Allegiance (38 page)

Tears start in her eyes. “He hinted at it sometimes. I didn't know whether to believe him. I thought maybe he was just . . . talking. The way men do.”

Hall has come through for me. And in a way, I suppose, I am coming through for him, too late for it to do him any good. “Oh, no. It was all true.”

The secretary is biting her lip. “I hope I helped him,” she says. “He said there was no one he could trust, no one he could talk to.”

I can hear the words, see the look of soulful torment on his big, dumb face. A pang of loss shoots through me. I will miss that idiot. “I'm sure you did,” I say. “And don't feel bad for him. He chose that life. He knew the risks. And he was one of our best.” I pause to let her wipe her eyes. “John Hall was a hero,” I say. “He was uncovering a nest of spies here in Washington. That's why he was killed. Now, you can let everything he worked for die with him, or you can help me.”

The girl quivers with emotion, and then her face glows with resolve. She is about eighteen, I think, from God knows where. She must have felt very lucky she knew how to type when the call went out. Fifty cents an hour. And then to be assigned to the War Department, to the dashing if somewhat forward Captain John Hall . . . Well, I am lying to her just as he did, but there may be a bit more basis to my claims about serving her country.

“I need to go into his office,” I say. “I know I'm asking you to bend the rules. I won't blame you if you say you can't. I'll walk out of here and you'll never see me again. And somewhere, some Nazi will wipe the blood off his knife and breathe a little easier.”

The key is in her hand before I finish. She opens the door; I duck inside. She makes to follow me and I hold up a hand.

“Sorry,” I say. “The less you know about this, the safer you are.” It is true for her, I think, if not for me. I close the door with a confidence I do not feel, but she does not protest.

A desk and credenza dominate Hall's office. His bookshelves hold folders. On the wall is the standard picture of Roosevelt and two framed diplomas. For anyone too far away to read them, there is also a felt Harvard banner pinned to a corkboard.

Hall was a well-organized boy at Episcopal Academy, and I am glad to see that he kept this trait in the War Department. His files are tidy. But what am I looking for? I can only hope that I'll know it when I see it.

I start with the bookshelves. Hall has folders about the various legal engagements of the War Department.
Korematsu
and
Endo
, of course, as they progressed up the ladder of appeals.
Hirabayashi
, too, and the Nazi saboteurs' case. Other cases related to the detention. Newspaper clippings and magazines, all sorts of memorabilia. Photos of Hall with beribboned men in uniform.

Does it mean something? The stories he clipped, the photos he saved? Everything seems significant now, pregnant with a hidden meaning. But I cannot coax it out.

I sit down in Hall's chair and realize that I am sweating. Searching this office, entering by deception . . . inside the Pentagon, that must be a serious offense. I am violating national security laws, and Hoover will have no mercy if I am caught.

I open one drawer, then another. A bottle of whiskey, a stack of War Department letterhead, a dime-store Western. I reach for the next. My shirt is sticking to my ribs under the armpits, along the sides. It clings and releases as I pull out the drawer. A folder labeled
Final Report
.

The telephone rings and I jerk upright in the chair. I watch the phone until the noise stops, trying to slow my breathing. I am spending too much time with my hands in dead men's desks. The folder holds a copy of the report delivered to me and a letter from Warrant Officer Theodore Smith testifying that he personally observed the burning of the original version. I try to think. These are War Department machinations. The Anti-Federalists are somewhere else. Bendetsen's not a Harvard man, Hall said. Not clubbable.

The rattle of the doorknob interrupts my thoughts. I hear the secretary's voice outside the door and then another, male. “But you have a key, don't you?”

God
, I think.
This is it
. I crouch down behind the desk. Stupid, pointless. I stand up again. Face the music.

“. . . not to be opened,” the secretary is saying. “The MPs were very clear.” I have to give her credit; her voice is calmer than mine would be. A few more words I don't catch, then silence.

