The Whenabouts of Burr (4 page)

CHAPTER FOUR

They quickly received a wide variety of replies from all over the country. Most of these could be just as quickly eliminated:

SIRS: THEODOSIA BURR, AARONS ONLY DAUGHTER, NOT LOST AT SEA. AM TRYING TO ESTABLISH CLAIM TO THE VAST BURR ESTATE AS GREAT-GRANDSON OF ILLEGITIMATE SON OF THEODOSIA AND SLAVE ON ALEX. HAMILTON'S JAMAICA ESTATE WHERE SHE RAN TO HIDE FROM HER FATHER. WATER INTERESTS OUT TO STOP ME. LIQUIDS TRUST SPIES IN EVERY GLASS AND JAR. NOT FOR ME, AGAINST ME. NEED TWO THOUSAND DOLLARS TO PURSUE CASE. REPLY IMMEDIATELY. CODE NAME BLUE.

JACKSON HAMILTON ADAMS BURR

CABLE ADDRESS JHAB

Gentlepersons,

I perused with fascination your brief epistle in the
Abalone Morning Tribune
this past Thursday. How you found out about me I do not know, but it is obvious that you did; else why should you have an advertisement in such a backward, out of the way town as Abalone?

Yes, it is true, although I do not know how you discovered it. I am the woman for whom Aaron Burr refused the presidency and went off with to Mexico. They said it was treason, but it was love.

It all seems so long ago now. To look at me today, you would hardly believe that I could have provoked such passion in a man. But I was considered a beauty in my youth, and possessed of great charm and wit. Napoleon thought so, as did the Duke of Wellington, a very gracious man.

You will want to interview me. That I can, at long last, allow. But no pictures, and no persons from the press.

I await with sincerity your reply,

Bessie VanArwitt Lee

“—Do I have two-oh-two-three-oh-one-three-eight-five-six?

—That's right.

—I have a collect call for anyone from Mr. Dittle Parsons.

—Who?

—Mr. Dittle Parsons (tell him it's about Burr) Mr. Parsons says it is about—was that Burr? (that's right, Aaron Burr)—it is about Aaron Burr.

—Where's the call from?

—New York City.

—I'll accept the call.

—Go ahead please.

—Hello?

—You the people who want information about Aaron Burr?

—That's right. My name is Romero. What can I do for you?

—You got it wrong. It is I who can help you. I got the goods on this Burr.

—The goods?

—Right. You want info, and info I got. State your price.

—What sort of information do you have, Mr. Parsons?

—What's it worth for a look? Just let me tell you that I have all the Tammany records.
All
of them.

—I see, Mr. Parsons. Leave your number with my secretary, and we'll get back to you.

—Right. But you guys better make it fast. You're not the only ones interested, you know.

—Thank you for calling us first, Mr. Parsons.”

But some of them proved of immediate interest:

Gentlemen,

I am a History teacher at DeWitt Clinton High School in New York City. The Bronx, to be precise. My son, Richard, is a stamp collector. He is only twelve years old, and has a limited allowance, so his collection is of necessity limited.

He recently obtained, at a high school fair, a fragment of brown wrapping paper containing three stamps. The stamps were hand-cancelled with a wavy-line pattern and a circle that reads GENERAL POST OFFICE NEW YORK CITY 4 JUNE 1923 PM. The three stamps are identical: light green printing on white paper. In the center of an oval is a head facing three-quarters forward with curly hair and a tight smile. Around the top of the oval are the words UNITED STATES POSTAGE. Around the bottom: Aaron Burr. Straight across the bottom: ONE DISME.

As you probably know, the United States Post Office has no record of ever issuing an Aaron Burr stamp.

Does this fit into the definition of “unusual information or document”? If so, what do you consider “Highest Prices” to be? My son would like to keep one of the stamps, but would be willing to sell the other two to help finance his collecting.

Sincerely yours,

Albert E. Gorey

Ves called up Mr. Gorey, negotiated a suitable price with his son, Richard, for one of the stamps, and had them mail it to him. It seemed to fit into the pattern, although what the pattern might look like was still unknown. It wasn't like doing a jigsaw puzzle, but more like trying to sort out the pieces to one puzzle from a box containing a dozen.

