Killer with a Key

by Dan J. Marlowe

  He took down two of Sassy's saucers and fixed one of milk and one of water. With one eye cocked sideways at him from above the newspaper he spread, Sassy took a dozen halfhearted laps at the milk, and then sat back on her haunches and looked at him reproachfully.

  "The man says liquids for another twenty-four hours," Johnny apologized to her. "Then lean meat, and not too much of it."

  The kitten wrinkled her nose at the proposal; when she saw that nothing else was to be forthcoming she returned to the milk. Johnny watched her for a moment, then stripped the bed. He kicked off his shoes and stretched out with a sigh. He tried to blank out his mind; he could use a little sleep.

  On the floor below him Sassy came back into his line of vision, walking toward him with her short, mincing steps. With no visible effort she floated upward and landed on the bed beside him, settled down in the circle of his arm and curled herself up into a tight little ball. From the small body there came a deep, purring sound; Johnny lifted his head from the pillow to look down at her. "Shut off your motor, white stuff." He dropped back to the pillow--and oblivion.

  The telephone jarred him awake; he grabbed at it. "Yeah?"

  "Eleven-thirty, Johnny."

  "Thanks, Edna." He yawned, stretched and rubbed his eyes. He had slept either too long or not long enough. He couldn't wake up. He sat up on the edge of the bed finally, then reluctantly propelled himself into the shower. The cold water helped; on the way down to the lobby he tried to recall when he had eaten last. His backbone and ribs felt too close together.

  He walked on out through the foyer to the street; Forty-fifth Street's neon complement of lights glowed mistily in the rain that was now a steady downpour. He had a double order of ham and eggs and three cups of black coffee at the greasy spoon four doors up the street, and he felt almost awake when he returned to the lobby.

  Marty Seiden waved at him from the front desk, and Johnny returned the wave and then pulled up short. He walked over to the desk, and Marty looked up at him expectantly. "I hear you got a letch for the blonde on the balcony, kid."

  Marty's grin was sheepish. "It makes me unusual?"

  "It puts you in bad company." Johnny studied the unease in the sharp features under the red hair. "I'll lay it on the line, Marty. You been puttin' out information on guests in the hotel to the blonde, for services rendered, maybe?" The boy tugged self-consciously at his bow tie. "Just put this in your peace pipe, kid--there's gonna be a big, loud noise up on that balcony shortly. Are you covered?"

  Marty Seiden swallowed. "I will be. And thanks."

  Johnny nodded, and turned away from the desk. At the bell captain's desk Paul was glumly studying the log. "Middle shift had only seven check-ins since six o'clock."

  "Better'n we'll do, if this rain keeps up," Johnny predicted. "Damn these quiet nights, anyway. I can't stay awake. If you see Mike Larsen come in, Paul, tell him to see me before he goes upstairs."

  He hadn't had a chance yet to check with Mike on the folder of carbons he had taken away from Mavis Delaroche. Mike would probably know whether it was more likely to be a part of Russo's over-all operation or whether the blonde was in business for herself unknown to Russo.

  Paul tapped him on the arm. "Lend me your key to Chet's office. Marty needs transcript sheets."

  "I'll run up myself. If I don't keep movin', I'll fall over sideways." Johnny dug out his keys, detoured to the switch box and turned out the main overhead lights in the lobby, and in the familiar gloom climbed the stairs to the mezzanine. There was a light on in the public stenographer's office which went out even as he looked, and the door opened. Ed Russo walked out of the office, accompanied by a tall blonde; for an instant Johnny thought it was Mavis, and then he saw that this woman was older. Attractive, if you liked the lean, greyhound type. She had the lacquered look of money.

  On impulse Johnny stepped into the curtained circular lounge; he was not hidden if anyone looked in there, but he was not out in plain sight, either.

  Ed Russo closed the door of his office and shifted a package under his arm as he fumbled for his key. "Take mine, Ed," the woman said. Her voice was low, but crisp. She removed a key from her bag and handed it to him. "Thanks for taking this trouble for me on such short notice."

  "No trouble, Mrs. Sanders." Ed Russo tried the locked door and handed her back the key. "All part of the day's work. I'm only sorry the other news tonight couldn't have been a little better." He led the way toward the stairs.

