“Secret Service, Mr. Heller,” he said, holding up his wallet with five-pointed silver star and photo-credentials for my perusal. “If you’ll just come with me, please.”
He was whispering, but there was nothing soft about the grip on my arm as he shoved me past the yawning door into the backseat of the black sedan that waited at the curb to take me away.
Because, after all, that’s how it’s done in D.C.
3
As we rolled down Pennsylvania Avenue at night, the White House loomed to our right, bathed in spotlights like a theater hosting a premiere, only the star here was the structure. Was the Executive Mansion where these Secret Service boys were taking me? Perhaps the President of the United States wanted to consult the President of the A-1 Detective Agency; you know, maybe Harry wanted me to see if Bess was shacked up at the Rockville Shady Rest with Ike or MacArthur or somebody.
My escorts hadn’t bothered sharing any information with me. They sat in the front and I sat in the back, like an obnoxious kid getting his questions ignored by the grown-ups—Am I being charged with anything? Do I need a lawyer? Don’t you guys have any counterfeiters you can go bother? How many more miles, Daddy?
But our destination proved to be just past the White House, flanking it on the east, at Pennsylvania Avenue and 15th Street: a gray granite Greek Revival-style structure that rose five stories and consumed two blocks. I’d been here before—the Treasury Building—on various visits to Elmer Irey and Frank J. Wilson, the Capone case IRS agents I’d seen Glenn Ford playing a composite of, this afternoon. Both Irey and Wilson had risen in the government, Irey eventually overseeing the Treasury Department’s various law-enforcement agencies, including the Secret Service, of which Wilson had become chief in 1936.
Despite a few adversarial situations, the two men were friendly acquaintances of mine, but I couldn’t hope to lean on them tonight: Irey had passed away last year, and Wilson recently retired.
My Secret Service escorts left the black sedan in an outdoor, “United States Government Employees Only” lot and ushered me up a broad flight of stone steps to a colonnaded portico, then through the high-ceilinged, imposing West Lobby; my shoes had surveillance-suitable rubber soles, but the shiny Secret Service shoes created footsteps that echoed off the marble floor like small-arms fire. We moved past an exhibit called “Know Your Money,” featuring methods of detecting counterfeit bills and forged checks, and onto an elevator that stopped at the fourth floor.
They deposited me in a small, rectangular conference room that seemed designed around a small, rectangular dark-varnished oak conference table where I was directed to take the nearest of half a dozen wooden chairs. The walls were a smooth, cream-color plaster occasionally broken up by framed exhibits of damaged money that Treasury experts had managed to identify despite (their prominent labels said) charring by fire, nibbling by mice or shredding by streetcar wheels. The dark-haired, dark-eyed agent who’d showed me his badge stood along a wall without leaning, arms folded, with the expression of a state trooper waiting for you to get your driver’s license out.
“Are you going to tell me what this is about?” I asked him.
“No,” he said.
Well, that was more than he’d said on the way over.
Down at the far end of the table, a single window, tall and narrow, was hidden by barely slitted-open venetian blinds, but behind them the window was open and a cool breeze rattled through, flapping the metal shutters like a stiff flag.
Ten or twelve minutes later, when the door opened and a lanky, thin-lipped, poker-faced guy about my age ambled in, the agent unfolded his arms and stood even more erect. Oddly, this new arrival—however much immediate respect he commanded from my chaperon—was not in suit and tie, but a blue-and-green Hawaiian-print sportshirt, brown slacks and brown sandals with socks; he looked more like Bing Crosby than a Secret Service man—all he lacked was Der Bingel’s pipe.
The only official-looking thing about him was the thick manila file folder in one hand. He turned a penetrating gaze on the younger agent. “Have you spoken with our guest?”
His voice was a pleasant second tenor.
“No, sir.”
“Leave me alone with him.”
“Yes, sir.”
The young agent went out, yanking the door shut: the sound was like the pistol shot at the start of a race.
The superior officer in the Hawaiian shirt turned his clear-eyed gaze on me. “Baughman,” he said by way of introduction, sticking out his hand.
