Doorway to Death

Chapter II

The phone woke him; he looked at his watch as he came completely into focus in the first instant. Four thirty; the daylight four thirty. He cleared his throat. “Yeah?”

“Mr. Frederick would like to see you in his office right away, Johnny,” Myrna's nasal accents informed him.

“I'm on my time now, sis. He knows where to find me.”

He grinned as he hung up; he kept his hand on the receiver and picked it up again almost before it began its second querulous ring. “Who is it?”

“Johnny?”

He blinked; this was not Fussy Freddie's apologetic tenor. “Yeah?”

“You know who this is?”

“I not only don't know, I don't give-” He broke off as his mental card file fitted a face to the voice, and his eyes narrowed. “Can you whistle 'Edelweiss'?”

“I could when I had to. Sharp as ever, aren't you, boy?”

“I'll be right down.” He dressed quickly, in slacks and sport shirt, ran a wet comb through snarled hair, splashed water on his face and rubbed briskly, and left the room, pausing only to remove a chair whose upper back rest was wedged under the doorknob.

The elevator operator arched his brows at sight of him. “Up early, John.”

“Gettin' an idea how the other half lives, Roy.”

Frederick's office was on the mezzanine, but Johnny rode down to the lobby, took a quick but careful look around, and walked back up the stairs. At the office door he knocked once and entered.

“Ah, there you are, Johnny-” Ronald Frederick was not seated at his desk. The little manager sat primly on the edge of an imitation red-leather easy chair beside it, slim fingers twiddling the precisely arranged tips of the handkerchief in his breast pocket. The crease in the gray trousers looked sharp enough to serve as a cutting tool, and the narrow shoes glistened. “I understand you and Lieutenant Dameron are already acquainted, Johnny.”

The man behind the limed oak desk stood up, smiling. His hair was the same steel gray as his eyes, and the ruddy face had been much exposed to weather. Authority rode in the impressive bulk of the shoulders in the neat business suit. “Hadn't had time to tell the boss here the details,” he said easily. “Nice to see you again.”

Johnny nodded and looked from the apple-cheeked man to the neat little manager in his chair. “He means nice to see me outside the cell block, Freddie.”

Lieutenant Dameron smiled. “He's got to have his little joke, Mr. Frederick. Didn't Willie Martin tell you about Johnny?”

“Why, you mean our Mr. Martin, the-ah-owner? Why, no, but I think I may have-ah-sensed there was something-”

“It's a good yarn when it's told right, Mr. Frederick. Now you take a few years back-”

“Joe-!” Johnny interrupted warningly, and Lieutenant Dameron's conspiratorial smile included Ronald Frederick.

“Didn't know he was bashful, did you, Mr. Frederick? I don't want to spoil a good story, so you just ask Willie the next time you see him about the night Johnny swam the harbor in Marseilles with Willie on his back. Willie can really tell that story.”

“I'm tellin' you, Joe-”

“That was after they'd outscrambled a bistro full of very unfriendly people, and Willie broke an arm in the shuffle. Get him to tell you about it; Willie's a good talker.”

“And not only Willie, you thick harp. You lost your damn mind?”

The big man nodded to Ronald Frederick, who had un-clasped the primly laced hands in his lap to put on his steel rimmed glasses over whose top edge he was looking at Johnny. “See what I mean, Mr. Frederick? Bashful. Now the night he and I were lined up against the back wall of a cold, wet cellar in Taranto with a good man dead on the floor and a man standing across from us with a gun in his hand-you get the picture, Mr. Frederick?”

“S-surely-”

“Our boy here took off from the cellar wall, picked up three slugs on the way over, but he reached the man with the gun. Broke him all up with his hands. And that reminds me, Johnny-”

“"That reminds me, Johnny-'“ Johnny mimicked savagely. “You in the pulpit nowadays? I'm tellin' you: shut up!”

The ruddy-faced man shrugged. “You can see how it is, Mr. Frederick. And who's responsible for my gray hair. But here we sit visiting, forgetting that you're a busy man-”

The little man rose, reluctantly. “I should have a word with the-ah-chef,” he acknowledged. In his speech patterns he seemed to search carefully for the definitive word. His fascinated glance returned fleetingly to the furious bronzed features of his night bell captain before passing on to the big man behind the desk. “No reason why you shouldn't-ah-visit right along here, though. I'll leave word you're not to be-ah-interrupted.”

