“Looks like boyo’s got experience taking a licking,” Reid commented.
“Curled up just like a tater bug,” Slater said, chuckling.
But they were done. They’d left no visible marks, and after a while I’d be able to walk on my own. I’d be pissing blood for a week, but who’d believe a guy like Ted Barston if he claimed two F.B.I. agents had given him a beating?
They grabbed me by the shoulders and hauled me to my feet.
“Pick up your chair,” Slater commanded.
I did, shakily—if Reid hadn’t been holding onto my bicep, I might have toppled over.
“Sit down.” Slater again.
They returned to their seats and glared at me.
“We know about you and Himmel and your pals Silva and Greene,” Reid said matter-of-factly. “Pretty clever of you commies to set up a clipping service to move the packages. We’ve been watching all of you for a while now. So you can drop the dumb lunkhead act, Barston. Your dad was a Red, so are you. One way or another, we’re gonna get the name of this friend who sent you to H & H.”
Was that true, had the Bureau put H & H under full surveillance? Silva, yes—she was being watched. But if the Bureau knew with certainty that H & H was a front, John Edgar would have placed two-man teams on every employee, including me. Bureau boys would have watched me make deliveries, meet twice with Commander Paslett and Terrance, and (Jesus H. Christ!) send a telegram to Liv an hour ago. But the fact I was now being interrogated by Slater and Reid proved I hadn’t been tailed for long, because the Bureau would have identified Paslett and Terrance as O.N.I. officers after the first meeting at the billiards parlor. Hoover would have raised hell with the director, who probably would have ordered Paslett to bring me in. So Slater and Reid were fishing. They suspected H & H was a front, but they didn’t know how all the parts and players fit together. They were on to Silva, but they didn’t know who Himmel really was, I realized, which is why they were pressing me about him. They knew this Kudlower character was hinky—that’s why they’d been watching him—but they didn’t know the details. By squeezing me, they hoped to connect the dots. If I wanted to get out of there with my cover intact, the “dumb lunkhead” act was my best play.
Reid slid the crinkled but intact envelope over the table. “Open it.”
“If I do, then can I go?”
“Of course,” Slater said too quickly.
“For real?”
“He said yes, didn’t he?” Reid snapped.
“All right, den.” I opened the envelope, and we all three stared at what slid out.
CHAPTER 25
A STAMPED POSTCARD AND A HANDWRITTEN NOTE. DEAR H & H (THE note read), the enclosed was inadvertently included in my last delivery. I am returning it to you for its proper disposition, R. Kovacevic. The postcard was also in cursive, but in a different hand. The picture showed Los Alamos, New Mexico, at sunset, orange, umber, and cinnamon hues coloring a desert vista of mountains and scrubby trees. On the back, the following:
Hello B! What a grand time we’re having out here in the country at the Five-Five dude ranch. Everything we need is right here, we don’t have to go anywhere. Enormous meals, horse rides through the canyons, bonfires at night—$$$$ well-spent, every penny. And the people we’re meeting, you wouldn’t believe it. People from the island, mountains, and plains. We’re rubbing shoulders with dancers, violinists, actors, even a few gymnasts. Would love to stay the whole year, but we have to come home. Wish you were here (giggles)! All our love, L & A.
Slater and Reid scrutinized the note and postcard for a long moment before handing them over. I took my time reading, pretending to be a slow reader so that I could memorize every word. The postmark, dated April 18, 1945, looked real, but postal markings are awful easy to forge.
“What does that card mean?” Slater demanded.
“How da hell should I know?”
“It’s obviously some kind of coding.”
I shrugged and set the card and note down; Reid snatched them up.
“I wouldn’t know nuttin’ ’bout dat, I’m just da delivery guy.”
Slater glared at me, but if he knew anything about how commie cells worked, then he knew I was telling the truth: the courier must never know anything about the contents of his packages.
“What does Himmel do with the envelopes you bring back?” Reid asked.
“He makes paper airplanes, whattya think?”
“What d’you know about Himmel?” he asked, ignoring my wisecrack.
“He’s an okay joe, for a boss. Can I go now? You said if I—”
“Where’s he from?”
“Guthrie, Fresno—I got no idea.”
“He’s no Okie,” Reid shot back.
“Yer da F.B. of I., why don’tya take a look at his birth certificate?”
“Good idea, I like that—maybe we oughta make you an honorary agent,” Slater said sarcastically.
