Dan Marlowe - Doom Service

Mickey Tallant nodded and poured liberally. “Manuel was askin' earlier if you'd been in.” The Irishman's glance ranged the low-ceilinged room. “Don't see him now. Guess he went out again.” He looked at Johnny speculatively. “You two gettin' buddy-buddy?”

Johnny raised his glass halfway, then lowered it again. “Speakin' of buddy-buddy, what do you know about the gambler Rick Manfredi?”

“You're not thinkin' of hookin' up with him?” Honest alarm was in the heavy voice.

“Why not?” Johnny asked curiously. “He's got a rep as a square gambler. I checked.”

“Square gambler he may be,” Mickey Tallant said emphatically, “but let me tell you about Rick Manfredi. Square with his friends he's not, an' I know what I'm talking about. He's got a cute little gimmick for his friends with money. He'll get up on your blind side one day an' say, 'Johnny, you've got a little spare change right now. Let's throw in fifteen or twenty apiece-' an' it's thousands he's talkin', mind you-'and back a little action. I've got a few angles; let's see if we can run it up into a little something.'“ The Irishman glared indignantly. “Then he'll take the forty thousand bank, an' he'll tell you now we're doin' thus an' so-we laid eight grand to five on this fight, an' we took seven and a half to ten on that one. Only when he knows somethin' he actually goes the other way. He takes the five to eight, an' he lays the ten to seven and a half. So the bank blows fifteen five, half of which is yours, but Mr. Manfredi just takes it out of one pocket and puts it in another. He might keep you alive six months, but sometime before you go clean he'll suggest bustin' up the partnership because of the run of bad luck, but meantime he's got two thirds or better of your money.”

“Sounds like he'd run out of friends right often,” Johnny suggested.

“You might get to thinkin' you were bein' taken, but what could you prove? He'll let you out any time you ask, an' blame it on the tough luck you've run into as a team. You'd be surprised the wise guys go for the idea of bein' a gambler's silent partner.”

“You sound like you were a little close to the subject, Mick.”

“My brother,” the tavern owner admitted sheepishly. He straightened and swiped with his rag at the top of the bar. “You'll never see Manfredi in here!”

“But he's a square gambler,” Johnny said thoughtfully.

“Which means he's never been caught at anything. I don't like the cut of his jib, an' I told him so!” Mickey Tallant boomed belligerently. He moved away down the bar at the sound of a coin tinkling on glass. “Keep your hands in your pockets if you do business with him,” he called over his shoulder.

Johnny smiled. He picked up his drink again and downed half of it; then he turned to run his eye up and down the booths across the room. Two-thirds of the way up the line he paused at sight of a shrewd-faced, wiry-looking man leaning forward in earnest conversation with a companion Johnny couldn't see. The man looked familiar, but Johnny couldn't place him. He caught Mickey Tallant on his next trip by and nodded at the booth in question. “The little guy, Mick, in the booth in line with the guy with the beard. Who is he?”

The Irishman needed only one look. “Dave Hendricks. You know, the fight judge.”

“Fight judge-” Johnny began doubtfully. Hendricks, he thought. Hendricks. Sure, the guy Ed Keith had introduced him to in the Chronicle office. But that introduction… He turned back to Mickey Tallant alertly. “How come I got a knockdown to him the other day that put him down on Seventh Avenue?”

“Maybe because he is,” the tavern owner replied equably.

“You know anyone makin' a livin' judgin' fights? Dave runs a dress shop down there. Owns it, I think. Dave's a regular in here.”

“He judge that fight the other night?” Johnny asked the Irishman, and wondered why he asked the question even as he did.

“Damned if I know,” Mickey Tallant answered. “I didn't see him, but then I never paid any attention. He could have. He only works a card in every four or five, though.”

Johnny's eyes had returned to the booth. “Who's with him?”

“For God's sake!” Irritation died out in the heavy voice as the Irishman sighed, fumbled in his shirt pocket and looked up toward the front of the bar at the cash register. “Wait'll I get my glasses.”

“Never mind,” Johnny decided. “If I sit down, send a round over, Mick. Whatever they're drinkin'. Bourbon for me.” He crossed the room in his swaying shuffle and appeared beside the booth before either man had noticed his presence. He recognized the second man immediately as the pink-cheeked little doctor whom he had first seen outfacing Lonnie Turner in his own office. “Hi, Doc,” he said casually. “Buy you a drink?”

Dave Hendricks sat back abruptly, his expression confused, but his companion spoke up at once. “You certainly can, if I can buy one back. Sit down, won't you?” Johnny eased into the booth alongside the doctor so that he could watch the face across from him. “First time I've been here,” Dr. McDevitt continued with an amused smile. “Dave's been holding out on me. Extraordinary place. I feel as though I've been missing something.”

Johnny was watching Dave Hendricks' puzzled effort to place him. “Chronicle office,” he said briefly. “Ed Keith.”

The wiry man's face cleared. “Sure. I remember.” The frown reappeared. “Kil-Kilcoyne?”

“Not bad. Killain.” Johnny paused as the waiter appeared with a tray of drinks, speedily dispensed them, nodded at Johnny and departed. The other two lifted their glasses to him slightly. “You work that fight the other night?” he asked Dave Hendricks. “The Roketenetz fight?”

The shrewd eyes narrowed, then widened. “No, thank God,” the wiry man replied breezily. “That's one clinker I missed. For a couple of days I was congratulating myself I'd missed a commission appearance, but it doesn't look like there's going to be anything like that now. You see the fight?”

“I saw it.”

“A real job of work.” Dave Hendricks spread his hands, palms up. “I was sure glad I wasn't workin' it.”

“I worked it,” Dr. McDevitt said gravely, and Johnny looked at him in surprise.

“Phil was the commission doctor,” Dave Hendricks explained.

“It's water over the dam now, of course,” the pink-cheeked man said slowly, “but as a matter of fact I came as close as I don't know what to stopping that fight in the second round when the boy received that slash over the right eye-Johnny drew a long breath. “Not second-guessin' you, Doc, but a hell of a lot of things might've been different if you had.”

“Hindsight, of course,” the doctor agreed. “The fight was a big step up for the boy, and unconsciously I may have leaned over backward to give him his chance.”

“Only he never had a chance,” Johnny said bitterly.

“That seems to be the consensus-”

“Johnny! Telephone!” Mickey Tallant bellowed from the bar.

Johnny excused himself and walked over to the telephone beside the register. “Yeah?”

“It's Paul, Johnny. I'm a little jammed up here if you're not tied up.”

“Be right there.” Johnny returned to the booth and the two men. “I'll have to take a rain check on that other drink, Doc. Time to start makin' a noise like a working man.” Was it his imagination, or was there a look of relief on Dave Hendricks' face? “See you both around.”

On the way to the door he stopped in front of Mickey Tallant. “Tell Manuel to call me at the hotel,” Johnny said, and the Irishman nodded. It was time to have a little talk with Manuel about Rick Manfredi, Johnny felt. Somebody had to be wrong.