The Fear Makers, page 16
I told them my name.
As violently as the anger came, the reaction was beginning to set in. I was ashamed. I could imagine I might have misunderstood. It didn’t have to be these people who’d anonymously telephoned Elizabeth. I said I hadn’t intended to start a commotion. I was sorry if I’d made a mistake. This morning things had happened and—
“Eaton,” said Hal Loder suddenly. “Allen Eaton? I’m damned.”
He glanced at Vivian. She had one of those superior, you-see sort of smiles. “Just use your head, dear. Go on. Bust Captain Eaton’s back. You were going to scare the cooky who took on the thirty Krauts last summer? Don’t let me stop you, dear.”
I said there hadn’t been thirty and besides—
They weren’t listening. Very loudly, Loder was saying something to the girl and she was still smiling in the manner no wife ought to smile at her man.
Next, I saw Loder thrust out his hand. I heard him say, “We’ve been expecting you, Al. Hell, Simon Brown wired me last Sunday you were coming. What did you go next door for anyway?”
I said, “Simon Brown,” and then, everything drew together. The emptiness inside me vanished. I said he meant Holworthy? He meant Holworthy, Megassum’s man, had wired him?
He said, “Oh, Mr. Megassum told you?” and puzzled wrinkles appeared on the skin of his forehead.
So help me, I lied then. I said yes, that it was a gag. Megassum had told me…
To me, Vivian said, “Go on, shake hands with the lug. He doesn’t use his head to think with. He’s only just now realizing for a minute back there he nearly had himself killed or ruptured. Isn’t that right, dear?” she asked him, still applying the sandpaper. “One of these days you’ll run into an undersized job and not have mama around to call it off.”
He told her, “Lay off, Viv, will you? I was joking. He knows I was joking, don’t you, Al? We both were just horsing. She don’t understand, does she, Al?”
I asked how long ago had Megassum or Holworthy been out here?
Loder appeared surprised. “Hell, I don’t know.”
Because I thought he was stalling, I said I’d signed the contract with Megassum and everything was fine now; and I repeated the question.
He hadn’t been stalling. He said, “We don’t have much to do with Mr. Megassum’s boys, Al. That’s a fact, isn’t it Viv?”
Viv said, “We’re not upper level. We’re not that important.”
Loder protested, “I wouldn’t say that, Viv.” He assured me, “Mr. Megassum used to come around for a game now and then, or to meet one of Viv’s girl friends. Let’s get your stuff, Al. I’m sure sorry about that car of yours. Viv,” he asked her, “where’s that goddamned little brat? I’ll talk to him.”
Maybe I had the single-track mind. I said hadn’t Mr. Megassum been here since the Weils, next door, painted their house white? Vivian replied, “Why, they stunk up the whole neighborhood just last month painting their place. Step inside, Captain. Have a cup of coffee with us and get acquainted.”
Just then the kid came out. He must have been watching us from inside. He was carrying a couple of books under his arm. He didn’t look at me. He said, “I gotta go to school now.”
The rest took place so fast I didn’t get it until it was all over.
Like a big bear, Loder shuffled over to the kid, smashed him against the wooden wall of the house so no one could see exactly what was being done. Loder was between the kid and anyone walking along the sidewalk.
Loder fooled me. He’d seemed like a big lug, nothing complicated to feel anything special in the way of resentment. He fooled me all the way. He had his big hand over the kid’s wrist. The books fell on to the porch in two separate clumps. The other hand shoved the kid’s noises inside the kid’s mouth. It wasn’t nice to see. He said, “Next time get the right car!”
Very quietly, Vivian said, “You leave Buddy be, Hal. I’m telling you. I’m telling you just this once, or I’m through.” She meant it.
Loder released the kid’s wrist. I saw Loder’s face as it turned to the woman. The loose grin still hung on it. It was a different face from the one that had retreated to the porch railing a few minutes ago; or, from the one that had bluffed and laughed big when Vivian had jeered him. Everything that guy had hidden inside himself when he’d been humiliated came out against the kid.
He said, “I’m just teaching Buddy not to make mistakes on cars. Why, honey, I wasn’t hurting Buddy.”
