Allegiance (35 page)

Clara tosses her hair. “It is what happens that is real, not what we want.”

“Well, what I want is to be your friend.”

“As I said. Why were you following me?”

“There was a man. He was going to hurt you.”

“And you came to rescue me? That is chivalrous. Romantic, even.”

I am blushing. For a moment I was sure I had saved her life. Now my
certainty melts away. How can it be that once again I am feeling awkward? “You lied to me, though.”

Clara tilts her head, considering. “I do not think so.”

“You aren't living at the Y.”

“Indeed I am.”

“Then why did you come to Dupont Circle?” The YWCA is half a mile away at 17
^th
and K.

“I have noticed that men follow me. It helps me evade them when I do not have a knight-errant to rely on.”

“You should have gone to the police.”

“They wouldn't help.” She shrugs. “This is something that happens to girls. You would not know what it is like.”

“I do, though.”

“You do?”

“I know what it's like to be followed.”

“What do you mean?”

“It's a long story.”

“Tell me.”

I look around. The sidewalk is not quite as crowded as it was, but people are still thick around us. And Cissy Patterson's house looms overhead. I look up at the columns, the American flag, the balcony where Lindbergh waved to adoring crowds. Now that I think about it, the fact that the tough was after her actually proves her innocence. An obvious point, and it makes me realize how turned around I've gotten. “Not here,” I say. “Would you like to come to my apartment? It's not far.”

Her eyebrows go up. “What an extraordinary suggestion.”

“No,” I say. “For Pete's sake. I mean . . . Forget it. How about a diner?”

“Much better.”

We go half a block up Connecticut. It is still too early for supper patrons, and we have the place mostly to ourselves. A grim old lady wipes a table clear and drops menus down. “Just coffee,” I say.

“I think I'd like an ice cream soda,” says Clara.

“She's joking.”

“I'm not.”

The old lady's scowl deepens. “Coffee and an ice cream soda,” I say.

“Chocolate,” Clara adds. The waitress walks slowly away. “So,” says Clara. “Spill.”

The jukebox is playing “I'll Be Seeing You” again and again, at the insistence of a mournful girl's nickels. I put in a gleaming quarter and buy eighteen minutes of silence. My coffee comes, and her ice cream soda. And I tell her a long story. A strange pattern of cert grants. Gene's investigation and his death. My pact with Frankfurter, Haynes and the Happy Hot Dogs. John Hall and Karl Bendetsen. The draft resisters in Eureka, the lies in the Final Report, the fake certificates in Tule Lake.

By the end, her face has grown serious. “Someone's planting clerks,” she says.

“I'm almost sure of that.”

“And you suspected me?”

“I suspect everyone.”

“Not quite.” There is a look in her eyes I cannot place.

“What do you mean?”

“Not yourself.”

“I don't get it.”

“I'm not the spy, Mr. Genius Detective. You are.”

“What? That's ridiculous. Why would I be telling you this?”

“Because the clerks themselves don't know, not all of them. I think you're one of those.”

“Why me any more than you?”

“Think about it,” says Clara. “They take out two of Black's selections, his usual guys, liberals from the South. And in comes you, a conservative from the North. That's a 180-degree change. Isn't it what they'd want?”

“I'm a conservative?”

“Well, that's between you and God,” she says. “Or Mammon. I don't know about the Japanese cases, but if I had to guess, I'd certainly figure you for a pro-business type. And if I wanted to place those types on the Court and I could get you in with Black, I'd think I'd done pretty well.”

“Really?”

“Your name is Cash.”

“It's a nickname,” I say. “I explained that.”

“Well,” says Clara. “I may be wrong. But it's a possibility worth considering.”

She is right, but it brings up a problem. “Consider how? I'm not making any progress. I can't even get Hall to come clean about what Bendetsen did.”

“You said he was willing to trade information for a favor.”

“But there's nothing I can do for him.”

“Maybe you can not do something. Stop something from happening. Something that would be bad for him.”

