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Rat Race

<h2>CHAPTER 21</h2> "You were what?" I demanded. "I am—or was—the head of Z-2," Tyler replied. "You know, Mr. Tompkins," he continued, "I find it most intensely interesting that you should have picked on that particular combination—Z-2—for your higher echelonics. In fact, I should like to have you psycho-analyzed, in order to learn why you, of all people, should have selected the super-secret insignia of the super-secret Roosevelt intelligence outfit. Not that it matters now, of course," he added. "With this new growth across the street I'd be lucky if the White House knew the difference between Z-2 and B-29." I studied Tyler's face. Who he was, I had only a remote idea, so many had been the different offices that had shunted me around. But in spite of his airy-fairy persiflage and la-di-da manner, I felt that he was straight. "Okay, chief," I said. "I confess. I robbed the bank but I didn't shoot the cashier. That was Muggsy. You see, chief, it was this way—" Tyler sat back and heard me out from A to Z-2, in the history of my last two weeks. "I can't expect you to believe me, Mr. Tyler," I concluded, "but I'd like to have it on record somewhere in this town that I had told the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth, and all I get for it is an Order of Merit citation." "Few escape it!" he cried. "My poor old bewildered Tompkins. Of course I believe you. Stranger tales than yours have passed across my desk. I have served under one President who thought he was Jesus Christ, one who knew he was Jesus Christ and two who were afraid the voters would realize that they were not Jesus Christ. I have seen five successive Secretaries of State who had no doubt that they were God's Vice-Regent on earth. As for drawing a blank, Mr. Tompkins, that is no news to this Department. What we diplomatic underlings fear is when our superiors fail to draw blanks. Why I remember—but no matter." "Then what would you do if you were me, Mr. Tyler?" I asked him. "I'm the innocent victim of the damndest set of circumstances ever dreamed up." The red-headed young diplomat looked at me warily. "The Department, sir," he said, "does not answer hypodermic—I mean hypothetical—questions. What is good enough for the Department is good enough for me." "But here I find myself," I reminded him, "in high favor with the intelligence forces and with the reputation of a Don Juan in the bosoms of my family, and no idea how I got there." Tyler chuckled. "I always knew they were plural," he said. "Think nothing of it. Stupider men than you have stood in far higher repute in this town and the reputation of Don Juan is easily acquired. For all you know, you may be a perfectly sterling family man and quite devoid of political intelligence." "How's that again?" "Just a figure of speech," Tyler answered airily. "Just the same, Mr. Tompkins, it would be interesting to know why you picked on Z-2 and where you got your undoubted talent for brass-knuckled duplicity. So far as I can see, you've sold yourself as Z-2 to all the brass hats, including the Kansas City lad who woke up to find himself President." "Again in my own defense," I said, "I did it only because the F.B.I. had a gun at my back and were going to give me the works if I didn't clear myself inside of twenty-four hours. I always thought," I added, "that in this country you were assumed innocent until proved guilty." Tyler winked wickedly. "There's a war on," he announced, "and doesn't the F.B.I. know it!" I bade the diplomat good-bye and left the State Department with a sense of personal uneasiness. Who would have dreamed that there was a Z-2 organization before I imagined it! If this kind of thing kept on happening it mightn't be a bad idea to take a fling at the Hartford Sanctuary and have myself psyched by experts. "Beg pardon, sir, but are you Mr. Tompkins?" The Hart, Shaffner & Marxed youngster who accosted me on the State Department steps had a definite bulge under his left shoulder that warned me he was armed. "Yes, and who are you, sir?" I inquired. "I'm Monaghan from the Secret Service," he told me. "The Chief wants to see you." "And who is the Chief?" I asked. "Chief Flynn, of course," he said. "It's only a few steps over at the the Treasury Building." "All right, Mr. Monaghan," I agreed. "I'll come along quietly. Am I under arrest? Should I send for my lawyer?" "The Service don't go much for lawyers," he said. "This way, sir." With Monaghan at my elbow, I turned right on Pennsylvania Avenue and walked in front of the White House and turned down East Executive Avenue to the side-entrance of the Treasury. A few baffling twists and turns in the corridors of Morgenthau, and I found myself in a large, sparsely furnished room, facing a white haired Irishman. "This is Tompkins, Chief," Monaghan reported and left me with the gimlet-eyed Secret Service executive. "You W. S. Tompkins?" he asked me. "Yes. And who are you?" "My name's Flynn." Neither of us said anything for a couple of minutes. He was obviously waiting for me to ask him why I had been brought to him—so I deliberately kept silent, pulled out a cigarette and lighted it. Seeing no ash-tray, I flicked the burnt match on the official green carpet and waited for him to open the conversation. "So you don't need to be told why you're here, Tompkins," he purred. "I came here, Mr. Flynn," I told him, "because one of your men practically put a gun at my ribs in front of the State Department. What do you want? A ticket to a prize fight? A good write-up in the papers? Tell me what it will cost me and I'll pay within reason. I didn't know that the Irish had got control of the Secret Service or I would have mailed the money ahead—in cash, of course, no checks, all small bills not consecutively numbered." Flynn scowled out the window in the general direction of the White House. I dropped some more cigarette ash on the carpet. Suddenly he whirled to me. "We're here to protect the President," he snapped, "and we don't propose to take any lip from you." I said nothing. Then I noticed the flag over