The Little Tokyo Informant

by Andrew Rosenheim

Guttman said, ‘Is something wrong?’

  ‘How popular is this club of yours?’

  ‘You mean this place? Steamer’s?’ He laughed. ‘I stumbled upon it by accident. I was taking a walk along the Potomac when I saw the sign, so I stopped and had a beer. It’s usually deserted in the afternoon, until the factory shift next door gets out. I met Nessheim here a couple of times after he was done infiltrating the Bund. Why?’

  ‘It’s probably a coincidence,’ Stephenson said, and he and Guttman exchanged looks. ‘But when I just went in there was a fellow inside who works at the other club – my club.’

  ‘In Intelligence?’

  Stephenson shook his head. ‘No, he’s just a gopher – delivers things, collects the mail. His name is Williams and he’s from California and fresh out of college – just biding time until he gets drafted, I suppose. It seems a little odd that he should be here tonight.’

  ‘We’re pretty far off the beaten track. I don’t know anyone who lives down here. What do you know about this kid, though?’

  ‘Not much, but that doesn’t seem to bother anybody. He could be a card-carrying Communist and none of my lot would care. The Soviets are allies now. Sometimes I feel that half the BSC are as concerned about the fate of Moscow as they are about Coventry or Manchester.’

  ‘That bad, huh?’

  ‘Most of it’s just naive – our enemy’s enemy must be our friend. But there’s a hard core of Reds in our ranks.’

  ‘Is that why you didn’t want to meet at the Club?’

  When Stephenson nodded, Guttman remembered how they had hightailed it out of the Rockefeller Center offices in New York.

  ‘It’s very difficult,’ said Stephenson, and he seemed uncertain how much to say. ‘Proof’s hard to find, and even when you have it you can’t be sure who you’re showing it to.’

  ‘It’s that high up?’ Guttman was surprised. ‘Look,’ he said, ‘I can’t very easily run a check on Williams—’

  ‘I know. I’m not asking you to. Speaking of which, we asked the Bureau in New York to run a check on the licence plate number you gave me.’

  ‘Any luck?’

  ‘I don’t know if you’ll consider it luck, but yes, they found the original owner. It’s not who we were thinking. It was a German-American named Schultz.’

  ‘Schultz?’ Don’t get excited, Guttman told himself. It was a common name. ‘From New York?’

  ‘That’s right, Max Schultz, from Yorkville. His wife still lives there. He was a major figure in the German-American Bund, apparently.’

  Guttman’s heart was pounding. ‘He’s in Sing Sing, doing fifteen years.’

  ‘He was, Harry. We checked and he died in June. Of natural causes it seems.’

  ‘And you say the plates were his?’

  ‘They used to be. His wife doesn’t drive, so after his death she sold the car. She claims she did it for cash and doesn’t even know the name of the man who bought it. I don’t know if she’s telling the truth.’

  Guttman was thinking hard. ‘If the Bund were still using the car, why would they want to kill Palmer? Because he was a Communist agent? How the hell did they know that? It doesn’t make any sense.’

  Stephenson sat there, looking unhappy. He said at last, ‘There’s something about this Palmer business of yours which is bugging me. Probably more than it should.’

  ‘Funny you should say that. I feel the same way. Yet it’s not as if I don’t have clear enemies in view. God knows you do too – you’re at war.’

  ‘Perhaps it’s because for once the enemy isn’t in plain view.’

  24

  NOTHING FROM DUVAL in Brewster, and nothing from Vail in New Haven. When Marie opened their connecting door Guttman looked up hopefully, but she shook her head. ‘Do you want to speak with a Mr Larrabee?’ she asked. She looked especially good today; she was wearing a charcoal pencil skirt and an ivory blouse.

  ‘Do I know him?’

  ‘He says he works at State.’

  He looked at Marie, but her face was emotionless. It was never clear to him how much she knew; she was so discreet about his activities that she didn’t even discuss them with him. But she’d proved her loyalty more than once and had even risked her job for him. She ought to find someone, he thought, not for the first time, then realised she was waiting for his answer.

  ‘Put His Excellency through,’ he said, and she nodded before turning on her high heels.

