Doorway to Death

by Dan J. Marlowe

  Johnny dropped down in the chair which Ronald Frederick had vacated earlier. He sat for a long time, his eyes unseeingly on the paneled wall, his mind racing in tight little circles....

  The telephone broke into his sleep, and he rolled over and reached for it. “Yeah.”

  “Eleven thirty, Johnny.”

  “Yeah. Thanks, Myrna.”

  He sighed, stretched, yawned widely, and reluctantly left the bed for the shower. When he emerged the phone was ringing again. He picked it up. “I heard you, Myrna. I'm up.”

  “This is Sally, Johnny.”

  “Oh. You still at the apartment?”

  “No, I'm downstairs. Vic just called and said he'd be a little late.”

  “All right. We'll manage.” He started to lower the phone, then raised it again on impulse. “Sally? Come on up.”

  “Now? What for?”

  “I'll draw you a diagram when you get here.”

  “Someone might see me.”

  “Hustle your skinny tail up here, ma. This is no courtship.”

  “Yes, Gallahad.” The faintly mocking inflection in the cool voice was still in his ears when he let her in the door. As always her clothes looked too big for her, but the warmly generous mouth ignited under his hard lips. “Mmmmm! What juiced you up, man?”

  “You talk too much.”

  “Hey! I have to wear these clothes!”

  “I'll lend you a suit.”

  “Johnny! Damn you—!”

  “Save your breath, ma.”

  From the bed he could hear her opening bureau drawers. “Pincushion in the bathroom, Sally.”

  “That's a fine place for it—”

  He sat up lazily on the edge of the bed as she came out of the bathroom, dressed. She walked across to him and slid naturally into his arms, and he ruffled her hair. After a moment he probed experimentally a ridged collarbone. “You're a sure-God plucked chicken, ma.”

  She twisted indignantly. “I'm the best damn woman you ever had, and you know it!”

  “You're not too far down the ladder at that, kid. And pound for pound you're in a class by yourself. A man'd have to be a pig to want any more woman than you are. Except for exercise, of course.”

  “Exercise!”

  “I try them all, ma, but I come back to you.”

  “Smelling of perfume—” Their smiles matched. The little silence was comfortable, unstrained. Sally freed herself gently, bent quickly, and brushed his mouth with her own. “Was it a good one, Johnny?”

  “It was a good one.” He followed her to the door to let her out.

  The buzzer sounded in the bar, and Johnny broke off the conversation in which Manuel the bar boy was nostalgically recalling the delights of Manila, and passed through the paneled swinging doors into the lobby. Sally's pointing finger indicated the bell captain's station, and he crossed the lobby and slid in behind the desk and picked up the phone.

  “The guy in 322 wants the suit he left with you yesterday, Johnny; he forgot to pick it up when he came in tonight. And Myrna says there was a man here to see you earlier. Said he'd be back in an hour. And there's—”

  “Later, ma,” he interrupted her, eyes on the foyer. “Duty calls.”

  The boy and girl were young; very young. The aura of money enveloped them ... looks, clothes, and attitude. The boy was thin and gangling; the tangerine-colored hair in the crew cut emphasized the too-prominent ears. His shoes had cost a minimum of thirty dollars. The girl was of medium height with soft, swirling brown hair; she fit her lightweight sweater and skirt well, the more so in that like most of her generation she carried a few more pounds than her inches demanded.

  Johnny motioned to Paul with his head as they entered the elevator, and slipped on behind them as Paul nodded and exited. “Suit in the checkroom to 322, Paul,” he said over his shoulder.

  “Right away.”

  Johnny closed the flanged doors, and the tight, shining walls enveloped them. He leaned back and studied them as they spoke together in consciously hushed voices. The scrubbed young faces were pink; not drunk, but in drink taken.

  The quiet and lack of movement got through to them finally. “Nine, please,” the girl said, looking around suddenly.

  “Who's got the key, sis?”

  “I have,” she announced and produced it. She smiled experimentally.

  “An' who's registered?”

  “I am.” The corners of the colorfully wide mouth drooped in the beginning of a pout.