“Very kind of you, sir,” the lieutenant said genially. “If you must run along-”

“Why yes. It's been nice meeting you, Lieutenant. Johnny, I'll-ah-look you up later.” The door closed behind the slender figure, and the lieutenant held up his hands in mock defense as Johnny glowered at him.

“It'd better be a good reason, Joe.”

“Reason? Who needs a reason? Why should I let you be a shrinking violet? Relax, boy; get yourself appreciated.”

“Appreciation I can't use.”

“Now there's gratitude for you. I put you in solid with the boss, and you blow your stack. With him you've got it made; you're in like Flynn. You're-”

“I haven't heard a reason yet, Joe.”

The lieutenant delicately extracted a single cigarette between thumb and forefinger from the pack in his breast pocket and leaned back in his chair with it rakishly in his mouth, still unlit. “Let's come back to that in a minute. First things first, Johnny. They put a little piece of paper on my desk today that said that Max Armistead was D.O.A. at City General this morning.”

Johnny kept his face impassive as he flipped on his cigarette lighter and approached the desk. “Somebody else didn't like him? I'll contribute a dollar or two to the defense of whoever shot him.”

“Did I say he was shot?”

“With the muscle he hired, wouldn't they have to shoot him?”

The gray eyes studied him over the lighted cigarette. “Up to nine o'clock this morning I'd have thought so, too, but somebody roughed up the muscle.”

“I'd have paid admission to that if it'd been advertised.”

“Sorry we couldn't arrange it. Max was shot, Johnny'.”

“That's what I said.”

“You did, right out loud. Only thing, it wasn't until we got the medical report we knew there was a bullet in him. He didn't look as though he needed one. Now we come to the odd part.” The gray eyes were veiled momentarily as the lieutenant blinked at the drifting cigarette smoke, but the voice continued evenly. “The muscle got just as good a going over. They're not talking about where they got it- yet, anyway-but there's the usual bicuspid disarray, multiple contusions, and abrasions. And something else.”

“Something else?”

“Yes. One of the muscle is down flat on his back with a few little things disarranged in his chest and ribs.” Lieutenant Dameron leaned forward over the desk and pointed a forceful finger. “Kind of took me back, Johnny, listening to the doc reel off the medical lingo for what was busted, bent, and twisted. Took me back I hate to think how many years to a cellar in Taranto with another sawbones reeling off a list of what was busted, bent, and twisted on a guy had just put three slugs in you. You'd be surprised how alike it sounded.”

“You don't have to play cop with me, Joe. Head-to-head, you get answers.”

“I get answers anyway, Johnny.”

“I got one word for that statement. Probably not much used in your august presence lately.”

The apple cheeks darkened, but Lieutenant Dameron smiled. “How'd we wind up like this? I came over here to sign you up.”

Johnny couldn't keep the surprise from his voice. “Sign me up? For what?”

The lieutenant stubbed out his cigarette. “Max was a tough little hood, Johnny, but recently he'd been taken over by someone who evidently shaves with carborundum. The ground swell I get is that Max was fronting for something that was to be based here, and they felt they had to have you in, or out. Max muffed the assignment. Exit Max. Now how about a little of that head-to-head talk.”

“Say please.”

“Please, you complete bastard-!”

“Okay. Max had been trying to move in on me for a month. I kept standin' him off; I figured he wanted to tuck a couple of girls upstairs like he's done in a couple of other places on 45th Street. Last night him and his crowd laid for me in a parked elevator, which didn't give them much racing room. After we talked it over I threw them out in the alley.”

Lieutenant Dameron placed his hands together at his chin in the shape of a church steeple and peered at Johnny over them. “You haven't gone back much, evidently. Think you had an audience in the alley?”

“That kind of audience should have made a little noise.”

“It should, at that. Although this seems to be a very careful crowd. With that introduction, though, I'd say you're a cinch to hear from them again. I'm glad I played my hunch and came over here. You can keep me posted.”

