by Dan Marlowe
“Nice, tight little army you've got,” Johnny said admiringly when Kratz had gone. “Rudy and his friends pay the private taxes that subsidize it?”
“You've got a big, fat lip, Killain,” the realtor said coldly. “Button it while you can.”
“You sound like a big, brave boy. Are you forgettin' you sent your army off to the wars?”
“Killain, I've got a thousand things on my mind beside a two-bit slab of beef like you, but if you push me I could get around to you. As of now you're excused. Get out.”
“I only got half what I came for, hotshot. Where's Micheline Thompson?”
“I haven't the faintest notion.”
Johnny reached across the desk and took him firmly by the tie. “Jack your brains up, wise guy. It's time you learned a few manners.” Slowly and steadily he applied downward pressure on the tie until Daddario's head was forced down to the desk top. His face turned scarlet. His hand darted suddenly to a desk drawer.
Johnny dropped his grip on the tie and picked up the desk. Daddario screamed as the rising desk trapped his hand in the drawer. His chair went over backward and he hung by his hand from the desk for an instant before Johnny dropped it on him. Drawers and papers cascaded in all directions as Daddario lay winded, panting.
Johnny started around the upside-down desk after him. A gobbling noise from the phone on the floor distracted him. He picked up the receiver. “Police, police, police!” he could hear one of the women in the outer office babbling. He dropped the receiver.
He bent down beside the hard-breathing realtor and spoke slowly and distinctly. “The next time I ask you something, wise guy, have the answer handy.”
He walked lightly past the shattered door into the outer office. At sight of him, the woman at the phone shrieked and threw it away from her. Johnny waved at her. At the door he looked back. Jim Daddario's private office looked as if a tidal wave had rolled over it and Jim Daddario still lay amidst the debris.
Johnny touched off the kindling in the fireplace with a folded newspaper he used as a torch. Beside him, Jessamyn Burger watched as it alternately flared and dimmed until the birch logs began finally to crackle and sputter. Johnny sat back on his heels and looked up at her. “That appeal to your homemakin' instinct?”
“Don't make fun of me,” she said softly. She retreated to the nearer of the two chairs drawn up before the fire, but paused before she sat down. “Would you like a brandy to settle dinner?”
“If you have one, too.”
“I'm afraid I had too many cocktails. I feel-well, lightheaded.” She went to get his brandy and returned with a second glass with half as much in it. “I couldn't resist.” She handed him his glass as he sat in one of the chairs and with an outstretched leg he barred her from the other.
“One chair this size is big enough for two people,” he told her.
She exaggerated the lift of her brows. “I can see you're not the practical type. I'd crush my best dress.”
“Take it off.”
“Really, you're-”
“Take it off, Jessie.”
She smiled, a slow, helpless smile. “Then stay right where you are,” she warned him, and disappeared behind the bedroom door.
Johnny sat and watched the firelight's refractions from his brandy glass. He felt pleasantly relaxed. There was no sound from the bedroom. He sipped at his brandy. Jessamyn reappeared in the doorway and he set down his glass.
She had on a pale ivory negligee that nicely complemented her dark hair. Her pom-pomed mules had high heels and the heels contained clusters of rhinestones that twinkled brilliantly as she walked. She came directly to him and sat on the arm of his chair. Her face was calm and there was no coquettishness about her.
Johnny fingered a fold of the negligee. “No lace?” he asked her.
“No lace,” she agreed. “I'm practical, if you're not. Most women have lingerie they've never worn. Not little Jessie.”
“If what you are is practical I just hope it never goes out of style, baby.” They could both hear the deepened timbre in his voice.
She reached up over his head and turned off the floor lamp that was the room's only light except for the fire's dancing shadows on the white hearth. She bent down over him and unbuttoned the collar of his sport shirt and then the rest of the shirt down to his belt. She tried to span his neck with her two warm hands. “Heavens!” she said softly. “What size is your shirt?”
