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

the odd thing, sir. They had to throw a canvas over the statue and send for a man with a hacksaw before the Mayor decided it was proper to expose it to the citizens again."

"Then bring me a double Second Day Special, without cold chisels or hacksaws, if you please," I ordered.

He smirked knowingly but had the tact of good club servants to say nothing. I sipped his concoction, which tasted entirely unlike the egg-nog it outwardly resembled. A moment later, I tried another sip. It was not at all unpleasant, so I drained the glass. This, I decided, was exactly what I needed, so I drank the second one without drawing breath.

"Ah-h-h!" I beamed. "That is much better. Now if anybody phones me, say I'm not here, unless it's one of my friends."

"Would that be true of that Mrs. R., sir?" he inquired. "That lady with the red hair you told me about, Mr. Tompkins?"

"If Mrs. Rutherford calls," I said, "let me know."

He smiled slyly. "Then I was to deliver a message to you from her, sir. She wants you to call her at the apartment, she said. Circle 8-7326, the number is. She said it was important."

I dialed the number. Virginia answered.

"Winnie?" Her voice was cool and amused. "You'd better come up here in a hurry. It's urgent."

"Where is here?" I asked.

"At our place, the apartment," she said.

"Better give me the address," I suggested. "I can't seem to remember."

"Winnie, that particular joke is getting tiresome. You know perfectly well it's 172 East 72nd Street and the third floor front. The name, naturally, is Smith."

"John Smith?" I inquired.

"Natch! And hurry, unless you want to be in worse trouble than you can imagine."

I signaled to Tammy. "One more Second Day Special, please."

He looked worried. "Are you quite sure, sir," he demurred. "Two is as much as I've ever seen a man take."

He returned to his mystery and produced the fatal brew. I drank it slowly. By Godfrey! this was more like it. I tossed him a five-dollar bill.

"Just remember that you haven't seen me," I told him.

"Quite, Mr. Tompkins."

I managed to snag an uptown taxi and rolled in comfort to 172 East 72nd Street.

I pressed the button marked Smith and was rewarded by a clicking of the latch. I climbed the stairs and on the third story tapped the little brass knocker. The door opened and Virginia appeared clad somewhat in a white silk dressing-gown and with her red hair sizzling out at me.

"Come in, stranger," she said.

She closed the door and settled herself comfortably, with a cigarette, on the suspiciously broad day-bed. I sat down in a very deep easy chair, facing her, and lighted a cigarette too.

"Well?" I inquired.

"Winnie," she began, "you know I never try to interfere with your private life or try to ask questions, but don't you think this farce has gone on long enough?"

I flicked some ash on the carpet and tried to look inscrutable.

"You know what you are doing, of course," she continued, "and your performance in Washington was magnificent, but just between ourselves, can't you relax?"

Although the windows were open, the room seemed oppressively warm. I threw back my coat and confronted her without speaking.

"Of course," Virginia continued, "I know we've got to be discreet. There can always be dictaphones and detectives and it seems that the F.B.I. knows all about this place, but can't you just—"

She jumped up and faced me. With an angry movement, she snatched off her dressing-gown and flung it on the floor.

"There!" she said. "Is there anything wrong with me? Am I repulsive? Or don't you care?"

It must have been the three specials that lifted me from the easy chair and whisked me across the room to the embattled red head, but it must have been my guardian angel that prompted my next move. I pulled out my fountain pen and wrote rapidly on the back of an envelope: "I suspect that we are watched."

Her eyes widened and she quickly grabbed her gown and draped it around her. I laid my finger to my lips.

"What I came to see you about, Virginia," I said, "is to tell you, once and for all, that all is over between us."

That was a mistake. She gave me a wink, dropped the gown and came and sat beside me on the arm of the chair.

"I too, Winfred," she said dramatically, "have become increasingly distressed by your apparent coldness."

She cuddled down and planted her lips on my ear while her tongue flicked like a little snake's.

"No," she continued, "the time has come, Winfred, when we must face the facts, unpleasant though they may be. I was never meant to be a part-time girl for any man."

Her sharp little teeth nipped my neck savagely.

"Virginia," I said, "what I had to say—what I mean is—"

I never said it. Her mouth was suddenly glued to mine and she melted into my arms.

"Damn you!" I told her. "There."

The apartment door-bell was buzzing like an accusation.

"Tell them to go away," she murmured. "Say we're not at home."

I disentangled myself, ran to the door and jiggled the button that released the downstairs catch. "Go and make yourself decent," I told her. "I'll stall them if you aren't too long."

I listened as the footsteps slowly mounted the stairs. It was a man's step. Then came a brisk tap on the brass knocker. I opened up. It was A. J. Harcourt of the F.B.I. He seemed rather surprised to see me.

"Good morning, Mr. Tompkins," he began. "I thought that—"

"Oh, come on in," I urged him. "Mrs. Rutherford will be out in a moment. I—we...."

He nodded. "You certainly do get around," he admitted. "Last the Bureau heard you were a patient up in Hartford, and here I find you in—"

"In a love-nest," I suggested. "A den of perfumed sin. A high-priced hell-hole. I got here about ten minutes ago. Mrs. Rutherford said that I might be in trouble but she didn't get around to explaining what trouble."

He grinned. "When a girl speaks of trouble, she means herself," he orated.

"Oh, is that so?"

Virginia appeared at the entrance to the bathroom, completely though revealingly clad, and advanced into the room brandishing her sex like an invisible shillelagh. "And what has the F.B.I. to do with me, Mr. Harcourt?" she demanded.

