The Old Die Rich Read online

bathrobe and a towel turban on when Ilooked in. She slid the robe off and began dusting herself withpowder. That skin _did_ cover her.

  She turned and moved toward a vanity against the wall that I was onthe other side of. The next thing I knew, the window was flung up andshe had a gun on me.

  "Come right in--Mr. Weldon, isn't it?" she said in that completelycontrolled voice of hers. One day her control would crack, I thoughtirrelevantly, and the pieces would be found from Dallas to NorthCarolina. "I had an idea you seemed more curious than was justified bya help-wanted ad."

  "A man my age doesn't get to see many pretty girls," I told her,making my own voice crack pathetically in a senile whinny.

  She motioned me into the room. When I was inside, I saw a light overthe window blinking red. It stopped the moment I was in the room. Asilent burglar alarm.

  She let her pale blue eyes wash insolently over me. "A man your agecan see all the pretty girls he wants to. You're not old."

  "And you use a rinse," I retorted.

  She ignored it. "I specifically advertised for old people. Why did youapply?"

  It had happened so abruptly that I hadn't had a chance to use theStanislavsky method to _feel_ old in the presence of a beautiful nudewoman. I don't even know if it would have worked. Nothing's perfect.

  "I needed a job awful bad," I answered sullenly, knowing it soundedlike an ad lib.

  * * * * *

  She smiled with more contempt than humor. "You had a job, Mr. Weldon.You were very busy trying to find out why senile psychotics starvethemselves to death."

  "How did you know that?" I asked, startled.

  "A little investigation of my own. I also happen to know you didn'ttell your friend Sergeant Pape that you were going to be heretonight."

  That was a fact, too. I hadn't felt sure enough that I'd found theanswer to call him about it. Looking at the gun in her steady hand, Iwas sorry I hadn't.

  "But you did find out I own this building, that my name is MayRoberts, and that I'm the daughter of the late Dr. Anthony Roberts,the physicist," she continued. "Is there anything else you want me totell you about yourself?"

  "I know enough already. I'm more interested in you and the starvationcases. If you weren't connected with them, you wouldn't have known Iwas investigating them."

  "That's obvious, isn't it?" She reached for a cigarette on the vanityand used a lighter with her free hand. The big mirror gave me anotherview of her lovely body, but that was beginning to interest me lessthan the gun. I thought of making a grab for it. There was too muchdistance between us, though, and she knew better than to take her eyesoff me while she was lighting up. "I'm not afraid of professionaldetectives, Mr. Weldon. They deal only with facts and every one ofthem will draw the same conclusions from a given set of circumstances.I don't like amateurs. They guess too much. They don't stick toreality. The result--" her pale eyes chilled and her shapely mouthwent hard--"is that they are likely to get too close to the truth."

  I wanted a smoke myself, but I wasn't willing to make a move towardthe pipe in my jacket. "I may be close to the truth, Miss Roberts, butI don't know what the devil it is. I still don't know how you're tiedin with the senile psychotics or why they starve with all that money.You could let me go and I wouldn't have a thing on you."

  She glanced down at herself and laughed for real for the first time."You wouldn't, would you? On the other hand, you know where I'mworking from and could nag Sergeant Pape into getting a searchwarrant. It wouldn't incriminate me, but it would be inconvenient. Idon't care to be inconvenienced."

  "Which means what?"

  "You want to find out my connection with senile psychotics. I intendto show you."

  "How?"

  She gestured dangerously with the gun. "Turn your face to the wall andstay that way while I get dressed. Make one attempt to turn aroundbefore I tell you to and I'll shoot you. You're guilty ofhousebreaking, you know. It would be a little inconvenient for me tohave an investigation ... but not as inconvenient as for you."

  * * * * *

  I faced the wall, feeling my stomach braid itself into a tight,painful knot of fear. Of what, I didn't know yet, only that old peoplewho had something to do with her died of starvation. I wasn't old, butthat didn't seem very comforting. She was the most frigid,calculating, _deadly_ woman I'd ever met. That alone was enough toscare hell out of me. And there was the problem of what she wascapable of.

  Hearing the sounds of her dressing behind me, I wanted to lunge aroundand rush her, taking a chance that she might be too busy pulling on agirdle or reaching back to fasten a bra to have the gun in her hand.It was a suicidal impulse and I gave it up instantly. Other womenmight compulsively finish concealing themselves before snatching upthe gun. Not her.

  "All right," she said at last.

  I faced her. She was wearing coveralls that, if anything, emphasizedthe curves of her figure. She had a sort of babushka that covered herred hair and kept it in place--the kind of thing women workers used towear in factories during the war. She had looked lethal with nothingon but a gun and a hard expression. She looked like a sentence ofexecution now.

  "Open that door, turn to the right and go upstairs," she told me,indicating directions with the gun.

  I went. It was the longest, most anxious short walk I've ever taken.She ordered me to open a door on the fourth floor, and we were insidethe room I'd seen from the fire escape. The mesh cage seemed like atorture chamber to me, the hooded motors designed to shoot anagonizing current through my emaciating body.

  "You're going to do to me what you did to the old man you hiredtoday?" I probed, hoping for an answer that would really answer.

  She flipped on the switch that started the motors and there was ashrill, menacing whine. The wire mesh of the cage began blurringoddly, as if vibrating like the tines of a tuning fork.

  "You've been an unexpected nuisance, Weldon," she said above themotors. "I never thought you'd get this far. But as long as you have,we might as well both benefit by it."

  "Benefit?" I repeated. "_Both_ of us?"

  She opened the drawer of a work table and pulled out a stack ofenvelopes held with a rubber band. She put the stack at the other edgeof the table.

  "Would you rather have all cash or bank accounts or both?"

  My heart began to beat. _She was where the money came from!_

  * * * * *

  "You trying to tell me you're a philanthropist?" I demanded.

  "Business is philanthropy, in a way," she answered calmly. "You needmoney and I need your services. To that extent, we're doing each othera favor. I think you'll find that the favor I'm going to do for youis a pretty considerable one. Would you mind picking up the envelopeson the table?"

  I took the stack and stared at the top envelope. "May 15, 1931," Iread aloud, and looked suspiciously at her. "What's this for?"

  "I don't think it's something that can be explained. At least it'snever been possible before and I doubt if it would be now. I'massuming you want both cash and bank accounts. Is that right?"

  "Well, yes. Only--"

  "We'll discuss it later." She looked along a row of shelves againstone wall, searching the labels on the stacks of bundles there. Shedrew one out and pushed it toward me. "Please open that and put on thethings you'll find inside."

  I tore open the bundle. It contained a very plain business suit, blackshoes, shirt, tie and a hat with a narrow brim.

  "Are these supposed to be my burial clothes?"

  "I asked you to put them on," she said. "If you want me to make that acommand, I'll do it."

  I looked at the gun and I looked at the clothes and then for someshelter I could change behind. There wasn't any.

  She smiled. "You didn't seem concerned about my modesty. I don't seewhy your own should bother you. Get dressed!"

  I obeyed, my mind anxiously chasing one possibility after another, allof them ending up with my death. I got in
to the other things and felteven more uncomfortable. They were all only an approximate fit: theshoes a little too tight and pointed, the collar of the shirt toostiffly starched and too high under my chin, the gray suit too narrowat the shoulders and the ankles. I wished I had a mirror to see myselfin. I felt like an ultra-conservative Wall Street broker and I wassure I resembled one.

  "All right," she said. "Put the envelopes in your inside pocket.You'll find instructions on each. Follow them carefully."

  "I don't get