Mr. Moto Omnibus

by John P. Marquand

  “I know who he is all right, sir,” Jack Rhyce answered.

  The Chief smiled faintly, indicating that they both understood that the question had been a joke. Skirov had been on the Moscow first team for a long while, and the latest evaluations had placed him close to the first ten in Moscow.

  “Yes,” the Chief said. “He’s been improving in the last few years like rare old wine, and he’s slippery as an eel, always behind the scenes. Am I right in remembering that you’ve seen Skirov once?”

  Jack Rhyce shook his head.

  “No,” he answered, “I’m sorry, sir, I missed him if he was at any of those parties in Moscow, but I have him clear in my mind, just as everyone else around here has. I examined his photographs only last week.”

  “You mean in relation to the new Politburo setup?” the Chief asked.

  “Yes, sir,” Jack Rhyce said, “in that connection, and I can give you his description verbatim.”

  The Chief sighed and tapped his pencil on the desk.

  “I suppose it’s too much to think you’ll run into Skirov over there,” the Chief said, “but if you should you know what the orders are regarding Skirov, don’t you?”

  “Yes, sir,” Jack Rhyce answered.

  The Chief had stopped tapping his desk. The pencil was motionless.

  “No matter what it costs,” he said, “don’t forget the sky’s the limit if you contact Skirov. There’s just a hope that this new one—this Big Ben—may lead you to him, but I doubt it. Skirov never sticks his neck out. That’s why your main mission is this Big Ben. I want him located and taped.”

  “There’s no personal description of him yet, is there?” Jack Rhyce asked.

  “Nothing that is definite,” the Chief said. “He may be big, because he’s referred to occasionally as Big Ben. Once the phrase, ‘the Honorable Pale-eyed,’ was found in words contiguous to Ben’s. I wish the Japanese were as clever at giving nicknames to foreigners as the Chinese. . . . But I’m getting off the point. All we have about our boy are theories. It looks as though he were energetic, and therefore young. If he’s young, he must have some sort of war record. I’d say he was college-educated. He must have been in the East for a while at one point, because our bet is that he has a smattering of Japanese and a little Chinese. This might put him in the preacher class, but I doubt it. He must have a vigorous, engaging personality, be quite a ball of fire in fact; but he isn’t in our files. There’s one thing more that I’m pretty sure of. It looks to me like a safe bet that Big Ben has been in show business.”

  “What makes you go for that one, sir?” Jack Rhyce asked.

  “The Communist drama groups in Japan,” the Chief said. “You know how the Communists have always used folk drama to make their little points. I saw a lot of their plays before the war, in China. Now, according to Gibson, these productions, which used to be excruciatingly dull, have been jazzed up. Pretty girls are singing blues, there’s soft-shoe and tap dancing, and American-type strippers.”

  “He sounds like someone in the Hollywood crowd,” Jack Rhyce said.

  “It could be,” the Chief answered. “Naturally we’ve given some thought along that line, but Hollywood is more of a generic term than a place. For my money, Ben has been around the live stage, specifically musical comedy. I rather think, since we haven’t dug him up, that he was in some Little Theater group. Or maybe he was in one of those road companies that are always traveling around the country doing revivals of Sigmund Romberg or Victor Herbert. Well, there’s your picture. We want to know who Ben is, and you’re going to help Gibson find out.”

  “What do we do if we find him?” Jack asked.

  The Chief laughed, one of his rare laughs.

  “You know my motto,” he said. “Always do it with velvet gloves—when possible. I wouldn’t want to hurt this Big Ben for the world, if it isn’t necessary, but we don’t want political assassination or anti-American demonstrations either. Anyway, Bill Gibson will give you the line to take. Of course, if you run into Skirov, that will change the picture, and Bill’s got his orders, too, about Skirov. Also, if you stir things up, it may be that the whole Skirov apparatus will get ugly. Don’t forget that one. Now, there’s one thing more.” The Chief looked at his watch again.

  “What’s that, sir?” Jack Rhyce asked.

