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Rat Race

<h2>CHAPTER 11</h2> When I entered my office on Monday morning, the genteel receptionist informed me with some austerity that Mr. Roscommon was waiting for me. "Okay, send him in," I directed, bracing myself for what would probably be a stormy interview. If Roscommon was as well-informed as he claimed to be, he must know that I had already reported him to the F.B.I. "Smart work, Tompkins!" he beamed, giving my hand a vise-like squeeze. "Working as I do with the highest echelons, I'm afraid I sometimes forget the value of naiveté. You couldn't have invented anything better calculated to slow down the Bureau than to report me as a Nazi agent. Even the Director was impressed, though he'll see through your ruse after a couple of days." "Is that what you wanted to tell me?" I inquired, "because your visit will certainly arouse new suspicions. I assume I'm still under F.B.I. observation." Axel Roscommon smiled. "Nothing to worry about, old boy, I assure you. Naturally you'll have to go to Washington sooner or later and explain things there. I suggest that you go next week, when the whole Administration will be in a state of maximum confusion." I asked him whether that would be any change. "Absolutely, old boy. The war's been managed quite impressively well up to now. After this week, with Roosevelt out of the way, things will begin to fall apart and there will be plenty of pickings but the war is already won, so that won't hurt." Roosevelt, I observed, was down in Georgia, according to the papers, but that didn't mean he couldn't keep in touch with things in Washington. Roscommon stood close against my desk and leaned forward on his hands, facing me. "Listen carefully, old boy," he said, "and keep this to yourself. Roosevelt will be dead before the week's out—on Friday the thirteenth if there's any symmetry to be expected in this crazy world. It's the same stuff they gave Woodrow Wilson over at Paris in the spring of 1919. You may remember that chap Yardley wrote a book, 'The American Black Chamber,' and told how the American Intelligence got word of a plot to poison Wilson by one of America's allies. Not long after, Wilson had a slight illness and a few months later had a stroke, as they called it. You see your American Constitution—marvelous document, that!—makes absolutely no bloody provision for the illness of a President, and Wilson's paralysis paralyzed your government for nearly two years, while America's allies cleaned up on the peace-arrangements. "Roosevelt is tougher than Wilson was. They slipped him the first dose at Teheran early last year. When he came back that spring he had a slight illness—they called it influenza—and he was never quite the same. Except for a few trusted social associates, close friends and members of the family, he was kept in strict seclusion. Then, with his amazing vitality, he began to throw off the stuff and staged a magnificent political campaign last fall. So they had to try again at Yalta early this year. The second time they gave him too much. He had one bad attack on the cruiser coming back from the Mediterranean. When he addressed Congress, he had the same gaunt look and thick speech that Wilson had towards the end. The final stroke is due this week and has been held off only because he's taking things easy. No, old chap, Roosevelt's doomed and all I can tell you is that the Germans had no part in it. Only five men in America know about this, and F.D.R. is one of them." "You're talking utter piffle," I replied. "I can see how Hitler or Tojo might want to get rid of Roosevelt but who else? Why don't you warn the authorities. Or I could." Roscommon smiled rather sadly. "What good would it do? There's no antidote after the first twenty-four hours. If Roosevelt hasn't warned them, why should you? All that would happen would be to put yourself under the blackest kind of suspicion. Just fancy the reaction of the American Intelligence. You march in and say, 'See here, the President's been poisoned and will die before the end of the week.' They promptly call for an ambulance and an alienist and send you to St. Elizabeth's for observation. Then the President does die. 'By the Lord Harry!' they think, 'this chap we locked up said Roosevelt would die and now he has died. He probably had a hand in it himself. Let's fix him just to be safe!'" I nodded. "Yes, I can see that," I agreed. "Look at what happened when Lincoln was assassinated. But if I'm not to pass word on to anybody, what's the point of telling me about it—assuming it to be true, which I doubt?" "Naturally you doubt me, my boy, naturally. All you need do is to wait until Friday the thirteenth and if I'm right you'll know it and if I'm wrong you'll know it. But I assure you that I am not wrong. The war is over and Roosevelt is the only obstacle to certain long-range practical arrangements for organizing the peace. The Old World, mind you, doesn't like outsiders like Wilson and Roosevelt telling them what to do with victory. From now on, America is going to be immobilized. It's all rather simple, really, but I haven't time to explain how simple it is because the explanation is bloody complicated." "You still haven't told me why you have passed on this fantastic story to me," I pointed out. "Oh, that? It's just this, my boy. Sell the war short! Sell it short! You must use all the funds that Ribbentrop gave you to get a real nest-egg. With Germany defeated, our intelligence will need funds—decentralized funds—and this is your chance to do an important job. I don't care what the Foreign Minister told you to do with the money. Forget him—he's a dead duck, anyway. Just take the cash and sell the war short. Make a killing and then we'll be able to finance future operations." After Roscommon had made another