The silence built up in the office; Johnny rubbed his chin thoughtfully. “Did you really think I'd pigeon for you, Joe?”

The red-faced man spread his hands wide, palms down, his face bland. “Who said anything about pigeoning? Couldn't you use a little excitement? You so damn proud of the way you're living?”

“You're almost making a case, Joe.” Johnny leveled a concentrated stare at the man behind the desk, who sat silent. “If I thought you were asking me, an' not tellin' me-”

Still silent, Lieutenant Dameron fished out another cigarette and lit it. He inhaled deeply, leaned far back in his chair, crossed his legs, and said nothing.

Johnny shook his head negatively, almost regretfully. “You're on the make for something, Joe. I know you. You'd give me an apple for an orchard any day. I don't trust you. We may have been on the same team once, but that was an accident. Besides, you were always a great one to let a few piddlin' little rules and regulations get in the way of gettin' something done. Anyway, how do you know their offer might not be better than yours? If you ever get around to making one?”

The ruddy-faced man laughed and slapped his open palms down on the desk top. “Offer? After what you did to the Greeks bearing gifts? You're odds on to see the lightning before you hear the thunder, boy.”

“I think they'll want to talk it over.”

“It might pay you to be careful in case they don't.” The cigarette in his hand described a brief, encompassing circle. “You get a feeling sometimes, Johnny. This is a big one. It's not women. It's supposed to be something coming in on boats-dope, diamonds, take your pick. So how about it?”

“How about it? What's in it for me, Joe, even if I said yes? You don't really want me, anyway. Would you turn me loose to get the job done?”

“Sure.” The big man said it easily, but he watched Johnny narrowly. “This is civilization, though.”

“You'd be gettin' a man, not a method, Joe.”

“Now wait a minute. You couldn't go off half-cocked-”

“I sent for you, Lieutenant?”

“All right, all right, damn you. Look… think it over, will you? We can work it out. You can't expect me to put my pension on the line just because you happen to feel like outmuscling somebody-”

“I don't expect anything, Joe. I'm not on the team.”

“Think it over. I'll call you tomorrow.” Lieutenant Dameron rose to his feet and walked to the door. He hesitated with it open as though about to say something else, changed his mind, nodded briefly and went out, and the door closed softly behind him.

Johnny dropped down in the chair which Ronald Frederick had vacated earlier. He sat for a long time, his eyes unseeingly on the paneled wall, his mind racing in tight little circles….

The telephone broke into his sleep, and he rolled over and reached for it. “Yeah.”

“Eleven thirty, Johnny.”

“Yeah. Thanks, Myrna.”

He sighed, stretched, yawned widely, and reluctantly left the bed for the shower. When he emerged the phone was ringing again. He picked it up. “I heard you, Myrna. I'm up.”

“This is Sally, Johnny.”

“Oh. You still at the apartment?”

“No, I'm downstairs. Vic just called and said he'd be a little late.”

“All right. We'll manage.” He started to lower the phone, then raised it again on impulse. “Sally? Come on up.”

“Now? What for?”

“I'll draw you a diagram when you get here.”

“Someone might see me.”

“Hustle your skinny tail up here, ma. This is no courtship.”

“Yes, Gallahad.” The faintly mocking inflection in the cool voice was still in his ears when he let her in the door. As always her clothes looked too big for her, but the warmly generous mouth ignited under his hard lips. “Mmmmm! What juiced you up, man?”

“You talk too much.”

“Hey! I have to wear these clothes!”

“I'll lend you a suit.”

“Johnny! Damn you-!”

“Save your breath, ma.”

From the bed he could hear her opening bureau drawers. “Pincushion in the bathroom, Sally.”

“That's a fine place for it-”

He sat up lazily on the edge of the bed as she came out of the bathroom, dressed. She walked across to him and slid naturally into his arms, and he ruffled her hair. After a moment he probed experimentally a ridged collarbone. “You're a sure-God plucked chicken, ma.”

She twisted indignantly. “I'm the best damn woman you ever had, and you know it!”

“You're not too far down the ladder at that, kid. And pound for pound you're in a class by yourself. A man'd have to be a pig to want any more woman than you are. Except for exercise, of course.”

“Exercise!”

“I try them all, ma, but I come back to you.”

