The Fools in Town Are on Our Side

by Ross Thomas

  “Senator Solomon Simple,” I went on. “And if I had a name like that I’d change it to Lucifer Dye. Chairman of the Senate External Security subcommittee. He doesn’t trust U.S. intelligence—any of it— and he spends a lot of government money with outfits like the ones you’ve just done business with. How much did he cost you? I mean he’s still on the take, isn’t he?”

  “I made a small campaign contribution,” Orcutt said, his tone swathed in frost. “Perfectly legitimate.”

  “Perfectly legitimate,” Carol Thackerty said from her outpost by the window, “but not so small. He nicked you for ten thousand.”

  “I refuse to have my—”

  I interrupted Orcutt. “You know how he works it, don’t you?”

  “Who?”

  “Senator Simple.”

  “Mr. Dye, I want you to know that I consider the Senator a personal friend of mine.”

  “So much the better. You should be interested in his personal welfare. He’s chairman of the subcommittee that deals with external security. It was created about three or four years ago—”

  “I know when it was created, Mr. Dye,” Orcutt said.

  “After all the ruckus about the CIA’s subsidies to labor unions, student organizations, and what have you, including one that never made the papers.”

  “What one was that?” Necessary said.

  “An international garden club.”

  “Crap,” Necessary said.

  “But still true,” I said. “Well, the Senator became the darling of the Old and the New Left as well as all the ragtag liberals who see something sinister in wiretapping, J. Edgar Hoover, the Bay of Pigs, Guatemala, and whatever it was I was doing when they threw me in jail.”

  Orcutt squirmed in his chair. Necessary was grinning happily. Carol Thackerty seemed bored by the view through the window.

  “Mr. Dye,” Orcutt said, “if you’re going to sit there and slander Senator Simple like some … some carbon copy William Buckley—”

  “I like Buckley,” I said. “I think he’s funny. I also think he’s right about one percent of the time, although that may be just a little high. But what I think isn’t important. I was talking about the Senator.”

  “It was just getting good,” Necessary said.

  “Well, Simple the Wise—”

  “I wish you wouldn’t use that name,” Orcutt said.

  “All right. Senator Simple’s subcommittee has contracted with three of the firms that you dealt with to provide him with intelligence reports that mostly concern what’s going on in China. If I remember the figures, the contracts are for one million to von Krapp in Manila, two million to Tubio in Singapore, and two and a half million to Elmelder’s outfit in Tokyo. They’re probably worth it. All of them are good, but they’re also profit conscious, which is a polite word for greedy. All of them have branched out into industrial intelligence—or espionage, if you like—and they’ve made a good thing out of it, especially in Japan. But still, those millions authorized by the subcommittee help meet the payroll. So they got together and decided to put the Senator on their payroll. I suppose you could call it a kind of intelligence cartel and the Senator gets X number of dollars deposited in Panama, Zurich, and some other place that I’ll think of in a moment. Lichtenstein. The last estimate that I heard had the Senator dragging down about a quarter of a million a year, tax free, of course. If he were to ever balk on renewing their contracts, they’d expose him. So you see, the liberals are right after all. It is a little sinister.”

  I could see that Orcutt believed me, probably because it was his own kind of a deal. “Your organization knows this?”

  “Sure,” I said. “But it’s my ex-organization.”

  “Why don’t they—”

  “Expose him?”

  “Yes.”

  “Why should they? They get the information from the Senator— even before the CIA—as soon as he’s milked it for whatever publicity value it has, if any. If it’s too hot, he turns it over to them—free. It’s usually top-grade stuff, or nearly so. The Senator’s content with his quarter of a million a year. The cartel, if you want to call it that, has got a multimillion dollar annuity as long as Simple stays in office. Of course when he comes up for election next year, they’ll see to it that some legitimate funds are dumped into his campaign.”

  “It’s all real cozy, isn’t it?” Necessary said to me. “I like it. I like it a hell of a lot.” He turned to Orcutt. “Couldn’t we sort of drop a hint to the Senator and—”

  “Shut up, Homer,” Orcutt said. “Mr. Dye, you must have had some reason for telling me this. I wouldn’t quite classify you as the town gossip.”

