And now, almost nine years later, in the bar of the clubhouse of the Chevy Chase Club, with wind and rain rattling the windows nearby, I was seated with Jo Forrestal’s husband-the Secretary of Defense of the United States of America (for two more days, anyway)-who was telling me a story that seemed chillingly familiar.
“You’re a Jewish fella, right?” he asked, out of nowhere, pointing with the pipe stem.
“My father was a Jew,” I said with a shrug. “My mother was Irish Catholic, like your stock.”
He waved that off. “I don’t practice the faith.”
“I wasn’t raised in any church. What’s that got to do with people trying to kill you, Jim?”
His eyes narrowed to slits. “If I was a Jew hater, if I was anti-Semitic, would I hire a Jewish detective? Christ, my secretary is Jewish!”
“I’m still not with you, Jim.”
He wet his fingertips again and patted his lips, saying, “I stood against Palestine, for the sake of my country, and that makes me a Jew hater? It’s bullshit, utter bullshit.”
“The Jews are trying to kill you, too?”
He nodded; beads of water clung to the upper lip-less mouth like sweat. “They could be. It could be the Zionists. Why aren’t you writing this down?”
“I can remember it. Anybody else want you dead, Jim?”
Now the pipe stem jabbed at the air. “Is that sarcasm? I won’t tolerate sarcasm. This is very real.”
“No, it’s not sarcasm,” I said flatly. “Who else wants you dead?”
He pounded the table with a fist. “I don’t know! I just know I’m being shadowed. I know they’ve got the house bugged, the phones tapped. You’re the detective, Heller. Find out!”
“Okay.” I sipped my rum and Coke, casually said, “Let’s start with the other obvious question: why would somebody want you dead?”
“The obvious answer: I know too much.” He dabbed more water on his lips. “Nate, I’ve done some bad things, trying to do good. Sometimes I’m afraid I’ve betrayed my country by trying to serve it…. Once I’m out of office, I’m a threat to all sorts of people.”
I had a sick feeling in my stomach: fear. “If this is tied in with the intelligence community-what’s this new branch called?”
Forrestal flinched a non-smile around the pipe stem. “The CIA.”
“Yeah, a spook by any other name. Anyway, if that’s what this is about, what do you expect a lowly private dick to do about it?”
He jabbed the air with the pipe stem again. “Don’t do anything about it-just find out who the hell is after me! I can call in favors once I know who it is, whether it’s the Zionists, the Russians, American Commies, or that bastard Pearson … and the list goes on!”
“The suspect list, you mean?”
“Call it that if you like.” Forrestal reached behind him for his wallet and withdrew a check.
He held it out so I could see it: a three-thousand-dollar retainer for the A-1 Detective Agency.
“Nate, find out who wants me dead.”
I took the check. “Jim … this is awkward, but there’s something I have to raise. Doesn’t all this seem a little-familiar, to you?”
He blinked. “What do you mean?”
“That job I did for you, before the war-for your wife? She thought ‘they’ were out to get her, too, from the Commies to the household help.”
“That is an interesting coincidence,” he said, nodding somberly. “Of course, there’s a major distinction.”
I was putting the folded check into my wallet; mine was not to reason why, mine was but to keep my business afloat. “Which is?”
He shrugged. “My wife’s a lunatic.”
And he dipped his fingertips in the water glass and patted the moisture on the thin dry lips.
2
Back when the rest of the District of Columbia was swampland, Georgetown-in the city’s furthermost NW section-was a booming colonial seaport. Despite the lovely landscaped acreage of Georgetown University in its midst, the village had declined into a run-down near-slum by ’33, when FDR’s New Dealers and Harvard brain trust types had arrived on the scene, looking for lodging. These pillars of social conscience soon displaced much of the village’s Negro populace, and ramshackle former mansions that had housed ten or twelve colored families were renovated into suitable quarters for one wealthy white clan. Negroes were driven out of their timeworn wooden frame houses and crumbling stone cottages and weathered brick former slave quarters, which were quaintly though elaborately remodeled into dwellings befitting liberal white folk.
Now, in 1949, Georgetown was Greenwich Village gone to graduate schooclass="underline" within these reconditioned slums dwelled professors, artists, congressmen, and cabinet members.
But what these latter-day carpetbaggers hadn’t anticipated was the ancillary impact of this transformation: tourists. Picturesque postwar Georgetown’s once sleepy streets (some of which were still cobblestone) now bustled with tour buses and the sidewalks (some of which were still brick) teemed with Kodak-wielding explorers, seeking signs of their country’s bygone days.
In from the hinterlands on safari, Mr. and Mrs. Frank Buck (and all the little Bucks) trekked through a jungle of shaded streets, seeking the big game of formal mansions on tree-flung manicured lawns, and the smaller game of cozy cottages set flush against sidewalks. In the commercial section-mostly M Street and Wisconsin Avenue-Great White Hunters from Nebraska and Idaho could take a breather from the chase and duck into cozy cafes or charming little antique shops or bookstores in ancient houses with brand-new storefronts.
The hordes of rubberneckers were undoubtedly a pain in the ass for the locals, but manna from heaven for yours truly. Though late March was hardly the height of tourist season, there were plenty of out-of-towners gawking at Georgian mansions, refurbished stables and antebellum houses for a detective on stakeout to blend in with on this sunny Saturday. The thunderstorm that yesterday had pummeled the Chevy Chase Club’s golf course was now a few puddles, replaced by blossoming honeysuckle and magnolia announcing spring and welcoming visitors.
I tooled my dark green rental Ford down M Street, where I left the car in a parking garage near the Francis Scott Key Bridge; I walked away humming “The Star Spangled Banner,” jaywalking across to 34th Street and-pausing once to take in the dramatic view of the canal and the Potomac at my back-trudged up its steep hill.
Washington was a suit-and-tie town if you were a native, but I was a tourist in a pencil-stripe blue rayon short-sleeve shirt, darker blue garbardine slacks and a tan felt fedora. Falling in behind a honeymooning couple from Dubuque (eavesdropping is second nature to the paid snoop), I turned left onto Prospect Street; the lovebirds and I crossed to the right-hand side of the street. The bride was a curvy little brunette, by the way; the groom … I don’t remember.
Their destination-and that of any number of other Washington wayfarers-was a weathered gray-painted brick colonial house with white trim and shutters and authentic period decor. Tours were available and a gift and coffee shop was inside, a stone bench outside. When I wasn’t on foot, scouting the neighborhood, the coffee shop and the bench were my home for the surveillance.
The coffee shop in particular was perfect, with its generous window view of the big house cater-cornered from here. The plump fiftyish colonial-costumed gal who managed the coffee shop (and who cheerily negotiated me up from a sawbuck to a double sawbuck for the privilege of hanging around most of the day) informed me that 3508 Prospect Street was known as Morris House, built in the 1700s and once owned by a naval commander of that name.
Another naval commander-the former Secretary of the Navy, in fact, who was the current Secretary of Defense-lived there now. Forrestal and his wife had only been in that Woodland Drive house near Rock Creek Park a year or so before moving into this impressive, dignified near mansion with its trim brick walls and exquisite Georgian detailing. The front was well-proportioned, sitting above the sidewalk on a low, stone basement story, and the west wing had been turned into a garage; but its most distinctive feature was an octagonal tower that had no doubt once allowed the naval commander named Morris to keep watch on his fleet.