by Henry Miller
There I was, in the street again, and just as Kronski had predicted, following in a cab. When I got to the hotel I found that Cromwell had already gone to his room. I insisted that the clerk take me to his room. Cromwell was lying fully clothed on the bedspread, flat on his back, his hat beside him. I put the brief case on his chest and tiptoed out. Then I made the clerk accompany me to the manager’s office, explained the situation to that individual, and made the clerk testify that he had seen me deposit the brief case on Cromwell’s chest.
“And may I have your name?” asked the manager, somewhat perturbed by these unusual tactics.
“Certainly,” I said, “Dr. Karl Marx of the Polytechnique Institute. You can call me in the morning if there is any irregularity. Mr. Cromwell is a friend of mine, an F.B.I. agent. He had a little too much to drink. You’ll look after him, I hope.”
“I certainly will,” said the night manager, looking rather alarmed. “Can we reach you at your office any time, Dr. Marx?”
“I’ll be there all day, certainly,” I said. “If I should be out, ask for my secretary—Miss Rabinovitch—she’ll know where to reach me. I’ve got to get some sleep now… must be in the operating room at nine. Thank you so much. Good night!”
The bellhop escorted me to the revolving door. He was visibly impressed by the rigmarole. “Cab, sir?” he said. “Yes,” I said, and gave him the change which I had gathered from the floor. “Thank you very very much, Doctor,” he said, bowing and scraping, as he showed me to the cab.
I told the cabby to drive to Times Square. There I got out and headed for the subway. Just as I was reaching the change booth I realized I hadn’t a damned cent left over. The cab driver had gotten my last quarter. I climbed up the steps and stood at the curb, wondering where and how I would raise the necessary nickel. As I was standing there a night messenger came along. I looked twice to see if I knew him. Then I bethought me of the telegraph office at Grand Central. I was sure to know someone there. I walked back to Grand Central, swung down the ramp and sure enough, there at the desk, large as life, was my old friend Driggs. “Driggs, would you lend me a nickel?” I said. “A nickel?” said Driggs. “Here, take a dollar!” We chatted a few moments and then I ducked back to the subway.
A phrase Cromwell had let drop a number of times during the early part of the evening kept recurring to mind: “my friend William Randolph Hearst.” I didn’t doubt in the least that they were good friends, though Cromwell was still a pretty young man to be a bosom friend of the newspaper Czar. The more I thought of Cromwell the better I liked him. I was determined to see him again soon, on my own next time. I prayed that he wouldn’t forget to make that telephone call. I wondered what he would think of me when he realized I had gone through his brief case.
It was only a few nights later that we met again. This time at Papa Moskowitz’s. Just Cromwell, Mona and myself. It was Cromwell who had suggested the rendezvous. He was leaving for Washington the next day.
Any uneasiness I might have felt on meeting him the second time was quickly dispelled by his warm smile and hearty handshake. At once he informed me how grateful he was for what I had done, not specifying what I had done, but giving me a look which made it clear he knew everything. “I always make an ass of myself when I drink,” he said, blushing slightly. He looked more boyish now than he had the first night I met him. He shouldn’t have been more than thirty, it seemed to me. Now that I knew what his real job was I was more than ever amazed by his easy, carefree deportment. He acted like a man without any responsibilities. Just a bright young banker of good family—that was the impression he created.
Mona and he had been talking literature, it seemed. He pretended, as before, to be out of touch with literary events. Nothing but a plain business man with a slight knowledge of finance. Politics? Completely beyond his ken. No, the banking business kept him busy enough. Except for an occasional tear, he was a home-loving body. Hardly ever saw anything but Washington and New York. Europe? Yes, most eager to see Europe. But that would have to wait until he could afford a real vacation.
He pretended to be rather ashamed of the fact that the only language he knew was English. But he supposed one could get by if one had the right connections.
I enjoyed hearing him hand out this line. Never by word or gesture did I betray his confidence. Not even to Mona would I have dared reveal what I knew about Cromwell. He seemed to understand that I could be trusted.
And so we talked and talked, listening to Moskowitz now and then, and drinking moderately. I gathered that he already made it clear to Mona that the column was no go. Everybody had praised her work, but the big boss, whoever that was, had concluded it was not for the Hearst papers.
