“It’s that I’m worried about him, Walter. You must find him before he gets hurt.”
“You know, of course,” he said, unwilling to breathe with gills, “I don’t really know what’s going on here—with Harry—what this is really all about. You tell me somebody gave him something, about somebody named Lord Frederick Lacey. Your nephew Harry has some sort of document that says Lacey killed John Kennedy. Harry’s got some kind of confession, is how you put it. Who gave it to him?”
“I don’t know. He didn’t tell me.”
“And you want me to find him before they do—but you don’t tell me who they are or even who they could be.”
“I don’t know,” Conchita said. They’d been through this before, she said. Now, she repeated it with a note of irritation in her voice. “If I knew more I would tell you. Don’t you believe me?” He’d tested her patience. She was getting pissed. Even in her anger, with her lips closed together, her mouth tighter than he’d seen it before, a frown creating tiny wrinkles in the lines of her cheeks and in the space just above her nose between her narrowed eyes, taking him in with steely resolve, even then Walter could not keep himself from thinking how beautiful she was—how much he wanted to wrap his arms around her, tell her he would do anything, whatever she wanted, anything, anything. To have her, he’d say anything.
But he said nothing.
During his first year in London, an American defense contractor requested Harry Levine’s assistance dealing with one of Lord Frederick Lacey’s shipping companies. Both U.S. and English laws contained strict penalties for the improper movement of certain sensitive military materials and Harry made sure the American company was in compliance with the requirements put in place by Great Britain. The project took the better part of a month. The vast extent of Lacey’s empire struck a chord with Harry. He read as much about the old man’s life and exploits as he could at the time. He knew something about the man, but there was so much he didn’t know.
The phone call came in on a dreary, wet and chilly Saturday morning in February, the sort of day common in an English winter. The English, to the consternation of most foreigners who hated it, seemed to have a perverse liking for this kind of weather. Most Americans preferred London in springtime. The call was received and logged in at the American Embassy shortly after nine o’clock in the morning. The weekend operator answered and, as requested, connected the caller to the Ambassador’s office. The American Ambassador, McHenry Brown, was not in. He was, in fact, two hours from London, finished with breakfast and playing tennis with a very special friend on an indoor court at a hotel known for its discretion. Nevertheless, he was listed as being on duty. The caller was Sir Anthony Wells, the most senior of all barristers at the firm of Herndon, Sturgis, Wells & Nelson. In a manner quite unusual for a man of his status and exalted position, Sir Anthony had placed the call himself.
The Ambassador’s secretary, Elizabeth Harrison, was there to take it. Whenever McHenry Brown took personal time on a Saturday, she covered for him. She said simply that Ambassador Brown was “unavailable at the moment.” Sir Anthony apologized for disturbing the tranquility of “such a fine day as this one most assuredly is.” Mrs. Harrison was keenly aware Sir Anthony had seen many winter mornings like this one in his one hundred years. For a moment she let her mind wander, conjuring up images of those long-ago days, of gas lamps, pot-bellied stoves, quill pens, tall ships and . . . she recovered. These days, she also knew, most Americans who’ve spent any length of time in England felt wintry Saturdays were the sort of days when absolutely nothing important could or should happen. These days were good for hot tea, newspapers, a warm fire and Mozart. She had already told Sir Anthony the Ambassador was “unavailable.” Nevertheless, he still asked. “Could the Ambassador be at my office by ten, this morning?” Elizabeth Harrison said nothing in reply and Sir Anthony continued. “It concerns a private matter,” he said. “He needs to meet me here.”