“Tent size,” he said, and with an encircling arm swept her from the chair arm down into his lap. She snuggled down against him and he could feel the moist pressure of her lips against his throat.
He could hear her lengthy sigh as she stretched generously. “You know I was told not to see you again,” she murmured in his ear.
“Yeah? Lucky for me you don't take orders. What was the reason supposed to be?”
“The questions you'd ask me.”
He increased the pressure of the arm around her until he heard the sibilant intake of her breath. “The answers to the questions I'm about to ask, little girl, you couldn't print in a family newspaper.” He dropped his free hand firmly on a round thigh.
She stirred on his knees as her breathing quickened. “I'd entertain a motion to declare a moratorium on questions and answers,” she said huskily.
“You've got one,” he said promptly. He shifted the position of his hands and stood up with her in his arms.
“Wait!” she commanded. “Put me down.” He complied, knowing it was no last-minute retreat. “Sit down again,” she told him. She knelt and removed his shoes, straightened up and took his hand and tugged him to his feet again. She removed his shirt completely. Her hands went to his belt and he lifted his own to assist her. “Let me!” she said urgently. He dropped his hands.
She stripped him, moving like an ivory wraith in the light of the fire. He couldn't see her face dearly, but he could hear her breathing. Her hands lingered on his arms, then on his shoulders and back. When her hands quieted his own moved rapidly. He picked her up again and felt her arms twine tightly about his neck.
In the bedroom he lowered her gently to the floor.
Through the open door only the faintest trace of the light from the fireplace's leaping flames pursued them. Her hands went to the neckline of her negligee. He captured the hands.
“My turn,” he said. He dealt with the negligee, unhurriedly. He disposed of the gossamer nightgown that couldn't have weighed more than an ounce and a half. He sat her down on the bed and removed the mules whose rhinestoned heels glittered even in the near-darkness.
Her hands came down upon his shoulders as he bent over her. She pulled mightily, and, overbalanced, he plunged forward upon her, his weight forcing her backward. Her smothered laughter was electric in its sexual excitement. Her resilient, perfumed flesh filled his nostrils.
The fire in his brain enfeebled the firelight on the walls.
Afterward, they lounged in the same chair before the dying fire renewed brandy glasses in hand. For a long time there was a minimum of conversation, but finally Jessamyn spoke after a preliminary clearing of her throat. “Goodness, I don't know what's happened to my voice, do you?”
“Yes. When you get-”
“Never mind,” she said hastily. “The time for conversation is before, not afterward.” She dropped her head on his shoulder. “Jim called me before you came over about what happened at his office. He was furious. You make it awfully hard for me to defend you.”
“Thanks for tryin' but it shouldn't be necessary,” Johnny said lazily. The air around him was pleasantly heady with the scent of woman and brandy. “Daddario can get rid of me in fifteen minutes. Less, if he makes up his mind.”
Her head came up from his shoulder. “He can? How?”
“By lettin' me talk to Micheline Thompson.”
“Are you in love with her?” she pouted.
“I've seen her twice in better'n fifteen years,” he said truthfully.
“Well? What's so importa
nt, then?”
“The first time was kind of special,” he explained. “I got wound up in this thing before I knew it, an' I do mean wound up. I got a thousand dollar axe of my own to grind but if the kid's in trouble I'd kind of like to straighten things out for her before I cut out of the deal.”
“You're a great deal more likely to be pushed out. Why should you feel an urge to straighten things out, as you say?”
“I can tell you but I don't know if you'll understand. A few thousand nights ago the kid an' I were caught in a real downdraft. By some very unpleasant people, who had their hands on her first. She was only fourteen but she knew what to expect, still she did her best to warn me so I could get out. I don't forget that kind of thing. If she needs a hand, I'm it.”
“Very noble, I'm sure.” He could feel her eyes upon him. “But are you sure it's worth it? Woman is an adaptable animal. She-Micheline, I mean-might have made adjustments of which you have no idea.”
“So let her tell me. Herself.”
