Thomas Bowers - n�� Jeff Stevens - sat at the plane window looking out as the aircraft took off. He raised his handkerchief to his eyes, and his shoulders heaved up and down.
Dennis Trevor - a.k.a. Brandon Higgins - seated next to him, looked at him in surprise. "Hey," he said, "it's only money. It's nothing to cry about."
Jeff Stevens turned to him with tears streaming down his face, and Higgins, to his astonishment, saw that Jeff was convulsed with laughter.
"What the hell's the matter with you?" Higgins demanded. "It's nothing to laugh about, either."
To Jeff, it was. The manner in which Tracy Whitney had outwitted them at the airport was the most ingenius con he had ever witnessed. A scam on top of a scam. Conrad Morgan had told them the woman was an amateur. My God, Jeff thought, what would she be like if she were a professional? Tracy Whitney was without doubt the most beautiful woman Jeff Stevens had ever seen. And clever. Jeff prided himself on being the best confidence artist in the business, and she had outsmarted him. Uncle Willie would have loved her, Jeff thought.
It was Uncle Willie who had educated Jeff. Jeff's mother was the trusting heiress to a farm-equipment fortune, married to an improvident schemer filled with get-rich-quick projects that never quite worked out. Jeff's father was a charmer, darkly handsome and persuasively glib, and in the first five years of marriage he had managed to run through his wife's inheritance. Jeff's earliest memories were of his mother and father quarreling about money and his father's extramarital affairs. It was a bitter marriage, and the young boy had resolved, I'm never going to get married. Never.
His father's brother, Uncle Willie, owned a small traveling carnival, and whenever he was near Marion, Ohio, where the Stevenses lived, he came to visit them. He was the most cheerful man Jeff had ever known, filled with optimism and promises of a rosy tomorrow. He always managed to bring the boy exciting gifts, and he taught Jeff wonderful magic tricks. Uncle Willie had started out as a magician at a carnival and had taken it over when it went broke.
When Jeff was fourteen, his mother died in an automobile accident. Two months later Jeff's father married a nineteen-year-old cocktail waitress. "It isn't natural for a man to live by himself," his father had explained. But the box was filled with a deep resentment, feeling betrayed by his father's callousness.
Jeff's father had been hired as a siding salesman and was on the road three days a week. One night when Jeff was alone in the house with his stepmother, he was awakened by the sound of his bedroom door opening. Moments later he felt a soft, naked body next to his. Jeff sat up in alarm.
"Hold me, Jeffie," his stepmother whispered. "I'm afraid of thunder."
"It - it isn't thundering," Jeff stammered.
"But it could be. The paper said rain." She pressed her body close to his. "Make love to me, baby."
The boy was in a panic. "Sure. Can we do it in Dad's bed?"
"Okay." She laughed. "Kinky, huh?"
"I'll be right there," Jeff promised.
She slid out of bed and went into the other bedroom. Jeff had never dressed faster in his life. He went out the window and headed for Cimarron, Kansas, where Uncle Willie's carnival was playing. He never looked back.
When Uncle Willie asked Jeff why he had run away from home, all he would say was, "I don't get along with my stepmother."
Uncle Willie telephoned Jeff's father, and after a long conversation, it was decided that the boy should remain with the carnival. "He'll get a better education here than any school could ever give him," Uncle Willie promised.
The carnival was a world unto itself. "We don't run a Sunday school show," Uncle Willie explained to Jeff. "We're flimflam artists. But remember, sonny, you can't con people unless they're greedy to begin with. W. C. Fields had it right. You can't cheat an honest man."
The carnies became Jeff's friends. There were the "front-end" men, who had the concessions, and the "back-end" people, who ran shows like the fat woman and the tattooed lady, and the flat-store operators, who operated the games. The carnival had its share of nubile girls, and they were attracted to the young boy. Jeff had inherited his mother's sensitivity and his father's dark, good looks, and the ladies fought over who was going to relieve Jeff of his virginity. His first sexual experience was with a pretty contortionist, and for years she was the high-water mark that other women had to live up to.
Uncle Willie arranged for Jeff to work at various jobs around the carnival.
"Someday all this will be yours," Uncle Willie told the boy, "and the only way you're gonna hang on to it is to know more about it than anybody else does."
Jeff started out with the six-cat "hanky-park," a scam where customers paid to throw balls to try to knock six cats made out of canvas with a wood-base bottom into a net. The operator running the joint would demonstrate how easy it was to knock them over, but when the customer tried it, a "gunner" hiding in back of the canvas lifted a rod to keep the wooden base on the cats steady. Not even Sandy Koufax could have downed the cats.
"Hey, you hit it too low," the operator would say. "All you have to do is hit it nice and easy."
Nice and easy was the password, and the moment the operator said it, the hidden gunner would drop the rod, and the operator would knock the cat off the board. He would then say, "See what I mean?" and that was the gunner's signal to put up the rod again. There was always another rube who wanted to show off his pitching arm to his giggling girl friend.
