“It’ll do fine,” said Brennan.
“Excuse me, Matt,” he said, “but I’m all on edge. Hazel was just beginning to tell me that she got to see her Russian friend last night, the one who first tipped her off on the conspiracy to get Kennedy, and she got him to talk.” He turned back to Hazel, eyes glittering and chins jiggling with anticipation. “Well, Hazel, this is it. I can’t take the suspense. What’s the big word?”
Brennan averted his gaze, giving himself to the orange juice. As a youngster, after reading Gandhi and Dr. Schweitzer, he had never killed a fly or purposely stepped on an ant. Later, he had never been able to bear the sufferings of any living creature, be the pain physical or mental. He had found the resilience to endure his own degradation and loss these last four years, but he hated seeing another similarly shorn of hope, since he, more than most, understood the soundings of the depths of despair and knew that they descended almost endlessly to the very brink of hell.
The platter of bacon and eggs was set before him, and no dish had ever received such undivided attention. But now and then he could hear Hazel Smith’s melancholy voice and snatches of her recital. She was telling Doyle that she had reminded her “Russian friend” of his confidence in Vienna back in June of 1961. The Russian had remembered. He had confirmed that a conspiracy had been in the making—during this part, Doyle’s ecstatic wheezing became more pronounced—but the intrigue had in reality been directed against Premier Khrushchev, not against President Kennedy.
Doyle’s happy exhalations suddenly became a single strangled groan.
There followed a gap of silence. Quickly, Hazel tried to close it with puny words of explanation. To Brennan, it seemed as futile as a postmortem. The victim could not be brought back to life. With pain that dulled his taste, Brennan continued to consume the eggs, half listening to Hazel repeat how first she, then Doyle—she in Vienna, he after the assassination in Dallas—had misinterpreted the conspiracy information that the Russian had leaked out. It had been only natural for them to assume, from the first, that when the Communist conspirators had spoken of getting rid of the Head of State who obstructed the Soviet Union, they had meant the American leader, not their own Communist Premier. The assassination at Dallas, slightly more than two years later, had appeared to confirm this view of the conspiracy. But now it could all be seen in a new light. The Communists had conspired to get rid of their own leader. And shortly after, they had succeeded.
“I’m sorry, Jay, I can’t tell you how sorry,” Hazel was concluding, “but there’s the final truth and we have to live with it.”
For Brennan, there was no place to hide. The eggs and toast were gone, the juice glass and coffee cup empty, and he had to accompany Hazel to the graveside.
He looked up. Doyle, who had not once spoken during Hazel’s recital or since, still did not speak. After his initial groan of disbelief, his massive head remained high, immobile, the features still held firmly in some semblance of dignity. Yet, Brennan suspected, from the draining of color, the twitching around the eyes and mouth, there was awful defeat. Earlier, at the beginning, Doyle’s profile had reminded Brennan of a self-indulgent and eminently victorious Caesar engraved on an ancient Roman coin. The profile was still Caesarly, but in it could be read portents of the decline and fall of the Roman Emperor.
Waiting for Doyle’s first verbal reaction, Brennan worried at his unnatural silence and wondered if his friend was in shock. He hoped for a normal outcry of grief, the realistic acknowledgment of ruin that alone could lead to survival and rebuilding. Brennan’s mind had gone back to another Caesar, the Emperor Augustus, who, upon hearing of the annihilation of his greatest Roman army under Publius Quintilius Varus at the hands of the German barbarians, had screamed out his lament, “Vare, redde mihi legiones! And now Brennan waited for Doyle, hope slain, to shout tearfully, “O Varus, give me back my legions!”
Instead, it was Hazel whose voice broke the silence, as she repeated, “I’m sorry, Jay, but good or bad, I know you wanted the truth.”
Doyle’s jowls trembled. His dry lips began to move. For the first time he spoke, and the words were ones that neither Hazel nor Brennan had expected.
“It’s not the truth,” said Doyle defiantly. “I don’t believe it!”