That evening, Nate and Ves were sharing an after-dinner brandy in Ves's study when Mrs. Montefugoni announced a caller. She described him as a ‘gentleman', and this was a term that she used rarely, so they awaited his appearance in the study doorway with interest.

“Mr. Romero?” the caller asked, standing in the doorway and looking from one man to the other. He had a finely-chiseled, patrician face with a strong nose and a thin mouth which did not look pleased. His impeccably-tailored clothing would have made him one of the best dressed men at the inauguration of President Warren Gamaliel Harding.

“I am Mr. Romero,” Ves admitted. “Come in, sir. What can I do for you?”

“I called this afternoon,” the visitor said, “but you were out. Your, ah, housekeeper suggested that I try this evening. It is, ah, in reference to your advertisement of three days ago in the
New York Herald
. Or was it the
Times
?”

“The
New York Herald
has been out of existence for about fifty-sixty years, I think,” Swift said. “It became part of the
Herald-Tribune
, then expired.”

The visitor looked at him with a chilling glance. “Ah, yes?” he said. “Then it clearly must have been the
Times
.”

“You come in answer to the ad?” Ves said. “You have information for me? Unusual documents concerning Aaron Burr?”

“No, sir,” the stranger said. “Allow me to clarify my position. I have no current knowledge or documentation concerning the whereabouts or intentions of that traitor, Burr. I seek, rather, some information from you, and am prepared to pay for it, and pay well.”

Swift was about to make some angry reply to this, but Ves shut him up with a glance. “What sort of information can we give you?” Ves asked.

The man strode into the room and stopped in the center. He was not the sort of man you asked to sit down: he clearly sat or stood at his own pleasure. “Tell me who your client is,” he said. “Tell me what his interest is, and tell me what you have discovered.”

Ves nodded approvingly. “Concise,” he said.

“It reminds me of a final I had in Psychology,” Nate said. “ ‘Describe what you now know on this subject.' It certainly covers the ground.”

The stranger glared at him. “Have you some objection to this particular ground being covered?” he demanded. “Do you side with the Cataline? The forces are gathering, the sides are being picked. Choose carefully, young man!” His voice resounded with the powerful tones of the expert public speaker, and his stature seemed to grow as his voice rang out.

“You should know I can't do that,” Ves said mildly. “You're asking me to betray the identity of a client—if I have a client; to release confidential information, and reveal my sources. No self-respecting private detective would behave in such a fashion. Not if he expected to stay in business.”

“I know nothing about the ethical considerations of your profession,” the man said. “That is, if I may call it a profession. But your logic is specious. Your advertisement asked to purchase information of others, and this is fine and honorable. I ask the same of you, and you use words like ‘betray' and ‘reveal'. My gold is as good as the next man's.”

“Gold?” Ves asked.

“If you wish,” the man said. “Specie or paper. I have a strong interest in this matter, and will pay well for your help.”

“I think we speak at cross purposes,” Ves said. “I don't believe I have any information that would interest you.”

“I will pay to be allowed to decide that for myself,” the man insisted. He took a coin out of his pocket “An eagle to know who employs you. A second to know what you have discovered.”

Nate's gaze fastened on the gold coin. “I'd like to see that coin,” he said.

The stranger closed his fist around it. “Earn it!”

Nate stared at Ves, who considered carefully for a minute. “I cannot tell you who we are working for,” he told his guest. “That would be breaking confidence. But I will let you examine photocopies of the only two, ah, documents we have as yet uncovered.”

“Fair enough, sir.” The stranger flipped the coin over to Ves.

Ves picked two sheets of paper from the coffee table in front of him, turned them right side up, and handed them to his guest. One contained a front and back view of the Mexican coin, and the other a likeness of the
one disme
stamp.

The stranger stared at them. ‘This?” he asked. “These are your documents? You jest, sir, surely you jest.”

“I told you that I didn't think I had anything that would interest you,” Ves said. “That's it. We may, of course, receive any number of documents in response to our ad. If you'll tell me what in particular you are interested in discovering, perhaps I could call you if we find out anything.” He pocketed the coin.

