Invitation to Violence

CHAPTER SIX

Steinberg walked over to the window and pulled the cord, opening the Venetian blinds halfway and letting the early morning sunshine filter into the room. Then he crossed to the light switch and flicked it. He turned back to face Slaughter, who sat on the couch with the cup of steaming coffee in his hands. Slaughter was in his shirt sleeves and his forehead was wet with perspiration. His hair was messed and there were streaks of dirt down one side of his face.

Four long, raw scratch marks, caked with dried blood, decorated the other side.

“You shouldn’t have done it,” Steinberg said. “Damn it, Fred, you can’t do things like that. What the hell are you going to do with her now? You haven’t found out a damned thing and now we got her on our hands.”

“Oh, for God’s sake, shut up,” Slaughter said. “What the hell is the matter with you anyway? What do you think I’ve done to her? Murdered her or something? I just slapped her around. Asked her questions and slapped her around a little. She isn’t hurt.”

“Sure,” Steinberg said. “You just slapped her around. And what do you think she’s going to do when she gets out of here, eh? Do you think she’ll go out and buy you a nice Father’s Day present. Is that it? Fred, don’t you know that that kid’s going to talk? Going to the cops? She can’t be completely stupid, you know. She understands why she was brought here. She knows now that you’re mixed up in the thing. So what’s she going to do?”

“She ain’t going to do nothing,” Slaughter said. “She knows what I’d do if she…”

“You’re being stupid, Fred,” Steinberg said. “That kid’s a square. She isn’t like that punk brother of hers. She’s on the up and up. It isn’t only that she’ll be sore about being slapped around-and I hope to God that’s all you did do to her-it’s that being a square, she’s burned up about her brother. And she’ll talk. Sooner or later, she’ll talk.”

Slaughter took a sip of the coffee and put the cup down.

“She’ll talk all right,” he said. “But it won’t be with the cops. No, any talking she’ll do will be with me. And don’t tell me she don’t know nothing. How about that note she had on her when we picked her up? Huh, how about it? She may not know anything, but the guy who sent her that note-the guy she met last night-he knows plenty.”

Slaughter took a piece of soiled paper out of his pocket.

“Just listen to this,” he said, and read from the slip of paper. “If you are interested in what happened to your brother, meet me at the Cavern On The Green in Central Park at eight o’clock. Ask the headwaiter to take you to Mr. Hanna’s table.’ How about that, huh?”

“It doesn’t mean…”

“It means she met him-knows who he is. And if I have to kill her, I’m going to find out. You think I’ve touched her yet, why…”

“Work her over any more,” Steinberg said, “and you know what you’re going to have to do, don’t you?”

Slaughter stared up at the little lawyer.

“Are you getting queasy?” he said. “Of course I know what I’m going to have to do. So what?”

Steinberg shrugged.

“The trouble is,” he said, “from what you’ve been telling me all night now, it doesn’t matter whether you would hesitate or not. Apparently the tougher you get with her, the more stubborn she gets.”

“Well, that’s why I’m going to play it your way,” Slaughter said. “Or at least give it a try. We’ll let her sleep and rest up, give her a breather. I gotta get some damned sleep myself. But this afternoon she gets her last chance. After she’s had a chance to think it over and look at it sensibly. And then-well kid, she’ll talk. She’ll talk if I have to break every…”

“O.K., save me the details,” Steinberg said. “Do it your way. But realize what you are doing.”

Slaughter shrugged. “Go on home and get some sleep. I’m going to turn in for a few hours. You call me later this afternoon. I may have some news for you. In the meantime, maybe you better stay away from the apartment here. The cops know you were representing Jake-I don’t want them knowing that you are hanging around here too much.”

Steinberg found his hat and walked toward the door.

“One thing,” he said. “Keep this in mind. Right now you could probably let her go and you might get away with it. After all, she isn’t really hurt. It would be her word against yours. She may suspect a lot about the other thing, but she doesn’t know anything and she can’t prove anything. Her word against yours. She’s the sister of a thief and a cop killer; you’re a respectable businessman. I could almost guarantee you that there’d be no trouble. Just get her ginned up and throw her out and you’d be clear. But go one step further…”

“Listen, will you get outta here and go home?” Slaughter said.

