The Dead Don't Bleed: A Novel

by David Krugler

  “No.” Terrance watched his cigarette smoke drift toward the ceiling.

  “Hell with it.” I reached across and flipped the folder open. The report was brief, just two pages, didn’t take long to read.

  “Well?” Terrance asked when I finished.

  “Nothing.” I sighed heavily.

  “Figures.”

  “Back to his rooming house by nine that night, didn’t leave till the next morning.”

  “Probably played pinochle with Mrs. Sundstrom. Before his milk and cookies and beddie time.”

  Another lengthy silence ensued. I tried to envision myself in A-7. Learning the central decimal file prefixes, memorizing the row numbers. I’d been to A-7 just once, more than a year ago—we had three civilian clerks who retrieved files for us—and remembered only dim lights, low ceilings, endless metal shelves crammed with cartons.

  “There is one thing,” I said.

  “Yeah?”

  I read from the report: “Subject left Navy Building at nineteen thirty. Took Seventeenth Street bus to K, disembarked, walked two blocks east to thirteen twenty-one K. Time entered, nineteen forty-seven, exited at twenty twenty-five. Said address H & H Clipping Service.”

  “A clipping service?”

  “It’s not suspicious, but. . . .”

  My partner shrugged. “Maybe he was using them for an investigation.”

  “Be a major breach of security if he was.” To prevent tipping off foreign nations about O.N.I.’s areas of interest, we were forbidden from using clipping services, even to collect general information. Anyone who complained was icily reminded that the Japs had followed the comings and goings of the Pearl fleet in the local paper.

  “Maybe he was just making time with a girl, then,” Terrance mused. “Now that we know he wasn’t a swish.”

  “Maybe.”

  “Doesn’t look like we’ll be getting the other reports anytime soon to see if he went back.”

  “No.”

  Terrance tapped his desk and said, “Guess we should ask the commander if he wants us to go down there.”

  “Well, hopefully he’s done chewing us out.”

  “BACK ALREADY?” PASLETT GREETED US, NOT SMILING. BUT HE PERKED right up when we told him about Skerrill’s visit to the clipping service.

  “What did you say the name was?”

  “H & H Clipping Service, sir,” Terrance answered. “It’s on K Street.”

  “Sonofabitch,” Paslett said under his breath. “Sit,” he ordered as he scraped his chair back. He went over to the filing cabinet against the wall. Terrance looked at me quizzically; I shrugged. We sat, lit up, smoked. Drawers rumbled open and clanked shut, hefty folders thudded on top of the cabinet as Paslett searched, and searched. Finally he returned, waving a sheet of paper like a little flag at a Fourth of July parade.

  “Take a look at this,” he announced, handing me the sheet.

  It was a poorly mimeographed Federal Bureau of Investigation field report with the title In re: Alleged Communist Affiliation of Washington Clipping Services. I skipped the preamble—F.B.I. agents all but started every report they wrote with “In the beginning”—and read the text. At least, I read what I could, for I’d only been given the first page of what appeared to be a lengthy document. But what was there perked me right up, too. According to the Bureau, several clipping services in Washington were “fronts”: otherwise legitimate businesses masking communist activity. Party meetings, recruitment, dues collection. And espionage. The purported goal of most, if not all, of these clipping services is to recruit sympathetic followers in the Civil Service and the National Military Establishment in the capital region and to—. Here the page ended.

  “Jesus, Voigt, hurry up,” Terrance grumbled.

  “Yeah, yeah.”

  He snatched the sheet away as soon as I lowered it.

  “Where’s the rest of the report, sir?” I asked.

  But the commander was deep in thought, his head bobbing slightly, and he didn’t respond.

  “Well, ain’t that interesting,” Terrance said, looking up.

  “They shoulda flagged his visit,” Paslett now said, shaking his head in disgust.

  I assumed he meant Cross-check. But had they ever seen this report?

  “Sir, is this”—Terrance held up the single sheet—“to be continued?”

  “No, my source was only able to get me the first page.”

  We knew better than to ask who that source was. The rivalry between O.N.I. and F.B.I. hadn’t prevented either intelligence agency from finding furtive ways to pilfer from each other’s files. Paslett had “sources” all over D.C. Not just in the Bureau, but in the Office of Strategic Services, Army General Staff, Air Corps, and who knew where else.

