Killer with a Key

CHAPTER 4

Johnny closed the door of his room behind them, and Sassy advanced from under the bed in a ludicrously stiff-legged prance, the small ears alertly cocked.

Sally stared. “Johnny! Where on earth-”

Johnny introduced them. “Sassy, this is Sally.” He sat down in his armchair as Sally knelt and reached out a hand and drew the kitten to her. Sassy eyed her carefully, but made no protest, and Johnny shook his head. “How the hell do you like that? She like to ate me, horns and all, the first time I went near her.”

“You're beautiful,” Sally crooned to the kitten, and Sassy's head bobbed in complaisant agreement as she busily rough-tongued Sally's bare forearm. “Did you say 'her'?”

“Yeah. She's my new bodyguard.”

“Where did you get her, Johnny?”

“Ellen.”

“Oh.” Reminded, Sally shivered. She put Sassy down and sat down on the arm of Johnny's chair. “I still can hardly-believe it. Why Ellen?”

“I've got some better 'whys' than that.” Johnny stared across the room morosely. “Why did Ellen come here at all? Why wouldn't she tell me why she was so scared? Why did Vic go up to that room? Why can't I get it through my thick skull how the murderer could find her in an unregistered room?” He crouched forward in the chair, feeling driven in his impotence, then snorted impatiently and sank back. “Fix me a drink, Ma. Somethin's got to start the wheels turnin'.”

“Do you think you should?” she asked doubtfully. “You've got to talk to the police, you know.” She rose resignedly, however, and went to the wall cabinet and took down a bottle of bourbon and two three-finger shot glasses. She made a little face and returned one of them. “Why you can't use a civilized glass like ordinary people instead of these ten gallon hats you have here-”

“A slight exaggeration, Ma,” he told her as she poured. “An' bring the bottle back here with you.”

He accepted the brimming shot glass from her and tossed it off in a long, hard swallow. He waited for the impact, shuddered, took the bourbon bottle from Sally's hand and splashed a thimbleful more into the glass and chased the first load down. He refilled the shot glass again, and set glass and bottle down on the table beside the chair.

Sally broke the little silence. Her voice was quiet, but there was a note of constraint in it. “I realize how this must have shaken you, Johnny.”

“Shaken me?” His lips drew back mirthlessly from his teeth. He picked up the refilled shot glass and gulped half its contents, then looked up at Sally on the arm of his chair. “You're the only one in the world who knew how I felt about that kid. I never blamed her for rackin' up on me when she did. I was a hard rock still livin' too close to those days overseas, an' she just couldn't understand. I hadn't seen her three times in the last five years, but it wasn't ever any different with me.”

He stared down moodily into the half empty glass, lifted it suddenly and drained it. His hand closed tightly around the solid-feeling thickness of the glass, and his voice hoarsened. “So tonight she's in some kind of trouble, and she comes to me. To me, mind you. And what do I do for her? I get her killed.” He bounded to his feet from the depths of the chair, furiously driven by the impotent anger bubbling in his veins, and his voice soared. “I'll tell you one thing. I'll find the guy that did it if I have to live to be a hundred and four. I'll get him. For sure I'll get him, and when I do I'll feed him to the crows a very small piece at a time. I'll get him, damn him-”

He whirled on the balls of his feet, and Sally gasped and smothered a scream as his arm rose and fell in a whiplash motion. The heavy shot glass exploded in a starburst of glass fragments in the center of the big dresser mirror, which vanished in a crystal spray. Johnny stood, half-crouched forward from the violence of his follow-through, his ears still filled with the soul-satisfying smash.

He straightened slowly; on the arm of the chair Sally was crying. He patted her head awkwardly, then walked over to the wall cabinet and removed the other shot glass. Back at the chair he poured himself another drink, the bourbon sloshing over the glass rim and running down his wrist and fingers.

“You'll be supposed to make s-sense when you talk to the police,” Sally said disapprovingly, swiping at her eyes with the back of her hand.

“Make as much sense as usual.” The phone rang, and he reached for it. “Yeah?”

“They're on the way up, Johnny.”

