The Golden Gizmo Read online

  Her expression now was one of angelic resignation, gentle entreaty. And her words were, “How about it, you stingy bastard? I want a bottle and, by God, I’m gonna get one!”

  Toddy shook his head absently, not really hearing her. Her leg slid under his, and the heel of her tiny pump swung back against his crotch. He swore and jerked away. Involuntarily, he swung out and the back of his hand struck her in the face.

  It wasn’t a hard blow, but it was a noisy one. The cab stopped with a jerk. The driver pushed his hard face over the glass partition.

  “What you tryin’ to pull, there, Mac?”

  “She—” Toddy repressed a groan—“Mind your own business!”

  “Like that, huh?” The driver reached for the door. “Maybe I’ll make this my business.”

  “Wait,” said Elaine. “Wait, please! It’s this way, driver. My husband just got out of jail and his nerves are all on edge—” She let her hands flutter descriptively. “He wanted something to drink, and I didn’t want him to have anything. But I guess…well, maybe he does need it.”

  “Dammit,” snapped Toddy. “I don’t want any—”

  “Now you know you do, honey.” Elaine laid a sympathetic hand on his arm. “He really must, driver. He hardly ever strikes me unless h-he’s like this.”

  The cabbie grunted. “Okay, Mac. You got your own way.”

  “Give him some money, sweetheart,” said Elaine. “You go right ahead and have your whiskey and I won’t say a word!”

  “I tell you, I’m not—Oh, hell!” said Toddy.

  They had stopped in front of a liquor store, of course. Elaine had timed this little frammis right to a t. Toddy literally threw a five-dollar bill at the driver. And when the latter returned with a pint of whiskey, he literally threw it and the change at Toddy.

  Elaine beamed at both of them. Then she took the bottle with a prettily prim movement and placed it in her outsize purse.

  The hotel where Toddy and Elaine lived was a two-hundred-room fleabag a little to the north of Los Angeles’ north-south dividing line. Coincidences excepted, its only resemblance to a first-class hotel was its rates.

  It was the kind of place where the house dick worked on a commission, and room clerks jumped the counter on tough guys. During the war it had paid for itself several times over by renting rooms to couples who “just wanted to clean up a little.” People lived there because they liked such places or because they would not be accepted in better ones.

  Toddy’s insistence on a second-floor room had immediately identified him to the clerk as a hustler. All the hot guys liked it low down. Down low you could sometimes smell a beef before it hit you. You could sometimes get out ahead of it.

  So Toddy had paid an inflated rate to begin with, and, three days later, when his primary reason for wanting a room near the street level became apparent, the rent was boosted another ten a week. The clerk was sympathetic about it, insomuch as he was capable of sympathy. He even declared that Elaine was a mighty sweet little lady. But the rent went up, just the same.

  He just had to do it, get me, Kent? The joint’s liable, know what I mean? Now, naturally, the best little lady in the world is gonna cut it rough now and then, but people ain’t got no sense of humor no more. Toss a jug on ’em from the second floor, an’ honest to Christ you’d think they was killed!

  Toddy had paid the extra ten without protest, and in return strong iron-wire screens went over the windows. And a hell of a lot of good they did! An empty bottle couldn’t be hurled through them, but heavier objects could be—and were. So Toddy rented a room on the alley, the single window of which was protected pretty adequately by the fire escape. Of course, you could get stuff past the fire escape if you tried hard enough.

  From the standpoint of comfort, it was by far the worst room Toddy and Elaine had lived in. It was badly ventilated and poorly lit. Even in the coldest days of winter (Oh, yes, it does get cold in California!) it was almost unbearably warm. The virtually uninsulated stack of the hotel’s incinerator passed through one corner of the room, and the heat from it was like an oven’s. Once, on one of her rampages, Elaine had loosened the clamp which held the square metal column to the wall. And before Toddy could get it back into place, re-join the loosened joints, his face was scarlet from its blast.

  He had complained about the thing to the management, not asking its removal, of course, which was impossible, but requesting that its dangerously loose condition be corrected. The management had advised him that if the stack was loose, so was his baggage. There were no nails holding it to the floor, and if he disliked his environment he could move the hell out. The management was getting a bellyful of Toddy and Elaine Kent.

