“Kendig. Miles Kendig.”
Ives squinted as if trying to place the name.
“You’ve never heard it before. I’m a retired employee of a government agency. My last position there was Deputy Director of the Plans Division.”
“You don’t look the type.”
“Which type?”
“E. Howard Hunt, that type.”
“That’s another breed. Those are the downstairs troops.”
“Go on, Mr… Kending?”
“Kendig.”
Ives reached for a notepad. “Spell it.”
Kendig spelled it out. “The government will deny my existence. If you were thinking of checking with Washington.”
“It won’t be necessary. I’ve already got Desrosiers’s recommendation. Let’s talk business, Mr. Kendig.”
Ives was a fast reader. He went through the two chapters and Kendig handed him an unfolded list. “Those are the publishers I’ve sent it to.”
Ives glanced at it, set it aside and went back to the manuscript. “There are a couple of pages missing.”
“They’ll be supplied later on. Names of witnesses, documentary sources for confirmation of my facts, that kind of thing.”
Ives had a shrewd smile. “Not to put too fine a point on it but have we got any way to make sure you’re not bluffing?”
Kendig had pages 23 and 24 folded into an envelope in his pocket. He showed them to Ives. Ives’s face changed. Then Kendig took the two pages back and put them away. “They’ll be delivered with the final installment of the manuscript.”
“And you want me to handle the contractual details.”
“I need a middleman. I’ve got to finish writing it-undisturbed.”
“I think I understand. Why’d you pick me?”
“Desrosiers recommended you. You handled the Harry Bristow book.”
“Are you putting a floor price on it?”
“I’ll take whatever the market will bear.”
“Then it’s not primarily a money thing with you.”
“I won’t be a patsy-I’m not giving it away.”
“Do you need money right now?”
“I’ve got plenty of money. But I want them to have to pay for the book-I don’t want it neglected for lack of big promotion.”
Ives smiled again. “Don’t count on publishers to act logically. I’ve seen them pay a fortune for a book and then drop it right down the gratings. They’re in a mass business but they do no market research, they never test their packaging, they only advertise a book if it’s already selling well-and even then they haven’t the slightest idea how or where to get the most for their advertising dollar. They’ve got an archaic distribution system and haphazard retailing. Actually they have no idea at all what sells books and what doesn’t. But this property looks as sure-fire to me as anything I’ve seen in the past five years. It could be the most explosive book of the year-and you’ve already done the groundwork with the publishers. I’d be an idiot not to handle it for you.”
“It won’t be the usual agent-client relationship.”
“There’s no such thing. Every client is a separate lunacy.”
“I’ll give you a power of attorney,” Kendig said. “You’ll have to conclude the arrangements in my name. You won’t be able to communicate with me. I’ll be sending copies of each chapter to each of those publishers at irregular intervals-and I’ll be withholding evidential pages from each of them. It may be months before I’ve delivered the complete book.”
“You could send it directly to me. I’ve got copying facilities.”
“No. That would give the Agency a bottleneck to work with. I’ve got to be sure the material reaches every one of the publishers.”
“Very well-if you feel the risk is that great. But send me a copy when you send it to the rest of them.”
“Naturally.”
“There’ll probably be a matter of libel insurance. With a book of this kind the premiums may prove costly.”
“The publishers will have to pay for that.”
“I’ll arrange that if I can.”
Kendig said, “What’s the usual procedure for paying commissions?”
“I take ten percent of the client’s gross receipts off the top. When I receive a check from a publisher I deposit the check in my corporate account and draw my own check for ninety percent of that amount, payable to the client. Naturally the client is welcome to examine my accounts at all times. There’s no written contract between me and any of my clients-it’s a handshake arrangement. When a client’s dissatisfied with my work he’s free to go elsewhere.”
Ives continued, “In your case since you say I won’t be able to reach you the thing would be for me to open an account for you and make deposits as the money comes in.”
“No good,” Kendig said. “A bank account can be frozen by court order. I’ll want cashier’s checks, made out in my name, sent by airmail to this address in Switzerland.” He wrote it down and tore the page out of his pocket notebook and tossed it onto the desk. Ives picked it up curiously.
Kendig said, “People from the government will be around to see you before very long.”
Ives’ grin made him even younger. “They won’t learn anything from me. Not without a warrant.”
“They won’t use warrants. They don’t work that way. You’d find yourself up to your ears in income tax audits. Your driver’s license would be mysteriously revoked. Your credit rating would evaporate overnight. Maybe you’d find that certain publishers were no longer buying anything from you. You’d start to lose clients-they’d give some vague excuse for shifting to another agency. Your wife would find her charge accounts canceled. Your kids would be caught with narcotics planted in their pockets. I could give you a list of subtle persuasions ten pages long.”
Ives’s manicured index finger touched the piece of notepaper. “Then you want me to reveal this to them?”
“It won’t do either of us any harm.”
“But they’ll trace the address.”
“They already know it. Those are my brokers in Zurich. One of them has my power of attorney to make deposits in my bank. He doesn’t have the account number. He takes the check and the power of attorney to the bank. The bank deposits the check in my numbered account without giving the number to the broker. It’s a dead end for the Agency. He can’t lead them to me. Neither can you. Just cooperate with them when they approach you.”
“What if they insist I stop representing you?”
“Then do what they ask. Inform the publishers you’re no longer representing me. Ask them to send the payments directly to that address.”
At four o’clock he was ready to leave. Ives said, “I can only think of one thing more. Not to be gruesome but I gather there’s a chance you could suffer a fatal accident. Have you made a will?”
“Yes. My Swiss brokers have it.” On the way out he added, “I’ve left everything to the Flat Earth Society.”
— 7 -
Cutter made a face when he stepped into the FBI building. Myerson beside him took off his hat, wiped the inside hatband and then his forehead where the hat had welted a red dent. Then he looked at the hat. “That’s appropriate.”
“What is?”
“I walk in with my hat in my hand.” Myerson winced and blubbered his heavy lips around an exhalation. He patted his stomach. “I’m back on the cottage cheese and salad number. I envy you wiry bastards. Here we are.”
The secretary kept them waiting a while and then they were granted their audience with the Assistant Director of the FBI, a trim sandy man named Tobin in the regulation seersucker.
There were the usual interdepartmental preambles-cautious courtesies-and then Myerson gave Cutter the floor. Cutter proffered one of the composites. “His name’s Miles Kendig. Retired Agency official…”
“I’ve met him a few times,” Tobin said. “What’d he do, defect?”
“He may have. He’s ramming around somewhere and we’ve got to get our hands on him. There are things we need to find out from him.”
“What secrets did he steal?”
“That’s what we want to find out from him,” Cutter said smoothly. He didn’t like the Bureau; he especially didn’t like it when they had to kowtow to the Bureau. “He was in Virginia yesterday. God knows where he is by now. But if he’s still in the United States it’s your bailiwick, not ours. Anyhow we haven’t got the domestic manpower for it.”