December '41, page 28
“My name is Stanley. You call me Stanley.”
“No,” said Kevin. “Call him Mister Smith.”
Cook ran a hand over his Brylcreem and wiped it on his raincoat. He’d clearly lost his strut. “I don’t make much selling film. If I wasn’t a good cardplayer, my family—”
Kevin said, “What’s her real name?”
“I don’t remember. I met her slingin’ hash in Annapolis. I don’t even remember the restaurant. We changed her name on the train, changed it to Vivian Hopewell.”
“Will anybody in Annapolis know her by that name?”
“How the hell should I know? It’s a small town. Go and ask around.”
“Sinclair!” called the wife from the front stoop. “Pot roast is ready.”
Stanley glanced at Kevin. “Y’all like pot roast?”
“No. Makes me fart.”
So Stanley said to Cook, “Remember, if you tell the cops about my friend here, I’ll tell your wife about them dirty sheets I change off your berth after every trip.”
“In honor of all the Georges,” added Kevin.
As they headed back to the car, Stanley said to Kevin, “Makes you fart? Pot roast makes you fart? You a funny guy.”
* * *
MARTIN BROWNING STOOD ON the knoll by the Washington Monument and looked north across the Ellipse to the White House, then east to the Capitol, west to Lincoln’s memorial, south to Jefferson’s. And he could not deny the power of it all. Those grand structures proclaimed the grandeur of a government that was as open and expansive as the landscape, as pure and high-minded as the white stone that fashioned them. It might all be an illusion, but people needed illusions. They needed symbols. Any German knew that.
He’d been to the Nuremberg rallies. He’d seen enormous red swastika banners stretched as taut as Hitler salutes in the sunshine. He’d seen searchlights sending pillars of light into a black sky. He’d seen thousands of Nazis marching in lockstep by day and night, marching toward the future on a grand German stage. But on this stage, for their first communal wartime act, Americans would light a Christmas tree and sing happy songs.
Whose truth would be the more enduring? He didn’t know.
But just as he considered himself a student of grand national symbols, Martin also studied the intimate, unspoken language of bodies. So for a time, he observed the Stauers, who sat on a bench on Constitution Avenue, as instructed, and he concluded that this husband-and-wife team was well attuned, like a shortwave sender and receiver.
The wife sat upright, posture erect, feet together, head alert. The husband leaned back, stretched an arm across the top of the bench, crossed his legs, with an ankle on a knee, which suggested he was more supple than most pot-bellied men. She was the blade, he the blunt object. Both would have their uses.
Martin came down the slope and walked past them. The husband glanced up, but didn’t react. He was probably looking for a blue overcoat, not a leather jacket, fedora, and shoulder satchel. Then Martin made eye contact and jerked his head. Follow me.
They all crossed Constitution, walked under the double row of trees, and came out onto the Ellipse, fifty acres that enticed weekend strollers, scampering children, and energetic young men with loud voices and flying footballs. Once they were ambling along, as innocent as ministers, Helen Stauer said, “Why are you dressed like this?”
“To see how sharp-eyed you are.”
“No more tests, please,” she said.
As if sensing the tension, Will Stauer changed the subject. “It’s a lovely morning for a stroll.”
Martin ignored that and led them across the Ellipse, to the crosswalk at E Street, then right up to the fence on the edge of the South Lawn. After they’d all taken a good look at the White House, he said, “The portico is two hundred and five meters. Roosevelt will be there, lighting the tree for twenty thousand.”
Helen said, “Your pistol has a range of a hundred meters.”
Martin said, “If I can get through security, I can take the shot from two hundred feet. That’s like letting me walk up and put the gun to his head.”
“But the newspaper mentioned ‘electrical searchers,’” said Helen.
Martin said, “I hope that the wooden holster will insulate the metal.”
“Hope is not a strategy.”
Martin had no rejoinder. He knew she was right.
For a few minutes, they stood in silence, studying the roll of the ground, the pathways, the tree cover, and all the angles that a shooter might use if he could get onto the White House lawn. Half a dozen other groups came and stood along the fence. Some took pictures. Some chattered away. No one paid the assassins any mind.
