Merchants of Menace

by Joan Aiken

  Miss Freitas, my Portuguese dancing teacher, discovered I had natural rhythm, and we Sambaed into the night.

  I guess Portuguese brandy is a lot stronger than ours, because next thing I knew we all stripped to the waist, Indian wrestling—the boys against the girls. Now that’s the honest truth. We were Indian wrestling—but it must have looked pretty pe­culiar to Jerry Hale when he walked in; Jerry Hale, my doc­tor, my buddy, all the way from Mineola, Long Island.

  “Jerry! What the hell are you doing here?”

  We went outside in the dawn, where we could talk. He was mortified, embarrassed, apologetic. He told me, with great difficulty, that the chances of an electrocardiograph machine malfunctioning are a million to one.

  I was that one.

  The electrical cathodes had become magnetized, and had misinterpreted my cardiac impulses. In short, there was a short! My heart was perfect! I would live to be a senior citizen.

  Blood drained from my head. My knees got rubbery. I knew Jerry was right because if ever I was going to get a heart attack, this was the time. It passed, and in its place? Instant sobriety!

  I seized Jerry by the throat. “You quack! I’ll report you to the A.M.A.! Why didn’t you let me die!”

  Jerry was stunned. He hadn’t counted on this kind of reaction. I told him everything. I told him that I must have signed close to $20,000 in charges on my credit cards. $20,000? 40! 60! 70! With the tips? 100! 100,000!

  I’d signed close to $100,000, so safe in the knowledge I was dying, and wouldn’t have to pay. Now I would live. My lord! Who’d pay those bills? Me!

  Jerry’s face hardened. He was shocked, unsympathetic. How could I have done such a stupid, dishonest thing?

  I told him it was his fault. I told him Nancy and I had worked out the plan because of his inaccurate prognosis! We blamed and cross-blamed and cross-cross-blamed under the warm rays of Portugal’s morning sun.

  Jerry lit his pipe, thought deeply. “Pete,” he said. “there’s only one thing to do. Turn yourself in. I’ll stand behind you every inch of the way. I’ll explain, as your doctor, that you were emotionally unbalanced, and not responsible for your actions. They’ll understand.”

  “Horse-puckey!” I said. “A hundred thousand dollars’ worth of high-life? Not them! Diners Club will serve me my last meal. American Express will crucify me to a plastic cross, and Carte Blanche will do unspeakable things to me in French. And how about my career, Sequoia Life and Casualty, when they see those bills? For me, they’ll reopen Alcatraz. And Nancy—what about my poor wife?”

  I began to sob. I hadn’t cried like this since Tom Mix died. No! Never! I couldn’t go back. I was in too deep. I threw my­self on the mercy of my buddy, my doctor.

  “Help me, Jerry! Help me!” Tears rolled down my cheeks.

  “I don’t know. I just don’t know. The only reason I’d even consider helping is that I feel pretty lousy about this. It’s as much my fault as yours.” He put his arm around me. “I don’t know. I guess we can find a way if we both look real hard.”

  “Yeah. Let’s look real hard, Jerry.”

  ’’I’ve got a glimmer of a notion, but I don’t know if you’re prepared to make such a gigantic sacrifice.”

  “What? What sacrifice?”

  “Nancy and the kids are prepared for your death—emotion­ally, spiritually, and financially, so…” Jerry shook his head. “No, it’s too big a sacrifice.”

  I waited hopefully while he lit his pipe again.

  “It’s simply this: if you were to die, your problem would be nonexistent.”

  I thought it over. “You’re right, Jerry. It is too big a sacrifice.”

  He hadn’t meant really die. Just make it seem as if I’d died. Like this: “From all outward appearances, you have your anticipated heart attack and die. I witness the death and, as your doctor, sign your death certificate. The body is sealed in a coffin and shipped home for interment. Nancy and the kids collect your life insurance. As for all your debts—well, they can’t collect from a corpse.” He stopped to relight his pipe. “Exactly whose corpse are we talking about?”

  “Not yours,” Jerry said.

  “Are we talking about murder?”

  “Of course not. Every public morgue has a percentage of un­claimed, unidentified bodies. We find one, claim it, identify it as you. Then we ship it home.”

  “What happens when Nancy opens the coffin? Won’t she sort of expect it to be everloving me?”

