Doorway to Death

by Dan J. Marlowe

  “Ahhh, break it off,” he said wearily. He looked at the angry, beautiful face. “You hooked solid?”

  “Of course I'm not!” she flashed.

  “Willie know you're on the stuff?”

  Her smile was triumphantly vindictive. “Yes, little boy, Willie knows. Isn't it a shame you won't be able to be the first to give him the news?”

  Johnny felt sick; he sensed she was telling the truth. When he remained silent, Shirley remembered the cablegram in her hand. She read it quickly, and her lip curled. She looked at Johnny. “The master's voice. Did you call BOAC's overseas office to see what time he'd get in?”

  “You're on the payroll, kid. You call 'em.”

  Her lips tightened. 'You trying to start something with me? Some one of these days I'll give you—” She broke off as she thought of something; she looked again at the cable. “'reserve mario.'“ She tore up the cablegram into thin strips; her tone was bitter. “I'm not going back to that place of Mario's. Willie may like to play big shot and be greeted at the front door by the maitre d' bowing from the waist, but not me. I don't like those places where you can't get the frost off the help's chins. Anybody who isn't a charter member couldn't make an impression over there by carpeting the floor wall-to-wall with twenty dollar bills.”

  “Willie's been goin' to the Casa Grande for twenty five years,” Johnny said patiently. “He's known Mario longer'n that.”

  “Willie's going to have to make a few changes in his routine.” She smiled at Johnny sweetly. “I'm working on it.” “Willie could fool you, kid. Willie 'n me—” The smile vanished. “Willie 'n me,” Shirley mimicked savagely. “Damn Willie and you! And damn you and Willie I'm sick of the combination eternally dinned in my ears! Doesn't either of you have a life of your own any more?” She turned furiously and flounced out through the foyer, her high heels clicking spitefully, and Johnny stared after her.

  “Boy,” he murmured finally. “Boy, oh boy. Happy days are here again. Rack 'em up in the other alley, Sam.”

  Very thoughtfully he resumed his interrupted progress to the street.

  The shades were drawn in the apartment bedroom, and if it was not dark, Johnny decided, it was at least a pleasant twilight. He could see the shape and outline of the larger objects in the room but not the details. He sighed, stretched lengthily, and turned his head to look at the pale blur of Sally's relaxed figure on the bed beside him. “I ate too much, ma. You shouldn't feed me like that.”

  “Once a pig, always a pig,” she murmured drowsily, and Johnny smiled and ran a palm lightly over a smooth shoulder. Sally's head came up abruptly from the pillow. “Listen, man, are we going to sleep, or are we going to play? Make up your mind.”

  “I feel like talkin', ma. Reach me a cigarette.”

  She groaned in protest. “I'm sleepy, Johnny—” He could feel her movement as she stretched to reach the night table, and in the near darkness her features were indistinguishable as she leaned back over him. Her hair swirled about the lighter oval of her face as she traced the shape of his lips with an enquiring finger before inserting the cigarette, and light flared in her hand, flickered, and steadied to an even glow. Johnny stared up over the cigarette lighter into the soft brown eyes and the revealed thin features, shiningly translucent in the flame. He drew deeply on the cigarette, and Sally released the lever action on the lighter, and the cloaking twilight again rushed in upon them.

  She snuggled back along the length of his body, and then almost at once she lifted her head again. “Well, buster, what happened to all that conversation?”

  “I'll get around to it.”

  “Oh, come on. If you don't have anything to say, at least let me sleep.” She came up on an elbow and peered down into his face, trying to make out his expression. “Or do you have something?”

  “Well, did I tell you Willie'll be in tonight?”

  “You know perfectly well you didn't tell me.” She dropped back on the pillow, and he could hear the edge of resentment in the soft voice. “I can see where I'll be a bachelorette for sure while he's in town. Did he call you?”

  “Cable. He's in Europe. Or was. Gonna be kinda nice to have ol' Willie around.”

  Her voice had softened. “You think a lot of him, don't you?”

  “Willie's all right.”

  “What makes him such a hero, outside of having a few dollars?”