The kid slumped back against the wood. The kid’s mouth looked smeared. The kid was dazed. One wrist was bent crooked. The big guy put a hand on the kid’s shoulder. He gave the shoulder a shake. “You’re all right, aren’t you, Buddy?” He picked up Buddy’s two books. He reached into his pocket and shoved a wad of bills into the kid’s coat pocket. I’m not exaggerating. It was a wad. It was as if that blubbering kid were receiving a pay-off.
Loder’s loose grin vanished. His face became limp. He told the kid, “You take that dough and use some of it to get the Captain’s car cleaned this afternoon. It was a mistake. The Captain’s a friend. Use the rest of the dough for your gang. Okay?”
“Okay,” said the kid. He walked past Vivian, on down the steps.
Loder went to the steps. “Tell the school nurse you fell on your wrist if it hurts. You’ll remember, Buddy?” The big guy was a little worried. “You know what I told you? You got to learn to take rough stuff.”
Loder returned to the woman and to me. Heartily he said, “I was just teaching Buddy a lesson. Makes a man of him. He’ll have your car cleaned by tonight, Al. Meanwhile, come in and have a cup of coffee with us. I’ll drive you down to Washington.” He held open the door.
“It’s good coffee,” said Vivian, trying a smile. “You don’t want to miss it.”
She must have seen something in my face when her guy was twisting the kid’s wrist. I’d have to learn.
Everything had been happening to me since Sunday night, when I’d encountered Megassum’s unobtrusive man on the train. I’d been a record. Somebody else had been putting the needle to me, playing me to hear how I sounded.
This was the first time somebody else could be the record. This time, I’d use the needle. I wasn’t leaving this house Megassum’s man had called white, saying it w^s, the only white house on the block, the one I couldn’t miss. I wasn’t leaving it or leaving Washington, D. C., until I heard how Megassum’s record sounded. That, I now knew. I’d never get home until I knew the tune Megassum was playing.
= 3 =
Before this war, Clark and I went to three or four of the old silent comedies shown at the Museum of Modern Art in New York. Over those old silents, Clark was an enthusiast. I remember him comparing them, in spirit, to the Corn-media dell’ arte, saying for twenty years in America we’d had a great comic art form and no one knew about it or realized it or cared. Clark’s dead. I won’t hear Clark talk that way any more. Clark’s stomach was smashed open. No more silent comedies, Clark, ever.
Anyway, there was this one comedy with Buster Keaton. Or it was Larry Semon. I remember he’d been chased by a couple of huge, terrifying lions. He was running. He was running hard. The whole scene had a nightmarish quality. He reached a cliff. He shut his eyes. He took a step off the cliff. He didn’t go down into the awful drop. No, he stepped into a parlor with people offering him tea. It was fantastic. I don’t know why but it was momentarily frightening, even if it was an old silent comedy.
It was like that with me.
One moment I was on the porch of the house Megassum’s man had called white, stepping toward something terrifying. Next step, I was sitting down at a breakfast table, surrounded by the neat, clean walls of the square dining room. On one side was a long buffet, the top cleared of dishes, with a pile of letters stacked near several different-colored bottles of inks and half a dozen pens. I listened to Loder laugh, having him tell me Megassum was going to get a great boot out of hearing I’d thought the house next door was the one recommended to me…
Vivian poured a cup of coffee for me. I saw now the fingers of both hands were stained, as if she were an ambidextrous cigarette smoker. I shouldn’t have been so obvious. She dropped her hands below the table. Probably, having stained fingers made her self-conscious.
She said defensively, “You mightn’t believe it, but before I met up with Hal I was an artist. A couple of years ago Esquire bought several of my etchings. I wasn’t too lousy.” She rubbed her fingers on the tablecloth.
Loder said, “Boy, she could draw hot ones.” He grinned.
It wasn’t all rouge on her cheeks. “You try finding how it is to live in New York when you think you’re an artist, Captain.”
Loder helped himself to more coffee. “Don’t let her start making you weep, Al. She was getting plenty of dough working part time in a direct-by-mail agency. Boy,” he told her, “if I’d been signing those big-shot signatures like you were, we’d be in clover, baby.” He drank the coffee.
