The Fear Makers, page 8
I thought after all I might happen to return to Washington, D. C., in a year or so for a quick visit, and the office telephone number of someone like Elizabeth wasn’t a thing to turn down. Before she shifted, I said I might be detained after all. She waited while I wrote down the number in my notebook. I said, “I’ll bet you won’t be fat. Not ever.”
Maybe she smiled. She put the gear in first.
I asked, “Is your mother?”
Cool and polite, she said, “Good morning, Captain Eaton.” She let the clutch in. As the Ford started forward, she looked at me quickly. She said, “No. But she is very frivolous.” The 1932 model Ford sedan slid ahead into traffic as if it had fifteen cylinders and a turbo-supercharger.
As I walked toward the building I was puzzled by why the fact of her mother not being fat had anything to do with her mother being frivolous. It was too deep for me. And I wished Elizabeth hadn’t mentioned that business about a boy. I wondered how old she thought I was. I was glad my old man wasn’t around; he’d have laughed himself sick and agreed I wasn’t more than nineteen if I’d done any protesting to her.
I almost wished I’d told Elizabeth I was twenty-nine. I didn’t need anything extra from anyone, either on account of how I might have inherited from my old man one of those dopy pans a few people seem to think means the guy just came out of short pants; or, on account of the cane; or, on account of anything else that might have happened to me that I didn’t even know had happened until I was told.
No, all I needed was to be treated like anybody else who was trying to get home and maybe of an evening find a girl who’d like to go to a movie or for a ride when the honeysuckles were in bloom.
CHAPTER V
By 1000 hours I’d gone over enough of the work sheets to know their general trend. The interviews were distributed fairly evenly with the exception of the Pont Dulac area. Here, the lower income classes were skimmed over lightly.
Barney Bond entered and said as soon as I was finished, Miss Nelson was to take the sheets to give to the typists. It wasn’t necessary for Megassum to see the sheets again. The field men in Pont Dulac had to get them in a hurry to complete the survey before the election.
I said that was fine, but perhaps Megassum ought to see the sheets once more, at least for Pont Dulac?
“Why?” said Barney, smiling a little.
I told him why. I said the questions we were planning to ask might stand provided all elements in every city were asked and we got a fair distribution. If we went ahead on those questions in Pont Dulac, asking only the guys with dough, with businesses of their own, and farmers, we’d get a distorted report. It would appear that everyone in Pont Dulac wanted to throw labor out on its ear and that the average citizens were simply waiting for the returning soldiers to have them help do it.
He asked, “For the sample given, you agree the statistics are accurate?”
I said, sure. But he knew statistics could lie.
He had his smile. “I’ll tell Megassum. By the way, you managed to locate a hotel room for last night? I forgot to ask yesterday.”
I told him I’d found a place. Next, on an impulse, I mentioned about having my tire slashed.
“Hoodlums?”
I said I didn’t know. I was considering asking Megassum if he had any ideas on that subject.
He moved to the door and said very evenly, “I do believe you are wrong there. Megassum wouldn’t have you followed in an effort to prevent you from leaving Washington. I’d assume, rather, he probably is quite eager for you to leave now you have signed with him.”
That one, I told him, I didn’t get.
He dabbed at his mouth. He opened the door. He glanced into the hall and back at me. “Suppose you remained here and found more things wrong in more of our surveys?”
I must have looked at him pretty hard.
“You’re on a contract, aren’t you? Your name is valuable, isn’t it? You can be in California and we can still use your name, can’t we?” He stuffed his handkerchief into his pocket. “Lunch?”
When I nodded, he shut the door and I was trying to decide about seeing Megassum, myself, when Senator Walder’s secretary telephoned. That was bad news. The Senator was caught by an emergency appropriations meeting. The secretary asked if I might be staying over until tomorrow.
I said I was sorry. The secretary said she was sorry, too, because she knew Senator Walder had hoped to see me. I promised to write him after I reached the Coast.