“What about Hearst himself?” I ventured to ask. “Did he say no to it?”
Cromwell explained that Hearst usually abided by the decisions of his underlings. It was all very complicated, he assured me. However, he thought that something else might turn up, something even more promising. He would know after he got back to Washington.
I of course was able to interpret this as a mere politeness, knowing full well now that Cromwell would not be in Washington for at least two months, that in seven or eight days, as a matter of fact, he would be in Bucharest, conversing in the language of that country with great fluency.
“I may be seeing Hearst when I go to California next month,” he said, never batting an eyelash. “I’ve got to go there on a business trip.”
“Oh, by the way,” he added, as if it had just occurred to him at that moment, “isn’t your friend Doctor Kronski a rather strange person… I mean, for a surgeon?”
“What do you mean?” I said.
“Oh, I don’t know… I would have taken him for a pawnbroker, or something like that. Perhaps he was only putting on to amuse me.”
“You mean his talk? He’s always that way when he drinks. No, he’s really a remarkable individual—and an excellent surgeon.”
“I must look him up when I get back here again,” said Cromwell. “My little boy has a clubfoot. Perhaps Dr. Kronski would know what to do for him?”
“I’m sure he would,” I said, forgetting that I was supposed to be a surgeon too.
As if divining my oversight, and just to be a bit playful, Cromwell added: Perhaps you could tell me something about such matters yourself, Dr. Marx. Or isn’t that your field?”
“No, it isn’t really,” I said, “though I can tell you this much, however. We have cured some cases. It all depends. To explain why would be rather complicated.…”
Here he smiled broadly. “I understand,” he said. “But it’s good to know that you think there is some hope.”
“Indeed there is,” I said warmly. “Now in Bucharest at the present time there’s a celebrated surgeon who is reputed to have cured ninety per cent of his cases. He has some special treatment of his own which we over here are not yet familiar with. I believe it’s an electrical treatment.”
“In Bucharest, you say? That’s far away.”
“Yes, it is,” I agreed.
“Supposing we have another bottle of Rhine wine?” suggested Cromwell.
“If you insist,” I replied. “I’ll have just a wee drop, then I must be going.”
“Do stay,” he begged. “I really enjoy talking with you. You know, sometimes you strike me as more of a literary man than a surgeon.”
“I used to write,” I said. “But that was years ago. In our profession one doesn’t have much time for literature.”
“It’s like the banking business, isn’t it?” said Cromwell.
“Quite.” We smiled good-naturedly at one another.
“But there have been physicians who wrote books, haven’t there?” said Cromwell. “I mean novels, plays, and such like.”
“To be sure,” I said, “plenty of them. Schnitzler, Mann, Somerset Maugham.…”
“Don’t overlook Elie Faure,” said Cromwell. “Mona here has been telling me a great deal about him. Wrote a histor
y of art, or something like that… wasn’t that it?” He looked to Mona for confirmation. “I’ve never seen his work, of course. I wouldn’t know a good painting from a bad one.”
“I’m not so sure of that,” said I. “I think you’d know a spurious one if you saw it.”
“Why do you say that?”
“Oh, it’s just a hunch. I think you’re quick to detect whatever is counterfeit.”
“You’re probably crediting me with too much acumen, Dr. Marx. Of course, in our business, one does get accustomed to being on the alert for bad money. But that’s really not my department. We have specialists for that sort of thing.”
“Naturally,” I said. “But seriously, Mona is right… one day you’ve got to read Elie Faure. Imagine a man writing a colossal History of Art in his spare time! Used to make notes on his cuff while visiting his patients. Now and then he would fly to some far-off place, like Yucatan or Siam or Easter Island. I doubt if any of his neighbors knew that he made such flights. Led a humdrum life, outwardly. He was an excellent physician. But his passion was art. I can’t tell you how much I admire the man.”
“You speak about him exactly like Mona,” said Cromwell. “And you tell me you have no time for other pursuits!”
Here Mona put in her oar. According to her, I was a man of many facets, a man who seemed to have time for everything.
Would he have suspected, for instance, that Dr. Marx was also a skilled musician, an expert at chess, a stamp collector…?
