Killer with a Key

CHAPTER 9

A he rear of the long, low building on the side street was dark, but Johnny's knock was answered almost immediately as Jeff Landry opened the door himself, hand outstretched. He practically dragged Johnny over the threshold with the vigor of a grip surprising in a man of medium size.

“Johnny, you bandit! Wonderful to see you again.” Jeff Landry was a slender man casually dressed in khakis and tennis shoes. His hair was ash-blond and close-cropped, and horn-rimmed glasses tended to minimize but not wholly conceal the impact of a face of quiet strength. The mouth and chin were firm to the point of being stubborn.

“I'm not much of a neighbor for a guy who lives just cross-town, Jeff. In the cab I was thinking how the neighborhood here had changed since I'd seen it.”

“More than you think.” Jeff Landry tapped the box under Johnny's arm. “Let's have a look at the patient. We can talk later.”

Johnny followed the veterinarian through a semi-dark maze of tiered wire cages and runways; an occasional yelp or bark disturbed the quiet, and Johnny could feel a slight scrambling in the box under his arm as the variegated smells filtered through to the kitten. There was a musty, animal odor in the air, overladen with a piny tang, and an antiseptic pungency which increased in strength as they moved to the front of the building.

He blinked at the dazzling fluorescent light which flooded the white formica-topped tables and the chromiumed instruments in glassed-in cabinets ranged around the wails of the examination room into which Jeff led him. An assortment of odd-looking machines with dangling electric cords took up most of the working space on the metal coverlet that hinged down over the double sink with its gleaming faucets and rubber hoses trailing down to the tiled floor.

Johnny looked around him and whistled softly. “You sure have improved things, Jeff.” He tapped the examination table lightly as he placed the shoe box upon it. “Looks like you could take care of me on this thing.”

“Too good for you.” Jeff Landry's voice was matter-of-fact.

Johnny laughed. “I know you better than to think you're kiddin', too.” A dozen years ago in northern Italy he had seen Jeff Landry charge a squad of soldiers abusing a mongrel dog. Jeff had needed help, but not a great deal; the white heat of his anger had dissolved the would-be sadists like melted butter.

He watched as Jeff drew on a pair of forearm-length gloves; the vet removed the cover of the shoe box, and Sassy stared up at him apprehensively. “A Persian, Johnny? You're traveling in class.”

“She adopted me. She's deaf as a mackerel, Jeff.”

The blond man lifted Sassy from her box; the kitten made no struggle, although the small ears were flattened to her skull. “It's not unusual; about sixty per cent of the purebreds are deaf. It's a mutation attributable to the inbreeding which produces the coat and eye coloration.” His eyes never left Sassy as she crouched flat on the formica surface of the table and hissed halfheartedly at the gloved hand exploration.

“You mean if she didn't have the blue eyes she wouldn't be deaf?”

Jeff Landry removed the glove from his right hand and dexterously pried open the kitten's mouth; her back arched as she started to resist, but he had accomplished his purpose and released her before she could successfully mount her opposition. “I didn't say that.” He turned to remove a small thermometer from a graduated rack. “Her eyes could be bronze and she could still be deaf. It's how the lightning strikes. What do you feed her?”

“Oh, shrimp and liver and milk, mostly. Little chopped beef once in a while.”

“How much do you feed her?”

“I usually just cover the bottom of a saucer.”

The veterinarian shook his head. “How often?”

“Pretty often, I guess,” Johnny admitted. “She seems to be hungry all the time. Until today. What's the matter, Jeff?”

Jeff Landry's voice was patient. “The matter is that I strongly suspect that all that ails our patient is a muddle-headed case of overfeeding. Reason is not given to these little articulated minuscules, Johnny. Just because you feed her today, she can't be expected to remember that you'll do so tomorrow. She'll eat herself bowlegged every chance you give her. I'm sure that you've been forcing as much on her in twelve hours as she needs in seventy-two, and a great deal of it too rich. I'll keep her overnight and make out a diet for her. She may not be as happy at mealtime, but she'll be healthier.”

