I said, “You can go to hell.”
He opened the humidor on the desk. There was a peculiar click as the cover swung back, but all that was inside was a row of cigarettes. He took one out and closed the cover. The humidor didn’t move by so much as a hair’s breadth. It might have been a part of the desk itself. The signal wires ran through it, of course, down through the desk and under the carpet.
A door opened. Two men came in.
The man behind the desk said, “Frisk them.”
I said to Hashita, “Stand perfectly still.”
The men came over and rammed their hands along our bodies, then stepped back. “They’re clean, Sig,” one of the men said.
The manager indicated the desk. “Go ahead and write, Lam,” he said.
“What do you want me to do, stick my head in a noose?”
“Just tell the truth,” he said. “No one’s going to hurt you.”
“I know damn well no one’s going to hurt me.”
“Unless you act rusty,” he went on.
“I guess you don’t know the news. The cops picked me up and tried to pin that hotel room on me. I guess you framed that — well, it didn’t work. The witnesses won’t identify me.”
He acted very bored. He said to the Jap, “You got your money all right.”
The Jap looked at me.
I said, “He’s taken care of.”
“All right, show him out.”
The two men moved toward the Jap, who stood his ground quietly, his muscles seemingly completely relaxed, but there was something solid about the way he stood.
When the men were close to him, I said, “All right, Hashita, let’s win that bet.”
One of the men grabbed him by the shoulders and started to push him around.
I couldn’t see exactly what happened. The air got full of arms and legs. The Jap didn’t seem to exactly throw them. He juggled them, as though they’d been tenpins, and he was putting on a vaudeville exhibition in stage juggling.
The manager opened a drawer in his desk and reached inside.
One of the men sailed through the air with his head down and his feet up. He hit a picture on the wall in that position. The glass broke, and the man, the picture, and the frame hit the floor at the same time.
I made a grab for the manager’s arm.
The other man jerked a gun out of his pocket. From the corner of my eye, I saw what happened. Hashita grabbed his wrist, twisted his arm, swung his own body around, smacked his shoulder up under the other man’s armpit, jerked down on the guy’s arm — and threw him at the manager.
The guy hit the top of the desk and the manager and the manager’s gun all at the same time. The swivel chair gave way with a crash under the impact. The drawer splintered, and the men sprawled on the floor.
Hashita didn’t look at them. He looked at me. There was still that burning red light in his eyes.
I said, “All right, Hashita, you win.”
He didn’t smile. He kept looking at me with ominous intensity.
One of the men scrambled up from behind the desk. He lunged forward. I saw blue-steel in his hand. The Jap leaned across the desk and chopped down on the guy’s forearm with the edge of his open hand.
The man yelled with pain. His arm and the gun hit the desk together. The gun bounced. The arm lay there on the desk. The man couldn’t get enough strength in his muscles to move it.
Hashita walked around the desk with quick, businesslike steps.
I went to work. I went through that desk with as much attention to detail as the circumstances and time element permitted. The manager on the floor looked up at me with the dazed expression of a punch-drunk fighter.
I said, “Tell me where those Ashbury letters are hidden.”
He didn’t answer me. He may not even have heard me. If he did, the words probably didn’t make sense.
I went through the desk. I found an agreement which showed that C. Layton Crumweather owned a controlling interest in the Atlee Amusement Corporation. I found a statement of net profits, of gross income, a recapitulation of operating expense — I didn’t find any letters to Alta Ashbury. I was so disappointed I could have chewed up a bag of tenpenny nails.
The side door opened. A man stuck his head in, stared incredulously, and jumped back.
I said to the Jap, “All right, Hashita, that’s all.”
There was another side door. It led into a private toilet and washroom. Another door from there opened into an office which would have made a bank president turn green with envy. It didn’t look as though it had been used for some time. There was dust on the desk and on the chairs. I figured that would be Crumweather’s office. A door led to a corridor, and then there were back stairs. The Jap and I went down.
I shook hands with the Jap and gave him fifty dollars of my expense money. He didn’t want to take it. I could see the red glints still in his eyes. I said, “The pupil begs the pardon of Honorable Master. The pupil was wrong.”
He bowed, a stiff-necked bow of cold courtesy. “It is master,” he said, “who is very dumb. Good-night, please. Do not call again — ever.”
He got in the taxi and went home.
I turned around to look for another cab.
One was pulling in toward the curb. I flagged it, and motioned to the driver I’d pick him up as soon as he dropped his passenger. He nodded, brought the car to a stop, hopped out, and opened the door.
The man who got out of the taxi was C. Layton Crumweather.
He looked at me, and his bony face wreathed into a cordial smile. “Well, well,” he said, “it’s Mr. Lam, the man with the oil land proposition. Tell me, Mr. Lam, how are things coming?”
“Very well,” I said.
He reached out with his hand, and I took it. He kept shaking my hand, hanging on to my right, pumping it up and down and smiling at me. “I see you completed your business in the Atlee Amusement Corporation.”
I said, “I presume that the brunette girl telephoned you as soon as she tipped off the manager.”
“My dear young man,” he said, “I haven’t the faintest idea what you’re talking about. It just happens that I eat here in the restaurant occasionally.”
“And have an interest in the gambling upstairs,” I supplemented.
“Gambling!” he exclaimed. “What gambling? What are you talking about?”
I laughed.
“You astonish me, Mr. Lam. Do you mean to say there’s gambling going on in the restaurant?”
“Save it,” I said.
He kept holding my right hand. “Let’s drop into the restaurant for a bit to eat.”
“Thanks, but I don’t like their coffee. Let’s go across the street to that restaurant.”
“Their coffee is perfectly atrocious.”
Crumweather kept holding my right hand. He looked back over his shoulder toward the door of the restaurant as though expecting something to happen. Nothing did. Reluctantly, he let me withdraw my hand from his. “You haven’t told me about the oil.”
“Going fine,” I said.
“By the way, I find we have some mutual friends.”
“Yes?”
“Yes. Miss Ashbury. Miss Alta Ashbury. I have taken the liberty of asking her to be at my office tomorrow afternoon. I know she’s a very popular young woman and can’t arrange her time to suit the convenience of a crusty old lawyer, but you might impress upon her, Mr. Lam, that it would be very much to her advantage to be there.”
“I’ll tell her if I see her.”
“Well, come and join me in a cup of coffee.”
I shook my head. “No, thanks.”
“You were in there?” he asked, jerking his head toward the building.