Majic Man

“When you followed Secretary Forrestal’s chauffeur, Ted Hertel, you mean.”

“Now you have more information than I do; his name’s Ted Hertel, huh? What do you know. I didn’t much care for the movie, if you want to jot that down.”

“What did you and Secretary Forrestal discuss at Chevy Chase golf club yesterday?”

So much for my prowess at spotting somebody else’s surveillance in progress.

I said, “Jim Forrestal’s an old friend; we just played a round of golf.”

“And talked in the clubhouse for two hours.”

“There was a downpour we were waiting out.”

Baughman twitched a smile, sighed and folded his hands atop the closed folder. “Mr. Heller … I’m well aware that, as a professional investigator, you have a certain code of ethics-”

“Are you sure you read my file?”

“I understand your … reluctance … to betray the confidence of a client. But I must ask you-is Secretary Forrestal in fact your client? And, if so, what have you been hired to do?”

“I told you, Chief Baughman … I’m just a tourist.”

“Does your … friendship with Secretary Forrestal date back to these classified jobs you did before the war, for the Navy Department? When he was Secretary of the Navy?”

“Let me get this straight-the head of the Secret Service is asking me to share government secrets? Is this like where they show a kid a picture of a farmyard and there’s a pig upside down and he’s supposed to spot it?”

Baughman ignored that, and an edge came into his mild voice. “We know you did a job for Secretary Forrestal in 1940, when his wife had her mental breakdown-”

“What does Secretary Forrestal have to do with protecting the president, or catching counterfeiters?”

A sharp knock at the door made me jump.

“Jesus!” I said, undermining my stance as a cool customer.

Baughman, raising his voice, said, “Yes?”

The door cracked open and the dark-haired young agent peeked in. “Chief Wilson is here, sir.”

“Good,” Baughman said. “Send him in.”

“He’s just signing in, sir, down the hall. It’ll be a moment.”

Baughman nodded, and the door closed.

“Not Frank Wilson?” I asked. “I thought you were the big cheese around here, now.”

He arched an eyebrow; his tone was arch, too: “Haven’t you heard that expression, Mr. Heller? Too many chiefs and not enough Indians? That’s Washington to a tee.”

“A tee-pee,” I corrected.

He gave me only half a smile but it was completely condescending. “I knew you could be more clever if you tried.”

The door opened and Frank J. Wilson, former Chief of the Secret Service, stepped inside. Baughman stood, out of respect for his onetime boss; and I stood, too, surprised to see this old friend-or anyway, friendly adversary.

“Been a while, Nate,” Wilson said, and there was nothing halfway or condescending about his smile, always a surprise in that dour, jug-eared, round-cleft-chin countenance of his-almost as unexpected as the long feminine lashes of the keenly alert dark blue eyes under thick black slashes of eyebrow behind round, black-rimmed glasses.

No Hawaiian shirt for Wilson: he wore a dark blue suit with a blue-and-red striped tie that, against his white shirt, invoked Old Glory. He was not a big man-perhaps five eight, possibly 180 pounds-but he had considerable presence; his dark hair was almost entirely gray now, and his forehead had receded to Baltimore.

We shook hands-a firm quick clasp from this one-third of the triumvirate of Ness, Irey and himself who had brought down the notorious Scarface Al (Snorkey, to insiders)-and he gestured for Baughman and me to be seated. We sat, at our respective ends of the table, the wind still ruffling the blinds while Wilson, unbuttoning his suitcoat, sat next to me.

“Well,” Wilson said pleasantly, in his businesslike baritone, placing his palms flat on the smoothly varnished table, “where are we?”

It was like somebody who’d come into a movie late, asking what he’d missed.

“Mr. Heller says he’s a tourist,” Baughman said dryly. “He claims that yesterday he was golfing with his old friend Jim Forrestal, strictly social, and today he was taking in the sights of Georgetown.”

“I see,” Wilson said.

“I don’t,” I said. “Frank, I thought you left the Secret Service over a year ago.”

His face had a little less expression than Buster Keaton’s. “I did.”

I leaned forward. “Or were you asked to leave? I know Elmer saw the handwriting on the wall.”

Wilson’s longtime associate Elmer Irey had retired in ’46 after putting political boss Tom Pendergast away- Pendergast of course having been Harry Truman’s political godfather.

“Everyone thinks Elmer stepped down for political reasons,” Wilson said. “But really there were health concerns-obviously.”

“A lot of vital men die when their work gets taken away from them.”

He leaned back in his hard chair. “I’ve never had a conflict with the Truman administration. In fact, I’m still working for them.”

“Not with the Secret Service.”

“No,” Wilson admitted. “I’m a security consultant, attached to the Atomic Energy Commission, at the moment.”

I tried to digest that.

Baughman said, “Frank was nice enough to stop by and take a hand in this, because of your past relationship.”

“A hand in what?” I asked, worry spreading in me like a rash. “Frank, don’t tell me I’ve wandered into A- bomb country here….”

“What are you involved in, Nate?” Wilson asked, eyes narrowing behind the round lenses. “Secretary Forrestal hired you to do something. What?”

“Frank, if your assumptions are right, then Forrestal’s my client. I’m protected by the same client privacy privileges as an attorney.”

“No you aren’t,” Wilson said, “not unless you’re working through an attorney. There are national security issues involved here, Heller. Or would you prefer talking to Hoover’s people?”

Baughman picked up the file folder. “I neglected to mention, Mr. Heller, the two FBI agents who were hospitalized in 1937-in Burbank, California? Broken nose, severe concussion …”

“Surely they’re out by now,” I said, but I sounded cockier than I felt.

“Nate,” Wilson said, leaning forward and, in a gesture oddly personal for him, placing a hand on my right arm, “we’ve learned that Secretary Forrestal believes he’s being followed. That he thinks his phones have been tapped.”

I removed Wilson’s hand like a scab I was picking. “How did you learn that, fellas? By following him, and having his phones tapped?”

Wilson dropped his gaze. “Secretary Forrestal is under a … protective watch.”

“Then he’s not paranoid-he is being followed.”

“Paranoia is a self-fulfilling prophecy, Nate. Forrestal had these feelings before he actually was under surveillance.”

Baughman said, “The president himself asked us to investigate-that’s why this inquiry is in the hands of the Secret Service. I began with the assumption that if a man of Secretary Forrestal’s acumen feels he’s being followed, then in all likelihood he is being followed, and we wanted to know who by, for obvious national security reasons.”

“But he wasn’t,” I said.

“That’s not entirely true,” Baughman admitted. “As you discovered yourself, today, Drew Pearson’s people are actively, continually investigating, even hounding, Secretary Forrestal.”

“Nate, we’d like your cooperation,” Wilson said.