The Golden Gizmo (3 page)

He took the loupe from his box and carried the watch over to the dresser. Snapping on a lamp, he made a small scratch in the case with his nail. Loupe in eye, he studied the now-magnified indentation. He whistled softly.

Twenty-four karat.
Twenty-four karat!
The stuff was practically never used in jewelry; never except, perhaps, in insignia and tiny plated areas. It was too soft, not to mention its cost. So…?

Toddy lowered the watch and stood striking it absently against the palm of his hand. There was a tiny
plip ping
sound, and the movement, face and crystal flew off. Flew off in one piece. Toddy stared at them, at it-looked from it to the case. He took it in one hand and
it
in the other, and balanced them.

The movement was little larger than a dime. With the things it was affixed to, the crystal and face, it weighed a "weak" five pennyweight. The case, then-the case weighed almost a full pound. There shouldn't be much more than a pound of pure gold in all of Los Angeles County-outside of government vaults, of course. And yet here was a pound of the stuff in his hand.

He snapped the two sections of the watch back together, a tremor of excitement in his fingers, a slow grin lining his tanned jaw. In a quiet recess of his mind, the gizmo was awakening. It was kicking back the covers and reaching under the bed for its bulging kit of angles.

So he'd picked up the watch by accident. So it didn't belong to him. So what? Maybe the chinless guy would like to claim title to it. Maybe he'd like to explain what he was doing with-well, call it by its right name-a pound of twenty-four-karat,.999 fine bullion.

Of course, Chinless didn't look like a guy who'd make many explanations. He didn't look like a nice guy at all to tangle with. Still, he wouldn't be stupid enough to raise a stink over this. Or would he? Toddy wasn't sure-but then he'd never been a sure-thing player. This was worth gambling on; he was sure of that.

The movement was worthless as a timekeeper. It wouldn't run more than a few hours before it gave up the ghost. It served only to disguise the true nature of the watch. And no one would take such pains, go to such expense, with only one watch. There would be other-yes, and other items besides watches. Articles that weighed many times the amount their appearance indicated. If a man could move in on a setup like that-

Toddy paused in his scheming, listening to the chatter of the bathroom shower. The light of excitement dulled in his fine gray eyes. What was the use? What good would it do? No matter what he made it would all go the same way. Down the bottomless rat-holes which Elaine burrowed endlessly.

…Box under his arm, he closed the door of the room and walked down the long hall to the stairs. He went out through the side entrance of the lobby, reconnoitered its smog-bound environs with a glance as deceptively casual as it was automatic. He strolled up to the corner and stood leaning against a lamppost. Ostensibly, he was waiting for the traffic signal to change. Actually, he was waiting for the man who had been lurking in the shadows of the entrance, a small man with a sunken chest and a snap-brimmed gray hat that was almost as wide as his shoulders. One of Shake's boys- a shiv artist named Donald. The man approached. He sidled up to the opposite side of the post and spoke from the corner of his mouth.

"Let's have it, Kent. Shake ain't waitin' no longer."

"Cow's ass?" said Toddy, with the inflection of "How's that?"

"I'm not tellin' you again. The next time I see you, you'll have your balls in that box instead of gold."

"Why, Donald!" said Toddy. "How would I close the lid?"

Donald didn't answer him. Donald couldn't. Toddy's arm had curled around the post, around his head, and his nose was flat and getting flatter against the rusty iron. He mumbled, "
Awwf-guho
," and managed to free the thin steel knife from its hip sheath. Toddy's arm tightened, and he dropped the knife into the gutter.

"Now," said Toddy, "get this clear, once and for all. I'm not paying any protection-not one goddam penny. Don't try for it again. If you do… well, just don't."

He released the little shiv artist with a contemptuous twirl. He crossed the street and vanished into the darkness without looking back.

Milt's shop was dark, of course, but the door was unlocked. For a man in the gold racket, Milt's faith in human nature was astonishing.

Toddy made his way down the dark aisle with practiced ease, pushed through the wicket which adjoined the jeweler's cage, and shoved aside the drapes. Milt wasn't in the living room, but an excited clamor from the kitchen told Toddy where he was. Toddy set his box upon the old-fashioned library table, and went on back to the rear room.

As usual, the swarthy and sullen Italian who delivered Milt's beer was late, and, as usual, Milt was reading him off. He followed the man to the back door, gesticulating, complaining with humorous querulousness.

"Have you no sense of the importance of things? Is there no way I can appeal to you? Suppose I had run out! What then, loafer? That means nothing to you, eh, that I should be left here without so much as a swallow-"

The roar of the delivery truck shut off his protest. Muttering, face pink with outrage, he faced Toddy.

"I ask you, my friend, what should I do with such a dummox? What would you do in my case?"

"Just what you do," Toddy chuckled. "You wouldn't know what to do if you didn't have that guy to fight with every night. Anyway, I'll bet you've got your refrigerator full of beer."

"But the principle involved! The fact that I exercise a certain foresight does not affect the principle."

"Okay," said Toddy. "I think I'll drink a bottle of this warm, if you don't mind. On a night like this, I-"

"
Stop!"

"Huh!" Toddy jerked his hand away from the beer case.

"Never!" said Milt with mock severity. "Never in my house will such a sacrilege be permitted. Warm beer? Ugh! Aside from the shock to the senses, there is no telling what the physical results might be."

"But I like-"

"I will do nothing to nourish such an unnatural appetite. Come! I will get us some that is only mildly cold."

Milt took two bottles from the bottom of the overflowing refrigerator and carried them into the living room. They took chairs on opposite sides of the table, toasted each other silently, and then went to work at grading and weighing the gold.

