I blinked. “Help you how, sir?”
“You’re working for him. He trusts you. He’s hired you to find out who’s …” Truman laughed humorlessly. “… trying to, Jesus H. Christ, kill him. I want you to stay close to him. If he worsens, if leaving office does not remedy his wearied state, if full collapse ensues … I need to know immediately.”
“What will you do in that case, sir?”
“We will help him. I don’t give a damn if Pearson and Winchell make a scandal out of it—Truman’s Secretary of Defense goes bughouse! Well fuck them and the newspapers and radio stations they’re in bed with. We need to help Jim, and protect the interests of this great country.”
He was staring at me now, with those intense gray-hazel eyes, large behind the thick lenses; he was waiting for my response.
So I gave it to him: “Whatever you need, sir.”
“Now I won’t insult you by offering you money.”
I risked a smile. “I don’t insult all that easily.”
He chuckled. “Well, there’s no money in it for you, just the same. Just the satisfaction of helping your country, and knowing you have a friend in the White House … for a few more years, anyway.”
“That could come in handy.”
“Eat your lobster, Nate, ’fore it gets cold. What are you drinking?”
“I wouldn’t mind a rum and Coke …”
“Boy! Rum and Coke for my friend, here! … You know, Nate, they’re always yelling to me from crowds, ‘Give ’em hell, Harry! Give ’em hell.’”
“Yes, sir, I’ve heard of that.”
“Well this time, we’ll give ’em Heller.”
And he winked at me, and poured himself some Old Fitzgerald.
5
A stairway from 14th and H streets led up to the Casino Royal, which was not, strictly speaking, a casino at all: there were illegal gambling joints within the D.C. environs, but this wasn’t one of them. It was instead one of Washington’s two principal nightclubs (the Lotus being the other) and—with its prom-night glitter, popular prices and endless dance floor—a poor excuse for a Chicagoan’s Chez Paree or a New Yorker’s El Morocco.
Still reeling from the surrealistic experience of eating lobster with Harry Truman, I had been dropped off at the Ambassador Hotel by Frank Wilson, who’d handed me a slip of paper with both his and Chief Baughman’s numbers, “should anything interesting develop.” It was barely after ten p.m., but exhilaration and exhaustion were fighting within me, and exhaustion was winning. Cool sheets and a soft pillow awaited….
But so did another slip of paper, at the front desk, a handwritten note left in my mailbox, reading: “I’ll be at the Casino Royal until midnight. Please come if you want the real lowdown. We have mutual friends—F.S. and the late Ben S., among others. Teddy K.”
I had no idea who “Teddy K.” was, but F.S. was a certain boy singer I’d done a few jobs for, at the request of friends of his in Chicago, and “the late Ben S.” was Benjamin “Bugsy” Siegel, who I’d worked for in the early days of the Flamingo Hotel in Las Vegas. Sinatra was indeed a friend, as had been Siegel, though in both instances I’d sometimes wished otherwise.
Having no idea how I was supposed to identify Teddy K., I swam the Casino Royal’s sea of tourists, navigating through a fog of cigarette smoke, searching for an empty table along the periphery of the packed dance floor, where couples were swaying to “On a Slow Boat to China.”
“Maybe that’s the boat that brought Dick Lamm over,” a thick, middle-European-accented baritone voice beside me said.
I glanced at the stocky, bucket-headed figure at my shoulder. In his late thirties, spiffy in a three-button light blue glen plaid sportcoat and a maroon tie with big blue amoebas swimming on it, the guy had a blond thatch of Brylcreemed hair, quizzical eyebrows high above small sharp dark eyes, a sweet-potato nose and narrow lips in a fleshy, friendly face.
“Who’s Dick Lamm?” I asked.
“Chinaman that runs the joint. Used to run the China Doll in New York. He’s got uptown manners, but, brother, he sure knows what the hicks want.”
“Really.”
He extended a blunt-fingered, almost pudgy right hand. “I’m Theodor Kollek, but everybody calls me Teddy. You prefer Nate or Nathan?”
I shook hands with him, warily; he looked like a very successful bookie. “Nate’s just fine, Teddy. Who the hell are you?”
