The Doomsday Bag

by Michael Avallone

  The Director was Hoover, of course. And I was Ed Noon. And Congressman Charles Cornell was the distinguished gentleman I was talking to on the telephone, and he was saying that a tall beautiful lady with cool thighs and a warm, delicious laugh was working for the men in Moscow.

  I resisted the information. I always do when people tell me there isn't a Santa Claus. Or a God. Or divine justice. Or love.

  "Congressman," I said as slowly as I could, keeping the disbelief down to a dull, aching roar, "that's ridiculous. She was standing right next to you in the club last night. If that pen had exploded—"

  "Meaningless. When I told the Director just that, he said that many times they will sacrifice an agent for a larger target. He claims she has lost her usefulness as far as the Reds are concerned because they somehow learned that the Bureau was on to her and was tolerating her in this country just to keep an eye on her. You see? They have an answer for everything. I know how you feel, Ed. The sky isn't so blue today for me, either."

  I must have stopped talking because I heard his voice again, almost rasping, "Ed—are you still there?"

  "Yes. Sorry. I was trying to think."

  "In any event, you had a right to know. Be on your guard. If she is what they say, then she knows as much about this Bagman business as anyone does. Had you planned to see her again?"

  "Yes. No. I'm not sure—but she would be a great lead, wouldn't she?"

  "I leave that to you, my boy. You're the detective. And a very fine one. In case you wonder about women like Felicia Carr, it can happen to the best of them. Young, beautiful, everything in life, and yet they become bored. They crave excitement, they want thrills—spying provides an outlet, it seems. Glamour, risking one's life. All the dissident youth of America aren't just on the campuses, son. You know that, but I will admit Felicia is the last woman I thought of in that light—"

  "You and me both, Congressman. Thanks for the hot flash. It should come in handy."

  "I leave all to your intelligence, Ed. Keep in touch. If anything breaks about Satchel, I'd appreciate knowing it."

  We hung up, miles apart, and closer than the pages of the Classifieds. Two men betrayed by a woman they both thought a lot of. A dame one of them might have been falling in love with.

  When I called her number, I was a different guy. I wore the cap and the bells and nobody would have suspected I was doing the Pagliacci bit. Only known her a day you might say and what was the big deal? I couldn't be sure, of course, but it also had something to do with patriotism, world peace, and "God Bless America."

  The number she had left seemed to be the phone circuit of the Washington Post.

  When she came on the wire, the same old electricity hooked up in my brain. The violin section tuned up again.

  "Hello," I said. "How are all the lilacs in Alexandria?"

  She laughed. That light, rippling treasonous laugh.

  "Beautiful, Mr. Noon. Would you come and see them when you have the time?"

  "I'd rather see you right now. Can it be arranged?"

  "You call. I come. I'm not chained to this desk, you know. I'm a free-lance, roving type. Where?"

  "How about the Lincoln Memorial in say twenty minutes?"

  Her vocally elegant voice fell in mock regret.

  "You're going to make me climb? All those steps. I know it's a beautiful day but—all right. Twenty minutes, it is."

  "Good girl. By the way—when you called earlier—any particular reason?"

  "Do I need one?"

  "No. But I don't want you falling in love with me just because you're grateful I saved your life or something."

  "Or something." I heard her chuckle. But it was a woman's sound. A low, meaningful murmur that threw in the key to the bedroom door. "You very chemical man," she said in a clear, cool voice, "I'm absolutely wild about you and if you don't teach me everything you know about sex, I'll positively strangle you with my bare hands. Twenty minutes."

  The click of the phone should have been a lovely sound. A promise of more to come, better things on the way, and all that sort of jazz. But it wasn't.

  It sounded hike a death knell.

  I went into the bedroom to straighten my tie and mix myself a short quick Scotch before going out to the Lincoln Memorial to meet Felicia Carr, Russian spy. The Scotch burned my throat going down.

  And gave me a walloping case of heartburn.

