Authors: Edward D. Hoch
“Well!” Millings said. “Come for your money, I suppose.”
“You suppose right,” Nick said. “Is this your partner?”
Millings nodded. “Mr. Mota. He shares my law office.”
Nick unwrapped the rags once more and laid the three brass letters on the table. “I’ll take the money now.”
“Suppose we told you we didn’t need them any more?” Millings asked.
“That would be your hard luck. I delivered them as agreed.”
“Pay him the money,” Mota said. “He earned it.”
Nick smiled. “Like the man says, pay me the money.”
“Maybe we could settle for half—”
Nick casually picked up one of the brass letters. He chose the
X
, because he liked the shape of it. “Let me tell you a little story,” he began. “It’s about a couple of high-powered con men who had a scheme to make a fortune.”
“What—?”
“No,” Nick said. “Just listen. These con men happened to be lawyers, and far away—maybe across the country or even across the ocean—they heard of a wealthy investor, someone just dying to sink a load of money into a growing American business. Maybe an electronics firm. As lawyers it was a simple job for these two to invent a phony company, draw up some fake papers of incorporation, print some stationery and calling cards, and handle all the other little details.”
Mota was on his feet. “You’re dreaming all this!”
“Am I? These two couldn’t use the name of a real company, because ownership could be checked too easily. Besides, in their city there was a modern office building—the newest and tallest in town—whose name gave them an idea for a final bit of authenticity. In fact, it may have given them the idea for the entire scheme. This building was to become—well, perhaps something like Mota Electronics.”
“You’re guessing now,” Millings said, but he wasn’t smiling.
“Not at all. These two men needed one final piece of physical evidence to convince their investor—something like the building itself, or a picture of it. A still photograph could be too easily retouched and would therefore be suspect. But a five minute segment of, say, a motion picture film, which is virtually impossible to alter without detection, would be very convincing proof—especially with Mr. Mota himself, in full color, waving at the camera as he stands in front of his own building.
“How to do it? Simple but ingenious. This tall impressive building happens to belong to the Satomex Corporation, with the name SATOMEX in clear block letters on its side. If someone removed the S and the E and the X, what would be left?”
“ATOM,” Millings mumbled, half to himself.
“ATOM, in block letters. Seen through a mirror, or on a reversed movie film, it would read MOTA. The segment could be filmed, a reversed print made, and sent off to convince the investor. Of course since the original movie print had to be reversed, Mr. Mota would have to cover up the buttons on his suit—which he did by wearing a girl’s raincoat, so the buttons would come out on the correct side in the final reversed copy of the print. Do I have to say any more?”
“Pay him the money, for God’s sake!” Mota gasped.
Joseph Millings managed a smile as he took the bundled bills from his desk. “You’re a very good guesser, Mr. Velvet—as good as you are a thief. So you see why we didn’t really need those three brass letters as such. It was only their
absence
we needed—and to be certain Satomex didn’t fish them out of the river too soon and put them back before we shot our little film. But you were wrong on one minor point—Mota Corporation deals in pharmaceuticals, not electronics. But our investor couldn’t care less about that.”
Nick Velvet nodded as he pocketed the money. “It was a pleasure doing business with you, gentlemen.”
Outside, Nick walked quickly to where he’d left Cindy waiting in the car. “We’re finished with games,” he told her. “Get Weston here.”
“Who?”
“Lieutenant Weston. I know you’ve been working for him.”
She started to protest, but almost at once Weston himself stepped out of the shadows behind Nick. “It’s all right, Cindy. We’ve got him now. We heard everything you said, Nick. And we heard your conversation with Millings the other night, when you first tried to deliver the letters.”
“I know,” Nick Velvet said, and he flipped the microtransmitter to the detective. “It was under the lapel of my coat. You planted it in the restaurant when you put your hand on my shoulder—while your partner was planting a second one in my hat. A smart cop’s trick. I found one of them and stopped looking. But you overplayed it with the girl. When I tumbled to her, I went over my clothes again, and found the second microtransmitter tonight.”
“You knew I was listening?”