  “Hero? Aww, hero's a dirty word, Sally. What you need to remember about Willie is that when the heroes are takin' to the trees Willie's just gettin' into second gear.”

  “He certainly doesn't look it.”

  “You don't know him like I do, ma. We've seen a few tough sunrises come up over the horizon, Willie 'n me.” He lay there remembering.

  When Sally spoke again her tone had changed. “Have you talked to Lieutenant Dameron since last night?”

  “No, and that reminds me—I ought to call him. I found out somethin' about that.” He dragged on the last half inch of cigarette and stubbed it out with a long reach over her shoulder. “You don't ever want to be hangin' by anything tender while you're waiting for the police to call you with information, ma.”

  “Even when you're helping them?” She sounded indignant. “And after what you did for them last night?”

  “Toe's a little touchy about my help. He's afraid I'll go off half-cocked in the action and jeopardize his official position. He wants me, but he wants me under wraps. And that thing last night wasn't such a much I did for them. The butcher would have found him anyway when he opened the box this morning, so I only got them about twelve hours. 'Course sometimes twelve hours is a hell of a lot but this time I don't see that it means much.” He grinned into the darkness. “Hell of a thing to have in your mind, but you know all I could think of last night? I was picturin' Karl, the butcher, walkin' into that box this morning if we hadn't found the stiff. Karl's always half smashed goin' to work anyway, account of the cold.”

  Beside him he could feel Sally shiver, and he reached for her. He slipped an arm about the slim body and drew her closer to him, and after a moment he could feel her lips on his cheek. “I'll be glad when this is all over,” she sighed.

  “I got a feelin' we're close to the payoff window right now.”

  “It's getting so I'm afraid to go to work nights. And it's not much better here when you're not around, since that man was here the other afternoon.”

  “That man is in the sneezer, ma. You can scratch him from the entries.”

  “Yes, and I love the way you and Paul didn't tell me a word about it when it happened.”

  “Just savin' your nerves a bruise. You get shook too easy.”

  She sniffed audibly, and he tightened the arm around her and listened to the hissing intake of her breath. After a moment he disengaged the arm, slipped it from beneath her, sat up, and slid off the bed. Sally's head lifted as she tried to follow his movements in the shadows. “What are you doing, Johnny?” She sat up as he returned and knelt on the bed beside her.

  “Johnny Killain, you haven't any pants on!” she accused him as he reached for her.

  “Welcome to the club,” Johnny said.

  Sally was in the shower when the phone rang, and Johnny rose from the bed to answer it. “Yeah?”

  “Johnny? Dameron.”

  “Hey, I got something for you.” The bathroom door opened, and Sally's head and shoulders appeared, swathed in a towel. He formed the word “Joe” silently with his lips, and she nodded and went back inside, closing the door. “The guy in the locker last night, Joe; his name's Frank Lustig, and he was registered into 938 the night he was killed. He was killed right in the room, and when they took him down to the kitchen in the room service elevator to dispose of the body Dutch broke up the party.” The line hummed emptily a moment. “I'll buy pair of that,” Lieutenant Dameron's voice said into the little silence. “Let me tell you why I called, though. Jimmy just called me from the hotel. He'd gone over to talk to that cook who was with you when you found the bo
dy.”

  “Don't tell me he'd bugged out on you—?”

  He could hear the dry rasp in the other voice. “Oh, he was still there. Jimmy broke in the bathroom door and found him in the tub. Both wrists slashed, he bled to death very tidily.”

  “Christ! We needed to talk to that guy.”

  “I doubt we can extradite him from where he is now.” The lieutenant's voice sounded less forceful than usual. “I'd counted myself on talking to him. I think he could have given us a few answers. That was a good move on your part last night, incidentally.”

  “An accident. Sitting in the kitchen it came to me all of a sudden that Dutch hadn't said 'clocks' like Manuel thought; he'd said 'box,' and he knew what he was talking about. Right now I'm not sure it was a good move at all. The butcher would have found him this morning anyway, and we'd have still had Hans. Jimmy said he was in up to his hips with the shylocks, but that's a strong rebuttal.”

