The Folks at Fifty-Eight (44 page)

“He’s dead. What about him?”

“I want you to tell me why he died, and I want you to tell me who killed him?”

“I’m the FBI. You work for The State Department. I should be asking you.”

“So why aren’t you?”

“Because I’ve still got some sense; not much, but a little. What’s your excuse?”

“I don’t like liars. I don’t like people trying to kill me, and I don’t like people who treat me as a fool.”

“You work for Marcus Allum. . . get used to it.”

“Who killed Alan Carlisle?”

“I don’t know.”

“But you do know why he died?”

“Nope, no idea.”

Simmonds beckoned the listening barman, seeming to find difficulty in focusing on the approaching figure, before slurring his demand for a refill. Hammond looked closer. He seemed nervous.

“What are you frightened of, Morton?”

“Who says I’m frightened?”

“Jack Daniels for one. Me for another.”

“You’re placing yourself in exalted company, my friend, but this is not fear you see before you. This is boredom, or maybe it’s habit; then again, maybe it’s both.”

“So who killed Alan Carlisle?” Hammond regarded the answering shrug of bored indifference. “I thought he was a friend of yours. Some friend. I hear you didn’t even bother visiting the grieving widow, just sent some men.”

Despite the previous façade of indifference, Hammond’s criticism stung a response. Simmonds glowered through the drifting smoke and then scoffed at the portrayal of Angela Carlisle as a grieving widow. Yes, he said, Alan Carlisle had been a friend, a good friend, but he had been ordered to stay clear. The newspaper reports on Carlisle’s death had been lurid enough, without adding the already discredited factor of Morton Simmonds. He said J. Edgar Hoover had enough problems without creating more.

Simmonds seemed thoughtful. He said, even if he had disobeyed the order, his getting killed wouldn’t help Carlisle’s widow, grieving or not, and it sure as hell wouldn’t bring back Alan Carlisle.

When Hammond suggested Simmonds could help in the arrest and prosecution of the guilty, a drunken smile relieved the anger. The clearly disaffected senior FBI agent began rambling.

Did he say arrest and prosecute? Hammond obviously didn’t realize he was talking to the FBI. Simmonds drunkenly repeated the initials and said they didn’t stand for Fidelity Bravery and Integrity any more. Nowadays they stood for Fornicators, Boozers, and Incompetents; or was that Incontinents? He muttered something about not remembering, and added that he must have been looking through the bottom of a glass when he’d read it. All he could tell Hammond was that it sure as hell didn’t stand for anything to do with investigation and prosecution; not according to the newspapers.

It appeared that Morton Simmonds had issues with the media. He took a swig of whiskey and continued drunkenly reflecting on his unhappy lot in life.

“Did you read what the bastards wrote the other day?” Hammond shook his head and Simmonds rambled on. “When it looked like they fried the wrong man for the Lindberg baby, we said they’re new in town, give ’em a chance. When they shot John Dillinger in the back, we said maybe he turned around too fast. We even let it go when they could only nail Capone on tax fraud, instead of multiple homicide, but this has to be an all-time low for the Federal Bureau of Ineptitude.”

Simmonds stubbed out his half-smoked cigarette and immediately lit another with the same ostentatious flick of the Zippo’s wheel.

“Newspapers, huh, they’re like easy women: makes no difference if you lie or tell ’em the truth ’cos they’ll screw you either way.”

Another strong pull on the whiskey briefly interrupted Simmonds’ flow of rambling self-pity.

“What was that other line they wrote? Oh yeah, nearly forgot. They say Morton Simmonds drinks to forget; we say he never knew anything worth remembering.”

He suddenly laughed, bitterly and sarcastically. Harsh. perhaps, but he kinda liked that one. How about, ‘We haven’t seen the Fed’s hoovering this amount of booze since Elliot Ness hit Chicago’. He hadn’t liked that one, apparently, but he had enjoyed the play on names between William Henry and J. Edgar.

