Tanner’s Twelve Swingers

Chapter 4

Back in New York, with my dark green Latvian uniform returned to storage for another year, and with the academic problems of a mixed bag of unscholarly scholars to occupy my time, Karlis and his love life assumed a bit less importance to me. I lived in a four-and-a-half-room apartment on the fifth floor of an elevatorless old building on 107th Street a few doors west of Broadway. The four rooms are lined with floor-to-ceiling bookshelves (the half room is a kitchenette, and there’s barely room to boil an egg in it), and the bookshelves are filled with books and pamphlets and magazines. There is a little-used bed in one room, and a dresser in another, and a desk in yet another, and there are chairs here and there.

I spend most of my time at the desk. My government pension barely covers the dues I pay to various organizations, let alone the cost of my magazine subscriptions, and I make up the difference by writing theses and term papers for graduate and undergraduate students who are (a) too lazy or (b) too stupid or (c) both of the above. I generally have more work available than I care to handle; my rates are reasonable and my work is good, with a B-minus guaranteed. For several years I also took examinations for unprepared students, but I’ve dropped this recently. The challenge it once held has gone out of it, and only the tedium remains. A good doctoral thesis, on the other hand, takes quite a bit of meticulous research, all of which I hugely enjoy.

I had cleaned up a thesis on Lenin’s views of the Paris Commune before heading upstate for the Latvian encampment and I took on two more assignments shortly after my return: a study of English class structure as represented in Jane Austen’s novels and a shorter paper on the causes of the First Balkan War. These were easy topics for me, so much so that almost all of my footnotes were legitimate. I usually invent a large portion of them, but in this case it was hardly necessary. I wrote the papers and took my money.

And, in the course of all of this, I ate my usual five meals a day, sorted and read my mail, went to various meetings and lectures, listened to a set of Siamese language records – a difficult tongue, by the way, and a positively mind-freezing alphabet – and generally went about the business of life. Part of the business of life was the careful task of ignoring Karlis Mielovicius and his true love in Latvia.

This would have been easier if Karlis had not kept reminding me of my promise. He wasn’t an absolute pest. On the contrary, he was so patient and understanding that I was soon consumed with guilt. But he filled my mailbox with little reminders – a picture of the girl, a letter he had received from someone who knew her, a variety of news clippings referring to Latvia, that sort of thing.

I suppose, with all of this gentle prodding, I would eventually have gone to Latvia anyway. It was senseless, certainly, but pure logic and reason make a bad foundation for a human life. One has to do idiot things from time to time, if only to assure oneself that one is a human being and not a robot.

So I probably would have gone anyway. But a couple of months after the encampment the Chief got in touch with me and ordered me to go to Colombia, and the next thing I knew I was on my way to Latvia.

I was heading home from an anarchist forum when the first contact was made. I left the subway at 103rd Street and walked north on Broadway, and at the corner of 106th a clean-cut young fellow tapped me on the shoulder.

“Excuse me,” he said, “but I think you dropped this.”

He handed me a crumpled piece of paper. “I don’t think so,” I said.

“I’m sure I saw you drop it,” he said. “It might be important.” And he pressed the piece of paper into my hand. Before I could say anything else he scurried off into the night.

I unfolded the scrap of paper. It was the wrapper from a piece of Juicy Fruit gum. I never chew gum and if I did I don’t think I would chew anything called Juicy Fruit and if I did I’m sure I wouldn’t save the wrappers. I dropped it in a little basket and went home.

I didn’t leave the apartment until noon the next day, at which time I decided the restaurant down the block could outperform my own little kitchen. I left my building and walked to the corner of Broadway, and the clean-cut young fellow came up to me and tapped me on the shoulder.

“Excuse me,” he said, “but I think you dropped this.”

And handed me a crumpled piece of paper.

“It might be important,” he said once again, a hint of steel in his mellow voice. And off he went again. I went to the restaurant and ordered a plate of scrambled eggs and fried potatoes. I hadn’t thrown away the scrap of paper this time. I felt it was definitely important. Either I was quietly losing my mind or someone was attempting to make contact with me, and the piece of paper seemed likely to hold a clue.

I uncrumpled it while I waited for them to scramble the eggs and fry the potatoes. It was a Juicy Fruit gum wrapper (the same one? a different one? who knows? who cares?). This time I turned it over and found that someone had written something on the back.

Like this:

T:

Sp r-ints.

Soonest.

The scrambled eggs and fried potatoes came. I ate them. I drank several cups of coffee. I read the message over and over again. I would have to destroy it, I decided. It wouldn’t do to leave it lying about where anyone could find it. Someone might glean information from it. Just because I couldn’t get anything out of it didn’t mean that some keen-eyed, quick-brained lad couldn’t get a kernel of meaning out of it.

Sprints. No, correct that: SP r-ints.

Uh-huh.

