Foolish Wisdom: Book Three of Doubtful Intelligence

By Brad Field

Four men, in the fourth of thee novels: Hertzig tries to
maintain his espionage connections; Tipley tries to
blacken the name of a co-worker who may connect him
to a murder; Chataigne struggles with his own madness;
Daw criss-crosses Europe in goose-chases, some tame,
some wild. They all begin to run into each other.

• Language: English
• Publisher: iUniverse
• Release date: Aug 21, 2001
• ISBN: 9781469702537

Brad Field

Brad Field has spent a year in Europe, east and west, before, after, and during the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989. He has never been able to take seriously the obsessions there with ideology. He was right. They are comic. He has never had any connection to an intelligence organization. He's been teaching in university.

Book preview

FOOLISH WISDOM

Book Three of

Doubtful Intelligence

Brad Field

Writers Club Press

San Jose New York Lincoln Shanghai

Foolish Wisdom Book Three of Doubtful Intelligence

All Rights Reserved © 2001 by Bradford S. Field

No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by

any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying,

recording, taping, or by any information storage retrieval system,

without the permission in writing from the publisher.

Writers Club Press

an imprint of iUniverse.com, Inc.

For information address:

iUniverse.com, Inc.

5220 S 16th, Ste. 200

Lincoln, NE 68512

www.iuniverse.com

Any resemblance to any person or institution outside this fiction to any

named or described within it is strictly coincidental and none is intended.

ISBN: 0-595-19718-3

ISBN: 978-1-4697-0253-7(ebook)

Printed in the United States of America

Contents

25 November 1963

7 December 1963

9 December 1963

16 December 1963

21 December 1963

27 December 1963

31 December 1963

6 January 1964

10 January 1964

14 January 1964

19 January 1964

7 February 1964

10 February 1964

21 February 1964

8 March 1964

10 March 1964

11 March 1964

12 March 1964

20 March 1964

23 March 1964

24 March 1964

30 March 1964

31 March 1964

3 April 1964

5 April 1964

10 April 1964

14 April 1964

To Mary Lee, who patience, strength, and love have made this

work possible.

FOOLISH WISDOM

Book Three of

Doubtful Intelligence

Brad Field

25 November 1963

Putting things back together after the emotional excesses of the weekend following Kennedy’s death had taken two days of committee meetings, private pep-talks to clerks, phone calls to his opposite numbers in the numberless other intelligence agencies that cluttered the District and the surrounding counties. By Wednesday Tipley had finally buckled to their harnesses again the IRSA crew of the intercept catalogers, with some exceptions, for Polly Fulsom still meandered about the floors with her cartload of rubbish for Objects. She sounded like some street peddler, her persistent sobs for all the world like cockles and mussels, alive, alive-o! as if the death of a president were utterly without precedent—romantic nonsense, of course. As Bingo Farmer had remarked by the water fountain—and Tipley had felt compelled to agree with the sentiment, no matter how much he despised Bingo himself—that presidents are like spark-plugs. One burns out, you unscrew it, screw in another. Johnson’s no worse, no better, and so forth, in his nasal voice.

A last exasperation lurked on the bottom of the last batch of flimsies of the last delivery of the day, a query from Documents about the passport to be made up for one Edward Standish Daw IV, complaining that he had failed to supply the appropriate photo. This item he found only as he was cleaning off his desk to go home for the day, indeed, for the week-end, for all practical purposes, since Thursday would be Thanksgiving, and Friday would find only a skeleton crew on duty.

Now what? he complained at large to his empty office. He sat back down at his desk and bent his eye upon the details of the flimsy. He deciphered the journey of the order. Someone had mis-read the initial routing code. It had been delivered to Documents by mistake, and no one at Documents had bothered to read the flimsy closely enough to spot the mistake. The problem was common enough, but too much to contend with at the moment, and he put the flimsy aside to deal with on Friday, packed his briefcase, and left.

