Pagan's Spy

by Matt Eaton

  “What happened to leaving town?” he demanded.

  “Turns out my dad has been calling me and having people hang up on him,” she returned. “He wants to know what I’m really doing because the bright young thing answering the senator’s phone is handing out your phone number.”

  “I’ll sort that out,” he said.

  “Were you going to tell me he called, or is this just another secret I’m supposed to nut out on my own?”

  “I’m not paying for a suite at the Carlton, Edna. It’s a waste of resources.”

  “Don’t think I’m worth it?”

  “That’s not what I said. Sheraton just bought the place. They’ve put the rates up.”

  “Either Verus pays,” she said, “or I start reconsidering my future in journalism.”

  She could have cut the silence on the line with a butter knife. “Don’t be a fool.”

  “Just pay the goddamn bill.” She hung up without giving him a chance to answer then calmly retrieved the key to her new abode from the night manager.

  Her new home had a grand piano and a large red couch upon which one could lie down and go to sleep if one was too drunk to make it all the way to the bedroom. She considered calling Clarence, then figured she might as well wait to see if he turned up uninvited.

  She stayed inside the hotel suite for two days, room service all the way — five-star dining and French champagne. Paulson found her late on the second day, by which time her lunchtime bubbles buzz had metamorphosized into a woozy torpor.

  He knocked for several minutes before she got around to answering. From the look of apprehension on his face, she guessed she must look a fright.

  “Come on in. I take it ghost boy told you where to find me.”

  “Donald, actually.”

  “Well, seeing as you’re here now, you might as well take me to bed,” she told him, taking him by the hand and leading the way into her large and elaborate boudoir. She fell face first down on the bedspread and woke to find herself stripped to her underwear and tucked in with the lights out.

  She got up, wondering where he’d gone. He was asleep on her red couch.

  “What are you doing out here?” she asked, seeing she’d woken him. “Am I that disgusting?”

  “I thought you needed your space,” he said. “But I also thought it might not be such a great idea to leave you alone.”

  “Jesus, Clarence, I’m not going to do myself a mischief if that’s what you’re worried about.”

  “Go to bed,” he told her. “Get some sleep.”

  She stayed in bed until noon, by which time he was gone. She’d no doubt scared the life out of him. Needy and unhappy women probably weren’t his forte. Her two-day bender had shaken something loose. It dawned on her a life of luxury might not be all it seemed. To put it plainly, she was sick to death of all of it. Tired of all of the games.

  TWENTY SEVEN

  Wednesday August 19, 1953

  It felt good to be back in her old neighborhood, but it felt like folks had become a whole lot angrier along M Street since the last time she’d visited Southwest D.C. Several people stared back at her with obvious disdain as they passed by. In shop windows and all along the pavement, placards spelt out the reason for their anger. The posters decried the Redevelopment Land Agency’s compulsory acquisition of property in the area and called on neighborhood residents and business operators to write their local congressman to voice their opposition.

  Fat lot of good it would do them.

  A similar sign welcomed every customer at the entrance to Mamma Rey’s café. A young man behind the counter gave her the evil eye when she approached. “Okay if I just pick a booth?” she asked, sensing this might not be the day to take anything for granted. He stared like he wanted to tell her to take her business elsewhere.

  “Edna!” Mamma Rey emerged from the kitchen and opened her arms to offer her old neighbor a hug. In another life, Edna had lived next door above the tailor shop. She’d been one of Mamma’s best customers.

  “Good to see you, Mamma,” said Edna, relieved. She had clearly been aware Edna was getting the cold shoulder and slapped the boy responsible on the arm. “What you frowning at, Moses? Ain’t never seen a white girl up close? She won’t bite.”

  “At least, not on the first date,” said Edna.

  Mamma roared with laughter. “Sit yourself down girl. Coffee coming right up. Where you been, anyway?”

  The tables were as neat and tidy as ever, but there was a layer of dust over everything. Edna had never seen that here before. It was as if the staff had already decided the place was destined to become rubble.

