Ted Allbeury - The Twentieth Day of January

“It only wants one man to talk, Mr. Oakes.”

“Well, I can assure you it won’t be me.”

De Jong smiled, stood up carefully and held out his hand.

“Keep in touch, Mr. Oakes. Keep in touch.”

Kleppe’s tongue explored his lower lip slowly and reflectively as Dempsey waited for his comment. Finally Kleppe spoke.

“I think it’s best you don’t tell him right now.”

“I’ve done everything except say the words.”

“And he still doesn’t see you as part of the control group?”

“No. I’m just a go-between. A fixer. The guy who waves the magic wand. The carrier of messages.”

“Maybe it’s better that way.”

“I don’t think so, Viktor. Or I’ll have to argue every point to the bitter end.”

“What do you think his reaction will be when he really gets the point?”

“I’m not sure he’ll be able to bring himself to believe it. He’s really beginning to think he made it on his own. A bit of assistance here and there. It’s understandable in a way. He’s had the support of people that even I wouldn’t have expected to pitch in for him.”

“Like who?”

“Hard line Republicans like Pardoe in LA, de Jong in New York, the Lowry gang in Chicago. I’d have thought they would hate everything he proposes to do. They want the old system, where everybody delivers votes and gets their rewards in the usual way.”

“Moscow’s analysis was that those boys would go along with a nice mix of isolationism and an extended market in the East.”

“Sure they will, but they still want the building contracts, the Federal hand-outs and the rest of the Washington fruit-salad. In the beginning they were trying to put the skids under him and suddenly they find he’s the guy in the white hat.”

“Why do you think it’s so urgent to establish the situation with Powell right now?”

“He’s sorting out new appointments, and a couple of weeks from now I’m going to be one of a crowd. I’ll have direct access but I shall not get much of his time.”

Kleppe nodded. “You’re right, but I think we don’t have a confrontation. He’s doing what we want, and that’s what matters. If you have to wrestle him a bit, then do it.”

Kleppe’s red telephone rang half an hour after Dempsey had left.

“Yes.”

“Shoot if you must this old grey head.”

The voice paused, and Kleppe replied slowly.

“But spare your country’s flag instead.”

“There’s somebody followed your friend since he left you.”

“Where’d they start?”

“Right at your place.”

“Why didn’t you phone before?”

“Because I don’t know who he is, and your friend’s only just stopped moving.”

“Where are you now?”

“In a public box near the girl’s place on 38th.”

“Where’s the tail?”

“Walking up and down. I think he’s got a radio.”

“I’ll phone my friend, you just follow the tail and get an identification.”

“OK.”

Kleppe dialled the girl’s number and she answered.

“Is Andy there?”

“Who’s that speaking?”

“K.”

“Just a moment.”

There was a clatter at the other end, then Dempsey’s voice.

“Andy.”

“There’s a guy tailing you. Leave that place, go to the Waldorf, nice and slowly, have a drink in the downstairs bar, talk to someone, anyone, and then leave. Go to the cinema or somewhere public. Get rid of the tail and then phone me.”

“Who is he?”

“I don’t know but I’m gonna find out.”

Steiner watched Dempsey talking to two men at the Carousel Bar at the Waldorf but he was sure they were not contacts. He saw Dempsey walk out of the doors on Park Avenue, stand hesitating for a few moments, then turn left and walk down to 42nd Street and through to Times Square. Steiner watched as Dempsey stood looking across at the cinema posters. He watched him cross and enter the foyer of the cinema and followed after Dempsey, who bought a ticket and walked through the swing doors. Steiner bought a ticket and as he went through the doors Dempsey came back through the other set of doors and walked briskly across the street and along to a cluster of phone booths by Bryant Park. He telephoned Kleppe and then took a cab to the garage to pick up his car. Neither Steiner nor Dempsey noticed the man who had followed them both.

Kleppe’s man phoned him just before midnight and gave him the name and room number of Steiner’s hotel. He was registered as Josef Steiner and the room had been booked for two weeks by the CIA office in Washington with an address on Pennsylvania Avenue a couple of blocks from the White House.

Nolan got up early and by six o’clock he had trotted in his blue track-suit round the lawns in front of the house, breakfasted, and was sitting at his trestle table reading through Steiner’s reports. He telephoned Harper’s Secretariat for the IRS information on Kleppe, and New York for further information on the apartment block on 38th. His man carrying out surveillance at Dempsey’s Hartford apartment radioed in that Dempsey had arrived back from New York at 3am and had gone straight to his apartment. Oakes had agreed to see Nolan at his office at noon.

Looking down the list of company names on the board in the reception area, Nolan saw that there was still a panel saying “Logan Powell & Associates, Business Consultants.” The address was the floor below Oakes’s law firm.

Nolan sat in the lawyer’s reception room. It was pleasantly old-fashioned, and on the wall was the original artwork of a Norman Rockwell Saturday Evening Post front cover in a plain white frame. Nolan recognized Powell and Dempsey in a group photograph showing Oakes receiving some sort of certificate.

In a cluster of black frames were photographs of Oakes on a tennis court partnering a blonde woman, Oakes in a USAAF officer’s uniform, and Oakes in the company of various important-looking men whom Nolan could not identify.

A middle-aged secretary came out of the far door and invited him to enter, with a smile and a lift of her eyebrows.

Oakes stood behind his desk and waved Nolan to a chair. He was in his late fifties, a lightly-built man with a ruddy complexion and very pale-blue eyes. The tweed suit he wore fitted his body loosely, and he hitched up his trousers as he sat down.

“What can I do for you, Mr. Nolting?”

There was something in Oakes’s look that made Nolan certain that his name had been deliberately mispronounced. He wondered why Oakes should be playing games before he knew what it was all about.

“I thought you might be able to help me, Mr. Oakes. I’m making some inquiries about the strike a few years back at Haig Electronics.”

Oakes fiddled with a pipe and an old-fashioned tobacco pouch. Without looking up he said, “In what way can I help you?”

“You were Haig’s legal adviser at the time.”

“Still am.”

“I’ve had a chat with Mr. Haig himself. He didn’t mention that to you?”

“No.” Oakes looked up and the washed-out eyes were alert, like a bird of prey’s. “Any reason why he should?”

Nolan was used to tougher adversaries than Oakes and he ignored the question and the challenge.

“Looking through the stockholder’s register I noticed that you bought stock in the company yourself about a week before the strike. Why was that?”

Oakes smiled. “It sometimes pays to show faith in important clients’ enterprises.”

“But why at that particular time?”

Oakes shrugged. “Why not?”

“Because you had been their legal adviser for eleven years without holding any stock. Why was it suddenly so important?”

“There was no particular reason. I had some cash to invest. I chose to invest it in Haig Electronics.”