The Manchurian Candidate (26 page)

She got some. She drank plain warm gin.

Marco drank a can of the beer before he spoke again. “Anyway I was stopped,” he said at last. “Before he shot himself the general ordered me to forget the court-martial, so that is that. I’m frozen with my terrible dreams inside of a big cake of ice and I’ll never get out.”

“You’ll get out.”

“No.”

“Yes you will.”

“How?”

“Do you remember that thing I told you which no girl in her right mind would ever tell a man she had gone limp over, about how I called up the man I was engaged to and resigned from the whole idea because you happened to smell so crazy?”

“I thought you just said that to get me to kiss you.”

“His name was Lou Amjac and you happen to be right.

“You know, you weren’t attracted to me irrevocably only because I smell this way. Don’t forget I cried like a little, lost tyke the instant I looked at you. Stuff like that is a steam roller for a potential mother.”

“Have you ever done that with another woman? The smell you can’t help, but I don’t think I could stand sharing your sniveling with another woman.”

“Never mind. That’s the kind of stuff that’ll come out after we’re married. What about Lou Amjac?”

“He’s an FBI agent. They are good at their work. I have a whole intuitive thing about how they can help you with that notebook—The Gallant Major’s Gypsy Dream Book.”

“I’m Army Intelligence, baby. We don’t take our laundry to the FBI. Macy’s definitely does not tell Gimbel’s.”

“The way you told it to me, you
were
Army Intelligence. If the FBI can prove you have something worth going on with, then your side will take you back and you can run the whole thing down yourself.”

“Jesus.”

“Isn’t it worth trying?”

“Well, yeah, but still, I don’t see Lou Amjac going out of his way to help me. After all, you were his girl.”

“He might not be pleasant about it, that’s true, but he’s an agent of the Federal Bureau of Investigation and if you’ve got something in his line, you’re not going to be able to shake him.”

Amjac
wasn’t
entirely pleasant about Marco. In fact, he was particularly surly. Amjac was a skinny man with watery eyes and when Marco saw them for the first time he had a hot flash of jealousy go through him, feeling that maybe Eugénie Rose was nearsighted and that perhaps when she had first seen this guy she had thought he was crying. Amjac was tall. He had florid skin and sandy hair, freckles all over the backs of his hands, and looked as though he had a tendency to boils on the back of his neck. His hair was fine lanugo and he couldn’t have grown a mustache if he had stayed in bed for a year. He had a jaw like a crocodile and as he sat in Rosie’s small, warm, golden-draped room, which had horrible, large cabbage roses woven into the carpets and ancient north
ern European brewery posters on all walls, separated by mountain goat heads mounted on stained ash, he looked as though he would be happy to be invited to bite Marco’s right arm off.

When he entered the apartment and had stood staring down, repelled, at Marco, Eugénie Rose had said serenely, “This is Bonny Benny Marco, the chap I was telling you about, Lou. Benny boy, this here is a typical, old-time shamus right out of
Black Mask Magazine
name of Lou Amjac.”

“Did you bring me all the way over here in the rain just to meet this?” Amjac inquired.

“Is it raining? Yes, I did.”

“What am I supposed to do? Arrest him for impersonating an officer?”

Marco figured it would be better just to let the two old friends chat together.

“Would you like a nice plebeian rye highball, Lou?”

“Plebeian? Your friend is drinking beer right out of the can.”

“Wow, you FBI guys don’t miss a trick, do you?” Eugénie Rose said. “Do you want a rye highball or don’t you?”

“Yeah.”

“Yeah, what?”

“Yeah, yeah.”

“That’s better. Give me your coat. How is your elbow with the weather changing like this? Now sit down. No. Walk with me to the kitchen whilst I decant. Did your mother get back from Montreal?”

Amjac took off his coat.

“You know, I think if I was right-handed I would have had to quit the Bureau, Rose. I could hardly
bend my elbow this afternoon, believe it or not. This Dr. Weiler—you met Abe Weiler, the specialist, didn’t you, Rose?—he may be a good man at certain things—you know what I mean—but I don’t think he even knows where to grope when it comes to arthritis.” He followed her into the tiny kitchen and Marco watched them go, goggle-eyed. “My mother decided to stay over another week,” he could hear Amjac say. “They sell very strong ale up there and since my sister’s husband won’t be home from the road until Monday, why not?”

“Of course, why not?” Rosie’s voice said. “Just make sure she’s out before he’s home, is all. He’d love to punch her right on her sweet little old-lady nose, he told me.”