  He had a better reason or thought he did. The body may have been registered into 938 like you say, but his name wasn't Frank Lustig. It was Frank Rieder, and he was Hans Rieder's younger brother.”

  “Mmmpfh! Have we ever got a wide screen production goin' now.”

  “We can't seem to get a break on the timing on these things,” Lieutenant Dameron said tiredly. “Two hours earlier on that report, and the cook would probably still have been under sedation.”

  “You figure he'd been going so bad financially that his nerves were gone and finding his brother was the last straw?”

  “I figure it a little stronger than that. It almost has to be that he'd brought the brother in to help out on something he was promoting, and the realization he'd gotten his brother killed did it. And the way he was killed—did you see the face?”

  “Yeah. Rugged. One thing, though. You can bet me if you think Hans was working with Freddie.”

  “Against him, then?”

  “Has to be. You realize the payoff on this thing has got to be one hell of a brass ring, Joe? If about four more people show up, Fort Knox couldn't pay 'em off for their trouble.”

  “I've changed my mind half a dozen times. I just don't know. It's got to be important, the way people are throwing themselves under the wheels. If Hans wasn't working with Freddie—and offhand I'm inclined to agree with you on that—then that has to mean that Freddie's crowd doesn't take easily to being muscled out.”

  “You say 'Freddie's crowd' real strong today. That because of what I told Jimmy last night about Freddie's place bein' all wired up?”

  “Partly, but I'm holding a kicker to that pair. We finally got the picture in from San Francisco, and Freddie is not Ronald Frederick, the hotelman.”

  “Well, hell, Joe. If you know that, what are you waitin' for? Till we have to move out some of the guests to make room for the bodies?”

  “If I had someone to put him near the kitchen that night—”

  “Joe, you mean to tell me you aren't gonna pick him up?”

  “If I pick him up, you know how long I can hold him without a charge. And if I can't charge him, from the looks of this operation I shouldn't be able to scare him very much, either.”

  “So charge him. With murder.”

  “And if I don't get a confession?”

  Johnny drew an exasperated breath. “Are you trying to tell me you didn't get to be a lieutenant of police by sticking out your neck for false arrest charges? Goddamit, Joe—”

  “There's a better way of doing it, Johnny.”

  “Like what?”

  “Who speaks for the hotel when Willie's out of town?”

  “Some lawyer downtown. He don't spit, though, till Willie tells him it's time.”

  “If we could convince this lawyer that he should protect Willie's interests by preferring charges against this man for securing a bonded position under false pretenses—I don't need a murder charge to hold him, Johnny. I just need an airtight charge.”

  “It might be easier than talkin' to the lawyer.”

  “How?”

  “Willie'll be in town sometime tonight.”

  “He will? That's fine. You bring him around.”

  “I still think you ought to scoop Freddie right now.”

  “I happen to have a little more at stake in this thing than you do, Johnny. You bring Willie around tonight.”

  The phone clicked in Johnny's ear, and he hung it up slowly. He sat and stared at the wall. A couple of days ago he had wished for a ravelled thread in the fringe that would lead back to the counterpane. Now there were as many threads as fringe and still remarkably little that a man could put his finger upon exactly.

  Johnny roused himself finally and looked around for his clothes.

  He walked into the bar from the lobby and watched Fred work his way up the shining mahogany, polishing with a rhythmic sweep of a long arm. The bartender looked up as he sensed his audience and threw the bar rag behind him. “Hope we're a little busy tonight. Damn time drags so when we're not... you workin' two shifts lately, Johnny? Seems like every time I see you you're in uniform.”

  “Getting ready for the next depression,” Johnny told him. “Manuel around?”

  “Out in back. He'll be right—here he is now.”

  The slim dark boy ducked under the counter with a trayful of glasses which he set down on the bar. “'Lo, Jonee. Up early?”

  “Medium. You got a blade, Manuel?”

  “But of course.”

  “Like to borrow it a few minutes.”

  “Seguramente.”

  Manuel reached into a hip pocket beneath his wraparound apron and carefully removed a pearl-handled knife whose silvered blade slithered silently open at the pressure of a finger. Johnny accepted it and laid it thoughtfully across his palm.

