She shook hands lightly and laughed. ‘Call me Lucy, please. It keeps the years at bay.’
As she turned to talk with Frankfurter more, he tried not to stare at her. For she was stunningly, classically beautiful. Her flowing black taffeta dress was set off by a diamond and aquamarine necklace. The effect was understated, elegant – in a word, thought Nessheim, classy. Not for the first time he wondered what he was doing there.
He stood uneasily at the edge of this circle, then watched as across the room a little boy, dressed in corduroy overalls, ran towards Annie Ryerson. She lifted him into the air and hugged him.
‘Who’s the kid?’ he asked Dubinsky.
‘That’s Jeff. He’s Annie’s boy.’
‘Oh,’ Nessheim said, and his voice was flat. He didn’t know why he felt disappointed. He barely knew the woman. ‘I didn’t realise she was married.’
‘She’s not any more. It’s a sad story. Her husband was a flier who crashed during a training flight. That’s when Annie came to Washington to live with her aunt.’
‘Is Ryerson her married name then?’
‘No. Her husband’s name was Martin. Born Martini – I don’t think her parents were that happy about it. That may be why she went back to her old name.’
‘Who looks after her boy when Annie’s at work? Mrs Cummings?’
Dubinsky snorted. ‘Hardly. Mrs O’Neill does – that’s her over there.’ In the corner of the room a middle-aged woman in a housekeeper’s uniform – neat blouse and a heavy black skirt – stood waiting patiently while Annie talked with her little boy.
‘Right,’ said Nessheim, and when Dubinsky turned to talk to Plympton, he edged towards the door, in search of a bathroom, but also just wanting to get away for a minute. Out in the hall the butler directed him to a small door under the staircase. It was occupied, so he looked around. He didn’t want to go back into the drawing room just yet. An apronclad maid was standing in the back corridor that ran behind the drawing room, holding glasses of champagne carefully on a tray she balanced with one hand – he could see the bubbles from twenty paces. She was looking at him.
‘Bathroom?’ he mouthed over the volume of noise from the party.
She smiled, and gestured with her head further along the corridor. As he came past her she said, ‘Second door on the right.’
When he emerged a few minutes later he heard the clink of a spoon against a glass, and suddenly the noise in the drawing room died down. He started to head back but stopped when he saw a woman near the doorway, blocking his path. She was standing behind a wheelchair, which held a man in a suit.
A voice came clearly through from the drawing room. ‘Sorry to interrupt when everyone’s having such a good time, but I have an announcement, one which Sally has kindly given me permission to make this evening here in her house.’
He recognised the voice. It belonged to Frank Plympton. Why was he giving a speech? Nessheim had supposed that, like Dubinsky, Plympton was here because of his association with Frankfurter, but he must know Mrs Cummings very well to be speaking like this.
‘A poet said that April is the cruellest month, so with that thought in mind I figured March would have to do,’ Plympton said. People tittered politely. ‘And anyway, seasons shouldn’t affect what I have to say tonight.’ He paused for a second. ‘Those of you who know me will understand that for all my weaknesses and faults, I have one undeniable strength – I’m in love with a helluva gal.’
There were a few appreciative noises. Plympton went on: ‘And that’s what makes me so proud to say tonight that not only am I in love with this wonderful girl, but she’s unwise enough to claim she loves me too. If Cole Porter’s right to say it’s only natural to fall in love, he’s also right to say, Let’s do it.’
Nessheim wondered who was Plympton’s lucky lady – surely not Mrs Cummings, who still beautiful or not, had a minimum of thirty years on the fellow – and then he heard Plympton say, ‘Annie Ryerson has said yes to me, and we’ll be married later this year. Stay tuned for the date of the big day. But in the meantime please join me in a toast to my beautiful brideto-be – and a toast to our future happiness.’
Someone shouted, ‘To your happiness,’ and Nessheim heard the clink of glasses. Why had no one told him Annie was engaged? Don’t be a jerk, he told himself, you barely know the girl. But he felt something promising had soured, like fresh milk that had inexplicably curdled.
