Spy and the Thief (22 page)

By the time Nick reached Manhattan the summer storm had struck the city with full fury. It had come in unexpectedly from the east, bringing with it a torrential rain that threatened for a time to deluge the midtown area. Nick stood in a doorway on Seventh Avenue, watching the rain sweep across the deserted pavement, wondering what to do next. He had never failed on an assignment, but he’d never been as close to failing as he was now.

He bought an afternoon paper and pried the soggy pages apart until he found a one-column account of Thorne’s murder. The police figured it was a robbery killing, and the open stage door was mentioned. It was linked with a box-office holdup at another theater one month earlier, though the
modus operandi
of the two crimes were not alike.

Nick moved a few doors up the street during a temporary lull in the downpour. He watched a poster for some political rally swept away by the wind until it settled into a curbside puddle, then noticed the ink from it gradually discoloring the water. Not very good printing for an outdoor sign, he thought.

Shortly afterward, the rain pelting again, he managed to catch a taxi and headed for Greenwich Village to seek out the off-Broadway theater where Bill Fane was rehearsing his new play. The rain let up by the time he reached the place, and he found Fane without difficulty in a shabby little office of what had once been a garage and truck terminal.

“Nick Velvet?” the young man asked uncertainly. “Didn’t I, meet you at a party a couple of nights ago?”

“That’s right,” Nick confirmed.

“What can I do for you? I’m waiting for my director—”

“I came to warn you,” Nick said earnestly. “About the tickets for
Wicked.
You took the wrong ones. And your father has the real ones.”

Nervous, off guard for just an instant, Bill Fane shot a glance at the locked cabinet next to his desk. That was all Nick Velvet needed. Fane, made a dash for the cabinet, realizing he’d been tricked, but Nick was over the desk, toppling Fane to the floor.

This time he hoped he was right …

The morning was sunny, and Roscoe Fane was sitting on deck in his usual chair when Nick Velvet climbed over the railing. “Quite a change from yesterday,” he said.

“I hope so,” Roscoe Fane retorted. “I told you not to come back without those tickets.”

Nick dumped the bulky package from under his arm and watched it split open as it hit the deck. Packets of purple pasteboards went tumbling across the smooth wood. “Exactly fourteen thousand six hundred and fifty tickets,” he said. “And I’ve got another bundle in the rowboat alongside.”

Roscoe Fane’s eyes lit up. “I didn’t think you’d fail me, Velvet. Even though you went off on the wrong track yesterday.”

“It’s more than just the tickets now, of course. Your son killed that man Thorne.”

“He admitted that?”

Nick nodded. “According to your son, the scheme was Thorne’s idea. But of course your son was in on it. When I started asking questions at a party, Bill got scared. He went to Thorne the next night and wanted to take the tickets, call the whole thing off. Thorne pulled a gun from a drawer in the box office, they struggled over it, and it went off. I must say the evidence bears out your son’s story. There was an open drawer, empty, and the gun was an old model more suited to box-office drawers than to premeditated murder. The weapon was still tangled up in Thorne’s jacket, further confirming your son’s story.”

“Self-defense,” the old man breathed.

“That’s not for me to judge.”

“How did you know my son was involved?”

“If it wasn’t you it had to be him. You weren’t going to pay me $20,000 for nothing. Besides, I stand by my theory that Thorne had to know the person he opened the theater door for.”

“You know about the tickets?” Fane asked, gesturing toward them.

“I know. I should have deduced the truth much earlier. But just yesterday I saw the ink from a sign dissolving in a puddle, and then I remembered seeing a young fellow drop two of the tickets into a glass of water. I remembered the overprinting of the new prices—something Broadway houses never do, not even with twofers. I put those observations together and decided that the overprinting on the tickets might dissolve in water.”

“Yes,” Roscoe Fane mumbled.

“Two dollars each. The going price right now for a single dose of LSD.”

“I don’t know what my son was thinking of.”

