by Howard Fast
“Lucille,” I said. “The police department had no reason to inquire here—”
“The first one,” Lucille said, “is for the Presidential suite. What about that, Mr. Jacoby?”
“Well, it’s an excellent accommodation. You have no feeling about me?”
“We’ll talk about that some time. How large, Mr. Jacoby?”
“Dining room, living room, three bedrooms, kitchen, pantry.”
“How much?”
“Four hundred dollars a day.”
“Oh, no. I don’t believe it.”
“Oh, it’s not unreasonable. In the Carlyle, I believe they get even—”
“For crying out loud, Lucille,” I began, but she went on smoothly, “And it never made you suspicious? A Count Gambion de Fonti appears and is able to pay that kind of ridiculous price for a few furnished rooms?”
“My dear Miss Dempsey,” Jacoby said, “we only get suspicious when they don’t pay. Really, you look at the whole matter rather oddly, if I may say so.”
“Or sensibly. It’s all a matter of one’s point of view, isn’t it. Now here on this second card, he registers as Count Gambion de Fonti and wife—for the Bridal Suite. Why did he have to register again?”
“That’s a rule of the house.”
“Let me see that!” I exclaimed. It was dated on Monday, exactly one week ago.
“And how much is the Bridal Suite?”
“Lucille, what difference does it make?”
“I should think it would make a difference, and even if it doesn’t there’s such a thing as a normal curiosity by someone who has a normal desire to be a bride even if not on these premises in this particular Bridal Suite.”
“Three hundred and sixty dollars a day,” said Jacoby. “Why should I be suspicious?”
“What on earth would you do with a girl like this?” I asked him.
“I’d figure something out. No, excuse me, Miss Dempsey. I don’t mean it just that way, and he’s cockeyed when he says I have fallen in love with you at first sight. All I mean is that I would like an opportunity to know you better.”
“The name Cynthia Brandon rang no bells, did it, Jacoby?”
“Should it?”
“No. Not at all. She only happens to be the daughter of one of the richest men in America, namely E.C. Brandon.”
“Elmer Cantwell Brandon?”
“That’s right.”
“Well, she certainly got married quietly,” Jacoby said.
“You mean they actually lived here—in the Bridal Suite?” Lucille exclaimed.
“Overnight anyway.”
“And then?”
“They checked out.”
“Well, of course they checked out,” Lucille said matter of factly.
We went into the records for a forwarding address, but there was none. We questioned the doorman, and out of him we squeezed the probability that they took a cab to Kennedy Airport. He was not sure. Almost sure, but not quite.
“Just who is this Count Gambion de Fonti?” Jacoby wanted to know.
“He’s a hoodlum,” I said, “so if you get any wind of him whatsoever let me know.”
Then he tried to date Lucille again, and finally she gave him her telephone number. As we walked away from the hotel, I asked her, “Now, why on earth did you do that?”
“He was so insistent.”
“He’s a jerk.”
“Then you have nothing to worry about, Harvey.”
“Who’s worried?”
“You’re angry.”
“I’m not angry—I’m just a little edgy about having you trailing all over the place with me.”
“Do you want me to go, Harvey?”
“At this point, what I want seems to be absolutely academic.”
“Anyway,” she said, “I like your job. It’s more fun than mine. I mean, it’s just so lovely to have a job where there isn’t a stitch of work to do and your time is absolutely your own.”
“Now what do you mean by that?”
“Harvey, you’re angry again.”
“Work—my God, I work my butt off for that lousy insurance company.”
“Of course you do, Harvey,” she said.
Chapter 7
It was about three o’clock now, and the month of March, with its talent for idiotic whimsy, had decided upon spring. The sun was shining and the lightest, softest breeze was blowing from the south. There is a legend that London has the worst weather in the Western world, but the legend persists only because New Yorkers are not naturally boastful. So when such a day as this appears, the air sweet and clean, the sky blue and the temperature at a reasonable level, the city becomes absolutely gentle and worshipful with astonishment. I found myself holding hands with Lucille Dempsey.
