Cynthia

by Howard Fast

  “It’s not a question of having, Lucille,” I explained. “It’s a question of control, who controls more money. He does—Brother Corsica.”

  “Here we are—What is your attitude toward money? I want to be very rich. I want to be moderately rich. I don’t care whether I am ever rich. I disdain wealth—that in one two of the tests. And conversely, I come from a very rich family, upper middle class, middle class, laboring class. One of the tests goes into the father’s profession: not categories but open spaces. You fill in, but for the date, a series of categories to choose from. Harvey, it’s clearer and clearer.”

  “Or muddier and muddier. Doesn’t anything fix it to the American scene?”

  “You would think so, wouldn’t you, Harvey? But only if you want to accept the cliché about baseball and apple pie. In the category of cultural background, they ask: If you have a choice, which will you attend—Shakespeare live, ballet, a baseball game, a prize fight, a symphony? Give that one to an American college graduate, a citizen of Ghana and a Finn, and nationality won’t mean one blessed thing, Harvey.”

  “But suppose it was their ploy—”

  “Do you know why, Harvey? You do see why, don’t you?”

  “All right—just leave their reasons alone for the moment. Just suppose they do it—why answer truthfully? Why not fake it out from the word go?”

  “Because they’re smart, Harvey. They wanted it of a piece. These things have to have a pattern—”

  “Of course!” I exclaimed. “The computer is programmed. That’s what we keep forgetting, that these damn machines can’t think. They can only give out what is put in, and in this case they are programmed for a series of patterns. Corsica’s advisors can’t guess the particular pattern, so he’s honest. He answers the questions truthfully. What about drinking—that’s international enough?”

  “They all have a category for drinking. Excessively, more than usual, moderate, infrequently, or not at all. Also attitudes: Do you approve of drinking? Whisky? Brandy? Wine? Not all of them have that but two of them do. Also gambling—not at all, moderately, excessively. Does your Cynthia gamble?”

  “No mention of it. Why should she? That’s not considered kicks in her crowd.”

  “Does Corsica?”

  I thought about that for a while. Of course he would not gamble. Owning half the State of Nevada, he would be an idiot to gamble. I said to Lucille, “Are you trying to tell me that E.C. Brandon and the Mafia would produce the same type offspring?”

  “Of course not, Harvey. But that doesn’t mean that they would not fill out these questionnaires in the same way.”

  “That is reaching.”

  “Well, isn’t the whole point of this to reach?”

  “OK—where do we start?”

  “With the biggest, Harvey,” she said eagerly. “Computer Social Studies—in forty-seven states, Mexico and Canada. Address is 599 Fifth Avenue.”

  “That’s the Scribner Building. That’s an odd place for it—one of the very old, Victorian places left on Fifth Avenue.”

  “They want respectibility, Harvey, naturally. And you will buy me lunch.”

  We went to the Woman’s Exchange, and then we walked down Fifth Avenue to the Scribner Building. But Computer Social Studies was a disappointment. In a tiny office, no more than ten by twelve feet, an old lady peered at us nearsightedly from a small cave in a pile of baled questionnaires and old files. Not a computer in sight.

  “Three of you?” she asked.

  “Two of us,” Lucille answered sweetly, “Mr. Krim and myself.”

  “Are you cops?” the old lady asked, polishing her thick lenses. “Dear me, my eyes are not what they were. If you are cops, Stanley says you got nothing on us because what we are doing is absolutely one hundred percent legal—did I hear the door close?” she asked Lucille.

  “No, ma’am,” I replied.

  “Where is the other one?”

  “Only the two of us.”

  “Three of you came in.”

  “No—really,” Lucille said. “Two of us. Only two of us.”

  “Who is Stanley?”

  “He’s my son, of course.” The desk was covered with papers, and she went through them hopelessly. “You know, it’s Stanley’s desk. He’s disorderly.”

  “Where is Stanley?” I asked her.

  “He was always disorderly. He was a disorderly child. Do you know, he would do his homework and put it away, and then he would simply forget where it was at. ‘Stanley,’ I said to him, ‘do your homework and give it to me.’ Well, do you know—”

  “Where is Stanley?” I begged her.

