Firebird_A Spy Story of the 1960's

by Noel Hynd

  “Did she sleep with him?” Lauren asked.

  “Jesus. You guys really go for it, don’t you?”

  “It’s part of the job,” Cooper said.

  Grady looked back to Cooper. “Yeah,” he said. “She couldn’t resist. Sexy Russian guy who couldn’t keep his hands out from under her skirt. Big part of the JFK story, but it never hit the news. Sort of one of those shadow things. She was his mistress, I guess. Made her part of the story, huh? Peggy was involved with him for a few months—it was before, you know, before…”

  “Before you two were involved,” Cooper said.

  “Yeah,” Grady said, not quite comfortable with the morality of it. “Maybe there was some overlapping, too. Don’t like to think about that part. Know what I mean?”

  “But the KGB/CIA found out that Lukashenko was out and about. Maybe they even knew he was bedding an American lady who was a conspiracy geek. That couldn’t have gone over very well.”

  “No,” said Grady.

  “And the Soviet police probably found out very quickly, too, considering how leaky the CIA is. And they executed him. Or the CIA did.”

  “Got a theory on that part?” Grady asked.

  “Not completely,” Cooper said. “I'm working on it. I can see how Lukashenko would have been in a position to embarrass everyone. In a position like that, his life’s not worth a ruble, is it? But right here, right now, there are other pieces I want to tie together.”

  Grady looked at him expectantly. “Like what?”

  “Why you're alive. And Margaret is dead.”

  Grady was distinctly uneasy. “What are you saying?” he asked.

  “Following Lukashenko's death, she pursued her theories. You told me that yourself. She wanted to take the case as far as it would ride. Courts. Prosecutors. She was a conspiracy buff and here was the biggest one of them all right in her lap. And she had new information. Right?”

  After a painful pause, Grady nodded. “Right,” he said.

  “But you wouldn't join her. You knew better. You knew if the cover-up was so big, eventually anyone who knew too much would be in serious jeopardy. Like Lukashenko. So you became her silent collaborator. She went and asked the questions. She told you what she was finding. You knew she was onto something. But that was where you parted ways. You didn't want to know any more. She did. And when people from the FBI came around, you maintained that you didn't know anything for which you would have to be silenced. But you confirmed that she did.”

  Cooper paused. He could see how painfully Grady reacted to this stretch of the story.

  “God damn you people,” the retired cop said. His face was ready to collapse. His eyes were red. “Don't you think I won't be living with it for the rest of my life?”

  “Tell us one final thing,” Lauren said. Grady waited.

  “What's that?” he asked.

  “‘A.G. was wrong!’ Peggy wrote,” Lauren said. “‘A.G. was lying? What was Margaret referencing?”

  “I don't know,” Grady said.

  “Come on, Albert. Help us. Do yourself a favor in the bargain,” Cooper said.

  “For God's sake's, man! Don't you think I'd tell you now if I knew?”

  “Cooper pressed. “Wrong. Lying ‘A.G.’ That’s you she was talking about, wasn’t it?”

  “No! Anatoli Golitsyn!” Grady said. “That’s who she meant. Golitsyn was lying about Moscow not being involved in JFK slaying. The Russians were involved. Deeply involved. Lukashenko even had personal information that went way back to Oswald’s wife and father-in-law. I don’t know what it was, but he had it. That was what Peggy believed. And I believed that, too, God damn it!”

  Chapter 74

  Five minutes later, Cooper and Lauren were in their car on the way back to New York, comparing notes, discussing and brainstorming on the fly. They split the driving and wrote an article to be filed upon their arrival.

  They parked the car in a garage on Third Avenue and walked to the offices of the Eagle. The stopped briefly on the sixth floor just before seven in the evening, where they ran into Marty Friedkin who was furious and cursing violently. Friedkin had missed the day’s deadline with his latest report, one that included some nasty stuff about being roughed up by anti-Semites at the latest Wallace rally and the upcoming event Wallace mass rally at Madison Square Garden.

  Cooper glanced at his watch. “There’s actually still time,” he said to Friedkin.

  “I’ve already missed Murphy’s signature and sign-off,” Friedkin said.

