Shake a Crooked Town

CHAPTER II

In the block and a half between the Duarte and the Manhattan Johnny revised his thinking about Carl Thompson. Crazy the man may have been, but it looked very much as though his angry statements of that afternoon had received the ultimate confirmation. Someone had seen to it that Thompson did no more talking.

The police were going to ask a lot of questions about the presence of Thompson's body in Johnny's room. John hoped that Micheline Thompson could supply some of the answers.

He entered the Manhattan's Forty-Fifth Street entrance and inside detoured to the bell captain's desk. “H'ya, boy,” he greeted Wink Litchfield, its paunchy, graying generalissimo. Litchfield was a Duarte alumnus. His right eye had a heavy lid that had earned him his nickname.

“H'ya, boy, yourself,” Wink returned. He surveyed Johnny with interest. “I heard you got yourself shot up chasin' a broad. Times sure have changed. It was you had to use the gun when I knew you.”

“You'll get old, too, one of these days,” Johnny told him. “What you got in 1047, Wink?”

The bell captain nodded as though at a private judgment confirmed. “A doll, naturally, or you wouldn't be askin'. I was just up there. 1047's a suite. The doll's registered in, but a big-man-on-campus type is fieldin' the bunts at the door.”

“He must be a big-big-man-on-campus if he's got you hoppin' the bells in person, Wink.”

“A very good man,” Litchfield agreed. “Deals in paper money only. From his looks I wouldn't give him a yard start in a broken field but a good man on the financial fast draw. What's with you and 1047?”

“What time did they check in?” Johnny sidestepped.

“You workin' for Moscow now? I could look it up in the log, but say five-thirty. I know it was just before I started sendin' the middle shift out to supper.” But Micheline Thompson had said on the phone that she had been driven down from Jefferson that evening, Johnny thought. What the hell was going on? “What's with you and 1047, Johnny?” Wink repeated.

“I'm invited to the party.”

Apprehension showed in Litchfield's face. “Now wait a minute,” he warned. “Trouble we can't use around here. This isn't the Duarte. No one's gonna hold still for you thumpin' around here freewheelin' over an' through people.”

“Remind me to call you the next time I need a character reference, Wink. I said I'm invited, damn it. Call her up.”

Litchfield reached for his telephone. He looked almost disappointed as he replaced it. “You're expected,” he admitted grudgingly. “Anyway, I think I'll take you up there myself. Just in case you somehow sandbagged me on this phone call.”

“Don't you for God's sake trust your own operators?”

“Not where you're concerned, I don't,” Wink Litchfield said flatly. “I know you, man.” He led the way to an elevator. On the tenth floor he preceded. Johnny around two right-hand turns to the suite entrance at the end of the long hallway. The door opened at once at his light tap. Johnny eyed the olive-skinned, dark-haired man who appeared in it. He was of medium height but solidly built. Despite horn-rimmed glasses, his slightly full face gave an impression of strength. His dark suit was flawlessly cut.

“Killain?” he inquired of Johnny. He opened the door wider. “Come on in.” He didn't even look at Wink Litchfield. Johnny had a final glimpse of the bell captain's disapproving face as the door separated them. “I'm Jim Daddario,” the solidly built man said over his shoulder as he led the way into the suite's sitting-room. “I'm a friend of Mrs.-of the Thompsons.” He waved at two men getting to their feet. “Associates of mine. Jigger Kratz, Tommy Savino. Johnny Killain, boys.” He walked to a door at the right and knocked sharply. “Killain's here, Micheline.”

Johnny nodded to Kratz and Savino. Jigger Kratz was a mountain of a man with surprising light blue eyes in a rugged face. Savino was much younger, and slim, dark, and handsome. The two men moved to the door with the barest acknowledgement of Johnny's nod. “See you in about an hour, Jim,” Kratz rumbled to Daddario as they went out.

Johnny turned expectantly at the sound of an opening door. He stared frankly at the woman who entered the room. If Carl Thompson had looked like hard times, his wife looked like ready money. The puffed white sleeves of her not quite off-the-shoulder white satin cocktail sheath were of lace. So was the bouffant pompom adorning her dark hair. A sash of the same material as the dress artfully cinched her at the waist and descended to mid-thigh in wide-flaring scarves. Her shoes were of matching white satin and her only jewelry was a three-times-around pearl bracelet on her right wrist. At bosom, waist, thighs, and knees the white satin sheath was sleekly snug.

