IN THE MORNING he woke early, but stayed at home until the locksmith came. It took him almost an hour to change the lock. Guttman retreated to his study to use the phone, wanting to catch Nessheim before he went to class.
He was surprised when a woman answered, and wondered if he’d got the wrong number. He wanted to hang up, but he had made the call station-to-station, so the operator put him through. ‘Is Nessheim there, please?’ he asked.
‘You’ve missed him,’ the woman said. She had a low breathy voice, and didn’t sound like a college girl to Guttman. No wonder Annie hadn’t heard from Nessheim. ‘Can I take a message?’ she asked.
‘Tell him Harry called, will you? And get him to call me.’
‘Sure I will. Has he got your number? And your last name?’ The woman gave a throaty laugh, which tingled Guttman’s spine like a spa masseur’s roller.
‘Yes on both counts. Will you be seeing him, miss?’ He wanted to keep the conversation going.
‘Not ’til supper time, Harry. You don’t mind if I call you Harry, do you, Harry?’
He laughed. ‘Be my guest. Since we’re so familiar now, what would your name be?’
‘You can call me MW if you like.’
‘Okay. What’s that stand for?’
‘Mystery Woman. Don’t worry – I’ll give Nessheim your message. I’ll say bye now, Harry. Nice speaking to you.’
Guttman put down the phone. It was nine-thirty his time, an hour earlier out there. He couldn’t believe ‘Mystery Woman’ had gone to Nessheim’s place just for breakfast. Was she shacking up with the guy? It sounded that way. Guttman thought of that voice again, and felt a mixture of envy and alarm.
He got to the office just after eleven, stopped a floor below his office and went down the hall to Records and Files. A young man in round-framed spectacles and wearing a bow tie came out from the stacks to the counter.
‘Where’s Ant?’ asked Guttman impatiently.
‘Mr Antrim has transferred to the Armory.’
‘Since when?’
‘I believe on reflection that it was in May.’ Spoken like a small-town librarian, intent to show he was more cultured than the provincial baboons he was employed to serve.
‘What’s your name?’
‘Luther Toobis.’
Guttman nodded, as if he’d been expecting this remarkable moniker. ‘Well, Luther, I want to check a Germ-Am file.’
‘Pardon?’
‘The German-American Index. It’s the sympathisers directory.’
‘Ah, of course,’ the man said, as if the misunderstanding were Guttman’s fault. ‘What was the name?’
Guttman told him, trying to suppress his irritation. Luther said, ‘I’ll just go and see.’
The Toobis guy was quick; you had to hand him that. He couldn’t have been more than two minutes. ‘Nothing in the index, I’m afraid. And of course no file.’
‘Of course.’ Guttman paused. ‘While we’re at it, could you have a look at the ACP register?’
The man tilted his head until he was looking at Guttman over the tops of his glasses. ‘The ACP register? Same name?’ He sounded incredulous.
Guttman’s patience snapped. He had been pulling files while this kid was in short pants. ‘Son, just do what I ask.’
Luther didn’t dignify this with a reply. This time he was a little longer in the file rooms – sulking, Guttman figured. But when he returned he looked puzzled. ‘He’s listed in the register all right, but there’s no file.’
‘You mean there never was a file?’
‘I don’t know. My understanding is that for a name to be listed in the register it has to have a file. I guess I was wrong.’
I don’t think so, thought Guttman. ‘What was the register code?’ he asked. There was a hierarchy for American Communists: M for member, S for sympathiser, A for associations with.
‘A,’ said Luther.
‘Right. Now tell me, are the case files still here?’ There was something else he needed to check, he realised, now that he’d learned that Grant’s file had gone missing, but he was still reeling from discovering which directory Grant’s name could be found in.
‘It depends on the years,’ said Luther.
‘I’m talking before the war – 1935 to 1940.’
‘Those would be at the Armory. Only wartime and current are here now.’ Then, mistaking Guttman’s newly relaxed air for friendliness, he said, ‘How come you asked me to search both ways for this guy Grant?’
‘How’s that?’
‘Well, I can understand if someone’s a Nazi, and I can understand if they’re a Communist. But you had me look at both registers.’
‘Got to cover the bases,’ said Guttman, trying to hide how startled he felt.
He left and took the stairs rather than the elevator. Perkins had been murdered all right, and Grant had been sent in his place. But not because the Germans had sent him there.
As he came into his suite, Marie looked up and smiled. She always seemed happy to see him. ‘How’s your mom, Harry?’ she asked.
‘Not so hot,’ he said, and this was true.
