Dan Marlowe - Killer with a Key

This observation was confirmed almost at once when Russo turned left on Madison and the slicker followed. Johnny dropped back a little further; let the slicker follow Russo, and he would follow the slicker. Russo turned right again on Forty-sixth; he had evidently only wanted to by-pass the Grand Central building. The procession trekked damply across Park, Lexington and Third, and at Second Avenue Russo turned right again for two blocks to Forty-fourth, and at Forty-Fourth turned east again.

From the opposite side of Second Avenue Johnny made the long diagonal as he kept the oilskin slicker in sight. The slicker turned the corner of Forty-fourth, looked east and broke into a run. From the middle of Second Avenue Johnny accelerated through the puddles, and turned the corner himself.

On Forty-fourth Street Ed Russo was nowhere to be seen at all. The oilskin slicker was forty feet from the corner, poised doubtfully before two narrow alleys, practically side by side, that meandered off almost at right angles into the wet darkness. Evidently he hadn't seen which one Russo had taken.

The speed at which Johnny negotiated the corner caught the slicker's attention; he turned and stared. Rather than turn back and invite inquiry, Johnny walked on more sedately; he would have walked right on by, but the slicker stepped into his path and barred the way.

“I thought so!” the slicker said grimly. “There couldn't be two that big out on a night like this.”

Johnny stared down into the wet, angry features of Detective James Rogers and for once in his life was at a loss for words.

“Well?” Jimmy Rogers demanded. “I'm listening. What-”

His staccato inquiry choked. In the darkness and rain an automatic pistol went off four times, soggy sounds in the soggy night.

“He's got someone else!” Johnny said tightly.

Detective Rogers said nothing at all; he turned and ran up the nearer alley, and Johnny ran hard at his heels.

He slogged heavily over the uneven cobblestoned footing up the close-walled alleyway between the dark warehouses, a step and a half behind the bobbing flashlight in the hand of Jimmy Rogers. They burst into a wider areaway with a slight downgrade; the rapid circular movement of the flashlight disclosed cement loading platforms on three sides of the rough inner square. The alley was a dead end.

Johnny stood on tiptoe as the flash returned to its starting point and made a slow, probing semicircle of the loading area, picking up the blank-faced, whitewashed doors and the dusty concrete freight-handling surfaces which the steady rain had turned to pasty mud at their unprotected outer edges.

He pushed up behind the slender, intent detective. “You think we come up the wrong alley?”

The sandy-haired man made no reply. He started the light on another tour of the darkness, this time at ground level. Two-thirds of the way around the circuit Johnny grunted as the bright beam wavered and then locked down on a shapeless bundle prone in the shallow puddles of the pitted roadbed of the alley.

“Jackpot,” Detective Rogers said tersely and trotted to the still figure. At his shoulder Johnny looked down unbelievingly at the white face and staring eyes and the head with most of its top gone. Ed Russo lay dead in the wet night, the nearest puddle stained a bright red, and Johnny mentally rocked back on his heels.

The detective knelt and felt for a pulse, although the condition of the head made it only a formality. He straightened, fished a handkerchief out from under the slicker, and wiped off his hands. “Kaput,” he said unnecessarily. His light left the body to make another swing around the cement loading platforms. “-nine, ten, eleven,” he counted. His voice was bitter. “Eleven warehouse doors leading off this rabbit warren, and our man needed a key to only one. What a spot for an ambush.” The light returned to the body. “Looks like he got it at eye level. Then fell-or was pushed-down here.”

Johnny had trouble finding his voice. “How wrong can you get? I thought this guy was pitchin', not catchin'. This stones me. When we heard the shots out on the street I figured for sure he'd scratched someone else breathin' on his neck.”

“Where'd you pick him up?”

“At the hotel. He was with the widow over there. I didn't make you until between Fifth and Madison coming east.”

“I saw the widow. We'll talk to her.” Detective Rogers wiped a trickle of rain from his face and amended his statement. “Or somebody will. This one's out of our territory- first one not in the precinct. Walk out to the corner and see if you can locate the beat man. If not, call in. Not our place; it's not our baby. Yet.”

“You want me back here?”

“Certainly I want you back here. The local boys will have a few hundred assorted questions for you. Lucky for you I was standing right beside you when we heard those shots. That about used up your luck, though, because when the lieutenant finds out you were seventy-five yards away when Russo got it, you bought a tough ticket. You know what he told you.”

“He told me to stay away from the people in the public relations office. He didn't say a word about Russo.”

“Correction. He said stay away from anyone connected with the case. You didn't consider it significant that the woman you saw Russo with before you took out after him now happens to own that public relations business?”

Johnny was silent, and Rogers looked him up and down. “You're heading for a fall, Johnny. You can't buck-”

“Ahhh, stow it!” Johnny interrupted angrily. “You people think you got a patent on me? You're beginning to sound just like all the rest.”

“I have a job to do, and I do it the way I'm told,” Detective Rogers said after a short pause; there was an edge in his voice. He stopped and slapped disgustedly at the wet leg of his trousers. “Forget it. I'm worse than you are for arguing with a mulehead like you. Go on out and get somebody in here. I'm an incipient pneumonia case right this minute.”

Johnny headed out into the darkness and stumbled and splashed his way up the slight upgrade. It was black in the alley; he welcomed the comparative brightness of Forty-fourth Street. He stamped his feet on the sidewalk to remove the clinging mud which had oozed above the welt of his shoes. At the southeast corner of Second Avenue a broad-backed black raincoat glistened in the lights of the little all-night restaurant across the street, and Johnny walked up to the corner resignedly and tapped the raincoat on the arm. It turned, and elderly sharp blue eyes in a wide, pug-nosed face inspected Johnny carefully.

“Dead man in an alley up the street,” Johnny told him. “There's a detective there now, and he'd like a little help.”

“You know the detective's name, son?”

“Rogers.”

There was slight movement beneath the raincoat. “No detective named Rogers in this precinct, son.”

“He's from West Fifty-fourth.”

The patrolman grunted. “I hear you saying so. What happened to the guy in the alley?”

“He lost the top of his head.”

The wide mouth pursed doubtfully. “I ought to take a look first. Still, you don't look like the jack-rabbit type. Mind you, if I turn the precinct out on a night like this, and there's nothing in that alley, I'll knock your ears down.”

“Go ahead and make your call,” Johnny said impatiently.

The big shoulders hitched at the raincoat. “You come right along with me, son, and watch me make it. I want my eye on you.”

Johnny half restrained a smile as he followed the patrolman across the street to the restaurant. From the bulge under the raincoat he knew that the service revolver had been unholstered; the officer was carrying it in his left hand, and this created a problem for him when faced with the wall pay phone.