Beneath the white pompom and the dark hair her face was very nearly exotic. Clear ivory skin emphasized contrasting highlights of dusky rose. Her slim brows were plucked in a straight line. She had broad cheekbones, a strong nose, and a wide mouth boldly etched in vivid lipstick. It was not a beautiful face but it was strikingly attractive.

“You're the scrawny-lookin' little bit of tabasco I was up in the hills with?” Johnny demanded in disbelief.

“I am indeed.” She walked directly to him and took a big hand between both of hers. “Girls grow up. People change.” Her voice had a vibrant quality Johnny hadn't noticed on the phone. She inspected his face critically and smiled as though she approved of what she saw. She turned to Daddario who, Johnny realized, had been standing to one side quietly sizing up the meeting. “This is the man, Jim, but for whom the life of Micheline Laurent would have been a brief, unhappy one.”

“You're lucky he still measures up to what you remember,” Daddario commented. He fumbled in his breast pocket and removed a cigar. “Most of my early heroes were a hell of a letdown to me by the time I got my growth.”

Micheline Thompson's dark eyes had returned to Johnny. “Even after all this time I still find it difficult to believe what I saw him do.” She appeared to rouse herself. “It was very good of you to come, Mr. Killain.” She released his hand and seated herself deftly in a straight-backed chair. The tightness of the sheath demanded deftness. Her back was to the room's strongest light but Johnny could see shadows beneath the big dark eyes.

“What's it all about?” he asked her.

She motioned him to a chair near hers. “Please sit down, Mr. Killain. I hardly know-”

“The name's Johnny,” he said, sitting down. “You never used to call me Mr. Killain.” Across from him, Daddario seated himself on a chaise longue and methodically stripped cellophane from his cigar.

“I never knew your name,” she said earnestly. “Then you were always Manos, the bear that appeared and disappeared silently in the darkness.” She smiled, most attractively, he thought. “I like Johnny better. And I, of course, am Micheline.” The smile faded. “Forgive me if this sounds abrupt. I have no easy way to say it. My husband is-was- chief of police in the city of Jefferson in this state. He had been for some time.” The low voice wavered, then strengthened. “He lost the position recently when it was determined he had accepted money to overlook certain things. It came to light when he was absent from his post recovering from a cruel beating inflicted by someone unknown. My husband had been under treatment and had been making a difficult recovery. His removal from office was a severe setback to his mental condition. He has never since been rational on the subject of his removal. Despite precautions, day before yesterday he disappeared. I'm concerned that he will make a bad matter worse by attempting something foolhardy or even criminal against those he blames for his troubles.”

Johnny tested the sound of her voice in his ears. She appeared earnest and sincere. Her eyes rested upon him anxiously. “Carl-my husband-was a part of the operation we know during the war,” she continued. “He heard me speak of you many times. I thought he might try to enlist your aid in the desperate thing he hopes to do.”

“How would he find me? How did you find me yourself?” Johnny asked bluntly.

“Jim found you.” Johnny glanced at Daddario. The dark man flicked ash from his cigar, unheeding. A very quiet master of ceremonies, Johnny thought. He looked back at Micheline. “Jim is a good friend of Carl's. Jim has been of much help. He is the president of the city council in Jefferson. He was able to hush things up when Carl-when it happened.”

“There's no question in your mind about the truth of the charges brought against your husband?” Johnny asked her.

“Please.” Her hands, large for a woman's, tightened in her lap. “There is no question. It was explained to me in detail.”

“Explained? How about proved?”

“Please,” she said again. “There is no doubt, Mr. Kill- Johnny.”

There was no mistaking the hopeless discouragement in her voice. He wondered uneasily what her reaction would be if she knew her husband at that moment lay dead on the floor of Johnny Killain's room in the Hotel Duarte. He was conscious of Daddario's enigmatic gaze above the wreath of his cigar smoke. Johnny rose to his feet. There were undercurrents here he didn't understand, as well as two diametrically opposed stories. “You want me to call you if I hear from him?” he asked her.

“I would very much appreciate it.” She rose and walked with him to the door. Daddario leaned back on the chaise longue but followed them with his eyes. “Be careful that if Carl comes to see you he doesn't talk you onto his side,” she said earnestly. “It's a losing side but he can be most persuasive.” She gave him her hand, her touch cool. “I'm most grateful for your response to my call.” Unexpectedly, her hand in his tightened, gripped hard. The sudden pressure indicating emotion of some sort was belied by a practiced hostess-smile. “Merci, mon ami,” she said softly and closed the door behind him.