  “Oh? Stanley?”

  “We want to know where your son is, Mrs.—” Lucille said gently.

  “I’m Ellie.”

  “Well, it would be nicer if we knew your last name,” Lucille said “I mean, you are entitled to that.”

  “You’re a nice girl,” the old lady said. “I wish that Stanley had met you before he became engaged. That’s where he is now.”

  “Being engaged?”

  “Oh, no. No. He became engaged last month. Now he’s out in Brooklyn at Mr. Bumper’s place, where Mr. Bumper has this IBM machine. Stanley has an idea that he can program this machine to do the dating surveys, and you see his secretary became pregnant, so I am here for a while, but you know it’s really a different kind of a machine. Stanley is very bright, but—”

  “My dear lady,” I interrupted, “here on your test paper, it says, Computer Social Studies—in Forty-seven states, Mexico and Canada.”

  She smiled brightly. “That was Stanley’s idea. Don’t you think it’s very clever?”

  “Why not fifty states?” Lucille asked.

  “Stanley thought forty-seven would be psychologically more effective. Don’t you agree?”

  We agreed and we left. We walked uptown to Compudate, Inc. at 57th Street and Madison Avenue, which was a small but going concern. They even had a computer. A fat, smiling man called Mr. Ready was the manager. Three other people worked in the office, and our hopes rose slightly.

  Mr. Ready gave us his card. “Ready on the right, Ready on the left,” he said. Then he smiled. He smiled with his whole face. We mentioned that we had just come from Computer Social Studies, and he smiled understandingly. “That outfit gives the whole industry a bad name,” he smiled, “but when you launch your craft on the wave of the future, you get every element. Think of it—for the first time in human history, we have an opportunity to reduce the random factor in mating to absolute zero. Of course, the experiment is still in its infancy. We have worlds to conquer. Think of it—an opportunity to marry a girl you’ve never seen before, yet with the total, unshakable certainty that she shares your every thought, likes the same food, shares your appetite for sex, wants the same—why do you shudder, Mrs.—?” he asked Lucille, smiling warmly.

  “Miss Dempsey.”

  “Miss Dempsey. Shall we fear the future? Or should we rather walk forward with firm steps to welcome it and embrace it.”

  “That’s a wonderful thought,” Lucille agreed.

  “Do you represent a school? Or perhaps you have a territorial interest? This is the time to get in, now, at the beginning—as if you were standing beside Marconi or Thomas Edison—”

  “I’m an insurance investigator,” I told him. “My name is Harvey Krim.”

  His face froze but the smile remained. It now became a frozen smile, and it was a remarkable thing to see. Still smiling, he asked coldly, “What can I do for you, sir?”

  “Believe me, you have done nothing wrong,” I hastened to assure him. “We are interested in the loss of a rather expensive fur coat, and there is some reason to believe that the girl who reported its loss used your dating service. That’s all. If we could simply find the man’s name—”

  “Why don’t you ask her?”

  “Oh, we did. First thing. But I think the name was part of it—at least, we can find no address. Here are my credentials.”

/>   He examined them thoughtfully. The card the company gives me folds in two, and I always keep a ten-dollar bill in the fold. When he returned it to me, his frozen smile had relaxed into a beam and the ten-dollar bill was missing.

  “All right—who’s the girl?” His smile was now a smile of complicity, and I wondered whether he ever accepted anyone or anything at its face value.

  “Cynthia Brandon.”

  “Ah-hah!” The receptionist, the girl closest to us, who doubled as a typist and an answering service, was listening so intently that her ears practically quivered. Ready said to her, “Turn it off, Nosey. You’ll strain your eardrums.” And to us “Come into my office where the third balcony is not crowded.” His humor was as heavy as he was, and from the corner of my eye, I saw the receptionist stick her tongue out after him.

  His office was tasteless in chrome and glass. “I like the look of tomorrow,” he said, waving an arm. “Sit down, sit down. You struck paydirt. Cynthia Brandon—what kind of coat?”

