“There is someone waiting to see you in Manila,” he told me as I put on the pants. And that was all he said from the time we left the jail until the car deposited us at the Embassy. Evidently he disapproved of me thoroughly.
The “somebody” turned out to be Charles Putnam. He greeted me with his usual icy politeness. “Hello, Mr. Victor. How do you like Manila?”
“I prefer chocolate,” I told him. That took care of the small talk.
“I have been conferring with the gentleman from Ethiopia,” Putnam told me. “You will be happy to know that S.M.U.T. is completely destroyed. The ruins of the laboratory have been examined and the bodies of the S.M.U.T. mastermind, Dr. Palaro, and his major confederates have been found and identified.”
“Both Mavis and Leslie are dead, then?”
“Yes. Also, Ethiopia’s man has given us all the information to round up the S.M.U.T. operators in this part of the world. The crew of the Luzona Maru has been apprehended. The Malta operation has been shut down. S.M.U.T. people are being picked up all over the world. Even those in the Iron Curtain countries are being apprehended.”
“That figures.” I thought bitterly of Stevkovsky.
“What about the plantation the hunchback Cronin was running?” I remembered.
“That’s been taken care of, too.”
“And ‘Baby’ Torres?”
“His gang had no direct connection with S.M.U.T. There’s nothing we can do about them. That’s a matter for the Philippine Constabulary. And they seem disinclined to do anything about it.”
“Sure. It’s their bread and butter.”
“Probably. But it’s no concern of ours.”
“Well, then, I guess my job is over,” I said.
“This job, yes.”
“Meaning what?”
“Meaning that we shall have to call on you again. You’re needed in Washington right away.”
“Oh, no!”
“Oh, yes.” Putnam said firmly.
“What for?”
“You’ll be told when we get there. We leave tonight.”
“Not tonight.” I stared him down. “I demand one night in Manila. I have some unfinished business.”
Putnam thought about it a moment. “All right,” he agreed finally. “Tomorrow night, then.”
I got out of there before he could change his mind. I went to the hotel room he’d booked for me, took a shower, put on some fresh clothes, and made a beeline for the Cafe International. The unfinished business I’d mentioned was named Jana.
She wasn’t there. I spread some pesos around and got her home address. I found it without too much trouble. I knocked at the door a long time before she finally answered.
Jana looked bleary-eyed with sleep. Her whole luscious body sagged as if from some great weariness. She clutched a robe around her and looked at me with eyes that were pleading.
“Oh, no!” she sobbed. “Please! Not again! I can’t! I just don’t have the energy left! Go away! Please go away! Enough is enough, Steve!”
“What are you talking about?” I tried to push past her and into the room, but she kept barring the doorway. “I thought it might be nice to see how it was in a real bed for a change,” I told her. “After all, that time on the ropes can’t exactly be called ideal conditions. Don’t you want to—? ”
“No! I don’t want to! You are a satyr! That’s what you are! You are insatiable! How can you come back here again after last night? Nine times! Where do you get the energy? Last night was it!” She slammed the door in my face.
Last night? Last night I’d been sitting in that jail up in the hills. What the hell was she talking about? How could I have made love to her last night? Who—-?
Viktor Stevkovsky! That was who! It had to have been him! My Russian double! He’d pretended he was me and made love to Jana all night! Those lousy, bestial, inhuman, dirty, atrocity-committing Reds! I thought to myself. This was carrying espionage too far—even for a Commie!
Wait until I got my hands on him! Our paths would cross again! I knew they would! And I’d get even then! My Russian double and I hadn’t seen the last of each other!
It was when I arrived back at my hotel that I found the letter waiting for me. The envelope was covered with forwarding addresses—there must have been dozens. But even through all the scribblings and rubber-stampings, I could recognize the handwriting of the original name and address. Mom. Good old Mom. Even before I opened it, I knew exactly what the letter would say. It never varied by more than a comma or so.
And then I started thinking—thinking of something Mom had told me long ago, and which had lain buried in my subconscious for a long time. Something, strangely, involving another kind of identity problem. And suddenly, I knew that for once Mom was going to get an answer to her letter. . . .
Notes
[←1 ]
As related in Dr. Nyet.
[←2 ]
This is the epoch of the Vietnam War.
[←3 ]
Reference to “The Maltese Falcon”, a 1941 movie masterwork by John Huston, featuring Humphrey Bogart as a private eye and Peter Lorre as a gangster. Peter Lorre was an actor with a facial physique that doomed him to play psychopath and gangster roles.
[←4 ]
Peter Lorre (died 1964)
[←5 ]
Series of B movies (1935 – 1957) starring Peter Lorre
[←6 ]
The Marquess of Queensberry Rules are a code of generally accepted rules in the sport of boxing. Drafted in London in 1865 and published in 1867, they were named so as John Douglas, 9th Marquess of Queensberry publicly endorsed the code, although they were written by a Welsh sportsman named John Graham Chambers. The code of rules on which modern boxing is based, the Queensberry rules were the first to mandate the use of gloves in boxing
[←7 ]
Sydney Hughes Greenstreet (27 December 1879 – 18 January 1954) was a British actor who enjoyed a run of notable hits in a Hollywood career lasting just eight years. He is best remembered for his Warner Bros. films with Humphrey Bogart and Peter Lorre, which include such masterworks as The Maltese Falcon (1941), Casablanca (1942), and Passage to Marseille (1944).
[←8 ]
Gerardo Luigi "Jerry" Colonna (September 17, 1904 – November 22, 1986) was an American musician, actor, comedian, singer, songwriter and trombonist best remembered as the zaniest of Bob Hope's sidekicks in Hope's popular radio shows and films of the 1940s and 1950s. With his pop-eyed facial expressions and walrus-sized handlebar moustache, Colonna was known for his catchphrase, "Who's Yehudi ?"
[←9 ]
The stencil duplicator or mimeograph machine (often abbreviated to mimeo) is a low-cost duplicating machine that works by forcing ink through a stencil onto paper. A stencil is usually a thin sheet of material, such as paper, plastic, wood or metal, with letters or a design cut from it (by means of a typewriter or stylus), used to produce the letters or design on an underlying surface by applying pigment through the cut-out holes in the material. Mimeographs were a common technology in printing small quantities, as in office work, classroom materials, and church bulletins. Early fanzines were printed with this technology, because it was widespread and cheap. In the late 1960s, mimeographs began to be gradually displaced by photocopying.
[←10 ]
Reference to the telegraph, a long distance communication means for textual messages, in use since the beginning of the 19th century with varying technology. Since the late 1930’s the generalized technology used Morse code and an electromechanical key allowing the operator to key the message. Though the official telegraph services used landlines, wireless operation was also available, using radio equipment. The addressee of the message was either a receiving telegraph terminal, a radio receiver or a person who would get the telegram delivered by a carrier, as transcopied on paper at the receiving telegraph office. Telegraph services were available throughout the world till the late 20th century, to be replaced by faxes and then e-mail.