Doom Service

CHAPTER II

Detective Rogers looked from Sally to Johnny and back again. “I'm sorry, Miss Fontaine,” he said quietly. “If you're able, there are a few questions-” He broke off and looked over at the door, through which half a dozen men had just entered. “Excuse me for a moment,” he said, and walked over to the two men in the lead, each of whom carried a black leather case.

“Listen to me, Sally,” Johnny said urgently when he was sure that they could not be overheard. “When he comes back, tell him you're not feeling well. Tell him you'd like to go back to the hotel, and you'll answer his questions there.”

The slender girl roused herself from the apathy into which she had fallen. “Will you come, too?”

“A little bit later. They'll want to-”

He had lost her attention; she was shaking her head firmly.

“I'll wait for you.”

“Look, Ma,” he said impatiently. “I'm not tellin' you without a reason. This Rogers is the closest thing they got to a right guy in this precinct. I've known him a while, an', though we've taken a few nips out of each other, he's all right. This Cuneo, though, is another peck of potatoes. He don't like me, an' I don't want you around here when he gets to me in the questioning. Savvy?”

“I don't see what difference-” she began stubbornly, and then subsided. “All right,” she said tiredly, “if you say so. What will I say?”

“Just what I told you. Here he comes.” Johnny listened to Sally's fumbling, halting request and watched Rogers' cautious observance of the girl's blue-lipped semishock. When the detective turned to him he was ready with what he hoped would be the clincher. “She don't look good to me. You'll want to talk to Gidlow anyway, won't you?”

“Gidlow?”

“Jake Gidlow, the kid's manager. Stays at the hotel. Suite on the tenth floor.”

The sandy-haired man nodded. “I'll get my hat.” Back at the bar Johnny could see him talking to Cuneo briefly.

Johnny placed two fingers beneath Sally's chin and tipped her head back slightly; he examined the suspicious glimmer in the reddened brown eyes. “You got to stop knockin' yourself out, Ma,” he told her roughly.

“I'm-I'll be all right.” She detached her hand from his. “Lend me your handkerchief. I wish you were coming back with me.”

“I'll be there before you know it,” he said, draping his discarded trench coat over her shoulders.

“And don't lose your temper, like you did with that other man. They-”

“Here he comes,” Johnny interrupted her. “Chin up, now.” Her smile was wan, but she walked steadily enough to the door with Detective Rogers in her wake. Johnny released an expansive sigh; he was glad to get her out of here. He looked around for a chair and found one in a back corner. He knew it would not be a short wait, with a roomful of people to be run through the police routine. He had a lot on his mind; he lit innumerable cigarettes and snuffed out lengthy stubs. With his eyes he followed the horde of uniformed and plain-clothed men who had descended upon the scene. Notebooks in hand, they worked their way through the crowd, asking peremptory questions. None of them came near Johnny, and he shook his head gently. That would be Ted Cuneo's idea.

By Johnny's watch it lacked ten minutes of being a full hour and a half since he had risen from his knees on the sidewalk before Detective Cuneo walked over to his corner. The sharp-featured man kicked a chair into place and sat down facing him, and, despite the noncommittal expression, Johnny could feel the man's hostility.

It started with a by-the-book interrogation of the circumstances of Johnny's presence and a searching analysis of the accuracy of his eye-witness observations, all dutifully jotted down in the ever-present notebook. It went on in picayunish detail for fifteen minutes, but Johnny answered patiently, even when the same question appeared thinly disguised for the third time. He wanted no trouble with this man; he had to get back to the hotel.

When Detective Cuneo reluctantly restored the notebook to his pocket and hitched himself forward a little in his chair, Johnny tensed warily. Here it comes, he thought.

“You say there's nothing you'd recognize about the one that got away, Killain?” As it had been all through the interrogation, the voice was crisp, with just the faintest undertone of arrogance.

“Nothin',” he said positively. “Like I told you, I was at the back of the room. I could see he was a little smaller than the one the kid got, but he was masked.”

Cuneo's thin lips lifted slightly in what could have been a smile. “The one that the kid got just happened to contain two slugs dead center. It's your contention he didn't need them?”