  “Russian sable—worth seventy-two thousand dollars,” Lucille said without blinking an eyelash. Her Presbyterian ethic was crumbling visibly.

  “That’s the way it goes. It takes talent to spend money like that. How much did you say?”

  “Seventy-two thousand.”

  “Ready on the right, Ready on the left,” he quipped—his sense of humor never failing him. “You know why I remember that one?”

  We both waited.

  “Because they matched and married. Or at least that was on the schedule.”

  “You’re telling me Cynthia Brandon is married?” I demanded.

  “Scheduled, scheduled, brother Krim. You don’t find me giving false information to a shamus. That’s what you are, isn’t it?” he asked uncertainly.

  “On the West Coast. Here I’m an insurance investigator. Who is this they?”

  “They?”

  “You just said they matched. Cynthia Brandon and who?”

  “That would be in the matched files.” He smiled reassuringly. “When I said you struck paydirt, I meant just that—paydirt. Never worry about our files.” He switched on his intercom and said to one of the girls outside, “Sylvia, bring me Cynthia Brandon’s file and its match.”

  A moment or two later, she entered with two file folders, which she dropped onto his desk. I reached, but he covered them with two fat paws, shook his head and smiled. “Oh, no. Confidence. No eyes but ours rest on the files. Ask me questions—I will answer them so long as no sacred confidence is violated.”

  “That’s Very noble of you,” Lucille said.

  “We try, we try,” he said. “Praise us not with too much honey lest the bees come with their foul stings—Dickens.”

  “It’s very unusual to quote Dickens,” Lucille said.

  “Oh, yes. Thank you. Here we are.” He opened one of the files. “Cynthia Brandon. I select at random—Section three, Category six, Question: What do you regard as the major source of your frustration? Answer: The Establishment. Now I turn to the companion folder. Section three, Category six. Answer: The Establishment.”

  “And whose folder is that?” Lucille asked.

  “Remarkable young man. His name is Gambion de Fonti. Italian, but very old, respectable family. Barrels of money. That’s our service—money goes to money, order, sanity.”

  “Gambion de Fonti,” I said.

  “Gambion de Fonti. Section two, Question: Do you want money? Answer: No, I have all I need. The other folder, Section two—”

  “I am sure we understand,” Lucille said politely. “Cynthia Brandon has all the money she needs. So does Gambion de Fonti. By the way, Mr. Ready, did you know he was a count?”

  “No. You don’t say so.”

  “I do indeed.”

  “Then you know him?”

  “Let’s say we know of him,” I said. “Of course you have his address?”

  “Of course—right here. The Ritzhampton, at Sixty-fourth and Madison.”

  “It would be the Ritzhampton,” Lucille nodded. “Where else does one stay?”

  Mr. Ready’s mind was racing. “Do you know,” he said, “a combination of Cynthia Brandon and a real, legitimate count could put this company on the map. But I mean on the map.”

  “He’s real but he’s not legitimate,” I said.

  “You’re sure?”

  “Absolutely certain.”

  “That’s very upsetting,” Mr. Ready said unhappily but still smiling. “You try to function with integrity and the world passes you by.”

  “It does,” I agreed. “It certainly does.”

  Chapter 6

  “We want two Xerox copies of the questionnaires,” Lucille told Mr. Ready.

  “I’m afraid that’s impossible. These are held in the strictest confidence.”

  “Ten dollars?”

  “Far more confidential than that.”

  “Harvey, give Mr. Ready fifteen dollars, and that is as high as we go—the very last penny.”

  I took three five-dollar bills out of my pocket, and he had the copies made, and we went downstairs to the lobby, where I said to Lucille, “This has got to stop.”

  “What, Harvey?”

  “You know damn well what. So go back to that damn Donnell branch of the New York Public Library where you belong.”

  “You don’t mean that, Harvey.”

  “Now. I damn well do,” I said fiercely.

  “Oh, Harvey, you shouldn’t talk tough, because it’s like when that absolutely improbable fat man called you a shamus—”

  “That’s exactly what I mean,” I said.

