Louise's Gamble (8 page)

Four blocks later we turned on to Connecticut Avenue, where the glamorous Mayflower Hotel reigned over what Washingtonians called the ‘Fifth Avenue of DC’. I’d been inside several times, since Joan rented her studio apartment there. To my surprise Jack pulled over in front of the equally famous restaurant two doors down.

‘We’re here,’ Jack said.

‘Jack, this is Harvey’s!’

‘Yes, ma’am. The first floor is a public bar and restaurant for men. When you go inside, you need to take the staircase on your right up to the second floor. Tell the maître d’ that you’re joining Colonel Melinsky, and they’ll show you to his table.’

‘I’m not dressed properly!’ And I would have to carry my knitting bag with me!

‘There’s a war on, ma’am. No one will care.’

I stood on the sidewalk and took in the iron front facade of the legendary restaurant, its wood-framed entrance and signature glowing blue neon sign. I collected myself. Why shouldn’t a telegrapher’s widow from Wilmington, North Carolina have dinner with a Russian prince at Harvey’s? Anything seemed possible during this war.

I climbed the stairs and presented myself at the maître d’s desk as if I took my knitting bag with me to every fine restaurant in town. He led me to the very back of the wood-paneled room to a corner table, where Melinsky rose to greet me.

‘Mrs Pearlie, thank you for joining me.’

‘Thank you for asking me, Colonel,’ I said. Melinsky wore the uniform of an Army colonel with the addition of a red-lettered Army Airborne patch on his left sleeve.

The waiter seated me, spreading a napkin in my lap, a new experience for me, and presented me with a menu. When I saw the menu items, my head reeled.

Melinsky smiled at me. ‘This is why I wore my uniform. Soldiers get special menus here. Roosevelt’s orders, so us fighting men can get a good meal. Would you like a drink? And order whatever you want to eat, please.’

I’d craved a Martini for a week. I’d gobbled down a cream cheese and pickle sandwich before I left for the knitting circle, but I was already hungry. I wasn’t sure what to do.

Melinsky noticed my hesitation. ‘Remember what I said at our first meeting? I am the only person you can behave naturally with, discuss anything with.’

‘I’ll have a Martini, no olive,’ I said to the hovering waiter.

‘Vodka, neat,’ Melinsky said. ‘And a dozen oysters each to start, please.’

The drinks arrived. I sipped on my Martini. Its cool smoothness slid down my throat. I’d never had a cocktail before I came to Washington. My grandparents, all four of them strict Southern Baptists, would turn over in their graves if they knew.

Melinsky shook pepper on his vodka, tossed it back in one gulp, and gestured for another one.

‘I never had a drink until I came here,’ I said. ‘My family is southern Baptist. If they knew half of what I’d done since I arrived in the last year, well, I believe they’d change their name and leave Wilmington in disgrace.’

‘What will you do after the war, then?’

‘I don’t know, but I assure you I’m not going home.’

The oysters arrived. These were not my parents’ oysters. Not cornmeal battered and deep-fried like the ones I was used to cooking at my parents’ fish camp, but slightly steamed, with melted butter and lemon on the side. I slid one succulent oyster down my throat, then another. When we were finished, Melinsky drained his second shot glass of vodka in one gulp.

‘The taste of vodka reminds me I’m still Russian,’ he said, beckoning for another.

‘How long has it been since you’ve been home?’ I asked.

‘Nineteen-eighteen.’

‘So many years!’

‘Too many. But Stalin won’t live forever, and I hope I can return one day before I die. I’m not a Romanov, and I have a British passport, so perhaps it may be possible.’

Much as I didn’t want to find myself back in my hometown after the war, I found it hard to comprehend being banished from it forever.

The waiter returned to bring Melinsky another shot of vodka, clear off our oyster plates, and take our orders.

‘Prime rib?’ Melinsky asked me.

‘Yes, please!’ I’d never had prime rib before.

‘Lobster thermidor for me, and another Martini for the lady,’ Melinsky added.

After the waiter left Melinsky lowered his voice and leaned toward me. ‘How went the knitting?’

I drew Alessa’s papers from my knitting bag and handed them to him.

‘This is a surprise,’ Melinsky said, unfolding them. He smiled and handed me back the tube sock pattern. ‘This is yours, I think.’

He opened the envelope and read the letter it contained. It seemed quite short. Pensively, he tucked it into a uniform pocket. I couldn’t read his expression, and just then the waiter brought us our plates.

