Doom Service

CHAPTER X

The sunrise was coming to life high upon the skyscraper windows across the street from the hotel, and Johnny lay quietly on his back in bed and watched the red-gold reflection from dozens of windows. He stretched lazily, crossing his wrists together and arching his back, then rolled up on an elbow and looked impatiently at the bathroom door. “Come on, muscles,” he called out disgustedly. “You're pretty enough.”

“You know you only say it because it's true,” Sally replied in a muffled voice. “Hold your horses, sir. Or should I make that singular?” She skipped lightly into view, swathed from neck to knee in a bath towel that Johnny promptly disposed of the second she hit the bed. Her slender body tensed like fine wire under his caressing hands.

“Really-in the mood-aren't you?” she got out jerkily.

He grunted as the sharp little teeth nipped him in the neck. “Cut the foolishment, Ma.”

“Who's f-fooling?” she gasped, and the arms about his shoulders clamped down with a strength belying her ninety-eight pounds.

Their cigarettes made twin wreaths of blue smoke against the background of the golden reflection from across the street. Sally's sigh seemed to come from her toes; she wriggled up from her back and dropped her head on Johnny's chest. “I've got to get out of here. Are you going to sleep?”

He shook his head negatively, and immediately regretted it. It would have been a lot easier to lie to her than to answer the stream of questions that bubbled over at once. “Why not? What are you going to do?” She peered up into his face. “Johnny, won't you please just forget it?”

He attempted to parry. “Forget what?”

“All these crazy goings on without any rhyme or reason to them!” she burst out resentfully. “Let the police handle it, like they're paid to do.”

“There's a rhyme and reason to it,” he said patiently, “if I had brains enough to figure it out.”

“You're not supposed to figure it out!” She bounced upright to look down at him, her small face childishly solemn. “You're all mixed up in this because of me, aren't you?” He groped for a handy, convincing denial with the brown eyes daring him to lie. “I'm right, aren't I? Johnny, I want you to forget the whole thing.”

He remained silent, a little grim at the impossibility of it. There were too many threads unraveled, too many toes stepped upon. There were a couple or three people in this thing not about to let Johnny Killain forget all about it, even if he wanted to.

“Please, Johnny,” Sally persisted. “Nothing you can do will make any difference as far as Charlie is concerned, and nothing else matters. And don't start talking about the m-money. The f-first person that asks me politely can h-have it. I'm sick of all the murderous p-pussyfooting going on over it!” She tried to blink away her tears. “Dead people, and people in h-hospitals-”

She jumped as the phone rang, instinctively grabbing up a corner of the sheet to hide behind. Then she threw it aside, slid from the bed and ran for the bathroom as Johnny picked up the phone. “Yeah?”

“Killain? This is Keith. I'm downstairs. I'd like to come up and talk to you.”

Johnny cocked an appraising eye at Sally in the bathroom door. “You caught me with one foot in the shower, Keith. Give me ten minutes, an' come on up. Something special?”

“It'll keep. Ten minutes.”

“And what does he want?” Sally demanded belligerently from behind the door.

“A little talk-talk,” Johnny said lightly. “Hustle it outta here, Ma, will you? This guy's got nerves. He'll spill like an overripe avocado one of these days, an' it might just as well be to me.”

“You just keep getting in deeper and deeper!” she exclaimed despairingly. “And it's so pointless!” She came back into the bedroom, dressed, and her exasperated expression softened as she walked to the bed. “I know I keep saying it, but you be careful, y'hear?”

“Of this guy? I'll match you against him anytime, Ma, an' give him the first punch.” He rolled off the bed and reached for his robe. “I may be by the place this afternoon.”

“You may!” she sniffed. “I may be there.” Unexpectedly she smiled. “Toodle-oo, professor.”

“You take it outta here like you're runnin' out a bunt,” he warned her. “I don't want Keith to see you, an' not for the reason you think.”

“And here I thought chivalry was in full flower again!” she mourned, grinned up at him impishly, brushed his cheek with her lips and flew out the door.

