The Bind

by Stanley Ellin

  “Yes,” Elinor said. “And I wish I didn’t.”

  He crossed the room to slam the door shut after her. Then he sat down at the desk with the Xeroxed copy of Thoren’s insurance policy before him.

  11

  The questionnaire of the policy filled two facing pages. He turned to these and flattened them out on the desk. By now his eye automatically slid past any question not worth consideration. All the others, and their accompanying handwritten answers, he went through as intently as if this were the first time he was seeing them.

  1. Full name: Walter Lennart Thoren

  2. Ever changed your name? No

  3. Residence: 18 N. Circular Drive, Daystar Island # 2, Miami Beach, Florida

  4. Place of birth: town St. Olivet state Minnesota

  5. Date of birth: October 5, 1915

  6. Marital status: married

  7. Military service, if any: U.S. Army from June, 1939 to June, 1942

  8. Occupation: retired

  12. Former occupation(s) within 10 years: President, K.O. Sprague Photo-Developing Co. Miami

  13. Amount of insurance desired: $100,000 at double indemnity

  14. Beneficiary:

  Mrs. Charlotte Sprague Thoren

  Relationship: wife

  Contingent beneficiary:

  son and daughter equally

  25. Ever apply elsewhere for Life, Accident, or Health insurance without receiving it? no

  26. How many children alive? two

  Name, age, and occupation of each:

  Kermit Sprague Thoren, 21, student

  Joanna Lennart Thoren, 18, student

  FAMILY RECORD

  Father’s name: Frederick Thoren

  if deceased, age at death: 50

  cause of death: automobile accident

  date and place of death: 2 January 1940, St. Olivet, Minnesota

  Mother’s maiden name: Clara Lennart

  if deceased, age at death: 50

  cause of death: same as for father

  date and place of death: same as above

  The following Health Record is to be filled out by an accredited examiner only.

  General state of health: good

  use of narcotics: no

  use of alcohol to excess: no

  Any disease of brain or nervous system, heart, lungs, digestive tract, skin, bone, glands, ears, eyes: no

  History of surgery, if any: None of consequence. See following re. Identifying Marks

  Identifying marks: L-shaped scar, 3 inches vertical, 2 inches horizontal, on back, between shoulder blades, from 1st to 5th thoracic vertebrae. Incurred wartime military service.

  What clinics, hospitals, physicians, and/or healers has the applicant consulted within the past five years?

  Julius Freeman, M.D.

  Flamingo Drive, Miami Beach,

  Florida

  Medical Examiner’s signature:

  William McMurtrie, M.D.

  Applicant’s signature: Walter L. Thoren

  Jake turned the page over. On its reverse side was Guaranty’s so-far unfulfilled promise to pay the policyholder’s beneficiary or contingent beneficiaries $100,000 on surrender of this policy to the insurer along with proof of death, and typed below it was the rider authorizing payment of $200,000 for death by accidental means.

  And closing the policy were the two clauses which were, in order, Maniscalco’s despair and hope.

  A. Incontestability. This policy shall be in contestable after it is in force for a period of one year from the date of its issuance.

  B. Limitation of liability. If the insured, within the period of one year from the date of this policy’s issue, dies by his own hand, the liability of this company is limited to the value of the paid premium only.

  Or as Maniscalco had put it: “Because of that miserable incontestability clause, we can’t even show up in court unless we can prove cold it was suicide. Or even better, get the widow in a back room and show her we have proof of suicide, so she wouldn’t dream of going to court.”

  In the folder which had contained the policy was also the report from the graphologist who had analyzed Thoren’s handwritten answers to the questionnaire. Jake went over the familiar lines of the report with the same close concentration he had given the policy.

  Dear Jake,

  As I told you over the phone, there are some obstacles to analysis in depth from this kind of material. The machine copy of the policy form, though good, loses the fine shading of the letters. The form itself doesn’t allow for true margins. The spaces between lines are too narrow; they would constrain most handwriting. However, allowing for all this, I can still offer the following as statements of fact, and will testify to them in court, if need be. For the usual fee, of course.

