“But, Abby . . . ,” said Rose, her voice rising above its normal high-pitched near scream.
“No buts.” Abby held up both hands. “The vast majority of Americans—the vast majority of people all over the world—believe the President was assassinated by a conspiracy. You know that. I know you know that.” Rose nodded silently, in acquiescence. “For as long as that notion of conspiracy is not confirmed, not proven—for as long as people feel they do not know who killed President Kennedy—his legend is safe. Camelot is safe. What you have struggled so long to build, is safe. Only Lacey can change that.”
“Oh, my God.” Rose Kennedy began crying again.
“Leave him to me,” said Abby. “I’ll take care of it.”
To do that she had to get her hands on Lacey’s document. Lacey himself was untouchable, but the document was another matter. Abby was single-minded and determined. She answered only to Rose Kennedy. The matriarch of the Kennedy family knew the awful truth, but Abby never told another living soul about Frederick Lacey’s confession. Except for Louis Devereaux. It was well known within the Kennedy compound that Abby did something very important and her authority was not to be questioned. Nothing about her task changed when Rose Kennedy followed her children into the arms of Jesus, albeit more peacefully than they had.
Abby met Louis Devereaux in Chicago, in 1971. He was twenty. She’d been invited back to her law school as part of a two-day seminar covering a wide range of legal topics. On the second morning, she sat on a panel discussing the Fourth Amendment. The then Editor-in-Chief of the Law Review, a young man from Louisiana named Louis Devereaux, delivered a paper in which he argued that the strictures of the Fourth Amendment did not apply to the President of the United States. Under certain circumstances, he maintained, the President’s power to investigate was basically without limit. Abby wasn’t sure he was serious, but she was fascinated with the skill of his presentation and the structure of his argument. She did, of course, pass off as a joke Devereaux’s idea that the President—any President—could break into someone’s house or office, secretly and without a warrant and, if caught, claim constitutional immunity. She did not fail to notice the subtle support for Devereaux’s claim expressed by some members of the panel after the young man’s paper. Louis was a force. He had a way about him. If he hadn’t convinced them, he sure scared them with the possibility. Later, when she stopped Devereaux in the hallway, she was even more impressed to realize he wasn’t at all committed to the ideas he’d just proposed. The thrill of the argument gave him a buzz. She admired that, her sense of the absurdity of others, very much a part of her character too. Abby liked to have fun. She recognized a kindred spirit and gave him her card. “Stay in touch,” she said. She meant it and he knew it. She was not the type to glad-hand people and he was certainly not the type to be glad-handed. They both saw something special in each other. Abby O’Malley fit exactly into Devereaux’s experience with his mother and sisters—older, strong, accomplished women. She was precisely the kind of person for whom he reserved his respect and admiration. The two of them shared a commonality of world-view—not a nitpicking uniformity on policy, but a grander agreement on the ultimate scheme of the universe. As well, they shared ambition and recognition of each other as someone they would surely meet at the top of the mountain. They were determined to greet one another at the summit as allies. They would never lose touch with each other.
Had either of them known that John Ehrlichman would read Devereaux’s Law Review article, expanding his Fourth Amendment idea, and then arrogantly spout the thesis of Presidential exception to the Senate Watergate Committee, they would have had a good laugh. Years later, when Devereaux listened to Nixon’s tapes, he was disappointed Ehrlichman failed to credit him. “That’s a great idea, John!” Nixon could be heard saying. “Where did you get it from?” Ehrlichman calmly claimed it as his own.
In 1975 Abby met and married David Lowenthal, a shy, gentle, sometimes mystical Fine Arts professor at Harvard. He was also a well-known sculptor. Their relationship would be intensely private. He was so absorbed with his pursuit of art and beauty that he never really learned the details of his wife’s job. She did not care much. She did not encourage his curiosity, not in that area. She wasn’t the type to come home telling stories of her day at work. He adored her and she him. That was all either needed. At more than one Boston party, David Lowenthal was heard to explain what his wife did by saying she had “something to do with investments.”
Abby O’Malley was a patient woman. She gave no ground as Frederick Lacey wilted slowly, living longer, much longer than anyone had a right to. The day he finally died, her decades of planning were over. Within minutes events were in motion.
