The Rat Race by Jay Franklin (classic books to read .txt) 📗

sue for heavy damages. False arrest on a charge of treason is no joke and I'll fight."

Lamb looked slightly uncomfortable. "Well?" he asked. "What would you do if you were me? Let you go, with the Navy howling for action?"

"There are two things I'd do," I told him. "First of all, I'd assign a flock of agents to see if they can find out where I was and what I was doing between the 25th of March and the second of April. Harcourt tells me that was the critical period. I don't remember. It's a case of amnesia, I guess. At any rate, I've drawn a blank. You have my fingerprints and photograph. You ought to be able to locate something."

Lamb shook his head. "That's not necessary now," he replied. "If Roscommon knew about Chalmis and the bomb, the question of where you were the week before last isn't important any more. We'd have to check back for at least two years."

"The other thing I'd do," I continued, "would be to let me go under some sort of open arrest. Fix me up so I can see the intelligence people here and give me a chance to convince them that—" I paused.

"Convince them of what?" he asked tartly.

"See here, Mr. Lamb," I said. "I'm in a hell of a personal jam. For personal reasons I'm trying to clear things up. Believe it or not, this business about the sinking of the Alaska and the thorium bomb is the least of my troubles. I've got the damndest case of loss of memory I've ever heard of. As Winfred S. Tompkins I can only remember as far back as April second, but I can remember years before that as somebody else. That's how I happen to know about the loss of the Alaska."

"How?" he asked. "According to your theory, everybody aboard her is dead."

I nodded. "Just the same, I was on the ship when she blew up—in my dream, I mean. If you give me a chance to talk to the intelligence heads, I think I can prove to their satisfaction not only that I know what I'm talking about but that my knowledge is perfectly legitimate."

Lamb grinned. "The Bureau is in enough fights as it is without being accused of sending a screw-ball around to bother the heads of G-2 and O.N.I."

I leaned forward. "I can see your point," I admitted. "I know that in the Navy everybody is out to cut everybody else's throat. It must be worse when two different Government Bureaus are involved."

The Deputy Director looked at me. "You seem to know a hell of a lot about the Navy for a stock-broker," he observed. "At any rate, that idea's out. I won't give you introductions and—"

"Okay!" I agreed. "Then let me try to do it my own way. I have some friends in the O.S.S. I'll see if they can't get me in to see General Donovan. If I have a talk with him, perhaps he'll agree to pass me on to the others."

Lamb laughed again. "You don't know Washington, Mr. Tompkins. General Donovan's blessing won't help you," he declared. "They hate his guts for trying to make them combine. However, if you think you can get to see him on your own, go right ahead but for God's sake don't say the Bureau sent you over."

"All right," I agreed. "Then I take it I'm under open arrest. I won't try to leave town without telling you. Any suggestions of where I can find a hotel room for the next few days?"

Lamb leaned back in his chair and grinned boyishly. "The Bureau has a lot of authority," he declared, "but it's not God. There won't be a hotel room to be had for love or money for the next two weeks. Roosevelt's death is bringing everybody back to Washington. President Truman is taking over and most officials are too busy to be bothered. Usually, it's not hard to get a hotel room over the week-end but not this time. If you can't get accommodations, phone back here and we'll fix you up with a cot somewhere in the F.B.I. barracks."

"Then I'm in the clear, so far as you are concerned," I suggested.

Lamb smiled cryptically. "I didn't say that," he remarked, "and it isn't so. We have nothing specific to hold you on, but the Alaska is missing and, if you insist, the President is dead, and you're caught in the middle."

"What will it take to get myself cleared?" I asked.

Lamb considered. "If you can get O.N.I, off our necks, with a clean bill of health, we'll relax," he admitted. "But I give you twenty-four hours to do it. Admiral Ballister's pretty worked up on this Alaska business, and he wants action."

I nodded. "Okay, I'll give it to him," I said.

"Okay, Tompkins," he remarked. "It's your funeral. But remember, if you're not cleared in twenty-four hours, we'll be calling you in again and this time we'll give you the works."

Luck was with me. I left the F.B.I. and walked up Pennsylvania Avenue to the Willard. As I followed the queue to the registration clerk at the desk I heard the man just ahead of me start to say: "I want to cancel—"

"Just a moment, sir," the clerk said, as he picked up the telephone. "Yes, madam? No, I'm sorry—"

I plucked at the man's sleeve.

"Don't cancel, if it's for tonight," I said, "Here's a hundred," and I held out two fifty dollar bills.

The man nodded. "Okay, buddy," he agreed, pocketing the money. "The name's R. L. Grant of Detroit."

"Name, please," the clerk asked.

"R. L. Grant of Detroit," I answered. "I have a reservation."

"Right," he said. "Lucky for you you wired a week ago. Here you are, Mr. Grant. Please register."

CHAPTER 16

After lunch—which was poor, slow and expensive—I screwed up my courage and telephoned the Office of Strategic Services.

"May I speak to Mrs. Jacklin?" I asked the switch-board girl. She promptly referred me to Information, who told me that Mrs. Dorothy Jacklin was on Extension 3046, shall-I-connect you?

A moment later a pleasant voice said, "Yes? This is Mrs. Jacklin."

"Mrs. Jacklin," I told my wife, "my name is Tompkins, W. S. Tompkins. I have a message for you from Commander Jacklin."

"Oh," she said. It was not a question. "Are you a friend of Frank's? Is he all right?"

