“Hi, there, Gene,” he said, around the pipe. “You busy?”
That’s his idea of a joke. The way he looks at things, I’m always busy but on the other hand I’m never really busy. Not busy. Up there on 57th street off Park, in the offices where Murray is a bright young comer in the law firm of which his dad and uncle are partners, that’s where people are busy. Down here in the lunatic fringe we may wave our arms a lot, but that’s hardly busy.
“As a matter of fact,” I said, “I was just going to call you. I’ve murdered Angela and buried her in the mimeograph machine. What do I do now?”
He came in, smiling indulgently, and I shut the door. “As long as she’s in there, anyway,” he said, “you might run off one or two Angelas for me.”
“I’ve tried running her off,” I said, “but she keeps coming back.”
He nodded. “Not bad,” he said. Angela came in then, looking distraught, and Murray said, “Ah, there you are! Angela, you’re a beautiful creature.” And he touched her hand and kissed her cheek.
Angela wriggles under Murray’s gallantries like a cat whose back is being scratched. She practically purrs. (I’ve never told Murray this, because of the implications, but she’s usually more responsive in the sofabed after having been around him awhile.) But this time she didn’t have a thought for flattery; her mind was elsewhere. “Oh, Murray,” she said, sounding as distraught as she looked, “we need help.”
“Well, of course you need help, dear,” he said, and smiled upon us both. “That’s what I’m here for.”
It’s sometimes a shock to realize that Murray and I are the same age, but whether he seems years older than me or years younger than me, I’ve never been able to decide. We met when we were both undergraduates at CCNY, even before the CIU was born. Murray never joined the CIU, of course — he was always too smart for that sort of thing — but he did sit in on some of our early sessions, gave advice, helped out behind the scenes, and got his father to represent us a couple of times when we were arrested for picketing without a permit, etc. Murray and I hit it off from the first, mostly I think because each of us is so fabulous to the other, and if opposites attract, it follows that absolute opposites must attract absolutely. Neither of us can begin to comprehend the other, and this total ignorance has been the firm foundation of a close and abiding friendship that has lasted now nearly fifteen years.
Over the years Murray has done a considerable amount of work for the CIU, all totally without fee. We are, in a way, his hobby, his laboratory, his continuing experiment. The FBI started its normal low-key harassment of him because of this association, but Murray’s far too good a lawyer and too tough-minded a bright young man to put up with that sort of nonsense, so one way and another he nipped it in the bud. His dad and uncle look upon Murray’s relationship with the CIU as a sort of youthful excess, a peccadillo, far less expensive and more sanitary than several others he might have chosen, and they are pleasantly indulgent of this last residual trace of the undergraduate in their finely honed young legal razor.
Now he said, “I came here to bring you the papers on that tax matter, Gene. You know, that business with the city, there’s one or two things for you to sign. But now there’s something new?”
“Not really,” I said. “It’s not a legal matter.”
Angela said, “Tell him, Gene. Murray’ll know what to do.”
“I don’t want to take up his time,” I said, meaning I didn’t want to talk about the problem in front of Murray, possibly because he would know what to do. (If anything does ever break up our friendship, it will be this idiot streak of envy I find in myself from time to time. I do try to keep it in check.)
Murray looked at his watch. “I have ten minutes,” he said. “Then I have to get crosstown. Can you tell me in ten minutes?”
“Forget it, Murray,” I said. “It’s a different thing entirely. What do you want me to sign?”
Angela said, “I’ll tell you, Murray. Somebody’s got to tell you.”
“No,” I said. “You’d never get it right. Go make Murray a cup of tea, I’ll tell him.”
“Very good,” said Murray. He sat down in the basket chair, set his briefcase on the floor beside him, put his pipe away in his jacket pocket, crossed his legs, folded his arms, and said, “Tell me.”
I told him. In detail, with gestures. When I was done, Murray sipped the tea Angela had brought him, gazed thoughtfully into the middle distance, and said, “Well.”
“Well?” I said. “Well what?”
“It seems to me,” he said slowly and calmly, “you’re missing one or two points here. For instance, what did Eustaly say when you suggested you might not attend the meeting tonight?”
“I said, ‘What if I don’t show up?’ and he said, ‘Then I’ll know you’ve made your decision’ So what?”
“That’s all he said?”
“Word for word. Or almost.”
“What was his expression when he said it? Did he look angry, stern, what?”
“He smiled,” I said, and thinking back to that Mediterranean smile of Eustaly’s, I began all at once to get an inkling of what Murray was driving at.
Murray said, “He smiled. Was it a cheery smile? What sort of smile, Gene?”
“More Sidney Greenstreet,” I said.
Murray did his own Peter Lorre smile, his yessss-Iy-ssseeee smile, and said, “Did that smile suggest nothing to you?”
“Not at the time,” I admitted. “But it’s beginning to.”
Angela said, “What? Gene? What?”
I told her, “Murray thinks Eustaly might try to kill me.”
“That’s one possibility,” said the lawyer.
Angela said, “Kill Gene? Why?”
Murray explained to her, “If he doesn’t attend tonight’s meeting, he will be an outsider with inside information. Eustaly and his groups being what they apparently are, they’ll assume Gene’s their enemy and dangerous to them. He knows. He might talk.”
Angela said, “He might talk right away, how do they know they won’t be killing him long after he’s already talked?”
Murray said, “It’s unlikely he’d be believed today. After Eustaly’s group starts destroying things, the authorities would be more likely to listen to Gene. Therefore, it would make sense to them to destroy Gene first.”
I said, “Pardon me for butting in, but Gene’s right here. I’m right in the room here. Don’t talk about me like that.”
They both smiled at me indulgently, and Angela said to Murray, “Well, what should he do?”
“Try again to convince the FBI.” He looked at his watch. “I’ll stop back later,” he said. “Say, at five-thirty.” He picked up his attaché case, stuck his pipe in his mouth — I never did see that thing lit, come to think of it — and got to his feet. “Call the FBI,” he told me. “Be at your most convincing, Gene, it’s to your advantage.”
“I know, I know.”
“Don’t lose your temper with them.”
“I never lose my temper,” I said.
He smiled indulgently, the bastard. “That’s right,” he said. “What was the name of the organization the FBI man mentioned? The one with the name like yours.”
“World Citizens’ Independence Union.”
“Right. I’ll look it up if I get the chance. See you about five-thirty.”