“Well, the women are artificial. They know that they’re left out of the real world in which their men move.”
That was a new angle. “Learn anything that might help us in business?”
“No, except that you’ve made a good impression on the firm.”
They rolled through the lighted tube of the Lincoln Tunnel, the driver following Ray’s directions. He didn’t want to reach Silvia’s home too quickly. He moved his arm down behind her, gently pulled her to him. She did not resist, but he felt a slight tenseness in her body. Easy, he told himself, she’s a young one.
He cuddled her to him, without pressure, like a college boy who has mastered the controls but not yet gained speed. “You were wonderful tonight,” he told her. “You have a lot of tact and poise. You made a good impression.”
“Thank you.” She sighed. “I wouldn’t want to associate with those people all the time—but wasn’t it lovely? Everything so perfect. The food—the home—and did you notice the jewels on Mrs. Russ?”
“I certainly did. That’s what you wear when you’re on top.”
She snuggled against him, closed her eyes. Ray kept a tight grip on himself. He wanted to take her and kiss her, rouse her, crush her, strip her and have her, but he was far too good a tactician to make a frontal assault while his opponent could still mount defenses. He told the taxi driver to wait in front of the aging apartment house, and rode up in the elevator with her to the fifth floor.
Standing before her door he kissed her—made it warm without passion—kept the temperature down—and held it a long time.
“Good night,” he whispered. “You were perfect. You made the right impression on them—and on me.”
“I had a very good time,” she answered. “I was a little afraid, but you aren’t as hard as you try to be, are you?”
“I guess not.” He said what she wanted to hear. “In business, you have to put up a false front. Sometimes it must look real.”
Her voice choked a little as she unlocked the door. She looked back at him, dreams in her eyes. “Good night. Good night, darling.”
She closed the door to smother the last soft word, barely uttered it. Ray went happily back to the cab, mentally shortening his timetable.
Chapter 12
During the next five weeks Ray worked as he never had before in his life. The firm of Raymond T. Hitchcock, Public Relations and Advertising, moved from the dingy building to the genteel new quarters on Fifth Avenue. There was no celebration, except for an after-hours drink when Silvia, Ray, and Fancy cheerfully toasted the step up and the future. Once installed in the new office, with separate chambers for Fancy and Maynard, telephones that really worked from a switchboard, and with two artist-layout-production men working in the newly equipped bull pen, some men might have relaxed, or at least coasted. Ray would not. He was building the tower on which he would stand, high, secure, and successful, and it could not rise fast enough for him.
He made three presentations to Russcorp during the first month. Vivid, technically sound and skillfully integrated sales and advertising programs, they were favorably, even enthusiastically received. The art salesman, Melvin Raport, came through with beautifully finished, highly creative illustrations and campaign themes, and was rewarded with the majority of the business. He had a flare for striking, colorful presentations, which, when mounted on easels before men like Russ and Botsch and Abbott, caught their imagination and instant approval.
Jones and Mullikine paid Ray several personal visits, realizing that they were merely being allowed to finish out the contracts they held, would probably soon be out in the cold on the Russcorp. When cajolery and wheedling failed, they tried to scare him with stern forecasts of disaster. He told them to get out and stay out.
He was friendly with Charlotte, telling her that he understood why she maintained the alliance with Botsch. He spent a night with her each week, careful to hide their affair from Herman—and Silvia.
The first month’s billing to Russcorp, for creative services, art work, production charges, and a number of items that Ray dreamed up to decorate the bill properly, came to $14,I69.23—even with a $600 credit from the $2000 advance which Ray listed prominently to impress the clients. He was surprised and amused when Charles Olson brought the bill to him for approval when he was in the Russcorp offices! He cleared it with Louis—an excellent chance to point out savings and advantages he claimed to have made—and O.K.’d it. The check came through from Russcorp’s accounting department in seven days. Ray and Fancy promptly moved from the run-down hotel to a neat apartment on 39th Street, in celebration of another stride taken.
