"We know that," Thompson said soothingly. "Does the professor think this thing will work?"
"Oh, he knows it works."
"If it's good enough for Ackerman, it's good enough for us, right fellows?"
There was a chorus of assent.
"Hey, I'm not a scientist," Jeff said. "I can't guarantee anything. For all I know, this thing may have no value at all."
"Sure. We understand. But say it does have a value, Jeff. How big could this thing be?"
"Budge, the market for this is worldwide. I couldn't even begin to put a value on it. Everybody will be able to use it."
"How much initial financing are you looking for?"
"Two million dollars, but all we need is two hundred and fifty thousand dollars down. Bartlett promised--"
"Forget Bartlett. That's chicken feed, old buddy. We'll put that up ourselves. Keep it in the family. Right, fellas?"
"Right!"
Budge looked up and snapped his fingers, and a captain came hurrying over to the table. "Dominick, bring Mr. Stevens some paper and a pen."
It was produced almost instantly.
"We can wrap up this little deal right here," Budge said to Jeff. "You just make out this paper, giving us the rights, and we'll all sign it, and in the morning you'll have a certified check for two hundred fifty thousand dollars. How does that suit you?"
Jeff was biting his lower lip. "Budge, I promised Mr. Bartlett--"
"Fuck Bartlett," Budge snarled. "Are you married to his sister or mine? Now write."
"We don't have a patent on this, and--"
"Write, goddamn it!" Budge shoved the pen in Jeff's hand.
Reluctantly, Jeff began to write: "This will transfer all my rights, title, and interest to a mathematical computer called SUCABA, to the buyers, Donald 'Budge' Hollander, Ed Zeller, Alan Thompson, and Mike Quincy, for the consideration of two million dollars, with a payment of two hundred and fifty thousand dollars on signing. SUCABA has been extensively tested, is inexpensive, trouble-free, and uses less power than any computer currently on the market. SUCABA will require no maintenance or parts for a minimum period of ten years." They were all looking over Jeff's shoulder as he wrote.
"Jesus!" Ed Zeller said. "Ten years! There's not a computer on the market that can claim that!"
Jeff continued. "The buyers understand that neither Professor Vernon Ackerman nor I holds a patent on SUCABA--"
"We'll take care of all that," Alan Thompson interrupted impatiently. "I've got one hell of a patent attorney."
Jeff kept writing. "I have explained to the buyers that SUCABA may have no value of any kind, and that neither Professor Vernon Ackerman nor I makes any representations or warranties about SUCABA except as written above." He signed it and held up the paper. "Is that satisfactory?"
"You sure about the ten years?" Budge asked.
"Guaranteed. I'll just make a copy of this," Jeff said. They watched as he carefully made a copy of what he had written.
Budge snatched the papers out of Jeff's hand and signed them. Zeller, Quincy, and Thompson followed suit.
Budge was beaming. "A copy for us and a copy for you. Old Seymour Jarrett and Charlie Bartlett are sure going to have egg on their faces, huh, boys? I can't wait until they hear that they got screwed out of this deal."
The following morning Budge handed Jeff a certified check for $250,000.
"Where's the computer?" Budge asked.
"I arranged for it to be delivered here at the club at noon. I thought it only fitting that we should all be together when you receive it."
Budge clapped him on the shoulder. "You know, Jeff, you're a smart fellow. See you at lunch."
At the stroke of noon a messenger carrying a box appeared in the dining room of the Pilgrim Club and was ushered to Budge's table, where he was seated with Zeller, Thompson, and Quincy.
"Here it is!" Budge exclaimed. "Jesus! The damned thing's even portable!"
"Should we wait for Jeff?" Thompson asked.
"Fuck him. This belongs to us now." Budge ripped the paper away from the box. Inside was a nest of straw. Carefully, almost reverently, he lifted out the object that lay in the nest. The men sat there, staring at it. It was a square frame about a foot in diameter, holding a series of wires across which were strung rows of beads. There was a long silence.
"What is it?" Quincy finally asked.
Alan Thompson said, "It's an abacus. One of those things Orientals use to count--" The expression on his face changed. "Jesus! SUCABA is abacus spelled backward!" He turned to Budge. "Is this some kind of joke?"
