The Strivers' Row Spy Page 4

  Agent Speed wanted us completely fatigued when we visited the range. Tired, wobbly legs and aching, shaky arms didn’t make for accurate shooting. I accepted the challenge and wasn’t going to let Speed break me. He hadn’t called me a nigger yet, but it was right on the tip of his tongue.

  It was getting dark and the rain was still pouring down. Ellington and I, holding our umbrellas, approached the black Lincoln. In it sat Knox and Long. They had been parked there for eight hours. From the look of things, there’d still been no activity in the hideout.

  I wondered, privately, if the Galleanists had simply spotted us. But the street was lined with automobiles and had plenty of folks walking up and down throughout the day, so the Lincoln didn’t stand out.

  Taylor Knox and Sam Long were veteran agents like Speed. But they were not as physically imposing, though they seemed to enjoy physical training and, like Speed, had military backgrounds.

  Ellington knocked on the passenger-side window and Knox opened his door. He threw a cigarette on the ground and spoke to Ellington.

  “You workin’ by yourself tonight?”

  “No, I’m with Temple.”

  “Who?” asked Knox.

  Ellington pointed at me, and Knox just sat there squinting his eyes and acting as if he couldn’t see me.

  “I don’t see anyone,” he said. “It’s dark out here. Smile, boy. Let me see those teeth.”

  Knox and Long laughed as Ellington gave me a sympathetic look. It would take great discipline for me to ignore his antics for the next fourteen days. Ellington stood there as if waiting for me to react. I studied Knox, sizing up his pinkish, oily face.

  He was a heavy drinker and smoker from Georgia who didn’t see the value of men like me. Long, a Louisianan, was the quiet type who tended to follow Knox’s every move. I never knew what he was thinking. People like him left me uneasy. At least in the case of Knox, he made it known that he despised my type. The two of them looked like twins—salt-and-pepper hair, average builds, white T-shirts, black slacks, and soulless-looking eyes.

  “We’re here to relieve you two,” I said. “Agent Speed wants you to join him for supper at the spot next to the hotel. He’s waiting on you.”

  Knox got out of the Lincoln, slowly stepped toward me, and we were briefly face-to-face. He spit tobacco on the ground and smiled.

  “Well all right, then,” he said with a twang. “Don’t want to leave anybody waitin’ on little ol’ me.”

  Agent Long exited the driver side, circled around front, and approached us. He put his right hand on Knox’s left shoulder, encouraging him to move on.

  “Night-night, boys,” said Knox as the two walked away.

  Ellington got into the passenger side. As I sat behind the wheel, I briefly contemplated starting the engine, turning the Lincoln around, and running over the two Southern sons of bitches. The thought quickly passed. It was becoming abundantly clear that even though Hoover wanted me around for selfish reasons, the greater Bureau wasn’t on board with his little experiment.

  “I wonder how many bombs are in there?” Ellington asked, staring ahead and to his left at the pitch-black window of the hideout.

  “Are they even in there?” I asked.

  “Probably. Speed told me the tip came from an Italian bomb maker who some agents apprehended in Buffalo last month.”

  “Why aren’t the local police involved then?” I asked.

  “Because ever since April, when all of those mail bombs were delivered to prominent government officials, not to mention the one that exploded at Palmer’s house last month, Palmer himself has made it clear that this is a federal matter, not a local one. We’re probably one team of twenty staking out houses around the country. The local police don’t even know about this particular location. And if they did know, they’d probably make the mistake of walking up and knocking on the door—aggressively seeking to catch them making the damn things.”

  “Good point.”

  “Also,” said Ellington, wiping the rain from his forehead, “if they happen to have the bombs hidden somewhere else, such a visit from Baltimore’s finest would only make them postpone or cancel their mission. We’re hoping to follow the four and catch them planting the devices. I’m quickly learning that such patience is what makes the Bureau unique. It is slowly creating a new way of catching criminals. Why do you think they’ve chosen us? This is a thinking man’s business.”