He picked the kitten up with the re-gloved hand, and Johnny followed him out of the examination room's glare to the gloom of the cage walkways. He watched Jeff open the door on the top left of a tier of small cages and put Sassy inside.

“She'll be fine here tonight,” Jeff said. He moved on toward the back. “Come on. I've got a little refrigerator out here I keep drugs in. And beer.”

He kicked a kitchen chair in Johnny's direction in the small room that housed the refrigerator and a battered desk. He uncapped two bottles of beer, and Johnny dipped his head hastily to sip off the overflowing collar from the bottle pushed across to him. Jeff picked up his own bottle and swallowed twice; he lowered the beer and looked over at Johnny as he perched himself on the edge of the desk. “I'll probably have a new address the next time you come calling.”

“You're moving? How come? You sunk a lot of money in the place. I thought you were satisfied.”

“I am satisfied.” The blond man stared at his beer. “I'm getting squeezed. You remarked yourself how much the neighborhood had changed. My little place is practically lost in all the new buildings that have gone up around here. I'm in the seventh year of a ten-year lease, but my landlord has been pushing me for a year to take a settlement on the lease and move to another address. I kept telling him that due to zoning restrictions I'd have to move so far my business couldn't reasonably be expected to follow me. I kept telling him, but he kept pushing me.”

“So you got the lease. Let him push.”

Jeff took another swallow of beer. “I wonder. Lately it's been second-hand, and a little ugly. About six weeks ago a lawyer came to see me. Really a type. Said he represented an outfit who had made a deal to finance a new building for the landlord, and I was the only thing holding up the deal. He asked me to set a figure on a lease settlement, and I did, finally. You can't fight city hall forever. I might have had a little balloon in the figure I gave him, but not too much, so when this character offered me half and told me to take it or leave it I got a little sore. I threw him out. He made a few noises on the way to the effect that I'd be glad to settle for less than that before they'd finished with me.”

“So they started to muscle you around?”

Jeff hesitated. “Not in the way you would think. I believe they're behind what's been going on, but it's been so devilishly clever-” His voice trailed off. He jumped up from the desk and began to pace the room's narrow confines. “I'm sure, Johnny, and yet I'm not sure.” He gestured impatiently. “Three weeks ago a woman brought in a thoroughbred Scottie for a bath and a clip. Twelve hours after she left it here the dog died. Of poison.”

Johnny sucked in his breath. “A slow pill.”

“I have to think so. The dog didn't get it here. The woman raised particular hell-charged negligence, malfeasance and all the rest of it. I carry liability insurance, naturally, and the company paid off. Last week it happened again. A terrier, this time. And a stinking shouting match with the customer out in the waiting room heard by fifteen people. The insurance company paid off again and canceled the policy. The next one's on me.”

“Let's go talk to that lawyer, Jeff.”

Jeff's smile was rueful. “You wouldn't think I could be stupid enough to talk to him without getting his name, would you? Well, I did. I realize now he deliberately didn't tell me.”

“Then let's go see your landlord.”

“I've already done that. He denies any knowledge of what's going on, and I get the oddest feeling that he's afraid himself. I told him point-blank I didn't give a damn whether he was responsible or not; I was holding him responsible. I told him that with the next animal that died around here in similar circumstances it was going to be me and him all over the sidewalk. He believed me. He followed me for half a block, bleating that he didn't know anything about it and that he couldn't do anything about it.”

Johnny turned it over in his mind. “Rough. It leaves you sitting and waiting for the cloudburst. I don't see what you can do.”

“I can close up. And go looking for that lawyer.”

“The idea appeals to me,” Johnny admitted. He drained off the last of the beer, wiped his lips with the back of his hand and scowled at the empty bottle. “If I was a member of the posse. There's got to be another answer, though, Jeff.”

The vet's smile was tight. “You think so? I've had three weeks to come up with one, and I'm not even close. Well, forget it. It's my problem. Another beer?”

