believe you.”
Johnny swept a hand in a leisurely semicircle around the disorder of the shabby office. “You don't look to me like you got enough firepower financially, what I see here,” he said critically. “I need a real money tree. If you can't weigh in heavy enough, it'd be real cozy if you'd steer me to whichever of the others figured to shower down the most. I wouldn't forget it.”
“The others?” Tremaine's tone was sharp.
“Sure. Max, maybe. Jack, or Harry. Madeleine, even. For the right steer I could make you a deal.”
“Send him to Stitt,” the redhead said rapidly in Italian from her corner. “With the trouble over the symbols-”
“Shut up!” Jules Tremaine's hard voice rapped tightly on the heels of hers, but he didn't turn to look at her. “He speaks French. Why not Italian?” The heavy-lidded eyes measured Johnny. “I think he knows nothing. He fishes in troubled waters.”
“Trouble's the word, chum,” Johnny said in his most reasonable tone. “Since we know there's goin' to be some, I'm in favor of makin' a dollar on the prospect. Whose side are you on? The people with the money, or Tremaine's?” He reached behind him for the doorknob at the other's silence. “The hell with it. I don't like doin' business with people who can't make up their mind. I'll go it alone.”
“Jules!” Gloria Philips exclaimed as Johnny opened the door.
“Shut up,” the big man repeated, but not as positively as before. Johnny closed the door from the other side and walked through the outer office. He was surprised that he hadn't been called back by the time the elevator he had summoned stopped at the eighteenth floor. Tremaine either had good nerves or was slow on the uptake. Not that it mattered-there was an easy way to copper the bet.
In the lobby he went straight to the phone booth. He found fourteen Stitts in the directory. One John, who could be Jack, and one Max. Johnny scribbled phone numbers and addresses on the back of a matchbook cover. On second thought, he went back to the directory and tried Stit, with one “t.” Only three, and no Jack, John or Max.
He referred to the directory for the third time, fished a dime from the change in his pocket and dialed the number of the Spandau Watch Co. He listened appreciatively to Gloria Philips' cool voice at the other end of the line. “'Bout time for your coffee break, isn't it, little sister?” he asked her in Italian.
He could hear the perceptible intake of her breath. “I'm sorry I'm late. We've been busy. I'll be right down.”
Nice to find someone with a normal quota of curiosity, Johnny thought. He strolled back to the bank of elevators to wait for her. He had a smile on his face for Gloria Philips when she stepped out into the lobby. She looked at him, a long, speculative look, and then without a word steered him to the coffee-shop door on the left and on through the cafeteria-style aisle.
En route to a corner table behind her, with their coffees on a tray, he noted that her suit-blue, today- enhanced her ripened curves commendably. Even in daylight, the rich auburn hair had a remarkable sheen.
“I can't understand why I feel you're not a fool,” she commented at the table as he unloaded the tray. Her glance ranged over him guardedly. “The way you blundered in upstairs was nothing short of idiotic, but-”
Her eyes at close range were a chameleonlike blue-gray, Johnny decided, and the tiny freckles even more attractive than he had remembered. “No sugar, thanks,” she said. She picked up her cup and sipped at it, her eyes still upon him above the rim. “You could be a fool, I suppose,” she remarked as she set the cup down. “But I think I like you, anyway.” She smiled at him.
Johnny felt his interest rising by the moment. When this girl smiled, the lights dimmed. “What's a looker like you doin' workin' for Tremaine?” he asked her bluntly.
The smile was as cool as the voice. “I could find you a thousand girls-” she glanced at the square-cut watch on her plump wrist-“between now and lunch time who'd love to work for Jules.”
“So he's a doll. You're not moonstruck. You reacted upstairs faster than he did.” He reached across the table to take her wrist in his hand for a better look at the watch, and small diamonds winked in the light. “About fifteen, eighteen hundred,” Johnny estimated. “If these go with the job, I take back what I said.” He released her wrist, although she had made no move to withdraw it. He must be getting old, he decided. He hadn't felt skin like that in years. “You think I should see Stitt?”