  Helen Barber walked in as Mamma arrived with the coffee pot. Helen slid into the booth and offered a thin smile at the proprietor. “I’d love a cup too, please.” The last time they’d met here, Barber had been less than civil to Mamma. Seemed both of them still remembered that day. Mamma huffed and poured, and left without saying another word.

  “Been a while, Helen, how are you?”

  “Somebody just spat at me on the street,” Barber said.

  “This demolition thing is getting ugly,” said Edna, pulling out a pack of Lucky Strikes and tapping the bottom to pull out a cigarette. She offered the pack to Helen. “Want one?”

  Barber shook her head. “I’m trying to quit.”

  “Wow,” said Edna. “Good luck with that.” She put the cigarette in her mouth and lit it.

  Mamma was wiping a table nearby and overheard their initial exchange. “They gonna bulldoze our whole neighborhood,” she said. “Folks mad they got no say in it.”

  “Surely the Government will pay a fair price,” said Barber.

  Mamma scoffed. “What country you livin’ in? They call this area a black ghetto and they payin’ ghetto rates. But people gotta live. We still gotta move someplace else.”

  “Where are you gonna go, Mamma?” Edna asked.

  “I’m moving to Barry Farm.” This was on the other side of the Anacostia River, where the land was cheaper. The black community had been growing there for some time. “My sister got a house over there. I’m gonna buy another one close by.”

  Edna nodded. “And you’ll reopen the café over there?”

  “You know it, sugar.”

  “I’ll be there on the opening day. Meantime, I’ve been dying for a plate of your fried chicken. It might be my last time for a while.”

  “Comin’ right up, sugar.”

  Barber stuck with black coffee. She waited for Mamma to hit the kitchen before leaning in across the table. “I can’t believe you dragged me out here. Again. I feel like a trespasser in my own city.”

  “That’s how everyone feels around here,” said Edna.

  The previous year, Barber had fed Edna a story on UFOs. They’d met here to talk about it. But it was fair to say black civil rights were not big on Barber’s political agenda.

  “How’s work?” Edna asked.

  Barber eyed her suspiciously. “Same as always. How about you? Senator Irving treating you right?”

  “That’s sort of what I wanted to speak to you about. My work has brought me into contact with some sensitive information.”

  “I thought you were finished with journalism?”

  “I’m talking remarkable information, Helen. Very like what we were talking about last year.”

  Barber was managing editor of the Air Intelligence Digest. She was a useful source of credible information, and well connected.

  “You mean flying saucers,” Barber realized.

  “Exactly.”

  “How exactly is Senator Ives is tied up in this?” she asked skeptically, knowing Ives wasn’t on any Senate intelligence committees.

  “It’s a long and complicated story, but Irving Ives is not the main game. Look, you helped me last year with getting sensitive information out to the public. You didn’t have to do that, but you did it anyway and I’ve always admired you for that.”

  Barber smiled. “I’m waiting for
the punchline here.”

  “I’m on the inside, Helen. Right on the inside. At the coal face. I can’t say more than that. Not yet. But I want to know — if I was to tell you things, maybe even show you things — would you be willing to pass it on to the press?”

  “You want to use me for cover.”

  “I suppose that’s fair, yes.”

  “Meaning if the shit hits the fan, I’m the one who gets sucked into the propellor blades,” Barber concluded. “I’m thrilled, Edna.”

  Edna sighed. “No, that’s not what I meant at all.”

  Helen Barber finished off her coffee, wiped her mouth with a napkin and then calmly pushed the cup across the table towards Edna. “You, my girl, can go straight to hell.” She moved to stand up.

  “Not so fast,” Edna pleaded. “Look, I’d make it worth your while.”

  Barber frowned. “How?”

  “Everybody needs something. What do you need, Helen?”

  Barber rose slowly to her feet. “Nothing from you. For all I know, you’re trying to entrap me into committing an act of treason.”