Shaking it, I asked, “Chief Baughman?”
“That’s right.”
This character in an explosion-at-the-paint-factory shirt was Chief of the Secret Service. I was being interrogated by the top guy.
“Mr. Heller,” he said, chuckling with what seemed to be mild embarrassment, “you’ll have to excuse my informality … I got the call while my wife and I were at a barbecue.”
He was standing looking down at me; he was tall enough that I had to crane my neck back to look at him.
“What call would that be, Chief Baughman? The call to drop your ‘Don’t Mess with the Chef’ apron and grill me personally? Instead of another cheeseburger?”
His thin lips formed a smile; it was like a cut in his pasty face, a wound that opened with the words, “They were shishkabobs, actually—lamb…. You live up to your reputation, Mr. Heller, for having a smart mouth.”
“Is that in my file?”
“Actually, yes … in so many words.”
The breeze-fluttered blinds were making un-melodic metallic music.
I asked, “Why would the Secret Service keep a file on me?”
His non-answer was: “I had a chance to read up on you, on the way over.”
So a chauffeured government limo had been sent to pick him up; and somebody had seen fit to send along a file on me for U. E. Baughman, Chief of the Secret Service himself, to read.
Fanning the air absently with the file, Baughman wandered toward the end of the table, where he sat with his back to the fluttering tone-deaf wind chime of the Venetian blinds, putting some distance between us. Possibly this was to allow him to peruse my file away from my prying eyes.
“Am I being held for anything, Chief Baughman?”
“Certainly not. I hope no one indicated that you were. I don’t condone violation of rules or regulations by any agent.”
“False arrest and kidnapping fall within acceptable guidelines, I take it.”
The piercing gaze in the deceptively bland face bore through me. “You weren’t arrested. And I believe you were asked to accompany the agents.”
“I was shoved bodily in the back of a Buick.”
“Would you like to lodge a complaint about undue force?”
“No. I’m from Chicago, where the cops throw you in the back of cars just to express their affection.”
The thin lips pursed; it was like a crinkle in paper. Then he said, “You’re welcome to leave, Mr. Heller.”
But I just sat there. The son of a bitch knew my curiosity was up.
He began flipping through the file. “You’ve had a rather checkered career, Mr. Heller … friends and enemies in high and low places. It says here you once spoke ‘disrespectfully’ to Director Hoover.”
I shrugged. “I just suggested he do to himself what Clyde Tolson does to him behind closed doors—is that my FBI file? As a taxpayer, I’m gratified to see the various branches of the government rising above their petty differences to cooperate in running roughshod over the rights of the individual citizen.”
“You had some dealings with the Secret Service back in ’32, in Miami…. This is impressive—Mayor Cermak’s bodyguard at the bandshell when Zangara tried to assassinate Roosevelt?”
“It would be more impressive if Cermak hadn’t been killed.”
He paged through the file, slowly, savoring its contents. “When you were with the Chicago Police Department, you went to New Jersey to serve as their liaison on the Lindbergh
kidnapping case, working with both Frank J. Wilson and Elmer Irey, two of my former bosses here at the Service. Both apparently have a … guardedly high opinion of you and your abilities. In particular, Chief Irey cites your good work for him in the IRS inquiry into Huey Long and his confederates…. My! So you were Huey Long’s bodyguard as well. Didn’t he also get killed?”
“I’ll do the jokes, if you don’t mind.”
“No, actually it’s a very unusual, even noteworthy file. When Eliot Ness was with the Treasury Department in Chicago, and later with the Alcohol and Tax Unit in Ohio, you aided him on several government matters. Then later when he was safety director of Cleveland, you worked with him on several successful investigations …”
“Listen, I know all about my life. I’ve been busy living it for over forty years now.”
“Patriotic, too. Shaved a few years off your age to get into the Marines. Guadalcanal, Silver Star, Purple Heart …”
“Battle fatigue, malaria, Section Eight.”
