He nodded, and I left him—he had half a doughnut to go. I’d finished mine.
I crossed the bullpen—maybe half our agents were out in the field, which pleased me, because that meant income—and Gladys stopped me just outside my office. She was in a blue and white print dress and that body, even in her fifties, even with a few pounds on it, was worth hating Lou over.
“I took the liberty of making an appointment for you,” she said.
“Imagine that.” As if she hadn’t done that thousands of times.
“Two o’clock. It’s an old friend of ours—Eben Boldt.”
“Really. Did he say what about?”
“He asked if you had the entire afternoon clear, and I said yes.”
“Anything else?”
“No. Very closemouthed, our Eben. I always found him a little humorless. Didn’t you?”
That was like Jefferson on Mount Rushmore saying that Washington character seemed kind of stoic.
“Hadn’t noticed,” I said.
A few minutes later, Lou stepped into my private office, shut the door behind him, and settled into the client’s chair. I was already behind my desk.
“Where were we?” he asked.
With no further preamble, I gave him a straight report on the conversation with Hoffa.
Lou sat blank-faced throughout. When I’d wrapped it up, he said, “Do you believe him?”
“I don’t not believe him. That he didn’t deny the possibility one of his people did it, on their own initiative, says something.”
He considered that, then asked, “Are you satisfied that he’s satisfied?”
“That I’m not a loose end? Well, I don’t think I am to him. But if one of his guys did take it upon himself to remove Tom, it’s possible they might try the same with me.”
Behind the lenses, his eyes were almost gone, just cuts in his face. “Doesn’t have to be one of his guys, you know.”
“True. Could be the Outfit, on their own, or even…”
I didn’t say it, but Lou just nodded, slowly. The word we both skipped was CIA. Operation Mongoose cast a long fucking shadow.
I said, “Make a discreet call down to Dallas to see if Jack Ruby is back. His club’s called the Carousel. Nothing direct—if there’s some agency we work with down there who can check this out without getting Ruby’s attention, that would be perfect.”
“We do have a guy down there.”
“Good. If Ruby isn’t deep in the heart of Texas yet, check our local hotels and see if you come up with him. He might be staying under Jake Rubinstein.”
“Okay. Figure to have a chat with your old West Side compadre?”
“If he’s in town. If he’s back home … we’ll see.”
Neither of us said anything for a few seconds.
“If you are a loose end,” Lou said, “that means somebody’s weaving something goddamn serious. How the hell could a small-change payoff to a nobody like Jake Rubinstein get Tom Ellison killed? And put you on the spot?”
I laughed softly. “‘On the spot.’ There’s an old Chicago term for you. Going back to Capone days.…”
“What kind of steps can you take?”
“Well, I slept downstairs with Sally last night,” I said, shrugging one shoulder, “as a kind of half-ass precaution.”
Nobody called Sally “Helen” except me, and maybe her mother, so I stuck with the familiar.
“You got her moved in okay?” he asked, his turn to pose a question he knew the answer to but asked anyway.
I nodded. “I love having her around, but this is a lousy time. If I’m reading Hoffa wrong, I’m putting her at serious risk.”
“She’s a big girl, Nate.”
“Actually, she’s a little wisp of a tough-as-nails thing.”
Lou smiled a little. “She take those meetings you lined up at the Chez Paree and Empire Room?”
“Yeah,” I said, relieved to have the subject changed. “Nice response, some apparent interest, particularly from Mike Satariano. But no bookings yet. I set her up with meets with the managers at the Ivanhoe Club, this morning, and the Gaslight, this afternoon.”
“I wish her luck,” he said, crossing his arms, but his expression said he thought she had a rough road ahead of her. “Cabaret and theater aren’t what they used to be in this town. Sally’s probably going to have to go the strip club route. Even at her age, she’s a name in that world.”
“She doesn’t look her age,” I reminded him.
“No, and neither do I, and neither do you, but we are still old fuckers. Never forget that.”
