Hot Red Money

by Baynard Kendrick

  They stood up. Monty said, “Have you considered this investment counselor, Henry Lycoming, Ed? Is it possible—?”

  “Did I say anything about Henry Lycoming, Monty?”

  “No, sir. I was thinking about this Russian agent with all the hot money—”

  “I’ve been thinking about him, too, Monty. But don’t go near Lycoming any more than Morel. One of the smarest girls in the financial field mails reports to me on Lycoming every day. I’d tell you three wolves her name except I can scarcely trust myself around her. She not only writes beautiful tip sheets, but she is beautiful. Better if you just know her by code: N.Y. 33.”

  Chapter Nineteen

  On Wednesday morning, Henry Lycoming received a circular in his morning’s mail at the Hotel Beauchamps, 54th Street and Lexington Avenue, where he lived alone in a very plush suite. It was an advertisement of a sale in a chain of drugstores on Long Island. A throwaway.

  Henry Lycoming went over it very carefully before he threw it away. The particular chain of drugstores meant nothing. The ad could have come from Macy’s, Gimbel’s, or a furniture store just as well.

  There was a blot of ink beside one of the items—a well-known brand of safety razor that was being offered, with a trade-in of your old one, for $10.49.

  Hidden in that innocent ad was a double meaning. Safety razors were an alert (not real danger, which was covered by electric clocks)—a call for quick action. Pringle was waiving his regular requirement of eight hours notice. Ten forty-nine in the morning was the hour Lycoming was to phone. If the ink blot had been green it would have meant a p.m. call. Pringle would call back at any time during the day that Lycoming asked him to.

  Lycoming went out of his office for a coffee break at half-past ten. At eleven minutes to eleven he was in the booth of the coffee shop, next to the bank downstairs, making his call.

  It was a Long Island number Pringle had given him a month before: Illinois 2-9786. That was Jackson Heights, he thought, but he wasn’t sure. Another pay phone.

  He had selected a drugstore at 56th and Madison, taken the number from one of the three booths—PLaza 6-9102. He wanted Pringle to call him there at six sharp. The time came first on the prescription number he’d leave at the Jackson Heights drugstore—6. Next came the telephone number: PL 6-9102. Substituting figures from the telephone dial for the exchange letters, PL was 75.

  There was a scratch pad on the shelf by the phone in the sit-down booth in the coffee shop. Lycoming idly took out his gold ball-point pen and jotted down: R # 67569102, Mr. T. Schumacher.

  A guttural voice, thick with accent, answered after the tenth ring. Obviously just one phone in the drugstore and that a pay phone.

  “Pfleuger’s,” the voice said. “Vat iss idt you shouldt vant now?”

  “I want a refill on a prescription for Mr. T. Schumacher.”

  “Spell idt, blease. Misder T.——?”

  Lycoming spelled it.

  “Vot’s der number, blease? Uff der perscribtion, blease?”

  “Number 67569102.” He called the figures slowly one at a time, giving a chance for the man to write them down.

  “Und der address, blease?”

  “You have the address; Mr. Schumacher will pick it up this afternoon.”

  He cradled the phone, then automatically tore off the sheet of paper from the pad, crumpled it and put it in his side coat pocket to be flushed down a toilet later in the day.

  When he left the booth he found himself face to face with Dolores Stacy. From her left shoulder hung a large patent-leather handbag. In her right hand was a dime.

  Lycoming managed a smile of pleasure that was so forced it made his face muscles cramp. “Well, since we’re both playing hooky, how about a cup of coffee?”

  “You’re a sweetie-pie of a boss, Mr. Lycoming, in more ways than one!” Her dark eyes swam with magnetic admiration. “Just as soon as I phone my mother. I have to catch her before she goes shopping. I don’t allow any of the other girls to make personal calls on the company’s phone—and I won’t do it myself.”

  “Maybe I could get you what you want, Dolores. You should try going shopping with me,” he said meaningly.

  “I’ll take you up on that, perhaps, some other time.” Her laugh was sufficiently challenging. “Right now you can order me a doughnut and coffee.” She went in the booth and closed the door.

  Lycoming’s trained sense of caution urged him to stay near the booth to find out if he could overhear anything. He realized instantly that he was too much on edge. It was always that way when he had to contact Pringle. Little things were exaggerated all out of proportion. The trouble was it was getting worse. He had to get himself in hand, even though Turlock’s murder and that bug that was planted in Marian’s apartment weren’t things that could be brushed off with a feather duster.