Kollek grinned and his eyes disappeared into pouchy slits. “Nate, you ain’t had time to absorb who Dick Lamm is, much less Teddy Kollek.” He gestured rather grandly. “They’re savin’ a back booth for us.”
I followed him. An announcer was shooing the crowd off the dance floor; just as we were settling in our booth, a thin spotlight cut through the cigarette smoke to fix upon a small stage with a six-piece band. A drumroll and an announcer introduced Jack “Jive” Shaffer, the plump, bald, tomato-faced comedian/bandleader, who buck-and-winged his way to the microphone in a blur of pink and green apparel, rhinestone cuff links catching the light, both they and Jack winking at the applauding crowd.
“Hey,” he said into the microphone, looking toward the rafters whence his spotlight came, “can’t you find a light with some hair on it?”
That got a pretty good laugh, considering how lame it was, and Kollek said, “Kind of sad, what passes for entertainment in this town, ain’t it?”
His speech had an educated, even cultured tone that told me the scattering of ain’ts were an affectation.
“Of course, I’m spoiled,” Kollek said, lighting up a cigar with a hand laden with gold and diamond rings. “Till a few months ago, my office was over the Copa—in the Hotel Fourteen, off Fifth Avenue?”
“I know where the Copacabana is.”
“Yeah, I guess you do get around, but I figured you bein’ from Chicago and all—”
“That where you know Frankie from?”
“Yeah, matter of fact it is.” He blew a fat smoke ring, then frowned and said, “Hey, I don’t mean to be rude—you want a Cuban?”
“No thanks. I don’t smoke.”
“In this joint, you might as well.” Whenever Kollek smiled, which was often, it was a wiseguy, Leo Gorcey-style half-smirk. “Frank’s a nice fella. Hot-headed, impulsive, but heart of pure gold.”
“I don’t know if his wife would agree with you.”
“Yeah, this Ava Gardner thing is a pity; kid’s career is goin’ to hell in a handbasket.”
At a postage-stamp table nearby, a young couple—who’d apparently had enough entertainment for one night—rose to leave and almost bumped into a husky young guy in a well-tailored blue suit, who was quickly taking their place, despite the empty glasses and tip awaiting a waitress’ attention.
“I got that information about Dick Lamm pretty well absorbed by now, Teddy, if you’d like to tell me who the fuck you are.”
He patted the air with a palm; cigar smoke swirled around him like the aftermath of a magician’s trick. “Don’t get testy, Nate—we’re gonna be great friends. Couple of Jewish joes like us.”
“I’m not all that Jewish, Teddy.”
Finally a grin showed some teeth: big white ones.
“‘Heller’ sure as hell ain’t Scottish.”
I leaned on an elbow and gestured with a thumb at my face. “Take a look at this Irish mug of mine; my mom was named Jeanette, she went to mass and she didn’t exactly keep kosher.”
“Did you go to mass, Nate, or synagogue?”
“I wasn’t raised in either church. If there’s a God, He keeps out of my way and I stay out of His.”
Kollek shrugged. “I grew up in a religious home, but I never been a regular synagogue-goer myself. When someone tries to force me to behave a certain way, I don’t like it.”
“I’m the same, Teddy. Which is why you have about twenty seconds to convince me to hang around.”
“Hey,” the red-faced comic was saying, “how about these new government deductions, these new ‘pay as you go’ tax
es, the President calls ’em? But after you pay, where can you go?”
Polite laughter rippled; the crowd, denied dancing, were mostly talking among themselves, and drinking. Not far from where we sat, though, somebody was laughing a little too loud, I thought, trying a little too hard: the husky guy who’d taken that postage-stamp table. Like Kollek, he was blond, in his late twenties, with the blank, barely formed features of a fullridescholarship jock; hell, he was big enough to play tackle in the Big Ten….
Kollek casually asked, “Ever hear of the Haganah, Nate? That’s not a word you necessarily have to go to synagogue to run into.”
The Haganah, which had been around since after World War One, was an underground defense organization controlled by David Ben-Gurion’s Jewish Agency for Palestine and a high command of Palestine’s Jewish leaders. There were Zionist terrorist groups of course, but Haganah wasn’t one of them: their policy was havlagah, self-defense.
“Is that still around, now that Israel’s a state?” I asked.
