by Howard Fast
“What do you mean, contracts?” Compton asked, turning to watch the man out of the corner of his eye.
“If he’s a torpedo, according to what I see on television, he gets a contract to kill people—”
“Hy!”
“Yeah?”
“He doesn’t blink.”
“What?”
“Just what I say. It’s very unusual for a type like him to have that kind of blue eyes. I guess it’s more unusual for him not to blink.”
They dropped all pretense now and stared unabashedly at Joey Montoso.
“You know what I think?” Hy Golden asked.
“I know.”
“What do you think?”
“The same thing.”
“Do you suppose—Margie?”
“Are you nuts? Margie? Margie would not hurt a flea. Margie is an angel.”
“That’s right,” Golden agreed. “Margie is an angel.”
CHAPTER 4
In which Margie encounters the Republic of Dravina.
AS MARGIE and her escort, Joey Montoso, came out of the elevator, their conversation was not too far from what Toby Garcia, the elevator starter, had repeated to Compton and Golden. Considering that Garcia was content as an elevator starter and with no great ambitions to be anything else, his memory for various things, including conversation, was remarkable.
“Countess,” Montoso said to Margie, “you name it.”
“I would like a cup of coffee,” Margie said. “And I am not a countess, so please stop calling me Countess.”
“For you, only breakfast in the highest style, Countess.”
“I told you—”
“You told me, you told me—I know that. So I make you a countess and we have a little breakfast at the Plaza.”
“Why the Plaza?” Margie demanded.
They were out on the street now. A cab was emptying and they popped into it. Margie would have held back, but Joey Montoso was not a man of indecision. He grasped her arm; they were in the cab, and Montoso told the driver to drive to the Plaza. The cab turned up to Sixth Avenue, found no barriers, and rolled north with the progressive lights unfolding steadily before it.
And Joey Montoso leaned over to Margie and whispered in her ear, “Just look down next to you, sister. Real quiet. No noise, no hysteria. Just real gentle and quiet.”
“I am not the hysterical type,” Margie said. “Maybe in Texas—” Then she glanced down and saw next to her, in Montoso’s hand, a thin, shining blade of steel, about a quarter of an inch wide and obviously very sharp indeed. The point of the blade was pressing gently against her mink coat—or rather the Governor’s wife’s mink coat—about three ribs up from Margie’s bottom rib.
“You are not from Texas, are you?” Margie said weakly.
“No, Countess, I am not from Texas. By no means. I am from Cleveland, Ohio, where I got an excellent reputation in certain circles. I am a hoodlum and a professional killer, and if you yap, yok, or yell, or even give out with a little peep, I will stick this shiv into you and you will be so dead that even that mink coat will not keep you warm.”
“What a rotten, nasty thing to say!” Margie exclaimed.
“I warn you, sister,” Montoso whispered. “Are you going to be good or must I …?”
“I will be good,” Margie said quickly. “Absolutely—very good.”
Margie had no practice whatsoever in being a heroine. It was simply something she had never aspired to or dreamed about; she had dreamed frequently about being a star or Jean Shrimpton, or being hired for six detergent commercials in a row—but never about being a heroine.
The cab drew up at the Plaza and Montoso said, “Right. You are a smart kid, Margie. Now put the bracelet in your coat pocket—now.”
“O.K., O.K.” She slipped the bracelet into the coat pocket and followed Montoso out of the cab. He was paying the driver. “It’s not even my bracelet,” Margie said, “so don’t get any ideas with that thing of yours, Mr.—— What is your name?”
“Montoso, Countess—Joey Montoso.”
“You have to call me Countess?”
“You’re a countess—what then? So take my arm, Countess.” He led her up the steps to the Fifty-ninth Street entrance of the Plaza, past a chauffeur, who watched them with interest as Montoso said, “You understand, Countess—I got nothing against you personally. But what’s a bauble or two to you, Countess? So just listen. When we get inside, you just take off the coat and hand it to me, like I was going to check it for you.”
They entered the hotel.
