The Fatal Frails

CHAPTER IX

Johnny awoke, with a start, in total darkness. Animal instinct told him that he was not in his own bed. In the second it took him to claw his way back to full consciousness he realized that what had awakened him was a round knee in the small of his back. In the same second he knew where he was.

“Awake?” Gloria Philips' husky voice murmured in his ear.

“Yeah.” He was wide awake, and shaken. “Listen, kid. Don't wake me like that again. Some things I do by reflex. You wouldn't appreciate it.”

“Well-” she said, pouting, “you must admit it's not very flattering, having you fall asleep like that. Cigarette?”

“Yeah. An' I can sleep anywhere.”

“Obviously.” She sat up beside him, and he heard the double click-click of her lighter as it misfired once before catching. In its sudden flare he saw the long, curving sweep of bare shoulders and back, and the frown of concentration on the beautiful ivory oval of her features as she lighted two cigarettes at once. Golden freckles splashed lightly on the milky skin down to the full white breasts, then vanished. “Here.” She handed him a cigarette, snapped-off the lighter and lay down beside him again. “The carpet's the ashtray.” She turned restlessly onto her side. “I'm about ready to move out of here, anyway.”

“Seems comfortable enough,” Johnny said lazily. He folded his hands behind his head.

“I want style!” Gloria said emphatically. She punched her pillow with a soft thump. “I want an apartment like Madeleine's, but paid for by me. I like independence.” “You should've gotten your name on the list for some of Claude's variations on the theme,” Johnny told her. He turned his head to try to see her face. “Or did you?”

“Sometimes I wonder what you think you know,” the soft voice said resentfully. “And sometimes I wonder if you know anything at all. How much time do you think Claude had for me with Madeleine all over him all of the time?”

God pity the man if he'd been burning that candle at both ends, Johnny thought to himself. Even a bullet in the head might have seemed like sweet, sweet peace. Max Stitt had said that Claude Dechant had lacked perspective where women were concerned. Johnny remembered the importer's face as he had seen it that last night at the registration desk, worn and weary. “What I saw of him, I'd have thought Dechant stressed the dollar sign,” Johnny said lightly. “But then I guess you ladies saw another side of him.”

“After we saw the dollar-sign side,” the redhead said grimly. “Speaking personally, anyway. Of course I'm not qualified to speak for the chief whore.”

He was surprised at the venom in her tone. “Strong language for a stockholder of the company that hires you,” he suggested.

“I hate her!” Gloria Philips sat up and drummed on her knees with clenched fists. “I've always hated her. That sneaky smile of hers, the cat-that-just-swallowed-the-canary look, the things she says about me she doesn't think I know. If it wasn't for that stinking money of hers, she'd be nothing but a skinny, washed-out, peroxided bitch.” Her tone changed. “Money,” the redhead said softly. “That's what I want.”

“So what's the master plan? Marryin' Palmer? Or Tremaine?”

“Palmer!” she sniffed. “The blonde has him wrapped around her little finger. “And Jules has no money.” She said it impatiently. “Jules and I understand each other, but Jules has no money.” She stretched out on her back again. “I had hopes for you when you first came bursting into view,” she said sulkily. “But you talk, and talk, and nothing happens. I wouldn't have thought one little bullet in the side would have so discouraged a great big man like you.” Irony flavored her tone.

“You never know, do you?” Johnny said amiably. “You don't hate the blonde so much you'd give Tremaine an alibi he wasn't entitled to for that job, would you?”

The glowing tip of her cigarette described a flashing arc as she turned to try to see his face. “How did you know-” The anger ebbed from the husky voice. “Not that it matters, since you do. Anyway, it wasn't Jules who did it. I can vouch for that.”

“You did,” Johnny pointed out. “It helped him. Who's your candidate?”

“Max Stitt.” Gloria said it with no hesitation at all. “Although he didn't mean it for you. He meant it for Madeleine.”

“You don't like Stitt, either, so-”

She interrupted him. “My not liking him hasn't a thing to do with it. He tried to kill her because he knew she'd turned him and Claude in to customs a month ago.”

“On this unchanged-over symbol business?”

