by Peter Quinn
“Dick was a private guy.” Dunne glanced to see if a taxi might be coming down the street. They hadn’t seen each other in almost a decade and a half, and even during their time in Slovakia, they hadn’t talked much about the lives they’d lived up until then, childhoods, careers, stuff that might have mattered in some other time, some other place, although neither was much for sharing revelations or reminiscences whatever the circumstances. “That’s something we had in common.”
“I know that—so am I. But Dick was a hero. He deserved something more.”
“I suppose.” Dick deserved a full military funeral, honor guard, the salute of bugles and rifles, flag folded in farewell and placed in the hands of his beloved. Except he’s left all that behind when he’d resigned from the service rather than let Michael Jahn’s name be besmirched. “But I think maybe that’s all he would’ve wanted.”
“Still, that nun barely said anything at all.”
Dunne kept on the lookout for a cab. Either Dick was in a place where there was nothing, no sadness, no joy, only oblivion, or he was happy in a place where happiness was forever. Believe what you want or need to believe. Who can say for sure? The only thing that could be said with certainty was what that nun, whether she’d realized it or not, had got exactly right: Thornton Richard Van Hull IV was a man of true allegiances.
The drizzle stopped. After scouting the street one last and futile time, Dunne took hold of Bassante’s elbow. “Come on, let’s go find a bar and get a drink.”
“Now there’s something we can agree on. The last time we had a drink together was in London, just before you left for Prague. And that awful weather—remember?”
“Hard as I try, I can’t forget.”
Under pretext of attending to company business, Stefan Schwimmer left for Europe to use the dossier to scare up what interest he could in Hemmer/Heinz. “What’s important,” Dunne told him, “is the perception that the hunt is still on. Even if you don’t get close, odds are he’ll be moved somewhere. The more he moves, better our chance of getting a bead on his whereabouts. Meantime, I’ll do my best to rattle Bartlett.”
“That could be dangerous, don’t you think?”
“He doesn’t know what or how much I know. Far as he’s concerned, I’m a small-time operator, a onetime favorite of Bill Donovan’s who, at worst, can’t be much more than a minor headache. Any time he spends on me is, as he sees it, wasted time. Still, I might be able to put a dent or two in that iron-sided self-confidence of his.”
A note arrived from Bassante. He’d found a permanent job as a translator at an import-export firm in lower Manhattan and rented a room in a boarding house in Brooklyn Heights. He provided the address. You can reach me here, he wrote, if you have to.
Dunne endured a painful lunch with Wynne Billings. He half listened as Billings did his diplomatic best to convey the corporation’s dissatisfaction with the performance of PISS in general and the level of Dunne’s interest in particular. “You’re a real pro, Fin, and your service to our country is recognized and appreciated …” Blah, blah, blah … But that was then and this is now, “and, well, in this critical time when we’re redefining our priorities …” Blah, blah, blah.
After Dunne apologized for creating the misimpression that he wasn’t focused on his work and reaffirmed his commitment to “implementing the changes necessitated by our SEA strategy,” Billings was mollified enough to grant what was in effect a temporary reprieve. “We’ll see how things work out over the next several months.”
Dunne then set in motion the process that he knew would result in his immediate and final termination. He called Ken Moss at Bartlett & Partners and congratulated him on his new job. Moss was delighted to hear from him. “This place is better than I hoped. It’s plugged into everything. At last week’s executive lunch, Roy Larsen from Time Inc. was the guest.”
“I’m happy for you, Ken. I also have a favor to ask.”
“Shoot. You know I’ll do whatever I can.”
“It’s as much for Wynne and ISC as it is for me.”
“All the better.”
Well aware that Moss knew of his relationship with Bartlett going back to the OSS, Dunne bluffed. “Wynne thinks I might drop by the next time Bartlett’s in New York for a casual conversation about our desire to deepen the relationship between ISC and Bartlett and Partners. Wynne said Bartlett uses his office there when he’s in the city.”
“He’s formally severed his ties.”
“Sure, except we know how it works. Informally, his advice still matters.”
“Did you contact his office in D.C. about setting up a meeting there?”