  “I’m tempted,” I said, “to sneak over and see if they have something covering the inside of that window—a black cloth of some sort.”

  “Lose the temptation.” He began rubbing the dashboard with his hand, clearing away the moisture.

  “Hope you have some stories to tell,” I said. “We’re gonna be sitting here all night and nothing’s gonna happen.”

  “You do know that Hoover is meticulous about everything, right? A friend of mine attended night school with him at George Washington. He said that when Hoover worked at the Library of Congress, he was such a perfectionist that he mastered the entire Dewey decimal system.”

  “He dresses sharp—I know that,” I said.

  Ellington and I were certainly following the dress code. Agent Speed had already informed us that Hoover expected all of the agents to wear black suits, white shirts, keep their hair very short, and have pristinely shiny shoes. Agents were also ordered to wear fedora hats.

  Speed himself didn’t follow Hoover’s orders about hair and wasn’t likely to change his bald look. He was the exception. I found it ironic that Hoover was so picky about the agents’ appearance, considering that his own look was rather odd. And he was awfully young to be so in command—only twenty-four.

  “Agent Speed told me something interesting,” said Ellington. “Hoover is looking for young agents he can groom to head up various field offices. Agents who get those jobs have a great chance to rise high within the Bureau. Speed seemed to suggest that I had excellent prospects of securing one of those positions.”

  “Good for you,” I said.

  “Speed said Hoover is intrigued by my background.”

  I just nodded. I really liked Ellington. The twenty-one-year-old kid had good energy. His striking good looks suggested he should be pursuing a career as a film actor rather than an agent.

  “What in God’s name were you dreaming about the other night?” I asked.

  “What do you mean?”

  “Your stirring and mumbling woke me up several times.”

  “What was I saying?” he asked.

  “You kept going on and on about Cronus, Dodona, and Aphrodite. You were tossing and turning like you were engaged in a fight with someone.”

  “Hmm,” he said. “I don’t know.”

  “Come on.”

  “I was probably just dreaming about my childhood.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “Look,” he said, “it’s a bit embarrassing. But when I was a kid, I used to pretend I was Zeus—the king of the gods. You know?”

  “Yeah, the ruler of Mount Olympus and the god of the sky.”

  “Right,” he said, growing restless. “I actually thought I was him.”

  “But you don’t still think you’re him?”

  “I guess last night I did.” We both snickered before he went on. “Actually, I still pretend I’m Zeus from time to time, especially when Agent Speed is busting my ass. I feel like wiping him out the way Zeus struck Salmoneus dead with a thunderbolt. But knowing Agent Speed, he’d probably laugh at the thunderbolt and crush me. The man is scary.”

  “Yes,” I said, “he’s a very scary man.”

  “Anyhow, I’ll try to cut out the tossing and turning so you can sleep. Let you do the dreaming from now on. Did you dream a lot as a youngster?”

  “Shoot,” I said. “I wished. More like nightmares. Simple dreams would have been great.”

  “I know. Nightmares stink when you’re a kid because you can’t predict when they might visit you. And when they do, you can’t under
stand what they mean.”

  “Oh . . . I knew what mine meant.”

  “No shit?”

  “Yeah,” I said. “When I was sixteen, I witnessed something horrific.”

  I paused for a spell.

  “Look, Temple, if you don’t want to go into it I understand.”

  “Nah. It’s just . . . I’ve always avoided talking about it.”

  I thought back and contemplated whether I wanted to share this story with him. I closed my eyes. I started to see myself as that innocent sixteen-year-old, happy to be spending time with my cousin in the summer of 1910. We had been like brothers, so close, even though we only saw each other in the summers.

  I glanced over at Ellington. For some reason I trusted the kid. Oddly, I hadn’t been able to completely share this story with anyone for nine years, and now, unbelievably, I felt ready to get it out—to share the details with someone I barely knew. I turned my attention back to the hideout and the words began to flow.

