Dan Marlowe - The Fatal Frails

“He seemed to think it was a little stronger'n that.”

“At his age Harry should be used to a lady's exercising her perogative to change her mind,” she said silkily. Abruptly her mood hardened. “Are you for hire, Killain?”

“By the pound,” he told her solemnly.

“And just where do you draw the line?”

He looked at her. “What kind of business are we in?”

She gestured impatiently. “The kind I just saw demonstrated.”

“You've got a reputation for killin' your own, the way I hear it,” Johnny said.

She turned white. “That's the nastiest-” She stopped as mellow chimes sounded from the front of the room. She started automatically to the door, but her first step in that direction ended up against the iron bar of Johnny's arm.

“That could be Big Stuff back for Round Two,” he said mildly. “I wouldn't want to see those pajamas get rumpled. Unless I did the rumplin'.” He walked out to the door. Silently he turned the knob in slow motion, stepped back and flung it open.

The unexpectedly dark corridor, the shadowy figure, the sharp report, the blue flame and the hard sting in the ribs impressed him simultaneously. His feet became entangled in the door mat as he lunged forward. He shot over the threshold, clawing at the air. The first part of him to make contact was his head, with the wall, making him feel as though his neck had been telescoped. From his knees he shook his head groggily, surged erect and wheeled in the direction of the rapidly diminishing sound of running feet on the corridor's thick carpeting.

Madeleine Winters' thin scream halted him before he ever got in motion. From her apartment doorway she stared unbelievingly at the bright red blotch staining his jacket on the left side.

Detective James Rogers propped his topcoated shoulders against the emergency room wall. He lipped at an unlighted cigarette, his hazel eyes reflective as he watched the crew-cut intern briskly winding adhesive around Johnny's waist.

“That's enough, Doc,” Johnny growled finally. “I'm not fixin' to wear this till New Year's.”

The white-coated doctor cut the wide-backed tape with a shears and stretched the loose end into place. “That'll do it,” he announced.

“Okay.” Johnny slid down from the table. “Where's my pants?”

“You're staying overnight, at least,” the doctor said, surprised. “Precautionary. Possible-”

“The hell I'm stayin' overnight. Where's my things?”

“Out of the question, Killain.” The intern turned to leave. “I'll want to see you in the morning.”

Johnny caught his wrist. “I'll give you an address where you can see me in the mornin'. Meantime, do I get my clothes or do I wear yours?”

“Ridiculous!” the doctor snorted. He looked at the detective for support.

Rogers looked amused. “He's entirely capable of doing it,” he warned.

“Oh, very well, then,” the doctor said impatiently. “When bigger fools are made-” He looked Johnny up and down. “I'll send the nurse in with a release form for you to sign.”

“An' my clothes,” Johnny called after him as the doctor strode out. “These people are nearly as bad as yours for thinkin' they got to get their own way,” Johnny told Rogers. “Throw me a cigarette.”

“Now there's an all-fired black pot calling the kettle ebony,” the detective declared sarcastically. “No smoking in here,” he added as an afterthought. “How much of a chunk of you did that thing get?”

“Not much,” Johnny grunted. He raised his arms gingerly over his head and twisted from side to side at the waist, testing the constriction of his adhesive corset. “Chopped out a furrow under the arm is all. Grazed a rib.”

“What were you doing while all that was going on?”

“Standin' there watchin'. Someone unscrewed the corridor light bulbs, rang the bell an' busted one through me when I opened the door. The door was at the dark end of the apartment, too. All I saw was a kind of outline. Dark Clothes, an' I'd bet gloves an' a mask. I didn't even get a glimmer of skin.”

“How about size?”

“Right quick I'd have said not too big, but after I like to sprung my neck against the opposite wall goin' after him, the runnin' footsteps sounded real heavy.”

“All running footsteps sound heavy,” Detective Rogers said patiently. He removed the still unlighted cigarette from his mouth and placed it carefully over one ear. “When I got there after they'd hauled you in here, your ex-hostess was hysterical. Claimed that, with the difference in height, if she'd opened the door herself she'd be on a slab downtown.”

“Could be, Jimmy.”

“On the other hand, you haven't made many new friends lately, either.”

“I think this is one time I was the innocent bystander. On two counts. That shot came through so fast it had to be just reflex on the part of the gunman. He wasn't pickin' an' choosin' targets. He was all lined up on the door, an' the second it opened-bang.”

“You said on two counts,” Rogers reminded him.

Johnny hesitated. “I didn't use the elevator goin' up there, Jimmy. I used the stairs. There was two people with her when I got there. For anyone watchin' the elevator, when those two people left Madeleine Winters was supposed to be alone.”

“I know it's hopeless asking you why you avoided the elevator, so I'll just ask you who her visitors were.”

“You must've asked her that when you talked to her, Jimmy.”

“Maybe she lied to me.”

“Maybe she did. You don't want any help from me, though. I've got it on the best of authority.”

Detective Rogers glared. “Was one of them this Tremaine? The woman's got him all tagged and labeled as the gunman. She was all for swearing out a warrant until I asked her what she planned to use for evidence.”

“She's got a thing about him. They don't like each other.”

“You don't know that it wasn't Tremaine who fired the shot, Johnny.”

An orderly entered with Johnny's clothes, and he signed without reading the slip offered him. He began to dress. “No. I don't know. I think Tremaine's too big for what I saw, but I don't have to be right.”

“What were you doing up in that apartment in the first place?”

Johnny eased on his undershirt, picked up his shirt and looked at the dark-red clotted stain on it. He got his arms into it and buttoned it slowly. “Dechant had been crooked for years, accordin' to what I hear, an' had been mixed in with the same crowd right along. Everyone enjoyed good health, except Dechant's partner some time back. Then Kiki landed here. Pow! Dechant evaporated, Arends was blasted, someone pitched a shot through the widow lady's door an' all the other lovely people keep makin' noises like they'd like to nibble each other to pieces. Why, Jimmy?”

“What were you doing up in that apartment?”

Johnny settled his jacket gently on his shoulders and covered the red-brown discoloration on the left side with his sleeve. “I just about got time to get back to the Duarte an' knock off a fast forty winks before the school bell rings,” he said. “Seems like a better idea the more I think of it.”

“Johnny, you-”

“I'm the guy that got scragged, Mr. Detective, please, sir,” Johnny said in a falsetto. “Wouldn't you think the police department would be out scufflin' to find out who pegged that iron instead of fussin' with little old me?”

“Little old you can drop dead, as far as I'm concerned,” Detective James Rogers said bitterly. He set sail for the door without a backward glance, the back of his neck rigid with anger.

Johnny went out to the street leisurely. It was surprisingly mild, a pointed reminder that the weather was about to catch up with the calendar. Johnny couldn't truthfully say he thought too well of the idea. He seemed to appreciate the heat of the summer in New York City a little less with each passing year.