“Sure. I can find that out all right.”
“Okey. Now if she decides to go into the competition, let me know’ here at this rooming-house. The telephone number is Plaza 6-7931. You can simply ask for Mr. Richey and they’ll put me on the line. I’ve already got the girl spotted so that I won’t need you to point her out.”
“You want to know right away?” asked Helen Vail.
“Just as soon as you can find out.”
“Okey, I’ll call you back.”
Corning had dinner, read the evening newspapers, and was sitting in silent concentration, staring at the curling smoke from his cigarette, when there was a knock at the door. He opened it, and encountered the laughing blue eyes of a twenty-five-year-old blonde, who said, all in one breath: “I didn’t delay any, but came right over just as soon as Helen told me that you had a job for me.”
“Come in,” Corning told her.
She walked into the room, sat down on the chair which he placed for her, and watched him with eyes that were no longer smiling, but were keenly attentive.
“What is it you want?” she asked.
“Can you shoot a gun?” Corning inquired.
“Just a little bit. I could probably kill a husband if I had to, but I couldn’t hit any smaller game.”
Corning reached for his hat.
“All right,” he said, “you’re going out and learn.”
He took her to several shooting galleries, giving her instructions in the holding of the rifle. Then he took her to Ted Fuller’s shooting gallery.
“This,” he said, “is Marian Sharpe, the woman who’s going to win the contest tomorrow night.”
Ted Fuller’s bright eyes surveyed the young woman in swift appraisal.
“Let’s see you shoot,” he said.
“Nix on that noise,” Corning told him. “She can hit the backstop and that’s all that counts.”
“It’s going to look like a fake,” Fuller said. “A good shot can tell by the way a person holds a gun whether they’re holding on a target or not. Then, the paper target always makes a little jump away from the back-stop when a bullet hits it...”
“What the hell do I care how raw a deal it is, or what it looks like?” said Corning. “Let the loser squawk all she wants to. I’m going to get the publicity, ain’t I?”
Fuller shrugged his shoulders.
“I was just telling you, brother,” he said.
“All right,” Corning said, “I don’t want you to tell me anything. All I want you to do is listen.”
“Go ahead,” Fuller told him, “I’m listening.”
“We’re going to fake up a couple of targets right now,” Corning said. “Straight bulls’-eyes. Six shots and six dead centers for the target we use in the finals, and not quite so good a group in the one that represents the qualifying shoot.”
“Listen, brother,” Fuller said, “you’ve got to fix the thing up so it doesn’t look quite so phoney; otherwise...”
“I thought you were listening,” Corning said.
“I am,” Fuller replied, “but you’ll be listening about this time tomorrow night.”
Ken Corning picked up a rifle.
“Put up a couple of targets,” he said. “I want to fix up the fakes, and put ‘em good and close. I don’t want to waste shots.”
It was nine thirty when Mary Bagley came into the shooting gallery of Ted Fuller.
“This the place where the contest is going on?” she asked, taking a newspaper clipping from her purse.
Fuller nodded. “Meet Mr. Richey,” he said, “the guy who’s running the show.”
Ken Corning stepped forward and bowed. “You wish to enter as a contestant?” he asked.
She nodded.
“Fill out this blank,” said Corning, handing her a printed blank and a pencil.
Mary Bagley filled in her name, address, occupation, and looked at Ken Corning with cold, hard eyes.
“Is this on the up-and-up?” she asked.
“Sure it’s on the up-and-up,” he said.
“And there’s a cash prize of one hundred dollars?”
“That’s right,” Corning told her. “And a loving cup.”
“I’m not so strong for the loving cup,” she said, “but I can use the hundred.”
“All you’ve got to do to get it, is to win,” Corning said. “Just sign the application blank showing that you’re to be governed by the rules of the contest, as established by the manager.”
“What are the rules?” she wanted to know.
“Simply that you shoot a qualifying target any time between now and eleven o’clock tonight. At eleven o’clock, the two best targets are picked out, and there’s a final test in which six shots are fired by each contestant. Then the prize is awarded.”
“Now listen,” she told him, “if I shoot in this thing, I’m likely to win, so I don’t want any misunderstandings.”
“There won’t be,” said Corning, handing her a gun. “If you don’t make a certain score, you have to pay for your own shots. If you go above that score, I pay for the shots.”
The girl picked up a rifle, squinted down the sights, raised and lowered the hammer in order to get the pull of the trigger.
“Any practice shots?” she asked,
“No practice shots,” he told her.
“All right, put up the target.”
Ted Fuller clipped a pasteboard target on the carrier, looked at Corning significantly, and by a swift tip of his wrist, sent the target down the long, dark tunnel, until it finally came to rest against the back-stop, with a diffused electric light showing the target in bright illumination.
The gun snapped to the girl’s shoulder. She shot with both eyes open. The six shots came belching forth from the gun in rapid succession She laid down the gun and turned to Corning.
“All right,” she said, “pay for the shots.”
Fuller pulled on the carrier wire, which started the target fluttering back towards them.
“Wait until I see the target,” Corning said.
Fuller held up his hand, caught the target as it came along the ware, gave it a single swift glance, then turned to Corning and grinned.
“Pay for the shots,” he said.
Ken Corning flipped a coin on the counter.
The girl looked at her wrist-watch.
“The final is at eleven o’clock?” she asked.
“That’s right,” Corning told her.
“I’ll be back,” she said.
A crowd of curious spectators that had formed in a semi-circle around the back of the shooting gallery opened to let the girl through as she went out.
Ted Fuller moved over towards Ken Corning, handed him the target.
“You’re going to have trouble,” he said, out of the side of his mouth.
Ken Corning said nothing, but slipped the target into the pile of targets.
The crowd grew in size.
Two uniformed policemen appeared to hold them in line. Fuller did a rushing business in between times, the gallery echoing to the sound of shots. Toward eleven o’clock another policeman appeared. The three officers kept the crowd back.
At ten fifty-five, Mary Bagley returned to the gallery.
“Who shoots off the finals?” she asked.
“We don’t know yet,” Corning told her. “It isn’t eleven. Somebody may show up in the next five minutes.”
Mary Bagley shrugged her shoulders.
“I don’t know who I’m going to shoot against,” she said, “but I’m going to be in at the finals.”
Corning stood with his watch in his hand. At precisely eleven o’clock he slipped it back into his pocket.
“All right,” he said, “pick out the two best targets, Fuller.”
Ted Fuller’s thin, restless hands pawed through the pile of targets. In the background, five or six young women with blonde hair, and of various ages and sizes, surveyed each other with silent hostility. Back of them surged the crowd of spectators.