“There’s no getting through to him in D.C. It’d be easier to get an appointment with Ike. Wynne thinks if we knew the next time Bartlett is going to be in New York, we could arrange a casual chat.”
“He’s not here on any regular schedule. It’s hit or miss.”
“All we need is a heads-up.”
“A heads-up?”
“A call. Nobody’ll know.”
“I’ll see what I can do.”
Moss called a week later. “Tomorrow. Nine a.m. Flies back to D.C. at four.” He hung up before Dunne could blurt out a thank-you.
Dunne arrived in the lobby at 8:30. He parked himself in the phone booth closest to the elevator bank. Promptly at nine, a plain-clothes type scouted the lobby and spoke to the elevator dispatcher, who directed one of the operators to hook a red cord across the entrance to his car, indicating it was reserved.
A moment later, Carlton Bartlett’s escort preceded him though the revolving doors. Plump (but no plumper than he’d been the last time Dunne saw him), wearing a gray homburg and a well-tailored double-breasted suit, he waddled/strutted with duck-like gait to the elevator.
Dunne folded open the booth door, popped out, and blocked the way. “Carl!”
Bartlett took a step back.
“Funny, Carl, isn’t it, running into you like this after all these years?”
Bartlett’s escort scurried to his side.
“Dunne. OSS.” Dunne stretched out his arms as if expecting to be frisked.
Bartlett stared at him blankly. “I’m sorry but …”
“Prague, remember?”
“Yes, of course. Prague.” Bartlett attempted a smile. “You look fit.”
“You haven’t changed a bit.”
“Nice to see you again, but I’m late for an important meeting.”
Dunne stayed where he was. “Too bad about Louie Pohl, don’t you think?”
“Who?”
“Louis Pohl. He went out a window at the Commodore.”
“Pohl, yes. I read about that. Tragic.”
“What made him do it?”
“Tell me, Frank, have you returned to your position as a patrolman?”
“Fin, as in Fintan.”
“Sorry. It’s been a long time.”
“I was a homicide detective, Carl, back before the war.”
“I knew you were some kind of policeman. I just wasn’t sure what kind.”
“For the last few years, I was an associate of Pohl’s at ISC.”
The elevator operator unhooked the cord. The escort guarded Bartlett as he stepped into the car and turned to the front. “Take care, Fred.”
Left hand on hip, right on the elevator frame, Dunne moved forward. “It’s Fin. I can tell suicide from murder.”
The escort pushed his palm with gentle firmness against Dunne’s chest. “This is reserved, sir. You’ll have to take another car.” He tapped the operator on the shoulder. “What are you waiting for?”
The operator shrugged. “I thought you gentlemen was having a conversation.”
“Let’s go,” the escort snarled. “Now.”
The elevator dispatcher came over. “What’s the problem?”
“No problem.” Dunne pointed at Bartlett. “Carl and I were in the same outfit in the war. We bumped into each other and were having a chat.”
; “See?” The operator looked back at Bartlett. “That’s why I didn’t shut the door.”
“I was telling Carl I’d been a homicide detective.”
“My brother’s a cop,” the dispatcher said. “He on the burglary squad.”
“I was saying that the thing about detectives is the good ones follow their instincts. They don’t need a pathologist to tell the difference between suicide and murder.” Dunne rested his forefinger on the side of his nose. “They smell it.”
“If I had the time, I’d stay and chat. But I don’t.” The artery in Bartlett’s neck was prominent and throbbing. He turned to his escort: “Are we going to spend all day here?”
The escort shouldered the operator aside, grabbed the door handle, and shoved the lever to the right. The door closed.
The dispatcher followed the arrow on the floor register as it tracked the car’s nonstop ascent. “Big shots are always in a hurry. That’s why they’re big shots, I guess.” The arrow came to rest on the top floor. “God is in His Heaven. Maybe he’ll relax now.”
The dispatcher accompanied Dunne through the lobby to the revolving door. “What you said before about instinct—I’ve heard Angelo, my brother, say the same thing a couple of hundred times: ‘You got the nose or don’t.’”
Miss O’Keefe was packing the contents of her desk when Dunne arrived. He apologized for being unable to salvage her job. “Billings wasn’t in the mood to extend any measure of clemency.”