“Thanks, Paul.” He replaced the phone, looked at Sally and tried not to see the tear-streaks. “The constabulary, Ma. You got to run.”

She scrubbed openly at her eyes with her hands, stood up and walked to the door. “Promise me you'll keep your temper, Johnny?”

“Yeah, yeah, Ma. Sure.” He closed the door behind her and looked around the room. He picked Sassy up and carried her into the bathroom; he put her down in the tub as she blinked her disapproval. He closed the bathroom door and returned to the chair and his refilled glass. He sat down again and waited.

Trailing fingers of blue smoke swirled and drifted about the walls of his room; he sat and tested in his mind the cumulative questions and answers of the past two hours. He was tired of questions and answers. He looked at the eddying haze in the room; he ought to stir himself and open a window, he supposed. He sat where he was.

He looked up sharply as his door opened and the smoke gusted violently; Detective Cuneo walked directly to the straight-backed chair in the room's center and sat down astraddle it, facing front-to-back. His folded arms rested upon the upper back rest, and his chin rested upon his arms.

After two hours Johnny felt that he knew this man rather well. A quick, incisive man; a lean six-footer with a hatchet face and large-pupilled eyes. The mouth was snug and the lips thin; the jawline slanted to a sharp chin. Detective Cuneo entering a room looked like a detective entering a room.

“About Barnes-” the man in the chair said abruptly, and Johnny looked at him. “We're taking him in. He doesn't talk here maybe he'll talk over there.”

“He didn't do it,” Johnny said.

“I didn't say he did,” Cuneo replied sharply. “I do say that he's not telling us what he knows. When he does-” He broke off as the door opened again, and he twisted to look at the slender, sandy-haired man who entered the room and closed the door again. “Hi, Jimmy. How'd you make out?”

“Tell you later.” The slender man nodded to Johnny in his chair. “'To, Johnny. Long time.”

Johnny nodded in turn, and Cuneo looked from his partner to Johnny and back again. He couldn't keep the surprise from his voice. “You know this guy?”

“Tell you about that later, too. What's with you here?”

“I'm taking Barnes in. Completely uncooperative.” He glanced back at Johnny. “I was just getting instructed here that Barnes didn't do it.” He leaned forward over the back of the chair as the large-pupilled eyes glinted. “What makes you so sure, Killain?”

“You know why I'm sure. Ellen Saxon has a quarter pound of hair and skin under her fingernails, and there isn't even a pimple nicked on Vic. That lets him out.”

“It lets him out of a first degree charge, maybe,” Cuneo said sourly. “I still want the answers to some questions before he's out, period.” He looked at Johnny. “How about you, Killain? Take your shirt off.”

Johnny stood up slowly. “That's what I like about you types. Not 'Do you mind taking your shirt off, citizen?' Just 'Take it off'.”

The hatchet face regarded him impassively. “You don't have to like it. Just do it.”

“Sure you don't want to call in any witnesses? So I can't say I got scratched up while you were wrestlin' the shirt off me?”

Two red spots glowed dully in Cuneo's lean face. He looked, tight-lipped, at his partner, Jimmy Rogers. “Your friend's a character, I see.” He swung back to Johnny. “Personally, I can do without all the conversation. Get it off!”

Johnny slipped out of his uniform jacket and removed tie, shirt, and T-shirt.

“Over here. Under the light.” Cuneo's voice was taut.

Johnny crossed the room, and the detective looked him up and down. “The bear that walks like a man,” he said grudgingly. “You get your shirts from a sailmaker?” His knuckles thumped lightly on Johnny's chest. “Quite a rug. What's this?” An inquiring finger probed in turn each of three dimpled indentations scarcely visible under the curling hair.

Johnny looked down at the finger. “There was this guy that didn't like me.”

Cuneo grunted. “Looks like he didn't like you about three times with a thirty-eight. So?”

“So I reached him. He still doesn't like me.”

The hatchet features stiffened. “I asked you what happened!”

A faint glow began to heat Johnny's interior. “It have anything to do with what happened in Room 629?”

Scarlet flooded Cuneo's face. “Are you refusing to answer?”

