Part 12 (1/2)

She looked at the paper bag in her hands. ”Blue Moon is still warm,” she whispered.

Leo nodded. ”Do you have a car?” he asked suddenly.

She said she did.

”What are you going to do with Once in a Blue Moon?”

”I was planning to drive out to Daddy's farm-”

”Look, what if we were to stop by that big hardware store on the mall and buy a shovel, and then drive into the country and find a hill with a great view and bury the two of them together?” Leo s.h.i.+fted his weight from foot to foot in embarra.s.sment. ”Maybe it's a crazy idea. I mean, you don't even know me-”

”What sign are you?”

”I was born the day of the great stock market crash, October twenty ninth, 1929. My father used to joke that my birth brought on the crash. I could never work out how my being born could affect the stock market but until I was nine or ten I actually believed him.”

October twenty-ninth-that makes you a Scorpio. I'm a Gemini.” The young woman regarded Leo through her tears. ”Burying them together strikes me as a fine idea,” she decided. Clutching her paper bag under her left arm, she stepped forward and offered her hand. ”I'm Adelle Swett.”

Somewhat clumsily, Leo clasped it. ”Leo. Leo Kritzky.”

'I am glad to make your acquaintance, Leo Kritzky.”

He nodded. ”Likewise.”

She smiled through her tears because he had not let go of her hand. The smile lingered in her normally solemn eyes after it had faded from her lips. He smiled back at her.

Leo and Adelle had what the screen magazines referred to as a whirlwind romance. After they buried his dog and her cat on a hill in Maryland he took her to a roadside tavern he knew near Annapolis. Dinner-fried clams and shrimps fresh from the Maryland sh.o.r.e-was served on a table covered with the front page of the Baltimore Sun bearing a banner headline announcing that the Rosenbergs had been convicted of espionage. Leo sprinted up a narrow flight of steps to the smoke-filled bar and came back with two giant mugs of light tap beer. For a time he and Adelle circled each other warily, talking about the Rosenberg trial, talking about books they'd read recently: James Jones's From Here to Eternity From Here to Eternity (which he liked), Truman Capote's (which he liked), Truman Capote's The Gra.s.s Harp The Gra.s.s Harp (which she liked), J.D. Salinger's (which she liked), J.D. Salinger's Catcher in the Rye Catcher in the Rye (which they both loved because they shared the hero's loathing of phonies). After that first date they fell easily into the habit of talking on the phone almost daily. Adelle had earned a bachelor's degree in political science from Johns Hopkins in Baltimore and had found work as a legislative a.s.sistant to a first term senator, a Texas Democrat named Lyndon Johnson who was considered a comer in Democratic circles. Johnson spent hours each day on the phone working the Was.h.i.+ngton rumor mill, so Adelle always had a lot of hot political gossip to pa.s.s on. Leo, for his part, claimed to be a junior researcher at the State Department but when she tried to pin him down about what exactly he researched, he remained vague, which convinced Adelle, wise in the ways of Was.h.i.+ngton, that he was engaged in some sort of secret work. (which they both loved because they shared the hero's loathing of phonies). After that first date they fell easily into the habit of talking on the phone almost daily. Adelle had earned a bachelor's degree in political science from Johns Hopkins in Baltimore and had found work as a legislative a.s.sistant to a first term senator, a Texas Democrat named Lyndon Johnson who was considered a comer in Democratic circles. Johnson spent hours each day on the phone working the Was.h.i.+ngton rumor mill, so Adelle always had a lot of hot political gossip to pa.s.s on. Leo, for his part, claimed to be a junior researcher at the State Department but when she tried to pin him down about what exactly he researched, he remained vague, which convinced Adelle, wise in the ways of Was.h.i.+ngton, that he was engaged in some sort of secret work.

Two weeks after they met Leo took Adelle to see a new film called The African Queen The African Queen, starring Hepburn and Bogart, and afterward, to a steakhouse in Virginia. Over medium-rare inch-thick sirloins Adelle inquired with great formality whether Leo's intentions were honorable. He asked her to define the word. She flushed but her eyes never strayed from his. She told him she was a virgin and only planned to sleep with the man she would marry. Leo promptly proposed to her. Adelle promised to think about it seriously. When dessert came she reached across the table and ran her fingers over the back of his wrist. She said she had given the matter a great deal of thought and had decided to accept.

”Long about now you should be inviting me home with you,” she announced.

Leo allowed as how he was kind of frightened. She asked if he was a virgin and when he said no, he had lived for a time with a girl some years older than he was, she asked: Then where's the problem? Leo said he was in love with her and didn't want it to go wrong in bed. She raised a wine gla.s.s and roasted him across the table. Nothing can go wrong, she whispered.

