The Language of Cannibals

by George C. Chesbro

  When he paused again and looked away, I reached out and touched his arm. “Harry, I’m sorry.”

  He nodded, turned back to me. “A couple of months ago—in May, maybe early June—I was sitting out here on the porch, noodling on my guitar and trying to come up with some new tunes, when I see this big yacht steam on by below. I found out later that the yacht belongs to that guy who sounds like a Nazi on radio and television, a nasty fellow with a funny first name.”

  “Elysius Culhane?”

  “That’s the one. Anyway, it was a pretty warm day, and one of the men on the yacht had his shirt off; he was lying on his stomach near the bow, sunning himself. I looked, and couldn’t believe what I thought I saw, so I went and got my binoculars for a better look. Sure enough, this man had a big blue birthmark spreading across his left shoulder and down over his shoulder blade. I told the FBI fellow about what I saw—probably because I’d had too much cider to drink. Now I’m thinking maybe I should have kept my mouth shut, like I’d intended; now I’m thinking I may be responsible for that nice fellow’s death.”

  “I’m sorry, Harry. I don’t understand.”

  Harry Peal’s response was to unbutton his flannel shirt, pull it down to his waist, and then turn his back to me. I stared, transfixed, at the discoloration of his skin; splashing across his left shoulder, bleeding down over the shoulder blade, was a huge, raised birthmark, almost as blue as the sky. Although the rest of his skin was dry, the puffy blue flesh of the birthmark was exuding droplets of perspiration.

  “That mark’s called a blue rubber bleb nevus,” he said over his shoulder in a low voice. “It’s a genetic trait that runs strong in the Peal family. Just about every Peal has one. Of course, it’s not just the Peals, but a blue rubber bleb nevus is very rare. It can appear anywhere on the torso or even cover the whole torso. This man had his the same place as mine, and it was the same size.”

  Suddenly my mouth was very dry. I swallowed hard, said, “Boy, oh boy.”

  He pulled his shirt back on and buttoned it up, then turned around to face me. “I was pretty upset when I saw that guy with the birthmark, Mongo. I didn’t know what to do, and I sure as hell didn’t think the government needed or wanted Harry Peal to tell them their business. I kept telling myself that I didn’t know what it meant and that I had no business spreading information when I didn’t know the whole story; when you’ve had as many people informing on you as I have, it’s kind of hard to turn informer yourself. So I just kept it to myself—but it bothered me. I was still debating whether or not to say anything to anybody when this FBI friend of yours came to see me. I ended up telling him, because I finally decided that the FBI should know.”

  My mouth and throat were still dry. I cleared my throat, and when that didn’t help took a long swallow of the hard cider. “Harry, do you know the name of the man with the birthmark that you saw on Elysius Culhane’s boat?”

  “Jay Acton. I found that out when I found out who the yacht belonged to. But that can’t be his real name, because he was certainly born in Russia.”

  I felt slightly light-headed, and I knew it had nothing to do with the cider. Now when I looked at Harry Peal, I could see the resemblance. Jay Acton would have gotten his dark eyes from his mother, but he shared with his father smallish ears, high cheekbones, a strong mouth and chin. I rose from the chair, extended my hand. “I have to go, Harry. I think I have some idea of what you felt when you saw that birthmark on Acton, and I think I have some idea of how it tore your guts to tell Michael and me. I thank you.”

  He took my hand in both of his, gripped it hard. “Mongo, do you think my son killed the FBI fellow? Do you think my boy is a murderer?”

  “I’m sorry, Harry, but I wouldn’t be at all surprised. Things are certainly starting to point in that direction. I intend to find out for sure.”

  “Don’t go getting yourself killed, Mongo.”

  “I don’t plan to, Harry.”

