It was usually only on weekends that Cole found the time to indulge his peculiar hobby. Unmarried, but conducting an affair with another man’s wife, he was used to loitering in dark doorways and watching someone’s house from a parked car. This particular Sunday, an unseasonably warm night and hardly like any Halloween he could recall, Cole followed Lovell White to the Hamilton Hotel, which overlooked Franklin Park, a notorious meeting place for homosexuals.
In the bar of the hotel, Cole had spied Lovell White deep in conversation with a man whose face, if not his name, Cole remembered as someone he had once or twice seen around Henry Stimson, the secretary of war. Another potential homosexual in the War Department was better than he had expected, and, debating how next to proceed-should he contact Hoover at the FBI? — Thornton Cole wandered into the park itself, to contemplate his next move.
But while Lovell White’s liaison was illicit, it was not illicit in a homosexual way. Lovell White was indeed a homosexual, but the man with him was no invert but Brutus. White, an experienced agent, had already noticed that he was being followed and had detailed Agent Diego, whose real name was Anastasio Pereira, the Abwehr’s South American agent, to watch his back. Pereira had seen Thornton Cole follow White from the spy’s home in Georgetown and, realizing that the identity of Brutus might now be compromised, he tailed Cole into Franklin Park and approached him, asking for a light.
Despite his Hooverish interest in uncovering homosexuals in government, Cole was quite unaware of the park’s reputation and regarded Pereira’s approach without alarm.
“It’s a fine evening,” Pereira observed, catching up with Cole. “At least it would be if I didn’t think my wife was in that hotel with another man.”
“I’m sorry to hear that.”
“Not as sorry as they’re going to be when I surprise them.”
Cole smiled thinly. “And what are you going to do?”
“Kill them both.”
“You’re joking.”
Pereira shrugged. “What would you do?”
“I don’t know.”
“Where I come from there is no other way.” By now Pereira was satisfied of two things: that Cole was alone and that he was not a cop or an FBI agent. Everything about Thornton Cole looked tailor-made, and his long, thin hands were not those of a policeman-perhaps a musician’s or an academic’s. Whoever this man was, he was certainly not a professional. “I am from Argentina.” In the darkness, Pereira retrieved a switchblade from his coat pocket and snapped it open. “And there we stab a man who screws your wife.”
Even as he uttered the words, Pereira plunged the knife into Cole’s body just beneath the sternum. It was an expert blow delivered by a man who’d killed before with a knife, and it penetrated Cole’s heart. He was dead before he hit the ground.
Pereira dragged the body into some bushes, wiped his knife on the dead man’s coat, and pocketed his wallet. Then he lifted the hand that had inflicted the lethal wound to inspect his sleeve and, finding some blood on the cuff of his shirt, slipped off his jacket for a moment and rolled up his sleeve. After this, he put his jacket back on and walked back to the distinguished Renaissance Revival building that was the Hamilton Hotel. As he entered, he passed Brutus on his way out. The two men ignored each other. In the light of the lobby Pereira checked himself for bloodstains and, finding none, wandered down to the bar where he knew Lovell White would be waiting for him.
Pereira, dark and handsome, could not have looked less like the short, fat, balding man with glasses who, seeing the Argentinean appear in the hotel bar, waved a waiter toward him and ordered two dry martinis. From the expression on Pereira’s face, he judged that he might need one.
“Well?” asked White as Pereira sat down.
“You were right. You were being followed.”
“Did he see me with our friend?”
“Yes, he saw you both. I’m certain of it.”
“Shit. That’s fixed us.”
“Relax. Everything is fixed.”
“Fixed? What do you mean, fixed?”
“The man who followed you is now dead. That’s what I mean.”
“Dead? Where? Jesus Christ. Who was he?”
Pereira picked up the Washington Post from the banquette where Lovell White was sitting and perused the front page coolly. “So, Il Duce is believed to be in Italy again,” he said.
“Never mind that for now,” whispered White. “What do you mean, he’s dead?”
“No, he’s in Italy. It says so right here, my friend.”
Lovell White grimaced and looked away. Sometimes Pereira was just a little too relaxed for his own good; but he knew there was no point in hurrying the Argentinean; he would explain only when he was good and ready. The waiter came back with the drinks, and Pereira drank his in two large gulps.
“I need another,” he said.
“Here, have mine. I don’t want it. And you look like you need it.”
Pereira nodded. “I followed him across to the park and stabbed him. Don’t worry. He’s tucked up for the night in some bushes. I don’t think anyone will find him until morning.”
“Well, who the hell was he?”
Pereira placed Thornton Cole’s wallet on the table. “You tell me,” he said.
White snatched the wallet off the table and opened it on his lap. A moment or two passed as he examined the contents. “Jesus Christ, I know this guy,” he said at last.
“Knew,” said Pereira, beginning his second martini.
“He’s from the State Department.”
“I didn’t think he was a cop.” Pereira took out a gold cigarette case and lit a Fleetwood. “Too Ivy League to be a cop.”
White rubbed his fleshy chin nervously. “I wonder if he was on to us. If he told anyone else about me.”
“I don’t think so. He was on his own.”
“How can you be sure about that?”
“Do you think I’d be sitting here now if he were working with someone else?” said Pereira.
“No, I guess not.” White shook his head. “I don’t get it. Why would Thornton Cole be following me?”
“Perhaps he was queer for you.”
“Very funny.”
“I wasn’t joking.”
“The question is, what are we going to do about this?”
“Do?” Pereira grinned. “I think I’ve done everything that can be done, don’t you?”
“Oh, no. No, no, no. You don’t just murder someone from the U.S. State Department and expect it to be treated like an ordinary street killing. There will be a major inquiry. In which case it’s possible the Metro police might find something that will explain why Cole was tailing me.” He nodded thoughtfully. “On the other hand, maybe there’s a way we can close down this investigation before it even gets started. To cripple an inquiry from the very outset.”
“Is there such a way?”
White stood up. “Finish that drink and show me where you left the body. We have to make this look like the real thing. To dress the set, so to speak.”
The two men walked out of the hotel.
“So why do queers come here and not somewhere else?”
“They have to go somewhere,” said White. “But maybe they come here for sentimental reasons. Frances Hodgson Burnett, the author of Little Lord Fauntleroy, used to live just off this square. But the truth is, I don’t know. Who knows how these things get started?”