The Spy in the Ointment Read online

  It was hopeless now, and I knew it, but I made one more attempt. “Now listen,” I said. “As soon as I find this card—”

  “Mr. Kesselberg,” D said to Angela, “has a long record as a practical joker. While an undergraduate at City College—”

  “He hasn’t done that sort of thing,” I snapped, “in twelve years. Don’t you people ever forget?”

  D looked stolidly at me. “No, Mr. Raxford,” he said. “We don’t ever forget. Now, I strongly advise you never to do this sort of thing again, Mr. Raxford. Your relationship with the FBI has always been a good one. Don’t get on our wrong side. I mean that, Mr. Raxford. Take it as a friendly warning.”

  Angela said, “Gene, you do have a pretty funny sense of humor sometimes.”

  “Oh, Christ!” I shouted, and flung my hands into the air.

  “Goodbye, Mr. Raxford,” said D. He went to the door and opened it, then turned back and gazed sorrowfully at me. “I’ll never believe a radical again,” he said, and went away.

  5

  “Well, now,” said Murray judiciously. He sat down in the basket chair, set his attaché case on the floor beside him, put his pipe in his pocket, folded his arms, crossed his legs, and said, “That creates a problem.”

  “Well of course it creates a problem,” I said. “I know it creates a problem. What I want to know is what to do about the problem.”

  Angela said, “Murray, what if you talked to the FBI?”

  “You can forget that,” I said. “As far as they’re concerned, this is a practical joke and Murray and I are in on it together. You heard what that guy said.” To Murray, I said, “They’ve still got you down for that goldfish business at school. And the white paint, and those other things.”

  “Lord,” said Murray, “I haven’t thought of them in years.”

  “Well, the FBI’s apparently got it all down in a folder somewhere. So if you go tell them it isn’t a gag, they might not entirely believe you.”

  “You’re right,” said Murray. “That’s too bad.”

  Angela said, “What about the police? I mean the regular police, the city police.”

  “The cops know me,” I said. “As soon as I walked in and started talking, they’d call the FBI.”

  Murray said, “That would be true no matter what agency you went to, municipal, state, or federal. No, I think there’s no real possibility of getting official assistance at this point. Of course, if there were a bona-fide attempt on your life, and we could demonstrate that the attempt were actual and determined, that might change things.”

  “An attempt on my life? An attempt? What kind of a word is that? These are ten different terrorist organizations all combined together to kill me, and you say attempt? It’ll be a hell of a good attempt, if you ask me.”

  Angela said, “Murray, what should he do?”

  Murray said, “Well, one thing we could do is prepare a letter giving full details of the case and requesting police protection, and send it to FBI Headquarters special delivery, return receipt requested. Then, if there were a successful or partially successful attempt on Gene’s life, we might have grounds for a negligence suit against the federal government. On the other hand—”

  “Partially successful?” I said. “What’s a partially successful attempt to kill somebody?”

  “If you were wounded,” he said. “Lost an arm, say, or your sight, some such thing. A minor injury probably wouldn’t—”

  “Murray,” I said, “will you please stop being a lawyer for a second? What am I going to do?”

  “Well, let’s think about it,” he said. “What are the choices open to you? First, you could go on as before, forget Eustaly and the terrorist oiganizations, and hope for the best. Second, you—”

  “What do you mean, hope for the best? Take a chance they won’t kill me?”

  “Right. Second, you—”

  “Murray, are you crazy?”

  He said, “No, Gene, I’m not crazy. I’m doing my best to give you the possible alternatives. Now, you don’t like alternative number one, is that it?”

  “Don’t like it!”

  “Very well,” he said, unperturbed. “Second, you could appear to go on as before, hoping for the best, but you could actually be watching very carefully for the attempt on your life. Forewarned is forearmed. Knowing it’s coming, you’d have a better chance to avoid—”

  “Murray,” I said.

  “You don’t like alternative number two.”

  “You mean be a decoy, Murray? Go out and wait for them to shoot at me, so I can prove to the FBI it isn’t a joke?”

