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

office, a little man with a big Adam's apple, telling me that God was on my track. I'm used to being followed by the F.B.I., but now this!"

She stretched out in her chaise longue before the bedroom fire until I thought of the Apostle who stated that the Lord delighteth not in any man's legs. Obviously, he had never seen my wife's gams.

"He sounds like a religious maniac," she observed.

"He admitted it, Jimmie. He was even proud of it. When he was standing there he seemed to make more sense than most things that happen in Wall Street. He could be right."

Germaine giggled. "If God finds you, Winnie," she said, "I hope He doesn't arrive when—I mean, it might be rather embarrassing?"

"Again the one-track mind," I remarked. "You don't suppose that sex is any news to the Old Man, do you? He invented it, darling."

"You know, Winnie," she replied dreamily, "sometimes you are almost a poet. Just the same, if He came after me I'd like to have Him find me with a new hairdo."

"So far as I am concerned," I told her, "it's just as well the Old Man didn't catch up with me on some recent occasions. He might have received a false impression of my eligibility for the Club."

"Pooh!" Germaine remarked with great decision. "He'd better not try any nonsense with you if I'm around. You're my Winnie and you're going to Heaven right along with me if I have to cheat the Customs."

I yawned. "I hope Saint Peter will be suitably impressed and not like those tough guys at the Port of New York. What I'd really like to get at is all this business about Von Bieberstein. I'd never heard of him till last week and now it's got me jittery. Who he is God only knows and He hasn't tipped off the F.B.I."

"I'm not very religious, darling," my wife said, "but from what I remember from Sunday School, God wasn't supposed to be a tattle-tale. He'll take care of Von Bieberstein, if there is such a person."

I laughed. "If there isn't, the F.B.I.'s going to look awfully silly when they come to write the history books. J. Edgar Hoover would turn over in his job at the very thought."

"You know," she continued drowsily, "I think that Von Bieberstein is just a name they've given to all the things they can't solve. Like luck. You know the way people say, 'Bad Luck!' Well, the F.B.I. says 'Von Bieberstein' every time a ship sinks or a factory makes the wrong kind of shell. You wait and see, Winnie, and you'll find out I am right."

"Speaking of luck," I asked, "What's the news from the kennels? Has Ponto met his fiancee yet or haven't the banns been published?"

"Dalrymple seemed to think that it would be very easy to equip him with a suitable girl friend," she said demurely. "It appears that there's a war-time shortage of sires or something, so I gather that there's no particular problem in Ponto's love-life. Dalrymple said we could come and get him the end of the week—Friday or Saturday. Poor dear. I think we ought to put orange blossoms in his dog-biscuit when he gets home."

I laughed. "That's one load off my mind. I hope you're right and that it will steady him down. They say that the responsibilities of marriage do wonders for a young dog. It makes him respect property, maintain the social order, and vote the straight Republican ticket."

"Idiot!"

"Yes, I'm thinking of running Ponto in the next election. He'd make a mighty fine Governor and he'd be sure to leave his mark in the Senate. Who knows, we might even elect him President."

Germaine stretched again, with considerable candor. "Darling," she announced, "you're dithering. Let's go to bed."

"Not until we get this religious argument straightened out," I objected. "I think I owe it to Mr. Smith to make some kind of move. The politicians and the psychiatrists have failed me. There's only religion left. And besides, I still have half of my drink to finish."

I put another birch-log on the fire and watched as the flames brightened and cast a flickering glow on the canopy of my wife's bed.

"My idea's this," I told her. "It's very undignified to sit around waiting for the Old Man to look me up, if He's really trying to find me, as Smith says. I think I'd better start a search party of my own. There are no doubt a lot of things He'll want to ask me about, but there are some points on which, damn it! I'm entitled to an explanation."

"You talk such rot, darling," she murmured. "Wise gods never explain anything. It's take it or leave it. You just wait. You'll see."

"I'd like to know who Von Bieberstein is, just to get ahead of A. J. Harcourt. If the Old Man won't tell me that, at least I'm entitled to know who I am."

"You're my Winnie," she repeated half-asleep. "I'll see that you get past the immigration authorities. I'll smuggle you in under my skirts, like Helen of Troy. St. Peter's far too respectable a man to try to see what I've got there."

"Now you're maudlin," I told her. "From what I know of Greek costumes, Helen of Troy couldn't have smuggled a Chihuahua into Troy under what she wore. Anyhow, these saints have X-ray eyes that can spot a sin right through skirt, girdle and brassiere. Besides, I weigh too much. I'm much more like the unforgivable sin. Suppose I just pretend I lost my passport."

"It will be all right, darling," Germaine assured me. "And if they won't let us into Heaven, God knows they'd be delighted to put us up in Hell. It would raise the value of real estate overnight. I can just hear the Devil arguing with prospective tenants. 'We have such nice people in the next bed of coals. They're from Westchester and the name's Tompkins'."

"Any time a real estate agent urges you to take a residence, that's Heaven," I told her. "You dither delightfully, especially when you're half asleep. But I don't want to get into Hell on false pretenses. It's not fair to the management. What I propose to do is to go out, and see if I can't find the Old Man before He finds me, and see if I can't fix up my passport right now. As you say, it could be embarrassing otherwise. Then I'll march straight up to Him, look Him in the eye and ask Him what the Hell He means—"

She sat up and held out her glass. "More brandy," she ordered.

