Lively Game of Death Read online

  “There you are. Five months is the record.”

  I was going to warn him not to lay odds on the possibility, but all of a sudden Saxon was grinning and stretching out his hand. I gave it a good shake, figuring, what the hell, if he turns out to be the spy, maybe I can put in a good word and Hilary’ll hire him to replace me.

  On the way back to the boardroom, I stopped at the reception desk to leave instructions to send in Abel Harrison as soon as he arrived. But instead of writing it down, the receptionist pointed at a diminutive man standing in a nearby alcove hanging up his coat and hat.

  I looked him over and felt disappointed. The shadowy picture of Harrison as a potential Benedict Arnold that I’d been forming in my mind just didn’t fit the contours of the small, pudgy, wispy-lipped individual I saw standing there. I tapped him on the shoulder, and he jumped.

  Admitting that he was Abel Harrison, he immediately wanted to know what he’d done wrong. I was tempted to press the psychological advantage and threateningly accuse him of selling company secrets to Sid Goetz. But Hilary doesn’t pay me for that sort of thing, so I simply escorted Harrison back to her.

  When he arrived, Scott was temporarily out of earshot, being over in the far corner at his desk, talking on the telephone.

  Harrison sat down next to me and faced Hilary. She explained the situation briefly, and the poor little bastard remained rooted to his seat, pulling at the ill-advised attempt at a mustache that sprouted from his upper lip.

  He looked so green with misery and fear that even Hilary tempered her accustomed tartness and mercifully spoke to him in a gentle tone, which also managed to be sultry—mainly because she hadn’t yet shaken her pre-noon throatiness.

  “So this isn’t an accusation,” she told him, “as long as you can tell me what happened to yours.”

  He nodded unhappily. “I was hoping against hope that Scott wouldn’t find out about it, and that’s why I asked to borrow Tom Lasker’s, because he never comes in here, except when he has to consult the plans for a detail or two. Anyway, I figured if he ever needed it back, I could make an impression of it.”

  “Why didn’t you right away?”

  “Because that’s strictly against the rules, and I was already potentially in enough trouble with Scott about this key business. Christ, everything he lets me do I screw up. I hear what he tells my sister, but believe me, Hilary, I know what he’s really thinking.”

  “But your key,” she persisted. “Did you lose it?”

  Exhaling slowly, Harrison looked sorrowfully up at the ceiling, then at the walls. Anywhere but at Hilary. “I don’t know,” he finally replied. “I put down my key case, at least I think I put it down, maybe for a minute. Next thing I knew it was gone. If I put it down.”

  “You think somebody stole it?”

  “I thought I’d just misplaced it. But eventually it did turn up again. Only the one key was missing.”

  “The key to Scott’s desk drawer,” Hilary stated, rather than asked.

  Harrison nodded. “It’s the only key other than the one to my office that Scott permits me to possess. And the only reason he does that, I think, is so I can run errands for him when he’s in conference with buyers in the factory showroom.”

  Hilary drummed on the table with her fingers. She scrutinized the nervous toyman for a moment, then readdressed him, measuring her words. “Abel,” she said, “I have two important questions to ask you. Will you think them over very carefully?”

  He nodded.

  “Did you know that the master plans to Tricky Tires were kept in Scott’s desk?”

  “Of course. I saw them there several times when I got things for Scott.”

  “Now,” she cautioned, “I want you to be especially careful. Did you ever tell anyone where you’d seen them?”

  He screwed up his forehead in intense concentration, put one hand to his temple, and rested against it. After almost half a minute, he shook his head. “I can’t remember for sure.”

  “You’ve got to.” Hilary was quiet, but emphatic.

  “Why? Was it any special secret?” Harrison asked ingenuously.

  “Just think! Try to remember!”

  He gestured hopelessly. “It’s no use. I think I might have, but I can’t remember who, or how long ago it was, or anything about it.”

  “But you think you might have told somebody the plans were in Scott’s desk.”

  “Yes.”

  Hilary sighed, then—to my great amazement—reached across the table and reassuringly patted Harrison’s hand. “You tell me exactly what you were doing, where you were, when you put those keys down. Maybe I can still get you off the hook with Scott.”