Kollek just smiled and puffed his cigar. He was about to say something when a waitress came around to ask us if we wanted drinks. He ordered Jack Daniel’s on the rocks and I ordered rum and Coke.
“What’s a poor young nation to do,” Kollek said, not exactly answering my question, “when a great patron like the U.S.A. decides to ration its goodwill the way it used to ration gas and meat?”
“What you mean is,” I said, “the U.S. won’t ‘ration’ you any arms or military supplies.”
An arms embargo was in effect: neither side of the Arab-Israeli war could have American weaponry—legally.
Kollek shrugged and said, “I’m a fund-raiser, Nate, workin’ through the UJA.”
United Jewish Appeal.
“‘Just’ a fund-raiser, Teddy?”
“Well, also I’m a recruiter. I look for influential American Jews who can give more than money—who can provide leverage—like Eddie Jacobsen, President Truman’s old business partner.”
“I hear he doesn’t keep kosher either,” I muttered.
“What was that?”
“Nothing.”
“You know, a big part of my job, Nate, is I’m always on the lookout for guys like you.”
“What kind of guy would that be?”
He gestured to me like I was a Cadillac on a showroom floor. “American Jewish war veterans, with combat experience, willing to volunteer for the Israeli army—over half our volunteers come from America, y’know.”
“One war was plenty for me, thanks.”
A waitress finally cleaned off the tackle’s tiny table; he ordered from her, without even looking at her, a good-looking little brunette, though on occasion he was still sneaking peeks at our booth.
“Hey,” Kollek was saying, shrugging, “you were a long shot, but it couldn’t hurt to ask. Anyway, it’s not like we’re beggin’ for leads on ex-soldiers ripe for recruitment.”
“You’re not?”
“No … we’re supplied with names and personal details of potential recruits by our friends on the inside.”
“The inside of what, Teddy?”
He shrugged, exuding friendliness and cigar smoke, then dropped his bomb: “The Pentagon.”
“… This is about Forrestal, isn’t it?”
Kollek laughed, again ignoring my question. “You know, Nate, it’s the last thing I ever expected to be involved with…. I was one of the lucky Jews, you know, the lucky few the British allowed to move to Palestine in ’35, before Hitler started gobbling up Europe. I started a kibbutz on the shores of the Sea of Galilee—can you picture it?”
I had to smile, hearing this from the Damon Runyon character seated across from me.
“Galilee, that’s where they say Jesus walked on the water. Easier for him doing that than me being a farmer. Oy! They said, ‘Teddy, you’re a worldly man, you have charm, people meet you and they like you … we’ll send you to godless New York.’ … You know, these are people that admire the Soviet-style economy, socialists that view America as materialistic, superficial, pointless. Me, I took to New York immediately—Sinatra, Louis Armstrong, and those jazz musicians from Harlem, hot damn!”
“What did you mean, Teddy? What was the last thing you’d ever expected to get involved with?”
He rolled the cigar around in his mouth, giving me a sly look. “What do you think I’m talking about, Nate?”
“Arms smuggling,” I said. “Intelligence gathering.”
Up onstage, Jack “Jive” Shaffer was singing an effeminate version of “Nature Boy” in a pageboy wig, prancing, mincing, getting some laughs—though not from the tackle at the postage-stamp table.
Kollek’s cigar had gone out; he relighted it. “Let’s just say I won’t deny I’ve developed contacts, informers, assistance of various kinds in the Pentagon.”
“Why are you telling me this?”
“I promised you the lowdown; Teddy Kollek delivers on his promises. Sure you won’t have a Cuban?”
“No thanks.”
“First Cuban I ever smoked, Ben Siegel gave me, after one of his Havana trips. Ben, God rest him, was one of our biggest contributors—better than fifty grand. Meyer Lanksy, Mickey Cohen—you know them, too, don’t you?”
“Acquaintances, not friends.”
“Well, they’re my friends, generous ones, and not just in terms of money, no. Jewish and Italian gangsters can be helpful in so many other ways.”
“Like linkups with waterfront unions, if you’re trying to smuggle guns and money, you mean?”
Again Kollek didn’t answer me directly, saying, “They’re crazy, those guys. Do you know Lanksy suggested I draw up a hit list of ‘enemies of the Jewish people’?”