  “You don’t like alternative number two,” he said. “Fine. Now, third, you can go to Eustaly’s meeting tonight, see what—”

  “Go to the meeting?”

  “Gene, please, will you let me finish a sentence? You go there, agree with everyone, learn all you can about their plans, and just possibly come away from the meeting knowing enough to be able to convince the FBI you’re telling the truth. Now, if you—”

  “Murray,” I said. “You mean you want me to go sit down in the middle of this—this—this—”

  “Gene, all I’m saying—”

  “—this volley of terrorists? The fly into the spider’s web, Murray, is that it?”

  “If you don’t like alternative number three,” he said, “we’ve got problems, because there isn’t any alternative number four.”

  That stopped me. I stood there and looked at Murray and he just sat there and looked back at me. I know Murray, and I trust Murray, and I have great confidence in Murray’s abilities. If Murray now said there was no alternative number four, I was reluctantly willing to admit there was no alternative number four. But alternatives one through three—good Lord!

  I said, “Could I have them again, Murray? One more time, the alternatives.”

  He counted them off on his fingers. “One, go on as before, hope for the best. Two, guard against an attempt on your life, following which, you can talk again to the FBI. Three, attend the meeting tonight, following which, you may have some proof for the FBI.”

  “That’s it, huh?”

  He nodded. “That’s it, Gene.”

  I went over and sat down on the sofa (which had not as yet today been opened for any reason connected with Angela, I might just mention) and tried to think. Angela herself sat down next to me and watched me with her lovely brow creased in the lines of a worried frown. She’d fixed the mimeograph, of course, and was all cleaned up again now, back in the yellow sweater, the artistic ink smudge gone from her cheek. She and the sofabed and I should have been engaged in activities far more pleasant, far more valuable, far more human than worrying about a bunch of crazy terrorists.

  After a minute or two of unproductive thought I said, “Murray, your alternatives one and two are the same thing. In both of them I just go on living my life until some nut shoots me down.”

  “Not exactly,” he said. “With alternative number two, you’d be taking precautions. You’d get the rest of the members of the CIU to help. And Angela and me too, of course. We’d keep you under constant surveillance, guard you at all times.”

  “The FBI keeps me under constant surveillance now,” I said.

  “That’s right,” he said. “But the FBI is watching you. We’d be watching the people around you, waiting for one of them to make a move against you.”

  “The thought of a lot of pacifists protecting me from a lot of terrorists,” I said, “just somehow doesn’t fill me with confidence.”

  Murray said, “Well, Gene, it’s up to you.”

  “I know that. Listen, what about this alternative number three? I’d never get away with it.”

  “Why not?” He picked up his attaché case, uncrossed his legs, put the case in his lap, and snapped it open. “I looked up the World Citizens’ Independence Union,” he said. “Quite an interesting organization. They were a group of one-worlders, opposed to all borders, all travel restrictions of any kind. They expres
sed themselves by blowing up customs shacks at borders, mostly between this country and Canada. A contingent of them attacked and demolished a customs shack on a small road between France and Germany about seven years ago, were chased by German police, took refuge in a farmhouse, murdered the farmer and his family, and fought to the last man. Quite a rowdy group. That one attack seems to have been their only foray off the continent of North America.”

  I said, “Oh, fine. That’s the kind of group you want me to go to a meeting with, is it?”

  “Well, this particular organization, the WCIU, isn’t extant any more.”

  “Extant. Does that mean they’re not around?”

  “Right. It seems one of their bombs blew up prematurely, in their headquarters, during a meeting. Wiped them all out.”

  “Bombs,” I said.

  “Now,” he said, looking at papers in his attaché case, “it does appear that one list published by the Attorney General’s office four or five years ago—yes, here it is—through a printer’s error, left the word ‘World’ out of the entry on the WCIU, which is where, I suppose, your friend Eustaly got the idea you were one of the terrorists he wanted to see. It’s entirely possible you have some sort of suit here in this error, particularly if any sort of injury—”

  “Shut up, Murray.”

