“Turn around,” I told him. He didn’t, so I walked in back of him for a frisk. The negative was in a hidden raincoat pocket. I removed it and held it up.
Factor passed out.
TEN DAYS LATER, Eli and Anne Savage and detective Jack LeVine, of Broadway via Orchard Street, sat around the Savage swimming pool in Aspen, Colorado, clutching highballs and staring out at the Rockies. Kitty Seymour floated lazily in the pool. The sky was as blue as the future.
“Mr. LeVine,” said Anne, “I still don’t understand why I was blackmailed.”
“You weren’t supposed to be. That’s where the whole plan got queered. Fenton’s job was to shake down your father, but when he got the films his instincts took over and he realized he could do a little business with you on the side. It was a very dumb play. Butler found out and had him killed, then hired me to put me off the track.”
“And Rubine?”
“Rubine’s the saddest story of all. They could have let him go and he wouldn’t have stopped till he reached the North Pole. But he worked with Fenton and knew the whole story, so they iced him just for insurance.”
“It is simply unbelievable,” said the banker, sipping reflectively at a Tom Collins. “And what news of Factor?”
“Factor suffered a stroke, a bad one. He’ll probably live, if that’s what you want to call it. In a few years he should be able to make ashtrays.”
Kitty called to me from the pool.
“Jack, the water is delicious. Stop the shop-talk and come in.”
“In a second.”
“You know Tom and I were talking about you last night, LeVine,” said Savage. “About the skill and personal courage you showed throughout this whole affair. He suggested you come on over and join our side.”
“Side?”
“The campaign. Help us out with logistical problems. Plus you have a common touch that would help us immeasurably.”
“Be the house prole, you mean. Translate what the dumbbell on the street means when he moves his mouth.”
“LeVine, you’re being extreme.” Savage finished his drink with a swallow.
“Father thinks the world of you,” said Anne. She lay across an air mattress, wearing a bathing suit that just barely covered the treasures revealed on celluloid. When I looked at her too long, I had trouble with my trunks.
Savage continued his pitch. “LeVine, hasn’t this episode revealed to you the moral bankruptcy of the Democratic party?”
“I knew it all along. Listen, Mr. Savage, I’m strictly for LeVine. For your sake, I hope Dewey wins. For my sake I don’t care. Let’s leave it that way.”
“If you say so.”
“It’s the only way that works.”
I got up and took a couple of steps toward the pool. I stuck in my toe.
“Play with me,” said Kitty. Her hair streamed water and the drops gleamed in the sun like a crown.
I stepped back, then ran forward and took a long, cool dive, deep into the blue-green water. Down. Down. Away from the noise and the guns and the cheap hotels.
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this ebook onscreen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical,now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of the publisher.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 1947 by Andrew Bergman
This edition published in 2011 MysteriousPress.com/Open Road Integrated Media
180 Varick Street
New York, NY 10014
www.openroadmedia.com
EBOOKS BY ANDREW BERGMAN
FROM MYSTERIOUSPRESS.COM
AND OPEN ROAD MEDIA
Available wherever ebooks are sold
MYSTERIOUSPRESS.COM
FIND OUT MORE AT
WWW.MYSTERIOUSPRESS.COM & WWW.OPENROADMEDIA.COM
FOLLOW US:
@eMysteries and Facebook.com/MysteriousPressCom
@openroadmedia and Facebook.com/OpenRoadMedia
Videos, Archival Documents,
and New Releases
Sign up for the Open Road Media
newsletter and get news delivered
straight to your inbox.
FOLLOW US:
@openroadmedia and
Facebook.com/OpenRoadMedia
SIGN UP NOW at
www.openroadmedia.com/newsletters
The Big Kiss-Off of 1944: A Jack LeVine Mystery Page 19