  “The signature doesn’t matter,” Cooper said. “Come on along and keep your trap shut.”

  There was a proper protocol for all material submitted for next day’s edition. Cooper knew how to circumvent it.

  The proper protocol: A reporter typed and hand-edited a final copy, which he then handed to a copy boy. Or, if time was limited and the end of the writing day was near, or if copy boys were elusive—as they usually were in the late afternoon—the reporter would personally march the article up to the sixth floor. The writer or the copy boy would then see that Constance Higgins, S.W. Murphy’s secretary, would whack it with a time/date stamp to show when it was received. Then the writer or runner could leave it in the ‘IN’ bin on a table next to Mrs. Higgins.

  Constance needed to stamp everything that was brought in by a copy boy. It was a pain because she also kept order for Murphy and could be absorbed in ten other tasks. She was overburdened. Writer-reporters who appeared in person were thus accorded a small privilege rather than wait for Constance. They could whack their copy with Constance’s time stamp. No one was sure who was doing whom a favor. The received copy would then go into the “IN” box.

  Murphy would read the articles in the order received, casually or critically depending on the authorship. He rarely made edits. Then at the bottom left, in bold blue ink from a two-hundred-dollar Mont Blanc fountain pen, he would draw his initials SWM, circle them, and affix three numbers, indicating the time. 545 meant 5:45.

  When enough of them were on his desk, he would howl for Mrs. Higgins to come in and put them in the ‘OUT’ basket on the table closest to the door. God forbid that he would walk the papers to the box himself. Every fifteen minutes from three o’clock till seven, a messenger would come by and pick up the finished copy and get it by motorcycle or bicycle to the printing plant on Union Square. If a messenger appeared at Murphy’s office door he was permitted to enter the managing editor’s office without speaking and take the signed approved copy to the printer.

  The Eagle’s bikers were a ferocious bunch of street warriors. The stopped at nothing—shooting red lights and darting in and out of traffic and terrifying pedestrians, through narrow passages around taxis, up and over sidewalks and, as needed, through alleys, scattering drunks, bums, rats and pigeons. They would have the dispatch checked in by a receiving clerk at the printer’s place at Union Square Park Place across from the New York Post. During the early daytime hours, half of them supplemented their income by being numbers runners from the bars on Lexington between Fortieth and Forty-fifth street, as well as on Forty-second between Third and Park. In this way, an industrious speedy bicycle terrorist could earn fifteen thousand dollars a year, more than a secretary or junior editor with a college degree.

  Murphy’s signature was a piece of artwork. It was the size of a nickel, the three letters within a circle that Murphy drew to perfection. The thing was, there was a flaw in the system.

  Cooper, Richie and Friedkin arrived on the sixth floor at five minutes after seven. “I’m going solve a mystery for you, Marty,” Cooper said as they walked.

  “Which mystery?”

  “How I beat you into print somedays.”

  “I thought it was because S.W. liked you more than me.”

  “Maybe he does. But it doesn’t matter.” They approached the M.E.’s office. “See?” Cooper said, “We’re running a late today. So here’s how I save everyone a headache. Give me your copy.”

  Friedkin ha
nded his work to Cooper. Cooper took Friedkin’s work and his in hand. They walked into Constance’s office. Mrs. Higgins was gone for the day. Cooper turned to Lauren. “Stand guard for me, okay?” he asked her. She nodded in response, then went to the door to watch the hall. She turned and nodded, meaning the coast was clear.

  Cooper time-stamped both documents.

  “Now, watch this,” Cooper said to Friedkin. Cooper pulled from his pocket a special purpose blue pen that he’d bought on West 35th Street near Seventh Avenue. At the bottom of the front page of his copy he drew S.W. Murphy’s signature in perfect size with lovely robin’s egg blue ink. He finished the forgery with a neat circle around the letters.

  “This is a great pen,” he boasted to Friedkin. “It costs a dollar nineteen and it replicates a Mont Blanc. I have five of them.”

  “How often do you do this?”

  “As need arises,” said Cooper.

  “Just one problem,” observed Friedkin

  “Certainly not the morals and ethics of it, I hope,” Cooper answered.