“Harvey,” she said, “let’s go to the Zoo.”
“What!”
“I know. You’re thinking about what I said before. It wasn’t a nice thing to say, was it, Harvey?”
“And the fact that I got a job to do?” I let go of her hand as if it were a hot poker.
“Harvey,” she said reproachfully. “It was so nice to hold hands. I know you blame me for the entire Protestant ethic—which can be so nicely summed up as he who works is good and he who idles is bad. But there is another me.”
“Where?”
“Just take my hand again and see. Also, isn’t thinking the largest part of your job?”
I admitted that was so, and we walked to the Zoo. The notion that it would be a pleasant place on that Monday afternoon must have occurred to most of the population of mid-Manhattan, because the people outnumbered the animals at least twenty to one. Everyone has his own preference at the Central Park Zoo. Lucille was a sea-lion buff. I was always torn between the yak and the elephants—perhaps because the lugubrious touches me more deeply than anything else, and if there is anything more lugubrious than an elephant, it is a yak. She understood my point of view and we were holding hands again, and after we had viewed the elephants we went to the cafeteria for coffee.
“Harvey,” Lucille said, “this is the nicest date we ever had.”
I nodded.
“Also, you are relaxed, and that’s very good. But, you know, this is practically the only date we ever had, except for those awful lunches you always buy me.”
“How about twice to the Metropolitan Opera House?”
“If you call opera a date. Isn’t it more like an obligation, Harvey? But there I am being nasty again, aren’t I?”
“That’s OK. I feel benign right now. Why did you want copies of the questionnaires?”
“Of course—I forgot all about that. Because something in it is very wrong. You realize why he married her, Harvey, don’t you?”
“The citizenship thing. But just how does it work?”
“I think that calls for a lawyer, but in these questionnaires—here’s what I want. I just saw it out of the corner of my eyes. It’s in the section entitled Character Analysis in Depth, and it gives a list of thirty questions which are to be answered true or false. Now look at question twenty-one in the Count’s folder. Quote—In any group, I must be the leader. Answer: False. Quote—I prefer power to love. Answer. False. That’s question twenty-four. Now look at question twenty-nine. I am satisfied with very little. Answer. True.” She glanced up at me curiously. “I don’t know too much about this Mafia of yours, but it does seem to me that they found a wrongo to take over.”
“Why should you think he answered the questions truthfully?”
“I just think he did.”
“Why?”
“Why not?”
“Because a guy like this Corsica has characters all around him. Whatever he does, they do for him.”
“Harvey, aren’t you guessing as much as I am?”
“Maybe. But good God, he’s supposed to take over the Syndicate.”
“Where is that lawyer you mentioned before, Harvey?” she said primly. “I think we’ve loafed enough, don’t you?”
> “His name is Max Oppenheim, and he helped me through the divorce and he’s very smart.”
Oppenheim, Farrell and Adams are at 48th and Park Avenue, so we took a cab. It was about four-thirty in the afternoon when we got there and were ushered into Max Oppenheim’s office, where he was having a little refreshment, namely three or four Danish pastries and a cup of coffee. He is a small man, about five feet and four inches, but what he lacks in height, he makes up in breadth. His suits are wonders of engineering, and strangely enough his two hundred and twenty pounds are not unbecoming. He begged us to have some Danish, and when we refused, he said that his partner, Joey Adams, did not have the same weight problem and therefore ate Napoleons and French doughnuts, and there were always one or two extra.
We both shook our heads, and Max said, “You know, Harvey, the trouble with skinny people is not simply the act of confronting you with their own svelt selves but the act of refusing goodies. It puts me down. It puts me down terribly.”
Lucille thereupon had a piece of Danish, and Max observed, “This, Harvey, is a kind girl. She’s got heart and compassion. Do you want to marry her? You’re free to. Unless you married that Sarah Cotter who was mixed up in the Sabin case.”
