The Fear Makers, page 11
The Fear Makers I asked about the puppy.
“Every night? No, it is only recently. I think they have brought a puppy into the house next door. It is nothing.” He deliberately opened his book.
I said I thought maybe they were trying to slice it up and he didn’t say anything to that and I went as far as the door when he again spoke. “Captain?” I paused. He asked, “Forgive me. But how old are you, please?”
I told him.
He lit himself another cigarette. “Will you allow me to speak of this, Captain? Although my sister is twenty-three, very little experience has she had outside the field of economic history. She is naive, possibly romantic. All her life she has been at school until she entered the government. She was a brilliant scholar. She had to work very hard. Very hard.” He dropped the match, this time blowing it out. He still smiled with his mouth, the green eyes not smiling at all. “Perhaps I do not need to tell you all of us in this house have read of your action overseas and subsequent hospitalization?”
I started to reply. He lifted a hand, saying, “Please. I am certain a man of twenty-nine can appreciate why an inexperienced girl may be very quickly moved emotionally. You will forgive me, sir. You do not resent my remarks?”
I said it didn’t make any difference how I felt; this was my last night here. He needn’t worry. I suppose is was so sudden I was pretty stiff about it, too.
He said, “Even for this short time, I hope we will act as friends to each other? Good night.”
Between the puppy asking for its mama or being sliced up by those people next door who didn’t like Jews, and Norman’s comments, I didn’t do much sleeping until toward morning and then I overslept.
It was after nine when I came downstairs. Everyone was gone except the bashful sister. Even with her, it was like saying good-by to a friend. I tried to make her understand
I was sorry to have missed Aunt Petroushka and the other sister and she laughed and bobbed her head and I hoped she did understand. It couldn’t have been much fun for her, coming to a strange land and living here all these years and never learning the language because she was too deaf…
From last night water stood in pools on the lawn, dripping from the trees. This morning the sky was brighter. I headed for the convertible, wishing I hadn’t missed Elizabeth, yawning, feeling fairly punk. I looked back at the house. For a house it was big and comfortable, the kind of house people build for a home. If it hadn’t been for the cane, I’d have slipped going down the steps to the walk.
Next door a boy was raking wet leaves. He was wearing unbuckled galoshes. Mostly, he leaned on his rake, lower lip stuck out, looking glumly at the leaves. Instead of entering the convertible, I walked along the sidewalk until I was near the boy.
I thought about asking him where his papa was. I had an idea I’d like to ask his papa a few questions. The boy was around eleven or twelve. I started off by enquiring if he owned the puppy.
He dropped the rake. He turned. He eyed me. Usually, I like kids. Except for that time in the park, ordinarily they don’t run. They don’t make faces. I used to watch my old man talking to kids, and he never talked down to them. This kid just looked at me, lip stuck out, the eyes blue and shiny, hostile. He wasn’t friendly. He looked at me and he looked at the newly-painted white house from which I’d emerged. I repeated the question about the puppy.
He picked up the rake. He held it ready, as if he’d poke it at me if I came too close.
Sullenly he said, “All right. So I have a puppy. What’s it to you?”
I allowed I suspected he had one. In my time, I told him, I’d owned a couple myself. However, I’d learned how to keep them quiet at nights. Hot milk was fine.
The kid said, “My puppy’s all right. He’ll stop whining in a couple of days. My father told me. I’m keeping him in my room because it’s too cold in the garage.” He started toward his house.
I walked along the sidewalk. Maybe I spoke too heatedly. I said he ought to try a pan of hot milk. If he didn’t he might find one of his neighbors reporting the puppy to the police. A puppy was fine. But having a puppy raise hell until nearly daybreak wasn’t too good.
The kid said, “Nuts!” He ran up the front porch steps of this big dirty gray house next to the Weils’. He slammed the front door.
