Sight Unseen (11 page)

The something good was Myra Rodman, that she lived in the same world he lived in at all, and that Myra liked him enough to
have spent Thursday night with him. But she wasn’t in bed with him tonight, and he couldn’t go out to the Island tonight because
he needed to see Benny. Next week he might not need to revisit Northstar at all; the case might take him to Boston or Cincinnati.

When he woke up Saturday morning, a little groggy from the ups and downs of the night, he called Myra and invited her into
the city to spend the evening.

The warmth of her answer made him want to leap through the phone and kiss her. “Ummmm,” she said, “I’d love to, Bill.”

“I have to drop by the fights tonight,” he said. “But we don’t have to stay long.”

By 11:30 he was ready to go to his office. He called Mr. Gray first.

“How about some lunch?” Lockwood asked.

“I was about to call out,” Gray answered. “Could you bring—”

“—a pastrami on rye, mustard on the side, two pickles, light coffee,” Lockwood finished for him.

“Thanks,” Gray said in a surprised tone, as if he couldn’t figure out how Lockwood had known what he was going to order.

On the way up the elevator in the RCA Building, holding the two bags from Stage Deli, Lockwood shook his head over his boss’s
habits. He couldn’t figure out how any man could live, much less thrive, on a daily diet of forty cigarettes, three pastrami
sandwiches, six light coffees, and little else, if you didn’t count the six pickles.

Lockwood knew his boss. He waited till the last piece of the spiced meat had slithered over Mr. Gray’s lips.

“What’s it worth to get this ‘object’ back, Chief?”

Gray perked up, like a meandering dog who’s just scented a rabbit. “You onto something, Lockwood?”

“I’ve got some feelers out.”

Mr. Gray leaned back, and Lockwood knew what this gesture meant. The old man was turning over figures, how much, and he was
pulling away from Lockwood while he considered.

“Two or three thousand,” Gray said, but Lockwood heard a quaver in his voice. Probably nobody else in the world could have
heard it, but Lockwood made it his business to catch it.

Lockwood shook his head. “I want to offer 10 percent.”

Gray dropped his poise and shot forward. “$7500! No!”

“Give me something to work with,” Lockwood said. “I’ve got people out there who will find this thing, but there’s got to be
something in it.”

“Who?”

“I went over the front-gate guard’s logs,” Lockwood answered. “I didn’t think any of the employees at Northstar were in this,
so I asked myself who entered the place regularly.”

“Suppliers,” Gray said reflectively.

“Or truckers. Give me $5000.”

Mr. Gray sighed. He opened the box of English Ovals and lit one. “Not for information, for the
return.”

Lockwood wanted more, but he knew he wouldn’t get it this morning. “All right, but could I have $500 to warm up a few people?”

It took Lockwood twenty minutes of argument to get Mr. Gray to swing around and open the little safe in the corner where he
kept several thousand in cash for just this sort of need. Gray had him sign a receipt.

“If this thing isn’t settled Monday, we have to pay—”

“Chief, I know what we have to pay,” Lockwood cut him off. “I’ve been working on it.”

In a surly voice, Gray said, “Lunch is over. So get back to it.”

Lockwood sighed in exasperation, yet he knew what was upsetting Mr. Gray—the letting go of the $500 and agreeing to the $5000.
Mr. Gray’s passion for saving Transatlantic Underwriters money was why he was so good at his job. Remember, Lockwood told
himself, as he rose to leave, Gray hates to pay.

Lockwood arrived a full half-hour at Penn Station before Myra’s train came in, which surprised him. He had a shoeshine to
help him sit on his fluttering stomach. This hadn’t happened since he was twenty-two. He was happy she was coming, yet sure
that this time, in the city, she wouldn’t really like who he was or how he lived or where he took her. He wanted to tell her
everything about his “adventure” with Barbara Wilson, and yet he knew that telling her the truth would ruin what was just
beginning to flower between them. Still, this strange urge not to have secrets between them wouldn’t go away. The strange
mixture of anticipation and fearfulness whirred around in his stomach like a bird with a broken wing, and Hanley, the bootblack,
had to ask him four times to keep his foot still.

“I want to see her,” Hanley said, which made Lock-wood’s foot slip off the stand altogether. “I surely do.” Hanley grabbed
Lockwood’s foot and slapped it right back on the metal frame, where he held it while he went back to work.

