned forward on one elbow.
“There are those who say you struck the dagger into the back of Romor 91 and that the cause is lost,” he told them. “How say you? How care you? What is it you wish me to perceive? What is it you expect me to do?”
J. Edgar Hoover closed his eyes, lowered his head.
“He’s changed his mind,” Bracken whispered. “It’s not Nome, it’s the firing squad.”
J. Edgar Hoover’s head raised. The eyes opened. “Jellyfish. Punks. Mental halitosis. That’s what I have to say to anybody who doesn’t think you people were magnificent.” He was on his feet, one hand in his jacket pocket, the other hanging loose. “You are, each of you, magnificent. You have acquitted yourselves bravely. I have come here to tell you how proud I am of you and what you have achieved with Romor 91. With God’s help and your skill we will carry forward and bring to bay the true perpetrators. You shall make it so. I love you!”
J. Edgar Hoover bowed his head, reseated himself behind the desk, motioned to the two young men from Washington.
“Mister Sunstrom has brought to my attention that you fine young men have so much enjoyed reading my best-selling book, Masters of Deceit, you wish to have an autographed copy of my other work, A Study of Communism. “Strom had made no such statement. “I have therefore brought with me a copy for each of you which I will inscribe as instructed. You will receive a complimentary ten-percent discount, and the purchase price will be deducted from your salary.”
Seventeen copies of A Study of Communism were deposited before J. Edgar Hoover by the two young men. The resident agents of Prairie Port, one by one, came forward, shook hands with the Director, said what they wished inscribed, received the autographed book, shook hands again, left the duplicate office and the studio in which it was built.
Billy Yates, on leaving, was told by one of the two young men from Washington he was to wait for J. Edgar Hoover. Was to accompany the Director on a tour of the offices and then drive him wherever he wished to go. Billy tagged along as J. Edgar was shown the rest of the twelfth floor by Corticun. J. Edgar hated what he saw, sputtered orders to Corticun for immediate redecoration … for restoring integrity to the space and the men who worked there … for making it look much more like the eleventh floor, which he had not yet visited. And did not visit.
Billy Yates escorted the Director down to the waiting limousine, drove him to the first address J. Edgar read from a typewritten list. The home of Martin and Elsie Brewmeister. J. Edgar went to the door, rang the bell, introduced himself to a startled Elsie Brewmeister. Asked if he might take tea with her inside. Chitchatted with Elsie over tea for exactly twelve minutes as Yates waited at the rear of the room. Gave her, for free, an eight-by-ten-inch glossy photograph of himself. Signed the picture: To Elsie Brewmeister, a woman, mother and FBI wife … her obedient servant, J. Edgar Hoover. On departing told her how proud he was that she was the woman behind th
e man he was so proud of.
Yates drove to the home of Rodney and Sue Ann Willis. Edgar dropped in on Sue Ann as he had on Elsie Brewmeister. Stayed twelve minutes. Praised her husband and her and autographed a photograph of himself for her. Did the exact same thing with Flo de Camp. Then with Sissy Hennessy. Then Tricia Dafney. Maureen Bevins. Hinky Cody. Nell Travis.…
“He dropped in on all eight unannounced,” Billy told Tina Beth that night. “When we’re leaving Nell Travis, he looks at his watch and acts surprised and says he’s run out of time and won’t be able to visit the other wives like he planned. He tells me to take him to the airport. I find out later that it’s all crap. That he didn’t have to check his watch. That he only intended to sign eight photographs. At the airport he gives me an envelope with nine more photographs of himself. Each photograph was already made out in the name of one of the nine wives he didn’t visit, including the one I have here for you.”
Billy handed Tina Beth a glossy photo of J. Edgar Hoover that was inscribed: To Tina Beth Yates, a woman, mother and FBI wife … her obedient servant, J. Edgar Hoover.
“Don’t you see, it was an act, Tina Beth. He knew he was only going to visit eight wives. The eight he had not already autographed pictures for. The eight I drove him to. He’d signed the pictures for the nine other wives before he even got into the limousine with me. They were in an envelope he carried.”
