4

AT 4:00 A.M. A GALLON OF GERMAN BEER TOOK THE RIDE OF THE VALKYRIES through my urinary tract. Awake, after two hours of unconsciousness, I felt marooned in a neon desert of the night—sober, cold, wholly electrified. The reality of my situation came down on me again, and the hours I had spent slogging away at beer with Huff-Butler lay on my heart like a mustard plaster. William Harvey was on the trail of KU/ CLOAKROOM.

I did my best to calm this panic. Before I left for Berlin, Hugh Montague had succeeded in taking my cryptonym through its first, second, and third transmogrifications. In the course of sending me the length of the Reflecting Pool over to Intensive German, he had also managed to expunge any paper trace of Herrick Hubbard’s presence in the Snake Pit. My 201 now put me in Technical Services Staff for the same period, and Technical Services was mined, layered, and veneered with security. My immediate past had been effectively laundered.

All this Harlot bestowed on me as a farewell present. Now, none of it seemed that substantial. I was suffering from the worst form of paranoia a man in my profession can undergo—I was suspicious of my protector. Why had Montague chosen such a convoluted path? What in Heaven was I escaping from? My inability to satisfy an impossible task in the Document Room could certainly have resulted in a disagreeable letter being put into my 201 from Chief of Base, Berlin, and that would have done my future advancement no good. How could such harm compare, however, to the damage of discovery now? Harlot could weather a flap—it would all go into the portfolio of his commodious achievements—but I, if not asked to resign, would certainly have to live under a professional shroud.

I dressed and took the U-Bahn to the Department of Defense. I had clearance there to the key for a secure phone. Staring out upon the last of the night, the Department of Defense all deserted around me at that hour, I made a call to the secure phone that Harlot was authorized to keep at the canal house in Georgetown. It was midnight in Washington. Looking down the long hall of this empty office, I heard the sound of his voice, scrambled electronically, then reconstituted—which gave it the hollow timbre of words heard through a long speaking tube.

Quickly I explained my new assignment. His reassurance was firm. “You, dear boy, hold the strings, not King William. It’s droll to be put on the trail of oneself. I wish that had happened to me when I was your age. You’ll use it in your memoirs, supposing we ever get permissive about memoirs, that is.”

“Hugh, not to disagree, but Harvey is already starting to ask what I did for four weeks at Technical Services.”

“The answer is that you did nothing. You have a sad story. Stick to it. You were never assigned. You never met anyone but the secretary who guards the first waiting room. Poor boy, you were on the edge of your seat waiting to be assigned. It happens all the time. Some of our best trainees expire in just that manner over at TSS. Say .  .  .” He paused. “Say that you spent your hours ducking out to the reading room at the Library of Congress.”

“What did I do there?”

“Anything. Anything at all. Specify something. Say you were reading Lautréamont in preparation for taking a good whack at Joyce. Harvey will pursue it no further. He is not interested in reminding himself how devoid he is of culture. He may bully you a bit, but in his heart he will know that people like Harry Hubbard do just such left-handed things as delve into Lautréamont while waiting for assignment at TSS.”

“Dix Butler happens to know I was in the Snake Pit.”

“Whoever this Dix Butler is, give him some definite impression that the Snake Pit was your cover. Don’t say it. Let him come onto the idea himself. But I promise, you are worrying needlessly. Harvey is much too busy to pursue your activities down into the drains. Merely furnish him a bit of progress each week on the search for CLOAKROOM.”

He coughed. It made a barking sound over the hollow center of the secure phone. “Harry,” he said, “there are two choices in this Company. Worry yourself to death, or choose to enjoy a little uncertainty.” He seemed about to hang up.

I must have laid one harsh note, however, on the empyrean of his calm, for next he said, “You remember our conversation concerning VQ/CATHETER?”

“Yessir.”

“That project is the most important thing in the world to Harvey. If he starts pressing you on CLOAKROOM, nudge him back to CATHETER.”

“I’m supposed to know nothing about CATHETER but that it’s a cryptonym.”

“Bill Harvey is broad-gauge paranoid. Such people think associationally. Speak of the Holland Tunnel, or of Dr. William Harvey. Bill must certainly know that the noble namesake charted the circulation of the blood back in 1620, but if by any chance our Base Chief is ignorant of the greater Harvey—never expect too much from an FBI man and you will never be disappointed—why, get him to think of blood vessels. Arteries. Before long his thought will slide back to the tunnel. You see, Harry, Bill Harvey believes that one day he will be running the Company, and VQ/CATHETER is his ticket to Top Desk. He won’t get there, of course. He will certainly self-destruct. His paranoia is too high octane. So just divert him.”

“Well, thank you, Hugh.”

“Don’t feel sorry for yourself. If you’re obliged to take a few chances before you’re ready, all the better. You’ll be twice as good on your next job.”