  When his phone buzzed – until last year it had used to ring; he missed that – he answered cautiously. He was accustomed to having to make the running with State, unsurprising since Hoover made little secret of his disdain for the denizens of Foggy Bottom. ‘Hand-holders for foreigners’ he had once said.

  ‘Mr Guttman?’ When Guttman grunted affirmatively the voice said, ‘My name is Braddock Larrabee. I’m with the State Department. I’m based in Washington right now, but my last posting was Vienna.’

  So? he wanted to say, but something was niggling at him. ‘What can I do for you, Mr Larrabee?’

  ‘I was hoping my name would be familiar to you. I take it that it’s not.’

  ‘Not’ was pronounced ‘nought’ in an East Coast drawl.

  ‘Sorry Mr Larrabee, but I meet an awful lot of people in my job—’

  ‘I thought my colleague Thornton Palmer might have mentioned me.’

  Guttman decided to remain silent.

  ‘As I said, I was stationed in Vienna. Mr Palmer was there, too.’

  ‘Was he also working at State?’ Guttman asked.

  ‘No, it was before he joined.’ There was a pause. ‘I think you know that.’

  ‘So how can I help you?’ Guttman asked.

  ‘I’d like to have a meeting with you. It would need to be discreet.’ Larrabee added, ‘I think I have information that will be of interest.’

  ‘What about?’ asked Guttman, confident a certain bluntness would speed things along.

  ‘Let’s just say I have affiliations in my past similar to those of Mr Palmer.’

  ‘Are these affiliations ongoing?’

  ‘Certain people want them to be. As they did with Mr Palmer.’

  He didn’t hesitate further. ‘All right. When and where?’

  There was a pause; perhaps Larrabee had expected Guttman to prove a harder sell. He said, ‘Let me be in touch. I’ll send you a note with a time and a place. Are you in D.C. for the time being?’

  ‘Yeah. But what if I can’t make it?’

  ‘Then I’ll send you another note, Mr Guttman.’

  * * *

  Guttman didn’t know why he felt so jumpy, but the sooner he could get Stephenson’s instructions typed up by Marie and sent to Nessheim, the better.

  He was just about finished transcribing them when Marie came in. He looked at her vaguely, noticing her snail-shaped metal earrings, and said, ‘No more coffee please or I’ll be dancing on my desk.’

  ‘I’d give a lot to see that,’ said Marie, her lip curling. ‘Though you may be doing that anyway, only on a bed of hot coals. Miss Gandy’s just called. The Director wants to see you right away.’

  He stared at her. ‘Did she say why?’

  Marie shook her head. ‘But it wasn’t five minutes from now or later on or in two weeks’ time. It was Now with a capital N.’

  Guttman groaned and looked down at the legal pad where he’d been transcribing the notes he had taken in the unique brand of shorthand which Marie called Guttmanese. It was not something she could read – hence the legal pad. ‘I just need a minute more,’ he said plaintively.

  ‘Mr Hoover waits for no man.’

  Guttman threw down his pen. ‘Okay. Type these up, will ya?’ He looked at his watch. ‘Tomorrow morning will be fine, but lock them up before you go home.’

  ‘Like that, is it?’

  He grimaced.

  ‘Okay.’ Marie scooped up the pad and the pages filled with writing which he’d torn off. ‘Do your tie up, Harry, and button your jacket for o
nce.’

  A few years before, an anonymous letter had been sent to the Director of the FBI, claiming a sniper was going to shoot him from across Connecticut Avenue. For a while the drapes had been drawn on the fourth-floor office accordingly. No threat had ever materialised and eventually the drapes had been opened again, though only after Hoover had had his desk moved out of the sight line of the window.

  Now as Guttman entered, the Director sat behind the walnut, U-shaped desk, with two standing American flags on either side. He wore a smoke-coloured suit, beautifully tailored, a shirt the colour of unsalted butter and a tie of dull gold. Tolson sat in one of the two chairs in front of the desk and the two men were laughing when Guttman came in. From the way Hoover cut off his smile, Guttman sensed there was trouble ahead.

  ‘Have a seat, Harry,’ he said. At least it wasn’t ‘Mr Guttman’, which was a certain weathervane of storms.