“How did you know I was meeting a woman?” Lockwood asked the old black man.

“Aw, come on. Saturday afternoon, you ain’t meeting no man on business. Guy like you, dressed in a new suit, Hook, you ain’t
going to get nervous meeting your mother or brother. You here in Penn Station—she probably lives out on the Island somewhere—”

“Enough,” The Hook said as he fished a quarter out of his pocket. “Finish up and keep the change. I stay here any longer,
you’re likely to write my autobiography.”

Hanley just chuckled and didn’t hurry as he finished his job.

Myra looked bewildered and marvelous when she stepped off the train, and they were both eager and wary as they approached
each other—for they didn’t know each other well enough to be spending a day and a night alone together in Manhattan.

Lockwood played it gallantly, making sure that her bags were snapped up by the red cap by poking a quarter at him right away.

“What’d he call you?” Myra asked Lockwood as they walked towards the front.

He grinned. “That’s my old wartime nickname. Hook. George was in the 69th with me.”

“It’s nice you know somebody here. This place is so big and confusing.”

In the cab they really kissed and their eager hands explored again the others’ neck, face, and body.

At the Summerfield Hotel, she said, “Oh, I thought I’d stay with—you.”

“You are. This is where I live.”

“In a hotel?”

“You’ll see.”

And she did. Lockwood had a two-room suite on the twelfth floor: living room with a Pullman kitchen and a bedroom.

“Oh, it’s perfect for you,” Myra said. “Did you decorate it? It’s so masculine—the heavy drapes, the old bookcases, and the
leather furniture.”

Lockwood smiled. “I had some help.”

“Female help?” she asked in an arch way.

He kissed her. “I didn’t know you then.”

As if her ardor had cooled, she pulled away. “I want a bath, and maybe a couple of drawers to put my things away. Possible?”

He made her at home and left her to the bedroom and bath while he read the afternoon papers. The sportswriters were bored
by tonight’s fight, too.

It hadn’t gone badly with Myra. It was different with her here in New York. In Patchogue she was more on her own ground; the
Big Apple was his turf, and she was more reserved. He felt his confidence rise.

He took her over to Lamb’s for dinner. She wanted to know how the T-men and he were doing in their hunt for the bombsight.

“They won’t tell me anything, Bill,” she said. “They won’t tell any of us. It’s like they think we’re traitors—we’re the ones
making, designing, the thing!”

He smiled. He rather liked it that even though she was here to have a good time with him, she kept her mind on her business.

George Lamb himself came over and took their order. Lockwood ordered for the two of them, making sure she liked oysters and
roast beef.

“Can I trust you?” he asked. He made sure he kept a twinkle in his eye.

“Depends,” Myra answered with a saucy toss of her head.

“Not to talk. I’d like to know what you think about a couple of ideas I have, but I have to know it won’t get back to Manners
or your boss.”

“I can keep a secret.”

So he brought her up to date and asked her about the trucking firms that came into the place and about Josef’s private life.
He hinted at what the T-men suspected about the leak through Barbara Wilson.

He trusted her. In a way, Lockwood shouldn’t have, for technically she was a suspect, as was everybody at the plant. But if
she was guilty and if Lockwood was making a mistake in trusting her, he was ready to turn in his private investigator’s buzzer
and buy a share of Hanley’s shoeshine stand.

“I never thought about the trucking firms,” she said. “Sure.” She toyed with her fork, then put it down sharply. “But Josef!
He lost his wife last year. He was crazy about her. For months he was useless to us, then he became his old self. Stanley
teased him one day—maybe three months ago—about his love life, and from the way Josef bit his head off, no one’s brought it
up again.”

“Have you met her?”

“No, and neither has anyone else.”

Lockwood understood that. When they finished dinner, they strolled over to the Garden. Myra had spent little time in New York
and questioned him about the city.

“You’re awfully curious,” he said.

“It’s my nature,” she answered. “I’m a scientist.”

A couple of men passed who greeted Lockwood, “Hello, Hook.”

“So many people know you,” she said.

“I live here—this is my neighborhood, you know.”

“But I always heard New York was such a big heartless place. You must have spoken to half a dozen people since we left the
hotel.”

Lockwood grinned. “Times Square’s like a village to me. It’s home.”