I pull on the credenza door. Locked. But Hall is kind enough to keep the key in the top drawer of his desk. Now it is open. The knob has the wet print of my hand. There are more papers inside. The FCC report about radio signals, the ONI one about subversives. I shake my head, missing him less. Drafts of briefs for Fred Korematsu and Mitsuye Endo, revised in longhand, crumpled and stained. Someone has been going through the ACLU's garbage. My government at work.

I stand up, put my hands to my face, and breathe into them. I still have nothing. My fingers press into my forehead. I can feel sweat trickle down the inside of my bicep as my arms drop. Look, Cash. Think.

Next to the telephone on Hall's desk is a daily planner. Would he? It is worth a shot.

I flip the pages. He has meetings recorded, golf scores, telephone numbers. Some names I recognize, some I don't. Bendetsen, Ennis, Biddle, Frankfurter. A good deal of Phil Haynes. And, at various dates and times, symbols that look for all the world like some sort of cipher. John Hall the secret agent, advertising the clandestine. But there is no way I can crack the code. Unless there's an overlapping record.

I sidle to the office door and listen carefully. There is only the clicking of typewriter keys. I turn the knob and slip out. The secretary looks up hopefully. “Did you find what you were looking for?”

“I think so,” I say. “But I need your help. Did you keep Captain Hall's appointments?”

She nods, opening her desk.

“Anything for the evening of May 17?” I ask.

“No.”

“July 7?”

“No.”

“August 12? Last Wednesday night?”

“No.” There is a squeak in her voice, and she is bending very far forward, her face hidden from view. Looking down I can see the back of her neck turning red. Now I understand what Hall was recording. Maybe one during working hours, then.

“June 24, 10 a.m.”

There is the rustle of pages turning. She doesn't say a word, just slides the calendar to the side for me to see. I read the name written there.

Her voice is still shaky. “Do you need anything else?”

“No,” I say. “You've done your country a great service today.” In fact, there is one more piece of information I need, but there is no reason to torture her further. Somewhere in the Pentagon there is surely someone else who can tell me where to find the man I last saw wrestling with Drew Pearson on Cissy Patterson's floor. Someone else can point me to the office of Colonel Bill Richards.

RICHARDS'S DOOR IS
closed, but it is not locked. I open it and step inside before his secretary can object. His office looks much like Hall's, but it is larger, large enough that the flag standing in the corner does not look too out of place. Like Hall, he has a picture of Roosevelt, but it has been placed on a low shelf of the bookcase. On the wall above his desk is a print of a man I do not recognize.

“Hello, Bill,” I say.

He is reading the Sears catalog and seems flustered at my entrance. Perhaps he has a guilty conscience, or perhaps he is embarrassed at being caught perusing ladies' swimwear. He puts down the catalog but does not stand. “Mr. Harrison,” he says slowly. I cannot quite place his tone. “What can I do for you?”

“I'm here about a friend,” I say. “Or two. Let's start with John Hall.”

He looks at me blankly. “What about him?”

“He was working with you.”

“Sometimes.”

“But not on War Department business.”

Richards hesitates. “Sometimes. Why are you here?”

“Why is John Hall dead?”

Now he looks puzzled. “I hardly think I'm the right person to ask. Call your priest. Or the shore patrol.”

“No,” I say. “I think you have a pretty good idea. Cato.”

“What are you getting at?” He doesn't deny the name, and that's enough of a confession for me.

“You had Hall killed because he was talking to me. Because he was spilling your secrets.”

“Don't be ridiculous.” Richards shakes his head. “I didn't know he was talking to you, and why would I care if he was? I haven't done anything wrong.”

“You and your Anti-Federalist pals.”

“Yes.” He nods. “The Anti-Federalist Society!” He widens his eyes for effect. “You've found us out! So what? We are only doing what any patriots would. Standing against dictatorship and socialism.”

“You call it patriotism.”

“Yes!” An edge of frustration enters his voice. “Look around you, Cash. They're ruining this country. And you're helping them. You'll see where this goes. Do you want to be the last generation to know freedom?”

“You think that justifies murder?”

“What the hell are you talking about?”

“Gene Gressman,” I say. “Investigating attempts to influence the Supreme Court through clerks. Dead. John Hall. Talking to me about your little Anti-Federalist club. Dead. You want to explain that?”