“I assumed you knew, sir,” the stranger said. “The tenor of your advertisement… is it possible that you are unaware? Does the term ‘prime time' mean anything to you?”

“You mean TV?” Swift asked.

“TV?” the stranger repeated, as though it were a completely foreign term.

“Yes, the networks—”

“Exactly!” The stranger pounced on the term. “The network—prime time; you do know. I thought you must. Well, sir, I am the Great Antagonist.”

He stood there in the center of the room, a little puffed up, waiting for the proper response. The look he saw on the faces of the two men must have satisfied him. “I see you are surprised, eh? Never thought to meet me, eh? Well, I'm human, gentlemen; I'll tell you that. I'm human. And your little advertisement intrigued me. Pure luck that I'd happen to see it, of course. But I just happened to be here. Won't be for long, though; have to travel elsewhen soon.” He paused and thought for a second.

“If you do find anything,” he continued, “I'll leave a number that will eventually reach me. Remember: my pay is liberal. And if you can ever find it in your ethical heart to reveal who employs you and why, I should be most fascinated. Most.

“I must take my leave. You can reach me here.” He scribbled a number onto a pasteboard card and twirled it onto the table in front of Ves. “I thank you for your time, gentlemen.” He bowed slightly and exited abruptly. A second later they heard the front door open and close.

Swift went suspiciously into the hall to make sure that their guest had, indeed, departed. When he returned, Ves had fished the gold eagle from his pocket and was examining it under the light.

“Well?” Nate demanded. “Whose picture is on this one?”

“A lady with a turban,” Ves said. “Name of ‘Liberty', it says here. Get me my handbook of U.S. Coins, will you? In the reference shelf over there—toward the bottom.”

Nate retrieved the indicated book and Ves flipped through it. “Here we are,” he said. “Hm. Hmm.”

“What?”

“It's a real coin, so says the book,” Ves said.

“That's a relief,” Nate said.

“Dated 1797,” Ves said. “Very common thing to carry around.”

“Eccentric,” Swift said.

“According to the handbook,” Ves said, “this little circle of gold goes for over two grand these days.”

“What?”

“Two thousand dollars,” Ves said. “I'll buy dinner. Except that we've already eaten dinner. Tomorrow I'll buy dinner.”

“Crazy,” Swift said. He bent over and picked up the pasteboard the stranger had left.

“I have the faint glimmerings of an idea,” Ves said, “but it's too nebulous and too insane to discuss just yet.”

“Perhaps this will help,” Swift said, holding the pasteboard card up before Ves's eyes.

A phone number was neatly printed in ink on the back. On the front:

ALEX: HAMILTON
Attorney

CHAPTER FIVE

The winds were sudden and off the sea: cold, snippy winds that blew up your pants leg and tugged at your greatcoat. They seemed to be omnidirectional. Wherever you stood they found you; whatever you hid behind, they whipped around in playful little cold spurts. It was time for taking in the brass monkeys, for covering the pool tables. And it wasn't quite winter yet Winters in Washington tend to be mild, but the last spurts of autumn can be pretty fierce.

Swift stood concealed in a doorway, stamping his feet, keeping his hands crossed under his arms, and wishing he'd worn two extra sweaters. Across the street, in the brownstone he was watching, nothing was stirring. It was almost ten a.m., and the house was as mute and dark as it had been at five. Or, for that matter, at four. Both hours Nate remembered very well.

It had been three o'clock in the morning before Ves, Nate, and the President had been able to get the address that matched with the phone number written on the back of Alex: Hamilton's card. It would have been faster if they had asked the FBI to get the address from the phone company, but the President wouldn't ask the FBI for anything. They would only have insisted on knowing what it was for. Ever since Watergate, they'd been funny that way, the bastards.

So Ves Romero, Nate Swift, and the President of the United States went painstakingly through the Metropolitan Washington, District of Columbia Section phone book until, with a cry of “eureka”, and a sweeping gesture that knocked a cut-glass bowl full of macadamia nuts off the table, Ves announced that he had found the number. It was listed as a Mrs. Buffie O'Gorman at an address on V Street, Northwest.