Jeff worked the "count stores," where clothespins were arranged in a line. The customer would pay to throw rubber rings over the clothespins, which were numbered, and if the total added up to twenty-nine, he would win an expensive toy. What the sucker did not know was that the clothespins had different numbers at each end, so that the man running the count store could conceal the number that would add up to twenty-nine and make sure the mark never won.
One day Uncle Willie said to Jeff, "You're doin' real good, kid, and I'm proud of you. You're ready to move up to the skillo."
The skillo operators were the cr��me de la cr��me, and all the other carnies looked up to them. They made more money than anyone else in the carnival, stayed at the best hotels, and drove flashy cars. The skillo game consisted of a flat wheel with an arrow balanced very carefully on glass with a thin piece of paper in the center. Each section was numbered, and when the customer spun the wheel and it stopped on a number, that number would be blocked off. The customer would pay again for another spin of the wheel, and another space would be blocked off. The skillo operator explained that when all the spaces were blocked off, the customer would win a large sum of money. As the customer got closer to filling in all the spaces, the skillo operator would encourage him to increase his bets. The operator would look around nervously and whisper, "I don't own this game, but I'd like you to win. If you do, maybe you'll give me a small piece."
The operator would slip the customer five or ten dollars and say, "Bet this for me, will you? You can't lose now." And the mark would feel as though he had a confederate. Jeff became an expert at milking the customers. As the open spaces on the board became smaller and the odds of winning grew greater, the excitement would intensify.
"You can't miss now!" Jeff would exclaim, and the player would eagerly put up more money. Finally, when there was only one tiny space left to fill, the excitement would peak. The mark would put up all the money he had, and often hurry home to get more. The customer never won, however, because the operator or his shill would give the table an imperceptible nudge, and the arrow would invariably land at the wrong place.
Jeff quickly learned all the carnie terms: The "gaff" was a term for fixing the games so that the marks could not win. The men who stood in front of a sideshow making their spiel were called "barkers" by outsiders, but the carnie people called them "talkers." The talker got 10 percent of the take for building the tip - the "tip" being a crowd. "Slum" was the prize given away. The "postman" was a cop who had to be paid off.
Jeff became an expert at the "blow-off." When customers paid to see a sideshow exhibition, Jeff would make his spiel: "Ladies and gentlemen: Everything that's pictured, painted, and advertised outside, you will see within the walls of this tent for the price of your general admission. However, immediately after the young lady in the electric chair gets finished being tortured, her poor body racked by fifty thousand watts of electricity, we have an extra added attraction that has absolutely nothing to do with the show and is not advertised outside. Behind this enclosure you are going to see something so truly remarkable, so chilling and hair-raising, that we dare not portray it outside, because it might come under the eyes of innocent children or susceptible women."
And after the suckers had paid an extra dollar, Jeff would usher them inside to see a girl with no middle, or a two-headed baby, and of course it was all done with mirrors.
One of the most profitable carnival games was the "mouse running." A live mouse was put in the center of a table and a bowl was placed over it. The rim of the table had ten holes around its perimeter into any one of which the mouse could run when the bowl was lifted. Each patron bet on a numbered hole. Whoever selected the hole into which the mouse would run won the prize.
"How do you gaff a thing like that?" Jeff asked Uncle Willie. "Do you use trained mice?"
Uncle Willie roared with laughter. "Who the hell's go time to train mice? No, no. It's simple. The operator sees which number no one has bet on, and he puts a little vinegar on his finger and touches the edge of the hole he wants the mouse to run into. The mouse will head for that hole every time."
Karen, an attractive young belly dancer, introduced Jeff to the "key" game.
"When you've made your spiel on Saturday night," Karen told him, "call some of the men customers aside, one at a time, and sell them a key to my trailer."
The keys cost five dollars. By midnight, a dozen or more men would find themselves milling around outside her trailer. Karen, by that time, was at a hotel in town, spending the night with Jeff. When the marks came back to the carnival the following morning to get their revenge, the show was long gone.
During the next four years Jeff learned a great deal about human nature. He found out how easy it was to arouse greed, and how guillible people could be. They believed incredible tales because their greed made them want to believe. At eighteen, Jeff was strikingly handsome. Even the most casual woman observer would instantly note and approve his gray, well-spaced eyes, tall build, and curly dark hair. Men enjoyed his wit and air of easy good humor. Even children, as if speaking to some answering child in him, gave him their confidence immediately. Customers flirted outrageously with Jeff, but Uncle Willie cautioned, "Stay away from the townies, my boy. Their fathers are always the sheriff."
It was the knife thrower's wife who caused Jeff to leave the carnival. The show had just arrived in Milledgeville, Georgia, and the tents were being set up. A new act had signed on, a Sicilian knife thrower called the Great Zorbini and his attractive blond wife. While the Great Zorbini was at the carnival setting up his equipment, his wife invited Jeff to their hotel room in town.
"Zorbini will be busy all day," she told Jeff. "Let's have some fun."
It sounded good.
"Give me an hour and then come up to the room," she said.
"Why wait an hour?" Jeff asked.
She smiled and said, "It will take me that long to get everything ready."
