Max Collins - Majic Man

“Maybe so. But you’re still out of office.”

His eyes narrowed and the thin line of his mouth almost curled into a faint smile. “… In four years I might assume another one.”

“Under another president, you mean?”

An eyebrow arched. “I mean as president.”

It seemed to me, despite my political disinterest, that I had read something about the Republican party courting Forrestal; but looking at this gray-skinned, sunken-eyed shell of his former self, a man seeing Communists under his bed and the FBI in his pantry, I found it difficult to picture his face on a Forrestal in ’52 campaign button. In with Jim! I didn’t think so.

The real irony, of course, the aspect of this that was truly odd and even creepy, was the extent to which this circumstance mirrored that “private” job I’d done for Forrestal in 1940. The parallel was so glaring, so disturbing, I couldn’t seem to find a way to bring it up, to point it out to Forrestal….

In the aftermath of that earlier investigation, Forrestal had told me he’d taken the troubled Jo to see a New York psychiatrist, that she’d been hospitalized with a diagnosis of clinical schizophrenia. Shock treatment had been part of the therapy, and I hated to hear that, because I didn’t believe in that snake-pit shit. I even felt a little guilty about telling her I’d seen a shrink myself; the story about my father killing himself with my gun was true, of course, and I still carried guilt for it. But I’d never lost a night’s sleep and wouldn’t have seen a psychiatrist if voices were telling me to paint myself blue and dance naked in Marshall Field’s window.

And now, almost nine years later, in the bar of the clubhouse of the Chevy Chase Club, with wind and rain rattling the windows nearby, I was seated with Jo Forrestal’s husband-the Secretary of Defense of the United States of America (for two more days, anyway)-who was telling me a story that seemed chillingly familiar.

“You’re a Jewish fella, right?” he asked, out of nowhere, pointing with the pipe stem.

“My father was a Jew,” I said with a shrug. “My mother was Irish Catholic, like your stock.”

He waved that off. “I don’t practice the faith.”

“I wasn’t raised in any church. What’s that got to do with people trying to kill you, Jim?”

His eyes narrowed to slits. “If I was a Jew hater, if I was anti-Semitic, would I hire a Jewish detective? Christ, my secretary is Jewish!”

“I’m still not with you, Jim.”

He wet his fingertips again and patted his lips, saying, “I stood against Palestine, for the sake of my country, and that makes me a Jew hater? It’s bullshit, utter bullshit.”

“The Jews are trying to kill you, too?”

He nodded; beads of water clung to the upper lip-less mouth like sweat. “They could be. It could be the Zionists. Why aren’t you writing this down?”

“I can remember it. Anybody else want you dead, Jim?”

Now the pipe stem jabbed at the air. “Is that sarcasm? I won’t tolerate sarcasm. This is very real.”

“No, it’s not sarcasm,” I said flatly. “Who else wants you dead?”

He pounded the table with a fist. “I don’t know! I just know I’m being shadowed. I know they’ve got the house bugged, the phones tapped. You’re the detective, Heller. Find out!”

“Okay.” I sipped my rum and Coke, casually said, “Let’s start with the other obvious question: why would somebody want you dead?”

“The obvious answer: I know too much.” He dabbed more water on his lips. “Nate, I’ve done some bad things, trying to do good. Sometimes I’m afraid I’ve betrayed my country by trying to serve it…. Once I’m out of office, I’m a threat to all sorts of people.”

I had a sick feeling in my stomach: fear. “If this is tied in with the intelligence community-what’s this new branch called?”

Forrestal flinched a non-smile around the pipe stem. “The CIA.”

“Yeah, a spook by any other name. Anyway, if that’s what this is about, what do you expect a lowly private dick to do about it?”

He jabbed the air with the pipe stem again. “Don’t do anything about it-just find out who the hell is after me! I can call in favors once I know who it is, whether it’s the Zionists, the Russians, American Commies, or that bastard Pearson … and the list goes on!”

“The suspect list, you mean?”

“Call it that if you like.” Forrestal reached behind him for his wallet and withdrew a check.

He held it out so I could see it: a three-thousand-dollar retainer for the A-1 Detective Agency.

“Nate, find out who wants me dead.”

I took the check. “Jim … this is awkward, but there’s something I have to raise. Doesn’t all this seem a little-familiar, to you?”

He blinked. “What do you mean?”

“That job I did for you, before the war-for your wife? She thought ‘they’ were out to get her, too, from the Commies to the household help.”

“That is an interesting coincidence,” he said, nodding somberly. “Of course, there’s a major distinction.”

I was putting the folded check into my wallet; mine was not to reason why, mine was but to keep my business afloat. “Which is?”

He shrugged. “My wife’s a lunatic.”

And he dipped his fingertips in the water glass and patted the moisture on the thin dry lips.

Back when the rest of the District of Columbia was swampland, Georgetown-in the city’s furthermost NW section-was a booming colonial seaport. Despite the lovely landscaped acreage of Georgetown University in its midst, the village had declined into a run-down near-slum by ’33, when FDR’s New Dealers and Harvard brain trust types had arrived on the scene, looking for lodging. These pillars of social conscience soon displaced much of the village’s Negro populace, and ramshackle former mansions that had housed ten or twelve colored families were renovated into suitable quarters for one wealthy white clan. Negroes were driven out of their timeworn wooden frame houses and crumbling stone cottages and weathered brick former slave quarters, which were quaintly though elaborately remodeled into dwellings befitting liberal white folk.

Now, in 1949, Georgetown was Greenwich Village gone to graduate school: within these reconditioned slums dwelled professors, artists, congressmen, and cabinet members.

But what these latter-day carpetbaggers hadn’t anticipated was the ancillary impact of this transformation: tourists. Picturesque postwar Georgetown’s once sleepy streets (some of which were still cobblestone) now bustled with tour buses and the sidewalks (some of which were still brick) teemed with Kodak-wielding explorers, seeking signs of their country’s bygone days.

In from the hinterlands on safari, Mr. and Mrs. Frank Buck (and all the little Bucks) trekked through a jungle of shaded streets, seeking the big game of formal mansions on tree-flung manicured lawns, and the smaller game of cozy cottages set flush against sidewalks. In the commercial section-mostly M Street and Wisconsin Avenue-Great White Hunters from Nebraska and Idaho could take a breather from the chase and duck into cozy cafes or charming little antique shops or bookstores in ancient houses with brand-new storefronts.

The hordes of rubberneckers were undoubtedly a pain in the ass for the locals, but manna from heaven for yours truly. Though late March was hardly the height of tourist season, there were plenty of out-of-towners gawking at Georgian mansions, refurbished stables and antebellum houses for a detective on stakeout to blend in with on this sunny Saturday. The thunderstorm that yesterday had pummeled the Chevy Chase Club’s golf course was now a few puddles, replaced by blossoming honeysuckle and magnolia announcing spring and welcoming visitors.