Mrs. Harrison wondered if Ambassador Brown really knew Sir Anthony. Of course, he knew who Sir Anthony was, but did he actually know the man? Had they ever really met? McHenry Brown was a very social person. Indeed, he was the American Ambassador to the Court of St. James’s, a posting nearly 475 years old. Henry VIII had built St. James’s Palace. He started it in 1531 and by 1536 it was suitable for the royal family. For 300 years it was the actual home of the reigning English monarchs, kings and queens alike. It had been Victoria, in 1837, who changed that. Independent woman that she was, she picked up and moved to Buckingham Palace where she and all her successors to date have lived their lives in royal splendor. However, St. James’s Palace has never given up its designation as the official royal residence. Thus, all those who serve as Ambassadors to England are said to serve at the Court of St. James’s. It was McHenry Brown’s honor to do so as it was his job to be social, to know everyone and anyone of influence. It was also his pleasure. Sir Anthony was certainly such a person, yet she tried to recall the last time he had been seen at a public event. At his age such absence was more than understandable. It was expected.
Of Sir Anthony’s fellow named partners, Mr. Herndon had been dead for seventy-five years and Sturgis nearly half that time. Although he was twenty-five years Sir Anthony’s junior, Mr. Nelson too was sadly long departed. Only Sir Anthony survived. He became a partner in London’s most important law firm more than seventy years ago. In his day he’d been a powerful figure at the bar. To Mrs. Harrison, that was a long time ago. Everyone knew it had been decades since he was actively involved in any of the day-to-day goings-on of England’s power elite. The question of his familiarity with Ambassador Brown remained an unsettled matter in her mind. They might as easily be close friends as strangers, she thought. The tone of Sir Anthony’s voice gave no hint. In any case, Mrs. Harrison, while she preferred not to think of it, knew perfectly well what the Ambassador was doing now and what sort of activities he and his friend would surely be involved in when their tennis game ended. Meeting Sir Anthony Wells, at any time today, much less in an hour, was entirely out of the question.
Elizabeth Harrison had worked for McHenry Brown since his Wall Street days twenty years ago. He trusted her completely and with total justification. When he was named Ambassador to England, a post once held by Joseph P. Kennedy, Mrs. Harrison convinced her husband, Norman, to have his advertising agency transfer him to their London office. He did and they moved to England. Some said she would have gone without him. She was devoted to McHenry Brown’s interest and protected his privacy with a zeal and competence other men in public life admired, envied and tried so hard to duplicate. Quite naturally she replied to Sir Anthony, “Of course, Sir Anthony, ten o’clock will be fine.” He gave her special directions to an open door at the side of the building in which Herndon, Sturgis, Wells & Nelson was the sole occupant, as well as the location of his office suite. It was, after all, he said, “a February Saturday and no staff would be present to show him in. I shall be the only one here.”
“I’m sure the Ambassador will find you without difficulty,” she said.
She said that to him knowing there would be no appearance by the Ambassador, that it would not be McHenry Brown who’d pay him a visit, and in the full knowledge Sir Anthony knew it too.
After checking the morning duty roster, she called the ranking American official on the premises. “Harry,” she said, “can you come over to the Ambassador’s office right away? There’s something very important you need to do.” Harry Levine was no stranger to diplomatic speech. In that peculiar language, very important clearly meant it’s not important at all. Important alone, used by itself minus the adjective very, meant important. If something was indeed very important, it was referred to as vitally important. Should there be a potential for danger attached to the matter at hand, then it would be spoken of as gravely important. And if the danger was immediate, if the threat was clear and present, then it would be a matter of critical importance. Not only did Harry understand this, he knew Elizabeth Har
rison did too.
The table of organization at the Embassy, that long list of deputies, assistants, attachés and their assistants, plus all the other titles, each accompanied by their job descriptions—both the politicals as well as the Foreign Service people—listed her simply as an Administrative Assistant. No matter, Harry was certainly aware Elizabeth Harrison was the embassy’s de facto Chief of Staff. She spoke with the full weight of the Ambassador. Nowhere in the Foreign Service manuals was it written, or listed anywhere among the rules and regulations that govern diplomacy, but it was not at all unusual for the same circumstance to exist at other embassies, all over the world. Especially American ones. Powerful American men, private as well as public, had a habit of depending on and trusting in their female assistants. A French diplomat, perhaps more intimate with his mistress than his wife, once told Harry he suspected American men spent their entire lives looking for their mother, seeking her approval. “So, what’s wrong with that,” replied Harry, to which his French friend just laughed.
