And there was the question of the girls’ availability. They might be out on dates, or they might have made prior arrangements, or-
“You can check it out, can’t you?”
“I suppose I could call them-”
“Give ’em a call, Lou.”
We stopped at another bar. The boys had a drink while I went to the phone booth in the back, dropped my dime, and dialed an incomplete number. I chatted to myself for a few minutes, put the phone on the hook, recovered my dime from the coin return slot, and rejoined the trio at the bar.
I said, “I think we better forget it.”
“What’s the matter? They busy?”
“No, but-”
“But what?”
Reluctantly, I let them get the story from me. The girls were at home, and available. But they were very worried about the possibility of getting arrested. A good friend of theirs, also an amateur and a part-time model, had been arrested by a plainclothesman just a week ago and this had made them very nervous. At the present time they were restricting their contacts to men they already knew.
“What it amounts to,” I said, “is that they won’t take money from a stranger. They’d have to get the cash in advance and then act as though the whole affair was a party, with no mention of money or anything. And they’d have to be sure that you guys aren’t cops.”
“Us? You got to be kidding.”
I shrugged. “Listen, I trust you,” I said. “But they never met you. You’d be surprised the way vice squad detectives dress up like sailors. Especially this time of the month, when they’re in a hurry to get their quota of arrests. The girls are nervous. I talked to Barbara, and she said they’d rather go hungry than take a chance on getting arrested.”
I had to lead them along. But they followed well enough, and they finally figured out the suggestion they were supposed to make. The girls knew me, they pointed. out So how would it be if they gave me the money and I went up to see the girls and make the arrangements? Then the girls could tuck the dough away somewhere and they would come to their apartment and it would be as if there was no money involved at all.
I thought it over and admitted that it might work out.
“I’ll call them again,” I said. “It looked so hopeless at the time that I told them to forget it-”
“Jesus, Lou, I hope they didn’t find somebody else since then.”
“Well,” I said, I’ll call them.”
This time they clustered around the phone booth. I dialed a full seven-digit number at random and got a recording which assured me that the number I had dialed was not a working number. I talked with the recording, listened, talked, and finally hung up.
“Well?”
“A few problems,” I admitted. “Since it’s a Sunday, all the liquor stores are closed. They’ve got liquor on hand, but that pushes the price up. You may not want to go that high.”
“How high?”
“A package deal-all three of you for an even hundred dollars.”
They looked at each other. I read their faces, and evidently it was higher than they would have liked it, but not out of reach by any means. There was a second or two of silence, so I threw the clincher.
It sounded high to me,” I said. “I told Barbara I wanted ten per cent for setting things up, and she agreed. Believe, me, I don’t want to make money this way, not on you fellows. Forget my ten, and I’ll give her ninety dollars, that’s thirty apiece. But don’t tell her, understand? If the girls mention money, and the chances are they won’t, but if they do, you gave me a hundred bucks. Understand?”
That did it I was the greatest guy in the world, they assured me, and they wanted to buy me a drink again, but I reminded them of my ulcer. It was a shame there weren’t four girls, they told me. Then I could join them. It was really a shame, because I was one great guy, the greatest, and they thought I was terrific.
They gave me ninety dollars in tens. We left the bar, and the four of us walked over Greenwich Avenue to Tenth Street and down Tenth to Waverley Place. I picked the largest building on the block, told them to wait directly across the street, and that I would be down in ten minutes or less. They waited, and I crossed the street and went into the vestibule. I rang the bells for the four sixth-floor apartments, and at least two of them buzzed to admit me. I opened the door and went inside.
There was no back exit as far as I could see. That would have been the easiest way, and I had been trying to find a building with a back exit, but I couldn’t remember one. This would have to do. I went on inside and climbed one flight of stairs, took off my shoe, put the money in it, and put the shoe back on. I waited an appropriate stretch of time and went back downstairs and opened the front door. I motioned to them, and they came across the street on the run.
“Apartment 6-B,” I said. I was holding the door open so that we wouldn’t have to play games with the buzzer. “Don’t use the elevator. Take the stairs. Right up to the sixth floor and ring two short and one long. Got it?”
“Two short and one long.”
“Right. It’s all set, and the girls are waiting for you. Enjoy yourselves.”
If no one was home at 6-B they might spend as much as an hour inside, convinced that I was on the up-and-up and the girls were cheating them. If somebody answered the door there would be an unfortunate scene, and eventually the boys would know just how they had been taken. Either way they had five flights of stairs to climb, and I did not intend to wait for their return.
They hurried inside, thanking me profusely, pounding up the stairs. I went outside and walked very speedily for three blocks. The stack of bills in my shoe had me limping oddly. Then a cab came along, and I stuck out a hand and caught it.
It was hard to believe how easy it had been. The words and gestures were all there when I needed them and the sailors never missed their cues. Now, in the cab, I was shaking. But while it was building I had been genuinely calm.
After all, the Murphy game is an exceptionally easy con to pull off. The sailors’ drunken naivete hadn’t hurt, but they could have been older and soberer and it wouldn’t have helped them. Almost anyone will fall for it the first time around.
I lost thirty dollars like that once, years ago. And now had ninety back, which put me sixty dollars ahead of the game. Bread upon the waters-
7
THE HOTEL WAS ON THIRTY-SEVENTH STREET BETWEEN PARK AND Lexington. In the bathroom of Room 401 there was a mirror, and in the mirror there was a face which looked altogether too much like mine.
Still, there were differences. I still looked like me, but I no longer looked like my description. My hair, normally a dark brown, was now a rather washed-out-gray. I had had all of it; now, with the aid of a razor, I had provided myself with something of a receding hairline. An all-night drugstore had furnished me with the necessary paraphernalia.
The face in the mirror was the face I would probably be wearing in ten or fifteen years. If I lived that long.
I had not expected to be able to sleep. By the time I was through with my work as an amateur makeup man, the city was yawning outside my window, impatient for the day to begin. I dropped into bed and closed my eyes and started to think things out, and before I could begin to get my thoughts organized I was under, and slept for ten hours without stirring.
When I awoke finally I looked at myself in the mirror again. I needed a shave and thought briefly of growing a beard or moustache. This struck me as a bad idea-men with beards or moustaches are more noticeable, and one automatically wonders what they would look like without facial hair. I wanted as little attention paid to me as possible. I’d picked up a copy of the