“Believe me, he was thinking of the money, and so was Thorne. It wouldn’t have worked with most drugs, but LSD can be injected into a sugar cube, or mixed with water, or impregnated in paper. LSD in the printing ink was a simple trick. Right in the heart of Manhattan the tickets could be sold publicly—and no one the wiser. The customers for the
Wicked
tickets used some simple signal to tell Thorne what they wanted. Everyone else got tickets to
Legman in Love.
I flustered him by asking for the
Wicked
tickets outright, but I imagine he was usually pretty careful. The whole thing was much safer, much more professional, than standing on a street corner with a package of sugar cubes that the police could spot at once. The customers took the tickets home, dropped them in a glass of water, drank it, and went on a trip.”

“I have your money,” Roscoe Fane said. “What about the tickets?”

Nick scooped up the bundles and began to toss them overboard. “Let the fishes have some fun,” he said.

“I don’t know what my son was thinking of,” Roscoe Fane said again. “I don’t know how Bill could have done it.”

“You heard about it and hired me, hoping to put a stop to this thing before your own son was arrested.”

“What about the murder charge?” Fane asked.

“I’ll leave the two of you to work that out,” Nick said. “But don’t be surprised when you see him. I had to hit him a couple of times to get these tickets for you.”

All the way back to shore Nick Velvet kept tossing packages of tickets to the invisible fish. But he felt as if he were polluting the entire ocean.

I
T WAS THE SORT
of summer day when the choppy waters of Long Island Sound beckoned to Nick Velvet. Often on such days Gloria would sail with him on the little sloop, relaxing with a beer while he guided the boat carefully through the swells. But on this day he was alone, and so was hardly prepared for the shapely young mermaid who suddenly boosted herself over the side while he was still two hundred yards from shore.

“Hi!” she announced. “I’m Ran.”

He took in her glistening bikini approvingly. “Callipygian,” he said, half to himself. “Welcome aboard.”

“What was that?”

He smiled. “It’s a compliment of sorts, from the Greek. Anyway, who are you? I didn’t know mermaids came this close to shore.”

“I’m Ran—Ran Brewster. And you’re Nick Velvet, the thief.”

“I have other names and far more flattering descriptions.” He turned the rudder slightly. “Is that Ran as in run? Short for Randy?”

She picked up a handy towel and began to dry herself, starting with her dripping blonde hair.

“Short for nothing. Ran, the Scandinavian sea goddess, dragged down ships and drowned sailors. My father never liked the water.”

“I guess not. Maybe you’d better get off my boat. I’m too young to be dragged down by a sea goddess.”

“Funny, I’d have thought you were just the right age.”

He lit a cigarette and studied her. The talk was cheerful, but she hadn’t come swimming all the way out to his boat just for banter. “What do you want me to steal?” he asked. “I charge twenty thousand—minimum.”

“It may be a little out of your line.”

He shrugged. “Tell me about it.” Nothing was really out of his line, except the usual valuable things, like cash or jewels. He stole only the unusual, the seemingly valueless. From the way she’d approached him on Long Island Sound, he had no doubt that her request would be unusual.

“You know Phil Rumston?”

“I guess everybody knows Phil Rumston.” He was a favorite of the tabloids and the columnists, a guaranteed newsmaker who always had something to say. His Capital Clubs, with scantily clad “Lion Tamers” functioning as waitresses, had sprung up in a half dozen state capitals during the past two years, and another dozen were in the works.

“I want you to steal something from him—or from one of his clubs, to be more exact.”

“The prospect intrigues me. Tell me more.”

She’d finished drying her hair and was now toweling her long slender legs. Obviously she had no immediate plans for returning to the water. “In each of Rumston’s clubs there are plaster lions on the tables—laughing lions, he calls them. They’re about twelve inches high, with their heads thrown back and their mouths open. To me it has always looked more like an expression of hunger than laughter, but that’s beside the point.”

“Why lions?” Nick wanted to know.

“It’s the club theme. Their customers are referred, to as Legislative Lions, and the waitresses are called Lion Tamers. The clubs are open to anyone willing to pay the dues, of course, but their location in the various state capitals gives them a natural popularity with members of state legislatures—at least, during the legislative sessions.”

Nick Velvet smiled. “Can’t I steal a Lion Tamer?”

“Nothing so glamorous. I only want one of the plaster lions from a table.”

“Any one?”

She hesitated. “Yes, to start with. But I may need another one later.”

