This gracious and cultivated art lover, now in his late fifties but still youthful at heart, had been handling the paintings of Beauty’s deceased husband, Marcel Detaze, which were stored in a bank vault in Baltimore; he now had accountings to render and suggestions to make. Also, he could tell Lanny about art in North Africa, French, Spanish, and Moorish, for he had traveled in those regions and had made many acquaintances there. He had long ago got over his surprise that his colleague was able to travel in wartime; he pretended to consider it quite normal, even though he knew that he, Zoltan, could never have got such permissions. A tactful person, he had never questioned Lanny, and would never question Lanny’s wife; he would pretend to take it as proper that some persons should enjoy privileges.
Did Lanny’s clients have any suspicion concerning his ability to gad about in a severely restricted world? They were all wealthy persons who were accustomed to having their own way. They knew about Budd-Erling and wouldn’t be surprised to hear that the son of Budd-Erling enjoyed the confidence of State Department officials. They wouldn’t question their art expert, any more than they had questioned their bootlegger in times past, or would question their black-market operators in times soon to come. If somebody brought you what you wanted at a price within reason, you would pay him and take possession, whether it was an old master, an automobile tire, or just a few pounds of butter or cartons of cigarettes.
Lanny didn’t have the time for his usual trip to Chicago and points in between. He used the long distance telephone, and had a chat with his plate-glass friends in Pittsburgh and his hardware friends in Cincinnati; with old Mr. Hackabury, the soap man of Reubens, Indiana, and old Mrs. Fotheringay, who filled her Lake Shore mansion with painted babies. He drove out to Tuxedo Park, and discovered that his friend Harlan Winstead was not interested in Arab or Moorish art objects, but thought that a neighbor might be. This Mr. Vernon was invited to lunch; he was building a villa for his favorite daughter, and was charmed by the descriptions Lanny gave of arabesque doorways and mosaic floors with interlacing designs made of Arabic scripts. He suggested that it might be a unique idea to take up such mosaics, carefully numbering each piece on its under side, and restore them as features of a loggia or a patio in an American suburban home.
Lanny pointed out that Algeria was full of ancient Roman ruins, whole cities, and that the Romans also had gone in for mosaics, and without being afraid of either polytheism or nudity. The best of these ruins had been made national property by the French government, but others were on private property and the mosaics might be purchased. Mr. Vernon authorized this well-recommended art expert to make such purchases for him up to a total cost of twenty thousand dollars. He wrote a letter to that effect, which Lanny said would help him in getting a passport from the State Department, though its real purpose was to lull the suspicions of officials in Vichy France and its African possessions. He knew from long experience that there was no baggage so well worth its weight as letters from American millionaires.
V
The President’s confidential man, Baker, telephoned to the apartment, and Lanny went to the man’s hotel room and got his passport. He made sure that it covered all the places to which he might have to go.
Baker said: “I hope you have better luck than you had with the last ones, Mr. Budd. I can get you passage on a Clipper to Lisbon by way of Puerto Rico and Brazil on Saturday.”
Lanny said: “Fine,” and that was that.
The time was short. He had to have a conference with Professor Alston. He was ready to fly to Washington for this, but Alston telephoned that he was coming to New York and that Lanny should wait. Meantime there was Jim Stotzlmann, who was F.D.R.’s friend as well as Lanny’s. The President had hinted that Jim was another P.A., but had told Lanny not to ask, and Lanny hadn’t. This genial fellow, big and yet gentle as a girl, was only a couple of years older than Lanny, but while Lanny had been playing with the fisherboys on the beach at Juan, Jim had been dining with most of the crowned heads of Europe, on board his father’s “palatial” yacht—as the newspapers always called it.
In World War I the scion of the Stotzlmann clan had enlisted as a private, and later had become an Army Reserve officer. Now he was a Major, and stationed in New York, busy with mysterious matters having to do with docks and shipping and the prevention of sabotage. They had dinner at Jim’s hotel, and Lanny told the story of six months’ misadventures. Jim, for his part, told of goings-on in what had become the busiest port in the world. “You can have no idea of the scale on which we are going into this war, Lanny. It fairly takes one’s breath away.”
“What I want to know about is the junta,” Lanny said. That was their name for the group of powerful persons who for the past year or more had been discussing a plan for putting the New Deal out of business by taking physical possession of its principal exponent and keeping him under their control.
“They are still at it,” Jim said. “I still can’t sleep at night because I can’t get the Governor to take it seriously enough.”
“I had hoped that since we got into the war their patriotism might have come to the fore.”
“Patriotism, heck!” responded the Major. “That gang knows nobody but themselves.”
“Do they expect to make a deal with Hitler?”
“They expect to do anything that will keep them from having to fight for Stalin. I’m not free to go into details, Lanny, but that remark was made by Harrison Dengue to a friend of mine barely a week ago. I personally reported it to the Chief, but he just smiled and said: ‘Well, his money is fighting, and that’s all we care about.’”
“Dengue said he wanted to see me again after I had talked to Hitler and his crowd; but I doubt if I’m ever going into Germany again. This war has been most inconvenient for me.” Lanny said it with a smile, and his friend smiled in return; they had met only two or three times, but their points of view were so nearly the same that they could talk in shorthand, as it were.