  On this particular evening, Toddy followed Elaine down the long frayed red carpet of the hall, past the smells of gin and incense, the sounds of sickness, sex and low reverly. He unlocked the door of their room and stood aside for her to precede him. He closed it, set his gold-buyer’s box upon the writing table, and sank into a chair.

  Elaine sat half-on half-off the bed, her back to its head. She loosened the foil on the bottle with her teeth, tossed the cap away, and took a long gurgling drink.

  “How do you like them apples, prince?” She crinkled her eyes at him. “Prince—spelled with a k. What do you say we have another one?”

  She had another one and again lowered the bottle. “Well, let’s have the sermon, prince. If you don’t get started we’ll be late for prayer meeting.”

  “Kid, I—I—” Toddy broke off and rubbed his eyes. “Where do you get the dough to do these things, Elaine! Who gives it to you?”

  “Try and find out. Everyone’s not as chinchy as you are.”

  “I’m not stingy. You know that. I’d do anything in the world to help you—really help you.”

  “Who the hell wants your help?”

  “Wherever you get the money, whoever gives it to you, they’re not your friends. They’re the worst enemies you could have. Can’t you see that, kid? Can’t you see that some day you’re going to get into something that you can’t get out of—that neither I nor anyone else can get you out of? You’ve got intelligence. You—”

  He broke off, scowling; for a moment he wanted nothing but to get his hands on her, to—to…And then his scowl faded, and the near-murderous impulse passed; and despite himself he chuckled.

  Elaine had drawn her face down into a ridiculous mask of solemnity. It was impossible not to laugh at her.

  “Okay. So it’s no use.” He sighed and lighted a cigarette. “Go on and get yourself cleaned up. I’ll check in with Milt, and we’ll have dinner when I get back.”

  “Who the hell’s dirty? Who wants dinner?”

  “You are,” said Toddy, rising. “You do. Now, get in that bathroom and get busy!”

  Elaine scrambled off the bed and ran to the bathroom door. She paused before it, clutching the knob in one hand, the bottle in the other. Eyes twinkling venomously, she screamed.

  The blood-chilling, spine-tingling shrieks piled one upon the other—rose to a crescendo of terror and pain. Then they ended abruptly as she slammed and locked the door.

  Above the noise of the shower, he heard her spitefully amused laughter. Trembling a little, he crossed to the phone and waited. It began to ring. He lifted it and spoke dully into the transmitter.

  “All right…we’ll stop. Yeah, yeah. I know. Okay, you don’t hear anything now, do you? Well, all right!”

  He slammed up the receiver, hesitated glowering. He lighted another cigarette, took a deep consoling puff, and flipped open the lid of his box. He blinked.

  What the hell? he thought. How the hell? Let’s see…I’d just picked the thing up, and, yeah, the lid of the box was open. And then Chinless tried to kick me, and the dog cut loose, and…

  Very slowly his hand dipped down and lifted out the watch…the watch from the house of the talking dog.

  6

  He noticed its weight this time; it sagged in the hand that held it. If h
e had any ability at all to estimate weights—and he had a great deal—this thing weighed a full pound. Of course, most of that weight would be in the works he knew. Even on the thick old-fashioned jobs like this, the maximum weights on cases seldom ran over thirty pennyweight, one and a half ounces. The case on a modern watch, with its thin movement, would weigh little more than half that much.

  He took the loupe from his box and carried the watch over to the dresser. Snapping on a lamp, he made a small scratch in the case with his nail. Loupe in eye, he studied the now-magnified indentation. He whistled softly.

  Twenty-four karat. Twenty-four karat! The stuff was practically never used in jewelry; never except, perhaps, in insignia and tiny plated areas. It was too soft, not to mention its cost. So…?

  Toddy lowered the watch and stood striking it absently against the palm of his hand. There was a tiny plipping sound, and the movement, face and crystal flew off. Flew off in one piece. Toddy stared at them, at it—looked from it to the case. He took it in one hand and it in the other, and balanced them.

