Killer with a Key

CHAPTER 8

Johnny lay flat on his back on the sofa in Vic's living room, his shoeless feet dangling over the sofa arm at one end and a pillow beneath his head. His brightly flowered sport shirt hung carelessly from the back of a nearby chair, and a bourbon highball rested on his undershirted stomach. In the apartment's sticky heat Lorraine Barnes sat in the armchair opposite him with her bare feet neatly drawn up beneath her. A duplicate highball rested on the table beside her chair, and she listened with head thrown back and eyes closed to the rumble of Johnny's recital.

“-pinwheels went off all over that place when they got there and found me in residence. Cuneo especially was so mad he couldn't make sense; he didn't want to believe my story even when the lab boys supported it by findin' the scuffed-up rust on the fire escape and the ejected shell cases in the alley below. Then it turned out that a couple or three people in the neighborhood had actually seen the guy gettin' down the fire escape. Even had descriptions. 'Course the descriptions don't tally-they never do at a time like that-but the consensus seemed to favor a stocky guy in gray trousers, a cap and a loud checked jacket. The police-”

Lorraine Barqes opened her eyes, which looked darker than normal in the pallor of her face. “A loud checked jacket?” she interrupted. “And a cap? In all this heat? Do you go to commit a murder in an outfit like that?”

“You think he was tryin' to look like someone else?”

“Certainly trying not to look like himself. I wouldn't give that description houseroom.” She sighed and passed a hand over her eyes, then twisted in her chair to try for a more comfortable position. “If this heat would only let up I might be able to think.” Her voice was husky; she smiled wanly. “I'm beat, I admit it. Right down to my socks, if I were wearing any.”

“They gave you a hard time?”

“Oh, not by their lights, I suppose. When Rogers got here he had just two questions-had I been here, or where had I been, and did I have any witnesses? When I had no alibi for the time Bobby was killed I received the magic carpet ride downtown. That Rogers is polite enough, but in his own way he's as much of an earache as Cuneo. I don't like them-either of them.” Conviction strengthened her tone momentarily and then died out as heat and weariness took over. “I have the most dreadful feeling I'm doing this all wrong, Johnny. The original decision seemed simple enough, but now it's complicated beyond belief. That girl-” Her voice trailed off as she sat huddled in the chair.

“Whyn't you talk a little bit about what happened over at Sanders' place that night, Lorraine? Might take a little pressure off you, if nothin' else.”

Her lips firmed stubbornly. “I know nothing that would help you.”

Ice cubes tinkled in his drink as he leaned up on an elbow. “How do you know, for God's sake? More important, how do I know? This is personal with me, Lorraine. I'll find out anyway, but you could save me leg work. An' time.”

For an instant he thought his savage probing had made an impression, but then she shook her head. “I can't trust your reaction.”

“What do you care about my reaction?” he began quickly, then paused. It was the wrong thing to have said. Obviously she did care, or she would not be balancing on a high wire with the police. He groped for a saving phrase, but she spoke before he could get himself back on the rails.

“Why do you think Bobby Perry was killed, Johnny?” Her voice was subdued.

He sank back on the sofa. For a moment he had been close to something, but the moment had passed. “That kid had hot little hands for money. She was workin' up to something with me. She could have been tryin' to peddle something to a guy allergic to buying. Or she could have been someone's alibi for Sanders, and the someone fixed it for good that she wouldn't change her mind. I kind of like that one.”

He lifted his head again to finish off his drink, set the glass down on the floor and swung his feet around from the sofa arm and into his shoes. He stood up and picked up his shirt from the back of the chair; he looked down at the drawn-faced woman. “One thing you can bet me-she knew who it was. She'd left work to keep an appointment. The guy set her up like a clay pigeon, climbed the fire escape from the alley, didn't see me in my high-backed chair and closed the books on her proposition.”

“You think it's Russo, or Winslow, or whatever his name is, don't you?” she asked, watching him closely.

He shrugged. “I'd like to find out Roberta Perry was his alibi for Sanders. For sure that'd put him on my hit parade.”

“I can't see him as a murderer,” she said slowly. “From the little I've seen of him, that is. Although do you ever really know? This man didn't start out to commit three murders. One thing just led to another.” She paused as she thought of something else. “Are the papers going to know you were in that room when Bobby was killed?”

“The police don't want it given out, but the landlady at least knew it. They muzzled her, or they think they did.” He tried to make his voice light. “How about it, Lorraine? Just the answers to a coupla questions?”

“I'm sorry, Johnny.”