  So this was the widow Sanders; Johnny craned to see better but they were moving away from him. Johnny found it interesting that the widow Sanders not only was on a first name basis with Ed Russo, but actually had a key to his office.

  When the descending heads on the stairs passed below floor level he went into action. He ran back across the mezzanine to Chet Rollins' office, opened it hurriedly, grabbed up a handful of transcript sheets and ran back downstairs to the lobby. He slapped the sheets down on the registration desk in front of Marty Seiden and sprinted out to the foyer. As he had hoped, Russo and the widow were still in sight, on the sidewalk under the marquee; as he looked the woman raised her umbrella, and the pair turned left and started toward Seventh Avenue.

  Johnny shot into the checkroom behind the bell captain's desk and snatched a raincoat from a hook. From the looks of it it wouldn't shed much rain, but it would cover the uniform. Paul stepped off the nearer elevator as Johnny emerged from the checkroom, and he pointed to the raincoat. "Back in a few minutes, Paul."

  He dashed out to the street and breathed more freely when he saw the umbrella two-thirds of the way toward the avenue. He hadn't lost them. He crossed the street at a trot and took up the chase from the other side, settling down to a long stride that gained rapidly for him.

  The rain was a steady drizzle; it looked like being a damp pursuit. And then, as he drew closer to his quarry from a parallel position across the street, in an instant it changed from pursuit to decision. Across Seventh, at the corner of Forty-fifth and Broadway Russo handed the widow the package he had been carrying, and with no exchange at all that Johnny could see widow, package and umbrella turned north on Broadway while Ed Russo continued west on Forty-fifth.

  Johnny hesitated and then decided for Russo. The sharp-featured man was on the street in the rain with no hat, raincoat or umbrella now, and he gave no indication of looking for a cab. Ed Russo increased Johnny's interest in the next fifty yards by turning left on Eighth Avenue where he walked the block to Forty-fourth and turned back east, so that as Johnny once again took up the chase from the opposite side of the street the original direction had been reversed.

  Between Eighth and Broadway Russo stepped into a doorway, but it was only to turn up the collar of his jacket. So it was not to be a short trip, then; Johnny settled down to it. He was more curious than ever now about Ed Russo's destination, since it appeared to be one that the man felt he had to walk to, in the rain. They crossed Seventh again, and the Avenue of the Americas and Fifth, and between Fifth and Madison Johnny made a discovery. He was not the only one following Russo. A man in an oilskin slicker stayed a steady two-thirds of a block behind the oblivious target.

  This observation was confirmed almost at once when Russo turned left on Madison and the slicker followed. Johnny dropped back a little further; let the slicker follow Russo, and he would follow the slicker. Russo turned right again on Forty-sixth; he had evidently only wanted to by-pass the Grand Central building. The procession trekked damply across Park, Lexington and Third, and at Second Avenue Russo turned right again for two blocks to Forty-fourth, and at Forty-Fourth turned east again.

  From the opposite side of Second Avenue Johnny made the long diagonal as he kept the oilskin slicker in sight. The slicker turned the corner of Forty-fourth, looked east and broke into a run. From the middle of Second Avenue Johnny accelerated through the puddles, and turned the corner himself.

  On Forty-fourth Street Ed Russo was nowhere to be seen at all. The oilskin slicker was forty feet
from the corner, poised doubtfully before two narrow alleys, practically side by side, that meandered off almost at right angles into the wet darkness. Evidently he hadn't seen which one Russo had taken.

  The speed at which Johnny negotiated the corner caught the slicker's attention; he turned and stared. Rather than turn back and invite inquiry, Johnny walked on more sedately; he would have walked right on by, but the slicker stepped into his path and barred the way.

  "I thought so!" the slicker said grimly. "There couldn't be two that big out on a night like this."

  Johnny stared down into the wet, angry features of Detective James Rogers and for once in his life was at a loss for words.

  "Well?" Jimmy Rogers demanded. "I'm listening. What--"

  His staccato inquiry choked. In the darkness and rain an automatic pistol went off four times, soggy sounds in the soggy night.