Johnny returned to the edge of the bed and seated himself; he rubbed the nape of his neck briskly to stir sluggish circulation and reached for his cigarettes on the night table. Ed Keith. Johnny squinted up around the trailing plume of smoke as he speculated. Hardly likely Keith had come to talk. Unless something had rattled the skeleton in his closet. More likely he'd come on a little fishing expedition of his own. Well, two could play at that game…

When the knock came at the door he raised his voice. “Come along in.”

The bulky newspaperman entered, and, looking at him, Johnny realized that over a good frame the man had fattened up in all the wrong places. High living does that sometimes, Johnny reflected; Keith looked almost gross, and the deep, dark circles beneath his small eyes testified to an interesting state of nerves. Johnny waved him to a chair without speaking, and the sportswriter looked a little uncomfortable as he took it and glanced at Johnny's robe. “I'll make this quick, since it's your sleeping time-”

“What's on your mind?” Johnny asked him. This was one conversation he'd like to keep pruned of unessentials.

Keith's lips grimaced in the familiar cynical-rabbit manner. The expression in his eyes was that of a man who has fought a long, losing battle. “I might need to talk to someone, Killain.” He said it jerkily, his hands jumping from his thighs to the arms of his chair and back again. “I'm- mighty near backed into a corner.” Keith paused suggestively, but Johnny remained silent. Obviously choosing his words carefully, the newspaperman continued. “I might like to talk to you, understand, but it could make one hell of a difference to me in whose ears it wound up afterward, get me?”

“There's a problem?” Johnny asked lightly.

“Damn right there's a problem!” Ed Keith said energetically. “I want to know where you stand. You get around to Manfredi's, you get around with that Rogers detective, you hang out at the Rollin' Stone, you're holding an umbrella over the telephone operator downstairs, you get around with Turner's receptionist.” He paused for emphasis. “You get around to the hospital where Roketenetz's trainer is perhaps not recovering from a beating.”

“Sound like I'm on your radar screen twenty-four hours a day, Keith,” Johnny said slowly when the sportswriter paused again. “These your own personal observations?”

“Hell, no. I pick it up here and there.”

“Here and there being Lonnie Turner's office?” Johnny inquired sharply.

The sportswriter flapped a hand impatiently. “Never mind all that, Killain. What I want to know is this-do you tell all these people all that you know? Do you-”

Johnny interrupted him. “Never mind all that, Keith. I read you now. You want to tell me somethin' that gets back to certain ears, but only to certain ears, right? You don't want it makin' no round robin?”

The big man looked discomfited. “I didn't say that. I'm-”

Johnny held up a hand as the telephone rang. “You here?” he asked his guest curiously.

“Like hell I'm here!” Ed Keith paled at the thought. “Don't get to thinking you can put the finger on me-” His bluster died out nervously as Johnny picked up the phone.

“Yeah?”

“Senor Johnny? Thees ees Manuel Ybarra.” The ex-fighter's words crackled with excitement, his accent thickened. “I am een a coffeepot at 59th and 9th Avenue. Can you come over?”

“Why, for God's sake?”

The dark man's voice lowered as though he had cupped his hand around the mouthpiece. “I 'ave jus' seen a body come downstairs from a third-floor apartment at Two-twenty West Fifty-ninth Street.”

“Cut it out, man,” Johnny said impatiently. “Whose body? An' what's so special about Two-twenty West Fifty-ninth?” Across the room he could see Ed Keith tense in his chair.

“Eet's a man called Dave Hendricks. You know heem?”

“Slightly,” Johnny acknowledged. Ed Keith's big blubbery face seemed to be disintegrating feature by feature.

“I know a little story about thees man.”

“I'll be there,” Johnny said shortly, and hung up.

The newspaperman's eyes were enormous. “It's Dave, isn't it?” His words came out in a croaked whisper. “He's dead, isn't he?” At Johnny's nod his voice rose piercingly. “I knew it, I knew it!” He stumbled up out of his chair and ran to the door; the room shook behind him from the violence of its closing.