‘You see anybody else up there?’
‘How’s that?’ he asked suspiciously.
‘I don’t mean business, Harry. I mean, did you have any fun?’
Fun? He had almost forgotten the word. Marie was watching him sympathetically. Or was it pity? He said gruffly, ‘I’ve got a call to make.’
‘Okay. Don’t forget your supper date.’
‘What supper?’
Marie exhaled with frustration. ‘Our supper. You’re coming over day after tomorrow.’
There had been a lot of invitations in recent months from Marie. Had he actually accepted one? It looked that way. The prospect exhausted him but he nodded knowingly. Marie said, ‘Six-thirty, Harry. I’ll write the address down. If you forget, so help me I’ll brain you.’
It took twenty minutes to track down the Chairman of the Physics Department, and only thirty seconds for Guttman to be surprised again.
‘Are you absolutely sure?’ he asked incredulously.
‘Yes, Mr Guttman. I am absolutely sure. I saw him forty minutes ago and he was late for a seminar.’ The Chairman sounded impatient.
‘He hasn’t ever worked at Columbia?’
‘Not during my time here. And that’s been ten years.’
‘Or been working in Chicago in the last twelve months?’
The man sighed. ‘Nor working in Chicago. Since it’s eight hundred miles away, I think I’d be aware of that. Now I think of it, Professor Grant did spend one term at the Institute for Advanced Studies a few years back.’
‘Where was that?’ asked Guttman, his hopes rising.
‘Here in Princeton, Mr Guttman. Sorry to disappoint you.’
When he put the phone down, Marie came in. ‘Mr Tolson called. He dropped by yesterday. He wants to talk to you.’
Marie shook her head. ‘He wants to see you in his office.’
‘When?’ He was puzzled by the formality of Tolson’s request. Usually when he wanted to talk to Guttman, the Associate Director would come down and stick his head in through the door. Not that such informality meant anything – as he stood hanging by an arm from the doorway, Tolson was equally happy to shoot the breeze or berate him.
‘You’ve got ten minutes,’ said Marie, who though watch-less always seemed able to tell the time within a minute or two. Guttman, with the chunky Swiss watch his wife had bought him for a birthday, usually found he’d forgotten to wind the goddamned thing.
He slapped one cheek, trying to stir himself. A Tolson summons meant trouble, and Guttman would need all his wits about him. Out of self-preservation he had to duck Hoover’s sidekick for now. ‘I’ve got to go out. I’ll see Tolson later.’
‘What do I tell him?’ Marie asked with alarm.
Guttman was already grabbing his coat. ‘Tell him I had to see the doctor. Tell him it was urgent. Tell him I have a bad case of … I don’t know. Corns.’
‘Corns? Harry, that will never wash.’
Harry hunched both shoulders helplessly. ‘Tell him it’s serious. Think up something, okay? If he’s free later, I’ll see him after lunch.’
He was out the door before Marie could protest any more.
He checked his watch in the elevator and decided it was safe to leave the building now. Tolson wouldn’t be leaving for another half-hour – with Hoover to have lunch, as they did daily at the nearby Mayflower Hotel.
They also drove to work together each morning, and drove home together at the end of the day. They were like a married couple whose mutual fascination had never flagged. Isabel, who knew some French, had told Guttman it was a marriage blanche, and contrary to the furtive commentary that was rife, Guttman was also convinced the relationship was entirely asexual. To Guttman, Hoover was as sexless as the Sphinx. If Tolson was not so neutral, his outlet must have been among the succession of handsome young agents working directly for him. Like his young assistant T.A. whom Marie liked so much.
What struck Guttman was that the emotional life of the Hoover–Tolson relationship also seemed inordinately sublimated, even in the privacy of their chauffeured car. Their driver Smitty had in an unguarded moment told Guttman that their demeanour was as unrelaxed there as in the office. They sat stiffly in the back of the chauffeured car, while Tolson deferred like an obedient junior to Hoover’s opinions on everything, from the vulgarity of a billboard they drove by to the shortcomings of the Dallas Field Office. Tellingly, even alone with the man, Tolson addressed Hoover as ‘Boss’.
Guttman now had lunch in a diner off DuPont Circle. It was far enough from the Justice Department building that he could be confident of not seeing anyone from work. He sat on a low stool at the counter, eating a grilled cheese sandwich and drinking a soda, letting the events of the last two days sink in.