  “Okay, son,” Johnny said firmly, re-opening the bronze door. “Say goodnight to her here. We'll look for you in the morning.”

  The boy flushed a dull, agonized red, swallowed hard, mumbled something unintelligible to the obviously sympathetic girl, and scuffed off the elevator through the lobby to the foyer.

  “You didn't need to do that, you know,” the girl protested softly, half way out into the ninth floor corridor. “He'll be terribly disappointed. I could have handled him.”

  Johnny considered the serious young face, the rounded, solemn brown eyes. “You got it wrong, sis,” he told her gently. “If you could have handled him, then he'd be terribly disappointed. On your own veranda maybe you're the captain, but a hotel room in the a.m. with three highballs eggin' him on'll surprise the hell out of you. Pretty soon you find out you can't handle him, after all, and then you got to call me to do it for you, and then everybody's mad at everybody else. This way I'm the only schmuck in the crowd... right?”

  Her smile was unwilling, the soft mouth rueful. “You make it sound so inevitable—”

  “Chapter and verse. Boy and girl. Man and woman.”

  The brown eyes widened, but she giggled, and swung her handbag by its long strap, so plainly in no hurry to depart that he looked at her as an individual for the first time. Beautiful skin, beautiful teeth ... a plump, pert little partridge.

  “Tell you what, sis—what's your name?”

  “Frannie.”

  “Tell you what we'll do, Frannie. Now you've looked your cards over, we'll drop back down to the lobby, and I'll run out and catch him for you.”

  “No, thanks,” she said quickly. “Look, I told you my name. What's yours?”

  “Ugly,” Johnny said promptly. “Name, nature, an' inclination.”

  “That's ridiculous,” she began, and then smiled. “Do you charge for this lecture, Ugly?”

  “Courtesy of the house, like the newspaper in the morning. Look at it this way, Frannie. In a place like this you got a chance to lose real big. You sure you want to?”

  “N-no—”

  “So take it easy. You're sharpenin' your claws on the wrong table leg. Simmer down. Don't chase those things. They'll catch up to you.”

  The pretty face was petulant. “I wish you'd tell me just one thing, then. You asked us who was registered. Suppose he'd been registered—?”

  He grinned at her. “In that case, I'd not only have ran you right on up, I'd have held you down for him if he'd had any trouble. Courtesy of the house, just like the newspaper—”

  She flounced down the hall with her nose in the air, then turned indignantly. “You're... you're not a gentleman!”

  “Alas.” He burlesqued a sigh. “Goodnight, Frannie.”

  If she replied, he didn't hear it; a door opened between them and a dark, medium-sized man stepped out briskly. He stopped short at sight of Johnny in the elevator. “Oh. You, there. I'd like to get a couple of quarts of beer. The switchboard just told me room service was through for the night—” He paused suggestively, and Johnny nodded.

  “If you're not fussy about the brand.”

  “Hell with the brand.” He had a hard, aggressive voice.

  “What's the room number?”

  The man turned and looked at the door behind him. “938.”

  “Ten minutes,” Johnny said and closed the elevator door. As he entered the lobby Paul beckoned to him.

  “Fella to see you, Johnny.”

  Johnny glanced quickly at the limp
figure sprawled in a lobby chair, and the figure stood up and uncoiled to a surprising height as Johnny approached him. “Killain?” the man asked. He had a long, mournful face.

  Johnny took a good look at him. “That's right. I didn't get your name, but the address is Centre Street, isn't it?”

  The man wet a finger and held it aloft. “Not a damn bit of wind in here, either. Nothing the matter with your nose, mister. To skip the preliminaries, there was a little ruckus in the neighborhood last night.”

  Johnny nodded and hesitated. The thin man studied him, deep lines furrowing the elongated features and the spaniel eyes tiredly sad.

  “This personal?”

  “As always, that depends on the answers I get. I did hear in a roundabout way that you got a little rep for makin' muscle medicine when you get peeved, and that you and Armistead weren't members of the same lodge. I'd have to concede you something on that last, up to a point.”

  Johnny rubbed his chin thoughtfully. “I don't know whether it makes any difference to you or not, but I've been over this already.”