It was 1020. So I went in to see Megassum and told him the survey was unevenly distributed and from what I’d seen it looked to me as if he were planning a phony for Pont Dulac, to release a statement there that everyone in the town was against labor in the hope voters would be influenced and jump on the band wagon and vote against the P.A.C. and whoever the unions considered would make a good mayor.
Megassum didn’t explode. He lit himself a new cigar and asked, “Is there anything wrong in publicity, old man? If Sidney can do it, why can’t we?”
I said it was fine for Sidney Hillman to do it or anyone else, the National Manufacturers’ League, the Chamber of
Commerce, the Board of Real Estate Dealers, the Bankers’ Association. Anyone. One side did it; and the other side did it. Only a polling outfit didn’t take sides.
He wriggled the cigar in his mouth. “Jesus,” he said, with sudden irritation, “I asked Barney to work up the samples.”
I said was Barney running this show? .
It was one of those things and I don’t know why I said it, but Megassum’s clay-colored face drained and got splotchy. He said, “To hell with him. I’m running this. Give me a memorandum on what’s wrong.”
That was fine, too. I said I’d dictate a memorandum during the next half-hour and then shove.
He asked, “What about Senator Walder? You aren’t forgetting again?”
When I explained, he got out of his chair. “You can stay one more day and see him, can’t you? He’s important. With him signed, we’ll be able to bring in more prestige accounts. You stay until tomorrow. That’ll give me time to show you the speech our radio experts are working on for you to deliver from California. You’ll like it.”
I gave up asking him those questions I was preparing for him this morning. I had the answers. I understood. I’d gone ahead and signed a contract for easy money and now I was expected to stay one more day. So I told him I stayed just one more day to see Senator Walder, but what radio speech was I giving?
For about fifteen minutes he gave me the details of this radio program. In Pont Dulac, his publicity and contact men were lining up time on the two local stations. The guy running for mayor was to introduce me to the local audience just before my voice came on, piped in from California.
I said which one of the guys running for mayor? Usually, there were more than one.
“A very staunch man,” said Megassum. “James Hyndricks. He deserves the soldier vote. Next year he’ll run for
Congress. With all the publicity you’ve had, a short talk from you won’t hurt.” He changed the subject. “Where did you stay last night?”
First it was Barney, now he was asking. I told him I’d found a place and walked out.
Somehow, I felt sick. Instead of writing a memorandum to Megassum I took the elevator and went across the street to a drugstore and after swallowing three aspirins in a glass of soda water, I put through a telephone call to Rodney Hillyer. As soon as I told him who it was, immediately he enquired if I was coming over for that drink and to learn about his five times. He sounded friendly.
I replied possibly we might make it sometime late tomorrow? I was hanging on here one more day. I said what I’d appreciate now were file copies of the newspaper stories on Clark’s death, with the follow-up.
For a few seconds I believed the telephone had gone dead, he waited so long. He said, “That’s what we reporters call a coincidence.”
I asked how so?
“Yesterday I asked Enid to dig up the stuff for me. I suppose you’d like photostat copies?” His voice was absolutely deadpan.
It seemed as though the telephone booth closed in closer around me, the space growing darker. I tried to keep my reply as deadpan as his. I said I’d be obliged.
“It’s no trouble. Only, it’ll take until tomorrow. The lad who used to handle our newspaper morgue had his picture on the front page two days ago for killing a few Japs in the Pacific.” The voice became bitter. “But I’ll have you something, soon. I could have you our little Enid, too. She’s a journalism major from Columbia and very beautiful and I learned yesterday she has been keeping a special file on our Captain Allen Y. Eaton. I guess she thought you were going to kick off last year, even after they lugged you home. Little Enid had all the dope for a nice spread. Seriously—” Some of the bitterness vanished. “Little Enid wouldn’t mind meeting you. She’s doing the Clark Baker thing very smartly, keeping her mouth shut. If you haven’t been doing anything with the babes of late, our little Enid is worth seeing.”
