The Blindfold Test

by Barry Schechter

  He turned his back on Ed, who was muttering “Okay, sonny boy, let’s finish this,” and held out the recorder to Fran. She stood rigid in a paralysis of self-control, freckles vivid against her drained face. She stared at the recorder, then took it, never looking at Parker. He extended his arms to hold her and still without meeting his eye she shook her head. It seemed within the realm of possibility that she’d never want to look at him again.

  “I’m going out to the car to play the rest of this,” she said addressing no one in particular, her voice small. “Please give me a few minutes.”

  Parker handed her the ring with the car-door key and the clicker. She shook her head at Marcy’s offer to come with her. Holding the purse open, she swept her things into it with her flattened palm. Ed brought her her coat and was no doubt trying to think of something to say as she put it on. “I’m sorry,” he said, watching her open the door. The wind and the rasping leaves made him raise his voice. “I didn’t know it was—’

  “Personal?” She gathered the mass of her black hair from beneath her collar and released it to the wind as she brushed past him.

  Ed looked pathetically at Marcy. “Tell her I was just teasing.”

  “I’ll wait outside,” she said tersely. “Can I have my coat?”

  Through the door pane, Parker watched Fran open the passenger side, tilt the seat forward, and stoop into the back. The interior went dark when she closed the door, and he tried to see her face behind a blob of reflected streetlight. “You might as well get mine, too, he said to Ed. “I guess those secrets were so much hot air.”

  “Think so? Well look at me, smartass. I want to see your face when you hear this hot air. So you want it straight, huh?”

  Parker turned to meet Ed’s reddening face and malicious grin. “Spit it out, Ed. And the secret is—well, come on!”

  “You stand right there, sonny boy. I want to see your face.” Ed held up both hands, thumbs extended, and framed Parker’s face.

  “Here we go round again—except I’m getting off. Just get our coats.” Fran was a smudge in the back seat.

  “J. Edgar Hoover—” Ed began portentously.

  Parker turned from the door pane and put his face close enough to Ed’s to see the cracks and stringy veins beneath his eyes. “Yeah? J. Edgar Hoover what?”

  Ed stood his ground, exhaling fumes. “You’re here, so you must know about the Breather Program, but I’ll bet you don’t know how you were picked. The Director was looking for some nobody in the antiwar movement.”

  “I know that.”

  “And so,” Ed continued, “he went through the files looking at photos. I wasn’t there—I worked out of the Chicago field office—but I have it on good authority that the director didn’t like your face.”

  Marcy giggled; Ed folded his arms awaiting Parker’s reaction.

  “So—go on.”

  “That’s it. I guess it hasn’t sunk in, aye, sonny boy? Your life was ruined because someone didn’t like your face.”

  Parker let it sink in. “So?”

  Ed looked stunned.

  “I’m sorry,” Parker continued, “but I don’t see how that’s any worse than if he picked my name at random. What’s your point?” He’d come here prepared to face the worst—almost looking forward to it—and he couldn’t help feeling disappointed.

  “The point is, ‘as flies to wanton boys are we to the gods.’ ”

  “Quit reading, Ed. You’re going to hurt yourself.”

  Crestfallen, Ed gave it one last shot. “Don’t you understand?” He repeated his secret slowly and emphatically, hoping, perhaps, that italics would drive the point home: “Your whole life ruined because someone didn’t like your face.”

  Parker turned to Marcy. “Would you feel worse if you were picked for no reason or because J. Edgar Hoover didn’t like your face?”

  She shrugged. “Six of one.”

  Suddenly Parker was slack-limbed with relief: If this is the worst, he thought, I’ll have seconds. He was lightheaded enough to feel magnanimous toward Ed, who’d only wanted to be the life of the party. “I’m sure it’s a good story, and if I hadn’t rushed you—.”

  “Don’t patronize me, sonny boy.”

  Marcy said, “So the FBI really ruined Jeff’s life?”

  Ed, who must have decided that the night held no further enticements, was opening the coat closet. He stuck his head around the door. “Yup.”

