The Doomsday Bag Page 6

  Not surprisingly, the man didn't argue, either. He saw the Congressman's big Lincoln, hardly looked at me, and came willingly. I didn't have to stick my hand in my coat pocket and pretend I had a gun there. Something was weighing heavily on Emil's conscience and he wanted to get it off his chest.

  The sirens were sounding closer, made louder by the falling rain somehow. I dumped Emil on the bucket seat across from Charles Cornell and Felicia Carr, took the jump job next to him, and picked up the Congressman's hand mike. "Home, James," I snapped. "The Congressman will give you more instructions later."

  On the word, the big Lincoln lurched forward, nosed down the low driveway past all the forsythia, and lunged out into the Washington traffic. Headlights glowed all around us like beacons shimmering in a sea of spray. Jimmy gave it the gas and the long car lost itself among a steady flow of vehicles fighting against the uptown tide. I think we passed a screaming, rotating red bubble-topped squad car on the way out, but it was hard to be sure. D.C. was dripping wet and visibility wasn't good.

  Emil wrung his hands, unable to speak. Charles Cornell gazed somberly across the intervening space at him. Four sets of knees were almost touching. His and Emil's. Mine and Felicia Carr's. Her ivory cameo of a face was pale with the impact of what had happened. But she was a good woman right down the line. She knew it was time to keep her lips buttoned. And she was doing just that. Effortlessly.

  "Emil." The Congressman cleared his throat, patently not liking what he was thinking. He was a very smart man and he didn't need to be an Einstein to remember that it was Emil that had borrowed his pen; a pen that somehow had managed to destroy a bar. "What have you to say about all this?"

  "Congressman—" Emil shook his head. His voice was thin, shrill. "You're just not going to believe me—" His eyes were popping.

  "We're old friends," Cornell said. "For that reason alone, I'll try." The regret in his tone would have stopped a runaway Mack truck.

  Emil's eyes had begun to tear. But the topmost quality in his pudgy smooth face was incredulity and amazement, mingled with fear.

  "It was to be a surprise," he began to babble. "A birthday gift, I was told. It seemed so natural. I don't know why I didn't ask any questions but—oh, my God—what am I mixed up in? You know me, Congressman. We've known each other since the old days. Thirty years—and now this—?"

  "Now what?" Cornell blurted bitterly, anger replacing the shock of the experience. His distinguished face hardened. "You've a lot of explaining to do, obviously—"

  "Congressman," I intervened quietly. "Let me handle this?"

  He nodded, biting his lips, but he couldn't take his eyes off the man. He must have been remembering all the meals, all the small talk, all the camaraderie, the exchanges of ideas and political beliefs, between himself and a waiter who had served his table down through the decades.

  Emil tried to crank his head to stare at me. I didn't look at him but pyramided my hands instead as if I were interested in whether or not I needed a manicure. Felicia Carr's eyes glittered at me.

  "Emil, nobody's arresting you or anything like that. We just want to hear what you have to tell us. Then the Congressman's chauffeur will either take you home or back to the club. It's as simple as that. But none of those things will happen until you tell us everything. Now. Why did you switch pens on the Congressman and who put you up to it?"

  Cornell started to say something, his eyes alarmed. How could I promise a possible assassin, at the very least a material witness before the fact—an accessory, really—how could I promise him freedom? But I let all that ride. We couldn't have Emil shutting up like a clam on us. The man was frightened.

  Emil stared down at his own culpable hands. His thin voice fell to a low whisper. But his voice might have been as loud as Judgment Day.

  " . . . At seven o'clock tonight, I was taking my break in the yard between the club and the next building when this tall gentleman came up. He was somebody I'd never seen before but I could see he was somebody. You know. Morning coat, striped suit, white carnation, high hat. . . "

  "In the rain?" I interrupted mildly.