  What comes clear at the outset is that our subject, Mr. T, was intellectually brilliant. I kid you not, Jake, when I estimate that this man must have been up there in the very high IQ class. Narrow as those spaces for answers are on the form, they didn’t cramp him at all. And those minute letters are beautifully controlled and legible. A fine scientific mind behind that pen. Putting together various elements of letter formation, I can say that it was a highly inventive mind, attentive to the smallest details, and with a keen power of observation.

  Most interesting aside from this is that this was a man with an extremely secretive nature. The neatly looped a’s and o’s give that away; the knot on every single a and o has been precisely tied, hard as that was to do within those narrow spaces. This, among other clues, indicates the excessive secretiveness of someone extremely tight-lipped and withdrawn.

  What makes this so interesting are the sharp indications in the script that the subject was highly articulate, extremely fluent in expressing himself, might even have had, as the phrase goes, a touch of the poet. This, a contradiction to his penchant for secrecy, suggests to me a man who goes around most of the time wearing a gag he has deliberately stuffed into his own mouth.

  Also significant are marked indications of an almost feminine sensitivity along with evidence of a powerful masculine ruthlessness and sense of self-importance. Again an intriguing contradiction.

  In answer to the questions in your attached memo, I submit the following:

  One. No, there are absolutely no indications of insanity here. And didn’t you know the word insanity was out of fashion?

  Two. Yes. He may well have held officer’s rank in the army. He was—forgive the pun—very high-calibre material.

  Three. Obviously, the hypothetical case you set forth in the memo is Mr. T’s. A man inherits his father-in-law’s business, runs it successfully for a while, then suddenly sells out and retires to Miami Beach squiredom at the comparatively early age of 49. But how can one gauge from his handwriting whether this is a surprising move or not? He may have detested the business and wanted to escape from it. Then, if he has found suitable hobbies to fill his time after retirement, it would only be surprising if he didn’t sell out when he did.

  Four. To repeat what I have already loudly assured you over the phone, no, there is not the slightest evidence that he had a gambling streak, by which I suppose you mean that he was a compulsive gambler. At the same time, there’s nothing to indicate he didn’t take a plunge now and then. After all, you do, and your handwriting, my friend, bears some striking resemblances to Mr. T’s.

  And that does it. Oh yes, when you next meet up with the ravishing Sherry, tell her my offer still stands.

  Yours hopefully,

  And as a variation on his usual gag where the signature, Mike Sherman, would be typewritten, this time Mike had omitted it entirely.

  Jake slipped the letter back into the folder, then took a small ruler and well-sharpened red pencil from the desk drawer and bent over the policy form. Very carefully he drew a line under the date of birth provided by Thoren and the date of death he had set down for his father. He also placed neat check marks beside the questions regarding military service and identifying marks.<
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  When he picked up the phone and dialed Maniscalco’s home, it was a maid who answered and told him that Mr. Maniscalco was out for the evening and no, she didn’t know where he could be reached. Could she take a message?

  Jake said: “Yes. And make sure he gets it. Pin it on his pillow if you have to. He’s to call Jake whenever he gets home, no matter how late it is.”

  At midnight Elinor came in to report that all she had gotten on tape from Mrs. Thoren’s room was the news broadcast and some of the Johnny Carson show, but the television set had been switched off a few minutes ago. From the sounds coming through, Elinor said hopefully, it seemed likely that Mrs. Thoren was preparing to turn in for the night.

  Jake said: “Then you can close up shop, too. But first put that equipment away in the closet.”

  “And do the dishes.” Elinor still lingered. “Jake, I’ve been thinking about something. I mean, about this blackmail thing.”

  “I thought I told you not to.”