  “That right?” Johnny couldn't tell whether the morose face believed him or not. “Who's been over it with you?”

  “Lieutenant Dameron.”

  “That right?” Johnny recognized the difference in inflection, he debated for a moment calling Lieutenant Dameron at that hour and patently decided against it. The thin man smiled sourly. “M' mother told me there'd be days like this. You understand I'll check you out in the morning?”

  “I understand. A drink against the rules?”

  “What rules?”

  Johnny led the way into the bar, held up a finger as Tommy approached, and indicated his companion. He turned to the thin man who held out a large, capable hand. “Thanks for the drink. Name's Jones. Arthur. One of the Jones' boys.”

  Johnny nodded. “Legwork is hell.”

  “You can print that.” Arthur Jones turned to Tommy at the bar, and Johnny walked down the long room and through the service door in the rear to the kitchen beyond, dark except for a single bulb in the farthest corner where a man in a white uniform nodded over a paperbacked book.

  “Why don't you go to bed, Dutch?”

  “You know I can't sleep, John.” The voice was slow and dignified, ripe with years. White hair fringed the high chef's hat, and the veins stood out on the backs of the transparent looking hands.

  “You got any beer in the box, Dutch? I got some cached downstairs, but it isn't cold.”

  “Happens I have, John.”

  “I need two quarts.”

  “Happens I have two quarts.” The old man rose stiffly to his feet and produced a huge key and with deliberate movements opened up the walk-in box behind him. Cold air drifted out as he removed two bottles from a case on the floor and handed them to Johnny.

  “Got a good notion to come down here in the morning when I'm ready for the sack, Dutch. The temperature is about right.”

  “You wouldn't do much sleeping, John. Grand Central's no busier than this box daytimes. The meat box over there, now; that's different. Only need to get into it twice a week, usually. That one'd stiffen you right out in about twelve hours, though. Should I make you a reservation?”

  “My toes are tender, Dutch. Thanks for the beer. I'll get the ticket to you first thing in the morning.”

  The white-haired man smiled. “I don't imagine we'd make a Federal case of it if you were a few minutes late.” He re-locked the cold box and returned to his detective story at the desk, and Johnny picked up his bottles and walked back across the dark kitchen to the connecting service door at the bar.

  At the door he looked back. The only sound he could hear was his own breathing, and the tiny desk light in the far corner was the only break in the massive darkness.

  Johnny shrugged and continued on out to the lobby.

  Chapter III

  On the way through the lobby he stopped at the registration desk. “Who's m 938, Vic?”

  Vic Barnes elevated the glasses riding low on the bridge of his nose and looked up at the room rack. “Lustig, Frank,” he read and looked inquiringly at Johnny. Vic was a stocky, middle-aged man with a round face, thinning hair combed straight back from a high forehead, high color, and facial skin so glossy it looked waxed.

  “You got a chit? I'm droppin' two quarts of beer off up there, and I forgot to get one from Dutch.”

  Vic fumbled under the counter and produced one, and Johnny borrowed a pencil and laboriously made out the charge. Satisfied, he looked up at the watching Vic. “What time you want your relief?”

  “Any time at all. I'm in no hurry.”

  Johnny nodded. “About twenty minutes, then.”

  Upstairs he had to knock three times at the door of 938 before it opened a conservative two inches. The dark man stared out at Johnny blankly, then snapped his fingers. “Oh, sure. The beer.” The door widened to six inches and Johnny handed in the beer and the charge ticket. The dark man held out his hand for a pencil, and Johnny gave him one; he had his first good look at the man's face as he held the chit up on the wall beside the door and signed his name. The face had been around; the nose had been broken at least twice, and the brows were thicker than nature had intended.

  “Here you are.” The chit came out through the opening, and the door started to close. Johnny got one quick flash at the signature and quickly put out his hand to prevent the closing of the door.

  “Just a minute—” The dark man looked out suspiciously, and Johnny waved the chit at him. “Your name Dumas?”

  “Would I have signed it if it wasn't?” the man bristled.

  “Mr. Dumas isn't registered in this room,” Johnny told him.

