The Art of the Devil

by John Altman

  Richard Hart had offered a connection to a world from which Myron felt acutely excluded. But now Hart looked as maltreated as Myron himself felt. The disappointment was unexpectedly profound.

  Forcing his mind forward, Myron laid the tweed case across a workbench and hit the catches. Business came first. ‘A nice job,’ he said with a touch of smugness, ‘if I do say so myself.’

  Setting down the Luger beside another of Myron’s pet projects – a scalloped twelve-inch blade – Hart focused on the case. Inside, the Gibson nestled against fraying red velvet, to all appearances an ordinary guitar, with a slightly-nicked pick guard indicating gentle use.

  ‘Looks good – yes?’ Myron removed the instrument from the case, carefully fingered an open E chord, and strummed once. ‘And sounds good. Yes?’

  There was no denying, as the chord reverberated and lingered, that it sounded good – in fact, to Myron’s satisfaction, the guitar sounded even better than when he had received it. In the course of doing his work he had corrected a warping of the neck and replaced a bent truss rod, discovering in the process a lost calling as a luthier.

  ‘We can’t break it open – this is for a single use only – so you’ll need to take my word for it,’ Myron continued, ‘but the rifle exceeds your specifications. I found more than enough space inside the neck for a twenty-four inch barrel. Therefore I would feel perfectly comfortable firing this weapon from up to four hundred and fifty yards, using the ammunition you’ll find inside the headstock – eight .30-06 cartridges – assuming my target was medium-sized big game.’ He let the euphemism hang in the air for a moment, competing with the last reverberations of the chord, before moving on. ‘The barrel and the truss rod are one and the same, so once the rifle is assembled, the guitar won’t play. But I assume you won’t be using it to serenade anybody.’

  Hart nodded briefly.

  ‘Here,’ said Myron, tapping the saddle bridge at the base of the guitar’s body, ‘is your scope. Just pop it out and turn it around. The assembly mechanism is self-evident. Zeroing the sights won’t be possible, you said, and the user thus has concerns about accuracy. So just to be on the safe side, I’ve grooved the barrel a few extra times: eight in total. This weapon therefore possesses the spin stabilization of an Olympic-level instrument. As no conditions were made concerning weight, I’ve used a bull barrel; thus we avoid extra flex and vibration, further increasing our accuracy.’

  Hart made a noise of acknowledgement.

  ‘All in all,’ concluded Myron a bit prissily, ‘this was hardly a challenge. The only difficulty came in the haste with which I was required to work.’

  Hart said nothing. Having expected more praise for a job clearly well done, Myron sniffed. Returning the guitar to its case, he closed the catches. ‘Okay?’

  ‘Excellent. As always.’ Rearranging his crutch, Hart produced a buff envelope from an inside pocket, which he silently passed over. Myron opened the envelope and riffled through bills with fingertips. Forty, sixty, eighty …

  ‘Is this a joke? We agreed on a fee of one—’

  Looking up, he blinked. His eyes had been averted for only a moment – but Richard Hart held the Luger, aimed at Myron’s chest.

  Myron started to laugh. But the sound caught in his narrow chest. Instead, he raised his eyebrows questioningly.

  ‘Turn around,’ said Hart coldly.

  ‘Richard – what is this?’

  ‘Turn around.’

  Slowly, Myron turned. He heard the clumping of the crutch; then the modified Python was plucked from the back of his waistband. The safety came off with a small but audible click.

  ‘Wait,’ he just had time to say, before a cold barrel pressed against his temple.

  ‘Who knows about this rifle?’ asked a steady voice in his ear.

  Myron’s tongue flicked out, frog-like. ‘Nobody,’ he answered, ‘of course. If this is a joke, Richard, it’s in very poor taste.’

  ‘A manufacturer, supplier, warehouse …?’

  ‘You know I keep all my equipment on-site.’

  ‘Do you keep records?’

  ‘What is this?’ asked Myron in disbelief, twisting around.

  The Python’s barrel rapped against his temple, convincing him to cease the movement. Why, thought Myron, Richard Hart was betraying him; it was happening right now. The one man he’d fully trusted …

  Suddenly, he felt like crying. Hart was the same as all the others. How could he have been such a fool?

