The Scheme of Things. Lester Del Rey

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      Mike left the house at the end of Faculty Row, not quite sure whether he had been wise in confiding his problem to Paul Bender or not. He was sure of one thing, though. Bender would respect the confidence.

      He was plagued by the feeling that Paul Bender had held much in reserve. Had Bender really believed him? As he’d talked he’d sensed the wheels turning in Bender’s mind and was sure Bender had been making mental references to which he’d given no voice. Nor had much sympathy been extended.

      Perhaps it had all been a fantastically clear daydream. Maybe Bender had been really pitying him for his childish apprehension.

      More disturbed than ever, Mike took his eyes from his pocket. As he pushed the door key toward its slot in the lock, he stopped and held his hand motionless for a long moment. Then he slowly raised it and stared at his knuckles. They were bruised. He flexed his fingers into a fist. There was a swelling.

      He had practically convinced himself that the lapse had been entirely mental. Now that hope was suddenly dashed.

      As he opened the door, the fears came back—with a new one added. He hadn’t seen Solonoff move after going to the floor.

      Was Mike Strong, among other fantastic things, a murderer also…?

      CHAPTER 3

      Mike got home just as the phone rang. He picked it up. A guarded voice said, “I got it.”

      Mike was surprised. He hadn’t expected the operation to go so smoothly. “Okay. What’s holding you up?”

      “I called. You weren’t home. I didn’t want to stand around in front of your place with no satchel in my mitt.”

      “I’m home now,” Mike snapped, and broke the connection.

      He scowled at the phone for a moment and then went out on the patio and scowled at the vast city spread out before him. From thirty floors up, the people looked like tiny dolls moving along the streets.

      The view from his patio was always a source of satisfaction to Mike. It was symbolical of his rise. “A floor at a time—the hard way,” he’d told Lorry the first time she’d looked down from his luxurious suite. “Up here with the eagles, kid.”

      Lorry had been properly adoring and Mike liked that. She’d been another of his conquests. Well, not a conquest exactly. She’d tipped over into his arms like a wobbly ten pin. Lorry was the crowning luxury that went with his position and his success.

      But at the moment, he wasn’t thinking about Lorry. He was filled with the tension and the excitement of the things of the moment—the deal. Two hundred thousand dollars was a lot of money to move safely. It was Mike’s job to take it in and see that various shares got into the right hands.

      For all his confident image and the sure, smooth manner in which he worked, Mike ran scared in the maneuvers. He was noted in his circle for the complex arrangements he could create and execute. The secret of success as a fixer was to complicate the payoffs to a point where “all the snoopers ever smack into is a lot of brick walls.”

      That had been the compliment accorded him from higher up. Nobody worried when he was handling grease job.

      But he never let down; never got cocky; never became contemptuous of the jerks who would make such headlines as:

      $200,000 GRAFT UNCOVERED IN MUNICIPAL CONSTRUCTION

      Or:

      BRIBE SUSPECTS INDICTED BY BLUE RIBBON GRAND JURY

      One fumble like that and a man was through in this touchy game.

      Over a scotch and a quiet cigarette, Mike reviewed the devious sequences through which he’d nursed this one. Then he went to the phone and dialed a number. A female voice answered.

      “Tell Frank his car’s been oiled and greased.”

      The voice was cool and showed no surprise. “Fine. When can we pick it up?”

      “Right away if you want it. Who’s coming?”

      “I am,” the cool voice stated.

      “You?”

      “Why not? I drive very well.”

      “I’ll have it outside waiting,” Mike said, and there was a faint uneasiness in his tone.

      “That won’t be necessary. I’ll come straight to the garage”

      “I could have it delivered.”

      “What’s the matter?” the voice mocked. “Is the garage crowded?”

      “It’s empty.”

      “I’ll be there in twenty minutes.”

      As he put the phone down, the door bell burped discreetly and when he opened it an inoffensive little man who might have been an underpaid bookkeeper pushed a canvas airline zipper bag at him. He took the bag and closed the door.

      After bolting the door, he unzipped the bag and found everything all right. The bag contained green money banded into $5,000 bundles. He counted the bundles and found them correct.

      But as he worked, the annoyance generated by the phone call increased. Big Frank had become a danger because he had woman trouble and of all the diseases that could land you behind bars, none was more dangerous than that. He was gone on Fay to a point where he’d let her in on his affairs.

      Care in selecting women was one of his own first rules. Lorry was beautiful, luscious, in every way satisfactory as a female. But, and this above all, monumentally stupid:

      “Darling! How did you make the money that made all this possible?”

      “I inherited some money from my father and I was lucky. I now own a small investment business.”

      And he was covered, too; a modest office in the financial district—Intercontinental Investments—that so far as legality was concerned, passed all tests.

      But Big Frank was stupid, with the situation made doubly dangerous by Fay’s predatory instincts. Lorry was a challenge to Fay. This put him in a potentially dangerous position with Big Frank. If Fay ever hinted at a non-existent affair between them, Big Frank would have him crippled some dark night.

      What angered him was the crudity of the thing. Pure cornball. But then, in this racket, you dealt with cornball people; elemental; the types long on emotion and muscle and short on judgment and brains.

      He glanced at his watch after dividing the money, and made another phone call. A man answered this time:

      “Barney’s Pet Shop.”

      “I’d like to get my French poodle clipped.”

      “Sorry. We’re all booked up for the rest of the week.”

      “But he needs attention. He crawled under a car and got all greasy.”

      “Oh. СКАЧАТЬ