“Preston asked me to shoot the Fleet arriving in San Francisco for Picture World.”

“Preston’s newspapers are predicting war with Japan within the week.”

“He’ll print anything to sell a newspaper.”

“Is this a one-time job?”

“I would not be working for him as an employee, you can be sure, but as a highly paid contractor. I could squeeze it in between the movies I’m shooting here. What do you think?”

“I have to hand it to Whiteway. He is certainly persistent.”

“I don’t think he sees me that way anymore-Why are you l aughing?”

“I believe he is still male and in possession of his eyesight.”

“I mean that Preston knows that I am not available.”

“By now that should have sunk in,” Bell agreed. “If memory serves, the last time he was in our company you threatened to shoot him. When do you leave?”

“Not before the first of May.”

“Good. They’re launching the Michigan next week. Captain Falconer will throw a big party. I was hoping you could come with me.”

“I’d love to.”

“It’s my chance to observe the foreign flibbertigibbets in a room full of Americans who might talk too much. You’ll provide cover and a second pair of eyes and ears.”

“What do you suppose ladies wear to a battleship launching?”

“How about that hat men step aside for?” Bell grinned. “Or you can ask Mademoiselle Duvall. Even money, she’ll be there, too.”

“I don’t like that she knows you’re a detective. It could put you in danger if she really is a spy.”

TEN BLOCKS UP BROADWAY, things were going like clockwork for Iceman Weeks.

First, he managed to make it the four blocks from the subway to the Cumberland Hotel without being spotted by anybody who’d squeal to Tommy Thompson. Crossing Broadway, he passed right under the noses of Daley and Boyle-Central Office pickpocket detectives who were hurrying down to their regular station at the Metropolitan Opera-and they didn’t even notice him in the sack suit he’d found airing on a Brooklyn fire escape.

Then in the lobby, the Cumberland’s house detectives were distracted while changing shifts. Neither dick gave Weeks’s duds a second glance. Even if his boots did not compare to the polished shoes on the college men, the Academy of Pathological Science doctors rushing to their meeting weren’t watching his feet.

Jimmy Clark, dressed up like an organ-grinder’s monkey in his purple bell-hopper uniform, looked right through him, doing a good job of acting like they had not had a “conversation” earlier in the day.

“Boy!”

Jimmy hurried over, ducking his head to conceal the fear and hatred in his eyes. “Yes, sir.”

Weeks handed him a luggage ticket for the battered old steamer truck he had had delivered earlier to the hotel and tipped him a nickel. “Put my trunk on your cart and wait for me by the side door of the Academy meeting. I have a steamship to catch and I don’t want to disturb the members when I leave early.”

Jimmy Clark said, “Yes sir.”

Weeks was luckier than he knew. Between out-of-town guests swaggering out for a night on the Great White Way and Pathological Academy doctors pouring in to view the lance-headed viper, the hotel lobby was too busy for anyone to take note of a queer accent. While dressed like a college man, Weeks still spoke like a lifelong citizen of Hell’s Kitchen, and anyone who listened would have heard, “Dun wanna destoib de members wen I leave oily.”

The other piece of good luck-and this one he knew about-was that the hotel fuse box in the cellar was at the bottom of the same stairs that led to the side door of the lobby-level ballroom where the doctors were meeting the snake. Weeks put his hat on the chair nearest the door to reserve it and milled around a little so he didn’t have to talk to anyone before the meeting started. When it did, he took his seat and caught a last glimpse of the sticker-plastered steamer trunk on Jimmy’s cart as the door closed.

He listened impatiently as the speaker gassed on about welcoming the members and dispensing with reading the minutes. Then the head doctor talked about how they would milk the snake’s deadly poison and turn it into a serum to cure lunatics. And the good thing about this particular species of snake was that it had a lot more venom that most. Christ knew how many loonies it would cure, but for Isaac Bell it meant that even if the snake missed its first shot it’d hit him again fully loaded.

The zookeepers came in with the snake. The room got real quiet.

The glass box, Weeks saw, would fit in the trunk. That was a relief. He had had no way of knowing for sure until now. Two men were carrying it, and they placed it on a table up front.

Even from halfway across the ballroom, the snake looked wicked. It was moving, coiling and uncoiling, its surprisingly thick, diamond-patterned body gleaming in the lights. It seemed to flow, moving around the box like one long, powerful muscle, flicking a forked tongue and investigating the seams where the glass sides met the glass top. It took particular interest in where the hinges attached, and Weeks figured that a little air got in there, and the snake could sense movement. The doctors were muttering, but no one seemed that inclined to have a closer look.

“Do not worry, gentlemen,” called the medico running the show. “The glass is strong.” He dismissed the men who had carried it. Iceman Weeks was glad to see them go because they might make more trouble than the doctors. “And thank you, sir,” he said to the curator, who left, too. Better and better, thought Weeks. Just me and the snake and a bunch of sissies. He looked to the door. Jimmy Clark had opened it a crack. Weeks nodded. Now.

It did not take long. Just as the first row rose and tentatively approached the glass box, the lights went out, and the room was suddenly pitch-black. Fifty men shouted at once. Weeks sprang to the door, wrenched it open, and felt in the dark for the trunk. He heard Jimmy pounding up the steps, trusting the banisters to guide him. Weeks opened the streamer trunk, felt for the pane of glass, tucked it under his arm, and pushed back into the ballroom where the shouts were getting loud.

“Keep your heads!”

“Don’t lose your nerve!”

A couple of quick thinkers lit matches, which cast weird, jumpy shadows.

Weeks hadn’t a moment to lose. He rushed up the side of the ballroom, hugging the wall, and then cut across the front. When he was six feet from the snake, he shouted at the top of lungs, “Look out! Jaysus, don’t drop it!,” and smashed the window glass on the wooden floor.

Shouts turned to screams, followed immediately by the pounding of hundreds of feet. Before Weeks could yell, “He’s loose. He’s out. Run! Run! Run!,” many panicky voices did it for him.

Jimmy Clark deserved a place in Heaven for how quickly he wheeled up the trunk.

“Careful,” muttered Weeks. “Let’s not drop it.”

Feeling in the dark, they lifted the glass box into the trunk, shut the lid, got it back on the cart, and wheeled it out the side door of the ballroom. They were almost to the alley when the lights came on.

“House dick!” Clark hissed a warning.

“Keep going,” Weeks said coolly. “I’ll deal with the dick.”

“Hey! Where you going with that?”

Dressed like a college man, Weeks blocked the way so Jimmy could roll his cart out the door, and answered, “Out of here, before I miss my steamer.”

The house dick heard, “Outta her, ’fer I miss me steamer,” and drew his pistol.

By then Weeks had his fingers firmly inside his brass knuckles. He brought the bigger man down with a lightning-fast, bone-smashing blow between the eyes. He caught the pistol as it dropped, pocketed it, and found Jimmy in the alley. The bellboy looked scared stiff.

“Don’t go rattly on me, now,” Weeks warned him. “We still got to get across town.”