He’d learned that sometimes a kind of half-conscious filtering process worked best for him. He could spend hours with a yellow legal pad and pencil, writing down the facts he knew, making links between them, trying to describe the motivations and intentions of the players he encountered – players being the apt word, since he always thought of complicated cases as taking place upon a playing field, or even a double-sized stage. But there were times when this detailed rational process only furthered his confusion, and this was one of them.
He walked back slowly to the Justice Department, his overcoat collar tipped up under his ears. The harsh westerlies blowing now weren’t bringing rain, just a bitter gusting cold that made him wish he’d been sensible enough to wear his old wool overcoat. Isabel wouldn’t have let him leave the house without it. Not for the first time, he missed her mothering of him, something she’d insisted on and he’d accepted, if only to balance the protective role he had assumed during the years of her illness. You’re on your own, he told himself, and though he felt readier for Tolson now, the words ran through his head like a dirge.
Tolson had recently moved office, and was now separated from the Director only by Mrs Gandy and the duo of girls she kept employed typing reports under her demanding spinster’s eye. Tolson’s new office was modest, the size of a travelling rep’s hotel room, and sparsely furnished with only a desk and chairs – for meetings Tolson used the conference room across the hall where the weekly Executives Conference was held. Unlike Hoover, Tolson had the drapes pulled back; a fresh-air fetishist, he kept the window open a good six inches even in November, which provided a chill counterpoint to the overheating radiators.
‘You been travelling?’ Tolson asked curtly. Guttman tried not to show his surprise; he had expected the usual enquiries after his health.
‘Just to New York. Family stuff.’
‘Anything new up there with Sebold?’
‘No. He’s still broadcasting, and the Nazis seem to be buying it.’
‘You ever think of sending him back in?’
‘How’s that?’
‘Like he was still operating as a spy. He could try and make contact with sympathisers. That sort of thing.’
‘How would that work?’ Tolson had spent about three weeks total in the field – in Buffalo, New York, a decade before. At times like this, his inexperience showed.
Tolson shrugged. ‘Undercover.’
‘We both know the Director’s view.’
‘That didn’t stop you before.’ He looked at Guttman with apparent sympathy.
‘Once bitten, twice shy. It worked that time – as you know. But I don’t think I’d want to try it again.’
‘Nessheim used a Kraut name, didn’t he? Ross-something.’
‘Rossbach,’ Guttman said flatly. He didn’t understand what Tolson was getting at, but he didn’t like it.
‘That’s right. How is our ballplayer these days?’
‘Beats me. Not playing ball, that’s for sure.’
Tolson pushed a paperweight along the desk with one hand, then back with the other. Guttman watched it dully; it was a winter scene, with a little church in the middle. As it moved along the desktop the snowflakes whirled, obscuring the steeple.
‘The reason I ask,’ said Tolson, his eyes on the paperweight, ‘is that if you don’t know what Nessheim’s up to, somebody else does. Otherwise, why is he back on the payroll?’
Guttman kicked himself. How stupid to fall into a classic Tolson trap. The benevolent pleasantry, the meandering comment, and then bam! – the trap closed tight, teeth sharp and lethal. That’s why people underestimated Tolson at their peril. Where Hoover sat remotely atop the organisation, protecting it from without, Tolson guarded the regime with assiduous viciousness from within. He possessed a hound’s fine nose for detecting any deviation from the company line, and with Tolson in place, there was never any credible chance of a coup.
Guttman sat silently for a minute, looking at the photographs Tolson kept on the top of a glass cabinet set against the side wall. When Tolson did this the trick was to stay calm; not to stutter or protest or too obviously prevaricate. So he stared at a picture of the young Tolson in football uniform – who looked singularly stupid with his leather helmet on, his uniform pristine.
‘That is down to me,’ Guttman said at last, turning his eyes to meet Tolson’s unbenevolent gaze. ‘Payroll messed up when Nessheim left – they owed him four weeks’ salary. I tried to sort it out, but half the bookkeepers seem to be signing up. Finally, I just threw up my hands, and put him back on payroll for a month. He’ll be off by Christmas.’
‘Is he doing anything for the money?’
Guttman shook his head. ‘No, it’s due him, like I said. He’s in law school now. It’s what he always wanted.’
‘So you’ve seen the guy? He’s happy?’
‘He was here in the summer. That’s when he resigned.’ Guttman told himself this was the truth. Just not all of it. He needed a diversion fast; fortunately, Grant in Princeton could provide just that. ‘Listen, I’ve found something out that could be important.’
‘Yeah?’ Tolson’s interest was piqued.