  “It really is still as clear as yesterday,” I said. “It was a hot day in Chicago. I watched my cousin TJ engage in a fistfight with a white man. My cousin was eighteen and the man was probably thirty-five.

  “TJ and I were riding our bicycles, approaching an intersection. TJ didn’t see an automobile idling there at the intersection, preparing to turn. When it turned, TJ ran into the side of it and scratched the door a bit. No real damage.”

  “Right,” said Ellington.

  “The man jumped out and began shoving my cousin. He wouldn’t stop. Finally TJ pushed back, and the two began fighting. All of a sudden the man pulled a knife and my cousin kept engaging him.

  “Anyway, the man stabbed him in the stomach. Then he walked toward me and pointed it within an inch of my face. I lost all of my senses, just stood there, staring down the point of the blade for what seemed like a lifetime.

  “But he then thought better of it, got back into his car, and drove away. I was shaking like crazy, but I fell to my knees beside TJ. I held him as he bled all over me and died right in my arms.”

  “Shit,” said Ellington. “My God. Sorry, Temple. Sounds like there wasn’t anything you could have done to stop it, though.”

  “Nah. I was never a fighter. I didn’t have a fighter’s mentality. If I had known how to use my hands, I would have intervened. And what adds to the anger I still feel is the fact that we were riding our bicycles in our part of the city.

  “So, you see, this man had crossed the tracks and had entered ‘Colored Town.’ He was the foreigner. He was also a coward because my cousin never had a weapon to brandish. He was using his bare hands. That man was a cold-blooded murderer.”

  “Damn right, Temple.”

  “Whole thing has always made me want to change the way things work . . . the race thing and all. Know what I mean?”

  Ellington nodded. But what I hadn’t told him was how the police never even looked for the man. Two white officers arrived on the scene, questioned me, took the body away, and that was it. There had been two colored women who witnessed the event, and they told the policemen the story, but nothing came of it. I had to accept the horrific fact that a man murdering a Negro and getting away with it was routine in America. But accepting that reality had killed a part of me.

  “To answer your original question,” I said, “about dreaming—after he died, I began searching for some kind of skill I could learn to help me feel like I could defend myself. I told one of my teachers—my mentor—Mrs. Bright—about what I was seeking and why. She could sense that I needed something to help me focus because I had lost that ability.

  “She had one of her colleagues in the white district go to the Central Library in Milwaukee. She checked out a book entitled Scientific Boxing by James Corbett. I was able to learn the basics of the sport and how to stay fit by sparring with an imaginary opponent in the mirror, but I was always seeking something more. Years later at college I found the answer in a book called Judo Kyohan by Yokoyama and Oshima. I read it and learned about a man named Jigoro Kano. He had created this form of Japanese fighting known as Kodokan Judo in 1882.”

  “I’ve heard of it,” said Ellington.

  “I began working on his techniques every night. The book was filled with pictures that showed the Leg Wheel, Advancing Foot Sweep, Shoulder Wheel, and lots of others. I actually made a dummy out of pillows, a broomstick, and some rope. I tried to master the moves, visualizing the dummy being real. Kano stressed the idea of ‘maximum efficient use of energy.’ Anyway, somehow it all helped me finally cope with my cousin’s death.”

  “Sounds like some very intense shit.”

  “It is. I told myself that I would spend one hour a day for the rest of my life working on this form of hand-to-hand combat, and I would do it in my cousin’s honor.”

  “Speed has no idea you know all this shit.”

  “Don’t make it sound like too much,” I said. “I’m no master, that’s for sure. Kodokan Judo just gave me a starting point, a foundation. It gave me discipline in every facet of my life.”

  Ellington began flexing his arms and jokingly asked, “But do you think you could handle Zeus?”

  I smiled. “No.”

  We both stared at the still-quiet hideout, wondering what those so-called Galleanists were doing in there.

  * * *

  It had been seventeen days, and finally the rain stopped. With only four days left in Baltimore, I sat alone with Jones at dinner—basic fare—red meat, mashed potatoes, turnip greens, and corn. It was the first time the two of us had engaged in any substantive conversation.

