The highly respectable receptionist at the office of Tompkins, Wasson &
Cone almost smiled at me.
"There are several gentlemen waiting for you, Mr. Tompkins," she
announced. "Some of them have been here since before lunch. Do you plan
to receive them or shall I ask them to return tomorrow?"
"No, I'll see them in a few minutes," I replied. "Miss Briggs will let
you know."
No sooner had I settled down at my desk, however, than Graham Wasson
and Phil Cone came dancing in, wreathed in tickertape.
"We're rich! We're rich!" they chanted.
"Where's the Marine Band and 'Hail to the Chief'?" I asked. "How rich
are we, anyway?"
"We cleaned up," Wasson said. "Just a bit under three million in
one week. It was as you said. We went short of the market and after
Roosevelt's death, boy! did they liquidate! And thanks to Phil here, we
got out before the big boys put the squeeze on the shorts."
"That reminds me, Winnie," Cone interrupted, "one of the mourners
in the customers room who's waiting to see you is Jim DeForest from
Morgan's. He's been waiting here since two o'clock. You'd better see
him quick, huh? We don't want to keep 23 Wall waiting, do we?"
"Nuts, Phil," I told him. "I'll see them in the order of their arrival.
That's what they do at Morgan's when you haven't got an appointment."
I pushed the button for Arthurjean.
"Who's been waiting the longest, Miss Briggs," I asked.
She consulted a little pack of memo forms. "There's this Mr.
Sylvester," she said. "He was here when the office opened and has been
waiting here all day. He wouldn't state his business."
"Okay," I replied. "Send him in or he'll faint from hunger."
Mr. Sylvester was florid in a quiet Latin way and looked as though
he might be anything from an operatic tenor to the proprietor of a
gambling ship. He waited until my partners had withdrawn.
"Mr. Tompkins," he said, speaking quietly, "I represent a syndicate
that's reorganizing the free market in meat. We need a real smart guy,
well-connected, like yourself, to head it up and keep track of the
money. We'll pay a million dollars a year any way you like it--Swiss
banks, Havana, Buenos Aires, Mexico City--and no tax."
"I'm always interested in a million dollars but I never did like
Atlanta," I told him.
"Atlanta!" He shrugged his shoulders. "We got lawyers could talk Capone
outa Alcatraz and we got a fix on the Courts, too. What would you be
doin' in Atlanta?"
"I doubt that they'd make me librarian," I said, "and I don't think I'd
make the ball-team, so I guess I'd have to work in the laundry. What's
the trouble with the black market, anyhow? Seems to me you've got
O.P.A. right in your corner."
"Too many amateurs and outsiders," he told me, "just like with
Prohibition. Meat's bad and too many cops get a cut. We aim to do like
the beer syndicates--organize it right, keep prices reasonable, have
the pay-off stabilized, make it a good banking proposition. We've
checked on you. You're smart. Would a million and a half do?"
I shook my head. "I've got a million and a half," I remarked.
"Okay," Mr. Sylvester straightened up, shook my hand and gave a little
bow. "Think it over!" he urged. "If you change your mind put an ad in
the Saturday Review personal column. 'Meet me anywhere, Winnie!' That's
cute. 'Meet' and 'Meat,' see? Our representative will call on you."
I asked Arthurjean to send in the next visitor and to my surprise she
announced DeForest.
"Hell!" I told her. "There must have been others ahead of him."
"There was," she said, "but they agreed to let him see you first. They
said they'd be back tomorrow. They were from Goldman Sachs and Lehman
Brothers so they wanted to give Morgan's first crack at you, I guess."
Jim DeForest proved to be one of the vaguely familiar figures I had
noticed flitting around the Harvard Club.
"Winnie," he said, "I just dropped in to say that we have been pretty
well impressed by the way your firm handled itself in this recent
market. Mr. Whitney wanted to know whether it would be convenient for
you to drop in and have a talk with him soon."
"Today?" I asked.
DeForest glanced at his Rolex. "Today's a little late," he remarked,
"but give him a ring tomorrow. No, damn it! He's leaving for a short
trip to Washington. Make it next week and he'll have plenty of time for
you."
"What's it about, Jim?" I asked. "Don't tell me that I'm going to be
offered a Morgan partnership?"
He looked as though I had burped in church.
"I hardly think so," he replied. "If that were the case, Mr. Lamont
would have seen you somewhere uptown. You know the way they gossip in
the Street. No, I rather fancy that Mr. Whitney wants you to be one of
our brokers for floor operations. Or, he might, since you specialize
in estate work, want you to help with some of the new issues we are
planning to underwrite."
"Either way would suit me fine, Jim," I told him. "Do you know," I
continued, "this is the second happiest day of my life. The first was
when I got married."
DeForest seemed a bit relieved and permitted himself a worldly smile.
