Blood on the Mink Read online

  I gave him one cold look that wiped the smugness off his face.

  “Can it, friend,” I said quietly. “Are you going to take me to the Penn Plaza, or do I take a cab?”

  TWO

  The Penn Plaza was a brand new hotel, maybe a year old, on Market a couple of blocks from City Hall. It was all shiny glass and steel, and single rooms began at eighteen bucks a night, and in general it was the sort of place that a Los Angeles man might be expected to stay at.

  I let Klaus’ two thugs drag my suitcases out of the sedan’s trunk and turn them over to a bellhop. Then I said to them, “You tell Klaus he can get in touch with me here. He can try calling any time except between two and ten in the morning. Tell him I’m not available for business meetings until tomorrow.”

  The muscle looked rueful. “Klaus, he was looking forward to a meet with you tonight,” the little one said.

  “I’ll see him tomorrow.”

  I walked into the hotel.

  There were no snags about the reservations Lowney had made. They gave me a nice enough room on the tenth floor. I freshened up and was getting dressed for dinner when the phone rang. I picked it up.

  “Mr. Lowney?”

  “That’s right.”

  “This is Don Minton. I’m Mr. Klaus’ assistant.”

  “What is it, Minton?”

  “The chauffeur tells us you’re not available for a meet tonight. Mr. Klaus is a little disappointed.”

  “Let me talk to him.”

  “I’m sorry, Mr. Lowney. Mr. Klaus is unavailable at the moment. But he asks me to convey to you his regret that no meeting is feasible this evening. He wonders if you’ll reconsider. He had made dinner reservations, you see, and he’s looking forward—”

  “Tell Mr. Klaus,” I said cuttingly, “that Mr. Lowney is busy this evening. You got that?”

  “Yes, Mr. Lowney.” Everything very polite and deferential, but I could feel the anger underneath. “I’ll tell him that. And when do you think a meeting might be arranged, Mr. Lowney?”

  “Say, tomorrow. Tomorrow at six.”

  “Very good, Mr. Lowney. I’ll pick you up at six sharp.”

  “Don’t rush,” I said. “I’m a slow dresser.”

  Minton gave me a frosty little heh-heh-heh and hung up. I got out of the yellow shirt and such, and put on something out of Lowney’s wardrobe. We were practically the same size, which made things very convenient. I took a leisurely glance through his suitcases, but there was nothing there but clothes and stuff, and some spare rounds for the gun he was carrying.

  Around seven, I went down for dinner. The hotel had three or four restaurants, but I picked the most expensive. Hell, it wasn’t my money. And it was in keeping with Lowney’s character, anyway.

  Lowney had a weakness for steak. A relief, that was—if the dossier had mentioned that he ate nothing but lobster, I’d have had to eat lobster, and I hate lobster. But I didn’t mind loading up on steak as part of the act. I put away a pound or so of rare sirloin, prefacing the meal with a couple of vodka martinis and accompanying it with a nice little bottle of wine. California wine, of course. Lowney had a liking for the good life, but he was a patriot at heart. No Châteauneuf-du-Pape for him, just good honest Napa red wine.

  As I left the restaurant, some quail fluttered down toward me. Everything about her shrieked that she was a fancy pro. Gold lamé dress that ended well below the armpits and showed lots of softly rounded pale flesh. Unlikely blonde hair. Full red lips, only slightly too hard. Calculating greenish eyes. “Mr. Lowney?”

  “That’s my name, honey. What can I do for you?”

  “You’ve got it wrong, Mr. Lowney. Maybe I can do something for you,” she murmured huskily.

  Now, the Penn Plaza is a reputable place, and I was sure it didn’t supply floozies for the clientele. I gave her a puzzled look and she explained, “Mr. K. sent me over. He thought you might be lonely, this being a strange town and all.”

  “How thoughtful of him.”

  “We could go to dance for a while,” she said hopefully. “Or maybe a show. And then—”

  Either in or out of character, I couldn’t see very much about this girl that I didn’t find easy to look at. But the deal she was offering didn’t fit in with my plans. Klaus was apparently interested in keeping tabs on me while I was in Philly. If he couldn’t see me himself this first night, he was sending some choice flesh over to make sure I didn’t get out of sight.