  “Nancy,” Jerry said, “will not open the coffin. I’ll see to that. I’ll prevail upon her to remember you as you were—alive!”

  “What about me? What happens to me? I won’t be able to see my wife and kids.”

  Jerry fooled with his pipe. “Remember, I spoke of sacrifice? This is what I meant.”

  “Never to see Nancy and the kids again?”

  “It doesn’t have to be ‘never’. At the end of seven years you can come back. Statute of limitations.”

  “Seven years?”

  “It’s either that, or seven years in jail for fraud and grand theft.”

  Some choice! Well, I knew the kids would get along okay without me; after all, they hadn’t seen much of me lately, anyway—but what about Nancy? Poor thing, if she found out I was alive somewhere, she’d drop everything and rush to join me. I guess our marriage was always a little one-sided. She was always crazy about me but, for her sake, better a dead hus­band than a live convict.

  Some choice! No choice! I had to carry out Jerry’s plan.

  It wasn’t as easy as Jerry had said, either. You just don’t come across unclaimed, unidentified bodies in Southern Portugal. We looked in every morgue from Annuncio to Zapatas. No luck. All the stiffs were spoken for.

  “Telephone books! Why don’t we load a coffin with telephone books?”

  Jerry quashed that idea. We couldn’t take the risk of the U. S. Customs opening the box. Somewhere there had to be a corpus delicti without a toe tag—and there was, in a small village called Santo Tomas. The morgue attendant said he had died of an apparent heart attack, was about forty, five feet eleven, one hundred and seventy-five pounds. My measurements ex­actly!

  Down the long corridor we went, into the icebox and opening the huge grisly file drawer. Jerry stepped forward, pulled back the sheet. The morgue attendant was correct. He was the right model, but the wrong shade. A Negro!

  Jerry was beautiful. “That’s the man,” he said. “That’s my patient, Mr. Peter Ingersoll of Mineola, Long Island.”

  Jerry spent the rest of the day in meetings with the District Medical Officer, the local undertaker and the Prefect of Police. There were endless official forms to be filled out, signed and notarized.

  “Jerry,” I managed to whisper, “now you’ve got to make sure Nancy doesn’t open that coffin.”

  It was spooky, being present at the signing of my own death certificate, but I could still smile.

  That evening, back at the Vasco da Gama Hotel in Costa Gorda I checked out, signing my hotel bill for the last time with the name “Peter Ingersoll.”

  Then and there, in the main lobby, with plenty of witnesses, I suffered my fatal heart attack, as per Jerry’s instructions. I was very convincing. I should have gotten the Academy Award. Jerry identified himself as my physician and, supposedly, whisked me away to the hospital.

  The next day, everyone at the Vasco da Gama was saddened to learn that I had never reached the hospital. I’d breathed my last in a little town called Santo Tomas.

  Exit Peter Ingersoll. Enter Man Without A Country—The Flying Dutchman—The Wandering Presbyterian.

  The one word that best describes Jerry is “neat.” His office was always orderly, his bachelor apartment immaculate, his car gleamed of buffed wax. It came as no surprise to me that he had arranged everything so perfectly.

  First, I had a new name: Fred C. Dobbs. Also, I had an impossible-to-tell-from-the-real-thing New Zealand passport with my occupation listed as sheep rancher. I got my hea
d shaved and concentrated very hard on growing a mustache. My real passport, my wallet, credit cards and personal belongings were packaged and attached to the outside of the coffin. The coffin was consigned to the Hermanos Rubeira Mortuary in Lisbon, await­ing the first boat to New York.

  Jerry and I caught a train to Lisbon and taxied to the airport. He bought me a one-way ticket to Tel Aviv.

  “Believe me, Pete, nobody will be looking for you there.” He gave me all the cash he had in his pockets.

  Loudspeaker: “El Al Airlines, Flight Eighteen, now boarding from West Concourse.”

  At this point, Jerry held out his hand, but it turned into a hug. I’m not ashamed to say it—we both had tears in our eyes.

  Jerry turned and hurried away without looking back.

  It was only then, as I walked down the long causeway toward Customs, that the pressure was over. For the first time, I realized what tremendous risks Jerry was taking in my behalf. He was putting his entire professional career on the line, just to right a wrong that a machine had made.

  At Customs, everything was in order—except: “Senhor Dobbs, your immunization record, por favor.”