I said maybe he could take care of our little Enid for the present and still keep her on the photostatic job?
He said, “Oh, sure. I’ll take her out myself and tell her what a great friend of yours I am.”
I said I hoped he’d mean it if he told her that. For about a second he didn’t reply. When he did, his voice stuttered a little. “One of these days when you’re ready for it, I’ll write a real story on you coming back home, Allen.” He hung up first.
Once more in the office I put through a couple of more telephone calls, not caring if anyone at the office switchboard listened in on these. The Senator’s secretary said she knew the Senator would be pleased I’d changed my mind. She made an appointment for me to see him at two o’clock tomorrow, Wednesday.
Yesterday, I’d expected to be well into Ohio by two o’clock, 1400 hours, Wednesday, and going strong for home, crossing the big river that night.
Next, I used the number Elizabeth Werner had given me. Voices came through and by and by she was on the line and it was good to hear her voice and she knew mine, right off, which surprised me; and she said she’d be delighted to pick me up and return me to Hyattsville. At five-thirty, on the corner? I said at five-thirty, right on that corner, thank you very much. She hung up first.
Before I met her at five-thirty, I’d knock off at the office early and take time out to hunt up a room for tonight in Washington, D. C.
Possibly out of contrariness—or put it down as an experiment—I took the phone again, to call Megassum and tell him I was leaving the office early today and wouldn’t be able to finish the memorandum he’d asked for. I’d have to mail it to him from California. If he took that without yelling, it would be about all the proof anyone required that he didn’t want that memorandum any more than I wanted another can of dried G.I. eggs, or Spam for breakfast.
When I rang his office, Miss Nelson answered. He was with a client, gone for lunch. I said I might not come back after lunch. She tinkled some of her laughter, very lovely and beautiful, and stated I wasn’t to consider I had to ask anyone permission just to leave early.
She said, “He was so pleased Monday morning when he came in and found the telegram that you were coming to work here, I’m just sure he won’t care a bit if you leave after lunch.”
It was like getting an unexpected punch in the throat; it was hard to speak. Finally, I asked—what telegram?
“The one our Mr. Holworthy sent after meeting you on the train—or was that to be a secret?” She giggled. “You won’t tell Mr. Megassum? That awful Barney Bond told me you wouldn’t tell, either, and he bet me you didn’t even know. Everybody tries to keep secrets from everybody else around here, don’t you think?”
I said, yes, I thought so; and hoped my voice sounded all right.
I guess it was satisfactory, because she was saying, “With Mr. Megassum out, I’ve almost finished my work, too. I was thinking I might pop over to the bar of La Salle du Bois for lunch and something nice and awfully tall to drink. Have you been there?”
I said ordinarily I liked bars for lunch but I’d pass it up today, if she didn’t mind.
= 2 =
To strengthen my memorandum to Megassum, I had all the summary cards for the state of Michigan pulled from our file and document room. Perhaps I should explain. the room was enlarged from the old days, an I.B.M. machine installed, and about five filing clerks, the system remained the same. In here were filed all the data from our surveys extending over the past ten years. These summary cards were the heart of the business. They contained the essential information on population, income groups, racial distribution, changes and shifts in public opinion, and were completely up to date.
These cards, particularly those on Pont Dulac, confirmed my opinion regarding the job Bond had done on the statistical preparation of the poll. I started dictating. It was slow; the words wouldn’t come. I kept thinking about that telegram sent to Megassum, informing him I was arriving. The only man who knew I was arriving was that stranger, Brown, or whatever his name was, on the train Sunday night from Boston. I couldn’t put the thing together; it didn’t join. It mixed in with my slashed tire and Clark being dead and supposedly selling me out.
I’d forgotten the time. I hadn’t realized it was noon until Barney poked his round head in the door and asked what about our going to lunch.