Bill Baxter was walking through the lobby of the building shortly after ten o’clock on Tuesday morning, on his way to the restaurant for his coffee break, when he spotted Gerald. He swerved, crossing over to intercept his poker party pal.

Gerald didn’t notice him until the other man took him by the arm.

“Hey, kid,” Baxter said. “What the hell’s the big rush. Not,” he added, without waiting for Gerald’s answer, “not that you shouldn’t be in a rush. Jeez, old Engleman is having kittens. Where the hell have you been? You know how he feels about anyone coming in late.”

Gerald stopped, forced a weak smile.

“Overslept,” he said, “I…”

“You better have a better line than that,” Baxter said. “The old man is really up in the air. He’s been out in the office looking for you about ten times in the last hour. He seems mad enough to…”

“What the hell’s on his mind?” Gerald asked. “I’ve been late before. This isn’t the first time anyone…”

“I don’t know,” Baxter said. “All I can tell you is that something is in the wind. He’s been out about a dozen times and he’s sure as hell burned up about something. You haven’t been lifting the company funds by any chance, have you, kid?”

He slapped Gerald on the shoulder and laughed.

“Maybe,” he said, “you better stop in and have a cup of coffee with me or something stronger. Build up your morale before you have to face the lion in his den.”

Gerald shook his head.

“No,” he said. “No, I better get on up. The sooner I see him the better.”

He moved over to the bank of elevators as Baxter turned once more toward the restaurant. As Hanna got into the empty car, he turned and that’s when he again noticed the man. The man in the dark, linen suit and the light-weight felt hat tipped carelessly over his left eyebrow. The man who’d been sitting in the seat behind his own seat on the train into the city. The man who had been across the aisle and down toward the end of the subway car on his way from Penn Station downtown.

There was no doubt about it. The lieutenant was making good his promise. They weren’t going to let him out of their sight.

Kitty, the little redhead who sat at the switchboard just off the reception room and who was rumored to have dated just about every male member of the staff, looked up at Gerald as he passed by her desk. She gave him her usual smile.

“I’ve been trying to get you out at your place,” she said. “For the last half hour or so. Mr. Engleman has been trying to call you. What’s up anyway?” she asked, reaching out and taking hold of Gerald’s coat. “He’s really up in the air. Madder than you-know-what about something. Things have sure been popping around here this morning,” she said.

Gerald smiled back at her and went on.

“Also,” Kitty called after him, “you got other calls. A Miss Swift…”

“I’ll check on them later,” Gerald called back over his shoulder, not hearing the last of her sentence. “Later. Right now I better get in and see the boss.”

He stopped at his own desk only long enough to toss in his hat and nod to the girl whom he shared as secretary with four other actuaries. The girl started to say something to him, but again he said, “Later.”

J. Rolland Engleman looked up as Gerald entered the square, spruce-paneled office. He turned to where his middle-aged secretary sat at one corner of the room in front of an electric type-typewriter.

“You may leave us alone, Miss Goode,” he said. “And please close the door.”

Miss Goode left them alone.

Mr. Engleman looked up at Gerald, the travesty of a smile on his thin lips. He didn’t invite Gerald to sit down and there was nothing humorous about the expression in his pale, washed-out blue eyes which were set close together under all but imperceptible blond eyebrows.

“Late, Mr. Hanna?”

Gerald smiled weakly.

“I’m afraid so, Mr. Engleman,” he said. “You see…”

“I see perfectly,” Mr. Engleman said. “I am afraid that I see only too well. But don’t let my eyesight concern you. And, also, don’t concern yourself too much about being late. You see, we didn’t miss you. Not really. We had other visitors. A lot of other visitors.”

He hesitated, tapping the ends of his lean fingers together and slowly nodding his head up and down.

“Yes, Mr. Hanna, visitors. Suppose we start with the first one. A policeman, Mr. Hanna.”

He looked up expectantly and again smiled thinly. “Yes, Mr. Hanna-a policeman. And do you know-it was about you?”