  His voice rose, his face flinging me a look of anger. For trying to doubt him. "He was in a car. A Cadillac. I told you. A VIP. Chauffeur and all. Just like the Congressman. There was no reason not to think he wasn't somebody. Who he said he was . . . " Emil's conversational pattern smacked of New York rather than D.C. I wasn't far wrong. It developed that he had left Red Bank, New Jersey, during the Depression to come to the Capital to try his luck. And there he had remained in a succession of jobs that eventually led to his installment in the club that became Cornell's habitat after sundown.

  "Who did he say he was?"

  "The name he gave me was Paul Ferris. Said he was the President's social secretary—who was I to argue? Do I know everybody who works for the Government? Besides—what was there to be suspicious of?" He took a deep swallow of air, avoiding Felicia Carr's surveillance. It must have been doubly embarrassing for him to tell his story in front of a woman who had all the regality and splendid good looks of a queen. "Well, it seemed the Congressman's birthday was tomorrow and they were planning a surprise dinner for him at the White House. In one of the big rooms. But in the meantime, there was this pen—" Emil took another deep gust of air. Saying it out loud must have made it seem twice as ridiculous in the light of what had happened. "Ferris gave me the pen. He said it was a duplicate for the one that the Congressman always carried. He wanted me to switch them whenever I could because it was a joke. A private joke."

  "Explain that," Cornell snapped suddenly. Emil looked helpless. He tried to grin but it didn't come off.

  "Congressman, they said you were getting forgetful, absentminded, and to prove it—I mean, this Paul Ferris said it—he claimed you would never realize that your old gold ball-point had been exchanged for a solid gold pen that was worth ten times as much. When I did see the pen he handed me, I could see it was a ringer for the one you always carry—but it was a little heavier—also, this Ferris said it was a surprise birthday present—" Emil suddenly glared at all of us. "I mean, what of it? Was it so bad? The President giving an old friend a great surprise like that. I didn't think it would work but like I said, who would have been suspicious? Who would have thought it would be a bomb?" He shuddered. Felicia Carr murmured something sympathetic.

  It was suddenly very apparent in the steady powerful hum of the Lincoln veering in the rain that Emil was a very old man. Maybe hitting the retirement age and quite exactly the sort of querulous patsy for such a scheme. A man who had been left out of things too long, who might have enjoyed a brief moment in the sun. Who had probably entered the little hoax with more enthusiasm than was good for him.

  "Emil, you old fool," Cornell said in a low voice. "You could have killed me—"

  "I know, I know. Congressman, I'm sorry—"

  "I'll have to report you to the proper authorities for this. You'll have to tell your slory. I can't have busy governmental departments chasing all over town after red herrings. You understand?"

  "Yes, Congressman—" Emil was now reduced to monosyllables. His shame had damned the torrent of his self-righteous confession.

  I looked at Congressman Charles Cornell.

  "Is tomorrow your birthday?"

  "Yes, and don't remind me. So they think I'm getting senile—"

  "Stop that," I said. "It was a plot and they played on the poor soul here. Who else knows it's your birthday?"

  "Everybody."

  "Who knows about this club—that you were dining there tonight?"

  "Everybody. That knows me, that is. I had arranged my dinner date with Felicia here sometime this morning. I must have mentioned it to at least a dozen people today. At the hearing, in the Senate, at the White House—" He also shuddered. "Good Lord, what a mess."

  Felicia Carr suddenly interrupted. "Will you gentlemen take me home? I'm still a newspaperwoman. And there's my interview. It's a scoop, you see. Now it really is. U
nless the Congressman—Charles?" She had turned to him, searching his face. Baffled to be ignored now, Emil's head went back and forth like a tennis ball.

  "Hold your typewriters, lady," I said.

  "No, Ed." Charles Cornell shook his head decisively. "Let her have her scoop. Let her print her story. All of it. If somebody tried to kill me tonight to sabotage our investigations, the committee, and the hearings—then let's let the public know. There's no breach of security here. If the big corporation combines have hired outside talent to solve their problems, so be it. Let the public know. It will serve to bring more attention to the whole sordid business."

  "Unless—" I broke off, and he shook his head warningly. I covered my hesitation with a smile. "It's your ball, Congressman. You kick it in any direction you like."

