Gold Comes in Bricks Read Free

thinking about hiring a good detective. As soon as he saw your work in the gymnasium, he realized that if he could plant you as his trainer, that would solve his problem.”
    “What,” I asked Ashbury, “do you want detected?”
    “I want to find out what my daughter’s doing with her money. Find out who’s getting chunks of her dough—and why.”
    “Is she being blackmailed?”
    “I don’t know. If she is, I want you to find out about it.”
    “And if she isn’t?”
    “Find out what’s happening to her dough. She’s either being blackmailed, is gambling, or Bob has inveigled her into financing him. Any of them are dangerous to her and distasteful to me. Not only do I have her welfare to consider, but I’m in a very delicate position myself. The first breath of financial scandal in my family would raise merry hell with me. And I’m talking too damn much. I don’t like it. Let’s get this over with.”
    Bertha said, “He took a fancy to you as soon as he saw you throw that Jap around, Donald. Isn’t that right, Mr. Ashbury?”
    “No.”
    “Why, I thought-”
    “I liked the way he acted while the Jap was throwing him around. We’re all talking too damn much. Let’s get to work.”
    I asked, “Why do you think your daughter is being—”
    “Two checks in the last thirty days,” he interrupted, “each payable to cash. Each in the sum of ten thousand dollars, and each deposited by the Atlee Amusement Corporation. That’s a gambling outfit—restaurants downstairs for a blind, gambling upstairs for profit.”
    “Did she lose the money gambling in those places?” I asked.
    “No. She hasn’t been in either place. I found that out.”
    “When,” I asked, “do you want me to go out to the house with you?”
    “Now. I don’t want any snooping. Win Alta’s friendship. Get her to confide in you—capable—dependable—athletic—aggressive.”
    “She’d hardly pick on a physical culture trainer as one in whom to confide.”
    “Wrong. That’s just what she would do. She isn’t a snob, and she hates snobs. Try to cultivate her, and she’ll snub you. You’re wrong— No, wait a minute. Maybe you’re right— All right, let me think. ... Tell you what. You aren’t a professional trainer. You’re an amateur—but a topnotch amateur. I’m figuring on backing you in a business proposition. I’m figuring on opening a string of private, exclusive gymnasiums where businessmen who are out of shape can be put in first-class condition at so much per. You’re going to manage the whole string for me, salary and bonus. You’re not a trainer. You’re a business partner who knows the game. Putting me in shape will be incidental. Leave it to me.”
    “All right. That end of it’s up to you. Now I’m only supposed to find out about your daughter’s financial drain. Is that all?”
    “All! Hell’s fire, that’s the biggest job you ever tackled. She’s steel spring and dynamite, that girl. If she ever finds out you’re a detective, I’m sunk and you’re fired. Get that?”
    “But how about your stepson? Why did you want to tell me about his business and—”
    “So you can keep out of his way, and keep Alta out of his damn business. He’s a stuffed shirt with a wilted collar. His mother thinks he’s a genius. He thinks so, too. Don’t get fooled. If he’s inveigled Alta into putting dough into his business—Well, I’ll fix that. I want the facts, that’s all. I told him, and I told his mother, I’d be damned if I gave him another cent. If he’s getting it through Alta, it’s the same as though he were getting it through me. I won’t have it. And I’m talking altogether too damned much. I’m finished. When’ll you be out?”
    “Within an hour,” Bertha answered for me.
    Ashbury rippled his back in a contortion which enabled him to get his hands on the arms of the chair. Using his arms, he pushed himself up and to his feet. “All right, come in a taxicab. Mrs. Cool has the