  “Does Cross-check know about this, sir?” I asked.

  “Think I’d share a Bureau report with those clowns, lieutenant?”

  “Nosir, but—”

  “Doesn’t matter if they know about this front business or not,” he interrupted. “Nobody in this building, from the charwomen to the director, is allowed to use clipping services. Cross-check shoulda smelled fish right away.”

  “What else do we have on these services, sir?” Terrance asked.

  “They make the perfect front, especially the ones that cover the international papers. Who’s gonna think twice about that office place being chockful’a foreigners—they need ’em to read the foreign newspapers, right? All kinda mail coming and going—who’s gonna raise an eyebrow over packages being posted overseas? If I wanted to set up a front, a clipping service would be my first choice.”

  I stole an uneasy glance at my partner. What the commander said made sense, but it wasn’t exactly proof that H & H, or any other clipping service, was a commie front.

  “Well, we should go down there now, right, sir?” Terrance asked.

  Paslett shook his head firmly.

  “No, I’ve got a much better idea,” he said, a rare smile tugging at his lips.

  CHAPTER 7

  YOU’RE GONNA GET A JOB THERE,” PASLETT DECLARED, LOOKING straight at me.

  “Sir?!” Terrance and I, in unison.

  “I know just how we’re gonna do it, too. Daley, get me the city directory,” he ordered, pointing to the bookcase behind us. Terrance retrieved the fat volume, and Paslett eagerly flipped through the business section.

  “Look here,” planting his forefinger in the middle of a page, sliding the directory around. “H & H Clipping Service, Offering Collections of Major Newspaper and Periodical Coverage of Important and Timely Subjects. All U.S. and English Language Publications Covered. Service for Polish, German, Russian, Spanish, and French Publications Also Available.”

  “Just look at how many foreign newspapers they collect!” Paslett exclaimed. “And Voigt, you speak and read German.”

  “But, sir, that doesn’t mean I’m qualified to work there.”

  “How do we even know they’re hiring, sir?” Terrance put in.

  “Sir, even if they are, what if I don’t get the job?”

  “Voigt’s damn lucky he ever got this job,” Terrance cracked, but no one laughed.

  “I’ve got a cover for you,” Paslett said, ignoring our protests. “See, the thing is with these fronts, what they do is, they only take people they trust, so that means they’re only gonna take another commie or a fellow traveler. But if you’ve been active in the party, if you’ve been out raising hell about the Scottsboro Boys or other such nonsense, that means you’ve come to the attention of the Bureau or the local Red squad, so they won’t take you.”

  “But, sir, I can’t pass myself off as a Red, I don’t know anything—”

  “Hold your horses,” he said, irritated. Got up, went back to his file cabinets. More rattling, more clanking. I didn’t dare look at Terrance. Lit a much-needed Lucky and inhaled greedily.

  “From now on, this is you,” the commander said, handing me a thick manila folder. “Look at the first endorsement,” he add
ed, referring to the signature page of the first link in the chain of command. Endorsements provide concise summaries for busy officers who don’t have time to read complete reports, so three short paragraphs outlined who I now was:

  Subject: Possible Use Deceased Prisoner Identities, Report on.

  1. On January 21, 1943, a General Court Martial, Naval Barracks, N.O.B., Norfolk, Virginia, sentenced Shipfitter Second Class Theodore Barston to two years, four months confinement for Offenses against the Narcotic Law, Assaulting and Striking, Contempt of Superior Officer, and Conduct to the Prejudice of Good Order and Discipline (See 2135/KAF-wab, attached). While in confinement at the Naval Barracks awaiting transport to the Naval Brig, N.O.B., Charleston, South Carolina, Barston expired on February 4, 1943, of a self-administered dosage of narcotic (See 1435/KAF-dbr, attached).

  2. Subsequent inquiry by O.N.I./B-7 determined that Barston died without heirs and dependents and no known living relatives.

  3. It is the recommendation of O.N.I./B-7 that Enlistment and Fingerprint Records, Muster Roll Data, Court Martial Index and Proceeding, Dishonorable Discharge, Report of Death, and Disposition of Personal Effects of Shipfitter Second Class Theodore Barston be hereby removed and sealed per Circular Letter 1639, November 18, 1942, Secretary of the Navy to Director/O.N.I., for replacement with facsimiles per O.N.I./B-7 requirements.