“No, thanks. Listen, Jeff. You'll think of somethin'. An' if you think of anything I can do-”

“I wish I could think of something I can do.” Jeff picked up the empty beer bottles from the desk and returned them to the case on the floor, his mind obviously not on what his hands were doing. “If I don't call you, Johnny, you can pick up the kitten tomorrow.”

“Oh. Yeah. Listenin' to you I nearly forgot why I was here.”

Jeff's smile was less forced. “Come to the office any time after six; that's pickup time. I'll have the diet list ready, too. I'll be busy with incoming animals, so we probably won't get a chance to talk. Take care, boy. Vaya con Dios.”

They gripped hands, hard, and Johnny departed by the back door. On the way back cross-town in the cab he went over it again in his mind. What kind of people deliberately poisoned animals to force a man to break his lease? It had to be deliberate. Yeah, but what could you do?

The first person he saw in the lobby was Mike Larsen, and Mike was on his feet before the glass doors stopped swinging. He waved a slip of paper at Johnny. “Been watching for you.”

Johnny turned the telephone message over; the time stamp on the back said 9:35 p.m. The message was brief. “Call Dameron.”

He looked at his watch. 10:12. “Any ideas, Mike?”

“Not a one. Unless there's a story goes with that patch on your eye?”

“Not for Joe. Jimmy Rogers was right there. Well-”

“Here.” Mike handed him a dime. Johnny walked to the pay-phone booths in the corner of the lobby and stared musingly at the scribbled phone numbers on the booth wall after dialing. What “-precinct, Donovan.”

“Lieutenant Dameron.”

A wait. “Lieutenant Dameron's office-Rogers.”

Johnny cleared his throat and pitched his voice up. “This is Mavis, Jimmy.”

The pause was fractional. “Get on over here, Johnny.”

His eyes narrowed. “Are you askin' me or tellin' me?”

“Why, we're asking, you delicate flower.” Detective Rogers' tone was syrupy.

“What's it about?”

“There's an easy way to find out.”

The connection was gone. Johnny opened the booth door thoughtfully and shrugged at Mike outside. “They want me over there.”

“They say why?”

“Big mystery.”

“I'll drive you over. If you're going. My car's outside.”

Johnny hesitated. “You goin' that way anyway?” He had ridden with Mike before; Mike Larsen drove a car like the devil was at his throatlatch. “Well, okay.” He debated a moment. “You think I should call Lorraine first?”

“Lorraine?” There was no mistaking Mike's curiosity.

“No real reason,” Johnny said a little vaguely. “She and I've been tradin' light jabs with the big gloves. I can't get her to level with me. Still, if she knows somethin' I can get her to tell me I'd just as soon not walk in on Joe Dameron stone cold. I think I'll call her.” He fished a dime out of the change in his pocket and returned to the booth; Mike lounged in the open door. The phone rang and rang, and Johnny hung up finally. “Nobody home.”

“Maybe she went out to a movie to cool off,” Mike suggested. “That apartment gets like an oven sometimes.”

“Yeah,” Johnny agreed absently. The unanswered phone reminded him of another caller who had been unable to reach Lorraine-Roberta Perry. Lorraine hadn't been back to the office since the murders, still you couldn't catch her at home. So where was she spending her time?

He followed Mike out through the foyer. The sporty little MG was on the restricted side of the street; Mike fished a press card out from under the lowered visor as he got under the wheel. “That's for the cruisers,” he told Johnny. “The beat man knows the car.”

“Must be nice to be a big shot.” Mike Larsen laughed as he started the motor; Johnny listened to the rough roar of the engine and raised his voice to make himself heard as their quick start snapped his neck. “Take it easy in this spittoon, now; I could shot-put this thing across the street.”

Mike stopped for the Seventh Avenue light and turned to look at him. “I took a look at Russo's client in the bar. Knew him the minute I saw him. Name's Connor, with an o, not an e. Tim Connor.”

Johnny nodded. “Russo called him Tim. What's his action?”

Mike gunned away from the light, beating a cab to the one-lane-wide passageway between the parked cars beyond Broadway. “His action is a little complicated. When I began to think about it Connor and Russo made an interesting combination. I've always wondered how Russo took the kind of living off that balcony that kept him in two-hundred-dollar suits. Maybe I know now.”