  “Oh, hell, that's right, I'm upstairs—” He half turned and called over his shoulder. “Frank!” He turned to Johnny again. “Here, give me that. There's a quicker way than all this damnfoolishness.” He took the chit back and tore it across twice, reached in his pocket and fumbled out a bill. He looked down at it, and handed it out to Johnny. “Okay. Thanks.”

  Johnny looked at the five dollar bill in his hand and at the closed door. He started slowly back to the elevator, and changed his mind. He took out his wallet and removed the illegal brass pass key and opened a room he knew was vacant, walked to the phone and picked it up. “Sally? Johnny. You got a Dumas registered in the house?”

  Her answer came in seconds. “1421. Why?”

  “Nothin", I guess. Paul around?”

  “At the desk.”

  “Put him on.” He heard the click of the additional connection; he smiled to himself. Sally hadn't taken herself off the line. “Paul? You bring any women up to the ninth floor tonight?”

  “Nary a one. You find any?”

  “No—” Johnny thought a moment, and shrugged. “I thought somethin' might be goin' on in 938, but I guess not. Kinda keep that one in mind, will you? You, too, Sally.”

  “He's made a lot of phone calls, Johnny. Long distance, too.”

  “If—he went to all that trouble to get a girl, maybe we shouldn't bother him. Tell Vic I'll be down in a few minutes.”

  In the elevator he dropped down to the sixth floor and turned to anchor the cab with his ever ready slab of wood; his subconscious mind registered another presence even before he looked up and saw Ronald Frederick's plum colored robe standing outside the door of Johnny's room. Waiting? It tugged at Johnny's mind for an instant, and then was gone as the manager spoke. “I was hoping you'd be by, Johnny. Been telling myself I'd invite myself in for a drink.” Even in pajamas and dressing gown the little man managed to look dressed for the opera; not a hair was out of place. The mild eyes behind the steel rimmed glasses were both diffident and apologetic.

  “Sure. Come on in. I could use one myself.”

  The manager watched as Johnny slipped a key from a clip on the band of his wrist watch and opened his door, flinging it wide.

  “That serves a purpose?” he inquired, a nod of the head indicating the key restored to t
he clip on the watch band, and Johnny looked down at it an instant before realizing what he meant.

  “Oh, that. Yeah. Once in a blue moon you might need to get to a key faster'n you can get in and out of the pockets of these tight monkey suits.”

  “And opening the door all the way; a form of semper par at is?”

  “Reflex, maybe.”

  The slender man smiled faintly as he preceded his host inside. His glance ranged the comfortably furnished bed-sitting room with its tiny attached kitchen, coming to rest on the thick pile of the carpeting which he tested absent-mindedly with the toe of a slipper. “You do yourself rather well in the creature comforts, Johnny. Your own things?”

  “Willie's. Scotch okay with you?”

  “And water. No ice. This was Mr. Martin's room?”

  “This is his room. When he's in town.”

  “You move out?”

  “I move over.” Johnny passed behind the neat figure sitting almost bolt upright in the easy chair and still examining the room. At the refrigerator he could feel his guest's eyes upon him as he went through the familiar ritual with glasses and odd shaped bottles.

  Ronald Frederick's voice was musing. “You know as one gets older, Johnny, he sometimes discovers new and surprising—ah—facets in his own nature, so why should he be surprised at corresponding discoveries in someone else?” He examined his fingernails, removed a handkerchief from his robe and lightly buffed the nails on his left hand. He looked over at Johnny again as he replaced the handkerchief. “For example, I'm sure that even yesterday I should not have had the—ah—unmitigated gall to push my way in here on you like this, without an invitation.”

  He waited for the automatic disclaimer as Johnny approached him, glass in hand and, when it was not forthcoming, accepted the drink with a smile. “One can say with no fear at all of successful contradiction that you are a man who speaks his mind, or not, as the occasion warrants? Ah, well. I fear that I am about to compound the felony of my presence here by becoming inquisitive.” He leaned back in his chair, tasted his drink, and nodded his head in approval. “Excellent.” He watched as Johnny poured a colorless liquid into a slender glass and took a long, slow swallow. “Vodka?”