“It clearly looked like a kind of code,” I said to Sam Goldrich, who’d been the defense attorney at my trial, and was the only person I could think of to go to on such a delicate matter.
He listened attentively to how I described it from across his desk.
“There were numbers. Organized in groups of threes.” I pushed a piece of paper across to him. “As soon as I left I wrote them down. The rest was burned beyond recognition.”
“A code, you say…?” Sam inspected the paper with a skeptical frown. The lawyer was the son of a family friend and had done an excellent job of playing upon the shift in public opinion against Germany in getting my sentence reduced. “Don’t you think you’re getting your oars ahead of you just a bit on this, Charlie?”
“You wouldn’t say that if you saw the look Trudi gave me when she caught me staring at it,” I said. “She turned white as a ghost.”
“Maybe she thought you were throwing out the rest of her fruitcake,” he said, suppressing a grin.
“Very funny,” I scoffed. “Anyway, that’s what Liz thinks too. That I’ve been seeing too many war propaganda films.”
“And have you?”
“Unless you call Sergeant York a propaganda film.” I looked at him. “No.”
“All right then. Let’s go through it again. There are a couple of unusual visitors you’ve bumped into on Liz’s landing or spotted having a coffee at a restaurant where pro-Nazi agitators have been known to congregate. Then there’s this particular German word that this elderly couple who lives next door supposedly taught your daughter.”
“Lebensraum,” I repeated for him. “And it’s not just a word, Sam. It’s a core Nazi belief. You might recall, it was their basis for annexing the Sudetenland and invading Poland back in ’39.”
“Yes, I do know that, Charles. But to be fair, half the neighborhood speaks German up in that part of town, do they not?”
“The Bauers claim to be Swiss,” I corrected him. “Or so they say.”
“Yes, Swiss. Of course. Though what’s the most common language in Switzerland, if I’m not mistaken…? Anyway, what else…? Oh, yes, these burnt strips of paper you say you found in their trash bin. When you were throwing out the fruitcake.”
“You’re making it all sound so trivial, Sam,” I said with an edge of frustration.
“Okay, sorry, with numbers on them then. These numbers. That you’re interpreting as a kind of code. But just as easily, and in fact far more likely, could simply be a date. Or a telephone number. Or the number of a receipt for a pair of shoes Mrs. Bauer purchased.”
“These are no telephone numbers, Sam. And tell me if they resemble any receipt. And why would they be torn up into tiny strips,” I asked, “and then set on fire? All but this one fragment. Unless they were trying to hide something.”
“Maybe because the wife didn’t want her husband to find out?” he surmised.
“About what?” I asked.
“About the shoes. All very nefarious.” Sam’s eyes twinkled. “Who knows?”
“You’re making me sound like a fool, Sam. Like I’m inventing the whole thing. I assure you I’m not. You know I’m not the most believable person in the city right now. I didn’t have anyone else to go to.”
“I know that, Charlie. I’m sorry. And I trust you’re not making it up. But it is possible you are attaching some unjustifiable importance to all these events. That’s possible, isn’t it?”
“It’s possible. But putting it all together, it all adds up.”
“To what? What exactly are you saying, Charlie? That these people are spies?”
“I don’t know what I’m saying, Sam.” I pushed myself back in my chair.
His secretary stepped in, saying, “Excuse me, Mr. Goldrich…” and put a message on his desk. He glanced at it a second, then nodded soberly at her. “Just give me a minute,” he said.
I said, “The government itself is concerned about the existence of some kind of fifth column at work here.” The term had originated in Spain, during the civil war. A Nationalist general announced that five separate columns were advancing on Madrid. One from the south, one from the north, another from the southwest, and a fourth from the northeast. A fifth column, he said, made up of foreign agents and domestic traitors, who employed espionage, was ready to erupt from within the capital itself. People were now concerned that a German “fifth column” could happen here.
