_What a bank! The First Vice-President
was a cool cat--the elevator and the
money operators all wore earmuffs--was
just as phony as a three-dollar bill!_
[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from
Worlds of If Science Fiction, May 1961.
Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that
the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
I
The First Vice-President of the William Howard Taft National Bank and
Trust Company, the gentleman to whom Miss Orison McCall was applying
for a job, was not at all the public picture of a banker. His suit of
hound's-tooth checks, the scarlet vest peeping above the vee of his
jacket, were enough to assure Orison that the Taft Bank was a curious
bank indeed. "I gotta say, chick, these references of yours really
swing," said the Vice-President, Mr. Wanji. "Your last boss says you
come on real cool in the secretary-bit."
"He was a very kind employer," Orison said. She tried to keep from
staring at the most remarkable item of Mr. Wanji's costume, a pair of
furry green earmuffs. It was not cold.
Mr. Wanji returned to Orison her letters of reference. "What color
bread you got eyes for taking down, baby?" he asked.
"Beg pardon?"
"What kinda salary you bucking for?" he translated, bouncing up and
down on the toes of his rough-leather desert boots.
"I was making one-twenty a week in my last position," Miss McCall said.
"You're worth more'n that, just to jazz up the decor," Mr. Wanji said.
"What you say we pass you a cee-and-a-half a week. Okay?" He caught
Orison's look of bewilderment. "One each, a Franklin and a Grant," he
explained further. She still looked blank. "Sister, you gonna work
in a bank, you gotta know who's picture's on the paper. That's a
hunnerd-fifty a week, doll."
"That will be most satisfactory, Mr. Wanji," Orison said. It was indeed.
"Crazy!" Mr. Wanji grabbed Orison's right hand and shook it with
athletic vigor. "You just now joined up with our herd. I wanna tell
you, chick, it's none too soon we got some decent scenery around
this tomb, girlwise." He took her arm and led her toward the bank of
elevators. The uniformed operator nodded to Mr. Wanji, bowed slightly
to Orison. He, too, she observed, wore earmuffs. His were more formal
than Mr. Wanji's, being midnight blue in color. "Lift us to five, Mac,"
Mr. Wanji said. As the elevator door shut he explained to Orison,
"You can make the Taft Bank scene anywhere between the street floor
and floor five. Basement and everything higher'n fifth floor is Iron
Curtain Country far's you're concerned. Dig, baby?"
"Yes, sir," Orison said. She was wondering if she'd be issued earmuffs,
now that she'd become an employee of this most peculiar bank.
The elevator opened on five to a tiny office, just large enough to
hold a single desk and two chairs. On the desk were a telephone and
a microphone. Beside them was a double-decked "In" and "Out" basket.
"Here's where you'll do your nine-to-five, honey," Mr. Wanji said.
"What will I be doing, Mr. Wanji?" Orison asked.
The Vice-President pointed to the newspaper folded in the "In" basket.
"Flip on the microphone and read the paper to it," he said. "When you
get done reading the paper, someone will run you up something new to
read. Okay?"
"It seems a rather peculiar job," Orison said. "After all, I'm a
secretary. Is reading the newspaper aloud supposed to familiarize me
with the Bank's operation?"
"Don't bug me, kid," Mr. Wanji said. "All you gotta do is read that
there paper into this here microphone. Can do?"
"Yes, sir," Orison said. "While you're here, Mr. Wanji, I'd like to
ask you about my withholding tax, social security, credit union,
coffee-breaks, union membership, lunch hour and the like. Shall we take
care of these details now? Or would you--"
"You just take care of that chicken-flickin' kinda stuff any way seems
best to you, kid," Mr. Wanji said.
"Yes, sir," Orison said. This laissez-faire policy of Taft Bank's
might explain why she'd been selected from the Treasury Department's
secretarial pool to apply for work here, she thought. Orison McCall,
girl Government spy. She picked up the newspaper from the "In" basket,
unfolded it to discover the day's _Wall Street Journal_, and began at
the top of column one to read it aloud. Wanji stood before the desk,
nodding his head as he listened. "You blowing real good, kid," he said.
"The boss is gonna dig you the most."
Orison nodded. Holding her newspaper and her microphone, she read the
one into the other. Mr. Wanji flicked his fingers in a good-by, then
took off upstairs in the elevator.
* * * * *
By lunchtime Orison had finished the _Wall Street Journal_ and had
begun reading a book an earmuffed page had brought her. The book was a
fantastic novel of some sort, named _The Hobbit_. Reading this peculiar
fare into the microphone before her, Miss McCall was more certain than
ever that the Taft Bank was, as her boss in Washington had told her,
the front for some highly irregular goings-on. An odd business for a
Federal Mata Hari, Orison thought, reading a nonsense story into a
microphone for an invisible audience.
