by Dan Marlowe
“Speaking of-angels-” the slender man remarked, and cut his eyes toward the lobby chairs. Johnny turned in time to see Lieutenant Joseph Dameron's bulk propel itself upward from the depths of the largest chair and walk toward them.
“Morning, Johnny,” the lieutenant rumbled in a powerhouse boom that turned heads in the lobby. He was a big, broad-shouldered man with apple cheeks and iron gray hair that nearly matched the frosty tint of his eyes.
“Mornin', Joe,” Johnny acknowledged; neither man offered to shake hands. He nodded down at the black blare of the headline at the newsstand counter: fighter slain in tavern holdup. “This little caper got the brass out plowin' up the streets, too?”
“There's a couple of things,” the big man said vaguely. He gestured in the direction of the elevators. “Can we talk upstairs?” Johnny motioned them into an unoccupied cab and took the controls himself. In the elevator the lieutenant spoke again, in dry tones, with the fluid lingual grace of the polished public speaker. “I'd have had Jimmy ask you to drop by the station house, but I thought he might need a warrant if you were having one of your bad days.”
“He has any other kind?” the detective asked solemnly.
The ruddy-faced lieutenant's smile was wintry. “I decided I'd be better off coming over myself.”
Johnny looked over his shoulder as he halted the cab at the sixth floor. “That's a switch, Joe, your bein' able to decide somethin'.” He winked at Detective Rogers. “You always used to have such a hard time makin' up your mind. Like the time we was holed up for three days in an ice storm in a cottage in the Pyrenees, an' you couldn't decide whether the mother was better than the daughter.”
The apple cheeks darkened, and the lieutenant's stare passed from Johnny to the wooden-faced detective. “Officially you never heard that, Rogers,” he growled.
Johnny led the way to 615 and unlocked the door. “The trouble with your job nowadays,” he needled, “is that you do too much pitchin' an' not enough catchin'. You ought to drop around more often an' slop a little swill with the rest of us hogs.”
The lieutenant was silent; inside he eyed with grudging appreciation the attractively furnished oversized bed-sitting room, with its wall-to-wall deep pile carpeting and the three-quarter-sized refrigerator tucked neatly in a corner. “Damned if I don't like this a little better each time I see it,” he said gruffly. He ran an appraising eye over the gray-green Segonzac on the opposite wall, and the corners of his hard mouth turned upward. “I'm a cinch to outlive you, Johnny, the way you pace yourself. Why don't you will this to me, the same way Willie Martin left it to you?”
“An' give you a motive for gettin' rid of me, along with an inclination? I might not fit in a round hole, Joe, but I'm not that square, either. I don't own nothin' here yet, anyway; the new owners have gone to court over that clause in the will.”
Lieutenant Dameron raised an eyebrow. “I thought Willie went to a little trouble to plug that loophole?”
“That's why these corporations have lawyers.” Johnny nodded at the leather-covered armchairs. “Park it, you guys.” He seated himself on the edge of the bed. “These people caught the estate lawyers so hungry for a buyer they agreed to a transfer without prejudice as to the clause favorin' me, which meant they were entitled to go into court an' try to tip it over.”
“And you've got the expense of fighting it?”
Johnny shook his head. “Willie even thought of that. If it's contested, my legal expenses come right off the top of the estate, just like the room and the furnishings here.” He looked over at the two men in their chairs. “They'd have held still for the furnishings-it was the room that bugged them. Nobody ever heard of a hotel room bein' willed to someone before. They can't find any precedents.”
“They haven't tried to buy you off?” Detective Rogers asked.
“They tried,” Johnny admitted. “I blew that fuse for them, fast. If Willie wanted me to have this place, nobody's gonna muscle me out of it.”
Lieutenant Dameron looked around the room reminiscently. “You and Willie,” he said softly. “God help me, the gray hair you two gave me. In an operation that above all things demanded discretion-” He shook his head in remembered disbelief.
“Discretion didn't always get the job done, Joe,” Johnny replied. “Which brings us up to right now. What you bein' discreet about these days?”
“This business this morning-”
“Before we get into the double talk,” Johnny interrupted, “just what do you think actually happened over at the Rollin' Stone?”
