December '41, page 30
And she started right away. “I’ve called every hotel in D.C. asking for Harry Kellogg, asking for Michael Milton, and … Say, have you run out on me?”
“I checked out of the Willard to join my working group,” he answered.
“Where?”
“Not important.” He changed the subject. “How has your time been at home?”
Vivian’s anger cooled. “Boring. Radio shows. Sunday Mass. And outside of church my old boyfriend asked me on a Christmas Eve date. It’s like I never left.”
“I hope you told him you’re busy on Christmas Eve.”
“I was tempted.”
“You were?” Was that jealousy that Martin Browning felt flickering through him?
“Remember how I said I wanted to see the White House tree lighting?”
Martin took a breath and held it. “Yes.”
“Johnny—I told you about him—he has VIP tickets. So—”
Martin was now sitting on the edge of his chair. “What did you tell him?”
“That I’d let him know. Now, I’m rushing to catch the ten o’clock train to D.C. because I plan to stand in front of the Agriculture Department until you—”
Jealousy sputtered and was replaced by coldhearted resolve, a much more familiar emotion to Martin Browning. He said, “Catch the train. I’ll buy you lunch. Meet me in the cafeteria of the Museum of Natural History. It’s right across the Mall from the Department of Agriculture. Twelve thirty.” And he hung up.
Then he ordered a big breakfast. People always said that talking about your problems helped you to solve them. No more second thoughts.
* * *
HALF AN HOUR AFTER he’d disappeared down Peacock Alley, Kevin Cusack called Frank Carter’s room.
Stella answered. “Frank’s in the shower, then due at FBI.”
Kevin said, “If you two are giving me the runaround—”
“Frank’s trying to help you while you help him.”
“Frank’s trying to help Frank,” said Kevin.
“Believe what you want,” said Stella. “But the LAPD is after you, and now so are the Washington Metros.”
“They have nothing.”
“Except a murder in L.A., a murder on the Super Chief, and an assault in the Musso and Frank’s men’s room. They even have a witness to that one.”
“John Wayne? You’re joking.”
“He said you threw a good punch,” answered Stella. “Frank wants you to meet in the Willard lobby at five. He says you have to trust him. So trust him. I do.”
“Yeah. Sure.” Click. Kevin was coming to believe that he should trust no one. Not even the man that he called next to ask for that ride he’d been promised.
“Not today,” said Stanley Smith. “I got two flat tires.”
“Forget it,” said Kevin. “I’ll take the train.” And he headed again for Union Station.
* * *
FRANK CARTER STOOD ON Pennsylvania Avenue and thanked whatever forces had brought him to Washington … even if they included a Nazi killer and a Hollywood script reader running for his life. This was where he’d always seen himself, right in the heart of American law enforcement, the headquarters of the U.S. Justice Department.
He showed his badge at the front desk and soon was in the office of his oldest FBI pal, Dan Jones of South Bend, Indiana. Jones had parlayed a sharp mind, sharp elbows, and a sharpshooter’s eye into one promotion after another. Now he was agent in charge of the Espionage Unit, the man who wrote all those custodial detention memos that J. Edgar Hoover signed.
Carter looked around and gave a whistle. “Nice digs. Windows and everything.”
“We’ve come a long way since Quantico,” said Jones. “I’m glad you got Dick Hood to send you east on this. Maybe we can get you back here permanently.”
“You took the words right out of my mouth.”
“So you have a Nazi for us? The Hollywood Nazi?”
“He’s not the one who fired this.” Carter put the 7.63 mm cartridge on Jones’s desk. How small it seemed to him, yet how large it might loom in history.
Jones picked it up and sniffed for powder residue, like the old forensics man he was. “This is a hot little round. Really packs a punch. Mauser C96, maybe? A dangerous weapon in the right hands.”
“That’s what has me so worried.” And Carter retold the story from the raid on December 8 to Stella’s shootout in Gobel’s.
“Stella Madden,” said Jones, “I remember her from my L.A. days.”
“She’s with me.”
