December '41, page 32
“If we can get the tickets,” he said, “and if the tickets mean we don’t have to go through their electrical searcher.”
“Two electrical searchers, but three entrances,” she said. “That’s what’s in the paper. That’s what you saw. So my husband will shoot Churchill. You will shoot FDR. Both shots at the instant the tree is lit. Then you will change targets.”
“A crossfire.” Martin knew it would be a beautiful thing. But he was a soldier, and a real soldier wanted to live for his country … not die.
* * *
VIVIAN WALKED INTO THE G&J Grill and Soda Fountain in Annapolis. And it was as if nothing had changed.… the smell of hamburger grease overlaying French fries and coffee … the quiet conversation before the lunch crowd came in … the fog of cigarette smoke that seemed to flutter with the flap of every newspaper page.
At first, no one noticed her except Johnny Beevers. He’d saved her a spot at the counter, as if to show her off. And he beamed at the sight of her. She could feel the warmth of his gaze from across the room.
Then, one by one, the old regulars looked up, recognized the girl beneath the blond dye job, and called her name or threw her a wave or came over to give her a hi-how-ya-doin’ … all except for a lone coffee drinker who sat and watched and listened: Will Stauer.
One way or the other, Will was going to get those passes to the South Lawn. He’d already broken into Johnny Beevers’s apartment but hadn’t found them. So he’d found Johnny himself at the statehouse and tracked him here. And it didn’t take long to find out what he needed to know, because he heard Vivian say:
“Do you really have tickets to the tree lighting?”
Johnny pulled them from his pocket and read, “‘National Tree Lighting, December 24, 1941. Gates open at 4:00 P.M. Cardholders enter at Northeast Appointment Gate.’” Then he grinned the same boyish grin she remembered from high school.
She reached for the tickets.
He pulled them back. “You have to say, ‘Yes, Johnny, I’ll go with you.’ Then you can hold them both.”
Will Stauer was hoping she’d say yes. It would make things much easier.
But she said, “I don’t want to lead you on, Johnny.”
He said, “Aw, c’mon, we’ll drive to Washington in my brand-new Buick Special. We’ll get seats down front. We won’t even have to stand in line.”
Seats down front … Will Stauer had to get his hands on those tickets.
Vivian said, “Take some new girl you’re sweet on, Johnny. A big political deal like you, in your fancy suit with your hair all slicked and your cheeks all shiny and smooth from your barbershop shave … you must have a lot of girls chasing you.”
“Only one girl I carry a torch for,” said Johnny.
Vivian felt her face getting hot. She hadn’t blushed in a long time. But Johnny made her blush because he’d always been too honest. And he hadn’t changed at all.
Will Stauer wanted to keep watching this little scene, but he was lowering his head into his newspaper, because the door was opening, and the man he’d followed on Sunday was stepping into the G&J Grill.
* * *
KEVIN CUSACK HAD WORKED his way up Main Street, restaurant to restaurant, asking for the waitress who went to Hollywood. He’d found her at his third stop. He dropped into a booth, pulled down the scally cap, and watched her talking with a young man at the counter. Then she stood, gave the young man a peck on the cheek, like a sister or an old friend, and left. She never even glanced in Kevin’s direction.
But Kevin was out the door right after her, following her down Main Street to Conduit, then over to Duke of Gloucester and down to Spa Creek. He was getting good at the follow. He’d read enough Raymond Chandler novels, with Philip Marlowe on a tail, that he knew just how far to hang back and just how to look casual if someone spotted him.
By the time she reached the neighborhood called Eastport, he’d concluded that whatever was going on, she was an innocent, because she never picked up her pace or acted suspicious. No worry in the walk. Just a simple gal strolling through the old hometown. When she opened the gate to the little corner lot, Kevin decided he knew enough. Best to confront her out here.
He called, “Mrs. Kellogg!”
She turned abruptly. Who could know that name around here?
Kevin stepped closer. “He’s not your husband, is he?”
Her face passed through a range of emotions, like an actress showing her wares. Shock to puzzlement to curiosity, then back to shock. “You. What are you doing here?”
