For an instant he thought she was going to refuse, and then she changed her mind. “All right. Follow me closely, now; this is a little complicated. Some time ago a jeweler came to me-in my business I get referrals all the time-with a story of having been tricked by his partner. I checked and found out his story was true. I always do check, because over the years I've found that countermeasures such as we specialize in rarely result in an official protest if there has been an original wrong. Too much dirty linen would be exposed.”
She knuckled a hand and scrubbed it briskly in the other palm. “I thought about it for a week. Then I had Ed Russo contact Tim Connor and three unemployed actors, one of them a woman. I set up a timetable for them, and for once they followed it perfectly. On a day like today, for example, the woman was sent to the jeweler where the wrong was to be righted, and she purchased an expensive watch of a type uncommon enough that the jeweler could not in reason have very many in stock. This watch was taken to a man who does work for us, and the expensive moment was removed and a very cheap movement substituted. The tampered watch was then returned to the woman. Three or four days later, in the early morning a man of the group went in to this same jeweler and bought an identical watch. This, too, was taken to our man, the expensive movement removed and the cheap movement substituted. An hour after the first man left the store, the second man went in and bought up all the watches of that style which were left in the store. Because of the price and style of the item there shouldn't be too many; regardless, it is his job to see that he gets them all, from counters, vault and windows. Hard on the heels of his departure the first man came back and returned the watch he had bought earlier the same morning, only now of course it contained the substituted cheap movement. On a returned item the store's watchmaker will automatically check the merchandise as a matter of course, but where is the watchmaker who will take the back off the case and check the watch movement inside?”
Helen Sanders smiled as Johnny leaned forward in his chair, trying to follow her story. “In the meantime, Tim Connor had contacted a man he knew on the District Attorney's Racket Squad. Tim told this man that he'd bought an expensive watch for his girl, had had trouble with it, had taken it to another jeweler, and that the second jeweler had told him that it had a cheap, inferior movement in it and that he'd been rooked. The Racket Squad man naturally said let's go and see this crooked jeweler. Tim led his little party on the scene and accused the clerk of selling his girl a doctored watch. The clerk denied it, naturally, and called out the watchmaker, who took the back off the case of the woman's watch and was confounded by what he found. The Racket Squad man moved in and demanded to see all other watches of that type in stock. They could only have one; the returned one which also had a cheap, inferior movement. Try explaining it to a Racket Squad man some time.”
Johnny blew out his breath. “Lady, when you said you had a devious mind it was the understatement of all time!” He thought back over it, step by step. “Foolproof. A perfect frame.”
Helen Sanders nodded. “All purchases are for cash, strictly. Phony names, except for the woman complainant, and phony addresses. It's an expensive operation, but the man who wanted the job done paid fifteen hundred dollars for it. Paid it cheerfully. He didn't know how it was done; he didn't care. He saw the result.” She looked at Johnny across the desk. “Well?”
“Let me sleep on it. I'll call you.”
“An amendment. I'll call you.” Helen Sanders rose and stubbed out her cigarette vigorously; there was an air of quiet competence in everything this woman did, Johnny reflected. She smiled at him again, the sudden, bright smile which made her appear so much younger. “I think we'll get along, Johnny.” She sobered then, considering him. “There is one change I'm going to make in the operation. Ed Russo used to come to this office for his instructions. I find that a needless involvement. You will in the future receive your instructions from a third party who will be connected with both offices, but will appear in neither.”
“You mean you're installin' an overseer? I might not like that.”
“You won't have any trouble with the overseer.”
“I could feel different about it.”
“You won't. When you learn who it is.”
He considered her carefully. “The overseer know about this? How's he gonna feel about it?”
