The Buck Passes Flynn

by Gregory Mcdonald

  “You’ve got it down pat.”

  “Flynn, do you realize what has happened since?”

  Flynn only realized he was about to be lectured.

  He had arrived at Paul Sankey’s house by taxi at nine-thirty at night They had agreed to meet at nine o’clock, but it had taken the taxi driver a long time to find the address.

  Paul Sankey lived in the middle of an obscure alley in the Georgetown section of Washington. It was the smallest house Flynn had ever seen in any city. It was too small even to have served as a coach house or garage.

  When Sankey opened the door to him, Flynn found himself in what appeared to be the only room on that floor. It was not a living room, in the usual sense. There was one comfortable chair and footstool. Stacks of books were everywhere on the floor. The walls were lined with drafting tables. On each there was what appeared to be a graph-in-progress. On the walls above hung huge graphs, each with its own color scheme, red, blue, green, brown. Flynn guessed all the graphs had to do with economic analysis. Fluorescent lights hung from the ceiling. In the fireplace, stacked one on the other, were two small filing cases.

  Flynn had been shown to the one comfortable chair. He was not offered food or drink.

  Sankey, in shirt-sleeves and tie, remained standing. He immediately began speaking in the most earnest terms.

  “That statement,” Sankey said, “uttered by that person, the ambassador, at that time, eighteen years ago, at that place, The Hague, destroyed the world as you and I knew it.”

  Flynn suspected it had destroyed the world as Paul Sankey knew it—Paul Sankey’s world.

  “You don’t know much about economics, do you, Flynn. Despite your unholy interference in it.”

  “It hasn’t been proved I interfered,” Flynn said mildly.

  “Oh, you did, all right. You or whoever you were working for. You changed the world.”

  Flynn shrugged blamelessly. Sankey was a bitter man. Flynn might as well give him his moment to yowl.

  “All right.” Stepping around the small room, Sankey punctuated his remarks with jabs of his index finger at various charts on the walls.

  “Post-World War II economic recovery plans were designed to result in a group of more or less equal economic entities—the United States, the European Common Market, a Latin American Common Market, the British Commonwealth Nations. Now, many things went wrong with this plan, but one thing in particular—traceable to that statement you fed into the ambassador’s speech eighteen years ago at The Hague.

  “According to that statement, no matter how many ‘equals’ were set up, no matter how powerful they were individually or together, the United States would dominate the world’s economy. Do you see how unfair this was?”

  Flynn shrugged. “It would seem to have been a candid statement,” Flynn said, “for the time.”

  “All right.” Sankey was running his index finger over a specific graph on the wall that made no sense whatsoever to Flynn. “To be very simple. First, under this new economic scheme, the world goes off the gold standard. Instead, what will be used is a currency established and backed by the International Monetary Fund, called S.D.R.’s or Special Drawing Rights. All this is news to you?”

  “Not precisely,” said Flynn.

  “Only that’s not what happened. Because the United States dominated the world’s economy, the rest of the world went off the gold standard and onto the dollar standard.”

  Sankey moved on to another chart.

  “Only that’s not what happened, either. The dollar was backed by American resources—which were not as infinite as American arrogance. The United States began running out of resources, particularly that resource which is ‘liquid gold’ to every industrial nation on earth—oil.”

  Sankey flicked his fingernails against his chart. “Therefore, the world went from the gold standard to a dollar standard to an oil standard—an oil-paid-for-in-dollars standard.

  “Trouble is, Flynn, oil is an exhaustible commodity.

  “Can you imagine a world in which the economy’s basic commodity—that which is the standard for all currencies—is poured into people’s automobiles and furnaces and burned?”

  Sankey’s eyes had become slightly red-rimmed.

  Flynn said, “All this is very edifyin’, I’m sure.” He began to pack his pipe.

  “Flynn, did you realize that the oil-producing nations—at least, the cartel, OPEC—accepted payment for oil only in dollars?”

