The Blindfold Test

by Barry Schechter

  “Oh, he cleaned it up, but anyway, I have this badge in my purse.”

  Parker missed the next few sentences, distracted by the thought that he could measure Fran’s ambivalence by the things she consigned to her purse. If they had an argument and he wrote her a letter, she’d carry it unread for weeks in her purse. Pinning her with the badge was just a joke, of course, but still, she’d put it in that damn purse! It occurred to him that the microcassette recorder and his tape were probably in there now. For her sake he’d have to make her listen to it tonight, even if she never spoke to him again.

  “—so I remembered what you said about our faceless man being connected with guys who carry toy FBI badges that they got from the real FBI, is that how it works?”

  “As I like to remind you, my darling, I’m impervious to sarcasm.”

  Marcy snorted.

  Fran lifted her hair off her shoulders and let it fall down her back. “I’m not being sarcastic—listen. I put my badge on and we mingled, just to see what would happen? Oh, did I mention that their beards were all on lopsided and none was a plausible color? So this guy with a blond crewcut and a black beard comes up and opens his coat. I thought—oh, you know what I thought. I’m walking away with my eyes averted and Marcy yells stop! look at the coat!” Her voice had risen to its aria register, white teeth and eyeballs at full wattage. “He was wearing a badge just like mine! Pinned to the lining!”

  Marcy said, “Frannie thought fast. Tell him what you did.”

  “I said, ‘Take me to your leader!’ ” She folded her arms, dramatic pause.

  Parker obliged. “And?”

  “And he kinda did!” Fran whooped. She opened her purse and before Parker could catch a glimpse of the tape recorder she drew out a card and snapped the purse shut. “It looks fake, but that’s part of the plan, right?” He wasn’t sure now whether she was being sarcastic or accepting the absurd facts with Alice-like earnestness. “He said this was his FBI contact.”

  She handed him the card—it was old, smeared, and faded and appeared to have been crumpled, opened, folded, and smoothed-out for decades. On one side was a rubber-stamped impression of the FBI seal; on the other, in smeared and faded but legible handwriting, was the name “Ed Vishoolis,” an address in Albany Park on the North Side, and a phone number.

  “We tried asking questions, but he was incoherent. I think he had the impression, though, that if Marcy and I were part of the same conspiracy we had to date him. So we walked away and he followed us for two blocks. Every so often Marcy turned around and yelled, ‘Will you fuck off?’ and he’d freeze for a second looking hurt.”

  Marcy said, “Finally Frannie waited for him to catch up and said, ‘Report back to headquarters at once.’ And off he went! Is there a headquarters? Maybe we should have followed him.” It was clear Marcy believed no such thing and that for her all this conspiracy talk was a lark.

  “We found a phone booth and dialed the number.” Fran tucked her hair behind her ears.

  “And?” he prompted.

  “The guy who answered sounded old. There was a TV on in the background. I asked if he was affiliated with the FBI, he said who wants to know? I said, can I take that as a yes, he asked for my name. I said Emma Bovary, he said he’d taken up literature in his retirement and Madame Bovary was one of his favorites. I said, so you’re retired from the FBI? He said he liked my voice, would I like to drop by and discuss literature? Why are all these conspiracy people so horny? I asked if he was affiliated with the FBI or not. He said, come on over, we’ll talk about it. He said that ever since his wife died he didn’t have anyone to discuss books with. I knew he was trying to make me feel sorry for him, but it was working—and he sounded like he’d been drinking. I guess I looked uncomfortable because that’s when Marcy grabbed the phone and said, ‘Do you have Prince Albert in a can?’ and hung up. So what do you think, Parker? Want to call him?”

  “We need a plan. I’m grateful you did all that detective work for me, but I don’t think you have any sense of how dangerous it could have been.”

  She blew a strand of hair out of her eyes.

  Parker asked her, “Are you at least willing to concede that there might be something to what I’ve told you?”

  Fran shrugged. She drew a shock of hair sideways to its full length and stared at it with distaste, as if wondering where all that hair came from. It was a mannerism he’d seen before, a sure sign she was fading fast.