“No. I told you before that Stitt had nothing to do with that. This was much more elaborate. Three months ago Claude bought ten thousand cheap watch movements in Switzerland. Packed five hundred to a case, it made twenty cases. On a big shipment like that, the customs inspectors spot check. That is, they'll open each case, but they won't examine each movement. They might look at the whole top layer of one case, and on the next they might remove the top layer without checking it and check one movement in each succeeding layer all the way to the bottom of the case. Now suppose you knew that a customs team would inspect all the even-numbered cases by checking the top layer only, and all the odd-numbered cases by checking the bottom layers only, what would you do?”

“Put the biggest diamonds I could buy in each of the movements I knew wasn't going to be checked, I guess,” Johnny said drily.

“Or at least substitute a very expensive movement for the cheap ones,” Gloria agreed. “There's no difference in size.”

“But there's a big difference in the duty. That must have run into some money,” Johnny said thoughtfully. “Why the hell would she turn them in on it?”

“Because they tried to pull it off without saying a word to her, and it had been her idea originally. She had had the first contact with the air-customs team, and the word got back to her. She just didn't realize they'd find out where the tipoff came from. In some manner that I don't understand Stitt was in the clear, but Claude would have been indicted.”

Johnny threw back the covers, sat up on the edge of the bed and stretched slowly. He began to dress. “You think that's why he killed himself?”

“If he knew, I think it very likely. It would have been the end of the line. I don't see how he could have known, though, just off the Swiss plane as he was.”

Johnny thought of the importer standing at the desk the night of his return and separating one letter from his stack of mail. Had the police ever found that letter? “The shipment was knocked off?”

“Impounded under Treasury seal in a government-bonded warehouse. Forty-two thousand dollars of Harry Palmer's dearly beloved money tied up.”

“How is it that you know all-” Johnny began, and stopped. “Oh, sure. Dear Ernest is still unravelin' the kinks. It must be aging the poor boy.” He bent over and groped for his shoes. “Put the light on, will you?” He blinked in the soft rush of light. The shoes tied, he turned to the bed to find Gloria Philips chastely beneath the spread, her blue-gray eyes steadily upon him.

“You don't have the monstrance,” she said suddenly. “I don't know why I didn't see it before. You should have told me. I've been wasting time. Since I thought you had it, I wasn't watching anyone else. If you'd told me, I could probably have steered you to it by now.”

Johnny stared down into the wise eyes. “You're with me, is that it?”

Her upper lip curled. “If I'm with you, it's because nobody else is with me. I couldn't get a dime out of the whole crowd put together.” She smiled at him. “Faint hope is better than no hope. You're my faint hope. But you should have told me.”

“If you're right, I should have told you.”

“I'm right,” she said confidently.

“Dechant was really overboard on the blonde?”

She was suddenly angry again. “It was almost pathological, the hold she had on him! I've never-”

“Okay, okay. Don't blow your boiler, little sister. Thanks for the entertainment. Send me a bill sometime.”

“No need.” She stretched luxuriantly beneath the spread, her smile impish. “My accountant says it comes under tax-deductible depreciation of a business asset.”

He had to smile. “Now I've heard it called everything. Toodleoo, queenie.”

“Johnny!” she called from the bedroom when he had a hand on the doorknob in the hall. He went back and looked in the door. She was kneeling up in the bed. “If you find out anything, call me,” she said earnestly. “I might have an idea that could help.”

“You never know,” Johnny agreed, and retraced his steps. In the corridor he looked at his watch and avoided the elevator. He ran lightly down the stairs.

The night air was mild. The stars were out, he noticed. Warm day tomorrow. Make that hot. Tough on night workers trying to sleep. Not as-

His feet did an instinctive shuffle to put himself on balance as a dark shadow detached itself from the building wall and loomed up in his path. “What are you doing snooping around up there, Killain?” Jules Tremaine demanded in a tight, hard tone. Even in the comparatively poor street light Johnny could see the heavy scowl on the handsome face.

“I didn't see any claim stakes on the property up there,” Johnny told him. “What's your beef with me, Frenchie?”

“You're too damned nosy!” Tremaine said violently. “And she's worse, playing both ends against the middle. I should never have said a word to you.”

