Fear Itself

by Andrew Rosenheim

  ‘I guess so,’ he said.

  He was surprised Lucy Rutherford was visiting when Sally was away. Odder still, Annie made no sign of going down to greet her. He sat down while Annie made a stab at continuing her story. He heard someone coming up the stairs, then the door to the adjacent room closed softly.

  A minute later the noise of another car came from the turnaround out back. He resisted the temptation to look, but he couldn’t pretend he was listening to Annie any more; after a moment she gave up the pretence of conversation too. They sat there awkwardly, while someone moved around downstairs. Then some kind of machinery started up.

  ‘What’s that?’ he whispered to Annie.

  ‘The elevator,’ she said, avoiding his eyes.

  It stopped with a jarring noise on their floor, and Nessheim heard its door open. Then there was the unmistakable sound of a wheelchair moving into the corridor. There was a tap on a door, the squeak of its hinges, and a click of its shutting again.

  Annie motioned for him to get up and they walked quietly out into the corridor and down the main staircase, virtually on tiptoe. He felt like a teenager sneaking out of his girlfriend’s house.

  When they reached the hall, out of earshot, the absurdity of the situation must have struck home, for the trace of a smile appeared at the corner of Annie’s mouth.

  Nessheim said, ‘Is that who I think it is?’

  She gave him a look, as if to say, Don’t ask, which merely confirmed his suspicion.

  ‘It’s hard to believe,’ he said wonderingly.

  ‘What do you mean?’ she asked, but she saw his unpersuaded eyes. ‘I lost track of the time,’ she said plaintively. ‘You were meant to leave ages ago.’

  ‘Does Sally know what’s going on?’ he asked.

  ‘Of course. You think they’d use the house without her permission?’ She seemed about to smile again.

  ‘How long has this been going on?’

  ‘It started up again a few months ago.’

  ‘Again?’

  ‘Years ago, Lucy and the President were very close. According to Sally, it only stopped because Eleanor threatened to divorce him. His mother was going to cut him off if that happened, and his political career would have been destroyed.’

  ‘So much for true love,’ he said. ‘Tell me, how does it work? Does someone from the White House phone and say, “Is the room upstairs available this Thursday?”’

  ‘Don’t be stupid. Lucy’s one of Sally’s oldest friends. And it’s not as bad as it seems. I don’t think he and Eleanor have been man and wife for a long time.’

  Nessheim felt a long way from Bremen, Wisconsin. It seemed incredible to be standing in one of the capital’s grandest houses, calmly discussing the extramarital shenanigans of the President of the United States as they took place upstairs.

  ‘How many people know about this?’ he asked.

  ‘Not many – we make sure the staff are gone when they meet. But there’s Sally, obviously. And of course the two principals in the case,’ she added tartly.

  ‘What about the chauffeurs?’

  ‘I don’t know how they can be sure of anything. His chauffeur helps him out of the car, but the President wheels himself in – he’s got the strongest arms. There’s a ramp that gets him into the back door. Lucy’s driver goes and parks on the street after he drops her off, then comes back and collects her. For all he knows, it could just be a social call on Sally.’

  ‘Does Frank know?’

  She hesitated, which gave him his answer. ‘What about Dubinsky?’ he added.

  ‘He’d only know if Frank told him, and I swore Frank to secrecy. I hope I can trust you too. It would be disastrous if it got out.’

  Disastrous for whom, Nessheim wondered? He didn’t believe any newspaper would print scuttlebutt about the President. Even Walter Winchell, who was perfectly happy to fish in the dirtiest sewer, wouldn’t dare suggest the President was an adulterer.

  She saw the doubt in his face. ‘Please,’ she said.

  ‘I’m an FBI agent, Annie. We’re meant to protect the President, along with the Secret Service. That’s what I’m supposed to be doing every day at the White House.’ He pointed upstairs. ‘Ensuring that he’s safe.’

  ‘No one’s going to hurt him here, Jimmy. Because nobody knows he is here.’

  She had a point, and he had to wonder in any case just whom he would tell. Mueller was out of the question. And what would Guttman do with this information? If he were to go up to the Fifth Floor with it, God only knew what Hoover would do with the news. Even Nessheim had heard about the Director’s personal files, full of the secrets of the mightiest men in the land.