  "Thank you. Felicia, you have my permission."

  "You're a living doll, Charley."

  "I doubt that. But thanks to Ed here, at least I'm not a dead one. As for you, Emil—" He wagged a finger at the barried waiter cowering before him. "You go home and think. And when the FBI calls on you, you tell them everything I've heard from you. I have to give them your name and address, Emil. It's my sworn duty."

  "I know," he muttered thickly. "Thank you for being so understanding—" The forlorn bastard was pathetic now.

  "I didn't say I understood you, Emil. I'm sorry you behaved like this. You should have had more sense. And while we're at it, may I have my old pen back, please?"

  Like a man shell-shocked, Emil groped into a pocket and produced the pen that had triggered the entire deception. I took it from him and studied it. He was right. It was a dead ringer for the toy I had wiped out the bar with. I handed it to the Congressman and he tucked it into his inside pocket again. He picked up the hand mike, spoke into it for James' benefit. I heard him give the address of the Statler Hotel.

  Felicia Carr saw my quizzical look and laughed lightly.

  "My home away from home. When I'm in town, I stay there. Otherwise, I've a cozy little layout in Alexandria. Across the river. Virginia, suh."

  "You are a rebel," I said. But I had a few more questions for Emil, whose loss of the Congressman's friendship was going down like the bitterest pill of them all.

  "Emil. What did this Paul Ferris look like?"

  "I told you. Well-dressed—"

  "No. His face, I mean. Can you describe that?"

  He thought a second, detecting survival in being as helpful as possible, but then he groaned and shook his head. "The car was dark and he only held the door open. Hard to tell. I'd say he was about forty, forty-five. And a moustache! Yes, he had one of those—I'm sure of it."

  He was sure of nothing. I had one last question for him as we drove Felicia Carr to the Statler Hotel. The time was flying away.

  "How could they be sure you could make the switch? I mean it isn't that easy to switch pens on somebody—"

  "He's an amateur magician," Charles Cornell said wearily. "He can do tricks with forks and spoons. Everybody knows that, too. In fact, I would have asked him to show you a few tonight but I had other things on my mind."

  That said it all and just about wrapped up the books on Emil. The percentages had been exercised by the would-be killer or killers all the way. They would have made it work, too, except for that infernally lucky hunch that had started me thinking. I was a marked man all right. The gunnies were out to get me and there would be more to come.

  We dropped Felicia Carr off at the lighted handsome entrance of the Statler, and before a doorman with an umbrella rescued her, she bent to kiss Charles Cornell on the cheek and then squeezed my hand warmly again. Emil had fallen into a stony silence. Then, tripping like a glittering goddess from another time and place, Miss Carr hurried into her home away from home. I watched her go and tried not to think about her.

  Then we gave Emil a free ride to where he holed up. This proved to be a rooming house on Ninth Street with a seafood restaurant nearby. In the still steadily dripping rain, as light as it was, the poor sap looked like a frightened rabbit as he scurried up the porch steps of his house. He didn't look back once. Cornell had been sadly curt and dismissive with him. A tie going back maybe thirty years had been temporarily snapped with one stupid gesture. Pennsylvania Avenue was crying in the rain.

  James then tooled the Lincoln toward the Carlton. Charles Cornell fell into a flinty silence of his own, and I didn't stir him out of it until I was almost ready to get out of the car myself.

  "It's a lousy world, Congressman. But I'll spare you any satirical comments and quotes. I do want to ask you something, if I may."

  "You saved my life," he said, without too much warmth. He was that bitter about his fellow man. It must be horrible to know that someone is gunning for you. "Ask what you like."

  "Is there a backup bagman? Or bag?"

  He blinked. "Odd. For a long while back there, I'd forgotten all about that business."

  "Who could blame you?"

  He was still considering my question, though.

  "Damn me," he suddenly snorted. "I don't know. That's something for the S squad to answer. Markham would know. There were two such bags during the Eisenhower days, but the Kennedy Administration only had one, as did LBJ . . . but—bless my soul. I can't answer your question. It certainly is worth thinking about."

