Dan Marlowe: The Fatal Frails

“I want no trouble from you,” the lieutenant warned. His voice rose. “I want no-”

“Sure, Joe, sure,” Johnny interrupted soothingly. “All you want is the world with a fence around it. As usual.” He turned to the cardinal. “Where can I reach you, Kiki?”

“At the Rosario.” The big man looked as though he were enjoying himself.

“I'll be on the phone to you presently.”

“Johnny!”

On his way to the door Johnny lifted a hand in mute acknowledgment of the lieutenant's angry bellowing of his name.

He closed the door firmly from the outside.

Johnny grabbed a robe at the familiar tap on the door. Sally slipped in from the corridor as he opened the door, and at once threw her arms about herself to hug her slim figure tightly. “Say, man, I don't have to come up here to get chilblains,” she protested, marched to the window and closed it.

“Fresh air's good for you,” he said from right behind her, and the big arms enfolded her as she turned.

Sally shivered at the combination of the chill in the room and the husky resonance in her ear. “You and your polar-bear blood,” she said resignedly. A small hand darted upward and sharply tweaked the chest hair exposed by the loosely belted robe. “We don't all carry our own rugs around with us, you know.”

“Maybe we could graft a few yards onto you, ma?”

“I'm doing nicely without, thanks.” She pushed him gently away, turned back to the window and drew the shade. “There's too much light in here.”

“You could find yourself outvoted on that. Two hundred thirty-eight pounds to ninety-eight.”

She ignored him grandly. “Hop into the bed and warm up those sheets,” she commanded. Her nimble fingers flew over clothes fastenings. “I've got goose bumps already.”

“I'll massage 'em, ma. Individually.” Johnny threw off the robe, turned down the bed and climbed in. He turned barely in time, holding up the covers to admit the silver arrow that flashed across the room. Sally, squealing at the touch of the icy sheets on her bare flesh, scrambled up on top of Johnny, elbows and knees thrashing. “Goddlemighty, I might's well be in bed with a centipede,” he grunted.

“Ooh, but you're the warmest thing,” she murmured, wriggling along his length. She sighed in satisfaction. “Let me soak up a little heat first.”

Silently the hard hands reached down over her and glided over the velvety expanse of slender back and not-quite-boyish behind. Sally's initial rapid breathing slowed and quieted, then once more began to accelerate. The big hands stroked delicately, patted and teased. And paused. “That a goose bump, ma?”

“Stop it!” she ordered, and rolled off the massive chest.

“No complaints about the sheets now?”

“Don't-talk-” she murmured huskily. The brown eyes were enormous. “You're so-good for me. You're-oh!”

“What was that last remark, ma?”

“Mmmmm!”

Johnny eased back down under the covers and handed Sally one of the cigarettes he'd lighted. The brown eyes examined his face. “You definitely bring out the worst in me, man,” she complained.

“Let's keep it like that, ma. I couldn't handle the best.”

“That's not what I meant!” A sharp-knuckled little fist thumped against his ribs for emphasis. “I'm shameless. I have no pride.”

“Praise Allah.” He grabbed for the small hand as it punched him again. “For the small economy size, ma, you pay off at a hundred cents on the dollar.”

She stubbed out her cigarette after two quick drags, snuggled down alongside him for a moment, then half sat up with a sigh. “I've got to get out of here.” She winced at the onslaught of room temperature on her bare shoulders. “Goose bumps, here I come again.”

“It's warmer in the bathroom, ma.”

“I'll be a stalagmite before I make it,” she gloomed. She descended under the covers again. “I haven't any will power, Johnny. You'll have to push me out.”

“Why, sure. Glad to oblige.” He pinched her, and Sally bounded upright in the bed with a shrill yip. He pinched her again, strategically, and she thumped to the floor, trailing covers. She bounded erect with a stifled yell at the impact of the cold, whizzed across the room to scoop up her clothes and zoomed into the bathroom.

“I'm coming back with the biggest thing I can find full of water,” she announced from the doorway.

“You better find yourself a suit of armor before you try it,” he warned her, and she ran out her tongue at him before she closed the door. Johnny leaned back in the bed and folded his hands beneath his head. He stretched luxuriantly, arching his chest until he heard a muscle in his back pop protestingly. The quicksilver moments in life made all the rest of it worth-while. A man didn't have to be a philosopher to appreciate them. A man just had to be alive.

He was scowling up at the ceiling when Sally emerged from the bathroom, dressed. He rolled up on an elbow to look at her. “You wouldn't happen to remember the names of any of Claude Dechant's steady telephone customers, would you?” he began abruptly. “People he called a lot?”

“I can see you never heard Mr. Dechant make a telephone call,” Sally said. “His calls might as well have been in Morse code. First names only, and a twenty-second call was overtime for him. He'd call Max, or Jack, or Madeleine, or Harry, or Gloria, or Jules, or Ernest, and he'd say: 'I'll meet you at such-and-such a place.' And hang up. Once in a while someone would try to say something to him, and he'd cut them right off. 'Tell me when you see me,' he'd say. He could be really nasty on the phone.”

“A Gloria I know,” Johnny said thoughtfully. “An Ernest, too. Reel off the rest of 'em for me again, ma.”

“Max,” she repeated. “Madeleine. Harry. Jack. Jules.” She thought a moment. “That's the crop, I think.” She came over and sat down on the edge of the bed. “Why are you interested?”

“Friend of mine was askin',” he replied vaguely.

“Asking what?” She jogged his elbow at his silence. “Asking what, Johnny? What are you getting into now?”

“I have to be gettin' into something?”

“I know you, buster. Too well I know you.” She stood up from the bed. “I'll siphon you later. I've got to run. Please stay out of trouble?”

He grunted disparagingly as she blew him a kiss from the door.

Johnny ran lightly up the indented stone steps of the station house in the warming sunlight. The first person he ran into in the long corridor was Detective James Rogers. Johnny drew him aside. “That redhead over at the place last night, Jimmy. Where's she work?”

“You wouldn't rather have her home phone?” Detective Rogers ran an appraising eye over Johnny's gray slacks, maroon sport shirt and tan jacket. “So seldom I see you out of uniform it's a wonder I recognized you. You going courting?”

“In all that piece of jazz I didn't seem to catch the address, Jimmy.”

The sandy-haired man looked bleak. “No information, Johnny,” he said brusquely.

Johnny bristled. “What the hell you mean, 'no information'?”

“You came over here last night and ruffled the man's fur. I'm giving you the payoff. Cuneo and I got the word. For Killain: nothing.”

“Don't work too hard at bein' as stupid as your boss,” Johnny told him in heat. “I know Faulkner's a lawyer. If I look him up in the book an' go over to his office, how long you think I've got to hold him by his heels out the window before he tells me where I can find the girl?” He grinned at the detective's level stare. “But I'm always in favor of the short cut. I'll trade with you, Jimmy. You give me the address, an' I'll tell you somethin' I forgot over at the place last night.”