“Exactly. Estimates of what they spend range in the billions. Our committee is actually working backwards. We’re trying to find out how much they spend so we can see how much Congress has given them. In particular, I myself have become intrigued with the fate of a specific fifty thousand dollars which has gone astray.”
“That’s a lot of greenbacks to go astray.” I wondered why he was telling me all this, what he was getting at.
“Have you ever heard of the International Conference of Little Theatre Groups?” He shifted abruptly.
“No.” I shook my head.
“It’s a Commie cultural front group that started in Poland back in ’61. At first the U.S. and friends boycotted the Conference. But the nonaligned countries sent representatives and soon we realized it was working out as a handy propaganda tool for the Reds. So we reversed our stand and granted permission for American little theatre groups to participate in the meetings of the Conference. The hope was that their influence would counter the Bolshie line.”
“And did it?” I asked.
“No. Because even with permission none of our drama groups sent representatives. The fact is that none of these little, independent groups could afford it. And the government couldn’t subsidize them directly without stirring up a public clamor.”
“So the CIA got into the act,” I guessed.
“Right. The money was channeled through them and it was understood that it would be disbursed in such a way that the recipients wouldn’t know it came from the CIA. A front operation called ‘Democratic Philanthropies, Inc.’ was set up to distribute the money to little theatre groups so they could participate in the Conference. By arrangement with Internal Revenue, this organization filed no tax returns; it had no offices, no phone; it was simply a mail drop, a name, and an address; most important, it was accountable to no one outside the CIA for the money placed at its disposal. The initial amount was the fifty thousand dollars I mentioned and it was handed over in cash—-small bills, unmarked—-to the CIA agent in charge of Democratic Philanthropies. He kept it in a safety deposit box in a New York bank. About six weeks ago he withdrew the entire amount. He was observed putting the bills in an attaché case and leaving the bank. About five hours later a doctor pronounced the agent dead. The attaché case was gone. It’s never been found—neither has the fifty thousand dollars!”
“Any clue as to who murdered him?” I asked.
“He wasn’t murdered. You’ve seen too many spy movies, Vance. You’re jumping to conclusions.”
“Then how did he die?”
“Eating salmon croquettes in his own kitchen. He made them himself, too. He choked on a fishbone. That’s how he died.” The Senator took a deep breath and then continued. “The only thing our committee’s investigators have been able to get out of the CIA is that their agent had an appointment to meet someone connected with a little theatre group on the afternoon of his death. But that doesn’t explain why he withdrew the whole fifty thousand. The money was supposed to be spread around. Why would he have planned to hand it all over to one person?”
“Did he keep the appointment?” I wanted to know.
“The CIA claim he must have, but that doesn’t mean he did. There are several other possibilities. He might have decided to steal it himself. Or there might be some hanky-panky involving the CIA. He could have returned it to them and they’re trying to cover up having to account to us for it. Or he could have hidden it somewhere until it was time to hand it over to whoever was supposed to receive it. The thing is that nobody in the particular drama group involved will admit to any knowledge of the money or the agent. Either they’re lying, or the CIA is. My guess is the CIA. I think they know who got the money and why. They’re hiding something and whatever it is I want to force them to come clean with the committee. And that’s where you come in, Vance.”
“You lost me going around that last turn,” I told him.
“The particular group the dead agent was in contact with is the Pine Glen Drama Group.”
“Oh!” I saw the dawn coming. “The bunch out where I live. But I still don’t see where I come into all this. I’ve never had anything to do with them, or with any other kind of amateur theatrics.”
“You know people out there. You’re a member of the community. You have experience in intelligence work-—-”
“Whoa! What are you talking about? What experience?”
“You were in Army Intelligence in Vietnam.”
“As a lawyer!” I protested. “I don’t know the first thing--”
“You must have picked up something.” He waved away my objections. “And anyway, the most important thing is that I can trust you, and the CIA will never dream you’re helping me investigate them. None of the drama group members would suspect you either.”
“Are you asking me to be some kind of secret agent?”
“You could call it that.” The Senator fell silent and looked at me for a long moment before he spoke again. “What do you say, Vance?” he asked then. “Will you do it?”
I had said yes. The result was that now, about ten days later, shrouded in a symbolic cloak and toting a symbolic dagger, I was playing I-Spy at the Pine Glen Drama Group’s cast party. But the only intriguing data my counterspy-honed eyes had uncovered so far was that disclosed by the teeny-bopper’s wild “Shing-A-Ling.”
The Mo-Town blare had subsided a bit by now. She’d slowed down with the tempo and her miniskirt had settled halfway down her slightly thin but curvy thighs. My focus switched to the upper part of her body. It was ripe beyond her years. Perispheres of flesh coming to sharp Trylon points1 moved with uptilted youthful vigor against a tight cotton tank-top. The bright orange and blue stripes didn’t disguise the fact that she wasn’t wearing a bra. Nor did her long, loose brown hair swirling over her bodice conceal the deep cleavage displayed by the low V of the tank-top.
Her swaying movements gave rise to a thought that was both intriguing and irritating. The teeny-bopper was more uninhibited than I was—or ever had been. Our roles had been reversed, despite the fact that I was much older than she was. I could learn more from her about sex than I could ever teach her. The idea was appealing, but it made me feel like a dirty old man.
It made me uneasy enough so that I deliberately turned my attention away from the teeny-bopper. I found myself looking at Roger, my host. Roger stood behind the bar of his furnished cellar, jiggling a martini shaker. He was a cipher sort of guy who didn't so much fade into the background as become absorbed by it. A blah personality, his chief social asset was his wife, Rusty.
Rusty was the one from whom I’d wangled the invitation to the cast party, since she was the one who belonged to the drama group. Originally, Rusty had been friendly with Marcy, my ex-wife. Following the split, she’d taken a neighborly interest in me that had overtones of being something more than neighborly. That’s when I first began lo wonder why she’d ever married Roger. He so obviously wasn’t her type. The law of opposites could have been the reason. But I came up with one I liked better. It suited my sense of whimsy. I decided that Rusty had married Roger mainly because she wanted to take his name.
Roger’s last name was Roundheels!
The prospect of being known as Mrs. Roundheels must have seemed a gas to Rusty. A few short years back I’d guess she had really been a knockout. With her flaming red hair and voluptuous figure she was still quite a sex-pot. Only now there was a hint of desperation in her face that wasn’t quite hidden by her artfully applied makeup.
We live in an age of packaging. She had the product. Roger provided the label. Only she might have had more foresight. She might have envisioned the day, now almost at hand, when the name Rusty Roundheels would be too descriptive of her. The label might have fit in with being a coquette in her twenties, but m her mid-thirties she was finding it an embarrassment and had taken to explaining it away with genealogical bushwah.