“Where Sally has it over on us,” I said, “is nobody would pay a nickel to see us in our birthday suits.”
That made him chuckle, and he rose. “I hear Eben Boldt’s stopping by today. If you can make him smile, I’ll buy lunch two days running. Make him laugh, I’ll spot you, my missus, and Sally to supper at the Café de Paris.”
“Honor system?”
“Sure. You wouldn’t lie to me.”
“Only because you’d know.”
He shut the door—like all invaders of other people’s privacy, I prized my own—leaving me smiling, because he was right about Eben Boldt. What it took to make that guy laugh was a mystery this detective had never cracked.
Nice guy, though, and smart, and if I might be allowed, I was proud of him.
Eben Boldt was the only Negro Secret Service agent in the Chicago office, one of a handful in the nation, and had even spent a number of months on the White House detail, the first Secret Service agent of his race.
Boldt had grown up in East St. Louis, Illinois, his father a railroad worker, his mother a strict disciplinarian. He’d been raised around Dixieland and jazz music, which was the part of his personality I liked best, and he’d earned a college degree in music.
So in the summer of 1957, when he showed up on the A-1’s doorstep, saying he was interested in a career in criminal investigation, I said, “Hum a few bars and I’ll fake it.” That marked the first of many times I looked into the sharp-eyed chocolate oval of his face and got no reaction.
“I’m serious about this, Mr. Heller,” he said.
He’d been twenty-two years old, a handsome kid—not Sidney Poitier handsome maybe, but close enough, a slender, highly presentable exemplar of his people.
We ran a regular advertisement seeking investigators but had never had a Negro apply before. I thought a young colored operative would come in very handy in Chicago, and based on his professional if somber demeanor, and his impressive grade average at Lincoln University, I took him on.
Boldt was with us only a year, however, before he applied to the Illinois State Highway Police. It was clear the A-1 had just been a stepping-stone into what I’m sure he figured would be “real” police work, but I took no offense. He’d done an excellent job for us, mostly working undercover on gambling-related cases in Bronzeville, and I had been happy to give him a glowing letter of recommendation.
His work experience for the A-1 probably helped Eben move quickly out of traffic into the then brand-new Illinois Criminal Investigation Division. He’d been noticed there by the head of the Springfield office of the Secret Service, and encouraged to apply—which he did, passing the civil service test and entering the Secret Service in 1960.
Eben and I had not been friends exactly—I’d been his employer, and much older—but we encountered each other from time to time, when the A-1 had occasion to interact with the local Secret Service office.
And he had shared with me the story of how he got invited to be on the White House detail. He had a very somber, grandiose way of telling it, which on the several occasions I’d heard it had never failed to make me laugh. He took no apparent offense but never saw the humor.
Jack Kennedy had been in Chicago at McCormick Place for a banquet designed as a thank-you for Mayor Daley and his political machine, who’d helped put the Prez over the top in Illinois, through means that might best be described as imaginative.
Boldt’s role had been to stand guard in the basement at a restroom set aside for the President’s personal use. When Kennedy and an entourage including the mayor, the governor, various congressional leaders, and local pols trooped past Boldt’s post, the President raised a hand like Ward Bond halting the wagon train. Seemed the leader of the free world needed to heed nature’s call.
Nevertheless, Kennedy paused to speak to Boldt, the President seeming to the agent “strangely shy.” He asked the Negro, “Are you one of Mayor Daley’s finest, young man?”
“I’m a Secret Service agent, Mr. President.”
An agent accompanying the group called out, “He’s assigned to the Chicago office, sir! His name is Eben Boldt.”
Kennedy said to the doorman, “Do you know if there has ever been a Negro agent on the Secret Service White House detail, Mr. Boldt?”
“Not to my knowledge, Mr. President.”
“How would you like to be the first?”
“Yes, sir, Mr. President!”
The next day, Eben had his new marching orders.
“That’s how I became the first Negro Secret Service agent to serve at the White House,” he said, the first time I heard the story.
