Then Monday evening, in the office right after dinner, Wolfe handed me a sheet from his memo pad covered with his handwriting, and asked, “Can you read that, Archie?”
The question was rhetorical, since his writing is almost as easy to read as print. I read it and told him, “Yes, sir, I can make it out.”
“Type it on a Gazette letterhead, including the signature as indicated. Then I want to look at it. Address a Gazette envelope to Mr. Albert Enright, Communist Party of the USA, Thirty-five East Twelfth Street. One carbon, single-space.”
“With a mistake or two, maybe?”
“Not necessarily. You are not the only one in New York who can type well.”
I pulled the machine around, got the paper out and put it in, and hit the keys. When I took it out I read it over:
June 27, 1949. Dear Mr. Enright: I send this to you because I met you once and have heard you speak at meetings twice. You wouldn’t know me if you saw me, and you wouldn’t know my name. I work at the Gazette . Of course you have seen the series that started on Sunday. I am not a Communist, but I approve of many things they stand for and I think they are getting a raw deal, and anyway I don’t like traitors, and the man who is giving the Gazette the material for those articles is certainly a traitor. I think you have a right to know who he is. I have never seen him and I don’t think he has ever come to the office, but I know the man here who is working with him on the articles, and I had a chance to get something which I believe will help you, and I am enclosing it in this letter. I have reason to know that it was in the folder that was sent to one of the executives to show him that the articles are authentic. If I told you more than that it might give you a hint of my identity, and I don’t want you to know who I am. More power to you in your fight with the imperialists and monopolists and warmakers. A Friend.
I got up to hand it to Wolfe and returned to the typewriter to address the envelope. And, though I had done the whole letter without an error, on the envelope I fumbled and spelled Communist “Counimmst,” and had to take another one. It didn’t irritate me because I knew why: I was excited. In a moment I would know which photograph was going to be enclosed in that letter, unless the big bum dealt me out.
He didn’t, but he might as well have. He opened his drawer and dug, held one out to me, and said, “That’s the enclosure. Mail it where it will be collected tonight.”
It was the picture, the best one, of the Communist party membership card of William Reynolds, Number 128–394. I withered him with a look, put the letter and picture in the envelope, sealed it and put a stamp on it, and left the house. In my frame of mind I thought a little air wouldn’t hurt me any, so I walked to the Times Square Station.