Institute

by James M. Cain

  “But not as much as trying to do everything yourself. And, while we’re on the subject, what other help will you need once we’re actually going?”

  “Christ, we’re rolling now.”

  “Yeah, yeah, yeah, but—”

  “Secretaries, for one thing.”

  “We take that for granted. What else?”

  “A librarian. I have one in mind—a Dr. Chin. He’s Chinese.”

  “Okay, get him. What else?”

  “Chief researcher and probably four assistants—one for each main period of our history, for each of our main wars—Revolutionary, Civil, First World, Second.”

  “That sounds fine. What else?”

  “A genealogist. You may think that’s funny, but it’s something every biographer faces. For some reason, he’s expected to give the family tree for any person he writes on; but it’s special stuff and—”

  “You have someone in mind?”

  “A man named Davis, at the Library of Congress. He’s due to retire soon, and—”

  “Then he can be had?”

  “I think he would jump in our lap.”

  “Okay, tell him, jump.”

  “One other thing: our building—”

  “... will be ready in a couple of months.”

  He had an odd look on his face. He went on: “Those canvas wraps you see in the front of the building are to cover certain special alterations, such as a black granite front with brass lettering. But not a word of this to my wife. I want it to be a surprise. If she gets curious about it, just say that the contractor can’t be hurried. The permit, especially for the sign, as they called it at the District building, was more trouble than the rest of the building put together.”

  Back in Washington and into the Garrett Building to start lining things up, especially to find a secretary for me. When I called Hortense about one, though, she knew exactly the right lady, who started the next morning. She was middle-aged, gray-haired, and spectacled. She wouldn’t have been my choice, of course, but she turned out to be good at her job. She suggested two girls to help out with the typing, answering the inquiries that kept coming in, picking up our mail at the Post Office, and running errands. But I needed the investigators most of all and happened to think of a retired professor at the University of Maryland who, I suspected, could size up applicants just by the way they typed. His name was Carter. I called him, and he was immediately interested. He also had a friend, just retired from the University of Pennsylvania, whom he would like to work with him. So I called this man, a Dr. Johnson, and hired him, too, on Carter’s say-so. The day after that, they checked in, and Sam Dent found them offices. By now I had an office; Miss Koehler, my secretary, had an office; the two Ph.D. “gumshoes” had an office between them; and my two extra girls had offices. I must say, Dent treated me well. God knows how he did it, but he managed somehow. I was indeed “rolling,” with things well under control.

  By Saturday night, with the new phone number in service and the wires, mail, and occasional press inquiries answered, I could sit back and relax and let Hortense do me a steak, which she did. But she seemed oddly withdrawn. After awhile I asked: “What’s the trouble? Have I done something?”

  “Yes, I guess that’s it.”

  “Like what?”

  “I’ll tell you, all in due time.”

  But it wasn’t until we were tucked into bed and she was in my arms that she whispered: “Lloyd, I’m pregnant.”

  “Well! I did do something, didn’t I?”

  “I got the lab report yesterday. I didn’t want to tell you until you were out from under some of the pressures that have been plaguing you.”

  “The rabbit died, huh?”

  “They don’t use a rabbit now. There’s some other test that’s more certain. Positive, it said.”

  “How do you stand on time?”

  “On time? What do you mean ‘on time’?”

  “How far gone are you?”

  “With the life we lead, it’s pretty hard to tell. But two or three weeks seems about right. Maybe three. No more than four.”

  “Then there’s plenty of time.”

  “For what?”

  “Surgery, I would assume.”

  She lay still for a long time without saying anything. “I would have to think about that,” she said finally.

  “And in the meantime? What’s permitted?”

  For a moment, she drew a blank, then: “Oh that! Why, everything ... not only permitted; it’s required. He needs it—or she does, whichever—for ... encouragement. Psychological normality. What you make me feel, he feels, too, of course—or she does.”

  “Then what are we waiting for?”

  “You sweet goof.”

