Max Collins - Target Lancer

“I wish her luck,” he said, crossing his arms, but his expression said he thought she had a rough road ahead of her. “Cabaret and theater aren’t what they used to be in this town. Sally’s probably going to have to go the strip club route. Even at her age, she’s a name in that world.”

“She doesn’t look her age,” I reminded him.

“No, and neither do I, and neither do you, but we are still old fuckers. Never forget that.”

“Where Sally has it over on us,” I said, “is nobody would pay a nickel to see us in our birthday suits.”

That made him chuckle, and he rose. “I hear Eben Boldt’s stopping by today. If you can make him smile, I’ll buy lunch two days running. Make him laugh, I’ll spot you, my missus, and Sally to supper at the Cafe de Paris.”

“Honor system?”

“Sure. You wouldn’t lie to me.”

“Only because you’d know.”

He shut the door-like all invaders of other people’s privacy, I prized my own-leaving me smiling, because he was right about Eben Boldt. What it took to make that guy laugh was a mystery this detective had never cracked.

Nice guy, though, and smart, and if I might be allowed, I was proud of him.

Eben Boldt was the only Negro Secret Service agent in the Chicago office, one of a handful in the nation, and had even spent a number of months on the White House detail, the first Secret Service agent of his race.

Boldt had grown up in East St. Louis, Illinois, his father a railroad worker, his mother a strict disciplinarian. He’d been raised around Dixieland and jazz music, which was the part of his personality I liked best, and he’d earned a college degree in music.

So in the summer of 1957, when he showed up on the A-1’s doorstep, saying he was interested in a career in criminal investigation, I said, “Hum a few bars and I’ll fake it.” That marked the first of many times I looked into the sharp-eyed chocolate oval of his face and got no reaction.

“I’m serious about this, Mr. Heller,” he said.

He’d been twenty-two years old, a handsome kid-not Sidney Poitier handsome maybe, but close enough, a slender, highly presentable exemplar of his people.

We ran a regular advertisement seeking investigators but had never had a Negro apply before. I thought a young colored operative would come in very handy in Chicago, and based on his professional if somber demeanor, and his impressive grade average at Lincoln University, I took him on.

Boldt was with us only a year, however, before he applied to the Illinois State Highway Police. It was clear the A-1 had just been a stepping-stone into what I’m sure he figured would be “real” police work, but I took no offense. He’d done an excellent job for us, mostly working undercover on gambling-related cases in Bronzeville, and I had been happy to give him a glowing letter of recommendation.

His work experience for the A-1 probably helped Eben move quickly out of traffic into the then brand-new Illinois Criminal Investigation Division. He’d been noticed there by the head of the Springfield office of the Secret Service, and encouraged to apply-which he did, passing the civil service test and entering the Secret Service in 1960.

Eben and I had not been friends exactly-I’d been his employer, and much older-but we encountered each other from time to time, when the A-1 had occasion to interact with the local Secret Service office.

And he had shared with me the story of how he got invited to be on the White House detail. He had a very somber, grandiose way of telling it, which on the several occasions I’d heard it had never failed to make me laugh. He took no apparent offense but never saw the humor.

Jack Kennedy had been in Chicago at McCormick Place for a banquet designed as a thank-you for Mayor Daley and his political machine, who’d helped put the Prez over the top in Illinois, through means that might best be described as imaginative. Boldt’s role had been to stand guard in the basement at a restroom set aside for the President’s personal use. When Kennedy and an entourage including the mayor, the governor, various congressional leaders, and local pols trooped past Boldt’s post, the President raised a hand like Ward Bond halting the wagon train. Seemed the leader of the free world needed to heed nature’s call.

Nevertheless, Kennedy paused to speak to Boldt, the President seeming to the agent “strangely shy.” He asked the Negro, “Are you one of Mayor Daley’s finest, young man?”

“I’m a Secret Service agent, Mr. President.”

An agent accompanying the group called out, “He’s assigned to the Chicago office, sir! His name is Eben Boldt.”

Kennedy said to the doorman, “Do you know if there has ever been a Negro agent on the Secret Service White House detail, Mr. Boldt?”

“Not to my knowledge, Mr. President.”

“How would you like to be the first?”

“Yes, sir, Mr. President!”

The next day, Eben had his new marching orders.

“That’s how I became the first Negro Secret Service agent to serve at the White House,” he said, the first time I heard the story.

“What you are,” I said, laughing, “is the first bathroom attendant ever promoted to the White House staff.”

Eben had not seen the humor.

Nor had he fit in well on the White House detail. He had gotten along famously with JFK and Bobby, but there was friction with the other agents. They made continual racial digs, and Eben wasn’t the kind of guy who could roll with punches like that. I’m not saying he should have, just that he couldn’t. He reported his fellow agents for racial comments, as well as drinking and carousing when on the road with the President, and was generally not popular.

Eben requested a return to the Chicago office, after a three-month probationary tour, and permission was granted.

Lou and I discussed the A-1’s talented if tight-assed graduate over lunch at Binyon’s.

“He’s a good man,” Lou said. “Think of the shit we’ve got as Jews, over the years, and just try to imagine what his life is like.”

“I’m not a Jew,” I said, over my finnan haddie. “I’m just a Mick with an unfortunate last name. Anyway, his life would be easier if he knew how to laugh.”

“See? You are a Jew.”

Lou also reported to me that he’d assigned various men (and one woman) to the Ellison case, as I’d outlined earlier.

When we got back at one forty-five, Eben Boldt was already there, seated in the waiting room, hands folded in his lap, as immobile as a cigar-store Indian.

Seeing Lou and me, he shot to his feet. He was in a crisply tailored dark-gray suit with a white button-down shirt and a black tie with a restrained red pattern; his black wingtips were mirror-shined. A charcoal green-feathered hat was on the seat cushion next to him.

And he immediately proved me wrong-he smiled at us both. Not a big smile, but he was obviously pleased to see us, and shook both our hands, a firm, perspiration-free grip.

“Mr. Sapperstein,” he said, with nods to both of us. “Mr. Heller.”

“You know us too well for that, Eben,” I said. “It’s Nate and Lou, okay? And just because you work for the government, don’t expect me to call you ‘mister.’”

He gave me a blank look. He could smile-it was just humor that he missed.

I led Eben through the bullpen and he nodded and said hello to a couple of agents who’d worked here when he did. No stopping for conversation, though. We moved right into my office, he took the client chair and I got behind my desk, and we had one of the shortest conversations on (or off) record at the A-1.

“Someone wants to see you,” he said. He stood. “I’ll drive.”

I stayed put. “What, you’re taking me for a ride? To a Chicago guy, that has a kind of nasty ring.”