  The movement was little larger than a dime. With the things it was affixed to, the crystal and face, it weighed a “weak” five pennyweight. The case, then—the case weighed almost a full pound. There shouldn’t be much more than a pound of pure gold in all of Los Angeles County—outside of government vaults, of course. And yet here was a pound of the stuff in his hand.

  He snapped the two sections of the watch back together, a tremor of excitement in his fingers, a slow grin lining his tanned jaw. In a quiet recess of his mind, the gizmo was awakening. It was kicking back the covers and reaching under the bed for its bulging kit of angles.

  So he’d picked up the watch by accident. So it didn’t belong to him. So what? Maybe the chinless guy would like to claim title to it. Maybe he’d like to explain what he was doing with—well, call it by its right name—a pound of twenty-four-karat, .999 fine bullion.

  Of course, Chinless didn’t look like a guy who’d make many explanations. He didn’t look like a nice guy at all to tangle with. Still, he wouldn’t be stupid enough to raise a stink over this. Or would he? Toddy wasn’t sure—but then he’d never been a sure-thing player. This was worth gambling on; he was sure of that.

  The movement was worthless as a timekeeper. It wouldn’t run more than a few hours before it gave up the ghost. It served only to disguise the true nature of the watch. And no one would take such pains, go to such expense, with only one watch. There would be other—yes, and other items besides watches. Articles that weighed many times the amount their appearance indicated. If a man could move in on a setup like that—

  Toddy paused in his scheming, listening to the chatter of the bathroom shower. The light of excitement dulled in his fine gray eyes. What was the use? What good would it do? No matter what he made it would all go the same way. Down the bottomless rat-holes which Elaine burrowed endlessly.

  …Box under his arm, he closed the door of the room and walked down the long hall to the stairs. He went out through the side entrance of the lobby, reconnoitered its smog-bound environs with a glance as deceptively casual as it was automatic. He strolled up to the corner and stood leaning against a lamppost.

  Ostensibly, he was waiting for the traffic signal to change. Actually, he was waiting for the man who had been lurking in the shadows of the entrance, a small man with a sunken chest and a snap-brimmed gray hat that was almost as wide as his shoulders. One of Shake’s boys—a shiv artist named Donald.

  The man approached. He sidled up to the opposite side of the post and spoke from the corner of his mouth.

  “Let’s have it, Kent. Shake ain’t waitin’ no longer.”

  “Cow’s ass?” said Toddy, with the inflection of “How’s that?”

  “I’m not tellin’ you again. The next time I see you, you’ll have your balls in that box instead of gold.”

  “Why, Donald!” said Toddy. “How would I close the lid?”

  Donald didn’t answer him. Donald couldn’t. Toddy’s arm had curled around the post, around his head, and his nose was flat and getting flatter against the rusty iron. He mumbled, “Awwf-guho,” and managed to free the thin steel knife from its hip sheath. Toddy’s arm tightened, and he dropped the knife into the gutter.

  “Now,” said Toddy, “get this clear, once and for all. I’m not paying any protection—not one goddam penny. Don’t try for it again. If you do…well, just don’t.”

  He released the little shiv artist with a contemptuous twirl. He crossed the street and vanished into the darkness without looking back.

  Milt’s shop was dark, of course, but the door was unlocked. For a man in the gold racket, Milt’s faith in human nature was astonishing.

  Toddy made his way down the dark aisle with practiced ease, pushed through the wicket which adjoined the jeweler’s cage, and shoved aside the drapes. Milt wasn’t in the living room, but an excited clamor from the kitchen told Toddy where he was. Toddy set his box upon the old-fashioned library table, and went on back to the rear room.

  As usual, the swarthy and sullen Italian who delivered Milt’s beer was late, and, as usual, Milt was reading him off. He followed the man to the back door, gesticulating, complaining with humorous querulousness.

  “Have you no sense of the importance of things? Is there no way I can appeal to you? Suppose I had run out! What then, loafer? That means nothing to you, eh, that I should be left here without so much as a swallow—”

  The roar of the delivery truck shut off his protest. Muttering, face pink with outrage, he faced Toddy.