“Where’s he from?” Reid asked, still unperturbed. He was the bright penny in this duo, trying to lead me.
“Freedonia.”
“Funny. You oughta tour the Catskills this summer. But you know what’s even funnier, Barston?”
“Why don’tya tell me?” Faking a yawn.
“How you just showed up outta the blue. Brig, bus, bingo—suddenly you’re on the doorstep of H & H like a newborn abandoned by his mother. And Himmel takes you right in, a dishonorably discharged shipfitter, a dope fiend, a sad sack with no friends. Except the one friend you don’t want to tell us about, the one you said told you to go to Himmel.”
Chill right down the spine. Slater’s knowing nod unnerved me further. Are they on to me? Too late to change my act now—I’d already put everything I had on Red. If I didn’t give them something, they’d keep digging, keep clawing the tree like bloodhounds until the bark scraped away. My cover wasn’t that thick, it couldn’t withstand a full-tilt Bureau siege. Maybe I had no choice but to tell them about my visit to Griffin Crieve. After all, that loon had bought my story—why wouldn’t Slater and Reid?
“Griffin Crieve,” I said, and left it at that.
They exchanged looks. Then Reid laughed. “Still the funny guy, huh? But we’re not joking anymore, Barston. You give us the name—”
“Crieve, comma, Griffin. Got a big ol’ house off Logan Circle. Lotsa pretty stained glass, can’t miss it.”
“How d’you know Griffin Crieve?” Slater asked.
“I met him when I was a kid. Came ta da docks ta rally da boys. Like you said, my pop was big in the I.L.A. Crieve liked him.”
“But that had to be, what, eight, ten years ago? Why would you go—”
I stood up. “I’m done, got it? Goddammit, I already told you if you wanted more, you’d better arrest me. Instead, I get beat up, you make me open dat envelope, and you say I can go after all’a dat. So fuck you both, I’m leavin’!”
It took all my strength to keep my hands from trembling. I’d rattled them, sure, but I couldn’t know how they’d react. Work me over again? Take the plunge and arrest me? Try to sweet-talk me into staying?
“All right, Barston, you can go,” Reid said, finally.
“For now,” Slater added.
THEY BOTH ESCORTED ME OUT, NEITHER SAYING A WORD UNTIL WE reached Tenth Street.
“Count on seeing us real soon, Barston,” Reid said.
“Go ta hell,” I answered gleefully. A family of tourists was passing by, an American Oil Company map of Washington clutched in the father’s hand, so I wasn’t worried about a parting shot from my new friends. The family gaped, mother shooed them along. Slater and Reid would give me my comeuppance with interest next time we saw one another, but this must be the last time I was alone with these two, I realized. I didn’t know how I’d do it, but I had to avoid run-ins with the Bureau. For sure, Slater and Reid were going to order a twenty-four hour shadow on me. What they didn’t know about Himmel’s spy ring, they thought I knew—or could lead them to what they needed to know. A fullt
ime tail was a rough turn, it would tax all my skills learned at the Funhouse, it meant I’d be hard-pressed to set up another meeting with Terrance and Paslett. Keeping my date with Liv that night was out of the question. Or was it?
But seeing Liv, that was small fry. I still had a hell of a lot to learn about Himmel’s espionage, and I was no closer to identifying who could have murdered Logan Skerrill than when I set foot in H & H—that had to change, and change quick. I was caught up in intrigue and events I didn’t as yet fully understand, but this much was crystal clear: I was fast running out of time to finish the job I’d been sent to do as Ted Barston.
BY THE TIME I GOT BACK TO GREENE’S CAR, IT HAD COLLECTED TWO more citations. I promptly filed them in the nearest trash can and drove pell-mell to K Street. I parked in the alley so I could come in through the rear and go straight to Himmel’s office without having to deal with Silva or Greene.
Himmel was bent over a stack of papers, twirling a pencil. I must have looked a mess, my clothes rumpled and my hair wild from Slater and Reid’s beating, but he was only interested in my hands. Empty, my palms flat against my dungarees.
“No envelope for me, Ted?” He set the pencil down.
I sat down without waiting for an invitation and lit up. It hurt like hell to inhale—the G-men had bruised my ribs but good—but sweet Mary, that Old Gold tasted wonderful. “Coupla boys from da F.B.I. picked me up when I was leaving da last address.”