  I nodded. “I had a reason and the reason is Gerald Vicker. If the Senator recommended him to you then I have to assume that Vicker’s got his hooks in the Senator. I don’t much mind the others. Their information’s as good as anybody’s and sometimes a hell of a lot better. At least that’s what my organization—sorry—ex-organization thought. But Vicker’s something else. Vicker and I go back a long way. When did you first get in touch with him?”

  Orcutt looked at Carol Thackerty. “August third,” she said.

  “How much did you pay him?”

  “Twelve thousand dollars,” she said, turning her head from the window.

  “When did you get his first report?”

  “August tenth,” Orcutt said.

  “What was it?”

  “A six-page, single-spaced precis of you,” he said.

  “Detailed?”

  “Extremely.”

  “Did it say where I was at the time?”

  “In jail.”

  “Did it say when I would get out?”

  “To the day. It also said that you would be brought back to San Francisco, that you would be debriefed for from ten to twelve days in Letterman General, and that you would then be at liberty—I think that was the term he used. In fact, Vicker was most complimentary—even effusive—except for one thing.”

  “What?”

  “Well, he said that you might be a little nervous.”

  “He didn’t say nervous. Not Vicker.”

  “He said chicken,” Necessary said and grinned at me. “Are you chicken, Dye?”

  I looked at him, studying his brown and blue eyes. The right one was brown; the left one blue. “I don’t know,” I said. “I suppose we’ll just have to find out, won’t we?”

  Orcutt had been admiring the toes of his shoes again. He looked up quickly. “Does that mean that you’ve decided to accept my proposition, Mr. Dye?”

  “You mean to corrupt you a city?”

  Orcutt smiled the only way he knew how. “That was a little rich, wasn’t it?”

  “A little.”

  “Corn,” Carol Thackerty said. “Pure corn. You can never resist it, can you, Victor?”

  “Shut up, Carol,” he said. It seemed that Victor Orcutt spent a lot of time telling people to shut up.

  “Well, Mr. Dye?” he said.

  “If you’ll answer a question or two.”

  “All right.”

  “What qualifications did you specify other than a certain degree of anonymity?”

  “You mean to the four firms that I dealt with?”

  “Yes.”

  Orcutt nodded slowly. “Yes, I can see that you’d be interested in that. I was really quite specific. The candidate should be unattached, not too old, possessed of some social graces, presentable, and willing to undergo a slight risk. Availability was another consideration, of course, because our lead time is just slipping away. He should also have a certain amount of experience in clandestine activities, either for government or for private industry. Preferably he should belong to some minority group, but I had to give up on that one. He should have rather deep insight into human nature, be slightly skeptical but not so much that it clouds his judgment, and above all he must be intelligent. Not book smart, mind you, but quickish, cleverish, sharpish—”

  “Shrewdish?”
I offered.

  “You’re teasing again. I do like that. But to continue. He should also be articulate. Not a salesman, mind you, but sincere and well spoken.”

  “And you think I’m all that?”

  “No one is, Mr. Dye. But you possess a majority of the qualifications. Ones that Homer, Miss Thackerty, and even I lack. You will, shall I say, round out our team. Now that you’re virtually one of us, I can tell you about our project.”

  The city that Victor Orcutt wanted me to corrupt had a population of a little more than two hundred thousand and was located on the Gulf Coast somewhere between Mobile and Galveston. It was called Swankerton but the local wits had long ago changed that to Chancre Town, which, Orcutt said, had some basis of fact.

  He went on for quite a while and I half-listened, knowing that a recitation of facts and names and statistics was no substitute for personal appraisal. Necessary was on his fourth Scotch without visible effect and Carol Thackerty, still looking bored, kept her vigil at the window. I liked to look at her. Her profile offered a high calm forehead, a straight nose, not at all thin, just delicate, or some might even say aristocratic. She had a good chin, rounded and firm, which swept gracefully back to her long, slender neck.

