“A comforting thought,” I said. “I must-”
“Myron was fond of that hat, Mr. Peelers. Try not to get it soiled or yourself blown out from under it.”
I pledged not to, to her deaf ears. In the sunlight, committed to the hat, I began to have second thoughts, but a man’s gotta do what a man’s gotta do. I strode off toward my faithless Ford, climbed into the saddle, and barely made it to Arnie’s garage as the gas tank went bone dry.
Arnie filled it up and gave me an estimate on fixing the door. The estimate from No-Neck was twenty bucks.
“I’ll make it fifteen if you throw in that hat,” he said as he pumped gas into the tank “lt’d be some good laughs around here.”
“I didn’t know you had a sense of humor, Arnie,” I said, adjusting the hat on my own head.
“I’m as sensitive as the next guy,” he said, pulling the gas nozzle out. “That’s two bucks for the gas and another fifteen cents for oil.”
I paid, took off my hat so I could get into the car without knocking it off, and drove away. A pair of boots would’ve helped, but I didn’t have the time. My disguise would have to do.
Parking on Broadway was tough. I pulled around a corner and drove into a parking lot. I got out, put on my hat, and gave the guy in overalls a broad grin and told him I expected to be back in an hour.
“You got it, Tex,” he said.
“How’d you all know I was from Texas?” I said.
He was climbing into my Ford and shaking his head. I figured him at about eighteen years old, maybe nineteen.
“It’s the hat, Tex,” he said with a wink. “Real authentic. You guys all have them authentic hats just like in the movies. You want a tip?”
“Sure enough, son,” I said.
“You’re layin it on too thick,” he whispered confidentially. “I’m from Lubbock. Anyone talk like that back home, we’d know he was a Yankee pissing around and we’d hog tie him and ship him north on a cattle car.”
He screeched rubber and headed toward the corner of the lot. What did he know? I left the lot and headed down Broadway past Little Joe’s to the building where Martin Lyle and his New Whigs had their office. It was a respectable building, if not in a high prestige neighborhood. It even had an elevator that worked at reasonable speed and carried me up to the eighth floor with no stops.
“Good weather you folks up heah are having,” I told the bespectacled, pudgy woman who operated the elevator. She turned, looked me up and down, shook her head, and went back to work. I was beginning to seriously doubt the credibility of my disguise, but it was too late. I got off the elevator, touched the brim of my hat to her and went down the hall to room 803, which had stenciled in gold on its door THE NEW WHIG PABTY HEADQUARTERS, and below that in smaller letters, MARTIN LYLE, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR. Below that there remained the outline of additional lettering that had been scratched away. I bent to look and was fairly sure that the removed letters read DR. ROY OLSON, PRESIDENT.
I was squinting at the door when it opened and a pale woman looked down at me. She was wearing a dark blue suit, her black hair back in a bun, and a serious look on her face.
“Can I help you?” she said.
“Name’s O’Hara,” I said, standing as high as five nine would take me. “I’ve got an appointment with your Mr. Lyle.”
Damn, the Irish accent had taken over. I touched the brim of my hat to remind me of who I was supposed to be and cursed my stupid disguise silently.
“Come in, Mr. O’Hara,” she said, and I did.
The outer office was small. Secretary’s desk, some files, photographs, paintings of stern-looking old men in ancient suits. “Who are those fellas?” I said, pointing at the wall paintings.
“Henry Clay, Daniel Webster, William Henry Harrison, and Winfield Scott,” she said, going back to her desk efficiently.
The photographs on the wall flanking the portraits were, according to the woman, of various congressmen, none of whom I recognized.
“Most impressive,” I said, getting back my Southern exposure.
“We think so,” she said efficiently. “I’ll show you right in.”
She got up from behind the desk again, knocked at the door behind her, and, hearing a “Come in,” opened it and motioned me to follow her.
I wasn’t sure of what I expected Martin Lyle to look like. I was counting on his never having seen me before and of my accent being just good enough to disguise my voice. Lyle was standing behind his desk, which featured a tabletop American flag. Both hands were on the desk and he had a small smile on his face, the same small smile I had seen on his birdlike face in Doc Olson’s waiting room when he had been sitting there with his parrot.
“You may leave us,” Miss Frederickson,” Lyle said. “In fact, you may simply close the office and take that package to Mr. Sikes in Santa Monica.”
Without a word, Miss Frederickson closed the door and left.
“Now,” Lyle said, apparently not recognizing me in the hat or never having paid attention to me in Olson’s office, “let’s talk about our old friends in Washington.”
I had the big hat in my hands as I sat in the chair across from Lyle, who remained standing, a small smile on his face.
“Allen Hall,” he said evenly.
“Big fellah.” I grinned.
“And am I to understand that you would like to consider joining our organization?” Lyle said, still standing.
“Maybe so,” I chuckled. “Maybe so. I’m ready to do whatever it takes to save this great country of ours from going down with the likes of Franklin De-lay-no Rosey-velt.”
“And so are we,” he said as the door to his right opened and Bass stepped into the room. “So are we, Mr. Peters.”
Bass looked as close to respectable as it was possible for a moving truck to look. He wore a suit, white shirt, and tie, though the short end of the tie was too short and the long, too long. His washed-out blond hair was combed back carefully.
“Accent gave me away?” I said, trying to be calm.
“I knew who you were when you called,” said Lyle, motioning to Bass with a nod of his head. Bass clearly did not understand the nod so Lyle had to sound it out for him. “Go stand at the door to insure that Mr. Peters does not leave before we’ve had a nice chat. You like chatting, don’t you Mr. Peters?”
“I like chatting,” I said, bouncing my cowboy hat on my knee.
“Good,” said Lyle, still standing as he adjusted his rimless glasses. “I’m going to try to reason with you.”
“At the moment I’m very much interested in listening to reason,” I said amiably.
Lyle touched the tip of the gold-painted flag pole on his desk and looked at the flag as he went on.
“Your interference, your insistence on pursuing me and Mr. Bass, could result in publicity so devastating that it could reach the Whig Party. Did you know that we elected two presidents of the United States, two, both of whom were secretly assassinated to keep the Whig Party from flourishing?”
“Two?” I prompted like the congregation in a Southern Baptist Church.
“William Henry Harrison and Zachariah Taylor,” Lyle said. “General Harrison was poisoned by Martin Van Buren less than a month after he took office, and General Taylor was stabbed by minions of Polk after they first corrupted Taylor and forced Henry Clay to expell him from the Party.”
“I never heard any of that,” I said, pretending great interest.
“You mock me, Peters, but the proof is in our book, the manuscript of which will soon be going to the printer to coincide with our national campaign for the presidency. This war we are in would never have come to pass if Henry Clay or Daniel Webster, our founders, had been elected to the presidency.”
“They were against the war with Japan?” I asked.
“Bass,” Lyle said over his shoulder to the unseen Bass behind him. This time Bass understood. He stepped forward and hit the top of my head with an open palm. It felt like a steel beam falling from the top of a tall building.
“Clay and Webster were against our entry into the Mexican Wars,” Lyle explained, though I had trouble hearing him over the vibrating in my ears. “Clay made the mistake of issuing the Raleigh papers early in his own campaign. He opposed the Mexican War. But …”