Keeping Secrets (44 page)

“You know you can't get to that stubborn son-of-a-bitch.”

“Ah, but the press is a powerful tool … we are as anxious to get him out of office as you are. Let me work on it. Barrista will see.”

“And what if he doesn't?”

“Don't borrow trouble. I will extend your notes if need be. But Germany is more than ever in need of big imports of copper. We have other sources, as you know, both here and below the border. But try and eke out as much as you can and let me worry about the rest.”

“If we could get Barrista back on the track, I could be prepared to take up arms within a few weeks.”

“Just don't go off half cocked.”

“How do you convince the people on your end to have the same amount of patience as you?”

“It isn't easy. Von Eckhardt in Mexico is in favor of negotiating an alliance with Carranza. Even he cannot see that would be futile.”

It was the word, “alliance,” that sent chills up my spine. When I got back into my office Tetzel was waiting for me. “Get Giddeon Sparks to bring down Mr. Cabot's file, and leave it on my desk. I'll be back shortly,” he said, pulling on his coat.

I felt sure Tetzel was about to send a wire that would incriminate a whole group of agents involved in this affair, so I started to phone Edwin to send him to the telegraph office. Then I remembered it was too early for him to be at home. I called Giddy and ordered the file, then waited for her to appear with it, afraid to follow Tetzel myself for fear of being seen.

At least I did get a look at the Cabot accounts. In rough figures he had been lent seven hundred thousand dollars in the past year. I had no idea that much money had been transferred. No wonder the man was nearly mad with worry.

That night I reached Edwin by phone. After I blurted out everything, winding up with the part about the negotiation between Mexico and Germany, he said, “Holy Moses.”

We knew then that the German Foreign Office was still a house divided. While von Eckhardt favored an alliance with Carranza, someone apparently was pushing to continue the old routine of stirring up border troubles, courtesy of Pancho Villa. We did not know who Tetzel was working with, or whether the “third party” felt by him to lack “industry” had been brought in. However, it occurred to me then the third party might refer to Cabot himself because it now seemed clear he was not aware of the full extent of his copper consignments—that much of it had been kept here in the States for the making of explosives, rather than exported to Germany. Yet Cabot would never have been thought of as someone not industrious, though he might well be considered untrustworthy.

Then all at once the truth appeared obvious: “third party” referred to someone below the border—maybe von Eckhardt, whom Tetzel apparently disliked or at least whose wisdom he doubted; maybe someone else, charged with sabotaging Carranza through the Mexican press; maybe even Carlos Barrista, being aided by someone to stage a separate revolt.…

Since the possibilities seemed endless, I'd let it go at that and gotten busy with some banking work, when I ran across the name of Arnold Stuttgart, Stuttgart Printing. One thing we had learned about him was his employment of Mexicans. He had a Mexican typesetter who was renowned for his speed and skill. Currency for revolutionary governments … papers for smearing the reputation of Carranza … printed over here and circulated below the border. Carranza could not then control what was being said of him before at least a good percentage of Mexicans who could read got their hands on the material. Perfect!

I'd have to allow some time for the ball to roll—perhaps a week or more—then I'd pay a visit to Stuttgart's office one night. The word “industry” continued to bother me for a while. Then I remembered something overheard one day when Tetzel was trying to reach Stuttgart over the phone about some problems with his account. It was during the hottest part of the summer and Stuttgart was out of town at his house in the hills. Disgruntled—I assumed at the time more from the heat than anything else—Tetzel had wiped his brow and remarked, “Every time I need him he's off on holiday in the country.” Then he'd mumbled some German word I didn't understand, and closed his office door.

When I told Edwin of my plan, he didn't seem convinced I was barking up the right tree, but offered to do the snooping for me. As it turned out, he was right. “All I found was a copy of
Fatherland
in a desk drawer.”

“What's that?”

“German propaganda sheet. But it doesn't mean anything. It might be headed for the trash in the morning.”

