Fear Itself Read online

  Frankfurter chuckled. ‘I meant where in Germany.’

  ‘Oh,’ said Nessheim. ‘A few from Bavaria, the rest from the North.’

  Frankfurter nodded. ‘I came from Vienna myself – back when Austria was its own master. Though I suppose Herr Hitler would say it should always have been part of Germany.’

  ‘I’m on your side with that one,’ said Nessheim softly.

  Frankfurter turned to Annie. ‘You know, I think Mr Nessheim here would enjoy one of your aunt’s soirées. Don’t you think?’

  ‘He might,’ she said neutrally.

  ‘Why don’t you ask Sally to invite him?’

  ‘What’s your address?’ Annie asked impersonally. It was as if her easy chatter with Nessheim just minutes before had not taken place.

  ‘Actually—’ he began, then stopped, not knowing what to say.

  ‘Jimmy’s only just arrived in town,’ Guttman interjected. ‘He’s looking for a rental – a room rather than an apartment. He may not be in D.C. that long.’

  Frankfurter said, ‘I might be able to help with that. Some of my ex-pupils stay in a house that belongs to a friend of mine. He’s a widower, no children, and it’s a big place – so it makes sense for him to have boarders. Let me give you his name and address. Better still, I’ll give him a call.’

  Nessheim’s heart sank at the prospect of more boardinghouse life. Another landlord to add to his list, no doubt a ‘character’. Communal facilities – the joy of other people’s shaving kit on the basin each morning, a shared telephone and a shared kitchen. The smells of linoleum floors washed down with carbolic soap.

  His feelings must have shown, for Frankfurter said reassuringly, ‘I think you’ll like it there.’

  When they left Guttman seemed in high spirits; he was whistling. Nessheim still felt disgruntled.

  Guttman said, ‘Well done. You got an invite lots of people would kill for.’

  ‘I’m not big on parties.’ Stacey Madison had dragged him to countless shindigs all over Chicago, but it was not something he would have done on his own.

  ‘I want you to go to this one.’

  ‘Are you telling me it’s part of the job?’

  Guttman said without hesitation, ‘Yes.’

  ‘Why don’t you go in my place?’ Nessheim said half-facetiously.

  Guttman gave a thin smile. ‘Not my cup of tea, as you very well know.’ He stopped suddenly on the pavement, waiting until Nessheim turned and looked at him. He saw Guttman’s point: his boss was a burly balding figure in a suit that didn’t fit, a tie that was loosening at the knot, and darkbrown Florsheims which, though polished to a high shine, managed to look as though they’d been worn by several other pairs of feet.

  ‘It’s not exactly mine either, Harry. What’s so important about this lady anyway?’

  Guttman was serious now. ‘This girl’s aunt is called Sally Cummings. She knows everybody. Her own political sympathies are a little suspect.’

  ‘Is she a Pinko?’ He hoped he wasn’t back to tracking Communists.

  ‘More like brown-ish – as in Brownshirts.’

  ‘Really?’ He wondered if Guttman had been watching too many movies.

  ‘That’s why I want you to get as close to her as you can.’

  ‘I’m not sure her niece even liked me,’ he protested, thinking of how Annie Ryerson had turned frosty.

  ‘Make her like you then,’ said Guttman shortly, and Nessheim saw he wasn’t joking.

  ‘All right, I’ll go to the lady’s soirée, or whatever it’s called. But I can find my own lodgings.’

  Guttman shook his head. ‘Sorry. That’s part of the job too.’

  ‘How?’ Nessheim found himself growing impatient.

  Guttman had drawn alongside Nessheim now, and they were walking east towards the centre of D.C. The senior agent said disarmingly, ‘I learned long ago that you can’t explain a hunch. But don’t look so glum. The Justice assures me that it’s not your average boarding house.’

  It wasn’t, Nessheim soon realised, unless one’s idea of an average boarding house was a three-storey brick home in newly fashionable Georgetown. His bedroom was on the top floor, with a view of a tall beech tree and the lawn that constituted the back yard. The room was small and low-ceilinged, and he shared a bathroom with someone he only heard down the hall, but it was quiet and homey, with small rugs on the wooden floor, prints of Washington landmarks on the wall, and a bookcase full of English detective novels.

