You idiot, Cockran. Apparently he hadn’t learned his lesson from last year as well as he thought. What was that phrase? Ah, yes. His late wife Nora’s oft-repeated favorite: “Thick-headed Irishman”. Cockran carefully pondered his next move. He had to apologize. That was obvious. But it had to be just right. Then it came to him. Mattie knew he didn’t much like bourbon and, hopefully, the symbolism would not be lost on her.
Cockran walked into the library, picked up two snifters and poured bourbon into one and brandy into the other. Then he walked up the stairs to the master bedroom where he hoped he would find Mattie. If she were in a guest bedroom, that would not be a good sign. He was in luck. She was sitting up in bed, still in her terrycloth robe, making notes on a legal pad, a pile of newspaper clippings on the bed beside her. Her eyes were filled with tears.
“Cognac for you, my love, Old Crow for me.” Cockran handed her a snifter. “I’m sorry, Mattie. I apologize. I was an idiot. You can use my autogiro whenever you want. Ted Hudson just brings out the worst in me. Please forgive me.”
“Apology accepted, you big Irish bastard,” Mattie said with a laugh as she took the brandy snifter from Cockran. “But we need to talk. Not about Ted. He’s nothing to me. He never was. You know that. There’s an elephant in the room which you’re trying to ignore. What happened to us—to me—last year in the Alps. I know you don’t want to hear it, but you’ve got to let me talk about it. How I made a fool of myself by letting that woman convince me the two of you were having an affair. I blamed myself. I thought I had driven you away by our arguments. And, yes, you’re right. They weren’t silly. You weren’t trying to control my life. You just wanted to keep me safe. I can see that now. He helped me see that even before.…” Mattie paused.
Cockran said nothing. Before what? He damn well knew. She was right. He didn’t want to hear it. What was it with women, anyway? Why did they have to talk about the past? Men didn’t do that. They left the past where it belonged and focused on the future.
“He took your side, you know. He told me not to draw too many conclusions from such limited evidence. But it didn’t matter. I really thought I had lost you and then I went and made an even bigger fool of myself. I’m ashamed to admit it. But there it is. He seduced me. I let him make love to me. I wish I hadn’t but I was feeling so low right then. I don’t think I’ve ever told you how much you mean to me. I had been alone for so long. Eric and my brothers taken in the war. Mum and Dad soon after. I lost everyone I loved in less than two years. I spent the next ten years looking for love in all the wrong places with all the wrong men. Then I found you. And Paddy. You’ve both made me so happy that the thought I had lost you and was all alone again was too much to take.”
She paused, wiped away her tears and took a deep breath. “I know it doesn’t make it better but it wasn’t like with us where it was me who had to seduce you.”
She had tears in her eyes again and, ill at ease as he was, Cockran knew he needed to break the tension. “True. But I am irresistible. Besides, I let my guard down. You lied and promised my virtue was safe with you. I really thought we only were wrestling for the bottom bunk in that Pullman compartment.”
Mattie laughed through her tears. “You? Irresistible? I just wanted the goddamned lower bunk. And once I got on top, what happened next would hardly count as resistance on your part. After that, the lower bunk was mine. You’re lucky I let you stay.”
Cockran was relieved at her levity even if he found this entire line of conversation uncomfortable. Her sleeping with other men before they met was one thing but just thinking about Mattie with someone else after they had been together hurt. Hearing it from her was worse. He hoped it would stop right here but, somehow, he knew she wasn’t finished.
“I told you he saved my life. First on the zeppelin and then several times after that. When we were in Egypt together and then in the Alps. He’s just like you in that respect,” Mattie said, then blushed and looked away. “My safety, I mean. He didn’t lecture me the first time he saved me after that stupid incident on top of the zeppelin. Like you would have done. Or the second time in Egypt. But the next two times he saved my life—in the Alps—he lectured me just like you. And he sounded just like you.”
Mattie paused and bit her lip, tears in her eyes. “That’s where it happened. In the Alps. He saved my life two days in a row and made love to me each night.” she said and dropped her head, still avoiding Cockran’s eyes.