  “My what?” It was a big except.

  “The medical certificate of vaccination for smallpox. Also, your injections for yellow fever and typhoid. I must stamp them, or you cannot enter Israel,.

  “I don’t think I have one.”

  The Customs Officer laughed. “Of course you have one, Senhor. You had to have a certificate to enter Portugal.”

  My newly shaven head broke into a sweat. He was right. Of course I had a medical certificate—only it was attached to my old passport, which, in turn, was attached to “my” new coffin. I opened my mouth to gasp for air and heard myself say, “How silly of me. I must have left it in my hotel. I’ll take the shots in Tel Aviv.”

  “Impossible, Senhor Dobbs. You may not board the airplane without it.”

  I didn’t want to press it. I was afraid of attracting attention. I was in a box—and I don’t mean the one at Hermanos Rubeira Mortuary. If I went to the Ministry of Health and claimed that I’d lost my certificate, they would check the record and discover that no Fred C. Dobbs, sheep rancher from New Zealand, had ever entered Portugal. I needed a doctor to provide me—

  Doctor? Dr. Jerry Hale, M.D.!

  I remembered Jerry lighting his pipe with matches that said “Hotel Nacional.” I booked a reservation on the next flight to Tel Aviv, then grabbed a taxi into Lisbon.

  The Hotel Nacional had the kind of lobby you usually see in Alfred Hitchcock pictures; a lot of marble, some potted palms, overhead revolving fans and a lot of foreign types. I asked the desk clerk if a Dr. Hale was registered. He was. My hunch had been right.

  “Would you ring his room, please?’’

  “Dr. Hale is out.”

  I must have beaten him here from the airport.

  “Perhaps, Senhor, you wish to speak with Mrs. Hale.”

  Mrs. Hale? Obviously, they had two Hales registered. Jerry was a bachelor.

  “I’m looking for Dr. Jerome Hale.”

  “Exactly, Senhor,” the room clerk said. “Dr. Jerome Hale is out. As I said, Mrs. Hale is upstairs.”

  “Thank you, I’ll wait.”

  I bought a Portuguese newspaper. It didn’t matter. I wasn’t going to read it, anyway. What I really wanted to do was sit down, hide behind the newspaper and think this over. It can’t be his mother. She died during the Eisenhower administration. His nurse, maybe. Susy Rambeau? Naah! Broad-beamed with varicose veins and support hose. Naah! Local talent? Could be. But when did he find the time? He made time. Made time. Son of a gun! That ]erry must be a bigger swinger than I gave him credit for. Look at that crossword puzzle—in Portu­guese, yet. Can’t be any tougher than the one in the Sunday Times.

  Jerry entered the lobby from the street entrance. I could see what had delayed him. He was carrying a pair of stuffed toy ducks and an orchid corsage. Whoever he had stashed upstairs, in the room, was getting the baby-doll treatment. That son of a gun!

  I was about to get out of my chair and flag Jerry down when I heard the desk clerk’s voice.

  “Good afternoon, Mrs. Hale.”

  I turned to see a lady emerging from the elevator. Son of a gun! Son of a gun, nothing!

  Mrs. Hale turned out to be my wife!

  Nancy flew into Jerry’s arms and gave him the kind of kiss she hadn’t given me in years.

  “Daddy Jerry! Daddy Jerry!” My kids! Racing out of the elevator to hug Jerry. Daddy Jerry?

  Pooned and harpooned!

  He gave the toy ducks to the kids. They got busy with them right away. The corsage was for Nancy. I kept the newspaper up in front of my purple face and listened.

  “Where is he?” Nancy asked.

  “On a plane to Israel. I saw it take off myself.”

  “Was he suspicious?”

  “Are you kidding? He practically kissed my ring.”

  She threw her head back and laughed, exposing a whole top row of pearly white caps that had cost me plenty.

  “Love me, Nancy?”

  “Haven’t I always?”

  Right about then I should have leaped up, pried them apart and yelled: “Get your lips off my wife!” Then I should have slapped her across the face and punched Jerry in the nose. But then, there’s a lot of things I should have done. Like? Like consult another doctor when Jerry told me I was dying; like ask myself how come Nancy was so anxious for me to go off alone and have a good time, all of a sudden; like wondering why Nancy went to Jerry instead of a gynecologist for her female problems; like ask myself what kind of doctor pre­scribes fake corpses, phony passports, and one-way tickets to Israel; like ask myself why she was so anxious for me to carry $150,000 worth of life insurance; like look closer at my little boy, Jimmy, whose eyes were blue like Jerry’s instead of brown like mine.