I gave up the idea of asking where his papa was. I was too mad to do much more asking about anything of that kid. I drove into Washington, D. C., deciding I was slipping with kids. About three-quarters of the way in, suddenly I remembered. I hadn’t paid the bashful sister the two dollars. After being taken into a home, I was shoving away without even paying what I owed. Almost, right then I turned around. Then, I decided I’d tell Elizabeth it was necessary for me to return anyway to the Weils’ and she needn’t take a bus home because today was her brother’s, Norman’s, turn with the car.
= 3 =
When I entered the corridor to my cubbyhole, Megassum and Barney Bond were standing in front of the file and document room, talking. Barney said, “Hello.”
Megassum didn’t say anything about me being nearly an hour late. “How’s the traveler this morning? You haven’t forgotten you’re seeing the Senator, old man?”
I said I hadn’t forgotten, wishing he wouldn’t rub that in quite so hard about my memory.
“And you’ll drop in afterwards, old man? You won’t forget and start for all that sunshine in California without dropping in and letting me know how you came out with the Senator?”
I opened the door to the cubbyhole.
“I’ll be with a client,” continued Megassum. He bit off the end of a cigar. He struck a match. “I can’t get back until around”—he lit his cigar—“five. You’ll have to stick here a few hours, old man. Then California here you come. That’s the life. Ten thousand a year and no hard work.”
So there it was. I said okay; it’d wait until five. Barney smiled sympathetically.
“By the way”—Megassum waved his cigar at me—“our file secretary told me you forgot to return her those Michigan summary cards last night. Those cards are important. If anything happened to them the entire survey in Michigan could be jeopardized.”
Barney never missed anything. “You’re using those cards, Allen?”
I replied I’d locked them in my desk. I hadn’t forgotten them. I needed them to finish the memorandum to Megassum this morning.
“But, Mr. Megassum,” said Barney, very gently, “we must have those sheets typed at once. Don’t you realize that?”
I guess Megassum didn’t like having Barney telling him what he had to do—at least in front of me. He grunted at Barney and said he was still in charge of this outfit and told me to go ahead with the memorandum and gave Barney another hard look and turned and walked into his office.
Barney said, “He’s a very stupid man, really, isn’t he?” and went into his own hole, closing the door.
I sat in my office and had until 1400 hours this afternoon when I saw Senator Walder and then I saw him and came back here and told Megassum the Senator wasn’t signing with our show and at five o’clock I started for home, for California. Only, first, I picked up Elizabeth and ran her out to Hyattsville. Like that was the schedule.
I unlocked the desk drawer and pulled out the Michigan summary cards and looked at them and the time seeped along, not going at all fast, and I didn’t feel like writing a memorandum to Megassum telling him the survey stunk when he already knew it.
By and by I telephoned Elizabeth. I gave a number. The voice from the Department of Agriculture said, “One minute please,” when I supplied the extension. It was hard to imagine someone with hair like Elizabeth’s sitting at a desk and being an economist; I wondered if her boss ever noticed how her hair grew from a peak over the clear, cool forehead. When she said, “Hello?” I tried asking if she thought he had…
For a long second there wasn’t a reply. Then it came back, very formal. However, it was spoiled by being mixed up with a low sort of giggle. For a reply it was quite a mixture. She finished with, “I do not understand,” and that was an absolute, petrified lie from her.
I said the reason I’d called, I’d forgotten to pay Aunt Petroushka. Inasmuch as I had to return to do that, it was my turn at transportation tonight.
She said, “No. Thank you.”
I asked, why?
Another one of those silences followed. I tried again. She ceased being precise and formal. She wasn’t someone classified as P-2 economic adviser. She started being a girl who’s embarrassed. Hastily she stated she couldn’t. I said I could wait if she was busy. I’d run the convertible over to the Department of Agriculture Building and meet her.
Or, I said, was it because Norman didn’t approve because of last night? I couldn’t make it out. Was it wrong having dinner and seeing a movie with a girl? Every day in the year people did that. I hadn’t spilt any of the wine on her dress.