  “I know, but I couldn’t help it. Jake, isn’t it dangerous for us if there’s a blackmailer around that we’re getting mixed up with? Somebody like that could be a real murderous type. If he finds out we’re poking into his business—”

  “He won’t,” Jake said.

  “He better not. You might as well know that when it comes to guns and such I’m yellow right down to my toenails. I even hate to be in a play where they have to shoot off blanks.”

  “Nobody’s going to shoot off anything around here. So forget it.”

  “But with that kind of man—”

  “Forget it.”

  It was two in the morning when Maniscalco finally called. “What is it, Jake? Something good to report? If it’s not, wait’ll I sit down and open my tie.”

  “Sit down anyhow, Manny, and listen close. I need some help. I need a local boy to work with me who knows this place down here inside and out. Somebody from Miami, but a real pro.”

  “A real pro,” Maniscalco said. “Do you figure to go partners with him, fifty-fifty?”

  “No.”

  “I thought not. Jake, you know there isn’t any pro you can trust in a big deal like this until you split your share with him.”

  Jake said: “I want you to find me one, Manny. If this was up North or on the Coast, I’d know who to sign up in a minute. Down here I might as well be in Hong Kong. All I know is there must be somebody around here who’ll play it on the level for a fair day’s pay. You’ve got contacts everywhere. One of them should be able to come up with a name.”

  “I don’t like it, Jake. I don’t even like you having a new girl on that job. How’s she working out, anyhow?”

  “Good. And you can quit worrying about making any deal behind our backs. She sandbagged herself today.”

  “Already? Jake, you are one beautiful son of a bitch. How’d you get her to do it? With a breaking and entering, like Sherry?”

  “No, I had her bug a phone. She’ll wet her pants if a cop even looks in her direction any time between now and next year. And don’t try to duck the issue. I want a first-class man from down here to work with me. You’ve got the whole day ahead of you to ask around and pick one. When I call tomorrow night you’ll tell me who he is and where I can reach him.”

  “Mama mia, a whole day. All right, I’ll see about it. Anything else?”

  “Yes. Thoren was in the army from 1939 to 1942, so find out if there’s anything shady on his service record or discharge. But quick. And you saw on his questionnaire that his parents were killed together in an auto crash out in the Midwest. I want to know if there was anything peculiar about that crash.”

  “What would it mean to us if there was?” Maniscalco said.

  “I’m pretty sure now Thoren was being blackmailed. Sometimes a dirty secret goes back a long way into the past.”

  “All right, I’ll put a man on it right away. But that army record stuff might take too much time. You know what it’s like trying to get fast action out of the Pentagon?”

  Jake said: “What I know is that Guaranty has a flock of retired generals on its board of directors. How about telling one of them to go earn his pay for a change?”

  “Maybe I will, at that. One way or another I’ll get you the stuff in a couple of days. Now level with me, Jake. How does it look to you right this minute? Hopeful?”

  “If we don’t have hope, baby, life is but an empty shell.”

  “For chrissake, Jake, I’m not kidding. How does it look to you?”

  “Hopeful.”

  Maniscalco let out a long breath. “Sweetheart,” he said, “write this down in big letters. If you bail me out of this thing, you not only get win money, but I’m treating you to the best meal in the best Wop restaurant on Mulberry Street any time you name.”

  “Manny,” Jake said, “it’s your good luck I’m willing to teach you about the finer things in life. So if I pull off this job, you’re taking me and my little girl here to The Four Seasons the day we get back to New York.”

  12

  “Mail?” Elinor said when Jake dropped it on the breakfast table along with a copy of the Miami Herald. “For me?”

  “That Sally and Ted postcard from Mexico is for us, the Myra Williams letter from New York is for you. We’ll be getting stuff like this every couple of days. It’s all fake. You just give your address to this outfit in St. Louis, and they take care of the rest.”

  Elinor said: “I’m dazzled. But what’s the point of it?”

  “To make us look like real folks to any loudmouth postman. And to the help. Tomorrow’s our day for the weekly maid and gardener service.”