  He looked up. “Eh? Oh, all right, I will. Yes, you’re right, I’m sorry. Back to the issue at hand.”

  Angela said, “Gene, I think you ought to go up to that meeting, that’s what I think.”

  I said, “Why?”

  “Because,” she said, “that way they won’t try to kill you, and you can get the evidence and make the FBI pay attention to you.”

  I said, “Murray? What do you think?”

  “Gene, it’s your decision.”

  “I know it’s my decision, dammit, but what do you think?”

  “What do I think? I think Angela’s right. I think you can attend this meeting in perfect safety, and at least learn something of Eustaly’s plans, and not give them any reason to suspect they should do away with you. I’m not saying you’ll definitely find any tangible proof you can turn over to the FBI, but at least you’ll keep Eustaly and the others from planning to kill you.”

  “I don’t know,” I said. “It sounds better than alternatives one and two, I admit that, but I just don’t know. What if I couldn’t bring it off? What if I just couldn’t act like a terrorist?”

  “Apparently Eustaly was convinced this afternoon,” Murray pointed out. “Besides, there’ll be a dozen or more people there. No one will be watching you in particular.”

  “Yeah, but going in there alone …”

  “I’m going with you, Gene,” Angela said, as though it had all been decided hours ago.

  I turned and looked at her. “You’re doing what?”

  “I’m going with you. I want to see these people. Besides, if there’s two of us we’ll feel stronger, won’t we, Murray?”

  Murray said, doubtfully, “Well …”

  I said, “You’re not going.”

  “Oh, yes, I am. I can take shorthand, I bet you didn’t know that, and that’s just what I’ll do. I’ll take shorthand notes of everything everybody says.”

  “Definitely not,” I said. “I’m going alone. Besides, I was the only one invited. How am I supposed to sneak you in?”

  Murray said, “As your secretary. Actually, it’s not a bad idea. If Angela can get a stenographic record of the meeting—”

  I said, “Murray, you’re going along with this? You want Angela to get killed?”

  “No, I don’t. I don’t want anybody to get killed. And if you two behave with just a little discretion, there’s no reason why tonight’s meeting should be at all dangerous for either of you.”

  I said, “Murray, you’ve got—”

  “Oh, golly!” said Angela, jumping to her feet. “What time is it?”

  Murray looked at his watch. “Almost six-thirty.”

  Angela took her own tiny watch off her wrist and shook it. “This darn thing, it’s broken.”

  “It won’t tell time?”

  “No, it tells time, but it’s supposed to ring. You know, it’s like an alarm clock, it’s supposed to ring when I should take my pills. I should have taken them at six o’clock.” She hurried away toward the kitchen, saying over her shoulder, “I’ll be right back.”

  Murray looked at me. “Alarm clock? On her wrist?”

  “It’s something her father gave her,” I said. “Sort of an alarm watch. It tinkles.”

  “When she should take her pills. What pills? Is she sick?”

  “No. They’re diet, birth control, and complexion.”

  “Oh, really? All at once? If she isn’t sick, she will be.”

  “Not a bit of it,” I said. “Angela’s as healthy as a horse. But better-looking. But not quite as bright.”

  “You don’t appreciate that girl, Gene,” he said as that girl came back into the room.

  She said, “Well, it’s all decided, right? We’re going up to the meeting tonight, you and I.”

  I said, “Murray? You really think it’s safe enough to take Angela?”

  “Certainly,” he said.

  “In that case,” I said, “it’s probably safe enough for me to go. All right.” I nodded to Angela. “We’ll go,” I said.

  “Wonderful,” she said. “I’ve been dying for a chance to practice my shorthand.”

  Murray said, “Come on, I’ll buy you dinner.”

  I said, “The traditional hearty meal?”

  “Your problem,” Murray told me, “is you’re a pessimist.”

  “No,” said Angela. “Pacifist.”

  “Same thing,” said Murray. “A pacifist is a man who thinks if he does get in a fight he’s sure to lose.”

  “That’s what I like about you, Murray,” I said. “You’re such a snot.”

