STARTLING TRANSFORMATIONS
Some twenty blocks from the shack, in a south-westerly direction, well
out of the city's business section, and just off a broad boulevard, there
was a club. This was a very unusual club. Entrance was by card. The man
at the door was old and very wise. He had lived in Sicily in the days of
the Mafia.
The place went by the name of the "Seventy Club." It is not certainly
known what the "seventy" stood for. There are those who said it was the
club of seventy thieves. Others insisted that there were more than
seventy members and that not all were thieves. Be that as it may, the
police held no cards of admission, and were granted entrance only when
accompanied by search warrants.
On several occasions the police had entered. Always they had found no
cause for complaint. At the front of the place was a lobby and reading
room; at the back, pool tables and other tables for card playing. In the
center was a grill, where excellent food was served.
Men, for the most part of dark complexion, shot pool and shuffled cards
at the back. They dined, often with ladies, in the grill and went to
smoke in the lobby.
The manager, a short, broad-shouldered man, with deep set, gleaming eyes,
presided at a desk near the door and scrutinized all comers.
To this man, on the very night of which we are speaking, there came a
youth. This youth was dressed in a suit of modest gray. He wore a dark
tie, a gray shirt and black shoes. He was dark complexioned with dark
eyes and close cropped hair. He was very slender of build. His fingers
were extremely long; his feet small.
In his hand this boy bore a card. In one corner of the card was a secret
number done in red ink. Truth is, everyone who entered here possessed
such a card, marked in just this manner. Without the card, they did not
enter.
The manager questioned the boy in his native tongue, studying him the
while. The boy replied politely in the same tongue.
The manager scribbled a note, gave it to him, then nodded toward the door
at the back of the lobby.
The boy went back. Half an hour later he might have been found dressed in
a dark brown suit trimmed in gold braid, clearing dishes from the tables
in the grill. He had been given a position as bus boy.
The building in which the club was located rose only a single story from
the ground. Did it have a basement? To all appearances it did not. The
heating plant was situated back of the billiard room. There were no
outside entrances to the place save the one at the front. There were no
stairways leading down.
The grillroom possessed one slightly unusual feature. Six telephone
booths, standing in a row, occupied one corner of the large grillroom.
One would have said that one, or at most two booths, would have sufficed
for such a place. But no; here were six. And, if one judged by the number
of people who entered the booths, one might have said there were not too
many, for people were constantly entering and leaving them.
Two things were strange about these booths. They were not constructed as
other booths are. True, they were just as broad and just as tall; but
they contained far less glass. The windows were narrow and high. In fact,
once a person was inside and had closed the door, nothing at all could be
seen of him.
This, one would say, was an improvement, for who wishes to be seen
grinning and gesturing at a telephone, as one is forever doing?
The other feature was far more startling. It was a thing you might not
notice until you had dined there many times. Did the new bus boy take
cognizance of it on that first night of service?
If one were to hazard a guess one would answer, "He probably did." That
guess, however, might easily be wrong; for, during the entire evening the
boy rendered faultless service. He did not drop a dish, spill a glass of
water, nor do any of those things one is so likely to do when startled.
The peculiarity of these six booths was that they did not always disgorge
the identical persons who had entered them.
Now such a thing will seem strange under any circumstances. If a short
dark man dressed in brown enters a telephone booth, and three minutes
later a short blonde man in gray comes out, it might seem a curious
circumstance. But when a short, broad, dark complexioned man in a blue
suit enters and, after five minutes, a tall blonde lady in a pearl gray
dress emerges, it is enough to cause the most phlegmatic person to stare.
As for the guests, they paid not the slightest attention to the
succession of transformations that were being made in these booths. They
went right on laughing and talking, drinking coffee and munching salad,
just as if nothing unusual was happening in the world.