I didn't say anything.
“I don't think they will, because diplomatic immunity is reciprocal. Did you know that the first secretary of one of the Oriental embassies here has two wives? The first one, who is an American, wants to sue him for divorce and get him into trouble for bigamy, but the second one, who is French and more sensible, doesn't mind. Due to diplomatic immunity he cannot be sued for divorce in any court of the United States. He is the only man living here married openly to two women at the same time, one of them a United States citizen. Isn't that interesting?”
He kept the chatter up all the way to the airport. I began to think he had forgotten entirely about Alex Lubrano. I parked outside the Pan-Am section of the big administration building. A metallic voice announced that B.O.A.C. Flight Fifty-seven was now loading from Gate Eleven. Several people interested in Flight Fifty-seven made their way in that direction. At his instructions, I brought Del Rey's valises over to the weighing platform. He showed his ticket and got it stamped. The uniformed Pan-Am traffic man gave him a friendly salute and told him the extra weight would cost him twelve dollars and fifty cents.
“It looks like a beautiful night for flying,” Del Rey said.
The traffic man agreed. “The best, sir.” The same metallic voice which had announced the B.O.A.C. flight said that Pan-American Flight Fourteen for Caracas was now loading at Gate Three. Distantly, you could hear the B.O.A.C. plane revving up its four big motors. An excited woman rushed over to the traffic man and said she had thought her eight-year-old daughter could fly free of charge.
I was going to say something which Del Rey wouldn't like to the traffic man, but he nudged me with his elbow and said, “Walk me to the gate, please.”
There was a small crowd already waiting for the Pan-Am flight. This is my first time in the air, someone said, and all the veterans began to give her advice. Francisco Del Rey motioned me outside, where it was cold and windy and the crowd wasn't. We stood near the gate of the wire fence, and down the field, in the light of the bright floods, the B.O.A.C. Stratocruiser had turned its high snub nose into the wind and was rolling back toward us for the takeoff. It went up very gracefully and with less sound than I had expected.
Moments later, a uniformed man made his way outside through the crowd at the Pan-Am gate. He made like AH Baba with the second gate, the one in the wire fence. Everyone trooped through after him to board the Stratocruiser. Boeing seemed to have a monopoly at Washington National Airport tonight. Pan American World Airways was printed in big letters across the fuselage of the four-engined monster. The high tail assembly had PAA in even bigger letters and a crisp unruffled American flag painted there and the license number NIO3BV.
Francisco Del Rey lit a cigarette in his long holder. Presently the steward came over to us and said, “Are you gentlemen on the flight?”
“I am,” said Del Rey. He was informed that there was no smoking just now, please. He squeezed the cigarette from its holder and stepped on it. The steward followed him outside and closed the gate. Francisco Del Rey smiled at me. I stood transfixed. He waved at me from the flight-stairs. I still stood transfixed. The steward went in behind him and closed the door. The stairs were rolled away. One at a time, the engines were started up. They discharged puffs of smoke and made whining sounds.
I sprinted back inside the administration building and over to the Pan-Am traffic man's desk. I shouldered aside a well-dressed man who didn't look happy about being shouldered aside. “You've got to stop Flight Fourteen!” I blurted.
The traffic man smiled at me as if he had seen this sort of thing before, “There's a killer on board,” I said.
He looked interested, but only mildly. “Police?” lie said.
I whipped out an honorary deputy sheriff's badge and poked it in front of his face. Before I could withdraw the billfold, he steadied my hand with his and gave my badge a thorough scrutiny. “That and fifteen cents . . .” he said, and left the thought dangling in mid-air. “Exactly what do you want, sir?”
I took a deep breath and gave it to him with a level voice. “There is a murderer trying to escape the country on Flight Fourteen. Look him up, why don't you? His name is Francisco Del Rey and he's the third secretary of the Venezuelan Embassy. Or the ex-third secretary,”
For the first time he looked at me as if I might be serious. Not right, not necessarily sane, but serious. “This sort of thing has happened before,” he said, still unruffled.