  Ellington and Mann were still sleeping, while Speed, Knox, and Long were on night watch. This was a first, as they had always reserved the day shift for themselves.

  “This is something, isn’t it?” I asked. “The two of us being in this position.”

  “Indeed,” said Jones. “I knew it would happen eventually—just didn’t know if it would be in my lifetime. Actually, let me slow way down. It still may not happen in my lifetime. They haven’t hired either of us yet. And I learned in the police department, waiting for a brother to rise within the ranks is akin to watching paint dry. But I’m optimistic.”

  “You were a policeman, huh?”

  “That’s right.” He sipped his lemonade. “After college I took a job as a policeman in Washington—as a footman. You a college man, Temple?”

  “Middlebury College,” I said. “Vermont.”

  “I’m a Virginia Union graduate.”

  “You’re also a veteran of the war, correct?”

  “Yes,” he said. “But that doesn’t seem to mean much to ol’ Speed. To tell you the truth, the fact that we’re training, eating, and sleeping alongside these men is something to behold in itself. When I was sent to Des Moines, Iowa, for training, the facility was segregated. And, of course, when we actually went off to fight in France, we were confined to colored units. My men and I battled the enemy in the Vosges Mountains. It was ugly.”

  “I can only imagine.”

  I watched him pick at his turnip greens, trying to think of a question worth asking. This was a man who’d seen hell.

  “What unit were you in?” I finally asked.

  “I wasn’t just in. I was in command of a Company F. It was part of the 368th Infantry. Like I said, an all-Negro outfit. We fought like hell. And when the war ended, unlike the colored troops of Britain and France, who were very well represented in the grand victory parade down Paris’s Champs-Élysées, we American coloreds were kept out of sight.”

  I could sense his uneasiness about thinking back. And as we finished our meal in silence, I believe he respected my decision not to press on. We understood each other. And when it came to being Bureau agents, we certainly understood the unique position we were in.

  * * *

  The next day Ellington and I arose before the others and walked to our training site at Patterson Park where we sat on damp grass waiting for the hard day to begin. I could smell the rec
ently poured fertilizer and noticed the shoddiness of the fence around the field. Beyond, I could see the top of the Phoenix Shot Tower. As if out of nowhere, Agent Speed approached with Jones and Mann. He began yelling.

  “All right, get your asses off the ground and get in position. This is going to be a sprint, not a goddamn jog. Understand?”

  The four of us lined up and, on Speed’s cue, ran the first of ten sprints. I felt like vomiting up my oatmeal from the morning’s breakfast. Kodokan Judo hadn’t worked my lungs the same way.

  Later that night, Ellington and I walked from the hotel toward the hideout.

  “Where do you think they’ll send you?” he asked.

  “My hunch is New York.”

  “I love New York. I spent spring break there once with some buddies. Down in the Tenderloin, at a place called the Kessler, I drank ’til I passed out. Worst hangover ever.”

  As we approached the Lincoln from behind, I wondered what smartass remark Knox would have for me this night. Instead, he leaned his head out and put his right index finger to his lips, signaling for us to keep quiet. He then pointed toward the hideout.

  There was light shining through the window. Ellington and I froze for a moment and then eased our way up to opposite sides of the car, I to the passenger side. The realization that there’d actually been people in the house for fourteen days had all of us rattled. It was eerie.

  Knox turned to me and whispered, “Head back to the hotel and fetch Speed.”

  Just then, a loud explosion came from the hideout. The blast lit up the entire front of the alley house. Glass and debris flew everywhere. It took me a minute to digest the fact that the Galleanists had accidentally killed themselves. And just like that, our Baltimore assignment had come to an end.

  * * *

  A few days later I was back in Washington, ready to meet again with this important man of my age, Mr. Hoover. He sat me down in his office while I waited with bated breath to find out if I’d been hired and, if so, where I’d be working.