Quality Control – Stephen Baily

Stephen Baily has published short fiction in some sixty print and online journals. He’s also the author of thirteen plays and three novels, including “Markus Klyner, MD, FBI“. He currently lives in France.

 

 

— Come in, comrade. Sit down. Funny you should turn up just now—I was about to send for you. You don’t mind if I keep eating while we talk?

Please.

— With most people, it’s coffee; with me, it’s a knish. I can’t seem to get up to speed in the morning without one. Care for a bite?

I’ve had breakfast, thanks. Can I ask why you were about to send for me? I hope I haven’t done anything wrong?

— Just the opposite. I’m the bearer of good news. You’ll be gratified to hear the decision’s been made to elevate you to the central committee.

To elevate me? There must be some mistake. 

— There’s no mistake, I assure you.

Then I’m speechless. 

— As any self-effacing comrade would be, but we’ll get to that in a minute. Let’s hear the reason for your visit first. What’s brought you down from the Bronx?

I could have called, I know, but I didn’t feel comfortable telling you over the phone.

— Telling me what?

I’ve been approached by the FBI.

— The FBI? Where? When?

Yesterday, on my way home from the factory. I spotted him right off at the foot of the el when I came down from the platform. 

— You’d seen him before?

No. Never.

— Then how did you know he was with the FBI?

His navy-blue suit. His white shirt. His skinny blue tie. Plus his flat-top haircut. Nobody in my neighborhood – except maybe the undertaker – walks around like that.

— I assume he identified himself?

As Special Agent Amos R. Juggins of the bureau’s New York office.

— Never heard of him. He must be a recent transfer. How did he behave with you? Was he aggressive?

On the contrary, he was almost friendly—though I could tell he didn’t like the look of me any better than I liked the look of him.

— Then to the point. What did he want?

To know if  I was Wilhelmina Katznelson. If I lived at 1210 Ort Street. If I worked as a solderer on the assembly line at Schocken Electronics. If, on my own time, I was secretary of Local 430 of the International Brotherhood of Batterymakers.

— And what did you tell him?

Only what we’ve been instructed to say—that I don’t talk to the FBI without a lawyer.

— He let you go after that?

Not before he also asked me if I was the same Wilhelmina Katznelson who—in compliance with the Taft-Hartley Act—signed an affidavit to the effect that, as an IBOB official, I wasn’t a member of the Communist Party.

 “I don’t talk to the FBI without a lawyer,” I repeated.

“Yes, I understand that—but what would you say if I told you we’re prepared to prove you committed perjury when you signed that affidavit?”

“I’d say you can go to hell.”

— That was foolish. 

I know, but I couldn’t help myself.

— Did he take offense?

Not that I noticed, but he stuck with me when I pushed past him.

“All you have to do is cooperate with us, and you have my promise the potential charges against you will disappear.”

He finally gave up and dropped back when—without saying another word—I turned the corner of my block.

— Well, comrade, I commend you for bringing this incident to my attention so promptly. That I can see, you handled yourself in an exemplary—if impulsive—manner.

There’s more.

— What else?

When I got to my building, the super—a low type and a snoop—was dragging the trash cans out to the curb, and he told me the landlady—a big flag waver—was sure not to like hearing the FBI had been nosing around about me.

— Juggins again?

Wanting to know how long I’ve lived there—who I live with—if we’re behind with the rent—things like that. He even went through our garbage when my mother happened to send it down in the dumbwaiter while he was questioning the super. I hope he had fun!

— You live with your mother and several brothers, I believe?

Just my younger brother now. My older brother got married and moved out, and my youngest brother—he’s nineteen—is in the air force in Korea.

— Are they behind you?

Not a bit—and my mother least of all. She practically jumped down my throat when I came upstairs after my talk with the super.

— The long hand of Juggins had reached even into your house?

He’d been up to see my mother, too, yes, and scared her to death by insinuating that, if I didn’t go along with the FBI, I could be looking at ten years in jail. Probably she didn’t get half of  what he said—her English isn’t that good—but FBI and jail are two words everybody understands. You can bet the whole building heard her shouting how glad she was my father hadn’t lived to see the police in our house and his daughter a criminal. I was still trying to calm her down when Jackie—my brother—came home from work and joined the attack.

— The tireless Juggins got to him also?

Under the el. He asked Jackie if I’d ever tried to recruit him for the Party and, when Jackie said I was an idiot and he never talked politics with me, Juggins wondered how Jackie’s radio station would react if they knew he was covering for a Red.

— Your brother works for a radio station?

Not on the air. In the mailroom. He’s angling for a promotion, though, and he shook his fist in my face and warned me he won’t stand for me ruining his chances.

— He’d rat on his own sister?

If he did, could I blame him? It’s beyond despicable of the FBI to make him answer for my convictions. 

— The FBI’s going to do what the FBI’s going to do.

I suppose so—God damn them.

— Now, comrade, we’re not as bad as all that. We’re just trying to protect the country from traitors like you.

Maybe so, but—what was that? What did you say?

— Don’t look so surprised. Surely you’ve heard the old joke – which is almost always on the person telling it – that, whenever you see two Party members talking, one of them – and maybe both! – is reporting to us.

You? In the FBI? 

— I have that distinction, yes.

I don’t believe it!

— Unfortunately for you, facts don’t depend on your assent.

But why would you admit it? That’s crazy! Aren’t you afraid I’ll expose you?

— You’re of course free to denounce me to anyone you please—only allow me to remind you your immigrant mother—what with the demands of raising four children—seems somehow never to have gotten around to applying for citizenship.

You wouldn’t…

— In a heartbeat. Her fate’s in your hands. Either you play ball with us—with a guarantee of immunity from prosecution—or we’ll put her on the first boat back to Bessarabia.

You son of a bitch.

— Is that a yes or a no? 

You don’t leave me any choice.

— Then you agree to be our eyes and ears in the IBOB?

If that’s what it takes to save my mother from deportation.

— Ah, comrade, how you disappoint me.

What? What’s that supposed to mean?

— Only that I’m no more with the FBI than Comrade Juggins is.

Comrade Juggins?

— Naturally, we couldn’t think of coopting you onto the central committee without putting your loyalty to the test. Juggins, incidentally, gives you the thumbs-up. Apart from an old fashion magazine – to which he didn’t attach much significance – he didn’t find anything compromising even in your garbage. So that you were well on your way to the vanguard of the proletariat till you let family take precedence over your commitment to socialism. Buck up, Wilhelmina! Expulsion’s not the end of the world. Here – are you sure I can’t interest you in what’s left of this knish?