  “No. I’m fine with all that. But the messengers cut off at seven p.m., don’t they?”

  Cooper shook his head. “Officially, yes. In realty, no. There’s Jean Claude.”

  “Who?”

  Lauren turned from the hallway and spoke in a high whisper. “Here’s Jean Claude now.”

  Cooper fell silent. A moment later and lean, engaging twenty-something black man in a leather jacket and a helmet appeared in the doorway. He had a small Haitian flag on one sleeve of his jacket and an American flag on the other. He recognized Lauren and gave her a flirty wink. He looked to Cooper. “Hey,” he said in friendly greeting.

  “Hey,” Cooper returned.

  “Final copy?” Jean Claude asked.

  “I think there are a couple of things,” Cooper said. “Murphy’s gone for the day. Oh, and this is my pal Marty Friedkin. He’s a pal. You might see him in the future. He works late also.”

  “Got it,” said Jean Claude, who gave Marty a quick handshake, grabbed the remaining final copy, stuff the papers onto his satchel, and was gone in half a minute.

  “Jean Claude has a motorcycle,” Lauren said. “He’ll be down at Park Row in seven minutes.”

  “Incredible,” said Friedkin.

  “Not really,” said Cooper.

  Cooper, Lauren and Friedkin took the elevator down to the street. Friedkin fell into a conversation about the Wallace campaign. He offered Cooper a nugget.

  “Happy Chandler’s going to be in New York for the Wallace rally and the Garden,” he said, referencing the former senator, governor and baseball commissioner who had been pre-empted by Curtis LeMay as Wallace’s Vice-Presidential candidate. “Want to meet him? You might have some questions.”

  “Yeah,” Cooper said. “We’d like to do that.”

  “I’ll set it up,” said Friedkin. “And thanks for the help on the late copy.”

  “Not a problem,” said Cooper.

  Friedkin disappeared into the pedestrian traffic heading west. Cooper turned back to Lauren. “So?” Cooper asked. “Dinner at Kitty Hawk’s, I guess. Then where do we stay tonight? Lady’s choice, Lauren. My place or yours?”

  “Yours,” she said. “Fewer roaches.”

  Chapter 75

  The article by Frank Cooper and Lauren Richie appeared in the New York Eagle the next day on page three, which was as important a news page as was found in that publication.

  The article—a half page, plus a six-inch, one-column overlap onto page fifty-four—recapped the two reporters' findings following their inquiries in Washington, Maryland, and Florida. They identified no sources and spelled out the many inconsistencies in their investigation, using the unanswered questions in the case as a hook to lure reader interest.

  Cooper read it the next morning and was pleased. Shortly after nine, his phone began to ring with inquiries from other news agencies. The Eagle had little credibility among the established news media, but Cooper had street creds among other professionals. He talked to each caller but revealed nothing further than what his publication had set in print that morning.

  For the rest of the afternoon, Lauren finished several pieces of paperwork that had lingered in her office since the previous trip. Cooper oversaw the operation of the obituary

  page and helped construct two death write-ups when the afternoon deadline drew near.

  Then he assembled many of his notes on the story he was piecing together. In the process, he came across in his notebook the proposed obituary he had begun to write on himself. He toyed with it for several minutes, then went on to what he believed to be more pressing work.

  Cooper and Lauren stayed at the Eagle until half past seven. They went out to dinner with a couple of other writers—one from sports, one from city politics—after work. They listened to several mean-spirited profane bits of office gossip surrounding S.W. Murphy and Kenneth Siegelman.

  Later, they returned to Lauren’s apartment. She had a bottle of Mateus in her half-sized refrigerator. They opened it. Cooper found it to be up a notch from Thunderbird and Night Train. But it did the job and mellowed down the evening.

  They killed the bottle and retired to her sleeping alcove. In the distance, as they dozed off, they heard the faint wails of police and fire sirens, plus much closer the occasional car alarm and noisy street arguments. The night was otherwise peaceable in the Sixth Precinct.

  Chapter 76

  The next morning, S.W. Murphy raised his eyes from his desk as his gaze shot back and forth between the two reporters whom he had angrily summoned.