“Rescuing you.” Kevin surprised himself by that answer.
It surprised Vivian, too. She closed the gate between them. “You killed that Sally Drake.”
“It was your Harold who killed her.”
“My Harold? My husband?”
“Come on, sister. I wasn’t born yesterday. He’s not your husband. He was using you on that train, just like you were using him to get home from California, just like you used Sinclair Cook to get out there.”
“Cook? Mr. Brylcreem? How do you know about him?”
“I know a lot. But do you know what you’ve gotten yourself into?”
The front door opened and Les Schortmann peered out. “Who’s that, honey?”
“Go get your gun, Pa. And tell Ma to call the police.”
The old man stepped back into the house.
Kevin said, “You need to ask that Harold some tough questions, Vivian. About himself and about his friends, too, the ones you met in the cafeteria yesterday. Who are they?”
“How did you know about them?”
Kevin didn’t respond to that. He pulled a slip of paper from his pocket. “Here’s my phone number. If you find any answers, call me. I’ll be by the phone at eight and eight, tonight and tomorrow morning.”
She took the paper. “You can’t keep running, mister.”
“I’ve been running since last Sunday, thanks to you and your friend.”
“I had nothing to do with killing that girl.”
“No one will believe you if you don’t do the right thing now.” He started backing away, because he sensed movement in the house. “Just ask yourself, what would Jean Arthur do?”
Les Schortmann burst out the door with his shotgun, tripped on the top step, fell forward, and fired into the lawn.
Vivian shouted, “Oh, damn it, Pa.” She helped him up, then turned again, but Kevin was gone. Up the street or down? She couldn’t tell. She thought about running after him. But the pumps. The damn pumps. She couldn’t run in them. She hated them.
She went back and asked her father if Mom had called the police.
“Not yet,” he said. “Never told her. Grabbed my shotgun instead. Had to find the shells.”
Vivian decided she’d wait to hear from Harold. Whatever was going on, Harold owed her an explanation.
* * *
KEVIN FOUND STANLEY SMITH’S car on the waterfront and jumped in the back seat.
Stanley looked over his shoulder. “Hey, man, I said I’d drive you around for a day, but I ain’t your damn chauffeur. Get in the front.”
“Just go.” Kevin slunk down.
Stanley put the car in gear. “Somethin’ tells me you found somethin’.”
“Somethin’s right.”
“All I found was white navy boys in blue uniforms struttin’ around like they already won the damn war.” Stanley drove up Main Street and swung around Church Circle onto West Street. Then he said, “Now what?”
“I need a phone booth.”
After a mile, Stanley pulled over by a gas station.
Kevin told him to keep an eye out for the cops; then he went into the booth and dialed Dan Jones at the FBI. He was amazed that the call went straight through. Jones answered, and Kevin said, “Stella Madden tells me you want to talk to me.”
“Where are you?” asked Jones.
“I found the woman traveling with Kellogg. She lives in a house on the corner of Chesapeake and Second, in Annapolis. Tell Carter.”
Jones said, “Carter’s dead.”
Kevin thought he’d misheard. He put a finger in his ear to keep down the noise of the traffic. “What did you say?”
“Dead,” answered Jones. “Now, what do you know?”
Kevin slumped against the phone booth wall. “Dead? Jesus. How?”
“Why don’t you come in? We’ll talk about it.”
Kevin gasped, then gasped again, then all but lost his breath. If Carter was dead, who’d clear him now? And Carter was his friend, even if he’d used Kevin like a ten-cent mackerel spoon. Kevin took two or three deep breaths and said, “If I come in, do I need a lawyer?”
“I don’t know. Do you?”
Kevin regained some of his sarcasm along with his breath. “If I was writing this scene, that’s the answer I’d put in the FBI guy’s mouth.”
“Don’t be a smartass,” said Jones. “The D.C. Metros don’t like smartasses, and they have jurisdiction. As for Stella Madden—”
“Does she know?”