I consider. “I don't think there's anything bad that's going to happen.”

“But he doesn't know that.” Clara smiles. “Think more creatively. I'm sure there's something. Everyone trusts you. You're the right sort of guy.”

“Yeah,” I say, uncertain. From her it doesn't sound like a compliment. “Look, I need your help. I need to make sure the Japanese cases come out right.”

“And?”

“I need someone inside the Court.”

She shakes her head. “You know that's not allowed.”

“I don't care.”

“I do. It could cost me my job.”

“No one will know.”

Another shake. “Why should I trust you?”

“Because I'm the right sort of guy?”

Her smile confirms that the phrase was not a compliment. “You were unkind to me the last time we met. And furthermore, you are a spy.”

“I am not.”

“Yes, you are. For one side or the other. You just don't know which.”

Before I can come up with a response, the music starts up again. The girl at the other table gives us a look of teary defiance. She brandishes a fistful of coins. Clara rises to leave and then bends down, her hair falling almost into my face. Her last sentence is quiet. “But I thank you for the ice cream soda.”

• • • • 

Agent Miller reports back to me the next day. Edward Ennis has met with some Justice lawyers in his office; he has spoken to others on the phone. Nothing out of the ordinary. But he has also left work to pay some unexpected calls.

“Covington and Burling?”

Miller nods his head. “It's a law firm.”

“I know that. But why is he going there?”

“I don't know. But he is. Late in the evening, too.”

I frown. There is no reason I can think of for the head of Alien Enemies to be visiting a private firm, and certainly not after hours. “Let me know the next time he does.”

Miller nods again. “Sure thing, boss. Anything else?”

“Yeah,” I say. “There's a Douglas clerk, a girl.” Clara scoffed at my warnings, made me doubt them myself. But there is no harm in being sure. “I want someone to keep an eye on her. Make sure she's safe.”

He arcs a curious eyebrow. “You think she's not?”

“Let's just be sure.”

• • • • 

A few days later, the phone in my apartment rings. It is just before nine o'clock. Miller is on the line, and the jolt of adrenaline I feel at the sound of his voice makes me realize I was more worried about Clara than I let myself know. But he is reporting on his other charge. “Ennis is there. What do you want me to do?”

“Just wait. I'll be right over.”

I take a taxi back downtown. Covington is at 12
^th
and Pennsylvania, just a few blocks from Main Justice. I ask the driver to leave me at 14
^th
so that I can approach more carefully. The entrance is set back from the sidewalk, and people are still going in and out. Miller beckons to me from a doorway a few buildings away.

“Went in about twenty minutes ago,” he says when I join him. “Still inside.”

“How long does he usually stay?”

Miller shrugs. “An hour, maybe an hour and a half.”

“Does he carry anything?”

“Just a briefcase.”

“I wonder what he's doing.”

Miller gives me a speculative smile. “We could ask.”

I consider, then nod. Surely I would have the stronger position in a confrontation, exposing his secrets with the FBI at my side. “Let's go.”

A receptionist in a green dress is working the door. She asks who we are there to see. Miller flashes his badge in response. “I'm looking for Edward Ennis,” I say. Her face is blank.

“Gray suit,” says Miller. “Pink cheeks. Cream in his hair. About half an hour ago.”

“Oh,” she says. “Mr. Arnold. To see Charles Horsky. Third floor.”

Miller thanks her with a smile. “You know this Horsky guy?” he asks as we ascend the stairs.

“I know the name,” I say. I've seen it before, somewhere.

Only one office on the third floor is occupied. Low voices come from behind the closed door. Miller raises a fist and looks at me. I nod and he knocks. “Open up.”

The voices inside go still. “Who's there?” a man asks. It's not Ennis.

I nod at Miller again. “FBI,” he says.

There is a moment of silence, then a sound as though someone is trying to turn the lock. Miller doesn't wait for a sign from me; he grabs the knob and pushes the door open. I see Ennis, off balance, stumbling back, and another man seated behind a desk. Miller steps in and I follow. Ennis is still backing away.

