He moved close to her. “Then how much can I trust you, Gria?”
“All the way, Ryan. All the way... forever.”
He studied her. She could be loyal. She could fight. “Listen hard then, and remember. Remember this address. XYZ Novelty Company. Box 1200. Washington, D. C. Repeat that. Again. Good. Get an airmail special off to that address. All you have to say is that Kestrick is being held here on false charges and requests assistance. You don’t even have to sign your name.”
“But—”
“Just do it, honey. That’s all you have to do. But I’ll tell you one thing. To be fair, I’ll tell you. It might turn out that when the dust dies down, one Sam Baidee could be the man on the inside, instead of me.”
Her eyes narrowed. “Would that be bad?”
“You’re the one to answer that.”
The turnkey called down the corridor, “You’re wanted on the phone, Miss Baidee. Right away.”
He folded his hand over hers and said, very softly, “Good girl...”
The young lawyer was casual, businesslike. “Well, we’ll have to get you out on bail, Mr. Kestrick. I’m positive that it won’t be set so high that your car won’t be ample security for the bond.”
“When am I going to be tried?”
“Four days from now.”
Ryan yawned. “I think I’ll stay right here.”
“But I think you should be released.”
“I like it here.”
“That’s a very strange attitude for you to take.”
“Isn’t it?”
“I must insist that you permit me to make arrangements to have you released.”
“Or you’ll refuse to handle the case?”
“Quite right.”
“Then refuse, lad. I feel that it is safer and healthier in here. Baidee has some reason for wanting me out. So I stay. You’re taking my money and working for him. Not exactly ethical, but I suppose if a young lawyer wants to eat in this town, he has to pick up some nasty habits.”
The lawyer flushed and then turned pale. “I don’t understand you. You’re in a very bad position. You refuse to plead guilty as I have advised you, and you refuse to let me look out for your interests. I can almost guarantee a suspended sentence and no more than one-year probation if you plead guilty.”
“You boys really have this thing sewed up, don’t you?”
The lawyer lowered his voice. “How stupid can a man get?”
“Everybody is giving me advice. What’s yours?”
“If you plead guilty maybe other evidence won’t be brought up.”
Ryan sat up on the bunk. “What other evidence, Greer?”
“The unlicensed automatic in your suitcase.”
“Unlicensed? How interesting?”
“You may think it was licensed. It may turn out that it isn’t.”
Ryan smiled. “You, Greer, are a blundering little punk. You’re playing bad man with all the other bad men. If you keep on this way, I’m going to have to laugh in your face and then your feelings will be hurt. Go away, please...”
The cell door was unlocked in midmorning of the next day. A florid, white-haired man with tiny bright blue eyes and thick shoulders came in, smiling.
“How do you do, Kestrick. I’m Sam Baidee. Things seem to have gotten a little out of hand while I was looking the other way.” Baidee sat down on the edge of the bunk and smiled. He looked like a shaven Santa. Ryan leaned against the concrete wall by the window, his hands in his pockets.
Baidee waited, then continued. “Rolph Essta becomes a bit too hasty sometimes.”
“He certainly is.”
“No hard feelings?”
Ryan shrugged. “I’m not mad.”
“Then we’ll forget the whole incident. Please consider yourself the guest of the hotel for the rest of your stay.”
“You’re a smart man, Baidee. Smarter than your little friends.”
Baidee smiled broadly. “I try to avoid trouble.”
“You didn’t try hard enough this time.”
The smile faded. “What does that mean?”
“You came down here because you checked with McCloud and Greer and decided I might be too much of a package to try to railroad. I might have important connections. Now I’m supposed to shrug it off and let you buy me a drink.”
Baidee’s face turned purple. “Watch your mouth, Kestrick.”
“Sometimes people are big shots too long. They get careless. When you let me out of here, Baidee, I’m going to pull your little castle right down around your ears.”
“You’re big enough to do that?”
“I think so. I came down here for a rest. I’ve been working hard for a long time. You’ve annoyed me.”
“The little man can talk big.”
“And back it up.”
Baidee stared at the floor for a long time. His lips were pursed. He spoke at last, in a reasonable tone. “I admit, Kestrick, that you have every right to be unhappy about this. It’s been handled clumsily. And you’re right when you assume that I’m not anxious to find out just how far we can go with you. Rolph is sometimes a fool. It’s only fair to give you some return for this... ah... indignity. Give me the receipt for your personal possessions. I’ll have it corrected at the desk. They counted your cash wrong. You had a thousand dollars more than you thought you had.”
“Would you go for five?”
“That’s a lot of money.”
“One slot machine, quarter variety, will return that in a year in a good spot.”
“Since you put it that way, Kestrick, I might be able to—”
“Thank you, no. Not for five or ten or fifty. I just wanted to see how uneasy you are about this stew of Rolph Essta.”
Baidee sighed. “I find idealists pretty dull, frankly.”
“So I guess I stay right here, eh?”
Baidee stood up. “I guess you do. I have to protect myself, in any way that I can. If I have to have you killed, I can arrange that, too. I’m not being melodramatic.”
“I’ll give you that much.”
Baidee stepped outside the cell. He frowned as he turned and looked at Ryan. “My daughter gave me some interesting information, Kestrick. I’ve been wondering ever since just what the XYZ Novelty Company might be.”
He walked away. For the first time Ryan felt disturbed. He felt uneasy. No one knew where he was. It began to look as though Baidee might be able to arrange it. The wrong guess about Gria shook him. He was seldom as wrong about a person. The instability had outweighed her loyalty to him. Or else her loyalty to her father had been stronger than he had imagined.
It all required a revision of plan. The Baidee Comic Opera Association was no longer quite as comic as in the beginning. He had no doubt that he would come to trial and be convicted. And he had no doubt of his ability to escape after the conviction. He had, through his training, evolved three good methods of escape from this particular cell. It was most odd to find this little citadel of amateur fascism in his own country.
And it was at that moment that he decided his future. He decided to accept the offer of that peculiar and particular agency in Washington that had informed him, through devious channels, that they could put to use his experience in war and post-war espionage. Ryan Kestrick had felt, in the beginning, when the offer had first been received, that domestic police work would be dull. Now he began to realize that it could not only be exciting, but quite constructive.
The high desk of the judge was at the end of the narrow courtroom. The spectators were behind a semi-circular railing at the judge’s right, the jury behind a smaller railing at his left. The witness chair, with no railing in front of it, was on a small raised dais between judge and jury. The long table in the center of the court room accommodated both defense and prosecution.
Ryan was amused at the tactic which had prevented his shaving for the past three days. He imagined that he looked thoroughly desperate.