by Dan Marlowe
The large-pupiled eyes examined him for a moment, and then the tall detective strode back and entered the emergency room. When he came out five minutes later he closed the door behind him very quietly. “Not good,” he admitted. “Something about his eyes.”
“He had low wattage anyway,” Johnny explained. “I think it was a piece of pipe that didn't help it any just now.”
Detective Cuneo looked more closely at the side of Johnny's head, and at his ear. “You were there when it happened?”
“Not at the start.” Johnny explained about walking into the alley to get out of the wind and finding Manuel on the ground. “The guy was workin' him over. I got up there, but I slipped in the snow reachin' for him. He clocked me once before he took off.”
“Did you get a look at him?” Cuneo asked instantly.
“I got a look at him.”
“Well, would you know him?” The detective's voice rose sharply.
“You bet your damn life I'll know him.” Johnny's voice rose in turn. “If it's in the twenty-second century I'll know him, an' I'll scatter that sonofabitch like sunbeams in a forest. I'll take-”
“Back up there, now,” Detective Cuneo ordered peremptorily. “That's enough of that kind of talk. When we finish here you're coming with me and look at some mug shots.” He ran a hand over his chin reflectively. “What were you doing with Ybarra?”
“I was meetin' him on that corner,” Johnny replied stolidly.
A dull flush blossomed on Cuneo's lean features. “Why were you meeting him on the corner?” he said. “And never mind trying for the comic strips with your answer, either.”
“We were on our way over to the gym for a workout,” Johnny lied. “Both of us lard up if we don't sweat it off once in a while.”
The detective studied him suspiciously, but before he could speak again a door opened and closed at the end of the corridor and the sound of hastily clicking high heels filled the hollow quiet. Johnny looked around to see Consuelo Ybarra's strained, beautiful face-and, at her side, a hand solicitously at her elbow, Rick Manfredi.
The girl's eyes passed over Johnny without a flicker of recognition. “I can see him?” she pleaded to Cuneo.
“Hell, I don't know.” The tall man sounded irritable, but he turned back to the emergency room. “I'll find out.”
“A bad thing,” Rick Manfredi said gravely into the silence. His eyes were upon Johnny, who was looking at Consuelo Ybarra. She looked right through him.
“Look-” Johnny began, only to have Rick Manfredi's voice override him.
“I think we should-” He broke off as Detective Cuneo opened the door and beckoned. “You go ahead in,” the gambler said quickly to the girl. “It's you he wants to see.”
Johnny watched silently as she walked, a little unsteadily, to the door Cuneo was holding open. When she had disappeared inside he came back to the business at hand and found Manfredi still looking at him steadily. “What the hell are you doin' with her?” Johnny demanded roughly.
“She called me,” the gambler replied. He said it expansively, but his eyes never left Johnny's face. He unbuttoned his coat with deliberate movements and unwound the silk scarf from about his throat, disclosing a maroon all-wool sportshirt and expensive-looking gray woolen slacks. “What happened?” he inquired in a careful tone.
“You don't know already?” Johnny asked bitterly. “He was jumped in the alley back of your place. I got there just in time to let the guy slip through my fingers.”
“Tough luck,” the chubby man said smoothly. “Him gettin' away, I mean. Now what was that crack about my knowin' already?”
A slow anger heated the blood in Johnny's veins. “Don't play dumb with me, Manfredi!” he said hotly. “Manuel was on his way up to see you. I was with him because I was afraid he wasn't too much in the mood for talkin'.”
“You were with him, despite the fact it was none of your business.” Rick Manfredi's voice was velvet; in the next second it turned to brass. “You've got a long nose, Killain. I think I told you that before. It's about time you smartened up. Now get this-whatever Manuel told you about last night was a misunderstanding that will be straightened out.” The dark eyes glittered coldly. “I wouldn't want Consuelo to be bothered with any of this.”
Johnny blew out his breath sharply. “I'll bet you wouldn't, you bastard. Last night it's okay to take her brother because he's a pigeon who thinks his friends are honest, but today you can make a little time with the sister. That the score?”