  Flynn put his tobacco pouch back in his pocket. “I guess I did.”

  “By the time the International Monetary Fund’s Managing Director, H. Johannes Witteveen, began insisting the world go back to the original plan and use S.D.R.’s instead of dollars, there was a half-trillion out there floating around the world. A half-trillion dollars, Flynn. Any idea what that means?”

  “None whatsoever.”

  “Of course you don’t.”

  “I still twitch at the sight of a twenty-dollar bill, folded.”

  “Now let me ask you this: how could the United States, or any nation, foist a half-trillion dollars in paper currency on the world?”

  Flynn answered nothing. His pipe was drawing nicely.

  Sankey stepped to another chart. “First, to keep a strong economic image, the United States allowed its principal corporations to grow to mammoth size. It allowed them to become world monopolies, figuratively if not literally.

  “Look what happened without competition: from 1947 to 1964 the production worker’s average gain in productivity was 4.12 percent. From 1964 to 1975, the rate dropped to 1.65 percent. Are you familiar with the work of Byung Yoo Hung?”

  “Can’t say that I am,” said Flynn.

  “As worker productivity lowered”—Sankey ran his finger along a graph curve—“below growth and efficiency levels, American business had no choice but to switch from a cost-offsetting basis to a cost-pass-along strategy, to maintain profits.”

  “Ye Gods.” Flynn stifled a yawn.

  “Expense to the consumer began accelerating. Management cut back on their capital spending. Technological development slowed down.”

  “Some fellow, that Byung Yoo Hung.”

  “I’m making all this very simple for you.”

  “I can tell.”

  “If you’d just study these charts.”

  “I’m studying,” said Flynn from his chair. “I’m studying.”

  “Second, to maintain this strong image abroad, essentially United States capital was shifted from the civilian economy to military hardware.” Sankey came closer to Flynn and hissed, “There was oil off Vietnam, Flynn.”

  “I’d heard.”

  Sankey nodded to him as if he had made a most telling point, and then went back to his wall charts.

  “Have you heard of the Laffer Curve?” Sankey asked.

  “Who hasn’t?”

  Sankey pointed to a chart which looked like the business end of a bullet, upended.

  “As inflation increased, everyone ascended into higher tax brackets. Everyone’s taxes increased. Even though everyone’s income increased, everyone’s purchasing power decreased.”

  “Don’t I know it, though?” said Flynn, thinking of his five children.

  “Through inflation and taxes, the government was taking more out of the economy than the amount that would permit the economy to continue running profitably. Flynn, it’s rather like a shopkeeper who keeps taking so much money out of his cash register to live on and duck next door for a beer, that when the time comes he doesn’t have the money to restock his shelves.”

  “Thank you very much for this lesson in economics,” Flynn said. “Is it over?”

  Sankey said, “I guess it is.”

  Flynn said, “Whew.”

  “There are other results,” Sankey said. “The expense of government itself. There are too many governments—federal, state, county, city, borough or town—duplicating each other. One out of seven people in the United States now derives his inco
me from the government. Regulations. The United States Congress passes fifty thousand pages of new laws a year.”

  “You make it all sound like a hopeless mess,” said Flynn. “I don’t get the point. I don’t understand why you called me over here when I could happily be in bed with a book to tell me the world’s economy isn’t all it should be.”

  “Let me put it this way, Flynn: eighteen years ago I was one of a large group who did not expect the United States to try to dominate the world’s economy. Chickens always come home to roost.”

  “And you think I—a mere slip of a boy, hardly present at all—slipped something into your ambassador’s speech eighteen years ago that’s been ticking away like a time bomb ever since and now is causing a grand, worldwide economic upheaval, if not disaster.”

  Sankey said, “Yes.”

  “Well, you’re fighting old battles, lad.”

  “The point I’m trying to make tonight is that I’m not fighting old battles. A statement eighteen years ago, a direction taken, is causing pain and suffering tonight.”