  He’d find out about that bug as soon as he talked to Pringle. That is, if he didn’t muff it. These damn little Caesars—Comintern Rep’s—thought they were second Lenins. And this pig, Pringle! Ask him something he thought was out of line and he’d personally purge you. Lycoming could be tough enough, but he believed in handling tight situations in a different fashion. A little torture or brain washing, and the man still lived to be used another day.

  He took a stool at the counter and ordered two coffees and doughnuts. His eyes kept drifting back to the booth, enraptured with the voluptuous thrills that could be obtained just from watching Dolores’ head and shoulders, and imagining a couple of other things.

  Her conversation he would have found very boring.

  Dolores was saying: “Look, Mary, if we’re going to get those presents there on time, I simply have to see you for lunch today. Jimmy called and I want to tell you about it. What about La Vandange at 61st Street and Madison Avenue? It’s quiet and the food’s good. One o’clock? That’s fine. If you have your new handbag with you at the office, bring it. I’m simply dying to see it.”

  She tore off the blank top sheet of the scratch pad and put it in her handbag. She couldn’t see anything on it, but the FBI would have any impression on it visible after a few minutes in the Document Laboratory. It might add something to the tape recording she had in her bag, made by an induction mike while she stood outside of the booth during Lycoming’s call.

  Mary Nestor, the gray-haired woman Dolores was lunching with, would take the piece of paper and the tape recorder back to her boss before two. Mary was one of the most efficient secretaries working in the office of Ed Waters, S.A.C. of the New York FBI.

  Pfleuger’s Pharmacy hadn’t had a Pfleuger connected with it in more than twenty years since young Amos Pfleuger gave it up as a bad job and sold out to Manny Epstein in 1937. Manny, a registered pharmacist of some ability, cleaned the old patent medicine bottles out of the grimy show window, washed the glass, and put in a display of vitamins, a new type of high-priced capsules that sold well in spite of their 400% mark-up because the off-color advertising slyly touted them as aphrodisiacs, which they weren’t.

  The vitamin pitch lasted for a couple of years during which Manny lost only eighteen hundred dollars. He was glad to sell out to Benny Vanazzia in 1941 for half what the inventory and bad will had cost him, and move his wife and five children to Florida where you didn’t have oil bills that could break you down.

  Benny Vanazzia, whose real name was unpronounceable and had sunk to oblivion in a sea of aliases, had lost a lucrative job with Al Capone as chemist in one of Al’s Chicago distilleries with the advent of repeal. Benny had managed to struggle along through the thirties doing strong-arm work for some well-known figures who offered their protection to various purveyors of foodstuffs.

  Benny was adept with stinkbombs, explosive fruits called “pineapples,” and could in a pinch do a passable job of selling over the barrel of a sawed-off shotgun.

  He was far more popular with his employers than with their clients and should have been able to retire comfortably on an old age pension, except that a rival organizati
on, called the FBI, kept bumping off his big-hearted bosses one by one.

  At the ripe old age of forty-five he decided to enter the pharmaceutical field and be of some real use to suffering humanity.

  Even that long ago he had bloodshot eyes sunk in overlying folds of flesh that made him resemble a bloodhound with the mumps, and a startling pallor in his face that was best described as jaundiced gray.

  In addition to diabetes, and over a hundred thousand dollars invested in profitable real estate, Benny also had a wife named Fern. She was four years younger than her husband, and weighed six pounds less, but was considerably meaner and more grasping, assuming that were possible. At fifty-eight, Fern tipped the scales at 232.

  Somehow, unlike its former owners, Benny and Fern Vanazzia over a period of seventeen years had managed to make Pfleuger’s Pharmacy eke them out a living. It might have been because Benny was a really good pharmacist, and that he and Fern worked hard and employed no other help. In addition, their living quarters were over the store; they owned the place, and had no rent to pay.

  Some cynics claimed that it was Benny’s good heart, and his acquaintance with a large roster of equally good-hearted physicians whose kindliness was frowned on by the American Medical Association. Certainly Benny would never question a doctor’s prescription for morphine or barbiturates.