  The moment extended interminably. Was his so-called friend going to shoot him, or simply steal his work? As Myron wondered, he felt warmth rising in his ribcage – but the warmth seemed the least of his problems, unrelated to the gun as it was, so he shuffled it mentally aside.

  If Hart planned on shooting, he would have pulled the trigger by now. So this was a common robbery. That made the humiliation all the more bitter. But not pulling the trigger, thought Myron, had been a fatal mistake. For once Richard Hart completed his theft, he would leave the apartment, descend the switchback staircase, and step out onto the sidewalk. And then Myron would have every chance to frame his friend’s face in the cross hairs of a sniper’s rifle. And if the street was empty enough – and on a Sunday morning, it just might be – he would do it. He would pull the trigger. He would blow Richard Hart’s brains all over the sidewalk. In fact, he was glad this had happened. Too many times had he targeted a gray-flannelled businessman outside his window, only to ultimately put up the gun unfired. Now he would find the chance to actually consummate the act, to experience the thrill of that ultimate secret power—

  The balmy torpor spread through his right flank. In his last moment, Myron glanced down and was shocked to see his pajamas soaked through with coppery blood.

  Then he slumped, folding onto the floor.

  After wiping the scalloped blade clean on bloody pajamas, Richard Hart returned knife to workbench with one hand. Looking at the body, he repressed a shudder of self-loathing. Myron, like Arthur Glashow, had deserved better. But the senator’s protocol for covering of tracks had been crystal clear – and the senator came first. The senator always came first …

  A pack of cigarettes rested on a nearby table. Helping himself, Hart looked thoughtfully around the cluttered workshop/apartment. The place overflowed with vises and benches and tools. If you needed to dismember a body, he thought darkly, you couldn’t choose a better place.

  SIXTEEN

  GETTYSBURG

  The parlor glowed softly from gentle sunshine, still-lighted table lamps, and the flickering electric baubles of the Christmas tree; on the turntable, a needle danced across the run-out groove in an endless scratching loop.

  Miss Dunbarton spent a long moment standing at the base of the staircase, absorbing the scene incredulously. At last her paralysis broke, and she moved gingerly forward. At the sound of her footsteps a couple leapt up from behind the couch, smoothing down rumpled clothes. The maid muttered an apology and ran upstairs. The Secret Service agent looked stricken, hung his head, and made for the side door.

  Before she could find the heart to press on, Dunbarton bolstered herself with the hair of the dog. Then she set her jaw and pressed into the worst of the devastation, pausing to lift the needle from the turntable as she passed. Shards of broken ornaments and drinking glasses crackled underfoot. The smell of smoke was everywhere; her prohibition had been not only disobeyed but outright flouted. Give these girls an inch, and they took a mile. But the fault was partly her own. She had miscalculated her own consumption and retired earlier than intended – and now she was paying the price.

  The Waterbury clock was still intact on the mantle, thank goodness. She kept surveying. Upstairs she found one of the new agents, Philip Zane, seated by his window behind a door hanging ajar. They exchanged brief good mornings before the house matron moved quickly and a bit shamefacedly down the hall.

  All of her girls looked green around the gills; one refused to be roused except to tell Dunbarton to stop h
er goddamned knocking. That girl would not keep her job for long, of course. But considering the current mess, firing was not a luxury that could be indulged. Assembling her charges in the hallway – even the slugabed came sullenly to join the line – Miss Dunbarton conveyed her immense displeasure with a toxic glare. Then she urged the girls to visit the kitchen, enjoy a quick breakfast of black coffee, and get about cleaning the mess they’d made, applying themselves first to wherever they had conducted their most sordid transgressions.

  As the girls filed past, heads hung low, she noted one who seemed more alert than the rest: Elisabeth Grant, the new girl. Although Elisabeth’s eyes were rimmed red with fatigue, she did not seem hung over; her chin was held up, with pride. Briefly, their eyes met, and in the girl’s clear gaze Dunbarton sensed reproach for her fellows. The house matron gave a small, admiring shake of the head. A few more like that, she thought, and the farm would run in a manner befitting the President they all served.

  THE TREASURY BUILDING

  When the phone rang, Isherwood struggled into a sitting position.

