“I’m not in any other line of work, Sergeant,” said The Quick Red Fox with more restraint than he felt. “At my work I’m the best there is. I won’t be caught.”
“I caught you once,” McSween said with tactless pride.
“You didn’t catch me, you ox. You made a lucky guess on number 27, back when I was still learning the trade, and Jesse was too dumb to cover up. He’s as loyal as Tonto, that Jesse, but stupid as the Great Horse Silver.”
McSween blinked, poked his head from behind the glass partition, and looked toward the front door. There was no one in sight. Jesse was probably still arguing with the blind junkie about the meaning of justice as applied to a maverick typewriter. “Okay, Billy. Enough small talk. Pass me the goodies.”
Claiburne pulled six ten-dollar bills from his wallet. He coughed bitterly as he counted the cash. “You may be a credit to the force, Alex, but you’re a debit to me.” He shoved the money into McSween’s palm; the sergeant’s fingers closed around it like five live sausages.
“Thanks, Billy. I appreciate the money and the kind words.” His broad smile was guileless. “Remember, this little contribution buys all the help I can give you. I mean it. But watch out. I’m not the whole force. I’m not state, I’m not Federal. When I hear rumors about the brass — guys like Big Matt Garrett — talking about this place, I worry.”
“I’ll bet you do. You want to see that sixty-buck graft keep coming in every month, don’t you?”
The sergeant’s face fell like a basset hound’s. He spit his chewing gum into a coffee-stained wastebasket, hardly noticing the perfection of the shot. “It’s not just that, Billy. I admire you. Every guy in the city needs a little racket of his own, and you got one, a good one. Better than mine, and it takes real nerve. What was today’s hit, 342?”
“341.”
McSween nodded, his bourbon complexion a tinge redder than usual. “Slow down, Billy. You still need to swipe a lot of typewriters before you retire. Frisco can wait a few years for you. Right now you should take your time, take it easy. Let Garrett pick on someone else.”
McSween turned and ambled toward the street, nodding at Jesse, who stood modestly victorious in the center aisle of the store, swaying under the weight of Number 341.
At one minute before three o’clock Bats Masterson, always on schedule, roared into the store like a Kansas whirlwind, alternately puffing on a cheroot and gobbling a hot dog. “Where’s Billy?” he shouted. “Goofing off?” Claiburne stepped out of his cubicle. “Oh, there you are, partner. How’d it go?”
“No problems.”
“An Executive?”
“What else? Practically new.”
“We need two more,” Bats snapped. “The order is for five. Ike Brocius gets restless.”
“I know. I know. By the end of the week, Bats. I’ll have them by then. This damn pressure for delivery is getting me down. It didn’t used to be like this.”
“Tough.” Masterson fingered his black handlebar mustache. A tall sallow hombre in his late thirties, he dressed mod: a black velvet shirt, gold string necktie, tailored fuchsia suit with wide bell-bottoms, and low Western-style boots. “It’s chicken feed,” he muttered. “Five used Executives. The real money’s in Mt. Kisco, in my end of the business, in new typewriters. Even the kids out of secretarial school have to have a new machine.”
“Any problems in Kisco?”
“Any problems?” Bats snorted. “With an operation like mine there’s always problems. No stability any more, Billy. You set the whole thing up, you put an outlaw production gang together, and, zap, it starts falling apart. Stolen parts are cheap but chancy. They fired Jake Clanton from the plant last Friday, my only key molder, the veteran of the force. They caught him with a lunch box full of m’s and commas, the nincompoop. That kind of stuff went out with boop-boop-a-doop. I was trying to line up a replacement for him last night. You can’t build typewriters without keys, pal, and I’m missing enough m’s and commas to print the Sunday Times. Every other part I’ve got.
“So what do I find in Kisco? A dozen Mr. Cleans at the plant. Key-nabbers are harder to get than platen-grabbers. All four guys on the day shift are straight arrows. No hope. One kid on the swing shift seemed like a good bet though, so I bought him a few beers at Vince’s. Turns out he’s an ex-con who’s going straight until the right deal comes along. He served five-to-ten for art theft, so he’s not about to settle for nickel-and-dime stuff. He won’t lift keys and I don’t blame him. It would be a hell of a drop from Paul Klees to typewriter keys.”
“So?”
“So Vince tells me he knows a man who knows a man from Troy, upstate. This man from Troy just got canned for waltzing off with TV picture tubes from GE. But he’s smart, or so Vince says. Just unlucky. The plant will probably hire him if we can get him to Westchester on time. I’m going back tonight to talk to him. I’ve got forty thousand parts sitting up there in Apartment 7-E waiting for assembly. No m’s, no commas, but, hell, I’ve got more nylon gears than the plant ever had at one time.”
“What about Clanton? Are we going to put him on the C&M payroll?”
Masterson shook his head. “No way. He’s got as much mechanical ability as a coyote. Besides, we need keys, not labor. We’ve got to get a parts flow going, Billy. I’ve hired too many assemblers already. They’re sitting around the apartment up there, drinking beer, watching TV, and drawing their salaries. No repair business to speak of. The lazy creeps.”
“Oh, by the way,” Claiburne said, “McSween was in. I gave him the April green. But get this, he told me we might be in for trouble — says that someone at headquarters is onto this place. Says we should watch out.”
Bats glared, his temper rising quickly, visibly, like a Great Plains tornado. He held himself in check for a moment, then came out with a blast. It was predictable. Billy knew how Bats felt about Alex McSween and The Quick Red Fox and the low-grossing used-typewriter business. “You should watch out, you and your used typewriters, hand-signed poems, payoff money, and only fourteen percent of the C&M income. Damn it, Billy, I’m a businessman, a manufacturer, not a two-bit criminal conspirator. I make typewriters by the hundreds. I’m a builder, an empire builder. But you — you’re just — you’re just a bandit, a wheezing, kooky, small-time bandit. How you ever got away with 337—”
“341 today. And without a hitch. Remember, Bats,” he said stiffly, “I’m the man who put this outfit together. It’s C&M, not M&C.”
“It’s Bats that built the business,” said Masterson with a fine sense of alliteration. “I found you, pal, not the other way around. I thought you were an honest but greedy merchant, a good outlet for homemade typewriters. Ha! Wrong on one of two counts. You’re crooked as a sidewinder. But now you’re rich, and it was the Mt. Kisco operation that put both of us into six figures. You know that. Don’t blow it on petty larceny.”
“It’s not petty—”
“Just a figure of speech, Billy. I know it’s grand larceny, twenty thousand a year, all profit. I have to pay my suppliers and assemblers. But watch out. McSween’s a buddy of yours, he’ll look out for you. But he’s never had to warn you before. He thinks you’re some kind of struggling artist in crime, an attic Rembrandt. He should see your bank account.”
“He should see yours.”
“Well, he expects it of me. He thinks I’m a solid Establishment businessman,” Bats said, flicking a hint of lint from his midnight shirt and adjusting a huge emerald on his ring finger. “Which is good. I want you to keep it that way, Billy. Pick your targets.”