He was interested in recent events concerning Electra and asked whether I'd seen her since the day we met at the train station.

“No. Is someone checking out the name Weems?”

“Yes, but no news yet. Well, keep your eyes and ears open. I'll check on Stuttgart again. We may have acted too hastily … or not quickly enough. It's hard to tell. And as soon as I have the chance I'm going to get inside Cabot's office. Maybe right now with tax time nowhere near, Hope won't be working late so much.”

18

One day shortly after, Cabot paid a visit to our office. Tetzel had someone with him at the time, so he was obliged to wait outside in my office for a few minutes. I have never seen such a remarkable change in anyone, and was itching to get into the storeroom and listen in on what brought about the congenial mood he'd acquired. He sat in a chair, rather than pacing, and even had the courtesy to inquire whether his cigar smoke bothered me—if so, he'd put it out. “My wife says the smell gets into all the furniture cushions and in the draperies. Every time I leave town she airs out the house for a week,” he remarked, smiling.

“It doesn't bother me,” I assured him.

He leaned back then and told me he'd wrecked his Cole Six, and had ordered a new Overland. He detailed its luxurious features from end to end. I tried to appear all wide-eyed and impressed, as he would have expected; yet I wondered how a man so deeply in debt could get excited about having to spend still more money for a new car.

When he got inside with Tetzel, the reason for his ebullient frame of mind became clear: plans for the revolution were on again. Tetzel kept repeating, “Didn't I tell you in a little time our efforts would pay? Now, when does Barrista begin?”

Cabot explained it would be early spring before all preparations could be made, and that Barrista would first make the gesture of opposing Carranza as a political candidate. “Of course, he'll never get his name on the ballot. Carranza has the race tied up fine and dandy. The appearance of the single name on the ballot will be the signal for the call to arms. We can figure on at least between one hundred and twenty-five and one hundred and fifty thousand troops.

“Barrista believes he can persuade Zapata, Villa, and Diaz to join him. But I'm wondering whether Villa will tell him who's been footing his bills. Can you see to it that doesn't happen? It might just ruin—”

“Don't worry. He'll never admit to that in front of Barrista. Anyway, even if he should, he won't be mentioning my name. He has no way of knowing I am connected with the Germans who are supplying his arms. And, his aim is to win for his country. You can be sure he takes our money and laughs at us behind our backs. I'm wondering, though, if you couldn't be ready a little sooner? Time is at a premium now, with von Eckhardt pressing—”

“Hell, you can't prepare a revolution over night. People have to be contacted; currency has to be printed—more than we planned initially because we'll have more troops to pay. Munitions have to be transferred down there and stockpiled in the central points.”

“Have you drawn up battle plans?”

“Yes. I'm going down in January, carrying them with me. I'm a little worried about his brother Carlos. I'm going to hold off telling him the strategy until closer to the end. I don't want him to have time to think about how to scuttle it.”

“Ah, there is always a weak point somewhere, eh?”

“Otherwise, everything is set.”

“The grand finale, as they say.”

“Yes, just before the new beginning, I hope.”

“Perhaps a new era on both sides of the ocean.”

“Things are getting rougher in Europe, aren't they?”

“Crucial better describes it. War is expensive both in human lives and materials. Yet it seems we are powerless to end what has begun. Italy and Greece have now fallen in line with the Allies. More and more sympathy in this country goes toward them. Right here, more than fifty per cent of the war materials being used by the Allies is manufactured, yet the United States claims no favoritism.

“There is talk of a separate peace … in time, Russia may be sympathetic … in the meantime our people are starving for the failure to get raw materials. I think surely some kind of terms of peace must be negotiated soon.”

There followed a brief pause, then Cabot said, “Just how far are you into this?”

“Frustratingly distant … how much can I offer? A few tons of copper because of my association with you and with neutrals in Scandinavia.”

