U.S. Treasury Department June 26
Earlier that morning, Dunne had been sitting in an uncomfortable plastic chair in a hallway. Two armed guards stood nearby. He was waiting for a dubious honor—to be the first witness called before the Commission on the Assassination of President Robert Hanover. The commission was holding its opening session in an auditorium at the Treasury Department. With the inquiry short of hard facts, the commissioners had decided to begin with “contextual matters.” Today that meant security at the White House.
A uniformed guard escorted Dunne to the witness chair. All commission members were present, including Treasury Secretary Alter, CIA Director Wenner, former U.N. Ambassador Melissa Shea, Senator Palmer, and House Majority Leader Wynn Gravitt. Alter nodded slightly toward Dunne, as Dunne took a seat. The commissioners sat behind two cheap, metal, fold-up conference tables. Dunne was sworn in.
The questioning was conducted by the staff director, a former Capitol Hill investigator who had moved on to a K Street firm. He asked Dunne about his qualifications for the post of White House security chief. He had Dunne describe how previous assassination attempts had been thwarted. They covered the budget for White House security and the quality of the security staff at the White House.
“Were you familiar,” the lawyer asked, “with the memorandum written by Mr. Kelly during the presidential transition that conveyed Mr. Mumfries’s concerns about lax security at the White House?”
“No, I was not,” Dunne said.
“The memo was cc’ed to you.”
“I don’t recall seeing it.”
“Is it possible that you have forgotten seeing it?”
“Possible, but not likely.”
“And why not likely?”
“I tend to take the suggestions of vice presidents seriously.”
Several commissioners grinned.
“So how do you explain this discrepancy?” Representative Gravitt interrupted. “Can it be that the White House is so disorganized that memos about security get lost?”
Typical, Dunne thought. Gravitt, the former owner of a pest-control business in Orange County, was a rising star in his party. The Washington Post had reported that morning that he had pressured the House Speaker to recommend his appointment to the commission.
“This memo was supposedly written before the current administration inhabited the White House,” Dunne replied.
“But you were already security chief at the White House, right?” Gravitt, an athletic-built, thick-lipped fellow with lacquered sandy hair, looked pleased.
“Yes.”
“And once the administration came in,” Gravitt continued, “this memo was never acted upon?”
“Not that I know of.”
“And did Vice President Mumfries ever follow up on the matter.”
“Not that I saw.”
“So he let it drop?”
“And last I checked,” Alter interrupted, “the Vice President’s job is not to oversee who comes and goes from the White House. Isn’t that true, Mr. Dunne?”
Before Dunne could answer, the staff director spoke: “Thank you, Secretary Alter, Congressman. I’d like to ask Mr. Dunne if, regardless of the memo, there ever was a full review of the screening process for individuals, including media representatives, who had access to the White House?”
“Not a comprehensive one.”
“And should there have been?”
“The answer is obvious.”
Dunne was questioned for an hour-and-a-half. Gravitt interrupted several times. Wenner said nothing. At the end of the interview, the staff director asked if Dunne had anything else to say about the assassination.
Dunne paused for a moment. Mr. Al-Fusah and his friends? No, a scapegoat-to-be should hold on to something. That was his way into the investigation. Mention it now and Grayton would grab that lead.
“No, sir.”
Dunne left the building, crossed 15th Street, and entered the Hotel Washington. He called home, let the phone ring three times, and hung up. He
waited twenty seconds, then dialed again. He knew his wife, Alma, hated such nonsense. She would not admit it, but he realized this scared her.
On the fifth ring, she picked up. He did not say anything.
“608 H Street Southwest. Suite 219.”
He returned the receiver to its cradle. He had taught her a simple code. Subtract from each digit of the street address the amount corresponding to the number’s place in the series. 608 meant 721. And change the first part of the quadrant. It was not a foolproof system. Nothing was foolproof. It was a matter of rendering life more difficult for whoever might be paying attention.
Chinatown, he thought.
