Sight Unseen (12 page)

Myra sat back. Something new crossed Benny’s face—his wary caution was shot with something hard and angry.

“How do you know it was the Huns?” Benny asked.

“Because they’re the ones who could really put this to work,” she said. “They’re going to run across Europe again—you guys
didn’t make the world so safe for democracy—and the Germans are going to try and make sure they don’t make the same mistakes
they made the last time.”

Benny looked at Lockwood. “Is this thing that important?”

“Tell him what it is, Bill,” Myra said.

“I thought it was such an all-fired secret?” he asked.

“If he doesn’t know what’s involved, how can he help?”

Lockwood saw the logic in that, all right. “Can you keep it under your hat, Benny? I’ve been promised I’d be shot by the T-men
if I said a word about this thing, but I think she’s right—knowing might change your mind.”

“I know how to keep a secret, Hook. Of all people you know that.”

In vague and general terms Lockwood gave him an idea of the importance of the theft.

“He don’t know none of this,” Benny said. He shook his head in amazement.

“Who, Benny?” Lockwood asked.

“I need to talk to somebody, Hook.”

“There’s no time,” Myra said. “They load this on a ship or a submarine, and it’s lost forever. They gain twelve months, we
lose twelve months—believe me, being out twenty-four months on something like this is enough to make all the difference.”
She turned to Lockwood and asked, “What do you think will happen to London or Paris or—Times Square if they have this instrument?”

“Squash them to dust,” Lockwood said.

“Lady, you sure you know what you’re talking about?” Benny asked.

“I built it,” she said.

He looked at her skeptically. “Women don’t do this stuff.”

“I’ve got two Ph.Ds—one in metals, and the other in aviation engineering.”

“She’s spent a lot of time in Europe, Benny,” Lockwood said.

“Benny, Benny—help your country,” Myra pleaded. “These people are going to try and take over the world. Just like last time.
This new breed of Hun is going to make the guys you two fought last time look like pussycats.”

Benny considered it for a minute or so and then nodded. “Vince Salerno, Hook. He has an interest in Magna Trucking. I think
he engineered the job. For someone else.”

The Hook could understand why Benny didn’t want to get involved. Vince Salerno was at the pinnacle of the Queens Mob, with
his fingers in half a dozen rich, messy pies out on the Island. Sure, if you wanted somebody to pick up something out there,
Vince was perfect. Everything fell into place.

“Set up a meet, Benny,” Lockwood said. “Fast.”

“Get him to hold on to it, Benny,” Myra said.

Benny threw his hands up. “You know what he’s like, Lockwood. I don’t know if he’ll even talk to me, much less you guys. And
by now—what is it?—three, four days after the heist—would he still have it?”

“I want to tell the Feds,” Lockwood said.

Benny shook his head. “No. Vince will know it came from me. I asked questions and was told to keep out.”

“Benny, this is too big.”

“Let me go to work, Hook,” Benny said. “How do you think Vince Salerno’s going to feel when he finds out that some Germans
have played him for a chump? He might be dying to show them that he ain’t one—which wouldn’t be so hot for the health of any
Huns.”

“Can I hear from you soon?” Lockwood asked.

“Real soon.”

The Hook rose. “That’s good enough for me.”

Toward midnight, Lockwood took Myra to the Rainbow Room at the top of the RCA tower. It was one of his favorite places, and
he hoped she’d enjoyed it, too. The Rainbow Room could set the stage for a terrific evening. The huge room sparkled in a modern
way—the color organ threw shifting lights on the revolving dance floor, and the twirling couples were dappled in the rain
of light. From the south table that Morgan, the headwaiter, deftly sat them at they could see the Empire State Building and
all of lower New York blazing below them.

“Bill, what are you going to do now?” Myra asked.

“I’m giving Benny his shot at this.”

“We can’t just wait around. Do nothing.”

“That’s what my boss tells me,” Lockwood said. He grinned. “Come on. Dance with me. Enough work for one night.”

As they swayed together on the revolving floor, the swing clarinet of Little Middleton pierced them.

“He can really play,” Lockwood murmured in her ear.

“Have I told you what a dreamy dancer you are?” she asked.

“Now that’s music to my ears.”

A throaty chuckle bubbled up next to his ear. “I could dance all night,” she said. “But I wouldn’t want to miss any fun back
at the hotel.”