  Parker leaned sideways to catch her eye and stroked her cheek with the back of his hand. She did an antic imitation of a lovestruck smile, batting her reddened eyes.

  “I’m sorry,” he said. “You took a risk walking up to that guy, and you were doing it for me. Thanks, kiddo. Just promise me, no shootouts, no leaping onto the hoods of speeding cars.”

  “Well,” she said thinking it over, “okay.”

  “So what do you say we call him and see what happens?”

  Marcy clapped and shouted hooray.

  “Hooray,” Fran murmured, swatting her hair down her back.

  Parker extended the phone’s cord out of the bedroom, sat down on his card-table chair, and set the phone on his lap. “In around 1970 the FBI started farming out the harrasment of their victims to freelance nuts. Maybe they still reported once in a while to an FBI handler. I don’t know how many victims there were, but the nut who followed you might not have been assigned to me. He’s probably been ‘retired’ for decades. Let’s hope your nut and mine were assigned to the same handler…I don’t know. It’s hard to figure out exactly who we’re dealing with. The conspiracy gets pretty hazy around the edges, but I suspect there might be people behind that guy we met. He’s still getting paid a tremendous amount of money, apparently. He has his own think tank!”

  Fran ignored Marcy’s sidelong glance. He punched the number. It rang five times before a man’s voice mumbled a phlegmy hello.

  “Is this Mr. Ed Vishoolis of the FBI?” Parker asked brightly. He winked. “This is Roland Batke in Pensions. I know it’s unusual to be calling this late, but things are getting backed up—you know how it is at the Bureau!” Parker forced a stagy baritone laugh. He was trying to to entertain Fran, who seemed to be coming round. She knelt next to him and put her head to the back of the earpiece; he smelled cognac and herbal shampoo. “I just need to confirm your term of service.”

  “You’re with those women, aren’t you?” his listener asked cannily. “They as sexy as they sound?”

  “As an FBI veteran, what do you deduce?”

  “Oh, you’re cute, sonny! Name!”—the voice suddenly official.

  “Roland…Actually It’s Jeffrey Parker. Sound familiar?”

  Fran leaned forward to show him an anxious face.

  “The Jeffrey Parker?” Ed Vishoolis sounded delighted at the prospect. Parker had forgotten that all these people seemed to like him.

  “Yes.”

  “I should have known this was coming,” Ed mused. “I just got a call from a guy who ran errands for me fifteen years ago—those damn women told him to report to headquarters.” (Fran put her hand to her mouth. “What?” Marcy whispered. “What?”) “You wouldn’t be recording me, would you?”

  Parker noisily slapped his forehead. “Darn, I didn’t think of it. But of course an old FBI hand wouldn’t get tricked into blurting things over the phone.”

  “We used to wonder whether you’d ever notice there was something wrong. You know what we called you? Mr. Magoo.” (Fran started to smile, then swallowed. She gave Parker her Poor Baby look.) “I suppose you want to know the meaning of it all. Why you? Where does Parker fit in? Come on over.”

  “Now?”

  “Of course if you’re afraid…didn’t you call me?”

  Parker would have liked to put if off till tomorrow when he had John Standell’s bodyguard, and it seemed idiotic to do otherwise just because
his girl had her ear to the receiver. “Okay.”

  “Oh, and bring the ladies. I want to see if they’re as charming in person.” “They’re not here,” Parker said.

  “You must think I’m stupid and deaf. Come on, I just want to be formally introduced.”

  Fran said, “We’ll be there!”

  “She’s got a mouth on ’er,” said Ed Vishoolis, “but I like that.”

  * * *

  —

  The house was one of a row of Georgians, distinguishable mostly by the color of their trim. Ed Vishoolis was a skinny man with caved-in cheeks—he looked like he’d been ill—but he stood in the doorway with his chest thrust out and his back stiff. Parker found his “hair” disturbing. Full-headed and interstellar black, it seemed another variation on a theme of recent days: designed not to look like hair but to call attention to itself as a toupee. Steady, boy, Parker told himself, just a bad toupee. Ed was probably wearing it to dress up for his guests, along with his light-blue dress shirt, black suit pants with creases, pointy black shoes, and plenty of Old Spice cologne. The man’s smile—blatantly contemptuous and condescending—was harder to dismiss, and Parker wondered what “Mr. Magoo” stories he was recollecting. Ed stopped smiling when he realized Parker was alone on the front porch. “Where are the women?” he demanded.

