The Thief (26 page)

BOSS AUTHORIZES PAY ANY PRICE.

ON THE JUMP!

“What is the meaning of ‘On the jump’? Like it sounds?”

“Exactly like it sounds. Get moving without delay. Immediately.”

“What are you going to do on the jump, Detective Curtis?”

“Send you home and go to work.”

Curtis climbed into his coat and felt in the pockets for a couple of apples he had bought earlier.

“Should I come with you?” she asked.

“Go home. It’s bedtime. Here.” He handed her the apples. “Give one to your mother.” He ushered her out and locked the door. Then he turned off the light and watched from the window until she disappeared around the corner. No one else was out at this hour, and no one was watching the office. He went out the back window and down the fire ladder and hurried to a neighborhood
Kintopp
, hoping to get lucky.

A groschen bought him a pint
Topp
of beer and entry to the
Kino
which showed moving pictures in a long, narrow space formed by three apartment flats strung together. The films on the screen this evening would have not passed the test for a police license. Arthur Curtis had been a detective long enough to have only a passing interest in what in his boyhood would have been called “dirty pictures.” But Hans Reuter, his man inside Krieg’s Berlin office, liked them, and this working-class moving picture theater was a sufficiently long walk from Reuter’s expensive neighborhood that he felt safe frequenting it without the locals telling his wife. So Arthur Curtis sipped his beer and pretended to be engrossed in the goings-on flickering on the screen while he kept an eye on the men drifting in from the beer bar.

Curtis sat for two hours in the dark. The place had emptied out a bit, and he was having trouble staying awake, when, all of a sudden, in walked his man from Krieg, hugging his beer and looking for an empty place on the bench that he favored in the back row. Curtis moved over. Herr Reuter sat, sipped, and stared.

The short, round Van Dorn detective remained as silent as the film until the waiters finally interrupted with loud offers of “Beer?” During the storm of affirmative replies, he leaned closer to Reuter and whispered, “Triple.”

“What?” Reuter turned. His mouth tightened when he realized that the man who had been sitting next to him all along was Arthur Curtis. “I said, no more.”

“I can now pay triple,” whispered Curtis. “Three times as much. If you’re interested, meet me in the bar.”

Reuter kept him waiting, but not for long. Greed, in the immortal words of Chief Investigator Isaac Bell, worked wonders.

“Triple?” Reuter echoed in disbelief.

Arthur Curtis passed him the fresh
Topp
he had ordered and took a sip from his own. “Triple. But only for something special.”

“Like what?”

“Something unique. You know the situation at your employer. You’re best qualified to suggest something that I would really need. Aren’t you?”

Hans Reuter looked worried. “But how am I to guess?”

Curtis shrugged. “Let me guess for you. How many Krieg company executives and directors are former Army officers?”

“Very few.”

“Do you know any?”

“Not personally. I mean, there are none in the Berlin office.”

“Can you find their names?”

“I would have to think about that.”

“While you’re thinking,” Curtis shot back, “think which of those company directors might travel abroad.”

Reuter looked uncomfortable, and Curtis thought he was touching some sort of a nerve here, as if the man had thought of a name he feared.

“One of your responsibilities is to dispense funds overseas, correct?”

“How do you know?”

Curtis’s casual, “I asked around” did not make Reuter look any more comfortable.

Curtis went for broke. “I need a name.”

“A name?”

“The name of the recipient.”
Push!
Arthur Curtis thought. Push him hard. Don’t give him time to change his mind. “Two days,” he said. “Meet me here. Seven o’clock.”

“It is risky.”

“Don’t worry, it will be the last time I ask.”

“No more?” Hans asked, partly with relief, partly with disappointment that the money would stop. Curtis said, “In addition to triple, I will seek authorization for a separation bonus. A thank-you.”

Greed was Reuter’s middle name. Suddenly he was brave. “But for the name you ask I will have to pay someone else.”

He was lying, bless him, Curtis thought. Reuter was high enough up in Krieg to know the name himself. Curtis said, “O.K. If I must, I will pay your ‘someone else,’ too.” Maybe Reuter was lying. But maybe he wasn’t. Hopefully, he was so grasping he would take a big risk.

On his way back to the office, Art Curtis stopped at the all-night telegraph in a railroad station to cable Isaac Bell.

WIRE AUTHORIZED FUNDS.

NAME POSSIBLE TWO DAYS.

A
NDREW
R
UBENOFF REPORTED BACK
to Isaac Bell that he was very impressed by Irina Viorets.

“I’m surprised,” Bell admitted. “I thought there was something fishy about how fast she got the job running such a big outfit.”

“The woman displays a keen understanding of the moving picture business. Not only the taking of the pictures, but the distribution and exhibition—which are absolutely vital to making a profit. Equally important, she understands that more must be done than introducing a couple of new shows with each change. The customers won’t stand much longer for furbishing up of the exhibition with a few new features. The exhibitors must be able to declare that the entire show is new. ‘Keep your show fresh and up-to-the-minute,’ she told me, ‘and you will draw full houses.’”