“You read me, Countess?”
The chauffeur entered the hotel after them. He walked quickly and purposefully to the registration desk, where he drew a man away from a conversation with the room clerk and then whispered in the man’s ear. This man nodded to a third man, who crossed back through the Fifty-ninth Street lobby to the newsstand, where he bought a copy of the New York Times and folded it in half.
“You really are a crook,” Margie said quietly. “And you just need not look at me that way—like I have no more brains than a sparrow. You might be very surprised, Mr. Montoso. It’s just that in New York City you don’t expect such things to happen.”
“Countess, you are a nut. New York has the highest crime rate in the country.”
“That is a lie,” Margie snapped. “Percentage-wise—”
“Countess, shut up!” Montoso said. “I do not intend to argue statistics with you. Just get out of that coat—”
He stopped. Three men had closed in on him, one of them in a chauffeur’s uniform, the other two in identical black suits, thin white pinstripes, black topcoats, Homburgs. Their faces were without expression, their attitude aloof—even the attitude of that one who placed his lips close to Joey Montoso’s ear. The chauffeur put his finger to his lips, smiled, while the mouth that almost touched Montoso’s ear said very softly:
“Mister—is a gun against your spine. You make no trouble or you are very dead. Yes?”
“Yes,” Joey agreed.
The man who spoke to him held his gun under the folded copy of the New York Times. The other man in the pinstripe had fingers like the wings of a butterfly—or at least that was the impression he gave Margie as those fingers examined Montoso’s pockets. Margie glanced around then, so she did not see the fingers emerge with Joey’s knife. Margie decided not to scream; all of these people appeared to be expert in what they were doing, and she felt that they would take a dim view of her attracting attention.
“Countess, please, trust us,” the chauffeur begged her with great sincerity.
“Small knife, switch blade. Yes?” asked the man who had examined the pockets.
“I think so, yes,” answered pinstripe two.
Pinstripe one moved quickly and expertly, the chauffeur stepping in front of Margie, blocking her view, and saying, “This man is not friend to you?”
“Hardly,” Margie replied. “He is a Cleveland torpedo.”
“Then is good we come, yes?”
“Yes,” Margie agreed.
Joey Montoso gasped, and the two men with him eased him back a step and into one of the large, straight-back chairs that provided a reasonable imitation of old-fashioned comfort to the lobby. They bent over him like dear friends and straightened his hat. His eyes were wide open and bright blue.
“Did you hypnotize him?” Margie asked. “He’s like a lamb, isn’t he?”
“Like a lamb,” pinstripe one agreed. “Like little lamb.”
“Such a lamb was proposed to rob you, yes, Countess?”
They were hurrying her out of the hotel now, and Margie admitted that he had intended to rob her. A sudden terrible thought overtook her, and she twisted around to look back at the hotel; but then she was reassured by the calm, hurried, frantic, orderly rush of life at the entrance to the lobby. No one was screaming or calling for the police.
“I thought for a moment he was dead.” She laughed at herself.
“Dead?”
> “You think we kill someone, Countess?”
“No—no, I should be very grateful to you. And now, you know, I am late, and I don’t know how I could have been so silly as to think that he was a buyer. You know, that was at the bottom of the whole thing, that and this silly coat—and the bracelet. Of course, the bracelet. Heaven help me if I have lost it …”
As Margie rooted in the pocket of the mink coat, the man in the chauffeur’s uniform separated himself from the others, took several quick steps to where a black limousine was double parked, got in, started the motor, and gently pulled up to where Margie and the two pinstripes stood at the curb.
“Well, thank heavens!” Margie exclaimed, as she found the diamond bracelet in the pocket of the coat and slipped it over her wrist. “There it is. It’s so lovely—I would just die if I lost It.”
“Is real? I mean, real diamonds, Countess?” asked pinstripe two.
“Of course. Would she wear anything else?”
