“I've seen copies of the magazines, but I've never bothered to read one of them,” McAlister said.
Jackson picked up the first magazine in his lap and opened it to an article titled “Negro Mental Inferiority.” He handed it to McAlister and said, “Here's a little something written by Andrew Rice in 1964.”
Reading the first several paragraphs, McAlister winced. He passed the magazine to Kirkwood.
Jackson gave another one to McAlister. “Here's an especially nasty little number titled 'Has Hitler Been Maligned?'”
“Christ!” McAlister said, feeling sick to his stomach. Glancing only perfunctorily at the article, he quickly passed it on to Kirkwood. Weakly, he said, “Well… People do change.”
“Not as radically as this,” Jackson said. “Not from a fanatical fascist to a paragon of liberal virtue.” He spoke with conviction, as if he'd had considerable time to think about it. “And people certainly don't change so quickly as Rice appears to have done. That paean to Hitler was published exactly one year before Harvard University Press issued his Balancing the Budget in a Welfare State, which was the best seller and which was overflowing with liberal sentiment.”
Skimming through the Hitler article, Kirkwood said, “This is the work of an Andrew Rice who belongs in a nice little padded cell somewhere.”
“Believe me,” Jackson said gloomily, “that Andrew Rice is the same one who is today advising the President.” He opened another magazine to an article titled 'The Chinese Threat,' and he gave this to McAlister. “In this one Rice advocates an immediate nuclear attack on Red China in order to keep it from becoming a major nuclear power itself.”
Shocked for reasons Jackson couldn't grasp, McAlister read this piece from beginning to end. By the time he had finished it, he was damp with perspiration. “How could he ever have become accepted as a major liberal thinker when he had a background like this?”
“He published eleven of those articles, the last in October of 1964,” Jackson said. “They all appeared in magazines with terribly small circulations.”
“And even then, not everyone who received a copy read it,” said Kirkwopd.
“Right,” Jackson said. “My guess is that no one who read those magazine pieces also read his liberal work beginning with the Harvard book. Or if a few people did read both — well, they never remembered the byline on the articles and didn't connect that work with the book. As the years passed, the chance of anyone making the connection grew progressively smaller. And when Rice did move into a position of real power, it was as a Presidential aide. Unlike Cabinet members, aides do not have to be confirmed by the Senate. Because Rice doesn't have an engaging or even particularly interesting personality, he hasn't been much of a target for newspapermen. No one has combed through his past; they all go back to the Harvard book and never any further.”
As he wiped the perspiration from his face with his handkerchief, McAlister said, “Why haven't you blown the whistle on him?”
Jackson said, “How?”
“Call up a reporter and put him on the right track. Even give him your copies of the magazines.”
“Too dangerous.”
“Dangerous?”
Sighing, Jackson said, “Do you think for a minute Rice could have gotten away with this change of face if Prescott Hennings didn't want him to get away with it?”
“You're suggesting a conspiracy?'
“Of some sort.”
“To accomplish what?”
“I dont know,” Jackson said.
McAlister nodded.
“But I'm beginning to think you know.”
Staring straight into the black man's eyes, McAlister said nothing.
Jackson said, “I'd wager that if I hustled some reporter with this stuff, Hennings would have conclusive proof that the very famous liberal Andrew Rice was not the same Andrew Rice who wrote those articles way back when. And then yours truly would be marked as a slander monger. I've got a nice job and a big earned pension that's coming to me in a few years. When it comes to my financial solvency, I'm as morally bankrupt as the next man.”
McAlister folded his handkerchief and returned it to his pocket. “Rice isn't a very common name. Even if Hennings did have some sort of trumped-up proof, it wouldn't be believed.”
“Mr. McAlister, forgive me, but even if the proof was conclusive, Rice would remain as a Presidential aide — and I'd get bounced out of the cloakroom on my ass. Do you think all those liberals, Democrats and Republicans, who have praised Rice to the skies are suddenly just going to admit they were deceived? Do you think the President will admit Rice made a fool of him? If you think so, then you're more naïve than I would have thought. There will be a lot of somber speeches and statements about giving a man a second chance and about the marvelous capacity for change that Rice has shown. Hearts will bleed. Pity will flow like water. The conservatives won't care if Rice goes or stays. And the liberals would rather argue that a child killer can achieve sainthood even in the act of murder then admit they were wrong.
“I believe that Rice probably has taken a long-term position in order to achieve power with which he can score points for right-wing programs — while he professes liberal aims. It's an ingenious tactic. It requires consummate acting skill and monumental patience, and it's more dangerous to our system of government than any screaming, shouting frontal attack of the sort that right-wingers usually make. But it's much too complicated for most Americans to understand or worry about. They like their politics nice and simple. Actually, I'm not even sure that it's anything to worry about. I'm not so sure he can do all that much damage. If he's got to maintain his liberal image, he can hardly begin pressing for the Hitlerian laws and schemes he wrote about in those articles for Hennings' magazines.”
Getting to his feet, McAlister said, “That's quite true.”
