Too Many Women

CHAPTER Twenty-Nine

The best evidence of where we stood and how we were doing on that case was the changed attitude toward me, when I appeared in the Naylor-Kerr stock department that Monday morning, on the part of the personnel. The time had been when my progress down an aisle had been followed by hundreds of pairs of eyes. No more.

I got about the same attention as one of the messenger boys toting mail around.

The first item of the build-up was a visit, not too brief, with Hester Livsey, and, wanting to be sure of getting it in before she got called by Rosenbaum for the morning dictation, I crossed the arena to her office as soon as I had deposited my hat and coat in my own room, which I was still being allowed to occupy. Her door was standing open, but I closed it behind me when I entered.

She had finished dusting and was sorting papers on her desk. She sent me a sidewise glance, then jerked her head around and demanded, “What do you want?” I sat down and grinned at her. “That’s a bad habit you’re forming, that what do you want. It’s nerves.” “What do you want?” She looked older and somewhat more used, but I didn’t try to kid myself that to me she had become merely a collection of assorted cells and was around ninety per cent water. I could still look at her and not be repulsed by the notion that she needed me, and the hell of it was that I was committed to an operation that was likely to make her need me a lot more.

“Sit down and relax,” I told her.

“No.” She stood with papers in her hand. “I could tell Mr. Rosenbaum that you’re annoying me.” “Indeed you could,” I agreed. “And I wouldn’t deny it. I’m annoying lots of people, and so are you. That’s the way it goes under circumstances like this. I doubt if Rosenbaum would try to bounce me, it would make such a commotion with me yelling and hanging onto the doorjamb, and maybe breaking loose and dodging around the desks out there. How- ever, you can try it-or you can just ignore me and go on with your work. I won’t pounce on you from behind.” She was sorting papers, with her face looking distorted because of the way her jaw was set, with tight muscles.

“Speaking of your work,” I went on, “do you remember that you told me once that you like it here and have to have a job? I shouldn’t think you’d like it here much now, with all the annoyance. But I can understand your having to have a job because I do too. I can understand your not wanting to do anything that would get you fired. So don’t get fired. Quit. Mr. Wolfe knows a lot of people, and one of them is a senior partner in one of the best and biggest law firms in New York. You can have a job with them, secretary to a member of the firm, seventy a week to start, nine-thirty to five and closed Saturdays, haven’t skipped a Christmas bonus for eighteen years. Your room will be three times as big as this one, two windows, two rugs, any kind of typewriter you want, good view of the harbor and the Statue of Liberty. What do you say?” She sorted papers, with no glance at me. I warmed up to it and proceeded to analyze her chances for a glowing future in the law business. To get the effect I was after it was desirable to spend at least a quarter of an hour with her, and twenty minutes would be better. So I went into the matter thoroughly and considered it from every angle. I found as I went on that what appealed strongest to my fancy was the possibility of her becoming a court stenographer, with all the dramatic opportunities and financial advantages which that offered.

On that I really went to town. I had been with her twenty-three minutes, and saw no reason why it shouldn’t go on until lunchtime, when I heard the door opening behind me. Twisting my head, I saw Sumner Hoff.

He shut the door, circled around to confront me, and told me in a low threatening tone, “Get out of here.” I couldn’t have asked for anything better. This would be a real help. I looked up at him and matched his tone. “Get out yourself, you goddam snooping son of a bitch.” He reacted as might have been expected from the cavalier who had plugged Waldo Moore in full view of the whole arena. He made me aware in fact, that I might have done him an injustice that day in Wolfe’s office; he was capable of rating a sock when his emotions were fully aroused. But it would have been bad tactics to smash him at that point and anyway his ideas of combat were so ill advised that it would have been a shame. As I left my chair he came for me with his right as if it was the only fist in the world and nothing else was worth considering. I jerked my head aside out of the way, and while he was recovering his balance I stepped to the door and opened it, saying in a loud voice: “You’re too late to stop her, Hoff! You’re too late!” Then I ran. I ran across the middle of the arena, glancing over my shoulder, in flight, to see that Hoff had started after me, got as far as the fourth desk, and stopped. I kept going, getting, now, the attention I deserved from all eyes.

When I reached the other side I darted into my room, grabbed my hat and coat, emerged, left by the main entrance, took a down elevator, flagged a taxi on William Street, and gave the driver Wolfe’s address.

I found Wolfe up in the potting room with Theodore, inspecting a newly arrived shipment of osmundine. It was humid and warm in there, so I perched on a stool, got out my handkerchief, and wiped my brow.

“Well?” he inquired.

“Yes, sir. I was with her over twenty minutes. Hoff busted in and ordered me out, and I called him names and let him chase me. He must have spies.” “Excellent. Proceed.” “Yes, sir. I’ll stay here a while, to show that I had to consult you on an exciting development, and then go back. But there’s one thing I still don’t like. Each and every day I have been typing my report in the afternoon and taking it upstairs around four-thirty. If I change that routine and turn in a report before noon someone may suspect it’s a phony.” “You said that last night.” “I say it again today.” “The substance of the report justifies it.” “It did with Naylor too, but I followed routine.” He shrugged. “Very well. It doesn’t matter. Make it this afternoon as usual.” I left, went downstairs to the office, dialed the Naylor-Kerr number, asked for the extension of the head of the reserve pool in the stock department, and said I wanted to speak to Gwynne Ferris. I was told she was busy. So, I said, was I.

In a couple of minutes I heard her voice.

“Listen, darling,” I beseeched her. “I’m up at Thirty-fifth Street, had to come to see Mr. Wolfe. But I’ll be through here in about an hour, and there’s something I want to ask you about, and I’ll even go so far as to buy you a lunch. Meet me at the corner of William and Wall at twelve-thirty?” “You bum,” she said resentfully. “Letting that Hoff chase you clear off the floor and me not getting to see it because I was in Mr. Henderson’s office working. What do you want to ask me about?” “Something special. The next to last step in that rumba. Twelve-thirty?” She said all right.

I was sitting with my legs extended and my hands pushed into my pants pockets, frowning at the knob of the combination on the safe, when Wolfe came down from the plant rooms. After he got in his chair and had his center of gravity adjusted I transferred the frown to him and asked: “Did the boys come?” He nodded.

“All four of them?” He nodded.

“You gave them the set-up?” He nodded.

I shook my head. “Okay. If this thing really works, which I admit is one chance in a hundred and so do you, I only hope to God they don’t lose her and I have to do some more identifying.” “Nonsense.” Wolfe pushed the button for beer. “As I told you, I expect nothing as conclusive as that. But there may be some word, some gesture, some cautious countermove, and you, I trust, will not miss it.” “Yeah.” My frown remained. “Some trust. I have dated Gwynne for lunch and have reserved a booth at Frisbie’s, where shad roe is three bucks. Have you any further suggestions?” He said no, and Fritz entered with the beer.