I got through the day. I sent a cable to West Berlin Desk in Washington, notifying them that Chief of Base wished to readdress the cryptonym of KU/CLOAKROOM through Bridge-Archive:Control. I even wondered for the first time if Control was a person, an office, or a machine. Then I called Dix Butler and arranged to go out with him that night. So soon as we met, he told me in passing about Susan Pierce. “It was a wall-banger,” he said. “I figured she would go for my tale.”

“Is that why you told it?”

“Of course.”

“Was that the real story? You told another version at the Farm.”

“Don’t stare at me in judgment. I steer an anecdote to suit the scene.”

“Why? Does it work? Is there a psychology of women?”

“Your dick is sixteen years old.” He hooked my forearm with his first two fingers. “Hubbard, admit it. You don’t have a dose.”

“I might.”

“What if I conduct you to the men’s room for an examination?”

“I won’t go.”

He began to laugh. When he stopped, he said: “I wanted a piece of Susan Pierce. But I had to recognize that my initial approach was laden with error. I was presenting myself as too sure of myself. You don’t make it with that kind of girl unless she can feel some superiority to you. So I tried to make her feel sorry for this dude.”

“How did you know she wouldn’t be disgusted?”

“Because she’s arrogant. Shame is one emotion that girl never wants to feel. She has compassion for that. Like, if you fear blindness, you usually develop some feeling for blind people.”

I had a closer question I wanted to ask: “How was she in bed?” The inhibiting hand of St. Matthew’s, however, was at my throat. The cost of continuing to see oneself as appropriately decent is that such inquiries are not permissible. I waited, all the same, for his account. On some nights, after listening to a slew of sexual particulars, all forthcoming from him to me, I would return to the apartment while he went off on one or another meeting. It was then I could not sleep. My loins were stuffed with his tales.

On this night, Dix did not say any more about Susan. Was it because he felt close to her or because it had been unsatisfactory? I was discovering how much of an intelligence man I was becoming—curiosity leaned on my gut like undigested food.

All the same, Dix stayed away from revelations. He was in a state of exceptional tension tonight and repeated more than once, “I need action, Herrick.” He rarely called me by my full first name, and when he did, the ironies were not attractive. I could hardly explain to him that an old family name was reinvigorated when given to you as a first name and could even prove fortifying when you filled out a signature. So I said nothing. While I would never have to suffer being grabbed by the upper lip like Rosen, there might be some other price. Tonight, he was drinking bourbon neat rather than beer.

“I’m going to fill you in, Hubbard, about me,” he said, “but don’t you pass this on or you’ll be sorry. Fucking sorry.”

“Don’t tell me,” I said, “if you don’t trust me.”

He was sheepish. “You’re right.” He stuck out his hand to shake. Again, I felt as if I sat next to an animal whose code of behavior rested in no good balance on his instincts. “Yes,” he said, “I paid for running away from that dude with the beer can. I paid, and I paid. I used to wake up at night sweating. I stank. No beating is ever as bad as the depths you plumb in a nadir of shame.” He used the word like a new acquisition. “I have learned the resonance of verbal surprise,” I half expected him to add.

“I felt so bad inside,” he said instead, “that I started to stand up to my father. And he was one man I had always been afraid of.”

I nodded.

“He wasn’t a big man. He was blind in one eye from an old fight, and he had a bad leg. But nobody could take him. He wouldn’t permit it. He was a bad old dog. He’d use a baseball bat or a shovel. Whatever it took. One night he got abusive to me and I laid him out with a punch. Then, I tied him to a chair, stole his handgun and a carton of ammo, put all I owned in one cardboard suitcase, and was out the door. I knew just as soon as he worked himself loose, he would come at me with a shotgun. I even took his car. I knew he wouldn’t report that. Just wait for me to come back.

“Well, dig it, Herrick, I entered on a life of crime. Fifteen and a half years old, and I learned more in the next year than most people acquire in a life. The war was on. The soldiers were far from home. So I became the stuff women looked to. I could have passed for nineteen, and that helped. I would hit some new good-sized town in the morning, and drive around until I could pick the store to hit. Then I would choose the bar that was right for me. I’d hang in with all those good soaks drinking their lunch until I’d found the right girl or woman, depending on my state of mind. Did I want to learn from a wise and greedy older person, or was I hankering to instruct young pussy in the art of lust? Depended on the day. Sometimes you just took what you could get, but I did leave a countless number of satisfied women behind me in Arkansas, Missouri, and Illinois. I was mean and sweet, and that is a difficult combination to improve upon.

