The Rhinemann Exchange (24 page)

“Then it wasn’t.
Why?
”

“So I know how to behave, that’s all.”

“We thought you should spend a few days getting familiar
with everything. Meet Lyons, me; go over the schedule. What we’re after, that sort of thing.”

“Very considerate.” David saw the questioning look on Kendall’s face. “No, I mean that. So often we get thrown field problems knowing too little background. I’ve done it to men myself.… Then this discharge, the combat in Italy, they’re the cover for my Lisbon activities? For New York only.”

“Yeah, I guess that’s right.” Kendall, who’d been sitting on the edge of his desk, got up and walked around to his chair.

“How far am I to carry it?”

“Carry what?” Kendall avoided looking at David, who was leaning forward on an office couch.

“The cover. The papers mention Fifth Army—that’s Clark; Thirty-Fourth Division, One Hundred and Twelfth Battalion, et cetera. Should I bone up? I don’t know much about the Italian Theater. Apparently I got hit beyond Salerno; are there circumstances?”

“That’s army stuff. As far as I’m concerned you’ll be here five, six days, then Swanson will see you and send you down to Buenos Aires.”

“All right, I’ll wait for General Swanson.” David realized there was no point in pursuing G-2 rituals with Kendall.… Part professional, part amateur. The hesitation waltz.

“Until you leave you’ll spend whatever time you think is necessary with Lyons. In his office.”

“Fine. I’d like to meet him.” David stood up.

“Sit down, he’s not here today. Nobody’s here today but the receptionist. Till one o’clock. It’s New Year’s Eve.” Kendall slumped into his chair and took out a cigarette, which he squeezed. “I’ve got to tell you about Lyons.”

“All right.” David returned to the couch.

“He’s a drunk. He spent four years in jail, in a penitentiary. He can hardly talk because his throat got burned out with raw alcohol.… He’s also the smartest son of a bitch in aerophysics.”

Spaulding stared at Kendall without replying for several moments. When he did speak, he made no attempt to conceal his shock. “That’s kind of a contradictory recommendation, isn’t it?”

“I said he’s smart.”

“So are half the lunatics in Bellevue. Can he
function?
Since he’s going to be my ‘property’—as you put it—I’d like to know what the hell you’ve given me. And
why
, not incidentally.”

“He’s the best.”

“That doesn’t answer my question. Questions.”

“You’re a soldier. You take orders.”

“I give them, too. Don’t start that way.”

“All right.… O.K. You’re entitled, I guess.”

“I’d say so.”

“Eugene Lyons wrote the book on physical aerodynamics; he was the youngest full professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Maybe he was too young; he went downhill fast. Bum marriage, a lot of drinking, a lot of debts; the debts did it, they usually do. That and too many brains no one wants to pay for.”

“Did what?”

“He went out of his skull, a week’s bender. When he woke up in a South Side Boston hotel room, the girl he was with was dead. He’d beaten her to death.… She was a whore so nobody cared too much; still, he did it. They called it unpremeditated murder and MIT got him a good lawyer. He served four years, got out and nobody would hire him, wouldn’t touch him.… That was 1936. He gave up; joined the skid row bums. I mean he really joined them.” Kendall paused and grinned.

David was disturbed by the accountant’s smile; there was nothing funny in the story. “Obviously he didn’t stay there.” It was all he could think to say.

“Did for damn near three years. Got his throat burned out right down on Houston Street.”

“That’s very sad.”

“Best thing that happened to him. In the hospital ward they took his history and a doctor got interested. He was shipped off to the goddamned CCC, was reasonably rehabilitated, and what with the war coming he got into defense work.”

“Then he’s all right now.” Spaulding made the statement positively. Again, it was all he could think to say.

“You don’t clean out a man like that overnight. Or in a couple of years.… He has lapses, falls into the booze barrel now and then. Since working on classified stuff he’s cooped up with his own personal wardens. For instance,
here in New York he’s got a room at St. Luke’s Hospital. He’s taken back and forth just like your socialite drunks.… In California, Lockheed’s got him in a garden apartment with male nurses round the clock, when he’s away from the plant. Actually, he’s got it pretty good.”

