“You got two bills, and a case—a great big one, a hundred bucks worth,” Anita said with mild disgust. “The boys called in, patrolled the stores last night, everything okay. We're out of cards, so I called the printer. I've also typed out four letters to dance-hall owners, usual baloney. At noon you have a lunch appointment with a slob named Boscom, owns the 5th Street Casino, a real fire-trap.”
“Thanks,” I said, opening the one letter that wasn't a bill. “Keep working through the directory, sending form letters to the other dance halls.”
“Okay, okay, Hal, and don't think it isn't just all too, too thrilling. See this?” She waved an FBI circular. “There's a two hundred grand reward on that armed car robbery in Frisco. Gee, think of lifting two million bucks... even bigger than the Brink's job up in New England. Two hundred thousand bucks... reward.” There was a far-away, dreamy, quality to her voice.
I grinned at her. “I know, two more box tops and you can send away for your tin badge.”
Anita made a comment about my mother living on a diet of bones. Talking tough was another of her charms.
The case was from Guy Moore, who was my MP officer in Tokyo. Now he was a struggling lawyer in St. Louis. An old man had died leaving an “estate”—if you can call a rundown farm by such a fancy handle—to his niece, one Marion Lodge. The case meant a lot to Guy because a bank was handling the estate and if he showed fast action on this, they'd give him some real important cases. After a lot of remembering what buddy-buddies we'd been in the army, Guy wrote he could only afford a hundred bucks, and would I kindly break my back and locate the gal. There was a check enclosed and a snapshot of the girl. The check looked prettier than the gal—she was an ordinary- looking, big kid of about twenty-one, with an overlong nose, and black hair that hung in corny curls. Guy gave me her last known address, as of 1949, on the lower West Side.
“Get your book out.”
“I'll come over,” Anita said, although the office was so small I could dictate from one end of the room to the other without raising my voice. She came over, moving her hips like a lazy heel-and-toe walker, sat down beside me, her skirt above her knees. She had on an interesting perfume. I sent Guy a letter saying I'd do my best and to airmail me any info on Marion Lodge's background, education, birthmarks, and what she was supposed to be doing in New York.
Then I knocked off a couple of mild dunning letters to remind several storekeepers they were behind on their ten bucks a month for “Darling's Protective Service.”
I was in the middle of another letter checking on a character who had skipped town with a partly paid for TV set, when the door opened and a mailman came in—a big lumbering fatso with thick graying hair. He asked, “You the dick?”
“What's wrong, a due letter?” I asked, noticing he didn't have his bag on his wide shoulders.
He shook his head, giving Anita a fast going over, which she enjoyed. “Naw, I'm here on business.” His voice went with his bulk, a deep, rumbling voice.
“Grab a chair and tell me about it.”
He glanced at Anita, then back at me. I said, “Miss Rogers is one of my most trusted ops, in on all my good cases.” Anita slipped me an amused look, told him in a hammy slinky voice, “Rest your load, big boy.”
He slid into a chair opposite me, and from the hesitant look on his face I knew he was having wife trouble. After a while you can spot things like that I was absolutely wrong.
He said, “Johnson is my name, Will Johnson, see? Want to see you about this.” He dug into a pocket of his blue-gray uniform and carefully took out a small envelope, out of this came tissue paper wrapped around a sliver of cloudy dirty-looking stone. It was less than half an inch long, almost paper thin, wide as a match stick. As I picked it up he said, “Careful, don't break it, see?”
“What is it?” I asked.
“Rock of some kind. Get this, Mr. Darling, there's no mystery or crime involved here, just curiosity. Want to find out where this rock came from.”
“What makes you so curious?” I asked as Anita took the sliver from my hand, fingered it, smelt it. He sighed. “It's a silly story. About a month ago I come home and was sitting in my living-room, reading. Was about four in the afternoon, see? I hear a sharp noise at the window, then over my head. I go over and there's a small, clean hole in the window pane, another in the metal Venetian blinds. Back of where I was sitting we got one of them imitation fireplaces and a copper vase on top of it There's a dent in the vase and on the floor I find this little hunk of rock. See, at first I didn't think nothing of it, was sore about the hole in the window. Then I start thinking this sure had a hell of a force.... Excuse me Miss....”
“Sure,” Anita said sweetly, “you mean it had a goddamn hell of a lot of force.”
Johnson blinked and I told him, “Miss Rogers takes shots —in the head—to make her sound rugged. The rock had plenty of force, so what?”
“So what? It went through glass, a metal blind, made a dent in the copper vase over my head—see, it might have killed me!”
“You think somebody is trying to murder you?” I asked as Anita became bug-eyed.
Johnson shook his big head. “No, no, only telling you why I got so interested in the rock. Nobody hates a postman. Like I say, it's been on my mind so much. Thelma, that's my wife, she says 'Willie, stop thinking so much about it, see a detective before you get a nervous breakdown.' See, that's it.”
“And you picked me—just like that?”
“No sir, not just like anything,” Will said. “Figured you're a small agency, wouldn't charge much, see?”
“Yeah I see. Of course you realize this may all turn out to be as simple as a kid playing with a slingshot and...”
“It ain't simple, Mr. Darling. I live five flights up, nothing higher than two-story private houses around me. Have to be some slingshot, wouldn't it?”
“I'm not turning down the case, Mr. Johnson, only don't expect any fantastic solution, like this coming from
