Such Men Are Dangerous

by Lawrence Block

  “I enjoyed it.”

  “And then, after ten years, you came back.”

  “I stopped enjoying it.”

  “Think about it and you’ll see there’s more to it than that. Oh, hell. You’ve become a man we can’t count on, that’s all. Forget the torture bit, forget the black pill you wouldn’t take. It goes deeper. It touches points that would be more apt to come up than self-destruction. Suppose we ordered you to go to a hostile country and assassinate a political leader.”

  “I’d do it.”

  “Agreed—you would do it. Now take it a step further. Suppose we ordered you to go to a neutral country and assassinate a pro-western politician so that the government would launch reprisals against the communists. Your role would be to join the man’s staff, become friendly with him, then murder him and frame the communists for it”

  “You people don’t do things like that.”

  He looked at the ceiling. “Let’s say we don’t. But suppose we decided to one day, and we picked you for the job. And you met the man, and liked him, and decided he was important to the future of his country. Then what?”

  I felt trapped. “It’s a stupid question,” I said.

  “Answer it.”

  “I’d think it over, I’d—”

  “You’d think it over. Stop right there. When they told you to mop up a band of Laotian guerrillas, did you stop to figure out just who they were and what they were doing?”

  “That’s not the same—”

  “The hell it’s not!” The words came out in what was almost a shout, and he had to force his voice down to its normal volume. This amused me. I was the one who should be flying off the handle. “Sorry,” he said. “But it is the same. An effective agent is like an effective soldier. He does what he’s told, no more and no less.”

  “Sometimes a soldier has to use his judgment.”

  “But only when he’s told to. The rest of the time he doesn’t have any judgment. He follows orders.”

  “Like a good German soldier.”

  “Precisely”

  “Like the Light Brigade.”

  “That’s the idea.”

  “And I wouldn’t do that.”

  “No, Paul. You’d think about it. You’d do a Hamlet, you’d think it over, you’d work it out in your mind. On the most basic level, this would make you inefficient. You’d be too slow, and you’d boggle some assignments. That’s serious enough, but you’d do worse than that sooner or later. You’d question policy. You’d reason it out, and there would come a time when you disagreed with a policy, and then you’d either purposely bungle it or else refuse to execute it. You might even come to the careful, rational conclusion that the world would work out better if you helped the other side—”

  “Treason, in other words.”

  “If you like. If I called you a potential traitor ten years ago, you couldn’t have taken it so calmly. The word itself, the concept, would have infuriated you. A man who’s capable of hearing a word calmly is capable of performing the deed.”

  “Wait a minute.”

  “What?”

  “Well, I’m not a psychologist either, damn it but isn’t this a little too theoretical? What you’re saying is that you can’t use anybody with a brain—”

  “Wrong. We need intelligence.”

  “Then what?”

  “It’s the way the brain is used. We need a man with a short circuit in his brain so that the process of independent thought is bypassed. That sounds ridiculous, but—”

  “It does,” I agreed. “But the whole thing sounds as though it was worked out by a computer. I don’t buy it”

  He was smiling, but it was a new smile. “Yes, you do,” he said. “You’ve already bought it. You know what I’m getting at, you accept it, and the only argument you can raise is that it’s theoretical, that it doesn’t work that way in practice. But you really know better. You poor bastard.”

  This time he lit the cigarette. “We interview a great many men in your position, men with your track record. We reject a hell of a lot of them, because we’ve backtracked our failures over the years until we’ve proved what you’ve just described as theory. We’ve analyzed the fuckups and the defectors, we’ve typed them, and we know how to test our prospects. Know what else we do? We give periodic checks to our own field men. I don’t have the figures, but a high percentage of them fail sooner or later. They turn that corner, they conquer the force that made them good to begin with, and somewhere along the line they learn to think. Then we put them on desks in Washington, or retire them altogether.”

  “Because they can think.”

  “Yes.”

  “Because they’ve grown up, maybe.”