“The newspapers had a rather full account, I thought. A bit sensationalized, but of course that's what sells newspapers.”
“Joe, this is Johnny. You don't believe the newspapers, or what the hell are you doing sittin' here?”
“There were certain aspects-”
“Bag it, Joe. Tell it to someone who doesn't know you.”
The gray eyes examined him frostily. “We have time to listen to your version, if you have one.”
“You won't like it. My version is that the kid was murdered by two gunmen sent to do that specific job.”
“You know you can't prove that!” The heavy voice was edged. “I just can't buy it, Johnny.”
“So don't buy it,” Johnny replied indifferently. “It'll sell itself to you. Just remember I said so.”
“I hope I don't have to warn you about withholding information,” the big man said icily. “I want to know what you know. Right now.”
Johnny laughed shortly. “You always get what you want?”
Lieutenant Dameron's hands closed down tightly on the arms of his chair. “By God, I'll-”
“Easy, Joe, easy.” Johnny rose to his feet leisurely and looked down at the man in the chair. “What did you bring over here for me? Not a damn echo, even. That's why for you I got nothing, in spades. I don't work one-way streets.” He made a production of looking at his watch. “You're abusin' my hospitality, boys.”
Detective Rogers rose, looking uncomfortable, but the steely gray eyes of the man in the armchair glared up at Johnny for five seconds before the lieutenant heaved himself to his feet. Without a word he strode to the door and flung it open. In the second that Johnny had Jimmy Rogers' sole attention he silently mouthed, “Come on back.” He received a quick affirmative nod before the slender man followed his superior from the room.
Johnny closed the door behind them and lit a cigarette. He stretched out on his back on the bed, and thought about the reason for the visit, never disclosed. Experimentally, he blew smoke rings at the ceiling; but, seeing they were all lopsided, he gave it up. He had stubbed out the cigarette when the knock came at the door, and he admitted a weary-looking Detective James Rogers.
“Man, oh, man!” the sandy-haired man exclaimed feelingly. “I know you don't like him, but do you mind making your point some time when I'm not around to get the rebuttal?” He probed at both ears.
“He's gone?”
“Fortissimo, he's gone. Now why am I back up here?”
“You know why you're back up here. I'll tell you what I wouldn't tell that big monkey just slammed outta here. From you just possibly I might get somethin' one of these days. Now listen.” Naming no names, Johnny swiftly gave his interpretation of the fixed fight and the deaths in the tavern as he now reconstructed them.
“Where did you learn all this?” Detective Rogers bristled.
“You practicin' to sound like Dameron? You ought to know there's people will talk to me won't talk to the police.”
“We'd had rumors on that fight,” the detective admitted. “The lieutenant's afraid of an investigation. Every time there's an investigation of a sporting event, the police department winds up in the middle of a political weight-throwing contest.”
“So good old Joe was out scoutin' the ground figurin' the safest way to lean?”
“It's hardly likely there'll be an investigation now, with the boy dying a hero, as far as the newspapers are concerned. Who want
s to try to make any hay bucking those headlines?” Detective Rogers looked at Johnny thoughtfully. “I can't understand how you get away with it with the lieutenant.”
Johnny grinned. “You think I got somethin' on him? Not a damn thing, except in his own mind. Joe fought a good, tight war over there, but the rat holes we was sent to plug had to be handled in a way sometimes you wouldn't want to mention at a political rally. Joe knows that I don't give a damn, an' he's afraid I'll open my mouth in the wrong place an' run his dirty underwear up to the top of the mast along with mine.” He kept his tone casual. “Say, you know anyone named Munson?”
“Only Al Munson, Lonnie Turner's press agent,” the detective said absently. “He fixes me up with a ticket every now and then.” His attention sharpened. “What's with Munson?”
“Had a message from someone by that name,” Johnny said easily. “That's probably the one. Turner promoted that fight, didn't he? It's probably about the check for the kid's end.”
“Roketenetz hadn't been paid?”
“Hadn't been time, Jimmy.”
“He had thirty-eight hundred and a few dollars on him when we-brought him in,” the slender man said slowly.
