The Rat Race by Jay Franklin (book club books txt) 📕

Wasson chuckled like a well-fed broker. "We'll get enough witnesses to your John Hancock to make it legal," he promised. "Now what you've got to do is to ease old lady Fynch into the trustee's delight and take a gander at her former investments. I've brought the list with me. As you know, she insisted that you okay the deal."

I glanced at the typed list. "This stuff looks pretty good to me, Graham," I said. "Detroit Edison's safe as the Washington Monument, A.T.&T. is solid, and G.E. ought to do all right with this new electronic stuff."

"And how!" My partner agreed. "Boy! what a windfall! Stuff like that is scarcer than hen's teeth on the open market. With close to a million bucks to turn over, we ought to do pretty well on this. Here's what we're buying for her."

Wasson passed me a slip of paper. "The trustee's delight," he said. "G-Bonds. You buy 'em, we should worry. No money back for ten years. Morgenthau's dream-child."

The slip was attached to a printed Treasury form. "See here," I pointed out. "These damn bonds depreciate 2.2% a year for the first five years and then start climbing up the ladder again, and they're non-transferable."

"That's it, Winnie. The trustee's delight," Wasson agreed. "They pay 2-1/2% a year if you hold them but if you try to sell them within five years the discount means you only get about .03% on your money. Once a trustee has put you aboard this roller-coaster, he can't conscientiously advise you to get out."

"Who dreamed up that swindle?"

"Oh, a couple of dollar-a-year bankers we sent down to help the Treasury win the war. It's a natural. It's patriotic to invest in war-bonds. The yield's conservative as hell and you get it all back if you wait long enough."

"But what if the old girl dies within the next five years? Won't the estate be liquidated? How will the heirs feel when they have to take a loss of $60,000?"

"That's their worry, Winnie," Wasson pointed out. "All we have to do is sign the papers and la Fynch gets about $25,000 a year for the rest of her life."

"Instead of the $40,000 a year she's getting out of her present investments now."

"Sure, Winnie. We're not in business for our health. Industrials are risky and Miss Fynch is awful set on beating Hitler. We take over her present portfolio and take our chances on the market. If values shift we're in a position to unload—but fast. She isn't. She only gets to town twice a year, once between Bar Harbor and Long Island, and then next time from Palm Beach to Long Island. Come on, Winnie, stick your fist on these papers and I'll handle the transfers."

I shook my head. "I'd like to think this over," I said. "If I was an old woman and expected only five or ten more years of life, I'd be hanged if I'd tie myself down to these financial mustard-plasters. It sounds okay to be patriotic, but I think I'd stick to the greater risks and higher yields and get a run for my money. Tell you what, Graham, you phone and tell her I'd like to have a talk with her before she makes up her mind."

Wasson shoved back his chair and faced me, bristling. "I'll be damned if I will. This is a natural and, handled right, is worth $100,000 to the firm. You talked her into it and now if you're getting cold feet you can talk her out of it. All I know is that you've gone nuts."

"We aren't so hard up that we have to swindle old ladies."

"Swindle my eye! What's wrong about $25,000 a year guaranteed by your Uncle Sam?"

"Less income tax," I reminded him.

"Oh, sure—that—"

"Well, it's about $15,000 a year less than she's getting now. If she sold out and invested in an annuity she could get about $70,000 a year, tax-free. No, I don't want to rush her into this."

"Then you've forgotten how we made our pile in the first place," my partner growled. "Phil Cone and I will have to talk this over. This is a fine time to go soft on us."

I grinned at him. "Go on, talk it over. If you want out, you're welcome. I'd rather like you to stick around, as I'm on to something really big and I don't want the Street to say we fleeced our clients."

"I resent that, Winnie," Wasson snapped.

"What else would you call it? Reinvesting?"

"Listen," he exploded. "You built up this business. You invented the methods. I'm damned if I let you call me a swindler for following your lead!" And he stormed out, slamming the door. A moment later, he stuck his head in again. "Forget it, Winnie. If you're working on a big operation, count me in!"

I studied the list of the Fynch investments again and the more I saw it the more I wondered how anybody but a fool would fall for the proposition of putting money in the government bonds for ten years, when you could clean up outside government.

There was a tap on the edge of my desk. I looked up to see Arthurjean. "Mr. Harcourt is back to see you," she said. "I'll get set with the stenotype. And don't worry about that Fynch dame. I'll give you a fill-in later. She knows what she's doing."

"Fine!" I told her. "Now you show Mr. Harcourt in and make with the stenotype. Did you finish copying what we said yesterday?"

Her mouth dropped open and her sweater quivered eloquently. "Omigawd! baby! I clean forgot."

Mr. Harcourt seemed much more vital and self-possessed than on the previous afternoon—perhaps because he had obviously had a sleep, a shower and a hearty breakfast, presumably prefaced by ten minutes of vigorous push-ups and toe-touching in bathroom calisthenics. At any rate he looked fit.

"Morning, Harcourt," I said casually. "Sorry to tell you that Miss Briggs was home with a bad headache last night and wasn't able to make that copy of our talk yesterday."

G-Men on duty are not supposed to smile without written permission from their immediate superior but Harcourt must have had an extra helping of Wheaties for breakfast. "Call yourself a headache, Mr. Tompkins?" he asked. "That's who our man reported Miss Briggs had last night at 157 East 51st Street, third floor front. Can I get her some aspirin?"

