The Year’s Best Science Fiction (St Martin's) 26

by Gardner Dozois

  He was a mess—certainly not the perfect representative of the Bureau. His white shirt was stained with marinara from that night’s take-out, and his tie wouldn’t keep a crisp knot. The crease had long since left his trousers and his shoes hadn’t been shined in weeks. Still, he grabbed his black overcoat, hoping it would hide everything.

  He let himself out of the apartment before he remembered the required and much hated hat, went back inside, grabbed the hat as well as his gun and his identification. Jesus, he was tired. He hadn’t slept since Mary walked out. Mary, who had been vetted by the FBI and who had passed with flying colors. Mary, who had turned out to be more of a liability than any former hooker ever could have been.

  And now, because of her, he was heading toward something big, and he was one-tenth as sharp as usual.

  All he could hope for was that the SAC had overreacted. And he had a hunch—a two in the morning, get-your-ass-over-there-now hunch—that the SAC hadn’t overreacted at all.

  Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy sat in his favorite chair near the fire in his library. The house was quiet even though his wife and eight children were asleep upstairs. Outside, the rolling landscape was covered in a light dusting of snow—rare for McLean, Virginia, even at this time of year.

  He held a book in his left hand, his finger marking the spot. The Greeks had comforted him in the few months since Jack died, but lately Kennedy had discovered Camus.

  He had been about to copy a passage into his notebook when the phone rang. At first he sighed, feeling all of the exhaustion that had weighed on him since the assassination. He didn’t want to answer the phone. He didn’t want to be bothered—not now, not ever again.

  But this was the direct line from the White House and if he didn’t answer it, someone else in the house would.

  He set the Camus book face down on his chair and crossed to the desk before the third ring. He answered with a curt, “Yes?”

  “Attorney General Kennedy, sir?” The voice on the other end sounded urgent. The voice sounded familiar to him even though he couldn’t place it.

  “Yes?”

  “This is Special Agent John Haskell. You asked me to contact you, sir, if I heard anything important about Director Hoover, no matter what the time.”

  Kennedy leaned against the desk. He had made that request back when his brother had been president, back when Kennedy had been the first attorney general since the 1920s who actually demanded accountability from Hoover.

  Since Lyndon Johnson had taken over the presidency, accountability had gone by the wayside. These days Hoover rarely returned Kennedy’s phone calls.

  “Yes, I did tell you that,” Kennedy said, resisting the urge to add, but I don’t care about that old man any longer.

  “Sir, there are rumors—credible ones—that Director Hoover has died in New York.”

  Kennedy froze. For a moment, he flashed back to that unseasonably warm afternoon when he’d sat just outside with the federal attorney for New York City, Robert Morganthau, and the chief of Morganthau’s criminal division, Silvio Mollo, talking about prosecuting various organized crime figures.

  Kennedy could still remember the glint of the sunlight on the swimming pool, the taste of the tuna fish sandwich Ethel had brought him, the way the men—despite their topic—had seemed lighthearted.

  Then the phone rang, and J. Edgar Hoover was on the line. Kennedy almost didn’t take the call, but he did and Hoover’s cold voice said, I have news for you. The President’s been shot.

  Kennedy had always disliked Hoover, but since that day, that awful day in the bright sunshine, he hated that fat bastard. Not once—not in that call, not in the subsequent calls—did Hoover express condolences or show a shred of human concern.

  “Credible rumors?” Kennedy repeated, knowing he probably sounded as cold as Hoover had three months ago, and not caring. He’d chosen Haskell as his liaison precisely because the man didn’t like Hoover either. Kennedy had needed someone inside Hoover’s hierarchy, unbeknownst to Hoover, which was difficult since Hoover kept his hand in everything. Haskell was one of the few who fit the bill.

  “Yes, sir, quite credible.”

  “Then why haven’t I received official contact?”

  “I’m not even sure the President knows, sir.”

  Kennedy leaned against the desk. “Why not, if the rumors are credible?”

