The Wheel is Fixed

by James M. Fox

  The blond youth let go of my shirt and scowled at them, his tantrum spent as quickly as it had come on. He shrugged and swaggered back to his car and drove off in a snarl of ruthlessly applied compressor thrust. The Irish chauffeur looked me over without much interest and nodded.

  “Yeah, that’s him,” he said hoarsely, opening the door on my side. It snagged his coat and showed me the bulging holster on his belt.

  The patent-leather kid jerked his head. I didn’t know him, but I knew his accent, and the sneer that came with it.

  “These way, Bailey. We haff been waiting for you already.”

  Mr. Walter Hitchcock reclined in the nude on a white sponge-rubber mattress by the side of his kidney-shaped, pink-tiled swimming-pool. He had the flat, muscular body and the swarthy tan of a young Roman centurion, weirdly in contrast to the almost-distinguished head of a retired British field marshal, complete with iron-gray military mustache, eagle nose, and flashing, contemptuous, rust-brown eyes. I didn’t mind the raking those eyes gave me. I was almost dizzy with relief, listening to Kovac’s formal introduction. They were going to play this one for courtesy of the table, after all. They had an angle, and they were dealing me in. In Hollywood the swimming-pool is supposed to be a conference room; they keep their blackjacks out in the front office.

  A Jap houseboy came pussyfooting from the house with a trayload of Scotch and a silver ice jug. He brought me a gaily striped canvas director’s chair and a trick ashstand shaped like a gnome. He offered cigars from a humidor with a music-box attachment that played the “Blue Danube Waltz” for me. I took one just to be polite and for something to occupy my fingers; I needed a roast-beef sandwich, not a cigar. In the pool a large yellow rubber duck drifted lazily with the breeze, watching me from one sardonic red eye. The Jap did a fadeout, and Kovacs lounged against the diving-board behind me, sneering into his highball.

  “A piahno player,” he said, tasting the words as if they were smeared with Limburger.

  Hitchcock ignored him. The harsh rust-brown eyes raked me over some more.

  “I hear you don’t like California,” he said. The tone was captain-of-industry, straight from the gravel pit. The skin between my shoulders started prickling again.

  “California’s all right,” I said. “It’s just my luck that needs a change of seasons.”

  “Talk sense, Bailey. Your luck can’t sign its name on rubber. Don’t you know what happens to welshers?” There was nothing I could answer to that without sounding like an ass, so I let it go by. He knitted the coarse gray bristles that ran in one shaggy crest from temple to temple and inspected the evenly drawing cone of his cigar. “You’re a professional musician?”

  “Yeah, but I had a little trouble with the union.”

  Kovacs coughed eloquently. “Trobble,” he said. “Maybe you don’t know trobble when she’s sitting in your lap already.”

  I looked at him carefully over my shoulder. It wasn’t a question of his words so much as of his manner. “Two hundred dollars,” I said. “Okay, so it’s a matter of policy with you gentlemen, and I’m a welsher. But that cashier at Louie’s is a drunken bully, and if I hadn’t given him a check there would’ve been a riot in the joint. It didn’t seem worth it at the time. Sorry, but I don’t see much point in your making all these cracks about piahno players, buddy.”

  He stared at me with that funny, venomous kind of hostility many of them still have in their blood from generations of feuding over some rocky patch of hillside land with a plum tree on it and a couple of goats grazing. Hitchcock brushed a fly off his stomach and snorted impatiently.

  “I’ll handle this, Steve,” he said, and to me: “You want back in?”

  “If you mean the music business,” I said slowly, “the answer is obvious. But it would take a little something I don’t happen to have lying around, such as for instance quite a piece of money. You see, my last engagement I managed to drop about two weeks’ payroll for the boys. That was in ’41, and I’ve paid back some of it during the war, but I’d have to find every cent before the union would consider playing ball with me again.”

  “How much?”

  I shrugged and told him. It was the kind of figure you remember much better than your own birthday. There wasn’t any secret about it, either, but I couldn’t see why they should be interested. He just nodded at me and said calmly, “It’s a loan. You can open at the Royal-Columbus in Bermuda on the twenty-first of next month.”

