by Anthology
Malone nodded. The FBI had a long file on the possibility of Castelnuovo, through Palveri or someone else in the vicinity, shipping peyotl buttons from Nevada and New Mexico all over the country. Until this moment, it had only been a possibility.
"Mike Sand wanted to get in on some of that," Palveri said. "Well, it's big money, a guy figures he's got to have competition. But it's business nowadays, not a shooting war. That went out forty years ago."
"So?" Malone said, acting impatient.
"I'm getting there," Palveri said. "I'm getting there. Mike Sand and his truckers, they tried to high jack a shipment coming through out on the desert. Now, the Trucker's Union is old and experienced, maybe, but not as old and experienced as the Mafia. It figures we can take them, right?"
"It figures," Malone agreed. "But you didn't?"
Palveri looked doleful. "It's like a curse," he said. "Two boys wounded and one of them dead, right there on the sand. The shipment gone, and Mike Sand on his way to the East with it. A curse." He sucked some more at the cigar.
Malone looked thoughtful and concerned. "Things are certainly bad," he said. "But how's money going to make things any better?"
Palveri almost dropped his cigar. Malone watched it lovingly. "Help?" the club owner said. "With money I could stay open, I could stay alive. Listen, I had investments, nice guaranteed stuff: real estate, some California oil stuff ... you know the kind of thing."
"Sure," Malone said.
"Now that the contacts are gone and everybody's dead or resigned or being investigated," Palveri said, "what do you think's happened to all that? Down the drain, Malone."
Malone said: "But--"
"And not only that," Palveri said, waving the cigar. "The club was going good, and you know I thought about building a second one a little farther out. A straight investment, get me: an honest one."
Malone nodded as if he knew all about it.
"So I got the foundation in, Malone," Palveri said, "and it's just sitting there, not doing anything. A whole foundation going to pot because I can't do anything more with it. Just sitting there because everything's going to hell with itself."
"In a handbasket," Malone said automatically.
Palveri gave him a violent nod. "You said it, Malone," he added. "Everything. My men, too." He sighed. "And the contractor after me for his dough. Good old Harry Seldon, everybody's friend. Sure. Owe him some money and find out how friendly he is. Talks about nothing but figures. Ten thousand. Twelve thousand."
"Tough," Malone said. "But what do you mean about your men?"
"Mistakes," Palveri said. "Book-keepers throwing the computers off and croupiers making mistakes paying off and collecting--and always mistakes against me, Malone. Always. It's like a curse. Even the hotel bills--three of them this week were made out too small and the customer paid up and went before I found out about it."
"It sounds like a curse," Malone said. "Either that or there are spies in the organization."
"Spies?" Palveri said. "With the checking we do? With the way I've known some of these guys from childhood? They were little kids with me, Malone. They stuck with me all the way. And with Castelnuovo, too," he added hurriedly.
"Sure," Malone said. "But they could still be spies."
Palveri nodded sadly. "I thought of that," he said. "I fired four of them. Four of my childhood friends, Malone. It was like cutting off an arm. And all it did was leave me with one arm less. The same mistakes go on happening."
Malone stood up and heaved a sigh. "Well," he said, "I'll see what I can do."
"I'd appreciate it, Malone," Palveri said. "And when Primo Palveri appreciates something, he appreciates it. Get what I mean?"
"Sure," Malone said. "I'll report back and let you know what happens."
Palveri looked just as anxious, but a little hopeful. "I need the dough," he said. "I really need it."
"With dough," Malone said, "you could fix up what's been happening?"
Palveri shrugged. "Who knows?" he said. "But I could stay open long enough to find out."
Malone went back to the gaming room feeling that he had learned something, but not being quite sure what. Obviously whatever organization was mixing everything up was paying just as much attention to gangsters as to congressmen and businessmen. The simple justice of this arrangement did not escape Malone, but he failed to see where it led him.