  “Beginning tomorrow I want you to take two weeks off to study that material, and I want you to go up to the Farm to do it, and every afternoon you’re to have a workout with George and the boys. Right through the whole curriculum—everything.”

  “It isn’t necessary,” Jack said. “I know those things.”

  “It won’t hurt to have a refresher course,” the Chief said. “From now on you’re a do-gooder. And do-gooders don’t carry rods. I want you to be good if you have to rough it up with people. Really, Jack, I’m most anxious for you to come back to me alive.”

  3

  ONE OF the troubles with working in the office was that you could have no real life of your own because you knew too much, and because the off moment might arise when you forgot what was classified or what was not. The only people with whom you could be at ease were those of a selected group from the office, and even with them you could not wholly relax. Nevertheless, you always had to appear to be normal, because in no respect could you seem peculiar or conspicuous. It was no wonder that Jack Rhyce sometimes laughed sourly when he read the advertisements in True Detective magazine; no wonder that most members of the group went on drunken sprees when they returned from various assignments. The Chief was always lenient about these lapses, as long as they were done at the Farm. The worst of it was, that sometimes you hardly knew who you were, after months in foreign parts, and yet you finally adjusted to anything.

  The Chief had once told Jack Rhyce that he had only one handicap: he was too good-looking, too athletic and well-set-up to avoid attracting attention. But for once his athletic build, his guileless face, and his irrepressible interest in everything around him were all helpful to his cover. As he sat in his bedroom in the Mark Hopkins, Jack Rhyce has almost forgotten who he was. His mind, in the solitude of the Farm, had absorbed all the facts and details, both about himself and Big Ben. He had almost developed a genuine enthusiasm for the self-improving opportunity that this trip to the Far East would give him, and he had been able to communicate this enthusiasm to Mr. Chas. K. Harrington, in several of his interviews.

  Of course he had still harbored the suspicion, after that talk with the Chief, that there must be something wrong about the Friendship League, and the Chief was amused when he heard about it.

  “I don’t think so, although we haven’t got a final check,” he said. “The thing that saves them is that they’re too damned obvious. After the Institute of Pacific Relations investigations, any sensible Comrade would think that this is a trap; but give them a good looking-over, Buster.”

  He had not forgotten what the Chief had told him. As he sat in his locked hotel room there in San Francisco, checking over for the last time the contents of his briefcase, he had an unworldly feeling. None of his precautions seemed correct for anyone who was going to write a favorable report about a fine organization, and who was so fortunate as to have his expenses paid to a wonderful part of the world. He examined the last papers in the briefcase, down to the final odds and ends that had seemingly fallen there by mistake—those bits that gave more veracity than any letters could, and all revealed character: the paper of matches from an inexpensive hotel, and a very respectable one, in midtown New York; the theater-ticket stubs to the matinee of a play which had only one week left to run; the memorandum of telephone numbers—all of persons to whom Chas. K. Harrington had referred him, in case anyone should want to confirm. There was one thing that bothered him slightly in his final summing-up. The net result of that briefcase, he suddenly feared, was too neat, too virtuous, lacking any sign of human weakness, and most people did have frailties. Perhaps, although it had been carefully discussed in Washington, it had
too many earmarks of obviousness and exaggeration. He sat for a moment thinking carefully of possible remedies, and suddenly he had it. He would go to a drugstore that very evening and get a paper-bound copy of the Kinsey Report of the sex life of the American Female, and put a plain paper cover over it. It would take several hours to get the book authentically dog-eared, but the trouble might be worth it. No one who searched that briefcase would ever doubt his character again—not with the New Testament, Buddha and Kinsey all together. He was still congratulating himself on the idea when his room telephone rang.

  There was no reason, as he thought it over later, why the jangling of the bell should have run through his nerves like an electric shock. It must have been that sight of the Russians that made him start at the sound, and also, as far as he could tell, the fact that no one knew that he was in San Francisco. He watched the telephone for a considerable time without lifting it, but the bell continued ringing. Whoever was calling the room must have been very sure that he was there. He finally picked up the instrument.