  ‘You’re putting me in a difficult position, Annie.’

  ‘I’m not trying to.’ She looked upset. ‘It’s my fault – if I’d kept track of the time none of this would have happened.’

  He wondered why he didn’t want to reassure her. Maybe because it was the first time he felt he’d mattered to her. He relented at last. ‘I’ll keep it to myself.’

  She made a show of relief, exhaling theatrically with a great big whew. He laughed out loud at the gesture, and she leaned forward and put two fingers on his lips to keep him quiet. Without thinking, he kissed her fingers. Annie blushed, her cheeks turning as vivid as an apple polished for a teacher, and she pulled her hand away.

  He was heartened, though, to see that her eyes stayed on his. Then she smiled, like a woman with a closetful of secrets who has just acquired another one.

  24

  WHEN NESSHEIM ENTERED Guttman’s office the next afternoon, he found Fedora sitting in one of the two chairs that faced Guttman’s desk. His hat was in his lap, but there was no mistaking the strawberry birthmark that stretched across his cheek.

  ‘If it isn’t the Camp Counsellor himself,’ said Fedora. ‘You gentlemen know each other from Vermont,’ said Guttman. It wasn’t a question.

  ‘Among other places,’ said Nessheim.

  Guttman pointed at Fedora. ‘Jack here’s going up there again. We’re having another look at Camp Schneider to make sure there isn’t anything we missed.’

  Fedora turned to Nessheim. ‘You want me to try and find the tape recorder if I can?’

  Nessheim ignored this. ‘If you go into Woodstock, check someone out, will you? Her name’s Annie Ryerson. Apparently she was married to an army flier who got killed in a plane crash out west. His name was Martin.’

  ‘What do you want to know?’ asked Fedora. ‘You sweet on her or something?’

  Nessheim flushed. He looked at Guttman. ‘Since she’s Mrs Cummings’s niece, I’m just making sure.’

  Guttman nodded. ‘Have a sniff round, Jack,’ he said. When Fedora left, Guttman turned to Nessheim. ‘So what have you got for me?’

  ‘Not much,’ he admitted. ‘Sally Cummings rides in Virginia at the weekends. Her niece is alone then, so I sometimes take a walk with her and her little boy.’

  ‘How touching,’ said Guttman with a voice that could have pickled an onion.

  ‘You told me to get as close as possible.’

  ‘To Mrs Cummings, not the niece and her kid. You want to babysit, I’m sure I can find something for you.’

  Nessheim thought about Roosevelt and his little visits – that would take the angry look off Guttman’s face. But one day he might need an ace up his sleeve, so he held his peace and asked instead, ‘What exactly am I supposed to find out about the lady?’

  Guttman pushed away a yellow legal pad and sat, elbows akimbo, with both hands clasped on the desktop. ‘I believe Sally Cummings is in the loop on something. She gets letters from one Lady Dove, an Englishwoman with Nazi sympathies – she may even be a German agent. Cummings herself used to sleep with the German Ambassador, and though he wasn’t a Nazi I am starting to think the Nazis have someone planted here in Washington.’

  Of course they have, thought Nessheim. The country was probably swarming with spies, and Washington was the obvious hub. ‘Did
this Nazi plant kill Bock?’ Nessheim asked.

  ‘Could be,’ said Guttman. ‘At first I thought it was Schultz’s people – since it was Bock who recommended you. But when I talked to Schultz in Sing Sing it was clear to me that he had no idea Bock was dead.’ Guttman continued, ‘I don’t believe Bock’s death had anything to do with the Bund, though I do believe Schultz knows more than he’s letting on. I think Bock did too, and it got him killed.’

  ‘You think they know what this planted agent is up to?’

  ‘Maybe. I don’t know for certain,’ said Guttman tersely. ‘Now you can see why I keep going on about Sally Cummings. We haven’t got any other leads. Bock’s dead, and Schultz won’t talk.’

  ‘Wait a minute,’ said Nessheim. ‘You told me Bock was homosexual, right?’

  ‘Yeah. That’s how I got to him in the first place. He was arrested in the brothel a few years before – with the same kid who got murdered with him as a matter of fact. Why do you ask?’

