Page 28 of Shadow Ticket
“A bonus marcher in our midst,” mutters the G-man, “how entertaining…Oh and before you go—please. Compliments of the Bureau.”
Since about 1930, immigrants arriving at Ellis Island have been receiving boxes of Jell-O plus a Jell-O mold in the shape of some famous U.S. landmark as part of their welcome-to-the-U.S. package. This one they’re handing Hicks happens to be the Statue of Liberty. Plus a handy kitchen-size pamphlet full of creative Jell-O recipes.
“So I’m an immigrant now?”
“Maybe not to the U.S. as you know it. Maybe to the future U.S. we in the Bureau expect to see before long.”
“And you’re going to explain the difference to me.”
“No. Maybe if you ever decided to hire on with us, your own free will, general makeover, new name, new identity papers, oath of loyalty, so forth. Enough idea of who you’re working for as we think it’s safe for you to have.”
A Statue of Liberty made of Jell-O. Where do you start eating it? The head? The torch?
12
“I could use some advice, Boynt.”
“Uh huh, and any chance you’ll be snapping out of this anytime soon?”
“I’m getting a hard sales pitch for somethin I don’t even know what it is.”
“Of course they’re trying to turn you. Back to what you never stopped being. They know all there is to about you, more than you ever knew. You think you’re reformed now. Not just a normal tough guy but a saintly one.”
“No use tryin to talk me back down into it either, Boynt.”
“Oriental Attitude, discipline, serenity, call it what you like, wallow as deep in it as you can get, but he’s still in there, Hicks, still the same dirt-stupid gorilla always ready to take short pay for beating up whoever he’s told to. You think you’ve gotten past it, but those we all report to, they know better, they know that once you’re down here with us, you’ll never change, there’ll be no getting rid of that inner torpedo. Whenever they need him, they will know how to call him out to do their bidding.”
“They.”
“The federals who had you in are likely just a front, OK? It’s the outfit that’s behind them, a nationwide syndicate of financial tycoons, all organized in constant touch against the forces of evil, namely everything to the left of Herbert Hoover. Worried about the next election, worried this latest Roosevelt if he gets in might decide to step out on his own, and even if he does revert to type after all, it might not be in time to stop the Red apocalypse that’s got them spooked out of what they think of as their wits. Andwhen big shots get nervous? Well. Better if the rest of us arrange to be someplace else. Which is why—”
“Oh, boy. The cheese heiress ticket again.”
“Quick as ever on the uptake, I always admired that about you.”
“Boynt. No. We had a deal, you said, I heard you say it, no more out-of-town jobs from now on, nothing further than half a pack of smokes down the Dubuque, Madison & Waukesha.”
“Don’t think this is easy for me, I admit once long ago in an absent-minded moment I might’ve said something about not sending you out of town again, but this probably won’t take you much past Chicago, and what’s a hundred miles to the streamlined velocities of the 1930s?”
“Sure there isn’t some way we could just do this all out of the office? Shortwave radio or something?”
“Too slow.”
“Radio waves, what’s faster’n that?”
“A live op who’s there already, on the spot.”
“Not me, remember I’m just the strong-arm gorilla, I don’t do runaway heiress tickets, that’s for new hires, kids with the energy and enthusiasm, talk to Zbig Dubinsky soon as he’s out of observation at County General, ain’t like I don’t have the time in, Boynt.”
“Too bad you never got around to the Civic Opera before they shut down. Deep lessons in it for the working gumshoe. For instance, you know how puzzled civilians always get when some frail little tubercular seamstress turns out to be a good-size specimen healthy enough to belt out her numbers to the back rows of the cheapest balcony seats in town and beyond? Well, which is she, they keep wondering. Answer is, is she’s both—but neither as important as what she really is, which is the love of the tenor’s life—and he’s not necessarily any Valentino either. Educational point here is you never know who’s apt to be smitten gaga by whom, which guarantees plenty of job security for everybody in the business.”
“Boynt, how often do I say it, she don’t remember me, no idea what I even look like—”
“That’ll help, just keep that pan as dumb and honest as it is, it’ll be likepicking up an easy spare. All else fails, go in there and make with the clodhoppers, who knows, she might not even yell for help. Here, let’s just…” Boynt rolling over to the window, opening it, reaching outside into the freezing night and retrieving two heavy warped icicles, each with a vivid emerald bottle of Canadian IPA frozen into it.
“Back when you hired on, only a sap would believe there was anyplace to be promoted to around here, but modern bureaucracy must have a soft spot for saps, like God does for drunks, because now, and I’m sure you read the memo, the back office is creating a new mid-level job and calling it ‘case director,’ and planning to promote a few of you up to that. You’ll have your own office—each get to run your own string of field agents…”
“Soon as I get back in from out of town, and in one piece, natch.”