Astonished, Brennan stared at the fat correspondent, the Caesar who insisted he still had his legions. Although the words were brave, even admirable, promising undying persistence, Doyle’s face gave lie to the words. Something alive had gone out of Doyle’s face, and it was empty, hollowed of hope, and suddenly, the brave false words it had uttered were like all the brave false whistlings through the cemeteries of childhood.
“But, Jay, you heard—” Hazel pleaded.
“No, dammit, I don’t believe one word your Russian pal told you last night. If I’d heard it before Dallas, I might have. Maybe I’d have believed it and not undertaken the book. But I’ve found out too much on my own since Kennedy was shot. You’ve read the stuff in my book. You said it’s great. It is irrefutable. It’s the facts from a hundred sources that the Warren Commission and your Commie pal want to evade. What did you expect from that Russian friend of yours? That he’d confess that the members of his gang were the ones who killed Kennedy? How could he? Of course, he has to deny it to you. When he first told you, nothing had happened. It was only another plan. But now it’s not a plan. It’s outright murder, and he’s not going to admit his gang did it. If he did that, he’d be putting his life in your hands. Of course, he couldn’t tell you the truth about Kennedy. It would be too dangerous for him.”
“But Jay darling, listen. He did admit to the conspiracy against Khrushchev—and that was just as dangerous for him. Jay, listen. I know this man. He didn’t have the faintest notion I was interrogating him for you. He thought it was for me, confidentially, and he had no reason to lie or be dishonest, Jay, really, you’ve got to see we blundered, we were fanciful, and we’ve got to put all that behind us.”
“What have you got to put behind you?” Doyle demanded angrily. “If I believed what you just said, I’d be the chump, not you. All those years of research, correspondence, phone calls, interviews, working it out, writing, knowing what it could lead to—and now you want me to throw all that overboard because a drunken bum who was once indiscreet wants to take it all back to save his own neck? Now suddenly, it’s Khrushchev, not Kennedy? Ha! A likely story, after all I’ve found to prove there were a couple of guys in Dallas who got Kennedy. No, Hazel, not on your life, nope, no fast-talking Russki who’s conned you is going to pull the wool over my eyes. He’s using you to stop me—he’s probably heard what I’m up to and he’s trying to stop me—but nothing’s stopping me, Hazel, nothing and no one, until I get what I want and let blast with the biggest story in history.”
Weakly, shaking her head, Hazel said, “Okay, Jay, do what you want. But where else are you going to obtain the final proof of your theory?”
“Never mind about that. Paris is full of Russians right now. I’ll start moving in on them. I’ll find someone.”
“Jay, I don’t think you’ll find them very cooperative. I mean, I want to help you. I’m ready to keep on trying, too. It’s just that I don’t know to whom to turn anymore.”
“You might try your Russian friend again,” said Doyle pointedly. “Maybe a few extra drinks will act as a truth serum, the way it did in Vienna.”
“Well, maybe, although he wasn’t exactly sober last night. I don’t know when he can give me time again during the Summit. He’s a busy man.”
“There’s no rush,” said Doyle. “You can see him in Moscow. We can work out some new questions together—”
Hazel shook a cigarette from the pack. When she brought it to her lips, her hand trembled. Accepting Doyle’s light, she said quietly, “Jay, I was rather thinking of not going back to the Moscow bureau. I was thinking of asking for a transfer to New York, and sort of—of settling down.”
Doyle’s face fell. “You think that’s wise? D
on’t get me wrong. I’d like you in New York, where we could see each other. But Moscow’s your career—” He stopped, and then said, “No, I’d rather have you in New York, to be selfish. Only, maybe you could go back to Moscow for maybe a few months, until you’ve had another crack at your Russian friend. It would mean a lot to—to both of us, Hazel.”
“Yes, I suppose I could do that. I mean, if you’re right and he was bluffing me, well, it could mean a lot.” She was thoughtful a moment. “As a matter of fact, he did tell me last night he’ll have plenty of free time once the Summit is over and he’s back in Moscow, because his wife and Marshal Zabbin’s wife and a few others are leaving here to go on a tour of China. Yes, Jay, I might have another try at him, although I’m still not too optimistic. We’ll discuss it further.”