  I shook my head, and, believe me, it hurt to do it. “Sorry,” I said.

  “What do you mean, sorry?”

  “I appreciate the offer. But it so happens I’ve got a business appointment tonight. You can tell that to Mr. K.”

  She looked stunned. I guess she wasn’t used to having an offer of free merchandise turned down. “What about afterward?” she purred.

  “Afterward, I sleep,” I said. “I need my rest, baby. You go thank Mr. K. for his consideration. Also tell him I’m engaged elsewhere tonight.” I took a tenspot from my wallet and handed it to her. “Here. This is for your taxi fare home. Maybe we’ll make it some other time, huh?”

  “Yeah. Sure, Mr. Lowney. Whenever you like.” She glided away. I shook my head regretfully. But business came before pleasure, and I wanted to keep Klaus worried. I didn’t want him to get the idea he had any monopoly on my negotiating time while I was in Philadelphia. So I blotted all thought of those appealing snowy hillocks out of my mind, and went downstairs to the lobby.

  Philadelphia is not exactly the most interesting town in the world, but it could be worse. I sauntered out for a little stroll around town. I walked down to Broad, looked in store windows for a while, and then—after making sure I wasn’t being tailed—got into a cab.

  “Just drive,” I told the cabbie. “Take me on a nice big zigzag, and when the meter reads three bucks let me off wherever I happen to be.”

  He dropped me finally in a shabby suburb about three miles north of City Hall. I walked to the corner, turned it, and found a movie theater. I went in, sat down, watched a western for an hour, and left. I took a cab back to the Penn Plaza.

  Let Klaus think I had had a rendezvous with some other local gangland figure. Let him sweat a little.

  I got back to my room at quarter after eleven. I changed into one of Lowney’s ornate silk dressing-gowns, ordered a vodkatini as a nightcap from room service, and sacked out by midnight. It hadn’t been a very eventful day. I had switched places with Lowney. I had come to Philadelphia, and I had impressed on Klaus and his bunch that I was not a man to be trifled with. And I had blocked a pass thrown by a lovely blonde. Regrettable, but unavoidable. The next time Klaus waved a woman in front of my nose, though... .

  Morning. I phoned for my breakfast: small cut of tenderloin, rare, french fries, glass of milk. A weird way to begin the day, but that was Lowney’s way. Luckily, I had the stomach for it.

  I lounged around the hotel all day. At six on the button, the room phone rang. It was Minton. Was I ready to come down for supper? I told him to wait ten minutes. I kept him waiting twenty.

  He was pacing around in the lobby, a dapper, Ivy League type around thirty, short and crew-clipped and impatient. The beady-eyed one who had met me at the airport was with him. Minton bustled out and gave me the big handshake. Beady-eyes said nothing.

  “The car’s outside,” Minton said.

  It was the same black limousine, with the same big goon behind the wheel. I had expected to find Klaus in it, but he wasn’t. Minton and I got in the back.

  “Is Klaus meeting us at the restaurant?” I asked.

  Minton smiled. “He’ll be with us later.”

  “Can’t he demean himself to eat with me?”

  “Something urgent came up this afternoon.”

  I got the pitch. I had been grinding salt in the Klaus bunch’s eyes, and Klaus was trying to give some of my own stuff back to me. Well, I couldn’t blame him. He had scored a point in the little fencing match.

  I wasn�
�t keen on eating with underlings, but I couldn’t back out of it now. So I simply didn’t talk. I concentrated on eating, and answered Minton’s polite phrases with curt nods. He gave up, after a while. We ran up a seventy-buck check for the four of us, and I let Minton pick it up without even offering. He had to take care of the tip, too. By the time we got back into the car, he looked like that nice fancy meal was curdling in his intestines. But a man like Lowney didn’t pal it with Mintons: I had to make that clear.

  “We going to Klaus now?” I asked.

  “Yes,” Minton said, as though the single syllable cost him a month’s pay.

  The limousine pulled up in front of the Hotel Burke on 16th Street, and we had a nice thirty-story ride up to the penthouse suite. Klaus did things in style, as he could well afford with presses running night and day turning out the queer.

