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Authors: Max Allan Collins

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BOOK: Better Dead
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“Awful room. Such artificial conditions. I do my best. We sing songs, my boys and I. Growing boys. The first time they came, after we'd been separated for so very long, they wondered how it was possible that I'd gotten so short.”

Her chin crinkled under a pursed goodbye kiss of a smile.

The matron was there.

Ethel and I exchanged nods, and she returned to her cot and
Saint Joan
.

The matron walked me down the corridor.

I said to her, “She's strong.”

The matron's face was impassive but her eyes betrayed humanity. “During the day. Cries herself to sleep at night, though. Every single night.”

And she unlocked the gray metal door.

 

CHAPTER

6

My cell—at the Waldorf Astoria—was better appointed than Ethel Rosenberg's; but then I was on Drew Pearson's tab, not Uncle Sam's. I had asked at the desk if there was a preferred suite that Pearson booked when he was in town—wouldn't be fair to outdo the boss—and it seemed there was.

And what do you know—turned out the columnist liked to live well.

The suite was modern yet lush, all corals and light greens. At right—through the entryway and into a long narrow marble-floored living room, nestled on a fluffy white rug—a pair of lime leather couches faced each other over a glass coffee table near a marble fireplace with a bronze-framed mirror over its mantel. Down at left, a dining room yawned behind French doors; at the far end, a picture window with drawn drapes of a geometric pattern looked onto the city, while beyond the fireplace sitting area was a closed bedroom door. I wondered if anybody as famous as the Honeymoon Killers had ever slept there.

The Rosenberg material was piled on the dining room table—a small but complete kitchen nearby—but I mostly camped out by the fireplace, going over the stuff and taking notes. That's where I was right now, checking back over things I'd discussed with Julius and Ethel.

I'd intended to stop by the A-1 office in the Empire State Building and talk to Robert Hasty, who I'd stolen from Bradford Investigations in D.C. to head up my Manhattan branch. We'd only opened shop a few months ago. But it was early evening by the time I got back from Ossining, so that was out.

The Copa had Sinatra headlining—maybe I could pull strings for a table and possibly snag a date with a Copa Girl, as the beauties in the club's chorus line were called. But seated on the edge of my bed—after hauling a phone book from a nightstand drawer and nearly getting a hernia—I decided to take a flier, and looked up Natalie Ash.

Luckily there was only one listing by that name, though there were several listings for “N. Ash” and two more for “N. Ashe.” And 65 Morton Street meant Greenwich Village, not Knickerbocker.

I tried the number anyway.

No answer.

Shrugging, I called the Copacabana, asked for manager Jack Entratter, got him after a little name-dropping (“I do jobs for Frank—
ask
him”), and wangled a table for 9 p.m. They served till ten and the show started at eleven. Nothing ringside available, even for a name-dropper, but I'd get backstage later and Frank would fix me up. He spilled more girls than most guys ever caught.

I showered and shaved and then, in a what-the-hell moment, sat back down on the bed in my boxers and black socks and tried Natalie Ash again. This time somebody answered. Somebody female.

“Hello,” a husky alto said. No attitude of any perceptible kind, no identification either.

“Miss Ash? Natalie Ash?”

“Who's asking?”

“Nathan Heller. I'm an investigator working on the Rosenberg case. Are you the Natalie Ash who was their neighbor at Knickerbocker Village?”

A pause. “You're a little late to the party, aren't you?”

There was a lilt in her voice that emboldened me.

I said, “If you mean the Communist Party, I'm strictly a capitalist. But I am trying to save those two crazy kids, even if it is for money.”

Her laugh was easy and sultry. I wondered if something as attractive as that voice was attached to it.

“Heller, is it? Jewish, right?”

“That depends.”

“On what?”

“On whether that's a plus or a minus.”

A throaty laugh. “It's a plus where I come from,” she said. “Look, I just got in from work, but I was about to head out for a bite. I'm not meeting anyone or anything. What are you after, just to interview me? Talk to me?”

“That's right. Ask a few questions.”