I hadn’t hauled her into that room they always have ready at Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, or at Warner Brothers. We were still in Washington, D. C. I said, “My God, Elizabeth.”
I guess I got excited again.
She asked, “We will go directly home?”
I promised we’d go directly home. We’d fly home. We’d cut through vacant lots, even. She could telephone Norman before we started. I’d have policemen lined along the Pike. There could be a cordon of English bowmen in green tights.
She protested. She decided, “No, it will be much too late for you to start driving west tonight if you take me home. Instead, you shall pay me, I will promise to give the money to Aunt Petroushka. If you wish, we shall have tea, a quick tea before you leave.”
I said, “I’ve been thinking. It’ll be too late, anyway, to start for home tonight. Maybe Aunt Petroushka will put me up one more time and I can get an early start for that sunshine tomorrow?”
So over the telephone I heard her laugh and she said, “Yes, I will go home with you then. Good-by now, please,” and she hung up and afterwards, for a long time, I thought about the way her voice sounded and wondered what those people next door to the Weils’ had done for Elizabeth to be afraid of them; and I wondered if I’d remember how Elizabeth’s voice sounded after I was in California and under that sunshine. I thought I might.
I didn’t like working in this office. I considered what I wanted to say to Megassum in the memorandum and it seemed to me if I had a little time there might be a chance at scaring him, making some fear for him as a change, showing the dangers of putting out false polls as part of a propaganda routine. I had a hunch Barney was the boy who’d steamed Megassum into doing it. If that puppy didn’t yelp too much tonight, at the Weils’ I might be able to concentrate on something that could influence Megassum.
I had rolled the work sheets, closing them into the cover of the portable typewriter to take with me, when Miss Nelson entered. She didn’t knock. She said, “I ought to have those work sheets, Captain Eaton.”
I explained I wasn’t finished with them. This afternoon I’d be busy with Senator Walder. I’d do the job tonight and mail the stuff in tomorrow.
She said, “Mr. Megassum was afraid you’d forget and I was just telling you.” After that, she asked, “How do you like these?”
About all I could do was to admire them. It wasn’t hard to do. But the clock was swinging around fast; I didn’t have the time to admire them, with all that remained for me to do this afternoon.
She took her foot off the chair. “It’s a gyp. What do you think? Ten dollars a pair, too. It’s the Government’s fault we have black markets. What’s a girl to do?”
With her leg down, I edged to the door, portable typewriter in one hand and trying to manage a cane. That takes more practice than I’d had to do it comfortably.
She released a little tinkly laugh. She did something to the red hair. “I just hate to spend an evening all alone with a new pair of nylon stockings. I thought I’d drop in at La Salle du Bois about ten tonight.”
I promised if I ever returned to Washington, D. C., first thing I meant to do was walk into the bar of La Salle du Bois and ask her to have a drink with me. She asked, “You wouldn’t have a girl wait too many years, would you?” and sauntered into the hall. The perfume she used must have been Chanel No. 5.1 didn’t know perfume but that perfume I knew. Always Clark had liked that perfume. For whatever current girl he was playing his record collection, in a week or so she’d inevitably start wearing that No. 5.
It was 1120 hours and all at once I wanted to get out and never come back. I was through, here. I told the receptionist I’d telephone Megassum around 1700 hours this evening and tell him what happened at my meeting with Senator Walder.
She said, “But he expects you to return—”
And I said I didn’t expect ever to return here, good-by, weep no tears, lady. She was staring as the door closed. Before entering the elevator I looked back and saw the firm name, “Clark J. Baker Associates,” and I remembered how we’d argued with the guy doing the lettering on the door. Clark had wanted it in italics. That was a long time ago. A long time ago.