  “Um, because, sir, um, it seems Associate Director Tolson was also shot, and um, they were, um, in a rather suspect area.”

  Kennedy closed his eyes. All of Washington knew that Tolson was the closest thing Hoover had to a wife. The two old men had been life-long companions. Even though they didn’t live together, they had every meal together. Tolson had been Hoover’s hatchet man until the last year or so, when Tolson’s health hadn’t permitted it.

  Then a word Haskell used sank in. “You said shot.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Is Tolson dead too then?”

  “And three other people in the neighborhood,” Haskell said.

  “My God.” Kennedy ran a hand over his face. “But they think this is personal?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Because of the location of the shooting?”

  “Yes, sir. It seems there was an exclusive gathering in a nearby building. You know the type, sir.”

  Kennedy didn’t know the type—at least not through personal experience. But he’d heard of places like that, where the rich, famous and deviant could spend time with each other, and do whatever it was they liked to do in something approaching privacy.

  “So,” he said, “the Bureau’s trying to figure out how to cover this up.”

  “Or at least contain it, sir.”

  Without Hoover or Tolson. No one in the Bureau was going to know what to do.

  Kennedy’s hand started to shake. “What about the files?”

  “Files, sir?”

  “Hoover’s confidential files. Has anyone secured them?”

  “Not yet, sir. But I’m sure someone has called Miss Gandy.”

  Helen Gandy was Hoover’s long time secretary. She had been his right hand as long as Tolson had operated that hatchet.

  “So procedure’s being followed,” Kennedy said, then frowned. If procedure were being followed, shouldn’t the acting head of the Bureau be calling him?

  “No, sir. But the Director put some private instructions in place should he be killed or incapacitated. Private emergency instructions. And those involve letting Miss Gandy know before anyone else.”

  Even me, Kennedy thought. Hoover’s nominal boss. “She’s not there yet, right?”

  “No, sir.”

  “Do you know where those files are?” Kennedy asked, trying not to let desperation into his voice.

  “I’ve made it my business to know, sir.” There was a pause and then Haskell lowered his voice. “They’re in Miss Gandy’s office, sir.”

  Not Hoover’s like everyone thought. For the first time in months, Kennedy felt a glimmer of hope. “Secure those files.”

  “Sir?”

  “Do whatever it takes. I want them out of there, and I want someone to secure Hoover’s house too. I’m acting on the orders of the President. If anyone tells you that they are doing the same, they’re mistaken. The President made his wishes clear on this point. He often said if anything happens to that old queer”—and here Kennedy deliberately used LBJ’s favorite phrase for Hoover—“then we need those files before they can get into the wrong hands.”

  “I’m on it, sir.”

  “I can’t stress to you the importance of this,” Kennedy said. In fact, he couldn’t talk about the importance at all. Those files could ruin his brother’s legacy. The secrets in there could bring down Kennedy too, and his entire family.

  “And if the rumors about the Director’s death are wrong, sir?”

  Kennedy felt a shiver of fear. “Are they?”

  “I seriously doubt it.”

  “Then let me worry about
that.”

  And about what LBJ would do when he found out. Because the president upon whose orders Kennedy acted wasn’t the current one. Kennedy was following the orders of the only man he believed should be president at the moment.

  His brother, Jack.

  _______

  The scene wasn’t hard to find; a coroner’s van blocked the entrance to the alley. Bryce walked quickly, already cold, his heartburn worse than it had been when he had gone to bed.

  The neighborhood was in transition. An urban renewal project had knocked down some wonderful turn of the century buildings that had become eyesores. But so far, the buildings that had replaced them were the worst kind of modern—all planes and angles and white with few windows.

  In the buildings closest to the park, the lights worked and the streets looked safe. But here, on a side street not far from the construction, the city’s shady side showed. The dirty snow was piled against the curb, the streets were dark, and nothing seemed inhabited except that alley with the coroner’s van blocking the entrance.

