THE FACE LOOKED FRESHLY washed, but there was a gray bloom to the skin, like mold on chocolate. The eyes were closed, the thick pale lips slightly parted. It seemed to be two faces: angular adolescent on the left, a plump baby on the right. The baby’s face was blue-black and shiny, where the skin had swelled up over the caved-in bone. There were black patches of dried blood beside the temple and right eye. The hair pulled back from the forehead kinked in slight zigzags. Juke’s face had been through so many metamorphoses it was difficult to tell if this was another, or an entirely different person.
“Can you identify him?”
“Oh my Gaaawd,” sobbed Mrs. Bosch. She had a handkerchief out but only clutched it in her fist while her wide eyes ran with tears. “The poor, poor boy,” she murmured. Erich had never suspected her to have so much feeling.
Fayette looked down at the enameled metal table. Jaw working from side to side, he lifted a heavy hand and, with surprising gentleness, touched the swollen skin. Then, more bluntly, he stroked the neck, touched the bare shoulder, touched at the body through the sheet and, delicately again, ran his fingertips over the spot where the genitals would be.
Erich stepped back. He was an intruder here. He could not have felt more ill at ease if he had killed the boy himself. Fayette had telephoned the Sloane House first thing this morning to say the police had asked Mrs. Bosch to come up to the city morgue and identify a body: Negro, male. Juke had not returned last night. In the cold electric light, in a tiled room like a hotel kitchen, Erich watched Fayette and Mrs. Bosch confront the death of their friend.
“Yes. It is him,” said Mrs. Bosch. “Our leetle troublemaker. Who could haf done such a thing to that boy?”
The pink, piggish assistant who might be German but was probably Irish pushed his way between Fayette and the wheeled table. He tossed the sheet back over the face and rolled the table back toward the refrigerated closet. The wall was lined with identical closets and doors. A bare foot with a white sole stuck out from under the sheet. The paper tag wired to the toe fluttered like a moth.
“We’ll need a statement,” said the police sergeant and led the way upstairs. Mrs. Bosch clung to Fayette’s arm, sobbing and going on about the poor, poor boy. Erich followed, studying the billed cap in his hand—he was in uniform this morning—as if the gold insignia pinned there might prove or disprove the Navy’s involvement in this death.
“Name of the deceased?”
“Alpheus Cooper. But efryone knew him as Juuuk.”
They sat around a desk in a room full of desks while the police sergeant typed it all up on a tall typewriter like a Model T car. On the desk were a neatly folded white dress, a pair of nylons and a brassiere with hemispheres of cork sewn into the cups. Mrs. Bosch did all the talking, answering the questions—the boy’s arrest record, his time in her employ, the whereabouts of his family—and asking what happened. The boy had been bludgeoned to death sometime the night before. His body was found early this morning, outside a poultry butcher’s a block from the Bosch house. Erich watched Fayette, trying to see how he reacted to the information. Fayette sat there like a statue, staring past the sergeant. The sergeant seemed to know nothing of the mass arrests the night before, or the exact nature of Mrs. Bosch’s house. Mrs. Bosch was dressed as an innocent hausfrau this morning.
“Cooper was a transvestite, a homosexual?”
“I do not know of these things, officer.” Mrs. Bosch glanced at Erich.
The sergeant explained that the boy had been found wearing the dress and “gay deceivers” now on his desk. The police assumed he had been prowling the waterfront, had propositioned a man, then was beaten to death by the man when he discovered the Negro was male. The sergeant asked what was Erich and Fayette’s connection with the deceased.
“They are my friends,” said Mrs. Bosch. “Here in my time of need.”
“I was Juke’s friend,” said Fayette, angrily.
The sergeant glanced at Fayette’s uniform, without noticing the slightly soiled cuffs and elbows. “I’ve got a boy in the service. Army Air Corps. As servicemen away from home for the first time, you boys are probably getting your first taste of a place like New York. There are certain elements you have to steer clear of. You probably have no idea the kind of sordid life you exposed yourself to by knowing this Negro.”
“You going to find his killer?”
