The Bind

by Stanley Ellin

  “No. They were supposed to settle down separately here and make out however they could. This Operation Pastorius was their whole thing for the war.”

  “I thought so. I have a feeling that if they were ordered to report back to headquarters, Thoren would somehow have done it, even if he had to build his own submarine.” Jake pointed at the notes. “Mind if I have them for the files?”

  Elinor handed them to him. “As long as you don’t mark them for spelling. I’m a terrible speller. Even when I copy words, I spell them wrong. What’s the second question?”

  Jake leaned back in his chair to give the waiter room to serve them. He watched Elinor daintily harpoon a large shrimp, slosh it around in sauce, and engulf it.

  He said: “I like a girl who doesn’t pick at her food. You’ve got cocktail sauce on your chin.”

  She dabbed at it with her napkin. “What’s the second question?” she said around the shrimp.

  “How would you like to be a kept woman?”

  She smiled at him. “I am a kept woman. I like it.”

  “I mean kept in style. A suite in a luxury hotel, a charge account at the shops downstairs, call room service for champagne and caviar, total decadence. I’m serious about it.”

  She looked at him searchingly. “You don’t sound like it, but I guess you are. Why, Jake? You think they’ll try shooting up the house again?”

  “I’m not sure what they’ll try. But Gela knows I’m almost ready to put the whole case together, and he’s not going to take it like a little gentleman. I’d feel better if you were out of range, no matter what he tries. You’ve finished your part of the job, so now you’re only an innocent bystander, and there’s no reason for the innocent bystander to take any chances getting hurt. You can see I’m being completely honest about it.”

  “No, you’re not. You’re only talking about me, but you’ll be right in the middle of everything. Jake—”

  “Take it easy, sweetheart. I’ve told you more than once Gela won’t do anything that Guaranty can jump on as an excuse to block payment. He has to depend on intimidation, not a power play. And you happen to be someone he can use to put leverage on me. If you’re off the scene, no leverage.”

  “Off the scene?” Elinor said. “I thought you were talking about a hotel right around here.”

  “I am. The Argyle East on the bay a little further downtown. The trick is to get you in there without anybody knowing about it. We can do it right after dinner.”

  Elinor said: “But what about you? It sounds like I’m supposed to stay there alone. I don’t want that. I want you to be with me.”

  “Some of the time I will be.” He rested his hand on hers. “You don’t think I’m keeping you around just for show, do you?”

  “I hope not. But you said somebody’s always following you. So he’ll follow you to the hotel and know where I am. I might as well stay with you.”

  Jake said: “Right now, the best thing that can happen is for someone to follow me. The way it works, I take you to the airport, pick up a ticket in your name for a flight to New York—Mrs. Dekker being your name—and check your luggage through. Then you go into the ladies’ room. Magnes has arranged for an agency girl to be waiting there. She’ll look something like you—at least from a distance—and she’ll be carrying a pair of sunglasses in her hand so you can spot her. She becomes Mrs. Dekker and goes right out to catch the plane. You wait awhile, then take a cab to the Argyle East and check in as Mrs. Elinor Majeski. That’s the whole deal.”

  “But where will you be? When will I see you?”

  “After I leave you I’ll drive back to Daystar along with the guy tailing me. Argyle East is on the water. I’ve booked a boat to take me there at twelve o’clock. I don’t know how fast you can travel on the water here at night, but I should be at the hotel somewhere between twelve-thirty and one. I’ll have the boat wait for me. Five A.M. I go back to Daystar.”

  Elinor made a sound that was half-laugh, half-tearful sniffle. “You sound like some kind of crazy commuter.”

  “Not for long. Once we turn up Mrs. Thoren, we’ll nail down the case quick. The way things are, the only other choice would be for you to go back to New York, with some musclebound agency man to pick you up at Kennedy and then hang around the house as watchdog until I’m done here. And I’m not offering you that choice. I want you here.”

  Elinor gave him that searching look again. “You really do, don’t you?”

