Manhunt. Volume 9, Number 1, February 1961

I could almost see the wheels spinning furiously behind those bland eyes. He was a big man, much bigger than I expected from his passport photograph and description. He had twenty or thirty pounds on me and was an inch or two taller, and I’m not exactly small. I wasn’t expecting exactly a bald professor type, but somehow, maybe because of his reputation as a brain, I was surprised at his physical appearance. He might be near forty, but he looked ten years younger and as if he’d be right at home enjoying himself in any kind of a barroom brawl.

“Well, I guess I’m through for the day,” I said. “I sure earned my dough on this deal — ducking cops all afternoon...”

I took a couple of steps towards the door and reached for the knob. No matter how calm this guy looked on the outside, he had to be upset about letting a million and a half get kicked around on him, even if he did think he had it back now. I had to stay there, but I thought he might bite on a double in reverse. If I seemed anxious to go, he’d want me to stay.

“No rush,” he said. “Why not stick around until Monk and Larry get up? I can fix you a drink while we’re waiting.”

“Thanks,” I said. “Maybe I could use one.”

He picked up the attache case from the chair and walked down the two steps into the living room to a large portable bar next to the radio, set the case down, and pulled open the front of the bar. I could see the glistening porcelain front of a small refrigerator tucked under the bar.

“Anything special?” he asked.

“Make it Scotch on the rocks,” I said.

He fixed two drinks with his back to me, and I watched him closely. Maybe I could have taken him then and maybe I couldn’t. With all the little crystal mirrored surfaces on the bar he was probably studying me closer than I was studying him. He was fully dressed except for his suit jacket — instead he was wearing something I think is called a smoking jacket, but I’d never seen one before except on an old TV movie. This one was dark maroon in color, with a black velvet collar. It came down a little further than a suit jacket and had two big pockets in the front. I thought he had something in the right one but it looked too small to be a gun. He turned and handed me my drink.

“Monk tell you what was in that bag?” he asked.

I noticed that he kept his drink in his left hand. His right hand went into the right pocket of the jacket and closed around something and stayed there. So it was a gun.

“Yeah,” I said. “It’s hot jewelry, isn’t it?”

He nodded. “We thought you took off with it in all the excitement today. It was mighty nice of you to go back to your hotel and wait for Monk. Most guys would just disappear if they had a chance like that.”

I was on mighty dangerous ground and I knew it. This was something I had to explain satisfactorily to Leon Schell or forget about getting any direct evidence on him, and maybe forget about living. But I had thought a lot about it and was ready for him.

“Maybe,” I said. “Only hot jewelry isn’t my line. It’s too hard to handle and too hard to get rid of unless you have the right contacts. And I didn’t want you guys gunning for me.”

Schell was far from a dummy, I couldn’t tell from his eyes if he bought it or not, but I thought I could sense a slight relaxation in his body.

“Speaking of guns,” he said, “what do you think of this?”

He took his right hand out of the pocket and I saw his fist closed around one of those small calibre European models. He didn’t aim it at me exactly, it was just pointed in my general direction. I didn’t say anything.

“Marvelous piece of workmanship,” he said. “I don’t like your clumsy American arms at all. I can almost hide this in the palm of my hand but it’s deadly under fifty feet. You know I practise a great deal with it in my spare time — I lay empty beer or soda bottles on their sides and try to shoot through the necks of the bottles and knock the bottoms off from forty or fifty feet. I can do that seven out of ten times.”

“So you’re a good shot,” I said. I was trying to figure out what he was up to.

“Do you have a weapon on you now?” he asked.

Now I knew. He was a pro, all right. I didn’t want him frisking me — if he ran his hands over my legs he couldn’t miss the recorder parts taped to my thighs.

“Yeah. I got a little nervous today so I borrowed this one from a friend of mine.” I pushed my jacket aside and showed him the butt of Harry Sloan’s .38 stuck in my belt.

“May I see it?” he said.

“Sure.”

I pulled it out, being careful to keep it pointed to the floor, and handed it to him. His gun was two feet away from my nose, and it was aimed directly at it. He put his drink down on the bar.

“This is typically American,” he said as he took it. “It’s just like your cars and your houses and everything else — much too big. It’s clumsy and inefficient and not nearly as accurate as my gun. Don’t you agree?”