Dan Marlowe - Killer with a Key

On hands and knees Johnny reached her side, but the first look was enough-the recently admired dress was now torn, stained, and ugly.

In a scrambling, crablike scuttle he got back to the window behind his chair. The large lower pane was completely gone, blown into the room by the bullets fired from the fire escape beyond. He looked out and down cautiously and saw the final hinged portion of the rusted metal which hung suspended ten feet above the alley bed below swinging lightly to and fro from the released weight of the departed caller.

He came back into the room, looked down once more at the body of Roberta Perry and picked up the telephone as he heard the first hurrying footsteps out in the hall.

Johnny lay flat on his back on the sofa in Vic's living room, his shoeless feet dangling over the sofa arm at one end and a pillow beneath his head. His brightly flowered sport shirt hung carelessly from the back of a nearby chair, and a bourbon highball rested on his undershirted stomach. In the apartment's sticky heat Lorraine Barnes sat in the armchair opposite him with her bare feet neatly drawn up beneath her. A duplicate highball rested on the table beside her chair, and she listened with head thrown back and eyes closed to the rumble of Johnny's recital.

“-pinwheels went off all over that place when they got there and found me in residence. Cuneo especially was so mad he couldn't make sense; he didn't want to believe my story even when the lab boys supported it by findin' the scuffed-up rust on the fire escape and the ejected shell cases in the alley below. Then it turned out that a couple or three people in the neighborhood had actually seen the guy gettin' down the fire escape. Even had descriptions. 'Course the descriptions don't tally-they never do at a time like that-but the consensus seemed to favor a stocky guy in gray trousers, a cap and a loud checked jacket. The police-”

Lorraine Barqes opened her eyes, which looked darker than normal in the pallor of her face. “A loud checked jacket?” she interrupted. “And a cap? In all this heat? Do you go to commit a murder in an outfit like that?”

“You think he was tryin' to look like someone else?”

“Certainly trying not to look like himself. I wouldn't give that description houseroom.” She sighed and passed a hand over her eyes, then twisted in her chair to try for a more comfortable position. “If this heat would only let up I might be able to think.” Her voice was husky; she smiled wanly. “I'm beat, I admit it. Right down to my socks, if I were wearing any.”

“They gave you a hard time?”

“Oh, not by their lights, I suppose. When Rogers got here he had just two questions-had I been here, or where had I been, and did I have any witnesses? When I had no alibi for the time Bobby was killed I received the magic carpet ride downtown. That Rogers is polite enough, but in his own way he's as much of an earache as Cuneo. I don't like them-either of them.” Conviction strengthened her tone momentarily and then died out as heat and weariness took over. “I have the most dreadful feeling I'm doing this all wrong, Johnny. The original decision seemed simple enough, but now it's complicated beyond belief. That girl-” Her voice trailed off as she sat huddled in the chair.

“Whyn't you talk a little bit about what happened over at Sanders' place that night, Lorraine? Might take a little pressure off you, if nothin' else.”

Her lips firmed stubbornly. “I know nothing that would help you.”

Ice cubes tinkled in his drink as he leaned up on an elbow. “How do you know, for God's sake? More important, how do I know? This is personal with me, Lorraine. I'll find out anyway, but you could save me leg work. An' time.”

For an instant he thought his savage probing had made an impression, but then she shook her head. “I can't trust your reaction.”

“What do you care about my reaction?” he began quickly, then paused. It was the wrong thing to have said. Obviously she did care, or she would not be balancing on a high wire with the police. He groped for a saving phrase, but she spoke before he could get himself back on the rails.

“Why do you think Bobby Perry was killed, Johnny?” Her voice was subdued.

He sank back on the sofa. For a moment he had been close to something, but the moment had passed. “That kid had hot little hands for money. She was workin' up to something with me. She could have been tryin' to peddle something to a guy allergic to buying. Or she could have been someone's alibi for Sanders, and the someone fixed it for good that she wouldn't change her mind. I kind of like that one.”

He lifted his head again to finish off his drink, set the glass down on the floor and swung his feet around from the sofa arm and into his shoes. He stood up and picked up his shirt from the back of the chair; he looked down at the drawn-faced woman. “One thing you can bet me-she knew who it was. She'd left work to keep an appointment. The guy set her up like a clay pigeon, climbed the fire escape from the alley, didn't see me in my high-backed chair and closed the books on her proposition.”

“You think it's Russo, or Winslow, or whatever his name is, don't you?” she asked, watching him closely.

He shrugged. “I'd like to find out Roberta Perry was his alibi for Sanders. For sure that'd put him on my hit parade.”

“I can't see him as a murderer,” she said slowly. “From the little I've seen of him, that is. Although do you ever really know? This man didn't start out to commit three murders. One thing just led to another.” She paused as she thought of something else. “Are the papers going to know you were in that room when Bobby was killed?”

“The police don't want it given out, but the landlady at least knew it. They muzzled her, or they think they did.” He tried to make his voice light. “How about it, Lorraine? Just the answers to a coupla questions?”

“I'm sorry, Johnny.”

Despite himself his voice thickened and his hands hooked into claws. “Lorraine-”

“Stop it.” Her voice had gone cold as ice. “I know you'd like to muscle it out of me, but I wouldn't recommend it.”

He could feel the heat in his face; not trusting his voice he turned and walked from the apartment, only with an effort preventing himself from slamming the door. He stormed down the single flight of steps and out onto the walk. Damn all stubborn women… how was he going to get it out of her, anyway? He jerked open the iron gate and clanged it shut behind him as he turned right to walk back to the hotel. He almost bumped into a figure that detached itself from the fence. “Got a light, bud?”

Impatiently he reached for the lighter in his shirt pocket. He looked at the lean, dark face in the lighter's glow, a dark suit, complete with jacket, even in this heat. And then the dark man's right hand flashed up and caught Johnny solidly under the left ear and rocked him sideways into the iron fence. He bounced off into a left to the body that was partially minimized by his nearness as his lighter clattered to the sidewalk, and the dark man spoke raspingly. “Maybe you'll mind your own business after this, bud.”

The dark man launched another right hand, but Johnny partially blocked it, caught the hand and dragged the body behind it in close. He hurt his own right hand on the belt buckle of the dark suit, and the man sagged, gasping. Johnny picked him up bodily by the shoulders, carried him over to the fence, and hung him by his coat collar from a blunt iron pike.

“Now, punk,” he growled throatily. “Who sent you? Start talkin' and save yourself a little wear-and-tear.” He slapped the dark face hard, left, right, left, right. The suspended man's toes scrabbled on the sidewalk as he tried in vain to get leverage. Dimly Johnny heard a car door slam and the sound of running feet; he turned to confront the two shirt-sleeved men coming at him shoulder to shoulder.