“It’s so long ago, you know.”
Mmmmn, the inspector agreed, tight-lipped.
“To the best of my knowledge, yes, it’s correct. As I recall it, I wasted a lot of money taking out foolish options that year.”
“It would appear,” he said, consulting the sheets before him, “that most of them were paid for in cash, and originated in Canada.”
“I know love of country is out of fashion these days,” Jake said, “but I’m crazy enough to believe that those Canadians who happen to be sufficiently lucky to live here, where there’s such exciting theater and ballet, owe something to writers struggling at home. I keep hoping to develop a good Canadian script, but get my fingers burned again and again.”
Oscar Hoffman beamed, recognizing a rank-one scholar.
“I note a payment here of £1,000 advance to one Jean Beliveau, script writer, of the Forum Apartments, St. Catherine St. W., Montreal.”
“That loser. I wish I’d never met him. It’s a write-off, I’m afraid. Totally unusable.”
“I see in the same fiscal year you paid another advance, also of £1,000 to one John A. MacDonald.”
“He turned out to be a lush. But I’m still hoping to set that one up.”
“You keep a secretary in Canada. Mrs. Laura Secord of 312 Ontario Street, Montreal.”
“Yes.”
“Are you aware,” the inspector asked, loosening the elastic from a wad of restaurant and liquor bills, “that all allowable expenses must be wholly, exclusively, and necessarily incurred for business reasons?”
“Indeed I am.”
“In 1960, you claimed £1,750 for entertainment expenses.”
“And to think,” Jake said, shaking his head, appalled, “if I’d put that money into unit trusts, I’d be sitting pretty today.”
“On reflection, how much of this would you claim was actually business expense and how much would you allow was personal?”
“Let’s say … five percent personal.”
The inspector hunched over the wad of bills.
“… seven per cent could be possible. Eight tops.”
The statement he produced was from the Victoria Wine Company, February 1960, and came to £81, including an order for one hundred cigarettes.
“How many of these cigarettes would you claim were consumed in the line of business? How many for personal reasons? Given to friends or your wife?”
“There’s a very fine line of distinction here. In fact your question is really of a Talmudic nature. So let me answer it, as is the custom, with another question. If I offered you a cigarette right now would it be personal? Or a business expense?”
The inspector did not look up from his accounts, but Hoffman coughed disapprovingly.
“The truth is, I don’t remember. But these accounts were accepted in 1960. Why are you coming back to me now?”
“The Commissioners of Inland Revenue never specify the grounds for reassessment. Here’s something typical.”
It was a restaurant bill. Dinner for four at Chez Luba, £21.
“I took out a producer and his wife. To discuss a project.”
“Would you say you brought your wife along for personal pleasure?”
“No. I would not say. She abhors producers. He brought his wife, I had to bring mine. Are we going to consider all these old bills individually?”
No answer.
“I see that, in 1965, Jacob Hersh Productions sub-contracted to World-Wide, of Geneva, Switzerland, leasing the directorial services of Jacob Hersh for an annual fee of £7,500 … but previously you were taking in even more.”
“It’s embarrassing. It’s bloody awful. I keep kicking myself. I never should have done it.”
“You are aware, I assume, that it is against the law for you to have bank accounts outside the country?”
“Of course I am. Good God, you’re not accusing me of … tax evasion?”
“We are not specifically charging you with anything.”
“What do you want from me, then?”
“I put it to you, that something like ninety-five per cent of these alleged expenses were really of a personal nature.”
“Why, that’s ridiculous.”
The inspector pushed back his desk chair, terminating the interview. “I will consider these accounts further,” he said, “and be in touch with you again.”
“I think that’s best,” Hoffman said, speaking for the first time. “My client appreciates that.”
“The hell I do. This whole business smacks of the Star Chamber. I do believe you owe it to me to reveal why my accounts have been reopened.”
“It is not the policy of the Commissioners of Inland Revenue to specify grounds for reassessment. I will be in touch with you again soon.”
10
THE NEXT MORNING’S MAIL BROUGHT A LETTER FROM Mensa:
Dear Sir,
Thank you for your interesting letter of Apr. 19, 1967.
We do take note of the fact that in your “humble opinion” a society that “discriminates” against 98 per cent of the population can be construed as being “undemocratic,” and we note with interest and some sympathy your point that our tests cannot measure talent and originality, but only specific abilities. We do, however, take strong issue with your argument that MENSA fosters delusions of grandeur among “clerks and milkmen, dentists and shop stewards,” encouraging them to believe that their ignominy is a reflection of social injustice and not a result of their own ineptitude. Frankly, this sort of thing smacks of sour grapes to us here. Furthermore, if you would not care to be associated with such a “seedy, self-satisfied group,” why, then, did you complete our test?
Finally, we would like to make it clear that neither success nor failure in our test is to be taken too seriously. A degree of uncertainty is inherent in any kind of statistical measurement and, as you so strongly suggested, there are theoretical doubts about the measurement of intelligence which can only add to this.…
11
“YES, HARRY. WHAT IS IT?”