She tried a new tack. “What makes you think it's Jim who is keeping her from talking to you?”
“Because he never let us out from under his eye in New York. An' because of what I can see goin' on in this town.”
“Such as?”
“I figure Jim Daddario an' Dick Lowell are milkin' this place dry. I figure you know it, too. Know it an' participate in it. When you cut Daddario loose emotionally you still retained a financial rootin' interest, didn't you?”
“You're very-blunt,” she said slowly. “Yet oddly delicate, too. We both know that it was Jim who cut me loose. He expects to go on to bigger things politically. He decided that I didn't have the qualifications to 'grow' with him.” Johnny could hear the bitterness in her voice.
“But he shut you up about what you knew by cuttin' you in on the take. You couldn't live like this on what you take home from the library.” He waited for her to speak.
“I'm not underpaid there. And I have no extraordinary expenses.” Her voice was low. “Of course you realize you're only repeating what the townspeople have been saying right along. It used to hurt, but I've developed an immunity.”
“Look, Jessie, if that's your story, good luck to you. I think there's somethin' you've forgotten, though. Jim Daddario hasn't forgotten it. He was in New York when Carl Thompson was killed. When the dirt starts comin' out from under the rug he could wind up charged with murder.”
“Jim would never do a thing like that.” Jessamyn said it confidently.
“Can you say the same for the people around him?” He waited but she was silent. “If he gets charged as an accessory, even, don't you end up as a tail on the kite?”
“You're just trying to talk me into something.” She sat up straight on his knees, trying to see his face. “Aren't you? What is it you expect me to say? Or do?”
“Tell me where I can find Micheline Thompson.”
“But I don't know!” She said it just a shade too quickly, Johnny thought. “Even if all you say should be true, which it isn't by any means, what makes you think Jim would confide in me?”
“Maybe because-”
“And don't say it's because he feels he can trust me.” Her words were staccato. “He jilted me, remember?” He could hear a distinct swallowing sound as her throat worked. “Jim Daddario trusts no one.”
“An' he has a real blast furnace of a temper,” Johnny suggested.
“Yes, he does,” she said before she thought. Her voice tightened as if she resented the inference. “But he's not a killer.”
“Did he throw you over because he was takin' up with Micheline?”
“Don't be ridiculous.” Her tone was sharp. “Why do you ask that?”
“I've heard it mentioned.”
“People will say anything.” An audible sniff conveyed her impression of people. “Next you'll be saying Jim had Thompson killed so he could marry the widow.”
“You think people aren't sayin' that, too?”
“It's doubly ridiculous. Jim Daddario is a hard-headed, practical politician. He and I might have known each other a little too well. The-bloom rubbed off. We split up. But Jim did a lot for me, and I'm grateful.”
“Suppose that some of the things you knew should all of a sudden be an anchor around the neck of this hard-headed politician? What would he do then, Jessie?”
“You're just trying to upset me!” She bounced up from his knees. “And I'm not going to let you.” Her voice softened. “We had a nice evening. Don't spoil it.”
“I wouldn't think of spoilin' it, baby.” He reached out and patted a plump hip. “I'm lookin' forward to others.”
“Do you say that to all the girls?”
He stood up from the chair and stretched mightily. “Only to the ones who combine enthusiasm with their know-how.” He reached out a casual arm and pulled her up against him. “You're all right, kid. More bounce to the ounce.”
She freed herself gently. “It's getting late. I won't turn on the light in the hall when I let you out. Goodnight, Johnny.”
“Goodnight, Jessie.” At the door he gave her arm a silent squeeze and walked quietly down the dimly lighted hallway.
He found that he wasn't surprised to discover Valerie Peterson waiting up for him when he let himself in with his key. “She rose from the chair in which she had been doing sentry duty, still swathed in the man's bathrobe he had seen previously. She wasted no time on preliminaries. “I'm sorry to have to say this but I'm-”
“You're goin' to have to ask me to remove my high-voltage carcass from the premises,” Johnny finished for her.
