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“Very good. So in the late forties, the Bureau moved against these spies, and it became too risky for them to meet their handlers in Santa Fe or Albuquerque. But Phoenix was a day’s train ride away for someone working at Los Alamos. It was big enough that you could go unnoticed. We got a tip that a Russian had set up shop in Phoenix, a guy named Dimitri. He spoke good English, and passed himself off as a hard-working immigrant. His real mission was to pass along atomic secrets.”
I eased back in my chair, trying to take it all in. My case of a homeless man carrying a missing badge had suddenly catapulted me into the dawn of the Cold War. The Red Scare.
“Ther
e were spies,” Renzetti said emphatically, fixing me with the yellow eyes. “It wasn’t like that cocksucker McCarthy told it. But Soviet agents had penetrated parts of the government. John was transferred from Los Angeles to Phoenix to shadow this Dimitri. And I was just some shavetail kid who was assigned to go with him.”
They had arrived in Phoenix in the summer of 1947, and soon found themselves handling more than the Russian. “It was a wide-open town,” Renzetti said. “Like the old West meets Tammany Hall. Phoenix was run by a city commission, and the commissioners were dirty. One of them was running prostitution and drugs on the south side of town. There were allegations that some of the local contractors who had built the training bases during the war had defrauded the government of huge amounts of money and material. There were problems on the Indian reservations. On top of that, the Mafia started to move in, buying land, selling protection. The Chicago Outfit set up a little satellite operation, and they started taking over the rackets from the locals. Lot of bloodshed. We had a six-man field office, and we could have used a hundred agents.”
“Sounds like Pilgrim could have made a lot of enemies,” I said.
“He did. Look, Pilgrim was no saint. He liked drink and he liked women. Hell, he loved women. It was a different kind of world then. But he was a damned good agent. We got an indictment against the one commissioner, Duke Simms. We sent some of the local cops to prison, and we slowed down the mobsters.”
I noted the name Duke-Pilgrim’s son had mentioned a Duke. I said, “What about Dimitri?”
“Disappeared. After John was shot.”
“And you don’t buy the suicide theory.”
“No.”
“His son seems to believe it. The Bureau definitely does.”
“They didn’t know him the way I did. Look, Pilgrim told me he was going to meet a guy. Somebody who had information about Dimitri. That was the last I saw him. He turned up dead two days later.”
“Why didn’t you go with him?”
“I was a newlywed, Mapstone. It was the weekend, and I wanted to be with my wife.”
I unconsciously looked at the photo of his wife. Renzetti continued. “If it was a suicide, why did Pilgrim’s car turn up in downtown Phoenix, miles from where the body was found? Why did his badge and gun disappear?”
“Wait,” I said. “I didn’t know his gun wasn’t found. That wasn’t in the report.”
“I know,” Renzetti said.
“So you’re saying the FBI covered this up?”
Renzetti stared at his bony fingers folded in his lap. “I’m saying they didn’t know what happened. Everything about this case was embarrassing, and the Bureau under Mr. Hoover was very averse to being embarrassed. Get it? We interviewed over a thousand people, and never could even find a suspect to bring in. The guy we came to bag escaped, maybe back to Russia. But there’s more to it. John was his own man, did things his own way. The bosses didn’t like him, and there were things I didn’t like, either. Maybe the brass was afraid they’d find he was dirty, and they didn’t want to know.”
“Was he?”
Renzetti’s head moved from side to side with finality. “No way. John drank too much and womanized way too much. But he was a great FBI man.”
“So Dimitri killed him?”
“Yes,” he said emphatically. Then his arms slowly extended, hands palms up. “I can’t prove anything. It’s always haunted me. After John was killed, I was transferred to the Bay Area, and I spent my career here.”
Here seemed a lonely place now. A picture palace of beloved dead. Men like Vince Renzetti had always made me feel small, in an admiring way. They had served their country in combat in a great cause, something most Baby Boomers would never know. Strong, taciturn men who knew whether they were cowards or not. They walked to a Sousa march, “Semper Fidelis,” perhaps. Peralta was such a man. Finally, I was always dumbstruck in their presence. When nothing more could be said, I was tempted to ask if there was anything I could do for him, anyone I could call. But he hadn’t invited that intimacy. So I gathered up my trench coat and, thanking him, walked away into the rain.
Chapter Twenty
I rode the train back to San Francisco feeling the weight of too many Russians in my life. Yuri, the shadowy cyber-criminal who had a contract out on my wife. Dimitri, the spy, who may have killed John Pilgrim. But my list of questions was only growing, topped by: how did the badge get from the murdered G-man to the jacket of the dead homeless man? Had it been passed from person to person over the years, perhaps bringing a cursed fate to the bearer? Or had it always been on George Weed? Rainwater dashed against the train’s windows, spreading and trailing back. I studied the geography of the clouds, feeling further from the answer than ever. The only thing to do was fly back to Phoenix and face Peralta’s wrath.
I must have been dozing. The car rocked a little as another train swept past us. I opened my eyes enough to see the Palo Alto depot washed by the rain. Maybe I could get a job as a lecturer at Stanford. Lindsey and I could live in the city, and I could ride the train to work. Maybe pigs would fly. Maybe I was a protege of Dan Milton, but the world had too many well-credentialed history professors wanting to find sinecures at top universities. Still, it was a nice daydream. I let my head settle into the softness of the seat and closed my eyes again, day-dreaming about Lindsey. Nicer daydreams. Taking her out on the town. Having her read me a classic in bed. The times she would wear black pumps and nothing else…
But when the train lurched forward again my eyes fluttered open just enough to see the face in the window of the door that led to the next train car. The face was looking at me. It was a blond man, with his hair slicked back. I kept my head down and my eyes nearly closed. I didn’t believe it. Maybe he had just intruded in my dozing. I closed my eyes tightly for a second. But when I opened them again, he was there.
It was the blond man from Encanto Park. He saw me see him. The face disappeared and I could see the door to the next car open and close. A burst of adrenaline lifted me to my feet and propelled me toward the door.
