Dan Marlowe: The Fatal Frails

“Why does there always seem to be something you forget?”

“Cynicism ill becomes you, boy. We got a deal?” Silently Rogers took his notebook from his pocket and flipped pages. He stared off down the corridor as Johnny squinted at the opened page. “Spandau Watch Company,” Johnny murmured. “Room Eighteen-oh-eight, Two-twenty-two Maiden Lane.” His grin renewed itself. “Nine will get you five an' your nine back, Jimmy, that the gal's no maiden.”

“You shock me.” The notebook closed with a snap. “So what did I buy?”

Johnny ran through for him quickly Claude Dechant's reaction to the one letter in the stack of mail. “When he came in that front door I'll bet he didn't have any more idea of jumpin' overboard than you do right now. He didn't get any phone calls, either. Was I you, I'd take a look for that letter.”

Rogers nodded grudgingly. “We'll look. Not that it'll make any difference.” He looked at Johnny. “What'd you do to the man last night to get him up on his ear?”

“He's just a bleedin' heart. We was still speakin' when I left here. He must've had a bad dream.”

“If he did, you were in it, in Technicolor. As a direct result of which, I'm taking an official interest in you.”

“Official, Jimmy?”

Detective Rogers paused as though mentally reviewing his orders. “Perhaps not official,” he conceded. “But an interest.”

“Should I move a spare cot into my room for you?”

“Never mind trying to be a bigger wise guy than nature made you, either.”

“The redhead an' the lawyer showed yet?”

“Left twenty minutes ago,” Rogers announced with satisfaction.

Johnny glanced up and down the bustling corridor. “Where's your crabby partner, Cuneo? Already out on the corner waitin' for me to leave so he can tail me?”

The sandy-haired man eyed Johnny coldly. “My partner's minding his own business, which is more than I can say for some people I know.” Detective Ted Cuneo, who had a phobia about Johnny Killain, was a sallow-faced six-footer with large-pupiled pop eyes.

“You guys are as transparent as glass, Jimmy.”

“You're not so damn opaque yourself.”

“Clear-As-Crystal Killain, they call me,” Johnny agreed. “I guess I should sign that statement now. I wouldn't want Ted to get chilled standin' around waitin' for me.”

He moved up the corridor, ignoring Rogers' stare.

Johnny had covered the best part of three blocks outside, and had just begun to think himself mistaken about Ted Cuneo's activities, when he suddenly picked out the tall detective's lean figure across the street. Johnny stopped and waved. “Hey, Cuneo! Come on over!” Detective Cuneo crossed the street after an irresolute moment. He stepped up on the curb and looked Johnny up and down balefully. Two bright red spots bloomed in the saffron features. “How about splittin' the cab fare downtown?” Johnny asked him. “I like to keep down expenses.”

“Wise guy,” the tall man gritted. “A continental wise guy.”

“No originality,” Johnny said sadly. “Rogers already used up that line. Well, you comin'?”

“I'll just call that bluff,” the detective decided after a moment's debate with himself. Johnny lifted his arm to a cab that darted into the curb.

“Two-twenty-two Maiden Lane,” Johnny told the driver as he preceded Cuneo into the back seat.

The tall man jerked to a stop halfway in. “Where'd you get that address?” he demanded.

“From the lawyer, Faulkner,” Johnny said innocently. “Why? You guys forget to muzzle him?”

Cuneo pulled himself in the balance of the way. He sat in compressed-lip silence the entire trip. In the lobby of the office building he watched, his mouth a thin, hard line, as Johnny gravely ran a finger down the “S's” on the wall directory. “Spandau,” Johnny said aloud. “Eighteen-oh-eight.”

“And just what do you think you're going to do up there?” Cuneo's voice was acid-tipped, but Johnny thought he detected a note of uneasiness in it, too.

“Who the hell knows?” Johnny responded. “I play these things better by ear. You still aboard? Let's go.” Cuneo followed stubbornly to the elevators, but hesitated just outside as Johnny stepped on. Johnny needled him. “Come on, man. You think I got time to wait while you thumb through the manual lookin' for a paragraph to cover you? The man said report, didn't he? How the hell 're you gonna report if you're not with me?”

Ted Cuneo burst onto the elevator as though goosed from behind. The large-pupiled eyes were narrowed to slits. “Goddam you, Killain, I'll-”

“Temper, temper,” Johnny said soothingly. To himself he thought that about one more jab of the spurs and Detective Cuneo would be out of the saddle completely on this trip.

Johnny was interested to note, beneath the block-lettered Spandau Watch Co. on the frosted glass of 1808, a smaller J. Tremaine, Representative. J. Tremaine. The “Jack” of Dechant's phone calls? Or the “Jules”? Johnny tapped once and entered, with the now obviously reluctant Cuneo still tagging doggedly along.

The redhead from the previous evening looked up inquiringly from behind a neat, small desk. The room was small, too, and a little on the shabby side, Johnny thought. The girl was alone, but the door to an inner office was at her back. Johnny was relieved to discover that he had made no mistake in judgment last night. Even in the less flattering daylight, this was an exceptional specimen of the genus female.

“May I help you, gentlemen?” the girl asked as Cuneo remained a discreet half pace behind Johnny.

“Sure you can, Gloria,” Johnny told her. He leaned down over her desk, resting his weight on his big-knuckled hands. Gloria Philips glanced fleetingly at the hands, longer at the breadth of chest and shoulders above them, longer still at the rough-hewn, craggy features thirty-six inches from her own. “Tremaine around?”

“Who wishes-” The redhead nodded to herself. “I place you now. You were in the room last night when we found Claude.” She inspected Johnny coolly from beneath long lashes. “You have business with Mr. Tremaine?”

“Oh, boy, do I have business!” Johnny replied cheerfully.

Her eyes slid off to Cuneo. “And this one?”

“Oh, he's just a cop,” Johnny said disparagingly. “Just taggin' along. I can't get rid of him.”

“A policeman? Really?” Gloria Philips' stare banked off the red-faced Cuneo back to Johnny. “Mr. Tremaine is unavailable right now. If you could give me some idea of the nature of your business… I'm Mr. Tremaine's secretary.”

“Well, I guess if you're his secretary it's all right,” Johnny allowed grudgingly. “I come over here to blackmail him.” Beside Johnny, Detective Cuneo blanched.

“You're joking, of course,” the girl said finally.

“Jokin'?” Johnny repeated. “I been livin' in Claude Dechant's pocket for ten years, little sister. You don't think that qualifies me?”

The redhead considered this for five seconds before her fascinated stare returned to Cuneo. “And in the presence of the police you mention blackmail of Mr. Tremaine?”

Ted Cuneo emitted a strangled sound. His hand opened and closed at his sides. “Where's a phone?” he blared.

“Where's a goddam phone? Not that thing!” he shouted hoarsely at Gloria Philips as she pushed the phone on her desk toward him. “A pay phone!”

“None closer than the lobby, I'm afraid,” she told him.

He whirled to the door. From its threshold he leveled a finger at Johnny. “I'll get you for this, you sonofabitch! If Dameron just gives me the word, I'll-” He growled inarticulately, and the door shivered from the force with which he slammed it.

Gloria Philips was looking up at Johnny pensively when he turned back to her desk. “A man like you hasn't always worked in a hotel, has he?” she asked.