“Murderers escaping on your planes?”
“Please. Diplomats leaving the country behind a shield of diplomatic immunity. Even if what you say is true, the airport police would need something in writing from the Deputy Chief of Protocol of the Department of State to stop your man. Will you please contact the proper authorities?”
I looked at him. He looked at me. The well-dressed man shouldered me aside and began to say something about a round-trip ticket to Lima, Peru. I went upstairs slowly to the observation deck and stood there alone in the cold wind watching the big Pan-Am Stratocruiser turn gracefully into its takeoff pattern. In another few moments it was airborne. It purred off into the western sky and when it was high enough it began to bank and turn southward. I could picture the no-smoking sign blinking off behind the pilot's cabin. I could picture Francisco Del Rey easing the tip of a cigarette into his long holder and working up an interesting conversation with the businessman in the seat next to him.
The world wouldn't miss Alex Lubrano; he wasn't much of a man. But his widow would miss him, and his children. I had put his head in a noose, those were his words. For fifty dollars. I had gone down to Alexandria to rescue him. Instead, I had stood by while he was killed to teach me a lesson in where to snoop and where not to snoop.
Maybe I could have gone to the police and let it go at that. Vendetta doesn't mean much to me. Vendetta for Alex Lubrano meant hardly anything at all. Only, I had helped the killer get away. I had carried his bags for him. I had seen him off at the airport. I had stood transfixed while he waved good-by. Legally, I was responsible for nothing. But whether it's driven into you when you're a kid or given to you by God or fed to you by social osmosis, there's such a thing as conscience.
I went down to my Chewy thinking that if the State Department couldn't do anything about it, I might take up Francisco del Key's suggestion. I might go to Caracas, Venezuela.
Jack Morley and I had gone through F.B.I. school together. I had lasted for a year after graduation and then had decided I wanted to be my own boss. Jack had lasted two years and then had gone into the Department of State, where he is the first secretary to the Deputy Chief of Protocol, which doesn't sound like much but is. I had not gone to the police. On Friday morning I had read in the papers how they had found the body of one Alex Lubrano in the apartment of the recently departed third secretary of the Venezuelan Embassy. I would not go to the police unless I thought it would do some good and I would not get hopelessly embroiled. I went to Jack Morley in the Department of State on Virginia Avenue instead.
When I finished my story, straight and complete except for the omission of Senator Hartsell's name, Jack Morley said, “My God. Just like that, Del Rey shot him?”
“Just like that,” I said. “You knew him?” Jack nodded. “I have to know all of them. He seemed like a pretty good joker.”
“When will you have him extradited?”
“Hold on,” Jack said. “It isn't that simple.”
“If I go to the police and tell them I saw Del Rey do it? I was standing not half a dozen feet from him?”
“My God. You haven't been to the police yet?”
“No. And I won't, unless you say he can be extradited.” Jack lit a cigarette and offered me one. Sometimes I get to feel sorry for him. He looks too big and too hemmed-in in his office. He still looks F.B.I. He said, “If it was any South American country but Venezuela.”
“It has nothing to do with Venezuela. The Venezuelan Ambassador didn't tell Del Rey to kill Alex Lubrano. Del Rey just h
appens to be a Venezuelan citizen working here for his government.”
Jack went into a long spiel about Venezuela, which sits on top of South America like a saddle. It would take more money to live in Caracas, Venezuela, than it would in Washington D. C., which is decidedly un-South American. Venezuela is the second biggest oil producer in the world, right behind the U.S.A. Venezuela has an almost untapped iron mine comparable to anything we have around the shores of Lake Superior, a stable currency, a negligible national debt, gold, pearls, bauxite and diamonds to increase the national income—and, Jack finished with a smile, a waterfall which measures a dozen and a half Niagaras from top to bottom.
