Chapter 3
They got out at the FBI building on Pennsylvania Avenue and someone whisked the car away.
Stupewitz said, “Don’t try to run. You could get shot.”
But Heller was not running. He was looking up at the gray-green marble facade and spelling out the HUGE, raised, gold-lettered sign that said:
The letters were feet high and it spread so wide he had to turn his head to read it.
“Are we going to call on J. Edgar Hoover?” said Heller.
“Don’t be a smart (bleep), kid.”
Heller said, “But I really never heard of him.”
That got to Stupewitz. “Jesus! They sure don’t teach history anymore!” He came very close to Heller and thrust his puffy face forward. “Look, you heard of George Washington.” He pointed a quivering finger at the huge sign. “Well, J. Edgar Hoover was ten times what Washington ever was! The REAL savior of this country was HOOVER! Without him, the real rulers of this country couldn’t run it at all!” He gave Heller a hard shove toward the entrance and muttered to himself,
“Jesus, they don’t teach kids anything these days.”
Via elevators and stairs, pushing from time to time, Stupewitz got Heller into the first of a small pair of offices that adjoined. Stupewitz pushed Heller into a chair with an unnecessary “Sit there!”
Maulin came in. Stupewitz glared at Heller. “You’re in serious trouble. You better not get any ideas of trying to run out of here because there are guards and guns all over the place. Be quiet and be good!”
They went into the second office but the door was ajar. They were whispering so I turned up the gain. I couldn’t get what they were saying because, in some adjacent office, someone was being beaten and screamed now and then.
Heller had a partial view of Stupewitz through the slightly open door. The agent was at a desk, working with a phone. Maulin’s huge bulk was attentively leaning over behind him.
“I want to talk to Delbert John Rockecenter, personally,” said Stupewitz into the phone. “This is the FBI… Then put me on to his confidential secretary.” He covered the phone and said to Maulin, “Rockecenter is in Russia arranging some loans to keep them going.” Then to the phone, “This is the FBI in Washington. We have a matter here…” The screams in the adjacent office drowned the next words. Then he covered the phone and said to Maulin, “They’re putting me on to Mr. Bury, one of the attorneys from their firm, Swindle and Crouch. Bury handles all such matters.”
They waited. Then Stupewitz got his connection. “Hello, Mr. Bury? I got one hell of a surprise for you. Is this a totally secure, confidential line? Oh, bug tested just this morning. Good. Now listen. We are Special Agents Stupewitz,” and he rattled off a whole series of identification and addresses, “and Maulin,” and he rattled off Maulin’s. “Now, have you got all that for sure?”
Apparently Mr. Bury had. So Stupewitz spread out Heller’s papers in front of him and began to read. He read the birth certificate, the diploma, the grades. “Got all that? I just wanted you to know there’s no mistake.… Yes, we have the boy right here. To prove it, here’s his description,” and he rattled it off. “…no, he hasn’t talked to anybody. We made sure of that.”
Stupewitz now shot a gleeful grin back at Maulin. Then he said into the phone, “Now, don’t be upset, Mr. Bury. But he’s wanted in Fair Oakes, Virginia, for assault and battery of two police officers, both hospitalized… yes, he apparently did it with an iron bar when they weren’t looking… yes, amounts to attempted murder. Also suspicion of car theft, speeding, refusal to halt. Fugitive… Right. And apparent possession of narcotics… Right. And the Federal offense of seeking to smuggle them across state lines… Right. And, as a minor, cohabitation with a known prostitute… Right. Also the Mann Act — crossing state lines for immoral purposes… Right. And refusal to divulge identity to a Federal officer.”
I realized Heller could get life, the exact original thing planned for him.
Apparently some smoke was coming out of the phone. After a moment, Stupewitz went on. “Wait now, Mr. Bury. I’m just telling you this. The woman won’t talk. We have the records, we have the car, we have the boy… No, no reporters know anything about this. The name was not even known in Fair Oakes… No. We’re the only ones who know.”
Stupewitz was now the one listening. Mr. Bury must be talking hard and fast. “…Yes, Mr. Bury,” said Stupewitz. “…Yes, Mr. Bury… Yes, Mr. Bury… Yes,
Mr. Bury.” Then there must have been a long speech. Stupewitz gave Maulin an evil grin and nodded to him. Then he said into the phone, “No. No records or copies of anything here. The local police know nothing and we won’t even report it to the Director.” He nodded as though Bury could see him. And then, all over again he gave all the identifying details and home addresses of himself and Maulin.
Stupewitz ended off with, “Yes, Mr. Bury. And you can be very assured that D.J.R.’s son is perfectly safe here in our hands; there won’t be a whisper to the press or anyone. We are, as always, completely at the service of Delbert John Rockecenter. You got the idea, Mr. Bury. Good-bye.”
He rose beaming from the phone. He and Maulin did a war dance round and round, laughing.
Maulin said, “And we were going to retire in a few years with nothing but our pensions!”
And Stupewitz said, “He’ll hire us for sure. No other option!”
I was flabbergasted. These two crooked agents were using this case to forward their own advancement! They were blackmailing Delbert John Rockecenter! And what made it all the more criminal was that D. J. Rockecenter practically owns the FBI anyway!
And what made it even more stupid was that they actually thought they really had Delbert John Rockecenter’s son.
Lombar’s planning had taken a new twist!
But wait. This didn’t get Heller off the hook. I hadn’t worked it out yet just how, but there was real death in Heller’s future now.
Chapter 4
The phone rang and the two crooked agents stopped their war dance and Stupewitz answered it, said something back and hung up.
The two came into the room with Heller. He had been sitting there quietly, his eyes occasionally straying to a bloodstain on the wall. I doubted he could have heard the phone conversation in anything like the clarity I had, if at all, and he must be wondering what they were going to do with him.
Stupewitz said to him, “Listen, Junior, that was your old man’s personal family attorney, Mr. Bury, of Swindle and Crouch, New York. Your dad is over in Russia, bein’ wined and dined and he won’t be home for a couple of weeks.”
Maulin said, “You just sit tight, Junior. There’s a little delay before you can go.” Maulin sat down at his desk and looked into a basketful of reports. I understood now that this was his office and the other one was Stupewitz’s. They must be pretty highly placed in the FBI to have private offices.
Stupewitz went to the door to leave. “I’ll handle the rest of this,” he said to Maulin. “You keep your eye on the kid.” He started to leave again and then stopped. He called back to Heller, “You can stop worrying about that hooker. She’s dead.”
My viewscreen seemed to jolt. Heller said, “Why did you have to kill her?”
“Kill her?” said Stupewitz. “She was D.O.A. at Georgetown Hospital. Heart attack.” Then, innocence itself, he said, “You’re lucky it was in the ambulance or you could have been charged with conspiracy to murder.”