  It took a minute to dispose of his thanks, but at last, he got down to business.

  “Well, about a month and a half or so ago, I had a desk in the production wing. One day, around lunchtime, I opened the door for my secretary as she left. I was about to go out myself in a minute or two, so I didn’t shut the door. Now my keys, let’s see, I guess they were out on the desk top. I can’t remember for sure, but I think that’s where they were, because I don’t like to keep them in my coat pocket, it pulls the garment out of shape. So, anyhow, I stopped off in the executive washroom for a minute, and when I came out, I couldn’t find the keys.”

  “I see,” said Hilary. “Now let me look at the key you borrowed from Lasker.”

  Fumbling for a leatherette key case, Harrison opened the clasp, took out a single key, and handed it to Hilary. She gave it to me, and I held it against Scott’s. All the notches matched; I nodded and gave it back to her.

  Just then, Scott hung up and rejoined our group. He had a smile on his face and as he sat, he assaulted us by asking whether it was “Abel who gave us the cane?”

  “I suppose,” said Hilary, grimacing, “that the atrocity you just committed means you’ve had good luck on the phone with Sid Goetz?”

  “As a matter of fact,” the executive replied, “I couldn’t get through to anyone at the showroom, neither Sid nor Harry Whelan were answering. But I did talk to Sid’s lawyer, Willie Frost.”

  “And?”

  “And, according to Frost, Goetz Sales is practically foundering from all the legal battles it’s mixed up in, both in and out of court. Just from past cases, Sid could go bankrupt from lawyer’s costs.”

  “So?” Hilary yawned, toying with Harrison’s key, turning it over and over in her hand and holding it up to the light.

  “So with the Tricky Tires knock-off, Willie is worried that Armstrong-Stewart’s licensor will sue if Sid puts the item on the market. And that outfit is a hell of a lot bigger and more sophisticated than any of the others Goetz has had to fight!”

  “I still don’t know what that has to do with the immediate crisis.”

  “Don’t you see, Hilary? Frost thinks he can convince Sid to make a deal with us. If we give him a cut of Tricky Tires’ annual sales, he’ll keep his knock-off out of distribution.”

  “Which is what he probably intended doing all along,” Hilary drawled, running her tapered finger along the metal object in her hand.

  Harrison picked that moment to play Henry Fonda. “Goddamnit, she’s right, Scott! We’ll fix the bastard! We’ll call his bluff!” There were other things, but between the squawking and stammering, they were pretty hard to follow.

  At the end of the tirade, Scott wearily waved him down. “Abel, it isn’t a matter of who’s right or wrong.”

  “Then what is it?”

  “It’s simple economics. We can’t afford the legal fees, either! If we take Goetz into court, we’ll have to give away more Tricky Tires volume than if we just cut him in, in the first place.” Scott turned back to Hilary. “Anyway, no matter what we settle with Sid, Trim-Tram still has a security leak that will have to be plugged. Because, unless we can discover Goetz’s contact, we’ll just be inviting him to knock us off every time we bring out a new toy.”

  Hilary nodded, her lips compressed into a tight
line. “Yes, but I’ll need a little more time. Right now, I’ve got three suspects, a few unanswered questions, and some charts to make.”

  “Charts?” Scott asked, a note of surprise in his voice.

  “Yes. There’s a kind of schematic involved here, and it all seems to center in on a period of about six to eight weeks ago. Have you noticed how many things seem to have happened then? Lasker’s promotion, Saxon’s unexplained visit, Abel’s key theft, I forget what else ... no, never mind, Scott, I’ll explain later. Anyway, I have to set these things down and see whether a pattern emerges.”

  Harrison nervously cleared his throat and held up a finger. “When you say three suspects, are you including me?”

  “I’m afraid so, but if it will make you feel any better, I’ll widen the field and throw in Scott, too.” The new suspect protested, but Hilary continued, paying no attention to him. “Now the main problem to this espionage business, at this point, seems to be motive ... though means and opportunity also involve quite a merry-go-round ride. But motive seems to be the cornerstone of the problem. Everybody says they can’t stand Goetz, and having met Sid, I’m inclined to believe anybody who says they hate him.”

