Better Dead (6 page)

“Care to clarify that?”

Cohn shrugged one shoulder, placed his as-yet-unsipped coffee cup on the desk, though he could just as easily have set it on the tray. “You were seen talking to Hammett. After he testified.”

“So what?”

“You were then seen getting into a cab with him. You were also seen going to a well-known local restaurant, where you talked for over an hour.”

I swiveled in the chair toward him. “I had lunch with the man. He hadn't eaten before he testified. Again—so what?”

“Is he a friend of yours?”

“He's a writer I admire who I took the opportunity to meet. Don't you like
The Thin Man,
Roy? Nick and Nora? Asta?”

Cohn ignored that. “Did
he
offer you a job? Did
you
turn
that
down?”

Was this humorless little prick psychic? I noted that McCarthy, sitting there like a blue-jawed Buddha, fingers laced on his belly again, was just letting his hatchet man do the dirty work.

Unsettled in spite of myself, I said, “How is this your business again?”

Cohn, folding his arms, gave me the tiniest smile in human history and said, “We know all about this ‘concerned citizens' group of pinks he's assembled. He should spend more time writing and less time raising funds for traitors.”

Now McCarthy spoke, no oratory this time: “Were you approached to reopen the Rosenberg case, Nate? To look for new evidence to clear those two Soviet spies?”

“Suppose I was,” I said. “What then?”

“If you didn't say yes,” McCarthy said, “I'd encourage you to reconsider.”

That made me blink. I admit it.

I said, “What?”

The off-white smile blossomed again in the plump sea of blue beard.

He said, “I'd like you to say yes to the slippery Mr. Hammett, and look into whatever his little Who's Who of Commies think they have.”

“Why in hell?”

Cohn summoned a bigger smile. The second smallest on record, but a smile. “We want you to work for us, Mr. Heller. Undercover.”

*   *   *

The headquarters of the journalist called by
Time
magazine “the most intensely feared and hated man in Washington” was hidden away on a quaint Georgetown corner within a rambling faded yellow-brick Federal-style town house. I didn't recall ever coming here in the evening before, and in the street-lamp glow, the old house, with its many shutters, brick sidewalk, and brass trimmings, had an almost soothing effect.

Not at all soothing was the bustling newsroom-like office area a few steps down from the entry, typewriters chattering, news tickers ticking, telephones shrilling. As in McCarthy's Senate suite, half a dozen or more young professionals were lost in work at desks or at the long gray row of filing cabinets, sometimes moving in or out of smaller offices. This was mid-evening, so some late-edition-style deadline had to be driving them.

I'd been greeted by a lovely, shapely redhead in a simple, simply astonishing green dress. She was the married boss's latest secretary, the current “fair-haired girl” (actual hair color not an issue). The other young women in the office were attractive enough, but in a pencil-behind-the-ear, hair-up, horn-rimmed-glasses way. As opposed to the
Esquire
magazine cartoon way.

Her boss was in a small office that looked more like a den—dark plaster walls with framed original political cartoons and signed celebrity photos; a working fireplace with an amateur rural landscape over it and family snapshots lining the mantel; windowsills stacked with books, magazines, and a slumbering cat; and the big central scarred wooden desk with an in- and out-box, a telephone, a glass jar of Oreo cookies, and a battered portable Corona, where the boss in his maroon smoking jacket was in action.

No ashtray, though. I wasn't a smoker, though many people who stopped by here would be. But the man behind the Corona was a Quaker and smoking was out, office-wide. His only vices were some light drinking and of course his fair-haired girls. His wife, who lived on their farm, didn't seem to mind.

The redhead announced me at the open door, got a “Send him in,” and stepped aside and gestured for me to enter, as she and I exchanged warm glances. I'd had an affair with the previous “fair-haired girl,” and had nothing else going on tonight. Who could say where a warm glance might lead?