He knew from his wife’s response what had happened that morning. An old friend—a private detective—had dropped by his house and handed Alma an envelope. She opened it, memorized the address written on a slip of paper, and then burned the paper. If none of that had happened, she would have picked up the phone on the tenth ring. And he would have said, “Hello, dear.”
The day before, after Dunne left the Moroccan official, he returned to his White House office and opened the Yellow Pages. He remembered what Al-Fusah had told him: “Maybe some name like a joke … . Said maybe they’d send Mrs. Hanover.”
Dunne read through the pages for escort services: Potomac Escorts, Ecstasy Escorts, Exclusive Escorts. A few bore more imaginative names: High Positions Escorts, Executive Power Escorts. He turned the page: First Ladies.
That fit the punchline. There was a phone number but no address. He called; the number was disconnected. He phoned a friend at a large private investigation firm. Can you get me an address for a phone number? Dunne asked. Can’t the Secret Service get its own information? the friend replied. It’s for me, Dunne explained. Not until tomorrow morning, the friend said. Fine, Dunne said. They went over the arrangements for dropping off the information.
After hanging up the phone in the lobby, Dunne left the hotel and walked down F Street. Three Secret agents he knew were heading toward him. An awkward moment began. He could tell what they were thinking: Should we stop to talk? That’s understandable, Dunne thought. He was an awkward man. Perhaps the most awkward in the service’s history.
“Off to grab a bagel,” Dunne said. That is, no need to start a conversation. The three men said hello and walked on.
Dunne entered the mall attached to the National Press Building. He rode the escalator to the lower level. He headed toward the bathroom and went through a firedoor to a flight of stairs. He climbed two levels and
followed the hallway that led to the Marriott. He moved through the hotel lobby and jumped into a cab. He order the cabbie to take him to the Cannon House Office Building.
As the taxi navigated traffic, Dunne wondered why he was engaging in such precautions. He had no reason to suspect he was being watched. Perhaps it was a guilty reaction to having not told the commission about Al-Fusah. He had lied under oath. Fuck, that was easy, Dunne mumbled to himself. But enough self-analysis. Playing it cautious, running a countersurveillance exercise was always good practice.
At Cannon, he entered the building at the side and found the stairs to the basement. He walked through the long tunnel to the U.S. Capitol, then followed the maze-like path through the sub-basement of the Capitol and came to the underground corridor that led to the Senate office buildings. Several aides and a few senators rushing to the floor for a vote recognized him. He was accustomed to that. He used to joke that he had appeared in more photographs with President Hanover than Margaret had. Newspapers and television news shows had flashed his image repeatedly since the assassination.
For the first time since leaving the Treasury Department, he looked behind. Down the length of the tunnel, he saw no one hurrying to keep up with him.
Dunne arrived at the Dirksen Building—imagine, he thought, a defender of segregation being commemorated by an office building that now sits two blocks away from the Thurgood Marshall Judiciary Building—and took the stairs to the street level. He exited the building and hailed a cab.
“Convention Center,” he said.
Dunne got out at the Convention Center and entered the building. A computer exposition filled the hall. He paused over literature at a display table and looked out through the windows. He spotted no one. But then if they—whoever they might be—were doing their jobs well, he would not see them. He pocketed a few brochures and departed the center. He was two blocks away from the address for First Ladies.
The suite on the second floor was locked. Dunne knocked, and nobody answered. Dunne smelled the food being cooked in the Chinese restaurant below.
“Ain’t nobody home.”
Dunne turned around. A tall, young black man wearing wraparound sunglasses, baggy nylon pants, a Redskins T-shirt with the sleeves cut off, and hiking boots was speaking to him. His hair was closely cropped, his chin dimpled. He folded his brawny arms—a weight lifter’s arms—in front of his chest.
“Where did they go?” Dunne asked.
“Why you asking?”
“My name is Clarence Dunne.”
“And?”
“I’m here on government work.”
