Johnnie

by Dorothy B. Hughes

  “No, I haven’t, babe,” Johnnie grinned. He moved his foot inside the door.

  “You sure have. I’ve never laid eyes on you before and you know it. Honestly, copper”—she dazzled a smile beyond Johnnie to Mike—“I’ve never laid eyes on him.”

  Johnnie heard Rupe’s lazy voice coming behind her. “What’s going on, Edna?” He came in sight. “It’s Johnnie.” He smiled all over his face. “It’s my soldier boy, Edna.” He brushed her out of the way. “Come on in, soldier. Bring your friend. Sure, come on. I’ve got just what you’re looking for. Don’t mind Edna, I pay the rent.” He reached out, put his arm around Johnnie’s shoulder. He spoke backward to Mike. “You come right along. Any friend of Johnnie’s is my friend. Right here, soldier.”

  It was a nice living room with flowered couches and easy chairs and a big radio-phonograph. Edna followed reluctantly. Her eyes were still stretched wide. She picked up a half-filled highball glass and sat down plunk in the farthest away chair.

  “Just what you’re looking for, Johnnie. Help yourself.” Rupe pointed to six bottles of champagne on the table. One was empty, one was being emptied. “Take one. More than I need. She doesn’t like it.”

  “It makes me sick,” Edna said through another gulp of whisky.

  “You too,” Rupe urged Mike. His face dripped sudden surprise. “It’s a policeman!”

  “Sure, it’s a copper, Bright-eyes,” Edna muttered.

  “He’s off duty,” Johnnie explained. “He’s Michael Costello—remember? Left end at Fordham. Officer Costello, Mr. Ruprecht.”

  “Pleased to meet you.” Ruprecht bowed low. He teetered upward, urged, “Have a bottle. It’s Ferenz’s champagne, the best champagne.” He raised his half-used bottle.

  “We haven’t time,” Johnnie said. “We got to go.”

  “So sorry,” Edna gritted. She took a bigger drink.

  “You just arrived,” Ruprecht complained.

  “I came to get you. Trudy wants you.”

  Edna jumped up. “Who the hell is Trudy?”

  “Trudy’s his cousin,” Johnnie said. “She needs him.”

  “Cousin, my eye-wash. He never told me about her.” She went over to Rupe, put pointed black satin against him. “Don’t go, Rupe. There’s something damn funny about this. It smells.”

  Rupe disregarded her. “What does Trudy want?” He’d swung out of being tight fast enough, the way he had once before tonight.

  “It’s about Rudolph. They can’t find the papers, the ones he has to have to go on the Clipper.”

  “I haven’t them.” Ruprecht felt in his pockets, shook his head. “Probably has them himself. One of his tricks.”

  “No, he hasn’t,” Johnnie stated out of knowledge. “It’s serious. Mr. Lessering even left his party to come over.”

  “Not much of a party.” Rupe lifted his eyebrows. “I left too.”

  “Trudy’s been phoning all the night clubs for you.”

  “Dear Trudy.” The redhead choked.

  “Finally she asked me to go to the two places she couldn’t phone to Hans’—”

  “How is old Hans?” Ruprecht brightened. “I’ve neglected him. I’ll have to go back to beer. I’m getting tired of champagne anyway.”

  “—and here.”

  “I have a phone,” Edna bristled. “Why couldn’t this dame phone?”

  “You don’t know Trudy, my sweet,” Rupe soothed. “She’d never call me at a woman’s. I might get the erroneous idea she cared.”

  Edna drew away. “That isn’t healthy. If she’s your cousin.”

  “Very distant. Under the rose perhaps.” Rupe uptilted the bottle. “I’m afraid we had better go, Johnnie. If Trudy went to such lengths, even seeking a policeman—”

  “She didn’t send Mike,” Johnnie explained quickly. “I found him myself.”

  “You’re not taking him with us?”

  Johnnie hesitated. “Well, yes I am. But it’s for a different reason. You don’t need to worry about that, Rupe.”

  “I doubt he’ll be welcome,” said Rupe sagely. His eyes narrowed slightly. “I doubt very much if he’ll get in.”

  “I’ll get in,” Mike Costello announced with simple and menacing faith. “Don’t worry about that, Bub. I’ll get in.”