[Illustration]
He considered the small chance that Palveri would actually call Castelnuovo and check up on Kenneth J. Malone, but he didn't think it was probable. Palveri was too desperate to take the chance of making his boss mad in case Malone's story were true. And, even if the check were made, Malone felt reasonably confident. It's hard to kill a man who has a good, accurate sense of precognition and who can teleport himself out of any danger he might get into. Not impossible, but hard. Being taken for a ride in the desert, for instance, might be an interesting experience, but could hardly prove inconvenient to anybody except the driver of the car and the men holding the guns.
The gaming room wasn't any fuller, he noticed. He wended his way back to the bar for a bourbon-and-water and greeted the bartender morosely. The drink came along and he sipped at it quietly, trying to put things together in his mind. The talk with Palveri, he felt sure, had provided an essential clue--maybe the essential clue--to what was going on. But he couldn't find it.
"Mess," he said quietly. "Everything's in a mess. And so what?"
A voice behind him picked that second to say: "Gezundheit." Malone didn't turn. Instead he looked at the bar mirror, and one glance at what was reflected there was enough to freeze him as solid as the core of Pluto.
Lou was there. Lou Gehrig or whatever her name was, the girl behind the reception desk of the New York offices of the Psychical Research Society. That, in itself, didn't bother him. The company of a beautiful girl while drinking was not something Malone actually hated. But she knew he was an FBI Agent, and she might pick any second to blat it out in the face of an astonished bartender. This, Malone told himself, would not be pleasant. He wondered just how to hush her up without attracting attention. Knock-out pills in her drink? A hand over her mouth? A sudden stream of unstoppable words?
He had reached no decision when she sat down on the stool beside him, turned a bright, cheerful smile in his direction and said: "I've forgotten your name. Mine's Luba Ardanko."
"Oh," Malone said dully. Even the disclosure of what "Lou" stood for did nothing to raise his spirits.
"I'm always forgetting things," Lou went on. "I've forgotten just about everything about you."
Malone breathed a long, inaudible sigh of relief. If more people, he thought, had the brains not to greet FBI Agents by name, rank and serial number when meeting them in a strange place, there would be fewer casualties among the FBI.
He realized that Luba was still smiling at him expectantly. "My name's Malone," he said. "Kenneth Malone. I'm a cookie manufacturer, remember?"
"Oh," Luba said delightedly. "Sure! I remember last time I met you you gave me that lovely box of cookies. Modeled on the Seven Dwarfs."
Occasionally, Malone told himself, things moved a little faster than he liked. "On the Seven Dwarfs," he said. "Oh, sure."
"And I thought the model of Sneezy was awfully cute," she said. "But don't let's talk about cookies. Let's talk about Martinis."
Malone opened his mouth, tried to think of something clever to say, and shut it again. Luba Ardanko was, perfectly obviously, altogether too fast for him. But then, he reflected, I've had a hard day. "All right," he said at last. "What about Martinis?"
Luba's smile broadened. "I'd like one," she said. "And since you're a wealthy cookie manufacturer--"
"Be my guest," Malone said. "On the other hand, why not buy your own? Since they're free as long as you're in the gambling room."
The bartender had approached them silently. "That's right," he said in a voice that betrayed the fact that he had memorized the entire speech, word for word. "Dr
inks are free for those who play the gaming tables. A courtesy of the Great Universal."
He delivered a Martini and Luba drank it while Malone finished his bourbon-and-water. "Well," she said, "I suppose we've got to go to the gambling tables now. If only to be fair."
"A horrible fate," Malone agreed, "but there you are: that's life."
"It certainly is," she said brightly, and moved off. Malone, shaking his head, went after her and found her standing in front of a roulette wheel. "I just love roulette," she said, turning. "Don't you? It's so exciting and expensive."
Malone licked dry lips, said: "Sure," and started to move off.
"Oh, let's just play a little," Luba said.
There was nothing to do but agree. Malone put a small stack of silver dollars on Red, and the croupier looked up with a bored expression. There were three other people in the game, including a magnificent old lady with blue hair who spent her money with a lavish hand. Two weeks before, she wouldn't even have been noticed. Now the croupier was bending over backward in an attempt not to show how grateful he was for the patronage.