“About me? What in the world would a policeman…” Gerald’s voice was as innocent as his bland expression.

“That is precisely what I was about to ask you,” Engleman said. “Yes-precisely what I was about to ask. Just why, Mr. Hanna, should a policeman invade my office and ask me a hundred questions about one of my actuaries? What have you been up to, Mr. Hanna? As you know, this is a fatherly sort of firm and we take a keen interest in our employees. We pride ourselves in our selection of our personnel and we take a…”

Gerald held up a hand.

“Oh,” he said. He laughed a trifle hollowly. “That. I can explain that all right. It seems that last Friday night…”

Gerald went on to explain. It took quite a little while, but he made a good story out of it, telling the facts with quiet amusement. The trouble was that Mr. Engleman failed to be amused.

“And you say that you were playing poker before you left for home, eh?” Mr. Engleman said when Gerald stopped for breath.

Gerald nodded.

“Gambling,” Mr. Engleman made it sound like the violation of an eleventh commandment.

Gerald nodded sheepishly.

Mr. Engleman stood up.

“I believe you are engaged to be married?” he changed the subject.

Gerald looked up and smiled brightly. Thank God they were on safer ground.

“Yes, sir,” he said. “For several years. Miss Swiftwater is a splendid girl and we…”

“I have had the pleasure of meeting Miss Swiftwater,” Engleman said. His expression denied the pleasure. “Yes, Mr. Hanna, I have had that pleasure. Only a few minutes ago. And I should like to inform you that Miss Swiftwater struck me as a very sensible girl. She particularly impressed me when she informed me that she has broken your engagement.”

This time Gerald looked at him with legitimate surprise.

“Maryjane was here? You mean…”

“I mean that Miss Swiftwater came to me to find out exactly what has been happening. What you have been up to. She was able to tell me that you are running around with some floozy, that you are hanging out in cheap barrooms, and you seem to have completely lost your mind and that you called her on the telephone to insult her. Frankly, she seemed to feel that perhaps you are suffering from sort of mental…”

Gerald suddenly held up his hand.

It was the damnedest thing. Exactly like that moment when he had decided to ask for a card to fill an inside straight; like that other moment when he had reached over and opened the door of the Chevrolet and pushed the dead body out into the road. He held up his hand and opened his mouth and he spoke quietly and clearly.

“I am suffering from utter and complete boredom, Mr. Engleman,” he said, pronouncing each word as though he were giving a lesson in simple grammar. “I am also suffering from a keen distaste for you and for this stodgy, antiquated, cheap-John firm for which we both work. I am suffering from a frustrated desire to slap your silly tongue into the back of your head and then pick you up and throw you out of the window. And, in fact, if I have to listen to one more word out of that chinless jaw of yours, that is exactly what I shall do.”

He took a step forward and Mr. Engleman fell back, leaning against the wall, his mouth wide and his eyes staring. He didn’t attempt to speak, but for a second his eyes flitted around the room as though looking for a quick escape route.

Gerald reached over and opened the humidor on Mr. Engleman’s desk and took out a long, light-brown cigar. He bit off the end, removing approximately an inch, not having had experience in the past in biting off the ends of cigars. He took the cigarette lighter from the desk and flicked it and touched the flame to the end of the stogy.

“Just so that you will have things straight, Mr. Engleman, when you discuss my firing with your boss,” Gerald said, “I’ll be glad to set your mind at rest. The police were here because I stole approximately a quarter of a million dollars in jewels. A man or two was murdered in the course of it all, of course. And the so-called floozy I am consorting with is everything you could possibly want in a woman-not you of course-but me. She’s a cashier in a hash house and has long blond hair and azure eyes and a build like-” Gerald stopped and stared hard at the other man.

“As for Miss Swiftwater,” he said. “It is really fortunate that she has broken our engagement. It will probably save me from cutting her throat. But I recommend Miss Swiftwater to you, Mr. Engleman. You and Miss Swiftwater would go very well together. I can just visualize the offspring. And now…” Gerald stopped and took a deep lungful of smoke and slowly exhaled it, spoiling the effect somewhat by coughing as he finally emptied his lungs.

