The Leather Duke

Chapter Nineteen

The bouncing of the car on rough pavement sent streaks of pain darting through Johnny’s body. He groaned once or twice, flailed with his hands, then an especially nasty bump caused him to cry out.

“Cut it out!” he gasped. He sat up. A foot was planted into his face and pushed him back to the carpeted floorboard.

“Shuddup!” snarled a harsh voice.

With a rush, full consciousness returned to Johnny. He was lying almost doubled up on the floor between the rear and front seat of a limousine. Two men sat on the rear seat, their feet carelessly deposited on him.

“Get your foot out of my stomach,” Johnny complained.

It was the wrong thing to say. A heel ground into his stomach and another foot kicked him in the side. “You’ll talk big right to the end,” a voice sneered; the voice of Carmella Vitali.

Johnny was silent a moment as the full gravity of his predicament penetrated his aching brain. Then he asked quietly: “Where’s Sam Cragg?”

“In the hospital, for all we care,” said Carmella nastily. “We didn’t figure it necessary to bring him along.”

Johnny groaned inwardly. The last he had seen of Sam he was on his knees after having taken two vicious blows with the blackjack. Johnny himself had taken only one blow and passed out. Yes, Sam probably was in the hospital. And Johnny...

“Where are we?” he asked.

“Guess,” said a strange voice.

“Out in the country,” Johnny hazarded.

“Smart boy,” said Carmella. “You ain’t even lookin’ and you figured that out.”

“We haven’t passed any street lights,” retorted Johnny. “And we’re on a paved road, bumpy, but we haven’t made any stops and haven’t crossed any streetcar tracks. That’s the country.”

“And you’re right, Fletcher, dead right, although you’ll probably be more dead than right in a few minutes. In fact, I think this is as good a spot as any... Luigi!”

“Yeah, Carmella,” replied the voice of the man in the front seat.

“Pull up.”

Brakes squealed and the car came to a bumping stop. Feet stepped on Johnny, kicked him and the right car door was opened. Carmella got out of the car.

“All right, Fletcher.”

Johnny turned and on all fours crawled out of the car. Carmella helped him the last part by grabbing his coat collar and yanking him. Johnny spilled to the gravelly road shoulder. A foot kicked him and he got heavily to his feet. By that time the other two men had gotten out of the car and all three faced Johnny. Johnny’s head ached terribly, his body was a mass of bruises and aches, but the peril of his position brought Johnny erect and alert.

“Now, wait a minute, Carmella,” he said quickly. “Let’s talk this over. I’ve got some money...”

“You had some money,” said Carmella. “You haven’t got a nickel...”

“I can get some more.”

“Not in Chicago you can’t. Because when we get through with you, you won’t be going back to Chicago. You been stickin’ your nose into things that ain’t none of your business. You been botherin’ me and when someone bothers me...”

Carmella didn’t finish the sentence. He swung with his fist at Johnny’s face. Johnny rolled with the punch and received only a glancing blow, but he promptly fell to his knees and from there to his face.

“Get up,” snarled Carmella. “I hardly hit you.” He put the toe of a foot into Johnny’s side and turned him over on his back. One of the two sleek, swarthy men stooped, caught Johnny’s coat front in a fist and yanked him up to his knees. Johnny let his body remain limp.

A fist smashed into his face. Johnny suppressed a groan, but jerked himself free of the fist and fell on his back. He rolled over, covering his head as best he could with his arms.

They lifted him again, but Johnny remained limp, even under the savage blows that were rained on him. They finally let him fall, kicked him several times, then believing him unconscious they climbed into the car. The motor was started, the car went ahead a short distance, then was turned and began coming back. Headlights picked out Johnny on the left shoulder of the road. It took his entire will power to remain motionless as the car swerved toward him. But at the last moment the driver jerked the wheel to the right and the car roared past.

Johnny waited until the motor was a faint drumming. Then he gathered himself slowly together and struggled to his knees. He remained in that position a long time before he finally got to his feet. He looked around then and saw that he was on a road lined with trees that came close to the pavement. The moon was almost full and lighted up the road nicely, but Johnny saw no sign of habitation. Wait... ahead and to the right was a glow in the sky. That could be a town.