Jeff waited, his curiosity increasing, and when he finally arrived at the hotel room, she greeted him at the door, stark naked. He reached for her, but she took his hand and said, "Come in here."
He walked into the bathroom and stared in disbelief. She had filled the bathtub with six flavors of Jell-O, mixed with warm water.
"What's that?" Jeff asked.
"It's dessert. Get undressed, baby."
Jeff undressed.
"Now, into the tub."
He stepped into the tub and sat down, and it was the wildest sensation he had ever experienced. The soft, slippery Jell-O seemed to fill every crevice of his body, massaging him all over. The blonde joined him in the tub.
"Now," she said, "lunch."
She started down his chest toward his groin, licking the Jell-O as she went. "Mmmm, you taste delicious. I like the strawberry best...."
Between her rapidly flicking tongue and the friction of the warm, viscous Jell-O, it was an erotic experience beyond description. In the middle of it, the bathroom door flew open and the Great Zorbini strode in. The Sicilian took one look at his wife and the startled Jeff, and howled, "Tu sei una puttana! Vi ammazzo tutti e due! Dove sono i miei coltelli?"
Jeff did not recognize any of the words, but the tone was familiar. As the Great Zorbini raced out of the room to get his knives, Jeff leaped out of the tub, his body looking like a rainbow with the multicolored Jell-O clinging to it, and grabbed his clothes. He jumped out of the window, naked, and began running down the alley. He heard a shout behind him and felt a knife sing past his head. Zing! Another, and then he was out of range. He dressed in a culvert, pulling his shirt and pants over the sticky Jell-O, and squished his way to the depot, where he caught the first bus out of town.
Six months later, he was in Vietnam.
Every soldier fights a different war, and Jeff came out of his Vietnam experience with a deep contempt for bureaucracy and a lasting resentment of authority. He spent two years in a war that could never be won, and he was appalled by the waste of money and mat��riel and lives, and sickened by the treachery and deceit of the generals and politicians who performed their verbal sleight of hand. We've been suckered into a war that nobody wants, Jeff thought. It's a con game. The biggest con game in the world.
A week before Jeff's discharge, he received the news of Uncle Willie's death. The carnival had folded. The past was finished. It was time for him to enjoy the future.
The years that followed were filled with a series of adventures. To Jeff, the whole world was a carnival, and the people in it were his marks. He devised his own con games. He placed ads in newspapers offering a color picture of the President for a dollar. When he received a dollar, he sent his victim a postage stamp with a picture of the President on it.
He put announcements in magazines warning the public that there were only sixty days left to send in five dollars, that after that it would be too late. The ad did not specify what the five dollars would buy, but the money poured in.
For three months Jeff worked in a boiler room, selling phony oil stocks over the telephone.
He loved boats, and when a friend offered him a job working on a sailing schooner bound for Tahiti, Jeff signed on as a seaman.
The ship was a beauty, a 165-foot white schooner, glistening in the sun, all sails drawing well. It had teak decking, long, gleaming Oregon fir for the hull, with a main salon that sat twelve and a galley forward, with electric ovens. The crew's quarters were in the forepeak. In addition to the captain, the steward, and a cook, there were five deckhands. Jeff's job consisted of helping hoist the sails, polishing the brass portholes, and climbing up the ratlines to the lower spreader to furl the sails. The schooner was carrying a party of eight.
"The owner is named Hollander," Jeff's friend informed him.
Hollander turned out to be Louise Hollander, a twenty-five year-old, golden-haired beauty, whose father owned half of Central America. The other passengers were her friends, whom Jeff's buddies sneeringly referred to as the "jest set."
The first day out Jeff was working in the hot sun, polishing the brass on deck. Louise Hollander stopped beside him.
"You're new on board."
He looked up. "Yes."
"Do you have a name?"
"Jeff Stevens."
"That's a nice name." He made no comment. "Do you know who I am?"
"No."
"I'm Louise Hollander. I own this boat."
"I see. I'm working for you."
She gave him a slow smile. "That's right."
"Then if you want to get your money's worth, you'd better let me get on with my work." Jeff moved on to the next stanchion.
In their quarters at night, the crew members disparaged the passengers and made jokes about them. But Jeff admitted to himself that he was envious of them - their backgrounds, their educations, and their easy manners. They had come from monied families and had attended the best schools. His school had been Uncle Willie and the carnival.
One of the carnies had been a professor of archaeology until he was thrown out of college for stealing and selling valuable relics. He and Jeff had had long talks, and the professor had imbued Jeff with an enthusiasm for archaeology. "You can read the whole future of mankind in the past," the professor would say. "Think of it, son. Thousands of years ago there were people just like you and me dreaming dreams, spinning tales, living out their lives, giving birth to our ancestors." His eyes had taken on a faraway look. "Carthage - that's where I'd like to go on a dig. Long before Christ was born, it was a great city, the Paris of ancient Africa. The people had their games, and baths, and chariot racing. The Circus Maximus was as large as five football fields." He had noted the interest in the boy's eyes. "Do you know how Cato the Elder used to end his speeches in the Roman Senate? He'd say, 'Delenda est cartaga'; 'Carthage must be destroyed.' His wish finally came true. The Romans reduced the place to rubble and came back twenty-five years later to build a great city on its ashes. I wish I could take you there on a dig one day, my boy."