And nothing did.

There was still one height to scale: her Daddy, who turned out to be none other than Philip Swett, a self-made St. Paul wheeler-dealer who had moved to Chicago and earned a fortune in commodity futures. More recently he had become a heavy hitter in the Democratic Party and a crony of Harry Truman's, breakfasting with the President twice a week, sometimes striding alongside him on his brisk morning const.i.tutionals. To drive home that the young man courting Adelle was out of his depth, Swett invited Leo to one of his notorious Sat.u.r.day night Georgetown suppers. The guests included the Alsop brothers, the Bohlens (just back from Moscow), the Nitzes, Phil and Kay Graham, Randolph Churchill and Malcolm Muggeridge (over from London for the weekend), along with several senior people Leo recognized from the corridors of the Company-the Wiz was there with his wife, as well as the DD/0, Allen Dulles, who most Was.h.i.+ngton pundits figured would wind up running the CIA one day soon. Leo found himself seated below the salt, a table-length away from Adelle, who kept casting furtive looks in his direction to see how he was faring. Dulles, sitting next to her, wowed the guests with one yarn after another. Phil Graham asked Dulles if his relations.h.i.+p with Truman had improved any.

”Not so you'd notice,” Dulles said. ”He's never forgiven me for siding with Dewey in forty-eight. He likes to pull my leg whenever he can. I stood in for Bedell Smith at the regular intelligence meeting this week. As I was leaving, Truman called me over and said he wanted the CIA to provide a wall map for the Oval Office with pins stuck in it showing the location of our secret agents around the world. I started to sputter about how we couldn't do anything like that because not everyone who came into the Oval Office had the appropriate security clearance.” Dulles smiled at his own story. ”At which point Truman burst out laughing and I realized he was having fun at my expense.”

After dinner the guests retired to the s.p.a.cious living room, pushed back the furniture and began dancing to Big Band records blasting from the phonograph. Leo was trying to catch Adelle's eye when Swett crooked a forefinger at both of them.

”Join me in the study,” he ordered Leo. He waved for Adelle to follow them.

Fearing the worst, Leo trailed after him up the carpeted stairs to a paneled room with a log fire burning in the fireplace. Adelle slipped in and closed the door. Opening a mahogany humidor, Swett motioned Leo into a leather-upholstered chair and offered him a very phallic-looking Havana cigar.

”Don't smoke,” Leo said, feeling as if he were admitting to an unforgivable lapse of character. Adelle settled onto the arm of his chair. Together they confronted her father.

”By golly, you don't know what you're missing,” Swett said. Half sitting on the edge of a table, he snipped off the tip with a silver scissor, struck a match with his thumbnail and held the flame to the end of the cigar. Great clouds of dusky smoke billowed from his mouth. Swett's raspy sentences seemed to emerge from the smoke. ”Grab the bull by the horns, that's what I say. Adelle tells me she's been seeing a lot of you.” Leo nodded carefully. ”What do you do? For income, I mean.”

”Daddy, you've seen too many of those Hollywood movies.”

”I work for the government,” Leo replied.

Swett snickered. ”When a man round here says something fuzzy like he works for the government, that means he's Pickle Factory. You with Allen Dulles and the Wiz over at Operations?”

Leo dug in his heels. ”I work for the State Department, Mr. Swett.” He named an office, a superior, an area of expertise. His offer to supply a telephone number was backhanded away.

Swett sucked on his cigar. ”What's your salary, son?”

”Daddy, you promised me you wouldn't browbeat him.”

”Where I come from man's got the right to ask a fellow who's courting his daughter what his prospects are.” He focused on Leo. ”How much?”

Leo sensed that more was riding on the manner in which he answered Swett's question than the answer itself. Adelle was impulsive but he doubted she would marry someone against her father's will. He needed to be smart; to grab the bull by the horns, as Swett put it. ”How much do you earn a year, sir?”

Adelle held her breath. Her father took several staccato puffs on his cigar and scrutinized Leo through the smoke. ”Roughly one point four million, give or take a couple of dozen thousand. That's after taxes.”

”I make six thousand four hundred dollars, sir. That's before taxes.”

A weighty silence filled the room. ”Tarnation, I'm not one to p.u.s.s.yfoot around, son. It's not the money that worries me-when I got hitched I was making forty a week. Here's where I stand: I'm dead blast set against mixed marriages. Mind you, I got nothing against Jewish people but I figure Jews should marry Jews and white Anglo-Saxon Protestants need to go and marry white Anglo-Saxon Protestants.”

”When you get right down to it, all marriages are mixed,” Leo said. ”One male, one female.”

Adelle rested a hand on his shoulder. ”They sure are. Daddy. Look at you and mom. More mixed, you'd melt.”

