| won’t have any trouble with him.” Miss Gandy would prove to be both right and wrong on that score. Nixon and his men would have no trouble getting Gray to do exactly what they wanted. But what they didn’t anticipate was that Gray was too dim or too naive to understand that he wasn’t supposed to get caught. “So what now, Miss Gandy? For you, I mean.” “Well, I’ve already put in my retirement papers. I’ll spend a few weeks clearing up the files and then I’ll—” “Go fishing?” She laughed. “Maybe. One thing for certain, I’ll get my Christmas cards out on time this year.” We both laughed at that. Ever since I’d known her, and long before that, Miss Gandy had spent so much time signing and mailing the Director’s hundreds of Christmas cards that her own Christmas cards never arrived before January. They always began with some variation of “Here I am, late as usual…” “And what about you, Paul? Have you given any thought to what you’ll do—after the Bureau?” I was surprised by the question. Yes, I’d given it a lot of thought, but I’d never discussed my reservations about climbing up the FBI bureaucratic ranks with Miss Gandy. “Why? Do you think I should leave?” “Oh, that’s entirely up to you, Paul. I’m sure you’ll do well whatever you decide to do. It’s just that with Mr. Hoover gone, nothing will be the same. I’m afraid the Bureau will be like it was |
screen—and then when I’d see them in person, they seemed smaller somehow, more ordinary, more human. Not this man. Of course, he looked old to me, older than I’d expected, his face rounder and longer in the jowls, but that didn’t mean much. When you’re in your early twenties, any man over forty looks old, and any man over seventy might as well be Methuselah’s big brother. But despite his age he stood ramrod straight, head up, shoulders back. He wasn’t tall—officially five-ten, in reality a little less—but he seemed bigger. Despite the usual description of him, he didn’t look like a bulldog to me. Instead, as my section chief had said, he looked leonine. He radiated authority, and power. Suddenly I was conscious of my suit. The Director wore an impeccably tailored navy blue suit with a gray Italian silk tie and a blindingly white shirt with French cuffs and gold cuff links; the creases on his trousers looked sharp enough to draw blood. I wore navy blue, too, but the resemblance ended there. He was tailored Brooks Brothers, I was off-the-rack Robert Hall—and compared with his, my trousers looked as if I’d slept in them. But it was too late to worry about that. I stepped forward and extended my still-dry hand. Firm handshake, but not the bone-crushing sort that some men use to intimidate. Penetrating stare from the dark brown eyes—not hostile, not friendly either, but coldly analytical. Then the staccato rush |
