“I’m … I’m not sure. This is going to sound crazy, Nate.”
“Try me.”
“Jim’s made a lot of enemies. You know, everybody talks about the Nazis, Hitler this, Hitler that. But in the great scheme of things, they’re nothing.” She clutched my hand; squeezed. “It’s the Reds we have to worry about, Nate-the Reds!”
“The Russians, you mean.”
“Yes, but more likely their … minions.”
“Have there been threats?”
“No, but they follow me. They listen to everything I say, they’ve tapped the phones, bugged our house. Why the hell d’you think I wanted to meet you in the fucking park?”
I thought,
But I said, “Wise precaution.”
She was shaking her head; the black scythe blades of hair swung. “But it’s more, so much more than just the surveillance…. I’ve always been sensitive, Nate. Do you believe in extrasensory perception? Psychic powers?”
“Sure,” I lied.
The big dark eyes got bigger, brighter. “Well, I’ve had dreams … vivid dreams. And I have good intuition, I can sense danger, the way … an animal can. Like a horse knows when to rear up.”
“Instinctively.”
“Yes! And Michael and Peter, they’re just boys, they’re so helpless … Michael’s thirteen, Peter eleven, they’re off at private school, at Aiken School … that’s in South Carolina.”
“And you sense they’re in danger.”
“Yes. But not just them … me, Jim, my family, my friends … any way they can get to us. There’s so much treachery all around us.”
“What sort of treachery?”
She frowned, turned her thoughts inward. “I sense it, but also I catch them behaving suspiciously.”
“Who?”
“The household staff, for one.”
“I see.”
“You need to investigate all of them! And Jim’s assistants at the Navy Department, and I’ll make you a list of my newer acquaintances …”
“Why them?”
Her eyes narrowed. “Isn’t it convenient that they’ve suddenly become my friends at this particular stage? Doesn’t that make your hackles tingle?”
My hackles were tingling, all right, but I just said, “You’re right-make me that list, it’ll be helpful.”
“You may find that many of these people … perhaps even all of them … are working together to harm everything near and dear to me. The only person I trust is Jim-and that’s why I asked him to bring somebody in from outside, someone that he trusted. You, Nate.”
“I appreciate your confidence in me, Jo.” I patted her hand. “And I promise you I’ll give this my full attention. I’m not going to let anything happen to you or your boys.”
“Or Jim!”
“Or Jim.”
“Thank you, Nate …”
And she half-rose, leaning across the picnic table, and kissed me full on the lips.
She was gazing at me rather lasciviously, stroking my face as I said, “You’re welcome,” and then she stood, the nervousness gone, the confidence snapping back into place, and strode over to her horse, untied it, mounted and galloped off.
Now Jo Forrestal was clearly nuttier than a Baby Ruth bar, but her husband had come to the conclusion that the best way to snap her out of this was for me to take her fears seriously, and do a full, for real investigation. Forrestal figured that by demonstrating to her that her suspicions had no basis in reality, his wife would return to reality, herself. I didn’t know whether I agreed with this approach or not, though I did agree with his thousand-buck minimum retainer.
“This business with the Reds is my fault,” Forrestal admitted to me over the phone. “I’m afraid Jo has heard me rail on about the Communist threat to such an extent that it’s entered into her alcoholic delusions.”
So I spent a month doing full background checks on Forrestal’s household staff, his assistants at the Navy Department and Jo Forrestal’s new D.C. acquaintances. I also had the house swept for electronic bugs, and kept the place (and Jo Forrestal, and later Jim Forrestal) under surveillance for several days each, to see if anybody else was watching them. Finally I spent a week at the Aiken School in South Carolina where Michael and Peter Forrestal were enrolled. I got to know the boys-sweet, reserved kids-and the faculty, as well. I knew all of this was wheel- spinning, but the money was good.
And of course I discovered no kidnap plan, no electronic bugs, no Reds under any beds, and nobody conspiring against Jo Forrestal, with one notable, and possibly irrelevant, exception. As a by-product of my investigation and surveillance, I discovered that Jim Forrestal was a first-class tomcat.
This guy went out with more good-looking women than Errol Flynn, and his crowd seemed to know about it, and accept it. He frequently took babes other than Mrs. Forrestal to afternoon teas or cocktail parties, before heading downtown to one of several assignation hotels; where the Under Secretary of the Navy was concerned, the fleet was always in. If Jo Forrestal had been my client, and this a divorce case, I’d have had the goods.
When I presented my detailed report to Forrestal (which of course omitted his philandering), I gently brought the subject up.
“I may be out of line, Jim,” I said, “but your wife’s drinking, and her mental condition, might be her way of sending you a message.”
“I don’t follow you, Nate.” He was again seated behind his big desk, puffing a pipe, looking wiser than Sophocles.
“Hey, maybe I’m not qualified to make this call, I mean I’m no head doctor … but if she feels threatened, maybe it’s all the dames you’re bangin’, on the side.”
That impassive puss of his remained that way. Finally he said, quietly, “I’ve placed my trust in you, Nate. I hope you don’t plan to take advantage of my faith in you with some cheap extortion scheme.”
“Hell no. You’re paying me plenty. It’s just … you got a smart, good-looking wife. She’s got herself in a mental jam. Maybe what she needs is some attention from the guy she married.”
“You’re right.”
“That’s okay …”
“You’re not qualified.”
I shrugged, and rose. “No extra charge for the unwanted advice…. You want me to present this report to Mrs. Forrestal?”
Perhaps my mentioning what I knew about his extracurricular activities colored his judgment, but at any rate he hefted my typed report and said, “No. This will be quite sufficient. Thank you, Nate.”
Obviously, I’d had occasional contact with Jo Forrestal throughout the investigation, and we’d become friendly, though I’d kept my distance after that kiss she deposited on me, at our first meeting. So I wasn’t entirely surprised when she showed up that night at my room at the Ambassador.
I also wasn’t surprised she was drunk: I had discovered, during my tenure as a Forrestal employee, that the only time she didn’t drink was when she went out riding.
She wore a classic black dress, side-buttoned and beautifully draped over her slender curves; the black arcs of her hair barely brushed her shoulders. Liquor didn’t make a weaving wreck of her: the only major indications she was smashed were how hooded those big dark eyes were, and how exquisitely foul her mouth got.
Still in the doorway, she said, “I read that feeble fucking excuse for a report of yours.”
I was in T-shirt and slacks, just getting ready to shave and go out for supper. “Jo, I did a thorough job. Nobody’s trying to kidnap your boys; nobody’s trying to hurt you.”
“Yeah, yeah,” she said, and brushed by me. I had a small suite, and the outer area boasted a couch and a few chairs, as well as a wet bar with a single bottle of Ronrico rum and some warm Cokes, and a table where I could work, my portable typewriter and various field notes still arrayed there. She went immediately to the bar,
