The Road To Ruin

25

GIVEN HER UPBRINGING in Kansas and D.C., Anne Marie’s automatic response to any gathering of individuals was to turn it into a social occasion—why miss an opportunity to work a room? But Andy absolutely refused to go along with the idea in re the upcoming three P.M. meeting in their apartment in which Jim Green would give Andy and the others their new identities. “It isn’t a party, Anne Marie,” he explained, not unkindly. “It’s more of a huddle-type thing, you know, informational.”

“I’m not saying a party,” she insisted, although she knew she was. “Just a few hors d’oeuvres, maybe a glass of white wine. You can’t drink beer and bourbon forever.”

Looking startled, he said, “I can’t?”

“I should think Jim would feel insulted,” Anne Marie said, “when he’s doing us this big favor, and he comes all the way down from Connecticut, and we don’t even offer him a pâté.”

“We’re not going to an opening, Anne Marie,” Andy said, “and none of us is gonna want pâté on his new identity papers. Green is gonna bring the stuff down, hand it out, explain what he’s gotta explain, and that’s it. Everybody goes away.”

She shook her head. “You want people to come into our home,” she said, “and sit around and talk, and then just go away again, and nobody eats anything, and nobody chats about anything, and nobody drinks anything but beer.”

“Now you got it,” Andy said.

•

But she stuck around anyway, just in case a social aspect should happen to arise, in which case her hostessing abilities would be needed after all. And Stan Murch was the first to arrive. She greeted him at the door: “Hi, Stan.”

“So now it’s Brooklyn,” Stan said, coming in. “I always figured, Canarsie’s a convenient place to live, you got a lotta ways to get to Manhattan, you got Flatlands to Flatbush to the Manhattan Bridge, only Flatbush can get a little slow, so sometimes I do Rockaway Parkway to Eastern Parkway, and not Rockaway Avenue, that takes you to Bushwick, you don’t wanna go to Bushwick.”

“No, I don’t,” Anne Marie agreed. “Would you like something to drink?”

But Stan wasn’t done. “So that’s what I did today,” he said, “only you got a mess at Grand Army Plaza, they’re tearing everything up in front of the library there, you can’t get through, so I eased around to Washington Avenue, up past the BQE to hang the left on Flushing, and again you can’t get through. Why? A demonstration against the Naval Reserve Center, that’s two blocks down to the right, the cops won’t let the demonstrators any closer than Washington. I’m backing outa there, some guy pulls up on me and honks. I gotta get outa the car, explain to this bozo that all those yelling people and cops and picket signs he could see if he had working eyes and not just a working horn means you can’t go that way. So he finally moves over to let me back up, then he jumps in where I was, cackling like an idiot, he put one over on me, he’s probably still there.”

“A glass of wine?”

“So I come under the BQE on Park,” Stan told her, “and Tillary, and did the Brooklyn Bridge instead, and after that Manhattan was a snap.”

“Stan,” Anne Marie said, “you got here first.”

“So it could of been worse.”

“A beer?” she asked him.

“No, thanks,” he said. “I still got some driving to do today,” and the doorbell rang.

This time, it was Tiny, and he had with him a small but lovely bouquet of pink roses. “Here,” he said, and handed them over.

“Why, thank you, Tiny,” she said. “That’s very thoughtful.”

“Some girl on the street,” he told her, “threw them at her boyfriend just before the cops showed up. I figured they shouldn’t go to waste.”

“Oh. Well, thank you.”

“Any time.”

Tiny finished coming in, but before Anne Marie could shut the door Jim Green was there, smiling, saying, “Hello, Anne Marie, how are you today?”

“Just fine,” she said, and would have closed the door but John was suddenly there. “Oh,” she said. “Did you two come together?”

John looked confused. Frowning toward Jim, he said, “I don’t think so.”

“No, we didn’t,” Jim said, and at last Anne Marie could complete the closing of the door.

And here came Andy from deeper in the apartment, saying, “Hey, we’re all here. Anybody want a beer?”

“Not me,” Stan said.

“Maybe later,” John said.

“What we want,” Tiny said, looking at Jim, “is to see who we are.”