A year later the professor had died of alcoholism, but Jeff had promised himself that one day he would go on a dig. Carthage, first, for the professor.
On the last night before the schooner was to dock in Tahiti, Jeff was summoned to Louise Hollander's stateroom. She was wearing a sheer silk robe.
"You wanted to see me, ma'am?"
"Are you a homosexual, Jeff?"
"I don't believe it's any of your business, Miss Hollander, but the answer is no. What I am is choosy."
Louise Hollander's mouth tightened. "What kind of women do you like? Whores, I suppose."
"Sometimes," Jeff said agreeably. "Was there anything else, Miss Hollander?"
"Yes. I'm giving a dinner party tomorrow night. Would you like to come?"
Jeff looked at the woman for a long moment before he answered. "Why not?"
And that was the way it began.
Louise Hollander had had two husbands before she was twenty-one, and her lawyer had just made a settlement with her third husband when she met Jeff. The second night they were moored at the harbor in Papeete, and as the passengers and crew were going ashore, Jeff received another summons to Louise Hollander's quarters. When Jeff arrived, she was dressed in a colorful silk pareu slit all the way up to the thigh.
"I'm trying to get this off," she said. "I'm having a problem with the zipper."
Jeff walked over and examined the costume. "It doesn't have a Zipper."
She turned to face him, and smiled. "I know. That's my problem."
They made love on the deck, where the soft tropical air caressed their bodies like a blessing. Afterward, they lay on their sides, facing each other. Jeff propped himself up on an elbow and looked down at Louise. "Your daddy's not the sheriff, is he?" Jeff asked.
She sat up in surprise. "What?"
"You're the first townie I ever made love to. Uncle Willie used to warn me that their daddies always turned out to be the sheriff."
They were together every night after that. At first Louise's friends were amused. He's another one of Louise's playthings, they thought. But when she informed them that she intended to marry Jeff, they were frantic.
"For Christ's sake, Louise, he's a nothing. He worked in a carnival. My God, you might as well be marrying a stable hand. He's handsome - granted. And he has a fab bod. But outside of sex, you have absolutely nothing in common, darling."
"Louise, Jeff's for breakfast, not dinner."
"You have a social position to uphold."
"Frankly, angel, he just won't fit in, will he?"
But nothing her friends said could dissuade Louise. Jeff was the most fascinating man she had ever met. She had found that men who were outstandingly handsome were either monumentally stupid or unbearably dull. Jeff was intelligent and amusing, and the combination was irresistible.
When Louise mentioned the subject of marriage to Jeff, he was as surprised as her friends had been.
"Why marriage? You've already got my body. I can't give you anything you don't have."
"It's very simple, Jeff. I love you. I want to share the rest of my life with you."
Marriage had been an alien idea, and suddenly it no longer was. Beneath Louise Hollander's worldly, sophisticated veneer; there was a vulnerable, lost little girl. She needs me, Jeff thought. The idea of a stable homelife and children was suddenly immensely appealing. It seemed to him that ever since he could remember, he had been running. It was time to stop.
They were married in the town hall in Tahiti three days later..
When they returned to New York, Jeff was summoned to the office of Scott Fogarty, Louise Hollander's attorney, a small, frigid man, tight-lipped and probably, Jeff thought, tight-assed.
"I have a paper here for you to sign," the attorney announced.
"What kind of paper?"
"It's a release. It simply states that in the event of the dissolution of your marriage to Louise Hollander - "
"Louise Stevens."
" - Louise Stevens, that you will not participate financially in any of her - "
Jeff felt the muscles of his jaw tightening. "Where do I sign?"
"Don't you want me to finish reading?"
"No. I don't think you get the point. I didn't marry her for her fucking money."
"Really, Mr. Stevens! I just - -"
"Do you want me to sign it or don't you?"
The lawyer placed the paper in front of Jeff. He scrawled his signature and stormed out of the office. Louise's limousine and driver were waiting for him downstairs. As Jeff climbed in, he had to laugh to himself. What the hell am I so pissed off about? I've been a con artist all my life, and when I go straight for the first time and someone thinks I'm out to take them, I behave like a fucking Sunday school teacher.
Louise took Jeff to the best tailor in Manhattan. "You'll look fantastic in a dinner jacket," she coaxed. And he did. Before the second month of the marriage, five of Louise's best friends had tried to seduce the attractive newcomer in their circle, but Jeff ignored them. He was determined to make his marriage work.
Budge Hollander, Louise's brother, put Jeff up for membership in the exclusive New York Pilgrim Club, and Jeff was accepted. Budge was a beefy, middle-aged man who had gotten his sobriquet playing right tackle on the Harvard football team, where he got the reputation of being a player his opponents could not budge. He owned a shipping line, a banana plantation, cattle ranches, a meat-packing company, and more corporations than Jeff could count. Budge Hollander was not subtle in concealing his contempt for Jeff Stevens.