  “They fell asleep in the car.” Parker pointed a thumb over his shoulder at the curb behind him, where Fran’s blue Omni sat with the motor running and the heat on. He’d locked the car and activated the alarm, surprised he could set it with the motor running. “They’ve been drinking and they’d be hard to wake. I’m sorry.”

  “They both fell asleep?” Ed asked incredulously.

  “Fran fell asleep and as usual Marcy tagged along.”

  Ed glared at him. “I’ll have to verify that. Wait there.” He walked through the living room into what sounded like the kitchen, opening and closing drawers. Judging by Parker’s view from the front doorway, the house remained as the late Mrs. Vishoolis had decorated it: plastic covers, fake plants, wide-eyed animal figurines.

  Ed returned carrying a jumbo flashlight. “Let’s check it out,” he said, brushing past Parker down the steps. He switched on the light and aimed it at a black mufflerless Firebird coming up the sidestreet, its stereo thumping. A middle finger rose from the passenger side as it sped past.

  When they reached the curb Ed peered through the front window and aimed the flashlight; still asleep, Fran averted her face.

  The light glided along her thighs.

  Parker grabbed Ed’s arm, their breaths swirling in the upturned beam. “All right, enough ‘verification.’ Will you talk to me or not?”

  “I’m just trying not to shine it in her face is all.” Ed shook loose, surprising Parker with his strength, and aimed at the back seat. “The fat one, she got a boyfriend?”

  “Really, Ed, what would Mr. Hoover say?”

  The light went out, the white disc imprinted on Parker’s vision, Ed’s hollow cheeks sucking up darkness. He started back toward the house. “You want to hear what Mr. Hoover thought about you? Let’s go inside.”

  * * *

  —

  From what Parker had seen of the rest of the house, Ed’s study was the only room that didn’t show the dead hand of Mrs. Vishoolis. It contained an old walnut roll-top desk, a mahogany liquor cabinet, a leather armchair, a leather couch, bookshelves, a primitive watercolor of the Chicago skyline signed by Ed, and framed autographed photos crowding all four walls. Among the celebrities posing with Ed—who looked handsome with forty more pounds and straightforward hair—Parker recognized the late Mayor Daley, Sun-Times columnist Irv Kupcinet, sportscaster Jack Brickhouse, FBI number-two man Clyde Tolson, Fran Allison of the “Kukla, Fran and Ollie Show,” and J. Edgar himself—looking, Parker thought, like Mayor Daley compacted to his mean jowly essence.

  “Don’t sit down yet. Before I tell you anything, I’ll have to make sure you’re not recording me.”

  Parker took a step back. “You think I’m ‘wearing a wire’? Like on Miami Vice?”

  “I’m not telling you anything till I frisk you. What’s your problem?” Ed rolled his eyes. “Afraid you might like it?”

  The search was quick and professional. Ed gestured for him to sit down on the couch and asked what he was drinking.

  “Nothing for me, thanks.” Parker crossed his ankles and drummed the armrest.

  “You’ll want a drink,” Ed stated.

  “All right, gin and tonic,” but when his host curled his lip Parker said, “Why don’t I have whatever you’re having?”

  Ed poured them both straight-up whisky, sat down on the armchair, and tapped a finger against his glass. “Where do I begin?”

  Recalling Ed’s behavior on the phone, Parker wondered whether the man had really brought him here to disclose secrets or whether he just wanted company. “I don’t want to rush you, but my friends are outside, and when it comes to explaining things you guys tend to take the scenic route.”

  “You want the unvarnished truth.” Ed smiled pityingly, the alcoholic moistness of his eyes adding to the effect. “Have you heard the expression ‘Human kind cannot bear very much reality?’ You know who said that, smart guy?”

  “T.S. Eliot. You have been reading books. Can we get to the point?”