Simmonds took yet another strong pull on the whiskey, and then stared vacantly at the wall for a further moment’s contemplation before asking,

“What’s the matter? Didn’t you like the joke? Didn’t you get the hoovering bit? William Henry, vacuum cleaner tycoon; J. Edgar, Head of the FBI? Thought that was neat myself.”

“Yeah, I got it.”

“Maybe you just don’t read the papers. They don’t think we’re any good at what we do. Bootleggers and bank robbers, that’s all we’re good for. According to
The
Post
, we ain’t any great shakes at that.”

Hammond had suffered enough of the drunken ramblings and paranoia.

“Good at feeling sorry for yourself, though.”

Simmonds shook his head.

“I don’t feel sorry, well, not for myself. I feel sorry for Alan, because he meant well and he wanted to do something right for once. And I feel sorry for you. And I feel sorry for all those other poor bastards out there, who think they can make any difference. You wanna drink?”

Hammond thought of walking away and leaving Simmonds to wallow in his own self-pity. A sixth sense told him to persevere.

“Yeah, I’ll take a beer.”

Simmonds nodded to the far side of the drab and deserted bar.

“Let’s grab a booth before this place starts seriously buzzing. Hey, Charlie! Give this man a beer, and give me the rest of that bottle.”

The bartender looked warily back as he passed Hammond his beer.

“You know I can’t do that, Mr Simmonds.”

Simmonds glared at him.

“What’s the matter, Charlie? Ddon’t you want your license renewed any more? Now give me the fucking bottle.”

The barman stood for a moment, weighing up the pros and cons of refusal, before grudgingly handing over what remained of the bottle.

“Here, take it, for Christ’s sake. And the name’s not Charlie.”

“Course it is; every bartender’s called Charlie. It’s the law.”

Simmonds sat blankly gazing at the counter for some moments, then picked up his cigarette pack and lighter and pocketed them. After that he took the bottle and lighted cigarette in one hand, and his glass in the other, before extravagantly weaving his way to the far side of the bar. He slumped into a booth, signalled Hammond to sit and then said in a loud voice,

“Sit down, Hammond. Drink your beer. We’ll talk about my old friend Jack Daniels, and toasted Luckies, and good-looking women with firm tits and tight asses, and great baseball players of our time. Now those are subjects I do know something about.”

Hammond shook his head and said he wanted to talk about Manhattan. Simmonds grinned affably and slurred what he obviously imagined to be an amusing answer.

“Two parts Jack to one of vermouth would be my preference, then add some bitters. Just a splash, mind you. That’s always been the difference between a great Manhattan and a bad one.”

“I’m serious.”

“I’d have to say you do look kinda serious.”

He peered drunkenly across the floor to where the barman sat engrossed in a newspaper, and then refocused his attention on Hammond. With his voice low, and his diction precise, a suddenly sober Morton Simmonds explained the transformation.

“But you have to pick the right time to talk about it, and you have to pick the right place to talk about it. Announcing the fact in front of one of the most garrulous bartenders in the history of drunken gossip and Washington grapevines fails on both counts.”

Hammond looked at Simmonds in unconcealed amazement.

“They told me you were a drunk and a womanizer. You play the part well.”

“And they were right. I love women and I love booze. I ain’t taken a break from either for twenty years, but half a bottle of Jack ain’t gonna suddenly turn me into W.C. Fields.”

“Emma said she saw you the other afternoon. She said you were three parts gone?”

“Yeah, I remember. I’d had a bad morning.”

“So why all this?”

“Why am I a drinking man and a womanizer, you mean? Because I happen to enjoy it. Why do I play the drunken asshole in public? Because people don’t feel threatened by drunken assholes. They feel superior, and when people feel superior, they feel safe.”

“It doesn’t worry you that people don’t take you seriously?”

“Why should they? Why should I want them to? It’s not as if I’m doing a serious job.”

There had been no hint of self-pity. Hammond asked why searching for communists in the White House wasn’t a serious job. Simmonds laughed.

“Why don’t you sit back and relax? Drink your beer, and let me tell you a story.”

“What do you mean, story?”

