Dan Marlowe - Doom Service

“Rick is my friend,” Manuel affirmed strongly, but the eyes were watchful.

“Why?” Johnny countered. “When a man's my friend, there's a reason. Must be with you an' Rick. You maybe stood back-to-back in a thirty-foot circle and knife-fought the trouble?”

The dark man's smile became strained. “Nothing like that. It's jus'-” He appeared to be looking back reflectively. “I have known him only two years. I met him through Consuelo; even then he came to the club to hear her sing. He would like to make something of it, but she does not take him seriously. And I liked him-we talked the same language. I do not mean the Spanish-the same language of the world we spoke. He was pleasant, not pushing, never asking. I made all the advances.”

“Where'd you get the money for your end of the deal?” Johnny inserted into the little silence.

“Not legally.” Manuel Ybarra's tone was tight. He forestalled the next question. “Rick knows this.” He knitted his hands together on the table in front of him, and the big, brown knuckles turned white. “It's never too difficult for a man to be more clever than me, amigo, but Rick is my friend.” He said it almost pleadingly, and then the tight lines in his face slackened. “This thing has a most foolish sound to you?” he asked resignedly.

“It could be all right,” Johnny said again. He tapped on the table top with an idle finger tip. “I think-”

“There is one other little thing,” Manuel said, interrupting him. “I have for years a small Spanish automatic. Very small; of the caliber about twenty-five. Special bullets. A month ago it was missing from where I always kept it, and I have not found it. I said nothing, for I thought Consuelo might have discovered it, and she does not like the guns. But thinking back, I missed it after Rick had been to the flat one evening.”

Johnny shook his head slowly. “Hendricks went to borrow money from Rick, Rick turned him down, Hendricks got mad and told you a story about Rick that shook you up, you went up against Rick with the story, he denied it and you had an argument, Rick takes out after Hendricks and kills him with the little automatic he'd taken from your place-“ The sound of his words hung in the air a moment. “It's too thin, Manuel.”

“I am glad you think so,” Manuel said in relief.

“What kind of a story did Hendricks give you about Rick?”

“About the previous quiet partner of Rick who lost his money through a manipulation.”

“I've heard that story,” Johnny said, and watched the dark features tighten rigidly.

“I think I will have the little talk with Rick,” Manuel Ybarra said carefully.

“You can't talk to him sensibly,” Johnny pointed out. “You're all up in the air. You're due to explode in a shower of sparks, and it could be that it's not justified.”

“I need to know,” the dark man said stubbornly.

“Now wait a minute-” Johnny looked at his watch, and sighed for his lost sleep. “I'll go with you,” he decided. “Your face is too transparent. You got to give me an hour, though. Okay?”

“Fine,” Manuel declared. “I have one errand myself first. Rick stays at the Cortez Apartments. I will meet you on the northwest corner in an hour. There is an alley on that corner.”

“Just don't make that errand a gun to be picked up,” Johnny warned him. He stood up in the booth. “Where'd you get that kind of cash without Consuelo knowing about it?”

“If I collected four thousan', I tol' her two,” Manuel said resignedly. “And I pay tax only on what she controls. Consuelo by nature has to be managing something, so I leave her with that. She can't understand that a man must manage his own affairs.” He said it defensively.

“We can sit here forever an' settle nothin',” Johnny said briskly. “The Cortez, in an hour-right?”

“I will be there with the bells on.” Manuel attempted a smile that didn't jell. “I had better be wrong about this bad feeling I have. I would not like to get angry with Rick.”

Johnny watched him leave, a thick-shouldered figure loaded with menace. You'd better shake him down for hardware before you go up against Manfredi, he told himself. This boy's a little touchy right now. It might help to keep down the casualty list.

At the hotel Johnny put in a call for Detective James Rogers, and finally made contact after getting shunted around half the station-house extensions. “Jimmy? Killain. I got a job for those four-bit stool pigeons of yours.”

“With you supplying the four bits?”

“Like hell. Listen. Scatter a few of them out around the town an' see if they can locate a few citizens who were bankrolled to take Roketenetz to lose after the fourth round.”

There was a short silence. “You think the fix was re-fixed?” Detective Rogers asked finally.

“You should be able to find out. It wouldn't be anything conspicuous-two, three, four hundred at a crack, probably. Can do? Good. I'm in a hurry. See you.”

Johnny banged up the phone and headed down to the street, and a cab. If this hunch paid off…

The wind ripped at him bitingly as he stepped out of the cab in front of the Cortez, a not-quite-first-class apartment hotel. Johnny walked up to the northwest corner, holding himself together against the wind. He shook his head; he wasn't dressed for this kind of weather. He hoped Manuel wouldn't be late.

Beyond the corner he saw the alley Manuel had mentioned, and he realized at once that, if Manuel had preceded him, he had probably stepped into it to get out of the wind. He headed into it himself, his feet crunching on the hard-packed snow in the unshoveled areaway; when he lifted his head in relief at escaping the bitter blast he found himself looking at a dark figure on the ground fifteen yards away, motionless under the rising and falling arm of the figure that was leaning over it.

Johnny went up the alley like a wind-blown leaf, but the snow betrayed him. The crisp sound of his running feet brought the assailant around in alarm, and, losing his footing on the slippery surface, he caromed into the man as he tried to pull up in front of him. A weight crashed under his ear. The alley whirled, and Johnny went to his knees, his reaching hands numbed for an instant. He pulled himself painfully erect, but the assailant was gone. Johnny stooped unsteadily over the limp figure, his ears ringing.

He was relieved to hear breathing, even though it was labored and stertorous. His hand came away stickily wet from Manuel Ybarra's head. Johnny stumbled out to the sidewalk, put two fingers to his mouth and whistled a shrill blast.

Johnny paced the hospital corridor outside the emergency room to which the ambulance crew had taken the unconscious Manuel Ybarra. Johnny had wadded up a handkerchief and pressed it tightly between his shoulder and his ear, which was leaking slightly, and he walked with his head tipped sideways to hold the pad in place.

He had ridden over in the same ambulance and had told the intern about Manuel's eye condition. The intern had looked grave; the dark man's head wounds, serious enough in themselves, could also affect a precarious eye condition. The ex-fighter in the emergency room faced a lifetime of darkness.

A thousand random thoughts thudded through Johnny's mind as he paced. Could Manuel have been right? Could Rick Manfredi have killed Dave Hendricks and, suspecting Manuel's return in quest of more information, stopped him before he ever got started? Johnny stopped in his fierce stride and stared fixedly at the neutral-colored wall. He shook his head regretfully; it just didn't add up. Granted Manfredi was no angel, how could he have had someone posted in the alley, with no knowledge of Manuel's exact intentions? No, far more likely this thing stemmed from the same sequence of events that had seen the dark man attacked on the street the night of the first visit to Manfredi's floating poker game.