“I knew. You can still get me for petty larceny, if the Satomex company wants to press charges, but I thought after listening to all that you might be interested in bigger game.”
The detective hesitated, uncertain. “And let you walk away with the money?”
“It’s either me or them. If you pull me in, they’ll simply destroy the evidence and abandon their con game.” Nick smiled. “Besides, would you want to admit in court that you used electronic listening devices? They’re not too popular with judges these days.”
They stood facing each other for a moment. The night was warm and silent, with no hint of a breeze. Finally Weston said, “Get out. Get out of my sight, Velvet. Out of my town.”
“Gladly.”
But then, as Cindy joined Weston and Nick slipped behind the wheel of his car, the detective leaned in the window. “One thing—how did you know about Cindy?”
Nick gunned the motor into life, feeling the bulge of money against his side. He was anxious to be away from there. “Easy. She claimed to be a reporter, but she never even asked my name.”
N
ICK VELVET’S MEETING WITH
Roscoe Fane took place on a 35-foot yacht anchored off a beach near the tip of Long Island. It was an area of wealth and leisure where yachts were large and girls’ bathing suits small, where nobody hurried in August unless it was to a bank or an afternoon cocktail party.
Nick felt out of place on Roscoe Fane’s yacht, not solely because he was the one person on board without a bathing suit. He felt rather that this was another world, and that these people should be his victims rather than his employers. He even found himself imagining what it would be like to steal this very yacht, complete with crew, and sail away to the West Indies.
Nick Velvet was a thief, of course, as even the police knew. But he stole only the unusual, the bizarre, the worthless. He fee was $20,000—a sum calculated to discourage the cranks and crackpots who occasionally sought his services. There were only a few men—like Roscoe Fane—who could afford him, and when they called he came and listened.
“There’s a Broadway play called
Wicked,”
Roscoe Fane began, shifting in his deck chair until the afternoon sun struck his bronze chest. “My son, William, is the producer. He’s only twenty-eight, and
Wicked
was his first Broadway show. He’d opened it off-Broadway last winter, and then decided to try it uptown.”
Nick Velvet nodded. He didn’t follow the theater closely, but he remembered reading something about
Wicked
a few months back. It dealt with an outbreak of sexual promiscuity among British cricket players, with the title a pun on the cricket term
wicket
“Just what is it you want me to steal?” he asked Roscoe Fane.
The yacht rocked gently as the afternoon breeze began to grow over the water. Fane scratched his tanned bald head and answered, “The tickets. I want you to steal all the tickets from the box office.”
“That shouldn’t be difficult,” Nick said. “But why should you try to disrupt your own son’s show?”
“You’re not paid to ask questions, Mr. Velvet. Besides, the theft of the tickets will in no way disrupt the show. You see,
Wicked
closed at the beginning of summer, back in June.”
Nick leaned forward. “Let me see if I’ve got this straight. You’re going to pay me $20,000 to steal the tickets for a Broadway show that’s been closed for two months?”
Roscoe Fane nodded. “That’s correct.”
Nick smiled and stood up. Fane did not rise. “I accept the assignment, sir. It should prove to be one of my most interesting jobs.”
It was hot in Manhattan the following day, and the softness of the asphalt beneath his feet made Nick appreciate for the first time the previous afternoon’s cooling sea breezes aboard Roscoe Fane’s yacht. New York was no place to be in August heat. It only made Nick wish for the shaded porch at Gloria’s house, where he liked to rest between assignments. Those were the only places to be on a hot August afternoon—on a millionaire’s yacht or a shaded small-town porch.
It was a Wednesday, and the midweek matinees had brought the usual number of suburban matrons into Manhattan. Nick watched them for a time, then strolled into one of the store-front ticket agencies on Times Square.
“Show called
Wicked?”
he asked.
“Wicked
closed in June,” the young man behind the counter told him. “But I can give you a couple of good seats for
She’s a Sinner!
Great little musical. Very popular with the convention crowd.”
“No. Thanks, anyway.”
Nick strolled down Broadway to 42nd Street, taking in the shabby bookstores that seemed to multiply with each of his visits, the identical movie houses with their sex-and-sin marquees, the orange-drink stands cluttered with sweaty, camera-toting tourists.
