He hadn’t said anything since telling me somebody wanted to see me.
We got off the expressway at Lake Street, heading west past ranch-style houses and other nice but not pricey middle-class residences.
Finally he broke the ice. “I was in an interesting meeting this morning.”
“Really. What kind of meeting, Eben?”
“Coordination meeting. They held it in the anteroom of Mayor Daley’s office. Fifth floor of City Hall?”
I knew where Mayor Daley’s office was, but didn’t point that out, just saying, “Ah. You were representing the Secret Service at this meeting?”
Whatever the hell it was about.
He steered with two tight hands. Wouldn’t want that Impala to get away from him like a bucking bronco. “I was there with Special Agent in Charge Martineau. I think the SAIC may have resented my presence, but the White House apparently requested it.”
And he smiled again. Just a little. Eben obviously got a kick out of the boss getting trumped by the Negro’s connections in high places.
I, on the other, was not smiling. The White House?
Eben was saying, “There were three deputy chiefs of police on hand, and Captain Linsky, security liaison between the PD and the SS.”
He meant Secret Service, not Hitler’s elite.
“Your friend Chief Cain was there, Nate, serving in the same capacity as Captain Linksy, but for the sheriff’s department. Lasted a good four hours, the meeting.”
“Did it? Is it a breach of security for you to tell me what the meeting was about?”
Since we’d been discussing it for five minutes.
“Oh. Sorry. Thought I’d covered that. We were mapping out the security plans for the President’s visit Saturday. He’s scheduled to attend the Army–Air Force game at Soldier Field.”
“Yeah, I noticed that on the front page on my way to do the Jumble.”
He ignored that, which was okay—it didn’t really merit anything. “Each deputy chief was assigned an area of responsibility. Patrol Deputy Rochford, the airport. Traffic Deputy Madi, the motorcade route. Captain Linsky, the Conrad Hilton—where the President’s motorcade ends up, and where he and his staff will headquarter for the trip. Chief Cain has the stadium, and various street security functions. The mayor’s special events man, Jack Reilly, was there, too. Extended His Honor’s best wishes for a safe visit.”
We were passing through a section of middle-class businesses, currently gliding by Scott Foresman, the textbook publisher, home of the Dick and Jane primers. See Nate. See Nate ride. See Nate wonder what the fuck was up.
“For a few hours yesterday,” Eben said, eyes on the road, “I was ranking agent in the office. So I was the one who took the call.”
I frowned at him. “What call?”
“From the FBI. Phoning from Washington. The agent on the line said they had information from an informant warning of an attempt to assassinate the President by a four-man team using high-powered rifles.”
“What?”
“The attempt would be made on his way to the Army–Air Force game.”
Eben took a curve and I knocked against my door as Lake Street opened up on the north side into a vast open space—an airfield that pre-dated most of the neighborhood we’d just passed through.
The agent was saying, “The suspects are reportedly right-wing military paramilitary fanatics … armed with rifles with telescopic sights. The assassination itself would likely be attempted at one of the Northwest Highway overpasses.”
“The FBI considers this credible intel?”
“Yes. But I don’t know anything about the informant, except that the agent on the phone mentioned his name is ‘Lee.’”
That college-campus rabble-rouser with Ruby had been named Lee. Coincidence, surely.
“Shortly after the phone call,” Eben continued, “a telex came in, confirming it. A long, detailed telex that went straight to Martineau, who was back in the office by then. I have to admit it surprised me.”
“I would think so. An assassination plot…”
“Well, yes, that does get one’s attention. But, Nate, the FBI seldom cooperates with the Secret Service. We’re rival entities. Yet for some reason, Mr. Hoover seems eager to pass this one along to us.”
That
was
odd: that aging iguana who ran the FBI would normally relish the opportunity to reap the rewards of the positive publicity saving the President’s life would bring. On the other hand, maybe J. Edgar figured if somebody failed to save the President, let that somebody be the Secret Service.
Eben was shaking his head, rather glumly. “I’m not normally one to pass the buck, but I admit I would prefer this had stayed with the FBI. We’re really understaffed, Nate.
