Smart Moves (2 page)

I checked my watch and put it on the edge of the sink. The watch, which I had inherited from my father, told me it was one o’clock, which was about as close as it usually came. Once in the tub, however, the
Times
told me that it was April Fools’ Day, that the British Forces in West Burma were cut off, that the Chinese were trying to hold the line near some place called Toungoo and that General Wainwright had reported a Japanese bombing of a plainly marked American base hospital on Bataan. I let the hot water rub my back and wilt the pages.

“Mr. Peters,” Walker called from the other room.

“Coming,” I called back, folding the newspaper, throwing it in the corner, and climbing out of the tub to mess up the floor. “You know what it says in the paper? According to the War Production Board, empty toothpaste tubes have to be turned in every time you want a new tube of toothpaste. Same with shaving cream. No tube, no new toothpaste.”

Walker seemed at a loss for words as I dried myself and pulled on my underwear and pants so I went on. “What happens if you lose your tube? Christ, everyone loses a tube of something if you give them enough time. And people’ll start stealing them from each other’s bathroom. Given a long enough war, nobody will be able to buy refills on toothpaste. Everyone’s breath will smell like Asta’s.”

“You use tooth powder,” Walker countered as I buttoned my shirt with relief that there were no buttons missing. “I watched you pack.”

“You’re missing the goddamn mystery of the thing,” I shouted. “You’ve got to let your imagination play games in times like these. Shortages, rationing. You play what-if, part of the national pastime. You complain, worry. It’s patriotic.”

I came out of the steaming bathroom to a blast of cool air. Walker was sitting in the not-too-stuffed chair with the orange juice bottle in his lap.

“I’m a scientist,” he explained as I looked for my shoes.

“Even scientists can worry about toothpaste,” I said, finding my shoes under the blanket I had kicked away when I got up.

“You are not a logical person,” Walker said, watching me struggle into my shoes.

“If I were a logical person I wouldn’t be in a New Jersey hotel room looking for a pair of worn shoes and looking forward to a glass of warm orange juice and a job that probably won’t even pay my expenses.”

“If you—” Walker began. But I cut him off.

“I’m not holding you up for a bigger fee,” I explained, throwing the blankets back onto the bed to save the maid from one more assault. “I’m explaining behavior.”

“I wouldn’t know anything about that,” he said, rising and reaching for the glass I handed him and pouring me orange juice. It was warm and made me a little queasy, but that passed. I threw my things into my alligator suitcase, nestling my .38 under a faded shirt, and turned to Walker.

“Ready,” I said.

Walker drove. He glanced over at me every three seconds to be sure I hadn’t spilled any of the juice from the bottle he had entrusted to me. It sloshed around but nothing escaped. I’d put on a semi-matching jacket and tie and looked reasonably respectable. I would have turned on the radio but Walker didn’t have one, so I looked out the window and watched the students walk down tree-lined streets. On what looked like a main street, Walker nodded his head and said, “The Institute for Advanced Study is straight down there. That’s where I work.”

“And Einstein?”

“Professor Einstein is a member of the Institute,” Walker said. “But he works in his home. He doesn’t need a laboratory, just paper, a blackboard, and books. His laboratory is in his head.”

“Must get pretty crowded in there,” I tried.

“He keeps it straight.”

We turned off the main street onto one called Mercer. The houses were old, neat lawns, nothing fancy. We pulled up in front of 112 and parked. The two-story house was painted white, just like the other ones on the block, with a small veranda and green shutters. We got out. I looked up and down the street and followed Walker up the small walk past two big trees and five steps to the porch, holding the juice away from me just in case. Walker knocked. We waited. He knocked again and we could hear the sound of steps inside. Then the door opened and I recognized Albert Einstein. He was a little taller than I had expected, about my height. His long hair was in newspaper photographs. His mustache was dark with a few strands of grey. His shoulders were stooped slightly. He wore a limp grey sweater buttoned over a wrinkled shirt that had once been white. His pants were baggy and badly in need of pressing. He wore floppy brown leather slippers with clear cracks in the leather.

“Professor Einstein,” Walker said, “this is Toby Peters.”