“I got to be honest with you, son. Hardly a night goes by without some homo getting himself killed. We look into each case, briefly. But there’s not much we can do. And the general feeling is these fellas had it coming to them. Take my advice. This friend of yours was bad news. Forget him and be more careful in the future about the company you keep.”
Erich frowned at Fayette, trying to stop the outburst he thought was coming.
Fayette breathed deeply and surveyed the busy room. He abruptly stood up. “I want to get out of here.”
The sergeant said he was free to go, but he needed Mrs. Bosch a minute longer.
“Will you not wait for me, Hank? I am not wanting to go home alone.”
“I’ll wait for you outside,” Fayette snapped. He marched furiously through the room, hands rubbing his hips in a vain search for pockets.
Erich asked for permission to leave, then went after Fayette.
He found him pacing the steps out front, in the long shadow of the police building. It was still early and the sidewalk was full of seersuckered Americans on their way to jobs in the gaudy Viennese-looking buildings that surrounded City Hall. Fayette saw Erich, came up the steps and motioned him over to a fluted granite column.
“I’m terribly sorry, Hank. I know he was your friend.”
Fayette stood behind the column and looked down at Erich. “We know who did it, don’t we?”
“We don’t. The police are right. A boy like that might offend anyone. There’s no telling who may have met and killed him last night.”
The blue eyes stared coldly.
“I’ve thought about it,” Erich admitted. “Your man had no motive for killing the boy, no reason to believe the boy was involved in this. But the chief argument against it is that the man’s being watched by the FBI. He could not have killed the boy without being seen and stopped by whoever was tailing him.” Erich believed everything he said, but he was so accustomed to lying to Fayette that all beliefs sounded untrue the moment they were shared with the sailor.
“Maybe he lost his tail.”
“Maybe. But we don’t know that yet, do we? Let me speak to Mason this morning. The FBI can tell us where your man was last night.”
“No. I know in my bones he did it. Rich little bastard,” Fayette angrily muttered. “It’s our fault. It’s my fault, for taking that crazy kid into my bed that night. He had no business getting killed.” He slammed his head against the pillar. “Jesus. That crazy little nigger kid.” He sounded close to tears, but his eyes were bone dry.
“Stop talking like that. We don’t even know if he did it!”
“Oh, yeah? You were right about one thing, jewboy. You can’t be too suspicious.” He folded his arms across his chest, tightly, locking his fists in his elbows. “I trusted Mason and the rest of you to know what you were doing. But we’ve gone and got that kid killed by a loudmouth bum. If that bastard comes back to the house, I’ll kill him with my bare hands.”
“Don’t even think that, Fayette. He’s part of something much bigger. Don’t do anything until I’ve reported this to Mason. We have to let the Navy handle this.”
“I don’t trust the Navy now.”
“Then trust me. Let me learn what I can about this. You can trust me, can’t you?”
“Can I?” Fayette’s eyes burned through him.
“Yes,” said Erich. “You can.” And the words hung there not so much like a lie as a desperate, feeble wish.
Mrs. Bosch came outside, handkerchief still in her hand, mouth and eyes drawn down. She mournfully looked around before she saw them. She came over, grimacing when she attempted to smile. “Poor little Juke. So many times he deserved a good slap. But he did not deserve to die.” And the tears began to flow again. She could not say another word until she had blown her nose. “Did I do all right, Meester Zeitlin? I did not say anything I should not have?”
“You were fine, Mrs. Bosch. Again, I’m sorry.” Her grief seemed genuine.
“Yes. We had our outs, Juke and me. But he was all boy.” She blew her nose again. “Hank, dear? Would you hail us a taxicab? I need to go home and lay down.” She waited until Fayette was down at the curb before she whispered, “Do you think what happened had anything to do with our business, Meester Zeitlin?”
“No, Mrs. Bosch. None whatsoever.”
“Good then. Because I could not live with myself if I thought our spying might have brought harm to the boy. Good day.”
A taxi had pulled to the curb. Erich followed her down to the street. Hank held the door open for her and Erich was able to speak to him while Mrs. Bosch climbed into the backseat.
“I’ll come to the house this afternoon, Hank. I’ll tell you everything.”
