note 30
The Foster Lafayette Hotel
Washington, D.C.
0805 25 February 1943
Brigadier General Fleming Pickering, USMCR, the Washington
Star
in hand, was sitting in the marble walled bathroom of his apartment, waiting for his bowels to move, when the telephone rang. He dropped the
Star
onto the floor and gazed, with a sense of moral triumph, at the telephone mounted on the wall.
Men of less imagination and determination
, he thought,
in a similar circumstance, would be nonplussed. They would be forced to decide between hastily abandoning their attempt to vacate their bowels, or just letting the damned telephone ring
.
They
would not have installed a phone in the John, as
he
had, over Patricia's firm objections. For reasons he did not pretend to understand, Patricia thought using a telephone in the bathroom was tantamount to using the facilities with the door wide open.
The telephone, which was mounted on the wall beside the water closet, was equipped with a red light, a green light, and a switch. The green light indicated the incoming call was from the hotel switchboard; the red that it was coming in over the private, unlisted line.
The red light was blinking.
With a little bit of luck, that will be my bride, and I can open the conversation by asking her if she can guess where I am.
He flipped the switch to the private line and picked up the receiver.
«Good morning!» he cried cheerfully.
«General Pickering, please,» a male voice he didn't recognize replied.
Who the hell is this? Not ten people have this number.
«Who is this?»
«Am I speaking with General Pickering?»
It's that goddamned Wild Bill Donovan, that's who it is! A little demonstration of his ability to do things like get unlisted telephone numbers. And that he's too important to dial the number himself and has some flunky to do it for him.
And, if he senses this has annoyed me, he will have accomplished his purpose.
«This is General Pickering,» he said as charmingly as he could manage under the circumstances.
«One moment, please, General,» Donovan's flunky said.
«Certainly,» General Pickering said graciously.
And before that sonofabitch comes on the line, he'll keep me waiting as long
—
«I didn't get you out of bed, I hope, Fleming?»
This voice Pickering recognized, and it wasn't that of Wild Bill Donovan.
«No, Mr. President, I've been up for some time. Good morning, Mr. President.»
«I just called to tell you how delighted I was to hear from Dick Fowler that you and Bill Donovan have established an amicable relationship.»
«We had a very pleasant dinner, Mr. President.»
«So Dick told me. There's one other thing, Fleming. I meant it when I said that my door will always be open to you, if you have something you wish to share with me.»
«That's very kind of you, Mr. President.»
«Bill and I have been friends for years,» President Roosevelt said. «And I therefore know better than most people how obdurate he can be.»
«I defer, of course, to your greater knowledge, Mr. President.»
Roosevelt laughed. «As soon as it can be arranged, you'll have to come for dinner.»
«I know how you busy you are, Mr. President.»
«Never too busy for you, Fleming,» Roosevelt said, and the line went dead.
Pickering put the handset back in its cradle.
What the hell was that all about?
You know what the hell that was all about.
Roosevelt being Machiavellian again.
During dinner the night before, Donovan had spoken, with barely concealed anger, of his relationship with FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover. It wasn't that he disliked Hoover—he had been instrumental in having Hoover named head of the FBI—but that Roosevelt refused to clear up a jurisdictional dispute between the FBI and the OSS.
The FBI was charged with intelligence and counterespionage in the Western Hemisphere. The OSS was charged with the same thing worldwide, with the exception of the United States. So far as Donovan was concerned, that meant exactly what it said. So far as Hoover was concerned, the FBI was in charge of espionage and counterespionage everywhere in the Western Hemisphere, which meant that the OSS was marching on the FBI's turf when it operated anywhere in Canada, Central America, or South America.
«Franklin just wants you and Edgar to compete, Bill.» Senator Fowler had said, «to see who gets the gold star to take home for Mommy.»
«It's not funny, Dick,» Donovan had said.
«I know. What it is, is Franklin Rooseveltian,» Fowler had said. «And only God can change that.»
And now Roosevelt's consciously setting up the same kind of competition between Donovan and me.
Pickering looked at his watch, then at the telephone again.
What I am about to do is absolutely childish.
But on the other hand, one does not have this sort of splendid opportunity every day.
He picked up the telephone, dialed O for operator, asked for long distance, and when the long-distance operator came on the line, gave her a number in San Francisco.
«Is this call essential, sir?» the operator asked.
«Operator, the entire outcome of the war depends on this call getting through.»
«You don't have to be sarcastic, sir.»
The number in San Francisco rang four times before an operator came on. She sounded as if she might have been asleep at her post.
«Pacific and Far East Shipping.»
«This is Fleming Pickering,» he announced.
«Good morning, Commodore,» the operator said, now fully awake.
«I'd like to leave a message for my wife when she comes to work this morning,» he said.
«Of course, Commodore.»
«You have a pencil?»
«Yes, sir.»
«The message is, 'Guess where I was at eight oh five this morning when the President of the United States called. Love, Flem.' Got that?»
«Yes, sir. Commodore, you don't want to tell her where?»
«She'll know, thank you just the same,» Pickering said, and hung up.
As he did that, he noticed, a little surprised and confused, that the green light was illuminated, indicating an incoming call from the hotel switchboard. He shrugged, flipped the switch, and said, «Hello?»
«I hope I didn't wake you,» Senator Richardson K. Fowler said, his tone suggesting he didn't mean that at all.
«You mean you've been waiting for me to answer?»
«Only for the last twenty or thirty minutes,» Fowler said.
«Actually I was on the phone, having a little chat with the President,» Pickering said.
Fowler groaned.
«And how may I help you, Senator?»
«No good deed goes unpunished,» Fowler said. «I was about to ask you to breakfast.»