He felt fine almost every day, the press of work from dawn to dusk, and Charlotte to keep him from being bored, and Silvia as a challenge to be conquered by strategy and patience, made his life too full to admit the devils of doubt and fear. Even when half-drunk, which was two or three evenings a week, he felt jubilant and at ease.
Only Burke and Sullivan, who avoided him at Russcorp, talked to him only when necessary on business, were flaws in the fabric of life he was weaving for himself. Only Burke and Sullivan—and he was waiting for an opportunity to cut them out and discard them—until the day the detectives, Doyle and Cohen, returned to upset the pattern!
They came on a Tuesday, a brilliant July day not quite hot enough to require the use of the air-conditioning. He was standing at the window, looking down at the bustling avenue, planning busily for the present and pleasantly for the future, when Silvia gave him warning. She came into his office, instead of using the telephone. “The detectives are here. The ones who came to the other office.”
He smiled at her, not quite comprehending, his mind far away.
“The detectives,” she repeated. “Doyle and Cohen, who came after Mister Whitehall died.”
“Oh.” He sat in the chair behind his broad, dark mahogany desk, his brain picking up speed, accelerating to catch this new problem. What could they want with him? Agnes! They had found her? Or not? Or she had lied? Or said the wrong thing? The devils he had given residence in his conscience leaped furiously to torture him. Damn it! Why had he been so careless that he had not checked back through Wilner’s? He had let the rush of business turn him aside from an important angle.
He looked at Silvia calmly, smiled and winked. “Sure, honey, I remember them. Send ‘em in.”
Doyle, wearing no topcoat now, looked even more like the owner or manager of a high grade pharmacy. Cohen had donned a light-weight brown suit for summer, instead of the heavy blue worsted he had worn when they called at the downtown office. Ray wondered why real detectives never looked at all like the ones in the movies.
Doyle glanced pleasantly around the office. “Hello, Mister Hitchcock. You’ve taken a step up. Nice office.”
“Thanks,” Ray replied. “I’ll bet you didn’t have any trouble finding me, though.”
Doyle chuckled. “No—we’ve been sort of keeping an eye on you.”
“Sit down.”
They pulled two of the big chairs out from their neat positions next to the wall, made themselves comfortable. Ray pushed the box of Berings across the desk. “Have cigars, boys?”
Doyle glanced at Cohen, took several cigars and held one out to his partner, remarking: “Don’t tell on me, Dave, and I won’t tell on you. I don’t think this joint is wired.”
Ray laughed appreciatively. “If it was, I’d be in trouble all the time. Might wind up in Mexico myself. Maybe I will anyway—I’ll bet you two didn’t come up here to tell me I’m violating a fire ordinance.”
Doyle looked down at the cigar he was firing, blew smoke out and inspected the fine leaf wrapper. “No, we just wanted to take a look at your new prosperity.”
“Not just to get a few cigars. Tell me what’s on your mind, Doyle. I’ve got nothing to hide—that is, nothing that would interest the law.”
“Someone went and figured out that Whitehall’s business fell to you. Makes a possible motive.”
> Doyle tossed the short, pregnant statements out casually, like a bit of incidental conversation, a simple explanation. Ray saw Cohen’s eyes on him, noted that Doyle was no longer studying his cigar. So! He leaned back in his chair, his mind churning like a calculating machine. Someone had put the finger on him for the harm that could be done. Doyle and Cohen knew their information was weak—so the best thing they could do with it was throw it at him and watch him when it hit.
Ray smoked calmly, a slight grin on his lips. Burke? Not if he valued his health, Louis Russ wouldn’t like things stirred up, and Burke was a logical suspect after the way Ray had handled him at their first meeting. Sullivan? No, same reason, although Sullivan might have the guts to get an anonymous tip across and take his chances. Maynard? Improbable—he was satisfied for the present, and puzzled and timid. The agency! Ah—the fine hand with the knife. Four pigeons all in a row, chirping because someone grabbed their peanuts. Or perhaps just one, more resourceful than his partners, a dangerous stool pigeon—Burwell, Jones, Anderson, or Mullikine?
