Authors: Edward D. Hoch
“Nothing but plaster,” the doctor reported. Nick shrugged and went on his way.
On Monday afternoon he delivered the statue to Ran at her New York apartment: She greeted him at the door wearing an electric-pink lounging robe and not much else. “My, you’re a fast worker.”
“I’ve had more difficult assignments. Do you have the money?”
She hesitated. “Let me examine it first. Phone me in an hour.”
Nick nodded agreeably.
When he phoned later, she seemed quite disturbed. “Bad news,” she told him. “I’ll need another one.”
“That wasn’t in our agreement.”
“I said I might need another. I’ll pay a little extra.”
“The second one will be harder to get.”
“I know.” She thought about it: “Try the Hartford club—that’s the main one.”
It rained all day in the Connecticut capital, a chilling, depressing sort of rain that spoke more of autumn than the beginning of summer. Patrons at the bar in the Capital Club were grumbling about the weather, about the golf they were missing or the sailing they had to pass up. They grumbled and ordered more drinks, and Nick Velvet drank along with them.
The redheaded Lion Tamer at the door had questioned his temporary membership card, but only for a moment. He obviously had money to spend, and they were glad to take it. After two drinks he drifted upstairs to the second floor, heading for the Men’s Room but detouring to a private dining room that was apparently open only on weekends. There was a sea of tables in the empty room, each with a laughing lion in its center.
He stepped behind a door as two Lion Tamers went by, chatting on their way to the employees’ dressing room. Watching their legs in the low silver boots they wore, Nick held his breath and hoped they wouldn’t sense his presence. But then they were gone and he went back into the empty room, heading for the nearest table.
Just as his fingers touched the lion, a pert voice behind him announced, “Sorry, sir, but only the main-floor rooms are open this evening.”
“Oh?” He turned to smile at the redheaded Lion Tamer who’d been at the door when he entered the club. “This is my first time here and I was just looking around.”
He went back downstairs and thought about another plan. The first theft had been easy, but the same trick with lights wouldn’t work here. For one thing, the manager never seemed to leave the area of the switches. So Nick smoked a cigarette, ordered another drink, and settled down on a bar stool to wait a while.
After ten minutes he rose, went upstairs and then down the dim passage to the Men’s Room. Inside he glanced around and spotted a wire basket for discarded paper towels. He pulled out several fresh ones and crumpled them into the basket, dampening them first so they’d give off plenty of smoke. Then he threw a couple of lighted matches into the basket on top of them. There wouldn’t be enough of a fire to do real damage, but he hoped the smoke would serve to confuse things for a few precious minutes.
He left the Men’s Room and had just reached the private dining room when he heard someone shout, “There’s a fire in here!”
He turned on the dim lights and closed the door behind him, going quickly to the nearest table where he began to unbolt the plaster lion.
“Freeze, mister!” a voice warned behind him.
Nick turned slowly and stared into the muzzle of a .38 automatic held in the hand of a burly bearded man. A door leading to the kitchen opened and two other armed men came in fast.
Nick cursed silently and raised his hands. The whole thing had been too easy from the beginning. He’d been careless, and now he’d have to pay the consequences.
“I was just looking around,” he explained lamely.
“Sure, mister,” the bearded man retorted. “We’ll see what Mr. Rumston thinks about it.”
They took him to an office on the top floor, where he was kept under armed guard for nearly an hour. At last the bearded man returned and motioned him to his feet. “Mr. Rumston will see you now.”
Nick followed him into the hall, aware of the other man’s gun pointed at his back. One thing seemed clear—they didn’t intend to phone the police or they’d have done it long ago. His captors led him into a more palatial office where a tall handsome man with dark hair and fashionable sideburns waited behind a wide oak desk.
Nick recognized Rumston at once from his pictures. The expensive suit, the trace of a smile playing about his lips—all contributed to the image the man had created in the public press. He had the look of a young liberal politician—a lawyer look, but more than that. Though Nick knew him to be in his early forties, he could easily have passed for ten years younger.
“Well,” he said by way of greeting.
“This is all a mistake,” Nick began, trying to bluff.
“You’re Nick Velvet, aren’t you?”
There was no choice but to admit it. “I seem to be known here.”
