Columbo: The Hoover Files Read online

  12:37 P.M.

  Fritz was disapproving and uneasy as he sat down at a table in Fonda la Paloma. Meeting the woman for lunch committed him to more time than he wanted to give her. He had been led to a table by the window, and he watched the cars turning in, wondering which one would bring Betsy Clendenin. He had a lifelong habit of being everywhere early, so he knew he had time to wait before she would appear—assuming she came on time. He ordered a Beefeater gin on the rocks. He nibbled on taco chips that he dipped in salsa.

  Fritz Kloss was in his seventies, of course. He made a point of not allowing himself to gain a pound beyond the weight he’d maintained when he was an agent—and the Director had prescribed lean and neat. His hair had turned white, and he kept it neatly trimmed, never allowing two weeks to pass without a visit to his barber—something else the Director had expected. His face was wrinkled, long, and gaunt. He wore round, silver-rimmed spectacles. Occasionally he allowed himself a variation on the old dress code, and he did today; he was wearing a navy-blue blazer and khaki slacks.

  The headwaiter brought the woman to the table. She looked like the whore he thought she was—frosted hair, too much makeup, a knit dress that fit her body too closely, a short skirt showing too much of her stocky legs. It was easy to see why some men would confide in her too readily. Her kind used that influence over gullible men. It was the old, old story, and newshens knew it altogether too well.

  “Mr. Kloss. Glad to meet you. I hope you like this place, this kind of food. I come here often. I’ve done some very good interviews at this table.”

  He stood and took her offered hand. “Miss Clendenin,” he said gravely. He didn’t say he was glad to meet her, because he wasn’t.

  “Well,” she said, pointing at his glass. “You’re ahead of me. Am I late? Glenlivet on the rocks, Eduardo.”

  “You’re not late,” he said as they sat down. “I was a few minutes early.”

  “Are you ready for Christmas?” she asked.

  “I’m afraid I don’t celebrate Christmas very much,” he said. “My wife died many years ago. My children are all grown and live in other parts of the country. I order their gifts from catalogs and have them sent directly. They do the same for me. We’ll talk on the telephone. That’s about it.”

  “I’m alone myself,” she said. “But I do invite friends to a party I throw the week before Christmas.” She paused, frowned slightly, then smiled. “As a matter of fact, I’d be pleased if you would come to my Christmas party. It will be Monday evening, say eight o’clock. You’ll find my friends are interesting people, and I know they’ll find you interesting, too.”

  Fritz smiled thinly. “Let’s see how our talk goes, Miss Clendenin. We may not like each other very much after this interview.”

  Betsy chuckled. “I try never to be personally offensive. I seek information. Sometimes I do it rather aggressively. But there’s nothing personal about it. It’s my profession. You’ve heard of Greg Peters, I suppose. He’ll be at the party, in spite of the fact that I did a story about him that he claims cost him a million dollars.”

  Fritz sipped gin. “I’ll be frank,” he said. ‘You are assaulting the memory of one of the greatest men our country ever produced. A dedicated patriot and a fine gentleman. I’m afraid I tend to resent it, Miss Clendenin. I think you are doing our country a disservice.”

  “Fair enough. And I’ll be frank. I am not going to say anything about J. Edgar Hoover that is not amply supported by evidence. I do not speculate, Mr. Kloss. I report facts. Sometimes I find facts that people do not want exposed. Well—That’s too bad. But I don’t make up things, and I don’t hide what I find out.”

  “You never met the Director, I imagine. I mean, you never had the opportunity of talking with him in person.”

  “No. I never met Director Hoover.”

  “If you had, you could not slander him.” Fritz shook his head. ‘You simply could not.”

  “I haven’t slandered him, Mr. Kloss. I’ve said and written nothing about him that is not supported by good evidence. And that’s the way it’s going to be.”

  They paused while the headwaiter placed Betsy’s drink before her.

  “‘Good evidence.’ Gossip?”

  “Documentary evidence, Mr. Kloss. From FBI files. From the horse’s mouth.”

  “Turned over to you? In violation of the law?”