  The coroner’s van and at least one unmarked car. No press, which surprised him. He shoved his gloved hands in the pockets of his overcoat even though it was against FBI dress code, and slipped between the van and the wall of a grimy brick building.

  The alley smelled of old urine and fresh blood. Two beat cops blocked his way until he showed identification. Then, like people usually did, they parted as if he could burn them.

  The bodies had fallen side by side in the center of the alley. They looked posed, with their arms up, their legs in classic P position—one leg bent, the other straight. They looked like they could fit perfectly on the dead body diagrams the FBI used to put out in the 1930s. He wondered if they had fallen like this or if this had been the result of the coroner’s tampering.

  The coroner had messed with other parts of the crime scene—if, indeed, he had been the one who put the garbage can lids on the ice and set battery-powered lamps on them. The warmth of the lamps was melting the ice and sending runnels of water into a nearby grate.

  “I hope to hell someone thought to photograph the scene before you melted it,” he said.

  The coroner and the two cops who had been crouching beside the bodies stood up guiltily. The coroner looked at the garbage can lids and closed his eyes. Then he took a deep breath, opened them, and snapped his fingers at the assistant who was waiting beside a gurney.

  “Camera,” he said.

  “That’s Crime Scene’s—” the assistant began, then saw everyone looking at him. He glanced at the van. “Never mind.”

  He walked behind the bodies, further disturbing the scene. Bryce’s mouth thinned in irritation. The cops who stood were in plain clothes.

  “Detectives,” Bryce said, holding his identification, “Special Agent Frank Bryce of the FBI. I’ve been told to secure this scene. More of my people will be here shortly.”

  He hoped that last was true. He had no idea who was coming or when they would arrive.

  “Good,” said the younger detective, a tall man with broad shoulders and an all-American jaw. “The sooner we get out of here the better.”

  Bryce had never gotten that reaction from a detective before. Usually the detectives were territorial, always reminding him that this was New York City and that the scene belonged to them.

  The other detective, older, face grizzled by time and work, held out his gloved hand. “Forgive my partner’s rudeness. I’m Seamus O’Reilly. He’s Joseph McAllister and we’ll help you in any way we can.”

  “I appreciate it,” Bryce said, taking O’Reilly’s hand and shaking it. “I guess the first thing you can do is tell me what we’ve got.”

  “A hell of a mess, that’s for sure,” said McAllister. “You’ll understand when . . .”

  His voice trailed off as his partner took out two long, old-fashioned wallets and handed them to Bryce.

  Bryce took them, feeling confused. Then he opened the first, saw the familiar badge, and felt his breath catch. Two FBI agents, in this alley? Shot side by side? He looked up, saw the darkened windows.

  There used to be rumors about this neighborhood. Some exclusive private sex parties used to be held here, and his old partner had always wanted to visit one just to see if it was a hotbed of Communists like some of the agents had claimed. Bryce had begged off. He was an investigator, not a voyeur.

  The two detectives were staring at him, as if they expected more from him. He still had the wallet open in his hand. If the dead men were New York agents, he would know them. He hated solving the deaths of people he knew.

  But he steeled himself, looked at the identification, and felt the blood leave his face. His skin grew cold and for a moment he felt lightheaded.

  “No,” he said.

  The detectives still stared at him.

  He swallowed. “Have you done a visual i.d.?”

  Hoover was recognizable. His picture was on everything. Sometimes Bryce thought Hoover was more famous than the president—any president. He’d certainly been in power longer.

  “Faces are gone,” O’Reilly said.

  “Exit wounds,” the coroner added from beside the bodies. His assistant had returned and was taking pictures, the flash showing just how much melt had happened since the coroner arrived.

  “Shot in the back of the head?” Bryce blinked. He was tired and his brain was working slowly, but something about the shots didn’t match with the body positions.

  “If they came out that door,” O’Reilly said as he indicated a dark metal door almost hidden in the side of the brick building, “then the shooters had to be waiting beside it.”