“With you?” Jones raised his eyebrows. “Very irregular, Frank.”
“She has a special sense. Intuition, you might call it. And … well, she thinks the guy who shot that round plans to shoot the president on Christmas Eve. We need to stop him, Dan, or stop the tree lighting.”
Jones thought that over and said, “What we need is to bring Mike Reilly in on this. He runs the White House Secret Service detail.”
“Will he buy the intuition of a female private detective?”
“Ask him yourself. I’m sending you over to see him. Meanwhile … this guy?” Jones handed Carter a rap sheet for Kevin Cusack, a.k.a. the Hollywood Nazi, a.k.a. LAJCC Agent 29.
Carter said, “I’ve kept him in the field, like a stalking horse for the real Nazi.”
“Just tell me, is he a good guy or a bad guy?”
“I’m meeting him at five o’clock. I’ll bring him in. You be the judge.”
* * *
ODENTON STATION: ONE-STORY, BRICK, utilitarian and simple, like scores of stations along the Penn Central line, and the Baltimore and Annapolis Electric Railway was rumbling through downstairs.
As Kevin Cusack headed down, he glanced at the other side of the tracks. And he saw her. Just like that. He’d chased her across half the country, and there she was, waiting for the inbound train. He recognized the bottle-blond hair, the sunglasses that might be covering another bruise, and the green slacks that were part of the suit she’d been wearing that Saturday in the dining car.
He bought a return ticket and hurried back to the southbound platform. Once the Washington-bound train was rolling, he moved onto the car she was riding. She seemed lost in thought, or daydreams. He considered approaching, but observing might be a better idea.
* * *
FRANK CARTER HAD NEVER been to the White House before. He did his best to act as if he were not impressed when he showed his badge at the Southeast Gate on Treasury Place. A uniformed Secret Service officer waved him toward a big metal arch that was decorated with evergreen garlands and bows, but as soon as he went through it, a bell went off, and three uniforms surrounded him.
One of them asked, “Are you armed, sir?”
“I’m surprised you didn’t ask me that already.” Carter showed them his Magnum.
“Hey, fellers,” shouted the officer, “this Alnor Door is working.”
They hadn’t been testing Carter. They’d been testing their equipment. They took his gun and told him he could pick it up when he came back. He asked them what an Alnor Door was.
“An electrical searcher,” the officer explained. “Standard equipment in prisons. People pass through and if they’re carrying metal, it starts buzzing. We just put this one in. Works like a charm.”
A good first line of defense, thought Carter.
He passed into the White House by the East entrance and was directed down the central corridor on the ground floor, all the way to the windowless Secret Service office, across the hall from the doctor’s office. Now, he thought, he was in the heart of the heart … of everything.
Dan Jones had given Carter a quick description of Mike Reilly: “Sharp Montana accent, dark Irish scowl, and a fullback’s body, which is a job requirement for the guy who might have to carry a crippled president in an emergency.”
True to form, Reilly scowled at Frank Carter and told him to sit. “I have ten minutes. Lot going on around here, and now we have a special guest coming. So my work just doubled.”
Carter didn’t ask who the special guest was. None of his business. Instead, he spun through the story again, concluding, “If someone is planning to take a shot at the president on Christmas Eve, maybe the tree lighting should be canceled.”
“Not possible,” said Reilly. “The Boss insists. He promised the country he’d invite Americans onto the South Lawn this year. He said he wanted a more ‘homey’ atmosphere for the tree lighting.”
“Homey?” said Carter.
“His word. And he’s determined to do it, even though a lot has changed since he made the promise. The war news is all bad, he says, so we need a big public event, something that’s a morale booster for the whole country, even if it hurts my morale.”
“Well, if we can’t stop the show,” said Carter, “we just have to find the shooter.”
Reilly leaned back in his chair. “You say you looked him in the eye?”
“I let him slip through my fingers in L.A. I even held the door for him.”
“You held the door for an assassin? Wow.” Mike Reilly seemed to Carter like the kind of guy who’d heard it all. But he hadn’t heard that one.