The wheel spun around and landed on Number Two, Black. Malone sighed and fished for more money. He felt his precognitive sense beginning to come into play and happily decided to ride with it. This time the stack of silver dollars was larger.
Twenty minutes later he left the table approximately nine hundred dollars richer. Luba was beaming. "There, now," she said. "Wasn't that fun?"
"Hysterical," Malone said. He glanced back over his shoulder. The blue-haired old lady was winning and losing large sums with a speed and aplomb that was certainly going to make her a twenty-four-hour legend by the end of the evening. She looked grim and secure, as if she were undergoing a penance. Malone shrugged and looked away.
"Now," Luba said, "you can take me dancing."
"I can?" Malone said. "I mean, do I? I mean--"
"I mean the Solar Room," Luba said. "I've always wanted to enter on the arms of a handsome cookie manufacturer. It will make me the sensation of New York society."
* * * * *
The Solar Room was magnificently expensive. Malone had been there once, establishing his character as a man of lavish appetites, and had then avoided the place in deference to his real bankroll. He remembered it as the kind of place where an order of scrambled eggs was liable to come in, flaming, on a golden sabre. But Luba wanted the Solar Room, and Malone was not at all sure she wouldn't use blackmail if he turned her down. "Fine," he said in a lugubrious tone.
The place shone, when they entered, as if they had come in from the darkness of midnight. Along with the Universal Joint, it was the pride and glory of the Great Universal Hotel and no expense had been spared in the attempt to give it what Primo Palveri called Class. Couples and foursomes were scattered around at the marble-topped tables, and red-uniformed waiters scurried around bearing drinks, food and even occasional plug-in telephones. There seemed to be more of the last than Malone remembered as usual; people were worrying about investments and businesses, and even those who had decided to stick it out grimly at Las Vegas and, enjoy themselves had to check up with the home folks in order to know when to start pricing windows in high buildings. Malone wondered how many people were actually getting their calls through. Since the first breakdown two weeks before, Las Vegas and virtually every other United States city had suffered interruptions in telephone service. Las Vegas had had three breakdowns in two weeks; other cities weren't doing much better, if at all.
Vaguely, Malone began looking around for handbaskets.
"Let's dance," Luba said happily. "They're playing our song."
On a stand at the front of the room a small orchestra was working away busily. There were two or three couples on the postage-stamp dance floor, whirling away to the strains of something Malone dimly remembered as: "My heart's in orbit out in space until I see you again."
"Our song?" he said.
Luba nodded. "You sang it to me the very first time we met," she said. "At the cookie-manufacturer's ball. Remember?"
Malone sighed. If Luba wanted to dance, Luba was going to dance. And so was Malone. He rose and they went to the dance floor. Malone took her in his arms and for a few bars they danced silently. At the end of that time they were much closer together than they had been, and Malone realized that he was somehow managing to enjoy himself. Thoroughly.
He thought dimly of the stripper he'd seen when he walked in on Palveri. Like Luba, she had red hair. But somehow, she looked less attractive undressed than Luba did in a complete wardrobe. Malone wondered what the funny feeling creeping up his spine was. After a second he realized that it wasn't love. Luba's hand was tickling him. He shifted slightly and the hand left, but the funny feeling remained.
Maybe it was love, he thought. He didn't know whether or not to hope so.
Luba was pressed close to him. He wondered how to open the conversation, and decided that a sudden passionate declaration would be more startling than welcome. At last he said: "Thanks for not tipping my hand."
Luba's whisper caressed his ear. "Don't thank me," she said. "I enjoyed it."
"Why are you doing this?" Malone said. "Not that I don't appreciate it, but I thought you were sore."
"Let's just say that your masterful, explosive approach was irresistible," Luba said.
Malone wondered briefly whether or not they'd turned off the air-conditioning. If he moved slightly away from Luba, he thought, he could breathe more easily. But breathing just wasn't worth it. "I will cheerfully admit," he said, "that I am a ball of fire in the feathers, as they say. But I didn't realize it was that obvious--even to a woman of your tender sensitivity."