Ray spoke bluntly. “I’m not a damn bit worried about being a suspect in Whitehall’s murder. Let’s get that straight right now. Any time you want to check on anything, walk right in and lay it on the line. Now—who tried to stick the knife in my back?”
“I thought you’d figure it pretty fast,” Doyle said pleasantly. “Of course I can’t tell you that, can’t even admit that someone shot his mouth off. But consider our side of it. Who profited most by Whitehall’s high dive?”
“I did.”
“So . . .” Doyle raised his eyebrows. “What to do but talk to you? Now, I didn’t expect to find anything that would pin it on you. We know a phony when we see it. It’s too pat, you’re in the middle and if you had helped push Whitehall, you’d qualify as crazy. And you’re far from that. All right . . . now who can you suggest? You know more about how the wheels spin than we do. Who’s the suspect that we aren’t watching? Or who would be using you as a cover for them-self?”
Doyle’s calm, almost friendly summing up did not penetrate Ray’s guard. The boys had a job to do, and they’d just as soon do it on him as anyone else. “You’re covering a lot of ground. Sure, I profited by Whitehall’s death, but others might have. And as you pointed out, any guy who commits a crime to get another man’s job or business is crazy, because he’s the logical suspect.”
Doyle nodded gravely. Cohen had taken out a notebook but did not write in it, used it as a toy to occupy his hands. “That’s true,” Doyle agreed. “But I’d feel a little better if we could find that girl, Agnes, that you were with that night. It’d make it look better for us on the report—and better for you.”
Ray was surprised. He rubbed his chin reflectively. “How hard have you tried?”
Doyle chuckled at that. “You’ve sorta got us there. I dropped into that bar a few times. Hung around there a few hours one night.”
“What did the bartender say?”
“He still says he doesn’t know any Agnes.”
“He’s lying.”
“Could be. They don’t want to be tagged as working with the hustlers. But he said he’d point out the girl who talked to you, if she came in. Apparently she didn’t.”
“I see.” Ray drummed thoughtfully on the desk. “How would you like it if I tried to locate her for you? Don’t have to put that in your report. I’ll get her lined up and tip you off when and where to see her. It ought to clear me and help you.”
“Good idea.” Doyle leaned forward, dropped a card on the desk and stood up. “Give us a call at that number.”
When Cohen stood up, Ray looked at him. “Dave, you’re sure the silent partner on the team.”
Doyle smiled cheerfully. “Dave doesn’t talk much, does he? I’m a regular windbag. But Dave has a wonderful memory. Never forgets a thing.”
They said good-by and went out.
The incident had upset Ray more than he allowed to show. He told himself to forget it, he had had nothing to do with the Whitehall case. But detectives digging around can uncover a lot of things, and he had a few angles which should stay buried in the past. If they ever got lucky, showed his picture around, reached that cop who had given them the hard time after the Hencher clothes job, and Russ found out who did that wrecking project—he shuddered. Better forget it, he had too much imagination. No, don’t forget it. Do something about it.
On a hunch, he telephoned Russcorp, talked to Charlotte. “Hi, honey. Did you ever hear of two detectives named Doyle and Cohen?”
There was a moment of silence. “Yes,” she answered at last. “They were here a couple of times last month.”
“Who did they see?”
“Mister Russ.
“Can you check up and see if they have an appointment with him in the future?”
“I think so. I’ll call you back.”
He replaced the instrument gently in its cradle, sat staring at the fancy ship’s clock on his desk, a present from Melvin Raport upon the occasion of his first visit to the new office. A smart lad, Melvin. And Doyle and Cohen were smart lads, too. They could put a lot of gravel in his gears, just by poking around and talking. He cursed fluently under his breath. It gave him temporary relief.
The muted bell of his telephone sounded. He said hello, heard Charlotte’s greeting, listened to make sure Silvia was not plugged in—he had already learned to tell, from the clicks and quality of tone, if anyone eavesdropped on his line. “Hello, Charlotte. What’s the story?”