“Aaaah, that’s a lot of talk,” Amjac said petulantly. “Thanks.” He accepted the stiff highball.

“Are your lads still interested in this and that about the Soviet lads? Spy stuff?”

Amjac jerked his head back toward Marco. “Him?”

“He knows a couple,” she said. They walked back into the living room with Rosie carrying four beer cans at stomach level.

“Can he talk?” Amjac asked.

“He talks beautifully. And, oh Lou, I wish you could
smell
him!” Amjac grunted and stared hard at Marco who seemed considerably embarrassed. “Just the same I’d like to tell you the story,” Rosie said, “because you are gradually making Major Marco believe that after eleven years of rooming with you at the Academy he has stolen your wife, and as you know the very best in the world that just isn’t the case.”

“So tell!” Amjac snarled.

She told it. From the patrol forward. She
went from the Medal of Honor to the nightmares, to Melvin in Wainwright, to the Army hospitals, to Chunjin and Raymond, to Raymond’s mother and Senator Iselin, to Marco’s court-martial project and General Jorgenson’s suicide. They were all quiet after she had finished. Amjac finished his highball in slow sips. “Where’s the notebook?” he asked harshly.

Marco spoke for the first time. “It’s with my gear. At Raymond’s.”

“You think you can remember any of the faces of the men in your dreams?”

“Every man, every face. One woman.”

“And one lieutenant general?”

“With Security service markings.”

“And this Melvin dreamed the same thing?”

“He did. And that man who was sitting beside the lieutenant general is now Raymond Shaw’s house man.”

Amjac stood up. He put his coat on with deliberate movement. “I’ll talk it over with the special agent in charge,” he said. “Where can I reach you?” Marco started to answer but Eugénie Rose interrupted him. “Right here, Louis,” she said brightly. “Any time at all.”

“I live at Raymond Shaw’s,” Marco said quickly, coloring deeply. “Trafalgar eight, eight-eight-eight-one.”

“I cannot believe it,” Amjac said to Rosie. “I simply cannot believe that you could ever turn out to be this kind of hard, cruel girl.” He turned to go. “You never gave a damn about me.”

“Lou!”

He got to the door but he had to turn around. She was staring at him levelly, without much expression.

“You know I cared,” she said. “I know that you know exactly how much I cared.”

He couldn’t hold her stare. He looked away, then looked at the floor.

“With all the girls there are in the world,” she added, “do you think a thirty-nine-year-old bachelor who has been batting around the world most of his life wants to get married? Well, he does, Lou. And so do I. Maybe if you had been able to make up your mind between me and your elbow and your mother, you and I would have been married by now. We’ve been together four years, Lou. Four years. And you can say that I never cared about you and I can only answer that the cold-turkey cure is the only way for you because I have to make sure that you understand that there is only Ben; that it is as clear as daylight that Ben is the only man for me. Someday, if you keep playing the delaying game, and I guess you will, some girl may pay you out on a slow rope, then cast you adrift miles and miles away from shore and you’ll know that my way—this hard, cruel way you called it—is the way that leaves the fewest scars. Now stop sulking and tell me. Are you going to help us or not?”

“I want to help him, Rosie,” Amjac said slowly, “but somebody else has to decide that, so I’ll let you know tomorrow. Good night and good luck.”

“Night, Lou. My best to your mother when she calls later.”

Amjac closed the door behind him.

“You don’t just fool around, do you, Eugénie Rose?” Marco asked reverently.

Amjac was one of the four men in the large room in the New York office of the Federal Bureau of Investigation toward noon the next morning. Another
man was a courier who had just come in from Washington. The fourth man was Marco.

The courier had brought one hundred and sixty-eight close-up photographs from one of the Bureau’s special files. The close-ups included shots of male models, Mexican circus performers, Czech research chemists, Indiana oil men, Canadian athletes, Australian outdoor showmen, Japanese criminals, Austrian miners, French head waiters, Turkish wrestlers, pastoral psychiatrists, marine lawyers, English publishers, and various officials of the U.S.S.R., the People’s Republic of China, and the Soviet Army. Some shots were sharp, some were murky. Marco made Mikhail Gomel and Giorgi Berezovo the first time through. No one spoke. The second time through he made Pa Cha, the older Chinese dignitary. He pulled no stiffs, such as North Carolinian literary agents or Basque sheep brokers, because he had done so much studying so well through five years of nights.