  Guttman sat down and glanced at Tolson. His face was expressionless, which meant he was leaving this one to the boss.

  ‘Thornton Palmer,’ Hoover said without preamble. ‘Tell me about it.’

  ‘Yes, I reported to Clyde about my meeting with him and I then had your memo saying to leave it alone. Ed Tamm has the file.’

  ‘The D.C. police have closed the case.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Guttman. But he didn’t think Palmer was the issue.

  ‘And you’ve left it alone?’

  ‘That’s right. The information is with Tamm.’

  Hoover was nodding benignly; Guttman noticed Tolson was no longer looking his way. Suddenly Hoover said, ‘Then can you explain this? I received it this morning.’

  He pushed a sheet of paper across the desk. Guttman was sitting too far back to reach, and he had to stand and take a step forward to collect it. When he saw the letter-head he didn’t feel like sitting down again:

  43 Wells Street, Brewster, New York

  J. E. Hoover

  Director Federal Bureau of Investigation

  The Justice Department Building

  Washington, D.C.

  Dear Mr Hoover,

  There won’t be any need to reply to this letter because by the time you do I will not be around to read it. I never thought a citizen of this country could be hounded by his own government, but thanks to your agent Guttman I have been dis-abused. I made a youthful mistake which many others also have made.

  Please assure Mr Guttman that contrary to what he thinks I have told him the complete truth in response to his recent investigation into the late Thornton Palmer. That makes my position doubly hard – and to threaten my exposure when I have given my full cooperation seems unjust to say the least. I am truly damned whatever I do and have nowhere to turn. I hope you are proud of your agency’s efforts.

  Yours sincerely,

  Roger Sedgwick

  Vice-President of the Manhattan Savings Association

  ‘What do you make of this, Mr Guttman? I gather Mr Sedgwick took his own life just after writing this letter.’

  Guttman looked up at the square, almost encephalic Hoover head and found the dark eyes demanding a reply. He threw up his hands. ‘I don’t know what to say. I’m astonished.’

  Hoover made a face. ‘Let’s start with the basics. Did you know Mr Sedgwick?’

  Guttman’s instinct was to give a narrative, try to describe the strained meeting with the man, the mixture of guilt and guile and simple facts – fifty grand to a Mr Lyakhov – that had made their conversation so strange. But Hoover didn’t like stories.

  Guttman looked across the room to the large framed photograph of the Justice Building, the building in which they now sat. He said, ‘Palmer told me about Sedgwick. When he said the Russians had asked him to spy for them, I asked if there were others they’d recruited. He answered in the affirmative; when I was doubtful he cited Sedgwick as an example.’ Palmer hadn’t named Sedgwick, of course, but the last thing Guttman was going to do was explain how hard he’d worked to find the banker.

  ‘So you went to see him? Even though I had expressly told you to drop it.’

  ‘I took your memo to mean I should leave the Palmer case alone. I did that. You can check with Reilly of the Metropolitan Police – he was in charge of the case.’ Tamm had done just that, he thought.

  ‘I also told you to leave it alone,’ said Tolson, speaking for the first time.

  ‘And I have,’ said Guttman, adding a perplexed note to his voice. It would be suicide to act guilty; far better to sound aggrieved.

  ‘Then why did you go and see this banker?’ demanded Hoover. Never a relaxed man, he was sitting particularly rigidly.

  ‘Because Palmer told me this man Sedgwick had sent money for the Russians to a Japanese bank.’

  ‘Had he?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘It doesn’t prove anything much now does it? The Russians are hardly likely to be funding the Japanese.’

  ‘Agreed. They were sending the money to a fellow Russian, I think.’

  Tolson piped up. ‘No law against that.’

  ‘Yes, but Sedgwick admitted that he’d been recruited by them.’

  Hoover grew impatient, signalled by a quick stuttering movement of his lower lip. When he was angry his jaw jutted, but it hadn’t reached that point yet. ‘You say that, but he wasn’t spying for them, was he? Sending money for a client doesn’t constitute espionage.’

  ‘Yes, but I had both Palmer and Sedgwick telling me the same story. They were suggesting a pattern of subversion I felt I had to explore.’