“She ID’d the body. She told the Metros you were the last guy on Carter’s schedule.” Jones paused, as if to let that sink in. Then he said, “Give it up, Hollywood. I can’t protect you from the Metros or from the Bureau guys who knew Frank Carter.”
“Before I turn myself in,” said Kevin, “I want you to call Leon Lewis—”
Stanley tapped his horn to warn Kevin that a police car was coming along.
“—or better yet, call the chief agent in the L.A. field office. His name is Hood. Have him call Lewis and tell Lewis to call you. He’ll vouch.”
“What’s to say you’re not playing Lewis, too? Maybe you’re a Nazi spying on the Jews, not the other way around? We know about your grandfather, one of those Irish troublemakers from ’16. They used the Germans and the Germans used them.”
“I have two grandfathers. One’s Irish. The other’s a Jew. Forget them both and find this Kellogg guy and his friends. Start with his girlfriend.”
“What’s her real name?”
Kevin saw the “stupid” light flashing again. He had to admit, “I never got it.”
“For a guy playing all the angles, that’s—”
“Hey, listen. I found where she lives. You bring her in.” Click. Kevin was done with the FBI. Anybody who’d even entertain the possibility that he was some kind of Bund double agent was too dangerous to talk to.
* * *
MARTIN BROWNING CALLED VIVIAN at her mother’s house.
Before he got a word out, she demanded, “Harry, what the hell is going on? The guy on the train came to see me. The Hollywood Nazi.”
Martin couldn’t believe it. The guy was everywhere. He told Vivian, “Get on the three o’clock train. Bring an overnight bag. I’ll meet you at Union Station. We’re invited to a dinner party in Washington.” That was a lie. But maybe he could turn it into truth.
Vivian said, “That Cusack guy told me you killed Sally Drake. Did you?”
“My God, what a liar. Just come to Washington. I’ll explain everything.”
And Vivian agreed. An explanation, a dinner party, a night in a nice hotel … maybe she was cheap after all, just a cheap date.
Next he called Helen Stauer and said they had to use one of the other safe houses. Vivian was attracting too much attention in Annapolis, so he was bringing her into town. And he needed a more secure place to hide out because of the FBI killing.
Helen said, “We have Mrs. Colbert. She lives in the Kalorama district.”
“Pronounced Col-bair?” said Martin. “That’s French, not German.”
“She’s American. Her late husband was a Swiss commodities broker working with Spanish fascists. He made a fortune brokering Spanish tungsten to the Reich armament industry. Along the way, the Colberts absorbed a great deal of German ideology and became leading America Firsters.”
“Can she be trusted?”
“Section Six trusts her. But about this Johnny Beevers. My husband has tracked him all day, even stayed with him when Cusack appeared. He thinks we should kill Cusack, too, but he needs to know what to do about Beevers.”
“Tell him to come back. We’ll lure Beevers to D.C. and deal with him here. Cusack, too.”
* * *
A PAIR OF FBI agents arrived in Annapolis about three o’clock. They didn’t have a full address, just a location: the corner of Chesapeake and Second Street. And they didn’t know what they were waiting for. So for a time, they waited and watched.
When the lights came on in the little bungalow with asbestos shingles, they went up and knocked. Mrs. Schortmann answered. She was sucking on a breath mint but the air around her had the sweet aroma of a late-afternoon highball.
They showed their badges and asked for Vivian. Kellogg. That was the only name they had.
Mrs. Schortmann said that they must be looking for her daughter. But her daughter had gone into Washington and wouldn’t be home until Christmas Eve. “Got all dolled up in her new polka-dot outfit and headed off to spend an evening in sin. At least the man she’s sinning with looks like a movie star.”
“What star would that be, ma’am?”
“Leslie Howard.”
They left a card and a phone number and asked that the daughter call them. When they got back to the car, one agent said to the other, “Jeesh. Leslie Fuckin’ Howard. Why couldn’t she pick Clark Gable or somebody?”
* * *
MARTIN MET VIVIAN AT Union Station and led her to a taxi. “I hereby admit that I’m lost without you,” he said, and he remembered to smile. He knew that she liked it when he smiled. “It must have been quite a shock seeing our Hollywood friend.”
