Dan Marlowe - Killer with a Key

Johnny tried to make up his mind-was Russo conning him? Somehow he didn't think so. Yet if Russo hadn't sent the goon squad, who had? Johnny shook his head, which ached. Maybe a drink would help his muddied thought processes; he left the bar to go upstairs, conscious of a massive letdown sensation.

In his room he already had a drink poured before it occurred to him he hadn't seen Sassy. She couldn't hear him come in, but the vibration of the floor under his feet always brought her trotting. He made a quick circuit of the room and the bathroom without finding her. Had she gotten out somehow? He dropped to his knees and grunted with relief when he saw the fluffy mound under the bed. “Come on out here, you,” he ordered her. “Where's that welcome I always get?”

She stared out at him, and, vaguely uneasy, he reached in for her. She didn't want to come; she hooked her claws into the rug in protest, but there was no real fight in her. He lifted her out and looked in alarm at the dull eyes and the drooping whiskers; he placed his palm lightly on the small pink nose. It was dry and hot, and even the usually lively tail hung limply.

Johnny made a hurried round trip to the refrigerator and tried to tempt the kitten with a sliver of shrimp. Yesterday she would have taken shrimp and a finger to the first joint; now she lay motionless after one apathetic sniff. He sat back on his heels and looked down at her with concern. “What the hell, baby doll-you're sick.”

She tried to crawl back under the bed, and that decided him. In the yellow pages of the phone directory he ran down the list of names, looking for the one he wanted. Kendrick… Lacy… Landry. Landry. Jeff Landry. He reached for the phone on the night table.

“Landry Cat and Dog Hospital-sorry, we're closed,” a woman's voice announced in a parroted gabble.

“Let me talk to Jeff Landry.”

“I'm afraid he's too busy to come to the phone right now-”

“Tell him it's Johnny Killain.”

The line hummed, and he waited impatiently. “Johnny? Is it really you?”

“Yeah, Jeff. Fine friend I am, only callin' you when I need a favor. I know it's after hours for you, but I got a sick kitten here. Be a good guy an' let me bring her over?”

“Johnny Killain with a sick kitten? It beggars the imagination. Come to the back door.”

“I'm halfway there. Put some beer on the ice.”

In the closet he found an empty shoe box which seemed large enough. He punched several pencil holes in each end, put Sassy into it and put on the cover. The kitten made little effort to fight off even this indignity, and Johnny left the room hurriedly.

In the lobby he ran into Mike Larsen. “Buy you a drink, Johnny?” Mike looked at the tape decorating Johnny's forehead. “What happened to you?”

“Tripped on the top step. Listen, Mike. Ed Russo's in the bar, third booth from the door. Take a look at the guy with him and see if you know him. I'll be back in an hour, and you can buy me that drink.”

Going through the foyer doors he was whistling for a cab.

A he rear of the long, low building on the side street was dark, but Johnny's knock was answered almost immediately as Jeff Landry opened the door himself, hand outstretched. He practically dragged Johnny over the threshold with the vigor of a grip surprising in a man of medium size.

“Johnny, you bandit! Wonderful to see you again.” Jeff Landry was a slender man casually dressed in khakis and tennis shoes. His hair was ash-blond and close-cropped, and horn-rimmed glasses tended to minimize but not wholly conceal the impact of a face of quiet strength. The mouth and chin were firm to the point of being stubborn.

“I'm not much of a neighbor for a guy who lives just cross-town, Jeff. In the cab I was thinking how the neighborhood here had changed since I'd seen it.”

“More than you think.” Jeff Landry tapped the box under Johnny's arm. “Let's have a look at the patient. We can talk later.”

Johnny followed the veterinarian through a semi-dark maze of tiered wire cages and runways; an occasional yelp or bark disturbed the quiet, and Johnny could feel a slight scrambling in the box under his arm as the variegated smells filtered through to the kitten. There was a musty, animal odor in the air, overladen with a piny tang, and an antiseptic pungency which increased in strength as they moved to the front of the building.

He blinked at the dazzling fluorescent light which flooded the white formica-topped tables and the chromiumed instruments in glassed-in cabinets ranged around the wails of the examination room into which Jeff led him. An assortment of odd-looking machines with dangling electric cords took up most of the working space on the metal coverlet that hinged down over the double sink with its gleaming faucets and rubber hoses trailing down to the tiled floor.

Johnny looked around him and whistled softly. “You sure have improved things, Jeff.” He tapped the examination table lightly as he placed the shoe box upon it. “Looks like you could take care of me on this thing.”

“Too good for you.” Jeff Landry's voice was matter-of-fact.

Johnny laughed. “I know you better than to think you're kiddin', too.” A dozen years ago in northern Italy he had seen Jeff Landry charge a squad of soldiers abusing a mongrel dog. Jeff had needed help, but not a great deal; the white heat of his anger had dissolved the would-be sadists like melted butter.

He watched as Jeff drew on a pair of forearm-length gloves; the vet removed the cover of the shoe box, and Sassy stared up at him apprehensively. “A Persian, Johnny? You're traveling in class.”

“She adopted me. She's deaf as a mackerel, Jeff.”

The blond man lifted Sassy from her box; the kitten made no struggle, although the small ears were flattened to her skull. “It's not unusual; about sixty per cent of the purebreds are deaf. It's a mutation attributable to the inbreeding which produces the coat and eye coloration.” His eyes never left Sassy as she crouched flat on the formica surface of the table and hissed halfheartedly at the gloved hand exploration.

“You mean if she didn't have the blue eyes she wouldn't be deaf?”

Jeff Landry removed the glove from his right hand and dexterously pried open the kitten's mouth; her back arched as she started to resist, but he had accomplished his purpose and released her before she could successfully mount her opposition. “I didn't say that.” He turned to remove a small thermometer from a graduated rack. “Her eyes could be bronze and she could still be deaf. It's how the lightning strikes. What do you feed her?”

“Oh, shrimp and liver and milk, mostly. Little chopped beef once in a while.”

“How much do you feed her?”

“I usually just cover the bottom of a saucer.”

The veterinarian shook his head. “How often?”

“Pretty often, I guess,” Johnny admitted. “She seems to be hungry all the time. Until today. What's the matter, Jeff?”

Jeff Landry's voice was patient. “The matter is that I strongly suspect that all that ails our patient is a muddle-headed case of overfeeding. Reason is not given to these little articulated minuscules, Johnny. Just because you feed her today, she can't be expected to remember that you'll do so tomorrow. She'll eat herself bowlegged every chance you give her. I'm sure that you've been forcing as much on her in twelve hours as she needs in seventy-two, and a great deal of it too rich. I'll keep her overnight and make out a diet for her. She may not be as happy at mealtime, but she'll be healthier.”

He picked the kitten up with the re-gloved hand, and Johnny followed him out of the examination room's glare to the gloom of the cage walkways. He watched Jeff open the door on the top left of a tier of small cages and put Sassy inside.