“Take him up on it?”
“No, it was tempting, but I declined—respectfully.”
Using the same tray, the cute brunette waitress brought us our drinks, then took the tackle his: a bottle of 7 UP and a glass of ice. Maybe he was in training.
“Okay, Teddy. You got friends in the mob, you got friends in the Pentagon. What’s your point?”
Kollek leaned forward, the eyes again disappearing into the slitted pouches. “Haven’t I made it? Your pal Forrestal thinks we’re trying to kill him. Why, to get information we’re already getting from sources all around him? Hell, a phone call to Meyer Lanksy, I could have that fat cat snuffed out like a candle. But that’s not how I operate—not that the son of a bitch wouldn’t deserve it.”
“So, any American official that doesn’t back Israel deserves to die, Teddy?”
He was shaking his head, cigar smoke swirling around him like a wreath. “That’s what I don’t get about you, Nate—you’re Jewish, you’re a combat veteran—how can you work for that Nazi bastard?”
Up onstage, the drummer hit a rim shot, punctuating Jack “Jive” Shaffer’s latest joke—and Kollek’s.
“Oh,” I said, “so now Forrestal’s a Nazi? I see—Roosevelt’s Secretary of the Navy, a Nazi, sure, that makes sense; Truman’s Secretary of Defense a Nazi. Teddy, this may come as a shock to you, but not everybody who opposes Israel is a fucking Nazi.”
The quizzical eyebrows raised even higher. “You mean, maybe James Forrestal doesn’t have a corner on the paranoia market? Don’t you read Drew Pearson? Nate, your friend Forrestal’s company Dillon and Read helped finance Hitler!”
I sipped my rum and Coke, refusing to get caught up in his hysteria. “A Wall Street firm doing business with Germany after World War One, before Hitler’s rise, doesn’t make Forrestal and the rest of Dillon, Read & Company a nest of Nazis.”
“Bullshit! They loaned hundreds of millions to the German cartels that formed the backbone of Hitler’s war machine. Hell, Forrestal’s on the fuckin’ board of directors of General Aniline and Film, the American arm of I. G. Farben, the drug and industrial trust that created Auschwitz!”
Kollek was getting really worked up; it was all the tackle at the postage-stamp table could do not to just pull up a ch
air at our booth.
“You got a lot of passion, Teddy, but you’re as full of shit as a Christmas goose. Jim Forrestal’s a patriot.”
“In his twisted view of it, I’m sure he is. And you’re right, I’m overstating, he’s no Nazi—he’s just one hell of a capitalist. I mean, Chase National Bank, General Motors, ITT, Ford Motors, Standard Oil, they’ve all been in bed with Germany since long before the war.”
“Hey, this is all way over my head,” I said, but I had a sick feeling in my stomach and it wasn’t the lobster mingling with his cigar smoke.
Kollek waved a blunt-fingered hand; the diamond and gold rings on it seemed at odds with his patronizing view of capitalism. “Yeah, what the hell, Nate—these guys were just protecting themselves—and their great country—to make sure that, after the war, the same fraternity of all-American business bigwigs still had their holdings.”
I held up a palm: stop. “Teddy, I’m way out of my element, here…. I’m just a private eye with a client who thinks somebody wants to kill him. You say your group isn’t a likely suspect, then you give me hundreds of reasons why you oughta be on top of the goddamn list!”
Kollek blew another fat smoke ring; raised his eyebrows, set them down. “Not the top, maybe. But why bother killing the bastard? Forrestal’s on his way out, isn’t he? And even if he was staying, he’d just be one of many.”
I frowned, shook my head. “Many what? Nazis? If I believed what people were telling me lately, half the government’s Communist, and the other half is fascist. Back where I come from, we call them Democrats and Republicans.”
Now he held up a palm; in fact, he held up two of them. “All right, okay—fine. Dismiss everything I say as biased, alarmist, Zionist bullshit. But know this: if your friend Forrestal is in danger, it’s more likely from his own people than mine.”
This time it was Forrestal’s voice echoing in my head: I know too much.
“Have you heard about these new brassieres?” the comic was asking the crowd. “The Salvation Army bra uplifts the fallen, the Communist bra supports the masses, and the Drew Pearson bra makes mountains out of molehills!”
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