  He slept well on his first night there, and came down to breakfast to find two men at a long table having a furious argument – so fierce in fact, that Nessheim wondered if they were going to come to blows. The bigger of the two, lighthaired and with a handsome face that reminded Nessheim of Gary Cooper, acknowledged Nessheim’s presence with a nod, and passed him a big jug of black coffee, before starting to shout again at the other guy. ‘You think that because it’s quiet over there for now, someone’s going to wave a magic wand and the Nazis will just waft away.’

  ‘They may withdraw.’

  ‘Try telling that to the Poles. Or the Czechs for that matter. No one in their right mind thinks Hitler would give up an inch of territory – what about Lebensraum? The whole point is he wants more space. Christ, the bastard wants the whole world if we let him.’

  The fair-haired man looked up at the wall clock. ‘Damn, I gotta go.’ He added mildly, ‘See you at Sally’s tonight.’ He went out of the room.

  Nessheim sat in silence, a little stunned by this exchange. The remaining man was unusual looking: he had a long face, with a thin brittle-looking nose and high cheekbones, and eyes the colour of a watery sky; his hair was brown, short on top but bushy on the sides. Though he sounded entirely American, there was something foreign about this mix of features that Nessheim couldn’t place. He wondered if he was a Finn, thinking of the immigrants he’d known in Wisconsin. They’d usually first come over to work in the tin and ore mines of Northern Michigan, then moved south to find less punishing jobs.

  ‘What’s the matter?’ the man demanded.

  Nessheim realised he had been staring at him. ‘Are you two guys friends?’

  ‘Sure.’

  ‘Oh,’ said Nessheim doubtfully.

  ‘What, you think we’re enemies because we argue?’

  ‘“Argue”’s an understatement.’

  ‘Nah. We’re always like that. You’ll get used to our ways. Think dialectic.’

  ‘I am. It’s synthesis that’s lacking here.’

  ‘Hah,’ said the man appreciatively. He wiped his mouth with a paper napkin. ‘I’m Dubinsky. Welcome to the House of Youth.’

  ‘How’s that?’

  ‘It’s just a joke the Justice made.’

  ‘You mean Frankfurter?’

  ‘Who else? I’m his law clerk this year, but we’re all connected to him. Aren’t you?’

  ‘He’s the one who recommended this place.’ Nessheim didn’t add that he had met the man for all of ninety seconds.

  But Dubinsky wasn’t listening. ‘When the Justice was young he lived in a boarding house on 19th Street – Walter Lippmann was his roommate for a while. The talk there was pretty highbrow, and so were the visitors – Oliver Wendell Holmes used to drop in on his way home from the court. Some wag labelled it the House of Truth. The Justice said if they had truth on their side, at the very least we have youth.’

  ‘How many of you live here?’

  ‘Just four,’ said Dubinsky, ‘and that’s including you. Otherwise, there’s me, and Plympton – you just saw him in full flow.’

  ‘Is he a clerk for the Justice too?’

  ‘Nah. He was his student at Harvard Law, and the Justice put him onto Harry Hopkins. That’s when Hopkins ran the WPA. Now that he’s at Commerce, Frank’s moved with him. Not much change to his job – he’s away at least half the time. Hopkins isn’t well, so he sends Frank.’

  ‘Who’s the fourth?’

  ‘Miss Davidson, though don’t g
et too excited. She’s fifty if she’s a day and there’s a reason she’s a Miss – face like a moose pat. She typed for the Prof years ago, though she works at the Treasury Department these days. You won’t ever see her because she doesn’t “take breakfast”.’ He said this in the voice of an old woman, and Nessheim laughed. Dubinsky too suddenly looked up at the clock on the kitchen wall. ‘Got to run, we’ve got draft opinion reviews at ten. But I’ll see you around.’

  Nessheim soon got used to the arguments at breakfast, which were the norm rather than the exception – and found he fit into the House of Youth easily, thanks to Dubinsky, who was friendly and a mine of useful information: there was a cleaner but no cook in the house, and Dubinsky told Nessheim how to eat cheaply in the neighbourhood and which Chinese laundry would wash his socks and underwear as well as do his shirts. Plympton was friendly too, but less in evidence. When he was present at breakfast the arguments with Dubinsky were always fierce, but Nessheim realised it was a purely verbal form of take no prisoners. No one hit anybody, no one stalked from the room.

