Tales From Gavagan's Bar (26 page)

             
At Dayton, Dr. Bronck found the numbers of his special
audience tragically increased; and at Cincinnati, where he gave
Breakfast in Bethlehem
in an effort to dismiss them for one night at least, he found that they had attuned themselves even to this lecture. He gave but one more public lecture—at Lexington, after which he wired to
McPherson and Kantor that he was suffering from a severe nervous breakdown, and would have to cancel the rest of the trip. He—

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"That isn't the worst, my friend," said Dr. Bronck, his voice showing evident traces of the improvement in his emotiona
l state. "That isn't the worst at all. They try to telephone me; at all hours of the day and night they try to telephone me. They ash—ask questions—where is the Mount of Gibeon? Wha' line of march did the Israelites take under Joshua? My friends, it is a conspiracy to keep me talking until the wire goes dead. They meet me on the public streets in their cerements of a forgotten world. They are ruining my profession; they are depriving me of the privilege of carrying joy to many souls in spiritual need. They form associations and besiege my agents with requests that I speak before them—calling themselves the Arcane Adepts of St. Louis, or the Blavatsky Circle of Los Angeles—they offer me fabulous sums to pander to—"

             
His voice had risen, and as he flung out one arm in an oratorical gesture, "Look!" said Doc Brenner, suddenly, and pointed.

             
The two pinochle players at the back had dropped their cards. With arms at their sides and heads held back, staring straight before them with unwinking eyes, they were marching toward the door, each foot carefully lifted and placed before the other.
             

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It was a very quiet night at Gavagan's, with the wavy-haired young Mr. Keating from the library and Dr. Tobolka slowly exchanging views on some subject of interest only to them, over a Rye and Soda and a glass of Slivovitz respectively, when the middle-aged man came in with a package under his arm.

             
He was dressed in a neat blue serge and wore glasses, and he reached across the bar with: "Mr. Cohan? Name of Smith. I'm told you can probably help me with a problem of some importance."

             
Mr. Cohan dried his hands on his apron and shook hands. "Pleased to meet you. And what would you be wanting?"

             
"I want to find a Czechoslovak magician, and I'm informed that if one can be located, you're the man to do it."

             
Mr. Cohan put one hand to the side of his face, frowned, and said, "Dr. Tobolka here now would be the kind of man you want if he was a magician, which he is not."

             
The snub-nosed Tobolka turned. "He means me. Will you have a drink and explain to my why you need a Czech? Won't rabbits come out of hats just as rapidly for a Swede or an Argentine?"

             
"It's strictly a Czech magician I had in mind," said Smith. "And I don't think I will have a drink just now—no discourtesy intended."

             
"Oh, you mean like that fellow Theophrastus V. Abaris," said Mr. Cohan. "More like a Greek he was, and I'm thinking
not too healthy a man for you to know. Now what would you be wanting another one like him for?"

             
Smith glanced around. "That's something I'm afraid I'm not in a position to state right now," he said. "That is, unless I find my man."

             
"Perhaps you've found him as a team operation," said Keating. "I've done a good deal of study of magic back in the stacks, and Dr. Tobolka is a Czech."

             
Smith stared at him for a minute. "It has to be here or nowhere," he said. "May I ask you gentlemen your first names?"

             
"Roger," said Keating, while Tobolka produced a neat cardcase and handed Smith an item from its contents.

             
"Excuse me a moment," said the man with the package, and stepped to the phone booth.

             
"Looks like a man with a mission," commented Keating, as the door closed behind the newcomer.

             
"If you're asking me, he acts like a fellow with a hole in his head," said Mr. Cohan. "Can you imagine it now, refusing good liquor in Gavagan's? What does he think this is, that Italian place around the corner?"

             
"Some people have to be careful," said Tobolka. "On the Committee for Czechoslovak Freedom, now, we—"

             
The phone booth door swung open and Mr. Smith emerged, looking relieved. He stepped across to the bar and laid his package on it. "The FBI says you're both all right," he said, "so I can tell you about the problem. Now I will not only have a drink with you, I will buy a round for everyone, including you, of course, Mr. Cohan. Make mine a Tom Collins, not too sweet." He turned, faced the others, and took the wrapping from the package. "This," he said, "is the essence of the matter."

             
Keating said, "It looks like a kind of sausage, with a heavy coating of wax."

             
"That's what it is," said Tobolka, prodding it with one finger. "It's called a Bismarck sausage, and they make them in Saxony and Sudetenland. The wax is to keep it from becoming unendurable as human company."

             
"Ah!" said Smith, drinking deeply from his Tom Collins. "I'm a salesman for Singer sewing machines."

             
Neither of the others appeared to be able to follow the connection, but: "Isn't that fine, now?" said Mr. Cohan from behind the bar.

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Not so fine as you might think [said Smith]. What I'm going to tell you, you mustn't breathe to a living soul, and I wouldn't tell it even then but for the emergency. I sold Singer sewing machines in Czechoslovakia up to a little time ago. Travelling
through the country in a car, one of those little German Volkswagens. And while I was travelling, I was picking up certain—uh, documents of interest to our government from people opposed to the Communist regime.