“Smelling of perfume-” Their smiles matched. The little silence was comfortable, unstrained. Sally freed herself gently, bent quickly, and brushed his mouth with her own. “Was it a good one, Johnny?”

“It was a good one.” He followed her to the door to let her out.

The buzzer sounded in the bar, and Johnny broke off the conversation in which Manuel the bar boy was nostalgically recalling the delights of Manila, and passed through the paneled swinging doors into the lobby. Sally's pointing finger indicated the bell captain's station, and he crossed the lobby and slid in behind the desk and picked up the phone.

“The guy in 322 wants the suit he left with you yesterday, Johnny; he forgot to pick it up when he came in tonight. And Myrna says there was a man here to see you earlier. Said he'd be back in an hour. And there's-”

“Later, ma,” he interrupted her, eyes on the foyer. “Duty calls.”

The boy and girl were young; very young. The aura of money enveloped them … looks, clothes, and attitude. The boy was thin and gangling; the tangerine-colored hair in the crew cut emphasized the too-prominent ears. His shoes had cost a minimum of thirty dollars. The girl was of medium height with soft, swirling brown hair; she fit her lightweight sweater and skirt well, the more so in that like most of her generation she carried a few more pounds than her inches demanded.

Johnny motioned to Paul with his head as they entered the elevator, and slipped on behind them as Paul nodded and exited. “Suit in the checkroom to 322, Paul,” he said over his shoulder.

“Right away.”

Johnny closed the flanged doors, and the tight, shining walls enveloped them. He leaned back and studied them as they spoke together in consciously hushed voices. The scrubbed young faces were pink; not drunk, but in drink taken.

The quiet and lack of movement got through to them finally. “Nine, please,” the girl said, looking around suddenly.

“Who's got the key, sis?”

“I have,” she announced and produced it. She smiled experimentally.

“An' who's registered?”

“I am.” The corners of the colorfully wide mouth drooped in the beginning of a pout.

“Okay, son,” Johnny said firmly, re-opening the bronze door. “Say goodnight to her here. We'll look for you in the morning.”

The boy flushed a dull, agonized red, swallowed hard, mumbled something unintelligible to the obviously sympathetic girl, and scuffed off the elevator through the lobby to the foyer.

“You didn't need to do that, you know,” the girl protested softly, half way out into the ninth floor corridor. “He'll be terribly disappointed. I could have handled him.”

Johnny considered the serious young face, the rounded, solemn brown eyes. “You got it wrong, sis,” he told her gently. “If you could have handled him, then he'd be terribly disappointed. On your own veranda maybe you're the captain, but a hotel room in the a.m. with three highballs eggin' him on'll surprise the hell out of you. Pretty soon you find out you can't handle him, after all, and then you got to call me to do it for you, and then everybody's mad at everybody else. This way I'm the only schmuck in the crowd… right?”

Her smile was unwilling, the soft mouth rueful. “You make it sound so inevitable-”

“Chapter and verse. Boy and girl. Man and woman.”

The brown eyes widened, but she giggled, and swung her handbag by its long strap, so plainly in no hurry to depart that he looked at her as an individual for the first time. Beautiful skin, beautiful teeth … a plump, pert little partridge.

“Tell you what, sis-what's your name?”

“Frannie.”

“Tell you what we'll do, Frannie. Now you've looked your cards over, we'll drop back down to the lobby, and I'll run out and catch him for you.”

“No, thanks,” she said quickly. “Look, I told you my name. What's yours?”

“Ugly,” Johnny said promptly. “Name, nature, an' inclination.”

“That's ridiculous,” she began, and then smiled. “Do you charge for this lecture, Ugly?”

“Courtesy of the house, like the newspaper in the morning. Look at it this way, Frannie. In a place like this you got a chance to lose real big. You sure you want to?”

“N-no-”

“So take it easy. You're sharpenin' your claws on the wrong table leg. Simmer down. Don't chase those things. They'll catch up to you.”

The pretty face was petulant. “I wish you'd tell me just one thing, then. You asked us who was registered. Suppose he'd been registered-?”