I could almost hear her narrowing her eyes as she asked, “So who pointed you in my direction?”

“Julius Rosenberg. I visited him at the death house this afternoon. Talked to Ethel, too, but your name didn't come up.”

This time the pause was longer.

“Sounds like you're for real, Mr. Heller.” And a short pause. “I guess it's early enough that we could get together tonight, if you like.”

“I would like that very much, Miss Ash. Maybe we could meet for that bite you were going out for. My treat. Might take the sting out if any of the memories I stir up are unpleasant.”

“Well … I guess that would be all right.”

“Or you could come to me. I'm at the Waldorf.”

No pause at all: “No kidding? You really
aren't
a Communist. You'd buy me supper there?”

“Why not? I'm on expense account.”

“That's inviting. But I don't have anything to wear suitable for the Starlight Roof, I'm afraid.”

If she was a Red, she was one familiar with the Waldorf.

“We could meet in the lobby,” I suggested. “Just outside the Tony Sarg Oasis? Come by cab and I'll square it with you later.”

“How will I know you, Mr. Heller?”

“I'll be the handsome devil with reddish brown hair and silver at the temples. In Botany 500.”

“No carnation?”

“None. How will I know you?”

“I'll be the good-looking light-brunette looking for a handsome devil with—”

“Reddish brown hair? Check. Shall we say nine?”

“Nine is fine.”

So much for Sinatra,
I thought, but I was smiling as I hung up. Who needed a Copa Girl, anyway? I was meeting a real woman for a late supper and a promising interview.

*   *   *

She was tall, in that sharply slender Lauren Bacall way, hair falling to her shoulders with a confident bounce and an uncaring arrogance as to whether it was dark blond or a golden brown. Everyone in that part of the lobby gawked at her because she was both stunning and (for the Waldorf anyway) oddly dressed—a fashion-model beauty in an oversize black turtleneck sweater, ash-gray slacks, and white-laced black oxfords, carrying a small black purse.

She saw me standing near the restaurant entry and came to a sudden stop to beam at me like we were old friends, displaying a nicely toothy smile. Then she came quickly over and held out a hand to me: no rings, no jewelry, of any kind.

“You must be Nathan Heller,” she said.

Her big wide-set eyes were a chocolate brown under thick well-shaped brows, her nose suspiciously well carved, her cheekbones so sharp you might get cut on them. The only makeup, besides maybe some light face power, was bright red lipstick. Disturbingly, it was the same color as Ethel's.

Taking her hand but not shaking it, I said, “And you're obviously Natalie Ash. But I'll just call you Natalie. ‘Obviously Natalie' sounds too formal.”

She laughed a little, giving that just about what it deserved, then put the smile away like a prop she was finished with to allow me to take her arm in a surprisingly familiar fashion. We went in.

The Tony Sarg Oasis, named for the late cartoonist who'd designed the first Macy's Parade balloon animals, was as much cocktail lounge as restaurant. Its curving walls were home to a lively mural of Disney-style animals, though Mickey and Donald and crew weren't usually tossing down drinks like this comic menagerie.

I wondered if there'd be any objection to her wardrobe, but we were immediately seated, if off to one side and in a corner, which was fine with me since it gave us some privacy. Also, we were well away from the small bandstand, where violinists and cellists played corny Hungarian rhapsodies.

We had cocktails first, a Rob Roy for her and a daiquiri for me. But the drinks hadn't come yet when she turned those big eyes loose on me and that wide mouth made half a smile that was worth more than most any whole one.

“I
knew
I'd heard of you,” she said.

“You did? You have?”

She nodded and the golden brown hair bounced; no dandruff on her black sweater. Some of her was bony under there; some of her was not.

“After I hung up,” she said, “I went over to a stack of
Life
magazines. Took ten minutes but I found you. You're that ‘Private Eye to the Stars,' aren't you?”

“Guilty. Of being the subject of that article, anyway.”

Her head tilted, ready to be attentive. “So how does a Chicago boy get to be a Hollywood detective?”

“I'm not really. Not in any sense of the phrase. I handled some big cases—”

“Lindbergh, Huey Long, Sir Harry Oakes … all before my time of course.”