  Who could stand to see a patient shake and suffer, or waste away for lack of sleep? What was the difference if the doctor in the rush of business issued three prescriptions to the same patient under three different names in one day?

  Benny and Fern had dedicated their lives to keep humanity from suffering. They had a great understanding of teen-agers, too. A child who needed a shot of “H” to quiet his or her nerves affected them more than any hardened adult. In fact, if anyone, old or young, had an urgent need for anything, and could prove their good faith and produce the dough, why should they be turned away?

  Special Agent Calvin Lynch, one of the older agents dating back to the Lindbergh kidnaping days, dropped in to Pfleuger’s Pharmacy, in Jackson Heights, at three-thirty on Wednesday afternoon.

  The place had an ancient smell of patent medicines, licorice, and horehound drops. The small antique soda fountain, unused for years, was covered with card displays of corn plasters, safety razor blades, cheap lipsticks, and bubble gum. A magazine rack showed some 25ȼ titles of pocket-sized books, a few flashy magazines, some lurid detective tales, and stacks of comics that were being read at the moment by a ten-year-old boy who was squatting in front of them.

  A small tired looking woman in slacks and a green blouse was waiting at a counter in the rear under a faded sign that said: “prescriptions.”

  Cal Lynch waited until Benny waddled out through a curtain at the back that concealed his mortar-and-pestle rites from public view. Benny gave the woman a small package in exchange for a dollar-seventy-five, and rang it up on a register that recorded the sale with a tinny clang.

  The woman departed, separating the boy from his free literary pursuits of the comics on the third try.

  From behind the prescription counter, Benny said, “Maybe I shouldt gif’ him some uff der bubble gum. You vant some bubbly gum, leddle boy?”

  “Ah, shove it, greaseball!” the lad advised as he and his mother left the store.

  Agent Cal Lynch walked to the rear and stood for a few seconds facing Benny over the counter, enjoying the stiffness that set in the folds of Benny’s fat face and the deepening pallor of unhealthy gray.

  “Vat iss idt you shouldt vant, blease?”

  “I’m Mr. T. Schumacher,” Lynch said, his frosty eyes congealing Benny. “I want the prescription I phoned in this morning. A refill. Number 67569102. Is it ready?”

  “Ve haff no shoemakers. Dere iss a mistake, no?”

  “No mistake, Benny. T. Schumacher. You even had the name spelled out for you. Shall I repeat the number for you—? 67569102.”

  “You ain’t diss—”

  “Schumacher? Oh, there is one then!”

  “No. Nodt you. You’re dat—”

  “Go on, Benny. It’s nice to know you remember me. I certainly haven’t forgotten Fern and you.”

  “You’re dat—de Fed, Cal Lynch. You gunned down Skeets, und put Buster Liebling avay in Sald Lake City. I knew it soon as I laid mein eyes—dat silver hair.”

  “And you turned state’s evidence, Benny, and got off scot free. The State of Utah was too kind to you. But ‘Buster’ Liebling won’t be, when he finally locates you and Fern.”

  “Buster’s in der pen, G-man.”

  “Time flies, Benny. Twenty-two years since last we met. Buster was released on parole two months ago. I was surprised to find you still alive—even under another name. Of course, we’re careful to protect our friends, but we don’t like Commies—even when they’re pushing horse from a drug store.”

  “Might Gott strike me dead mit thunder, Misdur Lynch. You can esk the State Narcotics Bureau, dey vill tell you yet how clean I am, und Fern—”

  “That’s up to them, Benny. Maybe you and Fern are useful. We’re not interested in how many big wheel pushers and quack doctors you’re turning in. But when you start putting the entire country in peril by tying yourself up with a spy ring. … Frankly, if we can’t get both of you, we know plenty of Benny Benutto’s—it was Benutto then, wasn’t it? Or maybe Calezzo? Anyhow, we know plenty of your old time pals who would consider it a patriotic duty to rid this country of a couple of traitors.”

  “Tradors! Mein Gott, Misdur Lynch. Now idt’s tradors—und vy?”

  “You’re running a Communist Party drop, Benny. You and Fern are passing on their messages. You know it just as well as I.”

  “Messages? I know nudding uff messages, nudding of drops, nudding—”

  “What about T. Schumacher and that prescription? Has it been picked up yet?”