“Maybe you're makin' sense to you, but you're sure as hell not to me,” Johnny said. “Take your troubles to the chaplain, sonny. Now get out of the way.”

“When I'm ready,” the Frenchman said deliberately. “First-”

“First, hell!” Johnny said abruptly, and drove a shoulder into the big man, who staggered backward half a dozen steps.

“Merde!” Tremaine growled, and bounded forward. His hand flashed from the pocket of his jacket, and his arm swung at Johnny's head. Johnny ducked, but not far enough. Something heavy struck him a glancing blow on the scalp and knocked him into the apartment building wall. He came off it with a muttered sound, deep in his throat, and grabbed Jules Tremaine by the forearms before the big man could swing again. Tremaine gasped and whitened as Johnny's hands clamped down on his arms. There was a clatter of metal as the gun in the big man's hand fell to the street.

“Break it up! Break it up over there!” Detective James Rogers ran across the street, his lightweight panama pushed back on his head. “Let go of him, damn it!” he said to Johnny, and Jules Tremaine slumped loosely against the building as Johnny reluctantly complied. “What the hell's going on here?” Rogers demanded. He stooped and picked up the gun. “You got a permit for this thing?”

Tremaine nodded. “Hip pocket,” he said weakly.

Rogers stared. “Then get it out-” he started, and stopped. “Turn around,” he said shortly. He slipped Tremaine's wallet from his back pocket as the Frenchman obeyed. The detective thumbed through it rapidly, removed a stiff, folded paper and deliberately put it and the gun in his pocket. “You come by the station in the morning and we'll see if you still have one.” He restored the wallet. “Now take off.” Without a word Jules Tremaine stumbled up the street.

“You followin' me or him, Jimmy?” Johnny wanted to know.

Detective Rogers' eyes were still on the man moving away from them. “Look at him. Can't lift his hands to his beltline. Might be able to comb his hair in about three days.” He swung on Johnny indignantly. “I swear you ought to be under lock and key.”

“I'm supposed to stand still while he works out on my head with that iron?” Johnny asked irritably.

“And why was he working out on your head?”

“Jealous, I guess. Only reason I know.”

“That's a likely damn story. Where did you come from just now?”

“So it was Tremaine you were followin',” Johnny said with satisfaction.

“I asked you a question! And another one is what is this man's connection with Dechant?”

Johnny shrugged. “Damned if I know. Oh, I'll grant you I got three, four people all lyin' to me from different directions about his connection and theirs, but as far as the truth is concerned right this minute I don't know up from sideways.”

“But if you knew you'd be happy to tell me, of course?” the detective inquired sweetly. Hands on hips, he surveyed Johnny crustily.

“You know it, Jimmy. Say, you remember that letter of Dechant's I told you to look for? The one he seemed to give special attention to the night he came in? You guys ever find it?” He grinned at Rogers' silence. “I see you did. Was it a letter to the effect that a certain shipment had been impounded and put in a government warehouse by the customs?”

“There was no letter.” Rogers paused, and seemed to be tasting the flavor of what he'd just said. “Where are you getting your information, Johnny?”

“Right now, from you,” Johnny said promptly. “You wouldn't kid me? There almost had to be a letter.”

“There was no letter,” the detective repeated. He looked at Johnny steadily. “It was a newspaper clipping.”

“Ahh,” Johnny said softly. “What a body blow that must have been to the master thief. All the years with never a bruise to show for it, and he stands there reading that and sees himself hung from a hook in the icebox. He couldn't take it. When I stood there in his room and hollered 'Food an' visitors' to him in the bathroom, he might not even have looked. He just went for the gun in the dressing gown an' dented his brain.”

“Who was in with him on the deal, Johnny?”

“You want hearsay?”

“It could be better than what I have.”

“I was told — ” Johnny emphasized the word-“that it was Max Stitt.”

Rogers looked surprised. “That's not what I expected to hear.”

“'Course it wasn't, if you're followin' Tremaine. How come you turned loose of him so quick just now?”

“Maybe it wasn't Tremaine I was following, Johnny.” Amusement glinted in the hazel eyes.

“Then the next place you can follow me is back to the hotel,” Johnny said. “The boat's leavin' right now.”

