“Dead?”
“Yes, your apartment blew up. Killed them all.”
“If those three are dead, then the case is ended. They didn’t have any evidence, only their own testimony. It means I am not being hunted. The thing is all over!”
“Good,” said Heller. “Then you’re free and clear!”
Epstein sat for a short time, looking at the water. Then suddenly his teeth began to chatter and from this he went into a torrent of tears.
“If you’re free and clear,” said Heller, “what’s wrong now?”
After a bit Epstein was able to talk. But he still kept on crying. “I know something awful is going to happen in the next few minutes!”
“Why?” said Heller in astonishment.
“Oh,” wept Epstein, “I wouldn’t be permitted to have this much good news.”
“What?” said Heller.
“The news is too wonderful! I don’t deserve it! A world record catastrophe is going to strike any moment now to make up for it! I know it!”
“Look,” said Heller patiently, “your troubles are over. And there’s more good news. I have a job for you.”
“Oh?” said Epstein. “You mean I’ve got a chance to pay back my student loans and re-enroll for my doctorate again?”
“I think so,” said Heller.
“What is your name?”
“Jet.”
Oh, my Gods! This was a Code break. Heller was going to tell him his real name.
“That isn’t all of it,” said Epstein.
“Well, no,” said Heller. “The full name on my papers is Jerome Terrance Wister. That makes my initials ‘JT.’ My real friends call me Jet.”
Oh, that slippery dog. He’d just squeaked by on that one.
“Oh, JT Wister. Jet. I get it. The name on the subpoena was J. Edgar Hoover and I was sure you wanted me to murder somebody. I am not the type, you know. I can’t even kill cockroaches.”
“Nothing drastic like that,” said Heller. “You’re over twenty-one, aren’t you?”
“Yes, I’m twenty-three and an aged wreck.”
“Well, all I want you to do is open a broker account for me.”
“Do you have credit?”
“Well, no,” said Heller. “But all I want you to do is open an account so I can buy and sell stocks—some firm like Short, Skidder and Long Associates.”
Epstein drew a shuddering sigh. “It isn’t that simple. You have to have an address so you can have a bank account. Then you have to arrange credit and open a brokerage account. Do you have any money?”
“Yes. I have a hundred thousand to use in such gambling.”
“Do you have any heavy debts or liabilities like me?”
“No.”
“I know everybody has enemies. But do you have any special enemies that would like to get at you?”
Heller thought a bit. “Well, there’s a Mr. Bury, an attorney I’ve run into.”
“Bury? Bury of Swindle and Crouch?”
“Yes, the same.”
“He’s Delbert John Rockecenter’s personal family attorney. He’s one of the most powerful lawyers on Wall Street. And he’s an enemy?”
“I would say so,” said Heller. “He keeps working at it.”
“Oh,” said Epstein. He was silent for a bit and they sat in the hot sun drying off. Then he said, “This thing you’re asking is pretty big. It’s going to take an awful lot of work. You would need somebody on it full time, not just to start it but to run it for you.”
“Well, how much do you earn a week?”
“Oh, I don’t earn much of anything,” said Epstein. “I’m not really an accountant—that’s just one of the things a business administrator has to know. They wouldn’t take my last thesis for my doctorate. It was a good thesis, too. It was all about corporate feudalism—industrial anarchy, you know—how the corporations could and should run everything. Its title was ‘Is Government Necessary?’ But I think I could get them to accept my new title. It’s ‘Anarchy Is Vital If We Are Ever Going to Establish Industrial Feudalism.’”
“Well,” said Heller, “you could have time to work on that.”
“You see,” said Epstein, “they argue with me that it isn’t in the field of business administration. They say it is a political science subject. But it isn’t. No! About eighty percent of a corporation’s resources are absorbed in trying to file government reports and escort inspectors around. If they would listen, I could get the Gross National Product up eighty percent, just like that!” He brooded a bit. “Maybe I ought to change my thesis title to ‘Corporations Would Find Revolution Cheaper Than Paying Taxes.’”