Johnny whistled. “You just this minute held your own fight investigation, didn't you? Not that there was ever any doubt, if you saw it. This Gidlow-the kid's manager — haven't I heard that he's in Turner's pocket?”
“I've heard stories.” Jimmy Rogers tugged at an ear lobe exasperatedly. “I'd like to talk to Gidlow. I've got lines out for him all over town, but he doesn't show.”
“You sure he's not upstairs?”
“He'd better not be upstairs. I've called up there fifteen times since two-thirty this morning.”
“Jake's got a gizmo disconnects his phone when he doesn't want to be bothered,” Johnny said. He removed his wallet and from a hidden compartment took out the illegal brass passkey. “You could scratch the suite off your entries right now, Jimmy.”
“I wouldn't have a leg to stand on,” Detective Rogers said.
“I'll open the door, an' if he's in there I'll double talk him about the floor below complainin' about noise. Once you know he's there you can make him open up.”
“I'm getting into bad habits associating with you,” the slender man said wryly. “All right. Come on, before I change my mind.”
Johnny led the way cheerfully to the service elevator, ran them up to the tenth floor and anchored the cab with a slab of wood. With Detective Rogers a self-conscious dozen yards away, Johnny knocked sharply three times on the door of 1020, the corner room entrance to Jake Gidlow's three-room suite. At the pervading silence he glanced sardonically at the detective and removed the key from his pocket.
“Let's give this some semblance of legitimacy,” the detective said quickly. He advanced upon the door and repeated Johnny's triple knock. “Gidlow! This is Detective Rogers! Open this door!”
“You an' your conscience,” Johnny grunted in disgust.
“You'll never get a peep outta him now.” With his toe he pointed at the base of the door. “See that?”
The sandy-haired man stared down at the bright strip of light in evidence under the sill. “So he's in there,” he said softly. From an inside breast pocket he removed a small oilskin package, which resolved itself into a two-hinged, three-sided magnifying glass of varying strengths. He knelt swiftly and applied it to the keyhole.
“Now there's a handy gadget,” Johnny approved.
“Room brightly lighted,” Detective Rogers said, and was silent. He rose finally with a peculiar expression on his face. “There's a thread running from the door to a corner I can't see.”
“A thread?” Johnny repeated incredulously. “Mmmm- from the back of the room a half-choked shotgun would get most of the door area.” Detective Rogers looked doubtful. “Okay,” Johnny continued rapidly. “It's a bum guess, you think. Let's take the guess out of it. Get down on the floor over there, out of line.” He dropped down himself, and bellied up to the wall. He reached up, inserted his key gently and looked over at the prostrate overcoated figure on the other side of the door. “Here we go, Jimmy,” he said softly, and, with his left hand, the only part of him in front of the door, turned the key and pushed in the same movement. He snatched his hand back at once as the door swung open.
Silence. Complete and utter silence…
Johnny pushed himself away from the wall and scrambled to his knees, but Detective Rogers was already up and inside. When Johnny reached him the slender man was already bending over the purple-faced gargoyle half sitting, half reclining in a corner of the upholstered divan, one hand precariously balancing an expensive-looking camera on the broad divan arm.
“You were right about one thing,” the detective said crisply. “I'll never get a peep out of him now.” He lifted an arm and watched it fall back rigidly. “Dead twelve to eighteen hours,” he said quietly, and walked to the telephone.
CHAPTER IV
Lonnie Turner's office was in the Emerson Building, a block off Eighth Avenue on Fifty-third, and Johnny emerged from the third-floor elevator directly into a tastefully decorated green-and-gold waiting room complete with platinumed receptionist.
He looked around him approvingly. “Lonnie got this whole floor?” he asked the good-looking girl behind the rectangular limed oak desk.
“Mr. Turner has this floor,” she agreed pleasantly. Johnny admired the white blouse and the expanse of trim wool suit visible from his side of the desk; this girl was no midget. “Do you have an appointment with Mr. Turner, sir?”
“No appointment.”
The girl managed to look doubtful, glance at her watch and reach for the phone at the same time. “The name, please?”
“Johnny Killain,” he told her. “What's yours?”