“Nothing legal, I hope?”

Mike caught the light at Eighth Avenue and thundered into a sweeping right-hand turn; the little car sounded like an engine-testing block as they set sail up the left-hand side of the one-way street. “You could get a debate on that. This Connor is tough, but he's slick, too. It's a combination you don't get too often. He's made it pay off.” He settled back in the bucket seat, and the MG skimmed north. “You know this town, Johnny; if you spread a little money around, public relations-wise there's nothing you can't do. Connor came up with a refinement.”

Mike Larsen took his eyes from the street ahead long enough for a quick side glance at Johnny. “His particular variation on the theme was simple. Instead of building the client up you tear the competition down. The way Connor worked it out it was bad news for the competition.”

He slowed in mid-block to catch the change from red to green at Fifty-fourth, accelerated and made a left turn on a wheel and a half as he darted between the curbed cars. Johnny unclenched his hands with difficulty; this Mike really used a car.

The MG flew west; Mike had to raise his voice above the muffled roar of the motor. “Like this, Johnny. You and I each own a restaurant, on opposite corners of the street. You're a smart operator, and I'm a shmo. You hire my best waiter away from me, and my hostess, and my chef. All of a sudden you've got the customers and I've got the ulcers. I'm a shmo, see, but now I'm mad.”

He swung the little car into the curb, and Johnny looked up at the familiar weather-stained brick building. Mike sat with his hands loosely on the wheel as he continued. “I'm mad, so I make a couple of phone calls. Someone puts me in touch with Connor, and I tell him the story. He says, okay, Pop, how mad are you? How much do you want to spend? I say the hell with the money-let's see a little blood. So in a couple of days a well-dressed couple come into your place at the height of the dinner hour, and during the meal the woman suddenly becomes embarrassingly, deathly ill, without ever getting away from the table. In a roomful of people her escort accuses you of serving tainted food. And three nights later it happens again.”

Mike's fingers drummed hollowly on the steering wheel. “And that's only the beginning. You've been doing the right and usual thing by all the visiting fire department boys and health inspectors, but all of a sudden now you pick up two kitchen violations from the health department. Runs to a little money to get the citations lifted. Then a piece of brass walks in from the fire department with a little bad news. Seems as though the guy you bought the place from put in that partition over there without an alteration permit. It's a fire hazard-got to come out, pronto. So it ruins the looks of your whole place? Things are tough all over. Who pays for it? You do.”

He lifted his hands from the wheel as he looked over at Johnny. “Connor doesn't appear personally too often. He holds himself out for the big ones, the boffolas, or the ones that take a little finesse. He's got a stable of half the unemployed actors and actresses in town. He has a stiff payroll, but he makes a nice living.”

“Seems to me the trick would be to stay alive to enjoy it.”

Mike shrugged. “How do you prove that kind of stuff? Regardless of what you suspect? You can't prove a thing.”

A little tickle stirred faintly in the recesses of Johnny's mind. Who- He reached for the door handle. “I've got to get inside, Mike.” He said it slowly; his mind was still on Mike's parable. Who had saidThe tickle died; he had lost the thread. He swung open the door and lifted himself up on the sidewalk.

“You doing anything in the morning?” Mike asked abruptly. “Let's get out on the Sound for a couple of hours.”

“In the morning?” Johnny echoed doubtfully.

“Blow the stink of the town off ourselves,” Mike urged him. He grinned a little self-consciously. “I'll give you another inducement. I've been trying to make up my mind to talk to you about something. Maybe out on the boat I'll be able to forget I'll be betraying a confidence.”

Johnny nodded. “Seven-thirty?”

“Good. I'll pick you up.” Mike waved and roared away, and after staring after him for a moment Johnny ran lightly up the worn white stone steps. He nodded to the uniformed man at the information desk just inside the door and turned left and strode briskly along the oil-darkened wooden floors of the station house. At the old fashioned head-high desk he looked up at the uniformed sergeant.