  “Hello,” he said, and he spoke in the mellifluous, accentless voice that he had spent such a long time cultivating.

  He was startled when a girl’s voice answered.

  “Hello”—the voice had a slightly husky quality, and sounded very young, and at the same time seductive. “Is this Mr. John Rhyce?”

  “Yes,” he answered, and he timed the pause very carefully. “Yes, this is Mr. Rhyce.”

  The voice changed immediately into confidential happiness. The words tumbled over each other in what seemed to him a Midwestern manner.

  “Gosh, I’m glad I contacted you, Mr. Rhyce. I was afraid you might have left your room, or something. This is Ruth—Ruth Bogart.”

  “Oh,” he said. “Oh, yes”—and he tried to cudgel his brains. Having been in the profession for a considerable period, he was naturally good with names and faces; but he could not place any Ruth Bogart.

  “Don’t you know who I am?” she asked.

  “Why, no,” he said, and he laughed. “I don’t, to be quite frank; but then perhaps I’m not the Mr. Rhyce you’re looking for either. Rhyce is a common name, but mine is spelled with a y.”

  “Of course it’s spelled with a y,” she said. “Oh, dear, didn’t Mr. Harrington tell you? I’m one of the Asia League girls, and we’re going on the same plane tomorrow.”

  “Why, no,” he said, “Mr. Harrington didn’t tell me.”

  “Oh, dear,” she said. “He promised he was going to. Have you inquired for wires and everything?”

  “There wasn’t any wire,” he answered.

  “Oh, dear,” she said. “Charlie gets so absent-minded sometimes. Well, just the same, I’m Ruth Bogart.”

  There was a slight pause while his mind moved rapidly, since there were a number of possibilities in that call, and the most important one was that it might have originated with the Russians.

  “Well, it’s very kind of you to give me a ring,” he said, “especially when you must have many acquaintances in the city, Miss Bogart.”

  “No,” she said, “I haven’t, and it’s awfully lonely in a strange city, isn’t it?” If it weren’t for her American voice, and the implacable self-confidence of American women, he would have thought the approach was crude. “I’m stopping here at the Mark, too, and—maybe I’m butting in, but Charles—I mean Mr. Harrington—did suggest I call you. I was hoping if you weren’t too busy or something, we might have dinner. There’s a place here called Fisherman’s Wharf, I understand, where they have divine sea food. My room is 312.”

  “Why, that sounds swell,” Jack Rhyce said. “I could certainly do with some sea food. I’ll be knocking on 312 in just a jiffy.”

  It was much better to see what was going on than not, and he especially liked the word “jiffy,” for it had a suggestive Friendship League sound. He looked in the mirror above the bureau and straightened his coat. Then he bent down and tested the laces of his brown crepe-soled shoes. Finally he gave a parting glance at his briefcase. It was the oldest game in the world, to lure someone away so that his room could be searched, and a girl was conventionally the shill. He very much hoped he was correct in this suspicion, because the sooner he was placed the better. The only doubt he harbored was how dumb he ought to be. Should he put his briefcase in the upper drawer of the bureau, or should he simply leave it on the writing table? He compromised by tossing it carelessly on the bed, closed the room door noisily behind him, and walked down the corridor eagerly and merrily, just in case anyone should be watching. There was an old saying in the business that a lot of men had saved their lives by giving the impression that they were easily beguiled by women. There had been a girl in Istanbul once, and a very pretty one, too, but that was another story, and he had been sorry when he heard later that she had fallen from a hotel window and died of a broken neck.

  One of the oldest tricks was also the ambush, the alluring call on the telephone, the welcoming inward opening of the door, and the blow on the base of the skull. He was still whistling when he stepped out of the elevator and walked down the corridor to Room 312. A great deal of thought had been given at the Farm to the right and wrong way of entering a strange room. He rose to the balls of his feet, rapped briskly on the door of Room 312 with his left hand, his right low at his side, shoulders forward, knees bent, but only slightly.

