Dan Marlowe - Doom Service

“I can't leave you out here on the street,” Johnny said in his most reasonable voice. “Manuel'd come after me with his dullest knife if someone jumped you on the stairs.” He handed the driver a bill. “I'll walk you up.”

“Then hold the cab, at least!” she warned him. “You'll never get another in this neighborhood this time of night.”

“Occupational hazard,” he told her, and took her arm. In the light of the lower stairway he could see a faint dimple of amusement in an ivory cheek. In the narrow stairwell he relinquished her arm, and she walked up steadily ahead of him. He was not unaware of the landscape immediately before his eyes as he climbed.

“It keeps me fit, this stair climbing,” she announced, and with no warning broke into a run in the middle of the fifth floor stairway. She fled light-footedly up the balance of the steps and across the hallway, and when Johnny belatedly arrived at the door of 5-B she was looking out at him coolly over the chain latch. “Good night, Johnny,” she said with only a touch of breathlessness after her run. “You can start testing the occupational hazard.”

In the room shadows behind her he could make out little more than the shape of her features, but there was no mistaking the mocking lilt in her husky voice. “Now you're a playful little jigger, aren't you?” he grumbled, reaching inside and securing a handhold on the end of the chain latch bolted to the door. He bent his wrist, and with a scree-e-e the metal came free of the door with half a panel of wood attached. He dropped the piece, and it jangled lightly as it fell to the end of the chain. He stepped inside and closed the door behind him.

“It seems a little juvenile to scream,” Consuelo Ybarra said cautiously in the silence that had fallen.

“That's what I thought, too,” Johnny agreed, and reached for her. In the room's half light he was watching her feet, wary of the inch-long high heels, and the full-armed slap delivered from the near-darkness surprised him and rocked his head on his shoulders. He whistled and stepped back to wait for the ringing in his ear to die out. “You sure Manuel did the fightin' in this family, kid?” he asked her, shuffling closer as she backed away.

“Have a care!” she warned breathlessly, and fell victim to the left arm feint as the right hand caught and spun her. He boosted her aloft easily as he turned to the bedroom doorway, and before she could struggle he had shot-putted her eight feet to the center of the bed. She bounced high and came up in a twisting roll as a hand flashed into her bosom and emerged with a glint of steel. “I will teach you that I am not a whore,” she said calmly. “When I get off this bed, I will kill you.”

His wrist slap sent the knife spinning as he dropped down beside her. “When you get off this bed, girl, you're welcome.” His hands came down upon the tensed vitality of her bare shoulders, and it was only seconds before the shoulders relaxed. He rolled her over swiftly and pried off her high-heeled shoes.

“You are one big fool!” she murmured languidly, marveling. “So much importance you attach to this?” She lifted an arm lazily. “The zipper is under here…”

She stirred in the crook of his arm as he lay at peace in the perfumed darkness, and he turned his head. “Cigarette?”

“It is not important.” Her voice was quiet, relaxed.

He half raised himself on an elbow. “Put on the light. I want to see.”

“No light,” she said immediately. “It's not decent, between strangers. And you are old enough to know that all cats are gray.”

“Yeah, but there's gray, and dove-gray, and silver-gray, and pearl-gray, and dapple-gray. Put on the light.”

“No light,” she said again. “Your hands can be your eyes.”

Delicately he traced the line of satiny curves as he listened to the faint sibilance of her breathing. “Only one reason I'm lettin' you get away with it,” he told her. “I'm a believer in leavin' somethin' for the next time.” The big hands pulled her toward him. “Right now, excuse me while I play that record again.”

A half block from the hotel Johnny set himself instinctively as a black overcoat stepped from a doorway and tapped him on the arm. Johnny shook his head warningly at Detective James Rogers standing alongside him on the windy street. “You want to be a little careful how you do that, Jimmy. I'm half expectin' at least one guy to bounce out of a doorway at me.”

“Monk Carmody?” the slender man queried shrewdly, and took Johnny's arm without waiting for a reply. “Come on. The coffees are on me.”

The detective sat down heavily in the back booth of the all-night restaurant. He took off his hat, placed it in the booth beside him and rasped a palm over his chin, “You went over to Turner's?” Johnny asked him.

“I did.” Detective Rogers grimaced. “Mr. Turner has an inflated opinion of the water he draws in this town.”

“He could fool you, boy. A mug like me stands a better chance of twistin' his tail than someone standin' on a political ladder like you.”

“The police department is not political, Johnny.”

“You keep up that Jimmy-in-Wonderland gag an' you'll be tipped right outta your crib one of these days.”

“You'll pardon me if I disagree?” Detective Rogers looked at his watch. “Let's see if I made a mistake paying for your coffee. Do you know Rick Manfredi?”

“I know the name,” Johnny admitted cautiously.

“One of the sharper gamblers. It's around town that he went for a bundle on the kid to dump in the fourth. As you know, it went to the sixth, and Manfredi got burned. I'd like to know where he got his original steer. He's young, tough and smart. Kind of a lone wolf. Not too popular.” The hazel eyes across the booth studied Johnny. “I'd like to talk to him, and I can't find him.”

“You mean those four-bit stoolies you guys use can't turn him up for you? Now that's a shame.”

“I thought you'd think so.” The detective pointed with his coffee spoon. “I thought you might be able to reach him.”

“All right-suppose I get to talk to him. What's the pitch?”

“I knew you wouldn't forget I keep you in the very best coffee. You know where to find him?”

“I might just happen to have a string on him.”

“I wouldn't doubt it,” Detective Rogers said drily. “I wouldn't doubt it for a minute.” He leaned back in the booth, lines in his face and the hazel eyes bloodshot. “How do you fix a fight, Johnny? Seriously?”

“If you're an amateur, you get hold of the fighter an' try to talk him into doin' a little business. Or scare him. If you're a pro, the Jake Gidlows in the business'll save you the trouble, for a fee.”

“The lieutenant would say that it's a good line, but you can't prove it,” the detective observed. “Who'd need to be in on it? Rock bottom?”

“The fighter. The fighter's manager. The fighter's trainer, possibly. The other manager, probably. At least one heavy-money party. That's basic. You can go for yourself from there.”

The sandy-haired man nodded. “Of the line-up, on a double cross the heavy-money party stands to feel the biggest bruise.” He drained the last of his coffee. “Which brings us back to Manfredi.”

“It does, for a fact,” Johnny agreed.

“The fighter's dead. The manager's dead. The trainer, Terry Chavez, is another one I've been unable to find. Williams' manager, Carl Ecklund, is out of town, nobody seems to know where. A nice, cozy freeze-out.” Detective Rogers buttoned his coat. “I wouldn't want to delay you. Bon voyage.”

“Wait a minute. What's the pitch I feed Manfredi?”

“Why don't you tell him you're interested in a do-it-yourself kit on how to fix a fight? That ought to reach him.”