  “Huh?”

  “Two grand a week and expenses, for the season. Suit you?”

  I swallowed my drink, fast, and rocked with the seesaw movement of the terrace under my chair. Dizziness wasn’t the word for it.

  “Listen, Mr. Hitchcock, it takes time to get good boys and put a band in shape. I used to have connections—”

  “You want the job?”

  “Yeah, I want it,” I said thickly, feeling Kovac’s sneer on the back of my neck and not daring to look at either of them.

  “In Bermuda iss no games,” said Kovacs, keeping me posted. “No bookies, yet. Basta. You weel not like that, moch.”

  The cigar broke in my hand. I wanted to hit him, but the best I could do was a sickly grin. “Bermuda sounds just fine,” I said. “This is all very handsome, and I do appreciate it. But maybe you gentlemen have something in mind about a way for me to return the favor?”

  “You’re supposed to get this woman out of my hair,” said Hitchcock bluntly, without so much as blinking an eyelid.

  The terrace stopped seesawing, and the sun’s reflection in the pool jumped back into focus. “Yes, sir,” I said cheerfully. “Excuse me, please. I didn’t catch that. Sounded like you wanted me to get a woman out of your hair.”

  “That’s right.”

  We had ourselves a pause for station identification. I don’t smoke opium or anything, and I knew where I was and who they were all the time. I didn’t think they were just having fun. On the other hand, nothing short of Calamity Jane in person would be particularly likely to bother them at all. Two grand a week—A good stiff overdose of sleeping-pills would set them back about eighty cents at the nearest cut-rate drugstore.

  “Show him, Steve,” said Hitchcock, glaring at me and my foolish suspicions.

  Kovacs took his back off the diving-board and produced a thin sheaf of folded business letterheads. “These private matter, Bailey,” he admonished me. “Very confidential, already. You are smart man—too smart to talk, huh?” He smiled, as blandly as the grooves of dissipation in his rakish features would allow him.

  It was a report from a private detective agency, the kind with sixty-seven offices in the Western Hemisphere and correspondents in all major cities of the world, the kind that serves bankers’ associations, railroad companies, and royalty-in-exile. I couldn’t make head or tail of it. It was neatly typed and impersonally worded, addressed to nobody in particular, and referred at length to someone, apparently female, as a “subject.”

  … In cases such as this, where subject’s background appears to be unduly obscure, it should be clearly understood that no completely satisfactory results can be expected from an investigation limited in scope or time. Within the time allotted it has proved impossible to trace subject’s family status or secure concrete proof to establish subject’s present character.

  It was found that subject did in fact attend the Immaculate Heart Academy of Baltimore, Md., from 1930 to 1916, but faculty and employees of this institute, which is reputed to serve partly as an orphanage as well as caring for a certain number of illegitimate offspring of Roman-Catholic descent, refused to co-operate in revealing any additional information. Subject left Baltimore and arrived in New York City on October 19, 1946, resided for two weeks at the Betsy Ross Hotel for Women, and obtained employment with the Ainslee Agency as a photographic model. Office and Social Security records admit no next of kin and quote New York, April 16, 1928 as subject’s place and date of birth. A check of civic records appears to indicate that these data are
incorrect, or that subject’s name was changed upon her entrance at Immaculate Heart Academy for the exact purpose of screening her real ancestry.

  Subject moved into a modest single-room apartment at 4814 Oxford Towers and quickly achieved a measure of professional prominence. Her income is said to have varied between $100 and $250 per week. Subject was considered by her associates to be of a somewhat retiring and strait-laced disposition until June, 1947, when she began to appear on a number of social occasions in the company of Alfredo Vanni, Metropolitan Opera baritone and motion picture star, who resided at the time at 755 Central Park South. It was generally assumed by friends and associates of subject and of Mr. Vanni that the couple were on intimate terms, and this probability was a matter of veiled speculation in several Broadway newspaper columns during the fall of 1947 in view of Mr. Vanni’s long-established and colorful reputation for gallantry. However, the affair was conducted with a certain discretion, and at short notice it has not been found possible to discover evidence of any value.

