Gold Comes in Bricks Read Free Page A

address. I’ll go out and pave the way. Now remember, Lam. No one’s to know you’re a detective. The minute anyone finds that out, your goose is cooked.” He spun to Bertha Cool, and said, “You remember that, too. Don’t make any false moves. Alta’s nobody’s damn fool. She’ll find out if you make a single stumble. One boob play, and you’ve kicked a hundred dollars a day out the window.”
    So Bertha was getting a hundred dollars a day, plus expenses. She was paying me eight when I worked, with a monthly guarantee of seventy-five bucks.
    Ashbury said, “Get there in an hour, Lam, and you can meet the family tonight—all except Alta. She’ll be out somewhere, won’t get in before two or three o’clock in the morning. We have our workout at seven-thirty, breakfast at eight-thirty. And I’m not kidding about having you show me some of that jujitsu stuff. I want to get my muscles built up. I’m too flabby.’’
    He wiggled his narrow shoulders inside the padded coat, and it was surprising to see, when the tips of his shoulders touched the cloth, how much the tailor had been able to do with padding.
    “Donald will be there,” Bertha Cool said.
    After he went out, Bertha said, “Sit down.”
    I sat on the arm of the chair.
    She said, “There’s a lot of expenses in connection with running this business that you don’t know a damn thing about: rent, secretarial salaries, social security, income tax, occupation tax, stationery, bookkeeping, lights.”
    “Janitor service,” I suggested.
    “That’s right. Janitor service.”
    “So what?”
    “Well, this is a pretty good job, Donald, and I’ve decided to raise your wages to ten dollars a day while you’re working on it.”
    “That’ll be ten dollars,” I said.
    “What will?”
    “One day.”
    “What do you mean?”
    “That’s as long as I’ll last. How can I teach anyone physical culture?”
    “Now don’t be like that, Donald. I’ve got it all worked out. We’ll make arrangements with Hashita to give you your lessons every afternoon. I told Mr. Ashjbury you’d have to get off every afternoon between two and four in order to come up here and make reports. What you’ll really do is go to Hashita and get lessons in jujitsu. Then you’ll give Mr. Ashbury a rehash of those lessons. Don’t let him develop too fast.”
    “He won’t,” I said. “What’s more, I won’t.”
    “Oh, you’ll take to it like a duck to water, Donald.”
    “How do I get back and forth? How far is it?”
    “It’s too far to go on a streetcar, but because he thinks you’re coming up to the office to make reports, I’ve made him agree to pay taxi fare.”
    “How much?”
    “You don’t need to bother,” Bertha Cool said. “We aren’t going to spend all our profits on taxicabs. I’ll drive you out to within a block of the place tonight. You can walk the rest of the way. I’ll be waiting every day at two o’clock with my car. We may just as well have that extra profit as not.”
    “It’s a foolish chance to take, just to knock down a taxi fare, but it’s your funeral,” I said, and went out to pack my suitcase.

CHAPTER THREE
    B ERTHA C OOL DROPPED ME within a block of Ashbury’s place at ten twenty-five. It was drizzling a bit. I walked the block with my suitcase banging against my legs. It was a big place out in millionaire row with a gravel driveway, ornamental trees, roomy architecture, and servants.
    The butler hadn’t heard any taxicab drive up. He looked at the rain which had fallen on the brim of my hat and asked if I was Mr. Lam. I told him I was.
    He said he’d take my suitcase up to my room, that Mr. Ashbury wanted to see me right away in the library.
    I went in. Ashbury shook hands and started performing introductions. Mrs. Ashbury was considerably younger than her husband. She had the big-breasted, big-hipped, voluptuous type of beauty. She was carrying about fifteen pounds too much weight to make the curves smooth and voluptuous.