  He was surrounded by a dozen of his men, only a couple of them goons and the rest college types. Klaus himself was a man of about fifty, short and stockily built, with lank gray hair combed straight across and drooping over his right ear. His nose was a straggly beak; his eyes were blue-gray, and chilly. We shook hands, and he gave me a piercing glance.

  “So very good to see you, Mr. Lowney. We’ve heard so much about you on the East Coast.”

  “M-G-M wants to film the story of my life,” I said. “We’re dickering on the price.”

  Klaus chuckled. “Very funny, Mr. Lowney I’m sure it will make a fascinating movie. You must send me tickets to the premiere.”

  “I’ll do that,” I promised. “I’ll be honored to have you come. With or without your retinue.”

  “Does it seem crowded here, Mr. Lowney?”

  “Just a mite.”

  “Perhaps we can go into the next room—”

  We went into an inner office. Minton trailed along like the good lackey he was. Klaus suggested drinks, and I sent Minton scurrying off to mix vodka martinis.

  For the next half hour we sat around like old buddies, swapping the latest news of our respective domains. He fed me East Coast gossip and I let him in on various West Coast matters that Lowney could be expected to be privy to. Then we talked about the stock market for a while. Klaus was heavily invested in electronics companies, and he was wondering what to do. I told him to take his profits and get into oil. Real chummy stuff.

  When I got tired of the routine I said quite casually, “I’d like to see a sample of your product, Mr. Klaus.”

  “Oh, let’s not get down to business so soon, Mr. Lowney. Have another cocktail.”

  “I’d rather not,” and suddenly there was steel in my voice. “Let’s see the bills.”

  A shadow of a frown crossed Klaus’ well-groomed face. Turning easily to Minton, he said, “Get a couple of packages, Don. One of fives, one of tens.”

  Minton went into an adjoining room and came back with two little stacks of bills, one hundred of each kind, bound around their middles with blue paper. He tossed them down on the desk in front of me.

  I picked up the tens and riffled through them without breaking the band. They were new and crisp, and they had the feel of money. The smell, too. They weren’t limp and floppy like some phony stuff. They had the feel of engravings, not cheap litho stuff. The serial numbers were clear and sharp, and ran in sequence.

  Breaking the band, I took a tenspot off the top and held it gingerly between my fingertips. It was good.

  It was damned good.

  It was a Federal Reserve Note on the Philadelphia bank. The green seal on the right was prefect, as was the Federal Reserve emblem on the left. In between was the portrait of Hamilton, and that was flawless too. There were no breaks in the cross-hatching behind the head, nor any awkwardness about the shading of the face. The lathework around the margins of the bill was all it had to be. On the flip side, the picture of the Treasury Building had been copied by the hand of a master. For an uneasy moment I wondered if Klaus might be pulling a con by showing me a pack of real bills.

  I looked over the fives. They were lovely. Whoever had engraved this queer stuff had as much skill as anybody working for the Bureau of Engraving and Printing.

  Klaus and Minton were waiting for my verdict. I took a long, slow look at both sets of bills. If they had rung in real Government stuff on me, I was going to make one hell of a fool out of myself.

  It was a chance I had to take.

  Klaus couldn’t stand it any longer. He broke the sticky silence.

  “Well, Mr. Lowney? What is your opinion of our handiwork?”

  I moistened my lips. Tapping the stack of tens, I said, “Not bad at all, Klaus. Not bad at all. Of course, they’re a long way from being perfect. You’ve got to admit that yourself. I don’t know if I can make a deal for a product of this grade.”

  THREE

  It was as though I’d smacked him across the bridge of the nose with a billy-club. His face went pale and his eyes blazed with surprise and anger.

  The reaction told me they hadn’t rung in real stuff as a gimmick. If they had, they’d have been laughing themselves silly. Instead, they were boiling mad.

  Klaus’ mouth became a tight little line. Minton burst out, “Look here, Lowney, you’ve been trying to cut us down since you got off that plane. You know goddamn well this is the best queer that can be made.”

  “I say it’s bush league stuff. You might as well be turning it out on a mimeograph.”

  Klaus was doing a slow simmer. But Minton was really sore. Maybe he was supposed to be demonstrative for the two of them. Anyway, he got halfway out of his seat, his lips working. I gave him a little twist of the blade.