Fayette looked at him, lowered his eyes and got in beside Mrs. Bosch. He slammed the door, the taxi drove away and Erich knew he wouldn’t tell Fayette everything, despite the murder.
Church Street and Navy Intelligence were a few blocks to the south. Erich walked, steeling himself with speculations. He could not believe a foolish worm like Rice had killed the boy. He knew the type all too well—the superfluous man, a modern Hamlet, Marcel Proust among gangsters. Erich himself was such a man. Rice was incapable of murder, but it would be impossible to convince Fayette of that. Now, in addition to protecting Fayette from Mason, Erich would have to protect Rice from Fayette. He was helpless at both tasks. He wanted to step back, let Fayette kill Rice and go to the electric chair, ending the whole vile business.
Full of messengers and the clatter of teletype machines, the corridor seemed like part of a larger, efficient machine. Erich tried to feel impersonal and efficient. Full of urgent news, he knocked on the door of their office and entered without waiting for an answer. The commander was not alone.
Sitting across from Mason, frowning over their square shoulders at Erich, were Sullivan and yet another gray-suited, elderly boy from the FBI. An interrupted sentence seemed suspended above their heads.
“Excuse me, Commander Mason. I apologize for being late, sir. I’ve come straight from the city morgue. There’s something you should know immediately.”
“Good morning, Mr. Zeitlin. Something concerning this?” Mason took a sheaf of photographs off his desk and handed them past Sullivan to Erich.
The photos were large and shiny. The first was of a chalk rectangle drawn on a patch of ground beside some crates. A square marked off one end of the rectangle, like a head. The other pictures showed the same patch of ground, the chalk lines replaced by a body in a white dress. Head and dress were black with blood. Two policemen stood in the corner of several pictures, eyes cut out, mouths grinning.
“You can’t be so free with those pics, Mason.”
“Erich’s to be trusted,” Mason assured Sullivan. “He knows as much about this as we do. Almost.”
The death that had seemed brutal but clean at the morgue became horrifying in the photographs. Erich restrained his rage and coldly returned the pictures to Mason. “How did the police know to send these to us?”
“We asked for them.” Mason watched like a man waiting for you to get the punch line.
Erich knew what was coming. “How did you know the boy had been killed?”
“Because Sullivan’s man here—” Mason gestured at the young man sitting importantly in the other chair “—watched Rice do it.”
“You arrived too late to stop it,” said Erich.
The young man looked insulted. “No. I followed the suspect all night without losing him once. It was too dark for me to actually see the homicide, but I was close enough to hear it. A man makes quite a racket when he beats another man to death. I would have had no trouble stopping it. Of course, I couldn’t intervene without revealing to the suspect he was still being followed.”
“Do you see now?” said Mason, grinning happily. “Rice killed the houseboy. Which means Rice is a spy. He knows we’re on to him and thinks he can save himself by killing the witnesses. He doesn’t know about you and Sullivan in the basement or he wouldn’t have lifted a finger. But now he’s tipped his hand. We reported it to Whyte this morning and he agrees. We’ll be able to tail Rice through hell or high water, until he leads us to the others. Yes, my little brainchild is beginning to pay off.”
Erich felt sick. “But the boy. He was innocent.”
“It’s regrettable the colored boy had to die, but he was hardly innocent. Just your garden-variety Negro deviant. They have a high mortality rate anyway, second only to firemen.”
What would Fayette do if he learned this? And thinking about Fayette, Erich recognized something else. “If Rice thinks there are only two witnesses, then won’t he try to kill Fayette?”
“I’m sure of it. You might tell Hank to take care next time he sees Rice. Without giving away too much of the game to Hank, of course.”
“I just spoke to Fayette. He already thinks Rice killed the boy.”
“A natural paranoid response,” Mason explained. “Although in this case he happens to be correct.”
Erich took a deep breath. “You should know, sir, that Fayette talks about killing Rice the next time he sees him.” He wanted to wake up Mason to the fact that the violence springing from his clever scheme threatened to be endless.
And Mason became more serious. “We can’t let that happen.”