“All still none of your business.” The gambler's voice was low and hard. “I expect you to keep your big mouth shut around Consuelo, understand?”
“You expect!” Johnny echoed contemptuously. “How you plannin' on shuttin' it, man?”
The gambler smirked. “There's a medium of exchange that moves mountains.”
“You're damn right there is!” Johnny gritted hoarsely. He took a quick step forward. “Try some!” His left hand piston-powered Rick Manfredi's gold belt buckle three inches backward. The gambler let out a bagpipes' squall as he jack-knifed forward; his right leg gave way first, and he seemed to wind himself pretzel-fashion around the left as he ended up, white-faced, on the floor.
Johnny stepped back and examined the knuckles he had skinned on the belt buckle as Consuelo Ybarra slowly came out into the corridor. She took one look at the man on the floor and flew at Johnny, her fingers like claws and her voice ascending the scale in Spanish imprecation.
“Cut it out!” Johnny warned her, dodging the assault. She wheeled and slashed at him with long nails, and he picked her up by the arms and swung her clear of the floor. “Will you listen to me for a minute?” he wedged in above the torrent of unmusical sound inundating him at the level of G above high C. As she tried to kick him he tossed her upward, catching her deftly behind shoulders and under knees. “Will you listen?” he demanded, restraining her violent writhing. She paused in the fishwife diatribe just long enough to spit at him. “The hell with it,” he decided abruptly, and dropped her seat first on the floor. Her screech split the air when she landed; then she was finally silent.
Without looking back at the two people on the floor, Johnny marched the length of the corridor to the exit door and departed.
In his room Johnny applied a succession of wrung-out cold towels to the lump under his ear, and finished off by attaching a square of adhesive to the bleeding bruise he had reopened in the process. He inspected himself in the mirror and grunted disparagingly. “If that guy had had anything but an icy spot to stand on, Killain, you'd be doin' your walkin' around layin' down.”
He returned to the outer room and sat down on the edge of the bed, its sheets still in a whirl from his romp with Sally two hours before. He bent forward gingerly to remove his shoes; at anything other than dead center his head still buzzed rebelliously. He had the left shoe off when the telephone rang, and he studied it in silence through three rings before he reluctantly picked it up. He cleared his throat huskily. “Yeah?”
“This is Turner, Killain.” Johnny blinked in surprise. “Can you get over to the office here? Something I'd like to straighten out.”
“Now there's an invitation that ought to make my day complete,” Johnny muttered aloud before he thought.
“I didn't get that, Killain.”
“I said I'd be right over.”
“Good. We'll be expecting you.” The promoter's voice was the familiarly bustling energetic crackle.
It's no editorial “we” that will be expecting you, either, Johnny mused as he replaced the phone. Still, Turner would hardly stage a circus on his home grounds-would he? Johnny stared at the phone. He had been afraid it was Cuneo going to interrupt his needed sleep, and now he wasn't going to get any sleep anyway.
There's a way to find out what Turner wants, he reminded himself, trying to get himself back into gear. Get yourself over there.
He shoved his left foot back into the shoe he had just removed and tied it with difficulty. His fingers
seemed to be all thumbs. He knew that he wasn't co-ordinating properly. It was nothing that ten hours sleep wouldn't straighten out, but in the meantime there was this Turner fish fry.
He pushed himself from the bed and to the door. In motion he felt better, less fuzzy. The cold air in the street helped as he waved for a cab; by the time he disembarked in front of the Emerson Building he felt almost normal.
He smiled at Stacy Bartlett's look of surprise as he entered the green-and-gold reception room from the elevator. “H'ya, sugarfoot,” he said softly as he walked to her desk. “You're lookin' well this mornin'.”
“Sorry I can't say the same for you,” she returned briskly with a look at his patched ear. “What happened to you?”
“The ear? I didn't get out of the way of an unidentified flyin' object. Nothin' fatal. The king bee aboard?”
“Do you think this is a good idea?” she asked doubtfully.
