The Last President. Michael Kurland

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СКАЧАТЬ street on the second floor. Young and I will work out of there and establish surveillance. The subject should be going out shortly after we get there. When he does, I’ll give Curtis the word on the walkie-talkie, and Curtis will stay on his tail. If for any reason he heads back early—”

      ”You know where he’s going?” Peterson interrupted.

      “Fellow’s going to a party,” St. Yves said. “If he heads back early, Curtis jumps to the nearest pay phone and gives the word, giving you, Peterson, and you, Lowesson, plenty of time to get out. Make sure you keep everything neat and don’t leave a mess. And you, Curtis, make sure you’ve got a dime. You’re the lock-and-key man, Peterson, in case you hadn’t guessed. Lowesson will help you search the place, and Berkey, you drive. Clear?”

      “What are we looking for?” Peterson asked.

      “Ah, that’s the question!” St. Yves said. “The subject seems to have an informant inside the White House, and the Chief wants to find out who the tattletale is. Anything that relates to the White House, or the government, we want copies of. Anything you don’t understand, we want copies of. Also, we want a phone bug and a couple of wall mikes planted. I already have the listening apparatus installed in the OP.”

      St. Yves distributed the small walkie-talkies to his crew, sticking three in a canvas bowling bag for himself. Then they all went through the routine of emptying their pockets and piling all identifying wallets and papers onto the bridge table.

      “If you want to keep the stakeout happy,” Peterson said, “you’ll put in a refrigerator and a hot plate.”

      They went downstairs and left by the back door. “Three cars,” St. Yves said. “I’ll go with Young. Twelve forty-seven T Street, top floor. Name on the mailbox is Ralph Schuster.”

      * * * *

      Ralph Schuster tried for the third time to get the knot to his tie adjusted. For the third time he ripped it out again and started over. He tried a fourth and fifth time, before giving up and leaving it as it was. After all, he was a reporter for the Washington Post, not a fashion plate. He pulled on the jacket of his blue suit and then remembered that one of the buttons was off the left sleeve.

      But at least Suzanne couldn’t complain about the overcoat, since she had helped him pick it out. It was camel’s hair, which was quite nice, shorter than he would have liked, and a hundred dollars more than he wanted to spend. And he really didn’t understand what was wrong with his old trench coat with the zip-in lining. But whatever Suzanne wanted, Ralph was eager to supply. Not that Suzanne wanted much. For the first few months he had seen her, he hadn’t been aware that she wanted anything. It was only gradually that Ralph learned to interpret her look of amused tolerance and ask her what was wrong.

      “Oh, it’s not wrong,” she would say. “I wouldn’t change you for the world.”

      “But if I wanted to change it myself,” he would insist, “what should I change?”

      And she would shrug her amused shrug and smile her tolerant smile and mention the ratty raincoat, or the skinny black tie. When she saw that he didn’t mind, she even started bringing him things, like the wide blue tie with the narrow red and white stripes that he had just given up knotting.

      He shrugged into the camel’s-hair overcoat, picked up the blue card inviting him to the French Embassy reception, and left his apartment, carefully locking the door behind him. He would be early, he noted, looking at his watch. It was just after nine. The reception started at nine, and no guests would really be expected until around ten. But everyone expected reporters to be gauche. And he wanted to be there when Suzanne arrived. She would be with her husband, but perhaps they could slip away for a while.

      Two men who were parking a car across the street looked startled when Schuster came out of his apartment house, but he didn’t notice. As he walked down the block to his car one of the men ran out in the street to stop another car that was going by. He spoke earnestly to the driver, gesturing toward Ralph. Whereupon the driver nodded and did a hasty and illegal U-turn. When Ralph started his car and drove off, the other driver was on his tail.

      “Son of a bitch!” St. Yves said. “That was close. Another five minutes and we would have spent the evening watching an empty apartment, waiting for him to come out.” Pulling his small canvas bag full of walkie-talkies out of the rear seat of Kit’s car, he led the way into the apartment across the street from Schuster’s. “You ready, Red Bear?” he called into one of the three walkie-talkies that he pulled from the bag.

      “Right,” came Peterson’s voice.

      “The den is empty. You may commence hibernation.”

      “Right.”

      St. Yves went to the window and turned the Venetian blind slats so that he could look through them. “Here they come,” he said.

      Kit sat down on the ancient red couch that lined one wall of the furnished apartment. His job didn’t seem exactly essential to the success of the operation, but he thought he had figured out what he was doing there—why he had been called. Having Kit share in the extralegal operation served several purposes from St. Yves’ point of view. It “blooded” Kit, and made him one of the brotherhood by participation. It helped ensure his loyalty. It tested his ability to perform under stress, since even the relatively safe job of standing lookout in an illegal operation can be trying to the fainthearted.

      “How’d you know he was going out tonight?” Kit asked.

      “That’s the preparation that goes into a well-planned job, my boy,” St. Yves said, beaming with self-satisfaction. “I’ve been scouting this job for several days. Got this apartment, set it up. Ran a check on Schuster’s hours. Then, day before yesterday, I happened to be standing there when the mailman came by. A blue envelope with the crest of the French Embassy was dropped into Schuster’s box.”

      “So?”

      “So”—St. Yves fished into his coat pocket and pulled out a blue card—“it was a reasonable assumption that one of these was inside.”

      Kit examined the invitation. “Clever,” he said. “But why didn’t you go? You could have kept a close eye on Schuster.”

      St. Yves turned his head enough to stare coldly at Kit. “I’m not in the slightest interested in Mr. Schuster,” he said. “I’m interested only in the name of his confidential White House source. And when I find out, there’s going to be one less White House employee. He’ll be lucky if the Chief doesn’t file charges.”

      Kit shrugged. “Come on, official sources are leaking information all the time, from all branches of government; it’s the great Washington game.”

      “When you work for someone,” St. Yves said, “you owe that person a certain amount of loyalty. And when the person you work for is the President of the United States, why then, by the nature of the job you owe him your complete loyalty. You don’t have to agree with him, you don’t even have to like him, but you have to be loyal. It’s one of the things he gets in return for the burden he assumes when he takes office.” Kit had never heard St. Yves speak so intently nor so seriously. He was stating his credo, and a man’s religion is not to be argued with lightly.

      “Blue Bear.” Peterson’s voice sounded.

      St. Yves grabbed the nearest walkie-talkie. “Right.”

      “In.”

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