  Rupe shrugged. “If that is how you feel—” He took up his tall hat, his topcoat.

  “You’re walking out on me for this Trudy?” Edna shrilled.

  “Time you were in bed anyway,” Mike told her.

  “If you do you needn’t ever come crawling back here!”

  Rupe spoke sweetly. “I never crawl, my pet. So undignified. But I’ll be back. It may be years. It may be forever. But I shall return, my love.”

  “Get out!” She yelled. Johnnie was ready to duck but she didn’t throw the glass.

  Rupe said, “We mustn’t forget the refreshments, Johnnie!” He returned to the table, held out two bottles to Johnnie, took the other two himself. “Good-by, my little dove. Until tomorrow. Alas, tomorrow never comes.”

  Her imprecations followed them to the elevator.

  Five

  RUPRECHT PUT A FINGER on the buzzer. “A sweet girl,” he orated. “She is teaching me to Conga and Rhumba. Very good at it. Only she doesn’t like champagne. Strange.” He thrust a bottle at Mike Costello. “You wouldn’t care to manage one for me? I thought not.”

  “Sorry, Bub. Not in uniform. Afraid I might run into Lieutenant McGonigle. Lefty, we call him.”

  The elevator took them down faster than it had brought them up. The operator didn’t look at them.

  “We’ll have to go up to Broadway to find my car,” Ruprecht pushed open the door to the street. “Or should I say Ferenz’s car? I prefer that the chauffeur does not know all of my places of dalliance. Not that I enjoy walking. A highly overestimated form of travel.”

  “How’d you like to be a cop?” Mike asked.

  “Would I get a whistle?” Ruprecht shook his head. “Not even for a whistle could I endure it. That is the trouble with all manly occupations—hunting, fishing, policemaning. Walk, walk, walk. And for what?”

  Mike interrupted. “Do you know where this house is we’re going to?”

  “Dorp’s, I presume.”

  “Texas here doesn’t know the address.”

  “Hundred and Twelfth Street.” Ruprecht scowled at Johnnie. “But you’ve been there. You just came from there.”

  “He came from Texas,” Mike gurgled. “He didn’t think to notice the address.”

  “I’d sure have been in a spot if you hadn’t been at Edna’s,” Johnnie admitted. “I have to get back there. Trudy snitched my dog tags.”

  Rupe laughed admiringly. “Little devil.”

  “She did it so I’d come back. Though I don’t know why she wanted me to come back particularly.”

  “You’ll find women are like that,” Rupe stated. “Especially Trudy.”

  They came over the crest on to Broadway.

  “Gurk is somewhere about,” Rupe said. “Perhaps a restaurant. If I could whistle now—”

  Johnnie said, “I can.” He did.

  “There—up the block.” Rupe took his hands away from his ears and pointed. The others followed his lead to the long black car. Gurk slept at the wheel.

  “Don’t the cops ever run him in for all-night parking?” Mike inquired.

  “He has a host of good yarns. Try him sometime.” Rupe rapped on the window. Gurk blinked, scrambled out to open the rear door. When he eyed Mike’s uniform, his face retired.

  “We are not arrested, my good man,” Rupe said. He gestured his guests ahead of him, followed. “To Dorp’s.”

  The car turned, cut across the tracks, headed uptown. It slowed to the corner of 112th Street. It stopped. A red lantern and a saw horse barred entrance. Two men held a drill. When they pressed it into the pavement it made an awful racket.

  “This isn’t the street,” Johnnie said.

  “Yes, it is.”

&nbs
p; Mike volunteered, “You don’t know how fast the N.Y.C. street department can pop up, Johnnie. No use trying the other end. It’s blocked too.”

  “Have to walk,” Johnnie stated. He opened the door on his side. “It won’t wear you down, Rupe. It’s only half way down the block. You ought to be in the Army.”

  “That is a matter of opinion,” Rupe said. “The Army takes the negative. I’m glad we brought refreshments. Dorp never has anything fit to drink. Stingy old coot.” He patted the top hat slant on his head. “Lead on, my hearties.”

  They struck out for the house. It showed no light save the dimmed bulb in the lower hall. The throne room upstairs was completely blacked out. Johnnie had one foot on the steps when the voice from the gloom hit him.

  “I wouldn’t go in there, soldier,” it said.

  “Why not?” he demanded.