“Why don’t you just walk, in with a full coat some night and sneak one out as a souvenir? Girls must do it all the time, and it would save you twenty grand.”

She shook her head. “First of all, it’s not that easy. The lions are bolted to the tables to prevent just such souvenir collecting. And second, I want this to look like a robbery, not a prank.”

“Oh? Why is that?”

“I understood you didn’t ask questions.”

Nick shrugged. “I don’t. What cities are the clubs in?”

“Rumston’s scheme is to ultimately have them in all fifty state capitals, plus Washington, D.C. So far he has six open—in Hartford, Boston, Trenton, Harrisburg, Denver, and Sacramento.”

“What’s your interest in him?”

She smiled. “No questions, remember? Just deliver the plaster lion and you’ll get your money.” She glanced toward the shoreline. “You heading in?”

“I was, until you climbed aboard. Now I think I might like to stay out a while longer.”

“Sorry, but I have to get back.”

Reluctantly Nick turned the boat shoreward.

Nick spent the following day at the public library, reading all the publicity he could find on Phil Rumston and the Capital Clubs. And there was much to read, since Rumston was perhaps the most talkative person in the public eye. No secret of his past was too petty or dirty not to be exposed in the press. Readers of the tabloids and the shadier magazines already knew the details of his life with various mistresses, of the wife and child he’d deserted in his youth, and even of the brief homosexual experience he’d had during his college days.

For all of that, Phil Rumston seemed to be an open, friendly man, accepted by all. Perhaps it was because, he moved chiefly in political circles, where a glad hand and a knowing smile carried a great deal of weight. In any event, Rumston was popular and his clubs were popular. The first one had been opened in his hometown of Hartford, and this had been quickly followed by one in Boston. At first he’d wanted to call them Lion Clubs, but when the fraternal order of the same name had threatened a lawsuit he’d quietly changed them to Capital Clubs.

Nick Velvet had never been in one before he walked through the doors of the Trenton club early on a Saturday evening. He was a bit startled by the red plush walls and the beaded curtains, which suggested a turn-of-the-century smoke-filled-room atmosphere that he’d have thought politicians would want to avoid. But just the opposite was apparently the case, and even with the State Senate and the General Assembly not in session the club was doing a reasonably good business.

The Lion Tamers’ costumes, as he’d expected, were cut low in front and back. One girl, a tall dimpled blonde, had asked for his membership card when he entered, but she’d been more than willing to accept ten dollars as a payment on dues and give him a temporary card.

He stood at the bar, sipping a tall Scotch and water, and examined the plaster lions in the center of each table. He even went over to touch one on a vacant table, confirming the fact that they were loosely bolted in position. The lions were about a foot high, sitting on their haunches and howling—or laughing—at the ceiling. The whole caper seemed much too easy.”

Nick located the intricate panel controlling the room’s indirect lighting system. He glanced over the line of dimmers and switches, and picked the one that seemed most likely to be the main switch. A man in a dinner jacket, who seemed to be the club manager, turned at that moment, saw him, and started over. “What are you doing there?”

Nick threw the switch, plunging the window less room into darkness, then turned the dimmer knobs to their lowest point. Even if someone managed to throw the main switch back on, the room would remain almost dark until they realized that the dimmers had been turned down too.

There were shouts from the guests, and a few screams from the scantily clad Lion Tamers. Nick ignored them, moving quickly toward the nearest empty table. The manager tried to grapple with him and Nick shoved him aside, none too gently. He grabbed the table, upsetting ashtrays and glassware, felt beneath the table for the bolt, found it, and turned the nut. In a matter of moments he had the Laughing Lion.

He’d just got it under one arm when the lights came back on, gradually brightening as the dimmers were turned up. “Stop him!” the man at the switch shouted, but the guests and girls were too confused to act. Nick glanced around, spotted a service door to the kitchen area, and bounded through it, upsetting a tray-bearing waiter as he charged through.

His rented car was a block away. He wasn’t even sweating when he reached it.

Before Nick delivered the lion to Ran Brewster he took it to a doctor he knew and had it X-rayed. Call it curiosity, or just caution that comes with years in the business.