Helen pointed to the two thirty-foot spruces about a hundred feet from the fence. “The one on the right is the Christmas tree. The paper says it’s to be decorated by the children of Washington the day before the event. Perhaps—”
“Perhaps we could get in then and hide a gun on the grounds,” said Will.
Martin said, “Easier to plant a weapon at night—”
“So we should reconnoiter at night,” said Helen, “but plan in the cold light of day. That means we consider everything that could go wrong. So we mustn’t forget the last time an assassin shot at FDR—”
“The Italian anarchist in ’33,” said Martin.
“Yes, in Florida. He fired from a crowd, five times with a .32-caliber pistol from fifty yards. But a woman next to him grabbed his arm and the shots went wild. One killed the man shaking Roosevelt’s hand, the mayor of Chicago, but none hit Roosevelt.”
“My plan,” Martin told her, “is to have you on my right, covering my movement.”
“Use the girl.” Helen leaned closer. “Take the shot, drop the gun beside her, disappear into the crowd. We will be outside, ready to help you escape. That’s my plan.”
Martin let the life drain from his eyes, as if to tell her he didn’t like her plan at all.
But Helen Stauer could give a cold look of her own, and she spoke the truest, coldest words he’d heard in two weeks: “You are on a suicide mission, Herr Bruning. We all are. But if we work together, we might survive. Now, there is much to consider, from many perspectives.” She turned and headed back across E Street.
Martin Browning watched the slight woman in the Prussian-blue overcoat walk away, high heels clicking. He asked her husband, “Where is she going now?”
Will Stauer pointed to the white obelisk dominating the city. “Up there.”
“View a battlefield from the highest point,” said Helen over her shoulder.
Martin agreed, but he didn’t move until Will said, “It is best to follow. She likes obedience.”
* * *
KEVIN CUSACK PULLED OUT his wad of bills. “If you drive me out to Annapolis now, Stanley, I’ll pay you fifty bucks. I have to find this girl.”
“Then what?”
“I don’t know, but it’s the first step.”
“Like I told you, man, Sunday dinner’s at one. If I drive you to Annapolis, I’ll miss it. And I don’t need Mama mad at me, not when she’s makin’ chicken and dumplings.”
So Kevin told Stanley to drop him at Union Station. If he had to, he’d go by train.
“Call tomorrow,” said Stanley. “I’ll drive tomorrow, if Mama don’t need me.”
“Thanks.”
During the week, the Penn Central ran hourly between D.C. and New York, first stop Odenton Station, where you could catch a trolley to Annapolis. But reduced schedules on weekends. Every three hours. And Kevin had just missed the one o’clock local. He cursed. So … now what?
Maybe a walk across Washington. He could imagine himself as James Stewart in Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, awed by all the grand symbols of American democracy. And what grander symbol was there than the Capitol dome? So he aimed toward that and remembered Walt Whitman’s words: “I like to stand aside and look a long, long while up at the dome. It comforts me somehow.”
Maybe the monuments would comfort Kevin, too. He needed some comforting. He needed some inspiration. He’d left L.A. because he was done sticking his neck out. And here he was, sticking his neck out. Why him? Then he wondered … there in the grim December of 1941, why not him?
He thought about going over to Professor Drake’s house in Foggy Bottom. But how would that look to the G-men who were probably watching the Commie’s door? And what would he say? “Hello, Professor. I didn’t kill your daughter”? No. He’d visit Mary Benning instead. He’d tell her how Sally really felt. He’d tell her that Sally loved her and was coming back because of her. That would comfort her. And maybe it would comfort him, too.
According to his pocket map, it was three miles to Georgetown. A good walk, plenty of time to think and plenty of time to change his mind. He dropped down onto the Mall and headed west, collar turned up and cap pulled low. When two Park Police clip-clopped by on horseback, they barely glanced at him.
