Dan Marlowe - Doom Service

The subdued illumination furnished by the filigreed hurricane lamps in the Copper Bowl Cocktail Lounge discreetly shaded the weary five o'clock faces in the booths about them, but Johnny noticed that Stacy Bartlett's fresh young complexion needed no such assistance. The girl was sitting bolt upright across from him, slim fingers idling with the stem of the glass of her pink Clover Club, her eyes roaming booths and room, plainly determined to miss nothing.

“It's such a nice place, really,” she said finally, with a little sigh. “Even if everyone is drinking. It's a shame a girl can't come to a nice place like this by herself sometimes.”

“Some do,” Johnny told her.

“I know,” she admitted. Her glance shifted to the end of the bar where half a dozen well-glazed females with elaborate hair-dos mingled on the bar stools with dark-suited males. “I'm afraid I couldn't compete.”

“In attitude, maybe.”

“Well… thanks.” Her color bloomed. “It must take- practice.” She blushed anew at the sound of her own words. “Isn't that Dr. McDevitt?” she asked hurriedly, nodding at the other end of the bar.

“Who's Dr. McDevitt?” Johnny inquired, not intending to be distracted by this offering. In the direction indicated he caught sight of the dapper, pink-cheeked man he had seen in Lonnie Turner's office. “Oh, him. The man who says 'no' to your boss.”

“And that's Mr. Keith with him,” Stacy continued. Johnny's glance moved along to take in the bulk of the crew-cut sportswriter.

“He spend much time at Lonnie's?” he asked the girl.

“He helps out on various things when Mr. Munson's busy,” she explained.

I wonder, Johnny thought. I wonder if Ed Keith has anyone looking over his shoulder when he writes his column. Or thinks he might have…

Stacy Bartlett placed her elbows on the table top as she leaned forward to command Johnny's full attention. “You don't think too highly of us at the office, do you?” she accused him.

“Present company excepted, sis.” He shrugged under the steady gaze of the brown eyes. “That's a different breed of cats over there from what you're used to down on the farm. I'd remember it, was I you.”

“They've all treated me very nicely,” she said loyally. “Even Monk-”

“Even Monk?” Johnny interjected into her confused pause. He examined her searchingly. “You don't like Monk?”

“He doesn't bother me,” she said hastily, but she was pink again. “Mr. Turner was very much provoked with you the other day,” she continued quickly.

“Mr. Turner needs to watch his blood pressure,” Johnny said. “How'd you hear about it?”

“Oh, I always do. Eventually.”

Is that right, now, Johnny thought. He looked from the girl to the bar. “Didn't I hear somethin' about an accident to someone in the crowd?” he asked casually.

“It wasn't an accident. Terry Chavez was mugged by a gang of thugs right on the sidewalk.” Johnny turned his head in time to receive the indignant candle power of the brown eyes. “And Al says the police haven't been able to find out a thing. We sent a basket of fruit over to him this afternoon.”

Terry Chavez, Johnny thought. Charlie Roketenetz's trainer. A white-haired, lean, half-Mexican, half-Indian old man with the reputation of never, using three words when two would do. Johnny's mind leaped ahead. Could it have been Chavez whom Manuel had been to see in the hospital and about whose health Rick Manfredi had inquired in Spanish? It was on the tip of Johnny's tongue to ask the girl if she knew Manfredi, but he decided against it. In her innocence she might repeat something at the office that could get her in trouble-along with a few other people. Johnny thought grimly to himself that trouble seemed to be using Lonnie Turner's office as a clearing house.

He sought to get the afternoon back on the rails. “It was real nice of you to let me rob the cradle today, baby.”

“Rob the cradle!” the girl repeated with distaste. “Do I look like an infant?”

“Not by a hundred forty pounds, kid.”

She looked unmollified. “I'm free, white-”

“An' almost twenty-one,” he interrupted her. “I know. Not to change the subject, but now that you're a member in good standin' of the wicked world, when you havin' me to dinner over at your place?”

“You know I can't do that!” she said in surprise.

“Can't cook, huh?”

“Certainly I can cook!”

“Then what's the hitch? Monday night? Tuesday?”

She nibbled at her lower lip. “You-hurry me along too quickly,” she complained.

“You got to run nowadays just to keep up. What's the harm in a home-cooked meal an' a little sofa-wrestlin' afterwards?”

“There'll be no sofa-wrestling,” she replied with dignity. “And one more remark like that and there'll be no home-cooked meal.”

“Baby, you can give me the ground rules when I get up to bat,” Johnny told her. He looked around for the waiter. “Tomorrow? Tuesday?”

“You're hopeless,” she replied primly. “I don't know why I listen to you.”

“My unbounded charm.” He grinned at her. “Well? Chicken?”

She flushed, but was silent as the waiter approached and Johnny paid the check. “Make it Tuesday,” she said abruptly when he had gone and Johnny was assisting her on with her coat.

“I wouldn't kid you, Stacy,” he said softly. “I can hardly wait.” On the way out he took her the long way around, out of sight of the end of the bar at which they had seen Dr. McDevitt and Ed Keith.

In the apartment's tiny kitchen Johnny mixed a moderate rye highball and carried it in to Sally in the big armchair in the living room.

“I just wish you'd stop babying me!” she protested as he handed her the glass, a hint of exasperation in her tone. “I'm perfectly all right!”

“Sure you are,” Johnny agreed. Physically, maybe, he thought. The pleasantly small features still looked drawn. That particular note in her voice, though… He bent down over the chair and slipped his hands about her slender waist. “Watch the glass,” he warned her as he picked her up and sat down in the chair with her in his lap. “By God, Ma, in wartime you'd be classified as a dangerous weapon. A man could cut himself on those ribs.”

“Only notarized complaints accepted, sir,” she answered placidly.

“Good thing one kind of meat sticks to your bones.”

She lifted her head from his shoulder. “What's that?”

“Me.”

“Hush, man.” She took a sip from the highball and replaced the glass on the table beside the chair. “I don't know why it is men feel they always have to talk about things!”

“Our braggin' natures, Ma.” He tipped up her chin to examine the still-shadowed brown eyes, which regarded him steadily. “'Course a man should really shake down the furnace once in a while to make good on his brag,” he continued thoughtfully, and stood up with Sally in his arms, alert to the first faint movement of negation. It never came. When her hands did tighten on his shoulders, he found that they were attuned to a familiar wave length.

In the bedroom he slid her easily to her feet and turned her about like a mannequin as he unzipped her. She stood passively as he whisked her out of dress, slip and underwear and speedily removed his own things. Over her shoulder in the vanity mirror he admired the slim, glowing pallor of her body, and, sensing what he was doing, she half-twisted within the circle of his arms to see.

“Voyeur!” she charged breathlessly, and lunged up against him as she tried to dodge the big palm she could see about to descend on her small ivory buttock. She yipped at the crack of his hand and rebounded, only to be engulfed again in the big arms. He whirled her aloft and over to the bed, afire with the silken feel of her, and then his strong hands gathered her in for the harvest.