Orison switched off her microphone at noon, marked her place in the
book and took the elevator down to the ground floor. The operator was
a new man, ears concealed behind scarlet earmuffs. In the car, coming
down from the interdicted upper floors, were several gentlemen with
briefcases. As though they were members of a ballet-troupe, these
gentlemen whipped off their hats with a single motion as Orison stepped
aboard the elevator. Each of the chivalrous men, hat pressed to his
heart, wore a pair of earmuffs. Orison nodded bemused acknowledgment
of their gesture, and got off in the lobby vowing never to put a penny
into this curiousest of banks.
Lunch at the stand-up counter down the street was a normal interlude.
Girls from the ground-floor offices of Taft Bank chattered together,
eyed Orison with the coolness due so attractive a competitor, and
favored her with no gambit to enter their conversations. Orison sighed,
finished her tuna salad on whole-wheat, then went back upstairs to her
lonely desk and her microphone. By five, Orison had finished the book,
reading rapidly and becoming despite herself engrossed in the saga of
Bilbo Baggins, Hobbit. She switched off the microphone, put on her
light coat, and rode downstairs in an elevator filled with earmuffed,
silent, hat-clasping gentlemen.
What I need, Orison thought, walking rapidly to the busline, is a
double Scotch, followed by a double Scotch. And what the William Howard
Taft National Bank and Trust Company needs is a joint raid by forces of
the U.S. Treasury Department and the American Psychiatric Association.
Earmuffs, indeed. Fairy-tales read into a microphone. A Vice-President
with the vocabulary of a racetrack tout. And what goes on in those
upper floors? Orison stopped in at the restaurant nearest her apartment
house--the Windsor Arms--and ordered a meal and a single Martini. Her
boss in Washington had told her that this job of hers, spying on Taft
Bank from within, might prove dangerous. Indeed it was, she thought.
She was in danger of becoming a solitary drinker.
Home in her apartment, Orison set the notes of her first day's
observations in order. Presumably Washington would call tonight for
her initial report. Item: some of the men at the Bank wore earmuffs,
several didn't. Item: the Vice-President's name was Mr. Wanji:
Oriental? Item: the top eight floors of the Taft Bank Building seemed
to be off-limits to all personnel not wearing earmuffs. Item: she was
being employed at a very respectable salary to read newsprint and
nonsense into a microphone. Let Washington make sense of that, she
thought.
* * * * *
In a gloomy mood, Orison McCall showered and dressed for bed. Eleven
o'clock. Washington should be calling soon, inquiring after the results
of her first day's spying.
No call. Orison slipped between the sheets at eleven-thirty. The clock
was set; the lights were out. Wasn't Washington going to call her?
Perhaps, she thought, the Department had discovered that the Earmuffs
had her phone tapped.
"Testing," a baritone voice muttered.
Orison sat up, clutching the sheet around her throat. "Beg pardon?" she
said.
"Testing," the male voice repeated. "One, two, three; three, two, one.
Do you read me? Over."
Orison reached under the bed for a shoe. Gripping it like a Scout-ax,
she reached for the light cord with her free hand and tugged at it.
The room was empty.
"Testing," the voice repeated.
"What you're testing," Orison said in a firm voice, "is my patience.
Who are you?"
"Department of Treasury Monitor J-12," the male voice said. "Do you
have anything to report, Miss McCall?"
"Where are you, Monitor?" she demanded.
"That's classified information," the voice said. "Please speak directly
to your pillow, Miss McCall."
Orison lay down cautiously. "All right," she whispered to her pillow.
"Over here," the voice instructed her, coming from the unruffled pillow
beside her.
Orison transferred her head to the pillow to her left. "A radio?" she
asked.
"Of a sort," Monitor J-12 agreed. "We have to maintain communications
security. Have you anything to report?"
"I got the job," Orison said. "Are you ... in that pillow ... all the
time?"
"No, Miss McCall," the voice said. "Only at report times. Shall we
establish our rendezvous here at eleven-fifteen, Central Standard Time,
every day?"
"You make it sound so improper," Orison said.
"I'm far enough away to do you no harm, Miss McCall," the monitor said.
"Now, tell me what happened at the bank today."
Orison briefed her pillow on the Earmuffs, on her task of reading to a
microphone, and on the generally mimsy tone of the William Howard Taft
National Bank and Trust Company. "That's about it, so far," she said.
"Good report," J-12 said from the pillow. "Sounds like you've dropped
into a real snakepit, beautiful."
"How do you know ... why do you think I'm beautiful?" Orison asked.
"Native optimism," the voice said. "Good night." J-12 signed off with
a peculiar electronic pop that puzzled Orison for a moment. Then she
placed the sound: J-12 had kissed his microphone.
Orison flung the shoe and the pillow under her bed, and resolved
to write Washington for permission to make her future reports by
registered mail.