Critically
understaffed. We have only
thirteen
men in the Chicago office—many with other assignments. I got pulled off a counterfeiting job, for example. The idea of a group conspiring to do something like this … it blindsides us.”
“Why is that? It’s your job, isn’t it?”
“Well … we frankly are more used to dealing with the cranks who write their crazy letters and make their threatening phone calls. We pull them in, and they’re usually mental cases, perhaps with a cheap handgun and some irrational score to settle. If the President is coming to town, we just keep them locked up till he leaves again.”
The airfield was bordered by a mix of chain-link and solid fencing. A Navy helicopter was on the runway among fighter planes and prop jobs—no jets. A huge old hanger and a control tower loomed.
“Eben, what does any of this have to do with me? And what the hell are we doing at Glenview Naval Air Station?”
The Negro turned onto an access road and headed toward a guard gate.
“You’ll have to ask the man I’ve brought you to see,” he said.
With a faint smile.
CHAPTER
10
Naval Air Station Glenview—NASG, to military types—had begun as a civilian enterprise, the Curtiss-Wright airfield, 450 acres of farmland purchased to build a modern airport outside Chicago’s so-called “smoke belt” of coal-burning industrial plants, railroads, and homes. A grand dedication in October 1929 was followed almost immediately by the stock market crash, from which the facility never recovered.
The Curtiss corporation had given it the old college try, though, like hosting the International Air Races of ’33, an offshoot of the same Century of Progress World’s Fair where Sally Rand had flashed her fans and fanny to fame. I’d supervised the security team for the event, sharing my Pickpocket Detail training with them, as there was a huge crowd attracted by the attending aviation luminaries—the likes of Charles Lindbergh (who I knew well), Jimmy Doolittle, Wiley Post, and Eddie Rickenbacker. Amelia Earhart had to cancel, due to engine trouble in Kansas, but I got to meet her later.
It took the war to make a real go of the airfield, after the Navy purchased the property for a fraction of the $2 million Curtiss-Wright had spent on it in pre-Depression dollars. The massive, famous Hangar One was joined by more hangars, administration buildings, ground schools, barracks, dining halls, and more, as the private airport turned into an in-land training base, taking advantage of Lake Michigan for simulated aircraft carrier landings.
Today NASG was a Navy Reserve training center, still bustling with men and aircraft, if nothing compared to the war years. Now the Navy Reserve units were joined by Marines, Army, and Seabees, as well as a Coast Guard search-and-rescue team.
Eben Boldt parked near the control tower, which rose from lower-slung buildings still resembling a modest commercial airport, with its late twenties/early thirties art moderne touches. Eben led me down a corridor of military personnel going efficiently in every direction until we were through a door and moving across a bullpen of uniformed aides and civilian secretaries at their desks, typewriter clack providing urgency to a static tableau.
We took a left down a bland hallway to where two men in dark suits were standing on either side of a nondescript door to a room whose outer wall was windows that venetian blinds concealed. The two government men—more Secret Service? FBI maybe?—had the expressionless watchfulness you would expect, hands at their sides, not tucked behind their backs, suit coats unbuttoned for fast, easy access to the .38s that would ride their hips.
Eben’s nod to them was barely perceptible, as were theirs back to him—maybe these were local SS. If so, I didn’t recognize them. The Negro agent made a gesture toward the door, not opening it for me but indicating I was to go in. Then he positioned himself against the opposite wall.
I went in.
And was in another break room, twice the size of the A-1’s, with a fairly impressive facing wall of vending machines, including a sandwich dispenser and one that served up coffee. The side walls had framed photos—a World War II–era photo of fighter planes in formation, a not dissimilar shot of jets circa the Korean conflict, another of the control tower, another inside a busy hangar. Two tables that would each seat half a dozen office workers took up most of the space. The tables were between me and a slim male figure in a white shirt and navy-blue trousers with his back to me—he was getting himself a cup of the terrible coffee such machines served up for your dime and nickel, when they were in the mood.
Bobby Kennedy looked over his shoulder at me and, with his rather shy, slightly bucktoothed grin adding to the Tom Sawyer effect, asked, “Coffee, Nate? It’s swill but it’s, ah, the best I can do.”
“No thanks,” I said, in no mood to whitewash a fence.
