Dan Marlowe: Shake a Crooked Town

“I don't give a damn what you don't like!” the detective bristled. Twin pin-points of high color emblazoned his sallow complexion. “All of that lip-flapping of yours gives me a pain. If I ever heard a jerked-off story-”

Lieutenant Dameron slid from the bed and interposed himself between them as Johnny started forward. Johnny's shoulder knocked him to one side. “Cut it!” Dameron ordered. “This isn't the children's hour. This idea of yours, Johnny. It just won't hold-” He turned his head at a knock on the door. Cuneo shifted from his hands-raised, glowering regard of Johnny to look inquiringly at the lieutenant, who nodded. The detective opened the door. Over his shoulder Johnny could see Chet Rollins' round face and gold-rimmed glasses.

The chubby auditor bustled into the room, unconscious of the tension. “They called me at home,” he said to Johnny. “Ed's at a hotel supply convention in Philly.” Ed Carrolton was the Duarte's manager. Rollins looked curiously at Dameron and Cuneo before glancing worriedly around the room. “You get him out? Hell of a thing for the hotel.”

“It didn't do him much good, either,” Johnny said. He introduced the auditor to the others.

Rollins turned back to Johnny after the double handshake. “Nobody downstairs seemed to know who he was. Was he a friend of yours? Did he get killed trying to save your money? All the way over in the cab I kept thinking it mightn't have happened if I hadn't sent that damn envelope upstairs.”

“Money?” Cuneo asked alertly.

“Sure.” Chet Rollins looked surprised. “Wasn't that how it happened?” He looked at Johnny. “It's still here?”

“I haven't had a chance to look.” Johnny could cheerfully have throttled the little auditor. He knew how this was going to look to Cuneo.

“I'd like to hear about this money,” the detective said unpleasantly.

“Well-” Rollins stared uncertainly from Cuneo to Johnny and back again. The atmosphere was beginning to get through to him. “I sent an envelope up to Johnny this afternoon by one of the bellboys. It contained wages I'd been holding for him in the safe.”

“Cash?” Cuneo demanded. Rollins nodded. “How much?”

“Nine hundred and thirty-nine dollars.” The auditor said it almost apologetically.

Cuneo stared. He turned abruptly to Johnny. “Is it here?” Johnny went to the bureau and opened and closed drawers. When he closed the last one he faced about silently. No words were necessary.

“Where was it when you last saw it?” Cuneo pressed him.

“On top of the bureau,” Johnny admitted reluctantly.

“A thousand bucks right on top of the-” Cuneo waggled his head in amazement. “And this Thompson was supposed to be cracked?” He looked at his superior. “I like the sound of this a hell of a lot better than that jazz we heard before. This poor bastard Thompson probably caught a hotel thief right in the act.” He swung back to Rollins. “Who'd you send up here with the money?”

“Richie Gordon, one of our regular boys.” Rollins said it defensively.

“Did he know what was in the envelope?”

“He could have.” Rollins looked unhappy. “He was in the outer office when I was talking to the bookkeeper about getting it out of the safe.”

“Better have a talk with this Gordon, Ted, and find out how much broadcasting he did about his errand,” Dameron said.

“Right,” Detective Cuneo said briskly. He looked at Johnny, solemnly tapped a finger to his forehead three times, and left the room.

“I'll-I'd better check around downstairs,” Chet Rollins said uneasily. When no one said him nay he departed hurriedly.

“You guys are foulin' off the pitch, Joe,” Johnny began as the room emptied. “This Richie Gordon's a good kid.”

“Good kids talk, too.” Lieutenant Dameron plucked a loose thread from the sleeve of a tan suit very similar in color to Johnny's. “How come we didn't hear about this money before? Are you going to try to deny it makes more sense than what you were peddling?”

“The hell it does. I heard Thompson's story right out of the horse's mouth, Joe. You didn't. All right, I forgot the envelope on the bureau an' it's gone. What I'm sayin' is that if the money hadn't been missing something else would have been gone. The closet would've been stripped if nothing else offered. Whoever did the job wanted it to look like a room robbery walked in on by Thompson.”

“You've been watching too many late, late shows. Be over at the station in the morning to sign a statement.” Lieutenant Dameron settled his expensive-looking dark brown fedora more firmly on his head and started from the room.

“Goddammit, Joe-” Johnny tramped to the door after him.

“In the morning,” the lieutenant repeated from the corridor. He marched off toward the elevator, his heels hitting heavily.

From the doorway Johnny watched him go. How in the hell was he going to let a little daylight into that thick skull? Why Joe Dameron couldn't see something as plain as Down the hall Dameron strode past the corridor leading to the west wing. A dark figure leaped from it, behind the lieutenant's broad back. The right arm swung viciously. Clubbed hard at the base of the neck, Dameron dropped heavily. His momentum pitched him forward on his face. His hat flew off and bounced away. He struggled to roll over. Above him the dark figure stood poised, glittering steel in the left hand. A woman's silk stocking covered the head.

Johnny came down the corridor in all-out charge. The intent stocking-masked assailant whirled from its crouch at the sound of the bull-buffalo rush. Before the knife could be oriented to the new danger Johnny's lowered shoulder blasted the man under the breastbone with tremendous force, up and off the floor into the wall. The man screamed as the stocking-mask slammed into the wall. He caromed off into Johnny's reaching hands and Johnny dug in his heels in a sliding skid to halt his own headlong progress. He almost jumped into the air from the recoil of the force with which he smashed the man to the floor. The body hit hard with a soggy sound, bounced, and fell back as limply as a disjointed rag doll. The silk stocking was a flat wet smear.

“Jesus!” It was a breathy rasp from behind Johnny. The lieutenant knelt up on the floor with a. 38 special in both hands trained steadily on the body on the floor. When it didn't move Dameron spared a hand to rub the base of his neck. “Slip inside and call in on your phone,” he mumbled hoarsely to Johnny.

Lieutenant Joseph Dameron sat slumped in the depths of Johnny's armchair, a drink in his hand. His red face looked shiny. He glanced at Johnny lying on the bed with his hands clasped loosely behind his head. “My damn neck feels like a truck ran over it,” he complained.

“Why the hell is it you get a carpet to fall on and I get the sidewalk?” Johnny inquired from the bed.

Dameron started to reply and then sat up straighter as the same lean-faced medical examiner Johnny had seen earlier entered the room. “Well, Frank?” the lieutenant asked.

“Why don't you run a shuttle service over here?” the medical examiner demanded irritably. He set down his bag.

“What about that one in the hall, Frank?”

“Deceased. Violently. Neck broken. Back broken. Minor fractures. Lesions, contusions, and abrasions. Face about obliterated. Identification will have to be from his prints. This hotel running locomotives down its corridors?” No one answered him. He shrugged, picked up his bag and bounced it against his thigh. “Should I take a look at you, Lieutenant?”

“I'm all right, Frank,” Dameron said. “Thanks. Thanks just the same.” The medical examiner departed and the lieutenant raised his glass toward the bed. “Just like Europe, by God. Killain to the rescue in the nick of time. Where was the camera and the man with the megaphone?”