“In certain circles you’re quite well known,” Phil Rumston said. “After the trouble at the Trenton club we’ve been on our toes. The Lion Tamer who found you upstairs reported to Frazier here.” He motioned toward the bearded man. “Frazier is my operations manager.”
“I see,” Nick said calmly.
The beard nodded, but did not lower his gun. Then Rumston asked, “Who hired you, Velvet?” The smile disappeared as he spoke, just for a moment.
“That’s my business. Professional confidence.”
“Nuts! You were hired by Ran Brewster, weren’t you?”
Nick shrugged. “You seem to know all the answers.”
Rumston pulled open a desk drawer and handed Nick a letter. “Read that!”
It was typed, but he had little doubt that it had come from Ran.
“Mr. Rumston! Now I know your shabby secret. Soon the whole world will know unless you pay me one hundred thousand dollars.
It was signed
Ran,
and dated a few days earlier.
“She’s
blackmailing
you?” Nick was genuinely surprised. The man seated before him had had his entire private life revealed in the public press—seduction, desertion, even homosexuality. What could be left to blackmail him about? “I thought you once told a reporter that you were a man without any secrets.”
Rumston nodded. “I did, didn’t I?” He was glum now. “She talked to somebody, a club manager I thought I could trust. He’s gone now.”
“Can she send you to prison?”
“I wouldn’t mind that so much. Frazier here could manage the clubs. I’m right on the verge of getting them into five more state capitals.”
“Well, then, what—?”
“What is she blackmailing me about? Really, Mr. Velvet, you can’t expect me to tell you that!”
Nick was beginning to grow restless. His eyes scanned the room for a way out, but there was none. “Then what do you intend to do?”
Phil Rumston leaned back in his chair, swiveling it a bit. “I know your reputation, Velvet. You steal things. Right?”
“That’s right.”
“Anything?”
“Anything not valuable. I don’t steal money or jewels or valuable art objects, because there are too many others doing that sort of work already. I steal things of little or no value, on assignment.”
“How much is she paying?”
“My usual rate is twenty thousand dollars. For especially dangerous jobs I get thirty thousand dollars.”
“And you never turn down an assignment?”
“Not if it falls within the range of my activities.”
Phil Rumston sighed. He seemed pleased with himself once more, and the smile crept back to his lips. “Very well. Then I’m hiring you to steal the lion back from Ran Brewster. The one from the Trenton club, and any others you might have got.”
Nick was silent for a moment. Finally he said, “I’m not sure.”
“Thirty thousand to steal them back. I don’t care about the Trenton one as much as the others.”
“How do you know there are others?”
“She sent me this note. She must have something.” He rummaged around for a cigarette and lit it. “Think about it, Velvet. You’ve got no reason to turn me down.”
“Give me some time,” Nick said. “I’ve never been hired to steal anything back before.”
“Look,” Rumston’s tone hardened. “Frazier could have shot you as a thief. He still can. But I’m a businessman, not a gangster. I’m making you a straight business offer.”
Nick thought about Ran Brewster. “Why is she blackmailing you?” he asked.
“That’s no concern of yours.”
“Did you foreclose the mortgage on her old dad’s homestead?”
“Something like that,” Rumston admitted. “It was a long time ago. This is just a grudge thing with her.”
“It can’t have been too long ago. The girl’s barely twenty.”
“She’s old enough to be blackmailing me!”
“Yes,” Nick admitted.
“Will you do it? You really don’t have any choice.”
“Yes, I suppose so.”
That night he was back in Manhattan, and the following day he paid a call on Ran Brewster. She seemed surprised to see him so soon, but far from disappointed. “You’ve got another lion?” she asked eagerly.
“No.” He lit a cigarette and sat down. “You’re blackmailing Rumston, aren’t you?”
“My! That’s coming right to the point! Has he spoken to you?”
“Yes.”
“And bought you off, I suppose.”
“Not exactly. Why are you blackmailing him?”
“That’s none of your business. You’re being well paid to do a job, Mr. Velvet, and I expect you to do it.”
“I’d like to know just where I stand.”
“If you want your money, I need at least one more lion. That’s where you stand.”
“Obviously the lions are tied in with the blackmail. Where’s the one I brought you already?”
She was looking tensely at him. “Can I trust you? Can I trust any man?”
“You sound as if you’ve had a bad experience. Were you one of his Lion Tamers?”
