Tricks and Treats, page 10
He looked like money, but that can fool you. He sported the tie and dinner jacket the Penguin Club lent an otherwise welcome patron who hadn’t had a chance to change into the proper attire. He sat at the table the head waiter reserved for the hundred-dollar tipper. But, watching the guy, I had reservations of my own.
He spoke to his waiter, handed him a clutch of banknotes, and looked on with a faintly amused expression as the waiter wound through the room to whisper into the ear of every brunette. Each in tum looked up in shock and outrage, then around to where the waiter indicated, and received a pleasant nod. And the guy got two takers; ignoring scowling escorts, two women took off their shoes, handed them to the waiter, and got a hundred bucks in exchange.
I smiled. Publicity stunt. A brassy redhead volunteered her green alligator pumps, but the guy regretfully told her he had all he needed—and paid her to cut off all her hair with a pair of pastry shears. A top-heavy blonde, her voice loud and clear in a trough of hush, said, “You’d think a person would have more pride,” and the guy strode over and paid her a hundred bucks to give him her bra. I still felt it wasn’t for real—the setup, I mean.
When he came back to his table, I got up and went over there. He was frowning at his wristwatch and looked up quickly. I put my hand on the back of an empty chair.
“Mind?”
His voice was cheerful, but he didn’t smile. “Matter of fact, I do.”
I sat down anyway. “Know who I am?”
He gazed at me. “No.”
“A columnist for the Telegraph-Adams.”
“I’m not hunting publicity.”
“I see. You’re trying to hide your light under a bushel.”
“I’m not trying to hide anything.”
“What are you trying to do?”
“Prove something.”
“That you collect fetishes?”
He glanced at the shoes, the hair, the bra, and smiled. His lean face had the lines of a man pushing thirty, but they were laugh lines and the smile gave him sudden warmth and youth. “No, that everyone has a price.” He toyed with his Gibson.
“What are you really buying?”
“Face.” His eyes lit up and he gestured with his head. I turned and saw a waiter captain conveying a fiftyish couple to their table, the orchid corsage on the woman’s bosom like the figurehead on a stately prow, the polished gray head of the man raked back like the funnel of a liner.
The guy leaned toward me. “Ever see such a dignified pair?”
I had to admit they looked, studying the menu together, like a heraldic lion and lioness supporting a coat of arms. The pearl onion was a third eye holding on them as the guy finished his Gibson. He rose without saying anything else to me and headed for their table. He was sweating, and I wondered why this one bit seemed more important to him than the others. But then, some people sweat when they drink.
The gray-haired man heard the abrupt hush, looked around, saw all gazes on him. He reddened slightly, once-overed himself and his companion, drew reassurance. He spotted the guy bearing down on them, and put on a waiting, inquiring expression.
The guy stood smiling down at the gray-haired man. “Good evening. Too bad you missed the floor show.”
The man was a throat-clearer. “Oh? I did not know there was a floor show.”
“Stick around. There’s more coming, and you’re in it.’’
The note of challenge—light, but there—got through to the gray-haired man, but he kept his composure. “I’m afraid there’s a misunderstanding. We’re Mr. and Mrs. Harvey Shelby.”
The guy gave a polite tilt of acknowledgment, then a deprecating smile. “And I’m Neil Purley.”
“Sorry, but that name doesn’t mean anything to me.”
“It could mean thousands of dollars.”
“How’s that?”
Purley turned to the waiter at his elbow. “Think you can round up a custard pie and deliver it to this table?”
“Yes sir, Mr. Purley.”
Shelby’s pale blue eyes grew hostile. “We don’t want custard pie.” He turned to his wife. “Do we, dear?” He turned back. “We’ve made up our minds what we’re having. We certainly don’t want custard pie.”
Purley gave him a friendly, confident wink. “You will.”
“Oh?” Shelby’s voice was calm, but his face hardened. “See here, young fellow, you’re spoiling what was to have been a happy occasion—an anniversary celebration.”