  Nessheim remembered arriving at Camp Schneider, and Beringer’s intimate inspection when Nessheim had stood in front of the urinal. And how, too, when Beringer had gone to New York City for a few days, Mrs Schultz had sneered, telling Mrs Grumholz that Beringer had gone to see his new Freund. His male friend.

  He looked at Guttman. ‘Because you’ve been talking to the wrong German.’

  Nessheim’s train came into Penn Station half an hour late due to snow on the tracks in southern New Jersey, so he had only twenty minutes to switch terminals. He caught a cab on 34th Street, arriving at Grand Central just in time to buy a ticket.

  In Ossining, he walked from the station and was met by the Warden at the front gates. ‘I’ve arranged for you to use a room in my office quarters,’ he said. ‘That will give you privacy and none of the other inmates will know about it.’

  ‘Is he having trouble with them?’

  ‘No. There are plenty of Bund sympathisers here, and they stick together. They seem very well-organised.’ The Warden looked at his watch. ‘You’ll have to excuse me – the priest has come down sick, so I have to find a backup. We’ve got an execution tonight.’

  A guard escorted him across the yard. It looked like a deserted playground until Nessheim noticed the sharpshooters in the towers at both ends. The guard pointed out the Death House across the yard, a low windowless brick building. Through its open doorway Nessheim caught a glimpse of the chair itself, an oversized wooden construct, with straps hanging from each arm.

  ‘Who’s buying it tonight?’

  The guard shrugged. ‘Some schmo who strangled his wife.’ He pointed towards the electric chair. ‘He’s next door, in what we call the Dance Hall. They move you there when your time’s been fixed. That way they haven’t got far to take you to turn on the juice.’

  Nessheim was surprised. He remembered the movie he’d seen the year before – the long tense walk Jimmy Cagney had taken to the chamber, then his last-minute panic as he realised his time had come. Melvin H. Purvis was supposed to have been an adviser when they filmed it.

  They entered one of the prison’s original buildings, a sootcovered brick edifice the size of a warehouse, with iron bars in every window. Inside they walked down a corridor until the guard stopped and opened a door. ‘All yours,’ he said. ‘Give a shout if you need me – I’ll be waiting out here.’

  The prisoner was already in the room, sitting behind a table, wearing a uniform of roughly cut grey fatigues. Nessheim almost didn’t recognise him. Gone was the insouciant air, the groomed hair (now cut to prison regulation), the sartorial touch of a boater hat. In prison uniform, Beringer seemed smaller, older, and worn out. Even his moustache was frayed.

  He saw Nessheim and did a double-take. Then he shook his head. Nessheim grinned. ‘My name’s Lazarus,’ he said, sitting down across the table from Beringer.

  The German remained silent.

  ‘See something green, pal?’ said Nessheim lightly.

  Beringer shook his head and seemed to emerge from a dream. ‘You know full well why I am surprised, young Rossbach.’

  ‘I know and sorry to disappoint you. How did you actually get onto me anyway?’

  Beringer looked a little more alive now, and Nessheim was confident that at the very least they’d have a conversation.

  ‘We were of course slightly suspicious of you to begin with,’ Beringer said. ‘You had been working for Jews, none of us had ever met you, the reference from Herr Bock was carefully couched – he knew of your family, or perhaps it was his family which did, but he didn’t vouch for you personally. Yet you were good value, you did the work, and you didn’t seem curious at all.’ Beringer looked at Nessheim with amusement. ‘Frankly, I think the view was that you were rather stupid. Certainly that was mine.’

  ‘What changed things?’

  ‘You were seen outside the post office, tearing up a letter. We retrieved the pieces and discovered it was from your mother. You had told us your mother was dead.’

  Nessheim could see Beringer was enjoying this. The German said, ‘We made inquiries after that. It helped that Wisconsin is full of Bund followers – you will know that yourself. We were astonished that someone with your background could betray us. At any rate, it did not take long to discover that young Jimmy Rossbach was born with a different name – Nessheim, ja?’

  Nessheim tried to shrug but failed. ‘Yes, but how did you know I was a federal agent?’

  ‘The local Bund leader told us. Not that he held much affection for you.’