  His own working days were busy, as he went through the security files of the President’s voluminous acquaintances. Often in the afternoon Guttman called him over to the Bureau’s headquarters, where most of the time he was set to work looking at yet more files – those of German sympathisers rather than White House intimates, and the less interesting for their distance from power.

  But sometimes Guttman just wanted to shoot the breeze. Nessheim supposed it was a way of getting to know his boss, but he couldn’t really make the man out. Guttman was friendly enough, but tight-lipped about what he hoped Nessheim would discover. It was as if he didn’t trust Nessheim, and there was even an occasional glint of resentment.

  Once when Nessheim tossed a wadded-up ball of paper towards the waste-paper basket in the corner, Guttman reached out and caught it in mid-air with one hand.

  ‘Not bad,’ said Nessheim.

  ‘Some of us played ball, too. Even if we weren’t all-American.’

  ‘You played football?’

  ‘Yeah, though just the first two years of high school. Why, you think city kids don’t play the game?’ he asked sarcastically.

  Nessheim felt awkward. ‘Not at all. And I wasn’t real all-American. Second team – not that big a deal.’

  Guttman snorted. ‘Bull. If you’d spent high school with your nose smushed against the cinders of P.S. 57’s track, you’d understand why I’m impressed.’

  ‘Why’d you stop playing?’

  Guttman looked sheepish. ‘My mom. She was scared I might get hurt.’

  For once Nessheim felt more experienced than Guttman. ‘She was right.’

  Two days later, an embossed card arrived at Nessheim’s new residence. It read At Home, and invited him to cocktails at the home of Mrs Sally Cummings a week from Friday.

  22

  SALLY CUMMINGS’S HOUSE was called Belvedere and was located in the northern part of Georgetown, off Wisconsin Avenue, a neighbourhood of large houses and large lots. A formal gravel drive came up from the street through gates set in the high laurel hedge that ran along the front of the property; a good hundred yards of lawn stretched between this entrance and the house. Even by the local spacious standards, the Cummings house seemed exceptionally large – a three-storey Georgian pile of rosy brick. There was a Plantation-style portico at the entrance, fronted by two columns the height of the house.

  The front door was half-open as Nessheim approached, and he saw a grand staircase inside, with a banister of polished oak. As he entered the hall, a maid in uniform came up and took his coat, just as a stylish, imperious-looking older woman swept in from a side door. She was elegantly dressed in a long red silk evening gown. There was a large diamond ring on her wedding finger, and she wore a double-strand pearl choker. ‘I think I haven’t had the pleasure,’ she said with a questioning smile. ‘I’m Sally Cummings.’

  She was in her sixties, Nessheim guessed, but well-preserved, with wide cheekbones and a full jaw. A mass of blonde hair was swept back in a leonine mane. He thought she must have been a beauty in her youth, then he realised she still was. Her eyes were friendly but searching, and she extended a hand with the confidence of a politician.

  He said, ‘How do you do? I’m Jimmy Nessheim. Your niece invited me.’

  ‘Ah, the gentleman from the FBI. Friends of Annie’s are always welcome here. And how is Mr Hoover these days?’

  ‘I’m told he’s very well, ma’am.’

  Sally Cummings smiled. ‘I haven’t seen J. Edgar for years. I suppose that must mean I’ve been keeping my nose clean,’ she said with an easy laugh. ‘How long have you been in D.C.’

  ‘Three weeks, Mrs Cummings,’ he said.

  ‘Call me Sally. Everybody else does,’ she said tolerantly, making him feel welcome and patronised at the same time. ‘Washington is not a stuffy city – you’ll get used to all of us soon enough. Now, why don’t you go and help yourself to a drink?’ she said, dismissing him gently and moving forward to greet more newcomers at the door.

  A Negro butler in a white jacket and black tie stood still as a statue by the door Mrs Cummings had emerged from, holding a tray of highballs. Nessheim took one and sipped it – he was surprised by how much bourbon it held. He moved awkwardly through the doorway into a large sitting room. It was ornately furnished, with cherry tables and several sofas; immense canarycoloured drapes were pulled across most of the floor-to-ceiling windows. At the far end there was a large portrait of Sally Cummings above the mantel of the fireplace. Perhaps twenty people were already there, talking in small groups. Nessheim didn’t know any of them, though he thought the portly man standing by a sofa and gesturing with his hand might be Senator Taft from Ohio.

  ‘What on earth are you doing here?’ It was Dubinsky, suddenly at his side.

