by Lester Dent
Since it was only ten o’clock in the morning, Mr. Hassam thought, God was probably still in bed with one of his teenage friends.
The smoke from the cablegram stank like camel breath, Mr. Hassam reflected, and he got up and opened the window. He stood there looking into the Avenida del Libertador General San Martin. It surprised him to see several thousand persons gathered in the street. He could not think what the occasion might be. He could see that the crowd was made up largely of shirtless ones, but for the life of him he could not recall why thousands of the fools should be down there in the street at ten o’clock this morning. He recalled that somewhere in his desk there was a silly calendar made up by some favor-currying concern which showed all the holidays dedicated to El Presidente and his late wife. He found the calendar and looked at it. Today was La Señora De La Esperanza day, the Lady of Hope Day, which was what the shirtless ones worshipfully called the late wife. So that was it.
Mr. Hassam put away the calendar. He wondered how the project of making a Saint out of La Señora De La Esperanza was coming along. El Presidente had ordered the Catholics to make his late wife a Saint about a month ago. The Catholic faith was dominant in the country, and the church officials did not like the Saint project. You could not blame them, for she had been a real bitch. It was rumored that El Presidente had personally telephoned the Pope in Rome and told him the Saint thing had to go through right away. Mr. Hassam could imagine what a hit that made with the Pope. All those teenage girls he was getting must be giving the bastard a God complex for real, thought Mr. Hassam. If he stirred up all the Catholics, he was opening a hornet nest, and he should have enough sense left to know it.
The way the crowd was starting to gather, there would probably be fifty thousand of them under the lecher’s balcony by two o’clock, the hour he usually put in his appearance.
Where was Kirksville, Missouri, anyway? In the U.S.A. obviously, since that was where the cablegram had originated. Mr. Hassam was somewhat puzzled as to which was the town and which was the province, and the general location. He consulted an atlas. Missouri, he found, was a province in the central U.S.A., and Kirksville was a small city.
He still felt frightened. Fear was like having a drink of a strong liquor, vodka or slivovitz or bourbon whiskey, in the way it put a false feeling into a man, and the sensation did not leave the system immediately.
The telephone rang. Mr. Hassam swung about to face the instrument, his nerves tightening. He was reluctant to pick it up, but he felt he must do so.
“Who? Señorita Muirz? Put her on, of course.” It was bad business when a man grew frightened at a telephone call, he reflected. “Ah, Miss Muirz. A profound pleasure.”
“I plan to be in your office at two o’clock, Hassam.”
She sounds high-handed, he thought. He was irritated. High-handedness must be a disease they caught in bed with that bastard. Only last week when he was visiting El Presidente’s summer residence in Olivos, a teenage flip had ordered Mr. Hassam about as though he were a peon, and he had not forgotten.
His voice held its composure. “May I suggest, Miss Muirz, perhaps twelve-thirty would be best for you to come. It is Our Lady of Hope day. The street is already filling with the worshippers.”
She laughed. “Very well. Twelve-thirty. Be there. Goodbye.”
That was a very nasty little laugh she had given, and he wondered what the Our Lady of Hope worshippers would do if they heard her give it. Tear her limb from limb, he supposed, particularly if they knew she had been El Presidente’s mistress while his wife was living.
He had better be careful himself, he thought. Flor Muirz was a woman as cold-blooded and calculating as a shark, and she and Doctor Englaster and Mr. Hassam were involved in some promising plans—very promising plans if they were not found out first.
He started walking rapidly around his office. Then he noticed what he was doing. Nerves. He decided to go out for an early lunch. He put on his Panama hat, and because it was quite a hot summer day outside, he took along his palm leaf fan, a rather large fan which he suspected made him look simple-minded. Well, it kept him cool.
When the president of the bank saw Mr. Hassam leaving, he leaped to his feet and hurried out of his glass cage and walked beside Mr. Hassam and opened the street door for him. Mr. Hassam knew the man wanted an invitation to lunch, but he ignored the opportunity. The bank president was always trying to suck up to one of them, either Mr. Hassam, Doctor Englaster, or Miss Muirz, and Mr. Hassam regarded him with distaste. However it was a small thing and not important.