“No,” said Sullivan. “I’ll instruct my men to intervene if that looks likely.”
“The way he intervened when Rice killed the boy?” said Erich, nodding at Sullivan’s man.
Sullivan glanced at Mason, blaming him for his subordinate’s disrespect. When Mason said nothing, Sullivan said, “That was different, Zeitlin. We have priorities. Our chief priority here is to keep Rice alive until he leads us to others in his organization. Sometimes the only effective means of intervention is a gunshot.”
Erich had to fill in the tense gaps between Sullivan’s matter-of-fact sentences, as if they were code. “Do you mean…if it looks like Fayette might kill Rice,” he said, “you’ll shoot Fayette?”
“If it’s absolutely necessary, yes.”
“But if Rice tries to kill Fayette—?”
“We have to live with it.”
Erich looked at the calm faces around the desk: Sullivan annoyed that an explanation was necessary, the younger man impatient but polite, Mason mildly curious about Erich’s reaction.
“No, it’s not really fair,” Mason admitted philosophically. “But wartime, Erich. And all is fair in love and war.”
“But we’re not at war with Fayette. He’s one of us.”
“Well,” went Mason. “Yes and no.”
Erich exploded. “You can’t let him be killed just because you think he’s mentally defective! That’s murder! You’re his commanding officer. He’s in your care. Would you let your own son be murdered just because he’s a deviant?” Erich was so angry he grabbed at any argument, no matter how irrational.
“I told you not to let your subordinate in on this,” Sullivan grumbled. “These Jewish intellectual types are all alike. They care more about splitting hairs than getting a job done.”
That infuriated Erich further, made him too furious to speak.
“Let me handle this,” said Mason. “I know how to talk with Erich. You and your man may go now. Again, you’ve done a remarkable job.”
The FBI men stood up and stepped around Erich without looking at him. He stood helpless with anger, burning from Sullivan’s rebuke, unable to come up with an answer until the men closed the door behind them.
“Killing a man—two men—for no clear purpose,” he told Mason, “is better than doing nothing at all?”
“You’re overreacting, Erich. Sit down. You saw the body at the morgue? It’s natural you’d be upset right now.”
Erich sat down. He wanted to stay angry, but anger confused him. He wanted to take refuge in Mason’s calm rational manner.
Mason leaned back and pulled the cord on the venetian blinds. The slats opened and there were trees and sunlight outside. The room became less sinister, more normal, even commonplace.
“You know,” said Mason, settling into his chair. “There’s a very good chance Hank won’t be killed. By either Rice or our friends. That’s the worse that could happen. Things don’t always turn out as badly as we fear.”
“Why not send Fayette away from here? Place him somewhere where Rice couldn’t get to him. A ship or jail. Even a mental hospital.” Erich could mention the hospital only because anything seemed preferable to death now.
“No. Sullivan needs him on the street. New York’s a difficult place in which to follow someone. The job’s much easier when you know what your subject is after.”
“Fayette’s life is at risk because Sullivan needs bait?”
“There’s more than just individual lives at stake here, Erich. There’s a war on, to coin a phrase. What we uncover with Rice may save thousands of lives.”
“Or none at all. His spy ring could be as inept as he is.”
“There’s that possibility. There’s also the possibility that, if Hank were still at sea, he would die anyway. Ships are torpedoed every day.”
“Americans die in auto accidents every day. But that doesn’t justify letting them murder each other.” Erich looked down at the police photos still on the desk.
Mason looked down and saw them, then abruptly turned the sheaf of pictures white side up. “Who are these people to you, Erich? What makes you so concerned about this riffraff?”
“It has nothing to do with them. It’s the principle involved.”
“You’re not in love with Hank Fayette? Just a little?”
It was said idly, a random suggestion without any note of accusation. The suddenness of it stung Erich. He refused to be flustered. “No, sir. This assignment has not awakened any hidden desires, if that’s what you mean.”
“Just an idea. Something for you to keep in mind.”
Erich felt Mason had mentioned it only to cast doubt on his righteousness, and as a subtle piece of psychological blackmail. Side with us or we will suspect your sexuality. Erich held tight to his righteousness. “What we’ve done with Cooper and now with Fayette is identical to what we condemn the Nazis for doing.”