  “Um, what didn’t he like about Jeff’s face?”

  “Oh, yeah. He said he looked smug. He looks smug now, wouldn’t you say?”

  Parker tried to compose his features into perfect neutrality as Marcy studied him. “Not smug, really. A combination of baffled and amused.” (Parker knew what was coming next and strove to freeze his face.) “Fran says he looks like a guy who’s forgotten the punch line in the middle of a joke.”

  Ed gave a hacking laugh and brought out their coats, Marcy declining his offer to help her with her sleeves.

  Fran’s name had brought Parker down to earth and farther. He was anxious to get out to the car, but he paused with his hand on the knob. “One more thing. Why is it still going on?”

  Ed blinked and smiled tentatively. “What do you mean?”

  “You do know, don’t you, that your guy is still on the job?”

  “You’re pulling my leg!” Ed didn’t seem to be feigning his surprise. “The Bureau stopped doing that stuff fifteen years ago.”

  “Well you’d better get word to your guy. A lot of people know about this, he’s calling more and more attention to himself, and it’s going to be an embarrassment for all of you. You don’t have much time. I don’t know what he’s planning but it’s connected with a convention at the Cermak Arena tomorrow evening.”

  “I’m retired, you know,” Ed said defensively. “Well, okay, I’ll talk to some people. See if we can keep Mr. Monroe from making a nuisance of himself. He’s kind of a nut, you know.”

  He shook Parker’s hand. “It’s the dream of a lifetime to finally meet Mr. Magoo.”

  “Glad to oblige, I guess.”

  “I’m sorry we didn’t have a chance to get acquainted,” Ed Vishoolis said to Marcy; she tightened her grip on her purse strap.

  * * *

  —

  Parker tilted the rearview mirror till he saw Fran, her face turned to the window, the lights of the Drive streaming up her profile. “How ya doin’ back there?” They’d found her stretched out in the back, pretending, he was certain, to be asleep.

  Still facing the window she said wearily, “Aside from that, Mrs. Kennedy, how was the ride through Dallas?” Her cheekbones seemed to have come unmoored, tugged by the run of lights and shadows.

  Marcy giggled, struggling against her shoulder harness as she turned in her seat. “I always thought he was an asshole,” she said.

  Sickened at the thought of Fran introducing Ken Fletcher to her friends, Parker tried to put it out of his mind; he wanted to help her get through this.

  Marcy said, “Those jackets he wore? Not even real tweed.”

  Facing her, Fran widened her eyes. “Go on!”

  “Fifty-percent polyester.”

  “If only I’d known!” Fran wailed. They all laughed.

  “The pipe?” said Parker, touching the brake to let a van merge. “Bubble!”

  “Go on!”

  He made an O of his mouth and smacked it with his palm to imitate a bubble popping.

  A pause settled in, and Fran returned to the window. Parker followed her gaze across oncoming traffic to the arc-lit deserted beach. She turned from the window and studied the back of his head till she was able to meet his eyes in the mirror. “I’m so sorry, Jeff. Can you forgive me?”

  “I forgive you. But I’ve got to ask—what did you see in that guy?”

  “I don’t
know. I thought he was this wistful, shy…gentle man. He seemed a little lost—”

  A catch in her breath made him think she was editing. “Like me?”

  She shrugged.

  “You thought with the right woman…”

  “Uh-huh. My mother said ‘never get involved with a man to improve him!””

  “Yeah, but keep working on me.”

  “You take a lot of shit from me, Parker. That’s one thing we’d have to work on. Say, I nearly forgot—what is the meaning of everything?”

  “J. Edgar Hoover didn’t like my face.”

  “So?”

  “Exactly! I’m beginning to think the ultimate metaphysical question isn’t ‘Why?,’ it’s ‘So?’ ”

  “I see no reason why Ken should sleep peacefully tonight,” she said. “I’m going over there. I want to make him look me in the eye and justify what he did.”

  “Maybe you should think this through.”

  “All right. I show up. I ring the bell. I keep ringing till he turns up in the doorway in his monogrammed pajamas—”

  Marcy sniggered. “Monogrammed pajamas? Really?”

