1956 - There's Always a Price Tag Read Online Free Page B

increased, he lost what ethics he might have had, and twice already he had had a brush with the police on a shady deal, the details of which I hadn't been told.
    He was sitting at his desk, his beaky nose in a pulp magazine when I pushed open the door and walked into his shabby, down-at-the-heel office.
    Patsy, his blonde secretary, a twenty-three-year-old, overripe dish with a baby face and worldly wise eyes, looked up as I came in and gave me a cheerful smile. She had a hard time of it with Solly: she not only had to run the office, but she was expected to stay late when Solly's glands were making life a burden to him without having an addition in her pay packet. She was eating her lunch out of a paper bag.
    Solly laid down his magazine and looked at me, his black eyes hostile.
    'What do you imagine this is?' he asked. 'Look at the time. You're supposed to clock in here at nine o'clock.'
    'Relax, brother,' I said, sitting on the edge of his desk. 'I'm not working for you anymore.'
    Patsy put her half-eaten sandwich down on the desk, swung her chair around so she could take a good look at me. Her big blue eyes popped wide open.
    Solly regarded me sourly.
    'I've quit,' I said. 'You'll have to find another sucker to work for you, Jack. I've got me a new career.'
    Solly's face lengthened.
    'Who are you working for then?' he asked, leaning back in his chair. 'Maybe I can give you a raise. You don't want to be hasty about this. You wouldn't try to steal any of my accounts, would you?'
    'If I happened to be nuts enough to take another job like this one and for another shark like you, of course I'd steal as many of your accounts that are worth stealing, and they aren't many,' I said. 'But relax. I've quit the racket. I've got myself a nice easy job that pays fifty a week and all found: including a uniform.'
    Solly's eyes bulged, while Patsy, who had picked up her sandwich, held it before her open mouth as she gaped at me.
    'What do you mean - a uniform?' Solly demanded.
    'I'm a chauffeur,' I said, giving Patsy a wink. 'A chauffeur to one of the big shots at the Pacific Studios. How do you like that?'
    'Why, you're crazy!' Solly said. 'Do you call that a job? Who but a crazy man wants to be a chauffeur? You don't know when you're well off. Don't you know how they treat chauffeurs in this town? You might just as well have a ball and chain on your leg. You must be stark raving nuts to take a job like that.'
    'I very nearly didn't, but I happened to catch sight of the boss's wife,' I said.
    'His wife?' Solly's expression changed. He looked the way a gundog looks when his master takes aim.
    The most important thing in Solly's life after money was women.
    'You men make me sick to my stomach,' Patsy said, getting up. 'I'm going to the John. Get the gruesome details over before I get back, will you please?'
    Solly aimed a slap at her as she passed him, but he had done this so often, she had no trouble in whipping her tail out of reach.
    When she had shut the door, Solly took out two cigarettes, rolled one across the desk to me and offered me a light.
    'What's this about his wife?' he asked.
    'She's nice,' I said, and drew a shape in the air with my hands. 'Very, very lush: redheaded, green eyes and a figure like a bra. I didn't see why I shouldn't give myself a job right next to her when it was offered to me. And apart from the sex interest, I drive a cream-and-blue Rolls convertible that's as big and as expensive as a battleship. Isn't that an improvement on this lousy job?'
    'Sounds like it,' Solly said reflectively. 'They don't want a butler, do they? I could talk to the redhead while you're driving the husband to work.'
    'They don't want anyone but me,' I said grinning.
    'But seriously, Glyn, where will it get you? A chauffeur's job is no kind of life for an up and coming guy like you.'
    'Where's your job going to get me, come to that?'
    'If you'd only work at it and get some business, I might make you a partner one of these days,'