The Golden Gizmo

karat?'

'Well,' Milt hesitated. 'Your question is a little vague. Scrap of what quality-ten, fourteen, eighteen karat? Say it was all fourteen, well, that is easily estimated. Fourteen karat is sixty per cent pure. Roughly, it would take not quite two pounds of fourteen to refine into one pound of twenty-four.'

Toddy whistled. 'Where would you get that much gold, Milt?'

'I would not. So much gold, why it is more than two or three of my boys would take in in a week. And if I did buy it, I would not refine it into twenty-four. Why should I? It would gain me nothing. The mint would pay me no more for a pound of twenty-four karat than it would for two pounds, or whatever the exact figure is, of fourteen.'

'Suppose you didn't sell it to the mint?'

'But where else would I… ohh,' said Mitt.

'Now, wait a minute-' Toddy held up a hand, grinning. 'Don't leap all over me yet. I'm just thinking out loud.'

'Such thoughts I do not like.'

'But, look, Milt… why couldn't a guy do this? Pure gold is staked at thirty-five dollars an ounce in this country. Abroad, it's selling for anywhere from seventy-five to a hundred and fifty-depending on how shaky a nation's currency is. So why couldn't you refine scrap into twenty-four, have it made up into jewelry, trick stuff, you know…'

'Yes,' said Milt. 'I see exactly what you are driving at. The jewelry could be worn into Mexico-for a few dollars; for a task so safe, wearers could be readily secured. And from Mexico, there would be little difficulty in getting the gold abroad. Yes, I know. I see.'

'Well?'

'It is not well and you know it. There are severe penalties for removing gold from this country. Even to be in possession of bullion is a federal offense.'

'But the profit, Milt! My God, think-'

'Yes,' said Mitt sternly. 'The profit. My God. My God, is right. How many such profitable enterprises have you undertaken in the past? What was your profit from them? Heh? Shall I refresh your memory, my oh-so- foolish Toddy?'

'Oh, now,' said Toddy, coloring a little. 'There's no need to bring those things up. Anyway, this is an entirely different deal.'

'Now you have your feelings hurt,' Milt nodded. 'You have given me your confidence and now I remind you of things you would rather forget. Good. I shall continue to hurt your feelings. I shall continue to remind you of the unpleasant conclusions of your past escapades. Better to do that than see you repeat your errors.'

'But-' Toddy caught himself. 'Oh, well,' he said, 'what are we arguing about? I told you I was just thinking out loud.'

'And I told you it was not good to entertain such thoughts. Why should you dwell on them? At not too great a risk, you are making very good money. You are not known to the police here. Without some deliberate bit of foolishness, you are assured of an excellent income and, more important, your freedom. If, on the other hand, you-'

'I know,' said Toddy, a trifle impatiently.

'You do not know. You place too great a store by the fact that you have not been fingerprinted by the police of this, the City of Angels. You are forgetting the brief but telling physical description of you which is on file at the license bureau. You are forgetting the bureau's reason for having such data-the fact that gold-buyers are always suspect, that it may be necessary to lay hands on them at a moment's notice. You see? You are safe only as long as you commit no overt act. Once you do, the fingerprinting and the discovery of your record will follow as a matter of course.'

Toddy took a long slow drink of his beer. 'Yeah,' he said slowly. 'I know… But tell me one thing, Milt, just to satisfy my curiosity. Then I'll shut up.'

'If I must.'

Say that you did-I know you don't-say that you did want to buy enough scrap of all kinds every week to refine into six or eight pounds of twenty-four karat. Enough to take care of the kind of overhead you'd be bound to have and still make enough of a killing to pay you for the risk. How would you go about it?'

'For me, it would be impossible, as I told you. Some of the larger refineries might buy that much gold.'

'But they're checked, aren't they? If their shipments to the mint started falling off-'

'They are checked, yes. There is a check even on such relatively unimportant wholesale buyers as I.'

'Huh,' Toddy frowned. 'How about this, then? Why couldn't you spread your buying through a group of wholesalers-take a pound or less of scrap from each one?'

'Because you could not pay them enough for the risk they were taking. And the secret of your enterprise would be dangerously spread with your buying… So, there is my answer, Toddy. It is an impossibility. It cannot be done.'

'But it-I mean-'

'Yes?' said Milt.

'Nothing. Okay, I'm convinced,' Toddy grinned. 'How about another beer?'

Uncomfortably conscious of Milt's curious and troubled gaze, Toddy left shortly after he had finished the beer. But he was by no means free of the tantalizing reflections which the watch had inspired. They expanded and multiplied in his mind as he strode back through the hazy streets.

Dammit, that gold was being bought, regardless of what Mitt said. And this was entirely different from anything he had ever touched. He'd have to be careful, certainly. He'd have to do some tall scheming. But just because he'd had a few bad breaks in the past, there wasn't any reason to-

Toddy was almost running when he reached the hotel. He ignored the elevator and raced up the steps. He went swiftly down the hall. He shouldn't have left Elaine alone. He shouldn't have left the watch in the room.

His hand trembled on the doorknob. He turned it and went in. The room was dark. He found the light switch and turned it on.

She lay sprawled backwards on the bed. Naked. Sheets tumbled with her strugglings, damp from her bath. Eyes glazed and bloodshot; pushing whitely, enormously from the contorted face. Veins empurpled and distended.

One of the stockings was tied around her throat, knotted and reknotted there, and her stiffening fingers still clawed at it. The other stocking had been stuffed into her mouth; the toe of it, chewed, wet from gagging, edged out through the open froth-covered oval of her lips.

Toddy swayed. How could I know… something I read… she was always asking for trouble… He closed his eyes and opened them again. He put a hand out toward her-toward that hideously soggy fragment of stocking. Hastily he jerked the hand back.

The room had been ransacked, of course. Every drawer in the dresser had been jerked out and dumped upon the floor. Toddy's eyes moved from the disarray to the window. He went to it and flung up the shade.

There was a man down there near the foot of the fire escape. He was a small man with a hat almost as wide as his shoulders. One of his feet had slipped through the steps, and he was struggling frantically to free it.

7

Toddy had been sitting on his roll when he met Elaine Ives. He'd built up his wardrobe, had several grand in his kick, and was driving a Cadillac-rented, alas-while he tried to hit upon a line.