  “Stitched over the pocket in scroll.”

  While the women laughed, Parker was distracted by jealousy and by a fleeting sympathy for Fletcher in his silly pajamas.

  “So there he is,” Fran was saying, “looking sleepy, sensitive, ridiculous, baffled, hopeful, and imperviously innocent. That’s when I grab him by the lapels.” She seemed to have completed her thought.

  “Speaking from experience,” Parker observed, “grabbing people by the lapels doesn’t do much good. But okay, you’ve got him by the lapels. Now the plan kicks in.” The skyline’s blinking beacons and levitating windows seemed to wall off the road just ahead.

  “What’s your plan?” she demanded.

  “I don’t think you should go over there. They’ve threatened Ken’s ex-wife and kids. It’s hard to think of him as a violent man, but he’ll do anything to protect them. And the people who are trying to hurt me are obviously willing to hurt you to do it. I think whatever they’re planning will happen during this convention. It starts tomorrow—why don’t you stay at Marcy’s for a few days?”

  “What good would that do? I still have to go to classes and more interviews tomorrow. Anyway, from what you’ve told me, these people wouldn’t do anything as obvious and comprehensible as attacking me. There’s no cause and-effect. They’re just as likely to send a pizza to your aunt. And your plan is…”

  “My plan is to ignore them.”

  “Ignore them?” Marcy snorted.

  “Exactly!” he said, realizing he’d acquired this verbal tic from Steve Dobbs.

  “I’ve heard of people dodging a bullet,” said Marcy, “but ignoring it?”

  “Don’t get him started,” Fran warned.

  He said, “I don’t think their plan is all that diabolically complicated. Everything they do is a show staged for my benefit. This whole faceless man campaign is just hype for the finale. They’ve done all these assessments of my character, and they think they can count on me showing up at the convention out of sheer curiosity—to see how it all turns out. And to tell you the truth…”

  “Well, what happens when you get there?” Fran asked impatiently.

  “See? They’ve got you wondering. Do you remember that tablecloth at the seafood restaurant? ‘How to catch a lobster?’ Or was it a crab? Remember? Basically you set a cage down on the seabed and prop it open with a stick. The lobster or the crab sees the cage, thinks ‘Hey, what’s that?,’ walks in, knocks over the stick, bam! caught!…So: I ignore them.”

  “What you have isn’t a plan, it’s denial.”

  “Exactly! If it’ll make you feel less anxious, John Standell…say, did I mention that John and Peg just had a baby? A little girl, Kathryn.”

  “That’s terrific! Give them my best. Let’s hope sarcasm isn’t inheritable.” Fran had never quite forgiven John’s crack that she was “merely perfect.”

  “Anyway, John is sending someone over tomorrow to install the world’s most sophisticated security system in my apartment.”

  “Oh, great! John and his world’s most sophisticated security system. He has a little too much fun thinking about it, wouldn’t you say? What does it do?”

  “It’s supposed to work better if I don’t know.”

  Fran groaned. “Don’t you worry that your life will depend on it and it’ll turn out to be flashing lights and a noise like a whoopee cushion?”

  “He has a sense of humor, but he’s good at his job,” Parker said, beginning to share her doubts. “And he’s going to send over a bodyguard tomorrow afternoon. All I have to do is get through the next fifteen hours or so and I’m in the clear…and what’s your plan?”

  Her wet eyes gave her a glint of determination. “My plan: Grab him by the lapels, make him look me in the eye.”

  * * *

  —

  As Parker picked up the phone the next morning he wondered if he’d already lost her. He’d forgiven her—that was the easy part!—she had the thankless role of being forgiven. Tolerance Management thought they had it all worked out: He’d forgive her, she’d never want to look at him again.

  But he was calling because he’d thought of something worse: Why wouldn’t his enemies hurt her to get at him? After tense negotiations last night, it was agreed that Marcy would go over to Fletcher’s with Fran and wait on the landing in front of his apartment door. After five minutes Marcy would start screaming. In return for that modicum of reassurance, Parker agreed to be dropped off first and butt out. It was the best he could get, and even if he’d physically restrained her that night, what could he do then? Maybe he still hadn’t really believed Fletcher was capable of violence.