I just stood there while he finished his current page. Even sitting down he was tall, a trim and sturdy middle-aged man with a little graying dark hair left on the sides of a chrome dome. With his egg-shaped head and waxed mustache, he resembled an American version of Agatha Christie's Poirot. (I'd read her in my youth, too. I somehow doubted she was a Commie.)

He finished the page and with a flourish sent it from typewriter to out-box, then sprang to his full six three and held out a hand. He had a winning, rather toothy smile, but he was trying too hard. We hadn't been back on decent terms that long.

As we shook, Drew Pearson said, “So what kind of mood did you find our esteemed public servant Joseph McCarthy in? Does he know about your late father's politics yet?”

“Somehow that's eluded his crack investigators.”

He grunted a laugh from deep in his chest. “You mean that little weasel Cohn? His idea of investigating is looking under beds for Reds.”

He gestured for me to sit opposite him in a wooden visitor's chair that was apparently designed to discourage a long stay.

“I wouldn't underestimate McCarthy's snoops,” I said, “especially Cohn. I changed cabs three times coming here, making sure they didn't find me consorting with the enemy.”

He sniffed. It was a habit of his, a kind of patrician expression of contempt. “That seems a little excessive.”

I told him how Cohn had apparently had me followed after I left the Senate hearing.

He shook his head and said, “No. Probably it was Hammett they were surveilling. Did you change cabs because you saw someone tailing you?”

People always talked to me like that. Like in a private eye picture.

“No,” I said. “It was a precaution. Or maybe just paranoia.”

He fixed his light blue eyes on me and got a twinkle going. “So you met with Hammett, as I requested. How did that go? Did you accept the case?”

“First you should know that McCarthy and Cohn are already onto what Hammett and his friends are up to.”

“Hell you say…”

I gave it all to him, including the offer of a staff investigator position on the committee and how they wanted me to accept Hammett's job and work undercover for them.

“Damn,” he said. “What did you tell them?”

“Well, yes, of course.”

“What?”

“The money was good. So is Hammett's.”

“Well, who will you
really
be working for, man?”

“Same as always. Nathan Heller.” I sat forward and lifted the lid off his glass cookie jar and got myself an Oreo. “Think it through. McCarthy may be able to open doors for me that you and Hammett and company can't. This is a closed case, with almost everybody I need to talk to in jail.”

Thinking, Pearson said, “Not
everybody's
in jail.…”

“No, and that's where you and Hammett's All-Star Leftists can help out. I'll need to talk to several un-incarcerated folks, who'll be understandably gun-shy about opening up to any investigator.”

The columnist had a cookie, too. He chewed, thought, swallowed. “I may be able to pave the way for that with the Rosenbergs' lawyer. He's refused to grant meetings to the justice committee members.”

He was referring to the National Committee to Secure Justice in the Rosenberg Case, a grassroots group.

I nodded. “Hammett tells me this lawyer … what's his name, Manny Something?”

“Emanuel Bloch, yes.”

“This Bloch is against the committee's push for clemency. He considers his clients innocent and apparently his clients agree. Which is why Hammett wants to look for new evidence, new witnesses. For a new trial.”

“And that's what they
rate
!” Pearson said, and slammed a fist on the desk, rattling everything from typewriter to cookie jar. Even the cat opened its eyes. Momentarily.

“Nathan,” he said, “that nice couple were convicted of a crime of which they were not only innocent, but which was never committed in the first place. The testimony against them comes from self-styled accomplices who sold them out, all of whom perjured themselves. They weren't charged with treason, as everyone seems to think, but with conspiracy to commit espionage in time of war. But the Russians were our
allies
at the time. And that this so-called conspiracy even
exists
comes from the lips of liars.”

“Glad to see you're keeping an open mind.”

He sniffed. “How much do you know about the case?”

“I followed it in the papers some. Looked like the defense botched it half a dozen ways, but also like the defendants were probably guilty. That's usually enough in this country.”

He didn't argue the point. Instead he got a thick file folder out of a desk drawer and flopped it in front of me. “Here's everything I have on it. Get yourself up to date.”