Johnny started walking. He went a hundred yards and suddenly became aware that a car was approaching from the rear. Quickly he stepped off the pavement to the road shoulder, scrambled through a shallow ditch and took refuge in the trees beyond.

The headlights swooped down, became a car that roared past. When the taillights had disappeared Johnny emerged from the woods.

He walked for a half mile and came to a crossroad, a paved road somewhat wider than the one on which he had been traveling. Lights flickered in the distance. Johnny turned into the road.

He went at least a mile before he came to a street light; another was a hundred yards beyond. Ten minutes walking brought him to a road sign: Hillcrest City Limits.

Hillcrest! The name struck a chord in Johnny’s brain. Of course — this was the home of Harry Towner. Johnny started swiftly into the town. He passed a closed gas station, a few houses, then a store or two and two more closed gas stations. But there were cars on the street now and in another block he saw the bright lights of an all-night gas station.

An attendant was hosing down the driveway. Behind him, in the lighted station, was a wall clock. One-fifteen a.m. The attendant watched Johnny approach.

“I’m looking for Harry Towner’s place,” Johnny said. “Do you know where he lives?”

The man looked at Johnny suspiciously. “You kidding?”

“No, I’m not. I had an accident back a ways and I know I look like hell, but I’ve got to get to Towner’s place.”

“This time of the night?”

“This time of the night.”

The man shrugged. “Right through town, three miles, turn right a mile, then left about a half. Big stone wall, big iron gate with an arch over it. Name Five Knolls on the arch. That’s the place.”

“Almost five miles!” exclaimed Johnny. “I can’t walk that far.”

“Probably wouldn’t do you any good if you did,” said the gas station attendant.

“Have you got a phone here I can use?”

“Pay phone inside.”

Johnny went through his pockets. Carmella had told the truth. He had been stripped of every bill and coin in his pockets, in fact every scrap of paper. Even his handkerchief had been taken from him.

“I haven’t got a nickel,” said Johnny. “I wonder if you’d—”

“No,” said the attendant. “I’m a working man. I can’t afford to give money to bums.”

“I’m not a bum,” said Johnny. “I was held up and robbed.”

“I was held up myself, last week,” retorted the attendant. “And believe me, the bonding company gave me a workout. Seemed to think I tapped the till.”

“A nickel,” said Johnny. “It won’t break you. I want to phone Harry Towner. He’ll send a car out after me.”

“Yah!” jeered the attendant. “He’ll send a car out at one-thirty in the morning; he will in a pig’s ear. This is my home town and I know plenty about Harry Towner. He buys his gas from a truck; keeps a couple of tanks on the place. Saves a nickel a gallon that way.”

“I work for Towner,” Johnny persisted. “His leather factory in Chicago. He offered me the job of sales manager only yesterday.”

“Sales manager, huh? You ain’t doin’ such a good sellin’ job right now. You can’t even talk me out of a nickel. You know what I think? Your face is full of blood and your clothes is all torn; I think you got thrown off a freight train.”

“The hell with you!” snarled Johnny and started to walk off. He went twenty feet and then the man called out: “Hey, come back, here’s your nickel.”

Johnny turned and walked back. He took the nickel the man held out, started for the filling station. The attendant followed him.

“If you’re on the level, call Hillcrest 1234; that’s the local cab company. Ride out to Towner’s and get him to pay for the cab.”

Johnny took the receiver off the hook, hesitated, then dropped the nickel into the slot.

Five minutes later, a yellow taxicab pulled into the filling station and Johnny got in. He waved to the gas station attendant and leaned back against the leather cushions. “Five Knolls,” he told the driver. “Harry Towner’s place.”

The man turned completely around in his seat. “This time o’ night — the way you look?”

“I had a car accident,” Johnny said.

The driver hesitated, then muttered something to himself and turned away. The cab roared out of the gas station. It rolled through a village, headed for the country road beyond and a few minutes later drove up to an ornamental iron gate. Worked into the archway overhead were the words Five Knolls.

The driver got out, came around and opened the cab door for Johnny. “Two seventy-five,” he said.

“Pretty steep for five miles,” Johnny objected.

“Night rates — and I got to go back.”

Johnny pointed to the gates. “Ring for the bell, will you?”

“Why?”

“Well, if you must know, I haven’t got any money with me.”