Guttman decided to keep the late Arthur Perkins out of his account, since that would only lead back to Nessheim. He was thinking on his feet, wanting to divert Tolson with a spiel that would lead the man anywhere except Chicago and Nessheim. He took a deep breath and started talking fast. ‘You remember the State Department guy who was murdered in Rock Creek Park?’ Thornton Palmer, an improbable Communist – born to wealth, a graduate of Yale – who had come to Guttman out of a mix of guilt for betraying his country, and hope that Guttman could clear his name and protect him. Guttman had not been able to do either.
‘That was when you went hunting for spies all on your little lonesome,’ Tolson said sourly.
Guttman ignored this. ‘And Palmer led me to Sedgwick, that banker in New York who was channelling funds for the Russian Embassy.’
‘Sedgwick bumped himself off, if I remember.’
‘That’s right. The Boss thought I’d hounded him to death.’
‘You probably did. So what about it?’
‘Both Palmer and Sedgwick said there was a third guy they knew who had also been recruited. A scientist at Princeton.’
‘Yeah,’ said Tolson, pointedly non-committal.
‘Well, I may have found him.’
‘Oh?’ Tolson did not sound enthusiastic.
‘His name is Grant. He’s still at Princeton.’
‘And still a Red, I suppose?’
‘Who knows? But I intend to find out. It means we’ve identified the whole spy ring now. All three of them.’
Tolson shrugged. ‘Two of them are dead.’
‘Grant’s not.’
‘But you’re not sure he’s active any more. That means he’s never going to see the inside of a slammer.’
‘He should.’
‘What harm can he do now?’
This was truer than Tolson could know. On the other hand, if Grant had made it to Chicago … Guttman said spiritedly, ‘What harm does any spy do? He can pass any secret information he lays his hands on to the Russians, that’s what he can do.’
‘Our allies, you mean. What secrets would they like? It’s not as if we have a secret weapon at our disposal. I think everybody would be happy to give them “secrets” if it helped them push the Nazis back …’ Tolson scratched his forehead for a moment. ‘I don’t get you, Guttman. The Nazis are all over Europe, they’re slaughtering the Jews, and you’re hunting down some Red who’s teaching in the Ivy League. I don’t get it at all.’
Out of the blue, unbidden, and spoken before he knew what he was saying, Guttman said, ‘Ask T.A. – maybe he would understand.’
Tolson stared at him. When he spoke, his voice was cold, unrattled. ‘You want to explain yourself?’
‘T.A.’s a bright guy, that’s all.’ This sounded lame even to Guttman. ‘He majored in Political Science, I thought.’
‘Fine Arts, actually,’ Tolson said flatly. He stared at Guttman with bloodless eyes. ‘Anything else you got in that weird head of yours?’ When Guttman didn’t reply, Tolson said, ‘I didn’t think so. Meeting’s over.’
Back in his office there was no sign of Marie. Most of his own files were kept in her anteroom; the most confidential he kept in a two-drawer steel box behind his desk. He went to that now and took his key chain from his pocket, where the key he wanted now sat anonymously among those for his car, front door, back door, garage, and Maryland beach house which, since Isabel’s death, he no longer rented. He opened the top drawer, found a file, then wrote down the case number, which sat like damning evidence on the memo he had sent the Director two years before.
He had just grabbed his coat again when Marie came back. ‘I’ll be out for a bit,’ he told her. ‘Not sure when I’ll get back, so don’t stay on for me, okay?’
She looked at him questioningly. ‘Everything okay, Harry? I mean, was it all right with Tolson?’
‘Same old stuff,’ he said dismissively. ‘Listen, my cousin’s in town. I need to see her before she goes back to New York. I don’t think she realises how sick my mother is.’
Marie nodded, and Guttman went out, satisfied she had bought his lie. He didn’t want Marie involved. If it all blew up, he didn’t know if he could save her from Tolson’s vengeance, but he’d do his best, including not compromising her now.
He went out of the building into a watery wintry light he usually associated with the dread months immediately following Christmas. Christmas: soon the lights would be up on the stores, and each night’s drive through Georgetown’s M Street would remind him of the holiday’s approach. Annie would be going to Vermont, she had said, a further stage in her reconciliation with her parents there. He doubted he would be bothered to cook a Christmas dinner for one.
On his way east, he passed the Capitol, without noting it. Usually he felt a persisting thrill to be working among the major monuments of his country, but today his sense of threat was starting to overwhelm him. To take on a case he wasn’t convinced was real was bad enough; to find it then leading to unexpected targets was worse. But he was making progress. Or doing a brilliant job of fooling himself.