1974 - Goldfish Have No Hiding Place by James Hadley Chase Page A

fixed. Unless Gordy's file has been destroyed. Mavis will give us a photocopy. She says there was no breakin last night. As soon as Webber leaves, she'll check the files.”
    “When does he leave?”
    “Around 19.00. Mavis has the keys. She'll telephone me as soon as she gets it.”
    “If I can get it before I see Gordy, I could have a lever.”
    “If it's there, you'll get it.”
    “Thanks, Jean. I've got three thousand dollars for Gordy. I called the hospital.”
    “So did I and I talked to Shirley. She's bearing up. She tells me Brenner has been to see her. She gave nothing away. Brenner now thinks it was a mugging.”
    “It could just possibly be.”
    “Well, to work. You have the leader to write, Steve. My desk is loaded.”
    When she had gone, I pulled my IBM Executive towards me. The leader was about the dollar devaluation. I was in no mood to write sense, but somehow, after littering the floor with crumpled paper, I got something down on paper that did make sense.
    The rest of the afternoon rushed away with telephone calls, three contributors with ideas, two bad, one good.
    While I was dictating to my Grundig, the intercom buzzed.
    I flicked down the switch.
    “Mr. Borg is here, Mr. Manson,” Judy told me.
    Joe Borg was Chandler's dog-of-all-work. He handled anything that was tricky and I knew him to be a top-class man with a salary that made my thirty thousand a year peanuts. But he had a hell of a job that would have given me ulcers.
    “Send him in.”
    Borg breezed in. He was short, thin, dark, around forty years of age. His eyes were like tiny black buttons and his mouth wore a perpetual grin.
    “Hi, Steve!” He closed the door and coming to my desk, he put down a square carton. “Armaments for you and Max. There are pistol permits and two boxes of slugs.” He eyed me. “Don't go killing people, Steve.”
    “That's quick work, Joe. Thanks.”
    “When the boss says so, it is so.” Again he eyed me.
    “Watch it, buddy. Don't shoot until you see the whites of their eyes.” He screwed his face into a comical grimace.
    “Now who said that?” He started for the door. “I've got a date with a hot piece of tail who cools fast if she's kept waiting,” and he was gone.
    I took from the carton two .38 police automatics with shoulder holsters and two boxes of cartridges. The permits were made out in my name and Max's name. I stood up, took off my jacket and put on the shoulder holster. I had been in the Vietnam war and I knew about guns. I checked the automatic, found it worked well, then loaded the gun.
    One thing I was determined about, it wouldn't be my fault if I landed up in hospital.
    I put the gun in the holster, stood away from my desk and did five experimental draws. The gun came from the holster each time smoothly and fast. Satisfied, I took off the holster and put the set-up in my desk drawer. Then I called Max at his home address. There was no answer. Max lived on his own. He was one of those men who didn't want to be tied to one woman. He flirted around and was happy that way.
    As I replaced the receiver, Jean came in.
    “Mavis has just telephoned . . . no luck. Gordy's file has gone missing.”
    I sat behind my desk.
    “Can you make sense of this, Jean? Webber told me he had a file on Gordy. Now this lie about a breakin: now no “I can only guess. Either he is being blackmailed by Gordy or someone with influence has persuaded him to lay off.”
    “Who?”
    She thought, frowning.
    “Who has been stealing from the store?” she asked finally. “According to Wally, Sally Latimer, Mabel Creeden and Lucilla Bower. I don't know any of these women. Do you?”
    Mark Creeden immediately jumped into my mind. He owned the biggest house on the Eastlake estate. He was the President of the Howarth Production Corporation: a big wheel, the most important man on the estate. His wife, twenty years his junior, was inclined to act regally, as he did, and the women on the estate didn't go for her,