He held her more tightly and nuzzled her neck like an eager pony, and her gay laugh at his horseplay aroused him still more.
Little Middleton swung into “Autumn Leaves.” Lockwood loved it. He liked waiting like this before he took her off to bed,
letting the tension and interest between them build. He knew most guys liked to get right to it when they went out with a
girl, but that wasn’t his style. Not only did it not leave much to do afterward, but the whole courtly chase was too much
fun to exhaust in ten minutes of sweaty wrestling. In fact, a lot of guys would have been all over her this afternoon as soon
as they got her into the hotel room, but Lockwood liked to hold back and let the interest and charge between them build to
its highest pitch.

“Don’t look now,” Myra said, “but isn’t that Nigel Heatherton at that corner table?”

Lockwood slowly danced her in a half-circle so he could see. “Looks like it. Who’s he with?”

“I’ve seen her somewhere before.”

“Where?”

“At a party somewhere. I remember she was with a German guy.”

“German, huh?”

As they were leaving the dance floor, Myra hissed, “Here they come.”

The two couples came face-to-face. The Britisher drew himself up and greeted them in an arrogant tone, “Fancy meeting the
two of you here.” It set Lockwood’s teeth on edge, but he smiled pleasantly.

Heatherton introduced his companion only as Hilda. Obviously foreign from her thick accent, Hilda shook hands with Myra and
Lockwood in a heavy, sullen way. She looks like a medium-sized Viking warrior, Lockwood told himself. She appeared full of
poise and force, but her heavily madeup face looked bitterly unhappy about something and on guard to meet lots more of it.

Back at their own table, Myra said, “She’s with one of the embassies or cultural attachés here in New York. I can’t remember
which one. I met her at a cocktail party with one of those arrogant bastards with a dueling scar.”

“She seems to go for arrogant types,” Lockwood said. “I’m trying to figure out why he was so pushy tonight.”

“Oh, that’s just England’s upper class. They resent Americans on general principle.”

“I wonder.”

For a few minutes Lockwood toyed with his glass, his knife and fork, and the salt and pepper shaker.

“This may sound silly, Myra, but I don’t want to be here with him.”

Myra smiled warmly and took his hand. “Funny—I was just figuring out how to say the same thing, but you were having such a
good time dancing.”

“Hey—I have been.”

“Me, too.” She squeezed his hand and smiled coyly. “Back to the hotel?”

He hoped he wasn’t smirking. “Back to the hotel.”

He caught the headwaiter’s eye, and the man glided over.

Lockwood drew a couple of twenty-dollar bills from his jacket and handed them to Morgan, who protested, “You don’t need all
that lettuce—”

“See that guy by the band, Dave?” Lockwood said. “Don’t look now. The one with the heavy-set blond?”

Morgan turned as if he were looking for a waiter, and out of the corner of his eye he looked over the dance floor.

“The limey who’s so rude.”

“That’s him. Can you find me somebody to let me know where he goes tonight?”

“For forty dollars I can find an army.”

“Keep something for yourself, Dave. I want to know every spot he hops to tonight, who he sees, and where he beds down for
the night.”

“Suppose him and Brunhilda there go in—”

“Exactly,” Lockwood said. “The guy should stick around for a couple hours after he goes in with her to make sure he’s really
down for the night.”

“How about Billy French?”

“I don’t know Billy French, but if you say he’s okay, he’s okay, Dave.”

Morgan smiled and took the two twenty-dollar bills. “You’re going to make yourself a new friend tonight.”

“Ask my new friend to call me from the lobby of the Summerfield at 11:00 tomorrow morning,” Lockwood said. “If he’s done a
solid job, there’s a Summerfield House breakfast in it for him, too.”

With Myra on his arm, Lockwood steered them back to 47th Street. It was near one-thirty, and even though it was a Saturday
night, the rat-a-tat pace of the city’s heart had slowed. Lockwood noticed that the dozen whores they had passed earlier in
front of Walgreen’s had thinned down to four.

“What’s up, Bill?” Myra asked. “Why did you want Nigel and Hilda followed?”

“Too chummy with a lady with a German accent for an Englishman.”

“You can’t suspect him!”

“I suspect everyone.”

“Including me?” she asked coyly.

“Including you,” he answered with a smile.