“I may be over later,” the detective said easily. “Don't let me keep you.”

Johnny turned away a little uneasily. He walked up to the corner, and stood there undecided. If Rogers stepped inside the apartment building and saw G. Philips on a mailbox-hell, Johnny reminded himself impatiently, Jimmy had her address anyway. That ever-present little notebook of his must have told him in whose neighborhood he'd found Killain and Tremaine at each other's throats. And, if Rogers decided to go up there and talk to her about it, there sure as hell wasn't anything Killain could do to prevent it. And, for that matter, he'd wager that G. Philips was perfectly capable of holding her own.

He shrugged finally, and hailed a cab. He wondered why Jimmy Rogers was more willing to believe it was Tremaine than Stitt he was looking for. Because the doorman and the other help at the Winters' apartment building hadn't identified Stitt? They hadn't identified Tremaine, either, but it had evidently been a near thing.

He stood on the sidewalk in front of the Duarte after paying off the cabbie. There was another possibility. Jimmy Rogers might know, something about Jules Tremaine that Johnny didn't. If Rogers-

Johnny became aware of Paul Sassella inside, waving to him vigorously through two sets of glass doors. Johnny went through the foyer in a hurry. “Call the Rosario,” Paul said to him the second he had his head in the lobby. “Urgent.”

Johnny headed for the booth phones, dredging up change. He was passed so swiftly up the line of the cardinal's filtering-out section it was obvious his call was expected. “Kiki? Killain. Trouble?”

“I thought I should call you, Johnny.” The cardinal's tone was grave. “I talked to my office at home today. One message said that a dealer in Barcelona had called and reported a monstrance offered to him for purchase.”

“Ow!” Johnny breathed. “Any details?”

“It happened four days ago, the offer was made in the form of a cable and it came from New York. The dealer was inquiring as to my interest.”

“Sabotage,” Johnny said wryly. “I been workin' on Dechant's associates, tryin' to give the impression I had the thing. You'd given me enough information to give it a good pitch. I'd hoped to get enough of a 'You're crazy, Jack' reaction from the guy who had it to give me somethin' to go on. This offer goes to show you I haven't been talkin' to the right people.” He thought a moment. “Any signature on the cable that meant anything?”

“The signature was E. McPartland. No return address. Reply to be addressed 'Will Call' to the cable office in New York.”

“E. MacPartland,” Johnny repeated. “Never heard of him. More'n likely it's a phony, anyway. Sent 'Will Call,' it could be addressed to John Doe.”

“Where do you feel you stand, Johnny?”

“Nowhere,” Johnny admitted promptly. “I hate to have to tell you I'm such a muttonhead, Kiki, but it's the truth. Oh, I've got these people playin' footie with me on crooked schemes Dechant had cooked up, but so far nothin' leads back to the monstrance.”

“The thing that concerns me, of course, is that an offer might be made to a dealer who has a private client or two with no scruples about acquiring such an objet d'art.” The cardinal's voice sounded tired. “And there's the worse possibility that someone might break it up for the jewels.”

“I'll keep punchin',” Johnny promised gloomily. “Somethin' might drop. This Dechant was a whingdizzler. The man never drew an honest breath. Every stone I turn over there's a chance I'll find the right slug skitterin' off, but I don't see much daylight.”

“Well…” the cardinal's voice trailed off. “Good night, Johnny. Thanks. If I hear anything further, I'll call again.”

“Fine. Hope I can come up with somethin'.” Johnny replaced the receiver slowly. He stared out bemusedly through the booth's glass door at the darkened lobby. He roused himself finally, and went upstairs to change.

Vic Barnes waved a white envelope at him from the registration desk as Johnny stepped off the service elevator back into the lobby thirty minutes later. “Just came in, Johnny. Special messenger.

“Special messenger?” Johnny walked to the desk and took the plain white envelope with his name and that of the hotel on it. There was no return address. The envelope felt almost weightless. “What kind of special messenger?”

“Some kid in a kind of uniform. Western Union?” Vic asked himself. The round face creased with the effort of remembering. “No, I don't think so,” he decided. “Just some kind of uniform.”