“Would-be assassin,” said Carter.
Reilly said, “So you managed to move heaven and earth to get sent all the way back here to make up for your mistake.”
“And do my part to protect the president.”
“Thanks, but we’ve got that covered.” Reilly then launched into a description of all they’d done to “harden the target.” Before Pearl Harbor there were seventeen cops and six Secret Service agents assigned to the White House. Since December 8, on every shift, he had twenty-two White House policemen, twenty Metropolitan Policemen or twenty uniformed Secret Service guards, and fifteen Secret Service agents, along with machine gun emplacements on the roof and an army reconnaissance car—with a machine gun—circling the Executive Area.
“But you still have to worry about the lone gunman, the guy who can stand two hundred yards away with a pistol and do this.” Carter pulled the headless Hummel angel from his pocket and put it on the desk.
“Good shooting.” Reilly picked up the figurine and inspected it. “You know, the army’s biggest fear is a team of Nazi parachutists dropping onto the White House lawn. Mine is assassination. Some Nazi who can do this, operating alone or with a small team that activated when Hitler declared war…” Reilly didn’t need to finish.
“Only two guys have looked this Nazi in the eye. Me and Kevin Cusack.”
“Isn’t Cusack the one they’re calling the Hollywood Nazi, the one who killed that girl on the Super Chief?”
“It’s my bet that the real Nazi framed him,” said Carter.
Reilly reached into a drawer and came up with a thick ring binder. “Since you think you’ve seen this Nazi, have a look at this. I have to go.”
Carter read the cover. “Suspect book for Los Angeles?”
“The White House gets forty thousand letters a month, five thousand of them are threats. We try to check out every threat to determine how dangerous—or crazy—the writer is. The ones we investigate get a page in this book.”
“A trained assassin isn’t going to write a nasty letter.”
“Humor me.” Reilly stood and picked up the headless Hummel. “May I keep this?”
“Be my guest. Let it be an inspiration.”
“Thanks,” said Reilly. “And rest easy, Agent Carter. I have one more surprise for anyone who slips a gun past the Alnor Door. A last line of defense, you might call it.”
* * *
VIVIAN HOPEWELL GOT TO Union Station at 11:40. She walked over Capitol Hill and down the Mall to the Museum of Natural History. She was early, so she wandered for a time in the exhibit halls. She saw the rhino that Teddy Roosevelt shot, and the noble lion, the elk, the mighty bison. She felt a little sorry for all of them.
She never noticed the man in the button-covered scally cap, even though he seemed to be in every gallery she visited, reading captions about the life cycle of the monarch butterfly or studying exhibits on the ice age.
Around twelve thirty, she strolled back to the main rotunda, where a magnificent, taxidermic African elephant took center stage. It seemed to be running, its trunk raised to the sky … or the ceiling. She could almost hear its trumpet echoing off the balconies.
And Harold was waiting for her. She hurried up to him and embraced him. She was overjoyed to see him, and thrilled to be back in the big world of restaurants and museums and roadways to interesting places.
Kevin Cusack almost jumped at the sight of him, but he kept control and hung back behind a pillar. Observe before acting, he told himself. Follow Harold and Vivian downstairs and watch through the door of the cafeteria.
It wasn’t fancy: linoleum floor, self-serve counters, noisy scraping chairs, two school groups in the corners, kids loud and boisterous with Christmas coming and classes winding down. Harold and Vivian took trays and went through the line. Baked macaroni, tapioca pudding, and coffee for her. A prepackaged ham sandwich for him. They found a table off to the side. He apologized for the noise, but this was the closest place to the Department of Agriculture.
She dug into her baked macaroni, dripping in melted cheese, guaranteed to put three pounds on her. He unwrapped the sandwich and doused it with mustard.
After a bite, he asked, “So, how is it living in your parents’ house again?”
“I can’t wait to leave.”
“It’s only for a little while.”
“Do you really mean that?”
He smiled, as if to say yes, he really meant it.
She brought her index finger to her chin.
