Ed McBain: King's Ransom

King’s Ransom

[An 87 thPrecinct Mystery]

Ed McBain

Scanned & Proofed By MadMaxAU

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1

The long curve of the bay window faced the River Harb and the late-afternoon traffic of tugboats and barges plying their way between the two states. The scene beyond the window was clear with the pristine snappishness of October growing into November, each orange-and-gold leaf boldly shrieking its color against a sky too blue, too cold.

The room itself was clouded with cigar smoke and cigarette smoke, lacking the sharply defined clarity of the outdoors, hazing over the people who had come to the room to transact business. The smoke hovered on the air like the breath of banished ghosts, clinging like early-morning cemetery mist to the wide hand-pegged planks of the flooring, rising to the exposed hand-hewn timbers in the ceiling. The room was immense, but it was cluttered now with the trivia of an extended skull-cracking session, ash trays overbrimming with butts, used and half-used glasses strewn about the room like the debris of a drunken army in retreat, empty bottles cluttering the tables, the men themselves exhausted and drawn as if they too, like the clinging shifting smoke, were ready to dissipate into the air.

With dogged weariness, the two men sitting opposite Douglas King rapped out their staccato argument with the precision of vaudeville tap dancers. King listened to them silently.

“All we’re asking, Doug, is that you think in terms of net profit, that’s all,” George Benjamin said.

“Is that a lot to ask?” Rudy Stone said.

“Think of shoes, yes. Don’t forget shoes. But only as they apply to net profit.”

“Granger Shoe is a business, Doug, a business. Profit and loss. The black and the red.”

“And our job,” Benjamin said, “is to keep Granger in the black, okay? So keep that in mind, and think of net profit, and then take another look at these shoes.”

He rose from his position in the easy chair. He was a thin waspish man wearing black-rimmed spectacles which overpowered the narrowness of his face. He moved with the swiftness of a bird of prey, walking rapidly, almost gliding to the brass-stemmed, glass-topped teacart which stood some few feet from the sofa. The top of the cart was covered with women’s shoes. Benjamin picked up one of these shoes now and, with the same swift gliding movement, a peculiar grace which gave the impression that he was walking several inches above the actual surface of the expensive flooring, walked to where King sat in noncommittal silence. He extended the shoe to him.

“Is that a shoe to stimulate sales?” he asked.

“Don’t misunderstand George,” Stone put in hastily. Standing alongside the bookcases which lined one wall of the living room, he looked like nothing less than a Nordic god, muscularly blond, a man of forty-five with all the litheness of an adolescent. He dressed, too, with an arty flair, the checked weskit, the off blue of his sports coat, which seemed too young for his years. “It’s a good shoe, a fine shoe, but we’re thinking in terms of net profit now.”

“The red and the black,” Benjamin repeated. “That’s what we’re interested in. Am I right, Frank?”

“A hunnerd per cent,” Frank Blake said. He sucked in on his cigar and blew a smoke wreath at the high ceiling.

“This shoe simply doesn’t stimulate the masses, Doug,” Stone said, moving away from the bookcases. “It has no flair.”

“It has no guts,” Benjamin said, “that’s what it hasn’t got. Not only can’t the average American housewife afford it, she wouldn’t buy it even if she could afford it. Mrs. America, that’s who we’re after. The little woman who sweats over a hot stove and wipes snotty noses. Mrs. America, our customer. Mrs. America, the stupidest damn consumer in the universe.”

“We’ve got to excite her, Doug. That’s elementary.”

“We’ve got to bring women to a fever pitch.”

“What excites a woman, Doug?”

“You’re a married man. What excites Mrs. King?”

King studied Benjamin blandly. Standing some six feet beyond him, mixing a drink at the bar, Pete Cameron looked up suddenly and caught King’s eye. He smiled secretly, but King did not return the grin.

“Clothes excite a woman!” Stone said.

“Dresses, hats, gloves, bags, shoes!” Benjamin said, his voice rising. “And shoes are our business, and nobody’s in business for his health.”

“But nobody!” Stone said. “Net profit depends on stimulation, excitement. You can’t excite a woman with these shoes. These shoes wouldn’t excite a mare in heat!”

The room was silent for a moment.

Then Douglas King said, “What are we selling? Shoes or aphrodisiacs?”

Frank Blake rose instantly, his thick Southern accent dripping from his thick Southern lips. At fifty-six, he gave the impression of a man who’d been weaned on molasses. “Doug is makin’ a joke,” he said. “You’ll fo’give me, but I dint come all the way from Alabama to hear jokes. I’ve got money invested in Granger, and from what George Benjamin tells me about how the firm’s bein’ run, well, I can see why it’s almost in the red.”

“Frank is right, Doug,” Benjamin said. “This is nothing to joke about. Unless we do something fast, Granger Shoe is going to be right up the proverbial creek.”

“Without the proverbial paddle,” Stone added.

“What do you want from me?” King asked softly.

“Now you’re asking the right questions,” Benjamin said. “Pete, let me have another drink, will you?”

From the bar, Cameron nodded. Quickly he began mixing the drink. There was an economy to his motion, as if it too had been pared down to fit the requirements of his well-tailored, gray-flanneled frame. A tail and handsome man of thirty-five, he continued mixing the drink, his brown eyes flicking alternately to each person in the room.

“What do we want from you, Doug?” Benjamin said. “Okay, here’s what we want.”

“Spell it out for him,” Stone said.

Cameron carried the drink over. “Anybody else?” he asked.

“None fo’ me,” Blake said, and he covered the top of his glass.

“You might freshen this one, Pete,” Stone said, handing him his near-empty glass.

“All right, Doug,” Benjamin said. “In this room, at this moment, we’ve got the top brains of Granger Shoe, am I right? I represent sales, you represent factory, and Rudy here is fashion Co-ordinator. We’re all on the board of directors, and we all know damn well what’s wrong with the firm.”

“What’s that?” King asked.

“The Old Man.”

“His policy is dictating the kind of shoe we produce,” Stone said. “His policy is driving this company into a hole.”

“He doesn’t know a shoe from a corn plaster,” Benjamin said.

“What does he know about women’s tastes? What does he know about women, for God’s sake?” Stone said.

“He’s seventy-four years old, and I think he’s still a virgin,” Benjamin said.

“But he’s president of Granger, and so Granger goes as the Old Man goes,” Stone said.

“But why is he president, Doug? Have you ever stopped to ask yourself that question?”

“Doug isn’t a moron, George. He knows why the Old Man’s president.”

“Because he has enough votin’ stock to swing any election his way,” Blake put in, interrupting the two other men.