Authors: Edward D. Hoch
When it was dark he slowly backed the truck against the side of the trailer and got out. “What in hell’s that growling?” he heard Harry Smith ask from inside. Nick unlocked the back of the truck.
It was Cormick who opened the trailer door, pistol in hand. “Who’s there? That you, Jeanie?”
“One tiger, as ordered, Cormick.”
“Velvet!”
“Hungry and mean, but in good condition.” Nick opened the back door of the truck.
The tiger leaped for the lighted trailer and made it to Cormick in a single bound. Behind him, Harry Smith started to scream.
Afterward, Nick used the tranquilizer gun on the tiger and then scooped up the loot of the holdup. He pushed through a gathering crowd of frightened spectators and drove away as the first police car was coming down the road …
Nick Velvet stopped at the corner grocery for a six-pack of cold beer. He walked slowly, enjoying the feel of the warm evening, until he came in sight of the house and saw Gloria waiting for him on the porch. Then he smiled and started walking faster.
“Hello, Nicky,” she said. “Home to stay?”
“For a while,” he answered, and opened a couple of beers.
“Y
OU STEAL THINGS, DON’T
you?”
Nick Velvet regarded her with a slight smile. “Only the hearts of beautiful maidens.”
“No, seriously. I can pay.”
“Seriously. What do you want stolen?”
“The water from a swimming pool.”
He continued smiling at her, but a portion of his mind wished he were back on the front porch with Gloria and a cold beer. The habits of the very rich had never been for him. “I could always pull the plug,” he suggested, still smiling.
The girl, whose name was Asher Dumont, ground out her cigarette with a gesture of angry irritation. “Look, Mr. Velvet, I didn’t arrange to have you invited here so we could trade small talk. I happen to know that you steal unusual things, unique things, and that your fee is $20,000. Correct?”
“All right,” he told her, playing along. “I don’t know exactly how you came upon that information in your circle, but I’ll admit it’s reasonably accurate, Miss Dumont.”
“Then will you?”
“Will I what?”
“Steal the water from Samuel Fitzpatrick’s pool?”
Nick Velvet had been approached by many people during his career, and as his peculiar reputation had grown, he’d been hired to steal many curious things. He’d once stolen a tiger from a zoo, and a stained-glass window from a museum. His fee for such odd thefts was a flat $20,000, with an extra $10,000 for especially hazardous tasks. He never stole money, or the obvious valuables that other thieves went after. He dealt only in the unusual, often in the bizarre—but in his field he was the best in the business.
“That’s a peculiar assignment even for me,” he told the girl. She was blonde, with shoulder-length straight hair in the tradition of girl folksingers. He wouldn’t have been surprised to see her back in his old Greenwich Village neighborhood, but somehow she seemed out of place sipping cocktails at a society reception in Westchester. It was only her dress, a gleaming satin sheath, that belonged at the party—not the girl.
“I understood that you specialize in the peculiar.”
“I do. When do you want it done, and where is the place?” She sipped her cocktail and glanced around to make certain they weren’t overheard. “Samuel Fitzpatrick has an estate twenty miles from here, in Connecticut. I’ll find an excuse to take you over there. After that you’re on your own. Only one stipulation—it must be done before next weekend’s holiday. Before the Fourth of July.”
“I suggested pulling the plug. That would be the easiest way. It would save you twenty thousand.”
“You don’t seem to understand, Mr. Velvet—I
want
the water from that pool. I want you to steal the water, all of it, and deliver it to me.”
“Is this some sort of wild bet?” he asked. He could imagine nothing else.
Asher Dumont stretched her long tanned legs under the table and drew in on her cigarette. “I understood that you were a businessman. The reason shouldn’t be important to you.”
“It’s not. I was only being inquisitive.”
“Can you come with me to the Fitzpatrick estate in the morning?”
“By the way, who is this Samuel Fitzpatrick? The name is vaguely familiar.”
“He’s a writer and producer of mysteries. Two hits on Broadway and he’s had a very successful series on television. Remember
The Dear Slayer?”
“I don’t follow the theater as closely as I should,” Nick admitted, “but I’ve heard of Fitzpatrick. That’s all I need to know about him. It gives me a talking point.”
“Then I’ll see you in the morning, Mr. Velvet?”
