steel door I'd come through to enter this area, where the light trailed off and the full subterranean dark began to reach toward you, along with the spooky underground sounds of the building.
'You're making assumptions,' Wash said. 'Tell me where this came from.'
I told him. I didn't know how to explain and I didn't. But even Wash recognized that my bona fides were a side issue. It was obvious from the results that I had good reason to search.
'The memo's a phony, Wash. There's no Litiplex, remember? There are no records at TN. Jake faked this. Maybe Bert's in on it too. There are a million questions. But it's Jake for sure.'
Wash scowled again and took a gander over his shoulder. His look was reproving, but he was too well brought up to tell me to keep my voice down.
‘I say again you're making assumptions.'
'Like hell. You explain this.'
The whole notion of a challenge clearly vexed him. I was putting him on the spot. Then I saw Wash's pale, soft face become firm as he fixed on an idea.
'Perhaps it's Neucriss,' said Wash. 'Some game of his. Maybe he made all this up.' Peter, God knows, was capable of anything. But I had realized still sitting in Martin's office why he had contacted Peter. Martin had the memo. He wanted to know what was going on. He wanted to know if the document was real or a fraud, if Neucriss, by some improbable circumstance, could explain. But it wasn't Neucriss jacking us around. It was Jake.
'Sure,' I said to Wash, 'sure. So we get Jake in Martin's office and tell him there's no Litiplex, and does Jake say, 'Oh my God, Neucriss told me there was'? Hell no. He acts like this whole thing's a shock to him. 'How dare Bert,' he says. 'And by the way, if you don't find him, let's never hear about this again.' This only adds one way. Jake wrote this frigging memo to Bert. Bert gave him the money. And Jake's got it now. He's covering himself, Wash. And Martin's helping him.'
'Don't be absurd,' he said immediately. He was reacting to the idea of Martin as corrupt. His mouth worked around, as if he could actually absorb the bad taste.
'Absurd? You think about this, Wash. Who was it who said he'd called the bank down in Pico? Who told you that the General Manager, whatever his name is, Smoky, that he indicated between the lines it was Bert's account? Who'd you hear that b.s. from?'
Wash is a good deal shorter than me, and my height seemed at the moment, as it is now and then, an odd advantage, as if I was out of reach of refutation.
'Think about Martin's performance the other day,' I said, 'dragging Jake in and spilling the beans after you and Carl had decided otherwise. What did you make of that?'
'I was put out,' Wash said. ‘I told Martin so afterwards. But that's hardly the sign of some dark conspiracy, that he felt he had to speak up.'
'Come on, Wash. You want to know why Martin whistled Jake in? He
A certain blankness set in as Wash pondered all of this. He was very slow.
'You're putting this the wrong way. I'm sure Martin found this document somehow and realized, I suppose, that for the time being it was best not coming to light. You're making it sound sinister.'
'It is sinister, Wash.'
He frowned and torqued away. He took one more look in the direction of the other golfers. I could see that my brusqueness and bad manners had finally stimulated Wash to a sense of offense.
'Look, man', he said, using that term, 'man,' in an old-fashioned high-born way, 'he was following the logical imperatives here. Don't be so quick to scorn. Or condemn. Think this through. This firm cannot go on without Jake. Not in the short run. Tell me, Mack, you're such a clever fellow — tell me. If you run and do something half-cocked, you tell me what your plans are.' His aged light eyes, pocketed by all that used flesh, glimmered with rare directness. The plans he was asking me to specify were not an investigative scheme. He meant what plans did I have to make a living without Jake. I actually took an instant to let the little logical steps descend. Nobody was going to reward my virtue if I put a knife in Jake's heart. I knew that. I'd been hugging his hind end for years with that realization. Nothing had changed really. It's just that the cost would be a little bit higher, in terms of my own self-respect.
'So that's it? I'm supposed to say dandy? That's Martin's answer. Let Jake steal. Just so long as he sends business. 'Hey, Jake, you know that I know. So cut the crap with the firm in Columbus. Let's resume the gold rush.' Come on, Wash. This is making me sick.'
There was a sudden thunderous rumble above and we both jolted. One of the golfers had bounced a shot off the heating ducts on the ceiling. They were padded in foam but still let forth a tremendous sound on impact. The instant of brief fright seemed to prompt Wash to an effort at candor.
'Look, Mack, I can't read Gold's mind. Obviously he prefers to keep his plan, whatever it is, to himself. But you've known this man for years. Years. Are you telling me you can't trust Martin Gold?' Wash and I, in this basement, snapping in whispers, posed close as lovers, both stood struck by that question. Wash was doing what he always did — what he did the other day when the Committee talked over Jake's proposal that we stay silent if Bert didn't return. Wash was posturing, shooting airballs, taking the easy way out. He knew just what was happening. Not every detail; neither did I. I still found it impossible to calculate how Bert fit in, how Martin had been able to blame him confident that he would not reappear. But Wash nevertheless had the lowdown on this scene: it was grubby and evil. He knew that instinctively because it was exactly what Wash, with no reflection, would have done — swap Jake the money for the survival of the firm. And he was keeping himself from speaking that sooty truth by pretending that Martin might have been up to something better.
'You're a fool, Wash,' I said suddenly. In the midst of everything else, the seething emotions, the basement gloom, I walked away feeling great. Pure primitive pleasure. I had needed to say that for years.
I had wrested the memo from Wash without resistance. I folded it into quarters again and jammed it in my pocket as I strode up the gray steel stairs that had led me down. It was all clear now. By the time I was back up in the grand surroundings, amid the wooden walls and the cut-crystal sconces, I felt motivated and strong, mean and myself. I was done being little boy disappointed. I was man among men. When I forged through the revolving doors to the winter street, I was starting to plan.
Sunday, January 29
XXI
A. International Plight
The TN Executive Travelers Lounge, where I waited for Lena Sunday morning, afforded a rare vantage on a world askew. The place looked terrific. The interior designer produced the kind of tasteful space-age effect I'd have strived for in my office if I ever decorated, lots of curved woods and big windows, sleek leather chairs and granite end tables upon which were perched those special telephones operated by credit cards with two or three jacks for your portable modem and fax. The elegant-looking ladies guarding the door examined the entrants, who, every one of them, flashed their membership cards with the same air, Hey, look at me, I'm in the front of the boat, I really made it. Nipponese businessmen flying for thirty hours dozed on the fancy furniture; well-turned-out executives cracked away at their laptops; wealthy couples conferred, one of them always looking anxious with the prospect of flight. A waiter in a white jacket wandered around with a tray to see if anybody wanted a drink, while voices from the Sunday-morning TV news shows emerged from the bar.
Here met is the Flying Class, a group ever expanding, whose real workday is spent in the sky, whose true office is an aisle seat on a DC-10, folks who have so many million award miles they could fly to Jupiter free. These are the orphans of capital, the men and women who have given up their lives for the corporate version of manifest destiny, who are trying to fling far some company's empire in the name of economies of scale. I had an Uncle