“So, Edward.” Here I am, flanked by my forces. Now I have found him, the subtle foe, the saboteur. “Who's your friend?”

He is startled, but defiant. “Who's yours?”

“This is Special Agent Miller,” I say.

Miller gives them his wide smile and a look at the badge. “At your service.”

Ennis shakes his head and turns to the man behind the desk. “This is Cash Harrison,” he says. “My brief-writer.”

The other man looks to be in his mid-thirties. A young partner, probably,
in a white shirt and dark tie, his suit jacket hanging on the door. He raises his eyebrows. “He knows how to make an entrance.”

“Why are you here, Cash?” Ennis asks.

“I wanted to see what you were doing. Who are you meeting with?”

The man behind the desk stands now. “I'm Charles Horsky,” he says. “Fred Korematsu's lawyer.”

NOW I REMEMBER
where I have seen Horsky's name. It is on the briefs I have just been reading, the ones that say exclusion was unconstitutional, that ask the Court to set Korematsu free. The ones we are arguing against.

“Why are you talking to opposing counsel, Edward?”

Ennis's eyes shift from me to Miller. “I think you should send him away.”

Miller gives me a shrug. “You're the boss.”

“I'll be okay,” I say. “You can go home.”

Miller shuts the door behind him. Ennis motions me to a chair. “So,” I say. “What are you doing with Mr. Horsky?”

“I'm helping him,” Ennis says.

“Helping him?”

“Yes.” There is defiance in his voice again. “And you found me out. Congratulations. Now what are you going to do? I'm too old for active duty.”

“What do you mean?”

“You can't get rid of me like Rowe.”

“What are you talking about? I didn't draft James Rowe.”

“You're not working for the War Department?”

“No. I thought you were.”

Ennis just looks at me. Horsky shakes his head in disbelief. “You two need to figure some things out.”

“I'm working against them,” Ennis says. “Have been for a while.”

“But you kept saying these things. About holding people with no evidence. Taking the War Department's word on the Final Report.”

“That was because I thought you were one of them.”

First Clara, now Ennis. “Why would you think that?”

He sighs. “Rowe was against evacuation.” I nod. This much I knew already. “So was I. We were working together. We thought something was fishy with his draft notice. And then you came in, some sort of personal connection. We figured War was putting their own guy in here, someone to keep closer tabs on me. So we tried to make things a little harder for you to figure out. Just gave you what War knew already.”

So Rowe wasn't hiding his work from Ennis. He was hiding it from me. And the resignation letter left in my desk, a taunt to his presumed enemy. But now it is anodyne, a harmless joke. “Well, I figured it out,” I say. “I got the reports. I know the War Department is lying.” Ennis nods. “What do we do now?”

“I say we lose these cases.”

My turn to nod. I have wanted this for a while, probably since the Eureka courtroom. We will be saboteurs in earnest. But surely this is not betrayal; surely it is the fulfillment of some duty. Karl Bendetsen was just a lawyer with a client who needed advice. Who do we serve, the lawyers of Justice? The Department, the President, America, the law? The War Department wants us to say the President can do what he wants, that government can always be trusted and judges need not look too close. Some men fear, and others use that fear for their purposes, and no one anywhere is any different, in khaki uniform or the solicitor general's morning coat. I think of the hedge around Judge Skinner's house, the gardener with his shears, the trust in Suzanne's eyes as she lay beneath me on the bed. Law requires care, too; it grows where we nourish it and dies where we cut. I will do right this time.

“Can we tell the Court the government should lose?”

“The Department can always confess error,” Ennis says. “But asking them to rule against the Government is a Cabinet-level decision. We need Biddle's approval.”

I nod again. “I'll talk to him.”

• • • • 

“Cash,” says Francis Biddle enthusiastically. “How's every last thing?” He is wearing his linen suit. Insufficiently serious, Frankfurter said; too la-de-da. As I consider how every last thing is, I think that perhaps he had a point. Biddle has no idea what is going on inside his department.