“And now I shall go and empty my desk,” he said. “I will be leaving at the end of the week, but I don’t really think you would like me to spend the last few days around here. Or would you?”

Mr. Engleman’s narrow mouth was still formed into a perfect circle as Gerald breezed out of the room, leaving the door wide open. Miss Goode, Mr. Engleman’s secretary, was leaning over the water cooler just outside as Gerald passed. He hesitated a moment and then playfully patted her.

“Go,” he said. “Go at once. He needs you. The master…”

He looked down into her indignant, startled eyes as she swung around and faced him and then smiled at her sweetly and shrugged his shoulders.

In another minute he was back in his own small cubbyhole of an office. His one-fifth secretary had finished whatever she had been doing at his desk and he slammed the door and fell into his hard, straight-backed chair. He reached for the telephone.

“Kitty,” he said, “bring me the telephone book.” He waited a moment and then spoke again. “All of them, my sweet,” he said. “All of them. Brooklyn, Staten Island, Manhattan, Queens, Kings and anything else you might lay your lovely little hands on. At once.”

He replaced the receiver, coughed and looked at the cigar in his hand then casually tossed it out of the opened window at his side.

“A poor thing at best,” he said.

The Commissioner finished reading the editorial, his face purple and his voice edged with scorn. Carefully he folded the newspaper and laid it down at the side of his desk and then he looked up at the group of men standing in front of the desk.

“Well, you all heard it,” he said. “I guess I don’t have to tell you what the reaction is going to be. Like the rest of you, I’m a career man myself; I guess some of you can remember back to the time I was wearing a patrolman’s uniform. I’m a career man, but I’m also a politician. Otherwise you can bet I wouldn’t be sitting here as Commissioner.”

He hesitated to let the words sink in, looking down at his wrist watch and noticing that it was just after ten o’clock. He still had fifteen minutes before he had to meet the county chairman and he’d have to make it short and snappy.

“I’m not blaming any of you,” he said, “but this sort of publicity, coming before a November election, certainly isn’t doing us any good. Two policemen murdered in cold blood, a quarter of a million in jewels taken from under our noses, and nothing being done about it. I don’t expect miracles, but if they are necessary, then miracles we will have. I want those jewels found. I want someone, someone who is still alive, for the district attorney.”

Lieutenant Hooper was pretty tired, having been up for more than forty hours without sleep, and his temper was anything but complacent.

“Who doesn’t?” he asked. “Who doesn’t? Nobody wants to crack this one more than I do-or any of the other boys downstairs.”

The Commissioner half turned and stared at him. “I don’t doubt it,” he said. “That’s just why we are having this little meeting; why I want to find out what’s going on before I see the big boss this morning. And so far, it seems nothing is going on. Why, you’ve even managed to lose the one possible lead you had. I am referring, as you know, to the Dunne girl.”

“There was nothing we could hold her on,” Hopper said.

“You couldn’t hold her perhaps,” the Commissioner answered him, “but by God you could have at least kept track of her. I think we all agreed that there was a good chance she might lead us to something or another. And so what has happened? Well, she has disappeared. We haven’t the faintest idea where she is or why.”

“We know that she saw that Hanna fellow,” Hopper said. “We know that there is some sort of connection there. It was a case of the man tailing one or the other. He chose Hanna. Perhaps he guessed wrong, but there is no telling about that.”

The Commissioner shook his head.

“You boys are barking up the wrong tree,” he said. “I’ve gone over the reports. Gone over them very carefully. This man Hanna just doesn’t fit. Doesn’t fit at all.”

“If we brought him in and took him down to the basement for a workout, I’d make him fit. all right,” Finn said. “What he needs is a touch of the…”

The Commissioner raised his hand. “He’s not the sort of person you can take down to the basement-you know that, Finn. Not that sort of person at all.”

“We’re keeping a man on him twenty-four hours a day.” Lieutenant Hopper said. “We’re watching every move he makes. If he is involved, it’s a lot better letting him have his freedom and giving him enough rope to hang himself.”