He looked at the couple ahead of him, stationed back from the open door to the drawing room, where they could not be seen by Plympton’s audience. He saw with a start that it was the same woman to whom he had been introduced not ten minutes before. Lucy Rutherford – that was it. He could see the shoulders of the wheelchair’s occupant, and when the man tipped his head back as Lucy Rutherford whispered something in his ear, Nessheim recognised the profile – the strong sharp jaw, the wire-rimmed spectacles, the cigarette held in a dark ivory holder, the clenched teeth which suddenly flashed a galvanised grin. Nessheim’s heart started beating faster.
And then he saw Franklin Roosevelt’s hand reach up from the arm of the wheelchair, and grasp the wrist of Lucy Rutherford. He squeezed it with unmistakable affection. It was a gesture more intimate than sex.
The hand withdrew, Lucy Rutherford grasped the handles of the wheelchair, and the pair manoeuvred through the open door into the drawing room. Nessheim waited a discreet minute or two, then followed them in.
He felt as if he’d been punched twice in rapid succession. He wanted to go, but Dubinsky was beckoning him. Grabbing a glass of champagne from a waitress’s tray, he went over and found him talking to a dimple-chinned young woman who worked at the Department of Agriculture. She asked Nessheim what he did, and when he told her she started talking about her uncle, who was some kind of big shot in the Justice Department. He tried to pay attention to what she was saying, but his mind was still reeling from what he’d just seen. He told himself it didn’t necessarily mean anything – Lucy Rutherford might be FDR’s cousin, for instance, or just a very old friend. But he didn’t believe that for a second.
As Dubinsky started talking to the woman again, Frank Plympton came by, looking jubilant after his announcement. He slapped Nessheim lightly on the back. ‘Having a good time?’ he half-shouted, for the party was noisy now, fuelled by champagne and the news of the forthcoming nuptials.
‘Sure I am,’ said Nessheim. ‘Congratulations.’
‘Thanks. I’m a lucky guy.’
Nessheim wanted to agree, but sensed it would come out churlishly.
Dubinsky had struck out with the Agriculture woman, who’d moved on to a senator’s legislative assistant. He gave a resigned shrug. ‘She didn’t seem interested in my association with the land’s most eminent jurist. Vandenberg’s guy looks like he’s more the ticket for that young lady.’
‘None of this obiter dicta for her,’ said Plympton with amusement. ‘Power versus intellect – power wins hands down.’
‘Have you set a date yet?’ asked Nessheim.
‘No. It probably won’t be until fall.’
‘That late?’ asked Dubinsky.
‘Yeah, well, summer is a busy time when you’re working for Harry. I get to do all the travelling in the heat that he doesn’t want to do.’ He added softly, ‘Anyway, the world should be a clearer place by autumn.’
Nessheim understood. If a guy was going to be in uniform in six months’ time, he might want to give a girl the option of changing her mind. Especially if she’d already lost one husband.
‘Where will it be?’ asked Nessheim, trying to be polite.
‘Right here, probably. Sally said she’d host the reception, and spring for a marquee. I guess this is as much home for Annie as anywhere else – Woodstock’s got too many memories.’
So Annie was from Woodstock. Is that why she had flinched when he said he’d worked there?
He couldn’t see her anywhere in the crowd, as half the world and their uncle came by to congratulate Ply
mpton. Nessheim began to feel like a spare part, so he went to say goodbye to Sally Cummings. Halfway across the room he found his way blocked by an older woman in a Schiaparelli gown and long white gloves, who was taking a light for her cigarette from a friend. Inhaling, she blew smoke over her friend’s shoulder, and said in a throaty smoke-filled voice, ‘So Sally’s got her way at last. Frank’s quite a catch for the niece, don’t you think? If I were twenty years younger I might even be jealous.’
The friend laughed, then moved aside to let Nessheim through. Reaching Sally at last, he found her busy talking with one of the ambassadors, but she reached out and gave his hand a quick shake. Come again, she mouthed.
Out in the hall he was waiting for the maid to bring his coat when Annie came out of the drawing room.
‘Jimmy, you’re going already? I haven’t had a chance to talk to you.’
‘I’ve had a swell time. Congratulations.’
‘What are you doing on Sunday?’