"You're really out of our class, aren't you, old boy? But as long as you amuse Louise in bed, that will do nicely. I'm very fond of my sister."
It took every ounce of willpower for Jeff to control himself. I'm not married to this prick. I'm married to Louise.
The other members of the Pilgrim Club were equally obnoxious. They found Jeff terribly amusing. All of them dined at the club every noontime, and pleaded for Jeff to tell them stories about his "carnie days," as they liked to call them. Perversely, Jeff made the stories more and more outrageous.
Jeff and Louise lived in a twenty-room townhouse filled with servants, on the East Side of Manhattan. Louise had estates in Long Island and the Bahamas, a villa in Sardinia, and a large apartment on Avenue Foch in Paris. Aside from the yacht, Louise owned a Maserati, a Rolls Corniche, a Lamborghini, and a Daimler.
It's fantastic, Jeff thought.
It's great, Jeff thought.
It's boring, Jeff thought. And degrading.
One morning he got up from his eighteenth-century four-poster bed, put on a Sulka robe, and went looking for Louise. He found her in the breakfast room.
"I've got to get a job," he told her.
"For heaven's sake, darling, why? We don't need the money."
"It has nothing to do with money. You can't expect me to sit around on my hands and be spoonfed. I have to work."
Louise gave it a moment's thought. "All right, angel. I'll speak to Budge. He owns a stockbrokerage firm. Would you like to be a stockbroker, darling?"
"I just want to get off my ass," Jeff muttered.
He went to work for Budge. He had never had a job with regular hours before. I'm going to love it, Jeff thought.
He hated it. He stayed with it because he wanted to bring home a paycheck to his wife.
"When are you and I going to have a baby?" he asked Louise, after a lazy Sunday brunch.
"Soon, darling. I'm trying."
"Come to bed. Let's try again."
Jeff was seated at the luncheon table reserved for his brother-in-law and half a dozen other captains of industry at the Pilgrim Club.
Budge announced, "We just issued our annual report for the meat-packing company, fellas. Our profits are up forty percent."
"Why shouldn't they be?" one of the men at the table laughed. "You've got the fucking inspectors bribed." He turned to the others at the table. "Old clever Budge, here, buys inferior meat and has it stamped prime and sells it for a bloody fortune."
Jeff was shocked. "People eat meat, for Christ's sake. They feed it to their children. He's kidding, isn't he, Budge?"
Budge grinned and whooped, "Look who's being moral!"
Over the next three months Jeff became very well acquainted with his table companions. Ed Zeller had paid a million in bribes in order to build a factory in Libya. Mike Quincy, the head of a conglomerate, was a raider who bought companies and illegally tipped off his friends when to buy and sell the stock. Alan Thompson, the richest man at the table, boasted of his company's policy. "Before they changed the damn law, we used to fire the old gray hairs one year before their pensions were due. Saved a fortune."
All the men cheated on taxes, had insurance scams, falsified expense accounts, and put their current mistresses on their payrolls as secretaries or assistants.
Christ, Jeff thought. They're just dressed-up carnies. They all run flat stores.
The wives were no better. They grabbed everything they could get their greedy hands on and cheated on their husbands. They're playing the key game, Jeff marveled.
When he tried to tell Louise how he felt, she laughed. "Don't be naive, Jeff. You're enjoying your life, aren't you?"
The truth was that he was not. He had married Louise because he believed she needed him. He felt that children would change everything.
"Let's have one of each. It's time. We've been married a year now."
"Angel, be patient. I've been to the doctor, and he told me I'm fine. Maybe you should have a checkup and see if you're all right."
Jeff went.
"You should have no trouble producing healthy children," the doctor assured him.
And still nothing happened.
On Black Monday Jeff's world fell apart. It started in the morning when he went into Louise's medicine chest for an aspirin. He found a shelf full of birth control pills. One of the cases was almost empty. Lying innocently next to it was a vial of white powder and a small golden spoon. And that was only the start of the day.
At noon, Jeff was seated in a deep armchair in the Pilgrim Club, waiting for Budge to appear, when he heard two men behind him talking.
"She swears that her Italian singer's cock is over ten inches long."
There was a snicker. "Well, Louise always liked them big."
They're talking about another Louise, Jeff told himself.
"That's probably why she married that carnival person in the first place. But she does tell the most amusing stories about him. You won't believe what he did the other day..."
Jeff rose and blindly made his way out of the club.
He was filled with a rage such as he had never known. He wanted to kill. He wanted to kill the unknown Italian. He wanted to kill Louise. How many other men had she been sleeping with during the past year? They had been laughing at him all this time. Budge and Ed Zeller and Mike Quincy and Alan Thompson and their wives had been having an enormous joke at his expense. And Louise, the woman he had wanted to protect. Jeff's immediate reaction was to pack up and leave. But that was not good enough. He had no intention of letting the bastards have the last laugh.
