Target Lancer

CHAPTER 11

Just catercorner from the Monadnock Building on Dearborn, between Adams and Jackson, the Federal Building was one of those massive, magnificent classical buildings designed to outlive the pyramids.

But this was Chicago, and the wrecking ball would be coming before long, to make room for another glass-and-steel Mies van der Rohe slab like the nearly completed federal courthouse across the street, already casting its thirty-story shadow on the Federal Building’s meager sixteen (counting the dome, anyway).

Eben Boldt and I clip-clopped across the three-hundred-foot-high octagonal rotunda, surrounded by polished granite, white and Siena marble, elaborate mosaics, gilded bronze, and government drones. An elevator with a uniformed attendant (you were seeing less and less of that now) took us up to the ninth floor, where the various federal offices were as utilitarian as the lower area was imposing.

On the ride back from Glenview, Boldt and I had not discussed my confab with the attorney general-in fact, the meeting wasn’t mentioned at all, Bobby Kennedy’s presence unacknowledged. We knew each other well enough to rustle up some small talk about his wife and their two grade-school-age children, and about my boy Sam, and how I was looking forward to spending time with him over Thanksgiving vacation.

The only reference to the little trip we’d just taken came when we were already in the Loop, with Eben saying, “It will be good having you work with us on this.”

And I said, “Yeah. How will Martineau feel about that? We mildly butted heads a while back.”

I had worked for an attorney defending a guy who had passed some counterfeit money, innocently as it turned out (at least according to the jury), and Martineau-who had not appreciated my testimony-asked me after, “How do you sleep at night?”

“With my eyes closed,” I’d said.

“SAIC Martineau and I,” Eben said, pulling into the Federal Building parking ramp, “maintain an uneasy truce.”

I didn’t pursue that.

Moving through an area half the size of the A-1’s waiting room, past a stern-looking but not unattractive brunette receptionist with mannish eyeglass frames, we entered at the midpoint of a rectangular bullpen of perhaps a dozen gray-metal desks. The layout-courtesy of substantial squared-off pillars and wall-like arrangements of filing cabinets-divided itself into numerous sub-areas, giving each desk some work space and even privacy. Down to my right, one end had a glassed-in area of telex machines with a door on either side marked INTERVIEW ONE and INTERVIEW TWO, and down at my left, that end was home to two glass-and-wood-faced offices, the glass blotted out by venetian blinds.

Eben walked me through and I nodded to a couple of agents I recognized, though most were as anonymous as monks hunkered over calligraphy. These servants of a higher power wore not shaved skulls and robes but crew cuts, dark-rimmed glasses, and white shirts with dark ties (suit coats slung over chairs). They seemed to either be on the phone or at their typewriters, the latter on stands that extended from the right of metal desks arrayed with gooseneck lamps, blotters, multiple-line phones, and disturbingly neat piles of paperwork. Clipboards hung on pillars with high-mounted black-bladed fans and the occasional clocks. This was an institutional world of gray-green plaster trimmed in dark wood, accented by bulletin boards bearing circulars, existing under fluorescent lighting that gave everything and everyone a ghostly pallor.

At the end with the two offices, Eben ushered me to the door at right, which was stenciled in gold:

SPECIAL AGENT IN CHARGE

Maurice G. Martineau

the implication being that the position was more important than the mere man who held it.

Eben knocked, waited for the “Yes,” and said, “Mr. Heller is here, sir.”

“Send him in, Ebe.”

This was apparently Eben’s nickname around the office, sounding vaguely like “Abe,” and news to me.

The Negro agent opened the door for me, I stepped in, and he shut it behind me, not joining us.

This was a good-size office, also rectangular but in the opposite direction as the outer area, putting Martineau at his glass-topped mahogany desk at right with a blinds-shrouded window behind him, facing a small conference table all the way across the office, by a wall bearing a big map of the United States. The furnishings were not the gray metal of the bullpen, but dark woods, Mediterranean style. A framed picture of Kennedy overlooked a bookcase of law books opposite as you entered, with the wall adjacent to Martineau’s work area dominated by a bronze Department of the Treasury seal.