  “Something like that.” The smile again. “They grow up, Paul. They grow up, and they can’t tag along with Peter Pan anymore. They stop believing in fairies. And then they can’t fly. They can’t fly.”

  I went over to the bureau and got out the bottle of scotch. He didn’t bother to remind me that I had denied possession of it a little while ago. I poured two drinks, added water. I asked if he wanted me to call down for ice, but he said it wasn’t necessary. I gave him his drink. I took a sip of my own, and I thought that a year or so ago I would have reacted to a conversation like this one by getting very drunk indeed. I thought about getting drunk now, and I realized that there was really no point to it. And it was about then that I began to understand that he was right.

  He broke the silence by asking me what I thought about it now. Did I believe him?

  “I’ll have to think about it”

  “Sure. There are two answers—No and I’ll have to think about it. Which means yes.”

  “Maybe.”

  And after a while I said, “So what do I do now? Isn’t there any slot open with you people where an old philosopher would come in handy?”

  “No. First of all, you’re not particularly qualified for desk stuff. And whatever you did, you’d want to dictate policy. One way or another.”

  “So? That means I’m unemployable at thirty-two. Wonderful.”

  “There are any number of civilian jobs—”

  “I thought you said I’d fail their personality tests, too.”

  “Not everyone gives them. And not every company is looking for what we’re looking for. As far as that goes, there’s a book on how to beat those tests. They won’t beat ours, but they’ll get you through the average corporate testing routine.”

  “As far as that goes, I’ve had job offers.”

  “Naturally.”

  “Some fairly good ones. Decent money, work I can handle—”

  “Right.”

  I studied the rug. “I threw them all away when you people called me. Never gave them a second thought. That’s how much they excited me.”

  “Maybe a business of your own—”

  “Sure.”

  “If you have capital, back pay saved up—”

  “I’ve thought about it. I can’t see it.”

  More silence. He got up and went to the john. I looked at my drink and tried to think of a reason for finishing it. I couldn’t. He came back, walked over to the window. It was getting darker outside. He came back and sat down again.

  I said, “I suppose I’ll sit around on a beach until my money runs out. Then I’ll have to take a job.”

  “Sure.”

  “Mmmm.”

  “A lot of fellows with your training, they find work. You must know what I mean.”

  “Mercenaries?”

  “Of course, and don’t tell me you haven’t considered it. If it’s adventure you miss, that’s where you’ll find it. Africa’s not that different from Southeast Asia, is it?”

  “Maybe not.”

  “And the recruiters in Johannesburg and Salisbury don’t use the MMPI. Nor do they really expect loyalty. You’d fit.”

  “On whose side?”

  “What’s the difference?”

  “Oh. That’s a point.”

&nbs
p; Another silence. Then he finished his drink, got abruptly to his feet. “Guess that does it, “he said. “I’d have preferred to skip this whole conversation, to tell you the truth. I’m not sure you’d have made much of a stink. A lot of rejects who want answers talk about going to their congressmen or to the press. Not many of them try. But it seemed worthwhile to cool you off. If I told you things you would have just as soon not heard, I’m sorry, but that’s how it goes.”

  If he was really sorry, I thought, then his days at the Agency were numbered. Then I amended that. He was really sorry, but he’d forget about it the minute he went out the door. Once he stopped being able to forget, then he would be on his way out.

  I let him out. We didn’t shake hands, although he seemed ready to. I had nothing against him, but I had nothing for him, either. He was just doing his job, right?

  TWO

  TWO HOURS LATER I boarded a jet for New York, and two hours after that I was in my own room in a hotel on West 44th Street. It was a comedown after the Doulton, but I paid my own bill and I liked it better that way. I went through my mail, which included job offers, requests for interviews, and, from the company which had given me the MMPI, an explanation that they had nothing for me at the moment.