“I quite agree,” the Commissioner said. “Well, that’s the story. The newspapers are on our backs and we have to do something about it. And damned soon. Those funerals are today and I get sick every time I think of the way the papers will bleed with sensationalism. So let’s get moving on this thing. I want to be able to issue a statement for the morning papers that we are definitely solving the thing-and I want to have something in back of that statement.”

He stood up, a gesture of dismissal.

“Lieutenant.” he said, addressing Hopper, “you look dead on your feet. I think you better get a little rest before you get back to it.”

“After the funeral,” Hopper said. “I have a cot down in my office and I’ll take a few hours out and get some sleep. But I want to be close by just in case anything should break. And we’ll turn up the Dunne girl all right, don’t worry about that. I’ve arranged to have her brother’s body released and she’s bound to show up and claim it.”

There were two Fred Slaughters listed in the Manhattan directory, none in Queens, or the other boroughs. One of the Manhattan Slaughters was listed as a CPA and Gerald passed his number up for the second one, whose address was up on Central Park West.

Dialing the number, Gerald thought; another one, another one-card draw to an inside straight. That would be what the odds were, one in a thousand or so. He smiled wryly. Things had certainly changed ail right. This business of taking outside chances, playing the long odds, was becoming a habit.

As the sound of the bell at the other end hit to his ear, his mind went back to the scene in Engleman’s office. Yes, he was certainly playing the long ones all right, only that hadn’t been any gamble. That was a straight and simple matter of burning his bridges behind himself. At the moment he felt fine about it, exhilarated and all keyed up. He wondered if and when the reaction would set in. It isn’t every day that a man callously and offhandedly ends a seven-year career as a mere gesture.

But then, of course, it wasn’t every day that a man decides to completely change the course of his life, change the very essential pattern of his thinking and planning and living. The job, after all, was a minor thing in comparison to the other factors involved.

The ringing ended suddenly as someone lifted a receiver in the apartment on Central Park West.

“Hello?”

“Is Mr. Slaughter in?”

“Who’s this?” It was a hard, uncompromising voice and Gerald detected a slightly Brooklynese accent.

“A business associate,” Gerald said. “I’d like to speak with Mr. Slaughter. It is quite important!”

The voice at the other end didn’t hesitate.

“You got no name, you ain’t important,” it said.

“It’s important to Mr. Slaughter,” Gerald said. “Very important. Mr. Slaughter lost something, lost something very valuable last Friday night. If he is interested, and he should be, you’d better get him to the phone.”

There was a long pause and then finally, “Hang on.” Two minutes later the second man came on the wire.

“Hello, are you there?”

“I’m here,” Gerald said, feeling a sudden sense of excitement. There was an odd quality in that hard, gravelly voice, a quality which at once convinced him that he had the right person.

“What’s this about my losing something? Who are…”

“I’ll be in the lobby of the Walden at exactly one o’clock, this afternoon,” Gerald said, ignoring the other man’s question. “The Walden at one. Be there. Have Mr. Courtland paged-William Courtland. Come alone. Do it just as I say if you are interested in that little bundle that got away from your friends.”

“Say, what the hell…”

Gerald hung up as the other man stuttered into the telephone.

The trick was going to be in getting out of the building. Gerald didn’t know a great deal about police work or procedure, but he knew enough to realize that they would be watching him. They would be watching every move, never letting him out of their sight. As long as he was in the office he was safe. They wouldn’t bother him here, not unless they picked him up, and so far they hadn’t done that. But what he had to do. he couldn’t do from his desk. He had to get out and had to insure that he’d have freedom of movement. He couldn’t have a detective on his tail.

There would be the detective who had followed him that morning. The man would either be in the lobby of the building, waiting for him to leave, or he would be out by the bank of elevators on this particular floor. But there was one thing the man wouldn’t know about. He wouldn’t know about the private staircase between the two floors occupied by the insurance firm.

The upper floor was used entirely by clerical workers and when he reached it, Gerald walked out into the general room, filled by dozens of girls working at filing systems and IBM business machines. He advanced at once to an unoccupied desk. Out of the corner of his eye he saw Mrs. Wilberton, the office supervisor, approaching. He turned to her.

