“I didn’t realize it then. But I’ve been thinking over my conversation with Eustaly, and it seems—”
“Please stop it, Mr. Raxford,” D asked me. Surprisingly polite for an FBI man. “Don’t carry this thing on any more,” he said. “We questioned Mr. Eustaly, and he told us what he was doing up here.”
“He did?”
“He sells mimeograph equipment, Mr. Raxford. He showed us his card.”
“Card,” I said, and began to look around the room. “I’ll show you a card.”
“He came up here,” D went inexorably on, “to attempt to sell you equipment for your mimeograph machine. From the ink on the young lady here and yourself, Mr. Raxford, I venture to say you have a mimeograph machine, have you not?”
“Well, of course I do,” I said. “Now, where did I put that card?”
Angela said, “Gene? Is it a joke? Did you and Murray dream this up?”
I stared at her. “You, too?”
D said to Angela, “Murray? You mean Mr. Kesselberg?”
“That’s right,” she said. “He was here a little while ago. He was the one who figured out that Gene’s life is in danger.”
“Did he?” said D.
It was hopeless now, and I knew it, but I made one more attempt. “Now listen,” I said. “As soon as I find this card—”
“Mr. Kesselberg,” D said to Angela, “has a long record as a practical joker. While an undergraduate at City College—”
“He hasn’t done that sort of thing,” I snapped, “in twelve years. Don’t you people ever forget?”
D looked stolidly at me. “No, Mr. Raxford,” he said. “We don’t ever forget. Now, I strongly advise you never to do this sort of thing again, Mr. Raxford. Your relationship with the FBI has always been a good one. Don’t get on our wrong side. I mean that, Mr. Raxford. Take it as a friendly warning.”
Angela said, “Gene, you do have a pretty funny sense of humor sometimes.”
“Oh, Christ!” I shouted, and flung my hands into the air.
“Goodbye, Mr. Raxford,” said D. He went to the door and opened it, then turned back and gazed sorrowfully at me. “I’ll never believe a radical again,” he said, and went away.
5
“Well, now,” said Murray judiciously. He sat down in the basket chair, set his attaché case on the floor beside him, put his pipe in his pocket, folded his arms, crossed his legs, and said, “That creates a problem.”
“Well of course it creates a problem,” I said. “I know it creates a problem. What I want to know is what to do about the problem.”
Angela said, “Murray, what if you talked to the FBI?”
“You can forget that,” I said. “As far as they’re concerned, this is a practical joke and Murray and I are in on it together. You heard what that guy said.” To Murray, I said, “They’ve still got you down for that goldfish business at school. And the white paint, and those other things.”
“Lord,” said Murray, “I haven’t thought of them in years.”
“Well, the FBI’s apparently got it all down in a folder somewhere. So if you go tell them it isn’t a gag, they might not entirely believe you.”
“You’re right,” said Murray. “That’s too bad.”
Angela said, “What about the police? I mean the regular police, the city police.”
“The cops know me,” I said. “As soon as I walked in and started talking, they’d call the FBI.”
Murray said, “That would be true no matter what agency you went to, municipal, state, or federal. No, I think there’s no real possibility of getting official assistance at this point. Of course, if there were a bona-fide attempt on your life, and we could demonstrate that the attempt were actual and determined, that might change things.”
“An attempt on my life? An attempt? What kind of a word is that? These are ten different terrorist organizations all combined together to kill me, and you say attempt? It’ll be a hell of a good attempt, if you ask me.”
Angela said, “Murray, what should he do?”
Murray said, “Well, one thing we could do is prepare a letter giving full details of the case and requesting police protection, and send it to FBI Headquarters special delivery, return receipt requested. Then, if there were a successful or partially successful attempt on Gene’s life, we might have grounds for a negligence suit against the federal government. On the other hand—”
“Partially successful?” I said. “What’s a partially successful attempt to kill somebody?”
“If you were wounded,” he said. “Lost an arm, say, or your sight, some such thing. A minor injury probably wouldn’t—”
“Murray,” I said, “will you please stop being a lawyer for a second? What am I going to do?”
“Well, let’s think about it,” he said. “What are the choices open to you? First, you could go on as before, forget Eustaly and the terrorist oiganizations, and hope for the best. Second, you—”
“What do you mean, hope for the best? Take a chance they won’t kill me?”
“Right. Second, you—”
“Murray, are you crazy?”
He said, “No, Gene, I’m not crazy. I’m doing my best to give you the possible alternatives. Now, you don’t like alternative number one, is that it?”
“Don’t like it!”
“Very well,” he said, unperturbed. “Second, you could appear to go on as before, hoping for the best, but you could actually be watching very carefully for the attempt on your life. Forewarned is forearmed. Knowing it’s coming, you’d have a better chance to avoid—”
“Murray,” I said.
“You don’t like alternative number two.”
“You mean be a decoy, Murray? Go out and wait for them to shoot at me, so I can prove to the FBI it isn’t a joke?”
“You don’t like alternative number two,” he said. “Fine. Now, third, you can go to Eustaly’s meeting tonight, see what—”
“Go to the meeting?”
“Gene, please, will you let me finish a sentence? You go there, agree with everyone, learn all you can about their plans, and just possibly come away from the meeting knowing enough to be able to convince the FBI you’re telling the truth. Now, if you—”
“Murray,” I said. “You mean you want me to go sit down in the middle of this... this... this—”
“Gene, all I’m saying—”
“—this volley of terrorists? The fly into the spider’s web, Murray, is that it?”
“If you don’t like alternative number three,” he said, “we’ve got problems, because there isn’t any alternative number four.”
That stopped me. I stood there and looked at Murray and he just sat there and looked back at me. I know Murray, and I trust Murray, and I have great confidence in Murray’s abilities. If Murray now said there was no alternative number four, I was reluctantly willing to admit there was no alternative number four. But alternatives one through three — good Lord!
I said, “Could I have them again, Murray? One more time, the alternatives.”
He counted them off on his fingers. “One, go on as before, hope for the best. Two, guard against an attempt on your life, following which, you can talk again to the FBI. Three, attend the meeting tonight, following which, you may have some proof for the FBI.”
“That’s it, huh?”
He nodded. “That’s it, Gene.”
I went over and sat down on the sofa (which had not as yet today been opened for any reason connected with Angela, I might just mention) and tried to think. Angela herself sat down next to me and watched me with her lovely brow creased in the lines of a worried frown. She’d fixed the mimeograph, of course, and was all cleaned up again now, back in the yellow sweater, the artistic ink smudge gone from her cheek. She and the sofabed and I should have been engaged in activities far more pleasant, far more valuable, far more human than worrying about a bunch of crazy terrorists.