  I finished reading, swallowed a heavy sigh, and handed the endorsement to Terrance.

  “Barston’ll do nicely,” Paslett announced, as if he’d just helped me pick out a tie.

  You couldn’t be more wrong, I wanted to say. Instead: “What is there in Barston’s background that’ll get me into H & H, sir?”

  “You’ll see—I had Seven-R work up a profile.” Smiling.

  Now I wanted to groan. B-7R was Paslett’s own creation, a tiny sub-unit of three or four ensigns, all college boys who fancied themselves the next Hemingway or O’Neill. They spent their days dreaming up cover stories for those of us who actually did field work. Their reports read like a bad playwright’s character sketches. Edward Kensault is a man with few friends—at a party he is the guest lurking against the wall, drink in hand, watching the gaiety with intense interest yet engaging no one. . . . I dreaded the thought of reading what their overwrought imaginations had concocted for Shipfitter Second Class Theodore Barston. He was born to indifferent parents, raised in a rough, crime-ridden neighborhood in—

  “Why’re we using a dead hophead for a cover, sir?” Terrance piped up, having finished reading the endorsement.

  “When Voigt gets in, the Reds are gonna check him out but good. Was he in the Navy for real, did he get kicked out of P.S. Twenty-Two when he was fifteen like he says? All’a that’s gotta be jake.”

  I asked, “But, sir, why would they even let a shipfitter with a dishonorable discharge in the door?”

  “Believe me, once you tell them who your pop was, they’re gonna be awful interested in talking to you.”

  “How’s that, sir?”

  “William Barston was the chief organizer for the International Longshoremen’s Association on the Jersey docks during the mid-thirties—he was a card-carrying Red and proud of it. The way the boys in Seven-R wrote it up, you learned the gospel of Marx and Lenin from an early age. Till Big Bill got flattened by a crate of machine parts one afternoon.”

  “Barston sure doesn’t sound like a Kraut name,” Terrance observed.

  “And, sir, how’s a guy like Barston learn German if he got kicked outta school at fifteen?”

  “His mom was a Kraut for real, just like yours, Voigt. Seven-R even found her naturalization certificate when they were doing research. She died a few years after her husband. Liver cancer. The real Theodore Barston has no living relatives—no brothers and sisters, no cousins, no grandparents, nobody. You’re even the same age as Barston. It’s an airtight cover, and you’re a perfect fit.”

  “Chances are, someone at H & H is gonna be from Jersey or at least have been there,” I said. “Which I haven’t, sir.”

  “Lucky for you, Ensign Wereford in Seven-R is from Hoboken. He’s added all the local color you need to sell yourself as Barston.”

  That the commander had a quick and easy answer for every question didn’t put me at ease. The raised-from-the-dead Barston might look good on paper, but I was the one who had to walk into H & H and get a job, and that was going to take a lot of moxie. And that was only the first impossible stunt I had to pull off. Once inside, I had to—

  “Sir, what’s Voigt s’posed to do as Barston?” Terrance asked.

  Paslett gave us a peeved look. “Find out what these Reds are up to! The Bureau’s on to something here, these clipping services have gotta be fronts. If they recruited Skerrill, I wanna know what he was giving them, and for how long, and what they did with it.”

  Have gotta be fronts. If Terrance or I had said this, Paslett would’ve chewed us out until his face was as red as a beet. But when it came to communists and the possibility of espionage, he often leap-frogged to conclusions before the evidence was in.

  “So, sir, now we’re not looking for who killed Skerrill?” Terrance asked cautiously.

  “We gotta find out what H & H is up to first. A’course, we gotta make it look like we’re working the murder, don’t we, to keep Special Activities offa our backs?” He drummed his fingers on his desk. “All right, this is what we’re gonna do. Voigt, you’re getting into H & H as Barston to see what these commies are up to. I’ll tell Special Activities and the director we got reason to suspect someone at the service killed Skerrill. Daley, you’re gonna work the case from the outside. Like you two were already doing, I want you turning Skerrill’s life upside down. You’re gonna look hard at every friend, neighbor, and gal he ever had, you’re gonna talk to every clerk and waitress he ever said two words to. If he turned Red, you’re gonna find out how it happened and who got to him.”

  “What’s the reason, sir?” I asked quietly.