“You certainly succeeded in teeing him off.”
“Wasn’t hard.” On the phone the night before, Billings hadn’t held back: What the hell were you thinking? … Intercepting C. B. Bartlett in the lobby? … Have you lost your goddamn mind? … Unpardonable, unprofessional, un-everything … blah, blah, blah.
She placed a half-dozen marble-covered notebooks on her desk.
“What are those?” He nodded at the notebooks.
She peered over the top of her glasses, a skeptical stare. “Take a guess.”
“You’re writing a book?”
“A novel.”
“You’re finished?”
“First draft. Now comes the hard part, editing, rewriting, cutting out the crap and clichés, making the characters believable. What’d you think of the parts you read?”
“The parts I read?’
“I can tell when someone’s been poking around in my desk drawers. Comes from working for a first-class detective.”
“I only read a few lines.”
“How come? Didn’t you like it?”
“I did.”
“You’re a bad liar. I didn’t like it either. For starters, it needs a new title. Springtime of Our Love—ugh. I hate it. I got the story down. Now comes the hard part—turning it into a real piece of writing.”
He opened his briefcase and handed her a book. “This is for you.”
“Oh my, The Collected Poems of W. B. Yeats. I love Yeats.” She caressed the gold-embossed lettering and opened the cover: “What a lovely inscription: To D., May love never flee or hide his face, M. You sure you want to give it away?”
“An old friend gave it to me. He’d be pleased I’d passed it on to someone who’ll put it to good use.”
He went into his office. A message in all caps was printed on the pad next to the phone: 9:30 A.M. CALL FROM THE OFFICE OF WILLIAM DONOVAN (DONOVAN, LEISURE & IRVINE). PLEASE RETURN ASAP. He dialed the number and asked for the general’s extension.
The general’s assistant thanked him for returning the call. “He’s working from home today,” she said. “He hoped you could stop by at his residence, at Four Sutton Place, at two. He has a matter he wishes to discuss.”
SOUTH SUTTON PLACE, MANHATTAN
DONOVAN’S APARTMENT, THE MAID TOOK DUNNE’S HAT AND LED HIM into the living room. He sat on an elegantly uncomfortable couch. There was a shuffling sound in the hallway. A white-haired figure wandered around the corner. Powder-blue bathrobe hung halfway down hairless, ghostly pale calves. One of his terrycloth slippers was brown, the other plaid.
“Nice of you to come.” Donovan shuffled back down the hallway. Dunne trailed behind. It was five years since he’d last seen Donovan. They’d met accidentally outside the Waldorf Towers. Donovan had recently been appointed ambassador to Thailand. They had a brief, affable chat. He seemed healthy and fit, still recognizable as Wild Bill.
At the end of the hallway was a small office. Except for a large map of China and Southeast Asia, the walls were bare. An antique cherry writing desk and chair were placed before French doors that led to a small balcony. The view was of the East River and Welfare—formerly Blackwell’s—Island.
“Please, have a seat.” Donovan indicated the green leather wing chair angled toward the desk.
Dunne was sure he knew why Donovan had summoned him. He expected to be taken to task for allowing use of the picture in Modern Detection. He’d already decided not to offer excuses or finger Ken Moss. He’d accept blame, apologize, be done with it.
“Personally, I think he’s got a hell of a nerve.” Donovan opened the drawer and removed a typed, note-size letter. He put on his glasses. “I’ve barely heard a word from him since the day I was fired. Now he wants me to”—he read from the letter—“‘to talk some sense into Fintan Dunne.’ Do you know who I’m speaking about?”
“I can guess.”
“He claims that”—he read from the letter again—“‘however worthy the wartime service Dunne rendered to the OSS, he is attempting to make a nuisance of himself by meddling in matters of national security way beyond his concern or comprehension.’” He dropped the letter on the desk. “He says you appear to have ‘a mental impairment,’ and that while he hates to involve me in such a trivial affair, I’m the one person who can perhaps reason with you.”
“You’re one of them.”