She spoke softly, guarding the words from someone nearby. “Doyle and Cohen have an appointment to see Mister Russ at three.”
He said, “Thanks, baby,” and resisted an impulse to hurl the telephone across the room.
So they were pushing him! Trying to upset The Plan and all the dreams he had struggled so desperately to forge from fantasy into reality. His breath hissed across teeth bared behind slightly parted lips, like a terrier’s grimace when poised for fight. He wanted to shout, break something, smash out at the frustration and fear that was growing within him like a black cloud smeared across the sky by violent winds. He got up and paced the floor, realizing that he was losing control, fighting against the torments that prevented him from thinking.
Think! He commanded himself to think. You can block these fools with your mind, because it is trained to analyze and you have the talent for planning. Now, think.
He threw open the window and breathed deeply of the summer air. It soothed him physically—mentally, he was beyond the effect of such a simple sedative.
Chapter 13
The next morning, when he returned from his tour of duty as Russcorp’s advertising director, Ray called Maynard into his office.
“How do you like the way things are going?” Ray asked him frankly.
“I think we have a good future,” Maynard predicted with clumsy caution. Everything is getting set on a sound basis.”
“Did Silvia give you your salary check right on the dot?”
“Oh, yes.”
“Good. I wanted to thank you for the loan of that cash. I’m solvent again. Your loan will be paid when due.”
“I’m glad to hear it, Ray. I wasn’t worried about the money.” Maynard looked down at his hands, considering how much he should say, then took what he considered to be a big step. “Sometimes I think your methods are a little—er, harsh, Ray, but you know how to get the business.”
Ray gave him the full treatment, the sincere, friendly, brothers-in-business look of comradeship. “You’ll never know how glad I am to know you feel this way, Ralph. It makes things a lot easier for me to know that we trust each other. You may not like my methods, or even like me, but by God—we’ll get along and make a success of this business.”
Maynard opened like a mature tulip on a clear day. “I didn’t say I don’t like you, Ray. It’s just that—well, things have moved sort of fast for me. I came up through the orthodox school.”
“And the best school it is.” Ray chuc
kled heartily. “You’ll be making sound decisions and doing a solid business long after we young upstarts are way out on a limb with a campaign that flops.”
“I hope not,” Maynard answered modestly.
And I doubt it very much, Ray thought. Now for the gimmick. He lit a cigarette, let the silence become impressive as he picked up a sheaf of white bond manuscript pages and held them importantly in his hands. “Ralph, we’re going to make another step forward. We’re going into the radio and TV field with our own major program. I need your advice on it. Need it badly.”
“You can have it for what it’s worth. What kind of a program?”
“That’s what’s got me. I’m sponsoring the first one with the Arctic Food budget. I want to try thirteen weeks with a mystery-detective program.”
Maynard frowned reflectively. “A detective program, eh? They haven’t been breaking any Hooper records. And there’s a lot of ‘em kicking around.”
“Yes, but I think they’re dependable, like the old wild west pulp magazines that sell year after year. And I want our first program to do its job. I’m not looking for another Dash Hammett clickeroo—but I think we can get one that will make a satisfactory rating. Then we can go on to the big time. A variety show with a few big names, maybe.”
“I don’t know.” Maynard looked doubtful, but he was watching Ray carefully, ready to follow the boss’ lead. “There’s Phillip Marlowe, and Johnny Dollar, and Sam Spade, and the Fat Man and the Thin Man—and a lot more. When you think of it, the air is stuffed with private detectives.”
Ray nodded. “So how about an insurance investigator, or a store detective, or one of these documentary type regular detective shows?”
“Sounds better than some of the average stuff.”
“Or maybe, a railroad detective? Mohawk Daniels is about the only one around, lately, and he draws a good audience.”
“Yes,” Maynard agreed, beginning to approve everything Ray said, now that he had begun to follow the younger man’s leads. “That would be a different angle.”
The Heel Page 14