Dan Marlowe - Doom Service

Johnny climbed to the second floor and approached the remembered door with caution. He was ready to retreat at sight of a figure in the chair beside the bed until he realized that the head outlined was masculine. He entered the room after his momentary hesitation, and in the gloom had difficulty in recognizing Dr. McDevitt until the pink-cheeked man looked up with a start from his meditative, head-on-chest position.

The doctor rose to his feet with hand extended. “Ashamed to say I was nearly asleep, Killain. Haven't been sleeping too well recently.” His hand in Johnny's was dry and crisp. “Nice to know poor Terry's not completely forgotten,” he added with a glance at the bed.

“How's he doin', Doc? Any better?”

The commission physician pursed his lips doubtfully. “I'm afraid not. I've already looked at the chart.” He nodded at the clip-board hanging from the end of the bed. “It's difficult to tell in these cases sometimes, but it's my feeling that he's slowly sinking.”

“He's never regained consciousness?”

Dr. McDevitt walked around to the foot of the bed and picked up the chart. “Not since he first lapsed into this comatose condition. He was conscious-let's see-the first thirty-six hours after admission.” He looked up from the chart. “I feel a little negligent in this. Terry's an old friend of mine, and the first report I had was that it wasn't this serious.”

“He must have made a statement to the police at the time of admission,” Johnny said, thinking aloud, his eyes on the still form in the bed. He continued as the doctor raised an inquiring eyebrow. “If he'd never made a statement at all, there'd be a man in blue cocked up in a chair outside this door right now. An', whatever he told 'em, they're not expectin' a follow-up, or they'd have someone posted.”

“I'm afraid I didn't pay enough attention to the few details I did hear,” Dr. McDevitt admitted ruefully. “I believe it was the usual thing-attacked from behind on the street, with no sight of the assailant. You're a friend of Terry's?”

“A friend of a friend.”

The doctor nodded. “I like Terry. He's no saint-he's a hard drinker, in spurts-and certainly no intellectual. I employed him for some time as my chauffeur. I'm a poor driver in city traffic, and among other things Terry drove me out the highway to my psychiatrist's office every afternoon.” He chuckled gently. “Ever been in analysis, Killain? No, I can see it's a foolish question from looking at you. I had to give it up myself.” He chuckled again. “When those devils get to the point where they can remove the feeling of guilt from a man's life, it's time to quit. No guilt, no flavor, I always say. Ergo, no life. None worth living, at any rate. And I've managed to live quite comfortably with my little peccadilloes.” He waved a deprecating hand. “I'm boring you. I'm sorry. I've got to run along. Can I offer you a share of a cab downtown? Or have you the time for that drink I owe you from the other evening?”

“Not right now, thanks, Doc. That fella that was with you the other night went kinda quick, didn't he?”

“About as quickly as you can go, I guess,” the doctor said drily. “As sometimes happens after a man's gone, I'm beginning to hear stories that he led a parti-colored life. Dave Hendricks operated on several levels, apparently. In running up and down various stepladders he got his foot caught between the rungs of one of them. Not an infrequent occurrence in this town, but I was a little surprised that it happened to Dave.” The pink-cheeked doctor nodded casually, moved to the door and went out.

Johnny moved in beside the chair the doctor had vacated and looked down at the sharp-angled features under the shock of white hair visible above the head bandage. “I wonder if you'd make the same statement to the police now, man, if you knew what a tight fit it is,” Johnny mused, half aloud. He straightened finally and walked from the silent room.

In the daylight under a threatening sky, the tenement area in which the Ybarras lived looked even more depressing than at night, Johnny reflected. Scabrous building fronts contributed their own indefinable rundown aura. The gutters were dirty, there was trash in the streets, papers were blowing wildly and the half-hearted sidewalk snow removal had created unsightly melting lumps carelessly blocking off storm sewers.

Johnny hesitated before the iron steps of the Ybarra tenement. He'd come over here, but he hadn't really made up his mind. This trip could turn out to be not such a good idea if Consuelo Ybarra was still set on a hair trigger. Still, only she could tell him what he needed to know. If she doesn't hand you one of your ears before you get your mouth open, he thought grimly.

Well, one way to find out. He climbed the steps, entered the building and started up the five flights. In contrast to his first early-morning climb there was noise aplenty now-shrill, childish voices, the continual sound of doors opening and closing and the banging of pots and pans.

Johnny knocked twice at the door of 5-B. For seconds there was no sound at all, and then he could hear a cautious shuffling noise inside as though the inner side of the door had been carefully approached. He knocked again, impatiently.

“Who is it?”

He would have known that husky voice among a thousand. “Open up, Consuelo.”

The door opened conservatively on the chain latch, and she looked out at him. “You!” she said, and the pronoun became an epithet. “Are you ashame' of your name?”

“I'm not ashamed of nothin',” he told her flatly. “I don't blat my name for these walls to hear.” Behind her in the doorway he could see that the shades were drawn and the lights on. Her voice had sounded thick and unsteady, and he studied her in the poor hall light. The eyes looked dull and the full-lipped mouth slack, and the disorderly mass of blue-black hair seemed to be flying all over the small head. “You drunk?” Johnny asked her apprehensively.

She smiled broadly. “Not dronk. Dreenking.” She fumbled off the new chain latch, for which he was responsible, and threw open the door. “Come in!” The smile flattened to a half sneer as he hesitated. “The beeg man is afraid!”

“Ahhhh!” he said roughly, and pushed inside, past her. “Listen to me, now. Drunk or sober, you start anything an' I'll finish it, see? I don't want no caterwauling in my ear.”

“But of course,” she said gravely, and missed the first three times she tried to rehook the chain-latch bolt, her movements all in slow motion. She finally managed it and preceded him inside. His uneasiness increased when he got his first good look at her. She was in her stockinged feet and a shapeless purple dressing gown that should have made her look like a hag. Instead it made her look like a very attractive gypsy, Johnny thought. “Sit down,” she invited him with a wave of her arm, which nearly overbalanced her, and collapsed herself into a chair beside a table prominently furnished with a bottle and glass, each half empty. “Mus' make yoursel' at home.”

The liquor had tripled her tongue to the point where her speech, ordinarily quite good, was more accented than Manuel's. She pulled herself up out of the chair in sections and weaved unsteadily to a wall cabinet, from which she removed another glass. She returned to the table and sloppily poured him a drink. She pushed the overfilled glass in his direction, picked up her own and stared over its rim at him, her eyes narrowed with the intensity of her thought.

“Confusion everyone,” she toasted finally, “an' hell damn hell.” She giggled triumphantly, threw back her head, tossed down her drink, coughed, gasped and sank down into her chair. Her eyes watered and ran copious tears.

Johnny picked up his drink and sniffed at it. “What the hell kind of wild moose milk is this?” he demanded disgustedly. “Tequila?”