  On February 12, 1948, Mr. Vanni returned to Hollywood, where he is under contract to Globe-International Pictures, Inc. Subject secured a release from her contract with the Ainslee Agency on February 15, stating that she wished to become a free-lance model on the West Coast. She arrived in Los Angeles on March 2, and has since resided in a duplex apartment at Sunset Castle, 9880 Dumont Avenue, Beverly Hills. Subject is considered a successful model, but local fees are substantially lower than in the East, and her earnings here are estimated to average less than $150 per week. Subject’s rent alone amounts to $400 per month. She is still frequently observed in Mr. Vanni’s company at fashionable restaurants, and she is known to have been among his guests on several occasions at his San Fernando Valley estate, but Sunset Castle employees claim that he has never been known to visit her apartment, although subject entertains friends of both sexes there and appears to enjoy a normal social life. She is understood to appreciate music, and owns a fair-sized record library. She does not appear to be actively interested in a motion picture career; however, a routine screen test was made at Globe-International on March 21, 1948, presumably upon Mr. Vanni’s recommendation, which test is said to have proved disappointing to talent executives concerned.

  Subject continued to display a quiet and reserved personality and to exercise more than average discretion in behavior. It is considered highly probable that her relations with Mr. Vanni amount to more than ordinary friendship, and that a financial arrangement is involved. Further investigation over a period of time is likely to succeed in uncovering conclusive evidence in support of this appraisal…

  I read all these fine, cagey words, and frowned at them for no special reason, and glanced at Mr. Walter Hitchcock’s disapproving scowl. I couldn’t see what was so confidential about a middle-aged opera singer paying the rent for his girl friend. Alfredo Vanni could afford a whole seraglio, and probably did.

  “Where do you come in, sir?”

  The scowl deepened; the gray mustache actually twitched with indignation. He did not want to tell me. He wasn’t exactly ashamed of it, or embarrassed, by any means. He was just irked about the deal, like a man in a hurry who breaks a shoelace.

  “That damfool son of mine wants to marry the woman,” he said gruffly.

  His son! I kept my face straight with an effort. The bold Paisley scarf, the pale, emotional, furious eyes, the arrogant private-school accent cracking hysterically on a dirty word. Something wrong, Mr. Stuart? No, the sleeping-pill treatment would not be indicated there. Or the visit from the two big, solemn-faced characters with the unctuous manner (Lady, don’t you think this town gets kind of dull after a spell? How’s about a little trip to South America?). Or even the summons to a stuffy corporation lawyer’s office, the rustle of parchment foolscap, the five-figure check. None of those. Not with a headstrong, spoiled, excitable young punk involved, who out of sheer resentment might decide to blow off the roof.

  What it would take would be something along the lines of a slightly shopworn Lothario, suitably equipped with a reasonably handsome body and countenance, halfway acceptable social manners, and conveniently amputated conscience. One who could be quickly dressed up in some sort of professional glamour, rushed on stage to make with a fast seduction routine and remove the lady to a safe and distant spot by her own free consent. That would be the only smooth, foolproof way of fixing young Mr. Stuart’s little red wagon, all right.

  “Does she want him?” I asked, just to pretend an interest.

  The snort he gave me questioned my intelligence. “Does a fly want sugar? The boy came to see me last Thursday night. He’d met this doll some time ago and expected me to kick in with the price of the ring. If you knew my son you’d realize I couldn’t tell him to go roll a hoop. His next stop would’ve been Las Vegas, Nevada, and the tab for an annulment anywhere from a hundred G’s up. I told him marriage was great stuff, only not to rush his fences. I said I’d give the doll a job for two weeks, posing for ads at my place in Palm Springs, if he’d promise to stay away from her that long—then if he was still squirming he could slip her the leash, with bells on. He fell for it.”

  It had taken them just three days to have the detective agency tie a tag on her and cast about for a likely-looking fancy man, the kind who would either play ball or wake up on a vacant lot without a face, such as for instance me. They’d never have made it with one of their own trained gorillas; the job demanded too many special qualifications. “Maybe you should’ve let his mother handle this,” I said stupidly.

