Kept Women Can’t Quit

“Don’t be a sap,” she said. “Any time you go and buy a box of enlarging paper that’s had the seals cut I want to know about it. All you bought that goddam camera for was so that you could include a box of photographic paper without arousing anyone’s suspicions. Now what happened? Did that cameraman high-grade what you put in the box?”

I walked over to the window and stood with my back to Bertha, looking down at the street. I felt like hell.

“Answer me!” Bertha screamed at me. “Don’t stand there trying to stall me. My God, don’t you know you’re in a jam? Don’t you know I’m in a jam? I’ve never seen Frank Sellers like that in all my life and you haven’t either. You—”

The telephone rang.

Bertha scooped up the receiver and said, “He’ll take the call right here.”

There was a moment of mumbled sound coming from the receiver, then Bertha yelled, “Goddammit, Elsie, I told you he’d take the call right here. Now, get that guy on the line.”

I turned around and said, “I can’t talk to him here, Bertha.”

Bertha said, “The hell you can’t. You talk to him right here or you don’t talk at all. Either pick up that phone and talk to the guy or I’m telling Elsie to cancel the call.”

I turned and looked at the glittering anger in Bertha’s eyes, walked over and picked up the telephone. “Is this the manager of the Happy Daze Camera Company?”

There was the rattle of quick, nervous, staccato Japanese accent on the line. “This is manager, Mr. Kisarazu.”

“This is Donald Lam,” I said, “in Los Angeles. Are you the man who sold me the camera and the enlarging paper?”

“That’s right, that’s right,” he jabbered nervously into the telephone. “Takahashi Kisarazu, manager, Happy Daze Camera Company, at your service, please. What can I do, Mr. Lam?”

“You remember,” I said, “that I bought a camera and a box of enlarging paper?”

“Oh, yes-s-s-s-s,” he hissed. “Delivered already at airport. Sent specially to airport for rush handling express.”

“The package is here,” I said, “but the stuff I bought isn’t.”

“Package is there?”

“That’s right.”

“But stuff you bought not there?”

“That’s right.”

“Sorry, please. I do not understand.”

I said, “I bought a special and particular box of enlarging paper. The box that came down here isn’t the box I purchased. The seals had been tampered with on that paper. It had been opened.”

“Opened?”

“Opened.”

“Oh, sorry. So sorry. I have everything here on purchase slip. Will send new box of paper at once. So sorry.”

“I don’t want a new box of paper,” I said. “I want the box I purchased.”

“Don’t understand, please.”

“I think you understand too damn much,” I told him. “Now, I want that box of paper that I purchased. The same one, understand?”

“Will be glad to send a new box right away, very quick, special handling charges. So sorry. Unfortunate accident. Perhaps someone has opened box of paper after you made purchase, no?”

“What makes you think that?”

“Because of finding five by seven enlargement paper on floor by counter. Am very sorry. Excuse, please. We will make good.”

“Now listen,” I said, “get this and get it straight. I want that box of paper and I want it down here fast. If I don’t get it, there’s going to be trouble. Big trouble. You understand?”

“Yes, yes, plenty trouble already. So sorry about paper. Am sending box right away. Good-by.”

He hung up the phone at the other end. I cradled the phone and met Bertha’s eyes.

“Sonofabitch,” Bertha said under her breath.

“Me?” I asked her.

“Him,” she said. And then after a moment added, “You, too.” Then she went on to say, “Dammit, Donald, you ought to know better than to try and outwit an Oriental. They can read your mind just like I can read the stock quotations in the newspaper.”

“This was a wonderful buy in a camera,” I said. “I think perhaps he smuggled it in.”

Bertha’s eyes were snapping. “Wonderful buy my eye,” she said. “You didn’t buy that camera because you wanted to take pictures. Now, why the hell did you buy it?”

“It might be better,” I said, “if I didn’t tell you. Maybe I’m in bad.”

“Then we’re in bad,” Bertha said. “What was this evidence that you were trying to have sent down to you without anyone knowing about it?”

“It wasn’t evidence,” I said. “Frank Sellers was right. It was fifty grand.”

Bertha’s jaw sagged. Her eyes began to widen.

“Fifty... grand...!”

“Fifty grand,” I said.

“Donald, you couldn’t have! How in hell did you find it?”