Baughman shut the manila folder and then lifted it in one hand, as if weighing it. “One of the most curious aspects of your FBI file, Mr. Heller, is that it’s incomplete.”
“In what way?”
“It notes that before the war you on occasion worked for Navy Intelligence, but that your service in that regard is still top-secret. Classified. You know, usually information doesn’t elude J. Edgar Hoover.”
“Maybe I was off in the South Sea Islands looking for Amelia Earhart.”
“I almost believe you.” He tossed the file on the table. “It also says you ‘cooperated favorably’ with British Naval Intelligence on a matter in Nassau in 1943, shortly after you left the military. But no details.”
I leaned back in the hard chair, crossed a leg over a knee. “Well, I’m pretty impressed with me, so far. Why do you suppose I’m not famous?”
Baughman nodded toward the closed file. “Oh, you’ve had your share of press, and there are a good number of clippings here to prove it…. When you left the Chicago Police Department in ’32, to form your A-1 Detective Agency, it was under a cloud of scandal, and since then you’ve been a known associate of mobsters—Al Capone, Frank Nitti, Meyer Lansky, Sam Giancana, Benjamin ‘Bugsy’ Siegel, quite a rogues’ gallery.”
“You must be mistaken. There’s no such thing as the Mafia. I heard J. Edgar Hoover say so on the radio.”
The thin mouth formed another smile: a nasty one. “With your ready wit, that’s where you belong—on the radio, or the television. Uncle Miltie, maybe.”
“Listen, I didn’t come to Washington to be insulted. I can get that back home.”
The penetrating gaze narrowed. “Why did you come to Washington, Mr. Heller?”
Now we were to it.
“I wanted to be here in time for the cherry blossoms.”
“You can do better than that, Mr. Heller.”
“No, not really. That’s about as clever as I get.”
“Why did you spend today maintaining a stakeout on Secretary Forrestal’s house on Prospect Avenue?”
“Is that what I did?”
“Except when you followed him to Burning Tree golf club, and when you tailed Secretary Forrestal’s maid—Della Brown, is it?” He removed a small notebook from the back pocket of his slacks, flipped it open. “Della Sue Brown, yes. You followed her to Martin’s Bar on Wisconsin Avenue in Georgetown.”
“It sounds to me like I was just another tourist hanging around a touristy part of town, except when I took that jaunt over to Maryland to catch a matinee…. You left out where I went to see Undercover Man in Rockville.”
“When you followed Secretary Forrestal’s chauffeur, Ted Hertel, you mean.”
“Now you have more information than I do; his name’s Ted Hertel, huh? What do you know. I didn’t much care for the movie, if you want to jot that down.”
“What did you and Secretary Forrestal discuss at Chevy Chase golf club yesterday?”
So much for my prowess at spotting somebody else’s surveillance in progress.
I said, “Jim Forrestal’s an old friend; we just played a round of golf.”
“And talked in the clubhouse for two hours.”
“There was a downpour we were waiting out.”
Baughman twitched a smile, sighed and folded his hands atop the closed folder. “Mr. Heller … I’m well aware that, as a professional investigator, you have a certain code of ethics—”
“Are you sure you read my file?”
“I understand your … reluctance … to betray the confidence of a client. But I must ask you—is Secretary Forrestal in fact your client? And, if so, what have you been hired to do?”
“I told you, Chief Baughman … I’m just a tourist.”
“Does your … friendship with Secretary Forrestal date back to these classified jobs you did before the war, for the Navy Department? When he was Secretary of the Navy?”
“Let me get this straight—the head of the Secret Service is asking me to share government secrets? Is this like where they show a kid a picture of a farmyard and there’s a pig upside down and he’s supposed to spot it?”
Baughman ignored that, and an edge came into his mild voice. “We know you did a job for Secretary Forrestal in 1940, when his wife had her mental breakdown—”
“What does Secretary Forrestal have to do with protecting the president, or catching counterfeiters?”
A sharp knock at the door made me jump.
“Jesus!” I said, undermining my stance as a cool customer.
