guy in the white hat,” I said to the cabbie. “The thin one.”
He lifted his head. “What about him?”
“Did he keep walking when he left the hotel or get in a car?”
“Car,” said the cabbie. “Fifty-six Caddy. Black job with four doors.” He swerved on Broadway to miss another cab and cut across a bus for his turn on 46th.
“New York plate?” I asked him.
“Yeh. But don’t ask me the number. I don’t play ’em.”
That was too bad. Most of them do try to hit the numbers. Those that play memorize every license they see and they can read it back to you for five minutes afterward. Too bad but not hopeless. This was February and I doubted if delivery had been made on more than 300 Cadillacs in New York. That made it not more than 50 painted black and less than 25 of those would be four-door sedans.
This mob could be had. But who said thieves were smart?
All I got from the phone in Archie St. George’s office was a busy signal. He uses about eight-hundred square feet—foyer, reception room, office—in a spanking new, steel-and-concrete, air-conditioned giant at 53rd and Sixth. If the nut is less than four hundred a month I’m surprised. But then, he’s an Artist’s Representative and works for his money. I walked over.
But the reception room was empty. Empty, even, of the receptionist who had been there an hour ago. A blonde, about nineteen or twenty, whose bosom performed at a ridiculous angle that confessed Made on 34th Street. But not a bad looking girl. They never were around Archie.
I forget whether I knocked on the door or not. But when I opened it I was met by the sight of the blonde, lying facedown on the couch, her black dress hiked above her stocking tops and her upper body shaking with sobs that even the cushion couldn’t muffle. Archie St. George sat on the edge of the desk, a leg dangling, a cigarette between his lips.
We looked at each other for a moment. “All work and no play,” I told him.
“See me later, Barney.” His thin, high-cheekboned face was not its suave self but tightened and white with anger. And for the first time I was looking at his ink-black hair when it was not sharply brushed. It even looked as though somebody had gotten her hands into it and clawed.
“I’m seeing you now.”
The girl had begun to lift her head at the first sound of my voice. Now, still crying uncontrollably, she swung herself untidily to her feet. On her left cheek was an ugly red welt.
I took her arm. “You better sit down a while,” I advised her.
“Why don’t you butt out, Barney?”
“What happened to your face?” I asked her.
She shook her head. “Nothing,” she whispered. “It’s all right.” She moved around me and left the office.
“If you need a workout,” I said to him, “why don’t you try the gym over on 52nd?”
He took a deep drag of his cigarette. “Let me work out my own little problems, hanh? My dames are not your worry.”
He had me there.
He said, “You turn up anything on the diamonds?”
I sat down on the couch. “Her stuff is going to cost somebody twenty grand.”
He shrugged. “Steep,” he said. “But cheap, considering.”
“Considering what?”
He snubbed the butt in a tray. “Considering Kyle Shannon,” he said. “That picture she’s made is really good. The studio is talking in terms of 4-million gross.” He smiled briefly. “Twenty thousand is money to us. But not stacked against 4-million. How do they want it handled?”
I told him.
He listened carefully and then he nodded. “The envelope you get will probably have another check in it. Or a key to a box in Grand Central or LaGuardia.”
“In that case,” I said, “all I should do is pick up my envelope first.”
He smiled. “Sure,” he said. “Do that, Barney. I’ll send flowers.”
“Nothing would happen to me.”
He spread his hands and when he spoke his voice was bored. “You’re the expert,” he said. “My only angle is to protect Kyle. If you get yourself killed I’ll just have to start all over with a new boy.”
“That would be an inconvenience,” I admitted.
He ran his fingers through his hair. “Why don’t you just play it smart, kid? Make the payoff and make the pickup. Okay?”
“Okay.”
“About twenty grand. I’ll get that from Kyle tonight.”
“I can get it,” I said.
He shook his head. “That’s another thing, Barney. The girl.”
“What about the girl?”
“Private property. Strictly. I just thought I’d warn you.”
I grinned. “You know what you can do with your warnings.”
“Don’t, Barney,” he said. “I’d kill you over Kyle Shannon.”
Well, you have to expect days like these. But you don’t have to keep taking it. I got up and went over to him. My fingers wrapped themselves around the big knot in his tie and I pulled him closer.
“Agent,” I told him, “you keep saying things like that and you’re going to get knocked silly.”
“Let go, Barney.” His voice was thin. “I can’t take being handled. Take your goddamned hand off me!”
I didn’t hit him and be done with it. I don’t know why. I just spun him away from the desk and shoved him away from me.
“Get the money!” I shouted at him. “Get it and then get out of this thing. The more I see you the more I want to take you apart.”
There was a strange smile on his face, no more than an upward curl of his lip, and a curious, wintery expression in his dark eyes as we stood facing each other across the room. Maybe he did have it in him to kill a man. But not unless the man had his back to him.
I turned my back and walked out.
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