Eugene Clay Krebb knew he was done for. A bottle of Gilbey’s spey royal teetered perilously at the edge of his desk as he looked at the the guarantee of failure before him.

Vivian Alcott was not a woman to be trifled with and he had done her dirty. No one expected him to find the best candidates, but the claustrophobic safe-crack had been the last straw. The riverboat was heavy with gold and moved on in the morning so by dawn either the job was done or he was.

“Well,” he told his suddenly empty scotch glass “at least a crimp’s job is just to get people. They don’t have to be the right ones. They just have to show up on time.”