Chapter Seven
Shaw decided that if an unauthorized person ever got into the Pentagon he wouldn’t have a cat in hell’s chance of getting out again. The Pentagon took itself seriously and the checks out took almost as long as the checks in, but in the end Shaw made it. The last of many security guards, taking possession of the stamped pass that enabled him to leave the building, gave him a sketchy salute.
‘Okay,’ the guard said, ‘that’s okay. ’Night.’
It was latish now and the rabbit warren had started to go to bed, the bustle muted to the comings and goings of duty personnel. All the same there was something odd in the atmosphere, a kind of edginess, as though coming events were already casting their shadows… unless it was mere fancy on Shaw’s part, the workings of an overstimulated imagination; but he didn’t believe it was that. He felt a curious tension all around him, an emanation of nerviness. Few of the people in the myriad corridors and offices of the Pentagon would know anything whatever about Warmaster, of course; but an aura of alarm could be self-communicative, could be unconsciously handed down the line from the high-ups who were in the know.
There was no doubt about one thing, anyway: The Administration itself had the jitters. Pullman was undeniably jittery — if he hadn’t been a very worried man, he would almost certainly never have agreed to see Shaw at all. He’d practically said as much. The American admiral was taking a chance in passing information to a foreign national and Shaw knew it.
Leaving the building, he took a cab to the Columbia Grand Hotel, where an apartment had been booked for him from London, and checked in. He was whisked up from the discreetly luxurious foyer in an elevator and escorted to his suite by a self-important bell-hop. The suite, he found, was a pretty expensive one; Latymer had done him proud this time, perhaps so that the British Navy could keep a little face before its wealthy cousins. The bedroom was furnished in lush style, with a supremely comfortable, gold-draped bed, while the sitting-room had a balcony with long french windows opening on to it.
Shaw tipped the bell-hop a dollar. ‘I’d like a meal sent up in fifteen minutes.’ He said.
The bell-hop indicated the maroon-lacquered telephone. ‘Just call down, sir.’
Shaw nodded. ‘Right.’ The bell-hop gave him a grin and left. Shaw took up the house telephone and asked Room Service to send up a meal and a drink. Then he undressed and ran a bath, and while he was relaxing in the hot water, getting the travel grime off his body and the tiredness out of his system, he ran over the names of Rosemary Houston’s contacts and personal friends. There hadn’t been many of the latter; Rosemary Houston, according to Pullman, had no parents and no relatives beyond an elderly uncle living in retirement in California. She hadn’t been especially gregarious and she picked her friends carefully, with the result that, rather than a host of acquaintances and hangers-on, she had a small and select circle of really close friends — kindred spirits with whom she could relax and be herself was Shaw’s guess. And none of these, of course, had been told that she was dead.
There was one name that stood out a mile on Shaw’s list of possibles: Rosemary’s particular girl-friend, a girl named Patricia O’Malley, who lived in Washington and worked for the Navy Department in the Bureau of Personnel. In the past she had been employed on certain secret work on attachment to Pullman’s department, and she and Rosemary had worked together on one or two occasions. Pullman had told Shaw that he could speak reasonably freely to Patricia O’Malley, could on this occasion quote his name, and could tell her in strict secrecy that Rosemary Houston was dead. The ban of any mention of Warmaster and on anything else of which Pullman had spoke still, however, remained. As to the other names on the list, Pullman knew nothing about them beyond the details filed as a result of routine probes into every agent’s contacts and social background generally. He had impressed on Shaw that if he should question these other persons he was to reveal nothing whatever.
With this almost total restriction in mind, Shaw decided to go straight for the best bet: Patricia O’Malley.
He emerged steaming from his bath, feeling a whole lot fresher and ready to go. In the sitting-room a waiter was already putting the finishing touches to the dinner-table. While he dressed Shaw sipped an Old Fashioned, and then he sat down to a light meal of roast beef, rare, a salad, and coffee. After the coffee and a cigarette Shaw looked at his watch. 8.30 pm. Not too late for a call on Miss O’Malley.
He brought out his gun, checked it, and slipped it back into the shoulder-holster beneath the double-breasted, dark grey jacket. Then he left his room and went down to the foyer. Patricia O’Malley lived on Rainbow Boulevard, at Number 1391—about ten minutes’ walk away. Shaw decided to walk. It was a fine, clear night, if cold, and he felt in need of some exercise.
As he went down the steps a man got up casually from a seat in the foyer, stubbed out a cigarette in an ashtray, folded up the evening paper which he had been reading, and also left the hotel. He was a bulky man with a bulbous nose on a cherubic face, quite harmless-looking in a cheery kind of way. He gave a nearly imperceptible shake of the head at the driver of a sky-blue Chrysler parked on the drive-in and then sauntered along behind Shaw, keeping about fifty yards in rear; and he was still there when Shaw turned into Rainbow Boulevard. When Shaw entered the foyer of the block of flats at Number 1391, the man walked on without turning his head, taking not the least notice in the world. He continued walking towards a call-box, where he put through a person-to-person call to a New York number. It took him a long while to get through, and when his man came on the line he sounded edgy.
He said, ‘Hanson here. The Britisher’s contacting the O’Malley girl. Yeah, that’s right. He’s there now. Yeah.’ There was a pause, a long one, then the man said, ‘Yeah, that figures… okay, okay, I’ll call the boys.’
He depressed the receiver-rest, waited, then dialled a local number and spoke rapidly for thirty seconds. Then he jammed down the handset and left the box, shrugging himself into his upturned coat-collar against a cold wind. He walked back along Rainbow Boulevard and kept a discreet watch on Number 1391.
Shaw pressed the bell at the door of Patricia O’Malley’s apartment, and waited. After a short interval he heard footsteps coming along a passage inside and then the door opened. A girl of about Rosemary Houston’s own age stood there, a tall dark girl with deep-set brown eyes, nice eyes that smiled at him appreciatively — as, for some reason, women’s eyes nearly always did at Esmonde Shaw. For his part, Shaw looked back candidly with equal appreciation; this girl was a good-looker. She had the neatest figure he’d seen in years, with small breasts swelling against a flame-coloured sweater, and her legs, slim legs, were provocative in jet-black slacks.
He asked, ‘Miss O’Malley?’
‘Sure, that’s me.’ Standing squarely in the doorway, she looked at him suspiciously. ‘So? You’re English, aren’t you?’
For answer he held up his hand. In the palm was his naval identity card, with the special red-and-green bisected panel on its front cover. ‘You can read there who I am. Ever seen one of these before, Miss O’Malley?’
She studied it, her hair falling across her face as she did so. ‘Yes, I have,’ she said quietly. ‘The identification’s okay and the picture fits, but…’
Shaw gave a quick look round; even though they were absolutely alone he dropped his voice, his lips scarecely moving as he said, ‘I’ve come from the Pentagon. Admiral Clifford Pullman. I’ll ask you to keep that strictly to yourself, Miss O’Malley.’.