  “Oh,” a voice said. “Just a moment, please.”

  His memory of the Russians made him very careful. He moved closer to the door and touched the knob with his left hand in order to be fully prepared when it turned. As the door opened inward, Jack Rhyce moved with it, almost touching the panel with his left shoulder, knees still bent, right hand still slightly down. There was bound to come a moment when the situation would reveal itself, and when you had your opportunity to advance or retreat, as long as you were moving with the door. Jack Rhyce entered the room almost on tiptoe, knees still bent. It was a duplicate of his own, and the bathroom door was closed. A glance at the bed showed that someone must have been resting on it at almost the moment he had knocked. He also had a glimpse of two matched suitcases of canvas airplane luggage. Of course he saw all those things at the very same instant he saw the girl who stood by the door.

  She was very pretty, which did not surprise him. He would have estimated her age at not over twenty-five, until a glance at her hands made him doubtful. Her height was five feet six, hair dark brown, eyes gray-green. Her face was longish with a mouth that showed character, although you could not tell much about a woman’s mouth when touched with lipstick. She wore a green dress of heavy silk with a thin yellow stripe in it, and she held a red leather handbag.

  “Why, Mr. Rhyce,” she smiled, “I didn’t know you’d come rushing down quite so rapidly.”

  He smiled back in the overcordial manner that anyone might use when meeting an attractive girl. She was using very little make-up. The color in her cheeks was natural, and she had only a touch of lipstick. He had grown adept, long ago, in spotting persons engaged in his line of work. There was something indescribable about them that could awaken his intuition—an overalertness, perhaps, or a general impression of strain—but her personality baffled him, and he could not reach an immediate conclusion.

  “I guess I hurried down faster than was polite,” he said, “because it was such a surprise, and a real pleasure too, to hear a friendly voice in ’Frisco. I hope I didn’t sound rude, or anything like that, when you called me, because that was my last intention. I’m terribly sorry that Charlie didn’t say anything about you, and a little surprised, too, because without wanting to be forward or anything, I don’t see how anyone like you could possibly skip anyone’s mind.”

  He could not help being pleased with the general tone of his speech, all of which reflected his new character.

  “Why, Mr. Rhyce,” she said, “what cute things you say.”

  Her looks, and then the word cute, were like a tag in the museum case, although the possibility remained that sh
e, too, had a cover.

  “Well, I can only say it is a real pleasure, making your acquaintance, Miss Bogart,” Jack Rhyce said, “and it will be fun exploring San Francisco with you. I’m especially glad you mentioned Fisherman’s Wharf, and after that we might visit Chinatown. I believe it is the largest Chinese district anywhere in the United States.”

  There was no doubt that his weeks of work were paying off, and Mr. Wilder’s novel had been of great assistance.

  “I think dinner would be lovely,” she said, “but I’m afraid I’ll have to beg off on Chinatown, although it sounds awfully romantic and all that; and anyway, you and I are going to see a lot of these Oriental people pretty quickly, aren’t we? I’m a little woozy, because I’ve just flown in from Chicago, and we have an early start tomorrow.”

  There was no doubt that she was very pretty, and of course, like all American girls, she obviously knew it. In the elevator she opened her red leather bag and took out a gold compact—genuine, not an ordinary plated job. She looked at herself critically in the little mirror, standing with her back to the elevator boy. Jack Rhyce could not avoid a sympathetic interest because it was the correct technique for examining the elevator operator.

  “Oh, I forgot to powder my nose,” she said.

  Her nose looked straight and determined. It did not need powder, and he told her so.

  “Well, anyway,” she said, “this is a very exciting hotel. Do you know who was here this afternoon? Mr. Molotov himself, who was calling on Mr. Dulles. I had the good fortune to have a glimpse of him just as he was getting into his car.”

  “Did you?” Jack Rhyce said heartily, “I had that good fortune, myself. I was just getting in from the airport.”

  They were by the front door then and the doorman was whistling for a taxi.

  “I know,” she said, and gave him a playful smile. “I saw you, and I did hope you would be you.”