  “Sweetheart, the amount of trouble and money this setup takes—”

  “I know. I sort of twined myself into your heartstrings after all, didn’t I?”

  “Only since you’ve been properly corrupted. All I aimed to do all along was save a soul for the Establishment.”

  “Oh, sure.” She sat smiling at him. Then slowly the smile faded. “Jake, tell me something. What happens after the job is done? I mean, to us? I know we’ve been through this already, but things are different now aren’t they?”

  “Seems like they are.”

  “But I’ve still got a kid. And he needs me. I need him too, for that matter. Do you see what I mean? It’s like this package comes two to a set.”

  “Why should it have to, sweetheart? The kid has a grandma to take care of him. There are nursery schools. And you’ll have plenty of time to drop in on him and give him a dose of TLC. Every day, if you feel like it.”

  “Feel like it? Darling, this is my kid. You don’t just drop in on your kid when you feel like it. That would be a bad scene. You know it would be. You’ve got a kid of your own you’re hardly ever with. How do you think he feels about it?”

  There were some crumbs scattered on the table between them. Jake picked them up one by one and arranged them in a straight line. While he carefully checked the line with his knife blade, he said: “For the sake of accuracy, there’s something you might as well know right now. I don’t have any kid.”

  Elinor said blankly: “But you told me—”

  “That’s right. But do you remember when I told it to you? How you were carrying on about walking out on me and turning me in to Kermit Thoren and the cops about bugging phones? As far as you were concerned right then, I was Frankenstein’s monster on the loose. I had to think of something to say that would at least make me look halfway human to you, and that was it. About having a kid. About not being allowed to see him.”

  “Jake, you shouldn’t have. You didn’t have to. I never would have walked out on you.”

  “That’s easy to say now. You forget what you were like only a little while ago. For all her brave talk they didn’t come any more uptight than my girlie. Even Magnes knew that after only one look at you.”

  “I don’t care what he knew. I just want you to know I never would have done anything to hurt you. I never will.” She compressed her lips and nodded once, very firmly. “But I’m glad you told me the truth about it now. I mean about not having a kid. That’s really a meaningful relationship, when we tell each other the truth about everything, isn’t it?”

  “Heavens to Betsy, yes.”

  “It’s nothing to joke about,” Elinor said reproachfully. “Especially when I’m wondering about some of the other things you told me. Like being married twice to the same woman and getting divorced both times. Was that the truth?”

  “It was. I seemed to have a compulsion to keep marrying that woman. It’s all gone now.”

  “Because of me?”

  “Well, you’ve offered some sound therapy, Doc.”

  “That’s what I thought,” Elinor said. Then she said wistfully: “But it doesn’t change the one big thing, Jake. This package still comes two to a set.”

  “A mother’s heart,” Jake said. He checked the line of crumbs with his knife blade again, then swept them up on the blade and dropped them into his plate. “What the hell, I’ve got a great big brownstone in Manhattan all to myself. You can keep the kid chained in the cellar. It’s a little damp, but he’ll get used to it.”

  “Oh, Jake�
��”

  “I know. It is a beautiful gesture, isn’t it? I’m already wondering how I got conned into it.”

  “You are not.”

  “Oh yes, I am. And how’s your mama going to take the arrangement, considering she’s already watched you share a happily unwed relationship that didn’t wind up very happily?”

  “She’ll take it the same as the other time. She’ll yell at me and call me names, and then after a while she’ll be dying to see the kid, so she’ll ask us over and cook us a big Polish supper. That’s how she is.”

  “Jesus, what a package. Now there’s three in the set. And heartburn.”

  “Mama’s a great cook, so there won’t be any heartburn. Jake, when I’m at the hotel would it be all right to call up home every day, same as at Daystar?”

  “Sweetheart, you can call home every hour, if that’s what you want. I told you that at Argyle East, the world is yours. But it won’t be all roses, because the one thing you can’t do is go out of your room. Is that clear? The chain stays on the door, you stay in the room, and only licensed help is allowed in. Two rooms and terrace, that is. Even if you feel you’re going stir-crazy, that’s how it has to be.”

