Dan Marlowe - The Fatal Frails

Paul nodded. “A man like that came in just after the shift changed. He went directly to the house phones, spoke to someone and went upstairs.”

“He called a number at random, an' if he got an answer asked 'em if they wanted to buy any insurance,” Johnny said musingly. “When they hung up on him he went upstairs as if by invitation. Tore my place all to hell.” Max Stitt's footprints had been all over that job, he decided. A man looking for a thirty-pound object slashes curtains and clothes only from pure meanness. Unless he didn't know what he was looking for? Not likely.

He flexed his hands unconsciously. He would interview Mr. Stitt in the morning. He planned to enjoy it.

Sally Fontaine looked up from her magazine as Johnny's key let him almost noiselessly into the apartment. He grunted at the sight of her in the living-room armchair. “Thought you'd be rackin' up sack-time, ma. Conscience keepin' you awake?”

“There's nothing the matter with my conscience.” She laid aside the magazine and looked him over as he approached her chair. “You avoided me all night at work,” she said accusingly.

He slipped an arm beneath the knees and another about the shoulders of her flowered lounging pajamas and scooped her out of the chair. He sat down carefully with her on his lap. “I was afraid you'd see the blonde I took up to the room.”

“I saw the blonde,” she informed him. “I heard what you found when you took her up there, too.”

“Yeah? You tell that little giggler Amy I'll paddle her two shades darker if it's the last thing I do.”

“Amy knows who to do her talking to,” Sally told him. “She wouldn't say a word to anyone but me!”

“I'll impress it on her that you're not on the free list either, ma.” He rested his head against the back of the chair. “I need about three hours' sleep. Set the alarm for eleven, will you?” He attempted to outstare the close-range inspection of the brown eyes. “Think you'll know me the next time you see me?”

“It's something about the way you're moving,” she decided aloud. She dropped a hand experimentally on one shoulder, probed lightly, passed on to the other, and inevitably descended to Johnny's adhesive-corseted waist. “I knew it!” she declared. “What happened this time?”

“Someone whiffled one through the blonde's front door tonight. I just happened to be there.”

“I'll bet you just happened to be there.” Her eyes widened as his words registered. “You were shot?”

“Creased, ma. Just creased. Your cuticle scissors give me a harder time when you're manicurin' my paws. The hell of it was my foot got tangled up in a mat an' threw me when I went after the gent.”

“And a good thing, too,” she stated firmly. “How you keep from being killed-” Head cocked to one side, she examined his face. “What were you doing there in the first place?” she asked abruptly.

“You mean aside from the obvious, ma?” He ducked a left lead and smothered her hands in his. “That's what's known as a long, involved story. Stop worryin'. It wasn't even meant for me.”

“If you hadn't been there, you couldn't have been hit,” Sally pointed out with unerring feminine logic. “Was it the blonde they were shooting at? She looked just the type.”

“I guess she was supposed to be up at bat, all right,” Johnny admitted. He ruffled the soft brown hair under his hand. “She's a little shook. She's allergic to the clay-pigeon bit.”

Sally dropped her head on Johnny's shoulder and closed her eyes. “From the look of her, it couldn't happen to a more deserving pigeon,” she murmured. The eyes flew open again, and she lifted her head to look at him. “Tell me about it,” she said.

He eased the slim body on his lap to a more comfortable position. “I'm just tryin' to give the man you called for me the other night a hand in retrievin' a piece of goods swiped from him a while back.”

The brown eyes speculated. “And it was Claude Dechant who did the swiping? That's why you asked me all those questions about the people he used to telephone?”

“It was Dechant. An' he killed himself. I'd like to know why.” Johnny stared broodingly across the room over a flower-pajamaed shoulder. “About all I've done so far tryin' to find out is to tie into the damnedest bunch of do-it-yourself characters you ever saw.”

“Did one of them tear up your room tonight?”

“One of them did.” Johnny's eyes darkened. “I'm gonna speak to him about it.” He looked at Sally on his lap. “I'm also gonna tuck it in the sheets, ma. I need a little shut-eye, an' it'll take Amy half a day to straighten out my place.”

She slid from his lap and led the way into the bedroom. She turned down the bed while Johnny stood in the middle of the floor and shed clothes like a snake sheds skin. Sally sighed and picked up after him. He sat on the edge of the bed and tested the mobility of his corset. It wasn't too bad, he decided.

Sally sat down beside him, and he slipped an arm around her. “Johnny, you're not going to get into trouble over the man who searched you room, are you?”

“Divil a bit of it, ma. He's gonna get in trouble.” He gave her a one-armed hug.

“You know what I-mean!” she said breathlessly as her ribs contracted.

He was silent. He could have sworn he'd had only one use for the bed in his mind when he'd come in here, but the feel of Sally against him was rapidly changing his perspective.

She turned her head inquiringly at the more purposeful pressure of his arm. She saw his eyes. “Stop it!” she scolded lightly. “You know you don't feel-”

“The hell I don't. Shuck yourself on in here.” She stood up obediently, but her eyes remained doubtful. She paused with the pajama top half off. “You're sure that you feel like it?”

“It's only my ribs that're taped, ma.” He watched as she disposed of the pajamas and plumped herself down alongside him. “Get those bony knees out of the way.” “They're not bony,” she said placidly. “They're slender.” “So's a picket fence.” For a very short time he could hear Sally's breathing. After that the sound of his own filled his ears.

Johnny stood in warm noonday sunlight outside the Empire Freight Forwarding Corporation's stout wire fence. It was summer sure enough today, and he was not sure that he approved. He felt sluggish. He tried to flex mental muscles and gear himself up for the meeting with Stitt and its explosive possibilities. Based on Stitt's reaction the last time Johnny had been here, sluggishness was not a condition he could afford.

He set himself in motion finally and started up the narrow cement walk. He headed this time directly for the door marked Office. His first quick look around inside disclosed no one but the plain little receptionist at her desk. “I'd like to see-” Johnny began, but he never got to complete it.

The receptionist turned in her chair as a door at the rear of the office flew open. Carrying a huge wooden bucket in both hands, Max Stitt burst into view. There was no other word to describe it, Johnny thought. At a walk so rapid it was almost a run, the erect-looking man advanced to the desk nearest the front of the office and set down his bucket. “Helen!” It was like a bugle's blare, although the girl was less than a dozen feet away. The voice pulsed with excitement. “Come and have a drink!” The girl rose to her feet with an uncertain look outside the railing. Following the direction of her gaze, Stitt looked and saw Johnny. “Killain!” he trumpeted. “Come in and have a drink!”

Johnny stared. The usually dead-white, rigidly controlled features were flushed and animated. Each individual hair in the graying crew-cut seemed to bristle spikily. Max Stitt wore a business suit, a white shirt and a tie, the tie badly askew. A second before Stitt removed a champagne magnum from his bucket, Johnny realized suddenly that the man was half-seas over.