  The Spy under Lincoln's Nose

  Republicans and Democrats all love Abraham Lincoln. They have to. He comes with the city of Washington and the District of Columbia. Even if you had a bigoted stand on civil rights and personally had a private opinion about the efficacy of John Wilkes Booth's marksmanship, if you're going to throw your hat into the political arena, homage and respect and reverence for the statue of Abraham Lincoln goes right with it. He's been in D.C. longer than anybody.

  For one thing, you can't miss him.

  He sits eternally within the stone temple high atop the memorial throne, gazing somberly and majestically through the wide enormous entrance of the shrine. To reach him you must climb a Gethsemane of stone steps with the Potomac River at your back, the State Department Building on your left, and the Tidal Basin on your right. On bright, sun-lit days like this one, you mount the steps toward the Great Emancipator and you're aware of his stony eyes all the way up. His bronzed exterior, ever patient, arms extended until the hands droop over the armrests of the graven chair, is somehow breathtaking, no matter how jaded you are. Lincoln was some kind of man, all in all, and the awesome, solitary magnificence of the shrine has dominated the Potomac landscape for more than half a century now.

  Cherry trees were struggling to blossom and the Potomac lay placid and serene that afternoon as the cab that took me across Memorial Bridge deposited me at the very foot of the unique monument to a very special kind of U.S. president. Beyond the height of the memorial, holding the lower ground like military emplacements, stood the Executive Office Building, where Vice-President Raymond Oatley hung his hat, and the White House behind the Ellipse, and far off to the right, the slim, bleached white obelisk dedicated to George Washington. Planted in the Potomac off to the left again, Theodore Roosevelt Island shone green and beautiful in the sun. I couldn't see the Pentagon from Mr. Lincoln's eyrie. For eyrie it was, pure and simple. A man with a precision rifle with telescopic sights could have picked off anyone he liked for a thousand yards in any direction. It was a gloomy thought for such a shining afternoon. Yesterday's rain seemed as remote as landing on Saturn.

  There was the usual bevy of tourists and locals going up and down the stone stairway to Lincoln. Couples, young and old, several family groups, and one or two Negroes. I have always seen at least one Negro every time I have visited the memorial. I'm sure it isn't coincidental. Honest Abe was one man who did something about slavery. And civil rights. Maybe that's why they killed him.

  But his memory had left behind thirty-six columns that held up a temple which would have done justice to the early Greek builders.

  I was early. There was no sign of Felicia Carr, so I went in once more to take my hat off to Lincoln and to read the moving words that shine like stars on the wall behind his head. The statement that ends with "in this tomb, as in the hearts of those for whom he saved the Union, the memory of Abraham Lincoln is enshrined forever." I am a cornball, like Michael Monks of New York Homicide says. I got goose bumps silently reading the words to myself. Then I went back outside, thinking about Melissa Mercer, my own answer to the question of the color line. Mel was Negro, indisputably beautiful, and a human being. She was also my secretary. More than a secretary—

  My mind snapped back to the present because I saw Felicia Carr from Lincoln's point of view. If he were alive, I think he would have let out a long low whistle.

  She was coming up the steps toward me, long legs flashing, the lithe figure so abundantly endowed despite its slender suppleness, moving as fluidly as a member of the cat family. The outfit she was wearing seemed like a secon
d skin. Black turtleneck shirt with high rolled collar, covered with a leopard-skin three-quarter coat with sleeves ending just below her elbows. The deep gray skirt was a sheath with a slit that allowed for plenty of shapely thigh to show. She might have stepped out of a movie thriller. Which reminded me of the awful motive for this meeting.

  I met her at the top of the stone veranda running around the temple proper. She smiled and the white teeth, cameo face, and so-white skin topped with long black hair held in place by a gray tam no bigger than a pancake, burned indelibly into my brain.

  "You did this deliberately," she challenged, her eyes shining. "If you chase me, I'll be too bushed to run."

  There were stone benches set in orderly squares to either side of the entranceway. I led her to one and sat her down. We had a fine view of the peaceful Potomac and endless acres of measured greensward. The afternoon sun had dipped it all in a can of golden paint. The vista shimmered spectacularly. A good stiff breeze washed over the promontory of rock, grass, and monument.