  “Don’t be ridiculous.”

  “McCarthy’s got people everywhere. My life is in a good place right now, not that you care. I’m seeing a man. Work is going well. Not great, but not so bad. I’m moving into a nice apartment in a better part of town. If you think I’m going to toss it all out the window, you’ve got rocks in your head. Have a nice life, Edna.”

  She opened her mouth to object, but no words came out. She just watched as Barber walked out the door.

  When she thought about it afterwards, she really wished she’d said something — anything at all.

  TWENTY EIGHT

  Wednesday August 19, 1953

  Mamma’s fried chicken was so good it was hard to feel too disappointed about Barber’s refusal. It had really only ever been a long shot. But the act of approaching her also underlined the risk she was taking in trying to peddle state secrets under the watchful gaze of people who most certainly didn’t have her best interests at heart.

  Returning to Southwest D.C. had been her attempt at holding the surveillance at bay. The CIA wasn’t in the business of hiring black people — they barely acknowledged the women in their ranks. She likewise figured it wouldn’t be easy for the Russians to do so on short notice. City authorities had been steering clear of M Street for weeks, because right now a white face in this neighborhood was not a welcome sight. Given the simmering hostility, that might have been prudent circumspection on the part of police, but she knew it was more likely the cops had just washed their hands of the area until something happened that was too big for them to ignore.

  Unfortunately, this meant she would have to find her way back to her hotel through several blocks of angry people who now saw her lily-white face as the embodiment of things to come and were quite happy to let her know about it.

  Mamma must have sensed her concern as she paid up. “You gonna be all right, sugar? Why don’t I get Moses to give you a lift downtown?”

  Edna thought about the kid dropping her off at one of the city’s most exclusive hotels. That didn’t sit right. “I’ll be fine, Mamma. I’m sure there are still people out there who know me.”

  Mamma raised an eyebrow. “You sure?”

  “Tell you what,” Edna said, “if I’m back in five minutes, you know I’ve changed my mind.”

  She was half a block from the café when she first noticed the tail. She stopped in front of a shop window to check the reflection and in the corner of the eye caught him stopping to check his shoelaces at exactly the same moment. A black man. The face wasn’t familiar, but he was well dressed. He didn’t look someone aiming to pick a fight; he looked like he’d been told to follow her and wasn’t very good at it.

  She took a left turn up Third Street, still weathering angry faces and the occasional cuss thrown in her direction. It was alarming and off-putting, but didn’t feel dangerous. Not compared to have a Russian gun pointed in her face. She took a right turn into L Street and hid in a doorway to wait for her tail to pass.

  As he came into view, she calmly asked him, “Why are you following me?” The man leapt in the air like she’d lobbed a brick at him.

  “You scared the heck out of me,” he told her indignantly. “I ain’t followin’ you.”

  “Like hell.” She stepped out and grabbed him by the collar of his brown jacket. “Who sent you?”

  Two old men walked past, one whispering to the other and pointing. They thought she was just a honky wailing on her sugar daddy. “Get your damn hands off me,” he complained, flicking her hands away and trying to leave.

  “Take one more step and I’ll yell rape,” she said. “Black man, white woman – who do you think the cops are gonna believe?”

  He stopped. She knew then he was an amateur. Anyone half smart would have kept moving. The cops weren’t getting here any time soon, but he was terrified just because she’d invoked the law. “Who sent you?” she asked again.

  He turned around, looking nervous. “It was Mr Menzel, okay?”

  “What’s your name?”

  “I ain’t gonna tell you that.”

  Not completely stupid then. “OK fine, so just tell me how this works. Do you report back hourly, daily... what?”

  “Look, all I know is he pay me to watch you and say if you go back to your old neighborhood. He says I should get you out of trouble if you need it. That’s it.”

  She sighed. As if she didn’t already have enough to worry about. Menzel had outdone himself this time. Setting a man on her tail with no apparent skill in surveillance but assuming he’d blend in because he was black.