Johnny shook his head gently as he headed for the closet and his clothes. Whatever Ed Keith knew, it wasn't agreeing with him.

Manuel Ybarra lifted a hand in greeting from his end-booth position as Johnny entered from the street, but from the moment Johnny had seen the small sign Costi's in the window of the coffee shop he knew he wouldn't be getting around to his conversation with Manuel right away. It was a very small world, sometimes.

He walked directly to the cash register and held out his hand to the stocky Greek presiding over it. “Hello, there, six-syllables-ending-in-cr,” Johnny greeted him.

“Hah!” the stocky man said explosively, seizing the hand and wringing it effusively. “Finally you remember you have friends, hah?”

“I've got one waiting for me over here,” Johnny said, nodding at Manuel. “Come on an' have a cup of coffee with us.”

“And why not?” the Greek exclaimed cheerfully. “Millie! Take the register!” He came out from behind the counter and grabbed Johnny's hand again. “It makes me young again to see you, Johnny!”

Johnny couldn't help smiling at the man's effervescence. “How's the family?”

“Four babies now,” the stocky man said proudly. He slapped Johnny on the back exuberantly. “Oh, I am one hell of a man in that bedroom!”

At the booth Johnny introduced Manuel. “This is Costi Constantinopolos, Manuel. Manuel Ybarra, Costi.” The two dark men shook hands as they all sat down. Costi clapped his hands for coffee, turning at once to Johnny.

“It takes you a year to walk fourteen blocks?” he reproached him.

“It's no farther the other way,” Johnny argued mildly, and the stocky Greek smiled brilliantly.

“At least we were closer when it counted,” he agreed, and turned to include Manuel in the smile. “He saved my life,” he said, and nodded at Johnny.

“He twisted his ankle on a loose rock,” Johnny replied to Manuel's inquiring gaze.

“Hah!” Costi burst out. “After we had swum a mile through a mined harbor, climbed eighty-five feet of sheer rock in the pitch black night, and killed a man who badly needed killing, then I slipped on a loose rock and broke the ankle.” He looked at Johnny gravely, the exuberance gone. “How, I'll never know. Any more than I know how you got me out of there. That cliff-” He shook his head and turned again to Manuel with more of his usual vigor. “This Johnny has involved you in trouble?” he asked cheerily. “Oh, I tell you he is noted for that.”

“I think rather the other way around,” Manuel said soberly. “Or soon, perhaps.” His eyes were on Johnny speculatively.

“Oh, I tell you trouble will have its hands full, then,” Costi said merrily. The dark eyes alertly tabulated the customers, the waitresses and the counter as he spoke. “He is something, this Johnny.” He snapped his fingers, started to shout something up to the front of the room and half rose to his feet, his voice apologetic. “You will excuse me? It's my busy time.”

“Come back if you get a chance, Costi,” Johnny called after the already retreating figure. “He's from Cyprus,” he explained to Manuel. “A real fish in the water. Greatest underwater demolition man you ever saw. He pulled off a stunt one time you wouldn't believe.”

“And now he sells coffee,” Manuel said softly.

Johnny shrugged. “Kind of limited market for underwater demolition men these days. An' one thing about Costi-if he didn't like it, he wouldn't be doin' it.”

“You were frogmen?”

“Unofficial ones,” Johnny said briefly. “Now what'd you get me out of bed for this mornin'?”

Manuel's thick-knuckled hands toyed with his coffee cup. “This Hendricks,” he began carefully. “He was killed with a small-caliber gun. The police-”

“How long ago did this happen?” Johnny interrupted. “How do you know already it was a small-caliber gun?”

The dark face was serious. “It is said the bullet between the eyes remained in the skull. The bullet of large caliber would surely have removed the back of the head.”

“Who said the bullet remained in the skull?” Johnny demanded.

“A man who was paid to talk.”