“He must be valuable. That’s a lot of trouble.…”

“I told you,” interrupted Kendall. “He’s
the best.
He’s just got to be watched.”

“What happens when he’s on his own? I mean, I’ve known alcoholics; they can slip away, often ingeniously.”

“That’s no problem. He’ll get liquor—when he wants it; he’ll be ingenious about that. But he doesn’t go outside by himself. He won’t go where there are any people, if you know what I mean.”

“I’m not sure I do.”

“He doesn’t talk. The best he can manage is a hoarse whisper; remember, his throat was boiled out. He stays away from people.… Which is fine. When he’s not drinking—which is most of the time—he’s reading and working. He’ll spend days in a laboratory stone sober and never go outside. It’s just fine.”

“How does he communicate? In the lab? In a meeting?”

“Pad and pencil, a few whispers, his hands. Mostly a pad and pencil. It’s just numbers, equations, diagrams. That’s his language.”

“His entire language?”

“That’s right.… If you’re thinking about holding a conversation with him, forget it. He hasn’t had a conversation with anyone in ten years.”

Spaulding hurried down Madison Avenue to the northeast corner of B. Altman’s. There was a light snow falling; taxis rushed past the few pedestrians signaling in the middle of the block. The better fares were at the department store’s entrance, carrying last-minute purchases for New Year’s Eve. People who shopped at Altman’s on the afternoon of New Year’s Eve were prime passengers. Why waste gas on less?

David found himself walking faster than he had reason to; he wasn’t going anywhere, to any specific place that required his presence at a specific time; he was getting away from Walter Kendall as fast as he could.

Kendall had finished his briefing on Eugene Lyons with the statement that “two hulks” would accompany the scientist to Buenos Aires. There’d be no liquor for the hermitmute with his throat burned out; the male nurses carried “horse pills” at all times. Eugene Lyons, with no drink available, would spend hours over the work problems. Why not? He didn’t do anything
else.
No conversations, David mused.

David turned down Kendall’s offer of lunch on the pretext of looking up family friends. After all, it had been over three years.… He’d be in the office on January 2.

The truth was that Spaulding just wanted to get away from the man. And there was another reason: Leslie Jenner Hawkwood.

He didn’t know where he’d begin, but he had to begin quickly. He had roughly a week to learn the story behind that incredible evening two nights ago. The beginning
would include a widow named Bonner, that much he knew.

Perhaps Aaron Mandel could help him.

He took a dollar bill from his pocket and approached the doorman in front of Altman’s. A taxi was found in less than a minute.

The ride uptown was made to the accompanying loquaciousness of the driver, who seemed to have an opinion on most any subject. David found the man annoying; he wanted to think and it was difficult. Then suddenly he was grateful to him.

“I was gonna catch the New Year’s Eve crowds, like up at the Plaza, you know what I mean? There’s big tips over at those war relief things. But the wife said no. She said come home, drink a little wine, pray to God our boy gets through the year. Now, I gotta. I mean if anything happened, I’d figure it was the tips I made New Year’s Eve. Superstitions! What the hell, the kid’s a typist in Fort Dix.”

David had forgotten the obvious. No, not forgotten; he just hadn’t considered the possibilities because they did not relate to him. Or he to them. He was in New York. On New Year’s Eve. And that meant parties, dances, charity balls and an infinite variety of war-created celebrations in a dozen ballrooms and scores of townhouses.

Mrs. Paul Bonner would be at one of those places, at one of those parties. It had been four months since her husband had been killed. It was sufficient mourning under the circumstances, for the times. Friends—other women like Leslie Jenner, but of course not Leslie Jenner—would make that clear to her. It was the way social Manhattan behaved. And quite reasonable, all things considered.

It shouldn’t be too difficult to find out where she was going. And if he found her, he’d find others … it was a place to start.

He tipped the driver and walked rapidly into the Montgomery lobby.

“Oh, Mr. Spaulding!” The old desk clerk’s voice echoed in the marble enclosure. “There’s a message for you.”

He crossed to the counter. “Thank you.” He unfolded the paper;
Mr. Fairfax had telephoned. Would he return the call as soon as possible?

Ed Pace wanted to reach him.

The thread was intact under the door lock. He entered his room and went directly to the telephone.