“Since it’s business, Miss Dumont, I usually receive a $5,000 retainer in advance, and the balance when I complete the assignment.”
She didn’t blink. “Very well, I’ll have it for you.”
Nick left her at the table and threaded his way through the reception crowd. In the outer hall he found a phone booth and dialed Gloria’s number.
“Hi, how’re things?”
“Great, Nicky. You coming home?”
“I’ll be a while. Maybe a week. We’re checking out some new plant sites in Connecticut.”
“Oh, Nicky! You’ll be away over the Fourth!”
“Maybe not. I’ll try to be home by then. Maybe we can have a picnic or something.
He knew that would satisfy, her, and after a few more words he hung up. Often on summer nights, sitting on the porch with Gloria, he’d be tempted to give it all up and take a job as a salesman or a bookkeeper. But always there was the odd invitation from somebody like Asher Dumont to get him back to work. The money was good, and he liked his “specialty.” He was a thief, and he knew he’d never change.
Asher Dumont picked him up in a little white sports car that seemed hardly big enough for her lanky frame and long legs. The top was down, and her long blonde hair spun but behind her like a banner as she wheeled the car onto the parkway and headed for Connecticut.
“You didn’t tell me to dress casually,” he said, commenting on her shorts and blouse.
“Sam would be suspicious right away if he ever saw me in a dress.” She steered the car around a truck and shot the speed up to seventy. “There’s a check for $5,000 in my purse. Take it out.”
“A check?”
“Go on, I’m not trying to get evidence against you. I don’t carry that much around in cash.”
“I’ll have to cash this before I finish the job.”
“Sure. Right now, though, tell me what kind of cover story you’ll use with Fitzpatrick. I’m introducing you as someone interested in his plays.”
“Better fill me in on the sort of thing he likes to produce.”
As she talked he had the distinct impression she was merely a rich girl indulging in a game. His business associates were more often shady gang figures or nervous diplomats, the people who could afford to hire Nick Velvet. He didn’t know if he liked it, but she was nice to look at and besides, he’d never been commissioned to steal the water from a swimming pool.
Samuel Fitzpatrick’s estate was actually a generous-sized house with a double garage, situated at the edge of a gently rolling field of scrub brush and young trees. Nick looked out across the low stone walls and open fields and wondered if people still went fox hunting in country like this.
Asher didn’t bother with the doorbell, but took Nick around the back to a flagstone patio which led to a fenced-in swimming pool. A middle-aged man with thinning hair and a tanned, weathered face opened the gate to meet them. “Well, Asher! You’re more lovely every day.”
“Thanks, Sam,” she said, bestowing a quick kiss on his cheek. “This is the man I told you about on the phone—Nick Velvet.”
“Velvet?” Fitzpatrick extended his freckled hand. “Glad to meet you.”
He led them through the wooden gate to the pool. It was a medium-sized one as such things went, with a shallow end for wading and a deep end with a springy diving board. There was a woman in the pool, swimming with a powerful breast stroke, but Nick couldn’t see her face at the moment.
“Nice place you have here,” Nick observed.
“I like privacy. Nearest neighbor’s more than a mile down the road.”
“This is quite a pool.” Nick had been drawn to the edge, noticing the way the smooth edge glistened in layers of multiple colors. It was like marble or quartz, but cut through to show the layers of black and white, with sometimes just a hint of red or brown. “What’s this edge made of?”
“Onyx. My first big play on Broadway was
The Onyx Ring.
The pool is one of my few luxuries.”
Nick was beginning to understand. With the water out of the pool something might be done to remove these onyx layers from the edge. He wondered if Asher Dumont had a poor boy friend lurking somewhere offstage.
The woman climbed out of the water, feeling for an oversized bath towel. Her figure was still good, but Nick knew she’d never see forty again. Asher made the introductions. “Nick, this is Sam’s wife, Lydia. This is a friend, Nick Velvet, Lydia.”
The woman squinted and groped on the poolside table for her glasses. “I’m blind without them,” she explained. “Pleased to meet you, Mr. Velvet. Lovely weather, isn’t it?”
“Certainly is,” Nick agreed, sinking into the red-and-green chair that Fitzpatrick had indicated. He was studying the rear of the house, and the street beyond where no traffic seemed to pass. An idea was beginning to shape itself in his mind.