  I took her hands in mine and she let me, squeezing back. Her face, happy and content, flushed and supremely lovely, was no more than inches from my own. Our eyes met.

  "We have to talk," I said.

  "Good. What about?"

  "Not the birds and the bees this time. I think we both know about them anyway."

  She chuckled. "Then we're going to talk about people, I suspect. Good. I'd rather talk about me and you—us—we—anytime."

  It wasn't possible. Seeing her like this, hearing her, the accusation of Congressman Charles Cornell just didn't add up. It snapped like a broken needle on a long-playing record. I had a hard time remembering the facts. The names, the places.

  "You look awfully solemn, Edward. Is everything all right?"

  "Fine," I lied. "Want to smoke?"

  She nodded. "I always do when I come up here. I come up here often. It's nice to be alone with Honest Abe and sit and smoke a cigarette and think wonderful, marvelous thoughts about life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness."

  "Amen to that." I lit her Salem for her and fired one of my own Camels into flame. It was getting harder and harder by the second. Spy or no spy, she was in a class by herself.

  "Does the number 1417335 mean anything to you, Felicia?"

  If I thought throwing that cryptic number at her from left field would trigger a betraying guilty reaction, I was wrong. She frowned, looked thoughtful, and then shook her head.

  "Sorry, no. I assume it's important. What is it?"

  Not knowing was killing me inside—about her I mean—so I plunged right into the wrap-up of all that had happened since I last saw her that morning. She listened with a curiously astounding lack of sham and I began to believe just how good she could be at her two-faced role in life. I didn't mention the black bag.

  "Lord, but you have been a busy bee. I'd better not let you out of my sight again. You seem to be a moving target."

  That was something I had said about myself. I stared at her closely.

  "All this, by the way, is not for publication."

  "I understand. I do appreciate you telling me. Well—" she squinted out toward the sunlight. "Perhaps we'd better go someplace else. We'd be sitting ducks here."

  "You're no duck," I said pointedly.

  "I know," she smiled, squeezing my fingers again. "And neither are you. Isn't it marvelous? Ducks couldn't possibly have as much fun."

  We stood up together. The top of her tam was just below the worry lines on my forehead. She reached up and straightened my tie, an altogether feminine gesture that bespeaks an intimacy unbearable to take if you feel you're being suckered.

  That was the precise moment I lost most of my marbles.

  "Are you really a beautiful lady Russian spy?" I asked.

  "Certainly. What else?"

  "Where's the Bagman?"

  "Sleeping off a hangover in my hotel room. Where do you think?" She patted my tie into place and smiled happily.

  "Look at me, Felicia," I said coldly. She looked and she saw I wasn't kidding. For a moment deep amazement left her speechless, screwed her lovely face up into a huge question mark of hurt. Then her eyes searched my face and a vague idea that I was really suspicious of her hit her like a ton of bricks.

  "Why, Ed—you're serious. Those were all straight questions, weren't they?" Her voice was a fierce, outraged whisper.

  I made up my mind. Patriotism is one thing but I can't blow the whistle on a woman I had a feeling for. I don't know what kind of feeling, exactly, but it was there. I could tell. My heart was beating hard and it hurt.

  "Knock it off, lady," I said quickly. "There isn't going to be any more hand-holding between us two. They're on to you, and your cover isn't worth two cents at this writing. I'm telling you so you can walk down on your own power to the Justice Building, turn yourself in, and fess up. They go a lot easier on you if you do that sort of thing. I'm sorry it had to end this way. I really am. I did want to see all the lilacs in Alexandria sometime. But if you are just a Washington newspaperwoman and that's all, you really shouldn't have known the Bagman was missing at all. Cornell is a romantic old guy and he likes you, but he never would have mentioned it to you. No one would have in their right mind."

  Now she did look guilty. A crimson flush had filled the ivory wonders of her cheekbones.

  "Charley wouldn't say that," she said in a low flat voice. "I do believe you're pulling my leg."

  "Right here in front of all these tourists?" The sarcasm was unavoidable. She had hit me where I lived and I was paying her back in spades. "Oh, yes, he would. Especially having got the information from Markham's end. You know Commander Markham? The President's very own right-hand man. He passed the word on to the Director. The FBI passed it on to Cornell. That's a parlay you'll have a hard time convincing me is all wet."

