TWENTY-NINE

Yates was taken to the gatehouse of Three Oaks and locked in a room. He heard a car drive off and someone start typing down the hall from him. The typing ended. Not long after, a nearby phone rang. Quinton and Esper entered and cuffed his hands behind his back.

He was led out to a car and put in the back seat. Quinton got in beside him and refused to talk during the journey. Esper, who was driving, was as quiet as Quinton, which caused Billy to accuse them of taking their Silent Men routine too seriously. The car ahead of them carried only Alexander Troxel. Vance Daughter drove alone in the car to their rear.

The convoy wended its way southeast down through Virginia. A scare was had outside of Newport News when Vance Daughter thought he was being followed. A revised, more desolate route was taken. No tailers could be seen behind in the darkness.

They drove out along a lone beach section of Kitty Hawk in North Carolina and turned into a thick stand of trees. Waiting in a field beyond was Yates’s car, the one he had driven east in. Beside the car stood Denis Corticun. Resting in the high grass, not far off, was a chair.

Yates was brought to Corticun, who presented him with a typed page to sign.

“What is it?” Billy, of course, knew.

“A suicide note.”

“Was I despondent after my work-induced near mental breakdown, or did the guilt of murdering Brewmeister weigh too heavy on my troubled soul?”

“It’s just depression. The Brewmeister allegations will be publicly discounted by us in the morning.”

“If I don’t sign?”

“Your name will be forged.”

“And attested to by one of your experts as being authentic?”

“Yes.”

“And the suicide happens out in that chair?” Yates nodded at the chair in the field.

“Only if I have to kill you. If you do it, you can pick anywhere you like.”

A rustling was heard. The Silent Men brought out their guns, deployed, looked about. Saw nothing.

“What will it be, Yates?” Corticun asked. “Do I do it, or will you?”

Yates thought for a moment. “You do it, Denis.”

Corticun took the gun Quinton handed him and marched Yates into the field.

“That my gun?” Billy asked.

“You know it is.”

Squinting ahead as they neared the chair, Yates asked, “Why the chair? That Silent Men ritual or something?”

“It is.”

“What’s the origin?”

“Simply that a gentleman dies sitting down, with his legs crossed, and smoking.”

“I’m a gentleman?”

“In this instance.”

“I get a cigarette?”

“If you like.”

They were at the chair. Corticun put on chamois gloves, eased Yates onto the seat.

“You’re not undoing the handcuffs?”

“No.” He lit a cigarette, placed it in Yates’s mouth.

Billy inhaled, blew the smoke out slowly. “I can’t stand filters.”

“Shall I throw it away?”

Yates shook his head, took another drag of the extended Marlboro, exhaled slowly. “This is a pretty shitty way to die, I want you to know.”

“I suppose it is.”

“I mean you’re fucking up my week.”

Corticun held the cigarette closer. “Last puff.”

Yates took it.

Corticun ground the cigarette into the soft earth, withdrew the gun from his pocket, stared at it momentarily … cleared his throat.

Yates, who was perspiring, noticed the hesitation. “Ever assassinate anyone like this before, Denis?”

Corticun didn’t reply.

“No last question either?” Billy pressed. “No little wonderment about how goddam brilliant I was at figuring it all out?”

“… There was one question,” Corticun said. “How did you know there were seven people involved?”

“I didn’t. Brew did.”

“There was no way he could have known from the reports that there were seven of us.”

“I know. He took a lucky guess. Probably figured there were five agents, including Quinton, mixed up with the reports. Knew none of it could have happened if you weren’t involved. That’s six. If you ask me, Brew pegged the seventh man wrong. I think he thought it was A. R. Roland.”

“But you knew it was an Amory, didn’t you? Knew it was Patricia, not Barrett.”

“I’m a real smart fuck.” Yates’s nervous laugh ended abruptly. “Isn’t that something,” he realized aloud, “I never fucking swear, I never use the word F-U, and now that I’m about to die, that’s all I’m doing. I’m F-ing all over the place. Which gives me license to tell you what a fucking asshole you are, Denis, what a loathsome, two-timing scumbag fuck you are.” He strained forward hoping Corticun would come closer, close enough to be tripped or kicked.

Corticun, instead, moved beside the chair, raised the revolver barrel toward Billy’s temple.

Shouting came from two directions. Then gunshots. Corticun was grazed in the side, dove for cover. Yates jumped from the chair, dove into taller grass.

“No pinstriped enemas kill my people and don’t get their asses blown off in return,” thundered the stentorian voice of Ed Grafton. He had materialized from nowhere and was charging down on the startled Men. “Let the wife of one of my people get raped and murdered, will you! I’ll whip ass for this, whip your puny asses into cheap raw leather and hang it out to dry!”

Vance Daughter tried to fire at Grafton but was shot in the knee by Cub Hennessy, who was coming at them from the opposite side. Corticun took off into the woods. Troxel, Quinton and Esper just stood there.

“Who gunned Brewmeister?” Grafton demanded, his hand at Daughter’s throat. “Who!”

“… We drew lots.”

“Who won?”

“Corticun … Denis shot him.”

Corticun was past the road and halfway down a steep oceanfront dune when Grafton caught up, tumbled with him onto the beach. Corticun broke away, ran to the water’s edge, sprinted along the crashing surf. Grafton brought him down with a flying tackle and spun him over and swatted him back and forth across the face in what seemed one quick and uninterrupted movement.