  She shrugged. “Have you heard of the Freedom of Information Act?”

  He glowered. “I’ve heard of it.”

  “And you don’t approve of it.”

  Fritz nodded. “No organization, in government or out of it, can do its business if its every private act is subject to being disclosed and to becoming the basis of uninformed analysis and commentary.”

  “Shall we talk specifics?” she asked.

  The headwaiter remained nearby, probably to know if Fritz wanted another drink. He glanced up, gestured toward his glass, and nodded.

  “Mr. Kloss,” said Betsy, “will you deny that Mr. Hoover was a homosexual?”

  “I certainly will,” Fritz said crisply.

  “In spite of the overwhelming evidence that proves it?”

  “Miss Clendenin,” Fritz sighed. “It could be ‘proved’ that George Washington or Abraham Lincoln was a homosexual—using the standards of evidence that your profession accepts. I knew the Director, and I know he was not a homosexual. He was a gentleman in every respect.”

  “Alright. There was Clyde Tolson—”

  “I knew Mr. Tolson,” Fritz interrupted. “He was no homosexual.”

  “How do you know?”

  Fritz shook his head. “I know a homosexual when I encounter one.”

  “Really? Well, how about me? Am I a lesbian?”

  “Miss Clendenin, I don’t know. Mostly because I don’t care. If you were a person with whom I had to work, in whom I had to place my trust, I would want to know—and I think I could make the judgment pretty accurately.”

  “That’s a remarkable talent,” said Betsy dryly. “It must come in very handy sometimes.”

  He shrugged. “So you think I’m homophobic.”

  “No. But tell me, really. What’s your judgment of me? Do you think I’m a lesbian?”

  “I—Alright, yes. I suspect you are.”

  Betsy grinned. “Why don’t you check me out? Surely you have some of the old investigative skills and resources. I’ll tell you what you’d find out. You’ll find out that I come closer to being a nymphomaniac than a lesbian.”

  “I’m not infallible.”

  “No. Neither am I. And if you think J. Edgar Hoover was not a compulsive homosexual you’re wrong. There’s plenty of evidence of it. I don’t care about that, really. It’s reported. It’s old stuff. You’ve read, I suppose, about his dressing in women’s clothes.”

  “That is an outrageous lie,” said Fritz coldly.

  “Okay. I didn’t write it, and I’m not particularly interested in it. What I’m most interested in at the moment is his relationship with another notorious homosexual—and I don’t mean Clyde Tolson.”

  “Who do you mean?”

  She paused for a moment, then nodded and said, “I’ll omit mention of the most notorious. So, what about Roy Cohn?”

  “What about Roy Cohn?”

  “I have information to the effect that material from confidential FBI files was handed over to Roy Cohn.”

  “He was on the staff of the Senate investigating committee—the McCarthy committee. Information was given to the Senate, through Cohn.”

  “What I’m talking about happened after Senator McCarthy was dead, when Roy Cohn was no longer employed by any agency of the United States government. My information says that Director Hoover turned over confidential files to Cohn in New York, when he was under indictment and was defending himself against criminal charges.”

  “That is wholly ridiculous.”

  “Can I quote you as saying that it never happened or that it never happened within your knowl
edge?”

  “It never happened, period.”

  “You know it never happened.”

  “I had the honor and privilege of knowing the Director personally, and I can tell you beyond the slightest doubt that he never allowed anyone to have unauthorized access to FBI files—let alone that two-bit felonious shyster Roy Cohn.”

  * * *

  On his way home, Fritz Kloss lit a cigar.

  A leak! Goddamnit, there was a leak! Somebody at SOG, or formerly at SOG, had talked to this whore.

  Had the Director handed over confidential information to Roy Cohn? Of course he had. For his own good reasons, which Fritz had never seen fit to question. If the Director judged it appropriate to give information to Roy Cohn—or to anyone else, say Carlo Gambino—that was the Director’s business.