He got the message and wiped a drip of mustard from below his lip. Then he said, “Tell me about this old boyfriend.”
“Even when we were kids, Johnny said he’d work in the statehouse some day. Right out of college, he got a job with our state rep. Then he wrote a report on Maryland roads. The governor liked it so much, he put Johnny on his staff. And now Johnny’s got two VIP tickets to the tree lighting.”
“So, he found his passion without ever leaving Annapolis. You had to cross the country to find yours. But you gave the performance of your life on that train.”
She loved that. It was bromide after her mother’s bile.
“Now, I need you to do me a favor. Do you see those people over there?” Martin pointed to a woman in a blue hat and overcoat, sitting with a paunchy man in a brown suit. “They’re colleagues at Agriculture. They’d be very impressed if they knew that I was going to be sitting on the White House lawn for the tree lighting.”
“But—”
“Do you think you could persuade your old boyfriend to give up the tickets?”
“I … I don’t know. I’m seeing him tomorrow, at the place where I worked.”
“The G&J Grill? The place you told me about?”
On the other side of the room, the Stauers were finishing up, getting up, returning their trays to the dish receptacle. Now they were coming over, all smiles and warmth, all as planned so that they could get a look at the girl. Helen was already extending her hand. “Mr. Kellogg, so nice to see you. Is this your lovely wife?”
Martin introduced them all around.
Helen said, “We were just telling your husband how thrilled we are to have tickets to the tree lighting. He says you might get them, too. Perhaps we could go all together.”
“Well, yes,” said Vivian. “Maybe.” She didn’t know it, but they were all playing her. If she could deliver those tickets, all their jobs would be much easier.
“Now, you’ll excuse us,” said Helen, “but America’s work awaits.”
“Feeding the world, one meeting at a time.” Will Stauer gave a jolly laugh.
Martin got up and said, “Yes. We’re all due back at the department.”
“Washington is such a booming city now,” said Helen.
“So true,” said Martin. “Airplane contractors to the Defense Department, bankers to Treasury, farmers to the Agriculture Department … we all have a part to play.” Then he kissed Vivian on the cheek and whispered, “Well done. Go home. I’ll call you later.”
That speech again. Where had she heard it before?
* * *
KEVIN CUSACK HAD WATCHED it all from behind a pillar. He would’ve asked the museum guards to detain Harold Kellogg, but that pair of retired cops didn’t look like they could handle an unruly school group. And what about the other two? The lady in the blue coat from the Washington Monument and the man who’d followed Kevin into Georgetown? Were they friends? Business acquaintances? Accomplices? If so, in what?
Besides, Harry Kellogg wasn’t the suspected murderer. Kevin was.
So he decided that Vivian was the weak link. Best to keep following her, confront her alone, then give Carter all the info he gathered.
While Kellogg and the Stauers went out the south exit onto Madison, Kevin tailed Vivian through the building to the north exit, then across Constitution and up Tenth Street. He expected her to go back to Union Station, but she kept heading north, across Pennsylvania, past Ford’s Theatre to F Street. Then she turned west.
Where in hell was she going? All he could do was follow. They were long blocks, so he could keep his distance. At Fifteenth, she picked up her pace and crossed before the cop in the traffic box put up the stop signal, stranding Kevin on the east side. And he watched her go into Garfinckel’s department store. He would’ve jaywalked after her, but murder suspects shouldn’t be tempting traffic cops.
By the time he came in on Garfinckel’s street floor, she’d disappeared. He looked toward the escalator, then toward the elevator. Nothing. He’d lost her.
A saleslady in heavy makeup stepped in front of him, squirted a spray of Shalimar on her wrist, and held it to his nose, saying, “The best Christmas present you can buy for a lady friend.”
Kevin sneezed.
* * *
SOMETIMES, FATE INTERVENED. AND fate never rested in Washington, D.C. Everybody in all the circles of power knew everybody else. And everybody in all the circles seemed to cross paths regularly on the diagonal boulevards and gridwork streets that connected the circles and the squares, too.