To this non sequitur pinstripe one shook his head dumbly, and pinstripe two took Margie’s arm and helped her into the rear seat of the black limousine. She tried to wrench loose, protesting, “No—absolutely not. You’ve done enough for me already. But I can take a taxi back. I’ve had enough annoyance and excitement getting into cars with people I don’t know, and now I don’t even think you’re buyers.”
Pinstripe two, a definite heavyweight, bore Margie into the car, dropped down on the seat beside her, and slammed the car door shut. The chauffeur pulled away from the curb and eastward on Fifty-ninth Street.
“I am going to scream!” Margie announced.
“Countess! What for? We are only benefactors. Still, you must scream, scream. Car is soundproof, special one hundred per cent made by Cadillac Company, nine thousand dollars, FOB Detroit.”
“You talk like dope,” pinstripe one said shortly. “We are friend. We wait by Plaza for Countess since eight forty-five this morning. She comes with hooligan who threatens her. We don’t threaten her. We take care hooligan he shouldn’t threaten her. We are like faithful servant of Countess—so why should she scream?”
“Because I am not a countess,” Margie said decisively, and I would appreciate your not calling me that. My name is Margie Beck, and I work at M.P. Creations.”
“And how much they pay you there, Countess, you buy mink coats and diamond bracelets like this one, maybe worth a hundred thousand dollar, yes?”
“No!” Margie snapped. “The coat and the bracelet are not mine.”
“All right,” said pinstripe two. “Lousy communists in Countess’ country, they say Countess’ jewels are pressed out of the tears of oppressed, bought with the blood of workers—you are going to agree with them? Or you agree with us who are saviors of nation?”
“I don’t mean that—what—I—” Margie had glanced into the rearview mirror, and for just a moment it seemed to her that she caught a fleeting image of Hy Golden and Alan Compton leaping out of a cab and up the steps of the hotel. “No,” she said, “it couldn’t be.”
“Of course not,” pinstripe one agreed, and said to pinstripe two, “Shut up a little while, yes?”
“I don’t think I care for either of you,” Margie said, looking from pinstripe one to pinstripe two. “I’ll thank you to stop the car and let me out. I am not a countess and this is not my coat or my bracelet.”
“Of course.”
“So please let me out.”
“No,” pinstripe one declared fiercely. “I do only my duty, and is better we no longer engage in conversation. You must discuss this, you discuss with General Alexander.”
“And just who is General Alexander?”
“We don’t discuss,” replied pinstripe one, folding his arms.
“If you don’t stop and let me out—” Margie began.
“We don’t discuss. Is all.”
“This is New York—you understand? City police? FBI? Transit police, fire department—you’ve heard of them, I presume?”
“We don’t discuss.”
“All right, we don’t discuss. Just let me out.”
“No.”
Margie screamed. She was a good screamer, and her slimness belied the solid strength of her lungs. Afterward, when Margie thought about it, the echo of her scream sounded figuratively in her ears and she felt very proud of it. Very few people could have screamed like that, and Margie attributed much of her talent to the swimming she did as a little girl in that part of the Erie Canal that bordered Kapatuk.
“So scream,” said pinstripe one. “Car is soundproof.”
“She has fine scream,” pinstripe two observed.
Margie screamed a second and a third time.
“Good. I am never knowing such screams from American girl. American girl is not woman, no bosom, no behind, no scream. I remember once in nineteen forty-six, farmer’s daughter—”
“Please keep your lousy memories to yourself,” pinstripe one suggested.
Margie stopped screaming and looked from pinstripe one to pinstripe two. She looked at each of them with loathing. “I should only not be saved by two apes like you again!”
“Ape? What is ape?” pinstripe two asked.
“Ape is large monkey,” explained pinstripe one.
“Fine talk! Believe me, we do our duty, so you are safe, Countess. Countess! Pfuy! You ever hear Countess talk like that?” he asked his partner.
“Who knows? The Countess here, she is brought to America nineteen year ago. So she is skinny and with no behind, like American girl.”
“You are satisfied car is soundproof?”
“I am satisfied,” Margie nodded.
