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 scarlet1 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 remarkable2 item of Mr. Wanji's costume, a pair of furry3 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 bucking4 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 athletic5 vigor6. "You just now joined up with our herd7. 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 peculiar8 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 pointed9 to the newspaper folded in the "In" basket. "Flip10 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 bug11 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 withholding12 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 Treasury13 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 flicked14 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 concealed15 behind scarlet earmuffs. In the car, coming down from the interdicted16 upper floors, were several gentlemen with briefcases17. 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 chivalrous18 men, hat pressed to his heart, wore a pair of earmuffs. Orison nodded bemused acknowledgment of their gesture, and got off in the lobby vowing19 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 chattered20 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 engrossed21 in the saga22 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 Scotch23, followed by a double Scotch. And what the William Howard Taft National Bank and Trust Company needs is a joint24 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 tout25. 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 solitary26 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 tugged27 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 rendezvous28 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.
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1
scarlet
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| n.深红色，绯红色，红衣；adj.绯红色的 | |
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remarkable
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| adj.显著的，异常的，非凡的，值得注意的 | |
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furry
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| adj.毛皮的；似毛皮的；毛皮制的 | |
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bucking
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| v.（马等）猛然弓背跃起( buck的现在分词 )；抵制；猛然震荡；马等尥起后蹄跳跃 | |
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athletic
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| adj.擅长运动的，强健的；活跃的，体格健壮的 | |
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vigor
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| n.活力，精力，元气 | |
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herd
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| n.兽群，牧群；vt.使集中，把…赶在一起 | |
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peculiar
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| adj.古怪的，异常的；特殊的，特有的 | |
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pointed
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| adj.尖的，直截了当的 | |
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flip
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| vt.快速翻动；轻抛；轻拍；n.轻抛；adj.轻浮的 | |
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11
bug
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| n.虫子；故障；窃听器；vt.纠缠；装窃听器 | |
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12
withholding
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| 扣缴税款 | |
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treasury
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| n.宝库；国库，金库；文库 | |
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14
flicked
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| （尤指用手指或手快速地）轻击( flick的过去式和过去分词 )； （用…）轻挥； （快速地）按开关； 向…笑了一下（或瞥了一眼等） | |
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15
concealed
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| a.隐藏的，隐蔽的 | |
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interdicted
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| v.禁止（行动）( interdict的过去式和过去分词 )；禁用；限制 | |
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17
briefcases
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| n.公文[事]包( briefcase的名词复数 ) | |
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chivalrous
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| adj.武士精神的；对女人彬彬有礼的 | |
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vowing
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| 起誓，发誓（vow的现在分词形式） | |
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chattered
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| （人）喋喋不休( chatter的过去式 )； 唠叨； （牙齿）打战； （机器）震颤 | |
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engrossed
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| adj.全神贯注的 | |
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saga
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| n.(尤指中世纪北欧海盗的)故事，英雄传奇 | |
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23
scotch
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| n.伤口，刻痕；苏格兰威士忌酒；v.粉碎，消灭，阻止；adj.苏格兰(人)的 | |
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24
joint
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| adj.联合的，共同的；n.关节，接合处；v.连接，贴合 | |
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25
tout
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| v.推销，招徕；兜售；吹捧，劝诱 | |
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26
solitary
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| adj.孤独的，独立的，荒凉的；n.隐士 | |
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27
tugged
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| v.用力拉，使劲拉，猛扯( tug的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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28
rendezvous
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| n.约会，约会地点，汇合点；vi.汇合，集合；vt.使汇合，使在汇合地点相遇 | |
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