Free The Sinful Ones by Fritz Leiber Page B

conversation.
    “Why not let Dris do it?” he heard the woman say. “He’s had the easy end lately.”
    “Hm. That’s a possibility, all right. We’ll think it over.” The portly man’s voice was moving toward the street door. “Best be getting on now.”
    Several seconds later Carr peered around the rack. Through the window he could see the big blonde and the portly man entering a black convertible. The driver was a bored-looking young man with a crew haircut. As he turned toward the others, throwing his right arm along the top of the seat, Carr saw that it did not end in a hand, but a hooked contrivance. He felt a thrill of recognition. These were the three people Jane had mentioned in her note, all right. “…affable-seeming older man…” Yes, it all fitted.
    The driver had his hand hook on the wheel, but the car didn’t move yet. All three of them seemed to be discussing something. Again Carr got that intimidating impression of power he’d had when watching the woman upstairs.
    The driver seemed to lose interest in the discussion. Turning sideways again, he dangled his hook into the back seat. There was a flash of glistening black, which instantly vanished. Carr felt another shiver crawling along his back. Perhaps the driver had merely flirted up the corner of a black fur driving robe. But this was almost summer and the black flash ha been very quick.
    The middle-aged man seemed to speak sharply to the driver. The convertible began to move. Carr hurried to the window. He got there in time to see the convertible swinging around the next corner, rather too swiftly for sensible downtown driving.
    He stood there for a few seconds, then turned around. The proprietor had returned, but Carr ignored him. He slowly walked upstairs.
    He hesitated at Tom’s desk. He had half an impulse to tell Tom about things, ask him about the woman, but the big Swede was busy with an applicant. Another applicant was approaching his own desk. Frowning, he sat down.
    He felt extremely puzzled, disturbed. Above all, he wanted to think things through, but as luck would have it the afternoon turned out to be a busy one.
    Yet through all the details of job histories and qualifications, references and referral slips, his thoughts—or rather his sensations—kept wandering. At one time it would be a remembered phrase: “Worry pays,” “Fun must be insured,” “I hardly think the beast will be necessary.” At another it was the pulp magazines on the rack downstairs; he hadn’t remembered seeing them at the time, but now their covers stood out very clearly in his mind. He could read the frantic titles. Once he had the momentary feeling that the portly man had walked into his office. And for several minutes he was bothered by something black and rough poking now and then around the end of one of the benches in the waiting room, until he looked more closely and saw it was a woman’s handbag.
    With a slump of relief he watched the last applicant depart. He’d thought she was going to keep on talking forever—and it was a minute past quitting time and the other interviewers were hurrying for their hats and wraps.
    His glance lit on a scrap of pencil by the wire basket on his desk. He rolled it toward him with one finger. It was fiercely chewed, making him think of nails bitten to the quick. He recognized it as the one Jane had dropped on his desk yesterday.
    Damn it all, he didn’t want to get mixed up in anything. Not now that he’d made his peace with Marcia and ought to be concentrating on the Keaton Fisher proposal. He’d let jumpy nerves get the better of him yesterday, he didn’t want that to happen again. The rather ridiculous episode with Jane was something that ought to remain a closed incident. And how was he going to warn her even if he wanted to? He didn’t even know her last name.
    Besides, it didn’t sound as if those three people actually wanted to harm her, when you came to analyze the conversation he’d