I had lunch with him. Right away he told me how he’d been a spastic as a kid. Although it had disqualified him for the army, he’d almost trained himself out of it now. He said he supposed I’d noticed the way it was with him this morning.
I said I was too busy thinking people were watching my leg to think about how other people looked.
That must have been the best thing to say. He acted pleased. He told me how tremendously happy he was that I was going to stay another day.
“There is so little time for us to talk,” he said; and he said it again, too, his mouth twisting, the white froth sticking to his lips. He dabbed at his mouth with his handkerchief and when the waiter came ordered himself a double chocolate malted milk, a pear and cottage cheese salad, and a coconut custard pie. While he ate, he started talking about his hobby.
Now and then I tried with some questions. I asked what else our shop did besides issuing boilerplate insides with advertisements to small town newspapers which I had seen tacked up on the display boards along the walls, a release on weekly opinion, and train multiple sources for whispering campaigns as that guy with the big nose was doing for Megassum in the room at the rear where my former office had been?
He was so busy eating and talking about his hobby, he didn’t have time to answer my questions.
His hobby was a thinking machine. I’m not joking. As he was explaining about it, I tried to think back to one of my classes at the university on the history of mathematics. I asked hadn’t George Boole invented a contrivance of that sort somewhere between 1850 and 1855?
He swallowed a mouthful of custard. He put down the fork. Eagerly he replied, “Boole might have thought of such a machine. Boole hinted at it in his book ‘An Investigation of the Law of Thought,’ but Jervon really invented the first thinking machine in 1756.”
For half an hour he talked about how his machine had a set of wooden rods, each one to be labeled by a logical proposition. Pushing in a set of propositions developed a logical conclusion. He had a three-room apartment off Chevy Chase Circle. One room was a workshop. He said he wished I had time to see his machine. He’d read Vaihinger, Korzybski, and Richards, too.
He wasn’t crazy. He was brilliant. He did have something in a thinking machine provided one agrees all problems may be solved by applying mathematical notations to the entire range of formal symbolic logic. I suppose, what he was attempting to do was to devise a sort of semantic calculating machine.
Suddenly he broke off. “Look here. I’m not boring you, am I?”
I said on the contrary, it was one of the most interesting things I’d heard about in a long time. And I meant it.
His face trembled. I’d hazard he never did have many friends. He said, “It’s wonderful to find anyone so understanding. I wish you didn’t have to go tomorrow. You understand important things. I wish I’d been with you when you and Clark Baker were running this shop. You know Megassum isn’t the man to handle it.”
I said Megassum seemed to be making money for himself. Contemptuously, Barney said, “I got him those clients for the Michigan survey. He was afraid to take it at first. Now, he’s afraid to take more.” He eagerly leaned forward, almost upsetting his malted milk. “May I speak in confidence a few minutes longer with you? Suppose we speak plainly with each other? The postwar era will be ripe for a properly developed plan of psychological attack in all fields of enterprise, based on the polling operations as a cover for action.”
I said hold on a minute, or something like that…“Megassum isn’t doing it properly, Allen. May I call you, Allen? If you and I wanted to take over this outfit, in a few years we’d be rich.” He blinked at me, with the soft, sweet, candid smile. “I’m not telling you anything. You had most of the theories down in that thesis of yours, the one you did on the sociological approaches to propaganda—”
Mentioning that old thesis almost brought me out of my seat. For my M.A., I’d done that thesis, and it was a tolerable theoretical job, I suppose, all the techniques of lying and deceit properly studied, with overtones probably from Pareto, who was great guns in the academic halls at the time because of his assumed influence on the social structure of Fascism. Mussolini was going pretty big guns, then, too. I asked where the hell had he ever read that thesis? What did he mean by assuming there was anything new or believable in it? It was dated. It was badly dated.
“When I came here, Megassum asked me to go through all the office files. I had them moved into my office. I found your thesis in Clark Baker’s personal files. He’d had it bound.”
I never knew that…