  Flynn stood up. “What I know about economics,” he said, “is that things go up and things go down: they never stay the same.” Flynn waved his hand at the walls. “If any of you chaps who draws graphs ever knew what you were talking about life would be a bowl of vanilla ice cream. Economists,” Flynn said, “are people who take care of their own personal economies by forever mouthing doom and gloom.”

  “I’m just a government worker, Flynn.”

  “I see that. One who has to grab people in from off the street to test out petty theories. You just gave me a funeral oration while the patient’s simply breathing a little hard.”

  “Sorry you didn’t understand it.”

  “Why don’t you just give me the answer to the question I asked, man, instead of all this gobbledygook about the world’s economy?”

  “What question did you ask?”

  “Are those bills I gave you real or fake?”

  “Oh, that.”

  “That!” expostulated Flynn. “That and nothing more.”

  Sankey took the three bills from his shirt pocket and handed them to Flynn.

  Sankey said, “The one-hundred-dollar bill is real; the fifty-dollar bill is real; the twenty-dollar bill is fake.”

  “Flies to a dead man’s eyes!” said Flynn. “Even to that I can’t get an answer that says yes or no, but only an answer somewhere in between! The Lord save us all from those who make the noises of intellectuals!”

  He looked at the bills in his hand.

  Sankey said, “The most common counterfeit bill in the United States is the twenty-dollar bill.”

  “What are you saying, man?”

  “I’m saying that in any pack of twenty-dollar bills, chances are higher that one of them is counterfeit than there would be in any other denomination.”

  “Oh. I see. These other two bills are not fake, as far as your best experts can discover, and it means nothin’ at all that the twenty-dollar bill is fake?”

  “That’s right.”

  “Tell me, Mister Sankey: is it possible perfect counterfeits could be made? Counterfeits so perfect even your best experts couldn’t tell they’re fake?”

  “Of course.”

  “Yes?”

  “Absolutely. Anything made by human hands and machinery can be duplicated perfectly by other human hands and machinery.”

  “You don’t publicize that fact too much, do you?”

  Sankey smiled. “No.”

  “Do you think people have counterfeited American money and never gotten caught?”

  “I know they have.”

  “How do you know it?”

  “Because there’s always slightly more currency in the market than the Federal Reserve Bank generates.”

  “There is?”

  “Always.”

  “Much?”

  “No. Producing a lot of counterfeit money is the sure way to get caught. A lot of money coming from nowhere would be noticed. It would involve too many people.”

  “It would be the sure way to be caught,” said Flynn, “except maybe this once.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Except maybe this last time.”

  “If it’s any consolation, I don’t understand you either, Flynn.”

  “Ach, sure, I don’t understand myself.” He put the bills into his pocket. “I have a problem. I’m not solving it. Sure, and doesn’t it make me grumpy, though?” He shook hands with Paul Sankey. “I thank you for a charmin’ evenin’. I’m sure I learned something, but I’m not sure what.”

  This time, Sankey shook hands with him.

  “Odd wee house, this,” said Flynn.

  “It’s everything I need.”

  “Is it?” Flynn peered around him. “Is it all of that?”

  “There’s a kitchen in the basement, this room on the first floor, and a bedroom and a bath upstairs.

  “Built for a herd of leprechauns, was it?”

  “I don’t know what it was built for,” Sankey said. “But you wouldn’t believe the price I could get for it—on today’s market.”

  “I daresay,” said Flynn. “Sure, it would make a nice embassy for the Republic of Ifad.”

  Sankey smiled. “There is a Republic of Ifad?”

  “Don’t worry,” said Flynn. “They have no economy at all. But why did I have the impression you have a wife and children? Daughters, wasn’t it? I remember your mentioning them that time over cabbage at The Hague. You showed me pictures, I think….”

  Sankey’s expression was grim, “I had a wife and daughters.”

  Flynn said, “Oh.”