Brennan, listening to the exchange between the pair, sensitive to the personal undercurrents, had been as detached as a playgoer in the balcony observing a scene on the stage far below. Now, something he had just heard brought Brennan down from the audience and right onto the stage.
“Hazel—” he said quietly.
She jerked toward him, seeming surprised to find that he was still present.
“Hazel,” repeated Brennan, “did I just hear you say that the wife of this friend of yours, this Russian friend of yours, is going to China with a party of other Russian delegates’ wives?”
“Why, yes.”
“It must be an official tour, since Marshal Zabbin’s wife will be along.”
“I think it is.”
“Doesn’t that strike you as odd?” asked Brennan. “Here we have the Russians and Chinese publicly at swords’ points.
And here you are telling me what has not been announced, that the Chinese will be hosts to a party of important Russian women in a few weeks. Sounds rather strange.”
“I—I hadn’t thought of it that way, Matt.”
Brennan smiled. “Seems to me I’ve been thinking of little else these days. It’s like all the other tidbits I’ve been picking up about the Chinese and Russians really being friends in private. You remember—”
“Yes,” said Hazel. “But of course, if the Summit works out, everybody should be friends right after.”
“On paper,” said Brennan mildly, “paper friends. But I haven’t heard of parties of American or English technicians or delegates’ wives going to China after the Summit. No, only Russians, who’ve made such an elaborate hullabaloo about being on the outs with China.” He considered Doyle. “I don’t know, Jay, but if your assassination conspiracy book has come to a dead end, you might find that there’s a bigger story in the making. Perhaps you should look into it.”
Doyle, who had paused in summoning a waiter to listen, now signaled for the waiter once more and said to Brennan, “Thanks, Matt, but that’s your baby. You look after it. I’m satisfied with my own.”
The waiter appeared. Doyle ordered oysters, a filet mignon with fried potatoes, a basket of bread, a hot fudge sundae. He glared at Hazel and Brennan defensively. “I’m starved. Anyone care to join me?”
Both Hazel and Brennan shook their heads.
Doyle unfolded his napkin. “I’m going to need a lot of energy.”
Hazel regarded him with sorrow. “Jay, I know it’s been a bitter blow, what I had to tell you.”
“Well, you’re going to go back to the same guy, you agreed, so let’s hold off on discussing that.”
“I can’t hold off,” said Hazel. “I’ll speak to the man if I must, but I’ve got to be perfectly honest with you. Jay, I don’t think there is going to be any new information that’ll change matters, support the theory in your book—”
“Let me be the judge of that,” said Doyle with an edge to his voice.
Hazel sighed. “Jay, I don’t want to fight with you in public, or anytime. Why don’t you come over to the apartment tonight for dinner? We can give your future some thought and—”
“Sorry, Hazel, I’m tied up tonight,” said Doyle. “I’m attending the gourmet club dinner I was invited to by Monsieur Goupil.”
Distressed, Hazel said, “I thought you told me you weren’t going.”
“I did,” said Doyle. “I’ve just changed my mind. I am going.”
“Oh, Jay, why do you do things like that? You were on the wagon. Now off you go. Must you be so self-destructive? You’re punishing no one but yourself. There are a million calories there tonight.”
“There’s also a book,” said Doyle angrily, “one book you haven’t torpedoed yet. You’ve already tried to bury my assassination book. Now you’re ready to discuss my future. Great. But this moment my future is in that cookbook I’d better finish. And the way to write it is to start eating like a human being again.”
“Jay—Jay—you’re behaving like a petulant child. Please be reasonable.”
“Like what? Like shooting myself over the great news you’ve brought me this morning? Well, if I’ve got to go, I’ll go my way, counting all those big soft calories all the way down.”
Brennan decided that he’d had enough. He pushed himself from the table, thanked them for asking him to join them for breakfast, and excused himself. He was late for a business appointment, he explained. He promised to see them soon.