“I would pay you five hundred dollars a week,” said Heller.
“No. If I did it, it would be for one percent of the gross income with a drawing account not to exceed two hundred dollars a week. I’m not worth much.”
Heller went over to his jacket and fished out two one-hundred-dollar bills. He tried to hand them to Epstein.
“No,” said Epstein. “You don’t know enough about me. The offer is probably very good. But I can’t accept it.”
“Right now, do you have any money? Any place to live? Your apartment isn’t there anymore.”
“It’s no more than I deserve. I didn’t have any other clothes and I can sleep in the park tonight. It’s warm weather.”
“You’ve got to eat.”
“I am used to starving.”
“Look,” said Heller, “you’ve got to take this job.”
“It’s too good an offer. You do not know me, Mr. Hoover—I mean, Mr. Wister. You are probably a kind, honest, patient man. But your efforts of philanthropy are being directed at a lost cause. I cannot possibly accept your employment.”
They sat for a while, dangling their legs off the dock edge, drying out in the warm sun. The Hudson had begun to flow again as the tide ebbed.
Suddenly Heller said, “Is ethnology included in business administration studies?”
“No.”
“How about the customs of people?”
“No. You’re talking about social anthropology, I guess. I’ve never studied that.”
“Good,” said Heller. “Then you would not realize that the laws of the American Indian were still binding on Manhattan, due to prior sovereignty.”
“They are?” said Epstein.
“There was an Indian law that when you saved a man’s life, that man was thereafter responsible for you from there on out.”
“Where did you hear that?”
“I was told by a master of political science from your own university.”
“So it must be true,” brooded Epstein.
“Good,” said Heller. “I just saved your life, didn’t I?”
“Yes, you did. I’m afraid there’s no doubt about that.”
“All right,” said Heller. “Then you are responsible for me from here on out.”
Silence.
“You have to take the job and look after my affairs,” said Heller. “It’s prior Indian law. There’s no way out of it.”
Epstein stared at him. Then suddenly his head dropped. He broke into a torrent of tears. When he could talk, he blubbered, “You see, I knew when I heard all that good news, some new catastrophe was lurking just ahead! And it’s arrived! It’s been horrible enough, in the face of malignant Fate, trying to bear up and take responsibility for myself. And now,” a fresh torrent of tears, “I have to take responsibility for you, too!”
Heller laid the two one-hundred-dollar bills in his hand. Epstein looked at them forlornly. He got up and went over to his jacket. He put them in his empty wallet.
He sadly looked at Heller. “Meet me on the steps of High Library on the campus tomorrow at noon and I will have the plan of what we have to do.”
“Good,” said Heller.
Epstein picked up his coat and walked a little ways. Then he turned. “I am sure that, with my awful fate, you will live to regret the kind things you have done. I am sorry.
”
Head down, he trudged away.
PART EIGHTEEN
Chapter 5
That evening, in the Gracious Palms lobby, Heller sat reading the Evening Libel. He was wearing his old, blue, too-short suit. The “throwaway” suit had really been thrown away after Heller’s swim in the polluted river water. And evidently the tailors had not delivered any new clothes.
The story he was reading said:
In a strongly worded statement today, Mayor Don Hernandez O’Toole censured the New York District Office of the Internal Revenue Service.
“The IRS practice of blowing up perfectly good tax-deductible property must cease,” said Mayor O’Toole. “It places all New York at risk.”
The censure came on the heels of an explosion this afternoon on West 125th Street where an IRS squad was visiting a tax-deductible apartment house.
Dynamite found in the government cars was clear proof of intent to dynamite, according to New York Fire Commissioner Flame Jackson.
Premature dynamission was the stated cause of the blast.
A US Government spokesman said, “IRS has a perfect right to do what it pleases, when it pleases and to whom it pleases and New York better get the word, see?” This was generally accepted as an evidence of coverup as usual.