  In the morning I walked over to Brentano’s and bought a book called How to Beat Personality Tests. That was the actual title. I read a little over a third of it before chucking it out. Then I began writing various companies to explain that I couldn’t accept a position with them at the present time. I wrote four or five letters before it occurred to me that I could attain the same results just as easily by not writing them at all. I tore up the letters I had written, and I threw them out along with the letters from the companies.

  I went to a play one night but left after the first act. It was a comedy, and it’s disheartening to be the only person in the audience who isn’t laughing. I also went to several movies. I picked up some paperbacks but rarely read one all the way through. The war stories were too inaccurate. The mysteries were a little better, but I didn’t much care who done it. The big fat novels with quotes on their covers explaining how they probed with fresh insight into the fabric of modern society, those were the worst of all. I couldn’t understand the characters. They were all hung up on trivia, little nothing problems in their careers and marriages. Maybe I might have given a damn if I had had a career or a marriage, but I doubted it. The major point in every book I read seemed to be that people couldn’t communicate with one another. I decided they should all study Esperanto, and I threw the books away one after another.

  The movies were just as silly, but I didn’t have to read them. I could just sit there while they happened.

  The rest of the time I didn’t do very much at all. There was a television set in my room. I asked them if they could take it out and give me a radio, and they brought me a small AM-FM radio and told me I could keep the television set too. I never turned the tv on. Sometimes I listened to music on the radio, but most of the time I forgot to bother, so I could have lived just as well without it.

  I could never think of anybody to call.

  One night I picked up a girl in the elevator. Where else would I meet one? This one broke a heel in the elevator, stepping between it and the floor. We got to talking while I freed the heel from the crack, and decided to have dinner together. She went upstairs for new shoes and came back down and I bought her tempura at a Japanese place on the next block. We left our shoes at the door and sat on mats, so I talked about furloughs in Tokyo. She asked if Japanese women were as wonderful as they were supposed to be, which established the program for the evening. I said something about going to a nightclub, and she said she’d have to change, and when we got back to the hotel I found out she was a better girl than I’d suspected. We didn’t have to go anywhere first. We went to her room, and she found a bottle and two glasses, and we went to bed.

  She was tall, which I like. She had fine legs and a good bottom and small but honest breasts. Brown hair with a lot of red in it, and marvelous skin, and a good face. There was really nothing about her to object to. We kissed a little and hugged a little and went to bed, and the stupid little soldier wouldn’t stand at attention.

  This had happened only once before, not counting the inevitable occasions when alcohol had unprovoked lechery. Just once in the dim past had the old soldier thrown down his arms, and at the time I had been angry, terrified, ashamed, and hopelessly embarrassed, four emotions which persisted until another night and another girl reassured me that I was still a man.

  But this time I was none of those things, and all that really bothered me was the absence of reaction; I was suddenly finding myself not only impotent but evidently resigned to it, and it was the resignation that I objected to.

  I offered an excuse, more for her self-esteem than my own. Malaria, I explained; I’d had an attack just two nights ago, and this was a common consequence, an almost inevitable after-effect I hadn’t, and it isn’t, but I was so calm and matter-of-fact about it she could hardly fail to believe me. She said we could try some other time, but I felt it was less than gentlemanly to leave her like that. I sort of liked her. So I got down to business with an organ less capricious than the old battle-scarred warrior.

  She wanted to return the favor, malaria or no, and it turned out that this was a task at which she was astonishingly adept so much so that the proper response occurred and I was able to conclude the proceedings according to the usual format. I performed passably if not exceptionally, and if she keeps a diary I don’t suppose I deserved much more than a C-plus.

  “See,” she said later. “I can cure malaria.”

  “You’re better than quinine.”

  “Maybe I’ll become an army nurse.”

  “Maybe I’ll re-enlist.”

