Memorial at the same time.
‘Moran! Hold up,’ he had cried, slapping him on the back. ‘I need a man to celebrate with me and you’re just the fellow. What do you say to a pick-me-up at the Old Ebbitt Grill? Oh, and I’m buying.’
Moran — his hair ginger, his skin florid and his nostrils permanently flared — had glanced guiltily at the white envelope in his hand. ‘I really ought to get back to the office, Edward.’
‘Please, it’s Ed. And I shall have you back at your typewriter within the hour. That’s what, Karl, eight hours before deadline? That should be enough, even for you. And remember, today’s the first day of August. And what do we always say?’
‘Nothing happens in August,’ the two men chorused.
‘Now, meet my friend Jim, photographer for the Picture Post.’ James raised a silent hand, not sure if he was meant to risk the revelation of his accent. ‘And let’s get ourselves some refreshment.’
Ed kept chatting away, clearly keen to get to the bar before Moran had a chance to change his mind. Then, as they turned onto 15th Street, the three of them walking three abreast heading north past the White House, Ed looked over at James. ‘Oh, you needed to pick up some supplies, didn’t you, Jim?’
‘That’s right,’ James answered, entirely baffled. ‘Some new film.’
‘And you were going to get some stationery for me, weren’t you?’ At that Harrison had given the merest glance in the direction of Moran’s hands and James understood.
So now he watched as Moran downed what, by James’s count, was his fourth martini. At long last, the reporter who had been expounding on the scandal he was sure was brewing in Henry Morgenthau’s Treasury Department, how he reckoned Harold Ickes must hold some ‘stinking dirt’ on the president to have stayed in the Cabinet so long and why he couldn’t stand his father-in-law, finally rose to his feet and, swaying, moved towards the men’s room. To the horror of both Harrison and James, he took the white envelope with him.
‘That’s it,’ Harrison said, so sober he might as well have been drinking tea. ‘We’re just going to have to prise the damn documents from his hand. I’m going to pay a visit to Mr Moran in the men’s room.’
‘You’ll do no such thing,’ James said immediately. ‘You do that and, two minutes later, Moran will be telling McAndrew we’re onto him. He’ll have time to rethink.’
‘Damn.’
‘He mustn’t know we know.’
‘Damn, damn, damn.’
‘Here,’ James said, handing him the white envelope he had bought nearly an hour ago. ‘Let’s stick to the original plan.’
Harrison quickly opened his briefcase and pulled out a series of papers, which he scanned and assessed, then deposited inside the envelope. ‘At least these should keep him busy,’ he muttered.
‘What are they?’
‘Just a story I’ve been working on.’
‘A real one?’
‘Real enough to confuse Moran, even when he straightens up. Sprat to catch a mackerel.’
Moran was back. James had known only one or two dipsomaniacs in his time, one a friend of his parents, but they all had the same telltale trait: the smell of alcohol oozed from their pores. Moran was no different. But he was still sufficiently alert that, as he sat down, his hand remained on the precious envelope.
Harrison resumed the offensive, more talk, more laughter, more drink. But none of it was working. James, who had mainly kept quiet, murmuring his assent, adding the odd chuckle but no more, now took the floor.
‘You know,’ he began. ‘I was in Spain during the war.’
‘ Covering it, for the Picture Post,’ Harrison added quickly.
‘Of course. Which is how I met this reprobate.’ James pointed affectionately in Ed’s direction. ‘And I got talking to some of the men, the volunteers. You know, you were deemed unfit for service if you couldn’t stand up straight, touch your toes, stand up straight, touch your toes — five times in ten seconds. They all had to do it. Hemingway, all of them. Not as easy it sounds.’
‘Don’t be ridiculous,’ said Moran. ‘Anyone can do that.’
‘Harder than you think,’ said James.
Moran drained his glass and rose, with surprising grace, to his feet. There were others in the bar now, the early lunch crowd, a few of whom turned around to watch. In a gesture that was almost balletic he sent his arms soaring towards the sky, then flung them down in the direction of his toes, then pulled himself back upright. There was a small smattering of applause from the other end of the room.
‘You didn’t touch,’ said Harrison.
‘What?’ Moran slurred.
‘Your toes. You didn’t touch your toes.’
‘Come on.’
Moran had another go, his nostrils flaring wide as he went down as if to draw in more oxygen. This time he lingered as his fingertips drew level with his calves, seeking to find the extra flexibility that might carry them to his feet. Keeping his eyes on the Tribune reporter, James picked up Moran’s envelope and replaced it on the table with the one he and Harrison had just compiled.
Moran was back up again now, his face red from the exertion.
‘Three more,’ James said, pretending to time the Tribune man’s efforts on his watch.
Down he went, giving James a second to slip the original envelope — the one that had passed from Stoiber to McAndrew to Moran — into Harrison’s briefcase. Then he sat back, heart beating. At last it was done.
‘See, I did it,’ said Moran, exultant as he returned to his regular altitude.
‘As good a man as Hemingway,’ said Ed, admiringly.
‘And now I’ll be on my way.’ Moran picked up his envelope and walked towards the exit, where the sun was streaming in to drown these noontime drinkers in reproving light. He took a peek inside the envelope and then turned back towards the table, a furious look on his face.
James’s heart skipped a beat.
‘You didn’t let me pay for my shout,’ he said to Harrison, in mock admonition.
‘My treat,’ said Ed, raising his hand. ‘Like I said, I felt like celebrating.’
Ed insisted they wait a good five minutes before repairing to the private snug known only to the bartender’s favourite guests, just in case Moran came back for more.
James could not help but stare at the briefcase, inside which lay McAndrew’s secret. ‘Patience, Jimbo,’ Ed said, more than once. ‘We gotta play this one real cool.’
To make the minutes pass, James asked the American what papers Moran would now be looking at in the office of the Chicago Tribune. What sprat had he served up in place of the mackerel they were waiting to examine?
‘Not a bad story, as it happens, though it will confuse poor Karl Moran and confuse his bureau chief even more. It’s evidence there’s a German agent working on the staff of a United States congressman.’
‘No.’
‘Yes. And very active he is too. Writing full-page advertisements for the national newspapers, timed to appear during the Republican convention — all bought and paid for by the government of Germany, no less.’
‘And you gave that to Moran?’
‘Yes. I’ve been working on it for days. Mind you, I don’t think he’ll use a word of it.’
‘Why not?’
‘Because the Tribune is the Defend America First paper: they’re not going to crap on their own doorstep, if you’ll pardon my French.’
‘So he’ll know it’s fake straight away?’
‘It’s not fake. The papers are real. But he won’t understand why McAndrew will have leaked them. If I were him, I’d guess there was some kind of tension among the America Firsters, and that I was being used by one faction to damage another. He may think McAndrew has a beef with my senior congressman. And if he knows the Dean’s little parcel comes from the Embassy-’
‘He’ll think the Germans are trying to discredit the politician.’
‘Maybe my congressman has outlived his usefulness. The point is, it will take time for Moran to decode. Which is what we need. So long as McAndrew didn’t give any hint to Moran about what he was getting; if he did,
