“I don’t think I asked one.”
“Don’t mind if I do.”
“Don’t mind if you do what?”
“Have another drink.”
And she ambled over to the liquor cart and built herself another one; again, the vermouth outdistanced the gin, but that didn’t help much, as many as she was throwing down.
“So,” she said, falling into the chair but not spilling a drop, “is anybody really trying to kill the great former Secretary Forrestal?”
“I don’t believe so, no…. I, uh, think I’m gonna see how my men are doing.”
“You do that. You do that.”
I did that, and when I came back, she’d fallen asleep in the chair. Her tumbler-which was empty-I plucked from her hands and set on the coffee table.
When she woke up, a little over two hours later, with a kind of spasm, eyes snapping wide open, she asked, “What time is it?”
“Three-fifteen,” I said, checking my wristwatch.
I was sitting on the sofa, reading an old issue of Time with her husband’s picture on it. Bob Hasty and Jack Randolph had pronounced the residence free of bugs-at least the electronic kind-and were fifteen minutes gone.
“Shit!” She slapped the arms of the easy chair. “Why didn’t you wake me?”
“Was I supposed to?”
She jack-in-the-boxed to her feet, glaring at me. “My flight’s in an hour; cab’ll be here any minute.”
She hustled off, almost ran up the steps, and came down several minutes later, with a flowing black jacket over her white blouse and black slacks; she’d added some jewelry-black-and-white round earrings, a jeweled brooch, some rings-and had freshened her makeup. It wasn’t hard to remember that she had once been extremely beautiful, enough so to pose for Vogue.
I met her as she reached the bottom of the stairs. “You look swell,” I said.
“Thank you.” She had a watch on now, and was winding it. “I’m, uh … sorry if I seemed rude, earlier. I have a bad habit of speaking my mind-particularly to people I like.”
“I thought you’d decided not to like me.”
She touched my face with a slender hand. “I changed my mind. Would you see if my cab is out front? I have to leave some instructions with Remy.”
“I haven’t seen him since you tossed that glass.”
Her tiny smile was an odd mix of embarrassment and pride. “He retreats to his rabbithole when I’m on a rampage.”
The cab indeed was waiting, and I went out and told the cabbie his fare would be along shortly. In the meantime, I carried out her bags and the cabbie helped me load them in his trunk, though they wouldn’t all fit; a few had to go in the backseat.
Inside, I found her snugging on some white gloves; a big black patent-leather handbag was slung over her shoulder, and she looked rather stylish-as chic as a well-dressed Wave.
“Have a good trip,” I said. “I’m making a full report on my investigation to your husband, tomorrow. Any message for him?”
“Just that I hope he’ll join me soon.”
“Is that concern I hear?”
“I love Jim, in my way, as I’m sure he loves me in his.” She kissed my cheek, tickled the side of my face with gloved fingertips. “You’re really a very sweet man.”
“You know, you haven’t cursed in something like five minutes; it makes me uneasy.”
She laughed and this time it lacked the brittle hysteria. “Well, then, Nate, why don’t you go fuck yourself.”
“That’s extra, too.”
She laughed some more and, as if she were a duchess on her way to the ball, I escorted her to the cab and waved as she drove off. She waved from her backseat window, and smiled, but if I’d ever seen a sadder expression, I couldn’t remember when.
My day’s work was done; I’d be leaving Washington tomorrow, I’d decided. The evening was mine, and I had a date with Anya, the blonde in Pearson’s office, who in that wonderful accent had requested I not tell her boss.
Well, if she insisted.
Anyway, it was nice to know Drew Pearson wasn’t on top of everything that went on in this town.
9
The day after he reluctantly stepped aside as Secretary of Defense, James Forrestal was honored by a rare special meeting of the House Armed Services Committee, at which he was lavishly praised by committee chairman Carl Vinson and ranking minority member Representative Dewey Short. Forrestal was presented with a silver bowl, “engraved with our names in testimony of our regards-a regard also indelibly inscribed in our hearts.”
The flustered Forrestal of the day before, struck dumb by surprise and emotion, was replaced by a prepared, dignified statesman who delivered several brief, gracious speeches.
Also attending-and celebrating Forrestal’s accomplishments in public life-were his successor, Louis Johnson; Secretary of the Army Kenneth Royall; Secretary of the Navy John Sullivan; and Secretary of the Air Force Stuart Symington. The press made much of the kind words the latter said about Forrestal, and vice versa, as the onetime friends had become bitter adversaries over matters of budget, among other things, with the Air Force Secretary’s disloyal, harsh criticism of Forrestal in a notorious New York Times interview almost getting Symington fired.
The warmly positive press coverage of Jim Forrestal and the honors bestowed him on that Tuesday morning held no hint of the bizarre, even tragic turn the rest of that day would take.
My appointment with Forrestal, to report on my investigation, was in the afternoon, three o’clock, and shortly before that time I rang the bell of Morris House on Prospect Street. A light, pleasant breeze ruffled my lightweight tropical suit and my hat was in my hand when the Filipino houseboy, Remy, again wild-eyed, answered; but this time Remy was not annoyed, but visibly upset.
“Mr. Heller,” Remy said. “So glad to see you.”
“What’s wrong?”
“Please come in.”
I did. The house was dark-every light was off, all the blinds drawn.
“’Cept for cook, I am alone of staff,” Remy said. “Mrs. Forrestal give Miss Brown, Mr. Campbell week off. Because of Florida trip.”
Stanley Campbell was Forrestal’s butler/valet, a trusted right-hand man.
Turning my hat in my hands, I asked, “Where’s your boss?”
Remy pointed a tremulous finger, toward the living room. There, seated in the same easy chair Jo Forrestal had curled up in yesterday, sat Forrestal, but on the edge of it, rigidly erect. He was wearing his hat, and looked small in his well-tailored gray suit, which was only a slightly darker gray than his complexion; he seemed even thinner and more haggard than he had in his golfing attire, collar hanging loosely from a creped neck. His hands were on his knees, his eyes staring straight ahead, unblinking. He might have been a statue; he might have been dead.
Before him on the coffee table was the engraved silver bowl.
Then I realized he was saying something-muttering-though the thin line of his mouth barely moved.
“Hello, Jim,” I said, taking off my hat, moving into the room.
Now I could hear him. “You’re a loyal fellow,” he was saying, with no inflection whatsoever. “You’re a loyal fellow.”
I pulled over a fan-back chair and sat opposite him, with the coffee table between us; his eyes showed no sign of registering my presence.
“We had an appointment, Jim,” I said. “I need to make my report. I think you’re going to be pleased.”
He blinked, once, and now his eyes seemed to land on me, instead of look right through me.
But he still said only, “You’re a loyal fellow.”
Was he talking about me, or himself? Had he discovered my affiliation with Pearson, and was this a sort of shell-shocked sarcasm?
Remy was standing in the archway between the living room and the entry hall; he called out, “Mr. Forrestal! It’s Mr. Eberstadt again! He says you must come to phone.”