Zeller was sputtering. "Low power, trouble-free, uses less power than any computer currently on the market...Stop the goddamned check!"
There was a concerted rush to the telephone.
"Your certified check?" the head bookkeeper said. "There's nothing to worry about. Mr. Stevens cashed it this morning."
Pickens, the butler, was very sorry, indeed, but Mr. Stevens had packed and left. "He mentioned something about an extended journey."
That afternoon, a frantic Budge finally managed to reach Professor Vernon Ackerman.
"Of course. Jeff Stevens. A charming man. Your brother-in-law, you say?"
"Professor, what were you and Jeff discussing?"
"I suppose it's no secret. Jeff is eager to write a book about me. He has convinced me that the world wants to know the human being behind the scientist..."
Seymour Jarrett was reticent. "Why do you want to know what Mr. Stevens and I discussed? Are you a rival stamp collector?"
"No, I--"
"Well, it won't do you any good to snoop around. There's only one stamp like it in existence, and Mr. Stevens has agreed to sell it to me when he acquires it."
And he slammed down the receiver.
Budge knew what Charlie Bartlett was going to say before the words were out "Jeff Stevens? Oh, yes. I collect antique cars. Jeff knows where this '37 Packard four-door convertible in mint condition--"
This time it was Budge who hung up
"Don't worry," Budge told his partners. "We'll get our money back and put the son of a bitch away for the rest of his life. There are laws against fraud."
The group's next stop was at the office of Scott Fogarty.
"He took us for two hundred fifty thousand dollars," Budge told the attorney. "I want him put behind bars for the rest of his life. Get a warrant out for--"
"Do you have the contract with you, Budge?"
"It's right here." He handed Fogarty the paper Jeff had written out.
The lawyer scanned it quickly, then read it again, slowly. "Did he forge your names to this paper?"
"Why, no," Mike Quincy said. "We signed it."
"Did you read it first?"
Ed Zeller angrily said, "Of course we read it. Do you think we're stupid?"
"I'll let you be the judge of that, gentlemen. You signed a contract stating that you were informed that what you were purchasing with a down payment of two hundred fifty thousand dollars was an object that had not been patented and could be completely worthless. In the legal parlance of an old professor of mine, 'You've been royally fucked.' "
Jeff had obtained the divorce in Reno. It was while he was establishing residence there that he had run into Conrad Morgan. Morgan had once worked for Uncle Willie. "How would you like to do me a small favor, Jeff?" Conrad Morgan had asked. "There's a young lady traveling on a train from New York to St. Louis with some jewelry..."
Jeff looked out of the plane window and thought about Tracy. There was a smile on his face.
When Tracy returned to New York, her first stop was at Conrad Morgan et Cie Jewelers. Conrad Morgan ushered Tracy into his office and closed the door. He rubbed his hands together and said, "I was getting very worried, my dear. I waited for you in St. Louis and--"
"You weren't in St. Louis."
"What? What do you mean?" His blue eyes seemed to twinkle.
"I mean, you didn't go to St. Louis. You never intended to m
eet me."
"But of course I did! You have the jewels and I--"
"You sent two men to take them away from me."
There was a puzzled expression on Morgan's face. "I don't understand."
"At first I thought there might be a leak in your organization, but there wasn't, was there? It was you. You told me that you personally arranged for my train ticket, so you were the only one who knew the number of my compartment. I used a different name and a disguise, but your men knew exactly where to find me."
There was a look of surprise on his cherubic face. "Are you trying to tell me that some men robbed you of the jewels?"
Tracy smiled. "I'm trying to tell you that they didn't."
This time the surprise on Morgan's face was genuine. "You have the jewels?"
"Yes. Your friends were in such a big hurry to catch a plane that they left them behind."
Morgan studied Tracy a moment. "Excuse me."
He went through a private door, and Tracy sat down on the couch, perfectly relaxed.
Conrad Morgan was gone for almost fifteen minutes, and when he returned, there was a look of dismay on his face. "I'm afraid a mistake has been made. A big mistake. You're a very clever young lady, Miss Whitney. You've earned your twenty-five thousand dollars." He smiled admiringly. "Give me the jewels and--"
"Fifty thousand."
"I beg your pardon?"