"There are no secrets from the Gestapo," I observed, "and I have no comment to offer except to say next time come on up and have a drink with us instead of doing the G-Man in a cold and drafty doorway across the street."

The Special Agent gave an entirely unofficial wink at Arthurjean. "Oh, hell," he remarked. "What's the use of all this coy stuff? The Bureau isn't interested in your private life. What I wanted to say, Mr. Tompkins, is that I reported our talk to my chief and he teletyped my report down to Washington. We're not going to fool around with Church Street on this one. The Director's going to take it up direct with Admiral Ballister at the Navy Department. For my part, I told him I thought it was all a pipe-dream but like I said the F.B.I. doesn't believe in dreams that come true."

Arthurjean crossed the room and stood behind him, pressing a little unregenerately against the back of his chair, until Harcourt remarked conversationally to U. S. Grant in the engraving, "I'm a married man, baby, with a wife and kids in Brooklyn."

My secretary smiled and gave him a smart tap on the top of his head. "You're a good boy, junior," she told him, "and I'm all for you. But don't you go making trouble for this dumb boss of mine or I'll call on your wife, personal, and Tell All."

Harcourt murmured to the engraving that unconditional surrender was his name, too, but that Tompkins was making so much trouble for himself that he was damned if he could see how the F.B.I. could make it any worse. In any case, he added more directly, he would keep in touch with me and let me know whether I was wanted up at the Federal Court House.

"See here, Harcourt," I replied. "One good turn doesn't make a spring. This is the screwiest case you've ever been on. If you can drop in and visit Miss Briggs and myself on Saturday after lunch at our place, I'll give you a fill-in that will rock the F.B.I. from its gats to its toupees."

"That's mighty white of you—and Miss Briggs," the Special Agent allowed. "If the chief lets me, I'll meet you up there, say about 2:30."

"Swell!" I said. "And which do you prefer—Scotch or rye?"

"I don't drink on duty," he told me, "but I find Bourbon helps fight off colds this early spring weather."

After his departure, I locked myself in the office and with Arthurjean's help, brought myself up to date on Winnie's business operations. Tompkins, Wasson & Cone were not, as I had believed, a high-toned bucket-shop. The proposed Fynch swindle was only the result of a dopey old maid who practically insisted on helping beat the Axis by turning her money into Government bonds. There was plenty of honest graft and many a solid perquisite in straight commission work and supervision of estates. The firm was not, of course, very scrupulous but it always gave value for its transactions. It was, in fact, a pretty slick set-up.

There was a buzz on my inter-office telephone and the receptionist announced: "Mr. Axel Roscommon to see you, Mr. Tompkins."

"Oh, ask him to see one of the other partners, will you?"

"I told him that you were too busy, but he said he must see you and would wait."

"He too?" I asked. "Okay. Send him in. Do you know an Axel Roscommon, Arthurjean?"

"Uh-uh!" She shook her head. "The name's sorta familiar. Something in oil before Pearl Harbor. I can find out if you'll wait a bit."

"Never mind," I told her. "I'll see him. You stay in the next room and keep the door ajar so you can take a record."

She laughed. "I can do better than that, boss. I'll switch down the inter-office phones and keep the door shut. That way. I'll hear every word you say. It's like a dictaphone."

Mr. Roscommon was an extremely well set up man in the middle fifties, about six-feet two, lean, with iron grey hair, a grey moustache, steel-blue eyes and a bear-trap grip. He looked prosperous but not worried by it. He spoke with a faint Irish lilt in his voice but his manner was most direct and unHibernian.

"Mr. Tompkins," he remarked. "You must excuse the lack of formality but you will understand when I tell you that I am chief of the German intelligence organization in the United States. Now don't think I'm crazy or indiscreet. The only reason I have come to you is because my agents in the F.B.I. tell me that you are involved in the sinking of U.S.S. Alaska off the Aleutians. Thorium bombs, wasn't it? Chalmis was a pretty smart chap and I warned our people that he was getting hot. Now I don't ask you why in Wotan's name the Fuehrer thinks it makes sense to have two intelligence services in this country. Probably Berlin didn't like my last reports. No, don't get excited. I've engaged in no subversive activities, I'm an Irish Free State citizen and if you go to Washington you'll find that they know all about me. Hitler may want the old Goetterdaemmerung spirit in our outfit but I can't see the point of too much zeal."

I offered him a cigarette. "What do you want to see me about, Mr. Roscommon?" I asked. "For all you know there may be dictaphones planted all over the place. My last visitor today was actually a special agent of the F.B.I."

Roscommon lighted his cigarette with a flick of a gold Dunhill lighter. "That would be Harcourt—A. J. Harcourt—wouldn't it? A fine chap and a conscientious agent. I'd heard he'd been assigned to your case. You'll find him completely reliable. As you know, in time of war there has to be some practical way of maintaining direct confidential communication between the enemies. Switzerland? Bah! All milk chocolate, profiteering and eyewash. I wouldn't trust a Swiss as far as I could throw the Sub-Treasury Building. I'm acting here for Berlin and you have at least three men in Berlin to keep in touch with the German Government over there. That's the only practical way modern wars can be fought, eh? As Edith Cavell said last time, 'Patriotism is not enough.' The fact is that even in war, two great countries like Germany and America must and do maintain direct contact."

I pushed the button for Arthurjean. "Miss Briggs," I asked, "have we any brandy in the office?"

Dead-pan and nonchalant,