  “No prescribtion, Misdur Lynch. Might Gott strike—”

  “You’re keeping God awfully busy, Benny. What if we turn the job over to Buster Liebling? Won’t it save time?”

  “Der prescribtion a message iss. Some man vot two-times his vife, iss all.”

  “What man? What’s his name? Where does he live? What’s his description? You can come clean here, Benny, or you and Fern can take a ride with me in town. By the time you get back the Narcotics’ boys will have gotten impatient and carted every fake package in this phony dump away. Then just to make sure you keep your nose clean, as soon as you Open for business again they’ll start raiding you every day. Now take your choice. You can have it either way.”

  Beads of sweat popped out on Benny’s pallid brow and his sunken eyes grew redder with sincerity. “Tvice only,” he said. “Ve get a letter. Chust a message. No name. No man. A tventy dollar bill. Some day Mr. T. Schumacher vill phone undt say he vill call for his prescribtion. Take der number of der prescribtion und gift idt to der leedle boy who comes und esks for ‘Poppa’s red pills.’ Should ve throw der tventy dollars avay? Ve do idt. Vat iss wrong? Half an hour before you come—comes der leedle boy for Poppa’s red pills. Ve giff him der numbers you giff me on a piece of paber. Vot iss wrong? Tradors ve iss nott! Dot iss all.”

  “Do you have those messages that came with the money?”

  “Dey say burn. Ve burn.”

  “You say this has happened twice. When was the first time?”

  “Three months ago. April. Three veeks later comes der call und der leedle boy. Der last vun comes a month ago. Leedle boy today.”

  “Same boy each time?”

  “Different boy. Nefer saw eider before nor since. Do not know dem, Misdur Lynch. Might Gott—”

  “Skip the death by thunder, Benny. You’re hot enough now. Do you happen to have kept a copy of that first prescription number?”

  “Ve figgered idt oudt, Mistur Lynch. Fern und I. Dot’s vy ve figger der man iss two-timing his vife.” Benny’s face folds sagged into a crafty look. “I tell you vot ve figger oudt iff—” He paused, waiting for Lynch’s
sign of interest.

  Special Agent Calvin Lynch gave a smile that made Benny shiver. “There’s no if, Benny. You’re spilling the works right here and now to stay alive. The FBI doesn’t guarantee anything and it never makes a deal.”

  “Der first figger in der perscribtion iss der time to make a telephone call,” Benny said hastily. “Der first perscribtion vas 84729041.” He turned and pointed. “I pudt it down here on der vall. Fern und I figger der man shouldt call GR 2-9041—dot’s Gramercy, at eight o’clock. Ve try at vun minute past eight undt der line iss busy. Der vun today—”

  “Go on.”

  “Der vun today—” Benny turned back to his penciled figures on the wall. “Call PL 6-9102 at six o’clock. You dun’t think tradors vould tell you that, Misdur Lynch. Blease, now do you?”

  “It depends on what they’re trading in, Benny. If another one of those notes comes in you’d better call us fast and tell us. If you stick it in the fire, like you did the others, it may not get burned as badly as you.”

  Lynch turned at the door on his way out. “We’re really quite clever, Benny. We had that telephone business all figured out ourselves. Still it’s always a pleasure to have ourselves checked, and proven right, by a couple of lousy schlemiels like Fern and you.”

  Chapter Twenty

  Henry Lycoming left his office fifteen minutes earlier than usual on Wednesday evening, and headed directly for his suite in the Hotel Beauchamps, not even pausing for his usual quick one in the bar.

  The weather had grown hotter and more oppressive with a feeling of dampness presaging a midsummer storm.

  It was a type of weather, unlike what they thought in the western world, that reminded him of Moscow—the hottest and coldest city in the world. Doubts had been creeping into his mind during the last few years that he ever wanted to return to Moscow. He had tried very hard to eliminate those doubts. Not only did he consider them traitorous to his country, but they were persistently widening chinks in an armor that for a lifetime had protected him against false attacks on a great ideal. Since his birth he had been steeped in the philosophies and reasonings of Marx and Lenin and Stalin, and then, without warning, a third of his lifetime intellectual pattern, based on those figures which had governed his thinking, had been ripped away. One day Stalin was infallible and the next day infamous. Not only did the great leader have feet of clay, but his heart was stone and his head was bone, and his teachings were heresy, a miracle performed with the mirrors of a political decree.