“And an ace up your sleeve—Barrista. He could do much for you that would wind up this mess—embargo British fuel in Tampico, pump out more raw materials.”

“It is fair exchange, and once the war is over, debts will have been paid.”

“I just hope Barrista sees it that way.”

“What choice will he have?”

“You know when he finds out German money put him into office, it is I who will be blamed.”

“You will be around to reassure him, help him put things into perspective, as they say.”

Following that conversation I told Edwin it was the closest the two men had ever come to discussing enough so that I could tell how much each of them knew. “I think Cabot has figured out a lot more than Tetzel has told him, but he doesn't care now so long as he profits in the end. It's a vicious circle—Cabot uses Tetzel, Tetzel uses Cabot, and they both use Barrista. I got the feeling there were certain things Cabot didn't want to have said. Tacit agreements, if you get what I mean. I still don't believe Cabot knows his copper—or at least part of it—went into explosives in this country. I think his feeling is that he doesn't care one way or another what happens in Europe as long as his investments in Mexico are looked after. But I don't think he knows of his complicity in sabotage over here.”

“Why?”

“Because Tetzel always stays clear of discussing it.”

“That isn't going to help Cabot very much, when the truth comes out.… Anything else new?”

“Not exactly … just a feeling. But I guess you're not interested in my instincts.”

“Of course I am!”

“It isn't so much what I heard in that conversation, but a difference in Mr. Tetzel lately. He's spending more time inside his office, with the door closed. Seems preoccupied, tense.”

“Any other changes in his habits?”

“No.”

“I'm going to give the Stuttgart Printing Company one more check tonight,” Edwin said. “I suggest you keep your eyes on the mails again—Tetzel may be keeping in touch more often now with his friends overseas. Check his safe again, too.”

“All right. I can't help wondering what's going to happen next.”

“A lot depends on the outcome of the election here. With a mandate and four years ahead of him, Wilson may become more decisive than he has been so far.”

“I don't follow you.”

“He may be looked to for mediation, since he'll be more in a position to speak for the country than he has been for the past few months.”

“And that could mean an end to it?”

“I hope so.”

“Then what would happen to Tetzel?”

“There's enough evidence now for the U.S. authorities to pick him up for violating neutrality laws, and maybe enough for a case of conspiracy if we could find his signature on checks.”

“So his days are numbered,” I said, still puzzling over the reasons for his involvement.

“As well as those of others mixed up in the same type of activity.”

Edwin's final remark made me aware for the first time of the real scope of espionage and counterespionage operations we were involved in. Tetzel was busy working toward his own ends, totally ignorant of how closely he was being watched, how extensively he was being investigated. How many others, like him, were over here conducting conspiracies or channeling funds down into Mexico and into other countries such as Ireland and Wales, for causing unrest and dissension in order to keep people busy? How many Cabots, profiteering off the misfortune of others; how many Barristas, knowingly or not, using them as stepladders toward their own goals?

I recall feeling very small then, walking back from my meeting with Edwin down a sidewalk slickened by rain and reflecting off the streetlights above. Lucky I didn't decide to settle in Washington or New York, where really important things took place.

What could happen in a faraway city like San Antonio, where all of us were simply very small cogs in an enormous wheel, gathering momentum?

I returned from work one evening in late September to find Edwin had slipped a message under my door. He'd been by at three in the afternoon, and requested that I call him at the usual number after six. When I reached him, he had some news for me about Electra Cabot.

“I was on my way from a meeting with Hubert up on the north side today, and who should I see coming out of an antique store but her? She was carrying a box under one arm, so I figured she was out shopping—”

“But of course you followed her, just to be sure,” I said through a smile.

“The lady was having a vase appraised. I got near enough on her last stop to overhear her dickering with the dealer over the price. Finally she accepted twelve hundred. She asked for cash and got it.

“I followed her taxi from there all the way to the post office, where she got out with an envelope and headed up the stairs.”