“What difference does it make, Billy?”
“The difference is he lied about it.”
“Why?”
“You want to know why, Tina Beth?… because if you ask me, J. Edgar Hoover is a nut job.”
“Crazy?”
“Asylum bait.”
“You sure, Billy Bee?”
“Look at it yourself, Tina. J. Edgar Hoover, who never flies in helicopters, comes into Prairie Port by helicopter. J. Edgar Hoover, who travels everywhere with Clyde Tolson, arrives in Prairie Port without Tolson. Without anyone. J. Edgar Hoover, who hates riding around in strange cities in anything but one of his own limousines, has the Chicago field office airlift the limousine, store it for him in Prairie Port, only he doesn’t helicopter to where the limousine is. J. Edgar Hoover, who is a tough, direct, no-nonsense speaker, gets in front of the resident office and starts babbling long, irrelevant passages from John L. Lewis and Franklin Delano Roosevelt. J. Edgar Hoover, who is nothing short of Jehovah in the wrath department when agents and offices make even minor investigatory errors, praises Prairie Port rather than burying it. Exalts all of us to high heaven for fouling up, rather than applying thumbscrews and the lash. Tells an entire office, I love you. J. Edgar Hoover then proceeds to coerce the same seventeen agents he loves into buying an autographed copy of one of his old books. J. Edgar Hoover visits the twelfth-floor offices, a space which months before he had ordered decorated in the most lavish style, and hates what he sees. He orders it totally redone. Humiliates the man he had entrusted the operation to, Corticun, by saying this in front of other agents. J. Edgar Hoover goes and visits eight of the seventeen wives and lies about not having time to see them all and sign their pictures.
“… Listen to the last thing J. Edgar Hoover does. While I’m driving him around today, we don’t exchange more than one or two conversational words. He tells me what he wants me to do, and I say okay. Beyond that there’s nothing said. But then at the airport … instead of a helicopter, he goes home by plane … as I’m holding the car door open and he gets out, he stops and throws his arms around me. Hugs me. Says that I am to him like the son he never had. The son he had always been looking for.
“Oh, no, Tina Beth, if J. Edgar Hoover isn’t right off the wall, then I have to be. Or will be. If I don’t have a nervous breakdown thinking about all of this, it won’t be from lack of trying.”
Strom got out of bed and hurried downstairs to the den to the ringing red phone—the direct tie-line phone to Washington that Corticun had insisted be put in.
“Yes?” Strom said into the mouthpiece.
“J. Edgar Hoover here. This is Mister Sunstrom, isn’t it?”
“Yes.”
“I have a favor to ask. A highly personal and confidential favor. Would you look into the adoption laws of Missouri for me?”
BOOK
THREE
SEVENTEEN
New suspects were developed by the residency and duly announced by Denis Corticun. Mule, Wiggles and Ragotsy dematerialized into yesterday’s news. And FBI-2000 rang on … FBI-2000, the emergency hot line telephone number used by the Prairie Port Bureau office for receiving confidential information from the public regarding Romor 91. Denis Corticun, at every opportunity, exhorted the public to phone in whatever information anyone might have, no matter how slight or unconfirmed.
The hot line number was originally connected to the eleventh-floor switchboard in the residency office. When incoming traffic grew too great, the overflow went up to the auxiliary switchboard on the twelfth floor. This system remained until J. Edgar Hoover visited Prairie Port. His orders to redecorate the twelfth floor were immediately implemented. The communications room was all but ripped out and the auxiliary switchboard installed on the eleventh floor. Following the twelfth floor’s five-day alteration—the entire space had been transformed into the sterile dullness of the residency office below—it was decided to keep the auxiliary switchboard, and therefore all FBI-2000 traffic, where it was. Let it be maintained by the resident agents of the eleventh floor, who were, after all, the prime investigators of Romor 91. And it was to FBI-2000 that an unidentified woman caller suggested the Bureau look into the Elison sisters … that the Elisons might be the wizard.