Johnny stood irresolute in the corridor. Was she trying to tell him something? They'd never been out of Daddario's sight. He looked at the closed door. Was she a prisoner in that damned suite? Was Daddario forcing her to act a role in order to insure silence about Carl Thompson's knowledge of Daddario's political activities in Jefferson? Daddario had been able to “hush things up” when charges had been made against Thompson Johnny set himself in motion toward the elevator. He was still preoccupied on the way down. In the lobby he went directly to a phone booth. There was one thing he could do. Carl Thompson had said his wife had been with him at the Taft. If she had been, her story of having been driven down from Jefferson that night was a lie. At least part of the story was a lie anyway because they'd been checked in too early. But if she'd been with her husband that morning how else could her presence upstairs now telling a story so unfavorable to him be explained except by pressure?

He dialed the Taft. It didn't take long to find out that there had been no Mr. and Mrs. Carl Thompson at the Taft that day or for several days past.

Johnny left the booth feeling frustrated. He had no alternative but to believe that Carl Thompson had tried to play him for a sucker. But why had Thompson been killed?

He pushed through the lobby revolving door and outside, on the neon-lighted near-midnight deserted sidewalk, he halted abruptly. Had his call to the Taft proved anything except that, as spooked as Carl Thompson had been, he hadn't registered in his own name?

He was tempted to go back upstairs and take a fall out of Daddario. Two things stopped him. If Daddario actually was a family friend helping out in an emergency any commotion that Johnny caused would just intensify the shock Micheline Thompson faced when the news from the Duarte reached her. And, as far as Johnny himself was concerned, the smartest thing he could do would be to get back to the Duarte and get straightened away on the discovery of Carl Thompson's body.

Without thinking, he had used the Manhattan Eighth Avenue exit. He turned right to Forty-Fifth Street. Around the corner, a man in a dark suit stood against the sheer wall of the hotel, his back to Johnny and his eyes glued on the Forty-Fifth Street exit. Across the street a horn blatted, short and then long. The watching man spun quickly to look at the horn-blowing car. Almost without a pause he continued to pivot until he was facing Johnny head on. He raised his arm and a thick-looking weapon glinted in his hand.

Instinct took Johnny to the sidewalk. He grunted as his knees hit the cement hard under the impact of his own weight. He rolled toward the curb and the shelter of illegally parked cars. Above his head he hear a muffled plop-plop and the whine of metal distressed by sharp contact with concrete. The lights of the marquee seemed all too bright.

The sound of running feet drummed in his ears. He snaked his way on hands and knees out into the street between cars. He was in time to see a sedan pull away from the opposite curb and roar west across Eighth Avenue against the light. He stood up warily. When nothing happened he brushed off his palms and the knees of his trousers. His knees were stinging and the trousers had huge rents in them. For the benefit of a rubberneck gazing curiously at him from the sidewalk, Johnny lifted his right leg and inspected the heel of his shoe as though wondering what had tripped him. The rubberneck walked away.

Johnny drew a long breath. A man with a silenced gun watching the Manhattan's Forty-Fifth Street entrance for Killain's exit? A man in a car across the street who recognized Killain unexpectedly turning the corner and warned his partner in time for him to get in a couple of shots? What in the hell was going on?

He examined again the torn-out knees of his trousers. A button was missing from his jacket and street dirt was ground into it. He was positive he'd never before seen the man who had shot at him. He was just as positive he'd know him the next time he saw him.

He set off grimly up the street, his knees twinging at every stride.

At the Duarte he walked into a lobby boiling over with blue-uniformed police and snap-brim-hatted detectives. He discovered that it somehow didn't surprise him. Behind the front desk, Marty Seiden all but stood on his head in a wordless effort to catch Johnny's eye. Had to play it straight, Johnny decided. Looking neither right nor left he headed for the elevators.

“Killain!” Johnny turned at the strident bark. A hatchet-faced, sallow-complexioned man with protruding eyes rushed up to him. “I want to talk to you, Killain.”

“So talk, Cuneo,” Johnny invited him. Ted Cuneo was a Detective First Class attached to the local precinct, and he and Johnny Killain had no use at all for each other. Johnny looked around the lobby and appeared to notice the herd of police for the first time. “What's the matter? One of your boys lose a collar button?”