Harry’s own place on that list was well down the chain of command. He was designated as Deputy Ambassador, Trade (Legal Section). Deputy Ambassador was a heady title only to those outside the loop. Harry Levine was one of two dozen such in London alone. His was not a political position. He was Foreign Service, a true representative of his country, not merely his government. His job was to provide the legal guidance necessary for American business and American businessmen to prosper in England. It was a technical post, one which mainly involved helping American interests operate within the framework of English law. A compatible legal heritage combined with a common language to help make this easy work. Despite its often-mundane aspects, he loved it as much as he loved England. He was smart enough to forego an ambition he had little of to begin with, together with career advancement he had no desire for, in exchange for a permanent place in London. He was a great success. He did a good job. American businessmen, prominent men in their fields, many with substantial political influence, liked him. When the time came, Harry was not timid about asking some of them to help him remain in his comfortable spot. After a few years he was safely immune from the fears and irregularities of Foreign Service rotation.
Whatever Elizabeth Harrison had in mind for him, no matter how unimportant it might be, Harry was ready and willing. He was, Saturday joke or not, the senior man on the premises. It was what he was there for.
“I’ll be right there,” he said.
Harry took a cab instead of an embassy car to Herndon, Sturgis, Wells & Nelson. Usually, he walked wherever possible. He liked London better than any city in the world. It was a city for walkers. The safety and friendliness of its streets ranked high among the many reasons he preferred it to other capitals. It wasn’t that the streets of Roswell, Georgia or Atlanta didn’t hold warm memories for him. They did. New Orleans too, of course. He frequently missed being there. Philadelphia he could take or leave. It hardly mattered. Law school had been more of a bore than he expected, a necessary experience but not one he’d like to do a second time. London was what he had been looking for. Of course, he didn’t know it until he got there.
When he joined the Foreign Service, Harry got a first-class introduction to cruel city streets. His initial posting was to Ankara, Turkey, where he spent two difficult but interesting years. Then he was sent to Cairo where he stayed another two years. When he was reassigned from Egypt to the Embassy in Paris, Harry Levine had survived four years in, if not the Third World, something close to it. Out of sheer necessity he had become expert in navigating their crooked, often nasty alleys. Being in France was so different—like being on holiday. Everything was so clean, including the Frenchmen he encountered in carrying out his duties. Unlike the Turks and Egyptians, the exchange of money was not a requirement of a routine transaction. Not all of them, anyway. And then, when he was posted to London, for the first time as an adult, he felt at home.
He found a flat in Soho, just off Regent Street, within walking distance of the American Embassy in Grosvenor Square. He spent much of his free time casually strolling about in the small streets of London’s neighborhoods, among the ancient buildings that had withstood the centuries and the bombs. Often, he would lazily browse the stacks at Foyle’s or Blackwell’s bookshops in Charing Cross Road or the tiny, crowded stores in Berwick Street near Oxford Circus that featured old and rare recordings. Harry came to think of London as his city, a place where he felt as eternal as Westminster Abbey, as strong as the ancient Tower and as stable as Buckingham Palace. It was the only city in which he was ever truly serene.
When transportation needs meant a ride was absolutely necessary, when walking was out of the question, he liked to take cabs, not embassy cars. Taxis held a special place in Harry’s life, in his sense of himself and his maturity. As a young man in Atlanta and later in New Orleans, as well as during those three cold years in Philadelphia, a taxi meant freedom and privacy. He could get in a cab, tell a stranger where to go, then sit back, alone, undisturbed and unperturbed. In those years, he recalled, there was no other place in his life where he exercised such total control, enjoyed such liberation and felt such anonymity, momentary and temporary as it may have been.
He brought that aspect of his character overseas. In Turkey and Egypt he was thought foolhardy for rejecting embassy cars in favor of local taxis. At a hotel, restaurant or cafe, he frequently hailed a passing cab and off he went. More than once he was told how dangerous this behavior was. One senior official in Cairo actually accused Harry of “putting all Americans in Egypt in jeopardy” just by taking a cab ride. He never did figure that one out. It wasn’t until Paris that his liking for cabs went unnoticed. Of course, everything about Harry Levine seemed to go unnoticed at the American Embassy in Paris. Now, finally in London, getting from place to place was simply not an issue.