Baughman, raising his voice, said, “Yes?”
The door cracked open and the dark-haired young agent peeked in. “Chief Wilson is here, sir.”
“Good,” Baughman said. “Send him in.”
“He’s just signing in, sir, down the hall. It’ll be a moment.”
Baughman nodded, and the door closed.
“Not Frank Wilson?” I asked. “I thought you were the big cheese around here, now.”
He arched an eyebrow; his tone was arch, too: “Haven’t you heard that expression, Mr. Heller? Too many chiefs and not enough Indians? That’s Washington to a tee.”
“A tee-pee,” I corrected.
He gave me only half a smile but it was completely condescending. “I knew you could be more clever if you tried.”
The door opened and Frank J. Wilson, former Chief of the Secret Service, stepped inside. Baughman stood, out of respect for his onetime boss; and I stood, too, surprised to see this old friend—or anyway, friendly adversary.
“Been a while, Nate,” Wilson said, and there was nothing halfway or condescending about his smile, always a surprise in that dour, jug-eared, round-cleft-chin countenance of his—almost as unexpected as the long feminine lashes of the keenly alert dark blue eyes under thick black slashes of eyebrow behind round, black-rimmed glasses.
No Hawaiian shirt for Wilson: he wore a dark blue suit with a blue-and-red striped tie that, against his white shirt, invoked Old Glory. He was not a big man—perhaps five eight, possibly 180 pounds—but he had considerable presence; his dark hair was almost entirely gray now, and his forehead had receded to Baltimore.
We shook hands—a firm quick clasp from this one-third of the triumvirate of Ness, Irey and himself who had brought down the notorious Scarface Al (Snorkey, to insiders)—and he gestured for Baughman and me to be seated. We sat, at our respective ends of the table, the wind still ruffling the blinds while Wilson, unbuttoning his suitcoat, sat next to me.
“Well,” Wilson said pleasantly, in his businesslike baritone, placing his palms flat on the smoothly varnished table, “where are we?”
It was like somebody who’d come into a movie late, asking what he’d missed.
“Mr. Heller says he’s a tourist,” Baughman said dryly. “He claims that yesterday he was golfing with his old friend Jim Forrestal, strictly social, and today he was taking in the sights of Georgetown.”
“I see,” Wilson said.
“I don
’t,” I said. “Frank, I thought you left the Secret Service over a year ago.”
His face had a little less expression than Buster Keaton’s. “I did.”
I leaned forward. “Or were you asked to leave? I know Elmer saw the handwriting on the wall.”
Wilson’s longtime associate Elmer Irey had retired in ’46 after putting political boss Tom Pendergast away—Pendergast of course having been Harry Truman’s political godfather.
“Everyone thinks Elmer stepped down for political reasons,” Wilson said. “But really there were health concerns—obviously.”
“A lot of vital men die when their work gets taken away from them.”
He leaned back in his hard chair. “I’ve never had a conflict with the Truman administration. In fact, I’m still working for them.”
“Not with the Secret Service.”
“No,” Wilson admitted. “I’m a security consultant, attached to the Atomic Energy Commission, at the moment.”
I tried to digest that.
Baughman said, “Frank was nice enough to stop by and take a hand in this, because of your past relationship.”
“A hand in what?” I asked, worry spreading in me like a rash. “Frank, don’t tell me I’ve wandered into A-bomb country here….”
“What are you involved in, Nate?” Wilson asked, eyes narrowing behind the round lenses. “Secretary Forrestal hired you to do something. What?”
“Frank, if your assumptions are right, then Forrestal’s my client. I’m protected by the same client privacy privileges as an attorney.”
“No you aren’t,” Wilson said, “not unless you’re working through an attorney. There are national security issues involved here, Heller. Or would you prefer talking to Hoover’s people?”
Baughman picked up the file folder. “I neglected to mention, Mr. Heller, the two FBI agents who were hospitalized in 1937—in Burbank, California? Broken nose, severe concussion …”
“Surely they’re out by now,” I said, but I sounded cockier than I felt.
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