Yates, still in handcuffs, reached the top of the dune to see Grafton sitting on Corticun’s chest, forcing the barrel of the gun into Corticun’s mouth, shouting and cursing Corticun as he did.

Before Yates could yell out for him to stop, Grafton had pulled the trigger.

Free of his handcuffs, Yates joined Cub in restraining a raging Grafton from executing the prisoners. When a tenuous calm was achieved, Grafton demanded Yates recapitulate what had happened. Yates, fearing a new outburst of temper, was reluctant. Grafton insisted. Yates detailed certain aspects of the conspiracy, summarized the rest. Grafton grew pensive.

“I was fifty-eight years old last week,” Grafton told Cub and Yates. “I have served with the FBI since I was twenty-two. I have put in my mandatory two decades as an active investigator and can retire from the Bureau, in honor, at any time I want. I have carried a letter of resignation with me for many weeks now. I am going to present it to Edgar myself. This is my last investigation. This will be Edgar’s last investigation too, I pledge you that. This very night I am going to kill him … kill him with this.” Grafton displayed a revolver. “With Denis Corticun’s gun.”

Cub and Yates argued with him, grew more persistent. Grafton trained Corticun’s revolver on them, relieved them of their own guns.

“Edgar executed my men,” Grafton said. “Out of his mind or not out of his mind, he has to answer for it. Answer right now. If one of you wants to come along, fine. The remaining man can cuff and hogtie these enemas and take them to headquarters.”

“Not the police?” Yates asked.

“We are the FBI,” Grafton pronounced. “We will settle our own affairs our own Way.”

Cub, Grafton decided, would arrange for the captured Silent Men and Corticun’s body to go to Washington while Yates would accompany him to Hoover’s home. Billy and Cub could only hope that during the trip Yates might be able to dissuade Grafton. Grafton would not discuss the matter or anything else as they drove back through Newport News and Richmond and Fredericksburg and Arlington.

The house stood at Thirtieth Place near Rock Creek Park in northwest Washington, was three stories high and built of red brick. An Astro Turf lawn spread before it. An unattended limousine waited. Grafton and Yates pulled in across the street. The time was 7:58 A.M., Tuesday, May 2, 1972.

“Stay in the car,” Grafton ordered. “Later you will tell the authorities you drove me here for a meeting with Edgar, that to the best of your knowledge I had phoned Edgar about the Corticun death and he had asked me to come right over … that I was behaving peculiarly … that when you heard shots you immediately came after me.”

“Did I catch you … or did you get away?”

“I haven’t decided yet.” Grafton checked his watch. “It’s about time for him to come down to breakfast. You can say I knew his routine pretty well. That I had been here many times before.”

“Had you?”

“In better days. Edgar breakfasts in the dining room. Comes down and eats in suspenders and shirt and tie. There’s a house-woman and houseman on the premises. The woman is Annie Fields. The houseman goes by the name of Crawford. Both keep out of the main part of the house at this hour. The driver of the limousine keeps out of the main part as well. It will be simple as punch. Say I said so.” Grafton started to get out of the car.

“The Director was used by the Men,” Yates insisted. “It wasn’t his fault.”

Grafton hesitated, then said, “Don’t believe Edgar was senile. It was an act he began to play years ago. I saw him do it many times. Nothing ever happens in the FBI without Edgar knowing. Nothing. He found out what the Silent Men were up to, and when he did he turned a deaf ear because it suited his purpose. He could have stopped it and he didn’t. He’s responsible. He allowed it to happen.”

… Grafton went to the front door. Picked it open with ease. A photograph of Edgar and President Richard Nixon was prominent on the entrance hall wall. Pictures of Edgar with other Presidents and politicians and celebrities festooned the front rooms. Rooms in which antiques abounded. And bric-a-brac. Grafton moved silently past an eight-sided basket made of old popsicle sticks. Then a wooden stork from New York City’s defunct Stork Club. Then a salt-shaker with a nude woman depicted on the side. Made his way to the dining room. No one was there. He sat down at the round, highly polished table. A teacup and glistening silver waited in front of Edgar’s place. The morning papers rested beside the setting. It was 8:07. Edgar was running late. At 8:12 he still hadn’t shown. Grafton grew edgy, and knew he mustn’t. The hell with it, he told himself, no more waiting. Let it be done and over.

Grafton went to the staircase and started up. Hushed voices could be heard somewhere above. He stopped, pressed back against the wall, drew the gun … Corticun’s gun. The voices moved out of earshot. Grafton continued up. Faint rapping came from afar. Again he stopped. The rapping repeated. A door opened. Urgent tones trailed rapidly off into the distance. He eased up and onto the landing, wondering if he’d been discovered. The hallway was empty. He started along it. A phone was being dialed. Sweat was running down his face and he knew why. He’d never executed a man in cold blood, let alone a comrade he’d long admired. He paused, tried to erase the slate, clear his mind. He told himself to concentrate only on what he had to do and how he’d go about it. He realized that time was working against him, that he mustn’t hesitate. Mustn’t allow Edgar so much as one word, one glance.

He regripped the revolver, decided he would walk through the door firing. He moved down the hall. Quickened his pace. Raised the gun. Turned abruptly into the bedroom … and saw that he was too late. J. Edgar Hoover lay naked on the floor, dead from a heart attack.