Dan Marlowe - The Fatal Frails

Johnny Killain stepped briskly from the narrow service elevator into the after-midnight half-darkness of the Hotel Duarte's main lobby. He took in the lean, slope-shouldered man in the Burberry topcoat standing by the registration desk and nipping through a stack of mail Vic Barnes, the night front-desk man, had handed him. Then, from his bell-captain's desk between the passenger elevators, Johnny glanced out through the foyer's glass doors to the chill rain drenching Forty-fifth Street. A cab was pulled in to the curb, and Paul Sassella was jockeying airplane luggage from its trunk. Johnny was barely in time to hold the door as the stocky Swiss entered the lobby loaded down with bags. Paul was Johnny's right-hand man on the night shift.

The man in the expensive topcoat turned around as he heard Paul set the bags down behind him. “Supposed to be summer when I got back here,” he said accusingly. His harsh voice echoed in the hushed lobby.

“Calendar says it's summer,” Paul replied mildly.

“Damn the calendar. My bones say it's not.” The lean man returned to his mail, his temples silvered in the desk light. A finely meshed network of wrinkles crosshatched his sharp features, and dark pouches bagged prominently beneath his eyes. A facial tic fluttered his left eyelid at irregular intervals. Johnny watched the worn, haggardly weary face as an envelope was separated from the pile, held up to the light and squinted at.

“Zurich this time?” Paul inquired into the little silence.

“Not Zurich.” The worn-looking man grimaced as though at a bad taste. “Langnau. And Mumpf. Dickering for a high-grade lot of movements.” He stuffed the single envelope into a topcoat pocket and turned again to look at Paul. The metallic voice rose jeeringly. “How come you're not behind a desk on the Wilhelmstrasse, chasing the almighty dollar with the rest of your no-good compatriots?”

“For business you need the hard head. Mine is soft,” Paul said placidly.

“A soft-headed Swiss? They don't make any. For a franc or a hundred thousand, they're a bunch of wheelers and dealers.” The balance of the mail was slapped together on the marbled counter. “Once I had a hard head myself. Lately I've begun to wonder.” The lean man passed a hand tiredly over his eyes. “I didn't used to mind these night flights like this.” He looked at Vic behind the desk. “I'm expecting someone.” Vic nodded. Vic was a sturdy, middle-aged man in a clerk's black alpaca jacket. His thinning hair was combed straight back from a high forehead, and his round, cheerful features appeared glossily waxed, emphasizing his high color.

“Ungodly hour, but it can't be helped,” the worn-looking man continued. He looked at Paul. “I know the kitchen's closed, but could you find me a sandwich after you've dumped that stuff upstairs? And a pot of coffee?”

The stolid Paul nodded. “Take me a few minutes.”

“Just so I get the rumble out of my belly before I sack in. I'll leave the door open in case I'm in the shower. And shoot my company right on up, will you?” He crossed the lobby to the nearer elevator, and Paul stooped for the bags.

Behind Johnny his phone rang, and he reached for it. “Bell captain, Killain.”

“Tommy's got trouble in the bar, Johnny.” Urgency strained the night telephone operator's soft voice. “He just called me.”

“Okay, ma,” Johnny replied soothingly. The operator, Sally Fontaine, was a slender, brown-eyed sprite whose quick smile had the happy faculty of fusing ordinary features into pleasing winsomeness. Johnny spent a considerable amount of his time in provoking the appearance of Sally's smile. “What'cha doin' in the mornin'?”

“Darning my socks. Will you get in there? Tommy sounded worried.”

“Tommy's always-” Johnny shrugged as Sally broke the connection on him. He propelled his bulk across the lobby floor to the swinging doors beneath the stairs that led to the mezzanine. He pushed through them in time to see the pint-sized bartender, Tommy Haines, back quietly away as, across the bar from him, a burly arm was raised threateningly from amidst a tight little knot of men.

Johnny's pale eyes narrowed. His high-cheekboned, weather-bronzed craggy features went taut and hard beneath his rough, blond hair. He moved forward swiftly, his long-striding shuffle a muted whisper on the lounge carpet. From behind the group he deftly turned a shoulder and eased himself into the bar between the arm-raiser and his intended target. “You happen to have a spare quart of ginger ale, Tommy?” he asked lightly.

Heads turned in unison. Flushed, irate faces stared blankly at his snug-fitting bell captain's uniform. The silence lasted only an instant. “-'t th' hell out've m' way,” the scarlet-faced arm-raiser grunted sullenly at Johnny. “- show thish stupid-” He tried to glare around Johnny at the man Johnny's body was shielding.

“Sure thing,” Johnny said without looking around, and stayed where he was.

“Well, move, damn it!” The man put a beefy palm against Johnny's shoulder and shoved. He looked surprised when nothing happened. In the back-bar mirror, Johnny watched appraisingly as the arm tensed itself to shove again. The man hesitated as bloodshot eyes focused upon Johnny's several-times-broken nose and the surplus of chest and shoulders beneath the twenty-and-a-half-inch neck. He snorted loudly, and drew back his arm. Johnny turned smoothly, reached in for a firm hand-hold on the belligerent's belt buckle and jerked upward. The man's heels came six inches off the floor. His arms thrashed in furious balancing movements, and his upper body weight tilted him slowly backward until he was counterbalanced by the hard pressure of Johnny's knuckles in his middle. The scarlet face first purpled, then drained to a dirty gray.

Johnny glanced over his shoulder to a noncombatant on the rim of the staring group. “Almost closin',” he said conversationally. “How about one for the road, an' a fresh start tomorrow?” He gently set the man dangling at the end of his arm back upon the floor, and the man grabbed for the edge of the bar with both hands.

“I've had mine for the road,” a voice said suddenly. “And, if the rest of these guys haven't, they're on their own.” Deliberately the speaker detached himself from the group and moved down the bar.

The knot of men around Johnny dissolved as though taut strings had been cut. In slow motion, they drifted away from him. Tommy sprang into action, and the register ding-dinged merrily. The lounge quieted after the muffled, shamefaced good-nights.

Tommy came back from the register nervously wiping his hands on his apron. “Man!” he exclaimed feelingly. “Friends, mind you, and in another second they'd have been all over the floor. Sometimes this sauce I pour-” He shook his head dubiously. “Thanks, big man. I couldn't have handled it without a bungstarter.” He slapped a double jigger down on the bar and dexterously raised and lowered the bourbon bottle over it.

“First tonight,” Johnny acknowledged, and tossed it off. He shook his head as Tommy held up the bottle again inquiringly. “Work's the curse of the drinkin' class, boy.” He nodded in response to Tommy's bottle salute, and returned to the lobby in time to see Paul Sassella's entrance from the foyer with a napkin-covered tray. The well-dressed couple at the desk with Vic registered in the same glance.

“Oh, Paul,” Vic called. “That for Ten-twenty-six? So are Miss Philips and Mr. Faulkner here,” he continued at Paul's affirmative nod. “And Paul-Sixteen-oh-four just called down for her car. Stop off and convince her what time of night it is, will you?”

Johnny barely repressed a smile. 1604 was Miss Loretta Gorman, an elderly spinster given to positive opinions and erratic impulses. Eccentric was the word for 1604. She would listen to the calm, level-headed Paul sometimes when none of the rest of the staff could get through to her. At the thought Johnny stepped forward and relieved Paul of the tray. “I'll take this up along with his visitors,” Johnny said. “You get Miss Loretta straightened out. I don't want her startin' in on me on that phone tonight.”