  “When did you meet him, Hilary?” Scott inquired.

  “It was just last week, as a matter of fact. I’d heard about him before, but Janice Astor called me and asked if I would do her a favor. She’d done some ad work on speculation for Goetz, and it had brought results for him, but he wasn’t paying off. And if you know Jan, she is not the sort to stand up for her rights. She would’ve let it go, but it was a really substantial portion of her expected income; she’d put a lot of time into the project, and she was worried. So I saw Goetz and stood up to him.”

  “Did you get anywhere with him?” Scott asked dubiously.

  Hilary looked at him with a thin edge of contempt. “Have you ever met a man I couldn’t deal with, Scott?”

  “So what happened?”

  “I simply threatened him with Small Claims Court. Naturally, he wasn’t very impressed at first, because the maximum claim there is five hundred dollars, but then I pointed out the nuisance value of separate claims against him, the company, his wholesaling subsidiary, his wife as partner in the business, and I forget what else. He found it easier to pay off.”

  “Marvelous!” Scott laughed.

  Hilary tossed it off. “Nothing marvelous about displaying a little intelligence. Anyway, if everyone here at Trim-Tram really detests Sid Goetz, then the only way he could get someone to spy for him is to get hold of a person with real money needs.”

  “Or somebody he could blackmail,” I added. She ignored me, as usual.

  “Now,” Hilary continued, with somewhat heavier emphasis, “whose motive could possibly have been so strong? Saxon claims he doesn’t need any money. That can be checked. Abel here is always in debt, according to you, Scott. Then there’s Tom Lasker—but why would he jeopardize a new executive job? That’s the thing that doesn’t make any sense about him being the spy. And he especially wouldn’t want to damage his company, not after he’d bought up all that precious Trim-Tram stock from—”

  Well, she insists she’d been leading up to it, but I have my doubts. Up to then, Hilary had been leaning back in her chair, staring at the ceiling and ignoring us. So when Harrison suddenly blurted something out, I think it was a pure impromptu that she quickly sat up straight and fixed him with a penetrating stare.

  “What did Tom Lasker say he wasn’t going to tell me?” she snapped, scaring the little man half to death. “What did he say to you?”

  She got no reply, because Harrison was too busy moaning that Lasker had broken his word. But Scott took over at that point.

  “Abel,” he shouted, “just how many shares did you sell to Tom Lasker?”

  He had to repeat the question before his brother-in-law would answer. And when he did, Scott slowly sank back into his seat, looking very sick. His lips soundlessly reshaped the words: “How many?”

  “Twelve hundred shares. But I couldn’t help it, Scott! I really had a desperate need for cash. Tom offered to buy as much of my stock as I was willing to sell—”

  “Never mind that,” Hilary said softly. “I don’t even want to know why you needed the money, Abel, gambling debts or anything else. The important question is where did Lasker get enough money to buy twelve hundred shares?”

  The question weighed heavily in the silent room.

  Finally, Hilary spoke once more. “Just tell me one thing, Abel. When did this stock sale take place? Before or after your key disappeared?”

  “A little afterwards, I think.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Yes.”

  “Who else knew about the sale?”

  “Well,” Harrison mused, “I think everyone knew I was trying to get rid of a few shares to pay some debts. Nobody knew how many.”

  “All right,” Hilary said, nodding her head. “I think we had better talk to Lasker again.” She sounded grim.

  But when Scott punched the intercom and asked to speak with Lasker, we learned the operations VP was not in his office. “Call me back when you find out where he is,” Scott told the switchboard operator.

  “Well, sir,” the operator replied, “I saw him leave the building several minutes ago.”

  “What?”

  Hilary strode over to the desk, snatched up the phone, and dialed the parking lot attendant’s extension. Yes, the attendant told her, Mr. Lasker had just gotten into his car a little while ago and was apparently driving toward the city. And he was going very fast.

  As Hilary cradled the phone, Harrison timidly asked her whether she needed him any longer; when she shook her head, the little VP lost no time in extracting himself from his brother-in-law’s presence.