  Oh, my God, thought Nessheim, Alex Burgmeister, the farmer’s middleman and husband of his old girlfriend Trudy. How could he have forgotten that she’d known? Because I trusted her to keep my secret, he reflected.

  Nessheim composed himself. ‘Anyway, I’m still here. So are you, though unlike me, you’ll be staying put for a while.’

  ‘You have come all this way to tell me that?’

  Nessheim stared into the German’s eyes. ‘You know about Herr Bock?’

  Beringer nodded, but his lips pursed and he rubbed a tense finger against them, as if to keep himself from responding.

  ‘You may not know the whole story,’ Nessheim went on. He could see Beringer was interested, since his eyes lifted momentarily. ‘He didn’t kill himself.’

  He could tell Beringer was waiting for more. ‘Bock was dead before he entered that room.’

  ‘He was murdered then?’

  ‘Yes. We thought at first it was by members of the Bund.’

  Beringer shook his head. ‘No. It may have crossed Schultz’s mind, but we didn’t kill him; I give you my word.’

  Nessheim continued to stare at Beringer, until finally he said, ‘I’m really here to make a deal with you.’

  Beringer looked thoughtful. But then he shook his head again. ‘I can’t see how helping you will help me.’

  ‘Because your goose is cooked if you don’t. If America stays out of the war, you’ll be deported back to Germany as soon as your sentence is served – I can guarantee that. Before you arrive there, German officials will receive a letter explaining how close you were to Emil Bock. The Nazis think he was working for us, you see. That’s why we’re confident it was they who killed Bock.’

  ‘Salacious gossip. Calumny.’ Beringer had enough spirit in him to show off his English vocabulary.

  ‘What? That we think the Nazis killed Bock – I don’t think so. Or do you mean what we plan to tell the Nazis about you? You’re right – it’s salacious stuff. A homosexual and a traitor; the first is indisputable, and the second will seem a logical conclusion to them. You know better than most how they operate.’

  Nessheim could see Beringer was struggling. The German asked, ‘And if America is in the war, do you still propose to deport me?’

  ‘Of course not. You’ll be interned. I’d say it could be a long war, too, don’t you think? Easily five or six years, maybe much longer. You’ll be behind bars for more than a decade. At your time of life, that can’t be a welcom
e prospect.’

  Beringer sat silently, turning his head and looking out the barred window. It was too high up for it to afford a view of anything but the sky. He sighed and put a fist under his chin. Nessheim reached into a jacket pocket and took out a pack of Lucky Strikes, then pushed the cigarettes and a box of wooden matches across the table.

  Beringer looked down at the smokes and smiled. ‘Is that the extent of your bribe?’

  ‘I have to start somewhere.’

  Beringer filched a cigarette out of the pack, lit it, and took a deep drag. Exhaling, he said, ‘What’s really on offer then?’ He was all business now.

  ‘You serve a few months more, while we collect new “evidence” that makes it clear your role in the Armory plot was minimal. We arrange an appeal, and a friendly New York City judge cuts your sentence to time served.’ Nessheim gave a complicit laugh. ‘You still get deported, but not to Germany. Canada or Mexico – the choice would be yours.’

  ‘And in return?’

  ‘You tell me what you know.’

  ‘What, about the Bund? They’re no threat to anyone, whatever you think. Schultz might have been, but he was never on terms with Kuhn. Not that I’m telling you anything you don’t already know.’

  He was actually, but Nessheim wasn’t going to admit it. ‘That’s true,’ he said, gauging how best to proceed. ‘It’s not local plotting we’re concerned about though.’

  Beringer nodded but said nothing. Nessheim sensed Beringer was hooked on the prospect of freedom in four months’ time – and there were plenty of Nazis in Mexico.

  Beringer said slowly, ‘My knowledge is not very great.’

  ‘I’ll be the judge of that,’ said Nessheim. ‘We are concerned about a conspiracy – though exactly what it’s about we don’t know. But we’re pretty sure that someone from the Bund was once involved – Werner, Max Schultz’s brother-in-law.’

  ‘No one’s seen him for several years.’

  ‘I know. We believe he was killed in Austria.’

  ‘Killed? By whom?’

  ‘The same people who killed Bock. People either part of or aware of this conspiracy.’