Einstein’s droopy face smiled and he held out a hand. I put my suitcase down next to the door and reached out to shake his hand, but he grabbed the orange juice.

“I half a colt,” Einstein said, which struck me as gibberish. I must have looked puzzled. “A colt,” he repeated. “In my head.” He pointed to his head and I figured out that he had a cold in his head. The combination of German accent and stuffed nose kept me alert through the rest of the conversation till I got used to both.

“Come in please,” he said, clutching the juice bottle and stepping back to let me in. “Mark, you can go to the Institute. I call you there later.”

“I don’t have to …” he began.

Einstein touched his arm and nodded his head. “You did fine,” he said. “Fine, perfect. Mr. Peters and I must talk, and there are things I might have to say that it would be better for you if you didn’t hear and didn’t have to tell people later or lie about. You understand?”

“Yes, of course,” said Walker, reluctant to leave and giving me a last look of suspicion. Einstein ushered him gently out the front door and closed it.

“A good boy,” he said, “but …”

“… no imagination,” I finished for him.

Einstein nodded in agreement and shuffled down the small hallway, his slippers clopping as he went. We passed a broad set of stairs and turned into a room in the back of the house.

“Theoretical science is all imagination,” Einstein said, closing the door to his study. “All in the mind, not in the laboratory. I work on pieces of paper, in my head, and others look through microscopes and telescopes to see if there is anything to see that will prove or disprove what I imagine. But the proof is in the elimination of alternatives. If a thing must be, then it is. If there is order in the universe, then its actions can be discovered, though the meaning may never be.”

“I wouldn’t know,” I said, looking around. “I’ve been a detective most of my life.”

“So have I,” he said with a horselaugh. “You’d like some orange juice? Some coffee? I can have one cup of real coffee each morning. I have waited for you.”

“Coffee is fine. No orange juice. I already had some.”

He nodded again and clopped out of the room. There was one big window covering most of the back wall. Outside I could see a good-sized garden and some big trees. The room itself was cluttered. The side walls had floor-to-ceiling bookshelves. The books looked as if most of them were in German or French. I was standing in front of a big, solid dark wood table covered with pencils, pads, notes, letters, pipes, and books. A desk by the window looked a little neater, but not much.

On the open wall behind me where the door was, I saw some photographs and went over to take a look. I recognized Gandhi but the other two greying guys in suits were a mystery. Einstein solved the mystery while I was trying to read a framed diploma next to one of the pictures.

“That,” he said, handing me a white porcelain mug of coffee, “is my honorary membership in Berner Naturforschenden Gesellschaft.”

“Right,” I said. “And these guys?”

“The one with the collar is James Maxwell, a Scottish mathematician and physicist. And next to him,” Einstein said, pausing for a sip of coffee, “is Michael Faraday. You know, of course, who he is.”

“No,” I admitted. “But I know who you are.”

“Maybe,” he said, motioning me to a chair and taking a seat himself in a wooden chair with arms. We faced each other, politely drinking coffee.

“Did Dr. Walker explain to you anything?”

“Someone says you’re passing scientific secrets to the Russians,” I said, finishing my coffee and putting down the mug.

“Small pleasures,” sighed Einstein, looking into his now empty cup. “We are tied to our fragile bodies. A simple cold takes away the sense of taste, the pleasure in a cup of coffee, a single morning cigar and with that pleasure gone one becomes irritable, thought is interrupted. I have a housekeeper every morning for an hour. My wife died six, seven years ago. Little things, needed things, are a sign of time. Food, which I enjoy, cleaning clothes, but that you understand. You are almost as indifferent to clothing as I am.”

I nodded and said nothing. The great man was stalling. He looked up from his cup and smiled.

“Yes,” he said. “You are right. We must get to the point. You were recommended to me by a friend who said you were reliable, determined, and discreet. This friend had a problem with a missing animal. You understand?”

I understood. About a year earlier I had done a small job for Eleanor Roosevelt when the president’s dog looked like it might be dognapped.

“There are things I can tell you,” he said softly. “Things I cannot tell. I am involved with a secret project for the United States Navy, that I can tell you. There are other things, things which have to do with winning this war, things perhaps too terrible to consider. I can see by your face that you do not understand.