"And today," I continued, "I received the greatest honor that can come
to an American in Wall Street. Believe me, Jim, this means more than
having just cleaned up three million dollars in straight trading. After
all, what is money worth if it can't buy what isn't for sale?"
This idea seemed to be taken under DeForest's advisement for future
consideration but he let it pass. After all, a million dollars is dross
compared to the approval of the employers of men like Jim DeForest,
still limping along on twenty-five thousand a year twenty years after
graduation.
"Grand to have seen you, Winnie," he said, indicating that the audience
was at an end. "I'll tell Mr. Whitney that you'll see him next week.
And of course, no talk about this. We don't like to encourage gossip
about our operations."
I promised that I would be silent as the grave, not even telling my
partners or my wife. "After all," I pointed out, "it's not a good idea
to arouse false hopes. Perhaps Mr. Whitney will change his mind."
"I hope not," DeForest said solemnly, as though I had mentioned the
possibility of the Black Death. "I most certainly hope not. We don't do
business on that basis, you know."
"Well, Miss Briggs, who's next?" I inquired, after DeForest had
withdrawn with the affable air of royalty inspecting a clean but
second-rate orphan asylum.
"Since those bankers left, there's only three waiting. One's a general
but he comes after this other man, what's his name, Patrick Michael
Shaughnessy, whoever he is."
"Send in the Irish," I told her.
Mr. Shaughnessy was an Irish-American counterpart of the Mr. Sylvester
who wanted to reorganize the free market for meat. He was a natty
dresser and he spoke out of the corner of his mouth.
"Mr. Tompkins," he told me, "I'm from, the Democratic National
Committee. The Chairman--and gee! Bob's a wonder--wanted to ask whether
you'd consider a diplomatic appointment."
"Of course, I would," I replied, thinking of Germaine's artless desire
to be an Ambassadress, "but that depends on where I'm sent and that
kind of thing. What have you in mind?"
"There's only one post open right now," he remarked. "That's Bolonia or
Peruna or hell, no, it's Bolivia. That's somewhere in America, ain't
it?"
I agreed that Bolivia was located in the Western Hemisphere. "That's
where the tin and llamas come from, Mr. Shaughnessy," I educated him.
"The capital city of La Paz is located about twelve thousand feet high
in the Andes and the inhabitants are mainly Indians. I don't think that
Mrs. Tompkins would care for it."
His face fell. "You'd be an Ambassador, of course," he informed me,
"and that's always worth something. But the Boss said--that's Bob, of
course, we all call Bob the Boss--that if you wouldn't fall for Bolivia
to ask you what about Ottawa. That's the capital of Canada. It's right
next to Montreal and those places and there's good train service to
New York on the Central any time you want to run down for a show or a
hair-cut. Bob said Canada was a real buy."
"Oh, a buy?" I remarked.
Shaughnessy looked at me shrewdly. "Uh-huh!" he replied.
"How much will it cost me to be Ambassador to Canada?"
Shaughnessy was faintly aggrieved. "The Boss don't like to talk about
money and jobs that way, Mr. Tompkins. He always says think of the
chance to serve the country. Say, you're a good Democrat or if you
aren't a Democrat you're the next thing to it, a Republican that is,
and you want to make a contribution to the Party. We always got a
deficit, see. If there ain't one now there's one coming right up. Say
you lay two or three hundred grand on the line. That goes a hundred
grand to the Committee and another hundred grand divided among the
State Committees. You see, we got to take care of the Senate so they'll
vote to confirm you and there are some operators up there what won't
vote for nothing 'cept they get taken care of first. Then the rest
we put into a dignified publicity campaign, to build you up with the
public and let the Canucks see they're getting something special when
the President nominates you."
I considered this one carefully. "Do you let me pick the public
relations firm that handles that end of the campaign, Mr. Shaughnessy?"
He grinned artlessly. "I should say not!" he chuckled. "How do you
think we boys on the Committee make a living? No, we pick the firm
that does the job and that's all you need worry about. We own 'em. So
you see you're protected right across the board. Any time we sell an
Ambassadorship, we deliver."
"Doesn't the State Department have something to say about it?"
Shaughnessy told me exactly what the State Department could do about
it, so I told him to let me have a few days to think it over. After
all, three hundred thousand dollars was quite a lot of money to pay
for a diplomatic post. It wasn't as though I could make it pay off in
Scotch whiskey or mining shares as in the past.
"That's what you think," the agent of the Democratic National Committee
rapped out. "Listen, Mr. Tompkins, if you buy that job take me along as
your private secretary and I'll show you how to make it pay like a bank
and no ifs. What shall I tell the gang?"
"Tell them I'm definitely interested," I replied truthfully, "but I'd
like a couple of weeks to think it over."
My next visitor was General Forbes-Dutton of the Army Service Forces.
"Remember me, Winnie?"