  Nessheim had been asking himself the same question. ‘Miss Ryerson invited me.’

  ‘Miss Ryerson? Hah. Plympton will get a kick out of that.’

  A maid in a black uniform and white apron stopped with a tray. Dubinsky grabbed one of the canapés – a cheese cube with a slice of pimento olive, held together with a toothpick. He levered the combo off with his finger and popped it into his mouth. ‘Now tell me, who do you know already?’

  Nessheim looked around the room. ‘Not a soul.’ He couldn’t see Annie anywhere.

  Dubinsky gave a pedagogical shake to his head. ‘I didn’t mean know-know. I meant – Do you recognise anybody? Look over there,’ and he pointed to two men by the fireplace. ‘That’s Congressman Horton from Kansas, not a big fan of FDR. He’s talking to Senator Vandenberg – you’ve heard of him?’ he asked hopefully.

  ‘Even I have heard of him,’ said Nessheim. People said the senator from Michigan was going to run for President – and keep America out of the war.

  Dubinsky pointed out other famous guests (it was indeed Senator Taft), including Senator McNary, Governor Price of Virginia, and the owner of the Washington Post, Eugene Meyer. A couple of foreign ambassadors were huddled in one corner talking to a one-armed man whom Dubinsky claimed ran the Federal Mint. The names tripped off Dubinsky’s tongue in a foggy swirl of high ranks and titles; soon Nessheim simply nodded, only half-listening. ‘And later,’ Dubinsky concluded, like a parent promising a treat to a child, ‘you might get a surprise.’

  ‘Is that so?’ said Nessheim.

  Frank Plympton spied them from across the room, and made his way over, carrying a highball high in his hand. He wore a dark blue worsted suit and starched white shirt, with a striped Brooks Brothers tie. ‘Hi boys,’ he said.

  ‘Where have you come in from?’ asked Dubinsky.

  Plympton suppressed a yawn. ‘Caro-lin-ah,’ he said, in a good approximation of a mush-mouth accent.

  ‘And how are our Southern brethren?’

  Plympton shook his head wearily. ‘If you let ’em, they’d have slavery back tomorrow. If you’re coloured and clever down there, you’ve only got one op
tion.’

  ‘What’s that?’ asked Nessheim.

  ‘Head North,’ said Plympton.

  A tiny dapper figure in a three-piece suit appeared at Plympton’s elbow. It was Frankfurter. ‘Gentlemen,’ he said brightly. He nodded pointedly at Nessheim. ‘I see you followed my suggestion, young man. I hope you’re keeping these fellows up to scratch.’

  ‘I think it’s the other way round, sir.’

  Frankfurter shook his head. ‘Don’t get fooled by sophistry posing as wisdom. Isn’t that right, David?’

  Dubinsky nodded. ‘It is. Tell me, sir, is there going to be a draft?’

  ‘Which sort? Military or Presidential?’ asked Frankfurter, raising an eyebrow.

  ‘Both,’ said Dubinsky.

  ‘I expect the Congress to pass legislation this summer instituting conscription. None too soon, in my view; if we’re going to go to war we’ll need plenty of men in uniform.’

  Dubinsky said quickly, ‘And the second kind of draft?’

  ‘I couldn’t comment on the President’s inclinations – even if I knew them. But I have to say, there isn’t any candidate I can see who will have the guts to face our foes – that is, before we have no choice except to fight. And if we wait until then, we’ll be entirely on our own. No, I think the President will soon start to feel overwhelming pressure to stand again.’

  Dubinsky was unyielding. ‘I can’t see why Hitler would want to pick a fight with us if he controlled all of Europe.’

  Frankfurter shook his head. ‘We’ve had this argument too many times before, and you know my answer – world domination is why. That man is never satisfied. It’s just the nature of the beast.’

  He turned to the side as Sally Cummings and another lady came up and joined them. ‘Why Lucy Rutherford,’ Frankfurter announced to the other woman, ‘how nice to see you. It’s been years, hasn’t it?’

  ‘Lovely to see you, Felix,’ she said in a clear soprano voice. ‘I think I was still a Mercer when we last met.’

  ‘Let me introduce you to the boys,’ Frankfurter said. When it was Nessheim’s turn to be introduced, he found himself staring into a pair of riveting blue eyes. ‘Pleased to meet you, Mrs Rutherford,’ he said awkwardly.