“There goes dead meat,” muttered Ralph, ready to drop the matter, but TJ had the opening he was looking for.
“So let’s say he has a change of heart. Where would he go to arrange it? Vietnam Veterans Against the War?”
“They’re sort of a subgroup of the War Resisters League, they’re the ones who’d fix him up. They got an office just off Union Square. Don’t remember the address, but I bet they’re in the phone book. Hey, your number’s not up, is it?”
TJ was quick to reassure him. “No, my student deferment’s still good. But I got a friend who’s looking for an escape hatch. You think this War Resisters League would help him?”
“Count on it,” said Ralph.
TJ headed to the phone booth at the back of the store and consulted the battered directory chained to the shelf. Under W he found the listing, at 17 East Seventeenth Street.
* * *
The War Resisters League, founded in 1923 as a secular pacifist association, was the first organized peace group to call for the Unites States to withdraw from Vietnam. It had inspired the April fifteenth Spring Mobilization to End the War, a rally that brought tens of thousands of protesters into the Manhattan streets and led to the formation of the veterans’ group. The WRL office was the headquarters for a range of anti-war activities, including demonstrations, parades, sit-ins, and mass draft card burnings. Working with the Greenwich Village Peace Center, it was also an embarkation point for fleeing draft resisters.
There were lights on in the fourth-floor windows when TJ arrived. Evidently the WRL kept evening hours. He rang the buzzer and walked up to a shabby, crowded office. The walls were covered in posters, and a large bulletin board was studded with fliers, news clippings, and photographs. Several men and a couple of women were busy mimeographing leaflets, typing articles for the organization’s monthly bulletin, Win, and talking on the telephone.
An amiable, middle-aged staffer greeted him. “Hi, son. I’m Karl. What can I do for you?”
Assuming that TJ was a resister, a conscientious objector, or a spy, Karl Bissinger invited him to a chair by his cluttered desk and prepared to quiz him about his motive for visiting the WRL. The military had been known to send in ringers who pretended to want help getting out of the country, so he had learned to be wary of even the most earnest plea for passage on the reincarnated underground railroad.
Instead, TJ told him about the Benton case and Bill’s situation.
“So you see,” he said, “if Bill was already out of the country he’ll be cleared. Can you help me find out?”
Bissinger was taken aback. “You’re not going to believe this, but I was at the Art Students League in the ’30s, when Benton taught there. I wanted to be a painter, but to make a living I started doing commercial work and then got into photography. That’s my day job, taking pictures of fashion models for the glossy magazines.
“Anyway, I read about Benton’s murder, and I can’t say I was either surprised or sorry. He was a homophobic bully. Why, when I was there he hounded out one of the other instructors, the man I was studying with, just because he was gay. Went to the board and got him fired.”
“Would they really fire someone just because he was queer? Sorry, I mean gay.”
“Maybe not now, but back then they would, especially if a big shot like Benton demanded it. The son of a bitch had just been on the cover of Time—the first artist ever, for Chrissake. What Benton wanted, Benton got.”
Bissinger leaned over the desk and took TJ’s measure. “Listen, son, I think you’re leveling with me, but I have to be careful. The army’s not very sympathetic to us. How do I know you won’t turn Bill in if I tell you where he is?”
TJ’s eyes widened. “Do you know?”
“Answer my question,” said Bissinger sternly, his eyes fixed on TJ’s.
“I don’t need to know where he is. I just want to find out when he got out. He did get out, didn’t he?”
Bissinger leaned back, satisfied. “If he did, it was probably handled by the Greenwich Village Peace Center, down at the Methodist church off Washington Square. I work closely with them, especially the fairy dusters.”
“Who are they?”
“They specialize in shipping out gays. They trust me to send them bona fide resisters because I’m gay.”
No wonder he’s so against Benton, thought TJ. A question crept into his mind. Could Bissinger have heard that Benton was in town and decided to get back at him? Maybe that’s too far-fetched, but Dad said these old grievances sometimes wait years to surface.