  Lauren Richie sat in a wooden chair before the managing editor’s desk. Cooper stood at the door. “Get in here and sit down,” Murphy growled to Cooper. He pointed to a second wooden chair. “Right there!” he indicated. “Next to your partner in crime, dare I say.”

  Cooper entered his boss’s office. It was 8:50 a.m. He sat in a leather armchair adjacent to the wooden one.

  “I meant the wooden chair,” Murphy said.

  “Thanks. I like this one,” Cooper answered.

  Murphy threw Cooper a sharp glance. He returned to what he was reading, expense accounts, and kept quiet for a full minute. Then he looked up.

  “Well? What’s all this bullshit?” Murphy asked. “What are you telling me? Thousands of dollars merrily frittered away, and you’ve produced two articles and now hit a dead end?”

  “No,” Cooper insisted. “I'm not telling you it's a dead end. Our leads have run their course. We have to find some new ones. That can take some time. You know that.”

  “I know that. You know that,” he said, looking them back and forth again. “The man on the moon knows that. But does Kenneth Siegelman know that, I ask?” Murphy said. “Come on, Cooper. Let's face it. You're churning this story. You know Kenneth. The general public has an attention span of ten seconds and our readers have less than three, about the same as a goldfish. Ken would tell you that himself. We publish for people who move their lips when they read. They use their fingers to follow the words on the page. If you can't get something significant on this story every two days, the public drops it. Hence we drop it.”

  “Is that what he's telling you on the phone, Steve?” Cooper asked.

  “Mr. Siegelman and I talk about a lot of things. That's one of them.”

  “What might be another?” Cooper asked.

  “Why don’t you close the fucking door,” Murphy suggested.

  Cooper didn’t budge. Lauren closed it and returned to her chair.

  “Look, Frank,” said the editor, pushing aside the expense reports. “I’ve indulged the two of you with your footloose trips along the east coast. I truly hope you enjoyed your Rabelaisian frolic among the crab cakes in Baltimore. But attempt to put this in perspective, if you will. What you have so far is a hodgepodge. Not much more.”

  “We thought the articles made a lot of sense,” Lauren said.

  “Hush!” he said to her.

&nbs
p; “Did you actually read it, Steve?” Cooper asked.

  “Yes!” Murphy snapped, turning back to Cooper. “And you're putting this newspaper's credibility on the line because you think—I repeat, you think—that you can tie everything together eventually in a neat bundle.” He paused. “What if you can't?”

  “We will.”

  “I’ve seen little indication of that. But you’re throwing around the boss’s money like bottle caps. Unless you come up with something big on this, who the fuck cares?”

  “We care,” said Cooper.

  “No one cares if you care! So I ask again, who the fuck cares? Now answer!”

  “Trust us for another month.”

  “A month! Ha! Unacceptable! And what’s this ‘trust me, trust us’ horse manure?” He paused. His voice rose. “Do you know how you say Fuck you in Hebrew? It’s Trust me. So don’t be obtuse, Frank Cooper. I've had the two of you on this case several weeks,” Murphy persisted. “An employee of this august journal costs approximately two thousand dollars per week in salary, pension, health insurance, expenses, toilet paper, rubber bands, Alka Seltzer and so on. So we've made an investment, I bitterly calculate, of more than ten thousand dollars already. Plus I'd say another five to eight grand in travel, telephone, crab cakes and so on.”

  “Steve, owning this paper is like a license to print money. We're millions of bucks in the black. What's the problem?”

  “We make millions of dollars because we don't let hard-earned dollars hemorrhage out the bilge pumps. How's that?” Murphy glared. “This story simply isn't earning out,” he said. “Occasionally we get some stuff. But I can't have a pair of our better people—that's you two, I admit—on a story that's not productive.”

  “Other papers have been calling us trying to pick up the story. It must be interesting to someone.”

  “Other reporters are not even able to substantiate what you've printed,” Murphy answered. “Know what some of them are whispering? That Frank Cooper got divorced by his wife and his brains at the same time. Frank is spinning a fake tale.” He paused. “I even hear one gossip that you were hanging out with Walter Winchell.”