  Murray laughed genially, shut his attaché case, and got to his feet. “Come on,” he said. “We’ll eat at Ludlow’s.”

  “Wait a minute,” I said. I got a pencil and a piece of paper. I wrote on the piece of paper Screw the FBI. Then I ripped the paper into a lot of little pieces and threw them in the wastebasket.

  “There,” I said. “Now I’m ready.”

  6

  I twisted around in the seat and looked back the way we’d come. “Oh, for God’s sake,” I said.

  Angela, at the wheel of her yellow Mercedes Benz convertible, said, “What’s the matter, Gene?”

  “Pull over to the curb. They’ve lost us.”

  She glanced at the rear-view mirror. “How did they do that?”

  “I don’t know,” I said. “Pull over, maybe they’ll find us again.”

  The time was quarter to twelve at night, and we’d been heading north on Broadway toward Eustaly’s meeting, having dropped Murray off at his apartment on Third Avenue and 19th Street. Two FBI men (E and F) had followed us from my apartment to the restaurant, where they’d been relieved by two others (G and H), who had followed us ever since in a blue Chevrolet. Except that now they’d disappeared.

  Angela stopped the car next to a fire hydrant, and we both watched traffic for a while. The month was April, the weather gusty, rainy, and somewhat cold, and we were traveling with the convertible top up. We were parked between 68th and 69th streets, and a steady stream of cabs rolled by us, heading uptown. But no blue Chevrolet.

  Looking hopefully backward, Angela said, “Maybe they got mixed up at Columbus Circle.”

  “The idiots,” I said.

  “Oh, no,” she said. “It’s easy to get mixed up at Columbus Circle, I do it all the time.”

  I looked at her, and decided to refrain. Instead, I said, “Well, they’re supposed to be professionals. They’re supposed to be able to follow people even through Columbus Circle.”

  Peering, pointing, Angela said, “Is that them?”

  “No, that’s a Pontiac.”

  “It is?” Angela watched it go by. “We
ll, what were they in?”

  “A Chevrolet.”

  “I can’t tell the difference,” she admitted.

  “There isn’t any.”

  She looked at me, to see if I was kidding, and said, “Then how do you tell them apart?”

  “The hood ornament. All General Motors cars have different hood ornaments. That’s so the salesmen can tell how much to charge.” I looked at the dashboard clock, which worked and which read seven minutes to twelve. “We’re going to be late,” I said.

  She verified that with her own little watch, which worked more or less, and said, “We better not wait any more.”

  “I was looking forward,” I said, “to having a couple of FBI men handy while we were at that meeting. Just in case.”

  “Well,” she said, “we can’t wait, Gene. Maybe they’ll lock the doors exactly at midnight or something, and the important thing is to be there.”

  I shrugged, took one last look southward along Broadway, and said, “Oh, the hell with them. All right, let’s go.”

  “Okay,” she said, and nosed the Mercedes out into the traffic again.

  (Your indulgence, please, for a sexual aside. I have already mentioned the effect on me of viewing Angela in her clothes, and I would like now to state that this effect is doubled or possibly tripled by my seeing Angela in her automobile. The sight of this sleek feminine beauty at the controls of a beautiful motorcar, long lovely legs urging the pedals, long delicate fingers encompassing the wheel, blond and sculptured head uplifted, arouses the satyr in me, cloven hoofs and all. That she is a good driver—though perhaps a bit too cautious, and with a tendency to stop functioning in an emergency—is lagniappe; I would travel with her if she drove blindfolded.)

  At any rate, I was pleasantly distracted from my problems for the next twenty blocks, and when she’d slipped the car into a neat little parking space on 88th Street, around the corner from Broadway, I impulsively pulled her over to my side of the car and kissed her a good one. But then she deflated me entirely by blinking and looking confused and saying, “What was that for?”

  “Oh, the hell with it,” I said, and got out of the car.

  Then she was contrite. She hurried after me on her high-heel boots, took my arm, and said, “It was very nice, Gene, it just surprised me is all.”