“But now I'm not so sure,” Jackson said, standing, stretching, watching McAlister closely. “Since you came here like this, you must think Rice is involved in something very big and very dangerous.”
McAlister said, “I'd appreciate it if you kept this visit to yourself.”
“Naturally.”
“Could I have a few of those magazines?”
“Take them all,” Jackson said.
Kirkwood scooped up all eleven issues.
At the front door, as they were shaking hands, McAlister said, “Mr. Jackson, I can only repeat what I said on Wednesday: you're sure full of surprises.”
Jackson nodded and smiled and shuffled his feet, putting on a bit of that refined Stepin Fetchit routine which he used to such great effect at the White House.
“Would you and your wife consider joining Mrs. McAlister and me for dinner some evening soon?”
“I believe that would be most interesting,” Jackson said.
“I believe you're right.”
On the way down the flagstone walk to the car, neither McAlister nor Kirkwood said a word.
On all sides of them, the grass looked bluish-white, pearly in the October moonlight.
A teenage boy and a pretty blonde were leaving the house next door, just starting out on a big date.
A child's laughter came from the front porch of the house across the street.
McAlister felt as if the sky were going to collapse on him any second now. He walked with his shoulders hunched.
When they were both in the car again and the Pinkerton man had started the engine, McAlister turned to Kirkwood and said, “It was your group that got the Cofield lead.”
“That's right.”
“And the Hunter lead too.”
“Yes.”
“How are you using your investigators?”
“Some of the other teams are working a sixteen-hour day. But I've got my men divided into three different eight-hour shifts so we can pursue our leads around the clock.”
“Who are the federal marshals guarding your team?”
“Right now, on the four-to-midnight grind, it's a man named Bradley Hopper. Midnight to eight in the morning, it's John Morrow. During the day shift, when I'm on duty with two assistants, we've got a marshal named Carl Altmüller.”
After six months with this man as his chief investigator, McAlister was no longer in awe of Kirkwood's ability to remember every detail of his work, even the full names of the guards who were assigned to him. “Which one of them was on duty when the Potter Cofield lead began to get hot?”
Kirkwood said, “Altmüller.”
“What do you know about him?”
“Not much. I chatted him up when he first came on duty. Let me see…” He was quiet for a few seconds. Then: “I think he said he wasn't married. Lived in — Capitol Heights somewhere.”
“Capitol Heights, Maryland?” McAlister asked.
“Yeah.”
He turned to Burt Nolan, the Pinkerton man. “That's not very far from here, is it?”
“No, sir.”
“Better get to a phone, look in the book, see if there's a full address listed for him,” McAlister said.
Nolan pulled the Mercedes away from the curb.
Leaning up from the back seat, pushing one thin hand through his bushy hair, Kirkwood said, “You think that Carl Altmüller is working for Rice?”
“Rice assigned the marshals,” McAlister said. “He chose them. And once he had a list of possibilities sent over to him from Justice, he needed six hours to call the first one of them. Now, what do you think he was doing all that time?”
Kirkwood's glasses had slid so far down his nose that they were in danger of falling off. He looked startled as McAlister pushed them in place for him. “Well… I guess he was trying to find a man — or men — he could buy. It took six hours.”
Nolan found a telephone booth at the corner of a shopping-center parking lot, and Kirkwood went in to look through the book. While he was out of the car, McAlister said, “Burt, I hope you remember that you've taken the agency's secrecy oath.”
“I haven't heard a thing,” Nolan said.
When Kirkwood came back a minute later, he said, “Altmüller is listed.” He gave Nolan the address. To McAlister he said, “Isn't it dangerous for us to walk in on him all by ourselves?”
“He won't be expecting anything,” McAlister said. “And Burt here has a gun of his own.”
“Begging your pardon, sir,” Nolan said, keeping his eyes on the busy highway, “but I think that you might be getting me in over my head. I'm not a public law officer. That secrecy oath didn't give me any police powers. I've been hired to protect you, but I can't go looking for trouble.”
“Then,” McAlister said, “I'll borrow your gun. Bernie and I can go it alone.”
Burt took a long moment to consider all the angles of that. He accelerated around a panel truck and pulled back into the right-hand lane. His broad face was expressionless in the lights of the oncoming cars. Finally: “I'd have to take the gun out of my holster and lay it on the seat. Why would I do that?”
“Maybe while we were parked at the telephone booth, you saw someone approaching the car, someone who looked suspicious,” McAlister suggested.
“That's a possibility. I wanted to be ready for him. But maybe after this person proved to be no threat, I left the gun on the seat where it would be handy. And then you picked it up without my seeing.”
Smiling, McAlister said, “I suppose you could make a mistake like that.”
“Everyone makes mistakes,” Burt agreed.
Kirkwood didn't like the sound of it. He shifted nervously and said, “I think we should get some help.”
Turning around to look at the younger man once more, McAlister said, “I'd like nothing better, Bernie. But who in the hell could we trust?”
Kirkwood licked his lips and said nothing.