Ed McBain: King's Ransom

“I can’t continue to hold stock in a firm that’s constantly backsliding,” Blake said. “That’s not sound. That’s not…”

“Then sell out! What the hell do you want from me?”

“I’d watch the way I was talking, Doug,” Benjamin said suddenly. “We still control twenty-one per cent, and I’ve known bigger men than you to be voted out of their jobs.”

“Go ahead, vote me out,” King said.

“If you find yourself out in the street…”

“Don’t worry about me, George. I’m not going out into any damn street.” He dumped the remains of the red pump onto the teacart and then turned toward the steps which terminated just outside the entrance hall.

“If you helped me become president,” Benjamin said, “it would mean an enormous salary increase for you. You could—” He stopped abruptly. “Where do you think you’re going? I’m talking to you.”

“This is still my house, George,” King said. “I’m fed up with your meeting, and I’m fed up with your proposition, and I’m fed up with you! So I’m leaving. Why don’t you follow suit?”

Benjamin walked after him to the steps. His narrow face was flushed with color now. “You don’t want me to be president of Granger, is that it?” he shouted.

“That’s it exactly,” King said.

“Who the hell do you think should be president?”

“You just figure it out,” King said, and he went up the steps and out of sight. A deadly silence followed his departure. Benjamin stared up the steps after him, contained anger rising in his face and his eyes. Blake angrily squashed his cigar in an ash tray and then stomped to the hall closet for his coat. Stone began packing the shoes into a sample case, picking up the red shoe scraps gingerly, almost lovingly, shaking his head over the destruction. Finally, Benjamin turned from the stairwell and walked to where Pete Cameron was standing near the bar.

“What’s he got up his sleeve, Pete?” he asked.

“His arm, I suppose.”

“Goddamnit, don’t make jokes! You’re his assistant. If anybody knows what he’s up to, you do. Now, what is it? I want to know.”

“You’re asking the wrong person,” Cameron said. “I haven’t the faintest idea.”

“Then find out.”

“I’m not sure I know what you mean.”

“Don’t play it wide-eyed, Pete,” Benjamin said. “We just offered a plan to Doug. He turned it down cold, in effect told us to go to hell. You don’t tell twenty-one per cent of the voting stock to go to hell unless you’re feeling mighty strong. Okay, what’s he feeling strong about?”

“Why don’t you ask him ?” Cameron said.

“Don’t get glib, boy, it’s not becoming. What are you making now? Twenty, twenty-five grand? You can make more, Pete.”

“Can I?”

Stone took his coat from the hall closet and walked over to the two men. Pointing back at the staircase, he said, “If that bastard thinks he’s going to get away with this…”

“I doan like bein’ kicked outa somebody’s home,” Blake said angrily. “I doan like it one damn bit! When’s the next Board meetin’, George? We’re gonna vote Mr. High-an’-Mighty King right back into the stockroom!”

“He knows that,” Benjamin said softly. “He knows that, and he doesn’t care—and that means he’s hooked onto something big. What is it, Pete? A deal with the Old Man?”

Cameron shrugged.

“Whatever it is,” Benjamin said, “I want it smashed. And whoever helps to smash it may find himself in Douglas King’s vacant chair. You know what that chair is worth, Pete?”

“I have some idea.”

“And I’ve got an idea you know just where you want to go in this company. Think it over, Pete.” Stone handed him his coat and hat. Benjamin put on the coat quickly and then, holding the Homburg in his hands, said, “Do you know my home number?”

“No.”

“Westley Hills,” Benjamin said. “That’s WE 4-7981. Will you remember it?”

“I’ve been Doug’s assistant for a long time now,” Cameron answered.

“Then it’s time you branched out. Give me a call.”

“You’re tempting me,” Cameron said, a slight smile on his lips. “It’s a good thing I’m an honorable man.”

The men locked eyes.

“Yes, it’s a good thing,” Benjamin said dryly. “That’s Westley Hills 4-7981.”

Stone reached down for his sample case, put on his hat and said, “If that bastard King thinks he can—” and then stopped talking abruptly.

Diane King had come down the steps silently and she stood looking into the room now. The men stared at her speechlessly. Stone was the first to move. He tipped his hat, politely said, “Mrs. King,” and opened the front door.

Benjamin put on his hat. “Mrs. King,” he said politely, and followed Stone out.

Blake dropped his hat, fumbled for it, picked it up, placed it on his balding head, politely said, “Mrs. King,” and hastily left the house, slamming the door behind him.

Immediately Diane said, “What did they do to Doug?”

* * * *

2

The King estate—for such it was—lay within the confines of the 87th Precinct. It was, as a matter of fact, at the farthermost reaches of the precinct territory, since nothing lay beyond it but the River Harb. The fallow land of the estate was one section of a parcel which stretched from the river’s bend to the arbitrary dividing line of the Hamilton Bridge. Within this parcel, there were perhaps two or three dozen homes which seemed to have been dropped there from another era. Incongruously, they provided the ultraurban face of the city with an atmosphere at once countrified and otherworldly.

This section of the city was called The Club by everyone in the city except the people who lived there. The residents, of whom there were less than a hundred or so, called it Smoke Rise. They used the title casually, but they knew it represented wealth and exclusiveness; they knew that Smoke Rise was almost a city within a city. Even its geographical location seemed to verify the concept. It was bounded on the north by the River Harb. On its south, the poplars lining the River Highway created a barrier which made Smoke Rise impenetrable from invasion by the rest of the city, the rest of the world.

South of the highway was fancy Silvermine Road, a distantly wealthy (but not that wealthy) relative of Smoke Rise. Continuing southward from Silvermine Park and the apartment buildings facing it, the peripatetic stroller encountered first the gaudy commercialism, the blinking neons, the all-night restaurants, the candy stores, the shrieking traffic signals of The Stem, crossing the precinct territory like a dagger dripping blood. South of that was Ainsley Avenue, and the change from riches to rags was subtle here, the buildings still maintaining some of their old dignity, the dignity of a once stylish, now shabby Homburg; and then came Culver Avenue and the change was apparent now, striking one in the face with the sudden ferocity of naked poverty, nakedly dirty buildings stretching grime-covered facades to a cold wintry sky, bars crouched between the unemotional masks of tenements, churches huddled on street corners—Come pray to God—the wind sweeping through the gray canyon as bleakly as an icy tundra blast.

Southward, southward, through the short stretch of Mason Avenue known to the Puerto Ricans as La Via de Putas, a flash of exotic color, a splash of eroticism on the ice floe, and then Grover Avenue and beyond that the happy hunting grounds for muggers, knifers, and rapists, Grover Park.

The 87th Precinct building was on Grover Avenue, facing the park. The detective squadroom was on the second floor of the building.

Detective 2nd/Grade Meyer Meyer sat at a desk before one of the windows overlooking Grover Avenue and the park beyond. The feeble October sunshine reflected from his bald pate, danced in his blue eyes. A pad of lined yellow paper rested on the desk before him. Meyer scribbled notes onto the pad as the man opposite him spoke.