The look she directed upward changed from surprise to amusement as she intercepted his eyes upon the well-shaped, ringless fingers of the capable-looking left hand upon the phone. “The name is Bartlett, Mr. Killain. Stacy.”
“Miss Stacy Bartlett.” Johnny lingered over the syllables. “I like that.”
“Thank you.” She said it demurely. Johnny examined cameo features which were no miniature, large brown eyes, full mouth and a clean sweeping nose that was an asset to the prominent cheekbones slightly orientalizing the eyes.
“The hair doesn't match the coloring,” he told her after an inspection of the conservatively cut but dazzlingly blonde upsweep.
Her answering smile was unruffled. She had a very nice smile, Johnny thought. “I can't get used myself to that first look in the mirror mornings, Mr. Killain, but when I went looking for work it really seemed almost a requirement.”
“You a Polska, Stacy? How long since you run barefoot on the farm?”
“I'm a Polska,” she admitted. “And it hasn't been so very long.” She leaned back in her chair and took another look at him. “You know, I've been here three months now, and you're the first person to notice that I'm Polish or from the country. I was beginning to feel quite citified, with the help of the hair.”
“It's a class job,” Johnny conceded, “but it's not you. An' Stacy-that had to be Stacia when you were in pigtails.”
She smiled her agreement. “Stacia didn't seem to go with the hair.” The brown eyes appraised him coolly as she lifted the receiver. “Without appointment, a Mr. John Killain to see you, Mr. Turner.”
Now I'd give a Confederate dollar bill to know just what wheels that introduction started turning, Johnny thought.
Stacy was still on the phone. “Yes. Right away, Mr. Turner.”
“So I'm in like Flynn?” he asked the girl as she opened the center drawer of her desk and removed a small key ring.
“Yes, indeed,” she replied, a blonde eyebrow quirked gracefully. “I'll have to let you in, since Monk isn't here.” She pushed back from the desk. “It's through this door, and straight-”
“Did you say Monk?” Johnny asked sharply. When she turned to look at him in surprise he hel
d up a hand negatively. “Never mind. Excuse the interruption.” He followed her to the three identical heavy-hinged doors at the rear of the reception room and nodded at the keys in her hand. “Lonnie expectin' a raid?”
“All kinds of people call on Mr. Turner,” she said gravely as she unlocked the left-hand door. She turned in time to catch his careful assessment of the woolen suit.
“Nice,” he told her, and she colored faintly. He measured her with his eyes. “About five-ten? Vitamins should take you, kid. How much you weigh?”
“One-forty-nine.” She nibbled ruefully at her lower lip. “Honestly, I don't know why I'm being so-truthful!” She examined him again as though trying to find the answer in his appearance.
“Nineteen?”
“Twenty-one.” Her color rose still higher at this skeptical look. “Well, nearly-”
“Cocktails tomorrow after work?” At her silence he grinned at her. “Ice cream sodas?”
“I'm not a child,” she replied with dignity. “If I go, I think I'd like to try the cocktail.”
“You haven't before? Well, you got to start apprenticin' to be an adult sometime,” Johnny agreed. “What time you get off here?”
“Four-thirty.”
“I'll be stage-door Johnny downstairs at four-thirty tomorrow.”
She nodded as though she were still a little surprised at the whole idea. A faint line of puzzlement appeared between the sleek brows. “Do you-are you usually so impetuous, Mr. Killain?”
“Johnny,” he reminded her. “An' it depends on the provocation.”
He watched the renewed tide of color roll up from beneath the prim white blouse as without another word she opened the door, which eased back silently on its heavy hinges. He blew her a kiss from just inside as the door closed behind him. He listened to the solid-sounding chunk with which it fitted into the sill again, and he shook his head. Take a tank to breach that baby…
He looked around expectantly at the small, brightly lighted room, which didn't have a stick of furniture in it. The walls and ceiling were a pale green, and the only break in the monotonous expanse was a single-paned opaque window high up on the opposite wall. A lookout, Johnny thought. One-way glass. His eyes were still upon it when beneath the window a door, painted the same pale green and set so flush with the wall as to seem a part of it, opened quietly, and Johnny's expectations were realized as a squat man in a dark business suit stepped through.