“Checked at the junction for a black box,” Randolph said, “came up empty. Phones themselves seem clean-no inductive pickups, no ‘suckers,’ no replaced transmitters … but we’re still at it.”
“If there are bugs present,” I said, “they could be very sophisticated-espionage quality.”
“We’re going over every floorboard,” Hasty said, “every electrical fixture in the place. But I think we’re on a fool’s errand.”
I put a hand on his shoulder. “And nobody’s better at that than the Bradford agency.”
“Go to hell, Heller,” Hasty said with a grin, which then faded. Whispering, he said, “Say, what’s the deal with the lady of the house?”
“What about her?”
“Well I think for breakfast she put a little orange juice in her vodka.”
Randolph, still up on his stool, looked down at me wide-eyed. “She told us if we fucked anything of hers up, she’d have our balls. In that very language.”
“She had her hand on my ass at the time,” Hasty said.
So they had met Jo Forrestal.
“Well, Bob, it is a very cute ass.”
And I left them to their work.
She was coming down the front stairway, so slender she seemed tall-which she wasn’t-looking quietly elegant in a white blouse and black slacks. One hand casually stroked the banister as she came, the other hand held a tumbler of clear liquid and ice that I doubted was water. More than ever, she reminded me of the hostess of the house in the Charles Addams cartoons.
“Nate Heller,” she said, cheerfully. “You fucking bastard.”
“Nice seeing you again, too, Jo,” I said.
When she reached the bottom of the stairs, I added, “You’re looking lovely as ever.”
She did and didn’t: the pale oval of her face, the large dark eyes, the handsome features, were all still in evidence, but more pronounced, as if time had made a caricature of them; and though she hadn’t gained much weight, she had the double chin that years can give anybody. Her hair was still black, but artificially so, soft curls clinging to the side of her head, the length in back hairnet-held.
“Why thank you, Nate,” she said, and beamed, and slapped me, hard.
Then she clip-clopped past me, in her black high-heel sandals, into the spacious living room with its Duncan Phyfe furnishings, where she plopped into a textured cotton-and-silk-damask blue-green lounge chair and curled her legs up under her, sitting like a teenage girl.
I plodded in, rubbing where my face burned, and asked, “What did I do to deserve that greeting?”
She shrugged, sipped at her tumbler. “Maybe it’s because I trusted you and took your advice, and ended up getting shock treatment. Y’suppose that could be it?”
I sat on the nearby plump beige sofa. “I’m sorry about that. I just thought they’d have you talk to a shrink; I didn’t know they’d go the Frankenstein route.”
“Do you have to work at it?”
“What?”
“Talking like Humphrey Bogart in some cheap movie?”
I tossed my fedora on the coffee table. “Well, first of all, he’s trying to talk like me. Second of all, Bogie doesn’t make cheap movies.”
That made her laugh a little, then she frowned and said, “Stop that. I’ve decided not to like you.”
“When are you leaving for Florida?”
She sipped her drink. “I’m going today. Jim can follow me down whenever he likes, or not at all.”
“Why aren’t you going down together?”
Her hooded-eyed, fluttering-lashed expression included a smile that had very little to do with smiling. “We don’t do anything together, Nate, remember? Jim has some banquet tonight, for that horse’s ass replacement of his, Johnson, and then some meeting tomorrow morning. And he wants to make himself available throughout the week, in case he’s ‘needed.’ Do you think they’ll give him shock treatment, too? Or is that just reserved for the ladies?”
“I guess I can’t blame you for being bitter, but I think your husband really does need some help. Or anyway, a good long rest-and maybe a little understanding.”
She laughed, once. “Excuse me while I fucking puke, Judge Hardy! I like you better when you’re doing Bogart. Jim made his own bed; let him fuck and lie in it.”
“Did you ever consider maybe he really is under surveillance?”
Her eyes and nostrils flared as she leaned forward. “You mean, like I was? By the Reds? See, that’s typical; typical! A
“Jo, it’s not Jim’s imagination that Drew Pearson’s been out to get him. Is your maid working today?”
“No. It’s her day off.”
“Make some excuse and fire her. The girl’s feeding information to Pearson’s guy, Jack Anderson.”
“What? Fuck!” She flew to her feet and hurled her glass against the wall, narrowly missing a framed Currier amp; Ives, taking a chunk out of the painted plaster. It wasn’t anywhere near me, but I ducked reflexively, anyway.
“That little nigger bitch!” she shrieked. “And to think I treated her like a daughter!”
The Filipino houseboy, summoned by the crash of glass, peeked his head around the corner, observed the cursing Mrs. Forrestal, and disappeared like a turtle into its shell.
She raved and ranted as she crossed the Axminster carpet to a liquor cart, building herself a martini, surprisingly heavy on the vermouth. Then in mid-rant she stopped, turned and said, with no apparent irony, “I don’t mean to be a shitty hostess. Can I get you something to drink, Nate?”
“No thanks.”
“You think I won’t drink alone?”
She was drinking before I got here, but all I said was, “Just a little early in the day for me. Don’t let me stop you.”
“I’d like to see you try to stop me,” she said acidly, strolling back to her chair, sipping from the tumbler. “That fucking Pearson, anyway. You have a gun, don’t you?”
“Not on me.”
She sat again, tucking her legs back under her. “Well, you’re on the job-why don’t you go get it and do the world a favor and shoot that evil cocksucker.”
“That’s extra.”
She laughed hysterically at that, tears rolling down her apple cheeks.
“It wasn’t that funny, Jo.”
“I know,” she said, and her laughter stopped cold, like a switch had been thrown. Her face tightened with rage, but she was controlled as she said, “Do you know what that son of a bitch Pearson said about me? That I was a snob for enlisting Mainbocher! A snob!”
“Who’s Mainbocher?”
“You are hopelessly unschooled, aren’t you? Mainbocher is only one of finest purveyors of fashion in the world, you dumb fucking cluck. And I got him to help me design new uniforms for the Waves! Which are so much more chic than those Wac rags; but that bald bastard Pearson has the balls to criticize me for it!”
I was vaguely aware that Forrestal had attempted to involve Jo, to make her feel she had a role in Washington, and the war effort; and it didn’t surprise me that Pearson had crucified her for it.
Her eyebrows rose and the big eyes got huge. “You know what I was being paid to be a consultant to the Waves? Nothing! Not a red fucking cent! So I quit…. I told Jim he could fight the goddamn war by himself, and Pearson and the rest of the columnists could kiss my ass!”
“Was that columnists or Communists?”
Her expression froze, and then she broke out into brittle, near-hysterical laughter. Holding her stomach, rocking in the easy chair, laughing. I was a riot today. Maybe Jack Benny needed a new writer.
“Oh, I could use you around here, Nate. You would definitely cheer me up. You wanna go to Florida with