“You've got some explaining to do,” Cuneo said with evident satisfaction. “Upstairs,” he added, and barged onto an elevator.

“That's for the paying customers,” Johnny said. He walked to the service elevator. “You types that run up the tax bills ride over here.”

“Just so we get there,” Cuneo sneered, following him.

“Where to?” Johnny asked him, a hand on the controls.

“Your room.”

“My room?” Johnny pretended surprise. “That big nose of yours finally caught up with the still I've got up there?” Detective Ted Cuneo's saturnine features flushed darkly. Johnny could see that it was only with an effort that he contained himself.

In the sixth-floor corridor the first thing Johnny set eyes on was Lieutenant Joseph Dameron's impressive bulk. The lieutenant was emerging from Johnny's room. Frosty gray eyes in an apple-cheeked broad face surveyed Johnny impassively. The close-cropped hair was iron-gray. “Well, well, well!” Johnny said softly. “Heap-big-frog-in-a-small-puddle himself. What the hell have I been up to that requires your august presence, Joe? You were just leaving? Don't let me detain you.”

Without a word the lieutenant turned and re-entered the room. Johnny and Ted Cuneo followed. The first glance was enough to tell Johnny that the police had already been there long enough for Carl Thompson's body to have been removed. Johnny's lips tightened. He didn't like what he was thinking.

Micheline Thompson didn't look exactly the type to be any sort of prisoner of Jim Daddario. If, instead, she were an accomplice, her call to Johnny could have been contrived to get him out of the hotel before the police arrived. Had she and Daddario wanted to know if he had already spoken to Carl Thompson? Johnny wondered what turn the conversation might have taken if he had admitted it. The idea put Micheline Thompson in a different perspective.

Lieutenant Dameron turned from a brief conversation with the medical examiner, a lean-faced, clear-eyed man carrying a small black bag. Technicians still milled about the room. Johnny headed for his armchair. “When you boys get ready-” He broke off, whistled, and pointed at chalk marks on the floor. “Is that for real or are you guys practicin'?” He turned to the lieutenant. “Thompson? Someone used my place for a shootin' gallery?” He made a sound of disgust at Dameron's silence and turned again to the chair.

“Don't sit down there!” A tall man with a black box on a cord around his neck dashed up. “I want more prints from that.” He grabbed Johnny's arm as he went to sit down.

Johnny grabbed back, and the man whitened and cursed. “If it's mine you want, take 'em off your arm, Jack,” Johnny advised him. “Keep your damn hands to yourself.”

“That's enough of that,” Lieutenant Dameron said mildly. He shook his head at the tall man who had colored angrily. The lieutenant said nothing further until the last of the laboratory men had departed. Ted Cuneo closed the door behind them and stood with his back to it.

“Well?” Johnny demanded. “Did you come over here to sell me sweeps tickets?”

Lieutenant Dameron lit a filter cigarette. He sat down on the edge of the bed and studied his well-polished shoes. All his movements were leisurely. He looked like a man with all the time in the world. He exhaled a thin cloud of blue smoke in a diminishing stream before looking up at Johnny again. “What happened here?” he asked. His voice was quiet but the official steel lay close to the surface.

“How the hell do I know?” Johnny grumbled. “Was I here?”

The lieutenant's hard gray eyes rested on the torn-out knees of Johnny's trousers. The eyes moved up until they encountered the gap left by the missing button. They missed nothing of the street grime. “Since you weren't here, just where were you?” he probed.

“Maybe I need a lawyer,” Johnny countered. “Maybe I shouldn't even be tryin' to answer your questions. Who was killed here, Joe?”

“You seem to think it was someone named Thompson. What happened to your knees?”

“Oh, those.” Johnny glanced down at them. “A guy just now unloaded on me up the street with a silenced gun. I was tryin' to dig a foxhole in the sidewalk.” From the doorway Ted Cuneo snorted in patent disbelief. Johnny ignored him. “What's it all about?” he continued to Dameron. “What bugged you enough to get you out on the street this time of night?” At the resulting silent stare Johnny rose to his feet and walked to the bedside telephone.

“Get away from that phone!” Detective Cuneo rapped at him. He took two steps into the room.