There were no lives of any importance lost in the blast.
Heller had just turned the paper over and half a strip of Bugs Bunny became visible and I was much annoyed when he was interrupted.
Heller looked up. Vantagio was standing right beside his chair.
“Did you get registered?” His voice was edgy. Hostile? “If you did, why didn’t you call me?”
“Well,” said Heller, “it’s sort of up in the air. It’s my grades: D average and I’m asking to be accepted as a senior. It’s possible I won’t make it.”
Had Vantagio gone white? Hard to tell as he was shadowed by a lobby palm. “What did they say?”
“It’s ‘under advisement.’ I am to go back at nine in the morning.”
“Sangue di Cristo! You wait until eight o’clock at night to tell me this!” Vantagio rushed off. He slammed the door of his office. Oh, he was angry.
Yes, I felt I could make, possibly, use of this jealousy for Heller.
But I made a more important observation about nine, New York time. Heller disengaged himself from some African diplomat he was talking to, got in the elevator and went to his suite. I could see that, down the hall, his door was wide open!
And down close to the floor, as though she were lying on it, a beautiful brunette girl was extending her hand out into the hall. In a musical voice she called, “Come along, pretty boy. We’re waiting!”
A torrent of giggles came out of the room.
The interference went on. But I had made my observation. Heller never locked his door! Those women simply walked in whenever they chose!
A wide-open invitation to rob the place!
I myself had a very happy afternoon nap, contemplating it.
I must have overslept but there was ample excuse for it. I had not dared sleep for days. But things were running my way now. When I awoke, Heller was already disembarking from the subway at 116th Street. I watched tolerantly. His fate would soon be sealed.
He went directly to the temporary reservation area. There were quite a few students about, milling, finishing off their signups. I realized that it wasn’t registration week, really. It had been registration day, per se, yesterday, judging from the crowd sizes.
I sat back to enjoy Heller getting his comeuppance. No way would this Miss Simmons let him into this school. Not with those grades. Heller’s plans would be thrown into a cocked hat!
And there she was. She had just finished her last student. She ignored her short waiting line. She had a smile on her face but it was the kind you see on the female spider just before she has a meal of a male.
“Well, if it isn’t the young Einstein,” said Miss Simmons. “Sit down.”
Heller sat down and Miss Simmons scrambled through her papers and then sat back with that horrible smile. “It appears,” she said, “that they don’t care who blows up the world these days.”
“You called me ‘Wister’ yesterday.”
“Well, times have changed, haven’t they. Who do you know? God?”
“Has my enrollment received advisement?” asked Heller.
“That it has, young Einstein. Now, ordinarily we do not permit a transfer from another school into the senior class.”
“I could make up—”
“Hush, hush. But in your case, it seems this is to be allowed. And into our competitive School of Engineering and Applied Science, too.”
“I am very grate—”
“Oh, hush, young Einstein. You have not heard it all. Ordinarily we require a fresh American College Test that must average 28% or above. But you, young Einstein, seem to have had that waived.”
“Well that’s goo—”
“Oh, there’s more,” said Miss Simmons. “It has always been mandatory that a student entering engineering school receive a Scholastic Aptitude Test and that the grade for verbal and written be above 700. But you are not being required to do any SAT at all.”
“That’s truly marv—”
“And more, young Einstein. Our requirement for a B average for such enrollments has been waived. Now, isn’t that nice?”
“Indeed,” said Heller. “It is very ni—”
“It is far too nice, young Einstein. I have direct orders here to admit you. As a senior. In the School of Engineering and Applied Science. As a candidate for a Bachelor in Nuclear Science and Engineering, graduating next May. And the order is signed by the president of the university himself.”