Poor Harcourt looked abashed but made a speedy recovery, getting out of the rough in one stroke.

"Now that Mr. Tompkins is here, Mrs. Rutherford, mam," he said, "I have nothing to see you about. We heard he had gone to a private asylum in New England and I was told to see you and ask if you knew any of the circumstances."

"Oh!" Virginia sat down on the rumpled day-bed. "That sounds rather like a lie, you know."

"That's not my fault, mam," Harcourt replied. "My chief gives me my orders and I follow them without being asked for my opinion. If the Bureau wants to check on Mr. Tompkins through his friends—"

Virginia beamed and dimpled. "You couldn't do better than come to me," she admitted.

"Well, here I am," I told him, "and Mrs. Rutherford needn't feel bothered. What is it now?"

"We just wanted to get the rights of your run-in with the Secret Service," he told me. "Our liaison there told the Director that you stood Chief Flynn on his ear and that Flynn threatened to swear out a lunacy warrant against you. How come?"

I gave him a full account of my encounter with the Secret Service and ended by producing the certificate of sanity signed by Dr. Folsom.

"There it is," I declaimed.

The Special Agent smiled. "You're nothing if not thorough, Mr. Tompkins. Have you had any luck filling in that blank period before Easter? The Bureau would feel much happier if you could remember. Now don't get me wrong. The case against you is closed. You're off our books. We believe that you're telling the truth, but just the same it seems funny you can't remember."

Virginia Rutherford turned on him, like a battleship bringing a battery of 16-inch guns to bear on a freighter. "Perhaps he has a good reason for not remembering," she remarked. "Perhaps he went somewhere, with some one—in skirts!"

"That's just what puzzles us," Harcourt admitted. "We've had fifty agents from the New York office alone making checks, as far north as Montreal, in Portland, Boston, Providence, and even Cincinnati and Richmond. We've checked trains, buses, airlines and the garages, as well as the hotels, boarding-houses and overnight cabins. There isn't anybody that can remember seeing Mr. Tompkins, with or without a woman, during that week."

"Then you're still investigating me?" I asked, while a chill went down my spine.

The Special Agent shook his head. "Not at all, Mr. Tompkins. Like I told you, the investigation was called off last week, when we established your Z-2 identity. This is just the result of the inquiries we started the week before last."

"And you can't find a trace?" I asked.

"Not a thing," he said.

Mrs. Rutherford turned to me, flung her arms around me and planted a far from sisterly kiss on my lips. "Winnie, old dear," she observed, "you are simply incredible."

And she left the apartment.

"Wonder what she meant by that?" Harcourt mused.

"We're probably happier in ignorance," I told him. "Come on, A. J., I'll buy a taxi down town. I've got to stop in at my office and gather some of my unearned income. They tell me we've made nearly three million dollars in the last ten days."

Harcourt consulted his note book. "The Bureau's figures put it at two million eight hundred seventy thousand and two hundred forty-six dollars and seventy-one cents, if you want to know," he said.

"So you are keeping me watched," I remarked.

"What do you think?" asked Special Agent Harcourt of the F.B.I.

CHAPTER 27

"What's the big idea?" I demanded. "I thought I was in the clear."

Harcourt looked somewhat embarrassed.

"Perhaps I oughtn't to tell you this, Mr. Tompkins," he explained, "but like you said, you're in the clear with the Bureau. We've checked and double-checked and any way we slice it, you're still okay. Maybe you're Tompkins with a lapse of memory, maybe this yarn of yours about Jacklin is on the level, but we're sure of you."

"Then why all this interest in me?" I asked. "You've been swell with me personally, but it's getting on my nerves having you pop up all the time. Though I must say I was relieved when you showed up today. Mrs. Rutherford—"

He grinned. "Red heads spell trouble anywhere, any time," he observed. "No, it's this Von Bieberstein we're gunning for. Mr. Lamb at the Bureau has a notion that Von Bieberstein may have some connection with you that you don't know about. He might be using your office as a post-box or be somebody that you know as someone else. It sounds screwy, I know, but this Von Bieberstein is a slick baby. For all I know, he might even be a woman."

I glanced inquiringly in the direction of Virginia's apartment.

"Not for my money," he said. "We've checked her, too. And it isn't that Tennessee secretary of yours, either. There's a girl for you. We've got her biog right back to the Knoxville doc that delivered her. But the Bureau doesn't think it's an accident that you turned up in the middle of this case, so I've been told off to check on all your contacts. Seems mighty funny, you a millionaire and me an average guy even if Arthurjean still thinks I got a wife in Brooklyn, but it's the war, I guess."

"'Says every moron, There's a war on!'" I quoted. I scratched my head. "If only I could remember that blank spot, I might be able to help you."

Harcourt studied his finger-nails attentively. "We're taking care of your office contacts, of course, and we have a couple of men working up in Bedford Hills. But New York's the hell of a big town and almost anything could happen to you outside of your office and your clubs. Got any ideas?"

"What sort?"

"Well, there's always women but I guess we've carried that line as far as it will take us. We've checked the doctors and the dentists and the bars and the nightclubs. How about astrologers, say? Hitler made use of them in Germany. He might use 'em over here, though we've screened 'em all since before Pearl Harbor."

I laughed. "I doubt that a man like Tompkins would use astrology," I told him.

Harcourt shook his head. "That's where you'd be wrong. You'd be surprised how many big Wall Street operators go for that guff."

"It doesn't register," I replied, "but I'll phone the office and see if Miss Briggs knows."

When I made the connection, Arthurjean informed me that the phone had been ringing all morning and when would I be in.