Thanksgiving Day offered, Tipley thought, very little to commemorate itself, entailing as it did an extra episode of watching his father-in-law stuff himself with food down on the campus of Tidewater College for Women. It did offer another chance to discuss the Old Girls’ party, slated for the period between Christmas and New Years in Los Angeles, and Tipley’s chance to make a trip out there. He had already raised the idea with Walton Howard at IRA, planning to conduct a discreet inquiry for his own reasons during the trip, into the location and the personality of Karl Knecht.

Yas, they have thangs out there in Los Angeles, said old Sylvester between bites. Elise Green Bobart Brocker, don’t remember if she ever married another time after that, must be gettin’ on, she gets these thangs together now and then. A party like that’s a good place to go to beg for money, an alumna party. Haven’t been out to the Coast mahse’f in yeahs, but it’d do no ha’m if you sort of went along, called yourself, what? Vice President or Dean of something. No need to give a speech, but, you know, say good things, TCW is goin’ good and all that. They like to back a winner, so don’t go whinin’ too much ‘bout how we can’t pay our bills or nothin’, but, you know, talk about how we need to improve stuff, library, stables, get a repair to that god-damned swimming pool, stuff like that. And put out some noise ‘bout how we’d like to see applications from their daughters. Or from grand-daughters. Know what I mean?

I think I do, said Tipley.

Hell, yes, Daddy, said Betsy. He’ll have ‘em eatin’ out of the palm of his hand!

The old horror had tried out one of his smiles at that, and bent his drooping chins toward her over his plate. That what you do?

Can’t, Daddy, and she grinned back. Can’t bend over far. Mah belly’s too big.

Old Sylvester nodded. That’s a fact, he said, nodding. You’re getting a big gut on you. How many brats you got in there?

Only one, the doctor says. Hope it’s a girl.

Old Sylvester grunted, and after a quick glance back to Tipley, returned to the main object of his attention, his food, with sidelong comments about the issues that occupied his fat mind, such as the next edition of newsletter, due out soon. Gonna git a little more he’p puttin’ it togetheh, the old man added. That British gel, she’s comin’ back to take up wheah she lef’ off. Good workeh.

Cecily? said Betsy, evidently the name of the woman in question, and the fat chins oozed in and out as the old man nodded.

That marriage of hers this summer, he rumbled, seems it didn’t work out. Hope she don’t come over heah jus’ to mope ‘rounda ‘bout it, ‘cause we got plenty work to do on that pore ol’ newsletteh’. Last one I got out of heah, I was busier’n a cat coverin’ shit on a marble floor, an’ that’s a fac’!"

On Friday Tipley did go into the office, but it was a ghost town, each department manned by someone who had drawn the short straw, each of whom answered all queries by saying that so-and-so was away from her desk for the moment. Can I have her call you back? Or perhaps you’d prefer to try again on Monday?

So after an hour, he gave up on the flimsy mis-routed to Documents and went home. He spent a little time in his study in the house on Powder Mill Road. He wrote out in long-hand a one-page imitation of Foster Delmont’s prose style. His faked Foster ostensibly analyzed some evidence, to come to the suggestion that Arbie Rowe had been exchanged as a child with one Karl Knecht of the Pasadena Knechts, and that Arbie might therefore be treated as a possible KGB mole in deep cover. Betsy favored him with a surprisingly pleasant day, letting him read, or listen to his records, for hours on end, the consequence, she told him when he commented on it, of pregnancy.

Brings out the bovine qualities of mah nature, Sugah, she said, and grunted on the sofa as she moved her belly from one position to another, not, fortunately, with the same gracelessness as the way her father shifted his fat gut. She accepted with calm his declaration that, after tennis on Saturday afternoon, he was due to attend a cocktail party in the District.

By way of doing business, he said. Like that art show we went to back this summer.

I can’t drink, Sugah, she said. I told you I wasn’t gonna to go to that thang.