Martineau did not rise. He was in fact on the phone-had two multiple-line jobs on the desk, which held many stacks of papers and files, nearly as neat as those of his minions. The desk itself wasn’t any bigger than a Buick, and instead of a gooseneck lamp, he had a green-shaded banker’s number, the shade the same color as his blotter. No ashtray.

Maurice G. Martineau was a sturdy-looking fifty or so, not in his shirtsleeves-his charcoal suit tailored, his tie striped blue and black. His oval mug was well-grooved but otherwise as anonymous as those faces in the crowd out in the bullpen. No crew cut for Martineau, though-his salt-and-pepper hair was neatly parted and combed and a Little-Dab’ll-Do-Ya’ed, and the only thing unruly about him were wiggle-worm eyebrows over deceptively bland blue eyes.

He raised a hand while he finished his phone call. I took in a few other details-the American flag behind him and to his right, the framed family photos (wife, boy, girl) arrayed on another smaller bookcase under the Treasury seal. Also a pitcher of ice water and several glasses.

Call finished, Martineau leaned back in his dimpled-brown-leather swivel chair and extended his hand. It was an odd example of gamesmanship, because this required me to rise from the visitor’s chair to accept the handshake, which proved firm and perspiration-free.

Sitting back down, I said, “I’ll try not to get in anybody’s way, Mr. Martineau. I’m just here to help.”

His smile might have seemed genuine to somebody who couldn’t read eyes.

“Make it ‘Marty,’” he said. “We don’t stand on ceremony around here. I know the Service has a reputation for stuffiness, but when your job is to lay your life on the line, the people you work with become your friends.”

“Fine. So then make it ‘Nate,’ and just let me know how I can lend a hand.”

“Let’s start with why you’re here.” He was rocking a little. “All I’ve been told is that you’re on loan from Justice, as…” He checked a paper on his desk. “… an investigative assistant courtesy of the Attorney General. But to my knowledge…” He gestured in the vague direction of the Monadnock Building. “… you work across the street. For yourself.”

I wasn’t crazy about justifying my presence to this bureaucrat, but I could see I needed to.

“I was an investigator on the rackets committee,” I said. “Worked for Bob Kennedy, and became an occasional asset to him, ever since. About an hour ago, he asked me to help you out for the next few days. Because of this situation with these potential assassins. And I said yes.”

His smile couldn’t have been more stuck on if he’d used Scotch tape. He put a lightness in his tone that didn’t quite do the trick when he said: “Then you’re not a spy?”

“What, for Bobby Kennedy? No. He just knows you’re shorthanded. And meaning no disrespect to that young crew of yours out there, most of whom were not raised in this town, I do know my way around Chicago.”

He thought about that for two seconds. “All right. Then I’ll treat you as just another agent.”

“Fine by me.”

“With one exception. You’ll take the office next door. For one thing, I don’t have a free desk. For another, I want the men to understand that you have a certain standing in this investigation. That you represent the AG.”

“Oh, that’s not really a card I want to play.…”

“Then don’t play it. But it’s how I’ll present you, and…” He gestured toward the wall dividing this office from its neighbor. “… that’s the available space I have for you. Used to be my office, when I was deputy SAIC. But when I got moved up, I didn’t get assigned a second-in-command.”

So I had a private office. I didn’t think any further argument was necessary.

He drummed the fingers of one hand lightly on mahogany. “How well do you know Mr. Boldt?”

Interesting. He had called the agent “Ebe,” and made a point of how informal the guys around the office were. But now it was “Mr. Boldt.”

“He worked for me at the A-1 for a year. Before he got that investigative post with the Illinois troopers.”

He was nodding. “Yes, yes, that’s right, isn’t it? How did you find him as an employee?”

“A good agent. With a stick up his ass.”

That made Martineau smile. Whatever artifices were hanging between us had just been broken through.

“He is a very good investigator,” Martineau said. “But he’s not popular here. About half my staff comes from the South, you know.”

“Not surprising,” I said. “Washington, D.C., is damn near Dixieland.”