  "He's got someone else!" Johnny said tightly.

  Detective Rogers said nothing at all; he turned and ran up the nearer alley, and Johnny ran hard at his heels.

  CHAPTER 12

  He slogged heavily over the uneven cobblestoned footing up the close-walled alleyway between the dark warehouses, a step and a half behind the bobbing flashlight in the hand of Jimmy Rogers. They burst into a wider areaway with a slight downgrade; the rapid circular movement of the flashlight disclosed cement loading platforms on three sides of the rough inner square. The alley was a dead end.

  Johnny stood on tiptoe as the flash returned to its starting point and made a slow, probing semicircle of the loading area, picking up the blank-faced, whitewashed doors and the dusty concrete freight-handling surfaces which the steady rain had turned to pasty mud at their unprotected outer edges.

  He pushed up behind the slender, intent detective. "You think we come up the wrong alley?"

  The sandy-haired man made no reply. He started the light on another tour of the darkness, this time at ground level. Two-thirds of the way around the circuit Johnny grunted as the bright beam wavered and then locked down on a shapeless bundle prone in the shallow puddles of the pitted roadbed of the alley.

  "Jackpot," Detective Rogers said tersely and trotted to the still figure. At his shoulder Johnny looked down unbelievingly at the white face and staring eyes and the head with most of its top gone. Ed Russo lay dead in the wet night, the nearest puddle stained a bright red, and Johnny mentally rocked back on his heels.

  The detective knelt and felt for a pulse, although the condition of the head made it only a formality. He straightened, fished a handkerchief out from under the slicker, and wiped off his hands. "Kaput," he said unnecessarily. His light left the body to make another swing around the cement loading platforms. "--nine, ten, eleven," he counted. His voice was bitter. "Eleven warehouse doors leading off this rabbit warren, and our man needed a key to only one. What a spot for an ambush." The light returned to the body. "Looks like he got it at eye level. Then fell--or was pushed--down here."

  Johnny had trouble finding his voice. "How wrong can you get? I thought this guy was pitchin', not catchin'. This stones me. When we heard the shots out on the street I figured for sure he'd scratched someone else breathin' on his neck."

  "Where'd you pick him up?"

  "At the hotel. He was with the widow over there. I didn't make you until between Fifth and Madison coming east."

  "I saw the widow. We'll talk to her." Detective Rogers wiped a trickle of rain from his face and amended his statement. "Or somebody will. This one's out of our territory-- first one not in the precinct. Walk out to the corner and see if you can locate the beat man. If not, call in. Not our place; it's not our baby. Yet."

  "You want me back here?"

  "Certainly I want you back here. The local boys will have a few hundred assorted questions for you. Lucky for you I was standing right beside you when we heard those shots. That about used up your luck, though, because when the lieutenant finds out you were seventy-five yards away when Russo got it, you bought a tough ticket. You know what he told you."

  "He told me to stay away from the people in the public relations office. He didn't say a word about Russo."

  "Correction. He said stay away from anyone connected with the case. You didn't consider it significant that the woman you saw Russo with before you took out after him now happens to own that public relations business?"

  Johnny was silent, and Rogers looked him up and down. "You're heading for a fall, Johnny. You can't buck--"

  "Ahhh, stow it!" Johnny interrupted angrily. "You people think you got a patent on me? You're beginning to sound just like all the rest."

  "I have a job to do, and I do it the way I'm told," Detective Rogers said after a short pause; there was an edge in his voice. He stopped and slapped disgustedly at the wet leg of his trousers. "Forget it. I'm worse than you are for arguing with a mulehead like you. Go on out and get somebody in here. I'm an incipient pneumonia case right this minute."

  Johnny headed out into the darkness and stumbled and splashed his way up the slight upgrade. It was black in the alley; he welcomed the comparative brightness of Forty-fourth Street. He stamped his feet on the sidewalk to remove the clinging mud which had oozed above the welt of his shoes. At the southeast corner of Second Avenue a broad-backed black raincoat glistened in the lights of the little all-night restaurant across the street, and Johnny walked up to the corner resignedly and tapped the raincoat on the arm. It turned, and elderly sharp blue eyes in a wide, pug-nosed face inspected Johnny carefully.