Despite himself his voice thickened and his hands hooked into claws. “Lorraine-”

“Stop it.” Her voice had gone cold as ice. “I know you'd like to muscle it out of me, but I wouldn't recommend it.”

He could feel the heat in his face; not trusting his voice he turned and walked from the apartment, only with an effort preventing himself from slamming the door. He stormed down the single flight of steps and out onto the walk. Damn all stubborn women… how was he going to get it out of her, anyway? He jerked open the iron gate and clanged it shut behind him as he turned right to walk back to the hotel. He almost bumped into a figure that detached itself from the fence. “Got a light, bud?”

Impatiently he reached for the lighter in his shirt pocket. He looked at the lean, dark face in the lighter's glow, a dark suit, complete with jacket, even in this heat. And then the dark man's right hand flashed up and caught Johnny solidly under the left ear and rocked him sideways into the iron fence. He bounced off into a left to the body that was partially minimized by his nearness as his lighter clattered to the sidewalk, and the dark man spoke raspingly. “Maybe you'll mind your own business after this, bud.”

The dark man launched another right hand, but Johnny partially blocked it, caught the hand and dragged the body behind it in close. He hurt his own right hand on the belt buckle of the dark suit, and the man sagged, gasping. Johnny picked him up bodily by the shoulders, carried him over to the fence, and hung him by his coat collar from a blunt iron pike.

“Now, punk,” he growled throatily. “Who sent you? Start talkin' and save yourself a little wear-and-tear.” He slapped the dark face hard, left, right, left, right. The suspended man's toes scrabbled on the sidewalk as he tried in vain to get leverage. Dimly Johnny heard a car door slam and the sound of running feet; he turned to confront the two shirt-sleeved men coming at him shoulder to shoulder.

“Get him!” the nearer man grated, and a bludgeoning arm and the weight of the blocky body thrust Johnny backward. Instinctively he clamped the thrashing figure in his arms, and as he drew on arm and back muscles for the constriction he half turned to look for the third man. Metal glinted to Johnny's right as the man in his arms bleated hoarsely, screamed and went limp; he shifted position, but not in time. A starburst exploded above his right eye; he felt something rip, and a curtain of blood washed over the eye. He threw the crumpled body in his arms to the sidewalk, where it rolled off into the gutter, and turned to the man with the brass knuckles.

He absorbed a body punch as he cocked his head awkwardly because of the blindness in his eye; he moved in closer and landed a glancing left of his own. As the man backed up a step Johnny charged him; the shirt-sleeved arm swung hurriedly and missed, and Johnny dumped him to the sidewalk with a blasting right that missed the chin and landed on the throat. With bitter anger a brassy taste in his throat he stooped and picked up the crawling figure waist-high and slammed it into the street.

“All right, Johnny. That's enough.” Johnny whirled at the voice behind him, half crouched, arms outstretched, and the speaker backed hastily away. “Easy. This is Rogers.” Johnny focused with difficulty on the sandy-haired detective and then looked beyond him to the man still suspended from the fence.

“Outta the way.” His voice was a croak. “I want that one.”

“Stop it!” Detective Rogers grunted as Johnny shouldered through him on his way to the fence. He reached quickly for his shoulder holster as Johnny grabbed the belt of the dark man on the fence, and yanked. The man came off the fence wearing just the sleeves of his suit jacket, and his face was a dirty gray.

“Let's hear it while you can talk,” Johnny snarled down into the face, and his shoulders swelled as his arms bunched. “Who sent you?”

Detective Rogers pushed in between them; his face was shiny. “Drop him, Johnny. I'll handle this.”

“Aghhhh-” The sound was prolonged, breathy, and disgusted. “Take a walk around the block, Jimmy. Then you can have him.”

“I said drop him.” Firmness had returned to the detective's tone; he placed a hand on the dark man's arm. Johnny snorted angrily but turned loose his belt hold, and the dark man's dead weight nearly carried Jimmy Rogers to the sidewalk with him.

Johnny stepped back and sleeved the obscured eye, but it filled right up again, and he reached for the spare handkerchief in his hip pocket.

“Johnny!” Lorraine Barnes ran toward him awkwardly; in her dash to the street she had lost a shoe. Her breath came rough and hard as she turned indignantly to Detective Rogers. “I saw it all from-upstairs. They were waiting, one at the-gate, two in the car. They rushed-”

“I saw it, too,” the detective cut in. He looked down at the man at his feet. “I couldn't've been more than sixty yards down the street, but by the time I put in the squeal from my car and got over here Johnny had rearranged the landscape.” He looked down at the revolver still in his hand as though wondering how it had come there; he re-holstered it hurriedly. He took three steps to the curb and inspected Brass Knuckles, who was struggling to his knees. The detective pushed him to a sitting position, took one look at the still figure in the gutter-the man who had been in Johnny's arms-and turned away.