Cockran let the silence build. Only twice? She had been with him for nearly two weeks. That was some solace but he still didn’t want to think about it. He wanted the memory to fade as it had been doing. Until now. This was exactly why he had never wanted to have this conversation. Mattie might feel better afterwards, but he damn well knew he wouldn’t. And but for that damn Ted Hudson, this talk might never have occurred. Still it was his own fault. Both tonight and for what happened in the Alps. He had come a lot closer to sleeping with his lovely blonde client last summer than he would ever admit to Mattie.
“I’ve never been so scared in my life. And I felt safe with him. Like I do with you. He was concerned for my safety just like you were. Men are like that, I guess, about the women they love. I know that now too.”
“He loves you?” Cockran asked. He already knew the answer from seeing the way the man had looked at her last year. Mattie couldn’t help but know as well, but he wanted her to admit it. And to admit her feelings for him, whatever they were. Now that she had come this far, he might as well know the worst.
Mattie paused and bit her lip again. “Maybe. I’m not sure…” she sighed, closed her eyes and then opened them, making eye contact with Cockran where earlier she had not. “Yes. I think he does. Or did. I certainly knew at the time that he had feelings for me that were more than physical.”
“Do you love him?”
“No. I only love you,” Mattie said quickly and emphatically. Too quickly? “Even though I thought you had left me, I never stopped loving you. Because of you, I’m not alone any more. You’re the only man I want. Or need. I never made love with him again because I decided to find you and win you back. I felt so small when I learned I had never needed to win you back. That there had been nothing between you and your new blonde client.”
“But you had feelings for him?” Cockran asked, his heart aching because he knew the answer to this question as well. Damn but he hated this conversation.
“I did. I can’t deny it. I thought I had lost you and he was interesting. A complex man. Ruthless and, at the strangest times, kind and caring.” She paused. “I guess … I’m not sure how to describe him. But he made me like him.”
Cockran nodded. She liked him and felt safe with him. Who wouldn’t after he saved her life? He was interesting. Complex. Kind. She liked him. Could he live with that? Hell, he had no choice. Not if he wanted Mattie to be with him. Which he did.
“Okay, I can understand that. But I don’t like his politics and I don’t like him.”
“No, my darling, you don’t. I don’t like his politics either, but he’s not like the others. He’s an honorable man. And, in his own way, a good man. I’m convinced of that. Anyway, he’s out of our lives now, an ocean away and he’s not coming back.”
Cockran pulled her close and kissed her. He undid the sash to her robe. It was long past time to end this conversation. Besides, what more could he ask? The bastard who seduced her in the Alps was in her past and she was in his arms.
14.
Bobby Sullivan
New York City
Wednesday, 11 May 1932
THE morning sun was on his left as Cockran steered his Auburn speedster onto Lexington Avenue. Mattie had promised to call him every day, something she couldn’t do on her overseas assignments. He had left the Cedars at dawn because he was meeting Bobby Sullivan at 8:00 a.m. and he didn’t want to keep him waiting in the reception area on the off chance Bill Donovan might see him there and change his mind about Cockran using Bobby on the Waterman
case. Also, Cockran had planned an early morning breakfast at his Fifth Avenue townhouse with Paddy and his grandmother before they set off by train for a flying visit to her cousins in Philadelphia.
Cockran parked the Auburn in a nearby garage and entered the glorious art deco lobby of the Chrysler building. Bobby Sullivan was already there waiting for him. After shaking hands, they rode in silence to the 53d floor. He took Sullivan down the hall to his office. Once there, he sat behind his desk and contemplated his friend. Unless he looked at you, most people would not notice Bobby Sullivan if he passed them on the street. A shade under six feet tall, his only prominent feature was a broken nose which, at first glance, might lead you to think he had once been a prize fighter. But if he looked at you with those cold blue eyes beneath his black hair, you would wish he hadn’t and you would not forget him. For Sullivan was an assassin by trade, trained by Michael Collins himself in the Anglo-Irish war of 1919 to 1921, a bloody war which had ultimately led to Ireland’s freedom with the creation of the Irish Free State. Its aftermath led to the death of Cockran’s young wife Nora by the IRA in the Irish Civil War of 1922.
