yours, I want to know if you can really make it work.”
Don't you worry about that, I thought. I'll make it work, all right. Then I forced her head back and mashed my mouth to hers.
It was like kissing a statue, a cold, marble statue. That was one thing I hadn't been prepared for. I'd been prepared for a fight, for a lot of insane gab, for tears, even, but certainly not anything like this. I felt the iciness of that kiss deep in my guts. It made my skin crawl.
I let her go. I couldn't have released her faster if I had suddenly discovered that I had been kissing a corpse. That is what it
Then she laughed, softly. “You see, Roy, it's just as I thought. Your rule doesn't always work, does it? Some things you can grab, but woman—they're different. You don't grab women, you draw them to you gently, very gently. And it takes time, too. That's a rule you should adopt; never rush a lady.”
For one time in my life I didn't have an answer. I could still taste the iciness of her lips.
She didn't seem to be angry. She seemed more amused than anything. And then she leaned toward me and pressed her mouth on mine, very lightly, and the coldness was gone. She was warm again, and beautiful, and I wanted her like hell. But this time I didn't grab.
“That's better,” she said huskily. “That's much better.”
I said, “For me this is a new technique. It's going to take some getting used to.”
And she smiled.
“You know something?” I said.
“What?”
“You are positively the goddamnedest woman I ever saw, bar none. You change colors faster than a chameleon. Put you in fire and you don't burn.”
“I'll take that as a compliment.”
I let her enjoy thinking that she was an enigma. But she was no enigma to me I could open her up and watch the wheels go round. I knew what made her tick; I knew to what frequency she was tuned. All I had to do was look at her in that coat and I knew who was the real boss. It was quite possible that deep in her soul she hated my guts—a possibility that bothered me not at all. I could afford a new Lincoln and a Balmain coat, both the same day—that was the important thing. That was the hook I had in her.
Maybe she was right, maybe grabbing wasn't the best way to get what you wanted every time. Make her come to me, that was the best, the most satisfying answer. And I knew exactly how to go about it. Thanks to my very good friend, Mr. John Venci.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
HIS NAME WAS Stephen S. Calvart. That was about all I knew about him, except that he was a textbook publisher and had made a considerable fortune by bribing a number of small-time school officials. S. S. Calvart, just a name, the fourth name from the last in John Venci's list of people he didn't like, to be exact, and I had selected it more or less at random out of all the other names.
The Calvart Publishing Company was located on the east side, the seamy side of the city, and the building was a sprawling, crumbling red brick affair that was even more rundown than the neighboring brick heaps that leaned against it.
I parked the Lincoln in the alley behind the building, learned from the elevator operator that the publisher's office was on the fourth and top floor; so that is where I went.
Calvart, it turned out, was an easy man to get to, not at all like King. I smiled at the receptionist, told her that my name was O'Connor, and that I represented the fourth school district and that I wanted to talk to Mr. Calvart about a new edition of history texts for the elementary grades.
That was the magic word: “new edition.” In a matter of a few minutes I had progressed all the way to the head man himself. Yes sir, I thought, this is a place that knows how to treat a customer. Walk in and mention a deal and you get the red carpet treatment, no questions asked.
Calvart was on the phone when I came into his office. He waved with a cigar and motioned to a chair. I made myself comfortable and tried to size him up. He was a big man, two hundred pounds at least, and looked more like an ex-hod carrier trying to get used to wearing three hundred dollar suits than a publisher of school textbooks. He didn't look like a man who got where he was by paying scrupulous attention to the rules of the game.
“Now look, Davis,” he was saying into the phone, “you've been using that damn elementary social studies three years now. How do you expect kids to keep up with things in this fast movin' world if you handicap them three years right at the beginnin'? What the hell, those texts are outdated and you know it. Now look, I don't want to tell you-how to run your business, but I think we'd be smart....” He listened for a minute, then said, “Yeah, all right, but you work on the school boards down there, and the PTA bunch. Sure, Dave, I'll take care of you, don't I always?”
He hung up and turned to me with no change of expression or tone of voice. “O'Connor you say. From the fourth district. I thought Paul Schriver was runnin' things down there.”
“Maybe he is,” I said. “I don't even know where the fourth district is.”
He was vaguely surprised but certainly not shocked. He took a few seconds to relight his dead cigar. His eyes were absolutely expressionless and looked hard enough to cut glass. In all that two hundred and more pounds there was not an ounce of imagination. Facts were his stock in trade, not imagination.
After a moment he said, “I see.” And he did see. He had added his facts and knew that I was a man with an angle. “All right, O'Connor, now that you are here, what do you want?”
“Money. Twenty thousand dollars, to be exact, and before you start pushing the button on that intercom box you'd better take a look at what I'm selling.”
I pitched a photostat on his desk and Calvart looked at it quietly, still without expression. It was an affidavit, signed and witnessed, concerning a payoff between Calvart and a member of the state school commission, a man by the name of Longly. There was enough dynamite in that single piece of paper to blow Calvart right out of the publishing business for good, and he knew it.
Its effect on him was exactly the opposite of what I had expected. He actually seemed relieved, now that he had all the facts, now that he knew precisely why I had come and what I wanted. He seemed to relax as he studied the photostat, he even smiled, very faintly.
“Very interesting,” he said, not looking at me. “Very interesting indeed, if you should also have in your possession the original from which this copy was made.”
“I have it, all right, but not in my possession right now.”
“... Your caution is understandable,” he said dryly. He began to look pained as he continued to study the document before him. “Sam Longly,” he said. “Sam has been my friend for a good many years. Why, I was the one who got him a place on the school commission. It is difficult—extremely difficult to believe that Sam would deliberately destroy himself, and me, in such a manner.” Then he looked directly at me. “But the evidence is irrefutable, isn't it, O'Connor?”
“It sure as hell is. Now let's stop this horsing around and get down to business. Is the original of that photostat worth twenty thousand to you or isn't it?”
He closed his eyes for a moment, as though in thought.
“... Yes,” he said. “Yes, I'm afraid it is.”
“You're sure it is. One book contract can make you another twenty grand and a lot more, but if that paper should get into the wrong hands there would be no more contracts, and you know it.”
“Believe me,” he said quietly, “I am quite aware of this document's importance to myself, and I have already told you that it is worth twenty thousand dollars to me. However, I do not carry that kind of money with me... certain arrangements must be made.”
This was almost too easy to be real. It was all I could do to keep from grinning—twenty thousand dollars just for the asking! Jesus, I thought, what a hell of a thing this is that John Venci lined up for me!
Now Calvart was studying the tip of his smoldering cigar. “I am not a man to fight the inevitable,” he said.
Calvart opened his eyes and looked at me for one long moment with his old hardness. “The details,” he said flatly. “I suppose you have them planned.”
“Down to the last split second. You'll have the rest of the day to raise the money. Tonight, at eight o'clock