That afternoon when Jeff arrived home, Louise was not there. "Madame went out this morning," Pickens, the butler, said. "I believe she had several appointments."
I'll bet she did, Jeff thought. She's out fucking that ten-inch-cock Italian. Jesus Christ!
By the time Louise arrived home, Jeff had himself under tight control. "Did you have a nice day?" Jeff asked.
"Oh, the usual boring things, darling. A beauty appointment, shopping.... How was your day, angel?"
"It was interesting," Jeff said truthfully. "I learned a lot."
"Budge tells me you're doing beautifully."
"I am," Jeff assured her. "And very soon I'm going to be doing even better."
Louise stroked his hand. "My bright husband. Why don't we go to bed early?"
"Not tonight," Jeff said. "I have a headache."
He spent the next week making his plans.
He began at lunch at the club. "Do any of you know anything about computer frauds?" Jeff asked.
"Why?" Ed Zeller wanted to know. "You planning to commit one?"
There was a sputter of laughter.
"No, I'm serious," Jeff insisted. "It's a big problem. People are tapping into computers and ripping off banks and insurance companies and other businesses for billions of dollars. It gets worse all the time."
"Sounds right up your alley," Budge murmured.
"Someone I met has come up with a computer he says can't be tampered with."
"And you want to have him knocked off," Mike Quincy kidded.
"As a matter of fact, I'm interested in raising money to back him. I just wondered if any of you might know something about computers."
"No," Budge grinned, "but we know everything about backing inventors, don't we fellas?"
There was a burst of laughter.
Two days later at the club, Jeff. passed by the usual table and explained to Budge, "I'm sorry I won't be able to join you fellows today. I'm having a guest for lunch."
When Jeff moved on to another table, Alan Thompson grinned, "He's probably having lunch with the bearded lady from the circus."
A stooped, gray-haired man entered the dining room and was ushered to Jeff's table.
"Jesus!" Mike Quincy said. "Isn't that Professor Ackerman?"
"Who's Professor Ackerman?"
"Don't you ever read anything but financial reports, Budge? Vernon Ackerman was on the cover of Time last month. He's chairman of the President's National Scientific Board. He's the most brilliant scientist in the country."
"What the hell is he doing with my dear brother-in-law?"
Jeff and the professor were engrossed in a deep conversation all during lunch, and Budge and his friends grew more and more curious. When the professor left, Budge motioned Jeff over to his table.
"Hey, Jeff. Who was that?"
Jeff looked guilty. "Oh... you mean Vernon?"
"Yeah. What were you two talking about?"
"We... ah..." The others could almost watch Jeff's thought processes as he tried to dodge the question. "I... ah... might write a book about him. He's a very interesting character."
"I didn't know you were a writer."
"Well, I guess we all have to start sometime."
Three days later Jeff had another luncheon guest. This time it was Budge who recognized him. "Hey! That's Seymour Jarrett, chairman of the board of Jarrett International Computer. What the hell would he be doing with Jeff?"
Again, Jeff and his guest held a long, animated conversation. When the luncheon was over, Budge sought Jeff out.
"Jeffrey, boy, what's with you and Seymour Jarrett?"
"Nothing," Jeff said quickly. "Just having a chat." He started to walk away. Budge stopped him.
"Not so fast, old buddy. Seymour Jarrett is a very busy fellow. He doesn't sit around having long chats about nothing."
Jeff said earnestly, "All right. The truth is, Budge, that Seymour collects stamps, and I told him about a stamp I might be able to acquire for him."
The truth, my ass, Budge thought.
The following week, Jeff lunched at the club with Charles Bartlett, the president of Bartlett & Bartlett, one of the largest private capital venture groups in the world. Budge, Ed Zeller, Alan Thompson, and Mike Quincy watched in fascination as the two men talked, their heads close together.
"Your brother-in-law is sure in high-flying company lately," Zeller commented. "What kind of deal has he got cooking, Budge?"
Budge said testily, "I don't know, but I'm sure in hell going to find out. If Jarrett and Bartlett are interested, there must be a pot of money involved."
They watched as Bartlett rose, enthusiastically pumped Jeff's hand, and left. As Jeff passed their table, Budge caught his arm. "Sit down, Jeff. We want to have a little talk with you."
"I should get back to the office," Jeff protested. "I - "
"You work for me, remember? Sit down." Jeff sat. "Who were you having lunch with?"
Jeff hesitated. "No one special. An old friend."
"Charlie Bartlett's an old friend?"
"Kind of."
"What were you and your old friend Charlie discussing, Jeff?"
"Uh... cars, mostly. Old Charlie likes antique cars, and I heard about this '37 Packard, four-door convertible - "
"Cut the horseshit!" Budge snapped. "You're not collecting stamps or selling automobiles, or writing any fucking book. What are you really up to?"
"Nothing. I - "
"You're raising money for something, aren't you, Jeff?" Ed Zeller asked.
"No!" But he said it a shade too quickly.
Budge put a beefy arm around Jeff. "Hey, buddy, this is your brother-in-law. We're family, remember?" He gave Jeff a bear hug. "It's something about that tamper-proof computer you mentioned last week, right?"