“Have you had any further thoughts about your cousin’s debt to Ruthy?”
“Screw you.”
The minicabs, dispatched to Jake’s door at outlandish hours, were a headache, the drivers increasingly truculent. Jake apologized to the firemen, swearing he wasn’t the one who had summoned them. He assured the driver from Harrod’s that there had been a mistake, he had not ordered a twelve-pound roast. He refused to accept any parcels sent C.O.D. and he returned all books and records mailed to him on approval. Apologizing profusely, he explained to the ambulance driver they were both victims of a hoax.
“Yes, Harry. What is it today?”
“I thought, perhaps, you might have had a change of heart. About the debt, you know.”
“I’ve got nerves of steel, Harry. But if this doesn’t stop, I’m going to knock your teeth out.”
“If what doesn’t stop?”
“Look at it this way. Two can play the same game.”
For three days no parcels came. The SPCA didn’t call, neither did the man from the Gas Board. The following morning, even as Jake was packing his bag feverishly, the phone rang. It was Harry again.
“What is it now?”
“We have a bet. Isn’t that right?”
Briefly, Jake was confused.
“I was wondering, Mr. Hersh, if you had heard from Mensa yet?”
“Oh, that. Look, I can’t talk now. I’ve got to be at the airport in forty minutes.”
“Where are you going?”
“Cannes. What’s it to you?”
“Nice. Very nice.”
“It’s business, as it so happens. Not pleasure. I’ll only be there overnight. Meeting a producer. Phone me tomorrow noon.”
Taking off, Jake gripped the arms of his seat and recited the standard litany to himself. Statistics prove it’s safer than driving. The Vanguard has an incomparable record. Rolls Royce engines are unsurpassed. It didn’t help – it never did –
but two double Scotches quelled his stomach, and an hour and a half out of London he was bothered only by his companion, a loquacious American mutual funds salesman. He feigned sleep.
Opening his eyes to order another drink, Jake’s heart suddenly began to hammer. The sun, adrift on his righthand side hitherto, was now streaming in through the lefthand window. His ears throbbed. They were losing altitude.
“Didn’t want to wake you,” the American said, “but we’re heading back to little old London, if you ask me.”
The loudspeaker spluttered alive. “Ladies and gentlemen, this is the captain speaking. We are experiencing operational difficulties and we have turned to land at Paris. Our expected flying time will be thirty-five minutes.”
The stewardess came around with drinks.
“Everything’s going to be all right,” she sang out serenely. “There’s nothing to worry about.” But her face was ashen.
I don’t believe it, Jake repeated over and over to himself. This sort of meaningless accident only happens to other people.
“My name’s Newby,” the American said.
“Hersh.”
“You believe in God?”
“Of course I do. I always have.” You hear?
“Not me. Not any more. I flew B-29’s during the war, you know.”
“Did you?”
“Twenty-nine missions and never once saw an angel. Neither did any of the other guys.”
“Maybe they were elsewhere. Or flying higher.”
“Folks won’t buy it any more. Not since the space probes. The astronauts haven’t seen none either.”
“The Russians wouldn’t even admit it if they had,” Jake countered.
Newby pondered that one.
“Hey,” Jake said, trembling, sliding in sweat, “we’re still coming down.”
“Sure thing. He’s taking us down to 10,000 feet, I reckon.”
The wings were holding on. Both of them. No engine seemed to be working loose. “Why?” Jake asked.
“If there’s an explosion –”
Bite your tongue, Newby.
“– we won’t have to use oxygen.”
While there was no need for alarm, the captain announced over the PA system, passengers were requested to extinguish their cigarettes and fasten their seat belts.
Immediately, Jake demanded more liquor.
“Everything’s going to be all right,” the stewardess said.
“I didn’t even ask.”
“There’s nothing to worry about,” she replied.
A woman began to sob brokenly. Somebody prayed aloud.
“Ever wonder why we’re here?” Newby asked.
Ignoring him, Jake started a letter to Nancy.
“A higher intelligence in another galaxy planted us on earth. Three sorts. White, yellow, black. We’re an experiment. Like in a cosmic greenhouse. They want to know who’s sturdiest, which color comes out on top, before they start seeding the other planets.”
The plane began to bank, Orly tantalizingly within its grasp.
“We expect to land in Paris in eight minutes,” the captain announced.
The stewardess passed from seat to seat, saying it was going to be all right, and asking passengers to remove any sharp objects from their pockets.
“This is it,” Newby said, and raising his glass, he added, “Anything flashing before your eyes?”
“Shettup, for Chrissake.”
Another stewardess pointed out to Jake that he was sitting beside an emergency exit –
“Am I?”
– and showed him how to open it.
The plane banked again, for a final approach, and touched down with ease, rocking to a stop some distance from the air terminal. There were ambulances waiting on the tarmac, fire trucks too, but they disembarked in the usual manner, everybody euphoric.
“Wasn’t it exciting?” the stewardess ventured.