Before seeing Senator Walder, I had time to clean one more thing up. I left the sheets and typewriter in the convertible, parking it, and using a pay telephone at a corner drug store put in a call to the Star, extension 55. When the voice answered I said I had more than half an hour to hear about the five times and have that drink he’d promised, if it wasn’t too close to lunch. Rodney Hilyyer said, “Come on over…”
He showed me the clippings. Altogether, there were only five of them. On the 25th of July, 1944, Clark J. Baker had walked from the bus station at the Chevy Chase Circle toward his apartment.
He was found around 2200 hours in the evening, part of his body on the grass, his feet still stretched on the pavement. He was dead. His chest had been smashed, his stomach ruptured where the guard of the speeding automobile evidently had hit him.
The remaining four clippings progressively were smaller. The second had more of his background, saying he was a partner in a local publicity firm—which was wrong. We weren’t a publicity firm. We forecast public opinion, primarily, until Megassum changed policies, and only in a few emergencies had attempted manipulating opinion for clients, no matter what assumptions that Barney Bond had reached about our activities. It mentioned the police were still hopeful of locating the automobile and driver.
The last clipping was a few lines, mostly concerning the funeral. The police had not yet determined any definite suspects, although several drivers had been questioned.
Hillyer said, “Not too much, is there?”
I shook my head.
He said, “The other papers didn’t carry any more. A lot was happening around that time.” He took the clippings, inserted them in an envelope. “These are photostats. You’re welcome to them.”
I thanked him for the trouble.
“Did anyone ever tell you there was a mix-up about you in the news flashes last year?”
Again I shook my head.
“One of the correspondents jumped the gun and sent a flash you were killed. That was on the 20th of July.”
I waited.
He said, “And Clark gets killed five days later. We didn’t print a corrected statement on you until early in August. I’ve had Enid go over the files to be certain of the dates. All during fall, everyone thought you’d die, too. That was why the presentation ceremony was rushed, while you were in the base hospital in England. Your Colonel wanted you to receive the thing while you were still alive. He must have been a swell C.O.”
I said Colonel Rolland was.
Like some nearsighted beetle, Rodney Hillyer swiveled his red eyes at me. “I’ve often wondered,” he remarked. He slid down from the stool in the file room. No one was near us. He explained, “I asked Enid to check for me. I was curious. Mr. Megassum never inserted any advertisement or announcement he was taking over your show.” He hesitated, not sure what I’d say. I waited. He stated, “At first, Mr. Megassum used to say he was keeping the business going until he heard from you. In September, he began firing his staff and hiring new guys. We took a couple of your old men on here until they enlisted.”
I told him that I’d appreciate their addresses.
Rodney shook his head. “Somewhere in the Pacific. Or Atlantic. How do I know now? I can try to get the addresses.” Behind the thick glasses he blinked his eyes. “It wasn’t until we printed you’d lost your memory and after he fired the old staff that the news got around town Mr. Megassum was now in charge, making money hand over fist.”
I agreed it was a good time to make money.
The reporter contemplated me. Finally, abruptly, he said, “Forget it, then. It was only an idea I had, anyway.”
I said what was the idea?
He said, “I’ve tried to give it to you. If you don’t want it, why kid me?”
I let him know I wanted it.
“It’s only a coincidence,” said Rodney Hillyer. “It’s merely a couple of coincidences. Clark Baker wouldn’t have accepted the kind of business Mr. Megassum is taking. I consider it’s lucky for Mr. Megassum that Clark got knocked off, when he did. Don’t you?”
There it was; I had to face it. I asked did he think Megassum had knocked Clark off?
Rodney Hillyer tried to itch the back of his shoulder with his hand. “The police don’t think so. That night, Mr. Megassum wasn’t anywhere near the accident. He was playing poker. I looked up the police records. He was playing poker with friends from eight o’clock until after midnight. He couldn’t be in two places at the same time, could he?”
I asked who were the friends?
“Perfectly reputable people,” replied Rodney Hillyer. “Bernard Bond and Harold Loder. Bond has a reputation as one of the most able mathematical minds in Washington.