“He didn't need them,” Johnny repeated, but not as positively. “When that scum hit the door he went east and his neck went west. Didn't it?”

“The medical examiner's report will let us know,” the detective replied noncommittally.

Johnny leaned back in his chair. “The partner must've been a terrible shot,” he said thoughtfully. “He was leanin' right over them when he let go four times.” He considered silently for a moment. “Unless he thought-”

“As a fighter, from whom did Roketenetz take orders?” Cuneo interrupted.

“I guess Jake Gidlow would tell you that he took them from him.”

“And Jake Gidlow's orders?”

Johnny shrugged. “You want hearsay, I can give you plenty. Some of it might even be true. You won't find any affidavits on file, though.” He reached for his cigarettes. “Jake does all right. His fighters work steady.”

“In Lonnie Turner's promotions?”

“I've heard stories,” Johnny admitted. “I never heard of them runnin' any benefits for Lonnie.”

“Jake Gidlow has something on Turner and Turner has to use his fighters?”

“I doubt it. Turner's the top man on the totem pole hereabouts. More likely he has Gidlow in his pocket.”

Detective Cuneo smiled the thin smile again but did not pursue the point. “Now what was this wrecking-company bit when I walked in here?” he inquired blandly.

“Guy got me mad.”

“This is a police inquiry, Killain. He got you mad how?”

The worm of irritation twisted within Johnny again. “He talked too damn much.”

“About fixed fights?” the detective suggested smoothly.

“Look, man,” Johnny said patiently. “The kid's layin' dead out in the street, see? We'd just gotten his sister away from his body, an' she's standin' at the bar shakin' herself to pieces. An' then fifteen feet away from her this canary's bellowin' about anyway the kid's last fight not havin' been fixed. I was lookin' at her face. A real big yock; I ought to have unwound that slob's clock real good.”

“Even if he was right?”

“Who gives a damn if he was right or not, just then?” Johnny burst out. He glowered at the detective. “There's a time to talk an' a time to shut up, mister.” He tried to regain a grip upon himself. “What the hell, Cuneo-charge it up to I didn't like the guy. He saw me comin'.”

“Right-left-right he saw you coming, according to the consensus,” the lean man agreed, “which doesn't alter the fact that he could still prefer charges.”

“I'll worry about it later,” Johnny said indifferently.

“I don't care for this habit of yours of settling things with your hands,” Detective Cuneo said deliberately.

“It's any of your business?” Johnny demanded harshly.

Two dull red spots glowed in the sallow cheeks. “I could make it my business, Killain. Very much my business. I just don't like your attitude.”

Johnny's temper slipped further from its moorings. “Six months you been waitin' for me to say the wrong thing, haven't you? Okay, I'll give it to you quick, Cuneo. I got no time for you. You're a troublemaker.”

“I'm a troublemaker!” The pop eyes glinted as the tall man rose slowly. “By God, that's a good one! Trouble follows you around like a little black dog, but I'm the troublemaker! I ought to give you a little trouble, and straighten you out!”

“You haven't got the tools, man.”

The eyes were volcanic. “Don't try me!”

Johnny's chair flew backward and caromed from the wall as he bounded erect. He took a quick step forward, and Detective Cuneo instinctively retreated. Then, with the furious dark blood rampant in his narrow face, he tried to regain the lost step and rebounded from Johnny's weight. “What the hell is this peck, peck, peck?” Johnny demanded forcefully. “You got a beef with me, lay it on the table. You been on my back since last summer. I'm tellin' you-get off!”

He glared into the furious face inches from his own, then deliberately picked up his fallen chair, banged it upright and sat down again, his hands loosely on his knees. The seething detective stared down at him, his face a lemon yellow. “Killain!” he began in a strangled tone, and Johnny laughed shortly.

“What is it with you?” he asked the tall man. “I'm supposed to let you muscle me around? You're outta your head, man.” He pointed with a stabbing forefinger. “I'll give you a proposition, which you won't take. We bug each other, for whatever reason, right? I'll come up to the station any day you say. You pick your best man, an' the three of us'll go down in the tank. You'll be able to work off a little steam, maybe, but I'll tell you right now you won't enjoy it. How about it, sport?”