"He asked me to see you when I got to Washington and gave me some special messages for you. I'm staying at the Willard. Are you free for cocktails or dinner this evening?"

Something of the urgency in my voice communicated itself to her and I could feel her reverse her original impulse to refuse the invitation.

"Why yes, Mr. Tompkins," she agreed. "I'd be glad to join you, for cocktails, that is. Shall we say about half past five?"

"Splendid! I'll meet you in the south lobby. I'm sure to recognize you, Frank gave me such a good description of you. If there's any slip-up, have one of the bellboys page me."

"Thank you," she said. "I'll be there."

As I laid down the telephone, my pulse was racing and my throat was dry. How in God's name should I act with her?

Half-past five crawled around. I filled in some of the time by phoning the F.B.I. and telling Lamb's secretary I was registered at the Willard under the name of R. L. Grant. I phoned Bedford Hills and told Jimmie that I was in Washington and wanted her to join me at the Willard. She was a little slow about getting the R. L. Grant angle but allowed that she could register as Mrs. Grant or Mrs. John Doe if necessary and when was all this nonsense going to stop?

In spite of my assurance, I almost failed to recognize Dorothy. She looked younger, smarter and infinitely more self-possessed, and the tanned and muscular young man in uniform who accompanied her was obviously not animated by brotherly sentiments toward her.

"Mrs. Jacklin?" I asked. "I'm Tompkins. And—" I turned eloquently to her escort.

"Oh, this is Major Demarest," she said. "Thanks, Tony, for escorting me. I'll see you later?"

"Half-past sixish?" Demarest asked.

"Say seven," Dorothy told him. "I'll meet you here, by the desk."

So I was neatly bracketed. While Dorothy and I were talking, her escort would be waiting—impatiently. There was no chance of a prolonged operation. I must keep things moving.

I took her to the rather garish cocktail lounge on the east side of the hotel and ordered her a Bourbon old-fashioned and a Scotch-and-soda for myself.

"Frank told me that's what you like," I remarked, before she could raise her eyebrows after I told the waiter to bring a sliver of lemon peel to go with the old-fashioned.

"Where did you know him?" she asked.

I leaned confidently across the table. "Mrs. Jacklin," I told her, "I'm in intelligence. Tompkins is my name but I don't use it much. I've seen quite a bit of your husband during the past few years—here at Washington and out in the Pacific. In fact," I added, "I might say that I'm his closest friend. We were at school together, many years ago. I'm surprised he never mentioned me."

"How is he?" she asked. "I know too much to ask where he is."

I looked gravely at her. "We don't know where he is," I replied. "His ship hasn't been reported for nearly two weeks. He was on a special mission. That's why I've looked you up. Frank made me promise that I would if—I mean—he thought—"

Dorothy drained her glass and gave me a long, strange look. "Are you trying to tell me that he's dead?" she asked.

"It's not official," I said. "It may never be confirmed, but I personally am sure, as sure as I'm sitting here that you'll never see him again."

She looked down at the table and nervously tapped an unlighted cigarette against her lacquered thumb-nail. "I'll have another drink, if you don't mind," she said. "It's not that—well, our marriage was over long ago—but, he—I—"

I signaled our waitress and duplicated our order.

"This is one of the times when my father told me to remember the giants," she said.

I raised my eyebrows.

"My father was professor of philosophy at Wesleyan," she explained. "He always said that it was impossible to imagine anything so big that there wasn't something else bigger. He said that it stood to reason that somewhere in the universe there was a race of giants so big that it took them a million years to draw a breath. He said when things seemed difficult just to think about that."

"Sounds like the Navy Department," I observed. "Was he the one who argued that there might be several sexes? Frank told me something—"

She smiled. "Yes. That was when I was adolescent and having crushes about boys. He said that somewhere there must be a place where, Instead of two, there were six or seven sexes. He suggested that falling in love under those conditions was really complicated. He was a nice man," she added. "He's dead."

"Your father sounds like a right guy," I remarked. "Frank said—"

"How do I know you're telling the truth?" she suddenly interrupted. "What proof have you?"

Here I was on home-ground. "Frank thought of that. He told me to remind you that you have a mole on your left hip, that you're nuts about Prokofiev, that you don't think much of Ernest Hemingway as an author and—"

"The louse!" she exclaimed. "Oh, I know I oughtn't to talk about him this way if he's dead but I didn't dream men told each other—"

I pulled out my fountain pen and wrote my Jacklin signature rapidly across the back of the drink-card. I pushed it at her across the table.

"There!" I told her. "Recognize that, Mrs. Jacklin?"

"Why!" Dorothy exclaimed. "It's his writing! Who are you, Mr. Tompkins? Only I could say that it's a forgery."

"Listen, Dorothy," I began conspiratorially. "And if I call you Dorothy it is only because your husband always spoke of you as Dorothy. I must see General Donovan. This is much more than a matter of your husband and yourself. It's a matter of top-echelon intelligence."

She looked downcast. "The General's out of town," she said. "He's trying to get back for the Roosevelt funeral but the man who's running the show in his absence is Colonel McIntosh. Ivor McIntosh."

There was a curl to her lips as she pronounced the name that told me all I needed to know about the colonel. Still, beggars can't be choosers and Colonel McIntosh was ever so much better than nothing at all.

"Very well," I told her. "Will you arrange to have me see Colonel McIntosh tomorrow morning? Tell—" here I took a leap—"Tell him that I'm from the White House."

"You aren't, are you?"

"Of course not, but I gather that's the kind of