“Your eye-” Lorraine Barnes said to Johnny.

“I'll run him over to the hospital soon's the boys get here,” Detective Rogers said quickly.

“No hospital,” Johnny said flatly. He turned to Lorraine. “You don't mind my drippin' a little I'll go upstairs and clean up.”

“You're going to need stitches in that eye cut,” Jimmy Rogers said positively. He stepped out into the street with his arms over his head as he pushed his way through the gathering crowd and signaled to the muted siren and flashing red light which had turned into the end of the block.

“Come on.” Johnny took Lorraine's arm and walked her back through the gate. She hobbled along beside him in a one-shoe-on-and-one-shoe-off gait until she retrieved the lost pump at the upper end of the walk. She pulled back to look at Johnny doubtfully as she slipped it back on her foot.

“He said you needed stitches, Johnny-”

“He been right about anything yet? Let's get upstairs.”

Upstairs, she took charge briskly. “Lie down on the sofa,” she told him as she picked up the phone in the hall. “I'll be right in with towels.”

He pulled off the shredded, blood-streaked shirt and stretched out carefully. His ribs were throbbing. There was a gaping rent in the thigh of his slacks; he probed at it, but the damage seemed to be external. He tried to regulate his breathing to minimize rib pressure and listened to the cool voice on the telephone.

“-rush, Terry. I want the strongest non-prescription external coagulant that you have, material enough for a couple of cold compresses, a little extra gauze and s‹#ne thin tape. You'll hurry it, please? Thank you.”

She came in almost at once from the bathroom with a wet and a dry towel. “Now let's have a look.” She swabbed delicately at the right side of his face, cleansing the cut area, and leaned down to examine it critically. “Just above the brow. More of a deep bruise than a cut, although it is split. It undoubtedly should have a stitch or two. It could scar without it.”

“It could scar with it, too.” He looked up at her curiously. “You a nurse?”

“I was.” She turned his head to one side. “You're bleeding under the other ear, and there's a lump.”

“That's from my friend on the fence.” He straightened his head to look up at her again. “Forget the stitches. Slap a little tape on it.”

She looked doubtful. “If I can stop the bleeding. The boy should be here any second now; the drug store's just up at the corner.” She rose at a knock on the door. “There he is.”

It was Detective Rogers who walked into the room when she opened the door, but the delivery boy was right on his heels. The sandy-haired man stood silently as Lorraine Barnes opened the package, made one quick trip for an antiseptic and cuticle scissors and deftly worked the coagulant into the split brow. She tidied up the bruised edges of flesh, cut thin strips of gauze for a pad, and overlaid it with a professional-looking application of tape. She stood up and brushed off her skirt. “I'll make a compress for that lump under your ear.”

She went back into the bathroom, and Jimmy Rogers stared after her an instant before he looked down at Johnny. “Acts like she knows what she's doing. Put a knife in your teeth now and you'd be ready for the photographer.” His voice turned official. “What started this fracas?”

“You said you saw it.”

“I know what started it downstairs. How about before that?”

Johnny's voice was unpleasant. “If you hadn't stuck your beak in so damn quick I'd have found out.”

“They'll talk,” the detective said, but there was no conviction in his tone.

“They'd have talked to me. Another forty-five seconds and I'd've had his life history.”

“Another forty-five seconds and I'd have been taking you in for manslaughter,” Jimmy Rogers said sharply. “People become deceased when you bust them all up.” He stared moodily downward from his height. “I begin to see what the lieutenant's been talking about all these years. What makes you tick? By God, I thought I'd seen a few tidal waves-”

He broke off as Lorraine Barnes returned with the compress and adjusted it along the jawline and under the ear. Johnny grinned up at her as she straightened and wiped her hands on a piece of gauze. “Call Gus at the hotel for me, huh? Tell him to run up to my room and get me a change of clothes from the skin out and shoot it over here in a cab.”

She nodded, and went back out to the phone. When she re-entered the room her lips were curved upward in a smile. “He wanted to know how badly you were hurt this time.”

“Sounds as if he knows Johnny,” Detective Rogers said dryly. He adjusted the set of his shoulder holster inside his jacket and looked down at Johnny on the sofa. “I'll be running along. Be a little careful where you get your exercise.”