Mr. Hassam went to La Hermana, a very nice restaurant, and had a fine lunch. Snails, pressed duck, proper wines, coffee diablo, a Grand Marnier. The bill was eighty-seven pesos and Mr. Hassam tipped the waiter twenty more, being rewarded with a deep bow. The Panama hat, his fan, were brought him and in accepting them, he returned equal bows. He dawdled before a mirror. He was reluctant to leave, for some reason fancying the peace and security here in the restaurant alone, a touch of sanctuary. The mirror was gilt and full-length, and he noted how his white suit stretched its buttons. The big palm leaf fan did make him look asinine. As a whole he looked like not so much, he reflected, essentially a short, potty and homely pig of a man, about as silly as anything with the fan. He went outside and wedged his way through the growing throng of shirtless ones, many of whom stood with their hands clasped under their chins, praying.
When Mr. Hassam finished counting the money Miss Muirz had brought, he had the total figure as one million three hundred and ninety-four thousand dollars in terms of American money. Miss Muirz sat across the desk taking down the total of each pile as he counted it out. The money for the most part was in Swiss gold franc notes, and Dutch gulden, although there was some U.S. currency. Mr. Hassam arranged the money in piles totaling one thousand U.S. dollars each, using current New York exchange rates in the computation. As ten piles were attained, he stacked them together, since he did not have space for one thousand three hundred and ninety-four piles of one thousand dollars each on his desk.
Mr. Hassam had glanced at Miss Muirz each time he gave her a figure to add to her total, but actually he was preoccupied and hardly conscious of her presence. This was an accomplishment in itself, since there was no lack of manhood in Mr. Hassam. Miss Muirz was something.
Miss Muirz was an exquisitely formed and tawny young woman. Maybe a trifle too tawny, since she had once been a professional jai alai player and top money winner at the game, too, and it showed somewhat on her. Whenever she moved there was the impression she flowed like a cat. However, she was lovely. And accomplished. When El Presidente was only a Colonel he had stumbled several hours late into an important meeting, and, thoroughly exhausted, had whispered to Mr. Hassam that the woman had given him the goddamn night of his life. Mr. Hassam had only to look at Miss Muirz to believe it. However, manhood was not a factor in Mr. Hassam’s mind while better than a million dollars was passing through his hands. The money felt good on his fingers.
Mr. Hassam shuffled together all the piles of ten-thousand, and leaned back. “That should total one million, three hundred and ninety-four thousand.” He produced a cigarette. “Would you care to smoke?” He lit her cigarette for her.
Miss Muirz smoked with a long holder, silently, tilting her head slightly to one side to blow out thin streams of smoke.
Mr. Hassam coughed. “I burned a cablegram just before you telephoned. Had I known you were coming, I would not have burned it.”
“A cablegram?” Miss Muirz glanced through the smoke at him.
“Yes...from Brother.”
She sat bolt upright. “You mean he sent a cablegram directly to you?”
“Yes.” Mr. Hassam shuddered. “Yes, he did, and it scared me very much, which is why I lost no time in burning it.”
“The fool! He really is quite insane.”
“The cablegram said he urgently wanted to talk to one of us on the telephone.”
“Oh, Lord. He was such an idiot to do that. He s
hould know. Did he mention any names, Doctor Englaster or myself?”
“No, no names. Poor devil, he has been out of the country five years, out of touch with the situation, so he probably does not know how delicately the sword is balanced over our heads.”
“Are you going to telephone, as he wishes?”
“From this country? Not for a million dollars!”
Miss Muirz had brought the money in a suitcase, which Mr. Hassam now placed on his desk. He and Miss Muirz used both hands to scoop the money into it.
Nothing had been said about what Mr. Hassam was to do with the money. The matter had been settled earlier; it was part of an established routine. The money was one month’s proceeds from the special import tax levied on machinery imported into the country. By law it was earmarked for the Lady of Hope Memorial Fund for the needy, with El Presidente legal custodian of the fund, the latter technicality actually making it his money. It was being invested abroad, as was customary.
