Dan Marlowe - Doom Service

“L. Turner Enterprises,” Stacy's pleasant contralto said when she came on the line.

“It's me, kid.”

“Oh.” Her voice lowered conspiratorially. “I shouldn't be telling you this, but Mr. Turner's got a man following you.”

“Following me?” Johnny asked, genuinely surprised. “What the hell for?”

“I don't know. I just know that he has. I can't talk freely.”

“Yeah,” Johnny said slowly. “Well, thanks, anyway. I'll watch for him. Damn nice of you to call me. I'll elaborate on that a little when I see you.”

“Oh,” she said at once. “About tomorrow-would you mind calling for me at my place?”

“Not even if it was at the foot of the Statue of Liberty,” he said cheerfully. “Dinner's on me this time, though.”

“I've got to hang up-there's another call. I'll be expecting you. 'By.”

Johnny jingled the change in his pocket absently as he left the booth. Lonnie Turner's putting a man on him made sense from only one point of the compass-after the full and complete detail in which Lonnie Turner had told his story, he might feel a vested interest in whether Johnny was going to pass the information on. Hardly anything else it could be, but he'd worry about it with a few hours sleep under his belt. He went by the switchboard and left a 2:00 p.m. call with Edna, the day operator. Four hours sleep was not ten, but it was a damn sight better than nothing.

In his room he shed clothing from the door to the bed, and was asleep between one long breath and another.

The jangling phone crashed into his consciousness and jarred him upright. “Yeah. Okay, Edna. Thanks,” he mumbled to the operator. “I'm up.” He gave the lie to this statement by immediately stretching out again, but after a forty-five second inspection of the ceiling he rolled over and picked up the phone again. “Edna? Get me Providence Hospital, will you?” The line rang several times before it was answered. “I'd like to speak to Manuel Ybarra,” he said.

“Mr. Ybarra is not receiving calls,” the phone informed him after a pause long enough to check the alphabetical listing.

“Look-get me his ward nurse,” Johnny said rapidly. I'm-

“I'm not allowed to do that, sir.”

“I'm a relative,” Johnny pressed on, “and I've got to find out what they want me to bring down there.”

“Oh. Just one moment, sir.” In seconds a lighter, younger voice spoke pleasantly. “Ward G, Scalley.”

“Miss Scalley, I'm a cousin of Manuel Ybarra on your ward. How's he doin'?”

“Your inquiry should be addressed to the desk,” she said doubtfully. “You say you're a cousin?” Johnny gave her the first two lines of the Star Spangled Banner in rapid-fire Spanish. “Well,” Miss Scalley said quickly, “he's conscious and improving slowly. We're hoping he'll have some vision left in the right eye.”

“The left's gone?”

“From present indications. Dr. Martin says there's always a chance of a miracle, but-”

“Yeah, sure. Thanks, Miss Scalley.” Johnny hung up, rolled slowly onto his back and stared up at the ceiling again. Well, Killain. What are you getting yourself all roiled up about? A guy and a gal took a short cut to the money chamber. They didn't make it. The girl doesn't know yet why they didn't make it. And a damn good thing for Manfredi that she doesn't.

He shifted restlessly on the bed. How had Manfredi gotten to the kid to change the round of the fix? It couldn't have been through Gidlow. Gidlow had been sewed up lock, stock and money belt by Lonnie Turner. Or had he?

Terry Chavez had probably been closest to the kid in the hours before the fight. Johnny sat up on the bed suddenly. Terry Chavez. Would the old man double-cross his own flesh and blood? Hardly, but Terry Chavez-if he were able to talk-could very easily know how it had been done.

Johnny slid off the bed and began to dress rapidly. In the mirror he examined the purpling bruise spreading beneath his ear. Another mercenary. Nobody kills his own in this rat race-it's all hired. Unless Gidlow- You don't know about Gidlow. And Hendricks? You don't know about Hendricks, either. That one might have had no connection at all with the rest of it. Except for Hendrick's trip to borrow money from Manfredi. That tied him in solidly, as solidly as Keith. Or as solidly as Munson. Or Turner. Or Manfredi.

A fight manager dead, a fighter dead and a fight judge dead. A fight trainer hospitalized and an ex-fighter hospitalized. Not much doubt about the hub of the wheel.

He descended hurriedly to the lobby, and he was in full flight through it to the street when, from the corner of his eye, he noticed a slim, youngish man detach himself easily from a lobby chair and swing along in his wake. Belatedly Johnny recalled Stacy's warning. He turned right under the marquee, toward Sixth Avenue, looking nowhere but straight in front of him. He had no intention of having his movements reported upon to Lonnie Turner. The gentlemen behind him had a surprise coming to him.

Johnny turned right on Sixth, walked rapidly up the block and turned right again at the next corner. Two doors down he stepped into the recessed doorway of a cocktail lounge, a quick glance through the window verifying that it was deserted at that time of day. He couldn't even see the bartender.

Right on schedule, the slim man came around the corner, moving smoothly, tight to the wall. His eyes flickered side-wise to Johnny in the doorway, but he would have continued right on by if Johnny's hand on his arm had not snatched him into the doorway. Johnny shoved his hands casually in his coat pockets and leaned a shoulder against his companion, pinning him not too conspicuously to the window. “You do that real good, Jack,” Johnny told him gently. “I like the way you take the corners with the inside leg, like a base runner.”

“What the hell?” the slim man breathed wonderingly. “Am I wearing a sign?” The dean features looked startled; he had blue eyes and a fringe of red hair beneath a gray fedora.

“P.I.?” Johnny inquired. The man shrugged and nodded. “What's your per diem?”

“Twenty-five, and expenses.”

“Turner's probably payin' fifty to insure a good job,” Johnny guessed, and knew from the blue eyes' blink that the guess had been a good one. “It's not worth it, Jack.” He increased the shoulder pressure, and the slim man winced. “The next right turn I make an' your right ankle comes dippin' around the corner, I put a bullet through it.” Johnny paused to note the effect, then in midstream changed horses. There was an easier way than trying to scare this boy. “You know Jimmy Rogers?”

“De-Detective Rogers?” The man sounded as though he were having trouble with his wind.

“Detective Rogers,” Johnny agreed, and eased up on the weight of his shoulder. “You call him up an' ask him if he thinks it's a smart idea.” Without another word he walked out of the doorway back up to Sixth and flagged a cab. From the back seat as it pulled away he could see the slim man still in the doorway. So that was that, unless he had a partner, which wasn't likely. “Sisters of Mercy Hospital,” Johnny told the cabbie, and settled back for the ride.

He watched the neighborhoods change from business to residential to slum to slightly seedy residential again. His thoughts were on the white-haired, hawk-nosed man he had last seen in a coma in the boxlike, white-walled room at the Sisters of Mercy Hospital. If Terry Chavez were able to communicate at all…

He stepped from the cab at the end of the ride and mounted the glistening white stone stairs. Inside the front door he glanced in at the little chapel; it would not do to run into Consuelo Ybarra on these premises. The hospital's air of quiet serenity would more than likely never be the same. Johnny didn't want to run into Manuel's sister unexpectedly, but there was a question he had to ask her, and it couldn't wait much longer.