Chapter 9
At 7:10 New York time, there was a knock on Heller’s hotel room door. A sloppy delivery boy with Gulpinkle’s Delicatessen on his coat was handing Heller a bag.
Heller took it!
“That’ll be two bucks and a four-bit tip,” said the boy.
Heller made out that this was two dollars and fifty cents, paid him and closed the door. He opened the bag and found a plastic container of coffee and two jelly rolls.
No hotel like that ever had service like this! Was the stuff poisoned? Drugged?
Heller sniffed the coffee. He broke open a roll and sniffed it. Then the (bleeped) fool proceeded to consume them. He didn’t pass out or drop dead, so I realized they had just been making sure he didn’t leave his room or walk about to be seen.
He put on a clean baseball pullover. He finished dressing and combed his hair. He spin-brushed his teeth.
He arranged the room. He put the easy chair with its back to the window, put the side table against it to the left hand. He put the straight-back chair in front of it, facing it. Then he took the two glass ashtrays and put them on the side table near the easy chair.
Then, possibly finding waiting heavy, he seemed to discover that the inside doorknob of the hall door was loose and he got a tool from his kit and worked at it. Then he unlocked the door completely.
He went over to the bed, made it and then opened both his suitcases on it, wide open!
He emptied the carryall and made a neat pile of the contents at the bed top.
The portable radio he had bought attracted his attention and he fiddled with it, getting a station or two. It seemed to amuse him that the music was not stereo. How could it be, with Earth electronics! The whole thing was made just to dangle from the wrist by a strap. He took it back to the easy chair and sat down. He listened to the morning news. Toys! All Fleet guys are crazy with toys. Here he was about to be hit and he was amusing himself with a toy. The muggings and murders and political corruption of New York aren’t news.
It was getting close to eight. He got up and went to the window. He was looking down into the street, maybe watching for his caller to arrive.
But I saw something else! By peripheral vision, I saw a man come out of a door on that other roof! A man carrying a violin case!
Heller went back and sat down. The radio came to the end of the news.
The elevator door down the hall opened. Heller, possibly because his toy was new, had to do a lot of fiddling to get the radio off. He dropped it into the top of an open suitcase, stepped backwards and dropped into the easy chair.
There was a knock on the door. Heller called, “Come in. It’s open.”
In walked the perfectly groomed Wall Street lawyer. The type is legendary. Three-piece suit in a somber gray. No hat. Impeccably neat. Dried up like a prune from holding in all the sins they commit. He was carrying a fat briefcase.
“I am Mr. Bury of Swindle and Crouch,” he said. Very Ivy League accent.
Heller gestured to the straight-backed chair. Bury sat down on it and put his briefcase beside him. He wasted no time. “Where did you get this idea?” he said.
“Well, most people get ideas,” said Heller.
“Did somebody talk you into this?”
“Don’t know anybody much around here,” said Heller.
“How many times have you used the name Delbert John Rockecenter, Junior?”
“I haven’t!” said Heller.
“Did you use it to the men who met you?”
Aha! Razza Louseini and Buttlesby weren’t in on it! They were just there to escort an anonymous somebody. Mr. Bury had kept this pretty tight!
“No,” said Heller. “No one has used it to me and I haven’t used it to anybody.”
Bury seemed to relax. “Ah, I see I am dealing with a very discreet young man.”
“That you are,” said Heller.
“Do you have the papers?”
“They’re there in my coat.”
Bury got them. He also looked in the pockets. He sat back down.
“Now,” said Bury, “did the FBI copy them?”
“They used them at the phone and they lay on a desk the rest of the time, turned over.”
Bury was becoming more and more pleased. He was almost smiling, if a Wall Street lawyer can ever be said to smile beyond a tiny twitch of the mouth corners. “And you have no more copies?”
“Search the place,” said Heller. “There’s my jacket and there are my baseball clothes and there are my grips.”
Bury got up again and looked through the sports clothes. He was looking for labels! I had more than an inkling of what was intended now.
The lawyer got to the grips. He got tangled up in fish line and then snagged a finger on a bass plug. He drew back cautiously and peeked at the contents.
The sides of his mouth actually twitching, he came back and sat down, facing Heller. “I have a deal for you,” he said. “You give me these papers and in exchange I will give you another, completely bona fide identity and twenty-five thousand dollars.”
“Let’s see it,” said Heller.
Bury opened one side of his case. He pulled out a birth certificate, Bibb County, Georgia. It said that JEROME TERRANCE WISTER had been born in Macon General Hospital on a date seventeen years before. The parents were Agnes and Gerald Curtis Wister and the baby was white, blond and male.
“That is totally valid,” said Bury. “Also, the parents are both dead, there are no brothers or sisters or other kin.”
Heller made a gesture for more. Bury pulled out a Saint Lee Military Academy certified record of grades. The grades were all D’s!
“No junior college certificate here,” said Heller.
“Ah, you have missed something. This credits you with one more year than your other certificate. That gives you only one more year and you will have your full college degree of Bachelor. You will probably finish college, yes?”
“People don’t listen to you unless you have a diploma,” said Heller.
“How true that is,” said Bury. “I couldn’t have stated it better myself. So you see, you are the gainer. One more year of college and you will have your diploma.”
Hastily I shuffled through my wits to recall what the catch must be here. Then I had it. With all D’s he’d have trouble getting admittance into another college and with a missing year — and Bury had no way of knowing all Heller’s Earth education was missing — Heller would fail. But this was just gratuitous sadism on Bury’s part. He knew that grade sheet would never be presented. It told me something else about the man. He was devious. He planned against failures of his plans even when success seemed certain!
“It gives you more than you had,” urged Bury. “I am being completely fair with you.”
Wall Street lawyer fair, I told myself.
Heller was beckoning for more.
“Now, here,” said Bury, “is your driver’s license. It is for New Jersey, quite valid in New York. And notice it is for all vehicles including motorcycles. This is in exchange for the D.C. one you have handed me. See how generous I am being?”
Heller inspected it.
“Now, here is the registration for your car in exchange for the D.C. one I hold now. And these are the plates. Note they are New Jersey plates, quite valid for New York. But I will take these along and have them put on your car. You will be picking up your car, won’t you?”
Heller nodded and Bury seemed relieved. But Heller was still beckoning.
“Here is a social security card,” said Bury. “It is brand-new as you have never before had a job. You’ll find it vital for identity.”
The identity of a corpse, I told myself.
Heller was beckoning for more. The corners of Bury’s mouth twitched and he handed Heller a U.S. passport. Heller opened it and stared at the picture of himself. “Where did you get this?”