They could see by the look on Jeff's face that they had trapped him.
"Well, yes."
It was like pulling teeth to get anything out of the son of a bitch. "Why didn't you tell us Professor Ackerman was involved?"
"I didn't think you'd be interested."
"You were wrong. When you need capital, you go to your friends."
"The professor and I don't need capital," Jeff said "Jarrett and Bartlett - "
"Jarrett and Bartlett are fuckin' sharks! They'll eat you alive," Alan Thompson exclaimed.
Ed Zeller picked it up. "Jeff, when you deal with friends, you don't get hurt."
"Everything is already arranged," Jeff told them. "Charlie Bartlett - "
"Have you signed anything yet?"
"No, but I gave my word - "
"Then nothing's arranged. Hell, Jeff boy, in business people change their minds every hour."
"I shouldn't even be discussing this with you," Jeff protested. "Professor Ackerman's name can't be mentioned. He's under contract to a government agency."
"We know that," Thompson said soothingly. "Does the professor think this thing will work?"
"Oh, he knows it works."
"If it's good enough for Ackerman, it's good enough for us, right fellows?"
There was a chorus of assent.
"Hey, I'm not a scientist," Jeff said. "I can't guarantee anything. For all I know, this thing may have no value at all."
"Sure. We understand. But say it does have a value, Jeff How big could this thing be?"
"Budge, the market for this is worldwide. I couldn't even begin to put a value on it. Everybody will be able to use it."
"How much initial financing are you looking for?"
"Two million dollars, but all we need is two hundred and fifty thousand dollars down. Bartlett promised - "
"Forget Bartlett. That's chicken feed, old buddy. We'll put that up ourselves. Keep it in the family. Right, fellas?"
"Right!"
Budge looked up and snapped his fingers, and a captain came hurrying over to the table. "Dominick, bring Mr. Stevens some paper and a pen."
It was produced almost instantly.
"We can wrap up this little deal right here," Budge said to Jeff. "You just make out this paper, giving us the rights, and we'll all sign it, and in the morning you'll have a certified check for two hundred fifty thousand dollars. How does that suit you?"
Jeff was biting his lower lip. "Budge, I promised Mr. Bartlett "
"Fuck Bartlett," Budge snarled. "Are you married to his sister or mine? Now write."
"We don't have a patent on this, and - "
"Write, goddamn it!" Budge shoved the pen in Jeff's hand.
Reluctantly, Jeff began to write: "This will transfer all my rights, title, and interest to a mathematical computer called SUCABA, to the buyers, Donald 'Budge' Hollander, Ed Zeller, Alan Thompson, and Mike Quincy, for the consideration of two million dollars, with a payment of two hundred and fifty thousand dollars on signing. SUCABA has been extensively tested, is inexpensive, trouble-free, and uses less power than any computer currently on the market. SUCABA will require no maintenance or parts for a minimum period of ten years." They were all looking over Jeff's shoulder as he wrote.
"Jesus!" Ed Zeller said. "Ten years! There's not a computer on the market that can claim that!"
Jeff continued. "The buyers understand that neither Professor Vernon Ackerman nor I holds a patent on SUCABA - "
"We'll take care of all that," Alan Thompson interrupted impatiently. "I've got one hell of a patent attorney."
Jeff kept writing. "I have explained to the buyers that SUCABA may have no value of any kind, and that neither Professor Vernon Ackerman nor I makes any representations or warranties about SUCABA except as written above." He signed it and held up the paper. "Is that satisfactory?"
"You sure about the ten years?" Budge asked.
"Guaranteed. I'll just make a copy of this," Jeff said. They watched as he carefully made a copy of what he had written.
Budge snatched the papers out of Jeff's hand and signed them. Zeller, Quincy, and Thompson followed suit.
Budge was beaming. "A copy for us and a copy for you. Old Seymour Jarrett and Charlie Bartlett are sure going to have egg on their faces, huh, boys? I can't wait until they hear that they got screwed out of this deal."
The following morning Budge handed Jeff a certified check for $250,000.
"Where's the computer?" Budge asked.
"I arranged for it to be delivered here at the club at noon. I thought it only fitting that we should all be together when you receive it."
Budge clapped him on the shoulder. "You know, Jeff, you're a smart fellow. See you at lunch."
At the stroke of noon a messenger carrying a box appeared in the dining room of the Pilgrim, Club and was ushered to Budge's table, where he was seated with Zeller, Thompson, and Quincy.
"Here it is!" Budge exclaimed. "Jesus! The damned thing's even portable!"
"Should we wait for Jeff?" Thompson asked.
"Fuck him. This belongs to us now." Budge ripped the paper away from the box. Inside was a nest of straw. Carefully, almost reverently, he lifted out the object that lay in the nest. The men sat there, staring at it. It was a square frame about a foot in diameter, holding a series of wires across which were strung rows of beads. There was a long silence.
"What is it?" Quincy finally asked.