the White House at half-mast. "Why's that flag at half-mast, Mr. Flynn," I asked. "Because the President's dead." "Was he murdered?" I asked. "He was not! He died of natural causes, but we don't go for people plotting to kill any President, even if he's dead. Our job depends on it." I rubbed out the stub of my cigarette on the corner of his mahogany desk and lighted another one. "Since Roosevelt wasn't murdered, what am I here for?" I asked. "I'm a perfectly respectable New York business man. I'm registered at the Willard and my wife can identify me. I have plenty of other references, if you need them. The F.B.I., say, or General Wakely in Counter Intelligence. If you have anything to ask me, I'll be glad to try to answer questions, but I'm damned if I propose to sit here and let myself be accused of something I never dreamed of doing." "And what are you going to do about it?" he asked. "Sue?" "Oh, I have no doubt that you can beat me up and send me to the hospital, but as soon as I'm out I'll tell my story and then I guess a man named Flynn will be looking for another job." Flynn smiled. "And why do you think the hospital will be letting you go, Mr. Tompkins? Of course, if it was only for a broken leg or a fractured skull, it would be easy, but what about St. Elizabeth's?" I raised my eyebrows. "Never heard of it," I said. "St. Elizabeth's," he explained, "is where we send people in Washington who aren't right in the head. We have a lot of alienists and psychiatrists there who can look you over, keep you under observation. They can hold you there as long as they like, because if there's any question about a man's sanity, they would be failing in their duty if they let him go." "In other words, Mr. Flynn," I interrupted, "you threaten to send me to the local lunatic asylum if I raise any objection to your methods. Is that the game?" Flynn was on familiar ground here. "Mr. Tompkins," he asked me. "How's your health? You don't look any too good to me. Don't you think you'd be better for a little special care?" I laughed admiringly. "So that's how it's done, is it? Well, I never thought the Secret Service was reduced to blackmail. Okay, I'll pay." "Who ever mentioned pay?" Flynn was indignant. "Nuts!" I replied. "Cops are all the same. They jail Capone for income tax because they can't convict him of being a racketeer. You think you're being cute by sending people to the booby-hatch if you have no proof that they're dangerous. So, go ahead, send me to St. Elizabeth's but don't think for one minute that I'm not on to the Irish." Flynn's face grew slowly and magnificently purple. "By God!" he shouted. "What's the matter with Ireland, anyhow?" "Ireland?" Now he was on my ground. "Too proud to fight the war for freedom. Ireland? To hell with Ireland! This is the United States of America. What has Ireland to do with your duty to the United States?" Flynn slumped back in his chair, muttering. "Go!" he said hoarsely. "Get out of here, get out of this building, get out of this town. By God Almighty, if I catch you here within the next twenty-four hours, I—I—" "Scratch a cop and find a four-flusher," I observed incautiously. "You're still looking for Booth in Ford's theatre and are figuring ways to guard Garfield in the Union Station. For all you know, Roosevelt may have been killed, but if he was, you know I had nothing to do with it. The record shows I'm one of the few people who tried to do anything about it. And you don't dare touch the man who told me." "Who was that?" Flynn demanded sullenly. "Axel Roscommon," I said, "another Irishman, so you don't dare lay a finger on him." "Roscommon!" Flynn snorted. "A black Protestant from Ulster. He's no Irishman, but I can't touch him, as well you know. The bloody British in the State Department are protecting him." "So you take it out on me, eh?" I suggested. Flynn drew himself up. "See here, Mr. Tompkins," he said, "I've told you to get out of Washington and stay out of Washington. In a job like mine I have to follow my hunches and my hunch is that if you aren't out of here by noon tomorrow we'll send you over to St. Elizabeth's for observation. After all, we can't have people threatening the President." "When did I ever threaten the President?" "Sure and you did it just now," declared the Chief. "You used threatening and abusive language about the President of the United States, within the meaning of the Act, and the Secret Service is not going to stand for it." "In other words, Mr. Flynn," I observed, "You can't win against the Cops. Anything to keep their job. Okay, I know when I'm licked. I'll leave town and I'll even beat you to the booby-hatch. If this is sanity, I want to be locked up." Chief Flynn hunched his shoulders and scowled at me. "Yes," I told him, "I'll check myself with the psychiatrists." "Mr. Tompkins," Flynn remarked quietly, "the more I see of you the more I feel that you ought to have immediate medical attention." He lifted his telephone and began dialing a number. "And won't that look swell on your record," I said, "when President Truman gives me a citation for the Order of Merit the same day that Chief Flynn locks me up as a threat to the President." "Oh!" Flynn laid down the receiver and looked at me with dawning respect. "Oh! is right," I replied, and left the room. Nobody tried to stop me as I walked out of the Treasury but I knew that I must take no more chances. From now on it was a race to the alienists, and the best hope for continued liberty lay with my getting there first. I hailed a taxicab. "Drive me to the Phipps Clinic, Johns Hopkins Hospital," I told the driver. "Jeeze, Chief! That's in Baltimore." "You are absolutely right," I told him, "and it's fifty bucks for you if you get me there inside the hour." I sank back on the cushions of the rear seat. I had come out of the Washington rat-race worse off than when I had entered it. Then it was merely a question of my liberty. After three days it had become a matter of my sanity. <hr class="chap" /> <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

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