The cabby stepped to the front door, opened it and reaching in brought out a big wrench. “All right,” he said, “I’ll get no money out of it, but I’ll get satisfaction. You’n me are taking a ride to the jailhouse.”

Johnny stepped around the cabby and moved backwards to the big iron gate. He found the bell at the side of it and pressed long and hard.

“Give me five minutes,” he said to the cabby, who had followed him with the wrench, held poised for striking. “If I don’t get the money for you, I’ll go with you quietly.”

He pressed the bell again. There was a cottage just inside the gate and after a moment, a light went on in it. Johnny pressed the bell a third time. A door opened, framing a man in undershirt and trousers. “Who is it?” he called.

“I want to see Mr. Harry Towner,” Johnny called back.

“What’s the name?”

“Fletcher.”

The man in the cottage doorway shook his head. “Mr. Towner didn’t tell me about any Fletcher calling in the middle of the night.”

“He didn’t expect me to call.”

“Then I’m afraid you’ll have to wait until morning.”

“If you make me wait until morning,” Johnny said grimly, “I can assure you you’ll lose your job. This is a matter of life and death. Phone the house and tell Mr. Towner that Johnny Fletcher is here with important information about the murder at the plant.”

“The murder!” exclaimed the gatekeeper.

“You heard me.”

The man hesitated then, leaving the door open, went back into his cottage. Johnny could see him cross to a wall phone, take down the receiver and wait a moment. Then he pressed a button. He waited for a long moment, spoke into the phone, waited and spoke again. Then he hung up and came out of the cottage.

He waddled up to the gate, shot back a bolt and pulled the gate open a foot or so. “Mr. Towner says to come up, but it better be good. That’s what he said.”

“It’ll be good,” said Johnny. “Now, give this taxi driver five dollars.”

“What for?” cried the gatekeeper.

“Look at me,” said Johnny sternly. “I was waylaid and robbed on my way out here. I haven’t got a nickel in my pocket. Give the man the five dollars; you’ll get it back from Mr. Towner in the morning.” He turned to the cabby. “Okay?”

The man lowered his wrench. “Okay, chum... Want me to wait?”

“No.” said Johnny. “I’ll be spending the night here.”

He nodded, stepped through the aperture in the gate and started up a winding drive to the huge shadow of the house, a hundred yards or more from the gate.

A light was on in an upper room and as Johnny approached lights went on downstairs. When he got to the door it was already opened and a servant in a bathrobe greeted him.

“Mr. Fletcher? Mr. Towner is in the library.”

Johnny entered and the butler led him through a wide hall to a room at the rear, an immensely large room with thousands of books on the shelves, most of them in leather bindings, most of them as untouched as the day they had been bound.

Harry Towner was pacing before a massive teakwood desk, a cold cigar champed in his mouth. He stopped when Johnny entered the room.

“What happened to you?” he cried when he noted Johnny’s physical appearance.

“I was taken for a ride,” said Johnny, “and left for dead.”

Towner’s eyes widened in shock. “Who did it?”

“A man named Carmella Vitali...”

“That Italian the police questioned?”

“Yes.”

Towner whirled to his desk, scooped up a phone.

“No,” said Johnny quickly. “Don’t call the police. I want him to think I’m dead and tomorrow I’ll nail him. Good.”

“At least, let me call a doctor. You look like hell, Fletcher.”

“I haven’t got any broken bones,” said Johnny. “I look worse than I feel.” That was a lie. “But I’d like to take a hot shower and get some sleep.”

“Cedric!” roared Towner. The butler in the bathrobe popped into the library. “Show Mr. Fletcher to a room. Run a hot bath for him and do whatever else you can.”

“Thanks,” said Johnny wryly. He followed the butler out of the room, climbed a stairs and proceeded down a wide carpeted hall.

The butler opened a door, switched on lights and Johnny entered a bedroom about half as large as the Northwestern Depot. The bathroom was as big as the average two-room apartment and had a square tub in which you could execute naval maneuvers. Johnny peeled off his clothes while the butler ran hot water into the tub.

“I can handle the rest,” Johnny said. “Thanks.”

“Very well, sir,” said the butler. “Should you want medication or, ah, bandages, you’ll find them in the medicine cabinet.”

Johnny soaked himself in the tub for fifteen minutes, then got out, dried himself and, naked, crawled into the huge bed. He didn’t bother turning out the lights.