Dan Marlowe - Doom Service

“Could it be that he feels you have no respect for authority?”

“I should change the spots on this leopard just to humor him? Him and Dameron. May their tribe decrease.”

“Speaking of-angels-” the slender man remarked, and cut his eyes toward the lobby chairs. Johnny turned in time to see Lieutenant Joseph Dameron's bulk propel itself upward from the depths of the largest chair and walk toward them.

“Morning, Johnny,” the lieutenant rumbled in a powerhouse boom that turned heads in the lobby. He was a big, broad-shouldered man with apple cheeks and iron gray hair that nearly matched the frosty tint of his eyes.

“Mornin', Joe,” Johnny acknowledged; neither man offered to shake hands. He nodded down at the black blare of the headline at the newsstand counter: fighter slain in tavern holdup. “This little caper got the brass out plowin' up the streets, too?”

“There's a couple of things,” the big man said vaguely. He gestured in the direction of the elevators. “Can we talk upstairs?” Johnny motioned them into an unoccupied cab and took the controls himself. In the elevator the lieutenant spoke again, in dry tones, with the fluid lingual grace of the polished public speaker. “I'd have had Jimmy ask you to drop by the station house, but I thought he might need a warrant if you were having one of your bad days.”

“He has any other kind?” the detective asked solemnly.

The ruddy-faced lieutenant's smile was wintry. “I decided I'd be better off coming over myself.”

Johnny looked over his shoulder as he halted the cab at the sixth floor. “That's a switch, Joe, your bein' able to decide somethin'.” He winked at Detective Rogers. “You always used to have such a hard time makin' up your mind. Like the time we was holed up for three days in an ice storm in a cottage in the Pyrenees, an' you couldn't decide whether the mother was better than the daughter.”

The apple cheeks darkened, and the lieutenant's stare passed from Johnny to the wooden-faced detective. “Officially you never heard that, Rogers,” he growled.

Johnny led the way to 615 and unlocked the door. “The trouble with your job nowadays,” he needled, “is that you do too much pitchin' an' not enough catchin'. You ought to drop around more often an' slop a little swill with the rest of us hogs.”

The lieutenant was silent; inside he eyed with grudging appreciation the attractively furnished oversized bed-sitting room, with its wall-to-wall deep pile carpeting and the three-quarter-sized refrigerator tucked neatly in a corner. “Damned if I don't like this a little better each time I see it,” he said gruffly. He ran an appraising eye over the gray-green Segonzac on the opposite wall, and the corners of his hard mouth turned upward. “I'm a cinch to outlive you, Johnny, the way you pace yourself. Why don't you will this to me, the same way Willie Martin left it to you?”

“An' give you a motive for gettin' rid of me, along with an inclination? I might not fit in a round hole, Joe, but I'm not that square, either. I don't own nothin' here yet, anyway; the new owners have gone to court over that clause in the will.”

Lieutenant Dameron raised an eyebrow. “I thought Willie went to a little trouble to plug that loophole?”

“That's why these corporations have lawyers.” Johnny nodded at the leather-covered armchairs. “Park it, you guys.” He seated himself on the edge of the bed. “These people caught the estate lawyers so hungry for a buyer they agreed to a transfer without prejudice as to the clause favorin' me, which meant they were entitled to go into court an' try to tip it over.”

“And you've got the expense of fighting it?”

Johnny shook his head. “Willie even thought of that. If it's contested, my legal expenses come right off the top of the estate, just like the room and the furnishings here.” He looked over at the two men in their chairs. “They'd have held still for the furnishings-it was the room that bugged them. Nobody ever heard of a hotel room bein' willed to someone before. They can't find any precedents.”

“They haven't tried to buy you off?” Detective Rogers asked.

“They tried,” Johnny admitted. “I blew that fuse for them, fast. If Willie wanted me to have this place, nobody's gonna muscle me out of it.”

Lieutenant Dameron looked around the room reminiscently. “You and Willie,” he said softly. “God help me, the gray hair you two gave me. In an operation that above all things demanded discretion-” He shook his head in remembered disbelief.

“Discretion didn't always get the job done, Joe,” Johnny replied. “Which brings us up to right now. What you bein' discreet about these days?”

“This business this morning-”

“Before we get into the double talk,” Johnny interrupted, “just what do you think actually happened over at the Rollin' Stone?”

“The newspapers had a rather full account, I thought. A bit sensationalized, but of course that's what sells newspapers.”

“Joe, this is Johnny. You don't believe the newspapers, or what the hell are you doing sittin' here?”

“There were certain aspects-”

“Bag it, Joe. Tell it to someone who doesn't know you.”

The gray eyes examined him frostily. “We have time to listen to your version, if you have one.”

“You won't like it. My version is that the kid was murdered by two gunmen sent to do that specific job.”

“You know you can't prove that!” The heavy voice was edged. “I just can't buy it, Johnny.”

“So don't buy it,” Johnny replied indifferently. “It'll sell itself to you. Just remember I said so.”

“I hope I don't have to warn you about withholding information,” the big man said icily. “I want to know what you know. Right now.”

Johnny laughed shortly. “You always get what you want?”

Lieutenant Dameron's hands closed down tightly on the arms of his chair. “By God, I'll-”

“Easy, Joe, easy.” Johnny rose to his feet leisurely and looked down at the man in the chair. “What did you bring over here for me? Not a damn echo, even. That's why for you I got nothing, in spades. I don't work one-way streets.” He made a production of looking at his watch. “You're abusin' my hospitality, boys.”

Detective Rogers rose, looking uncomfortable, but the steely gray eyes of the man in the armchair glared up at Johnny for five seconds before the lieutenant heaved himself to his feet. Without a word he strode to the door and flung it open. In the second that Johnny had Jimmy Rogers' sole attention he silently mouthed, “Come on back.” He received a quick affirmative nod before the slender man followed his superior from the room.

Johnny closed the door behind them and lit a cigarette. He stretched out on his back on the bed, and thought about the reason for the visit, never disclosed. Experimentally, he blew smoke rings at the ceiling; but, seeing they were all lopsided, he gave it up. He had stubbed out the cigarette when the knock came at the door, and he admitted a weary-looking Detective James Rogers.

“Man, oh, man!” the sandy-haired man exclaimed feelingly. “I know you don't like him, but do you mind making your point some time when I'm not around to get the rebuttal?” He probed at both ears.

“He's gone?”

“Fortissimo, he's gone. Now why am I back up here?”

“You know why you're back up here. I'll tell you what I wouldn't tell that big monkey just slammed outta here. From you just possibly I might get somethin' one of these days. Now listen.” Naming no names, Johnny swiftly gave his interpretation of the fixed fight and the deaths in the tavern as he now reconstructed them.

“Where did you learn all this?” Detective Rogers bristled.