“That's only one thing,” he said. I blew smoke rings and listened. I punctured the rings with my index finger and kept on listening. The Department of State has settled for a hands-off policy on foreign diplomats in general. Most of them are good guys. Regarding the handful of bad apples, all you could do was cross your fingers and/or pray. Treatment of diplomats is reciprocal, Jack said, giving it to me like a primer. Even if a member of a foreign embassy were pilfering State secrets, about all we'd do is declare him persona non grata, and even then we'd be sure to receive back a trumped-up American persona non grata by return cable. In short, Jack finished, if the police decided Francisco Del Rey was their man, State might go through the formality of extradition without much hope for success. More than likely, they would explain the facts of diplomatic life to the police and let it go at that.
“Besides,” Jack said, “didn't you read the late editions this morning?”
“Only the early editions. I came here.”
He got a newspaper off the top of a filing cabinet and handed it to me. The police were looking for someone, all right, but it wasn't Francisco Del Rey. They were looking for someone about six foot one, a hundred and ninety pounds, dark complexion but fair-haired, maybe thirty years of age. He was seen in the vicinity of Del Rey's apartment in Alexandria by a Christmas mailman, and two neighborhood kids. He was asking questions about the apartment. He was probably someone who knew Del Rey, the reporter reasoned, for he had known that the diplomat had vacated his apartment and that said apartment would be available for mayhem.
I told Jack that his name, although the police and the reporter did not know that, was Chester Drum.
“Now, hold on,” Jack said.
“I'm holding.”
“That could be you.” He looked very surprised.
“Calm down. I told you I was there. I saw Del Rey do it.”
“You ought to go to the police.”
“Not after what you told me.”
“Well, it's your neck.”
“Yeah. Listen, Jack. I'd like the works on Del Rey. Everything you can get. And naturally, you won't say a word—”
“No. I won't. But you're a crazy bastard. I'll send it to your office as soon as I can.” He told me to keep out of trouble. He told me I should have remained with the F.B.I. I said so should he have. We exchanged smiles more like grimaces. We couldn't help it if we liked each other.
Back at the Farrell Building, I had reaped a whirlwind and a visitor. The whirlwind had gone through my office and left it looking like it had been gone through. The visitor was sitting in the waiting room decked out in Brooks Brothers tweeds. He was nursing a pipe which smelled like honey. He had a blond crewcut and was my height, but thinner. His nose was a shade off center, as if he had been a scrub tailback who got his face shoved in by the varsity line. He had friendly blue eyes and a charming smile. He looked exactly like all the pictures of Joe College in the back-to-school ads in the men's magazines.
“Do you always leave your office this way?” he said.
“I was beginning to think maybe you did it.”
“Not me.”
It would take a week to find out what, if anything, was missing. I sighed and prodded all the file folders into one corner of the small office with my foot. “The door was unlocked when you got there?” I asked Joe College.
“I think the lock was forced.”
I looked at it. It had been forced. It was still serviceable, but I now knew it hadn't been a very good lock.
“I need some work done,” Joe College said in a confidential voice. “I asked two people whose opinions I respect very highly to recommend a private detective, and they both recommended you.”
“I'm flattered. Who were they?”
“Senator Blair Hartsell and my fiancee, Marianne Wilder:”
I had not seen any engagement ring surrounding Marianne's appropriate finger. I said, “And you're—”
“I'm sorry. I'm Duane Cabot.”
We shook hands. “How do you do, Congressman?” I said. Duane Cabot. The face should have told me. A freshman sensation in the House, from out California way. Family big in politics since around the time Pocahontas draped herself across John Smith. Now there were too many Cabots, all successful, for the original home state to hold them. They had spread out all over the country and were converging on Washington like piranhas on a side of beef.
“You know,” I said, “you remind me of someone.”
“Blairy Hartsell, you mean? I've noticed the resemblance myself.”
“That's who,” I said. “Only you work for a living.” The same blond hair and blue eyes, the same general build. Cabot did not have Blairy's scrubbed, pink, after-shave complexion, though.
