The Spy in the Ointment

6

I twisted around in the seat and looked back the way we’d come. “Oh, for God’s sake,” I said.

Angela, at the wheel of her yellow Mercedes Benz convertible, said, “What’s the matter, Gene?”

“Pull over to the curb. They’ve lost us.”

She glanced at the rear-view mirror. “How did they do that?”

“I don’t know,” I said. “Pull over, maybe they’ll find us again.”

The time was quarter to twelve at night, and we’d been heading north on Broadway toward Eustaly’s meeting, having dropped Murray off at his apartment on Third Avenue and 19th Street. Two FBI men (E and F) had followed us from my apartment to the restaurant, where they’d been relieved by two others (G and H), who had followed us ever since in a blue Chevrolet. Except that now they’d disappeared.

Angela stopped the car next to a fire hydrant, and we both watched traffic for a while. The month was April, the weather gusty, rainy, and somewhat cold, and we were traveling with the convertible top up. We were parked between 68th and 69th streets, and a steady stream of cabs rolled by us, heading uptown. But no blue Chevrolet.

Looking hopefully backward, Angela said, “Maybe they got mixed up at Columbus Circle.”

“The idiots,” I said.

“Oh, no,” she said. “It’s easy to get mixed up at Columbus Circle, I do it all the time.”

I looked at her, and decided to refrain. Instead, I said, “Well, they’re supposed to be professionals. They’re supposed to be able to follow people even through Columbus Circle.”

Peering, pointing, Angela said, “Is that them?”

“No, that’s a Pontiac.”

“It is?” Angela watched it go by. “Well, what were they in?”

“A Chevrolet.”

“I can’t tell the difference,” she admitted.

“There isn’t any.”

She looked at me, to see if I was kidding, and said, “Then how do you tell them apart?”

“The hood ornament. All General Motors cars have different hood ornaments. That’s so the salesmen can tell how much to charge.” I looked at the dashboard clock, which worked and which read seven minutes to twelve. “We’re going to be late,” I said.

She verified that with her own little watch, which worked more or less, and said, “We better not wait any more.”

“I was looking forward,” I said, “to having a couple of FBI men handy while we were at that meeting. Just in case.”

“Well,” she said, “we can’t wait, Gene. Maybe they’ll lock the doors exactly at midnight or something, and the important thing is to be there.”

I shrugged, took one last look southward along Broadway, and said, “Oh, the hell with them. All right, let’s go.”

“Okay,” she said, and nosed the Mercedes out into the traffic again.

(Your indulgence, please, for a sexual aside. I have already mentioned the effect on me of viewing Angela in her clothes, and I would like now to state that this effect is doubled or possibly tripled by my seeing Angela in her automobile. The sight of this sleek feminine beauty at the controls of a beautiful motorcar, long lovely legs urging the pedals, long delicate fingers encompassing the wheel, blond and sculptured head uplifted, arouses the satyr in me, cloven hoofs and all. That she is a good driver — though perhaps a bit too cautious, and with a tendency to stop functioning in an emergency — is lagniappe; I would travel with her if she drove blindfolded.)

At any rate, I was pleasantly distracted from my problems for the next twenty blocks, and when she’d slipped the car into a neat little parking space on 88th Street, around the corner from Broadway, I impulsively pulled her over to my side of the car and kissed her a good one. But then she deflated me entirely by blinking and looking confused and saying, “What was that for?”

“Oh, the hell with it,” I said, and got out of the car.

Then she was contrite. She hurried after me on her high-heel boots, took my arm, and said, “It was very nice, Gene, it just surprised me is all.”

“Yeah, well,” I said. “Come on, we’ll be late.”

We walked around the corner to Broadway. I was wearing my suit, out of habit — I always wear my suit when I attend meetings — and over it my scuffy old black raincoat with the ripped pockets. My head was bare, and getting wet.

Angela had insisted on stopping off at home to change, while I waited outside in the car. (Her father had a tendency toward heart seizures at the sight, or even the mention, of me.) She looked now, of course, like something that had immediately to be taken somewhere warm and dry and soft and private, so her clothing could be ripped off in comfort. Her stretch pants were white this time, and her shiny boots were red. She was wearing a kind of car coat, dark green, with a fur-lined hood. She walked along with her face framed by the hood, her hands tucked into high pockets in the coat, and her legs flashing white and red with every step, and obviously the only sensible thing for us to do was find a hayloft immediately.

Instead of which, we went around the corner to the Odd Fellows’ Hall.