While searching their thirds of the phone book, they had discussed what Alex: Hamilton's visit had meant, and who he really was. It was a conundrum more complex than the ancient riddle of who shaved the barber, but the answer was the same: follow him around and see. And so, at four in the morning Nate took up his station across the street from the house hopefully holding both Mrs. Buffie O'Gorman and Mr. Alex: Hamilton.

It had been cold at four, but Nate knew that as the sun's rays came up, the air would warm up. Nate was wrong. It got colder during the morning, and Nate felt as if the hairs on the back of his hand would shatter and fall off if he closed his fist. The brightly-shining morning sun was a sham, a million fireflies in an ice-cold jar, rising slowly above the frigid towers of Washington office buildings in the distance.

And the V Street brownstone, haughtily drawn up to its full three stories, glared down at him through icy upper windows, daring him to approach its front steps. Or, perhaps he was just a bit light-headed from too many hours spent standing in the cold.

A car cruised past him, and Nate recognized Ves's profile as the car turned the corner. A minute later, Ves rounded the corner and walked up the steps to the doorway Nate was loitering in. He paused and studiously examined the names on the mailboxes. “Anything?” he whispered.

“Where the hell have you been?” Swift demanded, carefully looking disinterestedly away.

“Getting things set up,” Ves said. “Any motion?”

“Neither fish nor fowl,” Swift said. “I'm freezing. And I'm starting to hallucinate. I think I just had an argument with the building across the street. It doesn't like me loitering here. Come to think of it, I don't, either. I go home and go to sleep now, right, Big Brother?”

“Not yet,” Ves told him, “but soon, soon. We have to get someone to relieve you.”

“What about the Secretary of State?” Nate growled.

“You think that's funny?” Ves demanded. “The President wanted to come out here himself.”

“I won't stop him,” Nate said. “Although he could never keep awake in school. We'd double date, and he'd fall asleep coming home.”

“The girls must have loved him,” Ves said.

“We all did,” Nate said. “Most of the time, he was doing the driving. Still, if the President is anxious enough to want to relieve me here, I think it would be in the National Interest.”

“I wouldn't let him come,” Ves said regretfully. “But I would love to have seen it: the bulletproof limousine around the corner with the Marine sergeant chauffeur huddled up in the front seat trying to keep warm. The President sitting on a camp stool in this doorway, with a camp table in front of him, warming his hands over a cup of cocoa. Two Secret Service men loitering inconspicuously in front of the house; two more dangling from the roof. The President's mobile information post set up in the ground floor front apartment, much to the bewilderment… no, strike that—the tenant would have been evacuated by the Secret Service. And the crowd of newsmen back on the other side of the police line which they'd have to set up. Or, perhaps they'd just blockade the street at both ends. Luckily, none of this is anything that Alex would notice.”

“I love it when you get sarcastic,” Nate said. “You sound just like W.C. Fields.”

“Yes, yes,” Ves said. “Here, take this.” He handed Swift what looked like a brown map-pin without turning around.

“What is it?” Nate asked.

“Communications device,” Ves said. “The President dug up a few of them. Stick it behind your lapel, or somewhere within half a meter of your mouth. Now, take this small spot bandage and press it firmly to the skin behind your ear.”

“Which one?” Swift asked.

“I don't suppose it matters,” Ves said. “Now all you have to do is touch the button to send a message to me. The receiver is on all the time, of course.”

“What's the range on these things?” Swift asked, trying to look natural as he massaged the spot behind his left ear.

“A little over a kilometer if conditions are just right; a lot less if they're not.”

“FBI?” Swift asked.

“Don't be silly.”

“CIA?”

“Department of Fish and Game,” Ves told him. “Use them to track partridge or talk to trout, or some such.”

“We don't have anything like this over at the Bureau of Weights and Measures Observational Branch,” Nate said sadly. “But then, the B.W.M.O.B. doesn't speak to many trout.'”

Just then, there was a flash of movement behind the glass front door of the brownstone. Alex: Hamilton, immaculate in homburg, cutaway gray jacket, vest, pleated gray pants with six-inch cuffs, and gray spats over patent-leather black shoes, strode out. “Quick,” Ves said. “You follow him. I'll interrogate the landlady while he's out.”