While TJ was speculating to himself, Bissinger picked up the phone and dialed.
“Hi, this is Karl. Doing fine, Alex, and you? Listen, I want to find out if you dusted a fella named Bill Millstein. Would have come to you late last month. Yeah, I’ll hold.” He put his hand over the mouthpiece and nodded to TJ. “He’s checking.”
When Alex came back on the line, he told Bissinger that Millstein, traveling by train from New York City under an assumed name with a false New York State driver’s license as identification, crossed the Canadian border at Rouses Point on Monday, October thirtieth. The Committee to Aid American War Objectors had confirmed his safe arrival in Montreal that evening.
“Thanks, Alex. Glad to know he made it safely. Keep the faith.” He rang off. “Remind me what day Benton was killed.”
“Last Wednesday, November first.”
Bissinger smiled. “By then your friend Bill had already celebrated Halloween in another country.”
* * *
Eager to relay this information to Ellen, TJ thanked Bissinger for his help, wished him luck with his anti-war efforts, and headed across Union Square to the Up ’n’ Down. There he found the roommates rehearsing for their Bitter End hoot. Ellen had put down her guitar to let him in, and as she embraced him she could sense that he had news. Seated with her instrument, Michele glanced up expectantly as they entered the living room.
“Hey, you look like the cat that swallowed the canary,” she observed. “What gives?”
“We don’t have to worry about Bill,” he told them. “I found out he was long gone when Benton was murdered.”
Ellen literally jumped for joy. “TJ, you’re fantastic!” She threw her arms around him and kissed him with gusto. “But how on earth did you find out, and so quickly?”
“It runs in the family. My mom’s a detective, remember?” he teased, then gave an account of his conversation with Ralph and his visit to the WRL office. The girls listened attentively, smiling and nodding at each turn of events.
“It’s incredible,” he concluded, “but this guy Karl actually was at the League back in Benton’s day. Said Benton got his teacher kicked out because he was gay. That made me wonder if Karl might have wanted to get even. Then, when I was walking over here I thought, wait a minute, it’s more likely to be the guy who got fired. Maybe he’s still around and still carrying a grudge, like Breinin. Could be he’s the one who settled an old score.”
Michele asked the obvious question. “Well, yeah, maybe, but who is he?”
TJ kicked himself mentally, this time out loud. “Oh, shit! I was so focused on learning about Bill, it didn’t occur to me to ask. Have you got a phone book?”
Michele pointed to a shelf under the coffee table, on which sat a turquoise Princess phone—the latest touchtone model. The girls’ mothers had insisted on their having one and chipped in to pay for it, ostensibly for security but really so they could check in on their children regularly.
TJ looked up the number and punched it in. “Cute phone,” he said as the call rang.
“War Resisters League, Dave speaking.”
“Hi, I’m Tim Fitzgerald. I was just there, talking to Karl. Yeah, that’s me. Is Karl still around? Would you put him on, please? Thanks.”
When Bissinger came on the line, TJ asked him Michele’s que
stion. “The guy you told me about, the one who Benton got fired. Who was he? Do you remember his name?”
Bissinger hesitated. In his line of work, unconsidered answers to seemingly innocent questions could have unfortunate consequences. “Of course I do. Why do you want to know?”
TJ didn’t want to tell him the real reason, so he made one up. “I just wondered if maybe he came back to the League later on, after Benton left. Maybe he could even be teaching there now.”
“Not likely,” said Bissinger, “he’s long dead. Killed himself back in the ’40s. His name was Johann Gruen.”
Thirty-Six
Tuesday, November 7
Nettled by his morning call from an unrelenting Rita Benton demanding action, as well as pressure from Klonis and Goodrich, daily inquiries from the press, and the curious scrutiny of Deputy Chief Fitzgerald, Inspector Kaminsky was increasingly frustrated by the lack of progress on the Benton investigation. He called a meeting of his team and, gathered in front of a blackboard in the Midtown North conference room, they went over the leads one by one. It was not a happy occasion.