  “If I had known the stuff was crud like this, I could have sent my chauffeur east to look at it.”

  “Why, you arrogant punk, you ought to—” Minton began, getting the rest of the way out of his seat. He started to take a poke at me. I slipped a left past his guard and splattered his lips. Klaus didn’t budge. Minton staggered back a little, his Ivy League phiz a bit battered now, and his hand went into his breast pocket.

  I kicked my chair back and came at him. I hit him in the belly just as the gun appeared; all the life went out of him, and I caught the gun hand, twisted, nodded as the .38 fell to the thick carpet.

  Minton looked ready to explode. He tried to get loose and took a feeble poke at me. I ducked it and smashed him hard, right under his lower lip.

  He sat down on the carpet. His eyes looked glassy, and there were droplets of blood on his nice white shirt. I picked up the .38, put it on the table next to the phony dough, and sat down again. I hadn’t even worked up a sweat.

  “Your man is kind of impetuous, Klaus.”

  “He’s a fool. Get up, Minton!” Klaus snapped. Minton hauled himself uncertainly to his feet. “Now get out of here and clean yourself up!”

  Minton slithered out. I wondered if he had put on the act on a signal from Klaus. The product had been defended, in an incompetent sort of way. Now negotiations could proceed. I had the feeling that Klaus was unhappy about the way things were going.

  He said in an oily voice, “I apologize for the unpleasantness of my colleague, Mr. Lowney. You see, we all take a rather staunch pride in our product. What exactly is your objection to it? Surely the engraving can stand any scrutiny whatever, and—”

  “The engraving’s fine,” I said. “It’s the paper.”

  “The best available.”

  “Not good enough. I believe in being frank, Klaus. I’m disappointed in the product. I’m going to call Hammell and tell him so.”

  “Don’t be hasty. Maybe we can discuss improvements.”

  “Let me call Hammell first. Mind if I use your phone?”

  It was a transcontinental call, but he didn’t bat an eye. He shoved the phone across the desk to me. I picked it up and gave the long distance operator an Exeter number in L.A. It wasn’t Hammell I was calling, of course. It was a prearranged pickup in L.A. It was my way of letting HQ know that I had arrived safely and made rendezvous with Klaus.


  Someone answered and I said, “Give me Hammell.” That was part of the signal. Asking for Hammell meant, Not alone, possibly someone on an extension, so play along. Asking for “Charley” would have meant relative safety.

  A gruff voice said, “Hammell here. What’s the scoop, Vic?”

  “I’m at Klaus’ and I’ve seen the queer. I’m not bowled over.”

  “How so?”

  “The paper tips it off. The stuff could be a lot better, that’s for sure.”

  “You want to call the deal off?”

  “Not unless you do. Maybe I can goose them a little. The product isn’t hopeless.”

  “Yeah, you do that. Keep in touch, man.”

  “Will do, Charley.”

  I hung up. HQ knew I was in business, now. I turned back to Klaus and said, “He wants me to negotiate.”

  “We aren’t hopeless, eh?”

  “Not quite.” I took a crisp new real tenspot out of my wallet and laid it alongside one of the phonies. The bills looked like twins. Only an expert could detect with his naked eye the minute difference in paper qualities. Privately I was impressed. But I didn’t let my impression show. “You’re turning out some fair stuff, Klaus. But you’ll have to pick up the grade a little. Select your paper more carefully. I want an exact match.”

  “We aren’t the Government, Mr. Lowney.”

  “You’ve got to be damn close.” I rose, casually peeling ten tens and ten fives off the stacks of queer. “I’ll take these for reference. Suppose you get in touch with me in a couple of days and let me see your latest products. The T-men are sharp out in our country, Klaus.”

  “You don’t want to talk terms now?”

  “Not till I’ve seen the product I can buy.”

  “You’re a very difficult man, Mr. Lowney.”

  “I’m paid to be difficult, Klaus. Will you show me out?”

  On the way out I noticed a girl. She obviously belonged to Klaus, and had been elsewhere in the suite when I arrived. She was an auburn-haired five-eighter, which made her a shade or two taller than Klaus. I pegged her for twenty-eight. She wore a lemon-colored gown and filled it out more than adequately. The word that summed her up was lush.