  He pictured her furious march up Fletcher’s sidewalk at one in the morning, eyes narrowed, lips compressed, hair flying, a burst of heels ricocheting off the darkened brownstones.

  “Hi, it’s me,” he said breezily when her answering machine came on. The prospect of confiding his fears to her machine suddenly made them seem ridiculous. “Could you call me? So…how ’bout those Bears!”

  He ate a bowl of Cheerios as he thumbed through the Tribune, looking for anything on the convention. It would be easier to ignore, he reasoned, if he had a clearer idea of what it was. He found the disguised men on page one of the Metro section—a crowd of them in full hardboiled glory, the flashbulb twinkling in their mirror lenses. The story was headlined FACE US! and subheaded, ANONYMOUS AND IN-YOUR-FACE: THE LEGION OF FACELESS MEN CONVENES IN CHICAGO TODAY.

  The only facts he could gather were that the convention would commence at six today, that all members of the public who shared the Legion’s goals were invited, that Chicago merchants were running out of trenchcoats and mirror sunglasses, and that the Legion’s cause was sweeping the nation. The writer was as clueless about that cause as Parker, and so most of the article played variations on “They represent the little guy.” The participants seemed equally incapable of articulating why they were there. From their quotes it was hard to discern their common grievance, if they had one, but mainly they didn’t sound like the traditional victims—the poor, the persecuted, the dispossessed. They sounded, Parker thought, like the nebulously peeved. They’d awakened one fine morning to find that they were disappointed. It had something to do with feeling shut out, ignored, thwarted, rendered invisible by the…what?…by those pointyhead bureaucrats, those big-shots up there in their big…and so forth.

  He was wondering what any of this had to do with him, suspecting that that was what his enemies wanted, and vowing that any minute he’d stop thinking about it, when the installer arrived lugging two huge cases. A fat young bearded guy with scant hair combed like guitar strings, the installer plunked down the cases and identified himself. The beard made Parker uneasy, but it was the sa
me black as the hair, anchored firmly to the face, and didn’t point at an experimental angle.

  “I’ll have a look around,” said the installer, heading toward the back door. Unzipping his jacket he tapped the right-hand wall a few feet from the door, where a vertical rectangular outline could be made out beneath the white paint.

  “I think that used to be a fuse box,” said Parker, who’d tagged along hoping to strike up a conversation and glean something about the world’s most sophisticated security system. “I guess these old buildings…”

  The man’s glare let Parker know that his assistance was not required, so he returned to his Cheerios and his article. A spokesman for the Legion wished to stress that people of all races, religions, ideologies, and genders were invited, and that the first order of business would be ratifying the new name, The Legion of Faceless Men and Women. Parker skipped back to interviews with participants—more about the little guy. The little fella was taking it on the chin, all right, but he wasn’t down for the count: He was fighting back, sending a message to the elites with their giant desks and their sissy dogs and…and…

  Parker wondered if this could be the start of an actual mass movement and recalled Harry Krell’s prediction: “The next upheaval won’t be the underclass; it’ll be the people who feel like they’re being nibbled to death by minnows.”

  But a few of the subjects interviewed brought something extra to the party. In a paragraph headed, “The convention truly attracts all kinds,” the writer quoted those populists who wore tinfoil hats to evade thought control; who spoke of Them with a looming capital “T.” Parker thought of the guy who’d shown Fran his toy badge. The convention seemed shapeless enough to accommodate every kind of free-floating grudge.

  From the back he could hear a hammer-and-chisel and falling paint chips. He finished the article and read through the rest of the paper, then cleared the dishes and replaced them with his students’ essays. As his pen hovered over the sentence, “Divorce has many causes; therefore this problem cannot be solved,” a teeth-drilling screech of feedback made him sit up straight. He continued to grade through pounding, clanking, and bursts of feedback.