“Let me get drinks for us,” Lydia Fitzpatrick offered, blinking from behind her thick glasses.
“Fine idea,” her husband said. Then, “Now, what did you want to see me about, Mr. Velvet?”
“I admired your plays,” Nick said, playing with the plastic webbing of his chair. “Especially
The Dear Slayer.
Quite a tricky ending.”
Fitzpatrick leaned back in his own chair and stroked his thinning hair. “That’s what you need for Broadway, a trick ending.”
“I have a plot that might interest you,” Nick told him. “It’s never been done before.”
“You’re a writer?”
“No, that’s why Asher suggested I come to you.”
The producer smiled slightly, as if he’d heard it all before. Lydia returned with drinks and settled to the ground at her husband’s side. “I get a lot of people with ideas,” Fitzpatrick said. “Usually I don’t even like to listen to them. But I’ll make an exception since you’re a friend of Asher’s. This girl is like a daughter to me.” He reached out to take her hand and she smiled as if on cue.
Nick sipped his drink. “Well, it’s a locked-room sort of thing.”
“Locked rooms are a bit old-fashioned for Broadway.”
“Not this one!” Nick hoped he was conveying the proper enthusiasm. “Listen. A man is murdered in a completely locked room. The doors and windows are all sealed and there’s no secret passage.”
“A locked room is difficult to bring off on the stage, when one whole wall is always open to the audience. But go on—how’s it done?”
Nick leaned back and grinned. “There’s a type of laser beam that can pass through a transparent surface without damaging it. The killer fires the beam through the closed and sealed window, murders the man inside, and yet the room remains completely locked.”
Fitzpatrick nodded in admiration. “Not bad. Not bad at all, but I think it would go better in print than on the stage. If I were still doing the television series I might give it a try—I’ve always liked wild things like that, the wilder the better.”
Nick stood up and strolled slowly along the edge of the pool as he talked, and once he managed to slip in a question on the pool’s depth, direct to Mrs. Fitzpatrick. The slanting bottom made it difficult to figure exactly, but he thought the pool probably held close to 19,000 gallons of water. A big job for any thief. He knew it would take days to empty it by ordinary means.
It was nearly four when they finally left the Fitzpatricks, with Nick shaking hands and promising to keep Sam informed of his progress with the idea. Then he was back in the sports car with Asher, racing through the quiet countryside.
“What do you think?” she asked. He glanced down at her bare knees and thought of a reply, but then decided to stick to business. “It can be done,” he told her.
“By the weekend?”
“By the weekend. I just have to check on one piece of equipment and find a few people to help me. Do you need
all
the water?”
She thought about that. “Not every drop, naturally, but most of it. Enough to empty the pool.”
“I’m interested in why you want it, why it’s so valuable to you.”
“You’re getting $20,000,” she reminded him. “For that much you can stay curious.”
“I have a couple of ideas,” he went on. “Once the pool is empty, perhaps those onyx slabs could be pried up and stolen.”
She glanced at him sideways. “You really think I’m a criminal, don’t you? Those slabs aren’t even real onyx—just a good imitation.”
“You can’t want the water for itself. It must be the emptiness of the pool that you really want.”
“I hired you to be a thief, not a detective.”
“Sometimes the logic demanded by the two professions isn’t that different,” he told her. “What’s your connection with Fitzpatrick and his wife, anyway?”
“You mean the bit about my being a daughter to him? I suppose it’s true in a way. His first wife was Mary Dumont, my I aunt. I spent most of my childhood with them, and they really did treat me like a daughter. My parents both died early, but there was a great deal of money in both branches of the family. I think, really, that Sam resented my aunt’s money. Anyway, a month or so after his first play was a hit, he asserted his independence one night and Aunt Mary left him. That was ten years ago, and nobody’s seen her since—though she occasionally sends me money through a lawyer in California.”
“Fitzpatrick divorced her?”
The girl nodded. “On the grounds of desertion. He married Lydia three years ago.”
“You resent Lydia, don’t you?”
“Because she took my aunt’s place? Oh, I suppose so.”
Nick Velvet was thinking of Lydia Fitzpatrick’s poor eyesight, and her swimming habits. Would she come running out to dive into the pool one morning and find only the hard concrete bottom waiting for her? Or did such things only happen in comic strips?