“Mr. Engleman,” he said, “down in the executive offices. His secretary’s typewriter went on the bum. Wants to borrow a machine for an hour or so.”

Mrs. Wilberton nodded, smiling.

“Why certainly,” she said. “I dare say that one will fill the bill.” She indicated the typewriter at the unoccupied desk. “Helen, she’s one of our girls, is off today. If you will just wait a moment I’ll have one of our boys take it down for you.”

“Oh, that’s all right,” Gerald said. “I guess I can handle it all right.”

“It’s mighty heavy,” Mrs. Wilberton said. “I think Johnny…”

“I can handle it fine,” Gerald said, leaning down and picking up the machine. “I’ll just use the freight elevator. If you would be good enough to come over with me and push the button…”

He waited until the operator had closed the door and then spoke.

“All the way to the basement,” he said. “This damned thing weighs a ton.”

The operator nodded sympathetically. “What are you goin’ do, junk it?”

Gerald shook his head.

“Broken,” he said. “Taking it over to get it fixed up. I left my car in the alley in back of the building. They told me there’s a door from the basement leading into the alley.”

“That’s right,” the elevator man said. “You know,” he added, “my kid is learning to use one of them things. I’m sending her to business school. She wanted to go to art school but her mother and me, we think it’s a lot smarter she should learn something where she can make a living.”

“You’re absolutely right,” Gerald said.

“Yep, she didn’t want to, but she’s learning business. I get a little ahead of the game, or if one of my numbers comes in, I’m going to get her one of them machines to practice on at home.”

They reached the basement and he brought the elevator to a stop.

“I’ll show you the door,” he said.

Gerald, carrying the typewriter, followed him to the rear of the building. The man opened the door and Gerald stepped out, noticing at once that there was no one in sight. He sighed and laid the typewriter down at his feet.

“Thanks,” he said, starting to walk away.

“Hey. Hey, what about the typewriter? You left the typewriter…” The man was staring at his retiring back in bewilderment.

“Give it to your daughter,” Gerald said over his shoulder. “Consider it a gift from the Seaboard Insurance Company for your loyal and devoted work over the years. She deserves it.”

The man stared at him open-mouthed as he turned the corner of the building.

He was in luck. There was a cab at the curb.

They sat side by side on a deep couch at the back end of the lobby, speaking in low whispers. They didn’t look at each other as they talked.

He’d been very careful in his selection of the spot, seeking out a secluded area, but one from which he could see most of the open space in the large public room. He wanted to be out of the main current of traffic, a place where no one would be able to overhear what they had to say. At the same time, he was careful to select a location that would keep the two of them within sight of other persons. He had no idea of what sort of man this Slaughter would turn out to be and he was taking no chances.

Now, sitting here talking with him, he wondered why he had worried. With the exception of that odd, gravelly voice, Fred Slaughter was merely another run of the mill, middle-aged, businessman. He could have been a salesman or an executive, a contractor or a dress manufacturer. There was nothing either sinister or dangerous in his manner or in his attitude.

They’d been talking now for a good half hour.

“Yes,” Slaughter said, “you could be telling me the truth. And then again, maybe not. Maybe, instead of being just an innocent passer-by-an insurance man you said your racket was, didn’t you-well maybe instead of that you are a cop. How do I know? You don’t look like a cop, but today, nobody does. What with these college graduates and all.”

“I have identification…” Gerald began, reaching into his pocket for his wallet.

Slaughter put out a hand.

“Don’t bother,” he said. “Don’t bother about showing me anything. Identification would be the very first thing a cop would have.” He stopped speaking for a moment and then looked up.

“I’ll tell you what,” he said. “Lemme make a phone call. I want you to talk to somebody. Let’s just get it straightened out for sure whether you are on the up and up. Not, you understand, that I care if you are a cop. You’re the one who has been doing the talking. I’ve just been listening. I haven’t said a damned thing. But just so we keep the books right, let’s find out.”

He stood up and Gerald also stood.