“He told me things, Harold. You have to explain. You promised to explain.”
Martin gave the driver an address on Kalorama Circle, two miles from the White House. Then he patted Vivian’s knee. “Don’t worry about anything. Trust me.”
Vivian looked out the window. He’d been telling her to trust him for two weeks. On the train ride in, she’d decided that trusting him was still the best path to the life she imagined, instead of what she’d been revisiting in the last few days. He might be less conventional than Johnny Beevers, but he delivered excitement.
And he was about to make it easier to contrast himself with Johnny, because he asked her to call him and invite him for dinner.
“Why? You want to beat him up for moving in on your girlfriend or something?”
Martin gave her a gentle Harold Kellogg laugh. “My dear, you need to calm your speculations. I didn’t kill Sally Drake, and I don’t want to beat up anyone. But I do want to buy the tickets from Johnny Beevers. Did they have his name on them?”
“No name. They say, ‘Admit One, enter by the Northeast Appointment Gate.’”
Perfect, thought Martin Browning. The gate without the “electrical searcher.” In America, VIPs didn’t submit to such indignities.
Soon the cab was turning onto a one-way circle lined with big houses, the kind where lawyers and lobbyists and diplomats lived, behind hedges, shielded by evergreens, bathed in the fragrance of boxwoods on a rainy night. Across from the Colbert house, a wooded hillside dropped toward Rock Creek. Through the bare trees, headlights were flickering as cars sped along the parkway below.
Martin said, “A long way from Hollywood Boulevard.”
“Even longer from San Fernando Road,” said Vivian. “But … I thought you were staying in a hotel.”
“Mrs. Colbert is an old friend.” That was a lie. “She just got back into town and invited us to stay.” That was another.
The doorbell didn’t buzz. It chimed, just like in the movies. The butler, tall and dour, led them across the huge foyer, past a grandfather clock and a twelve-foot-tall Christmas tree, into the sitting room.
Vivian had heard of places like this, where you smelled furniture polish instead of onions and garlic, where the draperies swallowed the outside noise, and you couldn’t feel your footsteps because the Oriental carpets were so thick. Then Mrs. Colbert glided from the shadows. “Ah, Harold, is this your lovely wife?”
“Dear Elizabeth!” Martin embraced her like an old friend, though he’d only met her an hour before.
The portrait above the fireplace flattered her, a big woman, buxom, double-chinned, and pretty damn satisfied with how she’d gotten there.
Martin said, “I wanted you two to meet. So I brought Vivian in from Annapolis to keep me company during the conference.”
“And for the tree lighting.” Mrs. Colbert beamed at the thought of it. “Always such a festive night, even two weeks after what those dreadful Japanese did.”
Martin said, “We’re hoping to get tickets from the young man you’ve so graciously consented to entertain at dinner.”
Mrs. Colbert clapped her hands. “Oh, yes. I’m setting an extra place. And Vivian, darling, I know you’d like to freshen up. My man, Caesar, will show you to your room.”
“Telephone first,” said Martin.
“In the library,” said Mrs. Colbert.
“Library?” said Vivian, feeling overwhelmed by the opulence of the house and the warmth of the hostess. “Do I need a card?”
Mrs. Colbert gave a little laugh. “No, dear, you don’t need a library card. There’s another phone by your bed, if you prefer.”
Martin called after her, “Be sure to tell Johnny we’ll offer him something special in exchange for those tickets.”
“And remind him, dear, the porch lights will be out,” said Mrs. Colbert. “We’re observing the blackout, even if our neighbors aren’t.”
As Vivian followed the butler through the enormous house, she heard Mrs. Colbert say, “Lovely girl. Just lovely.” She also heard Martin say, “I am very lucky.”
She didn’t hear Mrs. Colbert whisper, “Lucky for you that she has an old boyfriend … and a gullible one at that. Are you using Gestapo money to buy his tickets?”
“I don’t intend to buy them at all.”
