Dan Marlowe - Killer with a Key

“She'll be fine here tonight,” Jeff said. He moved on toward the back. “Come on. I've got a little refrigerator out here I keep drugs in. And beer.”

He kicked a kitchen chair in Johnny's direction in the small room that housed the refrigerator and a battered desk. He uncapped two bottles of beer, and Johnny dipped his head hastily to sip off the overflowing collar from the bottle pushed across to him. Jeff picked up his own bottle and swallowed twice; he lowered the beer and looked over at Johnny as he perched himself on the edge of the desk. “I'll probably have a new address the next time you come calling.”

“You're moving? How come? You sunk a lot of money in the place. I thought you were satisfied.”

“I am satisfied.” The blond man stared at his beer. “I'm getting squeezed. You remarked yourself how much the neighborhood had changed. My little place is practically lost in all the new buildings that have gone up around here. I'm in the seventh year of a ten-year lease, but my landlord has been pushing me for a year to take a settlement on the lease and move to another address. I kept telling him that due to zoning restrictions I'd have to move so far my business couldn't reasonably be expected to follow me. I kept telling him, but he kept pushing me.”

“So you got the lease. Let him push.”

Jeff took another swallow of beer. “I wonder. Lately it's been second-hand, and a little ugly. About six weeks ago a lawyer came to see me. Really a type. Said he represented an outfit who had made a deal to finance a new building for the landlord, and I was the only thing holding up the deal. He asked me to set a figure on a lease settlement, and I did, finally. You can't fight city hall forever. I might have had a little balloon in the figure I gave him, but not too much, so when this character offered me half and told me to take it or leave it I got a little sore. I threw him out. He made a few noises on the way to the effect that I'd be glad to settle for less than that before they'd finished with me.”

“So they started to muscle you around?”

Jeff hesitated. “Not in the way you would think. I believe they're behind what's been going on, but it's been so devilishly clever-” His voice trailed off. He jumped up from the desk and began to pace the room's narrow confines. “I'm sure, Johnny, and yet I'm not sure.” He gestured impatiently. “Three weeks ago a woman brought in a thoroughbred Scottie for a bath and a clip. Twelve hours after she left it here the dog died. Of poison.”

Johnny sucked in his breath. “A slow pill.”

“I have to think so. The dog didn't get it here. The woman raised particular hell-charged negligence, malfeasance and all the rest of it. I carry liability insurance, naturally, and the company paid off. Last week it happened again. A terrier, this time. And a stinking shouting match with the customer out in the waiting room heard by fifteen people. The insurance company paid off again and canceled the policy. The next one's on me.”

“Let's go talk to that lawyer, Jeff.”

Jeff's smile was rueful. “You wouldn't think I could be stupid enough to talk to him without getting his name, would you? Well, I did. I realize now he deliberately didn't tell me.”

“Then let's go see your landlord.”

“I've already done that. He denies any knowledge of what's going on, and I get the oddest feeling that he's afraid himself. I told him point-blank I didn't give a damn whether he was responsible or not; I was holding him responsible. I told him that with the next animal that died around here in similar circumstances it was going to be me and him all over the sidewalk. He believed me. He followed me for half a block, bleating that he didn't know anything about it and that he couldn't do anything about it.”

Johnny turned it over in his mind. “Rough. It leaves you sitting and waiting for the cloudburst. I don't see what you can do.”

“I can close up. And go looking for that lawyer.”

“The idea appeals to me,” Johnny admitted. He drained off the last of the beer, wiped his lips with the back of his hand and scowled at the empty bottle. “If I was a member of the posse. There's got to be another answer, though, Jeff.”

The vet's smile was tight. “You think so? I've had three weeks to come up with one, and I'm not even close. Well, forget it. It's my problem. Another beer?”

“No, thanks. Listen, Jeff. You'll think of somethin'. An' if you think of anything I can do-”

“I wish I could think of something I can do.” Jeff picked up the empty beer bottles from the desk and returned them to the case on the floor, his mind obviously not on what his hands were doing. “If I don't call you, Johnny, you can pick up the kitten tomorrow.”

“Oh. Yeah. Listenin' to you I nearly forgot why I was here.”

Jeff's smile was less forced. “Come to the office any time after six; that's pickup time. I'll have the diet list ready, too. I'll be busy with incoming animals, so we probably won't get a chance to talk. Take care, boy. Vaya con Dios.”

They gripped hands, hard, and Johnny departed by the back door. On the way back cross-town in the cab he went over it again in his mind. What kind of people deliberately poisoned animals to force a man to break his lease? It had to be deliberate. Yeah, but what could you do?

The first person he saw in the lobby was Mike Larsen, and Mike was on his feet before the glass doors stopped swinging. He waved a slip of paper at Johnny. “Been watching for you.”

Johnny turned the telephone message over; the time stamp on the back said 9:35 p.m. The message was brief. “Call Dameron.”

He looked at his watch. 10:12. “Any ideas, Mike?”

“Not a one. Unless there's a story goes with that patch on your eye?”

“Not for Joe. Jimmy Rogers was right there. Well-”

“Here.” Mike handed him a dime. Johnny walked to the pay-phone booths in the corner of the lobby and stared musingly at the scribbled phone numbers on the booth wall after dialing. What “-precinct, Donovan.”

“Lieutenant Dameron.”

A wait. “Lieutenant Dameron's office-Rogers.”

Johnny cleared his throat and pitched his voice up. “This is Mavis, Jimmy.”

The pause was fractional. “Get on over here, Johnny.”

His eyes narrowed. “Are you askin' me or tellin' me?”

“Why, we're asking, you delicate flower.” Detective Rogers' tone was syrupy.

“What's it about?”

“There's an easy way to find out.”

The connection was gone. Johnny opened the booth door thoughtfully and shrugged at Mike outside. “They want me over there.”

“They say why?”

“Big mystery.”

“I'll drive you over. If you're going. My car's outside.”

Johnny hesitated. “You goin' that way anyway?” He had ridden with Mike before; Mike Larsen drove a car like the devil was at his throatlatch. “Well, okay.” He debated a moment. “You think I should call Lorraine first?”

“Lorraine?” There was no mistaking Mike's curiosity.

“No real reason,” Johnny said a little vaguely. “She and I've been tradin' light jabs with the big gloves. I can't get her to level with me. Still, if she knows somethin' I can get her to tell me I'd just as soon not walk in on Joe Dameron stone cold. I think I'll call her.” He fished a dime out of the change in his pocket and returned to the booth; Mike lounged in the open door. The phone rang and rang, and Johnny hung up finally. “Nobody home.”

“Maybe she went out to a movie to cool off,” Mike suggested. “That apartment gets like an oven sometimes.”

“Yeah,” Johnny agreed absently. The unanswered phone reminded him of another caller who had been unable to reach Lorraine-Roberta Perry. Lorraine hadn't been back to the office since the murders, still you couldn't catch her at home. So where was she spending her time?