“There’s a booth over at the side there. I’ll get a number then open the door and you just talk to the party that answers. O.K.?”

“Anything you say,” Gerald said. He followed Slaughter over to the booth and Slaughter told him to stand several feet away while he got his party. He concealed the phone with his body as he dialed behind the tightly closed door.

It took him several minutes to get Steinberg and then another minute or two to explain what he wanted. Finally he put a coin in the slot for the third time and then opened the door a crack and signaled Gerald.

“Talk to him,” he said when Gerald approached. The two traded places.

The voice at the other end of the wire was very smooth.

“Mr. Hanna?”

“That’s right.”

“Who is the chairman of the board of Seaboard Insurance, Mr. Hanna?”

“Philip Gottlieb,” Gerald answered at once.

“And what is the name of the receptionist who would be on duty now?”

“Miss Kitty Donnelly.”

The man told Gerald to hold on a second and he could hear him speaking rapidly to someone in the room near him. Gerald knew that he would be checking the names on another telephone.

“All right, Mr. Hanna,” he said, “tell me this. If I were to leave seven hundred and fifty thousand dollars to my wife and three kids, and I wanted to set it up so I wouldn’t be paying a full inheritance tax, just how would I go about it?”

“Well, you could do it several ways,” Gerald said. “Naturally you would be allowed to make a series of gifts over a period of years. Then if you wanted to establish a group of trust funds, the income to go.

He went on for several minutes, explaining the thing. Finally the voice at the other end of the wire interrupted him.

“All right, all right,” he said. “Just one more thing. What would it cost me a month to amortize a forty-thousand dollar, twenty-year mortgage at 5 per cent if the mortgage were to carry a life insurance policy for an equal amount and the policy was on an A risk, aged fifty?”

“Roughly five hundred and fifty a month,” Gerald said. “Give me a second and I’ll give you the…”

“Never mind, never mind. Put the other party back on the wire.”

Gerald beckoned to Slaughter.

“If that guy’s a cop,” Steinberg said, “he must be one of them quiz kids. No, he’s in insurance all right. But what’s it all about Fred? What the hell is going on?”

“I’ll call you back later,” Slaughter said. “Sit tight. I think we got our little problem all cleaned up and solved. Just sit tight.”

Once more they returned to the couch where they had first met.

Seated, Slaughter turned and looked closely at his companion.

“All right,” he said, “let’s say for the sake of an argument that you’re on the up and up. That you’re telling me the truth. Let’s say that you do have the stuff. I can believe it. I’ll admit it now-the girl told me you had it. We got that much out of her.”

“The girl told you?”

“The Dunne girl. We picked her up; had an idea she might know something and that there was a chance she was in on some kind of deal. We knew that someone had picked up Vince and taken the stuff off of him. We didn’t know who, of course, but it had to be someone and we figured maybe she knew something.”

Gerald stared at him, saying nothing.

“The thing is,” Slaughter said, “I can’t quite see why we should buy it back from you.”

“I’m not suggesting you buy it back,” Gerald said. “I’m merely suggesting you give me the same split you would have had to give the others-your three boys-if they had been successful in getting the stuff to you. This way you get it, and it costs you no more than it would have anyway. As a matter of fact, you should be damned grateful I’m here to offer you the deal. If I hadn’t shown up just when I did, the police would have found the jewels when they found young Dunne’s body.”

Slaughter looked at him curiously.

“How did you get mixed up in it anyway?” he asked. “Was it the girl? Were you working with her and Vince all along?”

“Don’t be a fool,” Gerald said. “It was the way I’ve told you it was. I never saw the girl in my life before last night. Never saw her brother until he stuck me up and got into my car. But all of that doesn’t matter. I am trying to do business with you. Nobody else matters.”

“In that case, it can’t matter to you what happens to the girl,” Slaughter said. “You see, after you talked with her last night, we picked her up. We sort of felt she might have been double-crossing us, you know. She was Dunne’s sister. She could have been getting cute. But what the hell. As long as she’s out of the picture, doesn’t mean anything to you, we can forget about her.”