“Tell you later,” Johnny said cheerfully, “but it's his idea, not mine. He called me just a few minutes ago.”
“He must have used his direct line,” the tall girl said. “I hope you're on your good behavior.” She sounded a little anxious.
“I'm always on my good behavior,” Johnny said significantly, and Stacy blushed. “How come you haven't asked for a return bout after that no-decision set-to the other night? With your left hand sharpened up a little you'd be six-to-five to win the marbles.”
“I'll-have to consult my engagement book,” she answered with attempted lightness.
“Hell with the engagement book,” Johnny replied vigorously. “What about tomorrow night? Okay?” She hesitated, and he pressed her. “Okay?”
“You keep pushing me into corners,” she protested.
“Trouble is you keep squirmin' out.” He grinned. “I'll pick you up out front. Okay?” She nodded, slowly. “Fine. You can call the gorilla now.”
She pushed the buzzer for Monk. “Don't you go agitating him, now,” she warned. The sound of her voice was still in the air when Monk Carmody appeared at the rear of the room and waited silently. Johnny followed him out, and they passed right through the bare, green-walled check point without even a pause. Johnny couldn't resist the opportunity.
“No search parties today, Monk?” he inquired genially. “I was just gettin' to like those games.”
The squat man never even turned his head; still silent, he led the way directly to the door of Lonnie Turner's private office and, when Johnny had entered, closed the door behind him with himself on the outside. Johnny looked suspiciously at the closed door and quickly at the room, but its only occupants were Turner behind his massive desk and Al Munson seated stiffly in a chair to his right.
The promoter smiled his chilly smile at Johnny's examination of the door and the room. “You mistrust our hospitality, Killain?” he asked mildly.
“Just checkin',” Johnny said shortly. “What's on your mind?”
“I trust you won't think I'm too wasteful of your time when you find out why you're here,” the white-haired man answered. “Al has something to say to you, but I wanted to hear him say it myself.”
Johnny looked from the tanned promoter to the pasty-faced publicist. Al Munson didn't look as though he had had much of a night's sleep either, Johnny reflected. The press agent crossed his short legs in an effort to simulate an ease he plainly didn't feel. “Ah-that conversation we had the other evening, Killain. At the hotel. It's out. Null and void.”
He folded his hands in his lap and fielded Johnny's stare impassively before Johnny switched off to Lonnie Turner. “I must have my stupid suit on today,” Johnny said lightly. He shifted his attention back to the publicist. “Go ahead an' remind me, Al. We had a conversation?”
“You know the conversation,” the fat man replied expressionlessly. “We-I'm relinquishing all claim to the money.”
“Nice of you, boy. Real nice of you.” Johnny moved up to the desk and leaned over it. “What he's sayin', Turner, is that after you decided you couldn't afford to make a play to get your dough back Munson stepped in for himself. But you found out an' now you're puttin' the cuffs on him.”
“You have a talent for jumping to the wrong conclusions, Killain,” the promoter replied tartly. “And stop breathing in my face. Sit down. This will take a little while.” Johnny seated himself carefully in one of the big leather armchairs as Lonnie Turner continued. “Let me preface this by admitting that my share in the proceedings I'm about to relate confirms my lawyers' opinion that I'm an incompetent in the management of my own affairs.” He smiled, a tight little smile, sank back into the depths of his padded chair and folded his arms across his chest. “I came into this business some years back with no necessity for scraping a living from it, as you may know, but rather to satisfy a sense 6f challenge. I found it a business unlike any other in my not inconsiderable experience, and I found myself dealing with a weird and wonderful variety of people with a weird and wonderful variety of ethics, both business and social.”
The crisp voice ran on drily. “I've always considered myself an adaptable animal, Killain, and I adapted. When it became accepted, in my new circles, as it eventually did, that I was unlikely to be overcome by the lesser forms of avarice, a rather special relationship came into being between myself and the people with whom I was dealing.” The white-haired man unfolded his arms, leaned forward in his chair and placed his elbows on the desk top. “At any given time a business associate with money due him from a successful promotion might say to me, 'Give me a chit for my end, Lonnie. You hold it.' As the custom become more common I found myself the custodian of considerable sums of money, none of which was mine. I became in effect the treasurer of an unofficial club.”