The production of
Wicked
had played for three months at the 41st Street Playhouse, but the advent of the summer season had proved too big a hurdle for a show about the British game of cricket, even spiced with more than a little sex. The theater, as Nick approached it, still carried the marquee signs for
Wicked
though there was already a stand-up sign by the lobby door proclaiming:
Opens September 15th—“Legman in Love”—Tickets Now On Sale at the Box Office Inside.
Nick paused across the street and studied the line of doors. The place was probably empty except for the ticket seller handling the new show. If the
Wicked
tickets had not yet been destroyed it would be a simple enough task to enter the theater and find them, probably still wrapped in their packages. It would be the easiest $20,000 he’d ever picked up.
Then he hesitated in the act of lighting a cigarette. A young man with a neatly trimmed beard paused in front of the theater and glance up at the
Wicked
marquee. He studied it a moment and then entered, without seeming to notice the smaller sign for
Legman in Love.
Nick crossed the narrow street and walked casually past the glass doors. The young man was at the box-office window, completing a transaction; a moment later he left the theater, examining a pair of tickets.
“Pardon me,” Nick said to him. “Is the box office for
Wicked
open now?”
The young man eyed Nick with a hint of suspicion, then answered, “Sure. Right in there.”
Nick opened the glass door and stepped into the sudden chill of the air-conditioned lobby. He walked up to the lighted box office where a white-haired man in his sixties was sorting stacks of pink and purple pasteboard tickets.
“You selling tickets?” Nick asked him.
“Sure am. How many, and what night?”
“How about tonight’s performance of
Wicked?”
The man frowned at the stack of pasteboards. “I’m just selling for
Legman in Love.”
“But I understood I could get tickets to
Wicked
here too,” Nick insisted.
“Yeah? Who told you that?”
“The kid with the beard who just left.”
The white-haired man seemed to relax a little. “We’ve got a few left.”
“How much?” Nick asked.
“They’re twofers. Two-for-ones, half-price tickets.” The man flipped through the pile. “Only two dollars each. Best bargain on Broadway.”
“But I thought the show had closed. Has it reopened?”
Now the man was eyeing him with open suspicion. “Look, mister, the tickets are half price—take ’em or leave ’em.”
“But if the show is closed, what sort of bargain is that?”
A girl had entered and stood waiting behind Nick. “Make room for the cash customers,” the man growled.
“All right,” Nick answered meekly. He moved aside with a slight bow to the girl, a striking blonde wearing a powder blue minidress and dark stockings over a pair of wonderful legs.
Then he went back out to the heat of 41st Street, feeling just a bit like Alice at the bottom of the rabbit hole.
The blonde girl in the blue minidress left the theater and walked quickly along 41st Street to Broadway. She turned left and headed downtown without a backward glance. After three blocks she turned into a little coffee shop on the corner.
Nick Velvet strolled in behind her and took a seat at the counter two stools away. He ordered a glass of iced coffee, because it sounded cool, and waited in silence until it arrived. Then he glanced casually at the girl and remarked, “Did you get your tickets?”
She looked him up and down, apparently approved of what she saw, and said, “You were ahead of me in line.”
“That’s right. But I didn’t get any tickets out of that guy.”
“Oh.”
“You bought some?”
“Yes.”
“To
Wicked?”
A hesitation, but a brief one. “Yes.”
“I understood it was closed.”
“I wouldn’t know. I just picked them up for a friend.”
He sipped his iced coffee and said, “My name’s Nick Velvet. I’m in real estate.”
More silence, and then she replied, “Norma Cantell. I do a little acting off-Broadway.”
“Oh?” He picked that up at once. “I understand that
Wicked
had a successful off-Broadway run.”
“Fairly successful. I think Bill made a mistake moving uptown with it, though.”
“Bill?”
“Bill Fane, the producer.”
“I believe I know his father, Roscoe.”
“Bill doesn’t talk much about his family.”
“You know him well?”
“I see him at parties. I’ve never worked with him.”