  "Dead man in an alley up the street," Johnny told him. "There's a detective there now, and he'd like a little help."

  "You know the detective's name, son?"

  "Rogers."

  There was slight movement beneath the raincoat. "No detective named Rogers in this precinct, son."

  "He's from West Fifty-fourth."

  The patrolman grunted. "I hear you saying so. What happened to the guy in the alley?"

  "He lost the top of his head."

  The wide mouth pursed doubtfully. "I ought to take a look first. Still, you don't look like the jack-rabbit type. Mind you, if I turn the precinct out on a night like this, and there's nothing in that alley, I'll knock your ears down."

  "Go ahead and make your call," Johnny said impatiently.

  The big shoulders hitched at the raincoat. "You come right along with me, son, and watch me make it. I want my eye on you."

  Johnny half restrained a smile as he followed the patrolman across the street to the restaurant. From the bulge under the raincoat he knew that the service revolver had been unholstered; the officer was carrying it in his left hand, and this created a problem for him when faced with the wall pay phone.

  "Like me to dial for you?" Johnny offered. "Or I'll hold the gun."

  The blue eyes inspected him critically for a moment, and then with a rustling of rubber the bulge disappeared. "Now I've got you in the light, son, you don't look quite like I made you on the street. Better get that nose straightened, though, before you apply to teach at Sunday school." He turned back to the wall phone, and dialed. "Glidden, Sergeant. Man reported..."

  The patrolman's voice droned on while Johnny listened with just a fraction of his attention. Russo's death had collapsed completely the major props of the framework within which he had been working. Somewhere, now, there was a man who had committed four murders, and he hadn't the slightest notion who it was.

  He wondered if the police were any closer. Would Jimmy Rogers have been tailing Russo if he expected any such blow-off as this tonight? It figured that Rogers had been just as wrong as he was.

  Officer Glidden nodded to Johnny as he backed away from the telephone, and they walked back out into the rain. Johnny gingerly moved his shoulders beneath the raincoat, which had now become a blotter and passed on its absorption to the sodden uniform beneath. He couldn't remember the last time he had felt so uncomfortably wet.

  Detective Rogers moved out from a dry corner of a warehouse platform as Officer Glidden's flashl
ight announced them from the alley. After a brief, low-voiced colloquy with the detective the big policeman laboriously removed a notebook from his raingear, folded it back painstakingly, heaved a mighty sigh and began writing. Johnny surmised that from Glidden's perfunctory questioning of him that Detective Rogers must have mentioned Johnny's actually being in his presence when the shots were heard. He didn't fool himself that the precinct detectives would be as easily satisfied; it looked like the beginning of a long night. When Glidden snapped his notebook shut with a grunt of relief Johnny spoke up with no real hope. "That wind me up, Chief? I could use some dry clothes."

  "That's not for me to say, son." The patrolman looked around for Jimmy Rogers, then out at the mouth of the alley as headlights beamed through the narrow passageway into the semicircular dead end. The high beam of the car lights brilliantly illuminated the sprawled figure lying in the mud at the base of the loading area, and in the glare the rain beat down steadily. Other cars stacked up behind the first one and disgorged dark figures who moved purposefully; it was the type of night when a minimum of facts speedily arrived at was the goal of all concerned.

  Johnny watched Patrolman Glidden jump heavily from the platform to the alley bed and advanced to meet the second contingent. His own position on the platform was not within the perimeter of the headlights, and he looked down for a moment at the activity in the arena of light below him. Take off, Killain, he told himself suddenly. Nobody's paying any attention to you. So they'll yank you in when they miss you later; they'll have to come and get you to do it, and at least you'll be dry.

  He eased over to the darkest corner of the platform and jumped lightly to the mud below. He edged around the outer rim of the platforms and squeezed his way past the first of the parked cars. He had to brush past several latecomers on their way in from the street and he received several sharp glances, but no one offered to stop him. He walked swiftly away from the flashing red lights at the alley entrance and picked up a cab at the stand at the Second Avenue intersection. He settled into the back seat and listened to the soggy squish; he oozed water from every stitch.