LaVerne looked up when he hurried into her anteroom. She evidently had two or three calls going on at once, taking orders from one phone, giving them in another. Something was obviously erupting. She didn't speak to him, merely nodded her head at the inner office.
In the Boss' office were six or eight others besides Larry's superior. Their expressions and attitudes ran from bewilderment to shock. They weren't the men you'd expect to have such reactions. At least not those that Larry Woolford recognized. Three of them, Ben Ruthenberg, Bill Fraina and Dave Moskowitz were F.B.I. men with whom Larry had worked on occasion. One of the others he recognized as being a supervisor with the C.I.A. Walt Foster, Larry's rival in the Boss' affections, was also present.
The Boss growled at him, “Where in the heavens have you been, Lawrence?”
“Following our leads on this so-called Movement, sir,” Larry told him. “What's going on?”
Ruthenberg, the Department of Justice man, grunted sour amusement. “So-called Movement, isn't exactly the correct phrase. It's a Movement, all right.”
The Boss said, “Please dial Records and get your dossier, Lawrence. That'll be the quickest way to bring you up on developments.”
Mystified, but already with a growing premonition, Larry dialed Records. Knowing his own classification code, he had no need of Information this time. He got the hundred-word brief and stared at it as it filled the screen. The only items really correct were his name and present occupation. Otherwise his education was [pg 044] listed as grammar school only. His military career had him ending the war as a General of the Armies, and his criminal career record included four years on Alcatraz for molesting small children.
Blankly, he faded the brief and dialed his full dossier. It failed to duplicate the brief, but that was no advantage. This time he had an M.D. degree from Johns Hopkins, but his military career listed him as a dishonorable discharge from the navy where he'd served in the steward department. His criminal record was happily nil, but his religion was listed as Holy Roller. Political affiliations had him down as a member of the Dixiecrats.
The others were looking at him, most of them blankly, although there were grins on the faces of Moskowitz and the C.I.A. man.
Moskowitz said, “With a name like mine, yet, they have me a Bishop of the Orthodox Greek Catholic Church.”