  “What is exactly what you mean?”

  “I mean you undercut my confidence. I mean you hit right to the heart of the whole problem of my masculinity. Do you think this is an easy world to be a man in? No, sir. Never.”

  “Harvey, I don’t mean to.”

  “Maybe you don’t mean to. That doesn’t change the essential fact. How old are you?”

  “Harvey, you know how old I am, and I think it’s very humiliating for you to bring it up all the time.”

  “Very well. Twenty-nine years. And unmarried. Maybe that’s why, and it’s all very well to talk about humiliation, but how do you suppose I feel? I always wanted to be a film director and instead of that I’m an insurance dick, but I am supposed to be the smartest one in town. How do you think I feel? Do you know what you’ve been doing to me all day?”

  “No, not really.”

  “Humiliating me.”

  “But I’ve been trying to help you,” she said, quite horrified.

  “You know how you could help me? Go back to your job.”

  “Harvey, I am on sick leave, and you know that I do care for you, and I am only trying to help a little, and it’s just utterly insane to imagine that I have one tenth of your understanding and know-how, and I don’t see what harm it does if I trail along—”

  “Look, kid,” I said to her, trying to be kind and understanding, “I know how you feel, but this can be a very dangerous job, and you have to keep on it. We should be at the Ritzhampton right now.”

  “But of course they’re gone, Harvey, so there’s no need to rush.”

  “How do you know they’re gone?”

  “Just because it’s the most obvious thing in the world, Harvey, and if you—”

  I stared at her, and she swallowed her words and said, “All right Harvey. We go to the Ritzhampton, right now, and I apologize and I am sorry, and please don’t make me go away because I am having more fun than I ever had since I was a little girl and I put my little sister Stephanie’s yellow braids into black ink while she was sleeping—”

  “You did that?”

  “Yes.”

  “Why?”

  “Because I hated Stephanie.”

  “Why did you hate her?”

  “Because she was so damn good.”

  “Come along,” I said, and we walked up Madison to the Ritzhampton. I half-suspected that they were one of the
company’s clients and when a phone call confirmed that they were, I introduced myself and Lucille to Mike Jacoby, the hotel security officer.

  There is nothing very colorful about Mike Jacoby, who took his courses in police-psychology, criminology and hotel management at New York University; except that for a city boy who was born in the Bronx, he has covered himself with a remarkable veneer of international cool. He also has a mustache and has his suits made to order. He was very cooperative—perhaps because he couldn’t take his eyes off Lucille—and he dug up the count’s registration in a matter of minutes.

  While I was looking at it, he whispered into my ear, “What’s her name?”

  “Cynthia Brandon.”

  “Not her. The gal you’re with.”

  “Lucille Dempsey.”

  “You in love with her?”

  “Why, what the hell has that got to do with anything?”

  “I just asked a civil question. I want to know how deeply you are involved.”

  “Why?” I demanded. I had passed the registration card over to Lucille, who was studying it carefully now. Then she took the file and began to go through it. Jacoby stared at her as if he had never seen a woman before.

  “Because I want to marry her.”

  “Just like that? You never met her before, but you want to marry her.”

  “If I had met her before, I would have married her. I been waiting for a woman like that.”

  “I’ll ask her,” I said.

  “Just be careful how you put it.”

  “Lucille,” I said, “Mr. Jacoby here, he thinks he is immediately in love with you and he wants to know whether you will marry him?”

  “No,” she replied. “But thank you, Mr. Jacoby. You know, there are two registrations for Count Gambion. And it’s funny,” she said to me, “that here this fellow registers openly at this hotel and your Lieutenant Rothschild and that clever Sergeant Kelly you were telling me about, they don’t appear to know one blessed thing about it. Do they?”

  “I guess not,” I agreed.

  “I would call that pretty poor police work, wouldn’t you, Mr. Jacoby.”

  “You mean you would not even think of me in terms of marriage? Flatly—just like that?”

  “Yes, but you musn’t take offense. I mean, if we ran a branch of the Library System the way the police department seems to operate, we would never know where any book was.”