Outside Le Drug Store, in the sun once more, he was relieved to be free of those two unhappy people, even though he himself was neither happy nor free. It was as if he had been fettered by unknown hands, to keep him from pursuing many mysteries, or perhaps only one. Yet, standing in the Champs-Élysées, renewed by the heat of the sun, he determined to liberate himself from his shackles and continue his hunt. Thrusting one hand in his trouser pocket, he touched the cool metal of the key. The possibility of what it might open filled him less with reassurance than with trepidation. Nevertheless, his mind was made up. Even if he came to Doyle’s sad failure, he must try.
He started to the curb to find a taxi that would take him to the Hotel Continental.
It took Matt Brennan ten minutes to reach his destination. Leaving his taxi in the Rue de Rivoli, he turned his back on the Tuileries, crossed under the arcade, and entered the Rue de Castiglione. Walking along the mammoth pile that was the Hotel Continental, he could see the rising shaft of Napoleon’s column in the Place Vendôme up ahead. A few more strides and he had reached the iron gates and garden courtyard that led into the Continental.
Going through the court, past the beds of roses, the towering Corinthian columns, the pink-draped tables with their cane and bamboo chairs, Brennan arrived at the revolving door, went through it, and entered the long, narrow, busy lobby.
From the crystal chandeliers above to the Oriental rug covering the mosaic marble floor, Brennan found the Hotel Continental unchanged despite the passage of so many years. As a young diplomat, he had once been ordered to stop in Paris for a week and consult with members of the United States delegation to NATO, who were using the Continental for their headquarters. He was glad the lobby was not unfamiliar.
Quickly, Brennan started toward the reception counters, and he waited his turn behind a swarm of American tourists. At last, he moved up to the bronze-trimmed wooden counter. One of the harassed concierges greeted him wearily. “Yes, monsieur?”
“Mr. Joe Peet, please. He’s registered here.”
“Peet? Peet?” The concierge checked the guest list, found the room number, and glanced at the key and mail slot. “His key is in, so I am afraid he is gone out for the day.”
“Can you check his room just to make sure?”
The concierge placed his hand on the phone. “If he is in, who shall I say is calling?”
About to give his name, Brennan hesitated. An appropriate pseudonym came to mind, the name of the one who had sold Peet the nonexistent book. “Tell him Mr. Julien is in the lobby.”
The concierge did not blink, but as he phoned upstairs, he regarded his visitor with interest, as if to let Brennan know that he was perfectly aware “Julien” was not in accord with an American face or accent.
After a moment, he put down the receiver. “Sorry, sir, no answer. I’m afraid Mr. Peet is definitely out. Would you care to leave a message?”
“No message,” said Brennan. “I’ll be by later. Thank you.”
He withdrew from the counter, and two tourists jostled each other for his place.
Retreating toward the entrance, Brennan felt no disappointment. From the start, he had rather hoped that Joe Peet would not be in his room. For, even if he had been able to visit with Peet, he had devised no sound approach to a personal conversation. He had toyed with several possibilities, that he was an emissary from Denise Averil, that he was a colleague of Hazel Smith’s who hoped for an interview, that he was a fellow book collector who had been directed to Peet by M. Julien. But to Brennan, all of these introductory devices had seemed implausible, and he had feared that Peet would see through them.
Coming here to the Hotel Continental, he had secretly wished that he could see the effects and luggage in Joe Peet’s room rather than Joe Peet. Now, suddenly, he had the opportunity to do so, and now, suddenly, he was uneasy and uncertain about taking advantage of his chance. Brennan knew that he was the civilized product of a culture that believed every man’s home was his castle and that invasion of privacy was a criminal offense. But, Brennan also suspected, every man was a shameless Arsène Lupin at heart. Since he could not satisfy this instinct in life, he satisfied it by identifying with the fearless heroes of stories and films who were always slipping into unoccupied rooms, defying countless dangers, to search for or examine the effects of someone under suspicion. It was marvelous to behold, but it was make-believe. In real life it was unthinkable, unless one was outside the law, or ignored propriety, as a thief or a spy or a detective did. Despite his public reputation, Brennan thought of himself as none of these but as merely an ordinary citizen. The idea of breaking into Peet’s room went against the grain, and momentarily, it stopped him.
The Plot Page 82