“He did not,” Lucille said. “Harvey may be a fink, but he is not stupid.”
“Mostly not. Then what can I do for you?”
“We got a hypothetical case,” I told him, “but it’s very important Max, so I don’t want you to think I am just wasting your time.”
“I charge you anyway, Harvey, so what’s the difference?”
“But, Max, this is only a hypothetical case.”
“Harvey, you come for advice. I sell advice, and it’s only hypothetical because it’s maybe somewhat illegal. I ought to charge you double.”
“You wouldn’t.”
“I wouldn’t. Anyway, it goes into expenses.”
“It still hurts Harvey. You have to understand that,” Lucille said sweetly.
“I understand,” Max said.
“All right, you’ve had your fun. Here’s the case. A man enters the United States, legally but under a phony name, so that means he has forged papers. He needs citizenship but his papers and background won’t stand up, so he needs an extra prop. We think that in order to get this extra prop, he married an American girl, but we are very hazy on procedure.”
“You think he married the girl? Or did he actually marry her?”
“He married her.”
“That is, we’re practically certain,” Lucille put in. “We have no evidence that the marriage actually took place.”
“It would seem that they shared a connubial bed,” I said.
“Isn’t that a wonderful word, Harvey,” Max said eagerly. “Connubial. That’s a real lawyer word. Why don’t you ask them?”
“Who?”
“The newlyweds.”
“Because they cleared out.”
“No forwarding address?”
“None.”
“Any other plausible reasons for the marriage? I mean beside this citizenship thing?”
“No—”
“There is always the possibility that they were in love,” Lucille said, and I told her, “Honey—come off it.”
“Well, you don’t believe in love, Harvey. You know you don’t.”
“Oh, Harvey’s had his moments,” Max said in my defense.
“I suppose so. With that dreadful person you divorced him from.”
“She wasn’t that dreadful,” I protested.
“Nor did I divorce him from her,” Max said in his own defense. “The judge did that. All I did was to make sure that Harvey came out of the grinder wearing his clothes. Now look, kids—get back to this. You want me to create a presumptive course of action for your male partner in said hypothetical case.”
“You put that so nicely,” Lucille said.
“Thank you. All right. I take the few facts as you give them to me. This man wants permanent entry. He wants to establish a position of residence with rights that would be stronger and quicker than the regular procedure that an immigrant must go through. By the way—this American girl—born here?”
“Right.”
“How did he get to her, if I may ask.”
“Does that figure?”
“It just might.”
“Well, he and the girl both filled out questionnaires for computer dating?”
“What?”
“You know,” Lucille smiled. “IBM machines and all that.”
“I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
“Oh, come on Max—everyone’s heard about this.”
“I haven’t.”
“Well, it’s very big with college kids and I suppose in some high schools and around certain adults. They—these dating firms—get out a set of questionnaires with spaces for all kinds of information about yourself. You know—what do you know about sex, how old are you, what color are your eyes, do you like Tom Courtney better than Burt Lancaster?”
“That’s the way it’s done today?” Max asked incredulously.
“It’s more of a tomorrow business,” Lucille said. “You know—the shadow of the future. Everyone has a number and the numbers are fed into great computers—all that sort of horror stuff.”
“You’re absolutely putting me on,” Max said, “and it is certainly not a very friendly thing to do to a successful overweight lawyer.”
“No, Max,” I explained. “Unfortunately, that’s the way the truth runs these days. And it’s a very simple computer problem. The computer is programmed to pair the questionnaires with the highest number of similar and complementary replies. The cockeyed theory is that if you like strawberry shortcake and I like strawberry shortcake and we both smoke pot, we can live happily ever after.”
“It seems extremely unlikely,” Max said. “I have a wife and five children, Harvey. Did you know that divorce is quite rare in families of five children and more. A good deal of desertion but very little divorce. All right, so these two characters met in a computer. We presume they are married. You want to know what their next step is?”
