Dan Marlowe - Doorway to Death

“It's Sally.”

“Christ.” Unbelievingly he looked at the sun. “You still downstairs?”

“I'm at the apartment. It's noontime.”

“Noontime! Man, was that ever a blackout-”

“I sent Paul up to look at you. He said you were sound asleep, so I told him to leave you alone. He didn't have any trouble the balance of the shift.”

“You callin' for anything special?”

“Well, you wanted to know about anything that looked even a little bit unusual-”

“So what's unusual?”

“Well, we wouldn't notice it on our shift, but Myrna mentioned when I relieved her last night that 1224 has had every meal in her room since she checked in three days ago.”

“Sick, probably.”

“Myrna says not. I looked at the registry card, and she's a Mrs. Carl Muller, from Bremerhaven, Germany.”

Johnny frowned. “Could be something, at that You did right to call me. I'll probably be by the place in an hour or so, ma. Put some beer in the refrigerator, huh? See you soon.”

He swung his legs off the bed to the floor and stood up. His eyes were as gritty as though they had been well sanded, but outside of that he felt fine. He dropped to the floor and did a dozen pushups, then went into the bathroom and shaved. He dressed leisurely; he couldn't remember the last time he had been up this early in the day. He felt good.

He rode the main elevator down to the lobby and walked back through the bar to the kitchen, returning to normal after the luncheon rush. He waved to Hans, the first cook, standing to the left of the big range, a tall man with a perpetually sour expression. “Have someone throw a few eggs in a skillet for me, Hans? 'N a handful of home fries.”

Johnny drew a big mug of steaming coffee from the big urn and carried it over to the butcher's block in the corner which he always used as a table. He upended a ginger ale case for a seat, and seated himself as Hans himself silently placed on the block a platter containing a half dozen eggs sunnyside up and a heaping mound of potatoes.

“Thanks, Hans.” Johnny sugared his black coffee liberally, and looked up at the tall man standing beside him, and at the look on Hans's face he remembered. “Oh. Last night.” Johnny shook his head. “Rough. Police talk to you yet?”

“They were here this morning.” Displeasure wrinkled Hans's brow. “They don't know any more than I do.”

“They got a way of worrying things till they come up with an answer. Freddie say anything? He going to give you a shot at the job?”

“I am to talk to him this afternoon. I certainly hope-”

“Possession is nine points of the law,” Johnny reminded him. “You're on the ground, and you're producin'. That's the main thing.”

Hans shrugged, not too cheerfully, and walked away to supervise a boy cleaning the interior of a small refrigerator. Johnny attacked his eggs. One thing about a kitchen run by Dutch and Hans, he mused: the sauces and the relishes might have a little less tang or brio than in a French kitchen, but damn if you couldn't literally eat off the floor. Cleanliness came even before godliness with these people.

He ate steadily, only an occasional twinge in his jaw reminding him of the skirmish of two evenings ago. He lingered over his coffee, then looked up and around for Hans as the memory of Sally's telephone call came to him. “Hans!”

“Yes?”

“Who's rushin' the trays upstairs these days?”

“Richie Gordon.”

“He around?”

“In the boiler room, probably. He always is.”

Johnny finished his coffee, stacked his dishes and carried them over to the rack. He re-crossed the long room to the rear, opened the massive fire door and descended the spiral metal staircase to the storeroom below. He threaded his way through the narrow passageway created by the high piled cases of canned goods on either side and approached a huge door heavily padded with asbestos. The door opened outward as Johnny reached for it, and he peered through the gloom dispelled scarcely at all by the widespaced naked light bulbs. “Eddie? Richie in there?”

White teeth shone in the dark face, but the rich voice was disconsolate. “He shuah is, Mist' Johnny. Him an' all the money.”

The heavy door creaked shut behind Johnny as he stepped inside and joined the tightknit kneeling semicircle. A slim, uniformed youngster with the face of a choir boy was speaking earnestly to the medium-sized green dice he held in his hand. “-one's for the coach and carriage, children … hit it quick for papa, and we're over the hill and far away. Little big ol' natural comin' up… I can feel it… I can feel it jus' as plain-”

“That's what she said,” a basso profundo growled from his audience. “Throw the damn dice, Richie.”

The boy's arm swung forward, and the dice clanked off the furnace front, spun dizzily, and stopped, and the boy leaped into the air, straight as an arrow. “Eleven! Nice little dice-”

Heavy breathing and disgusted mutters drifted upward; green money fluttered downward, and Fred, the day bartender, straightened stiffly and backed out of the circle, shaking his head ruefully as he caught Johnny's eye. “Ain't that kid somethin'?”

“You boys are missing a bet, Fred. The kid's lucky. You ought to make up a pot and take him around to a real game. He ties a few passes together there, you guys'll have had a good season, and God knows seems like every time I walk in here he's either puttin' on a hand or just finished one.

“Maybe you're right, at that. He's sure enough got us all working for him here. You'd think this game was a benefit. We'll play hell gettin' our money back from him, the way he's goin'.”

The boy rubbed the dice briskly on his sleeve, speaking to them as equals. “-whisper to me one time, now, and we burn down the grandstand… comin' up, comin' out, comin' out, comin' up… one time now… hah!”

He rolled a nine, and made it right back; threw a four, and rolled interminably before taking down the money with two deuces; rolled a seven; rolled an eleven, and sevened out looking for an eight. The circle around him was decimated; silent figures on their knees glumly watched the boy stuff loose bills in his pockets, and the dice lay idle on the floor. The spirit, as well as the money, was gone from the game.

Johnny caught the boy's eye. “Got a minute, Richie?”

“Sure thing, John.”

Johnny led him into a corner, and looked down into the precociously wise hazel eyes in the young face. “1224, Rich.”

The boy made a wry face. “Not a dime.” *

“Not for three a day?”

“Notfornothin'.”

“She sick?”

“Naah.”

“What's she look like?”

Richie's arm made a sweeping gesture. “Like a million more middle-aged dames. Kinda gray, kinda mousey-”

“I might make that run for you tonight, kid. Or tomorrow.”

The hazel eyes examined Johnny thoughtfully. “Now that'd be a brand change, for sure.”

“Let it be my problem, huh? If you think I'm around, give me a buzz upstairs.”

Richie shrugged. “Be my guest. I still think-”

“Your career's not in thinkin', kid.”

Richie smiled, bent swiftly, and picked up the dice. “Little head-to-head, John?”

“Not with you, Rich. I believe you.”

On the way back upstairs he remembered that he had told Sally he would come up by the apartment. His pace quickened a little; it seemed like a better idea now than when he had first thought of it. He whistled tunelessly as he ran up the metal stairway.

Johnny lay on his back in tee shirt and shorts in the wide bed in the pocket-sized apartment, and through the big double door watched Sally's slipclad figure at the ironing board in the kitchenette. He tried to drain the last of a can of beer without lifting his head from the pillow, and half sat up abruptly as a thin trickle ran down his chin onto his chest.