  Six times, he believed it was, Fritz had ridden the Metro-liner from Washington to New York to deliver a locked briefcase to Roy Cohn. He had never asked what was in those briefcases. Each time Cohn had disappeared into another room for a minute or so, then returned with an empty briefcase. He’d made the same little joke two or three times: that the Director would not waste FBI funds by giving away briefcases. Then he’d take Fritz out to lunch or dinner, an expensive lunch or dinner. At one of these dinners, which Fritz vividly remembered, Francis Joseph Cardinal Spellman had joined them. Fritz had wondered at the time if whatever was in the briefcase were not handed over to Cohn for later delivery to the Cardinal. It could have been that the papers in the briefcase had to do with New York City rackets or Communist penetration of New York institutions—information the Cardinal could use in his fights against crime and subversion.

  Fritz had had no respect whatever for Cohn but every possible respect for Cardinal Spellman. He doubted the appearance of the Cardinal at dinner had been a coincidence. No, it had been the Director’s roundabout way of letting Fritz know who he was working with.

  Anyway, somebody had leaked to the whore the story of the briefcases carried to New York. God knows what she’d do with it.

  He’d accepted the invitation to her party. He needed to know more about her.

  Monday, December 21—8:49 P.M.

  He brought a bottle of champagne to the party. He hoped it was an appropriate gift. Indeed, it seemed to be. The whore accepted it graciously and bore it to a table where she placed it beside other bottles of wine and spirits brought by other guests.

  She was wearing a bright red dress with a neckline scooped low and a short, bouffant skirt. If she meant to be a spectacle, she was.

  “Here’s someone you ought to meet,” she said.

  The someone he ought to meet was a woman, fifty years old or so and wearing a gold lame dress that was too tight for her. Her name was Meredith Nelson, and the whore said she was an actress with a starring role in a daytime serial—in other words, a soap opera.

  “I don’t think I’ve ever met a real FBI agent before,” she said.

  “I’m not sure I’ve ever met a real actress before,” said Fritz—and immediately remembered that of course he had; he’d shown houses to actors and actresses, many times. He did not repair the statement. “I’m afraid I haven’t seen your show.”

  “To be altogether frank with you, Mr. Kloss—”

  “Fritz,” the whore prompted. “See that he gets a drink, Meredith.” She moved away to other guests.

  “Fritz. To be altogether frank with you, I don’t really think I’d care to associate with most of the people who are addicted to our show. That’s off the record, of course.”

  “One thing that characterizes an FBI agent is the ability to hear confidential things and keep the confidences.”

  “I’m sure that must be so. Let’s get you a drink.” Fortunately—fortunately for his purposes—the bar was set up on the kitchen counter. The actress seemed already to have taken him in charge. She poured his drink for him. He glanced around the room and spotted the control panel for the alarm system. Okay. Useful to know.

  During the course of the evening he explored the first floor of the house. Her office was just off the living room, a small room equipped with two computers, a ZEOS and a Dell, two filing cabinets, and a shelf of plastic disk caddies filled with floppy disks. On the floor lay two Federal Express boxes, broken open, exposing what he took to be page proofs.

  When he had a moment, he asked her. “I see you work on a computer. Are those your manuscripts on those disks?” The whore nodded. “I never print anything out until I’m finished with it. Then I deliver the printout to the publisher. My files are all magnetic.”

  “Interesting. I’m not computer-oriented, myself. We had computers in the real-estate office, but I never touched them.”

  She smiled. “The only way to work,” she said.

  Meredith Nelson was at his side. She had attached herself to him, and he’d begun to wonder if she expected to leave the party with him. If she did, she had a surprise coming, maybe. He wasn’t too old. He could give her a workout.

  But he tried for a moment to focus his attention on the house. The whore had a good alarm system. He knew the name and knew how it worked. All other nasty lies about the Director were on those little computer disks in her office. Okay. Useful things to know. It was why he had come to the party. If he decided to kill the whore, maybe he could destroy her damned manuscripts in the process.

  Wednesday, December 23—2:39 P.M.

  A couple of calls, a little plugging around, were enough to locate Harry Lehman. He was where Fritz thought he would be: in Las Vegas. He had to report to a parole officer every month, and that parole officer was a retired agent who knew the name Fritz Kloss, though he had never met him.