  “Che sera sera,” Elinor said airily. She held up her glass of beer. “Here’s to finally catching up on my reading. Anyhow, if you ever saw the way I can sleep when no one sets the clock, you’d know I’ll make out just fine.”

  53

  Jake pulled the Jaguar away from the Columbus and parked beside a hydrant down the block. He said to Elinor: “Now we’re going to do everything by the numbers. You know what that means?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Good. There are two bags in back with all your things in them. Open them up.”

  She kneeled on the seat and leaned over to do it, her rear end high in the air. When Jake braced his arm across it to hold her steady, she said, “Hey, wow.”

  “Keep your mind on business. I’ll be bringing this stuff along with me when I go to the hotel later on. Meanwhile, put whatever you really need of it in your flight bag. It’s on the floor there. Your raincoat and a head scarf are packed on top of one of those suitcases. When you’re done loading the flight bag, put them on.”

  Wearing the raincoat and scarf, she finally settled back in her seat, the flight bag on her lap. As he got the car moving, she opened the Jordan Marsh box and stuffed the nightgown into the flight bag. She said: “It wouldn’t be any good if you brought it along with you, because I want to look real decadent when you show up. What’s the next numbers?”

  “I’ll tell you when we get to the airport.” He turned north toward the 36th Street Expressway to the airport and saw the green Chevy swing around the corner after him. “Nothing to worry about. Everything is lovely.”

  “If there’s nothing to worry about, why do I keep feeling I have to pee all the time, but I really don’t? And I keep getting cold shivers. But everything is lovely.” She moved against him and slid her arm through his. “I’ve never been happier in my whole life. Scared stiff and never happier. What an adorable, crazy, mixed-up kid I am. Don’t you think I am, Jake? Where’s the brownstone you own?”

  “Uptown on the East Side. Sixtieth and Lexington. And if I had known how two bottles of beer would hit you—”

  “It’s not the beer. It’s you and the brownstone.”

  “And the kid chained in the cellar.”

  Elinor put her head on his shoulder. “He’ll get used to it,” she said contentedly.

  Coming up the ramp to the Northeast departures platform, Jake said: “We’re back to the numbers, soldier. Are you tuned in?”

  She released his arm and sat up straight. “I guess so. Jake, suppose that girl from the agency isn’t here?”

  “I’ll stand by when you go into the ladies’ room. If she’s not there, come right out, and I’ll call Magnes about it. But she’ll be there. This kind of assignment is too sweet for her to blow.” He handed Elinor the envelope with the five hundred dollars in it. “This is the sweetener. You give her this and your ticket. You switch coats with her and give her that scarf to wear on her head. You trade around the stuff in your flight bags, so she can carry yours. And your pocketbooks go into the flight bags. Actually, you won’t have to concentrate on every detail, because she’ll know what to do. If you think costume changes in a show are something, wait’ll you see a professional make this kind of change in nothing flat.”

  “But she still can’t look that much like me. So when she walks out—”

  “She’ll walk out fast, with shades on, carrying your bag, wearing your coat and head scarf, and with a handkerchief to her nose like someone who just caught the cold of the year. Which is why you’ll put on your shades now. And while you’re at the ticket counter you’ll keep your handkerchief working. Hell, sweetheart, don’t you have any confidence in me?”

  “You know I do.” She put on her sunglasses and looked at him mournfully over them. “I just don’t have any in me.”

  He stopped the car at the entrance to the terminal. “There’s still time to do it the other way,” he said. “You’ll have a ticket to New York in your hand and plenty of money in that envelope. All you’d have to do is walk into the plane.”

  “But you don’t want me to, do you?”

  “No.”

  “And I wouldn’t, even if you did want me to. So why are we wasting time?”

  She worked the handkerchief hard while the ticket was being made out and her two empty valises being checked through. The final touch came after Jake saw to her seat reservation and then led her aside for a farewell kiss. She waved him off. “No,” she said in a muffled voice through the handkerchief, “I don’t want you to catch my cold.”