“I've answered for two hours. Did you ask any sensible questions you didn't get answered?”

“Killain, you'll answer what I ask you. I'll-”

“I'll answer what I damn please,” Johnny interrupted. The faint glow flared to an open flame. He leaned forward slightly. “Do me a favor, boy scout. Drop dead.”

The tall man crouched, but Jimmy Rogers spoke quickly. “Easy, Ted. He'd like that. I know this boy.”

The dull red spots again emblazoned the pallor which had replaced Cuneo's high color. He bit his words off viciously. “If you know what's good for you you'll answer anything I ask you, Killain!”

“The hell I will. Go make your funny noises some place else.”

The lean man took a short step forward and hesitated. His tongue circled his lips almost hungrily. Jimmy Rogers moved in front of his partner and nodded at Johnny's clothes on the bed. “Button it up, Johnny. Put your clothes on, and we'll go down to the morgue and make the identification.”

Johnny drew a deep breath. “No.”

Cuneo charged back to the assault. “No? What the hell you mean, 'no'?”

“Anything the matter with your ears?”

“Listen, Killain-” Cuneo began dangerously, and Johnny cut him short.

“You listen to me for a change. You got all the identification from me you're gonna get. You know who she is.”

Jimmy Rogers' voice was patient. “We're talking about the legal, positive identification by the next-of-kin downtown at-”

“So go get her next-of-kin.”

“You're her husband!” Cuneo barked.

“Her ex-husband. No next-of-kin.”

Cuneo looked at Rogers, who shrugged, and the tall man turned back uncertainly to Johnny. “You might have to convince the D.A.”

“Send him around.”

Cuneo glared. “Let's take him down there anyway, Jimmy,” he suggested to his partner. He smiled. “The big buffalo acts like he thinks we couldn't do it.”

Johnny looked at him. “I'll give you a written contract you won't enjoy it, buster.”

Rogers cut in again quickly before his partner could speak. “You have to keep crowding, Johnny? There's an easier way. We know she was your wife. Maybe you got a right to be a little redheaded; on the other hand, your attitude wins no kewpie dolls.”

“You can't sweet-talk his kind, Jimmy,” Cuneo said tartly. “I've seen these fourteen-karat cop fighters before. Come on; let's get out of here.” He stared, narrow-eyed, at Johnny. “I'll see you later, wise guy. Don't you even think of leaving the jurisdiction.” He stamped out the door, and after a moment in which he seemed to be searching for an exit line Jimmy Rogers nodded slowly and followed suit.

Johnny stretched leisurely. He crossed to a window and opened it, and then turned to his clothes. He watched the blue haze thin out as he dressed, his mind still on Detective Ted Cuneo. Childish, he told himself. You, Killain; you're childish. From him you can get nothing but the worst of it, and still you have to needle him. You're the featherweight champion of the world in the brains department.

He retrieved Sassy from the bathroom and dropped her on the bed. He rubbed her lightly between the furry ears and teased the pink nose with a blunt fingertip. Sassy grabbed the finger in her small mouth, and Johnny laughed and then sobered. “I can take a hint, white stuff. We've got to get you straightened out in the grocery department. I'll run down to the kitchen and see what's on the menu. You take a white wine with your fish?”

Back on the service elevator he stopped the car at the mezzanine. He intended to walk down the final flight of stairs and cut back under them through the bar to the kitchen, but even before he had the cab door propped open he could hear the voices in the conversation coming up to him from the lobby below.

“-say you do know her, Mike?” Cuneo was saying.

“Sure I know her, Ted.” The voice was pleasantly well-timbred. Johnny drifted forward silently to the front of the mezzanine. By leaning forward slightly he could see the three men in the lobby below him, a little back from the projecting edge of the balcony. He straightened; he didn't want to be seen because he wanted to hear. His one quick glance had taken in Cuneo and Rogers; the third man was Mike Larsen, a broad-shouldered husky with dark, wavy hair. Even in the stagnant heat of the early morning he was dressed neatly in slacks, a long-sleeved sport shirt with a button-down collar and a carefully knotted tie. Mike Larsen was a permanent at the hotel, a free-lance newspaperman who did special articles, and he was a friend of Vic's and Johnny's. Mike Larsen sounded disturbed.