There was something about the man’s voice that sent a cold chill down Gerald’s spine. What he said made good sense. It was quite true. The girl was none of his business. She didn’t mean a thing to him.

Suddenly he visualized her pretty, heart-shaped face, her angry azure eyes and the determined line of her fine jaw.

“It happens I do care what happens to her,” he said suddenly, hardly realizing he was speaking the words. “It happens that she means a great deal to me. So much, in fact, that unless you let her go, at once and unharmed, you can just forget all about the Gorden-Frost jewels.”

“You think you are in any position to bargain?” Slaughter asked. “We know who you are now. Maybe the police would like to know.”

“Oh, certainly,” Gerald said, with a slight sneer. “They’d hold me for what? Receiving stolen goods? I’d be out about the time they were turning up the juice for you in Sing Sing.”

“All right, all right. We won’t argue about it,” Slaughter said. “Assuming you got the stuff, I’ll make you one and only one proposition. No bargaining and no second guessing. Take it or leave it. Thirty-five thousand in cash for the jewelry.”

“Thirty-five?”

“Right.”

“And the girl?”

Slaughter shook his head. “The girl will talk,” he said.

“Not if you haven’t hurt her,” Gerald said. “You said that you hadn’t…”

“She’s all right,” Slaughter said. “But she’s bound to spill…”

“Thirty-five thousand and you release the girl,” Gerald interrupted. “I deliver the stuff and guarantee she don’t talk. After all, I have plenty to lose too,” Gerald said. “I have as much interest as you have in keeping her quiet. But you’ll have to let her go. Otherwise-no deal. And-” Gerald hesitated and gave the other man a long look “-and I know now you’ve got the girl. Just in case something should happen to her.”

“If you can keep her quiet, you got a deal,” Slaughter said. “You’re getting a damned good price. That stuff is so hot it sizzles. A fence wouldn’t take it as a gift. The stuff will have to be held for months, maybe years.”

Gerald nodded. “I know,” he said. “All right, about the details.”

“We can go up to my apartment…”

Gerald smiled thinly.

“No,” he said. “Hardly. Not that I don’t trust you, of course. But I think it will be better if we meet on neutral grounds. Suppose we do it this way. Is the Dunne girl somewhere I can see her within the next half hour or so?”

“Maybe.” Slaughter looked at him quizzically.

“All right. Take me to her. Let me talk to her alone, for five minutes. When I finish she’ll agree to do as I ask. Then I’ll leave, without her. I’ll take a room in a midtown hotel. You give me a telephone number where you can be reached and I’ll call you at exactly seven-thirty this evening and let you know where I am located. Give you the hotel and the room number. I’ll have the stuff with me. You come up. Bring the girl with you and the thirty-five thousand. Just you and the girl. We’ll make the switch then.”

“And you mean you want to see the girl first, eh. Then leave?” Slaughter’s voice was heavy with doubt. “What’s to keep you from finding out where she is and then calling cops?”

“Good God, man,” Gerald said. “What’s wrong with you? There’s plenty to keep me from it. Among other things, the thirty-five thousand bucks. Why do you think I’m here in the first place. Because of the girl? Hell, I didn’t even know you had her. No, don’t get me wrong. My first interest is the money. It’s just that I don’t see any reason for the girl to get hurt. You have nothing to lose.”

“You didn’t want to come to my place at first,” Slaughter said. “How come, now you know the girl is there, you’ve changed…”

“I didn’t want to come with the jewels,” Gerald said. “I still don’t want to. That’s why I suggest the hotel deal. But alone-what the hell. You don’t want me-I’m no good unless I have the stuff. Right?”

Slaughter nodded slowly.

“Right,” he said at last. “O.K. Let’s get going. I’ll take you to where you can see her and talk to her. But let me give it to you straight. Get fancy and try anything cute, and you get killed. Very fast you get killed. And after you finish seeing the girl, you’ll have a guy with you for the first half hour after you leave. Long enough to give me a chance to move her. So don’t get any ideas…”

“I’ve told you,” Gerald said. “The only ideas I have concern thirty-five thousand dollars in hard cash.”

Five minutes later they were in the taxi heading across town.