The Golden Gizmo (10 page)

The only son of a good but impoverished Hessian family, he had been expelled from school for theft. Another theft landed him in prison for a year and caused his father to disown him. Milt learned the watchmaking trade in prison. He was by no means interested in it, but useful work of some kind was mandatory and it appeared the easiest of the jobs available. He was not sufficiently skilled at the time of his release to follow the trade.

He was not particularly skilled at anything, for that matter. And, after an unsuccessful attempt at burglary, which almost resulted in his rearrest, he became a waiter in a beerhall. He fitted in well there. He was lazy and clumsy, but this very clumsiness, coupled with what seemed to be a beaming, unquenchable good humor, made him an attraction… That waiter, Max,
ach!
Snarling his fingers in the stein handles, stumbling over the feet he is too fat to see. A clown,
ja!
You should hear him when he tries to sing!

Since he could do nothing else, Milt put up with the gibing and jokes. He beamed and exaggerated his clumsiness, and made a fool of himself generally. Inwardly, however, he seethed. He had never been good-natured; he was sensitive about his appearance. He could have toasted every one of the beerhall customers over a slow fire and enjoyed doing it.

Then, one day, the leader of a troupe of vaudevillians noticed Milt, and was impressed by what he saw. This awkward youngster could be valuable; he was a natural for low-comedy situations. He didn't have to pretend (or so the leader thought). He was a born stooge and butt.

Milt joined the troupe. Eventually, early in 1913, he came to America with it.

That was the end of the good-natured business. That was the end of being the clumsy and lovable little brother of his fellow vaudevillians. Cold-eyed and unsmiling, Milt let it be known that he despised and hated them all. One more innocent joke, one more pat on his ridiculously potted belly-and there would be trouble. The funny business was strictly for the stage from now on.

Milt got away with it for four months, during which he extorted three raises in pay. By the time he deliberately forced his dismissal, he had acquired a sizable sum of money and no small knowledge of the country, its language and customs.

He got himself fired in San Francisco. Five days and five hundred dollars later, he had a new name and a number of sworn documents proving his American citizenship. His parents, these documents revealed, had been the proprietors of a San Francisco restaurant. He had been privately tutored by a Dutch schoolmaster. Parents, restaurant, schoolmaster-and the original records of his birth-had been destroyed in the great fire and earthquake. Milt's English was not good-but what of that? Many legal residents of the country talked a poorer brand. For that matter, many legal residents of the country had no legal way of proving their right to be here except by the very method Milt used.

Americans, it seemed, were not as exacting as Germans, and Milt easily found employment as a watchmaker. He pursued it just long enough to discover that his employer's streak of larceny, while latent, was virtually as broad as his own. At Milt's suggestion-for which he took half the profits-the store owner filed hundreds of suits against merchant seamen for articles allegedly bought from him. Since the defendants had shipped out and were unaware of the notices of suit brought in obscure legal papers, judgment was automatic.

Later he opened his own small side-street watch-repair shop. Until a certain day in 1942, he thought he was doomed to remain there, barely making a living, a foolishly cheerful-looking fat man who could not acquire the wherewithal and was rapidly losing the nerve for the gigantic swindles he dreamed of.

One of these last was inspired by his own history. Perhaps there were many persons who had entered and remained in the United States under the same circumstances as his. If one had the means to ferret them out-! Ironically, he was pondering this very scheme on that day in 1942 when, looking up from his workbench, he discovered that others had thought of it also. Thought of it and acted upon it.

Being Milt, he was not, naturally, at all discomfited by the discovery. His words and his expression were actually contemptuous.

"Do not tell me, please!" He narrowed his eyes in mock thoughtfulness. "Ah, yes, I remember now. Madrid, 1911, was it not? Alvarado and his Animales. There was considerable debate, I remember, as to which was which."

"And, you, I recall you well, also," said the chinless man. "A human swine-there would have been a novelty! Unfortunately, my
pobres perros
rebelled at the thought. But-enough! Listen to me carefully, Herr Von Der Veer, and do not interrupt!"

He spoke rapidly for ten minutes, ending with a sharp-soft "Well?" that was a statement rather than a question. Milt took a drink from a brandy bottle before replying.