Somehow, Luba had managed to get even closer to him. "You touch me deeply," she whispered into his ear.
Malone swallowed hard and tried to take another breath. Just one more, he thought; that would be all he needed. "What are you doing in Las Vegas?" he asked in what he hoped was a casual tone. It didn't sound very casual, though.
"I'm on vacation," Luba said in an off-handed manner. "I won't ask what you're doing; I can guess pretty well. Besides, you obviously want to keep it under cover."
"Well," Malone said, "I certainly wouldn't want what I'm doing to be broadcast aloud to the great American public out there in television-land." It was a long speech for a man without any breath. Just one more, Malone told himself, and he could die happy.
"I felt that," Luba said. "You know, Mr. Malone--"
"Call me Ken," Malone said.
"It is silly to be formal now, isn't it?" Luba said. "You know, Ken, I'm beginning to realize that you are really a very nice person--in spite of your rather surprising method of attack."
"What's surprising about it?" Malone said. "People do it all the time."
* * * * *
The orchestra suddenly shifted from the previous slow number to a rapid fire tune Malone couldn't remember having heard before. "That," he announced, "is too fast for me. I'm going to get some fresh air."
Luba nodded, her red hair brushing Malone's cheek silkily. "I'm coming, too," she said.
Surrounding the Great Universal, Malone remembered, was a small belt of parkland. He flagged a hallway car--remembering carefully to check whether or not the driver was the sniggering Murray--and he and Luba piled in and started out for the park. In the car, he held her hand silently, feeling a little like a bashful schoolboy and a little like Sir Kenneth Malone. It was a strange mixture, but he decided that he liked it.
They got out, standing in the cool darkness of the park. Overhead a moon and stars were shining. The little hallway car rolled away and they were alone. Completely alone. Malone swallowed hard.
"Sleuth," Luba said softly in the darkness.
Malone turned to face her.
"Sleuth," she said, "don't you ever take a chance?"
"Chance?" Malone said.
"Damn it," Luba said in a soft, sweet voice, "kiss me, Ken."
Malone had no answer to that--at least,
no verbal answer. But then, one didn't seem to be needed.
When he finally came up for air, he said: "Lou--"
"Yes, Ken?"
"Lou, how long are you going to be here? Or in New York? What I mean is--"
"I'll be around," Lou said. "I will be going back to New York of course; after all, Ken, I do have a living to make, such as it is, and Sir Lewis is expecting me."
"I don't know," Malone said, "but it still sounds funny. A girl like you working for ... well, for the Psychical Research people. Ghosts and ectoplasm and all that."
Suddenly Lou wasn't in his arms any more. "Now, wait a minute," she said. "You seemed to need their information, all right."
"But that was ... oh, well," Malone said. "Never mind. Maybe I'm silly. It really doesn't matter."
"I guess it doesn't, now," Lou said in a softer tone. "Except that it does mean I'll be going back to New York pretty soon."
"Oh," Malone said. "But ... look, Lou, maybe we could work something out. I could tell Sir Lewis I needed you here for something, and then he'd--"
"My, my," she said. "What it must be like to have all that influence."
"What?" Malone said.
Lou grinned, almost invisibly. "Nothing," she said. "Nothing. But, my fine feathered Fed, I don't want to be pulled around on somebody else's string."
"But--"
"I mean it, Ken," Luba said.
Malone shrugged. "Suppose we table it for now, then," he said, "and get around to it later. At dinner, say ... around nine?"
"And just where," Luba said, "will you be before nine? Making improper advances to the local contingent of chorines?"
"I will make improper advances," Malone vowed, "only to you, Lou."
Lou's eyes sparkled. "Goody," she said. "I've always wanted to be a Fallen Woman."
"But I have got some things to do before nine," Malone said. "I've got to work, too."
"Well, then," Lou said in a suspiciously sweet voice, "suppose I talk to Sir Lewis Carter, and tell him to keep you in New York? Then--"
"Enough," Malone said. "Nine o'clock."