“Very devious,” I granted. “But putting theory aside for the moment, just how, practically, am I supposed to go about pinpointing this Red Pimpernel?”
“That’s hard to say,” Putnam admitted. “We've only been able to establish two facts that might be helpful in isolating him. The first is his code name. Or, perhaps, her code name.”
“Gender unknown,” I confirmed. “Now what is its code name?”
“Ex-Lax.”
“Ex-Lax?”
“Ex-Lax.” His expression remained impassive.
“Isn’t that a rather peculiar code name1 for the head of the Russian espionage network?” I hazarded.
“The Russian sense of humor,” he said, as if that explained everything.
“Huh?”
“You have to understand the dialect. ‘Ex-Lax’, to the dedicated Communist, is the instrument by which the real substance of capitalism is revealed. In the prescribed humor of the Commie dialectic, the designation is both accurate and funny.”
“Ex-Lax,” I mused. I shrugged it off. “What’s the second clue?” I remembered to ask then.
“It’s not exactly a clue. Only a factor that may work to our advantage. Stevkovsky, your late impersonator, took his orders directly from Ex-Lax. 'I'he way we’ve structured things, he will by now have heard from his Washington cell that Steve Victor is dead and will have no reason to doubt your identity as Stevkovsky. Chances are that he will arrange to contact you and give you your next assignment." Putnam paused before continuing. “The only thing is,” he added after a moment’s thought, “that there's a third factor which complicates things somewhat.”
"A third factor?”
“Yes. It has to do with how Stevkovsky was created as your double in the first place.”
“I wondered about that,” I admitted. “It was certainly a perfect job.”
“That it was. And the reason it was perfect was that it was overseen by somebody who knows you - the real you, Steve Victor - very well. Obviously somebody who is at the least an old acquaintance and possibly a very good friend of yours. The detail with which the impersonation was carried out testifies to the hand of someone well-versed in the arts of acting and characterization.”
“A good friend!” The idea startled me. “But who?”
“Ex-Lax,” Putnam told me. “When you find the friend who betrayed you, then you will have found the Russian spy chief. And the first step toward doing that must be taken right here in Washington. Here is a phone number.” He handed me a slip of paper. “Call it and identify yourself as Stevkovsky. It’s your Russian contact. Judging by what we’ve learned about Stevkovsky’s modus operandi, this contact will make arrangements to put you in touch with Ex-Lax so that you can receive further instructions.”
It sounded logical. But as things worked out, Putnam was only partially right. When I called the number, I was given an appointment to keep, but it wasn’t with Ex-Lax.
The instructions I received over the phone from the Washington Commie cell took me to—of all places—an establishment specializing in custom-made hairpieces for men. Now, a couple of my teeth are a little shaky, but follicle-wise I'm as hirsute of pate as any beatnik guitar player who can’t afford a haircut. Spy contact or no, my head of hairy coals figured to get me thrown-out of this bald-beans’ Newcastle.
Not so. I gave the phony name I’d been told to use to the receptionist and was quickly ushered into a private wig-fitting parlor. A tiptoe type followed me in, clamped me into the barber chair, and came on like a genteel nitpicker with my by now itchy scalp. It was strictly a case of ‘bore-a-little-hole,’ with the icy-fingered fellow separating strands of hair in all directions until he'd cleared a spot of scalp-skin about the size of a dime. “Aha!” he enthused. “So here it begins. Small, but getting bigger. Well, we’ll cover that up in no time. Good thing we caught it. Now nobody will ever know. It will be our secret.”
“What secret?” I inquired.
“Your creeping baldness,” he told me.
“You’re flipping your wig,” I told him. “I haven’t a sign of baldness, creeping or otherwise.”
“I dislike that expression intensely,” he told me haughtily. “Here we do not speak of wigs—either fliply or with any other connotation. We discreetly correct the flaws of nature . . . fill in the blank spaces with pilosity, as it were.”
I shelved my pique. Evidently I had to admit to a certain amount of baldness to stay with the Commie contact. So I gritted my molars and let him proceed.
Scissors and razor did their work, and the dime of scalp was now the size of a half-dollar. The surface was coated with something sticky that felt like shellac. A very thin layer of cheesecloth was stretched over the spot. It tautened even more as the glue-like substance holding it in place hardened. Then more glue-all was applied to the stiffening cheesecloth. The skin of my scalp was being drawn tightly over the entire surface of my cranium. I could feel it on my forehead and right down to the tip of my nose. I became aware that my eyes were bulging uncontrollably.
Now the hair-padder had taken out swatches of curls and was matching their color and texture against my natural tresses. Finally he found one that suited him. He placed it lightly atop the cheesecloth and then removed it. He took a pair of scissors and carefully sculpted it to his satisfaction. When a nod to himself agreed that it was trimmed to satisfaction, he put it back on top of the cheesecloth and leaned on it with all his weight. A ‘squish-squish’ sound said it was adhering to the glue. He kept leaning on the top of my cranium until the fuzz-mat was cemented solidly in place. Then he combed the rest of my hair over and around it and stood back to survey his handiwork. “No one will ever know," he announced proudly.
“Is that all?” I inquired.
“Yes, sir. Please pay the cashier.” And he was gone.
I paid the cashier. Out on the street, I wondered if I’d goofed. Where was the Commie agent who was supposed to have contacted me? Where were the instructions I was supposed to have received?
Putnam, sharper than I in such matters, came up with the answers later that afternoon. “It’s all in your head!” he assured me after I'd expressed my puzzlement. Saying which, he bent over me and ripped off the hairpiece in one sharp, sadistic motion.
“YIII!” I protested.
“Here we are.” He ignored me. “Heat,” he decided. He turned on a lamp and removed the shade. Then he held the hairpiece pressed against the bulb for about five minutes. “That should do it.” Carefully, he peeled the cheesecloth away from the hairpiece, threw the miniature toupee to one side, and held the material up to the light. “Aha!”
“Aha, what?” I was still gingerly caressing my tender scalp.
“Look.”
I peered over his shoulder at the cheesecloth. There was the faint outline of something that looked like Egyptian hieroglyphics on its surface. “What does it mean?” I wondered.
“It’s in code, naturally.” His tone put me down as hopelessly retarded.
“Sorry,” I quipped. “I was just talking off the top of my head.”
He winced. His face contorted. It was an improvement over his usual impassivity. “I’ll have it decoded as fast as I can,” he told me, picking up his coat and heading for the door. “You’ll be hearing from me.”
It was a full day before I heard from him, and then it was via the telephone. “We’ve decoded the message.” His voice might have been reporting a slow day’s trading on the stock market from an Alaskan deep-freeze unit.
“What does it say?” I responded more eagerly.
His answer sounded like a Slavic sneezing fit.