“Kate!” Smalldane roared at Tante Katerine who was across the room listening to the marital problems of a minor French official. She excused herself and came over to our table.
“When’re you going to teach him to read and write?” he said, jerking a thumb at me.
She shrugged. “He has plenty of time. Perhaps we’ll teach him next year. Or the next. You’re the expert writer. Why don’t you teach him?”
“Goddamn it, I will, starting right now!”
Tante Katerine shrugged and swayed back to her Frenchman and the problems that he was having with his wife. He was a regular customer who came to Number 27 more for advice than for sex.
“Here,” Smalldane said to me in a harsh tone. “What’s that word?” And he jabbed his forefinger at a dot on the map.
I looked carefully. “It’s a dot with a circle around it,” I said.
“Not the symbol, my little snot, the word! Don’t you even know the goddamned alphabet?”
“I am only a child of eight years and can—”
“Start learning right now,” Smalldane said. “That’s an S, that’s an I, that’s an N, and that’s a G. Now repeat them.”
“S-I-N-G,” I said promptly and then yawned on purpose. “There’s really not much to it, is there?”
“What does it spell, stupid?”
“I have no idea.”
“It spells sing. S-I-N-G. Sing.”
“Like a song,” I said.
“Like Singapore, you toad of a pimp.” Then he forgot about his tutorial ambitions and started running his finger down Indo-China. “Look,” he said to me because he had no other audience, “the Japs have already got Indo-China and they can jump off to Malaya and hit Singapore from the rear. South, Dogshit said. And I’ll bet seventeen dollars and thirty-eight cents that means Singapore from the land and not from the sea.” Smalldane was always betting $17.38 on something. I never knew why.
For the next four weeks he was out all day and half the night trying to confirm his theory. He borrowed money from Tante Katerine to get Japanese officers drunk and to bribe privates and non-coms to tell him what little they knew about troop movements. He spent hours in the Shanghai Club talking to its British members about Malaya and Singapore’s defenses. “Impregnable, old boy,” he would say to me, mocking their accent. “Absolutely impregnable.”
I didn’t know when or where he got what he thought was the last piece to his jigsaw, but he got it, and then spent three days writing a two thousand-word story. I still remember its lead. Smalldane read it to me at least six times:
JAPANESE IMPERIAL ARMY WILL INVADE EAST COAST MALAYA EARLY DECEMBER ETSTRIKE THROUGH JUNGLE AT SINGAPORES UNPROTECTED REAR UNIMPEACHABLE SOURCES REVEALED HERE TODAY
“You left out a few words, didn’t you?” I said, still completely vague about where Singapore was.
“They’ll put them back in in New York,” Smalldane said. “You want to go with me to file it?”
“Sure,” I said.
We borrowed Tante Katerine’s Airflow Chrysler and started to the Press Wireless office. It was the morning of December 8, 1941, and Japanese troops arrested us both before we got halfway there.
Chapter 11
We flew first class from San Francisco to Swankerton and it was dull and fast as most air travel is now that they keep the jets up around thirty-five thousand or more where you can’t see anything.
After dinner the night before, Orcutt had asked us to stop by his suite. He was staying at the Fairmont on California and Mason and the suite probably didn’t cost him much more than $125 a day. He told Carol Thackerty to order him a cup of hot chocolate and anything that we wanted. Necessary and I asked for brandy; Carol Thackerty wanted nothing.
Orcutt made some small talk, mostly about Ernie’s, while we waited for the drinks to arrive. After they came, he took a sip of his hot chocolate and said, “I like to drink it quickly before that slimy skim forms on top.” We waited silently while he drank it in small, rapid sips, much like a bird drinks, except that he didn’t have to raise his head to let the chocolate flow down his throat. He said, “Ah,” when he finished and I assumed that he had gotten it all down without running into any of the slimy skim that forms on top.
“Now then,” he said to me, “there are a few items that I’ve had prepared in anticipation of your joining us, Mr. Dye.”
“You must have been confident,” I said.
“Not altogether. It’s just that I always like everything ready. I simply detest last-minute scrambling about doing things that could have been done at a normal pace. Carol, would you please give me Mr. Dye’s envelope?”
She reached into her large, almost briefcase-sized purse and took out an oblong manila envelope which she handed to him. Orcutt peeked inside it and then motioned for me to join him on the couch. I took my brandy with me.
“First,” he said, “your Social Security card. In case you don’t remember, it’s your right number.” I glanced at the card and Orcutt was correct: it was the right number. “Strange about the Social Security card,” he said. “It’s almost worthless as identification, but the number itself is becoming increasingly important. It’s replaced the individual serial number in the armed forces, in fact. I think it’s safe to predict that one of these days — quite soon, really — the number will be used to maintain a full dossier on every citizen of this country. What do you think, Mr. Dye?”
“I wouldn’t bet against it,” I said.
“No,” Orcutt said, “I didn’t think you would. Next, here is a driver’s license issued by the Commonwealth of Virginia just before they began to require a photograph to be attached to each license. We would have secured a District of Columbia license for you, but there they require color photographs on their licenses, which presented an almost insurmountable problem.”
He handed me the license and I read the information on it. It would expire in six months, but everything was accurate except that it had me living in Alexandria.
“Now here,” Orcutt said, “are three credit cards, American Express, Gulf Oil, and Carte Blanche. They’re legitimate, so use them wisely.” He smiled after he said it to show that it was a joke, but with that smile of his, I couldn’t believe him.
“This,” he said, handing me another card, “is your Blue Cross and Blue Shield identification card. Also legitimate. We’ve already paid the premiums. And this is a card from Sibley Hospital in Washington which notes that your blood type is AB. Quite rare, really.”
“I know,” I said.
“We had the devil’s own time getting that one because it was so difficult to learn what your blood type is. We — or I should say Homer — finally got it from the State Department’s medical division. He’s quite good at things such as that. A real ferret.”
“How did State have it?” I said.
“You took a physical there eleven years ago,” Necessary said. “Remember it?”
“I do now,” I said.
Orcutt poked around in the envelope some more. “And here,” he said, “is an Alexandria library card, your voter’s registration, and a membership card in the Gaslight Club in Washington. That takes care of your identification problem.”
“Why Washington?” I said.
“Because the man who supplies us with several of these items of identification operates from there. If you’d like a totally new identity, complete with an honorable discharge from the Army, he’ll sell you a package that contains a Social Security number, a driver’s license, the aforementioned discharge, a library card, and a voter’s registration certificate for one hundred and fifty dollars. Credit cards cost fifty dollars each, but he strongly advises against them. They’re too much of a temptation. By the way, your credit cards are issued in the name of Victor Orcutt Associates.”