Jack 1939

by Francine Mathews

  He shrugged. “He wants me to keep my eyes open while I’m traveling in Europe.”

  “Makes sense.” Hopper fumbled in his coat pocket for a cigarette case and lighter. “You’ll be on the ground in a potential combat zone. You’ll glad-hand everybody and talk their ears off. That’s what you do. Smoke?”

  They lit up and exhaled, staring at the river. The shells moved with precision, eight oars lifting at the coxswain’s count, eight backs bending. Jack recognized a guy who lived on his floor at Spee, mouth furled in anguish. He knew crew was hard as hell, but it looked beautiful from a distance and he wanted to remember it that way, even if inside the shell it was pure suffering.

  “You told him I’m an independent thinker.”

  “You are. Is that a sin in the Kennedy household?”

  Jack glanced at him. “Depends who’s laying down the law.”

  “Joe, for instance.” Hopper had taught Jack’s older brother a few years ago. “But you’re always arguing with Joe, and you’re usually right.”

  “That’s different from . . . advising a president. I mean, what if I don’t see or hear anything special, Professor? Never mind what it means for my thesis. What if I . . .”

  “Fail?”

  Jack nodded.

  “Do nothing, and you fail,” Hopper said gently. “You’ve already chosen to act. You’re leaving Harvard. You’re going to Europe. Jesus, Jack—I’d leap at your chances! You get to watch the world blow up and figure out who lit the fuse.”

  “What,” Jack deadpanned. “Teaching Government 1 to a bunch of Brahmins isn’t enough for you anymore?”

  “Look.” Hopper turned toward him in exasperation. “You’re young. You don’t realize yet that there are only a few times in life when you get to test everything you’ve got—when the moment calls and you have to respond. Half these boys in the Yard are stone deaf as far as the world is concerned, but you—you were made to live by your wits and the seat of your pants and the dumb luck that’s kept you going this long. This is your moment, Jack. Don’t miss it. It comes around once or twice and never comes again. I know.”

  Jack heard the raw longing in Hopper’s smoky voice and felt his pulse quicken. It was impossible not to feel a dangerous exhilaration. To want to fly straight into enemy gunfire.

  “Is he looking for something specific?” Hopper asked tentatively. “Or just . . . general intelligence on the ground?”

  Jack hesitated, his hands clenched inside his coat pockets.

  “Never mind. I shouldn’t have asked.”

  “Professor—”

  “It’s okay. You’ll be in England for a while?”

  “Most of March. Then I head to Paris. After that—” Jack grinned. “Summer, and Points East. I’d like to get to Moscow.”

  “Lord,” Hopper sighed. “Youth is wasted on the young, you know that?”

  Jack waited. Hopper was scanning the sky for wings.

  “Right,” he said at last. “Chamberlain runs the Tory Party the way Mussolini runs his trains. Dissent is not tolerated; it’s Neville’s way or the highway. Agree with the Prime Minister, or be booted out of Parliament. Which means you’ve got to talk to Churchill, Jack. He’s not afraid of Neville and he sees the coming mess for what it is.”

  “I met Churchill last summer. My dad says he’s just a drunk.”

  “Oh, he drinks all day long. Whiskey in his bath, champagne at lunch, claret for dinner . . . To Churchill, drinking is good manners, not a disease.”

  “Dad says nobody listens to him anymore.”

  “I hope he didn’t tell Roosevelt that.”

  “Why?”

  “Because he’d be dead wrong. For years, Winston’s been howling about German rearmament, while his own party hooted and jeered. But it turns out he’s right, by God, and if Hitler grabs more than the Czechs, Neville Chamberlain will be out on his ear. Your dad’s advice will be so much horseshit then. And whatever you can pick up in Europe will be pure gold.” Hopper smiled at him crookedly. “No offense, but your old man has lousy political instincts, you know that?”

  Jack kept his gaze on the crew shells knifing down the Charles. “Have you ever wanted to save a guy from himself, Professor, and been completely unable to do it?”

  “Every day. I teach, remember?”

  * * *

  THEY PARTED AT THE DOORS of Widener. Hopper offered his hand.

  “You’ll write if you need anything?”

