Chapter 13
Tuesday saw me fending off more irate phone callers, and I began to realize why the Tell everyone Mr. Pullman isn’t available rule was created. Literally everyone who called was either shouting or cursing.
It also became apparent that Myrtle had likely left by choice.
I didn’t know how many days of being screamed at for things I didn’t know anything about I had in me either.
But taking to heart Miss Kelly’s musing that this could get me closer to writing, I had Mr. Pullman’s coffee brewed before he arrived and a cup on his desk within a minute of him sitting down.
At the end of the day, when he went to leave, he turned around again. “It was Judy, wasn’t it?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Hmph. Good work today.”
The elevator doors closed with him inside, and I gathered my things to leave as well, thinking I would stop by Miss Kelly’s office to tell her I would take the job.
Even if Mr. Pullman never let me write, at least my fingers wouldn’t be a gnarled mess of arthritis from typing all day by the time I was twenty-five.
The phone rang in Mr. Pullman’s office. I didn’t know he had a direct line. I squinted at the clock—it was six minutes after five. I was officially off the clock.
And I had no idea if I was supposed to answer Mr. Pullman’s private phone or not.
But if I wanted to get ahead, sacrifices had to be made. He would clearly appreciate a message from whoever it was if they were important enough to call him directly. Wouldn’t he?
“Washington Digest, Mr. Pullman’s office,” I said.
“Put Pullman on,” a man’s voice with an accent said. Was that Russian? German? I couldn’t tell. One of those guttural-sounding languages for sure.
“Mr. Pullman isn’t available at the moment, but I’d be happy to give him a message for you.”
There was a muffled sound, as if he had covered his end of the receiver and was speaking to someone else. And while I strained to make out what was being said, I had the distinct impression it wasn’t English.
“You are his secretary?”
Officially no. But this week, I was. So I said yes.
More muffled speech. Definitely not English.
“Tell him Havana is with Texas, mass goal in sight.”
“Havana with Texas,” I said as I wrote it out. “Mass goal in sight. And who may I tell him left this message?”
“He will know,” the voice said. Except will came out as vill.
The line went dead.
I stood there holding the phone, looking out over the nation’s capital, and a chill ran down my spine. Havana. A Russian accent.
I thought back to the article I had typed for Fields.
The failed Bay of Pigs invasion last year had made major headlines, but things had seemed largely quiet since then.
No, we weren’t allowed to travel to Cuba anymore, and even the cigars were taboo under the trade embargoes, but I had never even been on an airplane, nor had I smoked a cigar, so neither situation directly affected me.
But a line in Fields’s article played back in my head. An unnamed source had said the president’s office was “concerned” about the new friendship between the Soviet Union and Cuba, which had blossomed in the wake of the Bay of Pigs and the resulting embargoes.
I had hidden under my desk enough times in school to know we didn’t want a country that was only ninety miles off our shore friendly with the Soviets. And a Russian accent—I was more and more convinced that it was Russian—discussing Havana boded ill.
Havana is with Texas. With Texas. Had the city of Havana turned against Castro? But if so, what did Texas have to do with it? Wouldn’t he have said Havana is with Washington? What on earth did Texas have to do with Havana?
Mass goal in sight.
Were we invading and trying again to remove Castro from power to keep the USSR from having a foothold so close to us?
The CIA had sent Cuban expats last time to try to seize power.
Were they sending a group of Texas soldiers now?
No, they hadn’t managed to defend the Alamo, but that was a long time ago now.
Then again, why would a Russian be alerting a Washington newspaper editor about a military maneuver? Seemed unlikely. Unless . . .
I looked around Mr. Pullman’s office. What if he was actually working for the government? A newspaper would kind of be perfect for that, wouldn’t it? He would have access to all kinds of information. And as managing editor, he was able to control what the public knew and what they didn’t.
It was all very curious and exciting.
I sat in Mr. Pullman’s chair, trying to puzzle it out. What strange wording though. Mass goal. Why not just Goal in sight? Was that a translation issue from Russian?
Not that any of this was my business. But it had to mean something. I knew it did. The call to the direct line. The accent. The cryptic message. The refusal to leave a name. The muffled side conversation.
Whatever this was, it sounded important.
I put the message slip on his desk, centered on the blotter. He would see it immediately, but I would still tell him to look when he arrived the following morning.
What about the overnight cleaning crew though? This felt too significant to leave lying around for others to see. I tugged on a drawer, but it was locked. They all were.
My eyes landed on a framed photograph of Mr. Pullman with an attractive woman, who, based on the looks of the two children flanking them, a boy and girl who appeared to be in their early twenties, was his wife.
I made a wry face. Bet she didn’t know he was ogling his secretary, who was their daughter’s age, while at work. Then again, maybe she did and didn’t care. She wouldn’t be the first wife to look the other way in order to preserve a way of life.
There was always my desk to leave it in. But it wasn’t my desk, was it? I didn’t have a key, and Myrtle’s son or boyfriend still stared at me from his picture frame each day.
Which left my handbag. I would keep the message safe overnight and bring it back before Mr. Pullman arrived in the morning, handing it to him with a cup of coffee as soon as he arrived. That was the answer. Surely Miss Kelly would approve.
Miss Kelly. I looked at the clock ticking on Mr. Pullman’s desk.
It was a quarter past five. Hopefully she was still downstairs.
I pocketed the message and rushed back to my desk for my things, hoping to catch Miss Kelly to tell her I would take the job.
It had just gotten infinitely more interesting after all.
As I rode the elevator down to the third floor, I wondered briefly if I should tell her about the message. Surely she would have a way to reach him at home if this was actually a matter of national security.
Then I realized how foolish I would sound suggesting that Mr. Pullman was a spy of some kind. And how much worse it would be if he actually was a spy and I outed him. No, I would keep the message safe until it went to Mr. Pullman.
But as I lay in bed that night, a new thought crossed my mind—what if Mr. Pullman wasn’t an American spy? The man’s voice had sounded distinctly Russian after all.
Havana is with Texas, he said in my head. Mass goal in sight.
No. That was crazy. And in all likelihood, it was a tip for a story, not a military plan. The simplest explanation was most likely the correct one after all.