Johnny looked at him over his shoulder. “If I'm under arrest, boy scout, pull your gun an' hope it works. Otherwise shut up.” He picked up the receiver. Cuneo glared at him and looked hopefully at Dameron. The lieutenant made no sign. “Hi, ma,” Johnny said into the phone. “What's all the excitement?”

“Oh, Johnny, I've been trying to call you everywhere!' The night switchboard operator's voice pushed into an upper register. Sally Fontaine was a slim* brown-eyed girl with whom Johnny had a long-time, comfortable understanding. “I tried to get you at Mickey Tallant's, at the apartment, at the poker game-” Her tone turned curious. “Say, how did you get rid of them so soon?”

“The constabulary? I didn't. They're breathin' hard on the back of my neck. What happened?”

“Oh. One of the uniformed men said there'd been a phone call. The lieutenant and that man Cuneo were in the lead. Cuneo didn't seem to want to believe Tommy Haines when Tommy told them you'd been in the bar for four hours until just ten minutes before they got here. Johnny, who was the-”

“Get me later, ma.” Johnny hung up and looked from Dameron on the bed to Cuneo at the door. “If four hours gets me an alibi he must've been killed just before you got here, right, boys? I always knew your pigeon service was the best, Joe, but are you wired right into the gunners now? The kid says you were here first.”

“The message to the stationhouse said 'Tell Dameron there is a stiff in 615 at the Duarte'.” The lieutenant's expression was bland. “Since I've been half-expecting a call like that for a long time, I thought I should take a look.” He stubbed out his cigarette without removing his eyes from Johnny. “Why would anyone line you up on the street with a silenced gun?”

“Was the man who was killed heavy-set, redheaded, with a badly scarred face?” Johnny asked innocently. He continued at Dameron's grudging nod. “Then I can tell you. That was Carl Thompson of Jefferson, N.Y.” He told them Carl Thompson's story, omitting only his prior discovery of the body. “The same people who scratched Thompson from the entries would be the only ones interested in addin' me to the score. They don't know how much he told me.”

Ted Cuneo made a loud br-r-acking noise. “What a pipe dream!” he jeered.

Johnny kept his attention on the lieutenant. “The phone call to the precinct was a little more of the same, Joe. If I got hung for Thompson, fine.”

“A phone call to me and an attempt to kill you right back-to-back?” Deep furrows etched themselves in Dameron's ruddy forehead. “That's too much of a good thing.”

“Maybe somebody got nervous. I'm tellin' you that's what happened. Get on your stick an' find out why.”

“If it's 'why' we're talking about, why was Thompson killed?”

“For Christ's sake, were you listenin' to me? He was killed to keep him from goin' on up to Jefferson an' burnin' down the barn over the heads of the outfit that gave him the goosin'.”

“You believed his story?”

“What the hell difference does it make if I believed it or not? He believed it. He was goin' back there an' shake that place to pieces. The people who ran him out knew it. They found him here an' put a stop to it.”

Lieutenant Dameron frowned. “You expect me to believe that someone in Jefferson close to the policy-making level had this ex-police chief murdered?”

“What's so hard to believe about it? They'd had him half-killed when they threw him out of office. It hadn't shut him up.”

Ted Cuneo repeated the sound he had made previously. “A man of your talents ought to be able to come up with a better story than that when a dead man's found on the floor of his room, Killain.”

Johnny rose suddenly from his chair. “All of a sudden I don't like the tone of your voice, Cuneo.”

“I don't give a damn what you don't like!” the detective bristled. Twin pin-points of high color emblazoned his sallow complexion. “All of that lip-flapping of yours gives me a pain. If I ever heard a jerked-off story-”

Lieutenant Dameron slid from the bed and interposed himself between them as Johnny started forward. Johnny's shoulder knocked him to one side. “Cut it!” Dameron ordered. “This isn't the children's hour. This idea of yours, Johnny. It just won't hold-” He turned his head at a knock on the door. Cuneo shifted from his hands-raised, glowering regard of Johnny to look inquiringly at the lieutenant, who nodded. The detective opened the door. Over his shoulder Johnny could see Chet Rollins' round face and gold-rimmed glasses.

The chubby auditor bustled into the room, unconscious of the tension. “They called me at home,” he said to Johnny. “Ed's at a hotel supply convention in Philly.” Ed Carrolton was the Duarte's manager. Rollins looked curiously at Dameron and Cuneo before glancing worriedly around the room. “You get him out? Hell of a thing for the hotel.”

“It didn't do him much good, either,” Johnny said. He introduced the auditor to the others.