Alan Thompson said, "It's an abacus. One of those things Orientals use to count - " The expression on his face changed. "Jesus! SUCABA is abacus spelled backward!" He turned to Budge. "Is this some kind of joke?"
Zeller was sputtering. "Low power, trouble-free, uses less power than any computer currently on the market... Stop the goddamned check!"
There was a concerted rush to the telephone.
"Your certified check?" the head bookkeeper said. "There's nothing to worry about. Mr. Stevens cashed it this morning."
Pickens, the butler, was very sorry, indeed, but Mr. Stevens had packed and left. "He mentioned something about an extended journey."
That afternoon, a frantic Budge finally managed to reach Professor Vernon Ackerman.
"Of course. Jeff Stevens. A charming man. Your brother-in-law, you say?"
"Professor, what were you and Jeff discussing?"
"I suppose it's no secret. Jeff is eager to write a book about me. He has convinced me that the world wants to know the human being behind the scientist...."
Seymour Jarrett was reticent. "Why do you want to know what Mr. Stevens and I discussed? Are you a rival stamp collector?"
"No I - "
"Well, it won't do you any good to snoop around. There's only one stamp like it in existence, and Mr. Stevens has agreed to sell it to me when he acquires it."
And he slammed down the receiver.
Budge knew what Charlie Bartlett was going to say before the words were out. "Jeff Stevens? Oh, yes. I collect antique cars. Jeff knows where this '37 Packard four-door convertible in mint condition - -"
This time it was Budge who hung up.
"Don't worry," Budge told his partners. "We'll get our money back and put the son of a bitch away for the rest of his life. There are laws against fraud."
The group's next stop was at the office of Scott Fogarty.
"He took us for two hundred fifty thousand dollars," Budge told the attorney. "I want him put behind bars for the rest of his life. Get a warrant out for - "
"Do you have the contract with you, Budge?"
"It's right here." He handed Fogarty the paper Jeff had written out.
The lawyer scanned it quickly, then read it again, slowly. "Did he forge your names to this paper?"
"Why, no," Mike Quincy said. "We signed it."
"Did you read it first?"
Ed Zeller angrily said, "Of course we read it. Do you think we're stupid?"
"I'll let you be the judge of that, gentlemen. You signed a contract stating that you were informed that what you were purchasing with a down payment of two hundred fifty thousand dollars was an object that had not been patented and could be completely worthless. In the legal parlance of an old professor of mine, 'You've been royally fucked.' "
Jeff had obtained the divorce in Reno. It was while he was establishing residence there that he had run into Conrad Morgan. Morgan had once worked for Uncle Willie. "How would you like to do me a small favor, Jeff?" Conrad Morgan had asked. "There's a young lady traveling on a train from New York to St. Louis with some jewelry...."
Jeff looked out of the plane window and thought about Tracy. There was a smile on his face.
When Tracy returned to New York, her first stop was at Conrad Morgan et Cie Jewelers. Conrad Morgan ushered Tracy into his office and closed the door. He rubbed his hands together and said, "I was getting very worried, my dear. I waited for you in St. Louis and - "
"You weren't in St. Louis."
"What? What do you mean?" His blue eyes seemed to twinkle.
"I mean, you didn't go to St. Louis. You never intended to meet me."
"But of course I did! You have the jewels and I - "
"You sent two men to take them away from me."
There was a puzzled expression on Morgan's face. "I don't understand."
"At first I thought there might be a leak in your organization, but there wasn't, was there? It was you. You told me that you personally arranged for my train ticket, so you were the only one who knew the number of my compartment. I used a different name and a disguise, but your men knew exactly where to find me."
There was a look of surprise on his cherubic face. "Are you trying to tell me that some men robbed you of the jewels?"
Tracy smiled. "I'm trying to tell you that they didn't."
This time the surprise on Morgan's face was genuine. "You have the jewels?"
"Yes. Your friends were in such a big hurry to catch a plane that they left them behind."
Morgan studied Tracy a moment. "Excuse me."
He went through a private door, and Tracy sat down on the couch, perfectly relaxed.
Conrad Morgan was gone for almost fifteen minutes, and when he returned, there was a look of dismay on his face. "I'm afraid a mistake has been made. A big mistake. You're a very clever young lady, Miss Whitney. You've earned your twenty-five thousand dollars." He smiled admiringly. "Give me the jewels and - "
"Fifty thousand."
"I beg your pardon?"
"I had to steal them twice. That's fifty thousand dollars, Mr. Morgan. "
"No," he said flatly. His eyes had lost their twinkle. "I'm afraid I can't give you that much for them."
Tracy rose. "That's perfectly all right. I'll try to find someone in Las Vegas who thinks they're worth that." She moved toward the door.
"Fifty thousand dollars?" Conrad Morgan asked.
Tracy nodded.
"Where are the jewels?"
"In a locker at Penn Station. As soon as you give me the money - in cash - and put me in a taxi, I'll hand you the key."
Conrad Morgan gave a sigh of defeat. "You've got a deal."
"Thank you," Tracy said cheerfully. "It's been a pleasure doing business with you."