“You saw the headlines last month, Sam. Twenty-six of them, operating right here in New York. Ordinary citizens,” I said. “Engineers, accountants, even attorneys. And look what they were on to apparently—some supersecret bomb site no one even knew existed. But they knew.”
“Yes, and the FBI was all over them, weren’t they?” Sam countered. “They didn’t need some out-of-work history instructor drawing pictures with his daughter to root them out.”
“I don’t know how they got onto them, Sam. Maybe at some point it was just someone attaching an ‘unjustifiable importance’ to something he saw that didn’t seem kosher.”
My lawyer exhaled a breath and put up his palms, as if granting me the point. Then he said, “Your brother died in Spain, right, Charlie?”
I stared. “What does that have to do with anything?”
“I’m just saying … He was fighting the Nationalists, no?”
“Sam, this isn’t some suppressed attempt to come to terms with Ben’s death,” I said, not liking the inference I was drawing. “I’m presenting you facts. This is real.”
“More like suppositions,” the lawyer said. “And I’m not saying that’s what it is—about Ben. Look…” He pushed back his wire-rim glasses. “This isn’t exactly my expertise. If they sued you for slander, or beat you up on the street—Christ, bad example, sorry”—he put up his palms in apology—“then I’d know exactly what to tell you to do. With this, I suppose you could go to the police. Or the FBI. But I’m pretty sure the police would tell you that half the people in Yorkville are seeing Nazi spies across the hall these days. And let me remind you that as of now we’re not at war with anyone. It’s not a crime, congregating with Nazis. Of course, with what happened in the North Atlantic a couple of weeks ago…” The Kearny, a destroyer, was sunk by a German U-boat, while guarding an Allied convoy, with fourteen sailors lost. The first U.S. casualties with Germany. “We may soon well be.”
“So, in your non-expertise, Sam”—I exhaled in frustration—“what would you have me do?”
“What would I have you do…? I’d have you do nothing, Charlie. Mind your own business. As you said, you don’t exactly have the kind of résumé that would be an asset in court. Just work on getting yourself back into society’s good graces. That would be my professional advice.”
I snorted an annoyed blast out my nose.
“Now as a matter of domestic security…” He shrugged. “My gut is that you would need a bit more tangible evidence to interest someone in what you have. Not that I want you to go around digging for it, mind you. Leave that up to the professionals. Please. And not a good thing at all these days for a Jew,” he wagged his finger at me, “to be going around ratting on their neighbors, if you know what I mean. It only makes it seem as if we’re trying to gin up a war, to protect our own interests with what’s happening in Europe. Not the country’s interest. You heard Lindbergh’s speech last month. Even though as a member of the tribe, and as someone who hates these Nazi bastards as much as anyone, I’d be the first to stand up and cheer if we did. It’s going to happen, Charlie. Sooner or later. We all know that. Then maybe some of the things you’re alleging might actually get someone’s attention.
“But now, if you don’t mind, since I’m not charging you a dime for this conversation, I’ll have to take this…,” he said, holding up the message. “Wife shot her husband who was cheating on him. Precisely my stock-in-trade.”
“Well, I may need you on something else,” I said, standing up and taking hold of my hat. “Closer to your usual business. Liz is going to seek a divorce.”
“Oh. I’m sorry to hear that,” the lawyer said. “Though it’s not completely out of the blue, is it? Sorry for your little girl though. Keep me posted and I’ll get you with the right people. They’ll fleece you dry though. And Charlie…”
I turned at the door.
“Please stay out of this espionage thing. You hear me? Either you’re right and they’re truly bad sorts, or you’re wrong, and they’re the nicest people in the world. Either way, you’ll only get yourself in trouble. Or worse—God forbid—if you catch my meaning. If they’re engaged in the kind of business you’re thinking they are. Whichever way, it doesn’t bode well for you. You understand?”
“I understand.” I nodded, opening his office door. “And I’ll be in touch on that other thing. With Liz. Thanks.”