“I couldn’t have enjoyed life more. I’d pick up a girl or a woman, and then I would park the car on a side street, ask the lady to wait while I visited a friend for some money, and I would walk around the corner, get into the first car whose door was unlocked, jump the ignition, drive over to the store I’d selected, slip a stocking on my face just as I walked in the door, and would hold up the proprietor and empty the cash register. The best time to do it was two o’clock. No lunchtime customers then, and the cash register full of the noontime sales ready to go to the bank. In one minute, I’d be back in my stolen car, face mask off, and two minutes later, I was depositing the stolen car back around still another corner from my own car, at which point I’d return to my daddy’s heap, get in, and tell the new friend, ‘We’re fixed for money now, honey.’ Sometimes we’d even hear the sirens going around the business district as we left town. ‘What’s that?’ she would ask. ‘Beats me, Mrs. Bones,’ I would tell her. I’d choose a tourist cabin camp before I was ten miles away, and I’d hole up with the female for twenty-four hours, or whatever interval she could manage. Six hours or forty-eight. We’d eat, drink, and fornicate. Those robberies were equal to injections of semen. You’re raking in the goodness from people when you stalk right over to their holding and take it from them.

“I never tried to save any of that money. Once I got so lucky I walked out with eight hundred dollars from a single cash register, and there wasn’t any way to spend such a sum on a girl and drink, so I bought a good used Chevy, and sent my father a telegram. ‘Your car is parked on 280 North Thirtieth Street in Russelville, Arkansas. Keys under the seat. Don’t look for me. I’m gone to Mexico.’ I giggled like a looney-bird writing that telegram. I could see my old man on his gimp leg searching for me in Matamoros and Vera Cruz, every low bar. One of his teeth was like a broken fang.”

There were more stories. Robbery followed robbery, and each girl was described for my benefit. “I don’t want to get your clap stirring around too much, Hubbard, in your poor detumescent young nuts, but this lady’s pussy .  .  .” He was off. I knew everything about female anatomy except how to picture it truly. A grotto of whorls and looplets glistened darkly in my imagination.

Then his life altered. He lay over in St. Louis for a few months and lived with a couple of newfound buddies. They would have parties, and exchange girlfriends. I could not believe their indifference to questions of possession. “Hell, yes,” he would say. “We used to take turns putting our dicks through a hole in a sheet. The girls would then give samples of oral technique. You’d have to guess which girl was on the chomp. Not easy. Leave it to chicks. They could mix their styles. Just to confuse us.”

“You didn’t mind that your girl was doing such things to another guy?” I admit to asking.

“Those chicks? Incidental. Me and my buddies did jobs together. We shared a half-dozen houses we thoroughly looted. I can tell you—there’s nothing like home-burglary. Better than robbing a store. It ticks off crazy things. Cleans out any settled habits you might believe you have. For example, one of these dudes always used to take a shit right on the middle of the carpet in the master bedroom. I tell you, Herrick, I understood it. If you’d ever entered a medium-sized house in the middle of the night, you’d know. It feels large. You are aware of every thought that’s ever passed through those walls. You might just as well be a member of the family. Me and my two buddies had a bond that was closer than any girlfriend.” Now he fixed my eyes by staring into them, and I was obliged to nod. “None of this is to be passed on—you hear me?” I nodded again. “People ask about me,” he said, “tell them I served in the Marines for three years. It’s true. For fact, I did.”

“Why?”

“Why?” He looked at me as if I were impertinent. “Because you have to know when to make your move. Hubbard, in years to come, keep an eye on my path. I talk a lot, but I get it done. Sometimes people who brag the most are the ones who accomplish the most. They have to—they’ll look like fools if they don’t. Since the Company is a clam-bar, I expect to have enemies up to here,” he said, raising his hand well above his head, “but I will prevail. Comprehend why? Because I commit myself wholly to an endeavor. Yet I also know when to move. These are contradictory but essential favors. The Lord grants them to few. We were being pulled in,” he went on without transition, “every week by the police. They had nothing on us, but they kept putting us into lineups as cannon fodder. It is no picnic to be in a lineup. The people who are trying to recover their memory as to who robbed them on their own street corner are often hysterical. They could select you by mistake. That was one factor. The other was my sixth sense. The war had just ended. Time to move. So I got drunk one night and enlisted in the morning. Lo, I was a Marine. Three years. I’ll tell you about that sometime. The rest is history. I got out, went to the University of Texas on the GI Bill, played linebacker from 1949 to 1952, and thereby—help of certain alumni—was able to avoid being called up as a reserve for Korea, to which I could have gone and come back in a coffin or as a hero—I know such things—but I had my eye on professional football. I finished college and tried out for the Washington Redskins, but I smashed my knee. Whereupon I followed Bill Harvey’s advice and signed up with my peers—you and the rest of the intellectual elite.”

“Is that when you first knew Bill Harvey?”

“More or less. He liked my style of play on special teams. I got a letter from him when I was still with the Redskins. We had lunch. You could say he recruited me.” Butler yawned suddenly in my face. “Hubbard, my attention is wandering. My tongue is turning dry.” He stared around the room, his restlessness licking at my calm. Then he signaled, and we left for another bar. If the evening proved in the end to be without incident, I attribute it to the wisdom of the Germans. They knew when to leave him alone. I found it a very long night. I could not get away from the knowledge that the search for KU/CLOAKROOM was going to be with me through every drinking bout and hangover for quite some time.