“I really don't know you well enough to advise you, Mr. Killain.” Her smile was brilliant.
“Save the candlepower, kid. This is business. An' the name's Johnny. As for not knowin' me, we could fix that. I'd promise to enjoy it.” He studied her a moment. “Why do you figure Dechant killed himself?”
“Don't you mean why did he kill himself just now?” she answered, and moved right on. “Don't underestimate Jules. You'll hear from him, when he's had time to think it over. He'll tell you to go to Madeleine. He hates her. He'd like to see her in trouble.”
“But you hate Stitt,” Johnny suggested. “You'd like to see him in trouble.”
The long-lashed eyelids lowered, then swept upward again in a dazzling display. “Claude told you about customs finding out about the symbols not being re-marked?” she asked.
“First I've heard of it,” Johnny said. “Outside of the crack you made upstairs.”
“It's well for my faith in you that you answered that way,” she continued. “Claude didn't know it himself, being just off the plane. That's why Ernest and I were there, to tell him.” A coral-tinted fingernail tapped idly on her coffee cup. “You're serious about having something to sell?”
“I've got it,” Johnny assured her. “Like to get on the bandwagon? You just aim me at the moneybelt. To nail it down for you a little, I spent some time in Italy some time back. Like Claude Dechant. I won't have any trouble sellin'. I just want the best price. Is Stitt the man?”
“Max doesn't respond to pressure,” she said slowly. This time Johnny thought her smile was rueful. “I speak from experience.”
Johnny lit two cigarettes, handed her one and sneaked a look at his matchbook cover. “Look, I can't sit still. Stitt will be at the warehouse, I suppose.”
“Usually.” Her tone was absent. She picked a shred of tobacco from a full lower lip, the blue-gray eyes still studying him. Abruptly she made up her mind. “Forget what I said about Max. Go after Jack. He'll be there, too, this time of day. Jack's the man with the money.”
“You're telling me this because you love me.”
The beautiful face was serene. “I'm telling you because, if you make it to the payoff window, I'd like to be in line for a share. And Jack has the money.” She made an impatient gesture at Johnny's careful inspection of her. “All right, I dislike Max Stitt. If it was just a question of getting him punched in the nose, I'd cheerfully let you go over there looking for him. If there's real money involved, though, Jack's the man with something to lose.” She smiled. “None of them has the right time for me. If you score, remember the source.”
“You can believe it, little sister.” He was watching her face. “You don't like Jack, either?”
“Jack's a fat slug,” she replied indifferently. “I could learn to like his money with no trouble at all.”
“That's my kind of jazz you're playin' now,” Johnny said approvingly. He leaned in closer over the table. “How about dinner tonight to set up the articles of war?” He eyed the golden haze of freckles on the white skin. “You freckled all over like that, kid?”
“Not all over, Johnny.” Her gaze was level and self-possessed. “I think I'd enjoy having dinner with you.”
“Fine. Pick you up here at five?”
“I'll be looking forward to it.” She stood up, pushing back her chair, smiled at him again and walked away. Johnny sat and watched her walk toward the elevator until she disappeared into it.
A lovely little playmate, he decided. Lovely. And dangerous.
Johnny alighted from the cab in front of the three-story brick building of the Empire Freight Forwarding Corporation. Waiting for the driver to make change, he noticed that the place had the indefinable air of decrepitude even the newest warehouses speedily acquire. He wondered if the redhead had felt it necessary to make a phone call to anyone announcing his imminent arrival. He'd soon know, and the knowledge among other things would set the tone for his dinner date with Miss Gloria Philips.
He strode up a narrow cement walk between ten-foot-high, heavy-duty wire fences laced at the top with projecting strands of ugly-looking barbed wire. Ignoring the door marked office, he moved forty feet down the building to an unmarked one.
The high whine of a motor assailed Johnny's ears at his entrance. A man in a woolen shirt, with a baling hook