“I don’t have to understand,” I said. “I’m here. You know my fee.”

“The Federal Bureau of Investigation is, I understand, conducting this investigation of …” He raised his arms, groping for the English word.

“Allegations, charges,” I supplied.

“Yes. I cannot supply the Federal Bureau of Investigation with complete information. My citizenship might be affected by things in my past and present, my connection to the cause of Zionism is not always popular and my German birth, in spite of my opposition since childhood to Nazism, is suspect.”

“Nobody’s going to accuse Albert Einstein of …”

“Ah, but they will, and they do,” he said sadly. “In these times one’s reputation loses importance. And I am considered by many to be a relic. Relativity has been questioned, attacked, refuted by those who would believe that the universe is a madhouse, but God’s universe is not a madhouse, only this planet. I’ve made great mistakes in my life. I’ve assumed that the order of the universe can be seen also in human politics but it cannot. There is no order or logic to politics and so I have committed to causes which alter, change, betray. Now I would like to be left alone to work. I will be sixty-three years old next week. My heart is weak. My fingers do not always obey my commands on the violin and my legs and arms too often betray me when I sail my small boat. I think I can help this country against the horror of Nazism and someone is trying to destroy my reputation to keep me from doing this. I would like you to find these people, expose them, stop them.”

“If I can,” I said confidently.

“There is more,” he added, watching me closely. “Fahre.”

I thought he was saying something in English but his accent was getting in the way again so I repeated. “Fahre.”

“A radical Nazi group which has put a price on my head,” Einstein explained. “I am a Jew. I am a Zionist. I am anti-Nazi and have some reputation. There are madmen who would like to collect the five thousand dollars my head would bring.”

“The guys across the street are keeping an eye on you,” I said.

Einstein rose and clasped his hands. He gave me a pleased smile.

“I usually wait till after lunch for my single cigar, but …” he said and reached for a cigar box, which he opened. He removed a cigar, offered me one which I refused, and lit up, obviously enjoying it. “They named a cigar for me several years ago, a terrible cigar. I’m glad you noticed the men across the street. Dr. Walker has never noticed them.”

“At least two there right now,” I said. “One was looking through the window. Light hit his binoculars. Another guy behind. Both well dressed.”

“Unlike us,” Einstein said, pacing as he smoked, clopping as he paced.

“If they were these Fahre people, they wouldn’t set up camp,” I said, “they’d come in firing. How long have they been there?”

“Since Professor May suddenly had to accept a visiting professorship in North Carolina,” Einstein said. “That was a few weeks ago. However, they may be protecting me, or gathering evidence against me, or possibly both.”

“So, you just stay around here while I try to find out who …”

I stopped because he was nodding his head as he puffed away. “I have accepted an engagement in New York City, a charity event to raise money for refugees. This will be at the Waldorf Hotel on Sunday. I will play the violin and Mr. Paul Robeson will sing. It is, I understand, Easter Sunday.”

“And someone might be around to stop you,” I said.

He shrugged, stopped pacing, and looked at me. “The event has been publicized,” he said. “I cannot back out of it and do not want to. I do not want those Nazis to think they can make me a prisoner in my house.”

“OK,” I sighed, standing up, “it’s easy enough. I find an assassination squad of lunatic Nazis, put them out of commission while I also figure out who is trying to set you up as a traitor and stop them. All of this without telling the FBI. Is that it?”

Einstein was standing still now. He looked out the window, seemed to have forgotten I was there, and then turned. “Yes,” he said. “That is accurate.”

“I’d better get started then,” I said, not knowing where to.

Einstein, cigar still in hand, went to the desk, opened the middle drawer, found some papers, and brought then to me. “These,” he said, “are letters threatening me with exposure for aiding the Russians. The letters are postmarked New York City. The stationery is from the Taft Hotel.”

It wasn’t much of a lead. I took the small stack of letters and noticed that there was a check on top of the pile made out to Toby Peters. I considered not cashing it and keeping it for the autograph but I had bills to pay and places to go.