The courier and the special agent took the three photographs which Marco had chosen and left the room with them to check their classifications against information on file. Marco and Amjac were left in the room.

“You go ahead,” Marco said to Amjac. “You must have plenty to do. I’ll wait.”

“Ah, shut up,” Amjac suggested.

Marco sat down at the long polished table, unfolded
The New York Times
and was able to complete two-thirds of the crossword puzzle before the special agent and the courier returned.

“What else do you remember about these men?” the special agent asked right off, before sitting down, which caused Amjac to sit up much straighter and appear as though a dull plastic film had been pe
eled off his eyes. The courier slid the three photographs, faceup, across the table to Marco. “Take your time,” the special agent said.

Marco didn’t need extra time. He picked up the top photograph, which was Gomel’s. “This one wears stainless-steel false teeth and he smells like a goat. His voice is loud and it grates. He’s about five feet six, I’d figure. Heavy. He wears civilian clothes but his staff is uniformed, ranging from a full colonel to a first lieutenant. They wear political markings.” Marco picked up the shot of the Chinese civilian, Pa Cha. “This one has a comical, high-pitched giggle and killer’s eyes. He had the authority. Made no attempt to conceal his distaste and contempt for the Russians. They deferred to him.” He picked up Berezovo’s picture, a shot that had been taken while the man was in silk pajamas with a glass in his hand and a big, silly grin across his face. “This is the lieutenant general. The staff he carried was in civilian clothes and one of the staff was a woman.” Marco grinned. “They looked like FBI men. He speaks with a bilateral emission lisp and has a very high color like—uh—like Mr. Amjac here.”

A new man came into the room with a note for the special agent who read it and said, “Your friend Mr. Melvin has been cooperating with us in Wainwright, Alaska. He’s made one of these men, Mikhail Gomel, who is a member of the Central Committee.” Marco beamed at Amjac over this development, but Amjac wouldn’t look at him.

“Can you return to Washington today, Colonel? We’ll have a crew of specialists waiting for you.”

“Any time you say, sir. I’m on indefinite leave. But the rank is major.”

“You have been a full colonel since sunrise this morning. They just told me on the phone from Washington.”

“No!” Marco yelled. He leaped to his feet and gripped the table and kept shouting, “No, no, no!” He pounded and pounded on the shining table with rage and frustration. “That filthy, filthy, filthy son-of-a-bitch. He’ll pay us for this! He’ll pay us someday for this! No, no, no!”

Potentially, Marco might have been a hysteroid personality.

Colonel Marco worked with the Federal Bureau of Investigation and his own unit of Army Intelligence (into which he had been honorably and instantly reinstated upon the recommendation of the FBI’s director and the Plans Board of the Central Intelligence Agency). There was no longer any question of a need for a court-martial to institute a full investigation. A full unit was set up, with headquarters in New York and conference space at the Pentagon, and unaccountable funds from the White House were provided to maintain housing, laboratories, and personnel, including three psychiatrists, the country’s leading Pavlovian practitioner, six espionage technicians (including three librarians), a mnemonicist, an Orientalist, and an expert on Soviet internal affairs. The rest were cops and assistant cops.

Marco was in charge. His aide, assistant, and constant companion was Louis Amjac. The other side-kick was a round type, with the nerves of a Chicago bellhop, named Jim Lehner. He was there representing the CIA. They worked out of a capacious, many chambered house in the Turtle Bay district of New York, right through the summer of 1959 but they did not get one step further than the alarming conclusions which had been
reached originally by Marco. It is questionable whether any definitive conclusions beyond those reached could have been attained if Marco had been able to allow himself to tell the part of his dreams having to do with Raymond’s murders, but he could see no connection, he didn’t think the time had come, he couldn’t keep the thought in his mind, and so on and on into many splinters of reasons why he did not divulge the information. Thousands of man-hours were put in on the project and as time went on the pressure from exalted sources grew and grew. A three-platoon system of surveillance was put around Raymond. The total cost of the project which the doctrinaire romantics in the service classified as Operation Enigma has been estimated at, or in excess of, $634,217 and some change, for travel, salaries, equipment, lease, and leasehold improvements, maintenance and miscellaneous expense—and not a quarter of it was stolen beyond a few hundred rolls of Tri-X and Hydropan film, but even accountants don’t recognize such losses because all photographers everywhere are helpless about film stocks to the point where it is not even considered stealing but is called testing.