“Right. Well, Mr. Boldt is … racially sensitive. I would say oversensitive. If he hears his co-workers telling some innocent jigaboo joke, he files a complaint. We had a kind of unfortunate incident when he came back to work here, after his sojourn on the White House detail. He came in that first morning back, and somebody had hung a little noose from the nail where his clipboard hangs. By his desk?”

“That doesn’t sound so innocent.”

“Nate, do I have to tell you that when men do this kind of work, they develop a dark sense of humor?”

“No, but I don’t think a darkie sense of humor is called for.”

He raised his palms and patted the air. “I quite agree. But where you or I might shrug it off, and maybe even throw a punch after working hours, Mr. Boldt makes formal complaints-he did the same thing on the White House detail, which is why he didn’t make it there. So he’s never really been accepted. Never been … one of the guys.”

“That’s a shame,” I said, sort of meaning it, “but what does it have to do with me?”

“When I break this down into two-man teams, I’ll be assigning Mr. Boldt to you. I wanted you to know that in advance, in case you might take offense.”

“Why would I take offense? Anyway, of the guys out there, Eben’s the only one I really know at all.”

“Good. Good. Then there’s no problem.”

“Not as far as I’m concerned.”

“Good,” he said again. Then he sighed in a that’s-that manner. “Well, go check your office out, and be back here in fifteen minutes, for the briefing. Only a handful in the branch are aware of what’s in store for us, and it’s time to clue in the rest.”

I rose, and this time Martineau did as well, and we shook again. I was glad that bullshit was over.

My new home-away-from-home was half the size of Martineau’s office, but it had the same pricey dark Mediterranean furnishings, the desk only slightly smaller. No American flag, but another bronze Treasury seal reigned over an empty bookcase. The walls were otherwise pretty bare, though there was one interesting thing: a framed presidential portrait of Eisenhower, not Kennedy. And it had a bumper sticker plastered across the bottom: I STILL LIKE IKE. A comment on Kennedy, dating back to when this was Martineau’s office? I never asked.

Soon, around the conference table in the SAIC’s office, six agents joined Eben Boldt, Martineau, and me. They were an assortment of crew cuts, about half in dark-rimmed glasses, and I would be lying if I said I ever got their names straight. The water pitcher had moved to the table and two ashtrays were present, and three of the agents smoked during the meeting, but not Martineau. Or Eben or myself, for that matter. At each of the seats a manila folder waited. On the wall behind Martineau as he sat at the head of the table was a big framed city of Chicago map.

All of us were in shirtsleeves. A couple had theirs rolled up, apparently the office rebels. And every eye was on Martineau.

“We have a serious threat to the President on Saturday,” he said, solemn yet matter-of-fact. “Some of you know Nathan Heller here. He has a distinguished record as an investigator with work on some of the most famous cases in this city’s history-actually, in American history.”

All eyes were on me now.

“We’ll agree not to mention his bodyguard assignments for Mayor Cermak or Huey Long,” Martineau said joshingly.

That got smiles and laughs, from me as well.

“We’ll hope for a better outcome this time,” I said.

Martineau continued: “Nate worked with the AG back in rackets committee days, and the AG asked him to trot across the street over here to pitch in. We couldn’t be more short-staffed, so we’re happy for the help. Welcome, Nate.”

I actually got a polite little hand out of the boys.

“Glad to be here,” I said, rising. “I’m in the office next door, but I have no special status. If anything, I’m low man on the totem pole. Just want to do my bit.”

I sat.

“We appreciate that,” Martineau said. “We’ll start with Ebe here…”

Eben was on one side of Martineau, I was on the other.

“… who will fill you in about the phone call he got yesterday afternoon.”

The Negro agent gave his fellow officers the same rundown I’d received on the ride out to Glenview-the FBI agent passing along the warning of a possible assassination attempt on the President by a four-man team using high-powered rifles.

Martineau picked up: “That phone call was confirmed by a lengthy telex from the FBI in D.C. You won’t be surprised that they’ve bounced this over to us. They would like nothing better than for us to screw the pooch, and give them an opening to snatch presidential protection away.”

Half the agents nodded; the rest just stared at their boss in stoic agreement.