  “I ask you, my friend, what should I do with such a dummox? What would you do in my case?”

  “Just what you do,” Toddy chuckled. “You wouldn’t know what to do if you didn’t have that guy to fight with every night. Anyway, I’ll bet you’ve got your refrigerator full of beer.”

  “But the principle involved! The fact that I exercise a certain foresight does not affect the principle.”

  “Okay,” said Toddy. “I think I’ll drink a bottle of this warm, if you don’t mind. On a night like this, I—”

  “Stop!”

  “Huh!” Toddy jerked his hand away from the beer case.

  “Never!” said Milt with mock severity. “Never in my house will such a sacrilege be permitted. Warm beer? Ugh! Aside from the shock to the senses, there is no telling what the physical results might be.”

  “But I like—”

  “I will do nothing to nourish such an unnatural appetite. Come! I will get us some that is only mildly cold.”

  Milt took two bottles from the bottom of the overflowing refrigerator and carried them into the living room. They took chairs on opposite sides of the table, toasted each other silently, and then went to work at grading and weighing the gold.

  This, checking-in time, was virtually the only time of day when the scales were in use. Simply by hefting it, any good gold-buyer can tell what an article weighs within a margin of a few grains. His clients can’t, of course. They have only the vaguest idea as to the weight of the things they sell. They live in a world of ounces and pounds…and they remain there, if the buyer has his way. He won’t use his scales unless he has to.

  In dealing with Milt, a wholesale buyer, the scales were, naturally, necessary. Estimated weights, correct within a few grains, were not good enough. A grain is only one-four-hundred-and-eightieth of a troy ounce, but multiplied by several dozen purchases it might cost the wholesaler his week’s profit. As for the grading, that went swiftly. The quality of gold is determined by its brightness, and it was seldom that either Milt or Toddy lingered over an article.

  Toddy took the bills which Milt gave him, and stuffed them into his wallet. A good day, yes, but if he could turn that watch, that pound of twenty-four-karat bullion now hidden in the back of his dresser drawer.…If there was some way of tapping the source of that watch—

  “There is,” said Milt, “something troubling you, my friend?”

  “Oh no.” Toddy shoo
k his head. “Just daydreaming. Tell me something, will you, Milt?”

  “If I can, yes.”

  “Where would—how much scrap gold like this would it take to make a pound of twenty-four karat?”

  “Well,” Milt hesitated. “Your question is a little vague. Scrap of what quality—ten, fourteen, eighteen karat? Say it was all fourteen, well, that is easily estimated. Fourteen karat is sixty per cent pure. Roughly, it would take not quite two pounds of fourteen to refine into one pound of twenty-four.”

  Toddy whistled. “Where would you get that much gold, Milt?”

  “I would not. So much gold, why it is more than two or three of my boys would take in in a week. And if I did buy it, I would not refine it into twenty-four. Why should I? It would gain me nothing. The mint would pay me no more for a pound of twenty-four karat than it would for two pounds, or whatever the exact figure is, of fourteen.”

  “Suppose you didn’t sell it to the mint?”

  “But where else would I…ohh,” said Milt.

  “Now, wait a minute—” Toddy held up a hand, grinning. “Don’t leap all over me yet. I’m just thinking out loud.”

  “Such thoughts I do not like.”

  “But, look, Milt…why couldn’t a guy do this? Pure gold is staked at thirty-five dollars an ounce in this country. Abroad, it’s selling for anywhere from seventy-five to a hundred and fifty—depending on how shaky a nation’s currency is. So why couldn’t you refine scrap into twenty-four, have it made up into jewelry, trick stuff, you know…”

  “Yes,” said Milt. “I see exactly what you are driving at. The jewelry could be worn into Mexico—for a few dollars; for a task so safe, wearers could be readily secured. And from Mexico, there would be little difficulty in getting the gold abroad. Yes, I know. I see.”

  “Well?”

  “It is not well and you know it. There are severe penalties for removing gold from this country. Even to be in possession of bullion is a federal offense.”

  “But the profit, Milt! My God, think—”