Rollins turned back to Johnny after the double handshake. “Nobody downstairs seemed to know who he was. Was he a friend of yours? Did he get killed trying to save your money? All the way over in the cab I kept thinking it mightn't have happened if I hadn't sent that damn envelope upstairs.”

“Money?” Cuneo asked alertly.

“Sure.” Chet Rollins looked surprised. “Wasn't that how it happened?” He looked at Johnny. “It's still here?”

“I haven't had a chance to look.” Johnny could cheerfully have throttled the little auditor. He knew how this was going to look to Cuneo.

“I'd like to hear about this money,” the detective said unpleasantly.

“Well-” Rollins stared uncertainly from Cuneo to Johnny and back again. The atmosphere was beginning to get through to him. “I sent an envelope up to Johnny this afternoon by one of the bellboys. It contained wages I'd been holding for him in the safe.”

“Cash?” Cuneo demanded. Rollins nodded. “How much?”

“Nine hundred and thirty-nine dollars.” The auditor said it almost apologetically.

Cuneo stared. He turned abruptly to Johnny. “Is it here?” Johnny went to the bureau and opened and closed drawers. When he closed the last one he faced about silently. No words were necessary.

“Where was it when you last saw it?” Cuneo pressed him.

“On top of the bureau,” Johnny admitted reluctantly.

“A thousand bucks right on top of the-” Cuneo waggled his head in amazement. “And this Thompson was supposed to be cracked?” He looked at his superior. “I like the sound of this a hell of a lot better than that jazz we heard before. This poor bastard Thompson probably caught a hotel thief right in the act.” He swung back to Rollins. “Who'd you send up here with the money?”

“Richie Gordon, one of our regular boys.” Rollins said it defensively.

“Did he know what was in the envelope?”

“He could have.” Rollins looked unhappy. “He was in the outer office when I was talking to the bookkeeper about getting it out of the safe.”

“Better have a talk with this Gordon, Ted, and find out how much broadcasting he did about his errand,” Dameron said.

“Right,” Detective Cuneo said briskly. He looked at Johnny, solemnly tapped a finger to his forehead three times, and left the room.

“I'll-I'd better check around downstairs,” Chet Rollins said uneasily. When no one said him nay he departed hurriedly.

“You guys are foulin' off the pitch, Joe,” Johnny began as the room emptied. “This Richie Gordon's a good kid.”

“Good kids talk, too.” Lieutenant Dameron plucked a loose thread from the sleeve of a tan suit very similar in color to Johnny's. “How come we didn't hear about this money before? Are you going to try to deny it makes more sense than what you were peddling?”

“The hell it does. I heard Thompson's story right out of the horse's mouth, Joe. You didn't. All right, I forgot the envelope on the bureau an' it's gone. What I'm sayin' is that if the money hadn't been missing something else would have been gone. The closet would've been stripped if nothing else offered. Whoever did the job wanted it to look like a room robbery walked in on by Thompson.”

“You've been watching too many late, late shows. Be over at the station in the morning to sign a statement.” Lieutenant Dameron settled his expensive-looking dark brown fedora more firmly on his head and started from the room.

“Goddammit, Joe-” Johnny tramped to the door after him.

“In the morning,” the lieutenant repeated from the corridor. He marched off toward the elevator, his heels hitting heavily.

From the doorway Johnny watched him go. How in the hell was he going to let a little daylight into that thick skull? Why Joe Dameron couldn't see something as plain as Down the hall Dameron strode past the corridor leading to the west wing. A dark figure leaped from it, behind the lieutenant's broad back. The right arm swung viciously. Clubbed hard at the base of the neck, Dameron dropped heavily. His momentum pitched him forward on his face. His hat flew off and bounced away. He struggled to roll over. Above him the dark figure stood poised, glittering steel in the left hand. A woman's silk stocking covered the head.

Johnny came down the corridor in all-out charge. The intent stocking-masked assailant whirled from its crouch at the sound of the bull-buffalo rush. Before the knife could be oriented to the new danger Johnny's lowered shoulder blasted the man under the breastbone with tremendous force, up and off the floor into the wall. The man screamed as the stocking-mask slammed into the wall. He caromed off into Johnny's reaching hands and Johnny dug in his heels in a sliding skid to halt his own headlong progress. He almost jumped into the air from the recoil of the force with which he smashed the man to the floor. The body hit hard with a soggy sound, bounced, and fell back as limply as a disjointed rag doll. The silk stocking was a flat wet smear.