"I had to steal them twice. That's fifty thousand dollars, Mr. Morgan."
"No," he said flatly. His eyes had lost their twinkle. "I'm afraid I can't give you that much for them."
Tracy rose. "That's perfectly all right. I'll try to find someone in Las Vegas who thinks they're worth that." She moved toward the door.
"Fifty thousand dollars?" Conrad Morgan asked.
Tracy nodded.
"Where are the jewels?"
"In a locker at Penn Station. As soon as you give me the money--in cash--and put me in a taxi, I'll hand you the key."
Conrad Morgan gave a sigh of defeat. "You've got a deal."
"Thank you," Tracy said cheerfully. "It's been a pleasure doing business with you."
19
Daniel Cooper was already aware of what the meeting in J. J. Reynolds's office that morning was about, for all the company's investigators had been sent a memo the day before regarding the Lois Bellamy burglary that had taken place a week earlier. Daniel Cooper loathed conferences. He was too impatient to sit around listening to stupid chatter.
He arrived in J. J. Reynolds's office forty-five minutes late, while Reynolds was in the middle of a speech.
"Nice of you to drop by," J. J. Reynolds said sarcastically. There was no response. It's a waste of time, Reynolds decided. Cooper did not understand sarcasm--or anything else, as far as Reynolds was concerned. Except how to catch criminals. There, he had to admit, the man was a goddamned genius.
Seated in the office were three of the agency's top investigators: David Swift, Robert Schiffer, and Jerry Davis.
"You've all read the report on the Bellamy burglary," Reynolds said, "but something new has been added. It turns out that Lois Bellamy is a cousin of the police commissioner's. He's raising holy hell."
"What are the police doing?" Davis asked.
"Hiding from the press. Can't blame them. The investigating officers acted like the Keystone Kops. They actually talked to the burglar they caught in the house and let her get away."
"Then they should have a good description of her," Swift suggested.
"They have a good description of her nightgown," Rey nolds retorted witheringly. "They were so goddamned impressed with her figure that their brains melted. They don't even know the color of her hair. She wore some kind of curler cap, and her face was covered with a mudpack. Their description is of a woman somewhere in her middle twenties, with a fantastic ass and tits. There's not one single clue. We have no information to go on. Nothing."
Daniel Cooper spoke for the first time. "Yes, we have."
They all turned to look at him, with varying degrees of dislike.
"What are you talking about?" Reynolds asked
"I know who she is."
When Cooper had read the memo the morning before, he had decided to take a look at the Bellamy house, as a logical first step. To Daniel Cooper, logic was the orderliness of God's mind, the basic solution to every problem, and to apply logic, one always started at the beginning. Cooper drove out to the Bellamy estate in Long Island, took one look at it, and, without getting out of his car, turned around and drove back to Manhattan. He had learned all he needed to know. The house was isolated, and there was no public transportation nearby, which meant that the burglar could have reached the house only by car.
He was explaining his reasoning to the men assembled in Reynolds's office. "Since she probably would have been reluctant to use her own car, which could have been traced, the vehicle either had to be stolen or rented. I decided to try the rental agencies first. I assumed that she would have rented the car in Manhattan, where it would be easier for her to cover her trail."
Jerry Davis was not impressed. "You've got to be kidding, Cooper. There must be thousands of cars a day rented in Manhattan."
Cooper ignored the interruption. "All car-rental operations are computerized. Relatively few cars are rented by women. I checked them all out. The lady in question went to Budget Rent a Car at Pier Sixty-one on West Twenty-third Street, rented a Chevy Caprice at eight P.M. the night of the burglary, and returned it to the office at two A.M."
"How do you know it was the getaway car?" Reynolds asked skeptically.
Cooper was getting bored with the stupid questions. "I checked the elapsed mileage. It's thirty-two miles to the Lois Bellamy estate and another thirty-two miles back. That checks exactly with the odometer on the Caprice. The car was rented in the name of Ellen Branch."
"A phony," David Swift surmised.
"Right. Her real name is Tracy Whitney."
They were all staring at him. "How the hell do you know that?" Schiffer demanded.
"She gave a false name and address, but she had to sign a rental agreement. I took the original down to One Police Plaza and had them run it through for fingerprints. They matched the prints of Tracy Whitney. She served time at the Southern Louisiana Penitentiary for Women. If you remember, I talked to her about a year ago about a stolen Renoir."