And well that she had, for Mrs. Delmont had the invitation, not himself, and the only way Tipley was to get in at all was with her, not with Betsy.

Well, after tennis, I’ll clean up and change at the club, then go over to the Hedges from there, he said. Don’t hold dinner for me.

Hey, don’t be too late, Sugah. We all like havin’ you ‘round, she said with a sweetness of tone he could only attribute to her delicate condition.

Saturday afternoon Mrs. Delmont gave him some tea, and after they had talked a while about the progress of Niles at school and of her daughter, what’s-her-name, Tipley descended to that basement apartment and sat himself down in front of Foster Delmont’s desk and typewriter. Wearing Mrs. Delmont’s rubber gloves, he delicately wound into the machine a sheet of typing paper and a carbon on that single sheet of yellow second-sheet with the finger print, then extracted from his pocket the little imitation of Foster’s prose style that he had composed, and typed it up. He then removed the sheets, folded the original and put it in his pocket, inserted the second sheet in one of Foster’s old manilla envelopes, put the envelope in a file folder. He took the original, the sheet of carbon paper, and his long-hand version to the laundry tubs, burnt them there, washed the ashes down the drain, and finally took off the hot and sweaty rubber gloves and put them back over the laundry tubs where he had found them.

Then he dressed for the Hedges. He had one of his older formal suits in the wardrobe in the Delmont basement. He tried it on. The only weakness in the effect, as usual these days, was height of his forehead over the eyebrows.

Once dressed, he carried the file folder with the manilla envelope upstairs, out to the garage, and his car. He would take it to the office on Monday morning, so whenever the chance to spring it might offer itself any time during the winter, he would have it ready. He opened the glove compartment to stash the folder, to be greeted by a cascade of paper and photographs. His hands fumbled with the old, obscene ones that Orson Stanford had found in Foster Delmont’s desk, photos of Foster’s daughter trying to fend off the camera, of Foster and his wife, much younger at the time, naked and staring at the lens, and of others. Tipley quickly shoved them all back inside and slammed shut the glove compartment.

Damn, he muttered to himself. I never did get rid of that stuff. He threw the file folder on the back seat, and went back into the kitchen.

That suit fits you nicely, said Mrs. Delmont in her kitchen. You look very well, Mr. Tipley.

She looked rather well herself in a dark grey cocktail dress and matching purse and shoes, the dress with a flounce at each shoulder that drew the eye to the fine line of her chin and neck, and he told her so.

It is kind of you to flatter so, Mr. Tipley, she said. Here’s the invitation. They sometimes look at them as we go in.

The children, Niles and his sister, gathered at the door between the kitchen and the garage, wide-eyed, to see them off.

The invitations to the Hedges’ party were examined for the people ahead of them at the door, but when Tipley drew Mrs. Delmont’s from his pocket, one of the two beefy men there waved it away as the other said, Ah, Mrs. Delmont. Been a long time. Sorry to hear about your husband. A good man gone.

This is Mr. Arlington Tipley, Frank, said Mrs. Delmont. He and Foster were associates.

Welcome, Mr. Tipley, said Frank, smiling but not offering to shake hands. My name is Frank. This one is Roy. We’re just the muscle here. Mrs. Delmont knows the way, right?

Thank you, Frank, she said, and Tipley followed her into the high hallway of the Hedges’ establishment. The house was about the same size as his own in Powder Mill Road over in Maryland, but much more crowded, a set of young people milling around a bar in a living room, bowls of dip that had already aggregated their shards of broken-off potato chips. Mrs. Delmont showed him a stairwell to the basement where, she told him, the poker game was running, and another door to a first-floor library.

Foster always ended up in there, she said, making no motion to go in herself. Trading disinformation, as you call it, I suppose.

It’s famous, whispered Tipley to her.

Well, if you want some, go right in, she said, grinning at him.

You won’t join me?