Bobby Sullivan would always reflect that dark and hidden side of Bourke Cockran. He had first met Sullivan on the evening of his wife’s funeral. He could see it still in his mind’s eye. McDade’s Pub in Dublin. The paper bag which Sullivan handed him containing a British Army Webley revolver. The list of three names given him by his friend Collins—the IRA paymasters in America who controlled funds that could have extended the savage civil war that claimed Nora’s life.
Cockran was a lawyer and a writer, two peaceful professions. But the Great War and its aftermath had made him a trained killer as well. He became quite skilled at what the Brits called “bloody mayhem” or “dirty work at the crossroads”, both planning and fieldwork. He enjoyed the former, the latter not so much. Killing was not pleasant. But if the war made him a trained killer as a soldier, Michael Collins had turned him into an assassin. For one bloody summer. Fueled by revenge, he had enjoyed planning the executions of the three IRA paymasters and had taken equally grim satisfaction in the fieldwork which followed. He only wished he could have taken out his wife’s killers as well during that same killing season. He knew his father would not have approved. But Cockran hoped he would have understood.
A few years ago, Sullivan had emigrated to America and sought out Cockran to discuss his future. Cockran had vouched for Sullivan’s good character when he applied for a New York state private investigator’s license and Sullivan had made a fairly decent living out of it. So what if he occasionally worked a little too closely with gangsters like Owney Madden? Contacts like that were useful tools of the trade, as far as Cockran was concerned. Bobby’s status as a former assassin for Michael Collins made him a minor legend among the Irish thugs in Madden’s mob. Cockran strongly suspected that Sullivan occasionally did favors for Madden that resulted in somebody being killed but the two friends never talked about that.
Sullivan sat in the same green chair where Ingrid Waterman had sat the day before. It was 8:00 a.m. and his long legs were stretched out in front of him.
“Marital infidelity, you say? And we’re representing the wife?”
Cockran nodded.
“That’s getting to be one of me specialties. Ever since your Mattie gave me those lessons in photography. Speaking of Mattie, how is she? You know she’s…”
“More than my sorry Irish arse deserves. And no, I’ve not proposed yet. Christ, you’re as bad as Bill Donovan.”
Sullivan just smiled. Cockran knew it was a smile but people who didn’t know Bobby wouldn’t have thought so and a shiver of fear would have gone through them had that smile had been directed their way.
“That’s good about your photography,” Cockran continued, “because I’ve got the name and address of the bimbo his wife calls his showgirl of the month. She’s in the chorus at the Latin Quarter. But I also need all his financial holdings tracked down as well.”
“Would you by any chance be having the name and address of his personal accountant?” Sullivan asked, an innocent Irish lilt to his voice.
Cockran grinned and shoved a sheet of paper across his desk. Sullivan pushed himself to his feet and in two long strides reached Cockran’s desk. He picked up the sheet of paper and began to read. “Would I be correct in assuming Ms. Pamela Powell is the showgirl?”
Cockran nodded.
“Which means the other one must be the accountant.”
Cockran smiled. “You don’t miss a thing. I can’t imagine why Bill Donovan thinks you’re more of a thug than a detective.”
Sullivan nodded. “He may be right. One doesn’t preclude the other. But I like to think I’m a selective thug. I do what needs to be done but no more. So who’s the mark?”
“Our old friend Wesley Waterman. He’s a customer of Madden who’s been known to hire his thugs from time to time. Will that pose a problem for you?”
Sullivan ignored the question. “Tell me. Is Pamela a good looker?”
“I wouldn’t know,” Cockran replied. “But here’s a photograph of his wife. Judge his taste in women for yourself,” Cockran said as he pushed across his desk the society photograph of Ingrid at a charity function, her dark gown cut low in front.
Sullivan looked at the photo and whistled. “Sod Owney,” Sullivan said. “He should worry more about staying on my good side than me on his. I’m your man.”