Cromwell here averred that he suspected I was capable of many things I was too modest to reveal. He was convinced, for one thing, that I was a man of great imagination. Quite casually he reminded us that he had noticed my hands the other night. In his humble opinion they revealed much more than the mere ability to wield the scalpel.
Interpreting this remark in her own fashion, Mona at once demanded if he could read palms.
“Not really,” said Cromwell, looking as if abashed. “Enough, perhaps, to tell a criminal from a butcher, a violinist from a pharmacist. Most any one can do that much, even without a knowledge of palmistry.”
At this point I had an impulse to leave.
“Do stay!” begged Cromwell.
“No, really, I must be off,” said I, grasping his hand.
“We’ll meet again soon, I hope,” said Cromwell. “Do bring your wife next time. A charming little creature. I took quite a fancy to her.”
“That she is,” said I, reddening to the ears. “Well, good-bye! And bon voyage!”
To this Cromwell raised his glass over the brim of which I detected a slightly mocking glance of the eyes. At the door I encountered Papa Moskowitz.
“Who is that man at your table?” he asked in a low voice.
“Frankly, I don’t know,” I answered. “Better ask Mona.”
“He’s not a friend of yours then?”
“That’s hard to answer too,” I replied. “Well, good-bye!” and I shook myself loose.
That night I had a very disturbing dream. It started off, as dreams often do, as a pursuit. I was chasing a small thin man down a dark street, towards the river. Behind me was a man chasing me. It was important for me to catch up with the man I was pursuing before the other man got me. The thin little man was none other than Spivak. I had been trailing him all night from place to place, and finally I had him on the run. Who the man behind me was I had no idea. Whoever he was, he had good wind and was fleet of foot. He gave me the uneasy feeling that he could catch up with me whenever he had a mind to. As for Spivak, though I wanted nothing better than to see him drown himself, it was urgent that I collar him first: he had on him some papers which were of vital importance to me.
Just as we were nearing the jetty which projected into the river I caught up with him, collared him firmly, and swung him around. To my utter amazement it wasn’t Spivak at all—it was Crazy Sheldon. He didn’t seem to recognize me, perhaps because of the darkness. He slid to his knees and begged me not to cut his throat. “I’m not a Polack!” I said, and yanked him to his feet. At that moment my pursuer caught up with us. It was Alan Cromwell. He put a gun in my hand and commanded me to shoot Sheldon. “Here, I’ll show you how,” he said, and giving Sheldon’s arm a vicious twist he brought him to his knees. Then he placed the muzzle of the gun against the back of Sheldon’s head. Sheldon was now whimpering like a dog. I took the gun and placed it against Sheldon’s skull. “Shoot!” commanded Cromwell. I pulled the trigger automatically and Sheldon gave a little spring, like a jack-in-the-box, and fell face forward. “Good work!” said Cromwell. “Now, let’s hurry. We’re due in Washington tomorrow morning early.”
On the train Cromwell changed personality completely. He now resembled to a T my old friend and double, George Marshall. He even talked exactly like him, although his talk at the moment was rather disconnected. He was reminding me of the old days when we used to act the clown for the other members—of the celebrated Xerxes Society. Giving me a wink, he flashed the button on the underside of his lapel, the very one we all religiously wore, the one on which was engraved in letters of gold—Fratres Semper. Then he gave me the old handclasp, tickling my palm, as we used to do, with his forefinger. “Is that enough for you?” he said, giving me another slippery horse-wink. His eyes, incidentally, had expanded to formidable proportions: they were huge goiterous eyes which swam in his round face like bloated oysters. This only when he winked, however. When he resumed his other identity, alias Cromwell, his eyes were quite normal.
“Who are you?” I begged. “Are you Cromwell or Marshall?”
He put his finger to his lips, in the manner of Sheldon, and went SHHHHHHHH!