“You're right. I am. I'm not saying right this minute or even tomorrow, but I wish you'd look for another place.”
Johnny shrugged. “You're the doctor. Any particular pressure on you to have me move out?”
“No. It's just that there's too much lightning playing around your head. I've got a daughter to raise and a living to make. I can't afford to be in the middle on something like this.” Her eyes on his were steady. “Personally, I rather like you, but I know trouble ahead when I see it. I don't want any.”
“It's your house,” Johnny agreed. “I'll find a berth tomorrow.” He headed for the stairs.
Her voice stopped him. “You had a telephone message just a few minutes ago.” Johnny turned to her, his interest fired. “A man named Rudy said to be sure to let you know the big fish were biting.”
“Oh. That. Yeah.” Johnny's interest died. He found it replaced at once by a flicker of something else. His hand closed lightly on the roll of bills in his pocket. He glanced at his wrist watch. Why not sit in for a couple of hours? The game was a soft touch. “Maybe I'll take a look.”
“You're a gambler, among other things?”
He looked at Mrs. Peterson's disapproving face. “You know Rudy?”
“Everyone knows Rudy and all the rest like him.” She said it with distaste. 'That's what's the matter with this town. It was bad enough when Girl Thompson was running it like a business. A dirty business, but a business. Now it's an out-and-out racket and someone's going to get hurt. Dick Lowell should be ashamed of himself.”
“What can he do about it?” Johnny asked her.
“If he slept in his own bed nights Daddario never would have been able to undermine him on the council and get control.” Mrs. Peterson's voice was sharp. “He's not a Lowell. He's a weakling.”
“Yeah,” Johnny said vaguely. “Well, maybe he's got a problem or two of his own.” He started for the front door. “I'll clear out tomorrow. Sorry to have bothered you.”
He thought she was going to speak again, but she stood and watched him silently as he let himself out.
CHAPTER VIII
Johnny awoke in the first rays of the sunrise with his stomach rumbling with hunger pains. He had been too disgusted to eat anything before going to bed five hours before.
He rolled over and lay on his back with his hands folded beneath his head. The trip to Rudy's had been a disaster. The
corners of his mouthy turned down at the remembrance. The sour taste was almost literal.
He had stepped into the game brash with confidence. In the first dozen hands he had run second three times and had pulled in his horns a little. He had won a small pot with three sevens and almost at once saw a full house top his smaller full. That had been painful, but not nearly so bad as the hand shortly after on which he had wagered briskly on a pat flush against a two-card draw. After two return raises Johnny had called and watched his opponent cheerfully lay down the ace, king, queen, nine, and five of spades. He always liked to draw to an ace, king, queen flush possibility, his opponent explained.
Johnny salvaged his few remaining chips and backed out of the game hurriedly. When they started filling flushes on two-card draws it obviously wasn't his night. It had only taken him twenty-five minutes and fourteen hundred dollars to find it out.
“Murder,” Rudy said at the door, letting him out.
“First degree,” Johnny affirmed.
“You happen to know this Tolliver boy up in Emergency Hospital?” Rudy asked.
“Seems to me I've heard the name,” Johnny said carefully. “What happened to him?”
“I heard he run into a fence,” Rudy said dryly. He spat on the floor and scrubbed it out with his heel. So far as he was concerned, the conversation seemed to have ended.
Johnny tried to keep it moving. “You have to choose up sides in this town to get your umbrella for this game?” he asked.
“Never used to have to,” Rudy said heavily. He cleared his throat. “Never used to,” he repeated. “It'd better stay that way. I pay my dues to the lodge an' all I ask is to be left alone.”
“They been comin' at you lately from more'n one direction?”
“I pay my dues,” Rudy reiterated.
And that had been all. Rudy had refused to say another word, leaving Johnny to wonder why the subject of Tolliver had been brought up. Unless it was Rudy's way of making the point that he knew what was going on around town.
