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

in on me, so I bowed slightly and withdrew from the President's office.

In the anteroom, I found General Wakely pacing up and down like the father of triplets.

"How did it go, Tompkins?" he asked. "You had five extra minutes. Did you get a chance to give him a fill-in about the Navy and you-know-what?"

I shook my head. "My orders are not to discuss that matter any further, General," I told him.

"But what about Von Bieberstein?" the chief of M.I.D. demanded. "Can you give me a lead?"

"My instructions, General," I said, "are to discuss matters with the State Department."

"The State Department!" Wakely was outraged. "Why, they're nothing but a bunch of Reds! They tell me there are men over there who have spent years in Russia."

"If I am ever allowed to tell you who Von Bieberstein really is," I told the General, "you will understand why I am not allowed to discuss it with you now. This is a matter for the Big Three. It is out of my hands entirely."

At the gate of the White House drive I was suddenly halted by a piercing "Hi!" It was Virginia Rutherford. She dodged her way between two stalwart sentries and took my arm.

"Winnie!" she cooed, as soon as we were across Pennsylvania Avenue, "you utter devil!"

It seemed safest to say nothing.

"Winnie," she continued. "Do you realize that the Army of the United States dragged me out of bed yesterday morning and flew me down here just to discover that you are a bigger liar than I thought you were?"

"Please don't blame me for General Wakely," I told her. "He's an Eagle Scout in high places. I was getting on fine until you showed up, and please don't raise your voice at me. If I know the Army, you and I are being tailed right now by the counter-intelligence."

Virginia snuggled closer to me, as we dodged through the crowd in LaFayette Park watching the White House.

"To think," she said dreamily, "that all this time you have been an American secret service agent. Ain't that something?"

Again it seemed safest to say nothing.

"Yes, Winnie Tompkins, super-sleuth!" she continued with an edge on her voice you could have shaved with. "All last winter, when I was under the impression that we were canoodling from bar to bar, you were working for Uncle Sam! It's one of the best stories of the war, Winnie. Sleep with Tompkins and lick the Axis!"

This was getting under my hide. "Virginia," I told her, "I have just spent the last twenty minutes trying to convince President Truman that I'm not a secret agent. He will have none of it. He says I've been working too hard and need a rest."

"You devil!" Virginia chuckled dangerously. "You absolute, utter demon! Here is civilization at the crossroads and what does Winfred S. Tompkins do to amuse himself. He strolls down to Washington and persuades the Generals and the Admirals and the President that he has been winning the war for them instead of winning the wife of his family physician. That's what I call funny."

"Have it your own way," I agreed. "If you can persuade General Wakely that I'm a fake, more power to you. He believes that you are one of my best operatives and nothing can shake him."

"So that's what you call them? Your operatives? That's wonderful. If I'm ever asked, 'Grandma, what did you do in the second Great War?' I'll say, Johnnie I was an operative under W. S. Tompkins, the ace American Agent."

"Would you mind not talking quite so loud," I again begged her. "Those two men following us might misunderstand."

She glanced over her shoulder. "You mean those five men following us, don't you, Winnie?"

I looked behind us. She was right. A group of five, if not six, people were trailing along behind us. Lamb and the F.B.I., Ballister and the Navy, as well as the Army's counter-intelligence and the O.S.S., were probably represented.

"Five is right," I agreed. "You see, Virginia, I'm a pretty important person. You noticed, I hope, that President Truman took time out to chat with me."

"What's he like?" she asked irrelevantly. "Of course, Roosevelt was all wrong but he had something on the ball. Who's this little guy from Montana, anyhow?"

"Missouri," I corrected her. "He's from Missouri and don't you ever forget it. That's what he is, Virginia, a little guy from Missouri."

We were at the Willard.

"Here, Virginia, I must leave you," I told her. "You can't follow me up to my bedroom and anyhow I have a message for Jimmie from the President of the United States."

"Nuts!" she answered brightly. "You're not fooling me for one little minute. You've just lied yourself into a bigger jam than you've lied yourself out of. Well, I'm on to your game."

When I reached the room, there was no sign of Jimmie. This statement should be qualified. She herself was not to be seen but various articles of clothing were scattered around the room and there was a rush and gurgle of water from the bathroom which suggested that my wife was taking a bath. She was.

"Winnie?" she called through the half-open door.

"Theesa tha floor-waiter," I grunted. "You wanta me? I busy."

"Waiter," she commanded, "please leave the room at once."

"What'sa alla so secret, hey?" I asked, still speaking in subject-race style. "Letta me see!"

I took the handle of the door, wrenched it open and pushed. There was an angry screech from inside, followed by an indignant, "Winnie, you beast! Get out of here!"

I didn't, so Jimmie dropped the bath towel she had draped defensively across her shoulders and subsided laughing into a warm, soapy bath.

"You are the absolute limit!" she declared. "I'll never forgive you for this. Tell me, what the President was like?"

"Very nice," I said. "He reminds me of one time I saw a little fresh-water college football team play Notre Dame. You sort of wanted the little guys to make at least one first down, but you knew that if they did, it would just be an accident. No, Truman's one hell of a nice guy but that doesn't mean he could lick Joe Louis. Anyhow, he was complimentary about my work and he sent a message to you. Pity he couldn't deliver it in person, like the floor-waiter."

"For me?"

I nodded. "He said that I needed a good long rest and that you must take very good care of me."

She looked up at me, large-eyed, through a haze of steam.