“Dengue is in Chicago now, and that is one of the headquarters of sedition. I wish you could go out there and make friends with them, Lanny.”
“I wish I could, but I have to fly overseas in a couple of days. I turn our great Chief over to your keeping.”
“He has promised me to have Hyde Park taken out of the New York Military District and put directly under the care of Washington. That will help, I hope.”
“You know, Jim,” said Lanny, “the story you told me has haunted me; I doubt if I’ll ever get it out of my mind. We’ve read about how the Roman Republic was overthrown, and so many others in history, but we just can’t bring ourselves to realize how easily the same thing might happen in this country. Just imagine that in the next industrial crisis the labor crowd, or what are called the ‘radicals,’ carried an election, and our big business masters wanted to keep them out; suppose there was an Army cabal, and these men backed it with their money and their newspapers and their radios; suppose they were to seize the newly elected President, hold him incommunicado, and issue orders in his name—what could the rest of us do?”
“That is just what I keep hammering into my friends, Lanny. They all say: ‘The people would rise.’ But what can the people with shotguns and pitchforks do against modern weapons of war and modern organization? With bombing planes and poison gas a few men could wipe out a whole city; and I know men who are ready to do it—they have said so in plain words.”
“I could compile a list of a hundred such,” responded Lanny. “It is a danger we shall not be free from so long as capitalism endures; and it is going to die a hard and nasty death.”
VI
There was one other man in New York with whom Lanny wanted to have a talk. That was his friend Forrest Quadratt, who had been head of the Nazi propaganda service in America. Forrest knew what was going on, and when he got going he would spill many hints. Lanny telephoned the ex-poet’s home, and, as usual, the soft silky voice revealed warm pleasure. “Where on earth have you been all this time?”
“I’ve been all the way round the world and had a lot of adventures.”
“Will you come up to dinner? I’ll be alone.”
Lanny had been planning to take Laurel and Agnes out to dinner, but duty came before pleasure. He walked uptown and over to Riverside Drive, to the familiar apartment with the study full of books and photographs and other literary trophies. Forrest Quadratt was in his fifties, and had made it his business to meet many of the writers of his time. In his youth he had been a flaming erotic poet, a self-proclaimed genius, and he had become embittered because his word was not taken by the critics. Now he was a self-registered Nazi agent—because the law required this frankness. He had collected large sums from Germany and expended a part of them to pay for a flood of books, pamphlets, and papers. He had written speeches for congressmen to deliver and put into the Congressional Record, and then he had them mailed out to the extent of hundreds of thousands of copies free of postal charges.
Lanny told the story of his plane smash-up, his sojourn in the hospital, his yacht trip to the South Seas, and his escape from Hongkong. “I couldn’t imagine what had become of you!” exclaimed Quadratt. “So much has been happening in the meantime—the wrecking of all our hopes of peace. Have you heard what has happened to me?”
“I saw no newspapers between Manila and New York, a period of more than four months.”
“I have been indicted and convicted, and am under a jail sentence of from eight months to two years.”
“Good Lord! What for?”
“They framed me on a preposterous charge. I registered myself as in the employ of German magazines, and they undertook to prove that I was in the employ of the government.”
“Herrgott, noch einmal! Don’t they know that German magazines are government institutions?”
“Of course they know it; but they pretended not to, and so did the jury.”
“Well, but you’re not in jail!” Lanny looked about him at the elegant apartment.
“I am out on bail, pending an appeal. I have every hope that some court will set aside the conviction. The conduct of the prosecutor was so outrageous that he should be the one to serve the sentence.”
“You know how it is in wartime,” remarked Lanny sympathetically. “The country goes crazy.”
“But this was before Pearl Harbor, Lanny. At any rate, the indictment was. It has been an intensely disagreeable experience.”
“I sympathize with you, Forrest; and certainly I hope you get a reversal of the verdict.” It was hard for Lanny to put the proper amount of feeling into his tone, for he knew what would have happened to a German citizen in Berlin who had made a fortune by serving American magazines or American government agencies in circulating pro-Allied propaganda throughout the Fatherland. That was the advantage which the ruthless men had over the mild and honorable in this world, and how the balance was to be righted was a problem indeed!
Lanny sat watching the rather small man with the round, smooth-shaven face, the thick spectacles, and the hesitating manner. He saw that the convicted agent was a worried man indeed. He spoke with great rapidity, as if he were afraid he would not be allowed to finish; but Lanny let him pour out a stream of troubles. All his German friends in this country were interned and incommunicado, and all activities had come to a stop. Forrest didn’t say what they weren’t able to accomplish, but left the son of Budd-Erling to make queries as to his meaning. The Americans who were in sympathy with his ideas were many of them no longer working, because it was so difficult to get money. The unscrupulous F.B.I. agents were dogging everybody’s footsteps, trying to get something on them. “I have reason to believe they are going to try to frame something else against us; possibly a sedition charge, which carries a much heavier penalty. They are after Father Coughlin now and seem determined to put him out of business.”