Ingrid Waterman arrived at 9:30 a.m., wearing a severely cut navy blue suit and white blouse. The suit was obviously made from the same pattern as her dove gray suit of yesterday. Cockran introduced Ingrid to Sullivan and to Sarah Steinberg. “Ingrid, I know it will be painful but, as my co-counsel in this case, Miss Steinberg needs to hear your story directly in case she has questions that did not occur to me. She’s an expert in divorce law where I’m not.”
Sarah Steinberg was a short, dark-haired woman with a full figure and a youthful face. Cockran didn’t think she looked a day over twenty-one.
“If you say so, Bourke, you’re my lawyer. But I must say, Miss Steinberg,” Ingrid said, turning to Sarah, “that you look fairly young to be much of an expert in anything.”
Sarah smiled and if she took offense, she didn’t show it. “I know. I get that all the time. Even my mom says that when I lose my baby fat, I’ll be gorgeous and finally able to find a husband. In her book, I’m almost an old maid because, after all, I will be twenty-eight on my next birthday. But I assure you that I know what I’m doing.…”
Cockran cut her off. “She was first in her class at NYU and editor in chief of the law review. She’s our only woman lawyer and she’s stuck for now in domestic law. I promised to teach her all about international finance and arbitration if she helps me on this case. Trust me.”
“I do,” Ingrid said with a smile and told her story a second time. Sarah took extensive notes as Ingrid talked. Cockran watched Sullivan’s eyes narrow as Ingrid’s story continued, his hard face growing harder as he listened.
Cockran was surprised when Ingrid recounted for them what she did not tell him yesterday. Why she married Waterman. The simple answer was security. She already had an advanced degree in psychology. Her parents died in a plane crash in the late 1920s but her brother and sister were about to start college and what she could earn as a psychologist was not enough to pay their tuition, room and board. A friend had invited her to a charity affair where she met Wesley Waterman who had recently committed his first wife to an asylum and had commenced divorce proceedings. He made a determined effort to woo her and what sealed the deal was his promise to pay her siblings’ tuition to Princeton and Smith, where they were now in their junior years, taking the spring semester off to travel together in Europe. She hadn’t discovered his fanatical interest in eugenics until after their wedding.
Ingrid paused and looked at Cockran. “May I have my photographs, please, Bourke?”
“There’s no need.…” Cockran began.
But Ingrid cut him off in a firm voice that brooked no opposition. “Give me my photographs.”
Cockran did and watched as Ingrid handed the brown envelope to Sullivan who opened it and quickly skimmed through the photographs, taking barely fifteen seconds to look at them all.
When he finished, Sullivan stood up. “There’s no need for you to be hiring these high-priced lawyers to solve your problem, Mrs. Waterman.” Bobby smiled and Cockran could tell by the facial expressions from both Sarah and Ingrid that they didn’t recognize it as a smile.
“By this time tomorrow, Mrs. Waterman, I can guarantee you won’t have any more problems with your husband. T’is a well-known Irish solution I have in mind.”
Ingrid looked confused. “Irish? I don’t understand…”
“You’ll be a grieving widow by then with all your friends sending flowers.”
Sarah Steinberg gasped and clasped her hand to her mouth. Almost simultaneously, Ingrid Waterman did the same and they both turned to Cockran.
“Mr. Sullivan misspoke,” Cockran said, giving Sullivan a stern and familiar look. “He’s new to America. He grew up in County Donegal where, if a husband did to his wife what Mrs. Waterman has endured, her brothers would have taken care of the bastard in a permanent fashion which I’m sure Mr. Sullivan did not mean to suggest for your husband. He’s still adjusting to the fact that America is a nation of laws and that we do things differently here.”
Cockran nodded to Sarah who handed him a manila folder. He took the folder and walked over to where Ingrid was seated and handed her the papers inside it.
“This is a verified complaint. Please read it carefully. Make sure everything in it is factually accurate and then I will have you sign it after you swear to me, under oath, that it is all true. After that, we’ll file it in court and arrange a hearing before a judge this afternoon.”
The Gemini Agenda Page 8