  “I’m telling you.”

  Mike put in from the darkness below, “Are you the watchman?”

  “Yeah, I’m the watchman,” the man answered truculently.

  “Watchman, what of the night?” Ruprecht mused.

  “And I got my orders no one’s to go in.”

  “Listen, you,” Mike began.

  “Wait, Mike.” Ruprecht spoke up brightly. “It’s the wrong house.” He tittered. He nudged Johnnie with a champagne bottle. His voice was tighter than it had been. “You picked the wrong house.” He nudged again. “It’s the one next door we want.”

  Johnnie played up. “That’s right.” He’d forgotten. They were supposed to go in next door. He didn’t know how Rupe knew it. “Sorry, Bud. We picked the wrong house. They all look alike in the dark.”

  “You mean that one?” The man jerked a thumb down the street.

  “You aren’t going to tell me we can’t go in there?” Johnnie blustered. “I got a key. I’m supposed to go there.”

  Rupe interrupted quickly. “That’s where I live. With my Aunt Gretchen. Good old girl, Gretchen. She always puts up soldiers on leave. She isn’t home this evening. Aunt Bertha—she lives in Brooklyn—poor Aunt Bertha had another attack. But Aunt Gretchen told us to stay here just the same. Even gave us her key.” He dangled the bottle. “Come on, men.”

  He lurched forward. Johnnie caught Mike’s arm. “Come on.”

  Mike hung back. “What’s up?”

  “We got the wrong house,” Johnnie said loud. He pushed Mike forward. “Come on.” Into his ear he undertoned, “We can get in this other way. Don’t say anything.”

  Rupe was climbing to the other door. “Where’s the key, Johnnie? You didn’t lose the key, did you?” He lowered his voice. “You really have the key?”

  Johnnie stuck it in the lock. “Hurry up, Mike.” Rupe was already in the hall. Johnnie pushed Mike, followed, closed the door tight. The three stood together in the black darkness. “We can’t show a light,” he warned.

  “We’d better,” Rupe said soberly. “Whoever put that fellow out there, he wasn’t fooling. And he wasn’t a watchman. We want him to think we’re legal.”

  “I don’t get it,” Mike complained.

  Rupe turned on a lamp. “Dorp uses both of these houses. But he does keep an old woman here for a front. Her name’s Gretchen. She isn’t here tonight. She’s always sent to her sister’s in Brooklyn when anything big is happening. That varlet couldn’t know that Gretchen hasn’t a nephew who sleeps in occasionally. Only we’d better get to Dorp’s fast just in case he decides to report anything suspicious.” He took a blackout torch from his pocket, turned it on the stairs. “Let’s go up.”

  “What is happening here?” Mike demanded.

  “Didn’t Johnnie tell you?”

  “I still think he’s ribbing,” Mike said. “All he told me was that a guy had been murdered.”

  “Murdered?” Rupe swirled too fast. Johnnie grabbed the banisters as Mike pitched into his backlegs.

  “I told you not to tell him,” Johnnie complained to the policeman.

  “I forgot.”

  Rupe demanded. “Who is murdered?”

  Johnnie spoke reluctantly. “Theo. The little punk who used to open the door.”

  Ruprecht scowled. “Why Theo?”

  “It was supposed to be Rudolph.”

  “I knew it!” He started taking the steps, two at a time. The others scrambled after him in the darkness. There was no letup in pace until they reached the fourth floor attic room.

  Mike panted, “You mean there actually was a murder?”

  “Sure there was,” Rupe retorted. “I’m surprised there hasn’t been a massacre.” He pulled on the overhead light here. The windows were painted over black. He replaced his torch in his pocket, set the bottles of champagne on a rickety table.

  The wall was solidly papered. It hadn’t occurred to Johnnie before he departed; he didn’t know the trick of getting back in. He asked, “Shall we pound on the wall for Trudy?”

  “Are you crazy?” Rupe demanded. “Someone else might be in there. No one must know I’m here.”

  “But they’re waiting for you.”

  “In good time, soldier, all in good time. I don’t want to be in the jug for a murder.”

  “Did you do it?” Mike asked quick.

  “He wasn’t here.” Johnnie was disgusted. “He was with that Conga mouse.”