“Good,” said pinstripe two. “Now everything is quiet. You got terrible scream, Countess. So now don’t exert yourself, because we are there.”
“Where?”
The car pulled into the curb, just north of Sixty-eighth Street on Fifth Avenue, in front of a grand old gray-stone mansion that was in the process of neglect and decay.
“You see house,” pinstripe one told Margie. “House is headquarters General Alexander.”
“Oh no, no, no,” Margie said. “I may not be the brightest thing in New York, but I know enough not to fall for this—and furthermore, I do not go into boarded-up houses even with nice boys, much less with a pair of gorillas like you. You know, like any other girl around this town, I think I have heard every line ever invented or known to man, the oldest, the dullest, the brightest, what’s in, and what is definitely out. This is out.”
“So what do you want from us, Countess?” pinstripe two said painfully. “I am not communist. I am filled with respect for the old aristocracy, so how I feel I have to slap you around and maybe put piece of plaster over your mouth with the kind of screaming power you got?”
“On the other hand,” said pinstripe one, obviously the brains of the combination, “what harm we do you, Countess? We only save you from ugly man back at hotel. We ride you in nice limousine on Fifth Avenue. We do it for glory of Dravina.”
“Just who is Dravina?” Margie demanded.
“Ha!” Pinstripe one tapped his skull and nodded at pinstripe two. “See why a countess is a countess. In the Hutsinger family is brains. Brains. Now she will ask me what is Hutsinger family.”
“Exactly,” Margie agreed.
“Ha! You see. Who is Dravina? What is Hutsinger? Mind like steel trap. Never by so much as flick of eyelash admits she knows native land, Dravina, her own family, Hutsinger. Smart!”
“Sure, I’m smart,” Margie said bitterly. “I’m so smart I’m in this idiot car with you. All right. Here I am, but in that house, no.”
“So what do you want, Countess? I put a little chloroform over face. Is better? Then we walk you into house and you are sick hours with chloroform? Yes?”
“No,” Margie replied. “What’s in the house?”
“General Alexander.”
“So what does he want from me? My name is Margie Beck. I was born in Kapatuk, New York, in nineteen
forty-two.”
“Please, Countess, a few words.”
Meanwhile the chauffeur had parked the car and had come around and opened the door. Working together very nicely, pinstripe one and two propelled Margie out of the car, shot her across the sidewalk and onto the small stoop of the house. Margie began a large, well-calculated scream, but pinstripe two anticipated it and covered her mouth with his hand. The door opened and they were inside, and the door closed behind them. They were in a dusty and very posh marble and gilt foyer. In a side bracket consisting of brass, gold, grape leaves, and cupids one sickly bulb burned.
Margie pulled herself together, gathered up a mouthful of words, swallowed them, and finally said, “Oh, you stupid fools!” Another woman might have become hysterical with fear or paralyzed with terror; with Margie annoyance replaced such vehement responses. The essence of Margie was non-dramatic. She was a capable young lady making her way in a world that was frequently absurd and on occasion witless.
“You are under some idiot delusion that I am a countess, and if this is being a countess in that comic-opera country of yours that you call Dravina, you can have it. Suppose you take me to this General Alexander. I am certainly not capable of fighting three oversized apes like you, and anyway, you smell foul and propinquity does not delight me. So just keep your hands off me. If you intend to rob me—”
“What is propinquity?” asked pinstripe two.
“Is stinks, no?” said the chauffeur. “This is obvious.”
“Is not so obvious, and who gives a damn what is this—pronik …”
“Propinquity,” Margie said with satisfaction.
“Anyway, you watch her,” said pinstripe one. “I go get the General.”
He marched across the foyer and opened one of the double doors at the other end and then closed it behind him. The chauffeur leaped to get an ancient and regal side chair that stood against the wall of the foyer, and he heaved it up and brought it over for Margie’s comfort. His elephantine grace shook her, and the only thing she could think of to describe it was murderous strength. That made her think of Joey Montoso, and she sighed.