  “I will. Thanks.”

  “I envy you, mon brave.”

  Jack merely nodded. Hopper’s confidence should have been bracing. But he’d sought out the professor half convinced he was hallucinating. A jabbering product of DOCA pellets. And Hopper had confirmed that Jack was all too sane.

  SIX. THE MARK

  WHEN JACK LEFT CAMBRIDGE, he took Hopper’s advice. He spent the last thirty-six hours before he boarded the Queen Mary chasing Frances Ann Cannon.

  She was a peach of a girl, and it wasn’t just her looks, which were fabulous and head-turning, or her money, which came from the Cannon family mills in North Carolina. Jack had always had money and he could whistle up good looks any night for a song. What he loved about Frances Ann was the way she talked, tilting her head to one side and letting the soft Southern words roll out like sheathed daggers. The things she said were intelligent and acute and detached and funny, and they enslaved him. When Frances Ann spoke, Jack listened, and he’d never really listened to any girl before, except his sister Kick, who was so much like himself it didn’t count.

  Frances Ann staved off the curtain that hovered just beyond Jack’s sight, a kind of fog he thought of as Boredom or Death. He spent his days striding away from it, hands shoved in his pockets, jingling loose change. When Frances Ann tilted her head and opened her mouth the curtain lifted. He wanted her the way broken men wanted strong drink or sleep.

  He flew to meet her in New Orleans and the two of them danced a conga line through Mardi Gras. She refused to go to bed with him; she was that kind of girl. Frances Ann understood something fundamental about Jack: It wasn’t sex he really wanted, it was the chase—and because she was no dummy, she kept the chase alive. She mocked him and toyed with him and then, desolate at the airport, waved frantically through the terminal window, a red sweep of lipstick smearing her cheek, unshed tears in her eyes.

  He had asked her to marry him. And she’d refused.

  It was partly, Jack guessed, because he was an Irish Catholic and she was a WASP. And it was partly because he was Joe Kennedy’s son. There was something not quite right about Joe Kennedy, in respectable American eyes; Frances Ann’s parents did not approve.

  It was just possible, Jack knew, that in her heart of hearts, Frances Ann did not approve, either. Jack was good enough for a few laughs and a swell time—but not good enough to marry.

  He was sick at heart and angry as he flew back to New York. And ready to show the world he was good enough for anyone.

  * * *

  HE WAS STANDING ALONE in the rain now on the Promenade Deck, watching other people wave good-bye to figures on the pier. There were stevedores and there were umbrellas. There were excited women chattering idiotically, handbags suspended from gloved hands. Some of the well-wishers had come on board for a last drink, thousands of people, in fact, pushing past each other from First Class to Third, popping champagne corks and delivering baskets of fruit and flowers, getting drunk in the middle of the day because a friend was crossing to Europe. Bon voyage.

  Jack crossed his arms and leaned on the rail, shoulders hunched, no particular party to attend. There was a telegram in his pocket from Frances Ann, deliberately gay; she’d signed it Good-bye darling I love you, but the words were meaningless now. She’d be relieved to put the Atlantic between them.

  He’d brought a fedora but he wasn’t w
earing it. The rain settled in his hair, turning the careful pompadour to corkscrewed Irish. He debated the idea of the First Class lounge and a glass of Bourbon, which would wreak havoc with the ulcerated duodenum Taylor thought he had, but what the hell. The DOCA seemed to be working. He was able to keep some food down now and he thought he might have gained a pound or two. A shot of Bourbon wouldn’t hurt. He was lonely and the curtain that was either Boredom or Death was hovering just off the port side.

  And then she materialized beside him: cool and porcelain-faced, knees bound in a pencil skirt. Her fur was high-collared and ended abruptly at the waist. Her hat swept like a dove’s wing over one cheek. It made her seem sly and seductive and unreachable as she stared thoughtfully at the pier. Where was her farewell party? Like Jack, she did not bother to wave. Like Jack, she crossed her arms and leaned on the rail, one shoulder grazing his. Her mouth was painted crimson. An unlit cigarette dangled from her lip.

  He reached in his pocket. “Need a light?”