“Say I offered you a thousand dollars. Would you take the custard pie?”
“Oh, come now.”
“Would you?”
“I certainly don’t need a thousand dollars. The whole thing is absurd. Kindly leave us alone.”
“Would you for two thousand?”
“You must be joking. No one would pay two thousand dollars to see someone else eat a custard pie.”
The waiter returned and set a custard pie on the table. Purley nodded and handed him a C-note.
“Thank you, Mr. Purley.”
Shelby stared at the pie, then at his wife. ‘‘No, sir. I do not wish to eat this. Take it away.”
“Four thousand?”
“Why are you doing this?”
“Say I’m being illogical. But illogic is what distinguishes humans from machines, isn’t it? Among other factors.”
Shelby glanced at his wife. She fanned herself with the menu. Shelby licked his lips. “Well, now. You’re sure there’s nothing wrong with this pie? This is no trick?”
“Nothing wrong with the pie.”
“No, sir,” the waiter said.
“Well, now.” Shelby laughed hollowly, a laugh that didn’t stick to the ribs. “I don’t see that a bite of custard pie ever hurt anyone. Looks delicious, in fact.” He glanced up sharply. “You said four thousand dollars.”
“I did.”
“You have four thousand dollars?”
Purley plucked four G-notes from his wallet and stroked them into the waiter’s convulsive palm.
Shelby studied the bills, then the pie. “Do you mean that we eat it now, or as dessert?”
“I didn’t say you should eat it. I mean you should throw it.”
Shelby flushed. “Ridiculous. Waiter, take this thing away. And you, sir, leave this table.” He looked around. “Where’s the manager?”
“Five thousand.”
Shelby turned to his wife. “Shall we leave, dear?”
Mrs. Shelby slowly picked up her gloves and bag. Shelby squeaked his chair back.
“Six thousand.”
Shelby sat still. He watched his wife, turned to Purley. “And what would I throw the pie at?”
Purley shrugged and said pleasantly, “Either she throws it in your face or you throw it in hers. Decide between you.”
Shelby shook his head and half rose. “Seven thousand.”
Shelby’s brow took on a gloss. He spoke to himself. “After all, a wipe with a damp cloth and it would be as if nothing had happened.”
“That’s right.” Purley nodded encouragingly.
Shelby sat down. He took a deep drag on a nonexistent cigarette. He looked at his wife. Mrs. Shelby sat tight-lipped, fanning herself more and more rapidly with the menu.
Then she stopped fanning, smiled. “Why not. dear?”
Shelby sighed a sigh of release. “Why not. All in fun. Make this a real celebration.” He turned to Purley. “Seven thousand dollars?”
“Make it ten,” Purley said. He cheerfully added six G-notes to those in the waiter’s palm. “Let’s say I’m betting you ten thousand you won’t do it.”
Shelby slid the pie nearer his wife and took off his glasses. “You, dear.” He fitted his napkin around his neck.
Mrs. Shelby gently put down the menu, stood up, lifted the pie, hefted it, took a stance. With a strained smile Shelby stared at her, braced himself, closed his eyes. Mrs. Shelby threw the pie in his face. When they led him out to the men’s room, the ten grand in his clutch and applause echoing in his wake, she had already gone out and was having the doorman whistle up a taxi.
Purley came back to his table. He looked happy but spent. He asked the waiter for his check.
“Yes sir, Mr. Purley.”
I was still disbelieving this whole thing. “The party’s over?”
He looked at me as if wondering about my price range, and I felt a bit uneasy. But he smiled slightly and said, “The party’s over.”
“When’s the next one?”
“Won’t be a next one.”
“Why not?”
“No publicity, remember? And you’re a columnist.”
“Off the record. That’s a promise.”
His smile widened suddenly. “All right. Know who Harvey Shelby is?”
“No.”
“My boss. My ex-boss, I should say.”
“After what you just did, I would think so.”