His suit coat was slung over a chair at the farthest table, a manila envelope positioned like a place mat, and I went over and sat next to where he’d be.
I said, “But I will let you buy me a Coke.”
“My pleasure,” he said, playing gracious host. He was actually pretty good at that, with all the wingdings he and wife Ethel threw at Hickory Hill, their home in McLean, Virginia.
He deposited his cardboard cup of coffee at the table and I watched him selflessly dig change from his pocket and get me my very own Dixie cup of caffeinated swill from one of the machines. It was like when Jesus went around washing the feet of the poor.
He delivered my beverage, sat, and extended his hand for a quick, perfunctory shake. His manner was vaguely embarrassed. I hadn’t seen him in over a year, but he had aged much more—he looked skinny to me, new, deeper lines carved into his boyish face, that sandy mop flecked with gray. His tie was red. So were the whites around his blue eyes.
The muffled rumble of an aircraft taking off was like a roar so far off in the jungle, you couldn’t tell what beast it belonged to. Such sounds were fairly continual as we spoke, never loud enough to interfere with even the most soft-spoken segments of our conversation.
Sitting next to me—with military craft taking the sky, just outside—was the President’s top legal adviser, chief political adviser, foreign affairs aide, most dogged protector, tireless campaign manager, and best friend. And they were all this one slight, not terribly experienced lawyer who wouldn’t be forty for several years.
“Sorry about the cloak-and-dagger routine,” he said. He folded his arms. “I’m not, ah, officially in town. On my way to North Dakota to assure some Indians that their treatment by the federal government is a, uh, national disgrace.”
“You expect this to be news to them?”
“I expect to get a polite welcome and maybe a war bonnet to take home and impress
my
tribe.”
“No Mayor Daley this trip?”
He shook his head. “I made the, ah, political rounds not long ago, and talked to the local prosecutors and FBI. We have a Hoffa case coming up, you know.”
“Really.”
His smirk was humorless. “Would it surprise you that I don’t find Chicago a shining example of what America might hope to one day achieve?”
“I’m about as surprised as those Indians.”
He shook his head, sipped the coffee, made a face. I couldn’t tell whether that expression reflected the vending-machine coffee or my hometown.
“On my prior trip here,” he said, “Daley arranged for a limo, courtesy of some Chicago captain of industry. I turned it down, had local FBI agents pick me up and give me a
real
tour, the kind the mayor, ah, wouldn’t have liked—slums, low-cost housing projects, a mental hospital where on a sunny day the inmates, and that’s what they were, ah, inmates, were inside staring at blank walls. A disgrace. And
this
from a Democratic administration.”
“You sold me. I’ll vote straight-ticket Republican next time around.”
That got a little smile out of him. He was easier to make laugh than Eben Boldt, but just barely.
Then his smile turned sideways. He spoke softly, to imply both intimacy and confidentiality: “I could’ve used you lately, Nate, I’ll tell you that.”
“Oh?”
“You’ve seen this crap in the papers, about Bobby Baker and his call girls?”
“Don’t tell me Jack has suddenly taken an interest in the fairer sex.”
He smirked. “How about a German lass with connections to their Communist party?”
The press boys had always kept hands-off where JFK’s sexual escapades were concerned, but in the wake of Great Britain’s headline-making Profumo Scandal, they might well have a change of heart. A German Mata Hari in bed with the President would make goddamn good copy.
Plus, it was getting toward the end of JFK’s term, which encouraged a little good old-fashioned muckraking—outside the bedroom, the Kennedys were already considered fair game. Headlines in Chicago recently lambasted Bobby for going after Sam Giancana with tactics a federal judge had termed “Russian spy–type pursuit”; and nationally, stories embarrassingly revealed some of Bobby’s secret Cuban operations, specifically his anti-Castro guerrilla bases in Central America.
“I hope she was a looker,” I said, referring to this German variation on Christine Keeler, knowing Bobby’s brother wasn’t always picky.
“A ringer for Elizabeth Taylor.”
“Hell, why not just go after Liz herself? Unless Marilyn has given him second thoughts.”
Bobby didn’t get angry, which considering his hot temper said something; he didn’t even frown. His eyes were, if anything, sad suddenly.