In short, the skies over Forrest Quadratt’s head looked black. He had failed in everything he had attempted, and his appetite for an excellent dinner was spoiled. The might of the Western world was going to be thrown against the Fatherland, and the only hope the ex-poet could see was in the forthcoming spring offensive against Russia, which might wipe out that nest of vipers soon enough to save Germany from a two-front war. Lanny tried subtly and carefully to find out if there might not be another hope, that of replacing Franklin D. Roosevelt as Commander-in-Chief of the American Armed Forces. Lanny mentioned that he was getting in touch with that powerful personality, Mr. Harrison Dengue, but Forrest didn’t take the bait; he wasn’t going to discuss the junta, even if he knew anything about it.
Could it possibly have occurred to him that the son of Budd-Erling might have changed his point of view when he discovered himself under the Japanese bombs and shells? Certainly Forrest must have known that Budd-Erling was now turning out a superior type of fighter plane, and he must have been warned that the Federal Bureau of Investigation was employing many sorts of agents and disguises in its secret war on American Nazism. It might be that Berlin had informed him that Lanny had visited Stalin. Lanny waited for some hint on the subject, but none came. He decided at last that he was wasting his evening. He excused himself, went home, and took his two ladies out to a late supper.
VII
Charles T. Alston came up from Washington, and Lanny went to his hotel and took him for a drive in the park, a safe place for a confidential talk. This quiet little gray-haired man was much sought after by reporters, for he had been one of the members of the original “brain trust,” away back in the days when a former Assistant Secretary of the Navy was elected Governor of New York State, and had the unprecedented idea of inviting some college professors to join his cabinet and advise in the management of the most populous and wealthy state of the Union. Later Alston had been taken to Washington, where he became a “fixer,” charged with settling the wrangles of jealous bureaucrats, and later on of statesmen, generals, and admirals who got into one another’s hair.
Earlier in his career this professor of geography had served on the staff of advisers which Woodrow Wilson had taken to the Paris Peace Conference, and there he had become Lanny Budd’s first and only employer. Lanny had been nineteen then, and now he was forty-two, but he still addressed Alston as “Professor” and still looked up to him as an authority on all affairs of government and politics. Alston, for his part, still thought of Lanny as the brilliant and fashionable youth who had chattered in French with generals and duchesses, while Alston had painfully studied the language from textbooks and wondered how to find out whether you pronounced the final “s” in Reims, and what was the difference, if any, between the sounds of dedans and des dents. The geographer from the “sticks” had felt the same secret awe of Lanny that Lanny had felt for him.
First Lanny had to repeat the story of his adventures on the plane trip and in Hongkong and Yenan and Moscow. He had had to tell it to F.D.R., and to Robbie, and Zoltan, and Jim, and the end was not yet. Alston wanted to hear everything that Ching-ling had said, and Mao Tse-tung, and Stalin, and others in the Soviet Union. He asked questions, and incidentally imparted a few secrets. “We have to be sure that what we are sending the Russians actually reaches the front; for we are sustaining grave losses on the route to Murmansk, so great that we may have to discontinue it.”
“Of course I didn’t see anything with my own eyes,” responded the younger man. “I can only tell you what Stalin and the others said. They beg for everything we can spare, and are certain that they will be pushed to the uttermost this summer.”
“Did they give any hint of the possibility of having to quit?”
“All the way through China and Siberia and Russia proper, we never heard any word but of resistance to the last gasp. You can count upon that as a gift from Hitler. He is the most hated man that has appeared upon the stage of history for many centuries.”
VIII
After Alston was through asking questions, it was Lanny’s turn, and he had accumulated quite a list. “Professor,” he began, “there
is something that has been troubling my mind for nearly half a year. You telephoned me at the hospital in Halifax that you had received the information you wanted from Germany. Did you mean that, or were you just putting my mind at rest?”
“I meant most of it, Lanny. We got some information and expect to get more.”
“Are you free to tell me anything about it?”
“The rule still holds, that we never speak the words atomic fission except when it is absolutely necessary. But I can say this: we are ahead of the Germans and expect to keep ahead.”
“But you can’t be absolutely sure?”
“Nothing can be absolutely sure in matters of scientific research. We know what the signs are at the moment, but nobody can know what some German physicist may have hit upon last night.”
“I keep thinking there may still be something I can do about it.”
“The Chief was quite positive that he didn’t want to send you into Germany again, Lanny.”
“He told me that. But I told him about my German contact in Geneva, and he was willing for me to go there.”
“It would be foolhardy for us to risk taking any German into our confidence in this matter. The outcome of the war might depend upon it, and the whole future of humanity.”
“Let me tell you a little about this man. I have known him since before Hitler. He was vouched for by the woman who later became my second wife. I have never told you about her; not even my mother or my father knows about her. She was a devoted Socialist Party member, and her first husband was murdered by the Nazis; she became a worker in the underground, and died in Dachau concentration camp, in spite of my best efforts to save her. The man I am talking about helped me in trying to rescue her; before that he was in Spain and proved his loyalty in the fires of that civil war; he rose to be a capitán. That surely ought to be enough evidence of his trustworthiness.”
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