"Let me see if I understand," he said. "You have aligned your cause, unofficially, with that of the Reich where my father is now resident. And unless I accommodate you in this matter, certain unpleasant things will happen to him. He might possibly find himself in prison, that is right?"

"Regrettably, yes."

"Fine," said Milt. "Beat him well while he is there. Starve him also, if you can. He has such a great fat stomach I doubt that it is possible."

Milt smiled pleasantly. The chinless man blanched. "Monster!" he stammered, then recovered himself. "But there is something else, Herr Max. You are in this country illegally. A word to-"

"Any number of people," said Milt, truthfully, "will swear that I was born here. But why do we dispute, Seсor Alvarado? That so- foolish man who leads your equally preposterous government-"

"Silence!"

"-may be moved by motives of idealism. You may be also. I am not so stupid. I want money. If you want this thing done, you will pay for it. It is as simple as that, and no simpler."

Thus, Milt, who like everyone else in the jewelry trade had begun dabbling in gold when the price went to thirty-five dollars an ounce- -thus, funny-looking little Milt became a large-scale buyer for the Nazi government.

His first move was to build up a group of house-to-house buyers who worked out of his shop. Their purchases, less perhaps an undetectable third, went directly and regularly to the mint, where he built up and still had a reputation as a man above suspicion. His next move was to rent numerous post-office boxes under different names; small boxes, such as individuals rent. Under those names, he inserted small newspaper ads in as many different sections of the country.

There are thousands of such advertisers; little men, often with little knowledge of a highly exacting business. Because they are little, they feel obliged to place money ahead of good will. They grade and weigh "close"-the doubts which always arise are decided in their own favor. Because they lack the necessary training and wit-and despite their petty and pitiful efforts to do the opposite- they make disastrous buys. It is then obligatory, or so they feel, to be still "sharper" to make up for their losses.

The end result of all this is that the little men acquire a bad or at best "uneven" reputation. They buy less and less gold. Usually, in a few months or a few years, they are out of business.

It would be a physical impossibility to check on all these small mail buyers, and the federal authorities see no need to do so. Before gold can be diverted into the black market, it must first be acquired. And the little men just don't buy it, not a fraction of the quantity needed to pay them for the risk… That is, of course, none of them bought it but Milt's little men. Gold poured in on the little men. They bought pounds of it every day.

Milt had expected to get out of the gold traffic when the Nazis had become unable to buy. But the chinless man gave no sign of ceasing operations, and Milt was far too wise to express a desire to quit. Angrily he realized that, in effect, he was jeopardizing his liberty and perhaps his life for nothing. He could never spend his wealth in the United States. He would never be allowed to leave the United States to spend it. He was getting old. Unless he withdrew from the ring soon, it would be too late. The things money bought would have become meaningless.

Mixed with his anger was a kind of apathy, a dread dead feeling that whatever he did mattered little. Even if he could get away… well, what then? How would a man of his age occupy himself in a strange new country? Alone, completely alone, with no one to care whether he lived or died.

He had been unable to deposit his money in a bank and afraid to place it in a safe deposit box; such might attract attention, and what if he should have to leave town in a hurry? So, unobtrusively, he had had a small but excellent safe sunk into the floor beneath his workbench. It could be cracked, of course, as the best of safes can be. But what knob-knocker or juice worker or torch artist would suspect that Milt had anything worth getting?

None did. The idea was laughable. Milt used to laugh, smile a little sadly to himself, as late at night sometimes he examined the stacks upon stacks of large-denomination bills. So much money… for what?

So he had gone on, reasonlessly, because there was nothing else to do, and fate in time had brought Toddy and Elaine Kent to him.
Elaine!
There was someone like himself, a woman who thought as he did. With someone like her, with her and the money, life would at last be what it should. And why not have her? It was only a question of ridding her of her fool husband, and if she kept on drinking, making trouble-and if that was not enough, if Toddy would not leave her or permit her to leave.

Night after night Milt had brooded over the matter; cursing, thinking in circles, guzzling quart after quart of beer. And, finally, Toddy had stumbled upon the house of the talking dog; and from then on thinking almost ceased to be necessary. Every piece of the puzzle had fallen into place at the touch of Milt's stubby fingers.

True, there had been one slight hitch, a hair-raising moment when all seemed lost. But that was past, now. Nothing remained but the pay-off. There was no longer danger-or very little. Things had not worked out quite as he had planned, but still they had worked out.

