Dan Marlowe - Doorway to Death

At least it was the right room; he removed himself from the aperture, and in the heat and darkness settled down to wait. He had needed the extra time to take up residence here within the walls before Ronald Frederick should return. Johnny had an increasing interest in the doings of Ronald Frederick.

The sound of a closing door alerted him; it might have come from anywhere in the sticky midnight which pressed in heavily upon him, but he was expecting a particular closed door. An inquiring eye at the peephole again at once disclosed the plum colored swirl of Ronald Frederick's robe as the little manager moved rapidly about the room. As the ache mounted behind Johnny's eye again from the intensity of his stare, the man he was watching broke off in his rapid movements and plopped down in the chair at the desk; Johnny barely had time to focus directly upon him before he leaned forward and picked up the phone. Johnny could see the thin lips moving, and he strained to hear, but a low, indistinguishable murmur was all that came through the plaster. In desperation he turned his head and applied his ear to his newly-manufactured listening post, and perspiration trickled down the back of his neck. He relaxed a little, then, because the clipped tones, though still indistinct, were understandable.

“-speak to Wilson-”

In the earpopping silence Johnny flicked water from the end of his nose. In these moments of aversion to the claustrophobia which gripped him, he had a recurring fantasy: he could feel the sweat which bathed him seeping down his body in tiny rivulets until it seemed to fill his shoes. He could feel it so vividly that involuntarily he flexed his toes. He tensed again as the blurred voice beyond the plaster continued. “-is Ronald Frederick. No, wait. Would I call if it were not an emergency? Never mind your surprise; I was surprised myself so spectacularly a few moments ago, sir, that it seems to me to quite alter the — ah-terms of our contract.”

Johnny tried to hold his breath, which seemed to him to be so loud that it impaired his hearing.

“-must be entirely unaware of the evening's activities, Mr. Wilson, when you can speak so urgently of caution?”

He could picture the thin-lipped, supercilious features hovering over the mouthpiece.

“-perfectly aware of our agreement, but hear me out.

Two men were killed on the premises here tonight, one of them an employee. I have not seen the other, but do you seriously question his identity?”

Again the enveloping silence as the saturated uniform molded itself to Johnny like a wet gunnysack.

“-do get the picture? Then I'm sure you'll agree that becoming involved in such a fiasco is a small world apart from supplying you with the bits of information you fancied? I personally feel so strongly about it that you shan't hear from me again.”

A biting cramp settled in the calf of Johnny's left leg; he jammed the heel down hard to ease the knotted pressure.

“-have something to lose, sir. I shan't change my mind. I was a fool to listen to you originally.”

Awkwardly Johnny lifted the leg and dug at the cramp with iron fingers.

“-sorry. Kindly don't bother to call again.”

The finality of the tone straightened Johnny up; in the darkness he felt all turned around, but with fingertips lightly on the plaster to guide himself, he exchanged ear for eye in time to hazily frame the little manager in the peephole again as he sat slumped forward in his chair at the desk. Johnny's eyes stung from the perspiration, and he sleeved them roughly. Vision was playing tricks on him now; in the inky blackness great white lights roared up and silently assaulted his retinas, and nausea was a cold, balled fist in his middle.

Enough was enough; he'd heard more than he had had any licence to expect. With painful deliberation he wormed his way backward out of the cavern whose walls seemed to press in more tightly upon him by the moment, pausing only to use the flashlight to prompt the positioning of his feet.

He noted wryly upon reaching his starting point that the comparatively cramped confines of the maid's closet felt like a ballroom after the constricting embrace of the passageway between the walls, and in the first instant of light, air, and space in the outside corridor he felt like a grain of sand on the beach.

He blinked at the light in the corridor, hurriedly replaced the ladder in its accustomed spot, and thankfully closed the door. On the way to his room only two things were in his mind: he had to call Sally and find out whom Ronald Frederick had called, and he had to get out of this uniform and under the shower.

With his own door closed behind him he pulled his cigarettes from his breast pocket, then smashed the sodden pack against the wall in disgust. His throat felt parched, and his stomach uneasy; he stripped quickly, balling the soggy uniform trousers and jacket tightly and flinging them into the open closet on his way to the shower, but his impatience detoured him to the phone. “Sally?”

“Oh, Johnny-! Where've you been?”

“In the woodwork.”

“Isn't it terrible about Dutch?”

He could picture the thin, white face whose lips seemed always to turn blue in moments of stress, and he shook his head. “Don't take it so big, kid. He was an old man.”

“But he was alive an hour ago!”

He tried to keep the impatience from his tone. “He was an old man, Sally. He'd seen it all. And he went quick. A lot of us might like to go as quick some day.” He could hear the sibilant sounds as she sniffled into the operator's mouthpiece. “Pull yourself together, ma. There's something I want to know.”

“Y-yes-?”

“Who did Freddie call just now?”

“Freddie? He hasn't made any c-calls.”

“For God's sake, I heard him make it! Ten minutes ago, maybe. No longer.”

“He hasn't called anyone. Not from his room, anyway.”

He removed the receiver from his ear and stared at it questioningly before replacing it with a shrug. “So you blew one, ma. Forget it. You're a little shook. It's not the end of the world.”

“I didn't blow anything! He hasn't called a s-soul!”

He could hear the rising hysteria in her voice, and he made his own soothing. “Sure, sure, ma. Forget it. I musta blown a fuse up here. I'm gonna lie down for a few minutes after I shower. Tell Paul to call me if he needs me.” He hung up the phone and stared at the far wall, finger and thumb tugging absentmindedly at an ear lobe. “Now who in the hell could he have called?” He shrugged again. “Tough break. It's for sure the kid don't miss many.”

He worried it around under the steaming hot water, and after a cold rinse emerged no nearer a solution. He slid into fresh underwear, and glanced at his watch on the bureau; scarcely more than an hour since he had stood in the alley and watched the lights come on in the kitchen far down the side of the building.

Max was gone, and Dutch was gone, and Dumas-if that was his name-was gone, all violently, and judging from their temper the police knew little more than he did. Johnny ran a comb through thick, damp hair; it was just about time that a thread frazzled somewhere on the fringe and gave a man something he could follow up to the counterpane.

He sat down on the edge of the bed and tried to divorce his mind from his still queasy stomach. He opened a drawer and looked in at a carton of cigarettes, changed his mind, and closed the drawer again. He went back into the bathroom and wrung out a towel in cold water, returned to the bed, stretched out, and placed it over his eyes. Deliberately he tried to make his mind a blank; he tried to withdraw physically from the painful hammering just behind his eyes.

The phone woke him. Bright sunlight poured in the room as he sat up with a start, and he blinked as he reached for it. “Yeah?”