“Before that. I got my two weeks’ notice this morning.”
“You worked for him and he didn’t know you?”
“That’s just it,” Purley said. “It’s a big firm, and I was only a faceless guy—one who’s now being replaced by a new computer. I waited in his outer office, but he wouldn’t see me. I heard his secretary on the phone, reserving his table here. So I returned to my desk for the last time and processed a ten-thousand-dollar check through the machine—made it out to cash and charged it to Shelby’s expense account.”
“You mean that was his own ten grand you used to make a fool out of him?”
“Yes.” He shrugged. “Or the stockholders.”
“Technically, it’s still stealing. How can you be sure they won’t catch you for it?”
“Shelby won’t raise a fuss. That would draw attention to the way he got the money back—and to the fact that his anniversary celebration also went on his expense account. The computer is trained not to ask embarrassing questions about his expense account.”
I shook my head. “The whole thing strikes me as a pretty bizarre form of revenge.”
“Not at all. Don’t you see the irony?” Purley smiled down as if into his reflection in a drink. “A more efficient electronic brain replaced me, a computer that can do anything a human brain can do. Except scheme. There’s just no way a computer can beat a man at thinking up a way like mine to steal money for the purpose of returning it.”
“Maybe not, but where does that leave you now?”
“Somewhat flatter. The other expenses—” he gestured to the shoes, the hair, the bra, “—came out of my savings and severance. I’m not hurting financially, and besides, it was worth it.” He frowned slightly. “But I’m hardly in Shelby’s bracket. I’ll have to look for another job soon: operating computers, I think. If you can’t lick ’em, join ’em.” His eyes lit up and I swear I almost heard a whir. “If a man and a computer put their brains together in the right way…”
I couldn’t read his face, much less his mind, but I had the feeling I could be in at the birth of something big. A man could program a computer to steal money for the purpose of stealing. The right man might be able to program a computer to steal the world…
The Leopold Locked Room
Edward D. Hoch
THE IMPOSSIBLE CRIME
“When you have eliminated the impossible,” Holmes tells Watson in “The Sign of the Four,” “whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.” What happens during the deadly confrontation between Captain Leopold and his ex-wife is obviously impossible; it is also the truth. The solution is fairly presented, is absolutely logical and possible, and is impeccably devious. But then Edward D. Hoch is used to dealing with much more impossible things than mere locked-room murders; for many years he has been practicing the Impossible Profession. He has made his living as a short-story writer. I doubt that even Mr. Hoch can any longer give an accurate tally of his published stories. Five hundred might be a good guess. One of them, the unforgettable “The Oblong Room,” won an Edgar in 1968. - J.G.
Captain Leopold had never spoken to anyone about his divorce, and it was a distinct surprise to Lieutenant Fletcher when he suddenly said, “Did I ever tell you about my wife, Fletcher?”
They were just coming up from the police pistol range in the basement of headquarters after their monthly target practice, and it hardly seemed a likely time to be discussing past marital troubles. Fletcher glanced at him sideways and answered, “No, I guess you never did, Captain.”
“She’s coming back,” Leopold said simply, and it took Fletcher an instant to grasp the meaning of his words.
“Your wife is coming back?”
“My ex-wife.”
“Here? What for?”
Leopold sighed. “Her niece is getting married. Our niece.”
“I never knew you had one.”
“She’s been away at college. Her name is Vicki Nelson, and she’s marrying a young lawyer named Moore. And Monica is coming back east for the wedding.”
“I never even knew her name,” Fletcher observed. “Haven’t you seen her since the divorce?”
Leopold shook his head. “Not for fifteen years. It was a funny thing. She wanted to be a movie star, and I guess fifteen years ago lots of girls still thought about being movie stars. Monica was intelligent and very pretty—but probably no prettier than hundreds of other girls who used to turn up in Hollywood every year back in those days. I was just starting on the police force then, and the future looked pretty bright for me here. It would have been foolish of me to toss up everything just to chase her wild dream out to California. Well, pretty soon it got to be an obsession with her, really bad. She’d spend her afternoons in movie theaters and her evenings watching old films on television. Finally, when I still refused to go west with her, she just left me.”