  He watched from the couch as Spooner lifted the receiver. The Chief looked even more cadaverous than usual: thinning gray hair disheveled, prominent skull clearly defined beneath. The fresh new collar had already been marred by a dusting of dandruff. In the center of the high forehead, an impression from the desk blotter suggested a flesh-colored watermark. Hanging up after half a minute, Spooner moved a thumb slowly, morosely, across his lips.

  ‘Something?’ asked Isherwood.

  ‘Less than nothing. Every conductor and ticket vendor must be blind.’ Spooner gave a sad, gravelly laugh.

  The phone rang again. Resignedly, Spooner reached for it. Despite a tickle in his throat, Isherwood lit a cigarette. He had not been aware of falling asleep, but now he felt slightly refreshed. He tapped ash into a half-empty coffee cup on the floor by his feet.

  Spooner seemed encouraged by whatever he was hearing. He sat straighter, nodding; his sallow cheeks filled with color. ‘You’re sure?’ he asked, and picked up a pen. ‘Spell your last name for me.’ He listened again. ‘Would you swear to that in a court of law?’

  After extracting a promise of silence, he hung up and addressed Isherwood in a murmur despite the fact that, with the office door closed, nobody could hear them. ‘State trooper from Charlottesville – saw the APB for Hart and recognized the face. Last year, he says, at a fund-raiser for the Patrolmen’s Benevolent Association, Richard Hart was accompanying Senator John Bolin.’

  Isherwood was suddenly wide awake. ‘John Bolin,’ he repeated.

  ‘Part of the Bridges and Dirksen and Mundt crowd. McCarthyites.’ Spooner smiled sternly. ‘The Wizard of Ooze and his tin men.’

  For half a minute, both were silent, absorbing the implications.

  ‘So what now?’ asked Isherwood. ‘Waltz into the Senate chamber with a warrant for Bolin’s arrest?’

  ‘On hearsay from a state trooper? Fat chance.’

  ‘Let Eisenhower in on it, then. President trumps senator.’

  ‘Last resort. Remember: doctor’s orders.’

  Isherwood jetted smoke from each nostril. ‘We’re looking for a thread to pull on. Here it is, with a bow tied around it. You want we should just sit on our hands?’

  ‘We need Hart.’ Spooner kicked back in his chair, rubbed a palm blearily over his face. ‘He’s the smoking gun – literally. Once he fingers Bolin, we’ve got cause. Then we lean on the good senator and roll up the whole mess.’

  Again, the men looked at each other in silence. Wind moved outside the window with a numinous sigh. A girl in an office down the hall laughed loudly, stridently.

  ‘We’ve got feelers out,’ said Spooner eventually. ‘High and low. I say we sit at the center of our web and wait for another strand to quiver. It’s our best move.’

  ‘Get some eyes on Bolin, at least.’

  ‘Negative. We can’t risk putting him on guard. We wait.’

  Isherwood bit his tongue. Too many years spent behind a desk had ruined Spooner’s nerve; but argument would be wasted breath.

  The girl down the hall laughed again, raucously. Isherwood wished he knew what was so goddamned funny.

  GETTYSBURG

  As afternoon turned toward evening, Elisabeth and Josette stood shoulder-to-shoulder, cleaning dining-room windows.

  ‘You know,’ said Josette suddenly, ‘I was pretty zozzled last night.’

  ‘Boy, me too.’

  ‘But I meant what I said. We should really do it. Go to Paris together.’

  Elisabeth spritzed, wiped.

  ‘Libby? Why so quiet?’

  ‘Just thinking.’

  ‘About what?’

  Elisabeth shrugged. ‘Sometimes,’ she said slowly, ‘it’s easier to plan something than to actually follow through. That’s all.’

  ‘Sure. But we’ll have each other to lean on. That’ll make all the difference. It won’t be easy – but that’s what will make it exciting.’

  Rags squealed against glass.

  ‘You’re my best friend, Libby. There’s nobody I’d rather go with.’

  ‘That’s so sweet.’ An awkward silence; Elisabeth was forced to add, ‘You’re my best friend, too.’

  ‘Then let’s do it. Let’s go, right away.’

  Elisabeth laughed. ‘Now?’

  ‘Tuesday’s your day off, right? You can talk to the travel agent, find out some prices.’

  Elisabeth moved on to the next window. ‘Maybe we should think about it some more.’