The prime rib was wonderful. I ate every bite and all of the asparagus with hollandaise that accompanied it. One more Martini and I would have gnawed on the bone. I ignored the duchesse potatoes. Potatoes I could eat any time.

‘That was wonderful, thank you,’ I said.

‘You are more than welcome,’ Melinsky answered. I wondered if he was going to tell me anything about the letter’s contents.

The waiter cleared away our plates and brought us coffee. With cream and sugar!

‘I’m sorry to say,’ Melinsky said, after the waiter left, ‘that there were no names in Alessa’s note. Some good information, but no names.’

I felt a stab of disappointment. When would Alessa deliver us the take, spy lingo for any information gathered by espionage? Before the slow convoys left, please!

‘Did the two of you make any plans for the weekend?’ he asked.

‘No, she said she had too many chores to do, that she’d see me again at the next knitting circle.’ An entire week from now.

‘I think Alessa and her asset are still testing us,’ Melinsky said, stirring his coffee in a slow circle. ‘He’s not going to give his information to her until he is sure he is safe.’

‘So what next?’ I asked.

‘We must hope that by next week she collects the information we need and delivers it to you. That’s all we can do.’

I turned my key in the lock of ‘Two Trees’ around eleven and found a reception committee waiting for me. Joe, Phoebe, and Ada erupted from the lounge and circled me.

‘Where have you been?’ Phoebe asked. ‘We’ve been worried sick.’

Of course. I should have been home hours ago.

‘I’m so sorry! I didn’t mean to worry you. Some of the girls and I went out for a beer and a sandwich.’ I was learning to lie without batting an eyelash.

‘The café didn’t have a telephone?’ Joe asked, quietly taking my coat and hanging it on the coat rack. Joe was upset, I could tell from the tight line of his lips and the creases in his forehead.

‘I’m so sorry,’ I said again. ‘I didn’t think.’

‘Obviously not,’ Joe said.

‘Give us a jingle, honey, the next time you stay out,’ Ada said. ‘Or let us know that you might be late before you leave.’ Talk about the pot calling the kettle black.

Ada partied at all hours. We never knew where she was, except that she was dancing and drinking somewhere. Ada could be counted on to be late. Me, I guess I was the dependable sort everyone panicked about if I didn’t get home at nine o’clock on the dot.

Phoebe and Ada went on upstairs to bed, leaving Joe and me alone, but not really alone. If only one of us could afford an apartment! He reached his arms around me and buried his face in my neck. A cascade of pleasure flooded my body.

‘I was worried about you,’ he said, his voice muffled by my shoulder.

‘I’m sorry,’ I said for the third time. ‘But I am a grown woman, you know. Too old for a curfew,’ I continued, teasing him. ‘No one has to wait up for me.’

‘You’re not just any woman to me.’ And he kissed me, sending more tremors throughout my body. ‘We must do something about this, love,’ he said. We both knew that a hotel room, even one out of town, was out of the question. We could pretend to be married, but if the desk manager questioned us at all we could be arrested, and it would ruin my career. Not Joe’s; men were expected to do such things.

‘Some day, one of our friends with an apartment will go out of town and lend us their place,’ Joe said. ‘We have to wait until then.’

Later, under my blankets and on the edge of sleep, I wondered why neither of us had discussed marriage. That was the normal way of things between single people. You got married to have sex. The truth was, I didn’t want to marry Joe. He didn’t have two nickels to rub together, and I knew too little about him to marry him. I wanted to have an affair with him. A year ago such a thought would have set me to praying for my soul during church. Today I felt frustrated and unhappy.

ELEVEN

W
hat better way to put Alessa and Joe out of my mind than to start on the ground floor of Woodies, among the two-story cast iron arches and gleaming walnut counters, and work my way up to the Tea Room on the seventh floor?

Woodward and Lothrop department store occupied an entire block, between Tenth, Eleventh, F and G Streets, a few blocks east of the White House.

By the time I’d reached the fourth floor, I’d bought two pairs of rayon stockings,
Black Orchids
by Rex Stout, and a set of undies like Myrna’s, except I chose soft blue with black lace trimming.

The weather was growing colder, and I’d need much warmer clothes than I’d brought with me from North Carolina. Fuel oil was scarce, and the government decreed that bedrooms should remain unheated during the coming winter. I’d already ordered the basics from the Sears catalog. When Ada’d found me at the dining room table filling out the order form she’d had a conniption. ‘How do you expect to find a man wearing those?’ she’d asked, looking in horror at the wide-legged wool trousers I was ordering in brown and olive.

