The Eighth Dwarf (12 page)

“You held out on me, Nanny.”

“Certainly.”

“I'll remember.”

“I very much hope so; otherwise, what would be the point? But back to business. Suppose Jackson and the dwarf were able to turn up the Oppenheimer lad. It would be quite a plum for you—or rather, for us; something you could whisper about Congress, make them feel important, in the know, the very kind of stuff they dote on. It would all leak, of course, and the press would run with it. More accolades, thoughtful editorials about how perhaps after all the country really does need a well-run intelligence outfit. We could have all that—unless, of course, we might find some other use for Oppenheimer's rather peculiar talents.”

“Such as?”

Orr closed his eyes sleepily, opened them, and stared up at the ceiling. “How many Jewish votes are there in Congress? By that I mean how many hard-core pro-Zionist votes—the kind who devoutly believe every word that Ben Hecht writes?”

Stracey didn't have to pause to add them up. “Thirteen,” he said. “Three for us, eight against, and two still up for grabs.”

Still staring up at the ceiling, Orr said, “Suppose we found young Oppenheimer, managed to sneak him into Palestine, and then turned him loose to do what he does best.”

“Killing people.”

“Yes, killing people. The right people—at least, as far as the more fervent Zionists are concerned.”

“British types.”

“Yes, I suppose they would have to be British, wouldn't they?”

Stracey smiled—a chilling, almost terrible smile. “It could swing a few votes—provided we can figure out a way to claim the credit.”

“I'll leave that to you, Milo.”

Stracey did some rapid mental calculation. “Those hard-core Zionist votes could just put us in business.”

“How nice.”

The two men stared at each other for a long moment. Then Stracey again tapped Minor Jackson's passport. “We'll run him—both him and the dwarf.”

“He doesn't want to be run.”

“Helms is in Germany; we'll put him onto it.”

Orr sighed. “Not Helms. Jackson and Helms went to school together in Switzerland—at Rolle, I believe. They despise each other.”

“We're going to have to have our man in on it.”

“Come up with a nobody,” Orr suggested. “A smart nobody, more shepherd than chaperon.”

It was an intelligent suggestion, and Stracey accepted it immediately. It was one of the reasons he had come as far as he had. And it was the primary reason that he would go as far as he did. Although Stracey's expression didn't change, Orr was almost positive that he could hear a circular file filled with names ticking over inside the other man's head.

“Okay,” Stracey said after a pause. “A smart nobody. One LaFollette Meyer. A lieutenant.”

“Dear me,” Orr said. “What part of Wisconsin does our LaFollette hail from?”

“Milwaukee, I think,” Stracey said. “Why?”

Instead of replying, Orr got up to leave. As he turned, Stracey said, “Nanny.”

Orr turned back. “Yes.”

“This conversation we just had never happened, did it?”

Orr smiled. “What conversation?”

It had taken Ploscaru only thirty-six hours to locate the right Russian, the one who was now gazing, fascinated, at the Rembrandt self-portrait that hung in the Mellon Gallery on Pennsylvania Avenue.

The Argentine had put him onto the Russian; the Argentine who, before the war, had been a playboy until he ran out of money. He had married a distant, titled cousin of Ploscaru's, who had since died. Now the Argentine moved about the world as a cultural attaché at various of his country's embassies. Actually, he was an intelligence agent of sorts and had been in Washington for more than two years and knew everybody. For setting up the contact with the Russian he had charged the dwarf only $250, since Ploscaru was really, after all, some kind of distant relative.

The Russian's name supposedly was Ikar Kokorev; he was a forty-two-year-old asthmatic who wheezed heavily as he stood transfixed before the Rembrandt.

“He had much heart, that one,” the Russian said.

“I don't like it,” Ploscaru said, looking around.

“You don't like
him?
”

“It's far too public.”

“Every day at noon I come and spend my lunch time here. Sometimes I talk to people; sometimes I don't. The federal police are accustomed to my being here. If I should talk to a little man about the master's great heart, why should they object? You and I shall meet only this once.”

“I understand you want Kurt Oppenheimer.”