“Killain to see Lt. Dameron.”

The sergeant nodded and picked up the phone. He replaced it with the two syllables of Johnny's name still hanging in the air. “Second door on the left.”

Detective Rogers was at the opened door; he stood aside to let Johnny enter and closed the door behind him. The cramped, dark room seemed crowded with chairs and with men; the air was stale and blue with cigarette smoke. Johnny ran his eyes quickly around the seated semicircle-a grinning Cuneo, a fat detective with round eyes whom Johnny knew only as Owly, a man he didn't know at all, Jimmy Rogers standing behind him and Lieutenant Dameron behind his littered desk.

Johnny looked carefully at the big, apple-cheeked man with the cropped iron-gray hair and the hard gray eyes who sat plunged into the depths of his swivel chair. The entire room was illuminated by a single gooseneck lamp on the desk. “Kindergarten class, Joe?”

The big man's lips moved; it could have been a smile. “You might call it that. I guess you know everyone here except Ray Hawkins.”

Johnny inclined his head in the direction of the cadaverous, rumpled man on the outer wing of the seated men and received fifty per cent acknowledgment. Ray Hawkins had baggy, dark brown pouches under his eyes, and directly above them the eyes themselves looked like two hard-boiled eggs. “Ray works out of here, too,” the lieutenant said. “He and Owly caught the squeal on Sanders, which makes 'em high men on this totem pole.” He squashed out a cigarette in his ash tray and removed a fresh one from the pack in his shirt pocket. He leaned back in his chair when he had it lit, the solid-looking face expressionless. “Show him what we have for him, Jimmy.”

From behind him Detective Rogers pushed into Johnny's hand three or four double-spaced typewritten sheets, stapled together; the red-line-left-margined legal-sized crisp stationery was doubled back to a prominent signature on the right-hand side of the upmost sheet, trailed on the lower left by additional signatures.

Johnny looked at the prominently isolated signature, and a cold little wind blew down his back. Victor Barnes. His voice was harsh. “What's this thing supposed to be?”

“Forgot you couldn't read.” Johnny's eyes swiveled; Ted Cuneo was smiling at him. Unpleasantly. The lean detective was obviously delighted to explain. “It's a confession, Killain. Signed. And witnessed.”

A pulse hammered in Johnny's temple. “Confession to what, you damn hyena?”

The smile disappeared; Cuneo stood up. “You know what. To the murder of Ellen Saxon. I had a talk with your boy.”

Johnny's eyes flicked back to the papers in his hand. The signature of the first witness was Theodore Cuneo. The confession fluttered floorward as Johnny's hands balled; his chin came down on his chest, and his weight advanced to the frontal arches. His voice sounded as though it originated outside the room. “You dirty little wart, Cuneo!”

“Head him off, Jimmy!” Lieutenant Dameron rapped out the order, and Jimmy Rogers dropped both hands down on Johnny's rigid right arm.

“Stop it, Johnny!” Detective Rogers' tone was sharp as his feet left the floor; something in the urgency of the sandy-haired man's voice penetrated Johnny's red haze and halted the independent action of the right arm upon which the detective's weight rested. Jimmy Rogers was looking at Ted Cuneo, and his voice was curt. “I could let him go, Ted.”

“So let him go.” Detective Cuneo's tone was bitter, and his features were brick red. “A real wise guy. Let him go.” He darted a sullen glance at the silent lieutenant. “Christ! How does a burn-up like him live so long?”

Detective Rogers snorted. “If you'd been with me a little bit earlier tonight you'd have a better idea.”

Ted Cuneo scowled, hesitated and finally sat down again. Jimmy Rogers released his hold on Johnny's arm and stepped back. Johnny looked around again at the varying expressions in the semicircle, and finally he nodded. “Okay, boys. I read you now. Too many blips on the radar for a minute. You don't think it's legitimate, either. I'd never have gotten within a thousand yards of a confession like this if you thought it was worth a quarter.” He took a deep breath, and his eyes came back to Cuneo. “Vic Barnes is my friend. I'd just like to find out you went in there and roughed him up, you needlin' little moron-”

Ted Cuneo soared up out of his chair and landed crouched forward, feet apart. His face was scarlet. “Just let me catch you spitting on the sidewalk, even, Killain!”