The T seemed likely to mean Tanner. The soonest probably meant that I was supposed to do something right away. And the fundamental insanity of this particular method of delivering a message suggested the message’s source. Only the undercover agencies of the United States Government operate habitually in this fashion.

Which meant that this gum wrapper was a message from the Chief. A certain amount of his cuteness is dictated by circumstances. Since I’m a subversive a couple thousand times over, my privacy is limited in certain ways. The FBI taps my phone and reads my mail before I do, and the CIA has bugged my apartment. Or perhaps it’s the other way around. I’m not entirely sure which is which and I don’t entirely care.

SP r-ints?

I tucked the gum wrapper into my shirt pocket and took it back to my apartment. I puzzled over it for a while, then hauled over the telephone and looked at the dial. Then I got it. SP r-ints was a telephone number. Just substitute the appropriate numbers for the last five letters and one came up with SPring 7-4687.

Which I did not dial just then, since either the CIA or the FBI was tapping my phone. Instead I left the building again and found a pay phone and invested a dime and dialed the number.

A girl said, “Good afternoon, Omicron Employment.”

I said, “Tanner.”

The girl said, “Room Two-one-oh-four, Hotel Crichton.”

I said, “Soonest?”

The girl said, “At once.”

I said, “How Mickey Mouse can you get?” but before saying that, I broke the connection.

And then I looked in the phone book and found out that the Hotel Crichton is on East 36th Street between Lexington and Third, and I took a cab to it and went all the way up to the twenty-first floor and found Room 2104 and knocked on the door and opened it when a voice suggested I do so and went inside.

And there he was.

He is a soft and rounded man with a bald head and fleshy hands and innocent blue eyes. He smiled me into a chair, filled a pair of water tumblers a third of the way with Scotch, gave one of them to me, and kept the other for himself. We drank.

“Ah, Tanner,” he said. “You almost gave that lad a coronary when you threw away the gum wrapper last night. Put him a bit off stride.”

“I guess I wasn’t thinking.”

“Figured out the phone number quickly enough, though. Sprints.” He chuckled softly. “You would be surprised,” he said, “just how many phone numbers can be converted into simple English words. A handy mnemonic device.”

“Clever.”

“Hmmm,” he said.

I don’t know his name. I think of him as the Chief because I’ve heard him called that, but I’ve never learned his name or his title or even the name of the agency he heads. Nor do I know how to get in touch with him should the occasion arise. I think he works out of Washington. I can’t be sure. I know that one is never supposed to attempt to make contact with him. One waits for the mountain to come to Mohammed. Now and then the mountain rents a New York hotel room and sends a cryptic message.

“I have a piece of work for you, Tanner. Another touch of whiskey?”

“No, this is fine.”

“Good, good. What do you know about Colombia?”

“The university?”

“No, no, the country. South America.”

“Oh,” I said. “ Colombia.”

“Mmmm.” He got to his feet, walked over to the window, fiddled with the shade. I wondered whether he was merely playing with it or whether this action would set off an uprising in Indonesia. He stopped fooling with the shade and turned to face me. “ Colombia. Know much about the place?”

“Yes.”

“The political situation?”

“Yes.”

“How about a specific organization – the Colombian Agrarian Revolutionary Movement?”

“I know the group.”

“Thought you might.” He smiled suddenly. “Just what I said to myself when this first blew our way. Said if there’s a nut group somewhere, my boy Tanner knows about it. Knew right out of the box you’d be the perfect man for this job.”

He thinks I work for him. He has every right to think so. A while ago, shortly after the conception of my son Todor, I had a little trouble with the Central Intelligence Agency, and to save my neck I invented the Chief. I kept telling the CIA that I worked for another federal agency and couldn’t tell them a thing about it. When the Chief appeared to rescue me, I was more surprised than the CIA was. I was also trapped by my own story. He thought I was one of his trusted agents, and maybe I am.

“The Colombian Agrarian Revolutionary Movement,” he said. “Communist, wouldn’t you say?”

“Not exactly.”

“They’re never exactly communist. Not until after they take power. Then the true colors show. We’ve been getting a great many rumbles out of Colombia. The news isn’t good.”

“Oh?”

“Looks as though the country’s ripe for a revolution. The Colombian Agrarian Revolutionary Movement has been whipping up a lot of popular sentiment lately. From all indications, they’re planning a full-scale power play within the next two or three weeks. And that, Tanner, is where you come in.”

I looked inquisitive.

“Your job,” he said, “is to get inside this red group and stop it. Kill off the revolution. Nip it in the bud, squash it. We’ve got a friendly government in Colombia now-”

“A dictatorship.”