"Why sure!" I replied with great cordiality. "If it isn't--"
"That's right," the General interrupted. "Well, boy, after Pearl Harbor
I got me--I was asked to go to Washington to help out, so the bank
said it was my duty, that they'd hold my job for me, and I've been
there ever since. I'm on Westervelt's staff, in charge of financial
procurement policies. Neat, eh?"
"So you're still working for the bank?"
"Not _for_ them, Winnie. _With_ them. We're both working for the
government. Financing war-contracts, you know. Now Westervelt's heard
good things about you, Winnie. He was much impressed by the way you
turned down that gang of chiselers who tried to horn in on the quinine
deal. They're all out. He's got a big job in mind for you. How'd you
like to be a Brigadier-General?"
"It's a little late for that," I told him. "The war's almost over."
He laughed very heartily. "It's a honey of a job, Winnie. Here's what
gives. This war's almost over, as you say. Then the Army will have
the job of selling off the stuff it doesn't need and boy! it has
everything. We've just about cornered everything there is and the whole
world's going to be crying for the stuff. We want a good trader in
charge, who knows how to play ball with the boys, realistic that is.
No star-gazer, eh? And that's where you come in. There's millions in
it. Hell! there's billions. We got to go slow in selling it or we'd
bust the market, wreck values and stall reconversion, so we had us a
brain-storm when we heard how you cleaned up in the Funeral Market. How
about it? Want to play ball and get next to the biggest break you ever
heard of?"
I looked Forbes-Dutton squarely in the eye.
"Isn't it going to be a headache?" I asked. "I mean, won't there be a
stink in Congress about it? I'm no fall-guy."
The General shook his head. "Congress is in on it, every man jack of
them outside a few screwballs," he assured me. "We got a deal worked
out in every District--all legal and clean, of course--so there isn't
a Senator or Congressman that can't march right up to the trough and
get his. Hell! there's so much of it--food, tractors, jeeps, clothes,
ships, machine-tools, factories even--that we could buy every
Congressman ten times over and still have plenty of glue. With you on
top--"
"It still sounds as though you were looking for a fall-guy," I told him.
He again laughed merrily. "Anywhere you fall in this surplus game you'd
still land soft and be in clover. What about it? Shall I phone the
Pentagon?"
"Sorry to stall you," I said, "but I've got to think it over. I've got
to talk to my lawyer. I'd still like to come down to Washington and
study the angles."
"Angles? Hell! This hasn't any more angles than a big ripe watermelon.
Brigadier-General's not a bad title for a post-war use. When these
G.I.'s come back they'll want to find soldiers running things. Okay,
Winnie, I see your point. I'll tell the General you'll be coming down
to look the ground over. You'll get the Order of Merit, of course--"
"I've already got it," I informed him.
"The hell you say! That's wonderful. Well, then we'll fly you over to
London or Brisbane and give you a couple of theatre citations to dress
you up. After a couple of weeks on Ike's or Mac's staff you'll have a
build-up like nobody's business. Then we make a killing. 'Bye!"
When the door closed behind General Forbes-Dutton I called for
Arthurjean.
"Honey," I told her, "get me a snort of brandy and accept my personal
apologies to the entire female sex for any time I have ever made use of
the word 'whore'."
"What's eating you, Winnie?" she asked.
"I've just been propositioned by two gentlemen who would be
complimented if you called them prostitutes," I told her. "The only
honest man I've met today was that first little guy. All he wanted me
to do was to help reorganize the Black Market. Who's left now?"
"There's only this one man who calls himself Charles G. Smith and has
been waiting some time. He looks like a crank. Shall I give him a
hand-out and tell him to go away?"
I shook my head. "I can't take much more of the current brand of
patriotism."
Charles G. Smith was a small, wispy man, with a protruding Adam's
apple, buck teeth and shabby clothes. He ignored my outstretched hand
and advanced on me, with a glittering eye.
"Mr. Tompkins," he announced, in a curiously deep, velvety voice, "you
have made millions of dollars that you must soon leave behind you.
You have invested years of your life in collecting and keeping those
dollars--little disks of metal, little slips of paper. What have you
invested in the only thing you will be permitted to take with you when
you leave?"
"What do you mean?" I asked.
"I mean your immortal soul, Mr. Tompkins, your immortal soul," said Mr.
Charles G. Smith.
"Oh Lord! A religious crank!" I exclaimed.
"Naturally," he agreed proudly. "I'd rather be crazy about God than
nuts about money. Why not?"
I looked at him with growing respect. "Why not, indeed?" I thought.
"My case is out of your line, Mr. Smith," I told him.
"They all say that," he replied, "but God doesn't think so."
"My case _is_ different," I repeated. "You see, I have not one but two
immortal souls."
He nodded benignly. "I know," he said. "God told me that you were in
trouble."
"That sounds as though you and I were buddies, Mr. Smith," I observed.
"Where can I find Him? It will take God Himself to straighten out my
case."
Smith shrugged his shoulders. "You can't find Him," he said. "You've
got to wait until He finds you."