"Oh, Winnie," she declared. "I am so proud of you. To think that all the time you've been doing secret intelligence! And I believed you were just chasing around after those silly girls. Don't you think you could have trusted your wife?" she asked.

I shook my head emphatically. "That was part of my cover," I replied. "If you hadn't been worried about me it wouldn't have looked natural. If I'd told you, you wouldn't have worried and the Axis agents—" I left the thought trailing.

Germaine sucked reflectively on the corner of her wash-cloth. "Yes," she agreed at last, "I can see that, but I don't see how I can ever trust you again."

I laughed. "Then don't trust me," I told her. "We'll still have a good time. Suppose you get dressed now and come downstairs and we'll have champagne cocktails to celebrate."

"Celebrate what?" she asked, loosing the stopper with her toes.

"Celebrate the liquidation of Z-2," I said. "It's being taken over by the Army. My work is done anyhow. And tomorrow I have to see the State Department. Mr. Truman tells me they need men like me—God help them!"

"The State Department!" She jumped out of the tub, scattering water lavishly on the floor and on me. "Are they going to make you an Ambassador or something?"

"Come down to earth, Jimmie," I urged her. "I'm a Republican from New York; not a Democrat. I may have done an even better job than they think I've done, but I know one thing I didn't do to qualify for a diplomatic job."

"What's that?" she asked, towelling herself vigorously.

"I never contributed a dime to the Democratic National Committee," I confessed.

CHAPTER 20

There was a brisk knock on the bedroom door. I walked over and opened it, to see F.B.I. Special Agent A. J. Harcourt. He gave me a reproachful glance and pushed his way into the room.

"I can only stop a minute, Mr. Tompkins," he said, "but I have orders from the Director to call on you in person and present the apologies of the Bureau for having inconvenienced you. If you had only told us you were connected with Z-2 there would have been no trouble."

"Sit down, Harcourt," I urged him. Then I crossed to the bathroom door. "Don't come out until you're decent, dear," I called to Germaine. "The F.B.I. is here."

Some muffled instructions answered, so I went around the room and picked up the various scattered wisps of silk and rayon, and thrust them through to my wife.

"That's all I was to say, Mr. Tompkins," Harcourt repeated, still standing, "that the Bureau is mighty sorry about the whole business."

"Sit down!" I told him again. "Now get this Z-2 thing straight. There isn't any Z-2. I just invented it, trying to get myself out of this jam. I never was a Z-2 agent. What I told these people was all moonshine."

Harcourt nodded. "We know, of course, that you're not allowed to admit you're in Z-2 to anybody but the top guys, but we know that Z-2 does exist. If it didn't how could the President abolish it?"

"How's that again?" I asked, sinking into the one easy chair.

"Yeah, special confidential Executive Order No. 1734, signed today, abolishing Z-2 and transferring its duties to the War Department. There was something else, too, about giving you the Order of Merit for quote special services which contributed usefully to the conduct of the war. Unquote."

"Listen here, Harcourt," I insisted. "I can't help it if the President pulled a boner. I told him there wasn't any such thing as Z-2 and all he said was that I ought to take a good long rest. I simply got so damned tired of trying to prove that I couldn't remember what Winnie Tompkins had been doing before April 2, that I invented my own alibi—Z-2."

Harcourt scratched his head.

"Cross my heart and hope to die," I assured him.

For the first time since he had delivered his wooden official apology, the Special Agent relaxed. "That's one for the book," he said with deep feeling. "Mrs. Harcourt's little boy isn't going to let it go any farther. So far, only the President of the United States, the Army, the Navy, O.S.S. and the F.B.I. believe you were in Z-2. I'm not sticking my neck out to tell them it's all a lot of malarkey. That leaves only the State Department and the Secret Service. How come you've skipped them? You must be slipping, Mr. Tompkins."

"I'm seeing the State Department tomorrow morning," I explained. "I think I'll let the Secret Service alone. Incidentally, Mrs. Tompkins also believes all this Z-2 business. It will do as a stall until I learn what I was really doing before I drew a blank."

"Not for me!"

We both looked up. In the doorway—which I must have forgotten to latch—stood Virginia Rutherford.

"No Winnie"—she began. "Oh, hullo, Mr. Harcourt—You haven't fooled me. I know there's something behind all this business. Imagine the nerve of that silly General, practically jerking me out of bed to come down and listen to him babble about Von Bieberstein to that pretty Mrs. Jacklin. Who is this Von Bieberstein anyhow? He sounds like a brewer."

"Kurt Von Bieberstein," explained A. J. Harcourt, "is supposed to be the ace Nazi Operative in the U.S.A. The Bureau has been trying to locate him for the last ten years. We don't know what he looks like, nothing about him, except his name. All we ever got on him was one fragment of a short-wave message in 1935 and a letter in a code we couldn't break, just before Pearl Harbor."

The bathroom door opened and Germaine entered the room. "Well, Virginia," she observed, "you seem to be making yourself at home. Mr. Harcourt, have I no legal right to privacy in my hotel room?"

Harcourt rose and bowed. "Certainly, ma'am," he told her. "If you object to her presence you are entitled to order her out. If she refuses to go, you can throw her out or call the house detective."

Jimmie laughed. "Good! Virginia Rutherford, you get out of my bedroom or I'll throw you out."

Virginia relaxed back against the pillow. "Act your age, dearest," she said. "You don't want any public scandal about your husband, do you?"

"Oh!" Germaine paused. "Of course not!"

There was another knock on the door.

"Come in!" we chorused.

This time it was Dorothy Jacklin.

"Oh!" she exclaimed, none too