His facilities for gathering intelligence anywhere were so prodigious, his paranoiac need to confirm/ allay suspicion so deep, that he used this suborganization for all manner of things, things beyond politics and industrial espionage. Among these investigative interests was Walter Wagstaff West, then in her turn, Mayra Ashant. When he received a report that his son had dated a nigger seven times in three weeks, Mr. West was indignant and not a little hurt. At Mr. West’s own instructions to Charles Pick, Jr., the boy had been raised and trained to understand that the slightest nuance of change in his public posture could be misinterpreted by the press and the heroic West reputation made to suffer. The idea of his own son being attracted to a nigger was both degrading and viciously exciting to Mr. West, and he resented the boy’s power over him in both respects. Then photographs of the girl arrived, together with a detailed statement of her background, career and interests; and staring at that dark face (and actually believing for a second that he was seeing his own mother again), then reading that she was a gifted painter—an artist as his mother had been an artist-thrilled him and revolted him more distinctly.