  “Right between the eyes, huh?” Parker recalled a similar tone when he asked a Thai waiter for the hottest dish in the house.

  He cocked his head, realizing that for the past half minute he’d been hearing the bleat of Fran’s car alarm. “Excuse me.” He rose from his chair and walked out of the study, heading through the living room for the front door.

  “Cold feet?” Ed called after him.

  * * *

  —

  Fran and Marcy stood a few yards off from the yipping car, hugging themselves and pacing to keep warm. Parker aimed the clicker from the front porch; the car beeped twice and shut up, succeeded by a rush of wind and leaves. The women turned to face him.

  “Come on up!” Parker called, his voice unexpectedly loud. “The meaning of everything is about to be disclosed.”

  Fran and Marcy exchanged dubious glances.

  “He’s harmless, more or less. Come on,” Parker urged, “where’s your sense of adventure? Don’t you owe it to me,” he asked Fran, “to see whether I’ve been telling you the truth?”

  She looked dubious on that count, too, but she started up the walk to the house, Marcy following.

  * * *

  —

  While Marcy smirked at the living-room furnishings and Fran yawned shudderingly, Parker tried to reason with Ed about searching them. The women had underlined their refusal by standing at the opposite end of the room with their coats buttoned.

  “Just put that back where you found it, Miss,” Ed barked across the room at Marcy, who’d picked up a yellowing doily from the arm of the couch and was holding it fastidiously between her thumb and forefinger. She returned it to its place, gave it a pat, and slowly backed away from the couch.

  Reengaging his host’s attention, Parker said, “I don’t blame you for trying to get a body search out of the deal, Ed—‘a man’s reach should exceed his grasp’—but they’re not going to change their minds. Look, do you really think they’re wearing microphones? Do you suppose they’d’ve shown up drunk if we knew what we were doing? If you can’t be reasonable about this we’ll have to leave.”

  “Tell you what, ladies.” Ed feigned reluctance but could barely disguise his avidity. “I’ll search your coats and purses.” The women exchanged wry looks.

  “Is this standard investigative procedure?” Fran wondered. “Do they teach it at the Academy along with panty-sniffing?”

  Ed was undeterred. “Strangers see the insides of your purse every time you look for your credit card.” Getting no response to that one, h
e played his strongest hand. “Come on, ladies, don’t you want to help your friend?”

  Fran unbuttoned her coat, coldly returning Ed’s stare. She held out the coat and her purse, trying to make a ten-foot pole of her arm, and Marcy followed.

  Ed tried to make a party game out of it. He patted down the women’s coats, hung them up and seated his guests round the coffee table, where he did his best to look unmoved as he turned Fran’s purse upside down and her things cascaded out—wadded Kleenex, a billfold, lipsticks, a pen, the toy badge, a change purse, a checkbook, a compact, a datebook, and plopping onto the pile last, the microcassette recorder.

  “Well well well,” clucked Ed, picking it up. “What do we have here? Very clever, except you forgot to turn it on.”

  “It wasn’t on,” Fran said slowly and anxiously, “because it wasn’t supposed to be on. It has nothing to do with you.” She rose from her chair; Ed stood up from the couch and held the recorder over his head.

  Parker stood up. “Just give it back and let’s call it a night.”

  “People usually use these babies for surveillance,” Ed told Fran. “So either you’re lying, Missy, or you lead an interesting life.”

  “It’s none of your business, asshole,” she said trying to grab it. “It’s personal.”

  That was all Ed needed to hear. Still holding it over his head he switched it on.

  Parker stepped between Ed and Fran. “She said it’s personal.”

  “So Jeff!” Fletcher was saying.

  “Turn it off.” Parker snatched at the recorder.

  Ed stepped back and turned up the volume.

  “Does Fran know what you’re up to?” Parker was asking on the tape. Ed was doing a jig step on tiptoe, waving the machine over his head.

  “That I’m trying to ruin your life?” Fletcher’s tone was as bland as Parker recalled it. “No.”

  Parker tugged at the machine, causing Ed to stumble forward, and pulled it free. Fletcher was saying, “Oddly enough, she thought she was deceiving me,” when he pressed stop.