  Jake said: “Watch the overacting, dear. Anyhow, whatever you’ve got, I’ve already caught it,” and kissed her at length. Then he said into her ear: “Remember to wait about fifteen minutes in there after you make the switch, then get right into a cab. And when you sign in at the hotel your name is Mrs. Majeski. And you don’t step out of your room, no matter what. Anything you want, you order from downstairs by phone. That’s all the numbers there are.”

  “And you’ll be at the hotel by one o’clock?”

  “I’ll be there.” He gave her a broad wink. “Now that my wife is going out of town, I can really swing.”

  “Men are such beasts,” Elinor said.

  He watched her disappear into the ladies’ room, clocked off two minutes on his watch, and left the terminal. Driving down the ramp to the expressway entrance, he searched for the image of the green Chevy in his rear-view mirror, but didn’t see any. He slowed down, and a battered Rambler tailgating the Jaguar almost went into it. Its driver thrust his head out of the window. “Damn fool!” he bellowed. “More money than brains!”

  Jake put his own head out of the window to answer, but then, a few cars behind the Rambler, he caught sight of the green Chevy. He pulled his head back in and drove to the Beach at a moderate clip, whistling tunelessly to himself all the way.

  54

  Back on Daystar, he recounted the story of Operation Pastorius over the phone to Magnes, made out a check to Elinor for three thousand dollars, straightened whatever in the oppressively empty house needed straightening, and packed his flight bag with some necessaries of his own for overnight use. Shortly before twelve he carried the two suitcases loaded with Elinor’s things from the car to the head of the dock, along with the flight bag. A few minutes later he heard the snarling crescendo of a high-powered motor out in the bay and was blinded for an instant by the glare of a searchlight swinging in his direction. The light flicked off, the sound of the motor faded. Then a sleek inboard appeared out of the darkness, running without lights, the sound of the motor now no more than a muted purring. It came around in a wide turn and drew up broadside against the dock with a feather touch. “You the passenger?” said the shadowy figure behind the wheel, and Jake said: “That’s me.”

  He set the luggage in the st
ern, jumped aboard as the boat drifted clear of the dock, and felt his way into the bucket seat beside the skipper. Under reduced throttle, the boat quietly moved south toward the arches of the Venetian Causeway. A few minutes of this, and the searchlight suddenly went on, its beam cutting a brilliant white track through the darkness ahead. The motor roared wide open, and quick acceleration pressed Jake’s shoulders back against the seat. They went under the causeway full flight, water hissing beneath the hull, and never slackened speed until they were approaching the Rickenbacker Causeway far down the bay. Here the boat swung toward the Miami shore and a line of high-rises made visible by their lighted windows.

  The skipper pointed. “That there’s Argyle East on the bay. Argyle West’s beyond it over on Brickell Avenue. Same dock though. You want me to stand by at it?”

  Jake said: “I want to be picked up about five A.M. You can do whatever you like as long as you’re here then.”

  “I’ll be here.” Under the dock lights, Jake got his first good look at the man. His close-cropped hair was white. His face was distorted, its skin badly seamed and with a curious shine as if freshly lacquered. The man took notice of Jake’s scrutiny and ran his fingers down a gleaming cheek. “Burnt,” he said laconically. “All skin grafts.”

  “You used to race boats?”

  “Nah, used to run hooch in from Bimini, Prohibition time, until some hijackers caught up with me and done this. Tied me up in my boat and set it on fire. New York fellers. They always played extra dirty.”

  “So I’ve heard,” Jake said.

  The dock area was deserted, the lobby of the hotel almost so. He signed in as Jacob Majeski on a card Elinor had already signed, and refused the offer of a bellhop to carry the bags. The suite was 15C on the fifteenth floor.

  He knocked on the door of 15C, and almost at once it was pulled open against its chain and Elinor’s eye squinted at him through the opening. The room behind her was in darkness. “Wait a second,” she said breathlessly. “Don’t make a move until I tell you to.” She closed the door, he heard the chain released, and waited. Then she called: “All right, you can come in.”