"I remember," Reynolds nodded. "You said then that she was innocent."
"She was--then. She's not innocent anymore. She pulled the Bellamy job."
The little bastard had done it again! And he had made it seem so simple. Reynolds tried not to sound grudging. "That's--that's fine work, Cooper. Really fine work. Let's nail her. We'll have the police pick her up and--"
"On what charge?" Cooper asked mildly. "Renting a car? The police can't identify her, and there's not a shred of evidence against her."
"What are we supposed to do?" Schiffer asked. "Let her walk away scot-free?"
"This time, yes," Cooper said. "But I know who she is now. She'll try something again. And when she does, I'll catch her."
The meeting was finally over. Cooper desperately wanted a shower. He took out a little black book and wrote in it very carefully: TRACY WHITNEY.
20
It's time to begin my new life, Tracy decided. But what kind of life? I've gone from an innocent, naive victim to a...what? A thief--that's what. She thought of Joe Romano and Anthony Orsatti and Perry Pope and Judge Lawrence. No. An avenger. That's what I've become. And an adventuress, perhaps. She had outwitted the police, two professional con artists, and a double-crossing jeweler. She thought of Ernestine and Amy and felt a pang. On an impulse, Tracy went to F.A.O. Schwarz and bought a puppet theater, complete with half a dozen characters, and had it mailed to Amy. The card read: SOME NEW FRIENDS FOR YOU. MISS YOU. LOVE TRACY.
Next she visited a furrier on Madison Avenue and bought a blue fox boa for Ernestine and mailed it with a money order for two hundred dollars. The card simply read: THANK
S, ER-NIE. TRACY.
All my debts are paid now, Tracy thought. It was a good feeling. She was free to go anywhere she liked, do anything she pleased.
She celebrated her independence by checking into a Tower Suite in The Helmsley Palace Hotel. From her forty-seventh-floor living room, she could look down at St. Patrick's Cathedral and see the George Washington Bridge in the distance. Only a few miles in another direction was the dreary place she had recently lived in. Never again, Tracy swore.
She opened the bottle of champagne that the management had sent up and sat sipping it, watching the sun set over the skyscrapers of Manhattan. By the time the moon had risen, Tracy had made up her mind. She was going to London. She was ready for all the wonderful things life had to offer. I've paid my dues, Tracy thought. I deserve some happiness.
She lay in bed and turned on the late television news. Two men were being interviewed. Boris Melnikov was a short, stocky Russian, dressed in an ill-fitting brown suit, and Pietr Negulesco was his opposite, tall and thin and elegant-looking. Tracy wondered what the two men could possibly have in common.
"Where is the chess match going to be held?" the news anchorman asked.
"At Sochi, on the beautiful Black Sea," Melnikov replied.
"You are both international grand masters, and this match has created quite a stir, gentlemen. In your previous matches you have taken the title from each other, and your last one was a draw. Mr. Negulesco, Mr. Melnikov currently holds the title. Do you think you will be able to take it away from him again?"
"Absolutely," the Romanian replied.
"He has no chance," the Russian retorted.
Tracy knew nothing about chess, but there was an arrogance about both men that she found distasteful. She pressed the remote-control button that turned off the television set and went to sleep.
Early the following morning Tracy stopped at a travel agency and reserved a suite on the Signal Deck of the Queen Elizabeth 2. She was as excited as a child about her first trip abroad, and spent the next three days buying clothes and luggage.
On the morning of the sailing Tracy hired a limousine to drive her to the pier. When she arrived at Pier 90, Berth 3, at West Fifty-fifth and Twelfth Avenue, where the QE II was docked, it was crowded with photographers and television reporters, and for a moment, Tracy was panic-stricken. Then she realized they were interviewing the two men posturing at the foot of the gangplank--Melnikov and Negulesco, the international grand masters. Tracy brushed past them, showed her passport to a ship's officer at the gangplank, and walked up onto the ship. On deck, a steward looked at Tracy's ticket and directed her to her stateroom. It was a lovely suite, with a private terrace. It had been ridiculously expensive, but Tracy decided it was going to be worth it.