“The F.B.I.? Why would they arrest you?”
“Dey didn’t arrest me, Mister Himmel. Dey just wanted ta talk ta me. And see what was in da envelope Randall Kovacevic gave me.”
He reached for his box of Montecristos and took a cigar. He rolled it gently in his hands, tapping the tip against the desk. “I see you gave it to them. The envelope.”
“Didn’t have much choice.”
He found his clipper, snipped the cigar, and brushed the pinched end into the ashtray. “But you were never under arrest, hmmm?”
I took a long, satisfying drag on my cigarette, exhaling the plume toward the overhead fan, which caught and twirled my smoke. I was reminded of the cotton candy machine at a carnival, the way the blades turn and spin, the pink sugar going round and round. “Dey said if I didn’t talk ta ’em, dey’d arrest me.”
“I don’t understand how they could take the envelope if you weren’t under arrest.” He frowned.
The hell you don’t! A Soviet agent, perplexed by an intelligence agency playing cat-and-mouse with a mark? But Himmel had to play his part, so did I. “All’s I can tell you, Mister Himmel, is dat dey said if I didn’t cooperate, dey’d arrest me. Dey promised if I opened it for ’em, I could go.”
“That strikes me as, hmmm, what is the word I want here?”
“Un-American.”
“Yes. Un-American, perfect. I will be sure to let our attorney know of this outrage. Did you get the names of these F.B.I. men?”
“Slater and Reid.” I spelled the names for him; he made a show of scribbling them down on his pad.
“So, Ted.” He set the pencil down and struck a match to light his cigar. A plume of gray smoke obscured his face for a moment.
“Yeah, Mister Himmel?”
“What was in the envelope the agents forced you to open?”
In the car, I’d decided I wouldn’t tell Himmel that I’d memorized the note and postcard. That was the action of Lieutenant Ellis Voigt, U.S.N. But Ted Barston, for all his bluster and don’t-give-a-damn posturing, was grateful to Himmel for the job, was eager to please. So I had to give him something. “Well, dey didn’t lemme see it all dat long, you know, what was in da—”
“Just tell me what you saw, Ted.”
“Sure, Mister Himmel. All right, so da first thing dat slid out was a note from dis Kovacevic fella, and it said sometin’ about how da other thing had been given ta him by mistake in his last delivery, so he was sending it back so we—H & H, he meant—could give it ta whoever it belonged ta.”
Puffing on his cigar, he motioned for me to continue.
“Okay, all right, so da second thing, it was just a postcard, from some place in New Mexico, Los, Los Alma”—I stumbled over the name, to see if he’d correct me, but his expression remained impassive, so I continued. “Anyways, it was just a postcard from dis place in New Mexico from dese people who just signed dare name ‘L’ and ‘A’ to someone called ‘B.’”
“What did the postcard say?”
“What postcards always say. We’re having fun, wish we could stay longer, wish you were here—dat kinda stuff.”
“Did L and A say where they were staying?”
“Think it was called da Five-Five Dude Ranch.”
His eyes flickered. Should I give him more, to find out what he’s most interested in? I could let Terrance know all about Himmel’s reaction when I sent my partner a message.
“Dey must like dis ranch an awful lot, Mister Himmel, because dey said it was worth all da money dey was spending.”
“Did L and A say how much the ranch cost?”
“Uh, no, I don’t think so.”
“What, exactly, did the postcard say about money, Ted? Do you remember?”
“Well, lemme think, da way dey put it was, okay, it was ‘money well-spent, every penny.’ And dey used dollar signs instead’a da word ‘money.’”
“How many dollar signs, Ted?”
“Hell, I don’t remember. Three? Maybe four.”
He glanced at the pencil, then turned his gaze back to me, exhaling cigar smoke. He wants to write that down, I thought. Why did he need to know how many dollar signs had been used?
“. . . Ted!”
“Sorry, Mister Himmel, what did you say?”
“What else did the postcard say?”
I decided to withhold the mention of dancers, violinists, actors, and gymnasts. Sloppy spycraft, to refer to such unusual occupations, a red flag that Paslett and Terrance should be able to decipher without too much work. The ranch must refer to the hush-hush military installation in New Mexico that Paslett had mentioned at the billiards parlor, so the dancers, et cetera, must identify who was at the base. Himmel would want that detail awful bad, but I had to give him something else instead: “Well, da only other thing I remember is, dey said dey wanted ta stay longer, like I told you, but dat dey had to come home.”