The promoter peered across at Johnny, who was listening intently. “For services rendered, I was prepared to be altruistic. The modus operandi was simple. I merely set up a separate bank account, and to each associate I issued an undated check for what was due him or a series of checks totaling the aggregate sum if the amount were large. Some of those checks have been carried uncashed for years, and it is a rather curious by-product of the system that my name is well enough known to permit an associate to pledge such a check against a loan from another source and subsequently redeem it.”
Al Munson opened his mouth as though to speak, shook his head dubiously and remained silent.
“I did not consider myself required to investigate the reason for these-ah-deposits,” Lonnie Turner went on placidly. “Certain people might consider that lack of curiosity gross negligence. I might say in passing that this separate bank account was never included in the figures I gave my lawyers for tax purposes each year. Altruistic I was prepared to be, but not to the extent of paying taxes on other people's money, especially in the tax bracket in which I find myself.”
He cleared his throat gently. “If you've been following me closely, I'm sure you realize that in this matter I was by now culpable on several counts.” He grinned unexpectedly like a small boy. “This was brought home to me rather forcibly last year when, through a most regrettable bit of absent-mindedness on my part, my lawyers learned of the existence of this account. They informed me in some heat that even a random tax audit would show little respect for my intelligence or my altruism, either. To remain in good odor with them I was forced to make other arrangements, which brings us to Jake Gidlow. I thought I had plugged all the loopholes, but I erred-I misjudged Jake's hypersensitivity to possible contact at some future time with the minions of Internal Revenue. He found an escape hatch. I thought having the will in my favor protected me against the extreme eventuality, and by the time I found out I was wrong the fat was in the fire.”
He tilted back in his chair again and locked his hands behind his head. “You're familiar with the sequence from that point, Killain. It was I who sent Carmody and Hartshaw over to Miss Fontaine's that morning. In retrospect, a very poor move. Inexplicable, really. I panicked. When-”
“How did you know Gidlow was dead?” Johnny i
nquired softly. “Nobody else did, at that time.”
“There were a number of keys to Gidlow's suite, for a number of reasons,” the promoter replied blandly. “Someone walked in upon Gidlow deceased and, with my interests at heart, called me. I put the machinery in motion, but by the time you put in that rather startling appearance here to pick up Roketenetz's check, I'd become acquainted with enough of the true facts to decide I couldn't afford the luxury of following through on the recovery of the account.”
Lonnie Turner smiled urbanely. “Here again I was guilty of a slight oversight. I had neglected to take into consideration the considerable anxieties of the-ah-beneficiaries of the account. Aware of the situation, and mistrusting my solution of it, they contacted my employee-” His sardonic glance darted off to Al Munson slumped in his chair-“and authorized him to act for them. This resulted in the visit at the hotel. Since learning of this, I believe I've restored order. The matter has been arbitrated at all levels, adjustments have been made-some expensive-and everyone is, if not satisfied, at least reconciled. The critical point was the establishment of the fact that, either through income or inheritance taxes, there wouldn't be enough left in the account to justify the danger of trying to collect it.”
Johnny sat there, turning it over in his mind. “It's a good story,” he admitted finally. “If the tax people get back to you, it won't save you any money, but it could keep you out of jail. If it's not true, you ought to pension off the guy who produced it.”
“Oh, it's true enough,” Lonnie Turner said wryly. “And I believe you realize I've told you this because it lies in your power to see that the tax people do get back to me. I would appreciate your restraint. And Miss Fontaine's.” He stood up behind the desk. “Thanks for coming over.”
“Yeah,” Johnny grunted, and got slowly to his feet. He looked long at the man behind the desk. “Who killed Gidlow?”
“I don't know, Killain,” the promoter protested wearily. “I honestly don't know.”