“Really, I’m overwhel—”
“You’ll be overwhelmed shortly,” said Miss Simmons and her smile vanished. “Either somebody has gone stark raving loony or the reduction of government subsidies and the lack of a post-war boom makes them slaver for your twenty-five hundred dollars and they have gone stark raving loony! You and they are NOT going to get away with it. I will not have my name on the form registering you and turning upon the world a nuclear scientist who is a complete imbecile. Do I make myself clear, young Einstein?”
“I’m very sorry if—”
“Oh, don’t waste energy on getting upset at this point,” said Miss Simmons. “You are going to be upset enough later to need every calorie! Oh, I have no choice but to enroll you, young Mr. God Junior. But there are ways of enrolling and ways of enrolling. Now, shall we begin?”
“I really—”
“Now, to start with,” said Miss Simmons, “you do not have all the requisite credits in former schooling for this degree. There are four subjects here which are omitted and I am signing you up to take them IN ADDITION to the heavy engineering subjects you will be required to take for the semester.”
“I am sure I—”
“Oh, don’t thank me yet! There’s more! Now, I very much doubt that with those D grades, you were firmly founded in the subjects in which you received them. So I am making your acceptance conditional upon special tutoring to bring those subjects up to the mark along with your regular class work.”
“I think I—”
“I know you are grateful,” said Miss Simmons. “So I will add another favor. Your Saint Lee’s was a military school. And I adjudicate that your military science and study credits given there are not valid unless you continue on with and complete your entire ROTC—Reserve Officers’ Training Corps—schedule in this, your senior year. You can really get a bellyful of how nasty war is! And the Army can be persuaded it is unpatriotic not to complete them. I intend to write them a little note. That means three additional class periods and one drill period a week. All on top of the extra subjects and tutoring. Now, isn’t that nice, God Junior?”
Heller was just looking at her by now. Stunned, no doubt.
She had turned to her accordion-folded computer printouts of class timings and assignments
already made. “But here is where you are really going to thank me, God Himself. When I received this order at breakfast, I worked it all out. There is no way to assign all these hours in such a way that the classes are consecutive. Several of them occur at the same exact hours. You have to be in two, and in one case three places at the same time. And that is the way you have been assigned. You will be absent, one class or another, any way you want to look at it. The professors will rant. You will find yourself in front of deans. And it is they, not I, who will tell you that you cannot graduate and get your diploma next May. If they come back on me, I will say you just demanded it all, and you did, didn’t you, Jehovah?”
Miss Simmons sat back and tapped a pencil against her teeth. Then after a bit she said, “Oh, I don’t blame you for being overawed in appreciation. You see, Master of All He Surveys and Creator Himself, I do not like INFLUENCE. Also, I am a member of the Antinuclear Protest Marchers, its secretary in fact. And though the organization may be old and it may be suppressed and it may be that the New York Tactical Police Force is just waiting to bash in our heads again, the thought of letting a nuclear scientist as unqualified as you loose upon the world turns my blood to leukemia. Do we understand each other, Wister?”
“Really, Miss Simmons—”
“Oh, I almost forgot. Just in case you find time heavy on your hands—loafing about with this schedule—I have added another course to make up for a missing optional. It is Nature Appreciation 101 and 104. One goes out every Sunday, all day, and admires the birds and trees and learns, perhaps, what a nasty thing it is to make those world-destroying bombs! I teach this class myself, so I can keep an eye on your vicious proclivities. Now you can thank me, Wister.”
“Really, Miss S—”
“And as they are so interested in money, all this adds another fifteen hundred and thirty-three dollars to your bill. I hope you don’t have it. Pay the cashier. Good day, Wister. NEXT!”
Heller took the papers she had already made out. He took the invoice.
He went over and paid the cashier.
Aha! My heart had gone out to Miss Simmons more and more. What a sterling character! I toyed with the idea of sending her some candy “From an Unknown Admirer.” No, on the other hand, a pair of brass knuckles would be more in her line. With maybe a Knife Section knife to keep on her desk. But really, did she need it?