“Jesus!” It was a breathy rasp from behind Johnny. The lieutenant knelt up on the floor with a. 38 special in both hands trained steadily on the body on the floor. When it didn't move Dameron spared a hand to rub the base of his neck. “Slip inside and call in on your phone,” he mumbled hoarsely to Johnny.

Lieutenant Joseph Dameron sat slumped in the depths of Johnny's armchair, a drink in his hand. His red face looked shiny. He glanced at Johnny lying on the bed with his hands clasped loosely behind his head. “My damn neck feels like a truck ran over it,” he complained.

“Why the hell is it you get a carpet to fall on and I get the sidewalk?” Johnny inquired from the bed.

Dameron started to reply and then sat up straighter as the same lean-faced medical examiner Johnny had seen earlier entered the room. “Well, Frank?” the lieutenant asked.

“Why don't you run a shuttle service over here?” the medical examiner demanded irritably. He set down his bag.

“What about that one in the hall, Frank?”

“Deceased. Violently. Neck broken. Back broken. Minor fractures. Lesions, contusions, and abrasions. Face about obliterated. Identification will have to be from his prints. This hotel running locomotives down its corridors?” No one answered him. He shrugged, picked up his bag and bounced it against his thigh. “Should I take a look at you, Lieutenant?”

“I'm all right, Frank,” Dameron said. “Thanks. Thanks just the same.” The medical examiner departed and the lieutenant raised his glass toward the bed. “Just like Europe, by God. Killain to the rescue in the nick of time. Where was the camera and the man with the megaphone?”

“I wish I'd had a camera to get the expression on your tomato puss when you came up for air,” Johnny said. He rolled up on an elbow and looked at the chair. “Like the time they cornered us in the cave outside Florence. You were the same ripe shade of kelly green when you found twenty cases of dynamite and realized the assorted loose lead they'd wafted at us had chipped a few splinters off the boxes.”

Lieutenant Dameron grunted and took a long pull at his drink. “Reminds me, I had a card from Jimmy Rogers,” he said when he put down his glass. “Before he left on vacation he told me the only reason he was still around was that you'd stepped in and taken a slug intended for him.”

“Then he told you a damn lie. Jimmy doesn't need me to hold his end up an' you know it.” Johnny leveled a finger at the chair. “You know that this guy out here thought it was me, don't you, Joe?”

“Thought it was you?” Dameron's eyes narrowed. “Why do you say that?”

Johnny bounded from the bed and went to the armchair. He placed his sleeve alongside Dameron's. The material was different but the color was a match. “He thought it was me,” Johnny repeated. “That was my boy from up the street back to finish the job. He didn't see your face till your hat fell off. From the back we're a size except your most recent forty pounds is lard. I keep tellin' you but you don't listen: someone's afraid of what Thompson might have told me.”

“Can you identify him?”

“With no face? The rest of him fits.”

“I can't see it, Johnny. What'll you bet his prints make him an inside worker?”

“A hotel thief who jumps a man right out in the open? Why did he go for you, Joe?”

Dameron hesitated. “I tell you I don't believe it,” he said finally. “You're-”

“Joe.” The lieutenant fell silent at the stark monosyllable. Johnny stared down at him. “You don't believe it, or you won't believe it? I already told you I talked to Toby Lowell today. Did you? Did you get another call beside the one that sent you over here? Are you holdin' the lid on something?”

“You know me better than that. Where murder is concerned I keep the lid on for nobody.”

“Nobody?” Johnny asked him softly. “Nobody, Joe?”

The lieutenant surged to his feet impatiently. “Nobody. You're trying to make an Everest out of an anthill.” He put down his glass and started for the door. “There'll be an inquest on this, but it will only be a formality. You'll have to keep yourself available, though. I'll let you know when it comes up.” He walked rapidly from the room, closing the door.

Standing in the room's center Johnny pounded a knuckled fist into the opposite palm in disgust. So he had to keep himself available, did he? The hell he did. The next time someone made a move from the darkness, or the rear, Johnny Killain was not going to be a sitting duck.

He went to the closet and changed clothes hurriedly. He counted his money and shook his head disparagingly. If he just hadn't left that damn envelope lying out in the open he'd have been in good shape. He needed a fresh bankroll.

He put out the light and left the room.