  ”You kidding?” He wasn’t sure if he should get mad or feel sorry for me. “Listen, Bailey, by the time you’re as old as I am, and you’ve had as many of these chiseling little blondes try to take you, you’ll know better. I don’t even remember what she looked like.”

  “Sorry, my mistake,” I said. “You’ll think I’m just wasting my chips, Mr. Hitchcock, but the truth is I can’t seem to figure the deal. Why don’t you simply ask Vanni to keep his pigeons in the roost?”

  “The customer is always right.”

  “Sir?”

  Now they were both of them sneering at me. “Maybe you are not so smart,” Steve Kovacs said unpleasantly. “Meester Vanni iss one beeg spender, got many friends already. Basta. We do not mess with Meester Vanni. Iss bad for beezness.”

  “Okay,” I said. “I just wanted to know. You gentlemen must have a lot of faith in me. I’m supposed to walk in there and make this young lady forget about a big-spending baritone and a possible marriage to twenty million dollars. All she gets out of forgetting is a trip to Bermuda with a joker like me. I’ll need a correspondence course in hypnotism, ten easy lessons.”

  The yellow rubber duck in the pool bobbed gently up and down on a ripple, swung around with the breeze, and showed me his tail. I bared my teeth at him and shrugged it off helplessly. They had passed me the dice, faded me the house limit, and expected me to shoot. They had probably cooked up something in case I threw snake eyes, but they’d pay off all right on a natural. Subject is understood to appreciate music—

  “I’ll need some money, anyway,” I wound up lamely.

  Chapter Four: BLONDE COMPLICATION

  PALM SPRINGS and money is like ham and eggs. Palm Springs has everything—the sun, the mountains and the desert, the low-roofed air-conditioned Spanish villas and the swanky dude ranches, the haughtily exclusive country clubs. It has the Indians, the mineral prospectors and the cowpunchers, the big excursion buses full of Boy Scouts, and it has the movie stars, the millionaires, the playgirls, and the crooks from every corner of the earth. From Hollywood it is a trip of one hundred miles due east. The Ford, minus one fender, made it in three hours that Monday night.

  A battered old car may be an affectation or a sentimental attachment, but a wolf must look like a gentleman. I had a hundred and fifty dollars’ worth of light-gray sharkskin gabardine on my back, and a good secondhand suitcase full of brand-new play clothes in the trunk. I had a haircut, a shamp
oo, and a manicure. I’d got my wrist watch out of hock and bought myself a handsome pin-seal wallet and a pair of woven-leather moccasins that had a lot of quiet class, bearing in mind that there are women who will judge a man almost entirely by his shoes.

  I’d paid my bill at the Sierra Lagos, collected my shaving-gear, and at about six-thirty pushed the buzzer button under the neatly mounted strip of visiting-card with Miss Marion Faraday on it in carefully engraved 6-point Old English. That was my first mistake, right there.

  “Yes, what is it? Oh, no! Rick, I don’t believe it!”

  “Take it easy, honey. It’s only me.”

  “But I didn’t recognize you! Darling, you’re positively glamorous!”

  “Just sniff the air. Same faint odor of brimstone.”

  “Come on in, quick, before that slinky redhead witch across the hall sees you. Mmm! Yum-yum-yum. Hold me tight, Ricky—nice Ricky! You got the job.”

  “Yeah, I got it.”

  “We’ll have to celebrate. A dry martini, please, Jeeves. Veddy veddy dry. I’m fixing supper for us, but it won’t burn. We can have a drink and sit on the couch and neck, and you can tell me all about it.”

  I managed to grin at her warily. She had on something long and pink and lacy with a lot of ruffles that she called a hostess gown, and her blond shoulder-length bob was fluffy from the brush. Her wide hazel eyes were dancing with excitement. From nine to five, five days a week, they were more likely to stand firmly at attention, and her office wardrobe consisted of nothing but plain and severely cut tailor-mades. She had the kind of figure that looks trim and interesting in a really expensive girdle. She was a great girl, Marion—smart, willful, loyal, possessive, warm-hearted, hot-tempered, self-confident. Virtuous, even, in her fashion, an uncomplicated kind of virtue that held nothing was bad if you felt sorry for the guy and he was considerate about things, and properly appreciative.