Love's Lovely Counterfeit Read Online Free PDF Page A

law firm, Wiener, Jacks, and Myers. They pay me a salary, about as good a salary as young lawyers get, more than you might think from this." She waved her hand at the apartment. "I only keep part of my salary for myself. And—I've got to have still more money. I simply must have it."
    "Why you more than somebody else?"
    "I told you it's a long story."
    "More family history?"
    "It's been going on a long time, and I'd rather not go into it. Anyway, Jansen came along. I'd done a little work for him, settling claims. And he was thinking about running for Mayor. And I was thinking about a job, one of those heavenly city hall jobs where you come down once a week to sign papers, and hold your regular job just the same. And—I guess I egged him on."
    "For the dough?"
    "Not entirely. I think he's a fine man, fit to be Mayor, a hundred times better than Maddux. Just the same—"
    "The dough is the main thing?"
    "Now I feel like a heel."
    "No need to feel that way. Listen, if it was just idealism, I might give you tips, but I'd be plenty worried. I don't believe in that stuff, and I don't believe in people that do believe in it. Now I know it's the old do-re-mi, that's different. O.K., June. We can do business."
    "I'm afraid it is idealism, just the same."
    "You said it was dough."
    "Yes, but not to have it, or spend it, or whatever people do with it. Money, just as money, doesn't mean much to me. But as a means to an end, as something that will permit me to deal with—a certain situation—"
    "Back home?"
    "It might be. Well, money for that purpose is important to me. Then it will mean something to me."
    "Are you out to get it or not?"
    "Indeed I am."
    "That's all I want to know."
    She got the solemn frown on her face again, as though she wanted to make clear that it was no ordinary greed that prompted her present activities, but he ran his finger up the crease between her brows. She laughed. "I want to be an idealist."
    "O.K., so I'm a chiseler."
    "Oh, say crook."
    "A chiseler, he's not a crook."
    "He certainly isn't honest."
    "He's just in between."
    Two days before, when Lefty had said it, Ben had obviously been annoyed. Now, just as obviously, he was beginning to be proud of it. She laughed. "Anyway, we're both walloping Caspar.
    "I hope we are."
    "But look how we're walloping him."
    She got a paper from the alcove, and came back with it. It was a midnight edition, and all over the front page was the story of how the Castleton detectives had raided the Globe Hotel and grabbed three of the bandits without bothering to get in touch with the Lake City police. Ben seemed surprised that only three bandits were bagged, and she explained: "The other one, the one that was shot, had been taken away before the Castleton police got there."
    "Alive?"
    "We think so."
    He was already reading the news story, but she pointed to the editorial, also on Page 1, and he read it with her, their heads nearly touching. It attacked Castleton savagely, but went on to say that the charges made by Miss June Lyons, a speaker at the Jansen meeting, were too serious to be ignored. An investigation of the Lake City police department should be made, and if Mayor Maddux wouldn't act, the Governor ought to. "It's the first time, Mr. Grace—"
    "Call me Ben."
    "It's the first time, Ben, that either of the big papers has taken us seriously. The little News-Times does what it can, but this is the Post! If I just had a little more dirt..."
    "You are waking up, aren't you?"
    "I'll say I am."
    She was breathless, tense, eager. For a second their eyes met, and it seemed queer that he suddenly got up, instead of taking her in his arms, which he certainly could have done. He stood uncertainly for a moment, then picked up his hat. "One thing."
    "Yes?"
    "Tell Jansen to put a private guard on here. Outside, at least two men, day and night. I'd do it, but they'd know me. Ring him soon as I go, and have him attend to it tonight. Tonight, see? That's necessary, after what you