He passed the new National Gallery of Art and the huge Museum of Natural History and knew that he could lose himself for days in either, lose himself so completely that not even J. Edgar Hoover could find him. But he was drawn irresistibly to the white stone obelisk in the center of the Mall.
If you’d never been in a city before, you went to the highest spot to make sense of it. In L.A., you drove up to the Griffith Park Observatory. In the city of monuments, you visited the most famous monument of them all, the tallest stone structure in the world.
He bought a ticket and got in line with young families, men in uniform, and a pair of young women talking about their jobs as government secretaries. A ranger shouted instructions and answers to unasked questions: “Form a line to the right. Let downward-bound riders exit the elevator before boarding. Move to the back. You must ride to the top, five hundred and fifty-five feet, but if you wish, you may walk down, all eight hundred and ninety-seven steps.” After a ninety-second lift, the doors opened to a burst of light from the little windows at the top.
Another ranger in gray shirt and stiff-brim greeted them. “Please step off, folks. Room at all four sets of windows, or you can start in the exhibit room one flight down. That’s where you’ll board the elevator when you leave.”
Kevin let the families have the windows first. He went down to the exhibit room, which was packed because this was the first day the monument had been open since December 7. He excused his way past people queued up for the “down” elevator. And he bumped a lady in a blue overcoat. Their eyes met briefly, two strangers passing.
Then he squeezed into the corner to look at a display of photos showing the monument’s construction. When the elevator doors popped open, he glanced toward the sound. A ranger shouted, “All aboard,” and Kevin saw the woman in the blue overcoat again, moving onto the elevator. And … right behind her, a brown fedora, a leather jacket, a male face. And …
… thunk … the elevator doors closed.
Kevin took a second to consider. A familiar face? Leslie Howard? It couldn’t be.
He reached for the elevator button pad, but the ranger said, “Do not touch that, sir. Only federal employees may touch the elevator.”
“How long for the next one?”
“Ten minutes.”
“How long to walk?”
“Ten or fifteen, depending on how many people are on the stairs.”
If he ran, maybe he could make it in five.
So down he went, down two steps at a time, three at a time, down the dim shaft, past dozens of people … some going slowly, some quickly, and some stopping on every landing to read every three-by-five-foot stone marker commemorating every state, city, Masonic lodge, and church that contributed to the building of the monument.
He plummeted past all of them. Step to step, step over step, across the landing, around the walkers and gawkers and down, all to get another look at the face beneath the brim of the brown fedora.
And with every step, he saw the actor that Sally had seen when she looked across the table on the train. The Pimpernel in The Scarlet Pimpernel. Henry Higgins in Pygmalion. The bastard who looked like Ashley Wilkes in Gone With the Wind.
Down and down, hurtling down and flying down and doing his best not to cause a cascade of people falling down in front of him. And still, it took ten minutes to the lobby, to the statue of Washington, to the park policeman who barely glanced at him.… but no leather jacket and brown fedora.
Outside, Kevin looked east, west, south, and nothing. Had he really seen Harold Kellogg? Nah. Couldn’t be. So he walked down to Constitution Avenue, perched on one of the benches for a moment, and pulled out the pocket map. Enough with the monument. Time to visit Mary Benning on the Georgetown canal.
He didn’t notice the paunchy guy in a brown three-piece suit and dirty raincoat sitting on a nearby bench. He hadn’t noticed him up in the monument, either. But that was the point. Nobody noticed guys like that.
* * *
MARTIN BROWNING ASKED THE cabbie to drive around the monument again.
“Sure, buddy. It’s your dime.”
They circled back to the Constitution Avenue crosswalk just as the guy in the button-covered scally cap and raincoat started walking.
Helen Stauer whispered, “Is that him?”
Martin said, “I can’t be sure.”
“Coincidence, then. But best that he not get another look at you.”
“What in hell is he doing in Washington?” Martin was seldom perplexed. But he was thinking he should have stayed and found a way to kill Kevin Cusack.
Helen Stauer said, “Leave it to Will.”