Mason’s eyebrows went up ever so slightly. He closed his eyes and sighed. “I’m sorry you feel that way, Erich. You leave me no recourse but to pull rank on you. Take out one of those triplicate forms for travel orders, will you?”
“Sir?”
“I thought we might reason this out together. Since you remain adamant…I have some documents I want hand-delivered to Washington. You’ll leave by train this afternoon and remain in Washington for a week. That should give our situation enough time to resolve itself.”
“Sir, I’d prefer to stay here while this is going on.”
“Why? What do you hope to accomplish?”
Erich was silent. He knew of nothing he could do, except continue his role as a witness, a voyeur.
“If you stayed, I’m afraid your conscience might lead you to do something dangerous, to both our operation and your future in the Navy. You do see my point? It’s either that, Erich, or I send you to the brig for insubordination. That could mean a month or more.”
“That’s my only alternative?”
“Yes. You know where you keep the forms. Get one out and type yourself a brief vacation. I understand Washington’s lovely this time of year, almost tropical.”
Erich went to the filing cabinet, found the correct form, sat down at the typewriter table and typed last name first, first name last. He went through the motions of obedience, expecting any minute to feel indignant again, full of anger over the easy manner with which Commander Mason got him out of the way. Instead, what Erich experienced was relief. It was being taken out of his hands. Erich could not, in good conscience, wash his hands of Fayette. But Mason was washing his hands for him. There was nothing to gain by standing to his principles and going to the brig. Mason already knew where Erich stood. There was nothing to do but obey. The tension of the past week, the past month in fact, suddenly gave way to a numb, soothing peace.
“You are to leave by noon, Erich. If you haven’t reported to the Office of War Information by seven tonight, you’ll be arrested by anyone inspecting your papers. I’m leaving you on your own cognizance. Don’t disappoint me.”
Erich typed in the correct times. “I won’t have time to see Fayette before I leave? I’d like to warn him at least against leaving the house, sir.” It was a final moral gesture, nothing more. Erich knew the request would be denied.
“You know too much. There’ll be the temptation to tell him everything. I won’t give you that temptation, Erich. I’ll go down there myself sometime this evening. Yes, I’d like to get a peek inside the house before this is over.”
Erich whipped the form from the typewriter and presented it to Mason.
Mason was suddenly suspicious, surprised by Erich’s quick obedience. Then, signing the order, he said, “I’ll have one of Sullivan’s men run you up to your hotel in his car. He can put you on the train. Any objection?”
“Not at all, sir.” It made Erich feel better, in fact. He was not responsible. He was not his own man anymore. He gave himself up to the machine, which was what he had wanted from the Navy all along. He was free from the terrible nuisance of self, morals and loyalties.
An hour later, a bored FBI driver escorted him beneath the soaring iron trellises of Penn Station to a smoking train packed with servicemen like himself.
The house stood at noon on the other side of the noisy farmers’ market. Disguised in a loud necktie and workman’s cap, Blair walked among the haggling Italians and Greeks who bought produce off the trucks to sell from their own street carts and horse-drawn wagons. The hot square stank of horse urine, human sweat and rotting vegetables. Blair bore with it all, keeping an eye on the door beyond the trucks and sun umbrellas, waiting. Once, he walked around the corner to the spot where he had killed a man. That seemed like days ago. The corpse was gone, of course, and the only blood was on the aprons of paper-hatted men lugging crates full of frightened chickens into the building. Blair stood in the sun, fingered the warm weight in his coat pocket and knew he could do it again. His only bad moment today had been when he tried Anna’s number. A man answered, said he knew of no such person, then gave the game away when he angrily said, “You are never to call this number again.” Blair could kill anyone who stood between him and Anna, even her father.
Out in the square, he waited and watched. He burned to enter the house, but it wouldn’t do to ask for the sailor, go up to his room and shoot him there. The sailor was too large to be killed any other way except with the gun. Blair had to wait until he went out. Then he could follow and catch him alone. He hoped there would be enough light this time to see what a man looked like when he was dying.