Loot for the Unlucky Lady

Chapter Two Elusive Lady

Steve Harris, his right eye open the merest fraction of an inch, inspected her fragile and very perfect profile. He felt very content. The future would bring many challenges, but at the moment there was nothing he could do without arousing her suspicions.

She wasn’t the least bit like what he had expected. He wondered if she knew anything about what Al Barnard had pulled. He guessed that she did. She had acted pretty cozy about moving around, about changing names.

For the moment, the case was moving according to plan. Maybe a little better than that. Being able to chase away the drunk was a break.

Sure, probably Barnard had managed to slip enough dough to her for her to get dressed up and buy the transportation. She probably had a little extra to live on until Barnard showed.

It was by far the biggest thing that he had ever gotten tangled up in. He felt more than a mild distaste at putting his services at the disposal of Wesley Gibb, fat, pseudo-socialite owner of the Candor Club. But Wesley had made it worth while. “Twenty percent of whatever you can recover, Harris. In cash.” One hundred percent recovery would thus net him eighteen thousand four hundred dollars, and the expenses would be on top of that.

Not too bad for an ex-cop from Peeks-skill who had been in a dead end because of department politics, he thought. Wesley Gibb, and everyone else, knew that Steve Harris was well-trained and completely honest.

Well-trained. Groundwork at Northwestern. CIC in the Army.

He watched her carefully while she thought she wasn’t being observed. He hoped in that way to find little clues to her character which would enable him to determine, in advance, her future actions. He looked at her hands. They were well cared for. Slightly squarish. Capable hands. And quite pretty.

In the bright light he could see the pale hair springing firm from the white clean scalp. Funny about her. He had gotten on her trail by routine work. The dead man was one Samuel Burkett. Burkett had a girl friend. She responded to sympathy and kind words, gave out with the names of four of Sammy’s friends. He had dug up addresses for them. Three of them were where they should have been.

The fourth, one Albert Barnard had left his room, apparently for keeps. The landlady had broken down for a ten-dollar fee, and let him in the room. Wednesday afternoon, in Barnard’s vacated room, in the wastebasket, he had found an eight by ten glossy print of a pale, rather pretty girl. He had pieced the bits together, found the photographer’s name on the back. Goldtint Special Three Huge Pictures for Two Dollars. Choice of Six Proofs. Glamorous Pictures. Like the Movie Stars. There was a penciled number on the back of the print, just under the photographer’s name.

“Yes, sir. We keep files. If you could tell me why you want...” The eye had flicked down and seen the numeral five on the corner of the bill. “If you’ll wait just a moment, sir.” The five changed hands.

“That’s a Miss Gloria Gerald. Here, I’ll write down her address. We mailed her the proofs and then she came in and told us which one she favored.”

It cost an additional five dollars to get a new print of Miss Gerald and a new print of Mr. Barnard, using the negatives in their files.

With the name and address, it was relatively easy to find that she was a file clerk in a loan company, and that she hadn’t been on the job since Friday at lunch time. And yet she was still occupying her room.

He had a hunch that Barnard would eventually come to her room. So, to insure a constant watch, he had hired a reliable twenty-a-day man to split the shifts with him, giving him first a long look at the photograph.

But Barnard hadn’t showed. Instead, she had moved. By luck, he had been on Saturday morning, followed her in a cab to the railroad station, saw her check the battered bag. Three times he had come closed to losing her in the stores. Then, seated on the far side of the lobby of the midtown hotel, he had seen her register.

Fifteen seconds after she had left the desk, he hurried up to the same man and said, “Say, did you see a blonde girl, dark blue gabardine suit, hat with flowers on it and—”

“Miss Quinn?”

“That’s right. Did I miss her?”

“By just a few seconds. She’s got room 1221, sir. You may be able to catch her at the main entrance...”

At six o’clock she followed the bellhop past his chair in the lobby. He lowered his newspaper after she had passed, just in time to see the initials G.A.Q. on the brand new luggage.

The darkness of early evening had helped him. He had been close enough to her taxi to hear her tell the driver to take her to the airline terminal. He had arrived there a few minutes after she did.

To the ticket agent he said, “Miss Quinn asked me to see if I could get a seat on the same plane she’s taking. I believe she was here just a little while ago.”

“Oh yes. That’s Daytona, isn’t it? We couldn’t book her directly to Daytona. Jacksonville is the best we could do. Will that be all right?”

“Fine,” he had said heartily.

“Be here at seven-thirty Monday morning, or at the airfield at eight-twenty, Mr. Harris.”

“By the way, if she should come back here to check anything about her ticket, don’t tell her that I got a seat on the plane. I’m going to tell her I couldn’t make it, and then surprise her.”

