Read Online Lively Game of Death by Marvin Kaye - Free Book Online Page A

Most of them have no interest in industry associations. In fact, they’re usually afraid of them, figure they don’t want the people they’re stealing from to see what they look like. Not Goetz, though! He’s at every single TMA session, just sitting there, listening to any tips that another member might let slip. All the time in the TMA, people are pleading for franker dialogue between members, but it’s lice like Goetz that prevent the honest executives from opening up!”
    The TMA, in case you haven’t figured it out, stands for the Toy Manufacturers of America. I asked Bell whether there were any members unusually antagonistic to Goetz. He shook his head.
    “Everybody hates Sid about as much as anyone else. Except maybe Pete Jensen, you might make a case for some additional malice on his part.”
    “Who’s he?”
    “Used to be Goetz’s partner. He’s in business for himself now. The way I understand it, Jensen had a cute little preschool game, showed it to Sid,” Bell said.
    “What was he, an inventor?”
    “Right. Now, Pete was green and Sid knew it, but all the same, he wasn’t totally ignorant. The way I heard it, Sid tried to buy the game outright, but couldn’t. So he offered to make Jensen a ‘partner’ and had him sign all the rights to the game over to the partnership—then Sid managed to squeeze him out.”
    “How’d he do that?” I asked.
    “That I don’t know. But he swindled him somehow.”
    “A sweet guy!”
    “Isn’t that what I’ve been telling you?” Bell exclaimed. “If you’ve got any brains, you’ll keep away from him. And,” he added, screwing up his face into an expression of what, to him, probably was intended to be menace, “if I find out you’re working with him after all and just came in to spy on our new line, I’ll work you over myself.”
    I patted him on the shoulder. “Nothing to worry about, Mr. Bell, you’re safe from me.” I started to go, turned back again. “By the way, where can I find this Pete Jensen?”
    “Go on over to the Fifth Avenue Club, you’ll catch him half-sloshed. That’s the way I saw him going in there this morning.”
    I thanked him and exited, then thought better of it and stuck my head back in the door.
    “What now?” Bell grumbled.
    “Just wanted to know if you have any idea when the room down the hall will be opening up this morning.”
    “What! Goetz Sales?”
    “No,” I reassured him, “the other one—PeeJayCo.”
    “Why don’t you ask Pete Jensen?” Bell replied. “It’s his company!”

10
    A T TEN O’CLOCK any other morning, the bar of the Fifth Avenue Club—just off the main FAB lobby—would be deserted, while the coffee shop down the corridor would be packed. But the influx of nearly ten thousand toy, hobby, and decorations wholesalers and retailers to the Manhattan market that morning provided enough extra bar business to make the club a little less than secluded.
    The bar itself overlooks one of the club’s main dining rooms. It was that time of day when the staff begins luncheon preparations, yet several of the tables were already occupied by businessmen with drinks in front of them—much to the annoyance of the waiters working around them. Several toymen had their heads close together, sharing between themselves fat little booklets issued by the TMA to Fair visitors. I guessed them to be out-of-town buyers planning itineraries for the week; the booklets supplied them with the correct showroom numbers for their merchandise sources.
    In a far corner, one man sat alone. A wide-mouthed old fashioned glass half-filled with pale amber liquid rested on the blanched table-cover in front of him. The bartender—a freelance toy inventor who mixes drinks in the club as a convenient way to meet prospective customers for his ideas—prided himself on knowing the names and faces of all the tenants in FAB and 1111; he identified the solitary figure as Pete Jensen.
    I studied Jensen from a distance, and I liked