“Why, of course.”
“All right,” said Peabody, “make it out — but wait a minute.”
Johnny yawned and leaned his elbow on the desk. Across the lobby, Eddie Miller was watching him, like a ferret peering down a rathole.
Mr. Peabody stepped into his office, behind the desk. He closed the door.
“He’s calling the bank,” Sam exclaimed to Johnny.
“Naturally.”
“He’ll find out, Johnny.”
“Natch.”
“But we ain’t got any money in that bank — not there or in any other bank.”
“Are you sure, Sam? I’m under the impression that we have accounts in three different banks.”
“Aw, cut it out, Johnny!”
Mr. Peabody came out of his office, his face rather red. “You just started that account this afternoon.”
“That’s what I said.”
Mr. Peabody picked up the check that Johnny had made out. He looked at it, snapped the paper, half expecting it to stretch, then shaking his head and mumbling under his breath, he stepped to the cash drawer. He gave Johnny seventy-five dollars and thirty-five cents.
“You realize, of course, Mr. Fletcher,” he said, “that I told my friend not to permit you to withdraw your account until this check is cleared.”
“From you, Mr. Peabody,” Johnny said, pleasantly, “I expected that.”
He picked up his money and turned away from the desk. He continued counting the money, all the way through the lobby — for Eddie Miller’s benefit.
As soon as they had gone through the revolving door, onto the sidewalk, Sam gripped Johnny’s arm. “Johnny — where’d you get the roll?”
“I raised it.”
“Yeah — but how...?”
“Do you really want to know?”
Sam looked into Johnny’s rather grim face and suddenly shook his head. “No, no, I guess I’d rather not know. I worry.” He cleared his throat. “Will there be cops around?”
“No,” said Johnny. But under his breath, he added, “If I don’t break a leg tomorrow.”
Chapter Nine
There was a big phonograph store on Seventh Avenue. Johnny and Sam entered and were met by a suave salesman. “Like to see one of your console models,” Johnny said pleasantly.
The salesman led them to a mahogany machine. “Here’s one of the best instruments on the market — it’s a high frequency model with long and short wave bands and the finest tone it has ever been your pleasure to hear.”
“Will it play a phonograph record?” Johnny asked.
The salesman smiled at Johnny’s apparent flippancy. “My dear sir, this is the ultimate — the machine of tomorrow. It sells for twelve hundred dollars.”
“That much? Mmm. Could I hear it?”
“Of course. The same machine is in this booth here. What would you like to hear?”
“Oh, something with violins, Beethoven, or perhaps Rachmaninoff — no, no, Tschaikowsky...”
The salesman smiled vacantly, led them to the booth, then went out. Sam snorted.
“Twelve hundred dollars, Johnny! Please...!”
“I like a good tone with long and short wave bands, Sam.”
The salesman returned with a handful of records. Johnny took them. “Mind if I play them? After all, I’ve got to learn how to operate it myself.”
“If you wish, sir. I’ll be out in the showroom.”
The salesman went out.
Johnny removed the Con Carson recording from between the pages of his magazine and placed it on the twelve hundred dollar machine. He flicked a switch or two and the phonograph arm came down on the record.
Sam seated himself on a leather-covered chair and relaxed to enjoy the latest — and last Con Carson recording. A voice Johnny had heard too many times began moaning about the glorious moon on the desert. The lyrics were silly, the melody moved Johnny not at all and the voice, well, a hundred million people had gone wild over Con Carson, so it was probably Johnny who was wrong.
Sam exclaimed in ecstasy.
“That guy sure sends me!”
“He makes me sick, too,” Johnny said, in disgust. “As an authority on the late, great moaner, Sam, would you say this piece of caterwauling was up to his usual standard?”
“One of the best songs he ever sung,” Sam said, fervently.
“In the groove, eh?”
“And how!”
The song came to an end and the needle began scratching. Johnny stepped to the machine and saw the needle was only halfway down the record. Then the record started playing again — a reprise of Moon on the Desert.
Johnny reached to shut off the machine, then with his finger on the switch, stopped. Carson was warbling Moon on the Desert, but another voice had cut into his song, a voice that spoke a single, harsh sentence in a whisper, a passionate whisper. It said: “Damn you, Seebright!”
In spite of the interruption, Con Carson’s voice continued, full and throaty, to the end. Johnny shut off the machine.
“They must have been practicing the second time,” Sam said.
Johnny put the platter back in the Saturday Evening Post and opened the door of the soundproof booth. Immediately, the suave salesman pounced on him.
“A great instrument,” Johnny said.
“Splendid,” agreed the salesman.
“The best I’ve ever heard,” said Johnny. “But what I really came in for, though, was a package of needles.”
“A package of...” the salesman began, then his jaw fell open.
“Needles. You know, the old-fashioned kind, a hundred for a dime.”
The salesman was attacked by a choleric fit of coughing. “Okay,” said Johnny, “if you don’t want my trade I’ll take it elsewhere.” He headed for the door, Sam dancing along beside him, anxious to get out before the salesman could recover.
Outside, Johnny looked down Seventh Avenue. A big clock on the next corner read four-fifty. On a sudden impulse he thrust the magazine containing the record at Sam. “Guard this with your life, Sam,” he said.
“Where you going?” Sam asked in surprise.
“I’m gonna buy a girl a drink.” He thrust a hand into his pocket, whipped out money and handed a couple of bills to Sam. “I’ll be back in an hour or two. Don’t let that record out of your hands — understand...?”
“Yeah, but...”
Johnny popped across the sidewalk to a taxicab parked at the curb, tore open the door and stepped inside. “Lexington and Forty-second,” he told the driver, “and whip up the horses...”
“This time of the day?” sneered the cabby. “You’d go quicker walking across town.”
Nevertheless he made a fast U turn and scooted into the eastbound one-way crosstown street. He roared through to Sixth Avenue — beg pardon, Avenue of the Americas — and got caught by the lights. Five minutes later he was still stalled at Fifth Avenue. When he finally got through and then became tangled at Madison Avenue, Johnny threw a crumpled dollar bill at the driver and got out of the cab.
It was ten minutes after five when he entered the big building on Forty-second Street. He headed for an elevator, stepped inside, then leaped out again as he saw the receptionist of the Mariota Record Company walk past the elevator, having apparently just come out of the adjoining elevator.
There was a man with her, a sleek, smooth man wearing a two hundred dollar suit. There was a fresh carnation in the lapel buttonhole.
“Darling!” Johnny cried. “I almost missed you.”
The receptionist whirled, started to give Johnny the freeze, then changed her mind. “Well,” she said, “it’s you again!”
“In person, sweetheart. And I’m going to buy you a drink before you crawl down into your cozy little Lexington Avenue local.”