  "I'm thinking about it. Tell me, if the Bagman stays away too long or never comes back, won't they try to change the nuclear codes, the patterns of executions?"

  "Certainly, Ed, but that could take weeks, a month even. And what is still vitally crucial is that the complex system that could trigger a thermonuclear war is not in the proper hands. Ours. Who wants to guess about a supra-situation like that? I don't even want to think about it. It's enough that we have a red alert on our hands."

  "Well, here's the Carlton." I picked up Leonard Kanin's dossier which had been planted behind me all through the ride. "I'll phone you in the morning. If they want a statement from me, please call. It won't destroy my cover anymore than it has been already. I still think there's a bad connection between what happened at the club tonight and the Bagman."

  "So do I," he admitted, and before I could reach for the door of the car, he vised my arm. I looked at him. The face of the old warrior from the Hill was drawn in strong fighting lines. "There is something you should know before you get along any further in this matter. You're new to the Capital, even though I suppose you read the papers like any other taxpayer. But hear me out, Ed. This may be the most important single bit of information I can give you."

  "Go ahead, Congressman. I'd appreciate it."

  He drew his homburg down tightly over his eyes as if he didn't want me to see the anger in them. But I heard it in his voice anyway.

  "There are splinter groups forming in the House, the Senate, and just about all over the lot. You know the President's platform. He's a tolerant, dedicated man. He doesn't believe in acceleration of the war effort in Southeast Asia, not to the extent of some of the hawks in his party but—it's Oatley I'm worried about. Vice-President Oatley and his declaimers about foreign policy, and the general attitude of the Government as relates to the world. This Bagman business would be a wonderful wedge for the antiadministration crowd. They'd love to point it out as an example of the glaring difficulties in such a situation. Putting us all at the mercy of a foreign power. You do see what I'm driving at, Ed? They want to make the Chief seem incompetent."

  "I think so. You're saying if the Bagman isn't found, anything is possible. A military takeover, an impeachment of the President—a declaration of war."

  His rapid affirmative was chilling, coming from a man of his equable disposition and politics and policies. If there was such a danger or dangers, he was the man that would know.

  "Exactly. The Hill has always been a beehive of cross-purposes, amiable hatreds, and armed truces. This Bagman could upset the status quo to a fare-thee-well. And I do mean, bye-bye America as we know it."

  "I got you. I'll do my best
."

  We shook hands warmly. Heartily. His way of saying thanks for saving his life. I dashed toward the protective canopy of the Carlton and James once more moved the Lincoln out into the night. The Congressman had given me a lot to ponder upon. And mull and digest. But all the pondering and mulling and digesting in the world wasn't going to settle anything that night. Not even the stalled peace talks with Hanoi.

  Keeping my eyes and ears open, and very close to the .45 in my left shoulder holster, I clutched Leonard Kanin's dossier in my other hand and went up to my room. The hotel was almost deserted, for the hour.

  It was a time only for reading.

  Reading the story of the Bagman. His life history as it were. Right up to the moment he dropped out of everybody's life.

  I had been in Washington just three days and the first two had been filled only with my sessions at the hearings giving testimony and some sporadic sightseeing along the dreamy Potomac and in and out of the center of the big monuments and the solemn shrines. But this third day, starting with the time when Commander Markham and his cheerfully grim Secret Service agents had steered me toward the White House, had been a rodeo of trouble, excitement, and near-misses. The kind of near-hits that torment your mind, shake your nervous system very badly, and generally upset the decorum of your movements. And the deliberation of same. I had sort of been pushed since about one o'clock that day. Now the hands of the watch on my wrist were fanned out at ten thirty and I was bushed. For the first time in almost ten hours, I had slowed down to a crawl. I was alone, there was no place to go, no one to call or talk to. I locked the door of my suite, flung into the bedroom, undressed in a hurry, and literally raced into a stinging shower. Not before calling the downstairs desk to leave a seven o'clock wake-up call.

  The shower was very necessary. Tension and terror had drenched me, as well as the falling rain.