  Victor Orcutt had stopped talking and was looking at me as if he expected a remark or a question. I decided on a question. “What’s the deadline?”

  “The first Tuesday in November.”

  “This year?”

  “This year.”

  “It’s not enough. You can’t even shake down city hall for the Heart Fund in two months.”

  “We’ll have to,” Orcutt said. “There’s absolutely no lead time, Mr. Dye. The persons whom I’m dealing with in Swankerton have been dilatory. They now recognize full well that they started late. Very late. That’s why I was able to demand my fee and that’s why I’m able to offer you fifty thousand dollars for two months’ work.”

  “That’s too much money for two months’ work,” I said. “But I won’t argue about it. It just means that I’ll have to do something that I don’t want to do. Something tricky probably. But the real reason I’m taking it is because Gerald Vicker wants me to. And the only reason he wants me to is because he thinks something nasty might happen to me. So do you, or you wouldn’t make the ante so high. Vicker worries me. He worries me enough so that I’ll go along until I learn what it’s all about.”

  “This seems to be a long-standing feud between you and Vicker, Mr. Dye,” Orcutt said.

  “It’s more of a vendetta than a feud and it goes back about six years.”

  “What happened?”

  “He used to work for the same people I did. I got him fired.”

  “Jealousy? Rivalry?”

  “No. It was because he killed someone.”

  “Who?”

  “The wrong man.”

  We talked some more about Swankerton and then Homer Necessary announced that he was hungry. “Just a minute, Homer,” Orcutt said and turned to me. “Your decision is firm, Mr. Dye? You will go to Swankerton with us?”

  I looked at Orcutt, took a breath, then sighed and said, “When do we leave?”

  He rose and clapped his hands together in pleasure. I thought for a moment that he might even do us a little dance. “Tomorrow morning. There’s a direct flight, but we still have so many things to discuss. You’ll join us for dinner?”

  “Fine,” I said.

  “But not here. I just can’t abide hotel food. Any hotel. Homer, go down and get the car. Carol, call Ernie’s and make a reservation for four. A good table, mind you. Do you know Ernie’s, Mr. Dye? It’s on Montgomery.”

  I told him no.

  “It’s marvelous. Simply marvelous.”

  Victor Orcutt did the ordering and everything was as good as he said it would be. We had the Tortue au Sherry; Dover Sole Ernie’s with a bottle of Chablis Bougros; Tournedos Rossini with some more wine, this time Pommard Les Epenots. There was a Belgian endive salad followed by a crêpe soufflé, coffee, and cognac. It was all simply marvelous and it only cost Victor Orcutt $162.00.

  Orcutt sent Necessary for the car while he headed toward the rear, either to compliment the chef or to pee. That left me with Carol Thackerty. She put a cigarette between her lips and I leaned over to light it.

  When she had it going she smiled and said, “I understand that you grew up in a whorehouse.”

  “That’s right.”

  “Well,” she said, “we have that much in common. So did I.”

  CHAPTER 10

  It must have been in the autumn of 1939 that I first met Gorman Smalldane. I was five then, going on six, and sober, and Gorman Smalldane was thirty-four and a little drunk. It was either a Monday or a Tuesday night, about ten o’clock, and I was at my usual post outside the door of Tante Katerine’s joy emporium, waiting to greet customers. There weren’t many and I was glad when the taxi drew up and the man in the blue suit jumped out, paid off the driver, and checked the polished brass plate to make sure that this was Number 27. That was all the identification that Tante Katerine’s establishment ever had. It was all it needed.

  Smalldane pushed through the brick wall’s wrought-iron gates, which Tante Katerine claimed came all the way from New Orleans, and made his way towards me, tacking only a little now and then. I was wearing my fancy uniform with the pillbox monkey hat. My face was powdered and painted and for added splendor two of my front teeth were missing.

  Smalldane stopped in front of me, all six feet three inches of him. He cocked his blond head to one side and studied me carefully. Then he cocked it to the other side and studied me some more. After that he shook his head in mild disbelief and walked around me to see whether the view was any better from the rear. In front of me once more, he bent from the waist until his face was no more than six inches from mine and I could smell the whiskey. It was Scotch. “Now just what in fuck’s name are you supposed to be, little man?” he said.