Himmel nodded and rolled ash off his cigar. I was already on my third Old Gold of the conversation.
“And there’s nothing else you can tell me about that postcard, Ted?” His voice quiet, too quiet.
“No, Mister Himmel. Sorry ’bout dat.” I checked the urge to say something about a bad memory. Don’t overdo it.
“That’s too bad, Ted.”
He knew I was holding back, but I was determined to stay the course. The dumb lunkhead act, Reid had called it. I wondered if Nevelskoi ever tired of playing Himmel. For sure, I was bone-tired of being Barston.
“What should I tell Greene about da manifest?” I asked. “Da F.B.I. agents, dey kept it.”
“You will have to tell him you lost it.”
“He’s gonna wanna fire me. Silva, she’s gonna—”
“Let me handle those two, Ted.”
“Okay, Mister Himmel. So you want me back here tomorrow morning?”
“Yes. But I need you to do something important in the meantime.”
“Sure, anything.”
“Keep an eye out to see if you have any new friends between now and tomorrow.” Translation: you’d better watch for the Bureau’s shadow.
“Gotcha.” And with that, I left.
I TOLD GREENE I’D BEEN MUGGED—CONVENIENTLY, THAT EXCUSED my appearance—and I’d forgotten to retrieve the clipboard after I picked myself up off the sidewalk. He was more worried about his car than anything else, but Silva, of course, overheard everything and bolted over to grill me about the mugging. How many guys jumped me, where had it happened, had I called the police, on and on. I cut her off by saying I’d told Himmel everythi
ng and was going home for the day. I needed a drink fierce, to kill the aches and throbs from my beating.
Three shots of rye and beer backs in a Seventh Street gutbucket steadied my nerves and cleared my head. As I drank, I puzzled over the name of the ranch and Himmel’s intense interest in the number of dollar signs on the postcard. Five-Five . . . what was the number five taken to the fifth power? I dug a grubby pencil stub from my pocket and worked out the figure: 3,125. Say the dollar signs represented zeros. That yielded a total of 31,250,000. As for the sender, Kudlower, posing as Kovacevic, lived near Capitol Hill. He had stacks of Interior Department appropriations reports in his flat. Jesus, how could I have not seen it right away! Kudlower was the cell’s money man, he was tracing how much money was being spent on the military installation in New Mexico. And, with the reference to dancers, violinists, actors, and gymnasts, he must be trying to tell Himmel what the project was.
CHAPTER 26
I LEFT A TWO-BIT TIP AND HUSTLED OUT ONTO SEVENTH STREET, blinking in the bright afternoon sun. I probably shouldn’t have had that third shot and beer, but I was still able to pick out my shadow from the Bureau. He was across the street, milling around a newsstand. Blue suit and gray fedora, brim tilted against the sun. Looked young, real young, collar not quite tight, tie askew, like he was wearing his pop’s shirt. He held a magazine, was leafing through it, but obviously not reading, his eyes darting to assay my side of Seventh Street. The news-jockey, perched on a stool inside his shack, glared at the agent with open hostility. When the agent saw me, he immediately dropped his gaze back to the magazine.
Observations pushed through the rye. Boy G-man was green, making rookie mistakes like loafing around a newsstand, pawing a magazine. When the news-jockey told him to buy it or beat it, Boy G-man badged him—hence the eyefuck. Boy G-man didn’t know what to do next, now that I’d emerged from the bar. Waiting for me to head out, telling himself to give me a block like he’d been trained, then fall in. Question: If Ted Barston was important enough to glue a shadow on, why hadn’t the Bureau sent out an experienced man? Answer: Slater and Reid were short-handed, every man they could spare was already busy trying to crack H & H. They hadn’t expected to see me make a delivery to Kudlower, but it was their lucky break. Because now they knew how Himmel sent the collection basket around to his spy ring. By tomorrow, perhaps even tonight, Slater and Reid would have a seasoned two-man team watching me, and I’d be hard-pressed to shake them. Drawing Boy G-man as my shadow that afternoon was my lucky break, because I wanted to confirm my hunch about Kudlower and the pseudo-postcard from Los Alamos, New Mexico, before I contacted Terrance and Paslett. To do that, I had to cut my new friend loose.
The Dead Don't Bleed: A Novel Page 20