“I don't get it, man,” Johnny said impatiently. “What is all this double talk?”

“I will tell you the truth,” Manuel decided. He looked at Johnny broodingly. “The truth was not in my mind when I called you, but when I listen to that man-” He nodded at Costi's cheerful dark face behind the counter-“I feel that a lie is not the way to get your help. And a lie is even less to the point since I may have to ask a big favor of you.” He took a deep breath. “I talked to this Dave Hendricks last night-this morning, rather.”

“You had an argument with him?” Johnny asked quickly.

Manuel shook his head. “No. He came to the game and tried to borrow some money from Rick. Rick turned him down, and Hendricks asked me for a ride uptown. On the way he spoke bitterly-he was very angry-and he told me a story about Rick. I do not believe thees story, because Rick is my friend, but it is a story it does no good to hear. When the game broke up I asked Rick about it, and he was annoyed. We had a small argument-nothing serious. I left him, but I could not get the thing off my mind. I thought I would talk to Hendricks again, and learn more, if I could. When I came to his place they were already bringing the body down into the street. I found a man who for ten dollars gave me the information about the gun caliber.”

The dark man paused, and Johnny, who had listened closely to his story, shook his head. “I don't get it, Manuel,” he said for the second time. “There's no connection that I can see.”

“You don' have a corner or two of the picture,” Manuel replied earnestly. He looked uncomfortable. “I hope that I am wrong about all this, but I mus' talk to someone.” He smiled apologetically. “Almos' I am ashame' to tell you, but perhaps you have guess' I do not spend all the time with Rick for nothing? I am a quiet partner of Rick.”

Johnny looked at him. “Cash?” Manuel nodded affirmatively. “How much?”

The thick-shouldered man spread his hands deprecatingly. “Thirty-five thousan'.”

Johnny whistled. “Half the dump on the fight was yours?” Again Manuel nodded. “Consuelo know about this?”

“Consuelo does not know about this,” Consuelo's brother said firmly. “Nor do I intend that she will.” He looked at Johnny's face. “You do not like this? Of Rick, I mean?”

“Don't get me wrong, now,” Johnny began slowly. “It could be all right. He's your friend.” His tone made it tentative.

“Rick is my friend,” Manuel affirmed strongly, but the eyes were watchful.

“Why?” Johnny countered. “When a man's my friend, there's a reason. Must be with you an' Rick. You maybe stood back-to-back in a thirty-foot circle and knife-fought the trouble?”

The dark man's smile became strained. “Nothing like that. It's jus'-” He appeared to be looking back reflectively. “I have known him only two years. I met him through Consuelo; even then he came to the club to hear her sing. He would like to make something of it, but she does not take him seriously. And I liked him-we talked the same language. I do not mean the Spanish-the same language of the world we spoke. He was pleasant, not pushing, never asking. I made all the advances.”

“Where'd you get the money for your end of the deal?” Johnny inserted into the little silence.

“Not legally.” Manuel Ybarra's tone was tight. He forestalled the next question. “Rick knows this.” He knitted his hands together on the table in front of him, and the big, brown knuckles turned white. “It's never too difficult for a man to be more clever than me, amigo, but Rick is my friend.” He said it almost pleadingly, and then the tight lines in his face slackened. “This thing has a most foolish sound to you?” he asked resignedly.

“It could be all right,” Johnny said again. He tapped on the table top with an idle finger tip. “I think-”

“There is one other little thing,” Manuel said, interrupting him. “I have for years a small Spanish automatic. Very small; of the caliber about twenty-five. Special bullets. A month ago it was missing from where I always kept it, and I have not found it. I said nothing, for I thought Consuelo might have discovered it, and she does not like the guns. But thinking back, I missed it after Rick had been to the flat one evening.”

Johnny shook his head slowly. “Hendricks went to borrow money from Rick, Rick turned him down, Hendricks got mad and told you a story about Rick that shook you up, you went up against Rick with the story, he denied it and you had an argument, Rick takes out after Hendricks and kills him with the little automatic he'd taken from your place-“ The sound of his words hung in the air a moment. “It's too thin, Manuel.”