“Don't be hard on him. He's still young, Mr. Drum. That's what I came to see you about. The Hartsell family.”
“Oh?”
“Deirdre Hartsell. You knew her?”
If he didn't know the relationship, I wasn't going to tell him, but he must have seen it on my face. “Say, wait a minute,” he said. He looked very embarrassed. “Deirdre was married to an investigator. I should have realized—”
“Only briefly. Forget it.”
“No. I have no right to resurrect ghosts for you.” He stood up and went for his coat, which was draped across a chair in the waiting room.
“It doesn't bother me,” I said. “It's all right unless it bothers you. Does it?”
“No. I—”
“Then sit down, Mr. Cabot.”
He sat down. He banged out his pipe in my desk ashtray. He said, “She was quite a female, wasn't she? I was going with her about a year ago. I'll be frank with you, Drum. I liked it then. I don't like it now.”
“What don't you like now?”
“I'm a member of the Subversive Activities Committee. I didn't know Deirdre Hartsell was a Communist.”
“Was she?” I asked blandly.
“It looks that way. Hell, man. Isn't that why she killed herself?”
“I don't know why she killed herself—or if she killed herself.” I didn't think saying that much was betraying Senator Hartsell's trust. I wanted to see Cabot's reaction, if any. There wasn't any.
“The chairman of the Subversive Activities Committee got a letter. It wasn't signed. The newspapers received the same letter. One of them, which favors the opposition party, printed it.”
“What did the letter say?”
“That I didn't belong on the Committee, if I belonged in Congress at all. That I associated knowingly with a Communist during my first year in the House. But I didn't know she was a Commie then, Drum. How could I know? That I was probably still associating with Reds. Which isn't true.”
“You want me to find out who sent the letter?” I said. “Are you working on something independent of the rest of the Committee?”
“Yes, but I already know who sent the letter.”
I shrugged. I watched him get up and watch the traffic flanking left and right where F Street reached the Treasury Building. Finally I said, “Who is it?”
When he kept on watching the traffic, I suggested, “You want me to make him stop? To scare him?”
“No. The damage has already been done, hasn't it?”
“If you say so.”
He turned around and looked at me with his innocent blue eyes. “I ca
n't tell you who it is because the investigation isn't public yet. I can only say that it will surprise you when you find out. If you find out.” He waited for me to say something. I wished I knew what he expected me to say.
I, said, “Well, you came here for something, Congressman. Just what do you want me to do?”
He smiled. It was a friendly boy's smile, a nice smile.
“I lied to you before,” he said. “I guess I wanted to win your confidence. I knew who you were, Drum. I knew you had been married to Deirdre. Are you surprised?”
“Yeah,” I said.
“When I was going with Deirdre, I didn't broadcast it. Very few people knew.”
“That makes you a pretty lucky guy, now.”
“It was because of Marianne. We've known each other since I came to Washington two years ago. We weren't engaged when I knew Deirdre, but we had one of those understandings. It was one more wild oat, I guess. I didn't see any reason why Marianne had to know. You understand?”
“But now the wrong person knows?”
“Yes.”
“Tell me something, Congressman. Did you send Marianne Wilder here a couple of days ago to case the joint?”
He looked shocked. “Why, no,” he said. “I wouldn't want to get Marianne involved.”
I didn't know whether to believe him or not. There was suddenly a subtle unlovely smell about this freshman Congressman from California. He had probably been returned to office by a big fat majority in the recent election. He would probably go on winning big fat majorities. But I didn't Hike him.
“Let's get our cards up over the edge of the table where we can see them,” I said. “You don't want me to find out who sent the letter. You already know. You don't want me to make him cut it out. You won't even tell me who he is. Exactly what do you want?”
“You knew Deirdre a year ago?”
“We were going steady.” I grinned wryly. “I thought.”
The Second Longest Night Page 4