“We got something in on the Hawkwood girl,” Pace said. “Thought you’d want to know.”

“What is it?” Why, oh
why
, did Pace
always
start conversations like that? Did he expect him to say, no, I don’t want to know anything, and hang up?

“It fits in, I’m afraid, with my opinion of the other night. Your antenna’s been working overtime.”

“For Christ’s sake, Ed, I’ll pin a medal on you whenever you like. What
is
it?”

“She plays around. She’s got a wide sex life in the Los Angeles area. Discreet but busy. A high-class whore, if I don’t offend you.”

“You don’t offend me. What’s the source?”

“Several brother officers to begin with; navy and air force. Then some of the movie people, actors and a couple of studio executives. And the social-industrial crowd: Lockheed, Sperry Rand. She’s not the most welcome guest at the Santa Monica Yacht Club.”

“Is there a G-2 pattern?”

“First thing we looked for. Negative. No classified personnel in her bed. Just rank: military and civilian. And she
is
in New York. Careful inquiry says she went back to visit her parents for Christmas.”

“There are no Jenners listed in the phone book who’ve ever heard of her.”

“In Bernardsville, New Jersey?”

“No,” said David wearily. “Manhattan. You
did
say New York.”

“Try Bernardsville. If you want to find her. But don’t hand in any expense vouchers; you’re not on a courier run in the north country.”

“No. Bernardsville is hunt country.”

“What?”

“Very social territory. Stables and stirrup cups.… Thanks, Ed. You just saved me a lot of work.”

“Think nothing of it. All you’ve had is the conduit center of Allied Intelligence solving the problems of your sex life. We try to please our employees.”

“I promise to reenlist when it’s all over. Thanks again.”

“Dave?”

“Yes?”

“I’m not cleared for the Swanson job, so no specifics, but how does it strike you?”

“I’ll be damned if I know why you’re
not
cleared. It’s a simple purchase being handled by some oddballs—at least one … no, two that I know about. The one I’ve met is a winner. It seems to me they’ve complicated the deal, but that’s because they’re new at it.… We could have done it better.”

“Have you met Swanson?”

“Not yet. After the holidays, I’m told. What the hell, we wouldn’t want to interfere with the brigadier’s Christmas vacation. School doesn’t start until the first week in January.”

Pace laughed on the other end of the line. “Happy New Year, Dave.”

“The same, Ed. And thanks.”

Spaulding replaced the receiver. He looked at his watch; it was one fifteen. He could requisition an army vehicle somewhere, he supposed, or borrow a car from Aaron Mandel. Bernardsville was about an hour outside New York, west of the Oranges, if he remembered correctly. It might be best to take Leslie Jenner by surprise, giving her no chance to run. On the other hand, on the premise he had considered before Pace’s call, Leslie was probably in New York, preparing for the New Year’s Eve she’d promised him. Somewhere, someplace. In an apartment or a brownstone or a hotel room like his own.

Spaulding wondered for a moment whether Pace had a point. Was he trying to find Leslie for reasons quite apart from his suspicions? The lies, the search.… It was possible. Why not? But a two- to three-hour drive to west Jersey and back would bring him no closer to either objective, investigatory or Freudian. If she wasn’t there.

He asked the Montgomery switchboard to get him the number of the Jenner residence in Bernardsville, New Jersey. Not to place the call, just get the telephone number. And the address. Then he called Aaron Mandel.

He had postponed it for as long as he could; Aaron would be filled with tears and questions and offers of anything under the Manhattan sun and moon. Ed Pace told him he had interviewed the old concert manager four years
ago before approaching David for Lisbon; that would mean he could reasonably avoid any lengthy discussions about his work.

And Aaron might be able to help him, should he need the old man’s particular kind of assistance. Mandel’s New York contacts were damn near inexhaustible. David would know more after he reached Bernardsville; and it would be less awkward to have made his duty call to Aaron before asking favors.

At first Spaulding thought the old man would have a coronary over the telephone. Aaron’s voice choked, conveying his shock, his concern … and his love. The questions came faster than David could answer them: his mother, his father, his own well-being.

Mandel did not ask him about his work, but neither would he be satisfied that David was as healthy as he claimed. Aaron insisted on a meeting, if not this evening then certainly tomorrow.