He shrugged a shoulder. ‘Not much. Even Mr Hoover gives us Sunday off.’
‘Why don’t you come over here?’ He must have looked hesitant for she explained, ‘Sally’s going to her place in Virginia on Sunday – she keeps a horse at Five Forks. But I’m staying here, and I’m going to take Jeff for a walk in Rock Creek Park – with Frank and Doobs. It was beautiful during the snow. Then we can all come back and have lunch. Why don’t you join us? I bet you’re starving at the House of Youth.’
That was true. Breakfast was the only meal provided, and there was no cook, which meant he ate cold cereal every day. He hated to think of the rest of his usual diet: lousy lunchtime hoagies from a shop near Lafayette Square, dinner most often in a diner off M Street – meat loaf, pot roast, macaroni and cheese.
But still he hesitated. ‘I’d love to, but—’
‘No buts. See you here at ten. Wear boots – it’s wet by the creek.’
It was dark outside when he left. As he reached the sidewalk at the end of the drive a car pulled up, its brakes squealing like a cut pig. The front door flew open and the driver got out. It was Mueller.
‘What the hell are you doing here?’ the agent demanded. He was red-faced and looked agitated.
‘Visiting friends.’
‘These are friends of yours?’ demanded Mueller incredulously. He pointed at Belvedere. ‘There?’
‘Fraid so,’ Nessheim said mildly.
‘Is the President inside? The bastard gave us the slip.’ Another car had pulled up behind Mueller’s, with two men inside, who kept the engine running. Nessheim recognised them from the White House Secret Service detail.
Nessheim knew he should tell Mueller the truth – it was Mueller’s job, after all, to protect the man. But nothing untoward was going to happen to the President inside Mrs Cummings’s house.
He said, ‘I didn’t see him myself. But then, we’re not as close as we used to be.’
Mueller shook his head in disgust and turned towards the Secret Service men, who had got out of their car. ‘Nessheim says he ain’t inside.’
The two men returned to their car. When its headlights came on, the beams shone directly on Mueller and Nessheim, spookily magnifying their silhouettes against the laurel hedge. Nessheim said to Mueller, ‘Gimme a lift, will ya?’ The House of Youth was only half a mile away, but it was cold now, and his coat was San Francisco-bought and thin.
He could see Mueller shake his head in the harsh sodium light. ‘Another time, Mr All-American. I need to find Rosenfeld.’
23
Early May 1940
Washington D.C.
SPRING CAME, THE cherry trees blossomed all over the city, and suddenly the phoney war in Europe became real – on 9 April, Germany invaded Norway and Denmark. Nessheim told himself he wasn’t surprised by the sudden onslaught, but deep down he was. He had been lulled as much by the easy life he had been living in Washington as by the deceptive peace 4,000 miles away.
He had returned to Belvedere as requested by Annie that weekend. He, Dubinsky, and Plympton had gone with Annie and her son Jeff on a long walk in Rock Creek Park, which was refreshingly uncrowded on the Sunday morning. Nessheim was made to feel welcome – Dubinsky and Plympton seemed to view his residence in the House of Youth as an admission card to their set. If no match intellectually with these high-powered Frankfurter acolytes, Nessheim was nonetheless an object of interest, for his work suggested both action and intrigue. Dubinsky especially seemed interested, even asking to see Nessheim’s gun.
Plympton was more detached, but Nessheim couldn’t help liking him. More relaxed than Dubinsky, and projecting the self-confidence of someone who has done well at an early age, he didn’t talk a lot about himself. It took Dubinsky to fill in Plympton’s background for Nessheim: he had graduated summa cum laude from Stanford, where he had also been the number one player on the varsity tennis team – he would have played doubles at Wimbledon one summer had he not twisted an ankle. Then on to Harvard Law School, where Plympton had made Law Review and caught the eye of Frankfurter. Through his recommendation (it was said the then-Professor had been consulted on almost a thousand important appointments in the Roosevelt administration), Plympton had stepped into a job as aide to Harry Hopkins, one of the architects of the New Deal and head of its most inspired creation, the WPA, which had given work to millions of unemployed Americans.