“Certainly, Mr. Harris.”

Schedule time was five and a half hours. Certainly not a very long time in which to wiggle into her good graces. Particularly since she’d be cautious. She looked intelligent. No point in taking any chances at this stage of the game.

He remembered how delighted Wesley Gibb had sounded over the phone. “Good work, Harris! Excellent. Daytona, you say? And you figure that he’ll join her there? This is much better than I expected.”

One stop at Washington and one at Atlanta. Maybe there’d be a chance to get better acquainted. She’d feel bound to stick close to him just to back up the story he had handed Red-face.

He made the sounds and movements of a man waking up. She responded faintly to his smile.

“Going all the way to Miami?” he asked, making it sound like polite conversation.

“Just to Jacksonville.”

“I get off there too.”

He saw her eyes narrow a bit. Was that pushing it too fast? He said, “This is the best time to go down. Before the mob hits Florida. Lots of people stay up north for Christmas. Last year I flew down in late January. Had a bad time finding a place to live. Are you all set for a place?”

“No.”

“Well, don’t fret about it, Miss Quinn. You’ll find a place without any trouble this time of year. Of course, you’ll pay through the nose for it. Prices don’t collapse down there until April when the season is about all over. Or have you been there before?”

“This is the first time,” she said. And he saw the mistrust fading.

“I get down every year. Have to. Sinus kills me if I stay in New York. Of course, Jax itself is no resort town. You have to go down the line to find that. Daytona isn’t too bad.”

“I’ve always wanted to see Florida!” she said.

He saw the eagerness on her face, the light in her blue eyes, and she was like a grave child, suddenly pleased by an unexpected gift. He decided suddenly that he liked her very much indeed, and that annoyed him, because it is not healthy to like what you must destroy. A surgeon does not operate on his own. And Steve’s business was, in essence, an operation. To remove the cash and turn the criminal over to the police. In that order.

He told himself that she was as crooked and dangerous as Al Barnard. He wondered what she would do if he got his small bag, opened it up and handed her the two glossy prints. Probably the serenity of her face would be distorted into feline rage, and her nails would reach for his eyes.

“What sort of work do you do, Mr. Harris?” she asked.

He had that all set, and answered quickly, “Commercial art. That’s how I’m able to follow the weather around. Of course, I’m closer to my markets in New York, but a little sunshine is worth the trouble.”

He saw her glance at his hands. He guessed that she was trying to visualize him sitting at a drawing board. He flexed his fingers, said, “I’d like to sketch you some time, Miss Quinn. Maybe we can get together in Florida.”

“That would be nice,” she said, smiling, “but I’m not exactly a cover girl.”

“Turn your head a little. There. Now look up a little more. Fine. I’d want to get that line of brow and cheekbone. When an artist sees that sort of bone formation, he knows he’s looking at a woman who will merely get lovelier as the years go by.”

She flushed.

“I bet your mother is a nice looking woman.”

Gloria’s mouth twisted. “She... she was, before she died.”

“Sorry, Miss Quinn. Always have my foot in my mouth.”

She frowned. “My ears feel funny,” she said.

“Sure. Hear how the sound of the motors has changed? We’re coming into Washington. Better fasten that belt again.”

The stewardess, standing at the door, announced that there would be a delay of an hour before take-off. The scheduled stop was only a half hour. That meant that they would arrive at Jacksonville at three instead of two-thirty, provided there were no more delays.

Gloria walked slowly toward the administration building. It was much warmer in Washington than it had been in New York, but the air was thick and damp. She glanced up and saw that Steve Harris had fallen in step with her.

“Coffee?” he said, smiling. She found that she liked his smile. Yet it was hard to know what he was thinking. He had a... well, a masked looked about his eyes. If she refused, the two drunks might give her more trouble.

“Good idea,” she said.

They sat at the long bar in the coffee shop. Her coat was uncomfortably warm. She threw it back off her shoulders, and he took it and hung it up for her.

He was very polite and very nice, she thought. And he certainly looked more muscular than she had imagined any commercial artist would look. She had a vague idea of men with thick glasses and hair worn a little too long, and high nervous voices.

Funny, she thought, how a person’s mind can be split into two parts. One part of her mind was dark and miserable with thoughts of Al, and what danger he must be in. With another part of her mind she was enjoying the excitement of the trip, enjoying Steve’s warm smile and his quiet courtesy. She half decided that she was merely shallow.

Steve said, “This delay is just the wrong length. If it had been two hours, we could have taken a run into town. An hour is just long enough to stand around and fidget.”

At that moment a heavy hand landed on Steve’s shoulder, and a booming voice said, “Steve Harris! What the hell are you doing in town?”