Strom Sunstrom, in the wake of J. Edgar Hoover’s departure from Prairie Port, had launched an all-out search for new suspects. Some attention was given to tracing the whereabouts of Bicki “Little Haifa” Hale, Thomas “The Worm” Ferugli, Lionel “Meadow Muffin” Epstein and Reverend Wallace Tecumseh “Windy Walt” Sash. Routine efforts were being made to find Natalie Hammond. Mule, Wiggles and Rat were ignored … and Brewmeister vociferously objected. He argued it was imperative that surveillance be placed on the three men, even though Rat was still convalescing at the Army hospital. He argued that more must be done to find whether Natalie Hammond was well or in trouble. His requests were rejected by Strom. Yates had consoled Brewmeister, eventually confided his suspicions that the investigation of Mormon State might be being sabotaged. Brew had had similar thoughts. They discussed Yates’s questions about the J. Edgar Hoover firing of Ed Grafton as well as the curious conditions under which $31,000,000 had been shipped to the bank.
Brewmeister and Yates had decided, on their own, to look into both matters, to investigate unoffically. Brew would cover the money shipment. Yates would handle the Grafton firing … check out the Hoover-Wilkie Jarrel connection. They had gone as far as giving themselves first assignments. Brew was to delve into the breakdown of the armored truck bringing the millions from New Orleans to Prairie Port. Yates meant to check the phone systems used by Jarrel, try to find records to establish whom Jarrel had talked to. Brew still felt surveillance should be placed on Mule, Wiggles and Ragotsy. Yates maintained there was no time for such surveillance in light of their already heavy Romor 91 work load. As it turned out, surveillance would be the only one of their plans there was time for.
Brew received a new Romor 91 assignment from Strom, was placed with a unit of agents touring penal institutions in Missouri, southern Illinois and western Kentucky. Their quest was for an inmate, or inmates, who might divulge relevant information on Mormon State. This was part of a much larger operative channel. Nationwide, as Romor 91 headed into its third month, four thousand full-scale investigations were under way on criminals who could know about, or have participated in, the theft.
Brewmeister, during hiatuses in travel, began spot surveillances of Wiggles and Mule. When Ragotsy was released from the Army hospital and came back to Prairie Port, Brew kept an eye on him as well, or tried to … what with a f
ull schedule at the residency when he wasn’t on tour, Brew’s time for tailing was limited. He did manage to see the three men get together for what he presumed was their first joint encounter since Baton Rouge. Brew became more interested in Mule. Spent every free evening watching Mule. Then Mule vanished. Dropped from sight. When he reappeared four days later, Brew continued where he left off, watching from afar.
Yates, during this period, was assigned to look into a subject on which he had become expert in Ohio … extremist organizations, particularly organizations close to the college community. The college community, Strom had always felt, was a choice place for finding and recruiting someone with the skills of a wizard. Yates was given two agents from the twelfth floor to assist him. Together they culled lists of known members of extremist groups in a five-state area. At first Billy labored without conviction or interest. His indifference soon gave way to fascination, but never zeal. He worked around the clock developing what would become the office’s latest “hot lead.” He hardly had time to see or speak to anyone, Tina Beth and Brew included. The reason for this began with the FBI-2000 phone call citing the Elison sisters.
The unidentified tipster said Louise and Nadine Elison, daughters of a prominent Prairie Port physician, had shared an apartment with Dwight Armstrong while they were students at the University of Wisconsin the previous year … that Armstrong talked Nadine, who was an engineering major, into stealing money for left-wing causes … that Nadine had recruited her sister Louise, a biochemistry major, to help out with the biggest theft of all—Mormon State.
The call might have been downgraded or disregarded had not the name of Dwight Armstrong been mentioned. Armstrong was well known to the Bureau. He and his brother and two other men had been indicted in connection with the August 24, 1970, bombing of Sterling Hall at the University of Wisconsin campus at Madison. The blast had left one person dead and three others injured.