A Fair: Cut Thin to Win

“Now then, you’ve avoided me and left me in a spot where I hold a whole fistful of cards that I think are trumps, but I can’t establish that they are trumps without your help.

“You’re young. You’re working for money. You could have lots of money.”

I shook my head.

“And,” she said seductively, “you could go places — the Italian Riviera, the Alps, round-the-world cruises, and you could have — you could have your choice of women.”

She was standing close to me now. “You know what I mean, Donald? Your choice.”

“Wouldn’t that be rather hard to explain?” I asked.

“Phooey on explanations,” she said. “We’d make a settlement. I’d get a divorce, and you and I could be on a boat within forty-eight hours. We could go anywhere you wanted — do anything you wanted — anything.

“Donald, please, please.”

Her arms were around my neck now. “You can’t be just a thinking machine. You have to be a human, Donald, and I’m human, too, and from the minute I saw you I liked you — fell for you.

“I want—”

The sound which came from the closet was a combination of a suppressed sneeze and a strangled cough. It sounded like a thunderclap.

Minerva Badger jumped away from me as though I’d suddenly turned red hot. She gained the door to the closet in four swift strides and jerked it open.

Elsie Brand was seated there holding a handkerchief to her mouth, her eyes wide and glassy, the tape recorder running, the shorthand book in her lap filled with pothooks.

“And what, may I ask, is the meaning of this?” Minerva Badger demanded.

I had time only to flash Elsie one quick wink. “My God,” I said, “my wife!”

“Your wife!” Minerva shouted.

“Good heavens, Elsie,” I said, “how in the world did you get here and how long have you been here?”

Again I handed her a wink.

Elsie did her best to carry off the part. She got to her feet and said indignantly, “Long enough. I’d heard you were carrying on with a rich divorcee in Las Vegas.”

She reached over, put the tape recorder into high-speed reverse, rewound the tape, picked the spool off the spindle, put it in her purse, picked up her shorthand book, tucked her chin in the air, marched right through the apartment and out the front door.

Minerva stood looking at me with consternation all over her face. “You never told me you were married,” she said.

“You didn’t ask me,” I told her, “You were the fortuneteller. You were looking in my hand. Couldn’t you tell?”

“Don’t crack smart with me, Donald Lam. I didn’t know you were married.”

I shrugged my shoulders.

“What’s she going to do with that tape recording?” she asked.

“Probably sue me for divorce and name you as co-respondent.”

“I didn’t do anything,” she said.

“It depends on what’s on that tape recorder and what Elsie says about the tone of your voice. It probably sounded rather seductive to a jealous wife sitting in a closet listening — getting evidence for divorce case.”

“Good Lord,” Minerva said, “of all the damned messes.”

She walked over to the telephone, dialed a number and said into the telephone, “Marvin... I guess you’d better get down here to this motel I told you about. I seem to have walked into a trap of some kind.”

She looked up from the instrument to glower at me and said, “At least I’m beginning to think it was a trap — No,” she said into the telephone, “I want you to come down here — that’s right — right away.”

She hung up the telephone.

She looked at me and said, “All right, your wife is gone, the tape recorder is gone. I’ll put it on the line. There’s evidence that exists that my husband was unfaithful. I want that evidence.”

“How do you know it exists?”

“I... I know.”

“What kind of evidence?”

“I believe there’s tangible evidence.”

Peremptory knuckles sounded in a preliminary knock on the door and then the door was shoved open.

Frank Sellers stood on the threshold. “All right, Pint Size,” he said, “let’s go.”

“Where?”

“Los Angeles... Who’s the dame?”

“Mrs. Badger,” I said, “may I present my warm, personal friend, Sergeant Frank Sellers of the Los Angeles police.”

She froze up. “Indeed,” she said, then nodded very distantly. “Good morning, Sergeant Sellers.”

Sellers looked her over, said, “I’d like to talk with you, Mrs. Badger.”

“Her attorney is on his way down here,” I said. “I think you’ve met the attorney. His name is Fowler. I believe it’s Marvin Estep Fowler.”

Sellers made some remark under his breath.

Minerva Badger stood looking at Sellers, apparently unable to take her eyes off him.

Sellers said, “Come on, Pint Size, we’re leaving quick.”

“How?”

“Charter plane, a fast one.”

“Where?” I asked. “To Denver?”

He shook his head. “Los Angeles.” He shifted the cigar in his mouth and said, “I’m going to get to the bottom of this if it takes the whole police force to do it. There’s something fishy about this and I don’t like it. This Tessie the Tumbler may be sitting pretty with an attorney to represent her in Las Vegas, but unless she gives me the information I want, she’s going to be extradited to California to face a couple of criminal conspiracy warrants there, and I think I’m going to have the goods on her.”

I looked at Minerva. There was, for a moment, sheer panic in her eyes, then she looked desperately at her wrist watch.

I did some thinking, said to Sellers, “Want to wait until after the attorney gets here, or go now?”

“We go now,” Sellers said. “Do you get it? Now.”

We went.

I had thought Sellers was planning to give me a third degree on the plane, but he sat there chewing on his cigar saying nothing.

“What’s the idea?” I asked, when we looked down at the Los Angeles airport.

“I’m getting back in my own bailiwick,” he said. “Denver can come to me and Las Vegas can come to me. I don’t need to go to them.”

“What do you want?”

“I don’t know yet, Pint Size,” he said. “I know that I want you, but I don’t know just how I’m going to get at you right now. Maybe you’re a friend. That is, maybe you want to act friendly. If you do, I’ll give you a break. Maybe you want to play smart aleck. If you do, it’s going to be too bad. And,” he added, taking the cigar from his mouth and poking the end at me in little forceful gestures, “maybe you tried to mastermind this whole damned business, and if you did it’s going to be just awfully too bad. You’re going to lose a lot more than your license. You’re going to lose your liberty.”

“And what do I do now, consider myself in custody?”

“I want to know where you are every five minutes,” Sellers said. “Go on to your apartment. Go to your office. Go see your best girl. Have a good dinner, go to bed if you want to, but be where I can put my hand on you at five minutes’ notice. And if you think I’m kidding, just try to duck out and see what happens. I’ll have you where I can put my hand on you any time, day or night.”

I said, “Okay, I’ll be at my apartment,” and went home.

I called the Las Vegas motel and asked for Elsie. She had checked out. I called Las Vegas and asked for Minerva Badger. Her phone didn’t answer. I called Denver, Colorado, and tried to get Alting Badger. I was advised he was unavailable.

I said that I would talk with Mellie Belden.

After a moment, her voice came on the line — cool, calm, competent, “May I take a message?” she asked. “This is Mr. Badger’s secretary.”