“Well, I got a good reason. You see, I got nothing to wear, no clothes for this climate, and certainly none for this part you people want me to play. I got to go into town and buy some stuff.”
“We can send someone to buy you clothes.”
“Not so as they’d fit properly.”
“They’d fit well enough.”
“For bumming on the beach maybe. But what about when you want to trot me out as your
“You are not a prisoner, Harsh, but you do look exactly like a man who is being searched for all the world over. Really, it would be best if you stayed out of sight.”
“We could cover up my face. I could wear a scarf, a hat. Plus I’ve still got this bandage on, so you can’t see practically half my face. And I’d stay indoors most of the time, I wouldn’t be walking around on the street. It’d be quick, too—an hour, two tops.”
“I do not know that the others will have confidence that you would be so careful, Mr. Harsh, or so quick. Or, frankly, that you would necessarily come back at all.”
“But what if you went along with me? It would be okay with everybody then, wouldn’t it?”
She put one hand out, laid it against his chest. “I’ll tell you what, Mr. Harsh. You let me talk to the others, and I’ll see what they think. Maybe it can be arranged. Maybe. However, if I do get permission to take you into town, you must promise to stay out of sight as much as possible. We would go straight to a men’s clothing store, then straight back, and no dining in public restaurants. If you want dinner with me, we shall have it here.”
“Say, now we’re getting somewhere.”
When Miss Muirz came out of the house for the trip into Palm Beach, she wore a grey dress which made her look tall, a grey hat, plain grey pumps. The only things not grey were her belt and a big handbag, which were shades of brown. They took the limousine. She drove. The machine had a partition between the front seats and the rear section, so they both sat in front.
“Will you open the gate?” Miss Muirz pulled the car to a halt just shy of the metal gate separating the driveway from the main road.
“Glad to, if you give me the key.”
Miss Muirz shook her head. “You don’t need a key. They don’t keep it locked.”
Harsh didn’t say anything to that, just got out and opened it, then closed it after she’d driven through. He got back in the limousine. He would remember about the gate being unlocked, he thought. It would be important if he had to make a break later.
They followed a road that wound south about a mile through sand and mangroves. The sea was quite near to the left. In many spots sand had drifted across the blacktop. Other large estates began to appear near the road just before it swung westward and joined another road coming in from the south. They crossed a causeway, then a drawbridge, and fifteen minutes put them in Palm Beach.
The store where they stopped was expensive looking, a one-story cream-colored building with a simple neon sign saying LEON in script. “This is a very fine men’s shop.” Miss Muirz pulled up at a side street door. “Brother says so, anyway.”
They went inside and a salesman in a mess jacket and cummerbund and black trousers began showing them slacks and the trimmings. When the man first looked at him after Harsh unwound the scarf from the lower part of his face, Harsh was nervous about what his reaction would be. Would there be a look of recognition followed by a hastily made excuse for leaving the room, then the sound of a phone receiver carefully being lifted from its hook? But no—the man showed no sign of recognizing him at all. Not everyone listened to the radio, he supposed. Or maybe the newspapers hadn’t had a chance to put photos out yet.
The sales clerk gestured for them to follow him toward the back of the store. Looking at the clothing on the racks they were passing, Harsh could find no price tags. “Jeez, they’re afraid to let you see the prices in this joint.”
Miss Muirz whispered in his ear. “Don’t worry about it. It will go on the expense account. Anything you want.”
“Somebody got generous, huh?”
“You made a persuasive argument, Harsh. We need you to look the part.”
Well, what the hell, Harsh decided. He had better load up on clothes while the offer stood. Slacks and Bermuda shorts, sport shirts, a couple of tropical-weight suits, a summer tux, all the accessories. Trying the suit jackets on with one arm still in a cast wasn’t easy, but with help from the other two he managed to get them on halfway. He wound up with a pile of merchandise stacked in front of him. He made sure to work in some slacks and a sport coat which needed alterations.
For the alterations he was escorted into the tailoring room in the rear where the dressing booths were. The booth assigned him was near a window that gave a view of the side street where the limousine was parked.
“Hey, buddy, you got a telephone back here?” Harsh winked and jerked his head toward the front of the store where Miss Muirz had remained. “A private phone, if you get what I mean.” The clerk returned the conspirator’s wink and opened a cabinet on the wall between the window and a back door held shut with a hook-and-eye latch. Inside the cabinet there was a phone on a small shelf and a dog-eared Yellow Pages beside it.
Harsh went to the telephone. Before he picked up the instrument, he lighted a cigarette. He was very nervous and did not want it to be noticed. He wished he had been more subtle about getting to the phone, and had left out that remark about privacy. The clerk would remember something like that.
Suddenly Harsh also realized he did not recall the telephone number of the Security Locksmithing Company. He thought he had memorized the number until it would never go out of his mind. Damn! He picked up the directory and thumbed through it one-handed till he found the number, then discovered he was too nervous to trust himself to remember it long enough to dial it. So he wrote it on the front of the phone book in pencil. The window beside the telephone admitted blinding Florida sunshine, and he had to squint as he wrote. There was too damn much sunshine in Florida.
He dialed the number. Then he watched the people coming and going in the street below while the phone rang. He felt conspicuous in front of the big window. He noticed one tourist, a man with an enormously floppy straw hat and sunglasses, at an orange stand across the street, sipping something through a straw. It was hard to tell because of the sunglasses, but it looked like the man was staring this way. The hell with you, you curious bastard, Harsh thought, turning his back.
In his ear, the ringing stopped as the phone finally was answered. A gruff voice spoke. “Security.”
Harsh drew in breath. “Who is this?”
The voice answered wearily. “Goldberg.”
Harsh reminded himself to stay calm and not arouse anybody’s suspicions. “Mr. Goldberg, do you open safes?”
“Yes, that’s our business.”
“I mean are you the man who actually does the work on the safes, because what I want is some technical information.”
“I’m the only one here, mister. I do my own lock-smithing. What did you say your name is?”
Harsh kept his tone casual. “Fry. Edward Fry. Now here’s my problem, Mr. Goldberg. I have a wall safe in my house, see. One of them safes with an inner door that opens with a couple of keys at once. The problem is, I lost one key. The combination to the outer door and one key is all I got, which don’t get me in my safe. I was wondering, could you folks fix me up?”
“You want to open the safe, is that it?”
“Well, if it doesn’t run into a lot of expense. Could you give me an idea what it would cost?” Harsh felt that bringing up cost would keep Goldberg from thinking anything was shady.
“I would need more information about your safe before I could tell you much over the telephone.”
Harsh gave Goldberg the name of the safe company,