Johnny slit the back flap with a thumbnail. He extracted the single bit of paper inside and looked at a check for seven hundred and fifty dollars, made out to Johnny Killain and signed in a bold, flowing hand by Maximilian Stitt. There was no message.

Now here's a man so anxious to avoid trouble he can't wait for a bill, Johnny thought. “Lend me a pen, Vic, will you?” Johnny endorsed the check, folded it, put it in the breast pocket of his uniform and went back upstairs to find Amy.

He found her in the laundry room counting sheets. “Take this an' pay off your sub-jobbers for the reclamation project,” he instructed her, handing her the check. He looked at her as she eyed him warily. “What's the matter with you?”

The colored girl's silvery giggle tinkled through the room. “Miss Sally said I should give you some elbow room 'cause you was mad at my tellin' her about your room.”

“Well, maybe I was right then.” He looked with amusement at Amy's widening eyes as she saw the check for the first time. “If you don't knock down on the deal for the price of an outfit, you're cheatin' on Amy,” he told her.

“Mmm-mhh!” she confirmed enthusiastically. “Man, man! I'll have ev'ry buck on Lenox Avenue fixin' to snap my garter.” White teeth flashing, she looked from the check back to Johnny. “Even with that chair not worth re-up-holsterin' it shouldn't come to nowhere near this.”

“I'll add what's left to the Killain Bourbon Fund.” He started for the door. “Don't skimp on that outfit.”

“Don' you worry your head one little bit about that,” Amy's voice floated after him.

Back in the lobby he found Paul at the bell-captain's desk, glumly studying the log. “Four check-ins on our shift,” Paul said. “They'll be padlocking the doors. I know I gripe when those school kids are here running up and down the corridors nights every spring, but they sure keep the old place from seeming so much like a tomb.”

“It's the permanents keep this place alive,” Johnny grunted. “Those cut-rate school bus tours don't add much except to the room occupancy percentages. Say, when the police went over Dechant's room after you and Rogers sealed it that night, who was with them from the hotel?”

“I guess someone from the auditor's office. It would have been on the day shift.”

“I'll talk to Rollins,” Johnny decided. “Hell have a list of anything removed.” He pulled at an ear lobe. “Dameron an' I are both lookin' for somethin' Dechant should have had in his room, or anyway not too far away from it,” he explained. “It struck me that the police could have found it right off the bat, or a claim check or somethin' like that, an' I could be spinnin' my wheels lookin' for a gadget Dameron already had on ice. I wouldn't put it past him.”

“How big?” Paul asked interestedly.

“Thirty pounds. Eighteen inches by fifteen inches by- hell, I don't know the other dimension.”

“If it only weighs thirty pounds, there can't be too much to the other dimension,” the practical Paul observed. “If you're carrying your burglary tools, there's a bag in the cloakroom been there since before Dechant's last trip.”

“Oh, no,” Johnny said softly.

“Don't tell me 'Oh, no',” Paul asserted sturdily. “I was looking at it over the weekend, wondering when they were going to do something about it.”

“I meant 'Oh, no, it couldn't be that easy,'“ Johnny said. “Let's have a look.” He followed the stocky Swiss through the door in the recessed niche between the elevators. Paul reached up to a rack and lifted a black bag down by the handle. “No good,” Johnny announced. “The way you swung it down it doesn't weigh enough.”

“Could be empty,” Paul admitted.

Johnny lightly toed the scuffed, cheap, pressed paper finish with its reinforced corners. The bag slid on the floor. “Not a chance,” he said disappointedly. He looked at the broad cloth straps encircling each end and buckled down at the top. “Looks like a sample case. What the hell. Watch the door.”

Quickly he unfastened the straps and tested the flimsy lock with his thumb. From his wallet he removed a thin strip of celluloid. He bent down for a second, and the lock popped open with a click. Johnny separated the two sections that nested within each other. From the bottom section he took four nine-by-twelve glossy photos swaddled in tissue, and knew the second he uncovered the top one that he was looking at a picture of the monstrance. Even in the stark black-and-white, thickly studded jewels were plainly visible in the base and along the graceful golden spikes.

The only other object in the bag was a battered black automatic.

“Call Rogers at the precinct, Paul,” Johnny said. “If he's not there, leave word for him to come by.”