“No.”
He glanced around the apartment, wondering where she’d hidden the lion. “Well?” he asked finally. “Do you trust me?”
“I suppose it has to start somewhere, doesn’t it?” she decided with a sigh. “I’ll get it for you, and I’ll tell you why it’s worth twenty thousand dollars to me.”
Something clicked in Nick Velvet’s brain.
He didn’t need to steal the lions, back after all. Not now.
“Never mind,” he said suddenly. “I have to go.”
“Where, in such a hurry?”
“Back to Hartford.”
He returned to the original Capital Club in Hartford. From a booth across the street he called and asked to speak to Rumston.
“Yes?”
“Nick Velvet. I thought we should have another little talk. I was wondering if you might want to go sailing with me on the Sound. My boat’s docked only an hour from here.”
“Too busy, and I never liked the water anyway. You can talk over the phone.”
“I have some bad news.”
“What’s that?”
“I can’t accept your assignment.”
“Why not?”
“I only steal things with little or no value. Those lions are very valuable to Ran Brewster right now. She’s paying me twenty thousand dollars for them.”
“But—”
“That makes them sort of art work—valuable art work. Outside my field, so I can’t steal them back.”
“Nuts, Velvet! You’ve fallen for her, haven’t you?”
“I hope not.”
“Where are you now?”
“In Hartford.”
“Then come up here where we can talk about this.”
“I’ll be there in five minutes.”
The club was all but deserted at this afternoon hour, with only a few Lion Tamers visible and a bored-looking cleanup man vacuuming the carpet. Nick took the elevator to Rumston’s office, pausing only to glance into the private dining room on the second floor. He was not surprised to see that nearly half the tables were without their plaster lions.
Rumston was waiting for him, standing by the wide picture window that overlooked Broad Street. “Now what is all this?” he demanded.
“I told you on the phone. I can’t do it.”
“That’s final?”
“I’m afraid so.”
“I’ll send Frazier to do it, then. I hope he doesn’t have to hurt her.”
Nick felt his muscles tighten. “It’s too late to try for the girl,” he said carefully. “I have two more lions.”
Phil Rumston frowned. “What the hell is this? A double cross?”
“I never agreed to work for you. When I decided I couldn’t steal her lions back, I went after a couple more—to sort of complete her set.”
“You don’t have any more lions. If you do, they’re useless to you. The important ones are locked up in the next room.”
“Are they?” Nick smiled. “Why don’t you take a look?”
“I will.”
He stepped into the next office, closing the door behind him. He was just reaching for one of the plaster lions when Nick Velvet opened the door and crossed quickly to his side. Before Rumston could react, Nick’s gun was pressed against the back of his head.
“I’ll take two of those lions,” he said. “I don’t want to hurt you, so hand them over.”
Ran Brewster was waiting at the door of her apartment. She pressed her hands together in a gesture of relief when she saw that Nick was carrying a package. “You got another lion!”
“That’s right. Two for good measure.”
She led him into the apartment, closing the door behind him. “Great! Here’s your money.” She was smiling as she added, “Now you can go back to your boat and wait for another mermaid.”
He thought about the waters of the Sound and how pleasant they’d be. But he couldn’t quite desert her like this. “I flew down from Hartford. Rumston and Frazier might not be far behind.”
“Rumston won’t hurt me,” she said confidently.
“How can you be so sure? I don’t know what you’ve got against him, but I’d suggest you abandon this blackmail scheme. He won’t stand for it. If you’ve got twenty grand to pay me, you’re not poor, the money can’t mean that much to you.”
“It means a great deal to me. More than you’ll ever know.”
“Rumston can make millions from his clubs. He doesn’t want you in the way.”
She was busy examining one of the lions. “You don’t know about him.”
“That’s where you’re wrong, Miss Brewster. I know, for instance, the secret of these lions. I stopped in to see a doctor and had them X-rayed.”
“And what was the doctor’s diagnosis?”
“A mild digestive upset caused by a tiny microphone in the lion’s mouth, connected to a radio transmitter in the stomach. That was the secret Phil Rumston would be blackmailed about. His chain of Capital Clubs is an elaborate cover for an information gathering network. Information about pending legislation, highways, taxes, bonds—information that can be worth big money sold to the right people.”