of his abrupt departures, I buzzed for Arthurjean and told her to ask my partners to come in. Wasson was the same as he had been before—plump, dark-haired and energetic. Philip Cone was taller, fair-haired, blue-eyed, with a quiet manner and a sleepy expression. "Morning, Graham. Morning, Phil," I greeted them. "The other day, Graham, you got peeved because I wanted to go slow on the Fynch portfolio. I only had a hunch then but I knew we'd better not rush into one of our regular reinvestment run-arounds. Now I've made a check and I see the new line. Boys, from now on, we've got to sell the war short." "What do you mean 'sell the war short?'" Wasson demanded. "The Japs are good for another year and those Nazis are fighting pretty damn well, too. You don't mean to go America First, separate peace or any of that rot, do you?" "You know me better than that," I reproved him. "No. My tip is that the Germans will surrender within a month and the Japs before Labor Day. What do we do to clean up?" "Je-sus!" Cone drawled appreciatively. "The bottom will drop out of the market!" "No, Phil it won't," Wasson objected. "They won't let it. That would be an admission that Wall Street is cashing in on the war." "Well, aren't we cashing in?" asked Cone, "I haven't heard a single broker or banker committing suicide since Pearl Harbor." "Nuts to that talk!" Wasson replied. "No, Winnie, my point is that Wall Street can't afford a peace-scare selling wave, and if stocks start to drop the big boys will move in and support the market." "How about commodities, Graham?" I asked. "You know that end of the business. The whole world will be hungry and naked. Can't we move in there without risk?" Wesson laughed bitterly. "There will be only about eighteen governments and government boards riding herd on you every time you move in with real money in that racket. Anyhow, they tell me that this guy Roosevelt has ordered the F.B.I. to move in on the Black Market." "Well, boys," I observed, "the way you put it we can't do a damn thing to make money out of the same kind of tip-off that set the House of Rothschild up for a hundred years after the Battle of Waterloo. That doesn't make sense." Phil Cone smiled sheepishly. "Oh, I wouldn't say that, Winnie. We can cash in but we'll have to step out of our field. We could shift a million dollars to Canada. You can get a Canadian dollar for ninety cents American. A year from now it will be back to par. That's better than ten percent on your money in less than a year." "What about South America?" I asked. "Lay off the Latins, Winnie," Wasson advised me. "Brazil's the only country in South America that's good for the long pull and just now is no time to monkey with Brazil. They've got some politics just now." I considered things a bit. "Let's see if we can figure out a way to make a quick killing," I said. "Suppose, for example, something drastic happened—like Roosevelt dying on one of his plane-trips—to mark the end of some of these controls. What would happen to the market?" Wasson chuckled. "If that guy popped off, there'd be dancing in Wall Street and you'd have to shut down the Exchange because the ticker couldn't keep up with the buying orders. Prices would go higher than the Empire State Building. Hell! They'd hit the stratosphere." "Is that your opinion, Phil?" I asked. Cone shook his head. "Only a few suckers would feel like that, Winnie," he told me. "The big-time operators would be shivering in their boots. As long as F.D.R. is in the White House there's no limit to what they can make out of the war. If Roosevelt died now, you'd see the bottom drop out of the market and the damndest wave of labor strikes we've had since 1890." "Damn it, Phil," I objected. "I wish you and Graham would get together on this one. I can't quite follow all your ideas. Business conditions and war-orders would continue, wouldn't they?" Cone shook his head again. "No," he insisted. "The business community's got confidence in Roosevelt. Sure he's a tough baby, sure he's got a lot of dumb Harvard men sore at him, sure he's got the labor leaders and the G.I.'s rooting for him. But he's done a good job with the war, he's let people make money and some of his best friends are multi-millionaires, like Astor and Harriman. If he was to die, we'd have this Missouri guy—whatsisname? Truman?—and what can he offer?" "Got any comment on that, Graham?" I asked. "The way Phil puts it, it sounds reasonable," Wasson admitted, "but I still say that the first reaction to anything like that would be a buying wave which would send the market way up." I considered for a couple of minutes. "I can't say I agree with you," I said at last. "The big boys wouldn't let that happen any more than they'd let a peace-scare knock the bottom out of the market. What would labor and the G. I.'s think and do if they read that the Stock Market quotations went over the top at a thing like that." "Well, Winnie," Cone observed. "It isn't likely to happen." "That's so," I agreed. "However, I think it would be a good idea to work out a representative list of industrials and go short on the market generally for the next thirty days. We can unload the Fynch portfolio as a starter. We ought to be able to pick up two or three hundred thousand if we work it right." Cone nodded. "Graham and I will go to work on it now, and we'll have the list ready before start of business tomorrow morning. That will be the tenth, won't it?" Wasson looked uneasy. "I don't like it so much, Winnie," he said, "but I've never seen you lose money on a hunch yet so I'll string along. Come on, Phil, this is a hell of a big war we're trying to sell short. Let's hope we don't fall flat on our face." <hr class="chap" /> <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

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