“-tell me what's going on around here?” he was asking when Johnny picked up the thread of the conversation. “Paul tells me you crated up poor old Vic Barnes and shipped him in. You guys must be crazy. Vic couldn't have had any more to do with this thing then I did; he's not the type. You better let him out. I've got a fishing date with him Thursday.”

“Another comedian,” Cuneo said disgustedly, and Mike laughed. He had a nice laugh.

“Another? Who? Don't tell me. Let me guess. Johnny. You been on the Ferris wheel with Johnny?”

“That about covers it,” Cuneo admitted. “He needs a manager.”

“Nobody manages Johnny,” Mike Larsen told him.

“No? And what the hell makes him so special?”

“Rogers here knows him; why don't you ask him? I'll give you a hint, though, since you asked me. About a month ago Vic and Johnny and I were fishing out in the Sound. I've got a big old walrus of a thirty-foot overdecked inboard, and I grounded her on a sand bar. I thought for sure we'd have to winch her off, but Johnny jumped out along the bow and got a grip under the water line, and I mean he picked us up and threw us back into Long Island Sound. His shoulders came clear through his shirt, and he was down to his calves in wet sand. You try it some time. I'll take him any day over a truck and give you the odds.”

“You his press agent?” Ted Cuneo asked acidly.

“I didn't get a chance to tell you upstairs, Ted,” Jimmy Rogers interposed, “but Johnny's the boy who went through the mixmaster overseas with the lieutenant.”

“Lieutenant Dameron?” Detective Cuneo's inquiry was sharp. “That character upstairs was part of the lieutenant's show?”

“Make it a little stronger than that.”

Hostility bristled in the thin man's tone. “You trying to tell me-”

“They were all specialists, Ted,” Detective Rogers said patiently. “Johnny, the lieutenant and Willie Martin, who used to own this hotel here. Johnny and Lieutenant Dameron mutually didn't like each other, but I've heard the lieutenant say himself that, for what they had to, Johnny was only the best. They worked a very tough street, and whenever the steaks fell into the fire Johnny pulled 'em out. The lieutenant was with him when he got those marks on his chest you were asking him about, if you're interested.”

“So he's got a few muscles,” Ted Cuneo growled irritably. “He still leaves me with an itch. A guy as hairsprung as him-”

“Could get in trouble? The lieutenant maintains that Johnny and trouble are synonymous. Tell you something else — you know that room you just left upstairs? Johnny owns it.”

“Owns it? This is a hotel, man.”

“Regardless, he owns it. Lieutenant Dameron may have felt that Johnny lacked the proper respect for authority, but that bothered Willie Martin not at all. He and Johnny got along fine. Willie brought Johnny back here with him, stuck him in a uniform and let him make a job for himself running the night side. When Willie was in town they shared that room upstairs, otherwise it was Johnny's. A few months back before you came over to this precinct we hit a real twister here and ran up a bag of six bodies in five days. The heat from downtown was enough to fry us, but we were spinning our wheels completely until Johnny aged the lieutenant a few years by strong-arming a solution when he got mad at being pushed around. The kicker turned out to be that the whole circus had been steered here by Willie Martin to darn a hole in his financial sock. By the time Johnny found it out Willie had set a new record for the running broad jump from the twelfth floor. His will left the room and furnishings to Johnny in perpetuity, even if the hotel should be sold. The legal beagles ran in circles for weeks, but it stuck.”

Ted Cuneo snorted disgustedly. “He marry anyone in your family? You sound worse than Larsen here.”

“You didn't see it happen, Ted. I did. I don't have to like what he does to like the way he does it.”

“Ahhhh, the hell with it. Do I genuflect the next time I see him? The hell with it. Let's get to business. Mike, tell me A light came on in a mezzanine office to Johnny's left and distracted him. The shade on the front door came down abruptly, blotting out all but the faintest chinks of light. Public stenographer's office-Johnny looked at his watch. Mighty early for any activity over there. Soft-footedly he eased over toward the chink of light, at the same time trying to keep tuned in on the conversation below him.

