by Dan Marlowe
“And who the hell are you not to like it?” the man demanded, and unloaded a line-drive right-hand smash that landed high, flush on Johnny's mouth. The big man stepped back expectantly, but Johnny's neck shrank itself into his shoulders as his chin came down on his chest. His open hands, hooked like curved claws, came up waist-high as he shuffled closer. The big man, recovering, slammed a left and right to the diminished target and then grunted loudly as the reaching hands clamped down on him laterally on thigh and shoulder. The man's surprised yell was breathlessly hoarse as he went effortlessly aloft, and Johnny straightened with the man overhead to find Mickey Tallant opposite him, hopping up and down with arms frantically outstretched.
“Not behind the bar, Johnny!” the Irishman yelled at the top of his lungs above the pandemonium around them, and Johnny pivoted as the man in the air struggled to get a hand in Johnny's hair and the other in the neckband of his uniform collar. The customers scattered wildly as Johnny came out of the pivot and slung the big man explosively at the wall a dozen feet away. Intervening tables and chairs splintered like kindling as the heavy body crashed through them, and Johnny straightened from the soul-satisfying effort to find that seventy-five per cent of his uniform jacket, shirt, and undershirt had made the trip to the wall with the big man. Impatiently he stripped off the rags still clinging to him.
“Throw me an apron, Mickey,” he called to the tavern owner without turning around. Then he ran a hand lightly over his swelling mouth and looked impassively at the blood upon it.
In the second it took sound to return to the room, the shattered outer door opened and two slender men huddled in dark overcoats entered briskly. They came to a dead stop just inside the door as their eyes took in the tableau at the other end of the room, and the nearer dark overcoat shook its head disparagingly as it looked from Johnny to the man crawling along the base of the wall like a wingless grub. “I must say it looks natural,” Detective James Rogers announced in his usual imperturbable tone, “but is it legal?”
Hands in pockets, Detective Ted Cuneo in the second dark overcoat sauntered over to the wall. After a sharp glance at Johnny he leaned down over the man sitting up dizzily, the official voice solicitous. “You like to sign a complaint, citizen?”
From behind the bar Mickey Tallant made an angry sound. “He ain't signin' no complaint, Cuneo. He's been livin' too long now on borrowed time with that unzippered bazzoo of his. He's just lucky he don't wind up plenty shortweight on the scale.”
The slender Detective Rogers removed his hat and tossed it onto a nearby table; he ran a hand lightly through his sandy hair. “Is it official that he hasn't?” he asked mildly, and walked over to Johnny, who was unfolding the apron that had been tossed him. The detective placed a stiffened forefinger amid the ridged scars prominent on Johnny's bared chest. “Every time I see you, Killain,” he began thoughtfully, then shrugged. “I imagine we could always charge indecent exposure.” He looked from Johnny to his partner, who was still talking urgently to the big man on the floor, and he raised his voice. “The sidewalk affair does seem to have priority, Ted,” he suggested, and Detective Cuneo straightened reluctantly. He was a lean six-footer, hatchet-faced and sallow-complexioned, with overlarge eyes that seemed perpetually outraged.
He removed a notebook from an inside breast pocket and walked quickly to the bar. “All right, Tallant,” he said snappily. “You got so damn much to say let's hear something now. Let's not keep the first editions waiting.”
Detective Rogers nodded at Johnny, swathed in wraparound fashion in his apron. “Don't hurry off, chum,” he said softly, and turned to the bar to join in the questioning of the tavern owner.
Neither Rogers nor Cuneo had noticed Sally's presence, Johnny reflected, but that wouldn't last long. Silently he made his way through the crowd back to the end of the bar and took up his position beside her. She slipped her hand back into his, her eyes on the big man, who had made it up to a chair and was cautiously flexing arms and legs. Her expression was unreadable.
With his free hand Johnny picked up his previously neglected drink. He swallowed it at a gulp, winced as the alcohol burned his torn mouth and set the empty glass down on the bar.
He waited for their turn at questions-and-answers, the seething boil and bubble of his overheated blood ebbing gradually to a liquid simmer. He felt almost ready when Detective Rogers turned suddenly at the bar and looked in their direction, then detached himself and walked rapidly toward them.
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?”