  “The humble greeter of clients, my lordship,” I lisped because of my teeth, backed up a step, and bowed. Then I launched into a lisping, Australian-accented, English version of the official welcome with all of its bows and flourishes and leers.

  Smalldane stood there listening to it all and shaking his head from side to side. When I was done, he bent down from the waist again and said: “You know what I think you are? I think you are a gap-toothed sissy, that’s what.”

  I gave him the full benefit of my black and white smile, bowed again, and said in Cantonese, “And your mother, drunken pig, was an ancient turtle who coupled with a running dog.” I’d picked that one up someplace.

  Still bent down, Smalldane smiled and nodded his head as if in full agreement. Then he straightened up, put his hands on his hips, and said softly: “You should guard that dung-coated tongue of yours, my little pimp for poisonous toads, or I will rip it from your mouth and shove it up your rectum where it can flap in the breeze of your own wind.” His Cantonese was as good as mine, his imagery more vivid.

  He didn’t scare me. Nothing scared me then, probably because I was spoiled rotten. But Smalldane did impress me with his size and his brilliant command of the foul invective. I bowed again, quite low, and made a sweeping gesture toward the door. “This way, my lordship, if you please.”

  “Here you go, sonny,” he said and tossed me an American half-dollar.

  “A thousand thank yous, kind sir,” I said, another archaic phrase that someone had taught me, but which—because of my absent teeth—came out with all the sibilants missing.

  Smalldane went through the door and I followed, partly because I was curious, partly because business was slack, but mostly because I wanted the cup of hot cocoa that Yen Chi, Tante Katerine’s amah, prepared for me nightly.

  I was right behind Smalldane when the madame of the house swept into the large entrance hall. She stopped abruptly, her eyes widened, and her hand went to her throat, a dramatic ploy that she copied rather successfully from either Norma Shearer or Kay Francis. I
had watched her practice it often enough before her vanity table mirror. But now, for once in her life, she abandoned her pose and ran with arms outstretched toward Smalldane, crying, “Gormy!” at the top of her voice. He wrapped her in an embrace and kissed her for a long time while I watched with clinical interest. That’s one thing about being reared in a whorehouse: displays of affection and emotion will never embarrass you.

  There were a number of half-sentences and unintelligible phrases such as “you promised to” and “I couldn’t get away” and “over two years without” and “long time” and “it’s so good to” and all the rest of the things that two persons who are fond of each other say after a long separation. I stood there, probably smirking a little, and watched and listened.

  Tante Katerine spotted me then and beckoned. “Lucifer, dear, come. I want you to meet a very good and old friend of mine, Mr. Gorman Smalldane, the famous American radio correspondent. Gorman, this is my ward, Lucifer Dye.” She must have looked up “ward” someplace because it was the first time I’d ever heard her use it.

  “Mr. Smalldane,” I said, bowing stiffly, more in the European than the Chinese manner. One of the girls from Berlin had contributed that. Her name was Use.

  “He’s an insufferable little prick, isn’t he?” Smalldane said. “Who the hell lets him paint himself up like that?”

  “I think it’s sehr aufgeweckt” she said because nobody in Shanghai then had much use for “cute.”

  “Looks like you’re training him for a job in Sammy Ching’s place down on the waterfront—if the Japs haven’t closed it yet. Sailors like little pogey bait like him.”

  “Well, you’re wrong, Mr. Gorman Famous Smalldane,” Tante Katerine said. “He’s just a little boy and he goes to school every day. For three hours.”

  “Where?”

  “Here. We teach him here.”

  Smalldane grinned and shook his head. “I bet he does learn a lot at that. And all of it useful.”

  I found the conversation fascinating, doubtless because they were talking about me.

  “He can do his multiplication through the twelveses,” Tante Katerine said, her English lapsing as her anger rose. “You want to hear him? What’s twelve times eleven, Lucifer?”