“He wouldn’t be unique in that respect.” Nick slid behind the wheel of his car. “You must know the authorities are reluctant to move against any religion, no matter how shady its financial operations.”
“That’s why it’s up to the press to do it,” she argued.
“All I can say is good luck.” He gave her a smile and pulled away.
Gloria was in the little garden at the rear of their house, planting marigold seeds, when Nick returned home. She brushed the dirt from her hands and stood up as he came into view. “How’d it go with your client?”
“About as usual. He’s a banker. I took your advice and raised my fee to twenty-five thousand.”
“I should think so! Is it a dangerous assignment, Nicky?”
“Shouldn’t be. Just a routine thing.”
Since she’d discovered the true nature of his business Gloria never asked too many questions. But she needed occasional reassurance that he wasn’t tempting fate too much. “I’ve started on the garden. It was such a nice day I couldn’t stay inside.”
“Good idea.”
He went in and checked the mail, finding nothing but the usual assortment of ads and bills. One envelope contained a slim catalogue from Star Security Systems. It was part of his job to keep abreast of the latest advances in locks and burglar alarms, and he’d arranged to receive several such mailings. He paused now at a page showing doors and gates on parking areas which could be opened by inserting a magnetized card in a slot. Nick tugged at his lower lip as he read the page. Then he went to the telephone and direct-dialed the New Jersey number that appeared on the catalogue cover.
Nick asked for the sales manager and identified himself with the false name he’d used before. “I was looking over your catalogue, especially some of the new locks that work with magnetic cards and such.”
“They’re very popular items,” the sales manager said.
“I seem to remember reading something about an electronic lock that could be opened only by a fingerprint. Is such a thing possible?”
“Oh, certainly. A signature, a fingerprint. It’s simply a matter of the scanner matching two images. As a matter of fact, a fingerprint match works better than a signature because no one ever signs their name exactly the same way. They have to carry a card with the key signature on it, and that negates the security aspect.”
“Do you manufacture fingerprint locking devices?”
“No, they’re out of our line and terribly expensive. But I can give you the name of a Toronto firm that’s had some experience with them. It’s late in the day but you might catch someone there.”
It took Nick another half hour and three more phone calls to come up with the information he wanted. Yes, a fingerprint-activated locking device had been sold to First City Savings Bank in New York. That was all the information they could release, but it was enough for Nick. In the morning he would call on Philip Norton once more.
The banker was pleased to see him the following day and came right to the point. “Did you recover my ashtray?”
“No,” Nick responded. “But I know why it was stolen.”
Norton eyed him suspiciously. “You do?”
“You said yesterday you usually fiddled with it while you talked. Parson Maybee would have noticed your fingers on the smooth glass of the ashtray. He stole it for your fingerprints.”
“My—”
“You have something in this building — a door or a vault lock — that can be electronically opened only with your fingerprints.”
The banker’s face turned ashen. “How do you know that?”
“It’s my business to know. You hired me, didn’t you?”
“I hired you to get back an ashtray. You have no business snooping into this bank’s security system.”
“I doubt if the bank’s vaults would be controlled by a lock that required your presence each time they were opened. More likely it’s a private safe or strongroom for your own use. In a new building as large as this one, almost anything could have been built into it.”
Philip Norton placed his hands flat on the desk. “Very well, Mr. Velvet. That will be enough. I no longer need your services.”
“But I haven’t recovered your ashtray.”
“You will cease all efforts on my behalf. Kindly submit an invoice covering your time since yesterday.”
“I don’t charge by the hour, Mr. Norton.”
“Make whatever arrangements you want. But you’re no longer in my employ.”
Nick left the building, sorry he’d allowed himself to be so frank with the man. He stood on Lexington Avenue, watching the flow of traffic, wondering what to do next. Obviously he’d been fired by Norton because he mentioned the strongroom with its lock that opened by fingerprints. Norton feared that knowledge, perhaps even feared Nick would use the ashtray to his own advantage if he recovered it.
But Nick wasn’t being sidetracked that easily. He’d been hired to steal the banker’s ashtray and he intended to do it.
He waited till Sunday morning, when Parson Felix Maybee was busy conducting services for a handful of the faithful in a small rented hall down the street from the church’s headquarters. Then Nick went to work, entering the back door of the headquarters building with an ease that showed the parson was not on Star Security Systems’ mailing list.
He went quickly to the upper office and began to search. There was nothing in the closet but a filing cabinet full of mailing lists. The desk contained only one surprise — a.38 caliber revolver nestled in the bottom drawer. Nick could hardly have been more startled if he’d found a Bible there.
Finally, after fifteen minutes of frustrating search, Nick stood in the center of the office and turned slowly around. Since Parson Maybee had personally stolen the ashtray Nick felt he’d have hidden it in his private office rather than elsewhere in the building. Downstairs any of his workers or congregation might come upon it. Up here it would be reasonably safe. Still, Maybee was the sort who’d want to keep his eye on it every minute. An ashtray could be hidden in plain sight most places, but not in the office of a parson opposed to smoking. Here something more subtle was called for.
Then he noticed the tropical fish tank once more.
He walked over to it and peered through the glass and water. Then he reached down among the colorful fish and there it was.
Philip Norton’s solid glass ashtray, upside down at the bottom of a tropical fish tank. All but invisible.
Nick carefully lifted it out and wiped it off. It was too big for his pocket, so he slipped it inside a folded section of the Sunday newspaper which he nestled beneath his arm. He left the building the way he’d come in, carefully relocking the door behind him.
When he got back to where he’d parked his car he recognized a familiar truck in front of him. The Channel 6 news team, on the job. “Hello, there,” Lawn Larson called out, catching sight of him. “Come out to hear the parson’s Sunday sermon?”
“Not especially.”
“You should have caught it. He’s gone legit.”
“How do you mean?”
“He just announced to the congregation that First City Savings has approved a half-million dollar loan for a new church.”
Nick went down to the bank again on Monday morning, carrying the glass ashtray in his briefcase and looking for all the world like one of the vice-presidents. Philip Norton’s secretary first said he’d be tied up with meetings all day, but Nick was persistent. “Tell him I have something very important which can only be given to him personally.”
She spoke to Norton on the phone and turned back to Nick. “He can see you in fifteen minutes.”