  “To suspect someone at H & H killed Skerrill? You’re gonna gimme that reason, Voigt. Look, it might damn well turn out one of these Reds did kill him. Maybe Skerrill got cold feet, told ’em he’s out—they killed him to keep him quiet. Wouldn’t be the first time the commies ate their young.”

  “But, sir, what if this H & H turns out—what if it’s on the level?” Terrance ventured.

  “For all we know, sir, Skerrill had a gal down there and was just visiting her when Cross-check spotted him,” I chimed in.

  “Then prove it. Maybe we go to all this trouble to put you in as Barston and all you find out is that Skerrill was banging some broad who cuts up newspapers all day long. If that’s the case, then we kick Skerrill’s murder back to M.P.D. and let them solve it. At least we’ll know Skerrill was clean and nothing hinky’s going on at H & H.”

  “Yessir,” we answered.

  Easy for the commander to sum up the investigation so casually—he wasn’t the one who had to go undercover. To become Theodore Barston, I’d have to spend hours poring over 7R’s profile, memorizing biographical and behavioral details. I’d have to practice my answers in the mirror and start talking like a dishonorably discharged shipfitter who’d just served two years and four months in the brig. My hands were soft—I’d have to roughen them up, put on calluses. I needed to scar up my forearms to mimic healed needle marks. Barston was an addict, a dope fiend, and if I crossed paths with another hophead, I had to look like I knew how to shoot up. I’d have to give up the comfort of sleeping in my cozy basement flat and rent a cot in a fleabag S.R.O., the only place that would rent to a deadbeat like Barston. It sure seemed like an awful lot of trouble for what might well turn out to be nothing. Of course, if I’d wanted to coast through this war, I could’ve kept my mouth shut when the Navy came looking for bright pennies for the O.N.I.

  Paslett dismissed us, we stood to leave. He fixed me with a stern look. “Voigt, I don’t have to say you gotta work this cover better than last time, right?”

  “Nos
ir, you don’t.”

  LAST JULY, PASLETT HAD ASSIGNED ME TO INFILTRATE A KLATCH OF German-Americans with suspect loyalties. The F.B.I. had already gutted the biggest Nazi front in the States, the German American Bund, by tossing its leaders into work camps in Iowa, seizing its assets, and arresting anyone who dared squeak Heil Hitler in public. Back in ’42, a U-Boat had landed four saboteurs on Long Island, though those clowns hadn’t even been able to evade the Coast Guard, let alone blow up any of the factories, dams, and bridges on their target list. There hadn’t been a whiff of Nazi subversion in the States since, but that didn’t matter to Paslett, who was convinced that a glory-seeking Hitler lover would plant a bomb in the Navy Yard, or one of the tempos, or a railroad trestle in the Potomac. Navy, and O.N.I. especially, had looked pretty bad after the U-Boat landing—we couldn’t even keep Long Island safe?!—but both Terrance and I thought Paslett was seeing ghosts.

  Working off a cover cooked up by 7R, I’d befriended an unemployed machinist named John Entemann who insisted I call him Hans. The fact that this skilled tool-and-die man didn’t have a job when defense plants were operating round the clock suggested Entemann was a sad sack, not a foreign agent, but after a few beers, he loved to expound on “what the Nazis could do to us if they wanted to.” After a rambling, almost-incoherent recitation of the vulnerabilities of all the factories he’d been fired from (including one that produced naval ordnance), Entemann would fantasize about being recruited by the Abwehr, Germany’s military intelligence agency. His three drinking buddies were also of German descent, and every time Entemann started talking about the Abwehr, they started ranting about the Jews and how they wished “we” would take care of them like the Nazis were. Entemann would promptly forget about his wish to be an Abwehr agent and enthusiastically join in the Jew-bashing. On and on they’d rave, until finally they stumbled home to the Murphy beds in their by-the-week flats. Every night was just like the last, bleary and beer-soaked—never once did Entemann or his pals do more than talk.

  Which is why I shouldn’t have made the mistake I did. These souses wouldn’t have recognized Gabriel if he’d floated down from heaven in front of them; but late one night during my third week of bending elbows in Seventh Street gutbuckets, the least pickled of the lot, a fat shipping clerk named Geider, squinted at me through bulbous eyelids and said, “Wait a minute here, just hold on—I thought you said you was from Baltimore. Union Square.”