  “They were killed. Automobile accident. Outside National Airport. Six years ago.”

  Flynn said, “I’m sorry.”

  “They were hit by a three-axle army truck, driven by drunken soldiers.”

  Flynn said nothing.

  “And do you know what the army truck was doing there, Flynn? It was delivering twelve dozen fresh flowers for a cocktail party at the Pentagon. A three-axle truck speeding one hundred and forty-four flowers to the Pentagon killed my wife and daughters.”

  Flynn said, “I’m sorry for you, man.”

  Sankey opened the front door.

  “Good night,” Flynn said. “Thanks for the instruction. Next time the economy comes up at my dinner table I’ll appear a wee bit smarter in front of my children, I will.”

  After Sankey closed the door, the alley was without any light.

  After a few cautious steps, Flynn tripped over a packing case and fell against a rubbish barrel.

  “Damn,” he said. “And it wasn’t even myself who slipped those words into the ambassador’s speech. And I wonder who did, seeing they were so damned important?”

  22

  “YOU can’t get there from here.”

  The eyes of the ancient man filling the gas tank of Flynn’s rented jeep darted from the pump’s gauge to Flynn and back again, to see if his witticism was enjoyed or even recognized.

  “I can’t get to Cleary’s Mountain, or I mayn’t?”

  “You may, but you can’t,” the old man said. “You won’t.”

  “Why is that?”

  “Are they expecting you?”

  “No.”

  The man hung up the gasoline nozzle.

  “I didn’t think so. Anybody expected at Cleary’s Mountain comes in by plane or helicopter. The only vehicles that use that road are George Udine’s own. Besides the tracks haulin’ lumber down, only other thing you see on that road is one of the Cleary Mountain Land Rovers. Servants out for a toot. Every year or so.”

  Flynn handed the old man his credit card. “You’re saying I can’t get in.”

  “Maybe if you had the wings of an angel.” The old man looked at Flynn’s shoulders. “Which I don’t think you do. Electrified chain-link fence, deep in the ground, barbs on top, all around the mountain. Uniformed guards with shotguns and attack dogs patrolling inside the fenc
e. OP George likes his privacy.”

  “You’ve never seen him?”

  The old man shook his head as he handed Flynn the credit slip to sign. “OP George is sort of quiet, as neighbors go.”

  “Still and all.” Flynn handed the signed slip back to him. “Where’s the road up to the place?”

  “Go down here two miles and take the loggin’ road to your left. It’ll take you about a half-hour just to get to the fence.”

  The old man started back to his chair in the shade of the gas shack. “I’ll see you comin’ back in about an hour, I guess. I’ll wave at you as you go by.”

  Flynn slowed as he approached the fence around Cleary’s Mountain.

  The gate was wide open.

  He stopped in it and looked around.

  No uniformed guards. No trained attack dogs.

  He blew his horn.

  No one.

  “My, my.” Flynn put the jeep into low gear and continued along the logging road up Cleary’s Mountain.

  There was a haze of smoke halfway up the mountain.

  The house on a high shoulder of Cleary’s Mountain was a sprawling, mammoth log and fieldstone structure.

  In the parking lot across from the main door were two yellow Land Rovers.

  Flynn parked his jeep next to them.

  The smell of smoke was not as strong here as it had been while he was coming up the mountain.

  The view of Oregon’s mountains was stunning. He was just below the tree line. Flynn figured he could see two hundred kilometers to the east, north, and south. Trees and mountain tops. Not a roof or a road in sight. To the north a few kilometers were wide, slow-moving clouds of smoke.

  A woman with the face of an axe answered the door after Flynn had rung several times.

  “Yes?”

  Flynn said, “I’m here to see George Udine.”

  She looked around the parking lot behind him. “Did they let you through the main gate?”

  Flynn gave his beguiling smile, “They didn’t keep me out.”

  “I was wondering…. Usually they send someone up, to escort you….”