“Well, that’s a strong word, but let’s just call it friendly government. Colombia is an ally, and we’d like to preserve the status quo. That’s policy, Tanner, and they make those decisions way upstairs.” He chuckled again. “The CIA wanted this one, you know. The Agency likes this sort of job, but they haven’t smelled so well in Latin America since the Bay of You-Know-Whats. And Edgar wanted this one, too. The Bureau swung a lot of weight in South America during War Number Two. But I knew you’d be the right man. A nice neat inside job, that’s the way to kill the weed before it blooms.” Another inane chuckle. “I’ll never forget what you did in Macedonia. If you’re as good at stopping revolutions as you are at starting them, this should be a cinch for you.

I finished my drink. He had a job for me, did he? A job that would be just right for me, was it?

I wouldn’t touch it with a rake.

Because it just so happens that I am a member of the Colombian Agrarian Revolutionary Movement. I’ve supported CARM for several years and I’ve been able to donate some fairly substantial sums to them toward their end of overthrowing the Colombian government. My contributions have been mostly financial, as there’s very little CARM activity in the New York area. It is an activist movement, a rebel band that roams the Colombian hills, adding new recruits and gathering its strength for the uprising.

Communist? I knew CARM well and long, and I couldn’t call them that. They are left-wing socialists, but their program is based in Colombia, not in Moscow or Peking or even Havana.

The news that a CARM revolution was imminent was welcome news indeed. The thought that I might be ordered to sabotage this revolution was terrifying. I would not do it. I would not dream of doing it. If I went to Colombia, it would be to aid the revolution, not to destroy it.

“I’m sorry,” I said. “I can’t go.”

“What’s that?”

“I can’t go to Colombia. I can’t accept the assignment.”

“But that’s ridiculous, Tanner. Why not?”

I killed time with a sip of Scotch. I finished the drink and while he poured more whiskey into my glass and his I shuffled through my brain looking for a convenient lie. I thought of those star-crossed lovers, Karlis and Sofija, and I stopped shuffling. If I had to do something ludicrous, I might as well do it in a good cause. If I had to go traipsing around the world, I might better traipse to Latvia than to Colombia.

I said, “There’s another trip I have to take.”

“Where to?”

“ Eastern Europe.”

“Be more specific.”

“The Baltic States.”

“Which one?”

“Does it matter?”

He stared intently at me. I was playing a dangerous game, but I had a hunch I might get away with it. From what I knew about his agency (our agency?), one had a considerable amount of leeway. His men did not make written reports or follow instructions. They were given a job to do, they made their own plans and established their own contacts, and they went in and did it and came back and announced that it was done. Or they didn’t come back, and the Chief drank a toast to their memory.

“The Baltic States,” he said.

“Yes.”

“An important mission?”

“Not government business, really. A favor for a friend.”

“Oh, come now, Tanner!”

I shrugged.

“I’m afraid I know you too well for that, Tanner. You wouldn’t miss a chance at the Colombian job unless it were something very big indeed. There’s a missile center outside of Tallinn. Is that part of it?”

“I’d rather not say anything in advance.”

“Mmmm. Something bigger than Colombia. You won’t tell me what it is?”

“Let me just say that it’s an errand for a friend.”

He chuckled again, and I knew everything was going to be all right for the time being. “You and Dallmann,” he said. “You work best when you make your own plays. One of the best things Dallmann ever did was recruit you.” Dallmann, who was dead, could be counted on not to set the record straight. “Well, I’m sorry I can’t use you in Colombia. We don’t have anyone else handy who could turn the trick. I’ll have to hand it back to the Agency. Who knows? They might even do something right for a change.”

On the way home I stopped at the Western Union office. I wired a friend in Bogota. I sent the message in Spanish, but in English it would work out to something like this: BEST OF LUCK IN COMING VENTURE. UNDERSTAND BOY SCOUTS ARE COMING. TAKE CARE.

That night I took a train to Providence.

Karlis gave me her picture and her address and his blessing. He wanted desperately to come along, and it was not easy to talk him out of it. I kept reminding him that the Russians would know of his high position with the Latvian Army-In-Exile and that his presence in the country would endanger not only himself but me and Sofija in the bargain. He was disappointed, but he could appreciate the truth of that.

“The entry and escape will be difficult,” I told him. They would be impossible, I thought. “And I must travel as light as possible. One man, alone, might be able to get in. One man and one woman might be able to get out. But I won’t even take a suitcase, just a few things in a leather portfolio. I want to travel light.”

I didn’t want to travel at all. But I went home again and packed some things in my slim satchel and I studied maps of Europe and I thought of flying straight to Helsinki. Finland is just across the Baltic from Estonia, and that would be the simplest way of entering the region.

Then I remembered my son Todor. And for the first time the trip’s être had a raison. I couldn’t expect to rescue Sofija because that was plainly impossible. I could not honestly expect to get into Latvia at all. But I could damn well get into Yugoslavia and I could find Annalya and I could see my son.

The next morning, bright and early, I caught a TWA jet to Athens.