  She bent toward the flame. As the cigarette caught, her chin lifted and she stared over his head, exhaling through the perfectly stained mouth. He could see that her hair was jet black and chin length, with a heavy fringe on the forehead; her black eyes had not the slightest bit of expression in them. French, he thought. His pulse quickened and the lit match burned his fingertips. He tossed it over the rail.

  Only then did her gaze drift for an instant to his face.

  “I’m Jack,” he said, offering his hand.

  He thought perhaps her lips quirked. Then she moved past him without a word, her hips swinging in the pencil skirt.

  His head craned sideways to follow her.

  * * *

  THE MAN WHO HAD STUCK a knife into Katie O’Donohue’s heart was several decks below, eyeing the people who jostled one another in Tourist Class. A glass of rye whiskey had been pressed into his hand by a whirling party girl already three sheets to the wind, and he’d accepted it gratefully as a God-given prop that suggested he had a reason to be there. He was almost out of time.

  His gaze moved indifferently over the passing women. They had nothing he needed. He was searching for a man: one who looked like himself, one who was not going ashore when the shore whistle blew. He knew to the second when that whistle would sound, and what he must do under cover of its noise. But first he needed the mark.

  “Hey, handsome,” a girl crooned at his elbow. She rocked against him as though overbalanced by the motion of the boat. A redhead. She smelled unpleasantly of cigarettes and whiskey. “There’s a swell party going on in D-13. That’s my friend Darlene’s cabin. It’s got the sweetest little bunk imaginable.”

  “Excuse me.” He could utter those two words without the slightest trace of accent. He disengaged his arm and edged past the girl. The drunken throng closed around him.

  The first shore whistle blew.

  Panic rose in his throat. He must find somebody. Five foot ten, blond, and hovering on the edge of thirty—

  He raced through the crowd to the Tourist gangway, searching for one man who could be his savior.

  And there, unbelievably, he was: a mild-faced fellow gripping a briefcase, with a good felt hat pushed back on his head, a wool scarf tucked into the collar of his somewhat shabby camel’s hair coat.

  The man with the knife surged forward, a smile of welcome on his face. Smiling made the scar on his upper lip sting.

  “Here you are at last!” he cried. “I’d given up, my friend! Where is your berth? Allow me to help you. I insist.”

  He seized the bewildered traveler’s bag. The man led him, protesting but polite, to his cabin. It was easy to thrust open the door, drop the bag inside, and shut the chaos behind them.

  “I’m afraid there’s been some mistake,” his mark said, but he wasn’t listening. He clapped his hand on the man’s shoulder and muttered a few banal words. He had only seconds before the last shore whistle blew.

  When the blast came, he slid his knife quickly between the fellow’s ribs. A gasp of disbelief, a hand clutching at his sleeve—the eyes rolled backward. The face blanched. There was very little blood; he knew how to stop a heart.

  Later, when it was dark, he would slip the body over the side. But first he needed the man’s papers.

  He pulled his knife from the body and wiped it clean. Then he turned back the lapels of the worn suit jacket, and slipped his hand into the breast pocket. The American passport was there, along with a wallet. He leafed through its contents. He had dollars and pounds. His name was now Charles Atwater. He was thirty-four years old and had a surprisingly pretty wife. His cabin was Tourist Class. Number D-15, next to . . . Darlene, wasn’t it? With the sweetest little bunk imaginable?

  He repeated the phrase; he liked to work on his English.

  He felt a sharp need to touch the dead man’s skin—to feel the muscle and bone beneath the starched white shirt. His fingers were trembling with sudden, overwhelming desire, and despite the sound of voices in the passage beyond the closed cabin door, despite the steward’s knock and the shouted warning of All ashore that’s going ashore, he slit the fabric roughly with the tip of his knife.

  A pale white pectoral gleamed in the cabin light. With five deft strokes, he cut a crouching spider into the skin.

  There were those in New York some days later who would insist that the mark was a swastika.

  * * *

  THE WHISTLE BLAST TORE like a shock wave through Jack’s thin body as he leaned on the Promenade Deck’s rail. The unwanted visitors were flying across the gangways, and the ship would soon be his own for six days. The unknown French woman—the unknown French woman had nothing to do with New York; she would certainly stay on board, and be traveling First Class.