“-they did work in the same public relations office?” Cuneo's voice sounded excited. Johnny halted. Who worked?

“That's right.” Mike Larsen's voice. “Over a year now.”

“Sounds like we should have been talking to you right from the beginning,” Cuneo said crisply. “So this Ellen Saxon worked with Barnes' wife? And Barnes goes upstairs for no reason he can give us and finds her body. Very cozy. You think he was doing the tumtiddling bit on his wife?”

“Vic? Vic Barnes? Man, not a chance. Didn't you talk to him?”

“Granted he don't look it; they fool you. Why did he go up there? And why won't he talk about it?”

Mike Larsen's tone was thoughtful. “It's just possible he might think his wife is somehow concerned. Being as how he thinks the sun rises and sets for the sole benefit of Lorraine, if he thought he could save her anything you might have a little trouble with him.”

“We're having a little trouble with him.” Cuneo's voice was sharp. “I have a hunch you're right. Jimmy, what'd she sound like when you talked to her?”

“Talked to her?” Mike's voice broke in. “When did you talk to her?”

“I went over there.” Jimmy Rogers' voice was quiet, but Mike Larsen sounded as if he were having difficulty with his breathing.

“In the middle of the night you went over there? And told her that her husband was in the sneezer for being found in the hotel room of a dead woman who had been her friend? Excuse me. Remind me to cross the street the next time I see you guys coming.”

“Don't be such a rose, Mike.” Irritation was back in Ted Cuneo's voice. “These people are suspects. You think she was running around on her husband?”

“Now wait a minute. I didn't say that.”

“Always the gentleman, eh, Mike?”

“Don't you put words in my mouth, Ted. These people are friends of mine. You go paddle your own canoe. You boys play too rough. I'm through.”

“Now wait a minute, Mike-”

Johnny had cautiously resumed his interrupted progress toward the public stenographer's office. He found that even with the shade drawn he could see in through the eight-inch clearance on either side, but what he saw disappointed him. He plainly saw Ed Russo taking a long drink from an up-tilted whisky bottle, and he would much rather have seen Ed Russo doing something-anything at all-which would have permitted Johnny to lower a little weight on him.

Johnny and Ed Russo had hung up a time or two. Verbally. To Johnny's way of thinking, Ed Russo was a man a little bit too impressed with a sense of his own importance. Johnny had often wondered how he and the blonde in the office with him could take a living out of the transient business in a hotel this size, but he conceded that that was their problem. He conceded, too, that it would be difficult to make anything out of Ed Russo taking a drink in his own office, regardless of the hour. He edged back to the front of the balcony.

“-know that Johnny had been married to this girl, Mike?” Detective Rogers sounded quite casual.

“Johnny?” Mike Larsen sounded strangled. “You're crazy!”

“Right from the horse's mouth, Mike. Why should it surprise you so much?”

“Damned if I know, to tell you the truth,” Mike admitted after a moment. “Except that I thought I knew Johnny rather well, and I never heard him say a word-”

“The reason I ask is because upstairs he sounded a little bit as though he could be lining up a vendetta for himself. We wouldn't like to see that, Mike. You could do him a favor by warning him off the grass.”

Mike snorted. “Joe Dameron could tell you something about warning Johnny off the grass.”

“We can't use any help. Or any hindrance. Tell him.”

“I'll tell him, and a fat lot of good it will do you.”

“Tell him, and let us worry about the good.” Footsteps scuffed on the marble floor below; Johnny waited a moment until he was sure they had gone, then descended the stairs into the lobby. Mike Larsen was standing looking thoughtfully out into the foyer after the departed detectives. He turned at the sound of Johnny's approach. “Well… speak of the devil-”

“I just heard you speakin' of him.” Mike's eyes-cat's eyes, curiously flecked with yellow-went aloft. “Yeah. I was up there. Thanks for the testimonial.”

“I'll send you a bill. If you heard it all I can save a little breath.”

“You can save a lot of breath.”

Mike smiled. “Old head-down Johnny.” The smile died. “How come I never heard anything before about you and Ellen?”