Johnny cut across the shrill vehemence. “Don't try it alone, man. Not ever.”

Lieutenant Dameron's big hand crashed down on his desk as papers flew. “That's enough of that! You're no privileged character, Johnny. Keep a civil tongue in your head.”

Johnny shifted from his eye-to-eye exchange with Cuneo and stared at the apple-cheeked man behind the desk. “So how come he confessed to something he didn't do, Joe?”

The lieutenant's voice was patient. “He called out to the turnkey and asked for a stenographer, said he wanted to dictate a statement. We sent one in, and he did. You saw it.”

“With no pressure at all? Did he have any visitors?”

“No visitors. And no pressure, despite our comedian here.” Cuneo flushed a dull bronze. “Entirely voluntary.”

“Voluntary, hell! If he didn't have visitors, he was reached some other way. A message, a note, maybe. It could still be in there with him. Why don't you guys get off your butts and shake down-” The cumulative dead-pan stare from around the group finally penetrated his intensity. “All right,” he said shortly. “You already did it. So what'd you find?”

Lieutenant Dameron lifted a small green blotter from his desk; beneath it was a crumpled, torn-off corner of brown wrapping paper. “Don't touch it, Johnny.”

Johnny walked around the desk and looked down at the crudely lettered penciled message: your wife is next, BARNES.

“Came in on his supper tray, he says.” It was Detective Rogers' voice; Johnny was still staring down at the note. “Folded into his napkin. I talked to Finnegan, in the cell block. Barnes has been having his meals sent in. I've already been across the street.” He shrugged elaborately. “Nothing.”

“Of course you realize you could be telling him something he already knows, Jimmy,” Ted Cuneo said morosely.

Johnny ignored him. “Vic thought Lorraine would be safer if he confessed. Which is what whoever sent the note wanted him to think.”

“This Lorraine.” Lieutenant Dameron's hard gray eyes bored up into Johnny. “I know she hasn't told us all she knows yet. I don't think you have, either.” Johnny was silent, and added color crowded up into the red face measuring him. The big man bit his words off between tightly compressed lips. “Has Lorraine Barnes told you anything she hasn't told us?”

“How should I know what she told you? Do I get to read the transcript? You got to come crying to me because you can't run your business?”

The hands on the desk top knuckled slowly. “Three people have died. The interrelationships are complicated; the lives of more might be threatened, yet to satisfy a whim of your own you're prepared to sabotage justice. If I ever find out that you withheld information-”

Johnny's neck swelled in its suddenly too-tight collar. The desk creaked as his weight crowded it. “Ahhhh, bag it, Joe! Sabotage justice! If I had one-tenth the information you do-nothings had I'd be so close to that rotten weasel you could smell him sweatin' from here. And when I found him-” His clenched fist smashed down on the desk; a stapler jumped up in the air, tottered on the desk's edge and fell to the floor. The room was very quiet.

Lieutenant Dameron stood up behind his desk. His voice was level, positive. “Your attitude proves my point for me. I thought I'd give you one more chance; you've had it. I'll put what I've got to say now in the form of an order.” He leaned forward as he emphasized each word. “You stay away from everyone connected with this case in any way, shape or form. If I find you've contacted anyone like you did the Perry girl I'll get you off the street if I have to get a law passed.”

Johnny felt the hot blood in his face; his arms flexed involuntarily. “You think you're God Almighty, Joe? Go play with your wooden soldiers. Why should I listen to you?”

“Because I say so!” It was nearly a shout; the bull neck was thrust forward.

Johnny looked at him. He turned his head and looked at the smirking Cuneo, at the round-eyed Owly, at the grinning Hawkins and lastly at the expressionless Rogers. He turned silently and walked to the door; it shivered on its hinges from the smash with which he slammed it shut behind him.