This, checking-in time, was virtually the only time of day when the scales were in use. Simply by hefting it, any good gold-buyer can tell what an article weighs within a margin of a few grains. His clients can't, of course. They have only the vaguest idea as to the weight of the things they sell. They live in a world of ounces and pounds. and they remain there, if the buyer has his way. He won't use his scales unless he has to.

In dealing with Milt, a wholesale buyer, the scales were, naturally, necessary. Estimated weights, correct within a few grains, were not good enough. A grain is only one-four-hundred-and eighth of a troy ounce, but multiplied by several dozen purchases it might cost the wholesaler his week's profit. As for the grading, that went swiftly. The quality of gold is determined by its brightness, and it was seldom that either Milt or Toddy lingered over an article.

Toddy took the bills which Milt gave him, and stuffed them into his wallet. A good day, yes, but if he could turn that watch, that pound of twenty-four-karat bullion now hidden in the back of his dresser drawer… If there was some way of tapping the source of that watch-

"There is," said Milt, "something troubling you, my friend?"

"Oh no." Toddy shook his head. "Just daydreaming. Tell me something, will you, Milt?"

"If I can, yes."

"Where would-how much scrap gold like this would it take to make a pound of twenty-four karat?"

"Well," Milt hesitated. "Your question is a little vague. Scrap of what quality-ten, fourteen, eighteen karat? Say it was all fourteen, well, that is easily estimated. Fourteen karat is sixty per cent pure. Roughly, it would take not quite two pounds of fourteen to refine into one pound of twenty-four."

Toddy whistled. "Where would you get that much gold, Milt?"

"I would not. So much gold, why it is more than two or three of my boys would take in in a week. And if I did buy it, I would not refine it into twenty-four. Why should I? It would gain me nothing. The mint would pay me no more for a pound of twenty-four karat than it would for two pounds, or whatever the exact figure is, of fourteen."

"Suppose you didn't sell it to the mint?"

"But where else would I… ohh," said Mitt.

"Now, wait a minute-" Toddy held up a hand, grinning. "Don't leap all over me yet. I'm just thinking out loud."

"Such thoughts I do not like."

"But, look, Milt… why couldn't a guy do this? Pure gold is staked at thirty-five dollars an ounce in this country. Abroad, it's selling for anywhere from seventy-five to a hundred and fifty-depending on how shaky a nation's currency is. So why couldn't you refine scrap into twenty-four, have it made up into jewelry, trick stuff, you know…"

"Yes," said Milt. "I see exactly what you are driving at. The jewelry could be worn into Mexico-for a few dollars; for a task so safe, wearers could be readily secured. And from Mexico, there would be little difficulty in getting the gold abroad. Yes, I know. I see."

"Well?"

"It is not well and you know it. There are severe penalties for removing gold from this country. Even to be in possession of bullion is a federal offense."

"But the profit, Milt! My God, think-"

"Yes," said Mitt sternly. "The profit. My God. My God, is right. How many such profitable enterprises have you undertaken in the past? What was your profit from them? Heh? Shall I refresh your memory, my oh-so-foolish Toddy?"

"Oh, now," said Toddy, coloring a little. "There's no need to bring those things up. Anyway, this is an entirely different deal."

"Now you have your feelings hurt," Milt nodded. "You have given me your confidence and now I remind you of things you would rather forget. Good. I shall continue to hurt your feelings. I shall continue to remind you of the unpleasant conclusions of your past escapades. Better to do that than see you repeat your errors."

"But-" Toddy caught himself. "Oh, well," he said, "what are we arguing about? I told you I was just thinking out loud."

"And I told you it was not good to entertain such thoughts. Why should you dwell on them? At not too great a risk, you are making very good money. You are not known to the police here. Without some deliberate bit of foolishness, you are assured of an excellent income and, more important, your freedom. If, on the other hand, you-"

"I know," said Toddy, a trifle impatiently.

"You do not know. You place too great a store by the fact that you have not been fingerprinted by the police of this, the City of Angels. You are forgetting the brief but telling physical description of you which is on file at the license bureau. You are forgetting the bureau's reason for having such data-the fact that gold-buyers are always suspect, that it may be necessary to lay hands on them at a moment's notice. You see? You are safe only as long as you commit no overt act. Once you do, the fingerprinting and the discovery of your record will follow as a matter of course."

Toddy took a long slow drink of his beer. "Yeah," he said slowly. "I know… But tell me one thing, Milt, just to satisfy my curiosity. Then I'll shut up."

"If I must."

Say that you did-I know you don't-say that you did want to buy enough scrap of all kinds every week to refine into six or eight pounds of twenty-four karat. Enough to take care of the kind of overhead you'd be bound to have and still make enough of a killing to pay you for the risk. How would you go about it?"

"For me, it would be impossible, as I told you. Some of the larger refineries might buy that much gold."

"But they're checked, aren't they? If their shipments to the mint started falling off-"

"They are checked, yes. There is a check even on such relatively unimportant wholesale buyers as I."

"Huh," Toddy frowned. "How about this, then? Why couldn't you spread your buying through a group of wholesalers-take a pound or less of scrap from each one?"

"Because you could not pay them enough for the risk they were taking. And the secret of your enterprise would be dangerously spread with your buying… So, there is my answer, Toddy. It is an impossibility. It cannot be done."

"But it-I mean-"

"Yes?" said Milt.

"Nothing. Okay, I'm convinced," Toddy grinned. "How about another beer?"

Uncomfortably conscious of Milt's curious and troubled gaze, Toddy left shortly after he had finished the beer. But he was by no means free of the tantalizing reflections which the watch had inspired. They expanded and multiplied in his mind as he strode back through the hazy streets.