  He lifted his head into the rain as the tugs did their duty. The piers began to slide away. The grime of New York slipped to the stern. He breathed in the dusk’s wetness.

  Forget Death and Boredom and Frances Ann Cannon.

  He was alone on the Atlantic. He was sailing to Europe with a beautiful girl. He had a president’s secrets to keep.

  He tossed his fedora over the rail and watched it vanish in the waves.

  SEVEN. FELLOW TRAVELERS

  IT WAS A STEWARD NAMED Robbie who told Jack the woman was anything but French, as he unpacked his luggage that evening.

  The two of them became acquainted over a battered trunk and a five-dollar bill. Robbie had met J. P. Kennedy two weeks before on the same ship, and for the ambassador’s son he ran through the passenger list as he moved about the cabin.

  “Lord and Lady Kemsley—he’s our British press baron, owns everything what old Beaverbrook didn’t snap up first. Then there’s Mrs. Sloan Colt and her daughter, Catherine—a very nice young lady, no more than eighteen, and quite under her mother’s thumb.”

  Jack had met Cathy Colt at a deb ball or two—old New York railroad money. She was a shy girl with ballerina arms, prone to blushing; not his type.

  “You might want to steer clear of Mrs. George Minart,” Robbie persisted. “And her daughter. They’ve been hunting you the better part of a week, Mr. Jack—calling the Cunard offices to be sure you were on the passenger list, offering insulting sums to every steward in First Class so’s to get a deck chair either side of you. Fortune hunting, the old bitch is.”

  “June Minart,” Jack mused. She was in her last term at Radcliffe. “Who’s The Looker, Robbie? Tall, black-haired, drop-dead gorgeous. Sable coat and a Robin Hood hat. Don’t tell me she slipped off the boat before we put to sea.”

  Robbie closed his eyes, a priest in pain. “You would, Mr. Jack. You would.”

  Jack grinned. “Is she that bad? What’s her name?”

  “Diana Playfair. A mannequin, as I heard, or maybe an actress. Or something worse,” the steward added darkly. “Not quite respectable, if you take my m
eaning, until the Honorable Denys Playfair went and married her.”

  “Ah. Didn’t see the husband.”

  Robbie shook his head. “The Honorable Denys isn’t aboard. Some say they’re estranged.”

  “You lift my heart, Robbie, you really do.” Jack held out a twenty-dollar bill. “Get me a deck chair near her. Please.”

  Robbie palmed the money with a dubious air. “Awfully cold in the North Atlantic, in Febr’y. Can’t tell as there might not be ice. Captain says as how it’s goin’ ter be a filthy run. Storms, he says, off the coast of Greenland.”

  Jack offered him another twenty. “I’ve got to work on my tan, Robbie.”

  The steward sighed. “I’ll do my best, sir. She’s a looker, all right, our Diana. Though there’s some,” he added as an afterthought, “as don’t hold with her politics.”

  “Why?”

  “She’s one of them Fascists,” the steward said.

  * * *

  DIANA PLAYFAIR WAS NOT to be found among the paneled columns and deep armchairs of the First Class lounge, and she scorned the Captain’s table that evening, where her seat was reserved among the select. This was a measure of her importance to the Cunard Line—Jack, as the British ambassador’s son, had a place at the table along with Lord and Lady Kemsley. Mrs. Sloan Colt and her blushing daughter were there, too—Catherine seated conveniently next to Jack—but June Minart and her mother remained in exile. Presumably Mrs. Minart had failed to bribe the Queen Mary’s captain.

  Jack tried to talk to Cathy Colt while keeping one eye on the empty chair reserved for Diana Playfair. Maybe she was just chronically late. Dramatic entrances would suit her.

  “I hear you’re going to Sarah Lawrence in the fall,” he said to the ballerina arms.

  “Yes. I am.”

  “That should be swell. A girl I know had a great time at Sarah Lawrence. Frances Ann Cannon. You know Frances Ann?”

  “No. I don’t.”

  “My sister Kathleen is thinking about Sarah Lawrence. Ever met Kick? That’s what we call my sister—Kick.”