It’s usually just men, she said.

Ah, Mrs. Delmont! A dark-eyed woman with a large sharp nose, skin almost black, arrayed in a brilliant pink and pastel green sari, stood smiling at them with a sweet simple expression, and then in rabid, subcontinental English, went on, you out of mourning for that old whore-master Foster at last? Who’s this? A nice fancy-boy, I hope?

Good evening, Curt, said Mrs. Delmont without a quaver. Let me introduce Mr. Arlington Tipley.

Hullo, Sport, said the woman, charmed, I’m sure. And she put her palms together before her face and made a slight, demure bow. Never mind my name. None of these morons can pronounce it. I’m from Sri Lanka. Around here they call me Madame Goddam, the Curtain Lady, on account of the sari. Curt, for short, right Audrey?

That’s right, Curt, said Mrs. Delmont, evenly, even smiling.

I also answer to Goddam, said Curt, if that seems more to the point. And then to Mrs. Delmont, she said, How’s he doin’, Audrey? You gettin’ any?

Mr. Tipley was one of Foster’s associates at work, said Mrs. Delmont.

Oh, hell! Curt turned to Tipley. Am I speaking out of turn?

Ah, well, perhaps not…. said Tipley uncertainly with his eye on Mrs. Delmont’s placid expression.

I knew old Foster well, said Curt. In the Biblical sense, among others. How about you?

Ah, we were just, um, associates.

Curt gave another small bow. Just as well, she said. He never was a first-class performer, and she turned back to Mrs. Delmont. Not to speak ill of the dead, but after the honeymoon, weren’t you tempted to look around?

Mr. Tipley has never been here before, said Mrs. Delmont without loosing her quiet smile. He still has not been introduced to Mr. and Mrs. Hedges.

So, said Curt, with still another little bow. After you’ve done the honors, come and drink some tea with me, later on. She nodded at the library beyond the door. Let Tipley here mix it up with the liar’s club in there, if he wants.

Did you know her? said Mrs. Delmont as she led him down a hallway.

Her? Ah, Curt? No! Should I?

Perhaps, yes. She’s the assistant cultural attache at her embassy. That is, she’s their intelligence officer. Foster, as she said, knew her, and in the Biblical sense.

I have no intention of making her acquaintance in that sense.

Mrs. Delmont stopped and turned, looking up at him with a peculiar combination of smile and frown. Why not? she said. She might know some dirt.

Well, perhaps she might, but…

Foster always explained it that way.

Not my style, was all he could come up with.

Ah, Audrey! A matronly woman with grey hair in an unbecoming green satin cocktail dress bore down on them from the other end of the corridor. She and Mrs. Delmont greeted each other effusively, and Tipley found himself introduced to his hostess, Mrs. Hedges, who told them that Mr. Hedges was in the basement, playing his poker, so it wouldn’t do to interrupt his concentration.

Later on in the evening, said Mrs. Hedges, after he’s lost his quota, he’ll surface, and you can meet him. Neither of you have drinks!

Tipley and Mrs. Delmont circulated among the young people around the bar, and some of these, not quite so young, perhaps, as the others, knew Mrs. Delmont by name, and some of them, like Mrs. Hedges, never mentioned Foster at all. Curt reappeared to claim Mrs. Delmont for a spot of tea, and Tipley wandered down the hallway again to the library, which was no more than a room of moderate size with a fireplace, some book shelves and seats for eight or ten in various sofas and each chairs. Among the men there he saw Armand LeCreux, who looked up from a conversation and rose to greet him.

Tipley! I was wondering when you’d turn up here! Boys? This is Arlington Tipley. The one I was telling you about.

Ah, so, said small oriental man of indeterminate age. The one who takes out the widow of Foster Derrmont?

The same, said LeCreux. He introduced the man from the Japanese embassy, another from the Italian embassy. Around a circle, Tipley met a Greek, an Egyptian, a Canadian, and a Swede, all of them with vague titles at their respective embassies or quite openly presented as assistant military attache, that is, all spooks.