The phone rang. Milt answered it, casually, then grinned with malicious pleasure:

"Yes, I did that,
Seсor
. Something you should have done yourself… Why? Because he was dangerous, a menace to us. At least that was my honest opinion. I have not acted out of venom-as our superiors will most certainly feel that you have… Eh? Oh, you are mistaken,
mein Herr
. You have but to consult your morning paper-
The News
. The others did not see fit to carry the item. And if that is not enough for you…

"If you demand stronger proof"-Milt's voice dropped to a wicked caress-"pay me a visit."

Eyes closed, he bounded, staggered, to his feet, and the icy weight clattered from his head. Then he was pressed back, prone, on the bed; and he opened his eyes.

A dark, neatly dressed man was staring down at him thoughtfully, slapping a hypodermic needle against the palm of his hand. Also gazing down at him, her dark eyes anxious, was the girl Dolores.

"It's all right, Toddy." She gave him a tremulous smile. Toddy stared at her, unwinking, remembrance returning; then, swung his eyes toward the man with the needle.

"You a doctor?"

"Yes,
Seсor
."

"What's going on here? What happened?"

"I have given you an injection of nicotinic acid. To strengthen the heart. Lie still for another half hour, and keep in place the ice pack. You will be all right."

"I asked you what happened?"

The doctor smiled faintly, shrugged, and spoke rapidly in Spanish to Dolores. Toddy's eyes drooped shut for a moment, and when he reopened them he was alone with Dolores.

"Well?" he said. "Well…?"

"You should not talk, Toddy." She sat down on a chair at the bedside, and laid a hand on his forehead. "There is little I can explain, and-"

Toddy rolled his head from beneath her hand. "That guy tried to kill me?"

"To knock you unconscious. You were to be disposed of later… at night."

"Why?"

"I cannot tell you. There is much I do not understand."

"You know, all right. Why did Alvarado want me killed?"

"Alvarado did not want you killed."

"No? Then why-"

"If he had," said the girl, "you would be dead."

Toddy frowned, then grunted as a stab of pain shot through his head. "Yeah," he said. "But…"

"Try not to think for a few minutes. Rest, and I will make you some coffee, and then, if you feel able, we can leave."

"Leave?"

"Rest," said Dolores firmly.

Toddy rested, more willingly than he pretended to. It was almost reluctantly that, some fifteen or twenty minutes later, he sat up to accept the coffee Dolores prepared. She gave him a lighted cigarette, and he puffed and drank alternately. His head still throbbed with pain, but he felt alert again.

"So," he said, setting down the cup, "Alvarado doesn't want me dead?"

"Obviously not."

"He knew this was going to happen?"

"I think-I think he must have."

"What did he stand to gain by it?"

"I cannot say. I mean, I don't know."

"No?"

"No!" snapped the girl; but her voice immediately became soft again. "Believe me, Toddy, I don't know. But you will soon find out. Alvarado himself will tell you."

"Alvarado will!" Toddy started. "What do you mean?"

"That is why I am here, to take you to him. He is in San Diego."

Toddy fumbled for and found his cigarettes. He lighted one, staring at Dolores over the flame of the match. He didn't know whether to laugh or bop her. How stupid, he wondered, did they think he was?

"What's Alvarado doing in San Diego?"

"Again, I do not know."

"But after this pasting I got, I'm still supposed to see him?"

"So I told you."

"What if I refuse to go with you? What happens, then?"

"What happens?" The girl shrugged, tiredly. "Nothing happens. You are free to go your own way. You may leave here now, if you feel able."

Toddy shook his head, incredulously. "You say that like you mean it."

"I do. You will not be harmed… Of course," she added, "your situation will not be exactly pleasant. You have little money. You are a fugitive. You are in a foreign country…"

"But I'm alive."

"There is no use," said Dolores, "in arguing. I was not ordered to persuade you, only to ask you."

She stood up, walked to the battered dresser, and picked up a flowered scarf. Draping it over her black hair, she knotted it under her chin and took a step toward the areaway.

"Good-bye, Toddy Kent."

"Now, wait a minute…"

"Yes?"