Now Miss Muirz handed Mr. Hassam an envelope which he found contained the card the New York banking house required its depositors to fill out. Mr. Hassam smiled at the card approvingly. “Very good indeed.” He was referring to El Presidente’s signature on the card, which was not El Presidente’s signature at all, but a forgery by Miss Muirz. He slid the envelope and card into his pocket; when he delivered the money to the New York bank, he would turn in the card with the forged signature. This was also customary. However, El Presidente had not inaugurated the custom, and knew nothing of it. The substance was that Miss Muirz’s forged signature could make a withdrawal, but not El Presidente’s genuine signature.
It was a bald scheme, and really not as simple as all that.
Mr. Hassam lit another cigarette for Miss Muirz. “Do you suppose Brother, after hunting for nearly five years, has found what he has been seeking?”
She grimaced. “I think Brother grows more unbalanced, just as you think.”
“There is not much doubt, I suppose.”
Miss Muirz went to the window where she stood smoking and looking down into the street. The street was now almost packed with citizenry.
“El Presidente is going to make them a speech at two o’clock, Mr. Hassam. He is going to scare the socks off them. He is going to offer to resign.”
Mr. Hassam swung to look at her. He became pale and had to clear his throat. “Resign? Quit the presidency! Oh, Jesus Christ, he cannot do that to us!”
Miss Muirz turned from the window with a smile. “Oh, he does not mean it. He wants to throw his shirtless ones into an uproar, so that they will demand very loudly that he stay in office forever. Then he will promise to do so, but only providing they stand with him against the Pope in Rome.”
“But they are all Catholics themselves. They will be promising to fight themselves.”
“How many of them have sense enough to think of that? It will stir up a lot of trouble for the Pope.”
“Well, I can’t see how it can work out for him. He can’t whip the Pope in this country.”
Miss Muirz laughed outright. “Oh, he has already dismissed the Pope in his mind and is considering taking on God.”
Mr. Hassam did not like blasphemy, and he blotted his face with his handkerchief, although he supposed she was right. “I don’t know how it will all come out, but none of it is good, because it may bring a crisis before we are ready for it.”
“Maybe you had better telephone Brother when you reach a safe place.”
“Are you joking again?”
“No, I am not.”
Mr. Hassam nodded. “I did not think you were.”
Mr. Hassam frequently couriered funds abroad for investment, although he was not the only one who performed such missions. Sometimes Doctor Englaster did it, and sometimes Miss Muirz. Each of them had perfected a procedure. Mr. Hassam’s method was to go by car to the airport at Olivos, which was about fifteen miles from the capitol, and from there take this private plane across the Uruguay border to Montevideo, where he obtained airline passage to New York via Miami.
That evening when Mr. Hassam reached Montevideo, he telephoned the airline office and made his reservations to New York, then placed a call to Kirksville, Missouri, U.S.A. The long-distance connection went through very quickly.
“You fool, what are you trying to do, give us all heart attacks?” Mr. Hassam was not afraid of Brother, and he was angry. “Never send me another direct cablegram. Never.”
Brother replied mildly. “This was an important matter.”
“Nothing is as important as my life where I am concerned. What have you done, found another prospect for a double? This will make about the fiftieth one you have found, will it not?”
“Oh, now, listen. Listen to me, Mr. Hassam. This time I have found the very man.”
Mr. Hassam could not be positive over a telephonic circuit of that distance, but he had the impression Brother was quite placid and confident. Could Brother really have found a double for the bastard? Wouldn’t that be something. He could hardly believe it.
“How sure are you, Brother?”
“The man has the same physical appearance, almost identical. Really shocking resemblance. Not the scar on the face, but Doctor Englaster knows enough to put on the scar. He has the same blood type. And the man is a crook. A cheap down-at-the-heels crook. He will do anything for a few thousand dollars. His name is Harsh. Walter Harsh.”
Mr. Hassam advanced a cautious thought. “How about controlling this man? Can it be done?”
“I have taken care of that. Harsh killed a man accidentally in an automobile chase. I have a witness who will perjure himself to clear Mr. Harsh of blame, or hang him in court if we prefer. We can control this Harsh.”
