I slammed the door, Angela stuck the key in the ignition, and a voice from behind us said, “So here you are.”
We turned our heads, and there were two guys sitting in the back seat.
Angela shrieked, and tried to get out of the car again by climbing over me, or around me, or if necessary through me. I fought her off, saying, “Cut it out, cut it out, they’re FBI men!” Until finally she subsided, took another quick squint at the two guys back there, and whispered, “Are you sure?”
“Of course I’m sure,” I said, and motioned at them (I and J). “See how lean they are. See the gray suits, the lack of Adam’s apple, the out-of-date hats, the firm jawline.”
“Very funny,” said I, and J snorted.
I said to him, “She hasn’t been at this business as long as I have.”
“The question,” I said to me (is this getting confusing?), “is where have you two been the last hour?”
“The answer to that,” I told him, “will fascinate you. Guaranteed.” I said to Angela, “Drive downtown, honey, while I tell these two the story.”
“It better be good,” I told me.
9
Apparently it was good, so good they had me tell it three times. First, I told I and J on the way downtown. Then, when we got to my apartment and found K going through my dresser drawers, I had to tell it again to him. And finally, after several phone calls by K, Angela and I were taken to an office building on Fifth Avenue near the library, where, in a small office described on its hall door as International Literature Affiliates, I ran through it yet once more, to L, M, N, O, and P. P was the boss, sitting at the desk, while L and M and N and O sat around on various window sills and pieces of furniture.
A very unlikely office, this, for the people in it. Two huge dusty old windows half-covered by ramshackle venetian blinds looked out on one of the oldest airshafts in New York. Within, one wall was lined with olive-green metal shelving on which were stacked rows of forlorn-looking books — mostly fiction, it seemed like — in various languages. Opposite, an ancient cracked leather sofa in a really terrible rust-orange color was flanked by mismatched elderly floor lamps, one with a fringed shade. P’s desk was old, wood, scarred, phlegmatic. An old wooden filing cabinet looked as though it had spent most of its life being thrown on bonfires. The gray carpeting was so old it had trails in it, and the jiggly captain’s chairs in which Angela and I were sitting seemed to be of about the same vintage. All in all, the office looked to have been furnished from the Salvation Army during a clearance sale, and was illuminated mainly by a fluorescent desk lamp reminiscent of a dentist’s drill.
In this setting I once again told my story — rather well by now — with interpolations from Angela, and when I was done I said, “I sure hope somebody took all that down. That’s the third time I’ve told that story, and I really don’t think I could go through it again.” It was by now nearly three-thirty in the morning, and exhaustion was beginning to make itself felt around the edges of my brain.
“Don’t worry,” P told me. “It’s all down on tape.” He was somewhat older than the rest, stockier, shorter; the product of an earlier mold. He chain-smoked cigarettes, and had to pause now while he lit a fresh one from the butt of the old, then said, “Frankly, Raxford, it’s a wild story, and with your reputation my initial tendency would be to ignore you.” He stubbed the old cigarette in an ashtray, while beside me Angela looked indignant, and then went on, “But in this case there are a few factors which do tend to increase your credibility.”
“Thanks,” I said. (Sarcasm is one of the few weapons of which pacifists approve.)
It was also, apparently, a weapon that bothered P not at all. He went on, unruffled, “The names you mentioned, Mrs. Elly Baba and P. J. Mulligan and Eli Zlott and Jack Armstrong and Mrs. Selma Bodkin, all are the names of leaders of actual subversive organizations. Frankly, I’ve never heard of Mr. and Mrs. Fred Whelp, but that doesn’t necessarily mean anything. They sound right-wing to me, and our files have always been a little more extensive on the left. You can’t quote me on that.”
He leaned back in his swivel chair, and swiveled to and fro while pursing his lips and brooding at his desk top. Ultimately, he said, “Also the business of Miss Ten Eyck’s brother. Information had already come to us from other sources that Tyrone Ten Eyck, under a variety of names, had entered the country for subversive and sabotage activities. His appearance here at this time, with the sort of people you describe, makes an unfortunate kind of sense.”
Once again he fell into a brooding reverie, tapping cigarette ash on his trousers and glooming at his desk, apparently overcome by the thought of Tyrone Ten Eyck with the sort of people I had described. Finally he shook his head, roused himself once more, and said, “As for this man Eustaly, of course he does not deal in mimeograph supplies and equipment, we’ve checked that out very thoroughly. As, if you ask me, the FBI should have done in the first place. If they had, we wouldn’t have these problems facing us now.”
I said, “Aren’t you FBI?”
He gave me a world-weary smile and said, “No, we’re not. Quite another organization entirely.”
I said, “CIA?”
L and M and N and O all chuckled at one another when I said that, and shifted around where they sat, as though I’d asked them if they didn’t belong to the Boy Scouts. P, his world-weary smile showing some world-weary amusement, said, “No, Mr. Raxford, not the CIA either. I very much doubt you would have heard of us.” He cocked an eye at the other four. “Would he, boys?”
“Ho ho,” they said, and “Certainly,” and “Oh, sure.”
They didn’t know it, those guys, but they were Boy Scouts. I could see them now, horsing around the campfire and tying knots. They went to Midwestern colleges, too. And graduated.
“Well,” said P, sobering again, “back to business. The final mark in your favor is this Odd Fellows’ Hall. The place was empty by the time we got there, of course, but it had been rented for tonight by some group calling itself the South Side Social Club, and no such group appears to exist. Also, they paid the rental fee in cash. In addition, some small stains were found in the cloakroom, possibly blood, we should have the lab report on that by morning.”
One of the others — M, I think — said, “And the tails, Chief.”
“Oh, of course,” said P. “Eli Zlott and Mrs. Elly Baba are both under full surveillance these days, and both managed to evade their shadows shortly before midnight tonight.” He smiled somewhat bleakly and said, “Of course, so did you.”
“The hell we did,” I said.
Angela said, “We waited for them. They lost us.”
P scrunched his cheeks up and said, “What?”
“Going through Columbus Circle,” I said. “Somehow or other they lost us. There were two of them, in a blue Chevy. We stopped as soon as we saw they weren’t with us anymore, and waited about five minutes, but they never showed up.”
“We couldn’t wait anymore,” Angela explained. “We didn’t want to be late for the meeting.”
L and M and N and O were all chuckling and shifting again. P, a twinkle in his eye, glanced at them, and said, “Maybe we just better not mention that to the boys over at the Square, eh, fellas?”
“Ho ho,” they said, and “Yuk yuk,” and “Oh, sure.” Rover boys.