“Coming up,” Jim said. He was carrying a hardsided black attaché case, which he now put on the coffee table. He snapped open the catches, lifted the top, and inside Anne Marie saw several thick small manila envelopes, each with a name written on it in black ink. Taking these out of the case, Jim distributed them, saying, “This is yours,” four times.

All four of the guys were immediately absorbed in the contents of their envelopes. Andy sat in his regular chair, Tiny took all of the sofa, Stan sat in the other armchair, and John perched on the radiator. As they started their study, Jim came over to say, “Well, Anne Marie, you having more fun now than you used to?”

“A different kind of fun,” she said.

“Listen,” he said, “if you ever need to disappear, let me know. For you I’ll do a special job, not like these.”

“They seem happy with these,” Anne Marie said, and Jim grinned and turned to look at them.

They were happy with the contents of their envelopes, like children opening their presents under the tree, Christmas morning, every surprise a joyful one. “A passport,” Andy said, in awe.

“Gotta have one of those,” Jim told him.

“John Howard Rumsey,” John said.

Andy said, “Yeah? Who’s that?”

“Me,” John told him.

“That ain’t bad,” Andy allowed. Reading his passport, he said, “I’m Fredric Eustace Blanchard. So I guess I’m Fred.”

“I’m still John,” John said. “Easy to remember.”

His voice even lower than usual, Tiny rumbled, “Judson Otto Swope.” Nodding around at the others, he said, “I like that name. I didn’t want a name I wasn’t gonna like.”

Stan said, “Says here, I’m Warren Peter Gillette. I don’t suppose I have to remember the Peter.” He looked up to his left, as though out a car window: “Hi, Officer, I’m Warren Gillette.”

“Yeah, here’s my driver’s license,” Andy said, and grinned at Jim. “You take a better picture than Motor Vehicles.”

“Of course,” Jim said.

“I’m in securities,” Tiny said. “What am I, a stockbroker?”

“You’re in security,” Jim corrected him, though mildly. “You worked for Securitech, an outfit that dealt with industrial espionage, helping companies keep their trade secrets.”

“How come I’m not there any more?”

“The company folded when both owners went to jail for insider trading.”

John said, “I’m a butler?” He sounded as though he wasn’t sure what he thought about that.

Jim said, “You people need work histories that’ll make your mark want to hire you, am I right?”

“I’m a chauffeur!” Stan said. He sounded very pleased.

“That’s right,” Jim said. Pointing at Andy, he said, “And you’re a private secretary. In fact, you and John worked for the same man, Hildorg Chk, ambassador to the United States from Vostkojek, at their official residence in Georgetown.”

“We had dealings with that country once,” Tiny rumbled.

John said, “What if they check with this ambassador?”

Smiling, Jim shook his head. “Sadly,” he said, “he was assassinated on a visit home over the holidays. That’s why you and Andy are both looking for work.”

“I drove for a movie star,” Stan said, “with a place on Central Park West. How come I’m not there any more?”

“His career tanked,” Jim said. “He gave up New York, just kept his place in Pacific Palisades, drives himself these days, and is looking for interesting second-lead roles.”

Stan said, “And if they check with him?”

“They’ll get no further than his L.A. staff,” Jim told him, “and they never knew the New York staff.”

John said, “And the point is, am I right, this stuff is all real.”

“Those are real people,” Jim told him, “as real as the paperwork can make them. All four of them were those people at one time, though it isn’t who any of them were at birth, and now they’re off being somebody else, the original or another new one. But you’ve got to remember, they can always come back.”

Andy said, “Not all four of them.”

“No, but one could make trouble.”

Stan laughed. “I can imagine some guy goes up to Tiny, and—What was your name?”

“Judson Otto Swope.”

“Right. Some guy shows up and says, Hey, I’m Judson Otto Swope.”

Tiny nodded. “We could discuss it,” he said.

Andy said, “We’re not gonna worry about that. We just been christened brand-new guys, so let’s relax and enjoy it.”

“Christen!” said Anne Marie, leaping to her feet. “You’re right, Andy, it’s a christening. Wait right there, I’ll get the champagne.”