“What you are,” I said, laughing, “is the first bathroom attendant ever promoted to the White House staff.”
Eben had not seen the humor.
Nor had he fit in well on the White House detail. He had gotten along famously with JFK and Bobby, but there was friction with the other agents. They made continual racial digs, and Eben wasn’t the kind of guy who could roll with punches like that. I’m not saying he should have, just that he couldn’t. He reported his fellow agents for racial comments, as well as drinking and carousing when on the road with the President, and was generally not popular.
Eben requested a return to the Chicago office, after a three-month probationary tour, and permission was granted.
Lou and I discussed the A-1’s talented if tight-assed graduate over lunch at Binyon’s.
“He’s a good man,” Lou said. “Think of the shit we’ve got as Jews, over the years, and just try to imagine what his life is like.”
“I’m not a Jew,” I said, over my finnan haddie. “I’m just a Mick with an unfortunate last name. Anyway, his life would be easier if he knew how to laugh.”
“See? You are a Jew.”
Lou also reported to me that he’d assigned various men (and one woman) to the Ellison case, as I’d outlined earlier.
When we got back at one forty-five, Eben Boldt was already there, seated in the waiting room, hands folded in his lap, as immobile as a cigar-store Indian.
Seeing Lou and me, he shot to his feet. He was in a crisply tailored dark-gray suit with a white button-down shirt and a black tie with a restrained red pattern; his black wingtips were mirror-shined. A charcoal green-feathered hat was on the seat cushion next to him.
And he immediately proved me wrong—he smiled at us both. Not a big smile, but he was obviously pleased to see us, and shook both our hands, a firm, perspiration-free grip.
“Mr. Sapperstein,” he said, with nods to both of us. “Mr. Heller.”
“You know us too well for that, Eben,” I said. “It’s Nate and Lou, okay? And just because you work for the government, don’t expect me to call you ‘mister.’”
He gave me a blank look. He could smile—it was just humor that he missed.
I led Eben through the bullpen and he nodded and said hello to a couple of agents who’d worked here when he did. No stopping for conversation, though. We moved right into my office, he took the client chair and I got behind my desk, and we had one of the shortest conversations on (or off) record at the A-1.
“Someone wants to see you,” he said. He stood. “I’ll drive.”
I stayed put. “What, you’re taking me for a ride? To a Chicago guy, that has a kind of nasty ring.”
Nothing.
“Okay,” I said, getting up and coming around the desk. “Why don’t you drive, then?”
He frowned a little, but politely opened my door for me.
Soon the Secret Service man was behind the wheel of a dark-blue Chevy Impala with me in the passenger seat. No other agent had made the trip with Eben—it was just the two of us. On this cool, overcast day, both in raincoat and hat, we headed a few blocks west to the Northwest Highway, and before long were at Foster Avenue, where the road split; keeping left took you to O’Hare, but Eben headed north onto the Edens Expressway.
He hadn’t said anything since telling me somebody wanted to see me.
We got off the expressway at Lake Street, heading west past ranch-style houses and other nice but not pricey middle-class residences.
Finally he broke the ice. “I was in an interesting meeting this morning.”
“Really. What kind of meeting, Eben?”
“Coordination meeting. They held it in the anteroom of Mayor Daley’s office. Fifth floor of City Hall?”
I knew where Mayor Daley’s office was, but didn’t point that out, just saying, “Ah. You were representing the Secret Service at this meeting?”
Whatever the hell it was about.
He steered with two tight hands. Wouldn’t want that Impala to get away from him like a bucking bronco. “I was there with Special Agent in Charge Martineau. I think the SAIC may have resented my presence, but the White House apparently requested it.”
And he smiled again. Just a little. Eben obviously got a kick out of the boss getting trumped by the Negro’s connections in high places.
I, on the other, was not smiling. The White House?
Eben was saying, “There were three deputy chiefs of police on hand, and Captain Linsky, security liaison between the PD and the SS.”