“Just walked out?”
Leopold nodded. “It was a blessing, really, that we didn’t have children. I heard she got a few minor jobs out there—as an extra, and some technical stuff behind the scenes. Then apparently she had a nervous breakdown. About a year later, I received the official word that she’d divorced me. I heard that she recovered and was back working, and I think she had another marriage that didn’t work out.”
“Why would she come back for the wedding?”
“Vicki is her niece and also her godchild. We were just married when Vicki was born, and I suppose Monica might consider her the child we never had. In any event, I know she still hates me, and blames me for everything that’s gone wrong with her life. She told a friend once a few years ago she wished I were dead.”
“Do you have to go to this wedding, too, Captain?”
“Of course. If I stayed away it would be only because of her. At least I have to drop by the reception for a few minutes.” Leopold smiled ruefully. “I guess that’s why I’m telling you all this, Fletcher. I want a favor from you.”
“Anything, Captain. You know that.”
“I know it seems like a childish thing to do, but I’d like you to come out there with me. I’ll tell them I’m working, and that I can only stay for a few minutes. You can wait outside in the car if you want. At least they’ll see you there and believe my excuse.”
Fletcher could see the importance of it to Leopold, and the effort that had gone into the asking. “Sure,” he said. “Be glad to. When is it?”
“This Saturday. The reception’s in the afternoon, at Sunset Farms.”
Sunset Farms was a low rambling place at the end of a paved driveway, overlooking a wooded valley and a gently flowing creek. If it had ever been a farm, that day was long past; but for wedding receptions and retirement parties it was the ideal place. The interior of the main building was, in reality, one huge square room, divided by accordion doors to make up to four smaller square rooms.
For the wedding of Vicki Nelson and Ted Moore three-quarters of the large room was in use, with only the last set of accordion doors pulled shut its entire width and locked. The wedding party occupied a head table along one wall, with smaller tables scattered around the room for the families and friends. When Leopold entered the place at five minutes of two on Saturday afternoon, the hired combo was just beginning to play music for dancing.
He watched for a moment while Vicki stood, radiant, and allowed her new husband to escort her to the center of the floor. Ted Moore was a bit older than Leopold had expected, but as the pair glided slowly across the floor, he could find no visible fault with the match. He helped himself to a glass of champagne punch and stood ready to intercept them as they left the dance floor.
“It’s Captain Leopold, isn’t it?” someone asked. A face from his past loomed up, a tired man with a gold tooth in the front of his smile. “I’m Immy Fontaine, Monica’s stepbrother.”
“Sure,” Leopold said, as if he’d remembered the man all along. Monica had rarely mentioned Immy, and Leopold recalled meeting him once or twice at family gatherings.
“We’re so glad you could come,” someone else said, and he turned to greet the bride and groom as they came off the dance floor. Up close, Vicki was a truly beautiful girl.
“I wouldn’t have missed it for anything,” he said.
“This is Ted,” she said, making the introductions. Leopold shook his hand, silently approving the firm grip and friendly eyes.
“I understand you’re a lawyer,” Leopold said, making conversation.
“That’s right, sir. Mostly civil cases, though. I don’t tangle much with criminals.”
They chatted for a few more seconds before the pressure of guests broke them apart.
“I see the car waiting outside,” Inuny Fontaine said, moving in again. “You got to go on duty?”
Leopold nodded. “Just this glass and I have to leave.” “Monica’s in from the west coast.”
“So I heard.”
A slim man with a mustache jostled against him in the crush of the crowd and hastily apologized. Fontaine seized the man by the arm and introduced him to Leopold. “This here’s Dr. Felix Thursby. He came east with Monica. Doc, I want you to meet Captain Leopold, her ex-husband.”