“We have basically three days,” Martineau said, “to deal with this threat.”

An agent asked, “Is it just a threat, Marty? Meaning no disrespect to our brothers at the FBI, but we deal with crank assassination calls every day.”

“Not just a threat. Look in your folders.”

They did, and each checked the photos. I had a folder, too, and unlike the photos from Kennedy, these were labeled: Gonzales (the younger Cuban), Rodriguez (the older), the white guys both tagged: Unknown Subject.

“You now know everything available on these suspects,” Martineau said. “These photos are to be shown around but not copied. Not passed out. Understood?”

Nods.

“This morning I spoke with Chief Rowley, who had very specific instructions for me, and for you.”

Rowley was the head of the Secret Service in Washington.

“There are to be no written reports on this investigation,” Martineau said. “Any reports are to be given to me directly-orally. Nothing is to be sent to Chief Rowley-no interoffice teletext communication, either. Phone calls to me, or eyeball to eyeball, nothing else. And this case is to be given no file number.”

These instructions seemed odd as hell, and even in this group-where questioning authority was not on the menu-I saw agents exchanging wary, confused glances. But nobody said anything.

“Understand that there are political implications here,” Martineau said. “Last October, because of the missile crisis, the President had to stand Mayor Daley up. His Honor didn’t appreciate that.”

“Yeah,” I said, “acted like it was the end of the world or something.”

That got some smiles. Still, it was a tough room.

“So it’s unlikely the President will cancel this trip,” Martineau said. “He has political fences to mend and next year’s election on his mind. We need to operate from the assumption that he is, in fact, coming.”

Martineau got up and went to the wall map of the city. He indicated the various locations as he discussed them.

“We have an eleven-mile parade route from O’Hare Airport to Soldier Field. Chief Rowley says this route gives him considerable misgivings, and I have to agree. Most of it is in relatively open areas, and we can guard overpasses on the Northwest Expressway, as we did last March-we have enough support from the Chicago PD and the sheriff’s department to pull that off.”

An agent asked, “So where is the problem?”

“Jackson Street,” Martineau said, tapping the map. “The President’s limo will have to lumber up the ramp and then make a difficult ninety-degree turn that will slow the vehicle to practically a stop.”

“That’s a warehouse district,” I said. It was just half a dozen blocks from where we sat, actually.

Eben said, “Any warehouse district is far more hazardous than a standard corridor of office buildings.”

Martineau said, “No argument, Ebe. On top of that, we have no fewer than forty-five local school and civic organizations who’ll be on hand at that exit, eagerly awaiting a chance to see their president.”

“And if shots are fired,” I said, “with a crowd like that? You’ll have panic that could easily cover the escape of the assassins.”

“We won’t allow any shots to be fired,” Martineau said sternly.

Another agent said, “We don’t begin to have enough men to cover that Jackson area. Marty, this is a nightmare.”

Martineau raised his hands, palms out, in a calming gesture. “We will have more agents by Saturday morning. I don’t know how many, but Nate here isn’t our only support.”

“Thank God,” I said.

A few smiles.

Eben asked, “So-where, when, and how do we start?”

Martineau got up again, and resumed pointing to the map. He assigned groups of two agents to three heavily Latino neighborhoods: Pilsen on the Lower West Side, West Town northwest of the Loop, and South Lincoln Park.

“I’m leaving Heller and Boldt free to run down leads you guys come up with,” Martineau said, “and to follow any other leads that may develop from tips. Questions?”

There were a few, but nothing worth reporting here. That was still going on when the receptionist stuck her head in.

“I’m sorry to interrupt, sir,” she said, eyes worried behind her masculine glasses, “but you weren’t answering your phone.”

“That’s because we’re in conference, Miss Kundel,” Martineau said rather stiffly.

“I know, but there’s a Chicago police detective in the waiting area, and he says it’s important. It’s a Lieutenant Moyland…?”

I said, “I know him. Want me to take it?”

Martineau nodded, and the meeting resumed while I followed the receptionist back to her post. She was about thirty-five and her gray suit was as mannish as the glasses; she seemed to be working hard not to sway her very nice hips. But I am a trained detective and noticed them anyway.