  “Would you believe that I’ve never done that before? I didn’t think you would. I don’t always, though, and when I do I don’t always enjoy it, and—”

  “Look Sharon—”

  “What I mean is I rather like you,” she said clumsily, a tear staining her pretty cheek. “Are my cheeks pretty? Seriously, Paul, I tend to carry candor too far. Honesty can be misleading, don’t you think? I’m twenty-nine, I was divorced a little over three years ago. I’m not a tramp, I wouldn’t call me a tramp, but you might, and I don’t think I’d like that.”

  “Don’t be silly.”

  “All right. I’m a legal secretary in Milwaukee, and this is a vacation, and it ends Sunday when I fly home. I’m not in love with anybody right now, including you, although I probably could be if things worked that way. There are three, no, four nights between now and Sunday, and if you would like me to spend them with you I think I would probably like that and if you would rather not I think I could survive the inevitable ego damage. Don’t say anything now. This little speech wasn’t a question. It was just so that you would know who I am. I think people should know each other before they make love a second time. I also think we should make love a second time. How does your malaria feel?”

  We made love a second time, and my malaria was evidently cured. I raised the C-plus to somewhere around an A-minus, and it was all very nice indeed. She fell quickly asleep. I got dressed and went down two floors to my own room and got undressed and into bed and didn’t sleep.

  I decided if I saw her for the next four nights that would be fine, and if I didn’t see her ever again that would be fine, too. It seemed to me that I ought to care one way or the other. I also realized that she was the first woman I had had since returning to the States. This also struck me as somehow remarkable.

  When the sun came up I went over to a travel agent on Fifth Avenue and priced flights to Rhodesia and South Africa. They came to more than I would have guessed, but money was no problem. I could have chartered a private plane if I wanted. Between back pay and government bonds and my mother’s insurance, I had close to twenty thousand dollars.

  I spent the afternoon at the movies. Afterward I tried to decid
e whether or not I should see Sharon again. It was impossible to decide which way I would prefer it so I tried to determine which would be better for her, whether she would be more upset if my permanent goodbye came now or in four days. Then I decided that it was impossible to say, and that, as far as that went, I didn’t really give a damn whether I upset her or not, at which point I decided to think about something else.

  I went somewhere for a cup of coffee. I thought about becoming a white mercenary somewhere in darkest Africa, and all I could come up with was that it was something to do, which struck me as the strongest possible argument for and against it, all at once. The one thing I wanted was something to do, and the one thing I didn’t want was something to do. I decided that George Dattner had not told me the whole truth. The MMPI had obviously revealed that I was psychotic.

  I went back to the hotel. That night I took Sharon to dinner at a steakhouse on Third Avenue. Afterward we went to a jazz club and drank something sweet with tequila in it, I forget what. Then to her room, where we both got A-plus.

  The next day I went through the yellow pages until I found a psychiatrist with whom I could get an appointment the following day. That night Sharon and I saw a play, went to a kosher delicatessen for a late supper, and then made love.

  The following day there was a new movie I wanted to see, so I skipped the appointment with the psychiatrist. I didn’t call him. When I got back to the hotel there was a message from his office. I threw it away. Sharon had dinner with an old friend. I met her afterward, and we picked up a copy of Cue and couldn’t think of a thing we wanted to do, so we went to her room. She said the hotel staff seemed to be delighted with our romance, and I said maybe they wanted to use us in their advertising. We went to bed, and I sat up the whole night trying to figure out how it could be possible for me to spend so much time making ecstatic love with such a superb girl without enjoying it. I neither looked forward to it nor relished its memory. It was something I did, like taking breaths.

  The next day was Sharon’s last, so we went to an expensive restaurant and an expensive nightclub and sat through an expensive floorshow, neither of us daring to disappoint the other by admitting how boring it all was. We sat through a dance team and a singer. When the comic came on I noticed that she wasn’t laughing either. I said, “Why don’t we get out of here?” and she said, “I thought you’d never ask.” I put too much money on the table and we got up and walked right out, passing directly in front of the bandstand just as the poor clown was coming to a punchline. He proved he could be rude, too, by abandoning his joke and insulting us. Sharon told him to fuck himself.