  On Wednesday afternoon Fritz arrived at the address on Eastern Avenue.

  “Mr. Kloss! My god!”

  “Is that any way to greet an old friend, Harry?”

  “Old friend? We’re not old friends, Mr. Kloss,” said the diminutive sixty-year-old man with a bald, liver-spotted head and noisy false teeth.

  “Bygones are bygones, Harry. Aren’t you going to invite me in?”

  Lehman stepped back from the door and let Fritz into his modest apartment. He switched off the game show on the television set and gestured toward a dark-green, vinyl-covered recliner chair. Fritz sat down.

  “Now that I think of it, I guess you’re not here on official business, Mr. Kloss. Sure. You’d of had to retire years ago. I mean, while I was still in the slammer.”

  “Right. I retired more than twenty-five years ago, and I’m not here on government business.”

  “Well… good. The less I see of the government, the better. The government kept me in Leavenworth for twenty-two years, eight months, and seventeen days. That’s a hell of a lot of time.”

  Fritz nodded grimly. “You should have hanged, Harry. You know that as well as I do.”

  “If I wasn’t, it wasn’t because you didn’t try. You gave it the ol’ college try.”

  “That’s right. I tried. And I did what I could to keep you in Leavenworth as long as possible.”

  “You wrote letters. I never saw ’em, but I was told. You and I aren’t friends, Mr. Kloss. Never can be.”

  “Maybe. I’ve kept track of you, Harry. Because you were one of my most interesting cases. I was notified when you were paroled, though I hadn’t been an agent for many years. I had some people kind of keep watch on you.”

  “Gee, thanks.”

  Fritz put his fingers together, in front of his chin. “What do you know about the federal prison at Marion, Indiana, Harry? The new maximum-security place?”

  “Only that it’s a tough joint.”

  “You could spend the rest of your life there.”

  Harry Lehman jerked in a noisy breath. “Whatta you got in mind?” he whispered hoarsely.

  “I told you I kept track of you. If I set hounds on you, they’ll figure you out. I have. For instance, what do you live on, Harry?”

  Lehman’s hands trembled. “I got a son here. He’s
got a good job at The Piping Rock Hotel and Casino. He gives me an allowance.”

  “That’s what you told your parole officer. And in fact your son does give you a check every month. But it’s not out of his pockets. He’s just passing it through, laundering money so to speak. What you’re doing, Harry, is what you used to do, in a smaller way.”

  “No! No, you got that wrong. Can’t you believe a man can change… that the time I did changed me? No, I don’t suppose you could. You never give up, huh? Even after you retired. You’re still gonna have my ass.”

  Fritz smiled faintly and shook his head. “No, I’m not going to have your ass. Because you and I are going to do each other favors. I’m going to do you one, and you’re going to do me one. Two big favors.”

  “You makin’ some kind of proposition?” Lehman asked, his eyes narrowing.

  Fritz could see the wheels going around in the man’s head. Harry was a shrewd old bastard.

  “The favor I’m going to do you, Harry, is that I’m going to forget about you. I won’t set the hounds on you. You’ll see me again in a few days, and then you’ll never see or hear from me again.”

  “And what am I gonna do for you?”

  “I have need of your services.”

  “I ain’t in that business no more.”

  “The hell you’re not. That’s what I’m telling you: that I can see to it that you go to Marion. Because you’re still in the business, just like in the old days. I don’t know exactly who your customers are and how much they pay you, but you can bet that the FBI can find out. Or the BATF. They’re clever fellows, Harry, and I can help them a lot. I spent a lot of time on you. You put a signature on your work, whether you know it or not. Anyway… you’ll get your final release from parole in another year, and you’ll have enough money to fade out to Acapulco or Rio and live like a king for the rest of your years. You can do that if I don’t spoil it for you. And I won’t spoil it for you because you’re going to do me a favor.”

  “Whatta ya want?”

  “I want a big bang. I want to kill somebody and blow their whole house to pieces.”