  “Are you sure you want a maid snooping around here? I can easily clean up the place myself.”

  “No. I have my own lock on the closet where the equipment and confidential stuff is stashed. The more the maid snoops around the rest of the place, the better. Leave this mail out in the open where she can come across it.”

  “And straighten out my dresser drawers too, it sounds like. When do we go swimming at the Thorens’?”

  “Eleven sharp. That’ll give you plenty of time to work on Joanna while I play kiddie car with her big brother.”

  What he got from the two hours spent with Kermit in the Thoren garage taking apart an XKE motor was a large oil stain on his slacks. That Elinor had done better during her session with Joanna was evident from the smug expression she put on as soon as they were out of sight of the Thoren house, on their way home.

  “Well?” Jake said.

  “Well, it was real wild. I finally got her around to the subject by making up a whole story about how my father died in an accident, too. He is dead, but not from any accident. And how bad I felt, because if I had known what was going to happen I would have been nicer to him. So she—”

  “Come on, let’s get the show on the road,” Jake said. “Did she tell you how Thoren spent the day he was killed?”

  “That’s what I was getting to. It turned out I hit a nerve, because she and her father started off that day with an argument. Or at least he did. He was sitting there at the table with her after breakfast reading his mail, and all of a sudden he cut loose on her about marrying Hal Freeman.”

  “Did she tell you it was because Freeman was Jewish?”

  “Yes. And she said it probably didn’t come as any surprise to me he was, because I must have seen how Jewish he looked. As if that meant anything. I guess it never struck her that so does she.”

  “She does?”

  “Didn’t you notice? Kermit, too. There’s that sort of good-looking, brown-eyed, curly-haired type—”

  “You know,” Jake said reflectively, “there’s a weird twist I never thought of.”

  “What is?”

  “Well, suppose Thoren was Jewish? Suppose he decided long ago that going WASP was all he really wanted out of life? He’d be in a sweat if someone threatened to come out with the secret. He’d be wide open for blackmail.”

  Elinor said doubtfully: “Maybe h
e would be. But to kill himself over it, he’d have to be crazy in the head. You said he wasn’t.”

  “He wasn’t. He was just as sane as everybody else around here. That guard at the bridge worrying about my name being Jake; Milt Webb, the one-man vigilante mob; the Ortegas and Patty Tucker and some of those nasty cracks they pulled about Miami Beach types—”

  “I know. They are pretty creepy that way. But so are a lot of people.”

  “Including Thoren,” Jake said, “the one they admired most of all. And for him to be pointed at as a fraud, an outsider, one of the enemy—? Yes, I think he might kill himself rather than face that.”

  “If he was Jewish,” Elinor pointed out. “And you don’t know if he was.”

  “No, I don’t. And this makes something else I don’t want you to worry about. Let’s just stick to what he did the day he was killed. Joanna said he was reading his mail after breakfast, all was calm, and then he suddenly landed on her about marrying Freeman. What happened after that?”

  “Well, she came back at him as hard as she could. She said the worst part of arguing with him about anything was that he never lost his temper, just stayed ice-cold and used that tone of voice like he was trying to explain something to an idiot. Mostly, she’d cop out after a while by running up to her room, but this time he followed right after her and kept hammering away about how horrible mixed marriages are until she blew up completely and started screaming at him how stupid he was to be prejudiced and what a hypocrite he was, making out he was friends with Hal’s father, and a lot of other things she’s sorry about now.” Elinor stopped to draw breath. “He sure was old-fashioned. Back in my neighborhood, the only thing a mixed marriage means is black and white. And it has to be very black and very white, too. Otherwise, nobody even notices.”

  “What neighborhood does that happen to be?”

  “Around Tompkins Square Park. Avenue B near Tenth. It’s gone all hippie since they started calling it the East Village, but my mother won’t move away. We’re still in the same flat she and my father took when they got married. I moved back with her right after the divorce.”