  The next day she didn’t go into town. She sat around with me, first by the window, looking out, then by the fireplace where I had built a fire because the heat hadn’t come on yet. Besides, it was chilly outside. And when she wasn’t doing any of these, she would walk around the apartment. That night, again in my arms, she said: “I’m not going to have it done.”

  “The abortion? ... Well, it’s up to you.”

  “I was warned when I had my miscarriage that if I ever had an abortion, it could mean the end of me—not my life but my capacity to have children. And I want this child. Deep down in me, I’ve been wanting it, wanting to have one by you. That’s what’s made me so careless—with that damned pill. Now you know, I wasn’t really careless. I just hated it, hated the purpose of it.”

  “Then that’s that.”

  “It is, Lloyd. It has to be.”

  “How can they be so sure?”

  “You mean the doctors? Of what it would do to me? Lloyd, nothing is really sure about a woman’s internal works. They explained it to me, I guess—with pictures and diagrams and all sorts of warnings about having a natural birth and not letting them do a Caesarian. I suppose I understood it. Anyhow, it convinced me that once this happens to me, I have to go through, or else. But you want me to have it, don’t you?”

  “Have what? The child?”

  “The abortion.”

  “Give me a minute to think what I mean.” At the end of a very long minute I said: “I want you to talk to Mr. Garrett—about a divorce.”

  “That’s just what I don’t want to do.”

  “It’s what you have to do.”

  “Lloyd, who says I have to?”

  “God says so, Hortense. At the end of nine months, minus two, three, or four weeks, an eight ball will roll over us so big it’ll mash us flat—unless by then you’re divorced and we can be married honestly, as we are in all ways right now, except the one way that’ll do our child some good.”

  “But why can’t I wait? Why do I have to rush?”

  “I’ve just told you. In nine months, minus—”

  “But, Lloyd, we have a triangle here—you, me, and him. He’s up to something, too! Why can’t I wait him out? So he comes to me. So he brings the subject up.”

  “The subject of divorce?”

  “Of course! What else?”

  It had a deep, crafty sound, but to my mind wasn’t deep and not in any way crafty. It was simply, I thought, putting her head in the sand, hoping that if she did nothing, things would turn out all right. Because I loved her, however, I pretended to buy it big, telling her: “O.K., then, so be it. At least we know this much—something goes on up there.”

  “Up where, Lloyd?”

  “Wilmington. Hortense, he knows. He has to know. We know he knows. O.K., then, we take it from there. Why is he being so nice? What is he up to, anyhow?”

  “That’s it! That’s what I mean, Lloyd!”

  So, O.K., we wait him out. He has to break cover eventually.”

  “You know what they say that about?”

  “I’ll bite. What?”

  “Tigers.”

  17

  SO WE WERE IN business, and just to make it official, I named an “executive committee,” three members of our board,
to ratify my decisions and, of course, draw moderate salaries. I called Davis and got his acceptance—his enthusiastic acceptance, I might add. But in regard to him, one funny thing happened. By this time I was making weekly trips to see Mr. Garrett, and one day he said to me: “Davis was in—happened to be passing through and dropped in to pay his respects.”

  “Oh? Well, he’s an old-time bureaucrat. They polish their apples ... always. It’s automatic with them. ‘Corridor politicians,’ they’re known as.”

  “He’s after your job, Lloyd.”

  “He’s what?”

  “Bucking for director.”

  “He is an old-time bureaucrat, isn’t he? What did he say, if you don’t mind my asking?”

  “Nothing. I go by the look in his eye. But if I can see it, you can see it, and my reason for mentioning it is: don’t be upset. Use him. Let him scheme his head off. Your job is safe, whatever he does.”

  “Well ... thanks.”

  “He’s an oily son of a bitch.”

  “With me, he acts like a brother.”

  “Don’t trust brotherly love too much.”

  Davis was in his midfifties, above medium height, slim, well-conditioned, and gray, with a quick, eager smile, as though what you just said was the most profound thing he had ever heard. He had a way of taking off his glasses and studying you two-eyed with a stare much more intimate than a four-eyed stare would have been. Sam Dent fixed him up with an office, but he was underfoot all the time, dropping in on me with bright and cheerful news about how long he had been a fan of mine, from back in my college days to my days playing football.

