Miss Follet had returned to her desk. The sunlight slanting into the wide office made the fashionable sequins beaded on her shirtwaist glitter like diamonds. She had long since dismissed Cathy Darrow, sending the girl off with a literal ton of material to transcribe.
The telephone on the desk rang about two o’clock. She picked it up and cradled it to her immaculate ear. Miss Follet always wore her silver-tinted hair in a stylish coiffure that augmented her career woman appearance.
“Yes?”
“Outside call, Miss Follet. Mr. Seven.”
She frowned. “I’ll take the call.”
In a moment, David Seven’s breezy tone filled the wire.
“Miss Follet?”
“Why aren’t you using your transmitter device, Mr. Seven? Is something wrong?”
“Ah, you have me there. Fact is, I was caught without my devices this morning when Mr. Farmer called me. No matter. I’ve scrambled this phone box with a screamer so it’s okay.” The ‘screamer’ was a coin-sized blob of metal which would make their conversation unintelligible should anyone cut in on the call. “I wanted to make a report on the Baroda business.”
“Go ahead. But first — please give me today’s password.”
He restrained a chuckle, knowing how she felt about his own speaking voice. It was easy to mimic, she was fond of reminding him, so she had set up a daily set of odd words to keep the enemy baffled. And him — on his toes.
“Supercallafragilisticexpialadocious. No more like that, please.”
“Never mind. Go on.”
He told her all that had happened, skipping the coffee routine in the Mayflower. That could keep until later. No sense in worrying her, not that she ever let her hair down. But he knew how fond she was also of her subordinates. As well as her fine record.
Miss Follet seemed pleased with his report.
“Stay with it then. Hope you find it.”
“How’s Baroda?”
Miss Follet smiled to herself, in memory, of a deceit that had worked. One could usually bank on the credulity of the enemy where scruples were concerned.
“Tell Mr. Farmer that his conjecture was correct. The microfilm is on the premises as he thought. Mr. Baroda finally surrendered the information willingly.”
“What — how did you get him to talk?”
“Feminine psychology, Mr. Seven. I made him think I was going to shoot him. In his horror, he told everything.”
David Seven chuckled. “You’re a caution.”
“You be the same. Is that all?”
“Yes. I’ll get back to you. Meanwhile, my very best to Miss Harrow.”
“Miss Darrow will be too busy typing all day to receive your best wishes. Keep your mind on your job, Mr. Seven.”
“Yes, Miss Follet.”
When he hung up, he was laughing, knowing what fun he got out of needling the cool clear-eyed head of INTREX. She would never be a woman to him because she had buried her soft side forever with the man who had been her husband and the girl who had been her daughter. Still, it wasn’t right for such a lovely woman to be asexual. It went against the grain, being such a waste of delectable woman power. Now, Cathy Darrow was a different case entirely—
Grimly, he forgot about Cathy and got his mind back to the business at hand. Sam was right about that, blast her. Good agents, the live ones at any rate, always minded the store. That way they never pushed up daisies in some dirty abandoned field.
But he was still chuckling to himself as he stepped out of the elevator on the fourth floor. He rounded the bend — and stopped laughing. His hand streaked for his shoulder holster but he was about ten seconds too late.
The man standing behind Miles Running Bear Farmer had a dark, snout nosed pistol pressed to the temple of Miles’ impassive face. It was apparent from the frozen tableau of the encounter that the man with the gun had just put in an appearance.
“Stand still,” the man hissed. “The only reason you are alive is that I have suddenly realized that you can help me. After all, there are so many cartons inside.” He gestured with a free hand toward the door with the sign on it. “So many boxes and I do not know exactly in which one my colleague placed the microfilm. Don’t make a sound. I have a key for the door and in a moment, we will have a quiet little time of it.”
“I could yell for help,” Seven said softly.
“I don’t think so,” the man said. His face was dim and not too clear in the gloom of the hall. He moved to the door, drawing Miles with him, a shining, new key jutting from his free hand. He inserted it in the lock.
“Why not?”
“You like your friend too much to do that.”
“How right you are,” David Seven sighed and raised both his arms, watching the stranger with the gun open the door to Santesson’s office.
New York, New York. A wonderful town.
They were being hijacked in broad daylight, with other offices within spitting distance, and not one person was abroad in the hall or needed the men’s room. Wasn’t that always the way?
It all happened so fast. The three of them, Miles, the stranger and Seven were inside the deserted office within seconds. The door closed on the lock, the stranger pushed Miles Running Bear Farmer forward and wagged the snout-nosed pistol menacingly.
“Good,” he growled. “Very good. We shall have the place to ourselves. What fun.”
He didn’t look like the fun-loving type. Besides the ominous gun, his eyes were like glass; Black, glittering opaques of cruelty and meanness. The texture of his face was pitted and ugly. Not the sort of face one would like to spend any time with.
His attire was meaningless and drab. A Henry Higgins hat was pulled down over his forehead; the one incongruous note in his appearance. The hat was so amiable and gay; he was so contrastingly opposite that effect.
“Now,” said the man with the gun. “Let us see. Where shall we begin?”
It was a good question, and it hung unanswered by either Seven or Miles Running Bear Farmer.
The office, for that was all it was, one large wide room, was a veritable warehouse of boxes, cartons, barrels and packages. All tied with string and gummed with tape.
The owners hadn’t done a lick of unwrapping yet.
From floor to ceiling, to either side of the floor space, the ceiling overflowed with cartons and containers in which had been stored all that might make up the editorial and reference inventory of a magazine. Some of the containers were marked with a. shipping pen, denoting what was stored inside. Some were not marked at all. One wouldn’t know where to begin unless one was the gentleman who had designated the boxes in the very first place. Six high multi-shelved bookcases lined the Walls, suggesting where the books, at least, would eventually wind up.
There was a plain, unvarnished desk by an unshaded window that overlooked Forty Second Street. One could see the offices of the building across the way, with many people moving back and forth.
“I shall put the gun in my pocket,” the man said in a dry flat voice. “It will still be covering you. Pray begin.”
David Seven stared at him coldly.
“Where would you suggest, friend?”
“Select a carton at random,” the man purred, without humor. “One is as good as another.”
“Sure,” Farmer cracked wise. “Eeenie, meenie, minie moe.”
“Which one’s Moe?” Seven asked in all seriousness.
“That one,” Farmer said, pointing at a particularly bulging carton on the outer edges of the stacked mass. “Note the pawnbroker’s fullness of the box—”
“Stop it,” the man rasped, his voice rising in anger. “Begin somewhere and stop this foolishness. It should not be so bad — the item would be at the top of whichever box it is in. Baroda did not have time to dig too deep.”