  Chapter Six

  I was back home by 2:30. The official offices of Frederickson and Frederickson occupy the first two floors of our brownstone, and I went directly to my office on the first floor. I sat down in front of my computer terminal, plugged in my modem, and went to work. We paid out close to three hundred dollars a month for subscriptions to various computer newsletters and services—most of them perfectly legitimate, with only a couple of questionable legality. We’d taken courses, and even had our own hack-on-call, a very young computer whiz who’d barely missed getting a ten-year prison sentence for breaking into a Defense Department network and leaving a series of “Have a nice day” messages in both English and Russian. It was an age of electronic snooping, and Frederickson and Frederickson had taken pains not to get caught with its PCs down. But there was nothing particularly arcane about what I was up to at the moment. As a licensed private investigator, I was legally entitled to use the DMV network. I entered the appropriate code, then punched up the name of Jay Acton. I was in luck; he had a driver’s license, and he owned a car. Within a minute I had his Social Security number.

  Next, I consulted one of my quasi-legal newsletters, found the appropriate code, and invited myself into a network used by most of the nation’s health insurance companies. It turned out that Jay Acton had health insurance provided through a right-wing mink tank with which Elysius Culhane was associated. According to his application form, Acton was born on October 23, 1939, in Dayton, Ohio.

  Sure.

  Curious as to what the FBI might have on Olga Koussevitsky, I tried tapping into a network used for counterintelligence historical files but got nowhere. They’d changed the pass code in Washington, and I was going to have to wait for next week’s mail to find out what the new code was. And if I couldn’t get into the file, I had contacts in both the FBI and CIA who could get me the data I needed. Given enough time, acting on the information Harry Peal had given me, I was certain I could piece together a scenario of how Harry Peal’s son was born in Russia and then smuggled back into the United States with his English-speaking mom to grow up as Jay Acton, All-American Boy. Except that this all-American boy would have a KGB mother to constantly indoctrinate him in communist ideology and fill him with a special sense of purpose and mission—to be a spy.

  Or something like that.

  I turned off the computer, leaned back in my swivel chair, and considered what I would do next—assuming I wanted to—in order to prove that Jay Acton was a KGB officer. The first step would be to prove that his birth records were phony. There are any number of ways to construct a false identity, and they have grown increasingly sophisticated over the years. Presumably, I would actually have to go to Dayton to check hospital birth records, and then pore over death records and walk through graveyards, to search for a real Jay Acton who might have died at, or soon after, birth, on October 23, 1939. I would try to find out the address or addresses where the “Actons” had lived, look over school records, talk to his teachers, and so on.

  The work of proving that Jay Acton was a KGB ringer would be time-consuming but fairly routine. It could also prove to be perilous. I was not exactly an inconspicuous personage, and even if I could go to Dayton and begin traipsing through Jay Acton’s past without calling attention to myself it was quite possible that there were “trip wires” embedded in the matrix of false records I would have to untangle; request a certain file, or question the wrong person, and a warning signal could be flashed to Russia or to Cairn. By the time I’d gathered enough information to drive a stake through this particular vampire’s heart, he might well have flown from his coffin and be safely ensconced in a dacha on the Black Sea while he tried to become accustomed to Russian culture. I didn’t want to take that responsibility.

  I knew I already had more than enough to get the attention and help of Mr. Lippitt, our ageless and trusted friend who was the director of the Defense Intelligence Agency. The problem was that this kind of counterintelligence activity was clearly the province of the FBI. Mr. Lippitt would eventuall
y feel constrained to contact Edward J. Hendricks anyway, and then I would have put the man to whom both Garth and I owed our lives in the uncomfortable position of having stepped on some very big, sensitive, and powerful toes. I didn’t want to do that, and I didn’t feel that I had to. This was, after all, the FBI’s job, not mine or Mr. Lippitt’s.

  In addition, I wanted to make certain that Michael Burana would catch some favorable publicity. He’d taken the heat and suffered disgrace for losing a CIA defector, and now I wanted to see that he received credit for unmasking the man who was most certainly his murderer.