“A story, the interesting kind, you know how they begin. Well, once upon a time. . .”

More alarming was that among the list were names belonging to people employed by the U.S. government. Even more alarming still, was that many of them worked in sensitive areas.

Simmonds took the list to his boss and suggested they begin a full-scale surveillance on the people named. Hoover agreed, but then a further revelation: among the names were ex-members of the disbanded OSS, and being OSS made them William Donovan’s people.

Simmonds waited expectantly. Hammond answered the unasked question.

“And it’s common knowledge that ‘Wild Bill’ Donovan and J. Edgar Hoover don’t get on.”

“That’s putting it mildly. Hoover hates Donovan with a passion. Worse still, they’re in the middle of a power struggle to run Central Intelligence.”

“Yeah, I heard that as well.”

“So what does that prick Hoover do next? Well J. Edgar being J. Edgar, he figures this is gold dust. He figures that with this information he’ll be able to bury ‘Wild Bill’ Donovan in Russian fertilizer, right up to the two little stars on his epaulettes. He figures that if he takes this to the President straight away, the President’s gonna pat him on the back and slap Donovan around until his head spins. He also figures that Truman will then have no choice but to pass the whole foreign intelligence kit-and-caboodle over to good old dependable master-spy-catcher J. Edgar Hoover.”

“But Truman didn’t see it that way?”

“No, but he might have done if we’d had any evidence, which of course we didn’t, and still don’t. All we had then, and all we’ve got now, is a flaky confession and a list of high-profile names from a not-so-reliable Sov courier. A woman who’s now even less reliable ’cos, thanks to Hoover’s way with women, she’s scared of her own shadow.”

“So Hoover dropped you in it?”

“Way beyond the epaulettes. As a direct result of him using our only edge to play power politics, we’re trying to trap a bunch of suspects who know we’re coming for them.”

“So they circle the wagons?”

“I like the metaphor, but they do more than that. They start fighting back; laying down a serious barrage of media and political flak. Well, them and a certain group of power-brokers in New York City, who shall remain nameless.”

Hammond, puzzled, interrupted.

“If we’re talking about the same people, up in New York, they want these infiltrators flushed out as much as you. I mean, these people are more anti-communist than Hoover.”

“True, but they hate Hoover almost as bad as they hate commies, and anyway, what happens if we get all those commie infiltrators arrested and convicted? What happens once we’ve sat them down and strapped them in, taken their pictures for FBI posterity and the
Washington
Post
archives, and then flipped the switch?”

“The problem goes away.”

Morton Simmonds shook his head and smiled grimly.

“Not true. The problem doesn’t go away. The threat goes away, and the threat is what keeps our New York friends in business. Public apathy is their problem, and fear is their weapon. These people know that as long as the public’s scared shitless of communist infiltrators, they’re not gonna be asking questions about the methods people are using to combat the problem. They want ordinary people out there searching under their beds every night. They want them scared to death and screaming for a rope. We take out the White House infiltrators, all in one go, and some of that fear goes away.”

To Hammond this all seemed too far-fetched.

“So why aren’t you fighting back? Why are you happy playing the drunken fool?”

“Ever hear the story of two explorers in the jungle who come face-to-face with a man-eating lion? The first explorer drops his pack and starts putting on his sneakers, so the other explorer looks at him and says ‘Don’t be stupid, you can’t outrun a lion’. . . Remember what the first explorer says?”

Hammond grinned and finished the story.

“He said I don’t have to. All I have to do is outrun you.”

“That’s right. Let ’em bring down someone else. I’m no threat, and I run like hell.”

“So these White House communists, these infiltrators, they get away clear?”

“Long-term, probably not. Our New York friends will smoke them out, when it suits them. But it’ll only happen over months, maybe years. And every time they nail another commie bastard the press will have a field day, and another million ordinary Americans will grab their lighted torches and join the lynch mob.”

“So how does this all tie in with the Manhattan Project?”

“Let’s get you another beer. Hey, Charlie, get my friend here another beer.”

Simmonds had restored the drunken façade. Hammond turned to see the barman watching.