The cabbies of London were like the grown men who drove cabs in the big cities of America many years ago. It was a real job, one for men with wives and families. If not a profession, it was a full-time occupation, something you could be proud of, if that’s what you did. Harry liked it that London’s cabbies were polite— “Where to, sir?” they would ask. If they offered conversation at all, it too would be polite. Not like the cab drivers in America. Harry remembered them well. So many were Africans, men with poor language skills and no sense of direction. If they were white and spoke English, chances were all they talked about was “the fucking niggers” this, or “the fucking niggers” that. When they finished those filthy diatribes they always had to add something like “you know what I mean?” and Harry would be forced to reply, “Just drive.” England provided him many wonders, not least among them the return of his freedom, privacy and the sense of independence and security that waited for him in the back seat of a London taxi.
Arriving at Herndon, Sturgis, Wells & Nelson, Harry found the small side door to the old five-story building and presented himself at Sir Anthony’s office exactly at ten o’clock. “Come in,” said Sir Anthony. “Please be seated. Do pour yourself some tea. I am Sir Anthony Wells.” He spoke with simple ease, aware that no one to whom he introduced himself could have been unaware. “And,” he said, “while I’ve not met you, I am pleased to see the duty officer was not a young lady. I hope that doesn’t offend you. I’ve nothing against young ladies. Quite the opposite in fact. It’s just . . .” and then he seemed to drift off, his attention sort of floating away on a gentle breeze, or maybe caught on the tide of some unseen ocean. His eyes even got kind of watery.
Sir Anthony’s office was smaller than Harry expected, older and darker too. All the light in the room was provided by a single lamp on his desk. The building which housed this venerable law firm was probably three hundred years old, but the offices were new and modern, some obviously renovated recently. Not Sir Anthony’s. His suite of rooms was probably as it had been for a century or more. The outside office, his secretary’s, was by any reasonable description, tiny. Her desk—Harry pictured Sir Antho
ny’s secretary as an older, very proper woman—took up nearly all the available space. Behind that desk, hung upon the shiny oak paneled wall, was a large oil portrait of Sir Charles Herndon, the firm’s founder. Sir Anthony had actually seen him once in the summer of 1927 when Sir Charles, then in his late eighties, paid a final visit to “my place” as he called it. He died a few years later, just before Christmas. To Harry’s right, as he stood in the outside office, was what should have been the office used by Sir Anthony’s clerk. The door was halfway open and it appeared unoccupied, unused. No doubt, he had no need for a clerk any longer. To Harry’s left was Sir Anthony’s office. His walls, also oak from floor to ceiling, were completely lined with bookshelves, filled with law books and journals bound in special binders embossed with small letters. Harry couldn’t make out the citations identifying these volumes, but guessed they were very old and not much use to a working attorney today. The far wall was interrupted by a small fireplace in which no fire presently burned. The large window to the right and behind Sir Anthony’s desk looked directly out on the front of the building apparently near its center. Between the window and the fireplace was a glass table with no chairs and on it an elegant silver tea service for four complete with what appeared to be crackers and toast. Sir Anthony Wells sat behind a massive mahogany desk, far too large for an office this small. Two matching visitors’ chairs faced it head on. Harry poured himself a cup of tea, as his host requested, and sat down directly across from Sir Anthony. He looked at the old man closely. It was not often he met someone 100 years old. Sir Anthony was a small man, hard to measure sitting, but surely not more than five feet six inches. He was extremely thin in the way only very old people sometimes get. He wore an expensive gray wool suit that looked fairly new to Harry, and he had on a shirt with an old-fashioned collar, one that almost covered the knot in his tie. As Sir Anthony’s attention drifted, Harry thought he appeared ancient, delicate, probably breakable to the touch.
The Lacey Confession Page 9