"I didn't say I wouldn't go," said Toddy. "I just-Oh, hell!" He wobbled a little as he lurched to his feet, and she moved swiftly to him. He caught her by the shoulders, his hands sinking into the soft flesh with unconscious firmness.

"Look-" He hesitated. "Give me the lowdown. What had I better do?"

"I am here to take you to Alvarado."

"But should I-?"

"Suppose I said no; that you should remain in Mexico."

"Are you telling me that?"

"Suppose I did so advise you," Dolores continued, looking at him steadily, "and you decided to do the opposite- and repeated my advice to Alvarado?"

"Why would I do that?"

"You have no reason to trust me. In fact, you have made it very plain that you do not trust me. Why shouldn't you tell Alvarado? Particularly, if it appeared that by doing so you would help yourself?"

Toddy reddened uncomfortably and released his grip. The girl stepped away from him.

"I guess," he said, "I can't blame you for thinking that."

"No."

"But you're wrong. If I'd wanted to get you in trouble, I could have told Alvarado about-well…"

"-my warning to you last night? Perhaps you did, after you left the house."

Toddy gave up. She was dead right about one thing. He didn't trust her, even though something had impelled him to for a minute. Perhaps she didn't know what Alvarado wanted. Or perhaps she did. He'd never take her word for it, regardless of the situation. Whatever she advised him to do, he'd be inclined to do the opposite.

"Where's my coat?" he said shortly. "Let's get out of here."

"You are going with me?"

"I don't know. Maybe a drink will help me to make up my mind."

…They went out the same way Toddy had come in, squeezing past the crowded racks of trinkets and curios. The little man who had slugged Toddy was nowhere in view. The fat woman was still seated near the doorway on her camp stool. "Nice bo'l of perfume for lady?" she beamed. "Nice wallet for gen'leman?" Toddy started to scowl, but something about her expression of bland good-natured innocence made his lips tug upward. He gave her a cynical wink, and followed Dolores out the door.

It seemed like days had passed since he had arrived in Tijuana that morning, but the clock in the bar indicated the hour as five minutes of two. Seated in a rear booth, Toddy drank a double tequila sunrise and ordered another. He took a sip of it and looked across the table at the girl.

"Well," he said. "I've made up my mind."

"I see."

"I'm not going with you. I'll lay low here for a few days. Then I'll beat it back across the border and-" Toddy broke off abruptly, and again raised his glass. Over its rim, he saw the faint gleam of amusement in Dolores' eyes.

"On second thought," she said, "you will head south into Mexico. That is right?"

"Maybe," said Toddy. "Maybe not."

"I understand. It is best to keep your plans to yourself. Now, I must be going."

She slid toward the edge of the booth, hesitated as though on the point of saying something, then stood up. Toddy got up awkwardly, also. On an impulse, as her lips framed a mechanical good-bye, he held out his hand.

"I'm sorry about last night," he said. "I don't know where you fit into this deal, but I think you're playing it as square as you can."

"Thank you." She did not touch his hand. "And I think you also are as-as square-as you can be. Now I would like to tell you something. Something for your own good."

"I'm waiting."

"Wash your face. It is dirty."

She was gone, then, her body very erect, her high heels clicking uncompromisingly across the wooden floor. Toddy stared after her until he saw the bartender watching him. Then he shook his head vaguely, ran a hand over his jaw, and headed for the men's restroom.

It was at the rear end of the room, a partitioned-off enclosure inadequately ventilated by a small high window opening on the alley; a typical Tijuana bar "gents' room." There was a long yellowish urinal, and two cabinet toilets, flushed by old-fashioned water chambers placed near the ceiling. Adjacent to the two chipped-enamel sinks was a wooden table, supporting a sparse assortment of toilet articles and an elaborate display of pornographic booklets, postal cards, prophylactics and "rubber goods."

"Yessir, mister"-the young Mexican attendant came briskly to attention-"you in right place, mister. We got just what you-"

"What I want," said Toddy, "is some soap." And he helped himself from the table.

He turned on both water taps, scrubbed his hands, then lathered them again and scoured vigorously at his face. He rinsed off the soap and doused his head. Eyes squinted, he turned away from the sink and accepted the towel that was thrust into his hands.

"Thanks, pal." He dried his face and opened his eyes. "Don't mention it," burbled Shake.

"And keep your hands out o' your pockets," gritted Donald.