  “Your crime scene people haven’t arrived yet, I take it?” Bryce asked.

  “No,” the coroner said. “They think it’s a fag kill. They’ll get here when they get here.”

  Bryce clenched his left fist and had to remind himself to let the fingers loose.

  O’Reilly saw the reaction. “Sorry about that,” he said, shooting a glare at the coroner. “I’m sure the Director was here on business.”

  Funny business. But Bryce didn’t say that. The rumors about Hoover had been around since Bryce joined the FBI just after the war. Hoover quashed them, like he quashed any criticism, but it seemed like the criticism got made, no matter what.

  Bryce opened the other wallet, but he already had a guess as to who was beside Hoover, and his guess turned out to be right.

  “You want to tell me why your crime scene people believe this is a homosexual killing?” Bryce asked, trying not to let what Mary called his FBI tone into his voice. If Hoover was still alive and this was some kind of plant, Hoover would want to crush the source of this assumption. Bryce would make sure that the source was worth pursuing before going any further.

  “Neighborhood, mostly,” McAllister said. “There’re a couple of bars, mostly high-end. You have to know someone to get in. Then there’s the party, held every week upstairs. Some of the most important men in the city show up at it, or so they used to say in Vice when they told us to stay away.”

  Bryce nodded, letting it go at that.

  “We need your crime scene people here ASAP, and a lot more cops so that we can protect what’s left of this scene, in case these men turn out to be who their identification says they are. You search the bodies to see if this was the only identification on them?”

  O’Reilly started. He clearly hadn’t thought of that. Probably had been too shocked by the first wallets that he found.

  The younger detective had already gone back to the bodies. The coroner put out a hand, and did the searching himself.

  “You think this was a plant?” O’Reilly asked.

  “I don’t know what to think,” Bryce said. “I’m not here to think. I’m here to make sure everything goes smoothly.”

  And to make sure the case goes to the FBI. Those words hung unspoken between the two of them. Not that O’Reilly objected, and now Bryce could understand why. This case would be a polit
ical nightmare, and no good detective wanted to be in the middle of it.

  “How come there’s no press?” Bryce asked O’Reilly. “You manage to get rid of them somehow?”

  “Fag kill,” the coroner said.

  Bryce was getting tired of those words. His fist had clenched again, and he had to work at unclenching it.

  “Ignore him,” O’Reilly said softly. “He’s an asshole and the best coroner in the city.”

  “I heard that,” the coroner said affably. “There’s no other identification on either of them.”

  O’Reilly’s shoulders slumped, as if he’d been hoping for a different outcome. Bryce should have been hoping as well, but he hadn’t been. He had known that Hoover was in town. The entire New York bureau knew, since Hoover always took it over when he arrived—breezing in, giving instructions, making sure everything was just the way he wanted it.

  “Before this gets too complicated,” O’Reilly said, “you want to see the other bodies?”

  “Other bodies?” Bryce felt numb. He could use some caffeine now, but Hoover had ordered agents not to drink coffee on the job. Getting coffee now felt almost disrespectful.

  “We got three more.” O’Reilly took a deep breath. “And just before you arrived, I got word that they’re agents too.”

  Special Agent John Haskell had just installed six of his best agents outside the Director’s suite of offices when a small woman showed up, key clutched in her gloved right hand. Helen Gandy, the Director’s secretary, looked up at Haskell with the coldest stare he’d ever seen outside of the Director’s.

  “May I go into my office, Agent Haskell?” Her voice was just as cold. She didn’t look upset, and if he hadn’t known that she never stayed past five unless directed by Hoover himself, Haskell would have thought she was coming back from a prolonged work break.

  “I’m sorry, ma’am,” he said. “No one is allowed inside. President’s orders.”

  “Really?” God, that voice was chilling. He remembered the first time he’d heard it, when he’d been brought to this suite of offices as a brand-new agent, after getting his “Meet the Boss” training before his introduction to the Director. She’d frightened him more than Hoover had.