She was thirty-five anyway, so that was debatable.

“Big cases,” I continued, with a sheepish smile, “that enabled my agency to open up a branch office out West.”

“You don't mean Death Valley, though. You mean Hollywood.”

“I mean Hollywood. And just recently we opened up a branch here in Manhattan.”

The cocktails came.

She sipped her Rob Roy, then ate the cherry, plucking the stem. “That's why you're in the city? This new branch office?”

“No,” I said, and I told her briefly about the anonymous group funding the eleventh-hour investigation.

“Is this pro bono?” she asked. The eyes were wide but I detected something wary in them.

“No. I mentioned I was on expense account, remember? No, I'm on the clock.”

“Right now?”

“Right now. And I'm working my tail off, can't you tell? Listen, if you like goulash, it's very good here. The specialty.”

We both ordered that.

The conversation through the meal focused on her background. She was from upstate New York—Ithaca. Her father was a retired history professor at the college there. Her mother was a teacher, too—high school sociology—but would be retiring soon.

Then she dropped a minor bomb, between forkfuls of goulash: “Die-hard Communists since forever, Mom and Dad. I was raised that way. And I didn't disappoint.”

Hungarian fiddles were fiddling. Rome wasn't burning, but somebody's baked Alaska was.

As casual as possible, I said, “You're a Communist?”

She nodded. “But I keep that to myself.” Though she certainly didn't seem to be. “It's gotten very passé in the Village, you know. Very much last decade.”

“Some people consider it current,” I said. “You've heard of Joe McCarthy, I take it.”

She made a face, shook her head, and all that hair went along for the ride. “He is
so
late to the game. There
used
to be a lot of lefties in the State Department, but they were flushed out
years
ago. Why is it a surprise that in the Depression so many smart people were socialists?”

“Short memories,” I said. “McCarthy was a New Dealer.”

“What about you, Nate? It's okay I call you Nate?”

“Wish you would, Natalie.”

I gave her the brief rundown, from my unionist old man to me voting for FDR in three presidential elections, but omitted the part where my father committed suicide with my gun. Not appropriate supper conversation under a mural of a tipsy tiger.

“You know,” she said, after the plates had been cleared away and we were on our second Rob Roy and daiquiri respectively, “I think you're perfect for this job. You're not a zealot. Just a guy who votes right, or actually left, who can keep an open mind.”

“Thanks.”

“Why do you think Julie gave you
my
name?”

I explained that my interviews with the Rosenbergs had almost certainly been recorded.

“If Julius answered any of my questions,” I said, “that he'd refused to answer in court, citing the Fifth? Well, the feds would have it on him. Same with Ethel.”

“Isn't electrocuting them enough?”

“You'd think. But if there were ever a new trial, the government would have that to use.” I sipped my drink. “I wonder if they really will kill that little woman.”

“Ethel.”

“Ethel. Looks like the worst thing she may have done was type up some notes. Even if her husband
was
up to something and she had a certain awareness of it … the chair? It's literal overkill.”

“They're just trying to make Julie talk.”

I nodded again. “Running a bluff.”

“Oh, they
may
kill her, all right.”

“You think so, huh?”

Her expression was matter-of-fact. “They don't give a damn about Ethel Rosenberg. She's just another Commie to them.”

“What
is
she, really? What is she to you?”

“A friend. A mother down the hall who couldn't keep a handle on her rambunctious older boy … a little full of herself sometimes … but a friend.”

“Ah.”

“Also, a Communist.”

How could something so unsurprising sound so shocking spoken out loud?

“Julie, too, of course,” she said. “It's not like the government hasn't known that from Day One.”

“Which is why it's just the kind of thing Julius and Ethel couldn't tell me.” I took another sip. Just the right amount of rum. “So—how active with the Party were they?”

“Very. Meetings, organizing, protests. Well … not Ethel. Not after she had the first boy. But a lot of that City College crowd—and I was friends with plenty of them, they stayed close to Julie—were real activists. Young Communist League.”

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