The Thief

“Mr. Tarses,” he snickered. “I would have recognized your picture taking anywhere by the camel stink.”

“Any chance of buying you off?” asked Tarses, his eyes locked on McCoy’s blackjack.

McCoy raised a mighty arm. The blackjack whistled as it tore down from the sky, and the Edison thug holding Tarses by the lapels went flying sideways into a camel and fell on his face. Tarses was vaguely aware that he himself was still on his feet and nothing hurt. Aside from that, he had no idea what was going on.

McCoy handed him a calling card. Through a smudge of blood from McCoy’s blackjack, Jay Tarses read:

IMPERIAL FILM PROTECTION SERVICE

“THE INDEPENDENT’S FRIEND”

“Telephone number’s on the back. Operator on-station night and day.”

“You don’t work for Edison anymore?” Tarses asked.

“Didn’t you hear?” McCoy gri

“What the hell is Imperial Film Protection Service?”

“‘The Independent’s Friend.’ Can’t you read?”

“Friend? I’ll bet. What’s it going to cost me?”

“Nothing.”

“Come on, Joe. What’s the big idea?”

McCoy threw a heavy arm around Tarses’s shoulder. “Jay, don’t look a gift horse in the mouth. And stop asking stupid questions.”

Tarses knew he had his share of flaws, but stupidity wasn’t one of them, and he said, “Thanks, Joe.”

“Don’t thank me. Thank Imperial. Well, sun’s in the sky. Bet you’re itching to get back to work— Say, what’s your picture called?”

“The Imperial Horseman.”

McCoy tipped his hat to Tarses’s pretty business manager, slung the unconscious thug over his shoulder, and carried him away.

Tarses shouted for his players to climb on their animals.

“Camera…”

That evening, when Tarses was paying off his extras, the one last in line drawled, “Who were those fellers pushing you around?”

Tarses was about to tell him to mind his own business when he recognized the extra as the tall, barbed-wire-thin cowboy with whom his costume girl had traded a French Foreign Legio

“What’s your name?”

“Tex.”

“Come back tomorrow, Tex. I’ll be taking pictures for a Wild West drama.”

Texas Walt Hatfield sauntered into the Los Angeles field office, cast a withering glance at the front-desk man’s fancy duds, and shook howdy with Isaac Bell.

Bell felt the tall Texan flinch.

“What happened to your hand?”

“Busted it falling off my damned horse. Camel spooked him.”

Bell was astonished. There was no finer horseman in the West. “When’s the last time you fell off a horse?”

“Unless you mean shot off,” Texas Walt drawled, “Ah was three years old, and he hadn’t been broke yet.”

“Did you catch up with Joe McCoy?”

“Yup. Like Tarses told me, used to thug for Edison — McCoy called it ‘engaged by Mr. Edison’s legal department.’ Quit or got fired, Ah couldn’t tell, came out here, and hired on with Imperial Protection. McCoy claims they’ve been whupping the heck out of the Edison Boys.”

“I just saw a bunged-up bunch headed back East on the train,” Bell said. “McCoy have any inkling what Imperial Protection’s all about?”

“He’s not a talkative feller. Though near as Ah can gather, he himself’s on the level.”

“Are they?”

“All I know is they ain’t asking for protection money. But if it’s not a racket, why is Imperial taking the independents’ side in the Trust war? Kindness of their hearts?”

Bell said, “I suspect that the truth is printed on their calling card.”

“‘The Independent’s Friend?’ How you figure that?”

“If an outfit that distributes and exhibits moving pictures befriends all the independents, they can rent out a lot of films.”

Texas Walt shoved his Stetson back on his head. “Like the cattle broker buying up every herd at the railhead.”

“And the meat packer in Chicago buying by the trainload. The Independent’s Friend could control the distribution and exhibition of all the independents’ moving pictures.”

“You’re sure they’re the same Imperial as the outfit you’re tracking?”

Bell nodded emphatically. “Larry Saunders got the Los Angeles exchange to trace their telephone number back to the Imperial Building.”

“And you’re sure Imperial Film’s a blind for something else?” Hatfield asked.

“That’s what we’re going to find out,” said Isaac Bell.

“Reckon you want me to continue riding for Tarses?”

“No. I want you inside that building. They’ve got cinematography studio stages up in the penthouse. Audition at Imperial to get a job acting inside.”

“Acting jobs ain’t all that easy to tie on to, Isaac. There’s men and women lined up everywhere they’re taking pictures.”

“You have a leg up, Walt. You look like you should be in pictures. And you’ve already worked in a couple. Get inside Imperial first thing tomorrow.”

Texas Walt hesitated.

“What’s wrong?” asked Bell.

“Well, I don’t want to leave Tarses in a lurch.”

“Tarses? What does Tarses have to do with the Talking Pictures case?”

Texas Walt scuffed the carpet with his boot. “Fact is, he’s talking about me playing a bigger part.”

“Why don’t you ask Mr. Van Dorn for a leave of absence?” Bell asked in a quiet, silky ma

“Think the boss would go for that?”

“After we crack the case.”

Texas Walt worked a deep groove into the carpet. “Sorry, Isaac. I didn’t mean to say I won’t take home the gal I brung to the dance.”

“Appreciate it,” said Bell. “Here’s where we stand: I’ve got the boys watching Clyde on the eighth floor of the Imperial Building; I want you up top in the roof studios. I’ve seen Mademoiselle Viorets’s office on the seventh, and I’m heading now to the fourth floor where they do the recordings.”

“How you fixin’ to get in?”

“I already am in.”

The tough nuts in fancy uniforms who guarded the Imperial Building lobby were not exactly friendly toward Isaac Bell, but he had visited Clyde Lynds often enough that they acknowledged a familiar face and greeted him by name.

“Afternoon, Mr. Bell,” said the doorman, then spoke sharply to the well-built men crowding behind Bell who were carrying musical cases for horns, saxophones, a clarinet, a violin, and a double bass. “Wait right there, gents! I’ll be with youse in a minute.”

“They’re with me,” said Bell.

“All of ’em?”

“Mr. Lynds requested a band.”

“Open those cases.”

“Gentlemen,” Bell said mildly, “they’re jumpy here. Show him your instruments.”

Hinged open, the cases revealed shiny trumpets and saxophones, clarinets, a little violin, and an enormous string bass.

“Fourth floor,” Bell told the glowering elevator operator, who glanced for the O.K. from the chief doorman before delivering them to the fourth floor.

Clyde Lynds was waiting impatiently in the recording room. “What took so long?”

“Nervous doormen thought the boys were smuggling Gatling guns.”

“Idiots— All right, boys, sit yourselves around that recording horn. Violin closest, trumpet over there, saxophone and string bass back there.”

“Where you want me?’ asked the clarinetist, a nattily dressed wisp of a fellow whom Isaac Bell had last seen in Idaho separating two bank robbers from their shotguns.

Clyde said, “Stand behind the violin and wait to come in until I tell you.”

The string bass player, most famous at the Van Dorn Detective Agency for infiltrating San Francisco’s corrupt police department, blew A on a pitch pipe to start the tuning process.