She put down her cup. To me she explained with a sort of deliberate carefulness, “Hal loves to clown, Captain. We had duplicating machines imitating actual typed letters. For the letters to look more real, a couple of us girls were trained to sign signatures. It was all on the level.”
“Sure, honey,” said Hal. He told me seriously, “They weren’t forgeries. Lots of direct-by-mail companies do it to personalize the letters.”
I asked, she’d quit being an artist?
“That was after the direct-by-mail business went broke and I had to live on being an artist. I found I was ending up doing those etchings all the wolves hang in the apartments for the girls to see and as an artist I was beginning to stink.” She placed her hands deliberately on the tablecloth. She added, “With Hal around to pay the checks, I’ve time to do engraving again. Hal buys the gloves to cover my hands, when the acid stains my fingers too much.”
I finished the coffee. It was good coffee. Loder looked at his watch. He said, “Honey, we’d better get going.” He told me, “Al, you come in with us this morning. Buddy’ll have that yellow paint off your bus by tonight. He’s a great kid, Buddy. I’m making a man out of him.”
Vivian eyed me. Except for intervals, she was another one of those ice-cold blondes. I wondered if she’d been first in the art class in some place like St. Louis or Minneapolis and they’d told her she ought to go to New York and make a name for herself. I wondered if she hated herself for drawing the hot ones her guy’d smirked over, just remembering them. She said, “That’s right, Hal. You’ll make a little professional out of Buddy if it kills him, won’t you, dear?” For the next five or six minutes Loder told me about how he’d played professional football in the Middle West. It was a straight monologue. Vivian entered, said she was ready. She’d dressed more quickly than any good-looking blonde ought to be able to dress. I hadn’t expected her to be so fast. Perhaps she didn’t like leaving Loder with me alone for too long. I don’t know. She was wearing a new mink coat and a trick hat. I’d gather she was an expensive item for any ex-pro football tackle. She’d returned too soon. I didn’t have time to get any needle playing on Loder’s record. He hadn’t said anything about Megassum, or what he was doing now.
Loder pulled on a heavy, checked coat. He unlocked the desk in one corner of the hall. From it he took a big leather brief case. He dumped the envelopes on the buffet into the brief case. He said, “Let’s go, folks.”
Vivian stood in front of the mirror to arrange the trick hat. I walked by the buffet. The bottles of ink were green, brown, black, and blue-black. I picked up one of the pens. This one had a bail-point pen point. Another had a fine, flexible pen point. I said to Vivian could she really imitate my signature?
She whirled around. She said, “No, I can’t. I can’t any more. Come on.”
I said it’d be quite a gag to find someone who could imitate my signature. I’d never thought about it before.
She answered, “You didn’t think the presidents of every one of these promotion companies and sucker outfits sat down and typed an individual letter to you and signed it, themselves, did you?”
I said I supposed not, and said I’d meet them in the garage. I had to bring my typewriter and notes from my own car. In the garage was a five-passenger 1941 Cadillac sedan. Dutifully, Vivian entered the rear. Loder placed the brief case between himself and me. I stuck the typewriter between my feet, hanging on to the work sheets. After we reached the street, I sat more easily on the seat, propping the cane next to the brief case. Loder crossed the Pike, driving the Cadillac as if it were a Mark III tank, on unrationed gasoline.
We hit fifty on the Queen’s Chapel Road. All Loder talked about was football. He talked steadily, too. In the rear, Vivian remained silent. I thought about Vivian and the bottles of ink.
Within her mink coat, Vivian sat on the rear seat. When I glanced up at the mirror I saw the pale gold of hair under the trick hat. I wondered how many months or years she’d been listening to Loder talk about football. Her face was pale, too.
At 12th and Rhode Island, Loder ended the football monologue by asking, “Where do I take you, Al? Connecticut Avenue?” He was jovial.
From the rear, Vivian said, “When you see Mr. Megassum, you’ll explain, won’t you? He was pretty much worried when he telephoned Tuesday morning and found you hadn’t been staying with us.”
I said, sure; I’d tell him.
Loder repeated his question.
I replied I’d go on to the office, later. I was meeting a party at the Willard Hotel around 0900 hours.