             
["Spies?" said Tobolka.]

             
People on our side [said Smith]. I had a portable Singer special made with a false bottom to carry the documents in, and as my profession allowed me to travel all through the countryside, it made an ideal arrangement. Well, last—uh, you will pardon me if I don't give the date, it might involve other people—a short time ago there was given to me a document of most unusual importance. It was a map of the big new arsenal and munitions depot at Prodnice, with all the tank traps, antiaircraft positions, and guard stations indicated, the biggest thing in Czech armament and the most secret.

             
["I was born near there," said Tobolka, "only it was Austrian and called Worsten then."]

             
I don't think you'd recognize it now. Shortly after I got the map, I heard that the Russians had become dissatisfied with the way things were going in Czechoslovakia and had decided to tighten up by installing their own people in key positions in the more important Ministries—Agriculture, the Interior, Education—with Russian a required course in the schools, and so on.

             
Now, that meant trouble for me. In Czechoslovakia, the police and border guards are under the Interior Ministry, and wherever I had to show my papers, I would be running into Russian MVD men, who are a lot tougher than the Czechs I
had been dealing with. I had impressive evidence of just how difficult it was going to be when I got to Pilsen. My contact there was a man we called Alesf. He was a journalist, which gave him an excuse for running around a lot and asking questions. We used to meet at an inn on the Ludmilla Gasse, pretend a kind of nodding acquaintance, and after a drink or two—by the way, Mr. Cohan, there seem to be empty glasses on the bar. Will you do something about it? After a drink or two, he'd get up to go, leaving behind a newspaper with the reports folded into it.

             
On this particular day I knew there was something wrong the minute I stepped into the place. We always met at the same table. There was a man at it, sipping beer, and he had a newspaper, but it wasn't Ales. Of course, it might be someone working for him, but I thought it safer to sit down at another table and size things up. After a while, one of the waiters shuffled over to take my order. He bent over as though he were a little hard of hearing when I spoke, and then said under his breath, "Go! Russky."

             
Well, you can believe I finished my beer in a hurry and got out of there. If they had Ales', they probably had a warning out for me, with some kind of a description, and it was going to be touch and go to get across the frontier. So I headed in the direction of Prestice, Klattau, and Eisenstein. That would be the quickest route to Bavaria, which is in the American zone of Germany.

             
Dr. Tobolka here knows that this took me right into the heart of the Bohmerwald, which is just about the biggest and oldest forest in Europe, all full of legends. It's supposed to be where the kobolds lived—beautiful country, rather wild, and not many people.

             
I got through Klattau where, as I had hoped, there was only an ordinary Czech police post, which made no trouble about my papers, and was on my way to Eisenstein, when I saw an old man with a long white beard sitting on a bank beside the road. He was a big man and looked as though he might have been powerful at one time. The thing that caught my especial attention was that he was crying—just sitting
there all alone in the forest with the tears running silently down his face.

             
I pulled the car up and asked him what was the matter. He said: "There is no place in Bohemia for me more. The Russians have taken all."

             
They usually refer to Czechoslovakia instead of Bohemia, so that was a little odd, but I said: "Lots of people get across the border."

             
"How can I reach the border?" said he. "They will have it closed."

             
"Look here," I told him. "I'm an American businessman, and my peddler's passport allows me an assistant, so you're appointed to the job. Hop in."

             
He climbed to his feet rather heavily, carrying a bandanna with something wrapped in it. I opened up the luggage compartment, which is in the front in a Volkswagen, told him to put his package in, and went round to the back to look at my motor, which I suspected of overheating. When we started, I said: "My name's Smith. I'd better know yours if you're working for me." He shoo
k his head a little, said: "Veles," and-

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Tobolka said: "That is not a modern name. Nobody is named that now."

             
"It's good Czech, isn't it?" asked Smith, a trifle belligerently.

             
"Mr. Cohan," said Tobolka, "you will give the gentleman some Slivov
itz to drink to the honor of Bohemia. Most assuredly, sir," he said to Smith, "Veles is good Czech!"

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Well, I thought so, [said Smith, lifting his glass in acknowledgement to Tobolka].

             
Anyway, as soon as I saw the border guard station at Eisenste
in, I thought the jig was up. It's a square white building at one end of a barrier like those they have for grade crossings over here, and there was a big, blond lad in a Russian uniform out in front, with one of those machine-pistols cradled in his arm. I held out my papers to him, but he never looked at them, just motioned with the machine-pistol for me to get out, and said something in Russian to the two Czech border guards with him. And gentlemen, all I could think of was the disappearance of my contact, Ales
!
One of them told the two of us to stand in front of the building, while the other one opened up my luggage compartment and began to get the stuff out. It was then that the old fellow spoke for the first time since he got in the car. He said: "Be not troubled. You will be rewarded."