sauce.”
“I see,” Guade said staring now at the apparent interpreter, whose eyes were surrounded by the tell-tale red band. The interpreter suddenly looked back, smiled, half-waved. Guade waved back. Moran could see him assessing the Japanese, reaching an innocent verdict and dismissing him to return to Atcheson’s greater conspiracy.
“We need much more data,” Guade said, “much greater access. But that might take years, would be equivalent to doing a biography, so I’ve decided to take a short cut and focus directly on the death. Why should the Air Force want to have a passenger’s background to determine the technical failures of a B-17 flight? Why would consultation with the White House be necessary? And what did the final accident report conclude? The Times is rather muddled. It says the plane ran out of gas and ditched about 40 miles off Oahu in very rough seas. But the pilot reported having eight hours of fuel when he left Kwajalein, more than enough for the four-hour flight. One of the technicians guessed that the number 2 engine which had been replaced en route in Guam had turned out to be a ‘gas eater’ but that surely would have been clear by Kwajalein. So a plane with plenty of fuel runs out of gas, ditches. There are four survivors. Atcheson is never found. Never found. Six bodies are recovered. Four aren’t. One of them presumably was Atcheson. The Times says the Coast Guard Cutter Hermes approached one body, but it sank out of sight in the last seconds before it could be pulled aboard.”
“It sounds like an accident to me.”
“Undoubtedly was, but why have all of Atcheson’s papers go to Norton Air Force base in California?”
Moran had stopped listening. He watched as the waitress opened a large electronic console in the far corner of the restaurant‘s tent over the grill. She undid a small microphone and slowly carried it to a patron sitting near the middle of the semi-circle. “Jesus,” Moran said, “now we get the singing.”
Guade suddenly took a half swallow of his beer. “No we don’t. I haven’t told you the half of it yet. Come on. We’ll go back to my hotel.”
Moran signaled the waitress, paid her twelve thousand yen. Guade forgot about the dinner check, but insisted on splitting the cab fare back to the Hilton.
“Atcheson drowned, slipped into the Pacific. No body. None. Ever.”
Moran stood a bit woozily in the gold lame light of the Hilton lobby, while Guade showed his hotel booklet and got his key. This shining world surpassed, Moran surmised, the cramped quarters of his business hotel in Shinjuku.
“He had one son, and I understand his wife came for sea burial ceremonies in Hawaii, but erected a monument in Denver. That’s an interesting problem, isn’t it—putting up a tombstone for a body not there?” Guade continued in the elevator, Moran watching his own widening grin in the circular mirror mounted on the back wall. “So in terms of removal Atcheson’s death was about as antiseptic as you could ask for.”
The corridor was grey-white and carpeted in grey-pink, spongy thickness, but Moran was delighted to find out Guade’s room was scarcely larger than his own in Shinjuku. There was one substantial difference. Guade’s bureau had a miniature bar on top of it, a rack of choice liquors in tiny bottles, and there was a refrigerator.
Moran unhesitatingly opened a tiny scotch bottle.
“I pay for that in the morning,” Guade said, irritated.
“I’ll deduct from the dinner tab,” Moran answered.
Guade sat on the bed, which doubled as a couch. Moran sank into a narrow straight-backed wicker chair opposite.
“Atcheson’s death—” Guade said.
“Look,” Moran interrupted, “I only made a suggestion about Atcheson. What’s the point in getting so riled up over it? I don’t think it makes any real difference. What would happen if you could show Atcheson was Mata Hari? Who’d care? And what would it prove historically?”
“You can’t make evaluations before the story is clear, can you?” Guade answered. “Why judge the data at the outset? You assemble the data and then decide. You simply can’t judge the sources at the outset.”
“As good a time as any,” More said. The T.V. seemed better than his Shinjuku version which was suspended about 18 inches from his bed.
“I want you to do something for me,” Guade said.
“Only if you pay your tab.”
Guade stared straight at the scotch bottle, then took a five thousand yen note from his wallet. “Are we even? Those cost 1,800 yen.”
“More than even,” Moran answered, taking the note.
“I want you to ask a question tomorrow. I want you to ask Wells a question. About Atcheson. Ask him why the Air Force wanted to see Atcheson’s papers as part of the Flight Accident Investigation.”
“And he’ll know?”
“He authorized the transfer, as often as not, from ’43 on Atcheson reported to him.”
“And Wells being here was also an accident?”
“You must have known it,” Guade said. “You must have foreseen it. That’s the best part. You set me up!”
“Don’t be absurd.”
“You’ll ask the question?”
“Why not? It’s a bland enough question.”
Part II, Moran’s Distraction
When Moran left he carried a large manila envelope, which Guade explained would reveal the other half of it he had promised. By exiting from the rear of the Hilton, using a floor below the lobby, it was possible to walk directly into a subway entrance of the Chiyoda line. Then by taking two enormous down escalators and walking the full length of the platform and then three escalators up you could get to the Marunouchi line without ever surfacing. The Chiyoda line platform was sparklingly new—greenish polished cement and tiles, and, surprisingly, without many passengers waiting for the next train. Walking the platform Moran decided was like stepping into a long horizontal urinal. You waited for the rushing water that came as the train arrived and in the meanwhile only your steps echoed in the gleaming porcelain tube.
He decided to stick the manila envelope inside his coat jacket. He clamped his arm against it. Safe. Unsnatchable. All of which, he knew, was absurd. Scotch-topped paranoia was contagious. For a while Moran imagined he was followed. On the first up escalator he slowly turned around and was disappointed to see only two school girls at the bottom.
Moran remembered a Guade-like fellow in graduate school who insisted one night in reciting for him all the outrageous accusations of the 1884 Presidential election, as if Moran would be equally mesmerized, indeed enchanted by Cleveland’s and Blaine’s taunts. Moran knew well enough the obsessional turn of mind such students had, but he was surprised that Guade, the polished scholar shared the disposition. Only the tiniest, jesting nudge had sent him charging into the documents, had tossed him against bureaucracy’s doors. Might it have been possible Guade was the first U.S. historian ever to demand to see accession lists at State? Who else would have thought of it? Only, Moran decided, the most diligent of conspiracy hunters, that is, those without choices beyond the ferreting life. And what did the ferreting life yield as benefit?