“I’m not going to ask what this is about because I don’t give a damn, and if it involves ‘matters of national security,’ I prefer to put my faith in you over—What was the nickname Mulholland gave Bartlett that everybody used behind his back?”
“The Pear.”
“Yes, the Pear. To think a second-rater like that rose to where he is, and so many good men never made it home. Lieutenant Osbourne—remember him? A fine, intelligent officer. Brave. Blown to bits. I saw it happen.”
“Private Mullen was killed with him. Lots of others. That was the first war.”
“Our own artillery got Osbourne.”
“And Mullen. Same shell.”
Swaying slightly, Donovan steadied himself on the back of the chair. “The first war. So many good men. In both wars.”
“You okay?” Dunne rose from the chair.
“Fine, fine, stay where you are.”
Dunne sat back down. So many good men. Quartet of three-man teams he’d helped train in preparation for D-Day, a dozen men up in smoke on a training field in Sussex. He struggled to recall their names. Some he remembered: Hale, Miller, Mortone.
Donovan laid his glasses on the desk. “Arteriosclerotic atrophy—that’s the diagnosis. The doctors won’t put a time on how long I have. They’re either too kind or afraid I’ll do what Jim Forrestal did and jump out the window. They needn’t worry. Jim lost his faith. I still have mine.”
He maneuvered his chair so he had a view out the French doors: river, island, sky.
No Wild Bill or Black Will anywhere in sight.
Only William Joseph Donovan. Old, sick, dying, remembering.
“Truman fired Forrestal, too. Truman, that nonentity, a cog in a corrupt political machine, a crook for a boss, and he’s elevated to the presidency. In his dismissal letter, he thanked me for my ‘capable leadership.’ Capable. One notch above incompetent.
“Ike was supposed to be a big improvement. Sure, I worked hard to get him elected. But I never shared the great expectations. Luckiest SOB who ever lived. Spent the first war drilling recruits. Never made it overseas. Never commanded anything above a battalion until FDR somersaulted him
into Supreme Allied Commander in Europe.
“Then he goes and has an affair with that pretty driver—what was her name?—lovely Irish girl originally from Cork. How could I forget her name? We joked together about us both being ‘black Irish.’ I liked her very much. Ike told General Marshall he was going to divorce Mamie and marry her. Marshall wouldn’t permit it.”
He sat, fiddled with his glasses, tapped them on the desk, rapidly, like a telegrapher. “Key … no, Kay … Kay Summersby … that’s it. Stevenson was too much the gentleman to use it against him in the ’52 campaign. Can you imagine if Ike had been up against Truman or a bastard like Joe Kennedy? They’d have smeared him every which way but Thursday.”
He continued to reminisce: J. Edgar Hoover, weasel; Tom Dewey, wooden; the Dulles brothers, Tweedledum and Tweedledee. Secretary of State John Foster: self-righteousness incarnate. Who says God doesn’t have a sense of humor? The old Presbyterian prig winds up with a son who not only turns papist but, to add injury to apostasy, becomes a Jesuit. Ha, ha. And CIA director Allen: pipe-smoking, philandering, two-faced manipulator, pretending he was working to make Bill Donovan head of the CIA when he was working all the while with his brother to take the job for himself. It wasn’t surprising a schemer like Bartlett would prosper as one of his protégés.
“I’m going on, aren’t I?” Donovan stood.
“I’m grateful for your time.”
Donovan picked up the letter. A bit of color had returned to his face. “Take it. I don’t want it. Pay attention to the last paragraph. He sounds a little unhinged.”
He led the way to the door, stooped, hands in pockets. “The best men are left on the battlefield. That’s the trouble with war. The real heroes never make it home.”
The quick moved on. The dead stayed behind.
“I belonged with those men.” The blue in Donovan’s eyes was faded and watery, reflection of his melancholy, a space in the soul neither time nor medicine could fix or fill. Maybe atop that trench was the moment he was most alive, vertical updraft of history intersecting with horizontal line of biography, fate fulfilled, right place, right time, flashbulb of revelation: This is the moment I was born for. The moment I’m destined to die. Everything else—fame, success, money—would be a footnote. “I’ve always felt guilty about the fuss they made about me, when the honor belonged to them.”