“Okay,” said Kaminsky gruffly, “here’s what we’ve got. Millstein, suspect number one, is still at large, whereabouts unknown. Suspect number two, Raymond Breinin, hasn’t got an airtight alibi. A few other possibles, Chris Gray, Valerie Solanas, and Lewis Mumford, have been eliminated. So where are we? It’s almost a week since Benton was offed, and we’re running out of leads.”
“I’m bringing Breinin back for more questioning this afternoon,” said Falucci, “but I’m not sold on him, even with that red-jacket sighting in the stairwell. Sure, there are plenty of points against him. He’s made no secret of his history of bad feeling toward Benton. The timing of his whereabouts is unclear, plus his knife is the murder weapon. It’s just too cut and dried.”
In spite of his foul mood, Kaminsky hadn’t entirely lost his sense of humor. “You get the bad pun award for that cutting remark, but I take your point. Pun intended.” There were appreciative snickers from the team.
“All right, let’s get serious. We have to find Millstein. But that doesn’t mean giving up on Breinin. It’s a process of elimination. They both had motive. As far as we know, they both had opportunity. And they both had easy access to the means. Eliminate one, and the other’s our man.”
He turned to Sheik. “Find out who helped Millstein get away.” He pointed to a note on the blackboard. “Helen Rudy told Tony that there’s a pipeline especially for queers. Fairy dusters, she called them. Go downtown and see if you can nose ’em out. We need to know if he’s gone or still around, and if he’s gone, when he left town and where he went. If he’s in Canada, the government won’t cooperate on the draft-dodging charge, but they’ll let us extradite him on the murder warrant.”
“I’ll talk to the boys down at the Sixth,” said Sheik. “That’s their territory, I bet they know every queer in the neighborhood.”
* * *
At the breakfast table, once again TJ had news of the Benton case to share with his parents. Actually, he needed their advice. He had uncovered vital information regarding Bill’s whereabouts, but how to relay it to the police without compromising the source?
“They won’t just take my word for it,” he reasoned. “They’ll need confirmation that he was already gone. What Karl told me he got from some guy named Alex at the Peace Center. He told Karl ’cause they trust him, and if I pass it to the cops they won’t trust him anymore. But this information clears Bill.”
“You’d better believe they’re working hard on this one,” said Fitz. “They may be on to the same source, getting the same dope as you did. Like with Solanas. They’re not sitting still waiting for the information to fall in their laps, not with Jake in charge.” As a deputy chief who knew the strengths and weaknesses of every precinct in all five boroughs, his faith in Kaminsky was well founded.
With her detective’s cunning, Nita proposed another approach. “Let’s look at it a different way. Let’s assume the other country Karl mentioned is Canada. Much more likely than Mexico, splitting from New York. Benton’s murder is all over the papers here, but it may not have made it to the Canadian papers. Bill may not even know Benton is dead. And if he did read about it, he’d realize it happened after he left, so he’d probably just mentally thank whoever killed him and forget about it.”
“You’re right, Mom” said TJ. “He’d know he wasn’t involved, so he wouldn’t expect the cops to come after him.”
“Bill knows it, and now you know it, but you can’t tell the cops without blowing the network. What they’re doing isn’t illegal, as long as they aren’t forging papers—anyone can cross the border with proper ID—but if they gave Bill a fake identity, that would be a criminal offense. We don’t know for sure they did that, and, frankly, we don’t want to know, not when our priority is clearing Bill.”
“You’re not talking about shielding lawbreakers, are you?” said Fitz, slightly shocked by her devious turn of mind.
“Not shielding, honey, just not digging too deeply. Not, let’s say, turning over any unnecessary rocks. And certainly not siccing the pigs on the peaceniks.”
“Then what?” blurted TJ, clearly frustrated by the impasse she had outlined.