  But Donald Menzel didn’t mix widely in the black community — how had he found this man? Maybe someone from Lee Tavon’s catering company? Tavon hired black staff exclusively. He might have even agreed to it if he thought it would help Edna. But this guy was like a flashing beacon over her head alerting everyone to her approach. The professionals didn’t need to follow her – they could follow him instead.

  “You got a car?” she asked the guy.

  “Yeah.”

  “You know where I’m staying?”

  He didn’t want to answer, but eventually nodded.

  “Okay,” she said. “You’re giving me a lift back there. Then you’re done.”

  TWENTY NINE

  Friday August 21, 1953

  The police found Helen Barber’s body just before dawn. A neighbor had called, saying he heard gunshots. But it could only have been the one shot because it looked very much like Barber had blown her own brains out with the pistol found on the floor beside her. Officers had to force their way inside her bungalow. They were greeted with the disturbing sight of a corpse with a cat on it, hissing and howling at them like a creature possessed.

  It looked like a clear case of suicide. No signs of forced entry, no indication of a struggle. Just a half-empty whisky bottle on her kitchen bench and a crystal tumbler sitting on the arm of her couch. As far as the officers at the scene were concerned, there was no point digging any deeper. Case closed.

  But homicide detective Vincent Kaplan wasn’t about to let such a blithe presumption dictate his approach to a potential crime scene. One look at the Pentagon ID in Barber’s purse told him there could be more to this than first impressions dictated. He insisted on doing things by the book. Which meant door-knocking all the neighbors, starting with the man who had called the police in the first place.

  Everyone said pretty much the same thing: Barber had been a loner, a quiet neighbor who kept to herself. One or two mentioned there had been a man on the scene, not for long — a couple of months tops. That was enough to pique Kaplan’s interest.

  It might have taken days to penetrate the Pentagon’s outer defenses and speak to the folks who knew Barber best, if not for the fact that Kaplan knew Jack Peterborough, the US Special Police captain in charge of Pentagon security. He was a former murder cop and intimately aware of the many ways p
olitics could play havoc with police work. Two hours after their initial phone conversation, Peterborough met Kaplan personally at the Pentagon’s river entrance to escort him through a labyrinth of corridors and divisions to the tiny windowless office of the Air Intelligence Digest.

  Peterborough sat in as back-up while Kaplan interviewed the three staffers who had worked closely with Barber and knew her best. They were all shocked and deeply troubled to hear of the violent death of their boss. But none of them could shed light on whether she might be motivated to pull the trigger herself. The first two were unaware — they were in fact, surprised — that she’d had a man in her life. That seemed to shock them almost as much as the news of her death.

  But Kaplan got lucky with interview number three. Jean Williams was officially Barber’s secretary, but in fact had long been helping her with anything and everything to get the monthly publication to print. They’d worked closely with one another for more than five years. Williams knew of Barber’s boyfriend.

  “I’d like to speak to him and break the news gently,” Kaplan explained.

  Jean said his name was Havermeyer. “Lieutenant Toby Havermeyer. He works for the Air Force chief of staff, General Twining.”

  If news was already travelling fast through the Pentagon corridors, it hadn’t reached Havermeyer’s desk by the time they arrived. He didn’t see it coming. He was a bookish, slightly overweight man in his late 40s with a soft handshake. Didn’t look like much of a military man. When Kaplan told him of his girlfriend’s demise, he fell to pieces.

  Grief and shock could be faked to a point, but Havermeyer crumbled. He wasn’t holding anything back. Kaplan read his response as genuine. Nevertheless, with no small degree of regret, he threw salt in the wound, telling the lieutenant it appeared she had committed suicide. He even described the pistol found beside her, searching for any signs on the man’s face that might betray a sense of guilt. But Havermeyer surprised him by saying suicide made no sense at all. Kaplan made a mental note to circle back to that. He asked how long they’d been seeing one another.