The Heerensgracht was frozen over. All the canals were. The smell of ice was in the air. Biting winds swept in off the North Sea. The usual canal traffic—the small outboards, the long, low tourist boats and the water taxis that ferried people from the Leidseplein to the Van Gogh Museum and on to the Flower Market—were all on hold until spring. It was damn cold in Amsterdam. Walter brought the wrong jacket. He’d forgotten how unpleasant the Dutch winter could be. The city was beautiful, as it always was, but he was freezing in his windbreaker, even with a sweater underneath. Fortunately, the apartment at 310 Heerensgracht was a short cab ride from Amsterdam Central Station.
The train from Bergen op Zoom got them to Amsterdam late in the afternoon. Walter had been in Central Station often enough to feel familiar there. He could never get the picture out of his mind, the sight of German trains loaded with Nazi soldiers pulling in on the same tracks his own train now rode on. He’d seen it in documentaries and newsreels. Why it didn’t bother the Dutch more was a mystery to him. Perhaps, one needed to be a European to understand. Europe was more the same than different, now. But how could all—or nearly all—be forgiven, he wondered. It never occurred to Walter that he himself was an occupier. St. John was hardly one of the thirteen colonies and May 4, 1734, meant nothing to him. For many on St. John, the ritual suicide of that day marked it indelibly as the saddest day ever.
The apartment Aat arranged for them was on the first floor of a narrow, three-story building that probably had been there since the sixteenth or seventeenth century. Like most of the old buildings in Amsterdam, the first floor was actually well above ground level, up a steep, stone stairway. He told Walter there would be a key under the mat. It was there. Upon entering the house, their place was immediately on the left. To get into the apartment, they had to open a massive, black, solid wood door that looked to Walter to be all of ten feet high. There was only a single lock, a simple tumbler. Once inside, Walter and Harry were somewhat surprised to find the place furnished in an ultra modern style neither one of them found very attractive. Cold, straight lines seemed to be the theme of the day, minimalism carried to its extreme. The ceilings, like those in most first-floor flats along the canals, were twelve to fourteen feet high. The walls had been sprayed with a bright, white paint, punctuated in a few spots, apparently selected at random, by the sort of art Walter never cared for. For a moment he was reminded of the two very large canvases, filled with big, colorful, abstract shapes, that had hung opposite each other on Isobel Gitlin’s living room walls on West End Avenue in New York.
A tiny kitchen nestled in a corner at the far end of the room, exposed except for a table-high countertop. Two very strange, tall barstools, that Walter thought looked like somebody’s idea of skinny, black metal flamingos, were tucked up against it. Down the hall, past the kitchen on the right, was a small toilet and shower and, at the hallway’s end, a door opened to the apartment’s only bedroom. One bed was in the room, a platform affair, little more than a thin mattress without benefit of a box spring, apparently laid on nothing more than a slab of wood. Simple, thought Walter. Probably cost a fortune. The bedroom, like the rest of the apartment, was done in stark contrast, black or white. For a while it appeared that neither Walter nor Harry wanted to take that bed for themselv
es. Then Walter spoke.
“Make yourself at home,” he said, taking off his jacket and tossing it on one of the ugly barstools. “Take the bedroom,” he added.
“Where are you going to sleep?”
“Out here.” Walter pointed to the living room couch.
“It looks like something you might find in a prison,” said Harry, examining the couch.
“An expensive prison,” mumbled Walter. “Anyway, wash up and we’ll eat.” They had taken the time to stop, in Central Station, at a shop selling broodjes. “It means sandwiches,” Walter told Harry as he pointed toward the sign. They bought more than they needed because Walter said they couldn’t be sure when they could go out for more food.
“If we don’t eat them, we can throw them out,” Harry said.
“We’ll eat them. Don’t worry about that. Grab a couple of drinks while you’re at it.”