He meant Secret Service, not Hitler’s elite.
“Your friend Chief Cain was there, Nate, serving in the same capacity as Captain Linksy, but for the sheriff’s department. Lasted a good four hours, the meeting.”
“Did it? Is it a breach of security for you to tell me what the meeting was about?”
Since we’d been discussing it for five minutes.
“Oh. Sorry. Thought I’d covered that. We were mapping out the security plans for the President’s visit Saturday. He’s scheduled to attend the Army–Air Force game at Soldier Field.”
“Yeah, I noticed that on the front page on my way to do the Jumble.”
He ignored that, which was okay—it didn’t really merit anything. “Each deputy chief was assigned an area of responsibility. Patrol Deputy Rochford, the airport. Traffic Deputy Madi, the motorcade route. Captain Linsky, the Conrad Hilton—where the President’s motorcade ends up, and where he and his staff will headquarter for the trip. Chief Cain has the stadium, and various street security functions. The mayor’s special events man, Jack Reilly, was there, too. Extended His Honor’s best wishes for a safe visit.”
We were passing through a section of middle-class businesses, currently gliding by Scott Foresman, the textbook publisher, home of the Dick and Jane primers. See Nate. See Nate ride. See Nate wonder what the fuck was up.
“For a few hours yesterday,” Eben said, eyes on the road, “I was ranking agent in the office. So I was the one who took the call.”
I frowned at him. “What call?”
“From the FBI. Phoning from Washington. The agent on the line said they had information from an informant warning of an attempt to assassinate the President by a four-man team using high-powered rifles.”
“What?”
“The attempt would be made on his way to the Army–Air Force game.”
Eben took a curve and I knocked against my door as Lake Street opened up on the north side into a vast open space—an airfield that pre-dated most of the neighborhood we’d just passed through.
The agent was saying, “The suspects are reportedly right-wing military paramilitary fanatics … armed with rifles with telescopic sights. The assassination itself would likely be attempted at one of the Northwest Highway overp
asses.”
“The FBI considers this credible intel?”
“Yes. But I don’t know anything about the informant, except that the agent on the phone mentioned his name is ‘Lee.’”
That college-campus rabble-rouser with Ruby had been named Lee. Coincidence, surely.
“Shortly after the phone call,” Eben continued, “a telex came in, confirming it. A long, detailed telex that went straight to Martineau, who was back in the office by then. I have to admit it surprised me.”
“I would think so. An assassination plot…”
“Well, yes, that does get one’s attention. But, Nate, the FBI seldom cooperates with the Secret Service. We’re rival entities. Yet for some reason, Mr. Hoover seems eager to pass this one along to us.”
That was odd: that aging iguana who ran the FBI would normally relish the opportunity to reap the rewards of the positive publicity saving the President’s life would bring. On the other hand, maybe J. Edgar figured if somebody failed to save the President, let that somebody be the Secret Service.
Eben was shaking his head, rather glumly. “I’m not normally one to pass the buck, but I admit I would prefer this had stayed with the FBI. We’re really understaffed, Nate. Critically understaffed. We have only thirteen men in the Chicago office—many with other assignments. I got pulled off a counterfeiting job, for example. The idea of a group conspiring to do something like this … it blindsides us.”
“Why is that? It’s your job, isn’t it?”
“Well … we frankly are more used to dealing with the cranks who write their crazy letters and make their threatening phone calls. We pull them in, and they’re usually mental cases, perhaps with a cheap handgun and some irrational score to settle. If the President is coming to town, we just keep them locked up till he leaves again.”
The airfield was bordered by a mix of chain-link and solid fencing. A Navy helicopter was on the runway among fighter planes and prop jobs—no jets. A huge old hanger and a control tower loomed.
“Eben, what does any of this have to do with me? And what the hell are we doing at Glenview Naval Air Station?”
The Negro turned onto an access road and headed toward a guard gate.
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