Yes, indeed. Jake asked what the trouble was.
“A hoax,” the stewardess replied. “But we can’t take chances.”
Once the passengers were assembled, a safe distance from the plane, the captain told them, “I had been advised there might be a bomb aboard the aircraft.” As the anonymous caller to BEA had given exact information about the flight, airline officials had no choice but to classify the incident as a positive bomb scare. He was sorry for any inconvenience etc., etc. While security officials combed through the aircraft, passengers’ baggage was spread out on a field. They were asked to identify their luggage and open it for inspection.
“What’s this?” the inspector asked Jake, indicating the unmarked bullet-size pellets in the typewriter ribbon tin he had just opened.
“It’s medicinal,” Jake replied, flushing.
“What’s that?”
Strangers regarded them with interest.
“Could I have a word with you … um … privately?”
They stepped aside, the inspector maintaining a steel-like grip on his arm.
“They’re suppositories.”
“Would you speak up, please. The noise …”
“I suffer from piles. Like Karl Marx, you know.”
The rest of the trip was uneventful, but even more disastrous. The producer Jake was supposed to meet at the Carleton had been unable to wait and had flown to New York. Jake’s hotel reservation had been fouled up and he had had to settle for an airless, mosquito-ridden cell in a backstreet pension. Hungover, his nerves frayed, he returned to London in the morning with only one thought in mind. The pleasure it would give him to murder Harry Stein.
Jake sought out Ruthy at the Swiss Cottage dress shop. “I must see your boyfriend urgently. Can you tell me where he works, please?”
Oscar Hoffman, Accountants.
“Oh, no.” He doesn’t.
“Why not?”
Harry agreed to meet Jake for a drink at noon at the Yorkminster.
“I’m not going to hit you, Harry. I’m not going to break your teeth. I merely want to warn you that I’m getting a lawyer. I’m going to have you charged with attempting to extort with menaces.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“What if somebody on that plane had died of a heart attack?”
Harry shook his head, seemingly baffled.
“You twisted little fart,” Jake said, grabbing him by the collar.
“Possibly I’m the one who needs a solicitor,” Harry said, breaking free, “for it’s clear to me what you need is psychological attention.”
“You’re the mental case, Harry, not me.”
“I put it to you, you suffer from paranoid delusions.”
“Oh, you are cute,” Jake said, ordering another round. “You’re not ordinary twisted. I’m beginning to think you’re very, very special. And now, my psychotic friend, tell me how long you’ve been with Oscar Hoffman?”
“Going on ten years.”
“That’s where we met?”
“Yes.”
“You’ve seen my accounts and you know I’m not broke.”
“For the sake of argument, I’ll concur with that statement.”
“Would you also happen to know I’m now being investigated by the inspectors of Inland Revenue?”
“No,” Harry replied, impassive.
“How much did you get for turning me in?”
“You’re paranoid, mate.”
“Harry, you obscene little auto-didact, there’s more to psychology than Penguin paperbacks …”
Harry’s eyes filled with rancor.
“… now what are you getting for informing on me? Ten percent?”
“I refute your charges absolutely. If you care to make them formally you shall be hearing from my solicitors.”
“Stupid prick!”
“Speaking of intellectual ability, have you heard from Mensa yet?”
Jake fished into his pocket, extracted two flyers, and rammed them into Harry. “Here. Choke.”
“Now you only owe me another s
even hundred pounds.”
“What do you mean, I owe you?”
“You’re knocking down a thousand a week for doing bleeding nothing –” Harry lowered his voice “– tax-free, my so-called socialist friend.”
Jake blanched.
“You’re all men of principle, you film types.”
“I’m not a film type.”
“What are you, then?”
“All right, all right. You know it’s blackmail, though.”
“I wouldn’t call it that.”
“The money’s not yours, anyway. It’s Ruthy’s.”
Harry ordered a round. “Pay her. Not me.”
“What do you want to marry her for? Has she got more?”
“It’s your cousin, the fancy-man, who was after her lolly, not me.”
“I’m to take it you love her, then?”
“She’s an attractive woman,” Harry said defensively.
“I should have thought a chap in the top two percent intellectually, one of the élite, as it were, handsome and well-read as you, could have done much better.”
“Don’t you ever make the mistake of ridiculing me, Hersh. Don’t you ever do that.”
“Not to worry. If I didn’t respect you before, I learned to on the airplane. My God, how could you do such a thing?”
“We’re back on that, are we?”
“Come clean, Harry. You phoned BEA.”
Harry raised his glass. “Here’s looking at you.”
“How old are you?”
“Thirty-eight.”
“Tell me something else, then. How have you managed to stay out of prison all these years?”
“And who says I have?”
“No kidding,” Jake said, regarding him with fresh interest, even respect, “what did they put you away for?”
“I’d better be off now.”
“Come to lunch with me. Be my guest.”
Harry hesitated.
“We can charge it to expenses. After all, you’re one of my financial advisers, aren’t you, you bastard?”