They don’t sell Diet Coke in the Netherlands. What they do offer is something they call Coca Cola Light. They replace the artificial sweetener used in America with corn syrup or some other natural sweetening agent. It still has basically no calories, but it’s a little sweeter. They don’t use the word diet on foods or drinks because something about it offends Dutch sensibilities. They are a very fit people who, unlike Americans, do not live in constant fear of fat. You’d have a hard time finding a Dutchman who ever heard of the Atkins diet. So, Walter threw a few cans of Coca Cola Light into the bag, together with a container of milk Harry handed him.
Darkness fell soon after they arrived. It was evening in the heart of winter and the sun sets early in Holland. Amsterdam is a lively city—many would say the liveliest in Europe—but there’s no nightlife, no restaurants, bars or coffee shops on the Heerensgracht. The Gentleman’s Canal was called such for good reason. Walter was not surprised when Aat told him that was where they would stay. Harry went to use the toilet and when he emerged he saw Walter standing next to the first of the two huge, nearly floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking the canal. He separated the sheer curtains that fell lightly from a window treatment at the top all the way to the floor, and he stood there for a long time looking down the street in both directions and straight across to the other side of the iced-over waterway. Then he did the same thing at the other window. After that he opened their front door, pretended like he was coming into the building and counted the steps, to and beyond their apartment door, all the way to the stairway leading up to the second and third floors. All the while Harry stared at him. He was sure Walter was doing something important. Thus far, Harry had not seen anything about Walter to indicate that he ever did anything without a purpose to it. But, watching this little bit of theater, Harry had no clue what Walter was up to. Finally, Walter told Harry to open the front door of the building, twice. He had him close it carefully behind him the first time, allowing it to shut almost by itself, lending just a hand at the last instant to keep it from slamming. The second time Harry was instructed to let it close on its own, unimpeded.
“Just let it slam shut,” said Walter.
As Harry did this, Walter went back inside, sat down on the living room couch and, with the apartment door closed, he listened. When Harry was done he came back inside. Walter said, “Let’s eat.”
Aat van de Steen knocked on their door at eight, sharp. “Hoe gaat het met de oude jongen?” he said, wrapping his arms around Walter in a bear hug. “I am so glad to see you again. So glad.”
“Me too,” said Walter. “Look at you. You look great.”
“Ah, ha! Like you, Walter Sherman, I too am een oude waas,”
“A what?”
“An old fool, my friend. An old fool.”
Aat van de Steen was tall and thin. He had the kind of good looks more appreciated in Europe than in America where broad features, wide shoulders and a little extra weight around the middle was expected from a successful man in his sixties. He wore an overcoat and scarf, both of which he immediately took off and hung carefully on a coat hook near the door. He was well dressed in a gray suit, light blue shirt and maroon striped tie. His hair, like his suit, was gray and perfectly cut. He ran his fingers through it twice and it fell into place. He looked like a man who was comfortable with luxury, yet he wore only a simple watch and no other jewelry. In Holland, gratuitous display of wealth is a serious faux pas. In the social democracy of the Netherlands there were, of course, many rich people, but they dutifully observed the social contract not to flaunt their material excesses in their everyday life. You would never hear a discussion of investments, real estate values or how much you paid for your car at a dinner party in Holland. No matter what your social standing, no Dutchman would be so crude as to ask how much you earned or speculate on the salary of others. Unlike the United States, people in Holland kept their finances to themselves. Walter knew, but Harry surely didn’t, that Aat van de Steen had more money than he could ever count.
“No one’s looking for you here,” said van de Steen. “Not on the Heerensgracht.”
“Heerensgracht,” Harry said somewhat absently.
“Very good,” Aat smiled. “Your Dutch will be better than Walter’s in no time.”
“I’m thinking that’s what we have,” chimed in Walter. “No time.”
“The Heerensgracht,” said Aat directly to Harry. “You would say, the Gentleman’s Canal. So, you are in the right place. I apologize for the bedroom—only one, that is.”
“Already a settled matter,” Walter replied. Harry nodded agreement.
“Before I forget, Walter,” he said, striding over to where his coat hung. “Let me give you this. You never can tell when you might need it.” He reached into the pocket of his overcoat and withdrew a .9mm pistol, one that had a dull, silver finish. It was not a small gun. Then he reached into the other coat pocket and took out two extra clips. He put them all down on the delicate, modern glass table in front of the couch.