“Big shit. My name’s Twayne Marcus Starrell. And I hate the government.”
“You work around here?”
“Maybe I do.”
“They close up shop recently?”
“I heard this guy on television last night. And this was it: He says information is a fuckin’ resource. More valuable than gold, he says. He says, anyone give anything away for nothing is a god-damn fool’s chump. Do I look like a fool’s chump?”
“No, you don’t, Mr. Starrell.”
“Fuckin’ right. You a cop? I ain’t playin’ squeals.”
“No, I work for the Department of Treasury.”
“You a money man?” Starrell laughed. “Got some fresh Mack Bennies for me?”
“Wish I did. It’s not that sort of a job. But I’ll pay you for your time.”
Dunne checked his wallet.
“Fifty dollars, if you help me out.”
“You a cheap nigger-in-a-white-man’s-suit.”
“It’s all I have now.”
“Well, a Mister Money Man with no money. Don’t believe in ATMing? You knocking on that door? I know I got some good shit for you worth more than change. If you can be dropping more.”
Dunne put away the wallet. He took out his Secret Service badge and flipped it at Starrell.
“Take a long view, son. Some day you may need help from someone like me.”
“Fuck, you said you ain’t no cop.”
“Not a cop. Secret Service.”
“A spy man? No shit. But not all of us black men get into trouble that we need your help getting out of. Ain’t that way with me. I’m a working man. So take your badge and down-ass out of this building. My uncle owns it, and when he ain’t here what I say is word.”
Damn, Dunne thought, I misplayed this one. He’s too big and too full of himself to intimidate. And he has more to prove in this encounter than I do.
Starrell stepped aside to clear a path between Dunne and the stairwell.
“Listen, Mr. Starrell, I didn’t mean any disrespect. You caught me on a bad day. You help me now, and I’ll reimburse you for your efforts. If
you want more money, you’ll have to trust me for it. If you want”—he looked at the T-shirt—“Redskins tickets—”
“Pardon the fuck out of me, they ain’t playing now.”
“Well, when they are, I’ll get you good seats.”
“Like I can’t cop my own?”
Fuck you, thought Dunne.
“Your uncle trusts you to look after the building while he’s gone?”
“Got trouble with that?”
“Not after today, he won’t.” Dunne moved toward Starrell, keeping the young man’s hands in his field of vision.
“What you mean?” Starrell asked. He formed two fists.
“Because I am going to leave this building. Then I am going to dial a number at the city office building. Then this afternoon, a building inspector’s going to be in your basement. And when he’s done, your uncle will be facing a few thousand dollars in fines and the god-damn headache of rewiring the building. After that inspector man leaves, I’m going to come back and tell your uncle why he was here in the first place—because his stupid, big-mouth nephew was too dumb to answer some polite questions. And if you don’t think I have the”—Dunne paused—“the juice to pull that off, then you don’t know shit about nothing.”
Dunne could not see anything behind Starrell’s sunglasses. He wondered if the young man was carrying a knife or gun.
Starrell swished the saliva in his mouth. He put one hand in a pocket.
“Gimme the fifty,” he said. “And you’re going to owe me another hundred, got it?”
“If it’s worth a hundred, you got it.”
“Trust me, Mr. Black Secret Agent Man, it is.”
“Sure,” Dunne said. He handed Starrell the money. Together, they went down the stairs.
In the basement, Starrell removed a tarp that was covering a pile of stuffed, gray plastic garbage bags.
“They shut down extra quick. Took anything worth anything. Phones. Computers. Left the chairs, the desks. Left my unc hangin’ for two months’ rent. Dumped a bunch of shit in garbage bags. I brought it down here.”
“Why did you do that, Mr. Starrell?” Dunne asked.
“I knew what they was running. And saw they were booking. And I guessed there’d be some interesting shit being tanked. Stuff you could do something with.”
“Like what?”
“You know … whatever.”
“Like blackmail someone?”
