Max Collins - Target Lancer

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.