She saw the faint annoyance flicker across Steve’s face, but he got up and pumped the big hand of a tall man in army uniform, silver eagles on his shoulders.

“Nice to see you, Bill,” Steve said. “Miss Quinn, may I present Colonel Grydon, the guy who made my military career miserable.”

Colonel Grydon was a tall, balding man with a wide mouth and small eyes. “Glad to meet you, Miss Quinn. We professionals had to keep amateurs like Steve in line. I got him so he was almost earning his pay.” He turned to Steve. “I heard from one of my New York friends, boy, that as a private gumshoe, you’re doing okay.”

Gloria felt cold all over as she grasped the implications of his words. Steve laughed heartily. “No gumshoe, Bill. Art gum eraser. Have you been watching the famous Harris touch on you-know-what-cigarette ads?”

She was watching Colonel Grydon’s face, saw the almost imperceptible narrowing of his eyes. “Hell, yes, Steve,” he said quickly. “They’re good, too. And don’t forget, you got your training in the army. I ought to take a cut on the dough you must be getting.

“I’ll mail you a dime tomorrow.”

The colonel glanced at his watch. “Got to run, Steve. Nice to have met you, Miss Quinn. When you’re in training, Steve, drop in at my office at the Pentagon and look me up.”

He went off through the wide door into the waiting room.

Steve sat down on the stool, chuckled and said, “He was in charge of one of the propaganda outfits. I did poster work for him.”

“It must have been very interesting,” she said. Her lips felt numb. She felt as though she had been running blindly toward a vast pit and had slid to a stop on the very brink. Now she was cautiously picking her way back from the edge. It was important to smile, to be natural. “I’d like more coffee,” she said...

As they walked back to the plane, Steve Harris spent a long thirty seconds mentally cursing Bill Grydon. Such an incredibly stupid break. And he couldn’t tell whether or not Gloria Gerald had caught on.

He sat beside her once more, pulled an envelope out of his pocket and, with a soft pencil, quickly drew a caricature of Bill Grydon. His anger at Grydon was such that it was even more biting than his usual efforts. It was a knack he had developed many years before, and it was all tied up with his ability to remember a face forever after having only seen it once. With that knack, he had amused countless people at parties, infuriating some, and sending others into spasms of helpless laughter.

He showed Gloria the drawing. She giggled. That was a good sign. Maybe the drawing would dispell any doubts Grydon might have given her.

“You did it so quickly!” she said. “I’d hate to have you do that to me. You’ve made him look like — I don’t know what. Just awful!”

He began to relax a little. He smiled to himself as he realized that part of his horror at being found out was based on a childish desire to have her think well of him.

The plane rumbled and lifted off the runway and made a long swing and headed south once more.

His fears were sufficiently allayed so that when, at Atlanta, she went off by herself, he did not worry. The early afternoon sun was pleasantly warm. The stop-over was short and he looked for Gloria in the crowd as, piecemeal, they strolled back to the ship. Her folded coat was on the seat. He saw her luggage stacked and tied with the others.

She still did not arrive. The stewardess was at the open door, looking worriedly across the apron. He could hear the metallic voice of the P. A. system in the terminal proper paging, “Miss Quinn, please! Miss Quinn! Your flight is ready for takeoff. Miss Quinn!”

He knew, then, that she wouldn’t return. The stewardess said, “She had us untie the load so that she could get at one of her bags. I wonder what could have happened to her.”

Steve didn’t answer. He was wondering whether or not to get off himself and take a chance on tracking her down in Atlanta. The odds on missing her were too great. Besides, he knew her ultimate destination. She had not mentioned Daytona in her conversation, had not given herself away when he had mentioned it.

He felt chagrin, and yet a certain admiration for her. Grydon’s words had tipped her off, and she had not shown her suspicion. Leaving the bags and coat on the plane had been a good touch.

The big door was swung shut, the steps pushed away. He went back to the seat and fastened his safety belt. At Jax he could check the different modes of transportation from Atlanta to Daytona and arrange to intercept her...

From her vantage point Gloria watched the big plane, and when at last it took off, taking Steve Harris with it, she heaved a great sigh. Carefully she searched her memory, decided that she had given him no indication that Daytona was her destination.

Harris would undoubtedly wait at Jacksonville, expecting her to arrive there by some other means. She went into the terminal and inspected the huge map on the wall. She carried her purse in one hand, and under her arm was the shoe box of currency.

She thought for a moment with despair of the pretty clothes and nice luggage winging their way south. No matter. The Atlanta shops were open and she had plenty of money.

Steve Harris had come so close to deceiving her. He had seemed so nice. It was faintly disloyal to Al to have found Steve so attractive. Maybe, under different circumstances, if she had met Steve...