  Instead, I sat watching my best friend making out with my wife while she laughed at me through teeth I’d paid for—and I still hadn’t gotten my shots for Israel.

  As if this weren’t enough, my own kid—well, at least her eyes are brown—little Jennifer, was about to discover me. She’d wound up her toy duck and the damned thing quacked its way right to my feet and stopped. I bent down and picked it up, handed it to her. She looked right at me and said, “Thank you, Mister.”

  My own kid! He’s “Daddy Jerry’’ and I’m “Mister”’! The kid hadn’t recognized me with the shaved head and the mustache. Off they all went to a festive dinner, while I sat in the lobby of a Portuguese hotel, holding a newspaper I couldn’t read, a wanted criminal, without money, job, hair, or future.

  Some people are good sports...I mean, if they lose, they shrug it off and try harder the next time. I’m not one of those people. I’ve always been a sore loser, and at that moment I was sore. I was sore as hell!

  I put down the newspaper, went out of the Nacional and walked miles—just walked. At dusk, I found myself seated on a park bench on Plaza del Palacio. In the street, a truck backfired loudly, sending hundreds of pigeons winging skyward in fright They wheeled and glided and circled, soared and dipped directly over my head. I looked up at them and yelled, “Go ahead! Why not? Everybody else has!”

  Then, I walked some more and ended up at the airlines ticket office. I canceled my flight because I still hadn’t gotten my shots. Guess what was right next door to the airplane office? The Hermanos Rubeira Mortuary. That’s where “my body” was awaiting transfer to the U.S.A.

  On an impulse I can’t explain, I went inside. I wanted to see the man who was taking my “place.” Why? To feel superior, I guess; comforted, maybe. He was the only man I knew who was worse off than me.

  Inside, I passed myself off as a friend of the deceased Mr. Ingersoll. One of the Rubeira brothers ushered me into a small back room. There he was—the “Unknown Negro”—wearing my best suit, face set into a smile.

  I was probably wrong. He was better off than I was. At least, he would get a d
ecent funeral.

  In the adjoining room, which was larger and fancier, a small group of Americans were commiserating with each other over the casket of a Colonel R. K. Durham. He’d been a mighty tobacco tycoon from Charleston, South Carolina. His wife, his lawyer, his two sons and their wives, the American Consul and his wife, were all gathered lachrymosely. He’d died while on a European vacation, and his body was being shipped home for an elaborate funeral.

  He hadn’t been one of your phony Southern Colonels. He was a real one—with a commission in the Minutemen. He would be buried with full military honors in the Durham family’s mausoleum in the cemetery of the Sons of the Confederacy. The sealed caskets of “Pete Ingersoll” and Colonel Durham would share an icebox on the boat trip home. This would be the closest the Colonel had ever come to integration.

  An attendant entered and told me that everyone would have to leave, because both coffins were to be inspected by Por­tuguese Customs so that they could be sealed and put on board ship in the morning. He left me one last moment alone with “Pete.”

  I don’t remember just how the idea came to me. One moment my head was empty and the next, there it was—detailed, devilish, and delicious—the perfect revenge on that quack Jerry Hale and my dear wife.

  Up on the ceiling was a skylight. Nimbly, I jumped up on the coffin, reached up to the skylight, and unlatched the catch. First step!

  I taxied to the Hotel Nacional to finesse my way into finding out what room Jerry was registered in. In the lobby, I picked up the house phone. “Dr. Hale, please. Room 308.”

  “Senhor, el doctor Hale is in 517. I’ll ring him for you.”

  The operator rang. No answer. Good. I hung up, went to the stairway and puffed up five flights. I couldn’t take a chance on the elevator operator remembering my shaved head.

  Fifth floor, I walked down the corridor. Chambermaids were turning down the beds for the night. From one of the doorknobs I swiped a celluloid DO NOT DISTURB sign. At Room 517, I knocked, to make certain no one was in. No one was. I checked the hall, both ways, then inserted the celluloid card between the door jamb and the latch. It clicked. The door swung open. I affixed the card to the outside knob, entered the room and closed the door behind me.