“That’s right.”
“They go to Canada.”
“Why to Canada?” Lucille demanded.
“You’re a nice girl,” Max said, “but you are very quick to take umbrage, as they say. Maybe the only logic in it is that they should go to Canada.”
“I can’t see that.”
“Of course not, because you don’t know immigration law. I’m no expert on it, but I know what the logical procedure is. Your man now has an American wife, but that by no means makes him an American citizen, nor does it guarantee him any permanent residence in this country.”
“But I thought—”
“Naturally. So does everyone else—marry an American girl and you have it made. But that’s just a step. Is this hypothetical man of yours an idiot or is he well-advised?”
“He’s well-advised,” replied.
“Then he knows what steps to take. One—he married the girl. Two—he goes to Canada. Three—in Canada, he goes to the American Consulate or immigration Office and applies for a visa for permanent entry, on grounds that he has married an American citizen. Barring unusual circumstances, such a visa will be granted.”
“So that’s how it’s done,” Lucille said.
“That’s exactly how it’s done.”
“It seems silly.”
There was a long silence, and then Max said, “You’re right. It does seem silly. But that is how it’s done.”
“But you see,” said Lucille, “it’s really not very much good to us unless we know where he went in Canada.”
“Lucille, how on earth is Max supposed to know where he went?”
“Maybe I do.”
Now we both stared at Max.
“What do you mean, maybe you do?”
“You say he is well-advised?”
“That’s a good presumption.”
“Then it is an eq
ually sound presumption to say that he went to Toronto.”
“Why?”
“You know, Harvey, if all of my clients were like you, I would go out of my mind. A lawyer is like a doctor. Do you ask your doctor why?”
“I do,” Lucille said.
“Sure you do. It figures. But does Harvey?”
“I only go to an analyst,” I said. “Can you ask an analyst why? You know what my analyst says when I ask him why?”
“No, I don’t know.”
“He says I am a nut. OK, let us not get hung up on this. He goes to Toronto.”
“For some good reasons, Harvey,” Max said earnestly. “Since Montreal and Quebec and Halifax are all seaports, they have more specific immigration problems and answers, too. If your man is hot, as you lead me to suspect, he will go inland. The Consulate in Toronto is somewhat easier, and American Airlines has a new jet that gets you there in forty-five minutes.”
“I don’t know—” I said dubiously.
“Well, it’s your baby, Harvey, so kick it around as you see fit. My brains are picked. You will get a bill at the end of the month. You going to marry her?” he asked, nodding at Lucille.
“You know I’m not in any condition to get married.”
“It upsets Harvey when you talk about marriage. As his lawyer, you ought to know that.”
“You’re a smart girl,” Max said. “My advice is very simple. Put a little pressure in the right place and it’s got to give.”
“Let’s go,” I said to Lucille.
I got up and went to the door, and Max called after me, “Harvey!”
I held the door open for Lucille.
“Harvey—a little advice on the house.”
“I’m waiting,” I said.
“Call the cops, Harvey.”
“What?”
“Call in the cops, Harvey. They get paid to clean up.”
“Thanks,” I said.
“Keep an eye on him,” he said to Lucille.
Chapter 8
Down in the street, the golden haze of the afternoon was washing into the murky twilight of New York, and the glass-hung buildings were pouring out their millions for the evening rush homeward. In another hour would come the best time the city knows, the streets cool and empty, rather forlorn and still echoing to the turmoil of the day but quieting and full of increasing hush. Only the New Yorker who lives in Midtown can savor that quiet and properly know it. But, now, and for the next forty minutes or so, the streets were like rivers of people, and I stood there for a moment in the midst of it with Lucille, thinking that we had spent the best part of a day together and that it hadn’t been half-bad, allowing for her tendency to combine the roles of mother, dictator, teacher and interpreter. All in all, we had gotten along quite well, and I felt that I owed her an apology of sorts, and I told her straightforwardly that it had been a very good day indeed.