“It never seemed to come up.”

“Yeah,” Mike Larsen said drily. “I can see that. Well, where do we go from here?”

“You think it's too early to call Lorraine? Vic would want one of us to go downtown with her. That Cuneo is all wound up to give her a hard time.”

Mike was looking at him curiously. “You think that's a good move? For you to go down there, I mean? You'd be kind of rubbing yourself in Cuneo's nose, wouldn't you? And don't worry about Lorraine; she's no violet. She'll give Cuneo a little better than he's expecting.”

“It's Vic I'm thinking of, Mike. He'd expect us to do it.”

“Okay,” Mike shrugged. “Go ahead and call her; she won't be asleep. I'll pick up a lawyer friend of mine and meet you down there.”

Johnny leaned over the registration desk and pulled the front office phone toward himself. “Sally? Ring Vic's place for me, huh?” He twisted the cord in his hand. “Lorraine? Johnny Killain. I'd like to go downtown with you this morning when you go.”

“I think I'd like that, Johnny.” No hysterics here-a cool, poised voice. “About nine?”

“I'll be ready.”

Mike Larsen nodded as Johnny hung up. “I'll see you down there. And don't you go redheaded on me; I've only got one lawyer friend. And never mind looking at me like the great stone face. Some day I'm going to find something a little thicker than your skull, and when I do the metallurgists are going to beat a path to my door.” He stalked out of the lobby, a big man, moving easily.

Johnny resumed his long interrupted trip out back to the kitchen, which was just beginning to stir in the early morning quiet. Two or three lights were on in the big room, and the odor of coffee was in the air. Johnny stopped off by the giant urn and drew off a steaming mug, then carried it over to the paint-peeled desk in the back corner. A round little man with mild blue eyes looked up at his approach. “Good morning, Yonnee.”

“Mornin', Eric. What do you feed a kitten?” The blue eyes considered the matter; the offhand reply was obviously not a part of this man's nature. “Whose kitten, Yonnee?”

“My kitten.”

Eric smiled. “I would think then a little liver, a little shrimp, a little milk-”

“You sold me.”

Eric rose, his fresh whites rustling. “Drink your coffee. I fix it.”

Johnny sipped at the scalding coffee and watched the little second cook unlock a square refrigerator, rummage in its interior and emerge with a slice of liver and a handful of shrimp.

Eric turned to him. “A small kitten, Yonnee?”

Johnny shaped Sassy's size with his hands, and Eric nodded. A wide-bladed knife chopped firmly, and Johnny finished his coffee as wax paper was applied and a pint of milk set out. “Can I have one of those empties, Eric?” Johnny pointed to a stack of cartons which had contained canned goods.

“Why not?”

“Thanks, Eric. For the works.” Johnny took a carton whose sides were not too deep, gathered up his packages and departed for the lobby. On the mezzanine he confiscated a medium-sized geranium plant; he uprooted it and dumped the loose dirt in his carton, then slid the empty flower pot with the limp geranium in it under the nearest bench.

In his own room he showed this arrangement to the interested Sassy. “This is light housekeeping, baby doll,” he told her, “until Mother Killain gets to do a little shopping.” He had already lost her attention; the small, wrinkled nose was testing his packages. “Okay, tiger. Hold tight.”

From a shelf above the refrigerator he took down three saucers. He filled one with milk and put a little shrimp and a little liver in each of the others. As an afterthought he placed a newspaper beneath them, and Sassy immediately made it look like an excellent idea. Her notion of a quiet meal was to charge up on a plate full tilt and seize a piece in her mouth, then back away growling, defying the world to take it away from her. At the extreme edge of the newspaper she would eat daintily, then crouch and rush back again. She was an extremely leisurely diner.

He watched her for a few moments, then filled another saucer with water and added it to the lineup. He stretched out on the bed and closed his eyes lightly; in the first peaceful interlude he had had since Vic Barnes had opened Ellen Saxon's door Johnny tried to filter through his mind the impossible sequence of events since two o'clock that morning. For a long time the only noises in the room were Sassy's small sounds and the spatter of her paws on the newspaper.