The Russian moved slowly to the next Rembrandt, a portrait of a prosperous middle-aged man. “The light,” he said. “See how he forms the light. What rare, sad genius. I must go to Amsterdam before I die. I must see
The Night Watch.
I simply must. We have heard of you, M. Ploscaru,” he went on in the French that they had been speaking. “We have not liked what we have heard. Most unsavory.”

“How much?” Ploscaru said.

“Did I say we were buying? No. But doubtless you have some price in mind. I paint, you know. Slavish imitations, really. My mind tells my hand what to do. That is my mistake. It must come from here,” he said, wheezing heavily and thumping himself on the chest. “Not the head.”

“One hundred thousand dollars,” Ploscaru said as they moved on to the next painting, of a youngish woman with melancholy eyes.

“This one always makes me want to weep. So sad; so very, very sad. Why is she so sad? She is married to an old man, but she has taken a young lover, and now he has gone away forever. I invent these little stories. I find them amusing. Your price is exorbitant, of course.”

“It could be negotiated.”

“Yes,” the Russian said drily. “I would think that it could. What about delivery?”

“What about it?”

“If we were at all interested, which is most doubtful, it would have to be in Berlin or on the edge of the Zone.”

Ploscaru shrugged. “Agreed.”

“If you are in Frankfurt within the next two weeks, someone may get in touch with you. Then again, they may not.”

“Where?”

“Wherever we might decide,” the Russian said, took one last look at the portrait of the sad young woman, turned, and moved briskly away.

11

That same afternoon Minor Jackson sold the Plymouth for $1,250 cash to a Negro pimp up on 7th Street, Northwest, who thought he was moving up in the world. Despite the slight chill in the air, the pimp wore a lemon-colored lightweight suit with a cream shirt and a magenta tie. He walked around the car with the half-proud, half-wary air of all used-car purchasers.

The pimp kicked a tire. “Good rubber.”

“Yes,” Jackson said.

“Runs slick, too.”

“It does that”

“Put the top down, be good for business,” the pimp said, still selling himself on his new investment.

“I imagine.”

“Give you a lift somewheres?”

“No, thanks,” Jackson said. “I'll get a cab.”

“Catch a streetcar right over there.”

“I'll do that, then.”

The pimp was anxious to be off so that he could display his new possession. “Well, I'll see you around, then.”

“Sure,” Jackson said.

After transferring once, Jackson got off the streetcar near the Mayflower Hotel on Connecticut Avenue. He entered its dimly lit bar, blinked his eyes against the gloom, and finally located Robert Henry Orr sitting at a table in a far corner. Jackson went over and sat down.

“Don't you have an office?” he said.

“I have a very nice office.”

“Why don't we ever meet there—you ashamed of me?”

“You're not all that sensitive, Minor. No one could be. What do you want to drink?”

“Bourbon.”

Orr waved a hand; a waiter materialized, took the order, and went away. Orr removed a thick manila envelope from his pocket and slid it across the table to Jackson. “Here,” he said. “You're now a military dependent. We're going to fly you over—free.”

Jackson opened the envelope and took out his passport. Inside it was a large purple stamp with a number of impressive-looking signatures affixed. “What's a military dependent?” he said, and put the passport away in a pocket.

“It's something like an Army wife,” Orr said. “Actually, it's a brand-new classification that we dreamed up—by we I mean I, of course. You'll be living on the economy, but you'll be entitled to PX privileges. Gasoline too, should you find yourself a car. Housing—well, housing you'll have to provide for yourself. It's quite tight, you know. And we're even providing you with an aide of sorts—one Lieutenant LaFollette Meyer.”

“Milwaukee or Madison?” Jackson asked as he took the mimeographed sheets which were the travel orders out of the envelope and examined them.

“Milwaukee, I believe, and from what I'm given to understand, a most intelligent young lad.”

The drinks came, and after the waiter left, Jackson tapped the travel orders. “This is Pentagon stuff, not State.”

“Yes, it is, isn't it?”

Jackson took a swallow of his drink, closed his eyes, and moved his lips silently.