* * *
VIVIAN WORRIED ALL THROUGH the gospel and sermon. She knew that if she stayed in her seat at Communion, the parish busybodies would see it as an admission that she hadn’t been to Mass or confession since she left town. And if she went up to the rail and made a show of kneeling and taking the host, those same old biddies would be yammering that a girl who’d spent three years in the Hollywood fleshpots shouldn’t be receiving Communion until she’d spent a whole day in the confessional and said five hundred Our Fathers and a thousand Hail Marys. Damned if you did and damned if you didn’t.
Her father stayed at her side when she chose to stay seated. And he hustled her through the crowd of busybodies after Mass. And she loved him for it. But he couldn’t get her past Johnny Beevers, who caught up to them outside.
“Kathy! Kathy, I … I heard you were back in town.”
She gave her old boyfriend a warm smile. She still liked him.
He’d gone to Towson State, come home, and gotten a job as an intern in the Annapolis statehouse. That led to a job as an aide to the governor. From there, he’d grown into his gangling height, grown into his brains, and grown up enough to look like he actually belonged in the three-piece suit he was wearing.
He asked her if she’d have a cup of coffee with him.
“Not today,” said Les Schortmann. “We get her for Sunday breakfast.”
“That’s okay, Mr. Schortmann. How about Tuesday? Or Christmas Eve? I have two VIP passes to South Lawn for the tree lighting. How about coming with me?”
Les whispered, “Should I tell him you got a beau in Washington?”
Vivian gave her father the wave-off. Get lost, Dad. Then she thanked Johnny and said she’d always wanted to go to the tree lighting, but she’d have to think about it. “I’ll tell you over coffee on Tuesday morning.”
“Then it’s a date,” said Johnny. “Eleven thirty, Tuesday, at G and J’s.”
“My old stomping grounds,” said Vivian. “I’ll wear my waitress flats.”
Johnny looked at her legs and said, “I always liked the pumps better.”
* * *
KEVIN CUSACK THOUGHT A neighborhood called Foggy Bottom might be more dramatic. A swamp maybe … or some mist rising from a sewer. But Washington was a company town, and the company was the U.S. government, so the buildings along Virginia and Twenty-Third Street were square, flat, and dull, all the way to Washington Circle.
He went through the “campus” of George Washington U. More basic buildings, more city streets, but that was where Sally had lived, so he tried to imagine her, and it was where her father had taught, so he kept an eye out for him, too, and kept plodding up to Pennsylvania. At the overpass above Rock Creek, he stopped in the middle to watch the cars speeding along the new parkway. That was when he noticed a guy in a dirty raincoat leaning against a lamppost on the east end of the overpass, reading a paper.
Kevin started walking again, and the guy started walking, too, toward the west end, where Pennsylvania joined M Street, the main drag that led through old, redbrick Georgetown. Kevin glanced over his shoulder. The guy was now on the other side of the street, looking down at the parkway.
Confront him or keep walking and see if he followed? Kevin picked up the pace. M Street was a steady, seven-block uphill slope past businesses, shops, and restaurants, all the way to the Key Bridge. And Kevin knew that the faster he went, the more he’d wear this guy out, and the longer he went, the more time he’d have to figure him out.
At the corner of M and Thirtieth, he stopped and pretended to read a menu in a restaurant window. Out of the corner of his eye, he looked down the street. But … nothing. He scanned both sides of the street. And … the guy was gone. A false alarm?
Kevin shrugged it off and kept walking.
He turned down Thomas Jefferson, which was lined with old two-story brick buildings, all nicely kept. The Potomac shimmered at the end of the street. But he was only going half a block to the little bridge that crossed the canal. There he turned for another look. But the guy was nowhere in sight. Gone … and forgotten. Just a false alarm.
So he headed down onto the towpath that ran along the stone-lined waterway, the obsolete relic of a system that once carried goods almost two hundred miles from the Appalachians to Washington. He’d found Mary Benning’s address and figured out that she lived between Jefferson and Thirty-First, on the north side of the canal, in a little first-floor apartment.