Then, in the voice of a ventriloquist, and talking out of the side of his mouth, he informed me rapidly, almost inaudibly, and with more and more celerity—it made me dizzy trying to follow him!—that he had been tipped off in the nick of time, that they were proud of me at headquarters, and that I was to be given a very special assignment, yes, to go to Tokyo. I was to impersonate one of the Mikado’s right-hand men—in order to track down the stolen prints. “You know,” and he lowered his voice still more, training those horrible floating oysters on me again, flipping back the lapel of his coat, clasping my hand, tickling my palm, “you know, the one we use for the thousand dollar bills.” Here he began talking Japanese which, to my amazement, I discovered I could follow as easily as English. It was the art commissioner, he explained in chopstick language, who had caught on to the racket. He was an expert, this guy, on pornographic prints. I would be meeting him in Yokohama, disguised as a physician. He’d be wearing an admiral’s uniform with one of those funny three-cornered hats. Here he gave me a prodigious nudge with his elbow and tittered—just like a Jap. “I’m sorry to say, Hen,” he continued, relapsing into Brooklynese, “that they’ve got the goods on your wife. Yep, she’s in the ring. Caught her red-handed with a big package of coke.” He nudged me again, more viciously this time. “Remember that last meeting we staged—at Grimmy’s? You know, the time they fell asleep on us? I’ve done that rope-and-ladder trick many times since.” Here he grasped my hand and gave me the sign once more. “Now listen, Hen, get it straight.… When we get off the train you walk leisurely down Pennsylvania Avenue, as if you were taking a stroll. You’ll meet up with three dogs. The first two, they’ll be fake dogs. The third one will run up to you to be patted. That’s the clue. Pat him on the head with one hand and with the other slip your fingers under his tongue. You’ll find a pellet about the size of an oat. Take the dog by the collar and let him lead you. Should anyone stop you, just say Ohio! You know what that means. They’ve got spies posted everywhere, even in the White House.… Now get this, Hen”—and he began talking like a sewing machine, faster, faster, faster—“when you meet the President give him the old handclasp. There’s a little surprise in store for you, but I’ll skip that. Just bear this in mind, Hen, that he’s the President. Don’t ever forget that! He’ll tell you this and that… he doesn’t know his ass f
rom a hole in the ground… but never mind, just listen. Don’t let on that you know a thing. Obsipresieckswizi will make his appearance at the critical moment. You know him… he’s been with us for years.…” I wanted to ask him to repeat the name for me but he couldn’t be stopped, not for a moment. “We’ll be pulling in in three minutes,” he murmured, “and I haven’t told you half yet. This is the most important, Hen, now get this,” and he gave me another painful poke in the ribs. But there his voice had dropped to such a pitch that I could only catch fragments of his speech. I was writhing in agony. How would I ever carry on if the most important details were lost? I would remember the three dogs, of course. The message was in code, but I would be able to decipher that on the boat. I was also to brush up on my Japanese during the boat trip, my accent was a little off, especially for the Court. “You’ve got it now?” he was saying, waving his lapel again and clasping my hand. “Wait, wait a minute,” I begged. “That last part.…” But he had already descended the steps and was lost in the crowd.
As I walked along Pennsylvania Avenue, trying to give the appearance of a stroller, I realized with a sinking heart that I was really completely befuddled. For a moment I wondered if I were dreaming. But no, it was Pennsylvania Avenue all right, no mistaking it. And then suddenly there was a big dog standing at the curb. I knew he was an imitation one because he was fastened to a hitching block. That reassured me even more that I was in possession of my waking mind. I kept my eyes open to spot the second dog. I didn’t even turn around, though I was certain someone was on my heel, so anxious was I not to miss that second dog. Cromwell, or was it George Marshall—the two had become inextricably confused—hadn’t mentioned anything about being followed. Maybe, though, he had said something—when he was talking under his breath. I was getting more and more panicky. I tried to think back, to recall just how I had gotten involved in this ugly business, but my brain was too fatigued.
Suddenly I almost jumped out of my skin. At the corner, standing under an arc light, was Mona. She was holding a bunch of Mezzotints in her hand, distributing them to passers-by. When I got abreast of her she handed me one, giving me a look which meant—“Be careful!”—I sauntered leisurely across the street. For a while I carried the Mezzotint without glancing at it, flapping it against my leg as if it were a newspaper. Then, pretending that I had to blow my nose, I switched it to the other hand, and as I wiped my nose I read on the slant these words: “The end is round like the beginning. Fratres Semper.” I was sorely baffled. Maybe that was another little detail I had missed when he was talking under his breath. Anyway, I had the presence of mind to tear the message into tiny little bits. I dropped the bits one by one at intervals of a hundred yards or so, listening intently each time to make sure my pursuer was not stopping to pick them up.