The corner itself was occupied by a kosher delicatessen, with a liquor store next to it, and squeezed between these two was a windowed door, and on the glass of this door curving letters that read: ODD FELLOWS. Angela and I entered here, and found ahead of us a long steep flight of stairs leading straight up through semi-darkness to an inadequately lit landing at the top. We went up, and I counted twenty-seven steps.

At the top there was a maroon metal door, bearing two Scotch-taped notices. One said: Thursday Night, South Side Social Club, Members Only. The other said: Knock.

Angela looked at these and said, “But today’s Thursday, Gene.”

“I know.”

“Are you sure this is the right place? It says South Side Social Club.”

“What did you think it was going to say, South Side Terrorists’ Club? This isn’t even the south side, it’s the west side.”

Angela looked at me, her eyes glistening in the light from the fifteen-watt bulb above our heads. “Gene,” she whispered, “I think I’m scared.”

“It’s a fine time to think of it,” I said, and knocked on the door.

It was opened at once, by the Abominable Snowman in a dark blue suit. He must have been six foot eight, and had a face like a bunch of bananas. In a voice as deep as a lost mine he said, “Yuh?”

“Hello, there,” I said. “I’ve come to the meeting.”

He didn’t move, didn’t speak. Slowly, ponderously, he blinked at me. His mouth hung slightly open, and he blocked the doorway the way boulders block entrances to caves.

Angela leaned past my elbow and whispered at him, “You know, the meeting. Mr. Eustaly.”

He raised a huge hand — it looked like a bunch of bananas, too — and waved it back and forth, saying, “Nuh. Wrong.” Then he shut the door.

Angela looked at me. “Gene? Gene, is it a joke? After all this, is it a joke?”

“Oh, for Christ’s sake,” I said, and knocked on the door again. When it opened, I said to the monster, “I’m Raxford, of the CIU. You go ask Eustaly, he’ll tell you I’m okay.”

“Nuh,” he said, and shut the door again.

Angela said, “Gene, if this is something you and Murray cooked up, I’ll never—”

“Damn!” I shouted. “The password! I forgot the bloody password!” I knocked on the door yet a third time.

This time the monster looked very threatening. He showed me one of his hands, and he said, “Go away.”

“Greensleeves,” I told him. “Okay? Greensleeves.”

It was as though I’d pressed a button on his control panel. The hand dropped, he took two cumbersome paces backward, and he gestured like a steam shovel for me to come in.

We entered a small square windowless room devoid of furniture. Heavy maroon drapes on the right indicated where another door might be, and on the left the door to a small cloakroom stood open.

The monster shut the entrance door behind us and rumbled, “Weapons in there. On the table.”

“In there” meant the cloakroom. I glanced in, and saw a table covered with objects of violence and impetuousness. Pistols, knives, brass knuckles, blackjacks, lengths of pipe, strips of rawhide, loops of wire, bottles containing murky liquids, all lined up in rows, each with its own neat little numbered piece of cardboard next to it.

I swallowed, to be sure my voice would work right, and said, “I don’t have any weapons. We didn’t bring any weapons.”

He stood in front of me. “Frisk you,” he said, and patted me all over, thump, thump, thump, thump. He seemed both surprised and disappointed to find me carrying nothing more lethal than a nail clipper; he considered impounding it, just as a sort of token, and then shrugged and gave it back to me.

When he turned to Angela, I said, “Hold it.”

“Frisk,” he said, like far-off thunder.

Although there was certainly no indication, either in his face or voice, that he anticipated taking any pleasure in the frisking of Angela, I knew I dared not permit him to do so. If I were to stand quietly by while Angela was being thump-thump-thumped, it would be all up with us forever, of that I was certain. And who would fix the mimeograph then? Who would pay the rent? (Not to mention Chinese-red bras.)

I said, “Wait. Hold it a second. Angela, take off your coat.”

She did so, and stood there holding it, wearing now her dark blue sweater and white stretch pants. I said to the monster. “She doesn’t have any weapons. Where’s she going to hide weapons?” To Angela, I said, “Give him the coat, let him check the pockets.”

“Okay,” she said. She was looking a little pale around the cheeks. She handed him the coat, and he went ponderously through the pockets, like an elephant looking for a peanut. He came across the ballpoint pen and the steno pad, but seemed unimpressed by them.

Finding no weapons, he looked at Angela again, thought about things for a few seconds, and then said, “Okay,” and handed her back her coat. He motioned at the maroon drapes and said, “Go in.”

We looked at one another, Angela and I. She reached out and took my hand, and held it tight. I inhaled, held my breath, stepped forward, pushed aside the maroon drapes, and went in.