“What did he mean by that?” Lorraine asked curiously when the door had closed behind the slender man.

Johnny stretched carefully. “That's just his way of tellin' me not to go lookin' for the guy that sent the muscle. He's warning me not to let him catch me jumpin' on someone's foot.” He fingered the lump under his ear. “He thinks I need to look.”

“And you don't?”

“You're damned right I don't. I racked this boy Russo up the other day, so here he is, in spades. This time I'll braid his tail for real, only it's got to be a little private, with Jimmy watching from the sidelines.” He looked at her appraisingly. “You happen to wonder how come he was outside where he had a ringside seat for the corrida?”

“Why, no-” Her eyes narrowed. “He was watching me?”

“Or me. Could've followed me over here. Maybe it's seeing us together gives him an itch. Jimmy's a good boy. Don't underestimate him.” He made his voice casual. “Which brings us back to why it'd be a good idea for you to unbutton a little about what happened the night-”

“That's enough, Johnny.” She cut him off. “We've been all through that before, and the answer is no.”

“I could get tired of workin' a one-way street,” he told her softly. “I've told you things you'd have had trouble findin' out. I'm closer to things than you're likely to be. You're Vic's wife; I'd like to steer you right on this-”

He stopped when he saw her expression; he knew that he had said the wrong thing again. “You're not here because I'm Vic's wife,” she said flatly. “You're here because you think I have information that you want. Whether I do or not is problematical, but I've told you before and I'll tell you now for the final time. I'm not about to let you pull the house down around my ears because of your own personal involvement!”

The heat in her tone fanned his own fire; for an instant he balanced on the razor edge of forcing the issue to a showdown, before belated common sense came to the fore. She knows, Killain, and you don't. She may not know the murderer, but she knows more than you do. You cut yourself off from the possibility of learning what she knows, and you've bitten off your nose to spite your face. This is a strong-willed, determined woman. He spoke abruptly. “How about me takin' a shower?”

“If you keep your head dry. I'll get you towels.” Under the steaming hot water he soaked the mounting ache in his bones, and in the mirror he inspected the brass-knuckle-raised purple welts under his ribs. He dried himself carefully.

Lorraine tapped on the bathroom door. “The cab driver brought your clothes,” she called. “I put them in the bedroom.”

He felt better after the shower. In the bedroom he dressed hurriedly; he wanted to get back to the hotel. He transferred money, keys and wallet to the fresh slacks and made a little bundle of the fragments he had removed in the bathroom. “New man,” he announced upon re-entering the living room.

Her eyes were speculative. “From personal observation I don't believe there was very much the matter with the old one.” She continued before he could take advantage of the opening. “You know you're going to have a head like a gourd in the morning?”

“Maybe I should take a little something to justify it?”

“I wouldn't recommend it.” Her inspection of him was deliberate. “If you're mad I hope you don't stay mad. I do need your access to information.”

“Well then, why-”

“Because the situation almost certainly calls for halfway measures, and you don't know how to use them. As you just proved out on the street.”

Johnny boiled out the door without even saying good-by; he simmered down a little during the cab ride back to the hotel, but he was still under a driving head of steam when he entered the lobby and approached the bell captain's desk. “Thanks, Gus.” He raised his eyes aloft. “Russo around?” Gus crooked a finger across the lobby. “In the bar.” The dark-eyed glance lingered on the patch over Johnny's eye. “You and Russo?”

“Not yet.” Johnny crossed the lobby rapidly and felt a sense of release at the sight of Ed Russo in the third booth from the door, sitting across from a big man in a light-colored, wide-brimmed panama. He walked down to the booth; anticipation was so strong he could taste it. The semi-public nature of the scene concerned him not at all; here was the man. He placed both hands on the table edge, leaned forward slightly, and waited.

Ed Russo looked up carelessly from his low-voiced conversation; the thin mouth tightened, but he did not break off until it became apparent to him that Johnny had no intention of moving on. “What the hell, Killain?” he demanded forcefully. “This is a private conversation.”

Johnny considered the dapper man; it was not the reaction he had expected.

Russo was addressing his companion. “This is the guy I was telling you about that tanked me, Tim.” He turned back to Johnny, eyes on the brow patch. “For you, I hope it's nothing trivial, mister. All your troubles should be major.” His voice sharpened as the bitterness showed through. “I got fifty bucks right here says you can't take me again, wise guy.” Johnny blinked. He sends three goons to entertain you, and now he wants to bet you fifty he can do it himself? Whoa, Killain. Wrong script. Back up and get a fresh start. Russo was getting impatient; the lean, arrogant features were poised upward. “Well, sonny boy? I'll take you for fun, money or marbles.”

