“And,” went on The Kid, “if you’ll trust me in this thing, I’ll just leave you a cash deposit to prove I’m right.”
And his hand delved into his breast pocket, took out a wallet, extracted a five hundred dollar bill from the wallet, passed that bill over to the blonde. The Kid scraped back his chair. The blonde stared at the bill.
“You can tell him,” said The Kid, “that you overheard The Kid telephoning from here, asking Sol Asher to come down and open up the store so he could buy the wrist watch for a wren. It won’t cost him anything to check the information.”
She blinked her eyes rapidly.
“I can get him at The Maplewood?” she asked.
The Kid shook his head.
“No,” he observed. “I think you’ll find him hanging around Garibaldi’s speakie. That’s the hangout of ‘Bull’ Bogetti and his mob. Winton’s been sorta friendly with them lately.”
And The Patent Leather Kid bowed to the blonde, and slipped through the green curtain which shielded the interior of the booth from the view of those who might pass in the hallway.
The back of Sol Asher’s store was designed to furnish a certain amount of safety for the property which was on the inside. It was, however, only a comparative amount of safety. Under the skilled hands of The Patent Leather Kid, the locks betrayed their trust with no noise, and no great amount of inconvenience to the gloved hands of The Kid.
The Patent Leather Kid was careful to leave the back door of the place unlocked. He wanted a ready exit. He was also careful to avoid going near the safe. But he took from the pocket of his overcoat a rather strange device. It was a screw socket similar to the sockets which furnish the base for incandescent globes, and which screw into the wall or cord connections. But this socket did not support an electric globe. Instead it furnished the connection for two dangling cords with insulation running almost to the ends. The ends, however, were bare, mere naked wires with the ends frayed out.
The Kid borrowed a chair, climbed up on it, unscrewed one of the incandescents, inserted the socket with the two wires, arranged those wires so that they were not readily discernible, and then went into the little office, sat down at Sol Asher’s desk, and lifted the telephone with his gloved hands.
He called Sol Asher’s number.
The voice which greeted him was no longer sleepy.
“Okay, Sol,” said The Kid. “I got the money. You get here just as quickly as you can. I’ll be ready to close the deal at exactly quarter past one. She’s a swell wren, Sol. You’d oughta see the way she wears her fur coat! And talk about complexion! Say, she’s got the sort of complexion that . . .”
Sol Asher’s voice interrupted the flow of praise with a commercial question.
“The complexion be damned,” he said, “you got it the money?”
“I,” proclaimed The Patent Leather Kid, with that degree of jubilation which is the result of alcoholic stimulation, plus the natural reaction aroused by the appreciative appraisal of a wonderful figure and a good complexion, “have got the money, six nice crisp one hundred dollar bills, and the wren says if you don’t want to make the sale . . .”
Sol Asher’s voice when he interrupted, was filled with that degree of mild reproach which was a sales technique of its own.
“Listen,” he said, “you wouldn’t want it a man should get up in the middle of the night to make it a sale, and then have the customer back down on him, y’understand?”
“Come on down, then,” invited The Patent Leather Kid, his eyes twinkling.
“Right away,” said Sol Asher.
The Kid waited until the line was free, and then called police headquarters. His voice, when he talked was a very fair imitation of Sol Asher’s.
“Listen,” he said, “this is Sol Asher, an’ I got it the jewelry store on the corner below the Maplewood Hotel, on Maplewood Avenue. And I got it a lowlifer that gets me out of bed to come down and open the safe because he’s got it a wren that wants a wrist watch, and I want it to have some police protection, so if it should be a stick-up . . .”
A voice interrupted.
“Well, what’re you crabbing about? We told you we’d give you protection when you called the first time. There’s a whole car full of hard boiled babies headed out your way now.”
The Patent Leather Kid chuckled.
“That,” he said, “makes it okay,” and hung up the telephone.
The Kid smoked a cigarette or two, crouched down in the shadows back of the safe, seated in a chair that was tilted back against the wall. Minutes passed.
A touring car slid quietly along the curb, stopped. Steps pounded the pavement. A dark blotch of shadow loomed against the front door. There was the sound of a key in the lock. The Kid moved his chair so that he was completely concealed from the front of the store by the big bulk of the safe. He pinched out his cigarette.
A light switch clicked and the place blazed with light.
The Kid blinked his eyes.
Sol Asher walked heavily toward the back of the store. He paused to scrape a match along the sole of his shoe as he lit a cigar. He was breathing heavily, after the manner of fleshy men who have taken exertion.
Sol Asher walked in to the office and sat down. He waited a full three minutes, then started muttering under his breath. The Patent Leather Kid, attired in evening clothes, with shoes of patent leather, got to his feet.
“Okay, Sol,” he said. “I got the money.”
Sol Asher gave an exclamation which was like the wheeze of a collapsing tire.
“Hey!” he said.
“Right over here,” observed The Patent Leather Kid. “Six one hundred dollar bills. Come and get ’em.”
Sol Asher moved cautiously.
“Say,” he demanded, “how’d you get in here? And what d’yuh mean coming into my place of business without letting me know—”
“Do you,” asked The Patent Leather Kid, “want to sell me that watch or not?”
Sol Asher approached the safe.
“Vel-l-l-l,” he said, “since you’re here, once . . .”
He twirled the dials, and he stood so that he was plainly visible from the street, through the plate glass windows which looked into the interior of the store, blazing as it was with a brilliant light, designed to show the sparkle of the gems to the best advantage.
The Kid hugged the protection of the steel box.
Sol Asher jingled keys against the steel of the inside safe door, made fumbling motions with his right hand. He pulled out the wrist watch from the interior of the safe, and saw the six one hundred dollar bills which the Kid thrust into his hand.
Three men ran toward the door of the store
Then The Kid stepped out into the open and took the wrist watch. Whereupon things happened with a sudden swiftness. The touring car disgorged three men who ran purposefully toward the door of the store. One of the men held a submachine gun in a position of readiness. The others held automatics.
Sol Asher gave vent to an oath.
There was the roar of a gun. The Patent Leather Kid pressed the two wire ends together. The naked wires, making a contact, gave forth a blue spark of flame, and then, as the fuse burned out, every light in the place was extinguished.
The submachine gun rattled into action. Bullets sang through the store, crashing glass, smashing plaster, ripping long wood splinters.
But The Patent Leather Kid, taking advantage of the darkness to move the single step which had been necessary to put him behind the safe, listened to the racket with an almost impersonal abstraction. His ears were attuned for another sound.
It came.
Running feet on the pavement. Nearby doorways disgorged broad shouldered men who ran forward, blowing police whistles. There was the roar of gunfire, the wail of a siren.