Lieutenant Berkeley Moyland was about thirty-five, a freckled-face, red-haired copper who might have been my cousin, though I took him for a strictly Irish heritage. Pacing a small patch of carpet, he was in a rumpled raincoat and was turning a brown fedora around in his hands like a bumper-car steering wheel. He looked anxious, but his frown disappeared when he saw me coming forward to shake hands with him.

“Nate Heller?” he said, in his pleasant tenor. “What the hell are you doing at the Secret Service office?”

“It was either this or pay up my back taxes.”

“I can almost believe that.”

“Actually, I’m doing a temporary tour of duty for this presidential trip Saturday.”

“That’s why I’m here,” he said, the frown returning.

So I showed him to my new office.

He sat opposite me at my big empty desk and said, “How does the town’s most notorious private dick wind up with an office at the Secret Service?”

“Thanks for the vote of confidence. Don’t you remember I used to work for Bobby Kennedy?”

“Oh, that’s right-the rackets committee.” He tossed his hat on my desk, sat forward on his brown-leather chair. “Listen, there’s a little cafeteria I grab breakfast at, over on Wilson Street-the Eat Rite. I go in about seven. I know the manager there pretty well. Today he pulls me over and points out this other customer, a regular he says, though I never noticed him. Kid called Vallee. Muscular little schlemiel with a butch haircut.”

Maybe Berkeley had a little Hebrew in him, after all.

I asked, “What about him?”

“Well, my manager pal says this kid’s been talking about wanting to kill the President. Even saying this weekend would be a good time to do it.”

“You have my attention.”

“Yeah, it got my attention, too. So I went over and sat down and talked to the kid. I said I heard he was no Kennedy fan, and he starts in bad-mouthing the guy, saying how he’d like to do something about it. I cautioned him against that kind of talk. Told him I was a cop and that it could get him in trouble.”

“How’d he take this advice?”

“At first he said it was a free country and he had a right to his opinions. Then I told him that kind of talk had serious consequences, and that nothing good could come from it. And he quieted down. Just got quiet.”

“How do you read him?”

“I think he’s nuts. He had a USMC tattoo on his forearm, so he’s obviously one of these ex-service guys who can’t adjust. Kind of a shrimp, not physically, but short. Like, five five. How the hell he made the Marine minimum height requirement is a mystery beyond me.”

“You make him as unstable?”

“I do. If this guy doesn’t have a gun collection that would give Hemingway a hard-on, I’ll eat my fuckin’ badge. Nate, I been thinking about this all day. I probably shoulda called it in sooner. But I decided, as soon as my shift was over, to come tell the Secret Service about it, in person. I mean, it’s their job, right?”

“Right.” The manila folder Kennedy had left with me was on the desk-about the only thing other than Moyland’s fedora. “Something I want you to look at, Berk.”

I showed him the photos of the two white suspects, and asked, “Is either one of these guys your boy Vallee?”

“No. Mine has a kind of prominent forehead, and a dimpled chin. Same kind of Marine base haircut, though.”

“Okay.” I tucked the photos away.

His eyes were earnest. This was a hard-bitten, seen-everything copper, but talk of killing presidents got him going. “Do I need to make a formal statement about this? You want to have it taken down by a secretary or something?”

“No. I’ll follow it up myself.”

“I don’t know where this kid lives or anything. I could snoop around for you.”

“No. I’ll do the snooping. You’ve done plenty.”

I walked him out, and along the way we chatted about family and so forth. Shook hands with him, thanked him, and sent him on his way, winked at the receptionist, who pretended not to like it, then reported the conversation to Martineau in his office.

“Why don’t you let me take this,” I said. “I’ll grab some breakfast at the Eat Rite on my way in tomorrow morning.”

Martineau nodded. “Doesn’t seem to be one of our assassination team, though.”

“No, I figure them for imports, even the rednecks, and this guy is local. But somebody’s got to check. Not terribly far from where I live.”

“Do it,” Martineau said. “Young ex-Marine, mentally unstable. Sounds like a dangerous type.”

“Sounds like me in 1943,” I said, and went out.