Yet while Dubinsky’s gee-whiz adulatory account threatened to put Plympton on a pedestal anyone would want to knock down, the man himself had enough foibles to make resentment impossible: drinking so much rye and ginger ale in a bar on G Street that on the way home he puked out the back window of Nessheim’s borrowed pool car; confessing that what scared him most about his upcoming wedding was the prospect of the groom’s speech.
Soon Nessheim was a regular at Sally Cummings’s evenings, and on weekend walks with Annie and the others – Jeff always ran out to greet him, ever since Nessheim had carried the little boy one day on his shoulders. The walks became a ritual he looked forward to, especially for the conversations it allowed with Annie. As newcomers to Washington, they shared an outsider status, and they talked to each other more about their lives growing up in small towns than their lives in the capital. Because she was a good listener, Nessheim told Annie more about himself than he ever had before. He realised he trusted her, which seemed strange since she was attached to another man.
Annie made no pretence of liking the city, or of being impressed by her aunt’s network of powerful friends; what wearied her most about the Friday soirées, she liked to say, was the effort required to remember who was the junior and who was the senior senator from Nebraska. She did not seem especially close to her aunt, and there was more than a hint of mistress and maid to their relationship, since in add-ition to working part-time for Frankfurter, Annie had formal duties at Belvedere, functioning as an unofficial secretary. Once Nessheim had heard Sally call for Annie from upstairs. ‘Annie, Annie now,’ she commanded. The tone was not the charming one she deployed at her parties.
When he next saw Guttman he had to admit that for all the time he spent at Belvedere, he had learned nothing of consequence about Sally Cummings, who despite a surface cordiality didn’t really give him the time of day. Their one substantial encounter had been about Annie, and was more admonitory than friendly. She’d cornered him one evening.
‘How nice to see you again, Jimmy. I’m glad you’ve become a regular. You’re very good with little Jeff.’
‘He’s a nice boy.’
‘Yes, and it will do him good to be part of a family. Hopefully Frank won’t be travelling so much in future. Even Mr Hopkins agrees he does too much.’
Nessheim nodded, but she wasn’t finished. ‘It’s been good of you to keep Annie company too.’
‘A pleasure,’ he said, but he could see she wasn’t listening.
‘Annie’s very fond of you.’
‘Likewise,’ he said, stiffening.
‘The thing is, I’d hate for you to
grow too fond of her.’ She gave a smile that could have melted ice. ‘Since she’s spoken for.’
‘Of course,’ he said, but he was blushing like a schoolgirl. Sally patted him once on the shoulder and moved away.
The next weekend Dubinsky had work to do at the court, and Plympton was away, so Nessheim went alone with Annie to walk with Jeff. When they got back to Belvedere the boy stayed in the kitchen to eat the sandwich left for him by the cook, and Annie suggested they go upstairs to her ‘office’, which turned out to be a small converted bedroom along the hallway. It was a cosy space with cerise-coloured curtains held back by scarlet ties, and a soft fuzzy carpet the colour of a light grey cat. There was an antique desk in one corner, with a Windsor chair next to it, positioned at an angle to give a view of the stables out back. A small sofa with plump cushions sat against the near wall, with book-lined shelves above it, full of American classics (Hawthorne, Longfellow) and French novels sumptuously bound, many of which looked as if they’d actually been read.
‘What a beautiful room,’ Nessheim said politely.
‘Thank Aunt Sally for the effortless good taste,’ she said. ‘She tells me I’m learning but still have some way to go.’
Annie perched in the Windsor chair while they talked, and sitting on the sofa Nessheim soon lost all track of time, until he heard a car pull up behind the house.
‘Golly,’ he said, looking at his watch and standing up. He had been invited by Dubinsky to a party given by one of the court clerks, and had arranged to meet him first at the House of Youth.
He looked out the window. There was a turnaround for deliveries to the kitchen door at the back of the house, and a long midnight blue Hudson sat in the middle of it. As a chauffeur in uniform held open the car’s back door, a woman got out.
‘It’s Mrs Rutherford,’ he exclaimed.
A look of alarm spread across Annie’s face.
‘Could you wait a minute before you go?’ she asked.
Fear Itself Page 26