Mr. Hassam found difficulty in keeping his breathing at normal. They had, all of them, been hoping for years to find a physical double for El Presidente, and it was embarrassing to recall that in the beginning they had felt such a thing would be easy. It was far from easy. It had been impossible to date. Even though they did not plan to use a man to take El Presidente’s place until he went into political exile in some other nation, still it was not easy. Mr. Hassam had become personally discouraged, and so, he felt, had Miss Muirz and Doctor Englaster. But Brother, who was not exactly rational at all times, had kept at it with fanatic zeal. If they had a double for El Presidente, and if they substituted him for El Presidente when the latter fled into exile, then there were millions to be had. Somewhere near sixty-five million, American dollars equivalent, as a matter of fact. It was a lot of honey to taste in a man’s mouth, and Mr. Hassam felt himself becoming very excited.
“I will go back and tell the others.”
“Mr. Hassam, you do that. I was going to ask you to do that. You tell them to be prepared.”
“I will contact you later, Brother.”
“Yes, you do that. Contact me, but not here. I am going to be at my home in Palm Beach.”
After changing his airline reservations to a later flight, Mr. Hassam re-crossed the border to the capitol, and drove his own car, a light blue Jaguar, from the Olivos airport into town. He went directly to Doctor Englaster’s neurological clinic.
Doctor Englaster stood up and they shook hands. Englaster was a tall man, hawklike, with a personality which Mr. Hassam did not care for. Doctor Englaster was a very arrogant man when things were going well. At such times he gave the impression of regarding everything and everyone around him as so much dirt. Not that he expressed the feeling with words. It was his air.
“Buy you a drink, Doctor?” They had long ago decided there was a chance Doctor Englaster’s office was bugged, and this was to let him know the news was private and dangerous.
They went to a bar named Las Violetas which had once been third-rate but which had done well on nothing more than the strength of the fact that, in the days when he was only an army man, El Presidente had often stopped there. That was before El Presidente had a half dozen palaces, twenty sports cars, and a seraglio of teenag
e girls.
Doctor Englaster ordered vermouth for them both without consulting his companion. Mr. Hassam detested vermouth straight, although he did not mind it in a Manhattan. The way Doctor Englaster ordered vermouth was a small sample of his little arrogant mannerisms.
“Well, Mr. Hassam?”
“What do you think of this thing he is going to pull off today, Doc? Offering to resign?”
Doctor Englaster was not as surprised at the news as Mr. Hassam had been. Mr. Hassam abruptly realized, rather sheepishly, that the speech must have been made, and the resignation threat was old news. Doctor Englaster shrugged. “Well, it will work, of course. The cheers were terrific. The descamisada have turned against the church officials.”
“Temporarily, don’t you mean?”
“Oh, yes, that is how it will work.”
“How temporarily?”
“Not for long. He can never take God’s place with them. He may think he can. He may be that colossal a fool. But he will not do it.”
Mr. Hassam decided not to touch his vermouth. “Here is what I really wanted to talk to you about...Brother says he has found exactly the man he has been seeking for these five years.”
Doctor Englaster looked about nervously, and his voice dropped to a whisper. “The hell you say! Is that right? I mean, where did you see Brother? The fool, is he here, with times as they are?”
“Oh, no. He is in a province called Missouri, in the U.S.A. I talked to him by telephone.” Mr. Hassam outlined what Brother had told him concerning Harsh.
Doctor Englaster recovered his composure and again assumed his superior air. “I believe we all should have a look at this fellow Brother has found.”
“I think so, too.” Mr. Hassam pushed the glass of vermouth aside. “Do you have a good excuse for taking a quick trip to Miami?”
Doctor Englaster shrugged. “I had announced a planned vacation in Panama. I can easily disappear on a jungle hunting trip from there for a few days.”
“How about Miss Muirz?”
“She comes and goes at will, doesn’t she?” Doctor Englaster looked at Mr. Hassam meaningfully and rubbed a thumb and forefinger together as if counting money. “How much are you taking out to add to Our Lady of Hope Memorial Fund this time?”