Helen Sanders' smile was crisp. “I'll have to admit he warned me not to approach you. He felt you were-shall we say-unstable? On the other hand, I need a man with your seeming flair for direct action. The decision I reserved for myself, of course.” She moved out from behind her desk. “We've talked enough, until you give me your answer. I think we're all practical people. I risked only one thing, actually, in approaching you. An outright 'no' might have made it necessary to transfer the operation to another hotel. A hotel is a perfect cover for all-hours and all kinds of comings and goings. It would have been inconvenient, but it was worth the risk to get the right man.”
Lady, you just think you only risked one thing, Johnny thought. He felt a rising excitement gnawing at him as he stood up to confront Helen Sanders. He had to get out of there… he needed time to think “I'll call you in the morning,” Helen Sanders was saying firmly as she walked with him to the door. Absently he noted that she had a nice way of moving; she must be forty, forty-five, but she was sure giving it a battle.
He reached the street without being fully conscious if he had used the elevator or the stairs. He looked for a drugstore and a phone booth, and then changed his mind. He started to look for a cab and changed his mind again. He set out for the hotel at a steady pace, his mind churning.
He nearly walked past the foyer entrance as he plowed along; he turned in and went directly up to his room. Sassy jumped up from a kittenish sprawl to greet him; he ruffled her fur absently for a moment, kicked off his shoes and stretched out on the bed. He stared up at the ceiling for a long time.
He roused himself finally, stretched and walked over to the window. He was surprised to find it dark outside. He drew the shade to three-quarter length and returned to the bed. With hands locked behind his head he resumed his critical inspection of the ceiling.
When he stirred finally his left arm had fallen asleep; he rubbed the circulation back into it and picked up his phone. “Ring eight-fifteen, Edna,” he told the operator when she came on the line. He listened to the insistent brrrrtt.
“Mike? Johnny. You got time to run down to my room a minute? Looks like you're gonna be my new boss, so I ought to start gettin' in right.”
“You mean she-”
“After what you told her she did it anyway. A whim of iron, that lady. Come on down and let's talk it over.” He replaced the phone gently, looked around the room, rose from the bed and extinguished the room light. Back at the bed he sat down on its edge, letting his eyes gradually accustom themselves to the room's darkness. He felt a sharp sting in his ankle; Sassy was diligently exercising her claws on it. Johnny reached down, picked her up and put her in his lap; even in the darkness he could make out the white puffball of the kitten's figure as she settled down contentedly.
Johnny sat and listened to the quiet in the room, his eyes on the thin pencil of light under the edge of his door. Beside him the phone rang, and he jumped; in his preoccupation it was a jarring, unexpected sound. He picked it up hurriedly. “Yeah?”
“This is Edna, Johnny. There's a lady here to see you. A Mrs. Barnes.”
“Tell her-tell her I'll be down in a few minutes, Edna.”
He waited impatiently in the short pause before Edna's voice came back on the line. “I don't see her in the lobby. She came on the house phone before when you were talking, and I couldn't connect you. Could she have gone upstairs? I didn't-”
“Listen, Edna,” Johnny said rapidly. “Find her, or have someone find her for you. Hold her in the lobby. I'll be down shortly.” He hung up quickly and waited for the telephone noise to die out in his ear so that he could again concentrate on room sound. His eyes again picked up the line of light under the door, and he settled back on the bed. He stiffened as his ear picked up a faint, alien sound, and his unwinking stare focused on the line of light as he waited for it to widen in indication that the door had been silently opened.
The line remained constant, however, and the noise repeated itself, direction indistinguishable in the darkness. Johnny wrenched his eyes away from the light at the door and stared blindly around the room. He became conscious suddenly of the kitten on his lap; the small head was turned at right angles toward the window. Johnny tensed; he could picture the pink nose wrinkling as Sassy tested the air — had she felt a current of air from the window being raised slowly and almost quietly from the outside?
He bounded from the bed, carrying the kitten with him; he flattened himself against the end wall, out of line with window and bed. Over his shoulder he strained his eyes back to the door, but the thin line of light remained stationary, and then in the middle of his breath of relief the night around him erupted in gunfire.