I fixed her drink and my own and looked at the coals of the log-fire.

"How are you going to set out?" Germaine asked. "No, don't laugh, darling. It might be quite important. You see, if I—if we—Oh, if we should have a child, it would be good to know—" she paused, at a loss for words.

"It does sound crazy, doesn't it?" I said. "'Middle-aged Stock Broker Cleans up in Wall Street, Looks for God.' Well, I suppose the best thing to do is to consult the clergymen."

"Then you'd better not start in Westchester," she advised. "They're all bleating celibates like poor old Ponto or broad-clothed men of affairs who shoot a darn good game of golf and never offend the vestrymen. I'd try New York City, if I were you, Winnie. They have the best architects, the best food, the best doctors, the best actors, and the best red-heads in the world. They might even have the best clergymen."

"That doesn't follow," I told her, "but I agree the chances are better there than up here."

"I'm going to approach this thing scientifically," I continued. "I'm going to pick a Protestant—probably a Presbyterian—"

"Yes," she agreed. "Do pick a Presbyterian. They build such lovely New England churches and they believe in infant damnation, or is that the Mormons?"

"Shush!" I rebuked her. "As I was saying when you so rudely interrupted me, a Presbyterian, and they believe in predestination with only occasional leanings to infant damnation. And then I'll try a Jewish Rabbi. I'm told that they are very highly educated men with a grasp of spiritual fundamentals as well as a remarkable fund of practical knowledge. And, of course, a Catholic priest."

"Not Father Aloysius Murphy!" Germaine besought me. "I couldn't bear it if you consulted him. I don't know why and of course I'm not a Catholic but every time I hear him on the radio I wish the Pope would send him as a missionary to Russia. Please don't pick any of these fashionable priests or rabbis, darling. Try to find simple, poor men who aren't trying to advertise themselves or raise money."

I finished my drink and picked her up in my arms. "It's long past bed-time," I told her. "Here, drink it down and I'll put you to bed. I didn't know you gave a damn about religion and here you are talking like a Joan of Arc or—"

She put her empty glass down on the bed-side table and slipped out of her dressing-gown.

"You don't know me very well," she said quietly. "To you, I'm just your wife, not a separate person at all, and it's rather nice, but—No, I'm not religious and Heaven knows the saints would have hysterics if they heard you call me Joan of Arc. It's just that—Well, I was brought up on church and Sunday School and the Catechism and forgot it all as soon as I graduated from Miss Spence's and had my coming-out party. But they are all so proud and grand, these clergymen. They are so sure of themselves. I once went to an Easter service in Washington, it was at St. Thomas's, when the sermon was entirely devoted to a passionate plea for money, money, money. I've never met a clergyman yet who didn't hint that while the Lord loved my soul, the Church would settle for cash."

"I suppose the churches need money like everybody else," I suggested. "At least they don't charge admission like the movies."

"Oh, I know they need money but they can't need money as much as people need goodness or God or whatever it is they do need. I'd like to find a single good simple man who wasn't too sure of himself. Well, I can't explain. Get undressed and come to bed, darling. The sheets are bitterly cold."

I chucked my clothes onto the chair by the fire.

"Hell!" I exclaimed. "That would be too awful!"

Germaine made a vague questioning noise.

"Suppose we are resurrected not as we'd like to be but as we are. You'd be safe. You have the build of an angel and you'd be a knockout with wings, but I'd look like a ringer even in the best of haloes and with this weight I'd need a terrific wing-spread to get off the ground. Even then, I'd have to have a run-way."

I fixed the fire so it would keep burning for a couple of hours and adjusted the fire-screen so that there was no chance of a stray spark landing on the carpet. Then I crossed to the window overlooking the lawn and opened it on the cool spring night. The moon, now suspiciously less virginal in figure but still shamelessly serene in silver, rode in the western sky and the scents of spring drifted in on the light breeze. There was no sound save the distant jingling of the peepers and the near-by rustle of the dry vines outside the window-frame.

"I wish to God I knew who I am," I muttered.

CHAPTER 30

"No doubt you'll be asking me to reconcile predestination and free will," observed Dr. Angus McGregor, minister of the Tenth Presbyterian Church of Manhattan.

"That wasn't quite my question, sir," I replied. "I asked you whether you could justify the Lord's putting my soul into another man's body. Am I to be responsible for the sins the other man committed?"

"Ah!" Dr. McGregor remarked, with relish, "It is the Lord's doing and it is marvelous in our eyes. No doubt he kens what he's about. It will all be made known on the great Day of Judgment. Now about predestination and free will, you'll have marked that many grand philosophers and divines have debated the point. 'Tis a nice point. 'Tis the theological pons asinorum."

"Yes," I interrupted, "but do you consider that I am bound by this body or will I be returned to my own before I come to the Judgment? And is my soul involved in another man's sins?"

Dr. McGregor drew a deep puff on his pipe. "Oh aye!" he declared. "The principle of vicarious sacrifice has been observed ever since that ne'er-do-weel Cain asked, 'Am I my brother's keeper?' Aye, Mr. Tompkins, surely you are involved in the sins of others. Take your own case now. I believe