Loder swerved past a couple of automobiles holding to the thirty-mile-an-hour limit. He stated, “These damned nigger drivers. I tell you, Al. It makes a man’s blood boil. Watch out for that brief case, will you? The strap’s loose.”
I shoved the brief case on the seat, picking up the cane.
As he turned the car on F Street, I asked if he came from the South.
Loder replied, “I’m from Michigan, but that don’t make any difference. With the war in Europe practically over, and more and more of you fellows coming back, you’ll find plenty of citizens like me ready to get right in behind and help, too. If Washington don’t give you fellows all you’re entitled to, we’ll tear this squirrel cage down. All these fancy pants oil and steel and cotton boys aren’t going to give us a real peace. The soldiers are entitled to say what they want for peace. They ought to send soldiers like MacArthur or Patton, who got guts, out to that San Francisco conference this spring and get a real peace settled. Don’t you think?”
Coolly, Vivian suggested, “Why don’t you tell the Captain the reason you didn’t enlist, dear? You’ve a chance to try it on him and see if it works.”
Loder gave himself one of his hearty laughs. “Always in there with a crack, isn’t she, Al? Fact is, if it wasn’t for her and my responsibilities, I’d been right over there beside you, boy. Wild horses couldn’t have kept me out of it. We’ll have some talks together, now you know where you’re to stay at.”
He pulled up on the opposite side of the F Street entrance of the Willard. Loder said, “See you tonight, Al.”
I opened the door, backing out awkwardly. As I reached for the cane, it accidentally caught in the loose buckle of the brief case. The brief case plopped down on the rubber mat of the car, a dozen or so letters spilling. Loder said, “God damn it,” and tried to lean forward. His bulk and the steering wheel prevented him from moving very fast.
I picked up the letters. Two or three had dropped to the street. Vivian was opening the back door. I said I’d get them. Three oblong letters were on the sidewalk, face up. I couldn’t miss the name written on them. They were all addressed to Lt. Chester Sgnarelli, 0-90101801, 401st Company, with the correct A.P.O. address.
Seeing Chet’s name stopped me. I didn’t think. I straightened, staring at the letters. One was handwritten. Two were typed, in different sizes of type. The catch was—none of the return addresses in the lefthand corner were from the same person. All were different. Yet each one had written in, Milesburg, Ohio, where Chet used to live.
I said blankly, “You know Chet Sgnarelli?” and I should have thought—I shouldn’t have said that.
Loder’s hands thrust out, grabbing for the letters.
He was in too much of a hurry. He missed one. Again, I stooped, feeling the fury. Megassum was doing this to the G.I.’s and the officers overseas? With these letters, and God knew how many more like them previously mailed, did he expect to manufacture G.I. soreheads, in order to manipulate them when they returned? Loder snatched the letter from me.
All at once it seemed as though more lines were connecting with each other. I turned to Vivian and asked, “Didn’t Megassum hire you to fake Clark Baker’s signature on a phony contract, too?”
CHAPTER X
Loder stuffed the brief case with a sort of nervous, anxious haste, the way a casualty might push his own guts into his stomach after having it ripped open by an unexpected H.E. In the car, Vivian was laughing; it was a high laugh, unfeeling. That laugh was pulsating ice water.
The green light was on. For’ that I could be thankful. I didn’t have to wait at the corner. I crowded across to the other side, ducking into the Willard entrance without once looking back to the Cadillac. I didn’t know whether Loder had started his car or was coming after me.
From the ride in, the leg was stiff. Trying to hurry, carrying that typewriter and the work sheets, I became more aware of the leg. The leg wasn’t meant to be rapidly walked on, any more. What that leg required was pasture. Lots of green grass. Going down the marble steps into the hall, I nearly stumbled.
At the first hat-check stand, I halted long enough to get rid of the typewriter. I said to check it, please. That helped. As I continued, people seemed to be staring. I don’t suppose they were.
Probably it was partly the headache. That, and the leg being unaccustomed to walking so fast and the finding of someone sending fake letters to Chet Sgnarelli. The viper-letter writing operation must have continued for over a year, at least. That long. I wondered how many other officers and G.I.’s had received letters, in order to burn them slow and bring them back soreheads, wanting to take a poke at U.S.A., ripe for people like Megassum.