  I opened the bottom right drawer in my desk, rummaged around until I found what I was looking for—a manila folder containing a sheaf of papers that had been stapled together. It was a list that was not available from any subscription service, and that money could not buy. In its original form it was called the Green Sheet, a designation that had always mystified me since it was not a sheet, but a half-inch-thick directory, and its cover was not green but beige. It was a classified directory listing the private home numbers of virtually every important politician and bureaucrat in the federal government. My first copy of the directory had been delivered to me two Christmases before, by special messenger, with no information as to who might have sent it. I received an update every three months, hand-delivered in the same manner. Garth and I had a pretty good idea who was responsible for this rather nice gift, and it wasn’t Mr. Lippitt, who would never be so vulgar as to send us a copy of a classified document. We were certain that it arrived through the auspices of President Kevin Shannon; a little token of appreciation from the man who knew that his election, and subsequent continuance in office, depended upon our mutual cooperation—a conspiracy of silence about events surrounding his initial choice for secretary of state, a man who had turned out to be a murderous psychopath.

  So much for history and Green Sheets. I thumbed through the directory until I found the home telephone number of Edward J. Hendricks, picked up the phone, and dialed it.

  Hendricks answered on the fourth ring. “Hello, Jerry,” he said in a lazy, Sunday afternoon voice. “What’s happening on the—”

  “This isn’t Jerry, Mr. Hendricks. My name is Dr. Robert Frederickson. I apologize for calling you at home on a Sun—”

  “Who is this?” he snapped in a distinctly Monday morning voice.

  “Robert Frederickson.”

  There was a pause, then a tentative, “The dwarf?”

  “That’s the one. I—”

  “How did you get this number, Frederickson?”

  “Mr. Hendricks, you’ve got a KGB officer advising the most influential conservative columnist and television talking head in this country, namely Elysius Culhane, Culhane is having notions whispered in his ear by a Russian spy, who, in turn, is probably privy to all the nation’s secrets that we both know are leaked to Culhane by right-wing congressmen and disgruntled generals at the Pentagon. As head of the FBI’s counterintelligence unit, I thought you would appreciate getting me information as soon as possible—that’s assuming you don’t already know about it.”

  The sound of wheels turning in Edward J. Hendrick’s head transcribed as almost a half minute of heavy, rasping breathing. Finally he said, “What are you talking about, Frederickson?”

  “Michael Burana wasn’t in touch with you concerning a Russian spy operating out of Cairn?”

  “No,” he replied in the same breathy voice, as if he were out of wind. “Tell me what you’re talking about.”

  “As I’m sure you’re aware, Elysius Culhane’s top aide and advisor is a man by the name of Jay Acton. That isn’t his real name. His mother is, or was, a KGB officer named Olga Koussevitsky, and he was born somewhere in Russia, not Dayton, Ohio, which is what’s listed on his American passport. Incidentally, Agent Burana did all the preliminary field work on this. I accidentally found his notes while I was going through his effects for his family, and I came across this information. He must have been planning on getting it all down pat before he filed his report. Anyway, when I saw what he’d uncovered, I knew I should contact you right away. Also, Agent Burana’s death wasn’t an accident; Acton had to have murdered him. I’ll get this information off to you by express mail first thing in the morning, but in the meantime I expect you’ll want to put Acton on ice while—”

  “Frederickson, have you been doing any investigation of this matter on your own?”

  “No,” I said, surprised and somewhat taken aback by his tone. The raspiness was gone from his voice, and his tone was firm, decisive. He sounded as if he’d made some kind of decision—one I suspected I wasn’t going to like. “I just told you that I’m working from Michael Burana’s field notes.”

  “Have you spoken to anyone else about this matter?”

  “No, Mr. Hendricks,” I replied evenly. “I immediately recognized that this was a serious matter for the FBI to handle and that you’d want to start working on it immediately. As for arresting Acton, the name of the chief of police in Cairn is—”

  “What about your good friend Mr. Lippitt? Have you spoken to him about this?”