“I don't know if I'm up to it,” Swift said. “I haven't had much sleep.”

“I'll get a relief man to you as quickly as possible,” Ves assured him. “Just don't lose him.”

Nate plodded inconspicuously after Alex:, and Ves went down the street to a luncheonette to call the President. Then he called his son at Romero Associates to arrange relief for Nate—his son promised him an operative by two in the afternoon—then Ves sat down and ate a small breakfast: poached egg, toast, and a glass of low fat milk. Then he went back up the block and rang the bell of the brownstone.

A short, dumpy woman with startlingly orange hair, wearing a passion-pink housecoat, appeared out of one of the side rooms and came to the door. Clutching a broom firmly in her left hand, she peered through the glass panel at Ves. “Yes?” she mouthed through the door.

“Mrs. O'Gorman?” Ves asked politely. “I wonder if I might ask you a few questions?”

“What?” she mouthed. He couldn't hear her, and it was clear that she couldn't hear him.

“A few questions!” Ves stated loudly at the door.

The lady mouthed something more, in obvious agitation, and waved the broom up and down a few times for emphasis. Ves couldn't hear a sound from inside the door.

“Open the door,” Ves said, carefully moving his lips to the pattern of the words, “open the door.”

“Arb grab aaab!” the lady mouthed firmly from behind the closed door. Finally however, seeing that none of this was driving Ves away, she did open the door to the extent permitted by her chain lock. “No more rooms!” she announced firmly, squeezing as much of her face as she could into the crack.

“Information, not a room, I want,” Ves said hurriedly and ungrammatically, before she could slam the door. “I'll pay!”

“Pay?” The word caught her attention. “How much? What do you want to know? Let's see the money.”

Ves took a ten-dollar bill out of his pocket and waved it in front of her. Her little eyes lit up, and she took the chain off the door. “Come in,” she said.

“I'd like some information on your tenant,” Ves said. “The gentleman who left about an hour ago.”

“Come, sit down,” the lady said. “Have a cup of coffee. What do you want to know?”

Ves came into the kitchen with her and accepted a rose floral cup of a watery brown liquid he couldn't identify. “Anything you know about him,” Ves said. “How long he's been here, what he does during the day, any visitors he has had; is there anything at all unusual about him.”

“A week tomorrow,” the woman told him. “I don't know what he does, but he brings home books and magazines and papers all the time. No visitors and nothing unusual. Is that worth ten bucks?”

Ves handed her the bill. “Nothing else?” he asked. “Nothing out of the ordinary?”

“Very quiet man,” the landlady said. “Gave me rent a week in advance. In gold.”

“Gold?” Ves said, his voice betraying his fascination with this bit of news.

“It's legal,” she said. “I checked.”

“A coin?” Ves asked.

“What then, a nugget?”

“Mexican?” Ves asked.

“I wouldn't take no foreign money,” the landlady declared with patriotic virtue, fishing out the coin and displaying it in the stubby fingers. It, indeed, was not foreign. An eagle, minted in Philadelphia in 1833, it was as American as the president whose face was on the front: Alexander Hamilton.

“Hamilton never was President of the United States,” Ves said, half to himself.

“That's what you say. That's my coin and you give it back right now!” she exclaimed. And forthwith she reclaimed it.

“Ves! Can you get over here right away?”
the patch behind Ves's ear asked in Nate's voice.

“Where?” Ves asked, touching the button.

“What?” asked the landlady.

“There's a Turkish bath on North Dakota and Y
,” Nate's voice said.

“Y?” Ves asked.

“Why not?” the landlady demanded. “Gold always has to go up in value because there isn't enough of it to make earrings, now that pierced ears are coming back. You can't use tin because it will rot your earlobe off.”

“That's right, Y,”
Swift said. “
I'll meet you in front.”

“Okay,” Ves said.

“I should think so,” the landlady said. “My stepdaughter-in-law told me that. And she should know: she's in training to become a beautician.”

“Thank you, Mrs. O'Gorman, you've been a big help,” Ves said, preparing to take his hurried leave.

“Also silver, but not as much,” she said, taking the cup from his hand. “Come again.”