“I am glad you think so,” Manuel said in relief.

“What kind of a story did Hendricks give you about Rick?”

“About the previous quiet partner of Rick who lost his money through a manipulation.”

“I've heard that story,” Johnny said, and watched the dark features tighten rigidly.

“I think I will have the little talk with Rick,” Manuel Ybarra said carefully.

“You can't talk to him sensibly,” Johnny pointed out. “You're all up in the air. You're due to explode in a shower of sparks, and it could be that it's not justified.”

“I need to know,” the dark man said stubbornly.

“Now wait a minute-” Johnny looked at his watch, and sighed for his lost sleep. “I'll go with you,” he decided. “Your face is too transparent. You got to give me an hour, though. Okay?”

“Fine,” Manuel declared. “I have one errand myself first. Rick stays at the Cortez Apartments. I will meet you on the northwest corner in an hour. There is an alley on that corner.”

“Just don't make that errand a gun to be picked up,” Johnny warned him. He stood up in the booth. “Where'd you get that kind of cash without Consuelo knowing about it?”

“If I collected four thousan', I tol' her two,” Manuel said resignedly. “And I pay tax only on what she controls. Consuelo by nature has to be managing something, so I leave her with that. She can't understand that a man must manage his own affairs.” He said it defensively.

“We can sit here forever an' settle nothin',” Johnny said briskly. “The Cortez, in an hour-right?”

“I will be there with the bells on.” Manuel attempted a smile that didn't jell. “I had better be wrong about this bad feeling I have. I would not like to get angry with Rick.”

Johnny watched him leave, a thick-shouldered figure loaded with menace. You'd better shake him down for hardware before you go up against Manfredi, he told himself. This boy's a little touchy right now. It might help to keep down the casualty list.

At the hotel Johnny put in a call for Detective James Rogers, and finally made contact after getting shunted around half the station-house extensions. “Jimmy? Killain. I got a job for those four-bit stool pigeons of yours.”

“With you supplying the four bits?”

“Like hell. Listen. Scatter a few of them out around the town an' see if they can locate a few citizens who were bankrolled to take Roketenetz to lose after the fourth round.”

There was a short silence. “You think the fix was re-fixed?” Detective Rogers asked finally.

“You should be able to find out. It wouldn't be anything conspicuous-two, three, four hundred at a crack, probably. Can do? Good. I'm in a hurry. See you.”

Johnny banged up the phone and headed down to the street, and a cab. If this hunch paid off…

The wind ripped at him bitingly as he stepped out of the cab in front of the Cortez, a not-quite-first-class apartment hotel. Johnny walked up to the northwest corner, holding himself together against the wind. He shook his head; he wasn't dressed for this kind of weather. He hoped Manuel wouldn't be late.

Beyond the corner he saw the alley Manuel had mentioned, and he realized at once that, if Manuel had preceded him, he had probably stepped into it to get out of the wind. He headed into it himself, his feet crunching on the hard-packed snow in the unshoveled areaway; when he lifted his head in relief at escaping the bitter blast he found himself looking at a dark figure on the ground fifteen yards away, motionless under the rising and falling arm of the figure that was leaning over it.

Johnny went up the alley like a wind-blown leaf, but the snow betrayed him. The crisp sound of his running feet brought the assailant around in alarm, and, losing his footing on the slippery surface, he caromed into the man as he tried to pull up in front of him. A weight crashed under his ear. The alley whirled, and Johnny went to his knees, his reaching hands numbed for an instant. He pulled himself painfully erect, but the assailant was gone. Johnny stooped unsteadily over the limp figure, his ears ringing.

He was relieved to hear breathing, even though it was labored and stertorous. His hand came away stickily wet from Manuel Ybarra's head. Johnny stumbled out to the sidewalk, put two fingers to his mouth and whistled a shrill blast.