  “No,” I replied tersely. “If you’ll check the file I’m sure the FBI keeps on me, I think you’ll find I’m—”

  “I know all I need to know about you, Frederickson, from reputation and from the company you keep in this liberal administration. I want you to listen to me very, very carefully. The FBI appreciates your cooperation, but as of this moment the matter is entirely out of your jurisdiction. Agent Burana obviously did good work, and you’ve done good work. We’ll handle it from here.”

  “Sir, Agent Burana was a friend of mine, and he was murdered. May I ask—?”

  “You may ask nothing, Frederickson. You will speak to no one else about this matter, and you will do absolutely no further investigation on your own. It could be dangerous; if this man is indeed a KGB operative, we could lose him.”

  “I’m aware of that, sir.”

  “Consider everything concerning this matter classified—which it will be as soon as we conclude our conversation. I’m sure you’re aware of the penalties that could be involved if you don’t handle yourself properly.”

  Edward J. Hendricks, director of the counterintelligence unit of the FBI, was beginning to try my patience. “You wait a goddamn minute, Hendricks,” I said in a less than cheery tone. “Do you have a policy of threatening patriotic citizens who call to provide you with valuable information about Russian spies in this country?”

  “I’m not the only person in Washington who has questions about your loyalty, Frederickson. But your patriotism, or lack of it, is irrelevant. What’s important is that this is a matter of national security, and some things are just more important than the fact that Agent Burana may have been murdered. If what you say is true, then we may possibly want to try and turn this Acton, or use him to try to unmask his controller. Those decisions will be made in due time, and we certainly don’t need a private citizen looking over our shoulders.”

  “You’re not going to jail him while you do a preliminary investigation?”

  “Let me make myself clear, Frederickson, so that there won’t be any misunderstanding in the future. If it’s determined that you’ve shared this information with anyone else or if you pursue the matter in any way, shape, or form on your own, you will be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.”

  “One mistake, even a little one, on your part, and he could be gone. There are ways you can hold him.”

  “Mind your own business, Frederickson, and bear in mind what I just told you.”

  “I can’t believe you’re threatening me, pal. I hand you a KGB agent on a silver platter, and you treat me like I’m the enemy. Are you aware that this kind of behavior could lead someone like me to have less than total confidence in some of our public servants? You’ve been spending all your time glowering at your left flank, and a nasty old Red menace slipped under the bedcovers on your right. Isn’t that a howler? He killed one
of your agents, Hendricks. Put the son-of-a-bitch away.”

  “You have a reputation for being a disrespectful wise-ass, Frederickson, and I can see that it’s deserved. Your sarcasm is wasted on me. But you also have a reputation as a loose cannon. Before you do anything that may not be in the best interests of this country, consider the prosecution I mentioned—and, of course, the fact that you would almost certainly lose your license. This conversation is the end of your involvement in this matter, Frederickson. Do I make myself clear?”

  “Perfectly,” I said. “Have a nice day.”

  I hung up, then immediately picked up the phone again and called our travel agent to make arrangements to get me on the first available flight that would take me to Dayton, Ohio.

  Then I dialed the number of the Cairn Town Hall.

  I understood, all right. Best interests of the country, indeed. Hendricks, I thought, was too accustomed to talking to freshly minted graduates of the FBI academy. If it was possible to be outraged but not surprised by someone’s behavior, that was how I felt. I didn’t regret calling Edward J. Hendricks, because it had been essentially a forced move. I’d hoped for a different reception and outcome from the one I’d gotten, but I wasn’t really surprised by what had happened. Elysius Culhane and Edward J. Hendricks—two hard-liners who listed so far to the right that it was a wonder they didn’t fall over when they walked—were undoubtedly the best of buddies, and Hendricks was undoubtedly one of Culhane’s government sources. Asses and reputations had to be protected, and there was no doubt in my mind that at that very moment orders were going out to all sorts of people with different interests but a common ideology to begin circling their wagons. This was one little Indian who was determined to find a way to sneak into their camp before all the wagons were in place.