He raised a hand while he finished his phone call. I took in a few other details-the American flag behind him and to his right, the framed family photos (wife, boy, girl) arrayed on another smaller bookcase under the Treasury seal. Also a pitcher of ice water and several glasses.
Call finished, Martineau leaned back in his dimpled-brown-leather swivel chair and extended his hand. It was an odd example of gamesmanship, because this required me to rise from the visitor’s chair to accept the handshake, which proved firm and perspiration-free.
Sitting back down, I said, “I’ll try not to get in anybody’s way, Mr. Martineau. I’m just here to help.”
His smile might have seemed genuine to somebody who couldn’t read eyes.
“Make it ‘Marty,’” he said. “We don’t stand on ceremony around here. I know the Service has a reputation for stuffiness, but when your job is to lay your life on the line, the people you work with become your friends.”
“Fine. So then make it ‘Nate,’ and just let me know how I can lend a hand.”
“Let’s start with why you’re here.” He was rocking a little. “All I’ve been told is that you’re on loan from Justice, as…” He checked a paper on his desk. “… an investigative assistant courtesy of the Attorney General. But to my knowledge…” He gestured in the vague direction of the Monadnock Building. “… you work across the street. For yourself.”
I wasn’t crazy about justifying my presence to this bureaucrat, but I could see I needed to.
“I was an investigator on the rackets committee,” I said. “Worked for Bob Kennedy, and became an occasional asset to him, ever since. About an hour ago, he asked me to help you out for the next few days. Because of this situation with these potential assassins. And I said yes.”
His smile couldn’t have been more stuck on if he’d used Scotch tape. He put a lightness in his tone that didn’t quite do the trick when he said: “Then you’re not a spy?”
“What, for Bobby Kennedy? No. He just knows you’re shorthanded. And meaning no disrespect to that young crew of yours out there, most of whom were not raised in this town, I do know my way around Chicago.”
He thought about that for two seconds. “All right. Then I’ll treat you as just another agent.”
“Fine by me.”
“With one exception. You’ll take the office next door. For one thing, I don’t have a free desk. For another, I want the men to understand that you have a certain standing in this investigation. That you represent the AG.”
“Oh, that’s not really a card I want to play.…”
“Then don’t play it. But it’s how I’ll present you, and…” He gestured toward the wall dividing this office from its neighbor. “… that’s the available space I have for you. Used to be my office, when I was deputy SAIC. But when I got moved up, I didn’t get assigned a second-in-command.”
So I had a private office. I didn’t think any further argument was necessary.
He drummed the fingers of one hand lightly on mahogany. “How well do you know Mr. Boldt?”
Interesting. He had called the agent “Ebe,” and made a point of how informal the guys around the office were. But now it was “Mr. Boldt.”
“He worked for me at the A-1 for a year. Before he got that investigative post with the Illinois troopers.”
He was nodding. “Yes, yes, that’s right, isn’t it? How did you find him as an employee?”
“A good agent. With a stick up his ass.”
That made Martineau smile. Whatever artifices were hanging between us had just been broken through.
“He is a very good investigator,” Martineau said. “But he’s not popular here. About half my staff comes from the South, you know.”
“Not surprising,” I said. “Washington, D.C., is damn near Dixieland.”
“Right. Well, Mr. Boldt is … racially sensitive. I would say oversensitive. If he hears his co-workers telling some innocent jigaboo joke, he files a complaint. We had a kind of unfortunate incident when he came back to work here, after his sojourn on the White House detail. He came in that first morning back, and somebody had hung a little noose from the nail where his clipboard hangs. By his desk?”
“That doesn’t sound so innocent.”
“Nate, do I have to tell you that when men do this kind of work, they develop a dark sense of humor?”
“No, but I don’t think a darkie sense of humor is called for.”
He raised his palms and patted the air. “I quite agree. But where you or I might shrug it off, and maybe even throw a punch after working hours, Mr. Boldt makes formal complaints-he did the same thing on the White House detail, which is why he didn’t make it there. So he’s never really been accepted. Never been … one of the guys.”
“That’s a shame,” I said, sort of meaning it, “but what does it have to do with me?”
“When I break this down into two-man teams, I’ll be assigning Mr. Boldt to you. I wanted you to know that in advance, in case you might take offense.”
“Why would I take offense? Anyway, of the guys out there, Eben’s the only one I really know at all.”
“Good. Good. Then there’s no problem.”
“Not as far as I’m concerned.”
“Good,” he said again. Then he sighed in a that’s-that manner. “Well, go check your office out, and be back here in fifteen minutes, for the briefing. Only a handful in the branch are aware of what’s in store for us, and it’s time to clue in the rest.”
I rose, and this time Martineau did as well, and we shook again. I was glad that bullshit was over.
My new home-away-from-home was half the size of Martineau’s office, but it had the same pricey dark Mediterranean furnishings, the desk only slightly smaller. No American flag, but another bronze Treasury seal reigned over an empty bookcase. The walls were otherwise pretty bare, though there was one interesting thing: a framed presidential portrait of Eisenhower, not Kennedy. And it had a bumper sticker plastered across the bottom: I STILL LIKE IKE. A comment on Kennedy, dating back to when this was Martineau’s office? I never asked.
Soon, around the conference table in the SAIC’s office, six agents joined Eben Boldt, Martineau, and me. They were an assortment of crew cuts, about half in dark-rimmed glasses, and I would be lying if I said I ever got their names straight. The water pitcher had moved to the table and two ashtrays were present, and three of the agents smoked during the meeting, but not Martineau. Or Eben or myself, for that matter. At each of the seats a manila folder waited. On the wall behind Martineau as he sat at the head of the table was a big framed city of Chicago map.
All of us were in shirtsleeves. A couple had theirs rolled up, apparently the office rebels. And every eye was on Martineau.
“We have a serious threat to the President on Saturday,” he said, solemn yet matter-of-fact. “Some of you know Nathan Heller here. He has a distinguished record as an investigator with work on some of the most famous cases in this city’s history-actually, in American history.”
All eyes were on me now.
“We’ll agree not to mention his bodyguard assignments for Mayor Cermak or Huey Long,” Martineau said joshingly.
That got smiles and laughs, from me as well.
“We’ll hope for a better outcome this time,” I said.
Martineau continued: “Nate worked with the AG back in rackets committee days, and the AG asked him to trot across the street over here to pitch in. We couldn’t be more short-staffed, so we’re happy for the help. Welcome, Nate.”
I actually got a polite little hand out of the boys.
“Glad to be here,” I said, rising. “I’m in the office next door, but I have no special status. If anything, I’m low man on the totem pole. Just want to do my bit.”