”Sir,” Leo said, leaning forward, ”I'm in love with your daughter. I wasn't aware that we were asking your permission to marry.” He reached over and laced his fingers through Adelle's. ”We're informing you. We'd both prefer to have your blessing, me as much as Adelle. If not”-he tightened his grip on Adelle-”not.”

Swett eyed Leo with grudging respect. ”I'll give you this much, young fellah-you have better taste than my little gal here.”

”Oh, Daddy!” cried Adelle, ”I knew you'd like him.” And she bounded across the room into her father's arms.

The wedding was performed by a female justice of the peace in Annapolis on the young couple's first anniversary, which was to say one month to the day after they had met in the waiting room of the veterinary hospital. Adelle had squirmed and wriggled into one of her kid sister s lace Mainbochers for the occasion. Adelle's sister, Sydney, was the maid of honor. Bill Colby stood up for Leo. Adelle's employer, Lyndon Johnson, gave away the bride when Philip Swett, who had been dispatched by Truman to mend political fences in Texas, couldn't make it back in time for the ceremony. Adelle's mother broke into tears when the justice of the peace p.r.o.nounced the couple man and wife until death did them part. Colby broke open a bottle of New York State Champagne. As Leo was kissing his mother-in-law goodbye she slipped an envelope into the pocket of his spanking new suit jacket. In it was a check for $5,000 and a note that said, ”Live happily ever after or I'll break your neck.” It was signed: ”P. Swett.”

The couple had a one-night honeymoon at an inn with a majestic view of the sun rising over Chesapeake Bay. The next morning Leo reported back to work; there were choke points in Norway waiting to be cla.s.sified according to their vulnerability and a.s.signed to stay behind cells. Adelle had been given three days off by Lyndon Johnson. She used the time to shuttle back and forth, in her two-door Plymouth, between her apartment in Georgetown and the top floor of the house that Leo had rented on Bradley Lane, behind the Chevy Chase Club in Maryland. The last thing she brought over was the wedding present from her boss, the Senator. It was a baby kitten with a gnarled snout. Adelle had instantly dubbed her new pet Sour Pickles.

In short order the newlyweds settled into a rut of routines. Mornings, Leo caught a lift to the Campus with d.i.c.k Helms, a Company colleague who lived down Bradley Lane. Helms, another OSS alumnus who was working in clandestine operations under the Wiz, always took a roundabout route to the Reflecting Pool, crossing Connecticut Avenue and going up the Brookville Road in order to mask his destination. On the drives into town they talked shop. Leo filled Helms in on Colby's stay behind operation. Helms told him about a chief of station in Iran who was ”ringing the gong”-warning that an Arab radical named Mohammed Mossadegh was likely to take over as premier in the next few weeks; Mossadegh, the head of the extremist National Front, was threatening to nationalize the British owned oil industry. If that happened. Helms said, the Company would have to explore ways of pulling the rug out from under him.

One night every two weeks Leo pulled the graveyard s.h.i.+ft, reporting to work on the Reflecting Pool at four in the morning as the Clandestine Service's representative to the team producing the President's Daily Brief. For the next three hours he and the others sifted through the overnight cables from bases overseas and culled the items that ought to be brought to Mr. Truman's attention. The Book, as it was called-an eight or ten-page letter size briefing doc.u.ment arranged in a newspaper column format and marked ”For the President's Eyes Only”-was delivered by the senior member of the Daily Brief committee to the White House every morning in time for Mr. Truman to read it over his oatmeal breakfast.

One Sunday morning not long after Leo's marriage the officer who was supposed to deliver the Book got a last minute phone call from his wife. Labor pains had begun and she was on her way to the hospital. The officer asked Leo to stand in for him and raced off to witness the birth of his first child. Leo's Company credentials were checked at the south gate of the White House. A secret service officer led him through the First Family's entrance under the South Portico and took him up in a private elevator to the President's living quarters on the second floor. Leo recognized the only person in sight from photographs he'd seen in Life magazine; it was Mr. Truman's daughter, Margaret, just back from a concert she'd given in New York. Of course she'd be glad to take the book in to the President, she said. Leo settled onto a couch in the corridor to wait. Soon the door to what turned out to be the President's private dining room opened a crack and a short man wearing a double-breasted suit and a dapper bow tie gestured for him to come on in. Quite startled to be in the presence of the President himself Leo followed Truman into the room. To his surprise he saw Philip Swett sitting across from Margaret Truman at the breakfast table.

”So you work for the Pickle Factory after all,” Swett growled, his forehead wrinkling in amus.e.m.e.nt.

”You two gents know each other?” Mr. Truman inquired, a distinctly Midwestern tw.a.n.g to his nasal voice.