Dan Marlowe - Doom Service

The slender girl roused herself from the apathy into which she had fallen. “Will you come, too?”

“A little bit later. They'll want to-”

He had lost her attention; she was shaking her head firmly.

“I'll wait for you.”

“Look, Ma,” he said impatiently. “I'm not tellin' you without a reason. This Rogers is the closest thing they got to a right guy in this precinct. I've known him a while, an', though we've taken a few nips out of each other, he's all right. This Cuneo, though, is another peck of potatoes. He don't like me, an' I don't want you around here when he gets to me in the questioning. Savvy?”

“I don't see what difference-” she began stubbornly, and then subsided. “All right,” she said tiredly, “if you say so. What will I say?”

“Just what I told you. Here he comes.” Johnny listened to Sally's fumbling, halting request and watched Rogers' cautious observance of the girl's blue-lipped semishock. When the detective turned to him he was ready with what he hoped would be the clincher. “She don't look good to me. You'll want to talk to Gidlow anyway, won't you?”

“Gidlow?”

“Jake Gidlow, the kid's manager. Stays at the hotel. Suite on the tenth floor.”

The sandy-haired man nodded. “I'll get my hat.” Back at the bar Johnny could see him talking to Cuneo briefly.

Johnny placed two fingers beneath Sally's chin and tipped her head back slightly; he examined the suspicious glimmer in the reddened brown eyes. “You got to stop knockin' yourself out, Ma,” he told her roughly.

“I'm-I'll be all right.” She detached her hand from his. “Lend me your handkerchief. I wish you were coming back with me.”

“I'll be there before you know it,” he said, draping his discarded trench coat over her shoulders.

“And don't lose your temper, like you did with that other man. They-”

“Here he comes,” Johnny interrupted her. “Chin up, now.” Her smile was wan, but she walked steadily enough to the door with Detective Rogers in her wake. Johnny released an expansive sigh; he was glad to get her out of here. He looked around for a chair and found one in a back corner. He knew it would not be a short wait, with a roomful of people to be run through the police routine. He had a lot on his mind; he lit innumerable cigarettes and snuffed out lengthy stubs. With his eyes he followed the horde of uniformed and plain-clothed men who had descended upon the scene. Notebooks in hand, they worked their way through the crowd, asking peremptory questions. None of them came near Johnny, and he shook his head gently. That would be Ted Cuneo's idea.

By Johnny's watch it lacked ten minutes of being a full hour and a half since he had risen from his knees on the sidewalk before Detective Cuneo walked over to his corner. The sharp-featured man kicked a chair into place and sat down facing him, and, despite the noncommittal expression, Johnny could feel the man's hostility.

It started with a by-the-book interrogation of the circumstances of Johnny's presence and a searching analysis of the accuracy of his eye-witness observations, all dutifully jotted down in the ever-present notebook. It went on in picayunish detail for fifteen minutes, but Johnny answered patiently, even when the same question appeared thinly disguised for the third time. He wanted no trouble with this man; he had to get back to the hotel.

When Detective Cuneo reluctantly restored the notebook to his pocket and hitched himself forward a little in his chair, Johnny tensed warily. Here it comes, he thought.

“You say there's nothing you'd recognize about the one that got away, Killain?” As it had been all through the interrogation, the voice was crisp, with just the faintest undertone of arrogance.

“Nothin',” he said positively. “Like I told you, I was at the back of the room. I could see he was a little smaller than the one the kid got, but he was masked.”

Cuneo's thin lips lifted slightly in what could have been a smile. “The one that the kid got just happened to contain two slugs dead center. It's your contention he didn't need them?”

“He didn't need them,” Johnny repeated, but not as positively. “When that scum hit the door he went east and his neck went west. Didn't it?”

“The medical examiner's report will let us know,” the detective replied noncommittally.

Johnny leaned back in his chair. “The partner must've been a terrible shot,” he said thoughtfully. “He was leanin' right over them when he let go four times.” He considered silently for a moment. “Unless he thought-”

“As a fighter, from whom did Roketenetz take orders?” Cuneo interrupted.

“I guess Jake Gidlow would tell you that he took them from him.”

“And Jake Gidlow's orders?”

Johnny shrugged. “You want hearsay, I can give you plenty. Some of it might even be true. You won't find any affidavits on file, though.” He reached for his cigarettes. “Jake does all right. His fighters work steady.”

“In Lonnie Turner's promotions?”

“I've heard stories,” Johnny admitted. “I never heard of them runnin' any benefits for Lonnie.”

“Jake Gidlow has something on Turner and Turner has to use his fighters?”

“I doubt it. Turner's the top man on the totem pole hereabouts. More likely he has Gidlow in his pocket.”

Detective Cuneo smiled the thin smile again but did not pursue the point. “Now what was this wrecking-company bit when I walked in here?” he inquired blandly.

“Guy got me mad.”

“This is a police inquiry, Killain. He got you mad how?”

The worm of irritation twisted within Johnny again. “He talked too damn much.”

“About fixed fights?” the detective suggested smoothly.

“Look, man,” Johnny said patiently. “The kid's layin' dead out in the street, see? We'd just gotten his sister away from his body, an' she's standin' at the bar shakin' herself to pieces. An' then fifteen feet away from her this canary's bellowin' about anyway the kid's last fight not havin' been fixed. I was lookin' at her face. A real big yock; I ought to have unwound that slob's clock real good.”

“Even if he was right?”

“Who gives a damn if he was right or not, just then?” Johnny burst out. He glowered at the detective. “There's a time to talk an' a time to shut up, mister.” He tried to regain a grip upon himself. “What the hell, Cuneo-charge it up to I didn't like the guy. He saw me comin'.”

“Right-left-right he saw you coming, according to the consensus,” the lean man agreed, “which doesn't alter the fact that he could still prefer charges.”

“I'll worry about it later,” Johnny said indifferently.

“I don't care for this habit of yours of settling things with your hands,” Detective Cuneo said deliberately.

“It's any of your business?” Johnny demanded harshly.

Two dull red spots glowed in the sallow cheeks. “I could make it my business, Killain. Very much my business. I just don't like your attitude.”

Johnny's temper slipped further from its moorings. “Six months you been waitin' for me to say the wrong thing, haven't you? Okay, I'll give it to you quick, Cuneo. I got no time for you. You're a troublemaker.”

“I'm a troublemaker!” The pop eyes glinted as the tall man rose slowly. “By God, that's a good one! Trouble follows you around like a little black dog, but I'm the troublemaker! I ought to give you a little trouble, and straighten you out!”

“You haven't got the tools, man.”

The eyes were volcanic. “Don't try me!”

Johnny's chair flew backward and caromed from the wall as he bounded erect. He took a quick step forward, and Detective Cuneo instinctively retreated. Then, with the furious dark blood rampant in his narrow face, he tried to regain the lost step and rebounded from Johnny's weight. “What the hell is this peck, peck, peck?” Johnny demanded forcefully. “You got a beef with me, lay it on the table. You been on my back since last summer. I'm tellin' you-get off!”