“Een achteloze mens kan een dode mens zijn,” he said.
Walter had heard his Dutch friend say that very thing before, the first time many years ago in the jungles of Laos. He knew he was right. In English, it meant, “A careless man can be a dead man.”
“Holy shit!” said Harry, actually jumping backward. “How did you get a gun in Holland?”
Aat van de Steen looked at Harry like he was crazy, looked at Walter in disbelief, then broke into uproarious laughter. Walter couldn’t resist. Soon he too was laughing. Poor Harry stood there wondering what was so funny.
Tucker Poesy landed at Schiphol long before Walter’s plane got in from Frankfurt. Before she left London, she read his file, the one she picked up from the Indian. The material faxed to The Standard by Devereaux included a recent photo of Walter Sherman, taken outside a restaurant in Atlanta called Il Localino. He was attractive, she thought, for an old man. She had Walter’s flight information and a dozen pages with the details of one of the more interesting lives she had read about. The pages about Vietnam contained things that might have frightened some people. It intrigued her. As she often did when studying someone else’s exploits, she imagined herself in the same circumstances and wondered what she would have done. Some of what she read about Walter Sherman had happened many years ago. He was near sixty now and not quite so imposing. Yet, something about him stirred fear in Ms. Poesy’s belly. One thing was certain. Walter Sherman was not a man to be taken lightly. That was a mistake she would not make.
As she waited for Walter’s flight to land, she thought about her earlier fuck-up with Harry Levine. She was angry with herself. Her frustration was more than a little out of control. What a mess she had made in London. Quite rightly, she took the blame for it when she called Devereaux. But now, with ample time for self-protective rationalization, her pride was winning the battle against her sense of responsibility.
“Fuck you,” she told herself she should have said to Devereaux. “I’m not a goddamn babysitter.” Her job was killing people and most of the people she’d killed she’d never even spoken t
o—not a word. Now, she was being told to pick this guy up and hold on to him until she could get her hands on some document, a document Devereaux wanted so badly. “Bullshit!” she told herself. “Not my fucking job!”
She followed Walter Sherman downstairs in Schiphol, to the trains. She joined him on the train to Rotterdam, sitting two seats behind him. She changed trains, as he did, and traveled on with him to Bergen op Zoom. In Rotterdam, before getting on the train to Bergen op Zoom, she went to the restroom, removed her dark blue jacket, turned it inside out and it became a red one. She piled her hair on top of her head and pushed it under a small cap. She quickly rubbed off all her face makeup. Then she boarded the train and again sat two seats behind Walter Sherman.
She watched him walk into the Mercure de Draak. She waited across the square on which the hotel fronted. Ten minutes later she spotted him again, this time with her old friend Harry Levine. The two of them approached the front of the hotel coming from around the corner. They must have gone out through the back, she thought. When they took a cab, so did she. At the train station, she stood far enough back from them that she could be unseen. The two men bought tickets and started toward the tracks. Tucker Poesy ran up to the ticket window just after Walter and Harry walked away.
“Oh!” she said, trying very hard to make the ticket agent think she was catching her breath. “I missed them! My uncle and my cousin—they just left your window. They probably think I’m not coming. Please,” she said with her best helpless young girl smile, “give me a ticket too, just like theirs.” With her ticket in hand, she saw they were headed for Amsterdam Central Station, end of the line. She didn’t even have to ride in the same car. Not this time. They were all headed for the last stop. Not only that, she could actually close her eyes and get some sleep. When they arrived in Amsterdam, she didn’t need the sort of sweet technique she used buying her ticket in Bergen op Zoom. She trailed Harry Levine and Walter Sherman to a small food shop inside the station, watched as they bought some sandwiches and drinks and followed them outside to the cab line. When they took off, she jumped in a taxi and calmly told the driver, “Follow that cab.” The cabbie, a young man who looked distinctly Middle Eastern, glanced backward with some suspicion, but as soon as he caught the look in Tucker Poesy’s eyes, he quickly faced forward again. He never again looked in his rearview mirror after that. She frightened him.
The Lacey Confession Page 22