You see the widow Delmont often now, yah? said the Swede.

We came together tonight, he said.

Oh, she’s here too! said LeCreux. Nice woman.

One always thought so, said the Egyptian with a British accent to his English. How’d you come to meet her?

Foster and I were, ah, associates at work. At IRSA.

At IRSA, repeated the Italian, his teeth bright in his smile.

You must know a lot of dirt, said the Canadian.

Tipley, a little non-plussed at the center of attention, took the bold choice, saying, Yes, I do.

And they all nodded, and turned back to their previous conversations. Either his answer had been the right one, or a wrong one. Tipley could not tell.

Say, you know, about a certain list, muttered LeCreux at his shoulder. I’ll get it to you soon, and then LeCreux too turned away to pick up his drink.

Well, what the hell are the Greeks doing on Cyprus? said the Canadian.

Why ask me? said the Greek plaintively. I’d be the last to know, surely.

Other conversations turned on the moves of the Johnson administration, the expulsion of the Russian embassy from the Congo, and something to do with money in Argentina and Brazil. Gradually Tipley understood that all of them were giving away almost nothing informative while fishing for some information from others. It seemed a silly game all around, unless they were simply showing off for him, a possibility he found difficult to accept. He knew he was not important enough, but then, perhaps they did not know that, for he came to them introduced by LeCreux, and trailing the glory of his association with Mrs. Delmont, so that eventually he relaxed and even enjoyed a few jokes.

He drove Mrs. Delmont back to Beltwood about ten. He drew the car to a stop in front of her garage. Won’t you come in? she said, as she opened her purse for her keys. Or perhaps you should get back to your wife. How is she these days?

She’s fine. Growing bigger every day.

What’s this? Mrs. Delmont held up a folded piece of paper. It has your name on it, Mr. Tipley. And she handed it to him.

What? He felt rather stupid as he took it. It was a single sheet folded in thirds, secured with simple strip of cellophane tape.

It was in my purse. Someone must have put it there. At the Hedges.

(C T-l

For me?

She leaned over and put her finger on his name, elaborately handwritten in ink, on the outside of the sheet. I’d guess someone did not want to be seen handing it to you, she said. So they planted it on me. Knowing. She sat back on her side of the car. Knowing I would turn over everything to you.

I wonder who.

The inside may tell you.

He put his finger between the sheets and pulled the tape loose.

Don’t show me, Mr. Tipley. It’s for you.

Well, don’t peek, then. It was a list. In French, from the heading which Tipley squinted to decipher in the dim light. A list of possible agents or conspirators of the old Secret Army, a dated relic of the Algerian troubles of two or three years ago. Why on earth would LeCreux suppose he wanted that? Or was Tipley a mere conduit to get it to Walton Howard? A possibility. In any case, it was not the same list as the one that had been subject to an illicit copy back in September. He folded the sheet again, turned in his seat, to that file folder containing his own spurious analysis of Arbie Rowe’s parentage.

"You looked relieved, Mr. Tipley.

Yes, well, and grunted as he opened the file on the back seat, it turns out to be not what I feared. He finally got the French list inside the file folder. Nothing important.

You can do something important for me. Before you go.

What? He turned to find his face quite close to hers.

I had not realized it until we got there, but by going together to the Hedges, we made rather a declaration. To my children. To that community at the Hedges. The one that Foster dealt with. A declaration that you and I…well, it’s just that, you’ve been very kind to us. We can never repay you. So it’s bold of me to ask one more thing.

Why, what is it?

You might kiss me.

Tipley found himself looking into her eyes. He put his arm along the back of the car seat and leaned to her face. Her lips were soft and pliant on his, no pushing or twisting as Betsy invariably tried, seeking nothing, waiting for his initiatives.