  Rupe was counting off bow-knots of wall paper. “But they’d like to pin it on me. And who has a better motive?” The wall began its slow angled swing.

  “Will you look at that?” Mike gazed in awed admiration.

  Rupe stepped back. “You take a squint, Johnnie?”

  Johnnie advanced cautiously to the opening. He stepped through. The light had been left burning; the room was empty. He advised over his shoulder. “Coast’s clear.”

  Ruprecht left the wall ajar as he followed. The befuddled Mike sniffed at the room. “Not very fancy,” he commented.

  “What do you expect in a guardhouse—pink ribbons?” Johnnie tried the door. Locked. He turned around. “What do we do now? Wait for Trudy?”

  Mike came to life. “What’s the matter with you dopes? There’s been a murder here.” He rattled the knob. “It’ll bust easy.”

  “There was a guard outside earlier,” Johnnie warned.

  “Listen. I’m the law.” Mike stuck out his chest. “New York’s finest.”

  “Off duty.”

  “In emergencies, always on duty. Murder’s an emergency.” He put his shoulder to the door.

  “Wait!” Rupe cried.

  “What for?”

  “Why don’t we take off the hinges? Then we can sneak up on them. No use bang-banging around. They might scram.”

  Johnnie examined the hinges. “This looks like a pipe.”

  “It is,” Rupe agreed. “But it wasn’t the first time I did it. Trudy’s oiled it since then.”

  While Johnnie removed the pins, the others steadied the door.

  “Now if you’ll just smash the lock with your gun, copper, we can put it back together again and barge in and out easily.”

  “It’s a pleasure,” said Mike. He unbuckled his holster.

  “Don’t shoot!” Rupe warned. “Here.” He took the gun, bumped it against the catch.

  “One shot would do it,” Mike complained. “And not so much noise either.”

  “You don’t know how gun shy this house is,” Rupe said solemnly. “There. That’s enough.”

  Johnnie hadn’t thought about that one. Somebody must have heard the shot that killed Theo. He hadn’t. And he’d been practically overhead. There were silencers. He’d read about them. But neither Magda’s nor Trudy’s gun was fitted. That cut out two who might have bumped off the underling. Not even those dames would be unsmart enough to walk up to someone in this house and say, “Let me take your gun with the silencer on it. I want to kill a guy.”

  The door was back on its hinges. “Now where’s the Stiff?” Mike wanted to know.

  “Wait,” Rupe called out again.

  “What do you want us t
o do now?” Mike demanded. “Take up the floor?”

  Ruprecht contemplated the rough boards. “A wonderful idea. Unfortunately it wouldn’t let you down into the reception room.” He glowed. “To be sure, if sweet Magda were in bed—” He shook his head dolefully. “She wouldn’t be. You’d better use the staircase. You fellows are going downstairs.”

  “What about you?” Johnnie wanted to know.

  “I’ll make my entrance without fanfare. Later. You try to get word to Trudy, in private, that I’m here. I want a confab with her before I walk into Dorp’s parlor. If you can’t reach her, sneak back and let me know.”

  “And if I can’t sneak back?”

  “I will wait a reasonable length of time, soldier. After that I shall do it another way.”

  “You aren’t going to run out?”

  Ruprecht smiled. “I give you my word. I shall see it through. In fact it will give me great pleasure to see this through.”

  Johnnie had to take his word for it. He didn’t exactly disbelieve Ruprecht’s word. But if there should be any more shooting, any loud shooting, Rupe would be a sucker if he didn’t take a powder. He and Mike were the only two who couldn’t possibly have held the silent gun. Johnnie said, “Okay.” He led Mike down the stairs quietly, pushed aside the trick closet wall.

  Mike gasped. “Jeeze. It’s like a film scarer, isn’t it?”

  “Wait’ll you meet the folks,” Johnnie whispered. He wished that he had had the cop with him when those S.S. guards were jerking around. Together they could have cleaned up the lot. Until Magda pulled the gun on both of them. He warned, “Keep quiet as you can, Mike. I want you to see the body before we walk in on them. This is the room here.” Cautiously he made a light. “The body’s over here—”

  Mike asked, “Where?” His voice was flat.

  Johnnie’s eyes gazed hopelessly at the floor by the window. He said weakly, “It’s gone.”

  Mike’s face was hard-boiled. “Gone where?”