Attracted by the previously fallen chair and the raised voices, one of the uniformed patrolmen strolled over to them. “Trouble, sir?” he asked the detective, who drew a deep, reaching breath.

“Nothing!” he said sharply. He glared around the room. “We finished? Then let's get out of here.” Hands on hips, he surveyed Johnny from head to foot. “I won't forget this, Killain.” He strode to the door with never a backward glance, and the herd of technicians followed, some after curious inspection of the corner.

Mickey Tallant emerged from behind the bar, shaking his head disapprovingly. “I was watchin' you,” he told Johnny. “It gets you nothing, that needle.”

“The hell with him.” Johnny bleakly contemplated the door through which Detective Ted Cuneo had just departed, and then he looked back at the Irishman. “He say anything to you about the banditti checkout catchin' two dents in the chassis?”

Mickey Tallant nodded. “Just a spray job, I figure. He caught the overflow.”

“I wonder,” Johnny said slowly. “It was dark out there, Mick. The second character didn't need to know that his partner had already come unscrewed. He did know he'd lost his mask in a roomful of people, an' he might've been makin' sure of no small talk after he left.” Johnny's eyes roamed the front of the bar for the thick-shouldered ex-fighter to whom the tavern owner had spoken previously, but he was not in sight. “I'd like to know what those two had to say to each other when they walked in here.” He looked at the stout man. “Where can I find this Ybarra?”

“Manuel? Hell, Johnny, you heard me ask him that already!”

“I heard you ask him in a roomful of people. It's been known to inhibit answers.”

“Why are you stickin' your nose in this?” the Irishman asked bluntly.

Johnny hesitated. “I started to say I wasn't, but I'll hold off on that until I talk to Manuel. If the guy the kid knocked through the door took two slugs on purpose, maybe I am stickin' my nose in. That would be a little out of line for a barroom stick-up.”

“But that's what it was!”

“Smarten up, Mick. The kid had just been involved in a fixed fight. You know this Ybarra's address?”

“I know it's up in Spanish Harlem,” Mickey Tallant said absently. “I can probably get it for you.” He rubbed his chin slowly. “You think the kid was killed on purpose?”

“I don't know, Mick. He could have been. An' whether he was or not, I keep thinkin' of any one of a dozen little things I could've done different that might've kept him alive. You call the hotel when you get that address. I need clothes.”

“Okay. I'll get you a cab.”

The cab driver stared at Johnny's apron-burnoose, but drove him around to the hotel, because of the one-way streets having to cover three sides of a square to do it. “I'm goin' down the alley,” Johnny told the driver at the hotel entrance. “Go inside an' tell Paul I said to pay you, then tell him to come down in the service elevator to pick me up.”

The cabbie nodded, and Johnny slipped and slid down the snow-filled alley and entered the hotel through the big iron side door. Fifteen feet inside the narrow passageway he could hear the whine of the already descending elevator, and Paul threw open the door. He shook his head gently at sight of Johnny's apron. “What happened to your uniform?” he inquired as Johnny got aboard and he started to take him directly to the sixth floor.

“Guy had hold of my collar when I let go of him.”

Paul nodded as though it were the most reasonable explanation in the world. “I've got Sally lying down up in the lounge on the mezzanine. Amy's with her.”

Amy was the tall colored girl who handled housekeeping nights. “Rogers gone?” Johnny asked.

“Just a few minutes ago. He was pretty decent. He spent most of his time here trying to locate Gidlow.”

“Tell you what you do, Paul,” Johnny said swiftly. “I've got to go out again. You run downstairs an' have Vic get Sophie Madieros in here to hold down the switchboard until the day crew comes on. Then have Amy take Sally over to the apartment and stay there with her till I get there. You and Dominic should be able to keep Vic afloat the balance of the shift if I don't get back. Got it?”