“You couldn't take one side of me,” Johnny growled, but the riposte was mechanical. To himself he was forced to admit that Ed Russo's response seemed genuine.

The dapper man flushed darkly; he started to rise. “Right now I'll show you, hot shot. Out in the alley.”

The big man across the table from him put a hand on Russo's arm; he spoke for the first time. “Business before pleasure, Ed.” He sounded quite jovial; Johnny looked at the expensive dark brown gabardine slacks and the cream-colored sport coat; the man had a round moon face and a livid scar that pulled down a corner of the heavy mouth.,

“You're right,” Russo was saying in evident disappointment. He sat down again slowly. “Not tonight.” He looked up at Johnny. “But any time after tonight. Any time at all. Right, Tim?”

Tim looked at Johnny; he removed a fat cigar from his breast pocket and rolled it lightly between his palms. “He looks healthy to me, Ed. What makes you think you can take him?”

“You think I can't?” Russo was angry again. “I'll bet you fifty, too. I never saw a bull like that I couldn't take!”

“You know I ride with you, Ed.” The big man said it soothingly; Johnny thought that he had never heard a deeper voice than the big man's heavy resonance. “Does it hurt to mention the guy must weigh as much as I do?”

“I don't care what he weighs. I won't be half splashed the next time he takes his sucker shot.” He rapped impatiently on the table with the bottom of his shot glass and looked around for the waiter. “Come on. Let's have one more drink and get moving.”

He had so obviously dismissed the interruption from his mind that Johnny straightened a little self-consciously; as he backed away uncertainly, until he stood with his back to the bar, Russo and the big man were again engrossed in earnest conversation.

Johnny tried to make up his mind-was Russo conning him? Somehow he didn't think so. Yet if Russo hadn't sent the goon squad, who had? Johnny shook his head, which ached. Maybe a drink would help his muddied thought processes; he left the bar to go upstairs, conscious of a massive letdown sensation.

In his room he already had a drink poured before it occurred to him he hadn't seen Sassy. She couldn't hear him come in, but the vibration of the floor under his feet always brought her trotting. He made a quick circuit of the room and the bathroom without finding her. Had she gotten out somehow? He dropped to his knees and grunted with relief when he saw the fluffy mound under the bed. “Come on out here, you,” he ordered her. “Where's that welcome I always get?”

She stared out at him, and, vaguely uneasy, he reached in for her. She didn't want to come; she hooked her claws into the rug in protest, but there was no real fight in her. He lifted her out and looked in alarm at the dull eyes and the drooping whiskers; he placed his palm lightly on the small pink nose. It was dry and hot, and even the usually lively tail hung limply.

Johnny made a hurried round trip to the refrigerator and tried to tempt the kitten with a sliver of shrimp. Yesterday she would have taken shrimp and a finger to the first joint; now she lay motionless after one apathetic sniff. He sat back on his heels and looked down at her with concern. “What the hell, baby doll-you're sick.”

She tried to crawl back under the bed, and that decided him. In the yellow pages of the phone directory he ran down the list of names, looking for the one he wanted. Kendrick… Lacy… Landry. Landry. Jeff Landry. He reached for the phone on the night table.

“Landry Cat and Dog Hospital-sorry, we're closed,” a woman's voice announced in a parroted gabble.

“Let me talk to Jeff Landry.”

“I'm afraid he's too busy to come to the phone right now-”

“Tell him it's Johnny Killain.”

The line hummed, and he waited impatiently. “Johnny? Is it really you?”

“Yeah, Jeff. Fine friend I am, only callin' you when I need a favor. I know it's after hours for you, but I got a sick kitten here. Be a good guy an' let me bring her over?”

“Johnny Killain with a sick kitten? It beggars the imagination. Come to the back door.”

“I'm halfway there. Put some beer on the ice.”

In the closet he found an empty shoe box which seemed large enough. He punched several pencil holes in each end, put Sassy into it and put on the cover. The kitten made little effort to fight off even this indignity, and Johnny left the room hurriedly.

In the lobby he ran into Mike Larsen. “Buy you a drink, Johnny?” Mike looked at the tape decorating Johnny's forehead. “What happened to you?”

“Tripped on the top step. Listen, Mike. Ed Russo's in the bar, third booth from the door. Take a look at the guy with him and see if you know him. I'll be back in an hour, and you can buy me that drink.”

Going through the foyer doors he was whistling for a cab.