Dan Marlowe - Killer with a Key

It was a quiet ride back to town. Mike dropped Johnny off at the hotel entrance and went on to garage the car. On his way through the foyer Johnny decided on impulse to go up against Russo again. Russo was in some manner tied in to this whole mess. If he could just get Russo mad enough to spill something He nodded to Gus behind the bell captain's desk as he crossed the lobby, then ran up the marbled steps to the mezzanine. He opened the door to the public stenographer's office, and Mavis Delaroche lifted her blonde head from the magazine she was reading. Upon recognizing her caller she closed the magazine with a snap and stood up at her desk.

“Well!” she said icily. “Look whom we have with us, unfortunately. Outside, muscles.”

“I like you, too, kid,” Johnny told her, closing the door behind himself. He looked at her. There was a lot of Mavis to look at; in her high heels she very nearly matched Johnny's six feet, and she was not undernourished. She was tastefully attired in a clinging little number which depreciated her considerable assets not at all. Her skin and eye coloration were those of a brunette, which her platinum crown gave the lie to, but not unattractively. The face was well if largely boned; only the mouth spoiled the larger-than-life cameo. The mouth was tiny and pouted.

“Didn't you hear me?” she demanded. “You're not wanted around here, mister.”

“You're breakin' my heart, kid. The weasel around?”

The brightly lipsticked mouth tightened. “I wish he were. He'd fix your wagon for you. You used up all your luck the other day.”

“That what he told you? Guess maybe he can sleep better nights if he's convinced himself that's the way it was. You his manager? Do him a favor, kid. Retire him. In that league he's a raggedy canoe in white water.”

The red lips curled derisively. “I just hope I'm there to see him take you.”

“Yeah? You like a little blood? You musta been in the front row when they were throwin' the Christians to the lions,”

“Beat it,” she said tersely. “You're excused. You can see Ed's not here.”

“Who needs Ed?” he asked her. If he could stall a few minutes Russo might be back. This Mavis was in too much of a hurry to get rid of him. “You're the stenographer around here, aren't you? Or are your duties more highly specialized these days?”

The brunette eyes glittered. “I ought to belt you one myself.”

Johnny sighed with exaggerated patience. “Loosen up the spring on that hair trigger, kid. I walk in here like a citizen to dictate a letter, and all I get is a lot of abuse. You're the stenographer?”

“Certainly I'm the stenographer!”

“So take a letter.”

She looked at him, hands on hips. “This ought to be good for a laugh, anyway,” She sat down and uncovered her machine. “From a speedball like you I'll take it right in the typewriter. Go ahead. Shoot your head off, and I do mean off.” She paused and looked up at him suspiciously. “Unless this is a gag?”

“No gag, big stuff. Very serious business. Crank it up.” He watched her slip a battered carbon between a sheet of bond and onionskin and wind it into the machine. She looked up at him impatiently.

“Well? Who's it to?”

“To? Oh. Yeah.” He looked up at the ceiling for inspiration. “Ready? Today's date, no address, to the New York City Police Department, 24 °Centre Street, New York, New York. Gentlemen: I am making this confession voluntarily-”

“Wait,” the blonde girl interrupted, whipping the paper out of the machine. “You didn't say how many copies.”

“Copies? Two's enough.”

She paused in her task of aligning fresh carbon and onionskin, her tone patient, as to a backward child, as she discarded the worn carbon in the wastebasket beside her and brushed off her fingertips lightly. “An original and one copy? Or an original and two copies?”

“I can see this is a complicated business, requirin' steel nerves and lightning-like decisions. One copy.”

She discarded a carbon and an onionskin from the sheaf in her hand, reinserted the balance in the machine, typed in the date and salutation and looked up at him. “Go on.”

“Gentlemen-” Johnny ran a hand thoughtfully over his chin stubble. “I am making this confession voluntarily and of my own free will.”

Mavis half turned to look at him, then ducked her head down and clack-clacked away at the keys.

“I am and have been under no coercion whatsoever to-”

Mavis backed her chair away, her hands in her lap. “What is this? You going to sign it yourself? And where did a mug like you learn to dictate a letter?”

“We don't all have visible talents, kid. Like you.” Johnny leered at her companionably. “And don't worry about the signer. I got him on ice. Let's see… under no coercion whatsoever to make this statement. I killed Robert Sanders, Ellen Saxon, and Roberta-”

“You're crazy!” Mavis burst out as her chair again rolled away from the typewriter. “Will you-”

“Will you stop bothering the motorman?” Johnny cut across her eruption. “-and Roberta Perry. I recognize my legal responsibility in the dictation and signature of this confession. Space for a signature; space for two witnesses' signatures. Got it?”

The typewriter tac-tac-tac'd and came to a stop. Mavis reeled the letter out of the machine, removed the carbon and handed Johnny the letter and copy. She tossed the carbon into a folder on her desk and weighted the folder with a fifteen-inch ruler. She picked up a business envelope and typed the address on it; her voice was disdainful as she gave it to him. “You're out of your mind if you think you're going to get anyone to sign that thing.”

Johnny looked at her; he felt that somehow she sounded very well pleased with herself. The corners of the small mouth turned downward as though she had difficulty in repressing a smile. She turned her face sharply away when she noticed Johnny's inspection of her; the smugness on her features as she toed her wastebasket under the desk puzzled him. And then suddenly he had a feeling. All his life he had acted on impulse; he reached for the folder beside the typewriter, and sensing his movement Mavis grabbed for his arm.

“Here! What do you think-”

He was too quick for her; her voice was still echoing angrily as the ruler slid into her lap and he picked the folder up and opened it.

“You give me that!” The blonde girl snatched the heavy ruler from her lap, rose with a jerk and pointed it at Johnny. He stared down at the top carbon in the stack in the folder whose glossy, hard-backed surface retained a perfect copy of his dictated letter.

“I can see a man lacks a little something in privacy around here, Mavis. This your own idea?” He began to flip through the carbons in the folder, each a one-time-used perfect impression of a typed letter.

“You get your big nose out of there!” Mavis dropped the ruler on the desk as she came around it on the run. She came like a man, hands doubled into fists, swinging for the body. Johnny caught a flailing arm and spun her in against himself, pinioning her as she struggled within the circle of his arm.

“A nice racket,” he said in her ear. “An out-of-town businessman drops in and dictates his bid on a contract, and with a fresh carbon you've got a copy. Whaddya do then? Look up his competition and peddle it to them?”

Her position proved to be a tactical mistake. She lifted a foot and viciously raked the length of his shin with a high heel. She lifted the foot again, but she had his attention now. He dropped the distracting folder and transferred the freed hand to the nape of Mavis' attractive neck. In two long strides he frog-marched her back to her desk, bent her over it, picked up the ruler and solidly swatted the tight skirt's most prominent characteristics. Mavis yelped shrilly and nearly bucked the desk over. Johnny tossed the ruler back on the desk as he let her go, and she straightened up, holding onto herself.