Part 17 (1/2)

”So-?” I said.

”Every word by you in that trunk had been published,” said Wirtanen.

”And-?” I said.

”Bodovskov had begun to replenish the trunk with magic of his own,” said Wirtanen. ”The police found a two-thousand-page satire on the Red Army, written in a style distinctly un-Bodovskovian. For that un-Bodovskovian behavior, Bodovskov was shot.

”But enough of the past!” said Wirtanen. ”Listen to what I've got to tell you about the future. In about half an hour,” he said, looking at his watch, ”Jones' house is going to be raided. The place is surrounded now. I wanted you out of there, since it's going to be a complicated enough mess as it is.”

”Where do you suggest I go?” I said.

”Don't go back to your flat,” he said. ”Patriots have taken the place apart. They'd probably take you apart, too, if they caught you there.”

”What's going to happen to Resi?” I said. ”Deportation is all,” said Wirtanen. ”She hasn't committed any crimes.”

”And Kraft?” I said.

”A good long stretch in prison,” he said. ”That's no shame. I think he'd rather go to prison than home anyway.

”The Reverend Lionel J. D. Jones, D.D.S., D.D.,” said Wirtanen, ”will go back to prison for illegal possession of firearms and whatever else of a straightforward criminal nature we can pin on him. Nothing is planned for Father Keeley, so I imagine he'll drift back to Skid Row again. The Black Fuehrer will be set adrift again, too.”

”And the Iron Guardsmen?” I said.

”The Iron Guardsmen of the White Sons of the American Const.i.tution,” said Wirtanen, ”are going to get an impressive lecture on the illegality in this country of private armies, murder, mayhem, riots, treason, and violent overthrow of the government. They'll be sent home to educate their parents, if such a thing is possible.”

He looked at his watch again. ”You'd better go now-get clear out of the neighborhood.”

”Can I ask who your agent in Jones' house is?” I said. ”Who was it that slipped the note into my pocket, telling me to come here?”

”You can ask,” said Wirtanen, ”but you must surely know I won't tell you.”

”You don't trust me to that extent?” I said.

”How could I ever trust a man who's been as good a spy as you have?” said Wirtanen. ”Hmm?”

37.

DAT OLD.

GOLDEN RULE ...

I LEFT LEFT W WIRTANEN.

But I hadn't taken many steps before I understood that the only place I wanted to be was back in Jones' cellar with my mistress and my best friend.

I knew them for what they were, but the fact remained that they were all I had.

I returned by the same route over which I had fled, went in through Jones' coalbin door.

Resi, Father Keeley, and the Black Fuehrer were playing cards when I got back.

n.o.body had missed me.

The Iron Guard of the White Sons of the American Const.i.tution was having a cla.s.s in flag courtesy in the furnace room, a cla.s.s conducted by one of its own members.

Jones had gone upstairs to write, to create.

Kraft, the Russian Master Spy, was reading a copyof Life Life that had a portrait of Werner von Braun on the cover. Kraft had the magazine open to the center spread, a panorama of a swamp in the Age of Reptiles. that had a portrait of Werner von Braun on the cover. Kraft had the magazine open to the center spread, a panorama of a swamp in the Age of Reptiles.

A small radio was playing. It announced a song. The t.i.tle of the song fixed itself in my mind. This is no miracle of total recall, my remembering the t.i.tle. The t.i.tle was apt for the moment-for almost any moment, actually. The t.i.tle was ”Dat Old Golden Rule.”

At my request, the Haifa Inst.i.tute for the Doc.u.mentation of War Criminals has run down the lyric of that song for me. The lyric is as follows: Oh, baby, baby, baby, Why do you break my heart this way?

You say you want to go steady, But then all you do is stray.

I'm so confused, I'm not amused, You make me feel like such a fool.

You smile and lie, You make me cry.

Why don't you learn dat old Golden Rule?

”What's the game?” I said to the card players.

”Old Maid,” said Father Keeley. He was taking the game seriously. He wanted to win, and I saw that he had the queen of spades, the Old Maid, in his hand.

It might make me seem more human at this point, which is to say more sympathetic, if I were to declare that I itched and blinked and nearly swooned with a feeling of unreality.

Sorry.

Not so.

I confess to a ghastly lack in myself. Anything I see or hear or feel or taste or smell is real to me. I am so much a credulous plaything of my senses that nothing is unreal to me. This armor-plated credulity has been continent even in times when I was struck on the head or drunk or, in one freakish adventure that need not concern this accounting, even under the influence of cocaine.

There in Jones' bas.e.m.e.nt, Kraft showed me the picture of von Braun on the cover of Life Life, asked me if I knew him.

”Von Braun?” I said. ”The Thomas Jefferson of the s.p.a.ce Age? Sure. The Baron danced with my wife once at a birthday party in Hamburg for General Walter Dornberger.”

”Good dancer?” said Kraft.

”Sort of Mickey Mouse dancing-” I said, ”the way all the big n.a.z.is danced, if they had to dance.”

”You think he'd recognize you now?” said Kraft.

”I know he would,” I said. ”I ran into him on Fifty-second Street about a month ago, and he called me by name. He was very shocked to see me in such reduced circ.u.mstances. He said he knew a lot of people in the public relations business, and he offered to talk to them about giving me a job.”

”You'd be good at public relations,” said Kraft.