Dan Marlowe - Killer with a Key

Sam was there.

Sam was standing just behind the front window of his store across the street. Watching. Just standing and watching, as he had yesterday, last week and last month. Standing and staring across the street. You didn't really even need to see him, Manny thought to himself. You can feel him.

He forced himself to move away from the window. Stop thinking about it, he told himself. You're getting as bad as he is. Forget about Sam. An ulcer you need? Sam would like that. Sam would like that fine, but ulcers are too good for what Sam would wish for Richard Harrison Stone, Jr.

He walked back to the showcases, but even as his hands deftly folded and creased and laid away his mind treacherously reverted to the front window of the store across the street. For the thousandth time he told himself wearily, will you cut it out? You hadn't been Sam's partner. Richard Harrison Stone, Jr. had been Sam's partner, and you didn't see Richard Harrison Stone, Jr. worrying about Sam.

Manny stared down unseeingly at a folded dust cloth. Richard Harrison Stone, Jr. had insisted that his former partner Sam buy him out. He had had a number of reasons, all of which Sam had sought to brush aside. Sam hadn't wanted to buy out his young partner; Sam had the money, all right, but he was satisfied with things as they were. Still, if your partner wants out, what can you do? Sam had called Sol, who had been his lawyer for twenty years, and Sol had drawn up the papers.

And three months later Richard Harrison Stone, Jr. had opened up across the street from Sam. Sam had just about torn the front door off his safe getting out his reduction of partnership papers and had found out in a hurry that there was no restrictive clause. Found out, too, in the first hysterical telephone call that Sol had acquired a new client- Richard Harrison Stone, Jr.

Sam had found it out a little late, that was all. In business a man protects himself, or stands in windows looking across the street.

Manny looked up at the glass doors as they opened again, glad of the interruption. The fat man came directly to him, bluff and hearty, and thrust a magazine clipping into his hand.

“Need six of these,” he said breezily. He grinned toothily. “Promotion job. Got to be identical. You fix me up?”

“Six?” Manny glanced down at the pictured Medallion. “Ah… six. Certainly. By two o'clock-”

“Not a chance, son.” The fat man was emphatic as Manny again opened the drawer beneath the counter. “I'm due at a sales' meeting in twenty minutes. How many you got?”

“I have four. In an hour, even-”

“Any in the window?”

“Let me look.” Manny knew there were no Medallions in the window, but he was following Precept Number Two of Richard Harrison Stone, Jr. Give the customer a little action for his money. Check the window. Check the vault. Check the wastebaskets. Check anything. Move. Look alive. Look like you want the business. “Sorry, sir. Not another one in the shop.”

“Gimme the four.” The fat man tossed a coarse handful of money on the counter top. “My girl'll have to shoot out and pick me up a couple while I stall 'em in the meeting.”

Manny looked thoughtfully after the departing rotund figure. He rubbed his chin; sure must be some promotion. Steam shovels, at least. Or locomotives. He wished he'd had the other two Medallions. How could you figure this business? You might sell two a month, ordinarily. If you were lucky. Now here they had snatched five away from him in a morning. Morning? He glanced at his watch. Hell, in an hour.

He made a note on the “out” pad beside the register and looked up again as the glass doors parted majestically to admit Richard Harrison Stone, Jr. He watched the customary impressive entrance, inclining his own head in response to the curt nod he received, and his eyes followed the dignified ascent of the lean, aristocratic figure to the second floor offices. Automatically Manny straightened the set of the white linen jacket across his shoulders. He disliked the jacket, but the jacket constituted Precept Number One of Richard Harrison Stone, Jr. A potential customer, the owner was fond of saying smugly and often, finds a certain psychological block in dealing for a piece of expensive merchandise with a man better dressed than himself. Therefore a clerk should look like a clerk. Like a white-linen-jacketed clerk.

Manny glanced back at the door as the morning's first customer re-entered the shop in a shambling trot and plowed toward him. The man's face was flushed, and he was obviously repressing emotion. He slapped down on the counter the wrapped package that Manny had given him.

“Like to return this,” he said carefully in a hoarse, strained voice. He tried to smile. “She wouldn't even look at it. Or at me.”

“Sorry,” Manny murmured. “It happens.” He toed the buzzer which would bring Max out from his watchmaking cubicle. Manny took his time making out the refund slip; beside him Max unobtrusively opened the package, looked carefully at the watch, checked the itemization on the refund slip, and silently returned the watch to the drawer beneath the counter. You never knew, Manny reflected. Even in a shop like this you could find someone trying a switch. It was never any problem, though; on a return you just called Max.

The girl must really have given this boy a hard time, Manny thought as he made the refund and the unhappy gentleman departed. A woman-hater, till the next time. He glanced at his watch again. Eleven. Slow morning.

And as though linked by an invisible wire he drifted down the counter and out to the front window, where he again lifted a fold of the drapery and looked across the street. Bright sunlight reflected from Sam's window and dazzled him. He dropped the drapery. So you can't see, Kessler. You need to see? Sam is standing there. Watching. Waiting.

Manny's full lips twitched. Sam was mad at Stone, all right; Sam was purely out-of-his-mind mad at Stone, but Sam was mad at Manny, too. Manny had worked for Sam, before and after the breakup of the partnership. And then Stone had come after Manny and made him a very, very good offer. Sam would have matched it, of course. Sam would have screamed like a stuck whistle on the Staten Island ferry, but he would have matched it. Sam had liked Manny. Manny had kind of liked Sam, too, but he hadn't given Sam a chance to match the offer. Are you a fool, Kessler? he had asked himself. Look at them. Look at Sam's place, and look at Stone's. All right, Stone's a gonnif, but he's going places. His money spends. Manny had gone with Stone.

On quiet mornings like this he sometimes wondered about that decision. Not that Sam could do anything. Not that He turned at the sound of the doors and looked at the overdressed blonde pushing her way inside. She was followed by a man in a dark suit, and both of them by a big man in a rich-looking sport coat and light-colored slacks. The big man wore an expensive panama with a too-wide brim, and he had a livid scar that pulled down a corner of the heavy mouth slightly.

Manny looked at the blonde, and a little warning bell jangled in his mind. Sometimes you got a feeling. A beef-even here you had to get one once in a while. The blonde looked in Manny's direction and pointed. He sighed; it figured.

“That the one?” the big man demanded. His voice was fantastically deep. You surely should be able to hear him a quarter mile upwind in a storm, Manny thought. The voice rumbled at him as the big man advanced upon the counter. “You, there.” He dangled a watch suspended from a bracelet in Manny's face. “You sold my girl a phony watch. Don't try to deny it.”

“If I might just see the watch,” Manny said in his patiently courteous voice, “I might not have to deny it.”

“Here.” The big man thrust it at him. “Lost thirty minutes every day she's had it, and-”