“Sounds like she was selling you.”

“I pretended to be an exhibitor with a string of picture show shops in Indiana.”

“That was a nice touch,” Bell said admiringly.

“Not really,” Rubenoff replied with a modest smile. “I control houses in Detroit, Toledo, Battle Creek, and Indianapolis.”

“So you think she passes muster?”

“There are poseurs in this line who like to say that anyone can make a moving picture. That is not true, as Mr. Thomas Edison is slowly beginning to learn at great expense. Similarly, not just anyone can distribute movies. Mademoiselle Viorets knows her business. Most important, she knows the
future
of the business.”

“You didn’t fall for her, Uncle Andy, did you?”

“It is in my makeup,” Rubenoff replied, enigmatically, “to be capable of admiring a beautiful woman without desiring her.”

“How did Irina learn so much about the future of the business?”

“Apparently she made one-reelers in Russia. Much as your bride does when she is not shooting her Picture World newsreels for the ghastly Whiteway.”

“But how did a Russian moving picture director learn about distribution and exhibition?”

Rubenoff smiled. “You’re your father’s son, young Isaac. Always to the core.” Then he turned very serious, and Isaac Bell was reminded that Rubenoff had earned several fortunes since landing as an immigrant and appeared to be on the road to another. “It seems to me that Irina Viorets learned about distribution and exhibition by listening carefully to someone who has manipulated a modern corporation to control the entire chain of production and marketing from top to bottom.”

“Like who?”

“Andrew Carnegie pretty much invented modern vertical integration.”

“Assuming the young lady did not sit on the old philanthropist’s knee, who else? Any Germans?”

“Germans? Krupp has pretty much written the book on German vertical integration.”

“What about Krieg Rüstungswerk?”

“If not quite so large as Krupp, Krieg is better connected in the kaiser’s circle. But wherever the lady absorbed her ideas, she has a clear understanding that the future of moving pictures belongs to those who control every aspect, from hiring actors to projecting the finished product in the theater—only then can we guarantee a place to see our product, and a product to see in our place.”

“Sounds like you’re working at vertical integration, too, Uncle Andy.”

“From your lips to God’s ear, young Isaac. But don’t go blabbing it about.”

“Will you keep digging into who’s behind her?”

“I’ve already begun inquiries,” Rubenoff replied.

“Q
UIET AS A CHURCH,” THE
V
AN
D
ORN
Protective Services operatives reported whenever Bell dropped by the Imperial Building laboratory where Clyde Lynds was hard at work. “He’s at it from breakfast to supper, and sometimes half the night. The man works hard as a nailer.”

“Have you seen anyone hanging around?”

“No. It’s just him and us and Clyde’s helpers—and you know we looked at them real close.”

“No shadows on the way home?”

“No, sir, Mr. Bell. None coming in either. And the boys watching the house haven’t seen a soul who looked like trouble. Do you think maybe they just gave up and packed it in?”

“I would be very surprised,” said Bell. “Keep on your toes. And remember, the hardest part of guarding a fellow is that the attack can come anytime, night or day.”

Privately, however, Bell had to wonder. Had Krieg given up? Or were they laying back, reasoning that once he was set up in a laboratory, Clyde Lynds wasn’t going anywhere until he had finished the machine, in which event they had him just where they wanted him?

J
OSEPH
V
AN
D
ORN ARRIVED ON THE TRAIN,
unexpectedly.

Isaac Bell saw by his expression that the boss doubted that his chief investigator was on the right course, although Van Dorn’s opening salvo was uncharacteristically mild and somewhat oblique.

“Our friends at Dagget, Staples and Hitchcock are alarmed by inquiries from disreputable types.”

“What sort of disreputable types?”

“Some furrier and his cousin in the glove trade marched in big as day demanding to borrow money to build a plant for the manufacture of motion pictures. Thanks to your bankrolling masquerade, word’s getting around the film folk that Dagget has money to lend.”

“Are you sure they weren’t Krieg agents onto us?”

“I looked into them, of course. But they appear legitimate.”

“Legitimately disreputable?” Bell asked with a smile.

“That’s what I just said: a furrier and a glover. How’s Clyde making out with the machine?”

“He’s making progress. Seems excited by a scheme to photograph the sound directly onto the movie film.”

“I hope he makes progress faster. Guarding a man night and day does not come cheap.”

“How did you make out with the German ambassador?” Bell asked.

“We danced around each other, me pretending I was merely curious about Army officers serving as consular attachés, the ambassador pretending not to wonder why I was pretending mere curiosity. I left the Cosmos Club with the distinct impression that he hasn’t a clue what his consuls are up to, much less the German Army. Nor does he want to.”