  “I wanted it for a gag, but this damn thing doesn't look a bit funny.”

  Manuel smiled. “Ees not meant to be fonny.”

  “No? Tell me something, hotshot—what happens when you got to get to this thing in a hurry? In that hip pocket you'd be starched an' ironed before you ever got it sprung.”

  The smile widened. “If I theenk the need for hurree ees approach', Jonee, eet ees no longer een the heep pocket. Eet ees move a leetle closer to the corrida.”

  Johnny shrugged. “I don't dig you knife men at all. Be back in a few minutes with this.”

  “No hurree. Earth ees the bes' for remove the blood, like a plant in the lobbee.”

  “You bloodthirsty little spick!” Fred growled at him. “Didn't the man tell you it was a gag?”

  The dark, innocent eyes widened. “But of course. I heard heem say so, deedn't I?” He picked up his tray of glasses and moved on past them, and his back was to Fred as his left eyelid flickered ever so slightly at Johnny.

  “He thinks you're gonna use that thing,” Fred rumbled.

  “He thinks it more than you think,” Johnny agreed. He made a short, sharp downward stroke with the graceful blade. “You believe the kid can really cut the mustard with this hatchet?”

  Fred rubbed his chin. “I'll take him on trust. Couldn't feel comfortable around him knowin' for sure.”

  Johnny snicked in the blade, slipped on the safety, and dropped the knife in a pocket. He saluted the mildly interested Fred and walked on out through the lobby which drowsed in the dinner hour quiet. He crossed directly to the switchboard and entered through the little gate, and Myrna's orange head bobbed up inquiringly from her book. The half smile of inquiry on her face faded upon recognition. “What do you want?”

  “A few pearls of wisdom, C.O.D.”

  “For you I have nothing,” she said flatly. “I went along with you once, and it was a mistake.”

  “Who says it was a mistake, Myrna?”

  “Never mind.” Her voice was resentful.

  “Police talk to you?”

  Her lip curled. “Two hours. Nosy bas—” She looked up at him.

  “What'd you tell them?'

  “The same thing I'm telling you. Nothing. Not one thing.”r />
  “You think that was smart?

  “Would I have done it if I'd thought it wasn't? Come on, blow, wise guy. I'm busy.”

  Johnny nodded. He reached in his pocket and took out the knife, and Myrna's chair started to inch away from him. She was backed into the corner by the time he slid the safety off and flicked out the blade. He had the entire front of the switchboard to himself, and the eyes behind the horn rimmed glasses were enormous.

  Still without a word Johnny laid the opened knife on the bakelite front of the board and pushed it toward her with his left hand. “Take a look,” he suggested.

  “L-look—?” Her voice was a croak.

  “Did you know the boy up in 938, Myrna? A knife just like this sliced his face to ribbons. You sure you know what league you're playin' in these days?” She stared mutely, a hand at her throat. “You and Hans pullin' oars in the same boat, maybe? You know what happened to Hans?”

  “Stop—” The tip of her tongue circled her lips swiftly. Her voice strengthened. “Stop it. And get out of here. And get that damned knife out of here. Who the hell do you think you are?”

  Johnny retrieved the knife, folded in the blade, tapped the solid casing on his palm, and returned it to his pocket. Myrna rolled her chair back out of its corner, her hands patting ineffectually at the wild hennaed hair. Her face was ghastly, and the lips bloodless.

  Johnny half turned to go and then looked back. “Last chance, Myrna.”

  “Get out of here! Fast!”

  He shook his head commiseratingly. “I gave you an out, kid. I'm not even gonna feel sorry for you when they come for you with the knife. I wish I had your nerve, that's all.”

  She looked around wildly for something to throw, and her voice rose hysterically. “Damn you, get out—!”

  No score, Johnny thought to himself as he re-crossed the lobby. She's scared, though, and not of my palaver. She may come around yet when she thinks it over.

  He entered the bar and stepped behind it at its nearer end, and the boy Manuel looked up from his preoccupation with lime squeezing. Johnny silently offered him the knife.