  She had frozen up now, walled herself in with layers of that extraordinary cool she possessed. Only a flash of something in her dark eyes gave the show away.

  "Then that's it, Mr. Noon?"

  "That's it. You're it."

  "I see."

  "I wonder if you do really." I was still mad. Acting like the outraged, betrayed lover, I suppose. It was one of the worst moments in my life. How do you tell a dream to pack its bags and start walking in the opposite direction? I was so damned red-hot mad that the tall collumns of the memorial were blinding me with reflected golden beams of sunlight.

  I leaned toward her, trying to read her eyes. But they had masked over, hiding whatever it was she really felt.

  "You're stupid," I said. "You gave up all this for something I don't pretend to understand. Who the hell is in Moscow waiting for you? Ivan? The greatest lover in the world? Someone who can go all night?"

  Now I had really hit below the belt. A fiery flush filled the skin of her flawless face. I felt a little easier about doing it this way. It was out in the open now and there was just no more need for playing spy games.

  "You're a bastard," she said icily. "You know that, don't you?"

  "Not according to my Bellevue Hospital records." I took her wrist and gave it enough of a twist so that she had to follow her hand into me. I glared down into her damned fine eyes. "I could call you a lot of names, too. Names like fink, turncoat, maybe just plain bitch is enough. But I've given you the only break I'm going to. You know anything worth telling me, tell it. I'd appreciate knowing it before you tell the FBI."

  She was crying now. Not out loud but the waterworks were poised in each dark eye.

  "Let go of my wrist or I'll scream," she said softly.

  I let her go. She fell back, caught her balance, and stared at me just a second longer. For a moment the anachronism of a dame that looked like her being involved in such a filthy business hit me right between the lungs. It was so damned unfair, so damned unreasonable. The blazing ball of the sun working its way into the west bathed the memorial and both of us in pure gold. Tourists lurched by, streaming steadily.

  "Go," I said.
"Before I scream, too. Before I tell all Washington what you are. I'll give you a running start. That's a better break than you gave me or Cornell. You've got a very few hours to turn yourself in. If you don't, I'm blowing the whistle on you."

  She started to say something, then clutched her small black purse tighter, which I felt I was seeing for the first time, and she changed her mind. She turned and plunged down the stone stairway leading to the sidewalk. I watched her go, seeing her incomparable Judas hips and white legs move rapidly out of my life. My mind.

  I sent my Camel sailing, accompanying it with a bitter sound that must have been a curse. Having such a showdown at the Lincoln Memorial somehow made the whole scene worse. And everybody was going to give me hell if they ever found out I gave a Russian spy a chance to pull up stakes and take off. I didn't care. Let somebody else nail her skin to the barn door. It wasn't going to be me.

  It was a bad scene all around.

  The Bagman had been missing over twenty-four hours, the FBI and the S squad had a traitor in their midst, busy politicians with axes to grind might be putting the skids under the President, and the situation was so top-priority that a special meeting with the Joint Chiefs was in order at the Pentagon.

  And I'd lost another unforgettable butterfly to the wheel.

  My mood was Grade A lousy as I walked slowly down the stone carpet going away from the Lincoln Memorial. The tourists kept on coming up.

  For the first time in my life, I was glad he was dead.

  He'd be spinning in his tomb if he knew exactly what sad shape his beautiful America was in.

  America.

  We're all surrounded by assassins.

  A funny Durante line, a piece of comedic stage and film business, but James was right.

  We need all the heroes we can get. Not assassins, two-faced patriots, double agents, and all-around finks.

  I stalked moodily along the pavement toward the Memorial Bridge. Not wanting to ride, wanting to walk, to think something out. To put some broken pieces together. I remembered with a jar that I hadn't asked Rowles if he had learned anything about the private life of Thomas Miflow. The frightening situation in the barn out there in all that forest had driven all thought of Miflow out of my mind. I made a mental note to ask Rowles the next time I saw him.