  Now if it had been up to me, we would have made our exit hard upon Harrison’s heels. I would have dashed out to the Trim-Tram parking lot, hopped in Hilary’s Opel, and driven like hell for The Toy Center, figuring Tom Lasker was on his way there to make good his threats against Sid Goetz.

  But Hilary and Scott just sat for a moment—he impatiently, she with unruffled calm. It would have been nice if she’d given us some hint as to the direction of her thoughts, but all she did was her nails ... which surprised me, because she usually abominates such feminine activities in public. (Once I saw her putting on lipstick at her desk, and I think she was more embarrassed than she was that morning when she’d bounced out of bed in the buff.)

  Anyway, she just sat there, running the tip of the nail file between the finger and nail of one digit. Scott tried to stay patient for a while, but at length, he lost control.

  “Damn it, Hilary,” he finally said, exasperated, “don’t just sit there! Say something!”

  She stared at him as if he were a mosquito disturbing her sleep. “What are you waiting for me to say?”

  “Whether Tom is the spy or not.”

  She shrugged. “Possibly. I have to think about it some more.”

  “He knew he was supposed to stick around for further questioning. Why did he run off like that?”

  “Any of a number of reasons, not all of them sinister,” Hilary said. “He may have forgotten to turn off the stove.”

  “Well, you’d better chase over to FAB and see if you can track him down. I’ll bet he’s headed for Goetz Sales.”

  That’s what I thought, too, but it failed to spark Hilary’s interest.

  “What if he is, Scott? If he’s the spy, he’s given himself away, because you can always find out from Harry Whelan whether Lasker showed up this morning. Or if he’s just on his way to beat up Goetz, then he’s performing a service. So why rush over there?” She put the nail file away and stood up. “Right now, if I can sit by myself for a few minutes with a pencil and paper, I want to draw those charts; I’ve got a notion of what happened here, but I want to see it on paper before I make any accusations.”

  Scott shook his head. “Not now, Hilary. I definitely want you to ge
t on over to Goetz Sales.”

  “I just told you—” she began testily, but he waved his hand slightly to cut her off.

  “No, not just to check on Tom Lasker. I’ve got another important job I want done.”

  She looked at him for a few seconds, then shook her head energetically.

  “No, Scott! No way—absolutely not!”

  “But, Hilary, you’ve already stood up to Goetz! You can probably work out a better deal than any Trim-Tram executive, and that includes our lawyers. You understand Sid’s psychology.”

  She chose to ignore the dubious compliment, merely pointing out that she was supposed to be handling PR for Trim-Tram. “I don’t mind taking some time out for a little ratiocination, but I am not a one-woman arbitration committee!”

  Scott pleaded with her, explaining that any deal between Goetz and Trim-Tram would have to be formally concluded via contracts, attorneys, the whole schmeer. “All I’m asking is that you give Sid an initial scare, and get the crook to agree to the lowest percentage you can manage. Start insultingly low, but don’t go above, say, nine or ten per cent. You can do it, Hilary, I know it! Besides,” he turned to me, “you have a certain amount of muscular persuasion on your side.”

  I thanked him rather drily for the compliment. Hilary just grimaced.

  8

  WHEN I PICKED THOSE Scrabble tiles out of Sid Goetz’s dead fist, I started to worry. But when Hilary instructed me not to phone the police, I really began to ask myself just what I actually knew about her.

  The background I could fill in well enough, because I make it a point to find out such things. In PR work, you’re only as valuable as the cordial contacts you can make with the members of the press; so, shortly after she hired me, Hilary suggested I take our various reporters and editors to lunch, just to get acquainted.

  I used such occasions to dig for data on my employer. And one bit of information proved interesting: it seems Hilary Quayle’s father is a fairly well-known private investigator in Manhattan.

  Now I said earlier that Hilary has a frustrated desire to be a detective, God knows why! But she’s not likely to realize her ambition, at least not in New York State, and she blames her father for it. There’s a three-year apprenticeship requirement in the state licensing code for private investigators, and—according to Dave Barr, Hilary’s favorite trade editor—no one was willing to hire her, when she was younger, as a distaff operative. So she turned to her old man, asking him to let her work under him. And he refused.