‘I’m not looking for a man,’ I’d said. ‘I’m looking to stay warm.’

I did want at least one purchase a bit more special than Sears’ trousers, and I found it in Ladies’ Dresses, an autumn-green wool suit dress for $12.95. The thought of wearing my new undies under it gave me a frisson of pleasure.

Shoes were scheduled to be rationed after Christmas, so I wanted a pair of tough saddle shoes, but I’d get a better deal on those at Hahn’s.

Then I came upon the Fur Salon. The Woodies’ ad in this morning’s paper offered wool coats with mink collars for ninety-eight dollars, which I couldn’t possibly afford, but no one could stop me from trying one on, could they?

The least expensive coats hung inside the entrance to the Fur Salon. I put down my packages and began to flip through them. Did I want blue, brown, or black? Blue, I decided as I pulled a coat off the rack. Dropping my own coat, which I’d purchased when Bill and I married years ago, to the floor, I drew on the new one. The fur collar nestled luxuriously around my neck. I turned, searching for a full-length mirror. I looked deeper into the long salon, where an older woman, gray-haired, dripping with bracelets and rings, modeled a breathtaking sheared beaver greatcoat. A young woman wearing a calf-length mink, with another fur coat draped over her arm, was with her. When the younger woman reached out to adjust her companion’s collar I saw she wore a wide gold bracelet and a wedding band encrusted with diamonds.

Something intuitive made me duck behind a pillar before I consciously understood why. The young woman turned to beckon for a salesgirl. It was Alessa.

Shock forced heat into my face, and my heart missed a beat. Several beats. How could this be possible? Alessa was a poor refugee. The woman I saw was wealthy and aristocratic in her looks and bearing.

My legs wobbled like jelly, and I felt like I was floating in the air. I recognized the signs of a fainting spell, but I forced my back against the pillar hard. I used both hands to squeeze the back of my neck and the stars receded. Thank God.

I must have absorbed some of my lessons from ‘The Farm’, because despite my shock I didn’t step out from behind my pillar to gape at the two women. Instead I stayed behind the pillar and watched the Fur Salon exits so I could see the two women when they left.

Then I heard her voice, answering the older woman’s Italian – or maybe it was Sicilian – in familiar accented English. It was Alessa, there was no doubt about it. The two women passed by my pillar hideout on their way out of the Salon.

I knew I shouldn’t follow her; I didn’t have enough training to tail her expertly, and if she spotted me it would ruin the operation. Still trembling, I hung up the fur-collared coat I hadn’t even admired myself in and collected my parcels.

I assumed my best gossipy expression and located the saleswoman who’d waited on them. She was hanging up the gorgeous coat Alessa’s older companion tried on. ‘Those ladies,’ I said to her. ‘I can’t help wondering who they were. They wore such wonderful clothes and jewels.’

The saleswoman was miffed that they hadn’t bought the coat, because she broke a famous Woodies’ rule and answered me.

‘That’s the Dowager Countess Lucia Oneto and her daughter-in-law, Alessa. They’re Italians or something. Very rich.’ She continued tidying up the rack of furs. ‘Would you believe,’ she said, ‘the daughter-in-law talked the Countess out of buying that coat? Said she should buy war bonds instead.’

I couldn’t tell if the saleswoman admired Alessa or if she was angry to lose a sale. Probably, a little of both.

‘Do you know where they live?’ I asked.

‘I’ve said too much already,’ the saleswoman said. ‘I could get fired.’

I took the elevator up to the Tea Room to settle my nerves and think of what to do next. The menu was reduced from its usual extravagance because of the war, but I ordered a cup of tea and a slice of honey cake.

By the time I’d finished my tea my shock had subsided. Random questions raced through my mind. Why was Alessa posing as a poor refugee when she was a Sicilian countess? Was her husband, the supposed count, alive and in this country? Was the Oneto family important? Were they involved in Alessa’s plan, or ignorant of it? Who was Alessa’s asset? He must be involved somehow in the Port of New York, but Alessa lived here in Washington. How did they communicate?

My only task, during my brief stint as an OSS agent, was to get the name of the Mafia sleeper Alessa said her asset possessed before the next slow convoy left New York Harbor for Casablanca. That was it. No matter who Alessa was, no matter who her asset was. OSS would want nothing to interfere with this operation. I certainly could do nothing about what I’d discovered today until I briefed Melinsky on Monday.