“Got it.” Paul slid the elevator door closed and descended to the lobby, and in his own room Johnny changed quickly. In the mirror he frowned at himself as he knotted his tie, and he retested the puffiness of his mouth.

“-that monkey'd known how to get his shoulder behind it he might've saved himself some splinters,” he murmured half aloud, crossed the room and picked up the phone. Vic Barnes' voice came on the line, and Johnny shook his head. They were really spread a little thin with the front desk man having to take the switchboard, too. “Get me the Rollin' Stone, Vic. Sally's got the number stuck up on the board somewhere.”

“Right,” Vic replied placidly. Johnny could hear him dialing. Vic Barnes was a placid individual, a plump man with graying hair combed straight back from a high forehead, very high color and a shiny face.

“Mick?” Johnny asked abruptly when he had the connection. “Killain. You get that address?”

“You're not goin' up there now? People sleep nights!”

“You get the address?”

“Jesus, what a one-track mind! Write it down.”

Johnny wrote it down, hung up the phone and stuffed the address in a pocket. His mind was on Manuel Ybarra. For looks the ex-fighter reminded him of the rugged fishermen on the Spanish Costa Brava, burly and capable. For an instant he thought of long-ago days under a burning sun on coastal waters edged by miles of dazzlingly white sand beaches. Then he pulled himself up sharply and left the room.

He shivered in the chill reach of the wind, which enveloped him as the taxi's headlights disappeared around the corner; he stared around him at the dingy tenement area revealed in the widely spaced streetlights, and he looked down at the slip of paper in his hand. 5-B. Fifth floor, and these old buildings obviously had never heard of an elevator. Never heard of a buzzer system for the front door, either, he decided; it opened at a touch after he walked up the slippery iron steps that led off the street.

Inside he turned to the dimly lighted stairs and climbed steadily. No heat was wasted on the hallways; the building temperature didn't seem much higher than that of the street outside, but at least there was no wind. A single naked light bulb halfway up each flight illuminated the landings dimly, leaving bulkier shadows at top and bottom. Stale cooking odors pursued him upward as he climbed.

In the poor light of the fifth floor hallway he studied drab and scarified wallpaper and cat-footedly circled doors until he found the lumpy “B” in battered tin. He knocked softly and listened in the quiet to water noises from protesting drains and the creaks and groans of the old building in the winter night. He had to knock again before there was a stirring behind the door.

“What is it?” It was a woman's hushed tone, and Johnny frowned. Before he could make up his mind to reply, he heard the door open cautiously on the chain latch and felt himself under inspection. The room behind the woman was unlighted, and he could make out only the indeterminate pale blur of her features, so far beneath his own eye level as to mark her as no more than an inch or two above five feet.

“Well?” she demanded huskily, her voice sounding young.

“I need to see Manuel,” he told her.

“Why?” she challenged immediately.

“I have to talk to him.”

“Perhaps tomorrow-” she began firmly, and from behind the door to her left Johnny could hear a hissing Spanish whisper.

“Describe him!”

“Huge,” she murmured rapidly in kind. “Hard. A crooked nose. In a gray uniform. Truly-”

“Open the door,” Manuel Ybarra said in English in a normal voice. “He was at the tavern tonight.” There was an instant of doubt as she turned to look at him. “Open the door, Consuelo,” the man repeated impatiently.

At the rattle of the chain latch Johnny moved forward a bit hesitantly; there was still no light in the room. He was still at the threshold when, to his left, Manuel turned on a lamp. The thick-shouldered man, in underwear and socks, was calmly returning a switch-blade knife to the lamp table's drawer.

In the same instant, at the other side of the room, Johnny caught a flashing glimpse of skimpily nightgowned femininity before a blanket swirled and descended serape-fashion, eclipsing the vision from neck to toe. Small she might be, Johnny reflected, but never petite; the curves were full-bodied.

“Dios!” the girl exclaimed indignantly, with a toss of a blue-black mane. She glared at Manuel. “You have to shame me?”

The dark man paid no attention. “You mus' have much impatience,” he said softly to Johnny. As an afterthought he gestured at the blanket. “My sister, Consuelo.” He shrugged broadly. “My penance.” He glanced at her, eying Johnny speculatively. “This is the big Johnny, from the hotel. The one of whom the Senor Mick is a compadre.”