  ‘But that’s what I’ve been doing for years: thinking. Thinking about Hollywood, or London, or Chicago – just thinking, thinking, thinking. Before I know it, I’ll think myself right into being an old maid. The chance will have passed me by. I’ve done enough thinking.’

  ‘You’re crazy, Josie. Anybody ever tell you that?’

  Josette tapped her head, smiled craftily. ‘Crazy like a fox,’ she said. ‘Promise you’ll ask?’

  Elisabeth stifled a sigh and nodded.

  NEW YORK CITY

  A young couple braved the chilly wind to enjoy a romantic stroll along the Hudson River.

  When the young man suddenly stopped, took both of the girl’s hands in his own, and awkwardly leaned in for a kiss, she closed her eyes, as she had been taught was proper. As the moments passed, however, she began to feel increasingly self-conscious – who knew what friends or family might be walking the river? The docks were populated not only with longshoremen and sailors, but with ordinary people who were enjoying the view and the fresh evening air and the lights on the water. And all it took to ruin a girl’s reputation was a single scurrilous rumor. In spite of herself, then, she opened her eyes, even as the kiss continued, to run her gaze restively over the gray-brown water of the Hudson, lit from both shores, slopping against pilings ten feet below.

  Suddenly, she gagged, tearing away and noisily vomiting.

  The young man blushed, mortified; although he didn’t know what he had done wrong, his girlfriend’s reaction was clear. And so it came as almost a relief, moments later, when he turned and saw the human hand, messily severed from an absent body, bloodless and fish-belly white, tangled in a fishing net amongst the pilings.

  THE SULGRAVE CLUB, WASHINGTON DC

  As the moon rose on the evening of November 20th, Richard Nixon and a handful of reporters listened, inside a private club of yellow Roman brick and cream terracotta, as Senator Joseph McCarthy promised a blazing comeback – and not a moment too soon, the senator assured his audience, for he knew from confidential sources of a plot communist forces had been waging inside the highest echelons of the American government.

  But the attention of the spectators wandered, Nixon noticed; they had heard this script too many times before. More than one toyed distractedly with a dessert fork or leaned over to whisper disrespectfully in a neighbor’s ear. The Vice President also noted that McCarthy was spilling his drink as he wove his tall tales, and that, alar
mingly, a trickle of slobber rode unnoticed from one corner of his broad mouth. The powerhouse Fighting Joe who had infamously slapped columnist Drew Pearson inside this same swank club five years before was no more. And unless the man changed his habits dramatically, Nixon could not help thinking, Joe McCarthy might not be long for this world.

  Behind the tinted windows of a Lincoln Continental traveling down K Street one hour later, the Vice President stared out at the baubles of the capital at night, muscles in his jaw bunching fitfully. When different loyalties pulled a man in opposite directions, it was damned difficult to know how to react. He had come so very far in this game. And yet he still had so very much to learn.

  But however the cards fell, Dick Nixon would land on his feet. The country to which he had promised himself demanded no less. In his own estimation he was one of the few men – perhaps the only man – able to keep his moral center under such perfidious conditions. Born into a house his father had built with his own two hands, a Quaker house in which drinking and dancing and swearing had been strictly forbidden, Nixon had been infused with a sense of right and wrong strong enough to survive the warping required to be effective in Washington. The trick, he realized more every day, was to bend in the proper places. One embraced smaller evils for the greater good. And so to win his first seat in Congress he had smeared his rival Jerry Vorhis by waging a vicious whispering campaign, implying Voorhis’ endorsement by communists. Stumping against Helen Gahagan Douglas in 1950, he had sunk even lower, distributing a pink flyer that simultaneously attacked her voting record and – by dint of its color – her gender. Caught maintaining a privately subscribed expense account of questionable integrity, he had taken to television airwaves, conducting a tasteless public financial striptease, opportunistically using his children and cocker spaniel puppy to sway public opinion back in his favor. Such ethical compromises were necessary, he had learned, in order to reach a height from which a man might do real good. Uneasy lies the head which wears the crown.

  Political allies were not friends. And loyalties were not black and white. He had made promises to McCarthy and to Eisenhower, to Pat and Tricia and Julie, to himself – and most of all to America – that could not all be honored. One had to pick and choose.