“I'm sorry about your friends,” Richards says. “I don't know anything about Gene Gressman. John Hall, I liked him myself. But there's nothing to explain. They got the guy.”

“What?”

“Earlier today. He confessed. Pulled a knife to defend himself when the fight started, got thrown up against Hall in the scrum. Involuntary manslaughter. You have a very active imagination, Cash.”

“Bullshit!” I say. I have the sense that something is slipping from my grasp. “Don't lie to me. You killed them. You or your friends. And I'm next on the list, as soon as I'm not useful anymore. Don't think I don't know it.”

Richards is shaking his head. “I don't know where you're getting these ideas, but you're way off base. Yes, we tried to influence the Court. You can see for yourself it didn't work. Yes, we called ourselves the Anti-Federalists.”
He gestures upward. “Patrick Henry's on my wall. No one had anyone killed. No one wants to kill you. It's harmless fun.”

“Okay,” I say. “If it's so harmless, tell me who the others are.”

Richards shrugs. He has a smile that's halfway to a smirk. “What makes you think you don't know them already?”

“Give me their names.”

“I don't betray my friends.”

“What clerks did you place on the Court?”

He shakes his head. “I respect a man's privacy.” The smile is entirely smirk now, as though he is telling a joke no one else can hear. “You don't need to worry about us, Cash. We're on your side. Go back to work.”

Frustration builds inside me. “John Hall talked to me on the phone the night he was killed,” I say. “That's how they knew where he was.”

“That's not what happened.”

“Entertain my fantasy for a minute, Bill. Suppose it was. Suppose my phone's tapped. And now suppose I go back home and talk up a storm about how helpful a certain colonel was. How he gave me all the names. Sold out Brutus to save his skin. Promised me more the next time we meet. What's going to happen to you then? Think your friends might start to wonder about you? Might use a knife to find out if your heart's still in the right place?”

It's the wrong tack. Richards's face hardens. “You think I'll talk if you threaten me? You have no idea of honor, do you? No idea of principle. No wonder you're so eager to follow. Just do what the boss tells you. You're a slave, Cash. You're contemptible.”

His tone is sincere, so much that I feel stirrings of doubt as I leave the building. The weather has changed, rain coming down in sheets as evening lowers. By the time I find a taxi it has soaked me through. The vastness of the Pentagon fades into the dusk behind me. Richards is proud of what he is doing. He is a patriot, a man of honor, with nothing to cover up by killing Hall. Uncertainty seeps through my mind. A bad heart, an accident, an overactive imagination. Water pools on the seat beside me. Harmless fun. An innocent club inflated into a murderous conspiracy, the dark forces I chase only shadows.

• • • • 

“Cash,” says Felix Frankfurter. His voice is surprised. “You're wet.”

“I left my umbrella at home.”

“They may be acquired at the Pentagon. Even on the street, I believe.”

“Does it really matter?”

“This is how one catches cold. Particularly as the seasons change. No, don't.” He stops me before I can sit, retrieves a hand towel from the washroom and dabs at me, concern on his face. “Also, these chairs are mine. Louis XIV. A dealer in New York.”

“I found Cato,” I say.

Frankfurter's eyes spark behind his small glasses. “Who?”

“An Army colonel named Bill Richards.”

“And?”

“And he admitted it. Sort of. There is an Anti-Federalist Society, trying to place conservative clerks on the Court. But he wouldn't confess to anything more than that. Nothing to do with Gene or John Hall.”

“You think he was holding back.”

I look down. Despite Frankfurter's ministrations, my hair is dripping. I dab at a wet spot on the chair cushion and enlarge it. “I don't know. He sounded pretty convincing.”

Frankfurter is nodding. “We must proceed logically. The simplest hypothesis that accounts for all the facts. What is left unexplained, if he is telling the truth?”

“The certificates at Tule Lake.”

“True.” Another nod. “Something is going on there. But it may be entirely unrelated. We do not need to make your Colonel Richards a murderer to explain those.”