They didn’t say any more till they got back to the hotel.

Lockwood hadn’t bothered to register Myra, and he was relieved to see that Jake was on duty tonight. He tipped his hat to
the night clerk as they went to the elevator. The Summerfield didn’t allow hookers, and Noyes might have tried to throw his
weight around about Myra, making a scene that Lockwood certainly wasn’t in the mood for.

Upstairs they eyed each other and smiled. Myra looked shy now, and Lockwood hoped he didn’t look like an eager schoolboy.
The moment reminded them that for all their easy familiarity, they still didn’t know each other very well.

“Why don’t I slip into something more comfortable?” she said as she headed for the bedroom.

“Why don’t you?” Lockwood agreed. “Nightcap?”

“Whatever you’re having.”

He made two Canadians in a meditative fashion. Lockwood couldn’t figure out what all this was between him and her, just that
it was more than what usually went on between him and the other sex. He had even felt it that first night, when he had thought
during the evening that this dame was a hard one, and he wasn’t going to ask her out again. This feeling was a little like
carrying a baby around, something precious and fragile that he could roll over and easily kill. While part of him wanted to
kiss her off, a stronger part couldn’t. That part wanted to keep her here in New York, right here in his hotel room, so that
he would know where she was and that she was safe.

“Come in, Bill.”

He sighed and picked up the two drinks and a couple of paper napkins and entered the bedroom. She was in bed, dressed in something
lacy with flounces that told him she had on nothing underneath. She smiled, and he wanted to crush her to him.

“Come to bed.”

“How could I want to crush someone who looks so fragile?”

“Don’t.”

“I won’t.”

“I’m nervous, Bill.”

“I’m jumpy, too.”

“I almost didn’t come today.”

“Why not?”

She took her drink and sipped it and put the cold glass on the night table.

“Am I doing the right thing? I shouldn’t have let you sweep me off my feet last week. Here I am rushing off to spend the night
in your apartment.” She gave a little shudder.

“By me, you’re doing the right thing.”

“You don’t think I’m fast?”

“I think you’re fast. And I think you’re wonderful.”

“I want you to think well of me, Bill,” she said. She took his tie in her fingers and toyed with it. Lockwood felt himself
getting aroused. “And I want to have fun with you. I feel good with you.”

“I feel good with you. It’s like I haven’t really been with a woman before.”

“Really? Is it really like that?”

“I haven’t lied to you yet.”

She gave a mock pout and gave his tie a jerk. “When do you start?”

“I don’t.”

She pulled him by his tie down to her. Hurriedly, he put his drink on the table and kissed her. She crushed his head to hers,
and when they came up for air, she was gasping.

“Promise me you won’t lie to me. I couldn’t stand it. I want to know all about you.”

He grinned and nuzzled her face with his nose. “I won’t lie to you.”

“Get dressed,” she said. “Or undressed, whatever it is you do. Come to bed.”

He took his pajamas to the bathroom, brushed his teeth, and changed. When he came out, the light was off and all he could
see was the glow of a cigarette in the dim light. The neon sign from the deli across the street made a faint red glow around
the window shade. She’d thrown all the covers back except for the top sheet, and when he came to the bed she pulled him down
to her and guided his hands under her night dress.

“God, your hands feel wonderful,” she said.

“Your skin feels wonderful.”

“Oh yes, like that,” she said. “Ummmmm, keep that up!”

“Like this?”

“Yes.”

“And this?”

“Oh yes!”

It wasn’t till an hour and a half later that Lockwood suggested sleep.

“Sure,” she answered and snuggled up next to him. “There’s no more left to me.”

“Not to me either.”

“I’ve never done all this with a man before.”

“It was wonderful.”

“I trust you,” she said. “You can do anything you want to. It’s okay with me.”

“I know. I never knew I had so much. You get me going.”

She rubbed her nose playfully over his neck and up around his ear. “It’s wonderful to get you going. You’re like some great
wild stallion.”

Embarrassed, he laughed.

“Oh, I know it’s silly,” she went on. “But that’s how I feel. Sometimes I get so far into it—I did tonight—God, I was some
mare and you were my stallion and I was yours and I just gave myself to you the way a mare would to her stallion.” Myra moved
her whole length against him, snuggling up. “Does it bother you, my talking like this?”