He grinned at her. “In that case, I'd not only have ran you right on up, I'd have held you down for him if he'd had any trouble. Courtesy of the house, just like the newspaper-”

She flounced down the hall with her nose in the air, then turned indignantly. “You're… you're not a gentleman!”

“Alas.” He burlesqued a sigh. “Goodnight, Frannie.”

If she replied, he didn't hear it; a door opened between them and a dark, medium-sized man stepped out briskly. He stopped short at sight of Johnny in the elevator. “Oh. You, there. I'd like to get a couple of quarts of beer. The switchboard just told me room service was through for the night-” He paused suggestively, and Johnny nodded.

“If you're not fussy about the brand.”

“Hell with the brand.” He had a hard, aggressive voice.

“What's the room number?”

The man turned and looked at the door behind him. “938.”

“Ten minutes,” Johnny said and closed the elevator door. As he entered the lobby Paul beckoned to him.

“Fella to see you, Johnny.”

Johnny glanced quickly at the limp figure sprawled in a lobby chair, and the figure stood up and uncoiled to a surprising height as Johnny approached him. “Killain?” the man asked. He had a long, mournful face.

Johnny took a good look at him. “That's right. I didn't get your name, but the address is Centre Street, isn't it?”

The man wet a finger and held it aloft. “Not a damn bit of wind in here, either. Nothing the matter with your nose, mister. To skip the preliminaries, there was a little ruckus in the neighborhood last night.”

Johnny nodded and hesitated. The thin man studied him, deep lines furrowing the elongated features and the spaniel eyes tiredly sad.

“This personal?”

“As always, that depends on the answers I get. I did hear in a roundabout way that you got a little rep for makin' muscle medicine when you get peeved, and that you and Armistead weren't members of the same lodge. I'd have to concede you something on that last, up to a point.”

Johnny rubbed his chin thoughtfully. “I don't know whether it makes any difference to you or not, but I've been over this already.”

“That right?” Johnny couldn't tell whether the morose face believed him or not. “Who's been over it with you?”

“Lieutenant Dameron.”

“That right?” Johnny recognized the difference in inflection, he debated for a moment calling Lieutenant Dameron at that hour and patently decided against it. The thin man smiled sourly. “M' mother told me there'd be days like this. You understand I'll check you out in the morning?”

“I understand. A drink against the rules?”

“What rules?”

Johnny led the way into the bar, held up a finger as Tommy approached, and indicated his companion. He turned to the thin man who held out a large, capable hand. “Thanks for the drink. Name's Jones. Arthur. One of the Jones' boys.”

Johnny nodded. “Legwork is hell.”

“You can print that.” Arthur Jones turned to Tommy at the bar, and Johnny walked down the long room and through the service door in the rear to the kitchen beyond, dark except for a single bulb in the farthest corner where a man in a white uniform nodded over a paperbacked book.

“Why don't you go to bed, Dutch?”

“You know I can't sleep, John.” The voice was slow and dignified, ripe with years. White hair fringed the high chef's hat, and the veins stood out on the backs of the transparent looking hands.

“You got any beer in the box, Dutch? I got some cached downstairs, but it isn't cold.”

“Happens I have, John.”

“I need two quarts.”

“Happens I have two quarts.” The old man rose stiffly to his feet and produced a huge key and with deliberate movements opened up the walk-in box behind him. Cold air drifted out as he removed two bottles from a case on the floor and handed them to Johnny.

“Got a good notion to come down here in the morning when I'm ready for the sack, Dutch. The temperature is about right.”

“You wouldn't do much sleeping, John. Grand Central's no busier than this box daytimes. The meat box over there, now; that's different. Only need to get into it twice a week, usually. That one'd stiffen you right out in about twelve hours, though. Should I make you a reservation?”

“My toes are tender, Dutch. Thanks for the beer. I'll get the ticket to you first thing in the morning.”

The white-haired man smiled. “I don't imagine we'd make a Federal case of it if you were a few minutes late.” He re-locked the cold box and returned to his detective story at the desk, and Johnny picked up his bottles and walked back across the dark kitchen to the connecting service door at the bar.

At the door he looked back. The only sound he could hear was his own breathing, and the tiny desk light in the far corner was the only break in the massive darkness.

Johnny shrugged and continued on out to the lobby.