At the box office, they didn’t have tickets for Lockwood. Instead, a young man politely said, “I’m Pete Dembro, Mr. Lockwood.
Mr. Harris asked to bring you upstairs, if you don’t mind.”

Dembro led them through a maze of corridors and concrete staircases lined with pipes till they entered a battered office.

Tooths O’Grady sat there looking at a
Life
magazine.

“I’ll tell Benny you’re here, Hook,” he said. “Who’s the broad?”

“Lady,” Lockwood corrected.

Tooths frowned. “Benny’ll want to know, Hook. The name?”

Lockwood gave up. “Myra Rodman—with me for the evening.”

Tooths disappeared, and he and Benny reappeared seconds later. If anything, Benny looked more harried and worried and unshaven
than he had last night.

“Hook, come on in. You don’t mind your lady friend waits out here with Tooths, do you?”

Something in Benny’s manner—the roughness, the speed, the irritation—alerted Lockwood. He knew Benny, something was wrong.
He almost agreed, but then, Myra had made some valuable suggestions at dinner, and he wanted her to know as much about this
as possible.

“Could all three of us talk this over?” Lockwood asked.

Benny looked as if he wanted to say no.

“Who is she, Hook?”

“She’s working with me on this.”

Benny looked exasperated.

“This gotta be kept quiet, Hook.”

“I’ll vouch for her.”

Reluctantly, Benny agreed and led them inside.

Inside was a sitting room smelling of cigar smoke and filled with more battered office furniture. Benny steered them to a
frayed sofa and two club chairs.

“I stole the manager’s office for an hour or so,” Benny said.

They sat and stared at each other. Benny cracked his knuckles, which Lockwood knew Benny did when he was at a loss.

Lockwood said, “I got no secrets from Miss Rodman.”

Benny eyed her silently. “I don’t even want to meet with you, Hook,” Benny said. “You didn’t tell me you was a T-man nowadays.”

Surprised Benny had found out this, Lockwood said, “That doesn’t change anything, Benny. Come on. This is me, Hook.”

Benny shook his head strongly. “Listen, Hook, I can’t help you on this one.”

“You mean it’s a buddy of yours?” Lockwood asked.

Benny looked at the floor. Lockwood couldn’t even remember a time when Benny wouldn’t look at him. “Let’s say even you wouldn’t
want to put the finger on this guy, Hook.”

“Is this some guy from the old days? Somebody from the 69th?”

“I don’t want to talk about it,” Benny said.

They sat in an embarrassed silence for a whole minute, which then stretched into another. Lockwood couldn’t figure it, and
considered asking Myra to leave so he and Benny could have a buddy-to-buddy talk, but he had another idea.

He took out the ten $50 bills he’d taken from Mr. Gray at lunch.

“Benny, how much can these help?” He pushed them across the little table that separated them and fanned them out.

They stopped at the edge of Benny’s side of the table, and Benny stared at the notes as if they were a poisonous snake’s head.

Benny mouthed a silent “No” and moved back away from the table.

“Hook, if you find out on your own who’s in this, fine. But I can’t have a hand in it.”

Suddenly Lockwood got it, or thought he did. “It’s somebody big, and you don’t dare get in between.”

“Let’s say I’d get in trouble if I was to even ask any more questions,” Benny said. He crossed his arms.

“You’ve found something!” Myra said, which made Benny jump.

“Lady, no disrespect, but I ain’t talking to you. You’re here to hear me say I don’t know nothing—that’s all. Hear me tell
you there’s more in this than the two of you want to know about.”

Lockwood thought he could read between Benny’s lines. With that money on the table, and he and Benny being as tight as they
were with each other, something dangerous was involved. As far as Lockwood knew, Benny had never in his life turned down cash.

“You called Bill ‘Hook’ before, didn’t you?” Myra asked.

Startled, Benny stared hard at her before he said, “Yeah. So what?”

Lockwood turned to her, wondering what she was up to.

Myra leaned forward to focus on Benny. “That means you and Bill were in the 69th together, right?”

She paused, waiting, and finally Benny nodded again.

In a triumphant voice Myra said, “You two ought to know that this theft was arranged by the Germans. You ought to know that
what was being developed out there was a war weapon to keep the Huns in line, and that they knew it and either stole it or
arranged to have it stolen.”