  But he happened to live in Riverdale, down the road from me, and when he dropped by the apartment one night without any advance notice, that was bad. Fortunately I was dressed, though Hortense was already in bed. So, thinking fast, I played it friendly, having Miss Nettie hold him and tell him I would be down. I bounced into the lobby, glad-handed him, and apologized for not asking him up, explaining that the apartment was “in a mess.” He said he had an errand in College Park and had dropped by to ask me out for a drink. I thanked him, saying: “That’s a great idea, but I have some things to do. Could I take a rain check on it?”

  In a few minutes he left, but Hortense was all jittery when I got back upstairs. “Lloyd,” she said, “I’m so scared, and I don’t even know what of.”

  “Me too.”

  “What are you scared of, Lloyd?”

  “That’s it. I don’t know.”

  Unfortunately, I did know, and so did she.

  In bed one night not long after that, Hortense whispered: “Know what I did today? I hired a private detective.”

  “Oh God, that’s all it needs.”

  “What are you Godding about?”

  “Don’t you realize that he’s bound to find one of those bugs in his office, apartment, or wherever, and when he does, he’ll know who put it there? Hortense, we’re on the spot, and you’re the one who said it: we’ve got a tiger by the tail. You’re the one who said let’s not go borrowing trouble—or whatever it was you said. And here now, you do the one thing that could louse us but good. Because, if I were in his place, the one thing that would really burn me up would be a gumshoe on my tail.”

  “Are you done?”

  “You call that guy off!”

  “I’ve already paid him, Lloyd. His retainer, he called it. A shocking amount of money.”

  “I don’t care what you paid him. Call him off.”

  “No, I won’t.”

  “Boy oh boy, this is all we need.”

  “I thought of all that, what you just said, what it would mean if Richard caught me. So the first thing I said was that though I wanted to find out what is going on, I wanted no bugs or things of that kind. And that detective just laughed at me. His name is Mr. Hayes and he was awfully nice. I picked him out of the yellow pages, something about his ad seemed honest and decent. His office is in Bladensburg. Lloyd, he said: ‘Such stuff is for books or movies or television. We never use it.’ I asked him what he did use, and he said: ‘There’s no mystery about it. We just ask around in a natural way, so as not arouse suspicion, and in a case like this, we generally turn up what’s wanted. Because when a man starts playing around—especially a prominent, wealthy man—the woman he’s playing around with talks. All the king’s horses and all the king’s men can’t keep her mouth shut. With her, it’s a piece of news she wakes up with every day and goes to bed with every night. So we find out who she talks to and let that person spill it. There’ll be no trouble about it—and no backwash.’ Then I said I knew who it was, but that I felt I had to be sure before going further, and—”

  “Hey, wait a minute! When did this happen? Who is is, Hortense? And how did you find out?”

  “Don’t you know who it is?”

  “I haven’t the faintest idea.”

  “It’s that creature. That floozy. Teddy.”

  “You’ve got to be putting me on!”

  “Why would I be? In God’s name, Lloyd, I couldn’t put anyone on, not about this, I couldn’t. I’m in a desperate spot, as you might recall.”

  “What makes you think she’s the one?”

  “He’s been seen with her, that’s what. He takes her to lunch right in the Conrad Hilton. He’s had her up there in Wilmington at the Du Pont for lunch, for dinner, for God knows what else. She has a mink coat worth at least five thousand dollars. She didn’t get that by her own unaided efforts.”

  “Or maybe she did.”

  “Well, now you’re making sense.”

  “He did like her, that I have to admit.”

  “And we know what she likes, absolutely.”

  “Hey, don’t you?”

  In just a few weeks we had granted aid to six writers, one of whom was John Garner, a well-known biographer. The others weren’t so well known, though all had been published, and all were embarked on large-scale projects. Garner’s project—Paul Revere—had an interesting angle. “I’ll go into a riddle,” he told me, “that no one has ever touched on so far, and yet it’s there. He was a silversmith, everyone knows about that. But where did he get his silver? None was mined in the colonies, and any silver imported from Mexico, Peru, or wherever had to be paid for in gold. But there was no gold, and the lack of gold, together with Parliament’s restrictions on paper money, for the benefit of English creditors, was one of the big causes of the American Revolution. If I can come up with an answer, I may make a contribution.”