“Never know what you might find, right? Like I seen this story on TV. These people found all sorts of things in people’s garbage.”
Dunne untied a bag and reached in. He withdrew his hand. It was covered with coffee grinds. Starrell smirked at him: “Most of it’s paper. But there’s mess here and there.”
Dunne grabbed a piece of paper and wiped off his hand. He slid a crate near the bags and sat on it.
“This is going to take a while,” Dunne said. “If you have other things to do, go ahead.”
“No way, man. I’m staying here. Just in case.”
“Just in case I … strike gold?”
“Yeah, that’s it. Gold, man. Garbage into gold.” Starrell laughed.
“Then you can help,” Dunne said. He threw one of the bags at Starrell. “Separate the papers from the other garbage.”
“And we’re going to do a dogg-dogg even-split, man?”
“Yeah, on any gold we find.”
It took Dunne nearly two hours to review the garbage of the First Ladies Escort Service. In that time, he learned that Starrell’s eighteen-year-old girlfriend was pregnant. That she planned to keep the child and had refused his marriage proposal. That she told him she didn’t want to be tied down to a man with no future. That he worried there was someone else. Or maybe the baby wasn’t his. But, he told Dunne, he wanted to act like a man. Dunne also learned that the owner of the escort business was a white man named Raymond who looked like a squirrel. It was a small operation. The rent was paid in cash. Starrell recalled once talking with the Latina receptionist and joking about the nature of the business. She became upset and told him, “Our girls are good girls.” Starrell didn’t know what that meant. The pages for the current month were torn out. He thought she was lying, like women got to do, to make the world a prettier place. Raymond had left no forwarding number or address. His uncle didn’t even know Raymond’s last name.
Most of the trash was useless. No listing of escorts; no listing of clients. But in the last bag, Dunne found a calendar book with scheduled appointments. He found an entry two months prior to the assassination, with an address on New Hampshire Avenue. There were two initials—A. and G.—and a phone number by each one.
“You have a phone?” Dunne asked.
“You got gold?” Starrell asked.
“Maybe.”
Starrell led Dunne to his unc’s office. Dunne dialed the number next to the G. It was disconnected.
“Whatcha scoping?” Starrell asked.
“Trying to find the person who goes with the number.”
“No prob.”
Starrell took the phone and punched in a number.
“Willie-boy, yo, it’s me,” he said into the phone. “Got some digits, you look it for up for me? … Yeah, I know the one. She’s damn real … . Yeah, I know about Tamika, but I don’t know if that means I got to give this one to you … . Just look up the damn number, okay? … Yeah, yeah, I’ll do intros—maybe. Just look it up.”
Starrell recited the number, then placed his hand over the receiver.
“Willie’s into computer shit,” he explained to Dunne. “And he can get on this thing and find any digits you want. Or, if you got a number, the address. It helps when you want to trip on some bitch.”
“Gotcha,” Dunne said. He picked up the Nation of Islam newspaper on the desk.
“That shit’s my unc’s,” Starrell said to Dunne. “Believes in all that back-to-Africa bullshit. Like I want to go back to where they got killerjack viruses.”
Starrell listened into the phone. He repeated to Dunne the name and address that Willie had found for the number on the calendar.
“Yeah, Willie, yeah,” Starrell said into the phone. “I’ll tell her’bout you … . Okay, okay.” He hung up the phone.
“Thanks,” Dunne said.
“And what about that other stuff downstairs?”
“Don’t think it’s worth much.”
“Nothing?”
“Besides, that’s nasty business.”
“Man, all business is nasty business,” Starrell said.
“Yeah, but some business is nastier,” Dunne said. “I should go.”
“You owe me a hundred.”
“I’ll be back with it.”
“Like I’ll see that.”
“You will. And I thought we said, one-fifty.”
Starrell smiled. “Okay, Mr. Money Man, okay.”
“Thank you, Mr. Starrell,” Dunne said. “And good luck with Tamika.”