“Think about it,” she replied patiently. “Who would the police be most likely to believe? Not you, obviously. Not Karl or Alex, even if you did rat them out.”
TJ thought about it, and the answer came to him. “Why, whoever took Bill in, of course.”
“Exactly. What you need to do is go to the Peace Center, explain the situation, persuade them to contact Bill and get him to verify his arrival in Canada. Do it from his end, not theirs. That way the peaceniks are off the hook.”
“You think they’ll listen to me?”
Nita gave him an encouraging smile. “One way to find out.”
* * *
Eager to follow his mother’s advice, TJ cut his morning class and walked down to the Washington Square Methodist Episcopal Church at 135 West Fourth Street, an elaborate marble confection dating from 1860. Behind a bright red side door, the scene in the Peace Center was similar to the WRL headquarters. The walls were plastered with posters, the phone was ringing, typewriters were clacking away, and the mimeo machine was going full blast. He asked a bearded young man, wearing a T-shirt with the slogan MAKE LOVE NOT WAR, if he could see Alex and was directed to a desk just as cluttered as Bissinger’s.
“What’s happening, man?” said Alexander Clifford. Rail-thin, in his late thirties, he was known as the fairy godmother, since he specialized in helping his fellow gays. Like Bissinger, he assumed this was another potential client for the underground railroad, though apparently this time it was a straight one.
There was a folding chair next to the desk, and TJ sat in it. All during his walk he’d been formulating the best way to put his case without setting off alarm bells. He had decided that honesty, but not complete disclosure, was the best approach.
“Recently a friend of mine was looking for a way to avoid conscription,” he began, “and I think he may have come to you.”
“Why would you think that?”
“Because he’s gay, and he got drafted. I heard that your organization can help guys like him.”
“Where did you hear that?”
“Look,” said TJ, “Let’s not beat around the bush. I believe you did help him, and I want to help him, too. The reason I’m here is that there’s a warrant out for his arrest. He’s wanted for murder.”
“You’re shitting me,” said Alex, alarmed. That could bring the law down on the center and disrupt the whole operation.
“No shit, man. I’m talking about the Benton killing at the Art Students League last week. My friend was a student there, and he had a run-in with Benton that looks like a strong motive for murder.”
Alex stood, and fixed a hostile ga
ze on TJ. “Get the fuck out of here. If you think I’m gonna finger him, you’ve got another think coming.”
TJ realized Alex took him for a snitch. “No, listen, it’s not like that. Please hear me out.”
Still standing, his hostility softening to skepticism, Alex leaned on the desk. “Well, I’m listening.”
“I don’t want any information, I swear to God. But you can contact him. The New York cops don’t care about the draft dodging, but for sure they’ll go after him for murder. Just let him know about the charge so he can clear himself.”
Alex considered the alternative. “Suppose he’s guilty, and we helped him get away? That would make us accessories.”
“He’s not guilty.”
“How do you know?” The obvious question, which TJ answered evasively.
“I just don’t believe he could have done it. I think the cops are on the wrong trail.”
Alex’s next question was equally obvious. “What’s his name?” TJ told him.
I’ll be damned, said Alex to himself, that’s the second time someone’s asked about Millstein. Karl must have found out about the murder rap. Why didn’t he tell me to warn Bill? Maybe he got in touch with the committee people himself—I told him they confirmed Bill’s safe arrival.
“Okay,” he said, “here’s what I’ll do. I’m not telling you I know anything about your friend Bill, or that anyone here at the Peace Center helped him, but if he went to Canada I have a contact in Montreal who should know where he is. They can get in touch with the cops. Who should they call?”
“Inspector Jacob Kaminsky at the Eighteenth Precinct is in charge of the investigation,” TJ told him. “He’ll want verification, something to prove Bill was across the border before Benton was killed.”
This guy knows a lot about this case, thought Alex. I don’t trust him, but what he says makes sense.
“If he was across—and I’m not saying he was—they’ll have proof.”
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