Chancellor stood at the bar in the restaurant on East Fifty-sixth Street. It strove to be an uprooted English chophouse, and Peter liked it. The atmosphere was conducive to long lunches given to volubility.
He had called Tony Morgan and Joshua Harris and had asked them to meet him there. Then he’d taken the late afternoon flight out of Los Angeles. For the first time in months he slept in his own apartment—how sane it felt. He should have come back much sooner. His false California sanctuary had become a very real prison.
It was happening. Something inside his head had snapped, a barricade had been shattered, freeing stored-up energy. He had no idea whether anything Longworth told him made any sense at all. No, it was too preposterous! The fact of assassination was in and of itself beyond reason. But the premise was fascinating. And every story began with a premise. The possibilities were as provocative as anything he had approached. Would an extraordinary man named Sutherland concede there was even a remote chance Hoover had been killed? Could a long-missing insert in a military record of a general named MacAndrew be tied in with the concept?
A momentary flash of light shot through the windows that fronted the street, drawing his eyes to the outside. Then he smiled as he saw the figures of Anthony Morgan and Joshua Harris walking together toward the entrance. The two men were arguing, but only those who knew them well would have understood that. To the casual observer they were two people talking quietly, oblivious to their surroundings and, conceivably, each other.
Tony Morgan was the physical embodiment of the Ivy League postgraduate turned New York publisher. He was slender and tall with shoulders slightly stooped from too many years of courteously feigning interest in the opinions of lesser mortals; his face was thin, the features clean, the brown eyes always a little distant but never vacant. Single-breasted charcoal suits and English-style tweed jackets above inevitable gray flannel trousers were his uniforms. He and Brooks Brothers had gone together for most of his forty-one years, and neither saw any reason to change.
But clothes and appearances did not capture the mercurial essence of Anthony Morgan. That was found in his explosions of enthusiasm and his infectious proselytizing of a manuscript-in-progress or the discovery of an exciting new talent. Morgan was the complete publisher and an editor of rare perception.
And if Morgan the man was somehow sprung from within the cloistered walls of academic New England, Joshua Harris seemingly floated through the centuries from some elegant royal court of the 1700s. Generous of girth, Harris’s posture was erect, his bearing imperial. His large body moved gracefully, each step taken with deliberateness as if he were part of a baronial procession. He too was in his early forties, the years further disguised by a black chin beard that lent a slightly sinister quality to an otherwise pleasant face.
Peter knew there were scores of editors and agents in New York of equal, perhaps more than equal, stature, and he realized that neither Morgan nor Harris was universally loved. He’d heard the criticisms: Tony’s arrogance and often misplaced enthusiasms, Josh’s relish for uncomfortable confrontations based frequently on unfounded charges of abuse. But the detractions did not matter to Chancellor. For him these men were the best. Because they cared.
Peter signed his bar check and made his way to the foyer. Josh walked through the front door held by Tony, who, quite naturally, allowed an intervening couple to enter in front of him. The greetings were too loud, too casual. Peter saw the concern in both men’s eyes; each looked at him as though studying a disoriented brother.
The table was the usual table. In the corner, slightly separated from the others. The drinks were the usual drinks, and Chancellor was both amused and irritated to see Josh and Tony watch him closely when the whisky arrived.
“Call off the alert. I promise not to dance on the table.”
“Really, Peter …” began Morgan.
“Come on, now …” completed Harris.
They cared. That was the important thing. And the moment passed, the recognition of the unspoken accepted. There was business to be discussed: Chancellor began.
“I met a man; don’t ask me who, I won’t tell you. Let’s say I met him on the beach, and he told me the outlines of a story that I don’t for a minute believe, but I think it could be the basis for one hell of a book.”
“Before you go on,” interrupted Harris, “did you make any agreement with him?”
“He doesn’t want anything. I gave my word I’d never identify him.” Peter stopped, his eyes on Joshua Harris. The literary agent had made the inquiries; he had placed the call to Washington. “As a matter of fact, you’re the only one who could. By name. But you can’t. I’ll hold you to it.”
“Go on,” said Joshua Harris.
“Several years ago a few men in Washington became alarmed over what they considered a very dangerous situation. Maybe more than dangerous, maybe catastrophic. J. Edgar Hoover had compiled a couple of thousand dossiers on the most influential people in the country. In the House, the Senate, the Pentagon, the White House. Presidential and congressional advisors, leading authorities in a dozen different fields. The older Hoover got, the more concerned they became. Stories began to leak out of the bureau that Hoover was actually using those files to intimidate those who opposed him.”
“Wait a minute, Peter,” broke in Morgan. “That story—and variations of it—has been around for years. What’s the point?”
Chancellor leveled his eyes on Morgan. “I’ll jump. Hoover died four months ago, and no autopsy was permitted. And those files were missing.”
There was silence at the table. Morgan leaned forward, revolving his glass slowly, the ice cubes circling in the whisky. “That’s quite a jump. Hoover was damned near eighty years old; he had a heart condition.”
“Who says those files are missing?” asked Harris. “They could have been destroyed, shredded. Or buried.”
“Of course, they could,” agreed Peter.
“But you’re implying that someone killed Hoover for them,” said Morgan.
“I’m not implying, I’m stating it. As a fictional premise, not as fact. I didn’t say I believed it, but I think I could make it believable.”
Again there was silence. Morgan looked at Harris, and then at Peter. “It’s a sensational idea,” he said cautiously. “A powerful hypothesis. Perhaps too powerful, too current. You’d have to build a solid foundation, and I don’t know if that’s possible.”
“This man on the beach,” said Joshua. “This man neither of us will identify. Does he believe it?”
Chancellor stared at his drink. He realized that when he answered Harris, his voice was as tentative as his judgment. “I don’t really know. I have an idea—and it’s just an idea—that he thinks the killing was on a drawing board somewhere. That was enough for him. Enough for him to give me two sources to check out.”
“Connected to Hoover?” asked Morgan.
“No, he didn’t go so far as to claim that. He said it was only speculation. One name’s related to that group in Washington who were nervous about the files, and Hoover’s use of them. The other’s pretty farfetched. It concerns lost information over twenty years old.”
Morgan held Peter’s attention. “They could be your foundation.”
“Sure. But if there’s any truth at all about that group, I’d have to fictionalize completely. He’s that kind of man. The other I don’t know anything about.”
“Do you want to tell us who they are?” asked Joshua. “Not yet. I just want your reaction to the idea. To a novel about Hoover’s assassination. Killed by people who knew of those files and wanted them for their own purposes.”
“It’s sensational,” repeated Morgan.
“It’s going to cost you,” said Harris, looking at the editor.