He sat back and looked at her. Her eyes seemed oddly shining and bright. Thank you, Mr. Tipley, she said. We should do that every time we meet. And part, and she opened the passenger door to the car. She paused as she was sliding out of the seat. I think my children should get used to seeing it, she said.

He sat stunned behind the wheel as the woman, so graceful, so fine, stepped to her door. She did not need the key, for it opened immediately from inside. She turned and waved to him, and beside her in the car lights he could see at the door the two faces of her children, who had been waiting for her return.

7 December 1963

Simone and Nicole crowded around them as Didier kissed her at the door, so he bent and kissed them both again.

Come home early, Papa! said Nicole. We’re having the party tonight.

Come home as late you like, said Simone with weary superiority. No one will get here until eight.

Didier nodded as he stood up again, gave Odile one of his rare smiles, the kind that always made her knees go a little weak, and then turned to walk down the steps in the icy morning air and disappear out the front gate.

Odile turned back to the task of reconstructing the party that, because of the assassination in America, she had had to postpone. Whether the delay had been wise or not would be seen tonight.

Stockwood at the foot of the stairs made one of her little clicking noises with her tongue, and Simone and Nicole immediately ducked their heads and thundered back up the steps, followed by Stockwood’s measured tread, on their way to their rooms to finish dressing for school.

Odile found Felicité and Cook in the kitchen, cleaning up the breakfast dishes. Cook put Felicité to work at the sink while she and Odile sat down together over their plans for the evening. They had done it once before. But now, with second thoughts, and the real chance that few or none of the military types would yet be able to attend, they made careful alterations in the quantities to prepare as well a slight variations in the kinds of food and drink. Less hard liquor, certainly. Less meat, more fruit.

The doorbell rang, drawing Felicité from the sink to answer. Cook pointed out to Odile that since in two weeks’ time they would be celebrating Mid-winter, certain cakes that would keep in the cooler could be made in quantity, and the left-overs used for the religious evening in the garden on the twenty-first. Felicité returned with the announcement that a Ma’mselle Melange has arrived and awaits Madame in the small parlor.

Thank you, said Odile, rising. I may ring for coffee or tea, but come and ask, oui?

Oui, madame! and Felicité bobbed a curtsy, almost getting it right these days.

Veronique Melange sat composed on the end of the divan in the small parlor, looking rather smart in a business suit, turning her big nose left and right as she looked around the room.

Good morning, said Odile as she came in. Can I get you some coffee?

No, merci, Madame Chataigne, said Veronique. My sister and I had coffee in the café in the market-square. And I have something to report, so perhaps…?

Oui, quite, said Odile and sat in the easy chair. Veronique, with her hair no longer dyed red but its natural brown, and in a suit rather than the rather garish maid’s uniform in which Odile had last seen her, looked calm and competent.

Veronique and her sister, Clothilde, were the active agents in their father’s private-inquiry business, Agence Melange. Claude Melange had married Antoinette Peasefield, Gwen Peasefield’s daughter by Odile’s own father, so Veronique and Clothilde were in some measure Odile’s nieces. Because of that relationship, Odile chose to employ Agence Melange to keep an eye out for Didier’s safety. To do so had been her father’s advice just before he died three years ago. Didier, in that office in the Louvre, he is learning lots of dirt. Men will fear him for that.

Veronique’s sister, Clothilde, much the prettier, was eighteen, but looked older. Clothilde waited every morning in the Café des Amateurs over a second breakfast until Odile’s husband strode down rue Corday past the café, across the market-square and out the other side, through the alley and over the bridge to the train station. Every day Clothilde followed him from the café onto to the train and into Paris, as far as his entrance to the Louvre on the rue de Rivoli, keeping an eye out for others who might be following too, and making weekly written reports by mail to Odile.

Veronique was 23 now, but looked older too. This morning she had waited with her sister until Didier had passed by the Café des Amateurs, and then, once sure that Didier had gone off in that train, she had come