I folded my arms. “What—are
you
my client?”

He gave up a dry laugh. “Sounds like you already have
two
—McCarthy and the Hammett committee. Don't be greedy.”

That was rich coming from the notoriously cheap Pearson. Part of why I fell out with him was because he could be slow to pay and always nickel-and-dimed me on expenses.

I said, “McCarthy called me, and then I called you. You put me with Hammett. I suppose the best I can expect is that you don't ask for a finder's fee.”

He thought about that. “You're getting a decent retainer from Hammett. You've haven't said what McCarthy's ponying up.”

“And I won't. Anyway, it's not a retainer from Hammett, it's a flat fee of three grand, as I expect you already know—maybe you contributed to it, but I doubt it—and Christ knows how long this will take.”

His expression was grave. “They're set to die in less than two months. Isn't three thousand enough to hold you that long, man?”

I managed not to laugh at this tightwad's money management advice.

“You cover expenses,” I said.

“… What do I get for it?”

Now we were down to it.

“Everything I find goes to you first, Drew. I'll let Hammett know I'm giving you an exclusive because you put this all in motion.”

He sniffed again. “Well, I suppose that's fair. I'll want the usual receipts and detailed accounting.”

“Fine. Let's have it in writing.”

He gave it to me, using the Corona.

Then he got a funny expression going, the waxed mustache twitching. “Listen … there's something else you need to keep a sharp eye out for.”

“Oh?”

“I've been digging up plenty of dirt on McCarthy, and I've got hold of something that, if it's true, would sink him … but if it isn't, and I print it, I'll be the one circling the drain.”

I put on mock shock. “You mean
he's
a Commie?”

“No.” He breathed in. He breathed out. “I think he's homosexual.”

“Oh, come on, Drew. Have you seen that doll who's his chief of staff?”

“The Kerr woman? Possibly a beard. Or perhaps his gate swings both ways. But I have three statements from witnesses who performed sodomy with him, or on him, or whatever they do to each other. And there was a boy on his staff who was let go a while ago after he was arrested for lewd acts.”

I recalled the young staffer who'd chauffeured at Mosinee and later answered the door when I was ushered in to see the great Red hunter naked. Not an image I cherished.

But I hadn't seen that young man in the office today.…

“And then there's this Roy Cohn,” he said.

“Now you're just indulging in wishful thinking.”

“I don't think so, Nathan. Didn't you see the coverage about him and that matinee-idol Schine kid, that hotel heir? Prancing around Europe, snapping towels at each other in hotel hallways? When they were supposedly checking up on Commies in the Voice of America, and looking for books by Hammett to burn in State Department libraries?”

I held up a stop palm. “You're on real shaky ground, Drew. You know the Fifth Estate stays away from sex and drinking where these politicians are concerned. Anyway, who cares who sticks what into who, as long as the stickee is up for it?”

“‘Whom,'” he said.

I smirked. “Columnists who live in glass houses with stacked secretaries shouldn't throw stones.”

He reddened. Actually reddened. Finally he managed, “Well, if they
are
queer, Joe and Roy … and they are so close you'd have to pry them apart … they're the worst kind.”

“What kind is that?”

He raised a fist. “The kind that accuse others of it, to deflect such accusations from themselves. That bastard McCarthy implied
I
was a ‘pervert' on the floor of the damn Senate!”

Innocently I asked, “What are you are supposed to have done on the Senate floor, Drew? And to whom?”

The sniff was almost a snort this time. “Tail-Gunner Joe makes a
big
to-do about his aversion to homosexuality, and rooting out the homos in government because they're bad security risks. But what if it's all to keep the heat off himself?”

I shifted in the wooden chair, lucky not to get a splinter. “The A-1 still takes divorce cases, Drew, but I don't snap photos through motel windows anymore. Even I draw the line.”

“I'm just saying keep your eyes open.”

“I promise. At least one.” I stood. “Now … let me get to work trying to keep that ‘nice couple' from sitting down where you don't stand up again.”