  I gave him my blessing and he was appreciative, not only to me but to Davis as well, who was continually helpful to everyone, and to Carter and Johnson, my gumshoes, whose original report had O.K.’d him. I should have been excited about the prospects, and in a way I suppose I was, but with “modified rapture,” as Koko put it. Because, while these various scholars had gone through the motions of thanking me, only Garner seemed to mean it. As a class, biographers turned out to be a monstrously churlish bunch. They acted as though they were doing us a favor by taking a hundred dollars a week. Once their thanks was given, they treated me like a lackey, Davis like dirt underfoot, and Carter and Johnson like subjects of a grand jury inquest. Davis would laugh at the look on my face, shake his head, and say to me: “Dr. Palmer, you haven’t seen anything yet. Wait till you sign on with the Library of Congress, then get cornered by some busty bitch who wants to make Dame but so far only rates Daughter, and listen to her give out with what a bum you are for not being able to turn up the roster of Company B, Third New Jersey Riflemen for the year 1777. After that, which I put up with for twenty-two years, this bunch looks like a welcoming committee.”

  “But I’ve always liked and respected biographers.”

  “That’s where the trouble starts—they like biographers, too.”

  “I guess you have a point.”

  18

  I WAS PLEASANTLY SURPRISED at the invitation that came from the National Newspaper Club to address one of their luncheons and, of course, accepted. They were
very cordial to me, inviting the Garretts, Davis, and Sam Dent at my request and giving me quite a buildup in their announcement. My talk was one I had given earlier to my classes at Maryland and other places, but this time I took extra care with it, especially the first part, the survey of American biography, which I tried to make short but not too short while at the same time keeping it interesting. Comparing it with the English and occasionally the German and French, I waved the flag a little, explaining in some detail how, and not only how but why, American biography leads the world. I touched on the English libel laws, “which are so silly that only in unusual cases does a writer dare choose as a subject someone living or only recently dead.” I went on to criticize the English version of Who’s Who, “which only occasionally names the subject’s mother and never names his children. In Who’s Who in America, since the time of Wheeler Sammons, all the subject’s children are named; but in the English Who’s Who, one son and two daughters are considered enough to cover the subject. Well, that’s a big help, isn’t it, to the scholar who wants exact information?” That got a laugh, and I went on to our Institute, exploring the idea of it and demanding a hand for “our guide, friend, and generous backer, Mr. Richard Garrett.” It really crackled out, and he seemed moved as he took a bow. Then I demanded another “for the gracious, understanding, and beautiful little lady whose name our Institute bears and who had labored so indefatigably with us to bring it into being, and who is with us today—Mrs. Hortense Garrett!” For her, they made it a standing ovation. She got up, blew kisses, and started to cry, so Mr. Garrett got his handkerchief out, wiped the tears away, and let her blow her nose. The little toot she gave was the biggest laugh of the day, and, of course, got a big hand. I couldn’t top it, so I thanked them and sat down.

  According to the Club’s tradition, there is a question period following an address. Byron Nash, the president, was ready with several that had come up in writing while I was talking. I fielded them fairly well, occasionally getting a laugh—like the one on subjects I thought were being neglected, which biographers should give their attention to.

  “It’s not the Institute’s policy to coach its writers,” I said, “or to press ideas on them; but of course there are curious gaps in our literature that fairly cry out to be filled. For example, who was Mason? Or Dixon? They ran the most celebrated survey of all time, yet I find no more than a few lines about them in any reference work. Then there’s Sally Benson who died just a few months ago. She was good-looking, gifted, and well known, but if you can find one word about her in any reference book, you have better eyes than I do. Then, of course, there’s Bill Bailey—a real person, don’t forget. I would call his fine-tooth comb the great mystery of all time.”