“Praying?”

Jackson shook his head. “I was just running over that list of names you mentioned—the ones who're still left over from the old days. Of all those, the one who was most cozy with the top brass was always Milo Stracey. Mr. Icebox. How is Milo?”

“He sends his regards.”

Jackson smiled, but it was a thin smile. “You're trying to run me, aren't you, you and Milo?”

“It should be a very nice trip, Minor. A DC-4, I think, out of New York. Awfully nice ladies, mostly—generals' and colonels' wives, I believe, plus a few male civilian junketeers.”

“I won't be run.”

“Of course not We just want your leavings—more or less,”

“There may not be any.”

“We'll take that chance.”

“I'm not promising anything.”

“I understand. However, Minor, I feel duty bound to give you one tiny word of advice.”

“What?”

“Beware the wicked dwarf, my boy,” Orr said, and smiled, but not enough to conceal the seriousness that lay behind his admonition.

“I'll do more than that.”

“What?”

“I'll also shun the bandersnatch,” Jackson said.

The dwarf and two young women called Dot and Jan were down at Union Station the next day at noon to see Jackson off for New York. Dot and Jan had put on, a rather interesting exhibition for Ploscaru and Jackson the night before in the dwarf's room at the Willard, and as far as they were concerned, the party hadn't stopped. Jackson, who had a slight hangover, wished that they hadn't come and was struggling to be polite.

The dwarf had presented Jackson with a going-away present—a thin, curved, very expensive silver hip flask that contained a pint of bourbon—bonded, the dwarf had assured him. Jackson thanked Ploscaru graciously and then turned to Dot and Jan.

“I wonder if you would excuse us for a moment, ladies,” Jackson said, and made himself smile. “Business.”

“Sure, Minor,” Dot said. She took Jan by the arm and they wandered off, trailing giggles behind them.

When they were out of hearing, Jackson looked down at Ploscaru and said, “You've got Leah Oppenheimer's address—the one where she'll be in Frankfurt.”

“Yes.”

“We'll meet there.”

Ploscaru nodded.

“I won't ask again how you're going to get there.”

“No,” Ploscaru said. “Don't.”

“But I've got a couple of points to make.”

“I'm anxious to hear them.”

“I'll bet. But point one is: don't lie to me anymore, Nick. Not ever.”

Ploscaru sighed. “That will be hard. It's habit, you know. But I'll try. I really shall.”

“As I told you last night, they're going to try to
run me—and through me, you.”

“Yes, I wasn't at all surprised by that.”

“So here's my second point. I don't really trust you, Nick.”

The dwarf smiled. “How wise.”

“So when we get to that time or place, which I'm sure we'll get to, where you think you can make a few extra bucks simply by fucking me up, well, here's some advice. Think twice.”

The dwarf, dusting off his hands, and unaware that he was doing so, stared up at Jackson thoughtfully for several moments. “Why, yes, Minor,” he said slowly, “now that you mention it, I really think that I shall. Think twice, that is.”

That evening around 5 in New York, Jackson called his father from the New Weston Hotel. After the father had expressed surprise about the son's being in New York, he had said, “You say you're leaving tomorrow?”

“Yes.”

“Well, I suppose we could have dinner tonight.”

“All right.”

“The New Weston suitable? The food's not too bad there.”

“Fine.”

“Shall we say seven?”

“Sure. Seven.”

The elder Jackson's name was S. H. P. Jackson III, and he came from a long line of distinguished but generally impoverished New England parsons. The initials stood for Steadfast Honor Preserved, and rather than attend Yale Divinity, as had generations of Jacksons before him, he had gone to Harvard Law, quickly established himself in a dull but lucrative practice, married the first rich woman who would have him, and named his only son Minor after a favorite black-sheep uncle who had sailed out of Boston for Singapore in 1903 and had never been heard from since. Father and son had addressed each other only as “you” for nearly as long as either could remember.

The elder Jackson, like his son, was tall and spare, but in recent years he had acquired a slight stoop, which, along with his also newly acquired rimless glasses, gave him a somewhat fusty, almost professional air.