The Spy in the Ointment

13

High on a hill north of Tarrytown, overlooking the majestic Hudson, Marcellus Ten Eyck owns a turreted and gabled country estate of the kind occupied these days mostly by Franciscan monks and Episcopalian girls’ schools. Ten Eyck’s estate was one of the last of the privately owned fiefdoms, and Ten Eyck one of the last of the patroons. At this manse, along about midnight, we left Angela, amid a flurry of kisses from me, while her choleric, grumpy, and altogether constipated old man, cross-armed, looked on.

This had been the ultimate compromise deal between Angela’s father and the Feds. He would keep the secret of Angela’s continued existence, and they would allow him to keep her hidden in his own house upstate. Where, no doubt, he could attempt to fill her head full of vile misstatements about me.

Well, bad cess to him. My Angela was not about to be dissuaded by the sort of crotchety old man who existed in Boccaccio exclusively to be horned. I parted from her at the manor house with a heavy heart, but not because I was afraid for her fidelity. It was my own immediate future that weighed the old pumper down.

P and I were alone in the car now. Once back on the highway, P said, “Now then. Let’s get the story straight.”

“Let’s,” I said.

He said, “Miss Ten Eyck managed to infiltrate your organization without your ever suspecting she might be a spy. In fact, it wasn’t until she ran away from the meeting that you realized she’d tricked you. So you ran after her, followed her, caught up with her, convinced her you wanted to help, took her over to New Jersey, and murdered her.”

“Out of rage,” I suggested.

“Partly,” he said. “Also, your pride was hurt. And, more important, the security of the group Eustaly and Ten Eyck were setting up was endangered as long as she was alive.”

I nodded. “Right. That’s good.”

“After the murder,” he said, “you hid out in New Jersey for five days, afraid to risk entering the city until tonight. But finally you couldn’t wait any more, you returned to New York, and decided your best move was to contact the organization again.”

I said, “You know, the thought occurs to me they might consider me more of a liability than an asset. Wanted by the law and all.”

He shook his head. “You’re the first member of the group, other than its organizers, to have committed a murder for the sake of the group. It would be bad politics and bad for morale if the group rejected you. Ten Eyck and Eustaly will welcome you with open arms and praise you to the skies in front of the other members, just wait and see.”

“I can wait,” I said.

“Once you’ve re-established contact,” he said, “you’ll pretty much have to play it by ear. Whatever details they may ask you for, make up something that sounds sensible. We’ll be listening, and we’ll cover whatever you say, just so it isn’t too implausible.”

“I’ll be careful,” I said.

“And remember,” he said, “you don’t know Tyrone Ten Eyck under his own name. You know him as Leon Eyck.”

“Oh, that’s right. I’d forgotten that. Leon Eyck. Leon Eyck. Leon Eyck. I’ll try to remember.”

“It might be better,” he said, “if we were to call him by that name from now on ourselves.”

“Right,” I said. “Leon Eyck. Leon Eyck.”

“I think that’s about it,” he said.

I said, “Listen. I’m supposed to be the head of a terrorist organization. What if Ten — what if Leon Eyck and Eustaly want to see the membership? I can’t show them a bunch of pacifists.”

“Your organization,” he told me, “can be reached in New York City at CHelsea 2-2598. We have twelve men detailed to be your membership if need be.”

I repeated, the phone number to myself several times, and then said, “All right, fine. I guess I’m as ready as I’ll ever be.”

“You’ll do fine,” he said, but it sounded just a trifle hollow to me.

We rode along in silence for a few minutes, and then it occurred to me to ask, “Which one do I get in touch with?”

“Jack Armstrong,” he said.

I said, “What? The Nazi?”

“They’re none of them peaches,” he said.

“But,” I said, “the Nazi. He’s about the craziest one there. What if I look Jewish to him?”

“He’s the best of the ones you remembered,” P assured me. “He’s in the Queens phone book, so there’s no problem explaining how you found him. Also, he’s not under normal full surveillance, as some of the others are, and I imagine Eustaly and Ten Eyck are aware of that, so he’ll be more likely to have direct access to them.”

“What about Mr. and Mrs. Fred Whelp? You don’t watch them, do you? And they must be in the phone book.”

“I’m sure they are,” he agreed. “But the Whelps are second-string material, from the point of view of Eustaly and — and Leon Eyck, but Jack Armstrong is plainly varsity, and so is sure to be closer to them.”

“Yeah,” I said. “I guess you must be right.”

“Of course I am,” he said. “Oh, there’s one thing I ought to mention. The regular police, city and state, really are looking for you. You are wanted for murder.”

I stared at him. “Are you kidding?”

“No, I’m not.”

“One thing you ought to mention! For Pete’s sake!”

“I wasn’t sure whether you understood that or not. Obviously, you didn’t.”

“Understood what? Call them off, will you, I’ve got troubles enough!”

He said, patiently, “We can’t do it, Raxford, I’m sorry. If you tell sixty or seventy thousand men and women that it’s all a trap, your security is going to go all to hell. People always tell their wives, or their husbands, or their sweethearts, or their mothers, or somebody. Everyone with a secret tells that secret to one person, that’s one of the least encouraging rules of international intrigue. Besides, we have no guarantee that there isn’t at least one cop who belongs to one of these organizations off-duty. It’s happened before, it’ll happen again.”

“The cops are after me,” I said.

“Only until it’s over,” he said. “Try to relax.”

“Sure. The cops are after me, I’m on my way to join an organization of lunatics and bombers, I’m wired for sound, my necktie turns into a smokescreen, my handkerchief will make you throw up, my Diner’s Club card explodes, I’m the leader of a subversive terrorist organization composed entirely of undercover federal agents, newspapers all over the country are saying I killed my girl, and I’m on my way to meet a twenty-five-year-old Nazi built like Bronco Nagurski. If relaxed means limp, don’t worry about it. I’m relaxed. I’m relaxed all over.”