Johnny stared frankly at the creamily oval face, classically Castilian in depth from brow to chin. Her nose and mouth were small, but very well made, and her lips provocatively full. She might have been twenty-five. The firm set of her chin and her wide-spaced dark eyes warned of an independent nature, and he extended his hand gravely. “This penance of which your brother speaks,” he said to her in Spanish, then, shifting to English, “it should happen to me.”

The soft ivory of her face bloomed with a tinge of added color as she retrieved her hand from his, but she looked up at him squarely. “If I'd known you knew Spanish, I hope you believe I'd not have said that about the nose-”

“Nicest thing's been said about it for years,” he assured her. He turned to Manuel. “Thanks for the welcome, amigo. I'll make it short. The two men in the tavern tonight-”

“What two men in the tavern?” the girl interrupted.

“Be quiet, girl.” Her brother said it almost absently as he studied Johnny. “The little fighter was a friend of yours?”

“You can make it stronger than that.”

Manuel nodded soberly. He knuckled his chin reflectively, the rasp of his beard plain in the quiet. “A very good left hand, for his weight,” he said after a moment. “Very good.” He pursed his lips. “You had a question?”

“When they came in, they spoke to each other. I'd like to know what they said.”

The dark man inclined his head slightly. “I heard what they said. The Senor Mick asked idly, to no purpose, and I denied it, because I do not wish to speak for the world to hear.” He considered Johnny carefully for a moment, then nodded again as if to himself. “They came through the door together, the tall one on the left-so.” Manuel positioned a hand in the air. “When he had looked around the tall one said quickly to the other 'Es este el hombre?' and pointed with his gun. The second man replied 'Esta es.' The gun had motioned at the little fighter, and the tall one at once turned to him.” Manuel shrugged. “The rest you saw. It is not given to all of us to go with such espina dorsal.”

“So the tall one asked 'Is he the man?' ” Johnny said musingly. “This is a tavern stick-up?”

Manuel looked somber. “The little fighter was in trouble?”

“Trouble?” Johnny repeated irritatedly. “Where the hell's the trouble? The kid took his dive, didn't he? Went clear off the thirty-foot board to do it.”

“It was a peculiar ending to the fight,” Manuel admitted.

The blanket-swathed girl spoke quietly. “He was killed, the man of whom you speak?” Johnny nodded, and within the blanket he could see her shiver. “Men!” she said bitterly. “There's not one among you who acquires the least of the sense God gives a girl child at birth.” She jerked a plump shoulder at her brother. “Look at that one. Twenty per cent vision in the left eye; sixty per cent in the right. And deteriorating.”

Manuel grinned. “She fears to have the support of me.”

“At least you can pimp for me,” she told him impudently, and the grin disappeared as his features darkened.

“I do not like the sound of that remark in this company,” he said heavily. “I could find my belt-”

She ignored him and apologized to Johnny. “He exaggerates about the support. Not about the belt, when I was younger.” She grimaced. “He saved his money when he was fighting. He has a little income. We live in this neighborhood because our friends live here. And rather than what I have said, I am not a schoolgirl, but I must nearly get down on my knees for permission to have a man walk with me.”

“This income of mine,” Manuel said thoughtfully. “I have not seen it lately.”

“Because with money you are a big fool,” his sister told him tranquilly. She smiled at Johnny. “I sing nights at the Three Sisters. It's a small place, but the food's excellent. I can recommend particularly the chicken valenciana.”

“Dinner tomorrow night?” Johnny promptly inquired.

Consuelo Ybarra laughed, a very pleasant sound. “Agreed. At eight-thirty. My first show's at ten.” She looked at him from beneath long lashes. “I like a man who can make up his mind.”

“You've met one,” Johnny told her, and turned to the door. “Eight-thirty.”

On the stairs he stopped once to reconstruct in his mind the girl's flashing facial beauty. It was a little hard to see how this dinner date tomorrow night could be a mistake.