government who hired them might see those firing squads, as well, or imprisonment, or at the very least disgrace.”
I laughed softly, shook my head. “Teddy, you’re a very persuasive man, for a lunatic. But I already have a client.”
Who was also a lunatic, but never mind.
His expression had fallen. “I’m very disappointed in you, Nate.”
“I suppose I’m on your Nazi collaborators list, now.”
“No. But whether you like it or not, you’re a Jew-and that puts you on a lot of other lists, all of ’em shit lists…. Damn, that drink went right through me. I’m gonna use the can-you still be here when I get back?”
“You want me to be?”
Kollek put out his cigar, his smile turning gentle. “Please. And no more serious talk, tonight. This place is gonna close up pretty soon-if you wanna hear some good Negro jazz, I’ll take you over to the Hide-away Club, in Georgetown, after-hours joint.”
“What’s this, the soft-soap portion of your recruitment process?”
“Stick around and see.”
He trundled off toward the john and, moments later, the tackle got up from the postage-stamp table and headed after him; it was about as subtle as the Ritz Brothers doing their Snow White routine. I took the last sip of my drink, and decided I’d use the men’s room, too, seeing as how the tackle had gone in on Kollek’s heels.
I pushed the door open and found myself in a medium-size men’s room-two urinals, two stalls, two sinks, two men on the floor, tussling, missionary-style.
The tackle was on top of a squirming, wriggling Kollek, whose arms were pinned by the guy’s massive thighs; the tackle was bringing his arm back, and as that arm had a canned-ham-size fist on the end of it, I figured he was planning to rearrange Kollek’s features.
Kollek saw me come in, brightening at the prospect of rescue, and the tackle looked my way, too, but not in time to stop me from grabbing with both hands onto his fist and arm and tug-of-warring him off Kollek, enough for Teddy to squirm free and get to his feet, his spiffy green sportcoat wrinkled and moisture-spotted, some of it piss, probably, some of it sink water, some of it blood: Kollek’s nose was bleeding-he’d already taken a punch. The tackle’s face was contorted in reddened rage.
I let go of the guy’s arm, retreated a couple steps, held out my palms and said, “This doesn’t have to get any uglier than it already is … there’s two of us … now back off.”
Kollek, breathing hard, had already backed off, by the far, high-windowed wall. His eyes were wild and scared shitless above the palm cupping his bloody nose.
On one knee, the tackle, still grimacing fiercely, reached inside his suitcoat and, before he could bring a gun out, I kicked his balls up inside him; his anguished cry echoed in the tiled room, like an animal that had taken a spear.
As every man knows, the son of a bitch should have been paralyzed by that pain, but-amazingly, frighteningly-he instead got quickly to his feet while simultaneously swinging a massive fist at my face, narrowly missing as I ducked it, then threw myself at him, tackling the tackle, driving him into the door of a stall, through that door and into the stall, where the stool caught him in the back of his legs, sitting him down hard, not for a dump, but for two fast right hands, interspersed with a fast left, a one-two-three combination that knocked him out, leaving him sprawled on the pot, head against the wall where it said “For a good time, call Irene.”
He may have had brass balls, but his goddamn jaw was glass.
I checked inside his suitcoat for the gun, and there was a gun, yes, but not in a shoulder holster where I thought it would be, and not on the side of him where he’d reached: a .38 snubnose Colt in a cross-draw holster on his belt. What the hell had he been reaching for, then?
His wallet, maybe?
“Oh shit,” I said, knowing.
His credentials.
The tackle’s name was Gary W. Niebuhr and he was employed by the federal government; he was, in fact, an FBI agent. If he’d gotten a good enough look at me, this might wind up yet another glowing entry in one of J. Edgar’s favorite files.
“What the hell have you got me into?” I snarled at Kollek, who was at the sink, wetting a paper towel for his nose.
“I didn’t ask for your help,” he said.
“What, were you resisting arrest?”
Kollek nodded.
I suggested we scram, and-leaving Agent Niebuhr in his stall, sleeping soundly-we scrammed, just as another patron was heading in, seeking relief, a sentiment I could well understand.
As we moved quickly down the stairs to the street, an embarrassed Kollek said, “That’s why I had to shut down the office over the Copa. The FBI had our phones tapped; I been under surveillance for months. Somehow we aroused the Bureau’s suspicions.”
“Do you suppose it was the arms smuggling and hanging out with gangsters?”
He looked sheepish as we reached the sidewalk. “Most of my network’s already been arrested.”
“Thanks for saving this information for last.”
“No hard feelings…. I could use a man like you, Nate.”
“Give it up, Teddy. I’ll take a raincheck on the Hideaway Club.”
I was moving through the pleasantly cool evening toward where I’d parked my car.
Kollek was jogging off in the opposite direction, disappearing into the shadows, but calling out: “I’m afraid I can’t give you a number where I can be contacted!”
“Somehow I’ll manage to get over that,” I said, got in my car and got the hell out of there.
Fucking zealots, anyway.
6
The “most feared and hated man in Washington, D.C.”-as the
But on this sunny Sunday afternoon on Dumbarton Avenue, you would instead have seen only a gloveless guy in a tan fedora and dark blue shantung suit going up those steps, and trying the polished brass knocker at the door of the home/office of Drew Pearson.
Speaking of knockers, it would have been more fun trying those of the healthy young woman who answered-a buxom lass of perhaps twenty with big blue eyes in a heart-shaped face.
“Who is, sir?” she asked, in a middle-European accent similar to, but much more fetching than, Teddy Kollek’s.
She stood at attention in a crisp, streamlined white dress with thin vertical blue stripes (well, as vertical as they could be, considering her figure) and white collar and cuffs; she looked like a nurse in one of my dirtier dreams.
“Would you tell your boss his overdue account from Chicago is here?”
She frowned, full red-rouged lips forming a pouty kiss. “Excuse, please?”
So English was her second language; still, I’d wager her job description read “Secretary.” Clearly she was the latest office “fair-haired girl,” as Pearson’s veteran employees dubbed them, “cutie-pies” as the boss described each lucky girl singled out for such special services as enlivening cocktail parties and accompanying him on out-of-town speaking engagements.
“Just tell the big cheese Nate Heller is here.”
“Big …?”
“Nate Heller, honey.”