  Hoover shook his head. ‘In neither case could they provide any real evidence of anything illegal they’d done for the Russians. That’s not all they shared – both were obviously unstable. Both killed themselves.’

  Guttman tried not to look sceptical, but failed, and Hoover’s teeth were tight as he spoke. ‘I have fought the Communists for over twenty years, so I don’t need lectures from you about the dangers of subversion. Especially since you can’t provide proof of anything.’ He was hitting his stride now and Guttman was struck yet again by how Hoover’s anger could co-exist with such pompous fluency. ‘You’ve been on a wild goose chase, Guttman, and I’m baffled as to why. Anyone would think you were a rookie. Or that you had some other agenda we don’t know about. I have to wonder if you may have an undeclared interest in this.’

  ‘What sort of interest?’ He tried not to sound annoyed.

  ‘I know your spouse isn’t well, but she used to keep some pretty dubious company.’

  Guttman bristled. ‘That was years ago. She was young, just a student. And she was never a Party member.’

  Hoover shrugged. ‘Either way,’ he said, then paused.

  Guttman waited for the coup de grâce and found himself grinning despite himself.

  Hoover mistook his smile for smugness. He barked, ‘I don’t find this amusing, Assistant Director. You have some friends in high places, as we’re both well aware, but believe me, I am not one of them. You have done good work on occasion, but I think you overestimate your importance to the Bureau. Be that as it may, I am not going to fire you or suspend you.’

  Then Hoover said, ‘But I want you well away from this office and from opportunities for further trouble-making.’

  Guttman’s puzzlement must have shown.

  Hoover continued: ‘I’m sure we’re in agreement about the need for you to focus on your duties as head of SIS. Being closer to those operations will only help you serve the Bureau, and your country. I have spoken with the Director of Naval Intelligence. Rear Admiral Anderson agrees that an augmented Bureau presence in Mexico would be valuable to their own counter-intelligence efforts there. So you are to transfer to Mexico City as soon as possible, and not more than ten days from now.’

  This was a high-level equivalent of ‘being sent to Butte’, long the graveyard for agents Hoover had no reason to fire, but wanted to get rid of anyway. Guttman knew that if he refused he would be fired, and without the benefit of anything that might help build a futu
re – no final pay-off, no guarantee of decent references.

  He said quickly, ‘I understand.’ He was thinking on his feet. ‘If I could have a little more than ten days I’d be grateful. I’ll have to make arrangements for my wife.’ What could they be? he wondered. Life for Isabel was grim in Arlington, but manageable. Mexico City would be impossible. It was starting to sink in that he was effectively being fired after all.

  Hoover gave a curt nod. ‘Very well. Mr Tolson and I are planning a visit to California next month. When we return I’ll expect you to be in Mexico. Now,’ he said, as if strictly ordinary business had been conducted, ‘anything else?’

  Guttman must have shaken his head, but he was not even aware of it.

  ‘Good,’ said Hoover. He reached for his phone, adding in a final aside, ‘You’ll still be reporting to Clyde.’

  ‘And my reports?’ Guttman asked quickly, before Hoover could be diverted by Helen Gandy.

  Hoover held the phone in mid-air. ‘They’ll stay the same. Only now you’ll be closer to them.’

  ‘Especially your football player,’ added Tolson with a smirk.

  25

  REACHING HOME, STILL reeling, Guttman suddenly remembered that it wasn’t one of Annie’s nights. He was disappointed. Mrs Davis had never been much of a conversationalist and Annie had been a welcome contrast. He could use a distraction right now.

  Mrs Davis had already left and he found Isabel in the living room in her wheelchair, a blanket over her legs. He brought her through to the kitchen and made supper while she read the paper, mainly in silence. He browned some floured pieces of stewing steak in a skillet, softened onions in a pot, then added the beef and chunks of carrot and potatoes along with a pint of water and a bay leaf. His mother had made it often enough when he was a boy, though there had been no bay leaves on Delancey Street.

  ‘That smells good,’ she said as the stew started to bubble on the burner. ‘You haven’t told me about your day.’

  He tried to shrug. Lately he’d taken to talking about his work in more detail than before. He didn’t know why. Maybe it was to share as much as he could before she wasn’t there to share it with.