Dan Marlowe - Doorway to Death

“Why don't you tell him yourself, Eddie?” Johnny inquired softly, and dropped his hands to the top of the straightback chair just inside the living room.

The red-haired man stared morosely, obviously reviewing his orders. “Don't push your luck, mister. If I had my way I'd grease the chute for you right this minute. Don't you get any-”

His right arm relaxed and dropped to his side, and in one fluid motion Johnny picked up the chair upon which his hands rested and with every ounce of strength in his body slammed it across the room in the direction of the red-haired man. Sally's choked scream coincided with Eddie's instinctive snatch at the doorknob in his hand as the dark blur of the chair flew at him knee high, and the door flared out like a bullfighter's muleta and caught and deflected the chair to the wall. It splintered itself with a shocking crash, and plaster flew in a powdery haze.

Johnny's barefooted follow-up rush foundered on the throw rug just inside the door which dropped him heavily. From his knees he struggled upright, the drumming sound of running feet echoing in his ears.

“Johnny! You can't chase him like that-!”

From the door he looked down at his loincloth and bare feet, hesitated, and then returned to Sally still in the room's center. He put his arm around her; he could feel the trembling of her body through the thin robe, and after a moment he picked her up and sat down on the couch with her on his lap. She clung to him tightly, but in a little while the trembling stopped. “That's better, ma. You all right?”

She nodded. Tears flooded the brown eyes and spilled over. “I thought he was going to s-shoot you,” she whispered. “He came in with the gun in his h-hand-”

“He didn't even know I was here, Sally. The whole show was supposed to scare you into callin' me off. It takes a certain kind of adrenalin to use a gun in the daylight, and besides, you could see he wasn't told to go that far. I'll tell you one thing-I don't care if it takes a.30–30 at a thousand yards, I'll sicken that little rat the next time I lay eyes on him.”

“You don't like guns, you s-said,” Sally sniffled, and he smiled down at her. “For him I'd make an exception. You sure you're all right?”

“Yes.” Her voice strengthened, then rose in alarm as he lifted her up and set her on her feet. “Where are you going?”

“Over to see Joe Dameron.”

She followed him into the bedroom. “Why? I thought you didn't like him?”

“I can get along with him.” He skimmed into his clothes, fixing Sally with a hard eye. “Listen. New ground rules around here. Door stays locked all the time. You don't open it till you see who it is out there. That's what they put the one way glass in for. Think you can remember that?”

She nodded. “Will you be gone long?”

“Can't tell. I'll see you at work tonight, anyway.”

“Johnny, please be careful-”

“Sure, ma. Sure.” He finished dressing with Sally forlornly trailing him around the apartment; he left hurriedly before she could tie him up in further conversation. On the street he whistled for a cab going in the opposite direction, and it made a sweepingly illegal U-turn and came back and picked him up.

At the precinct stationhouse he ran up the worn white stone steps of the old red brick building and nodded to the incurious uniform at the door. Inside he turned left on oil-darkened wooden floors and walked down a narrow passageway that widened into a large room whose front section was taken up by a massive desk, head high. Johnny returned the inquisitive stare of the white-haired figure enthroned behind the desk.

“Yis?”

“Lieutenant Dameron.”

“And who wants to see him?”

“Killain.”

“What about?”

“The lieutenant might tell you if you asked him.”

Thin lips tightened as the old man picked up the phone. “Sweeney, Lieutenant. A fresh moose by the name of Killain says-” He broke off to listen, leaned forward in his chair, and replaced the phone silently. “Inside. Second door on the left.”

He knocked on the second door on the left, and a chair scraped noisily inside and a bolt snicked back in the lock before Jimmy Rogers opened the door. Johnny stood on the threshold and looked in at the blackboard walls and the battered desk and mismatched chairs. A single desk lamp illuminated the gloomy room.

“Come in, come in!” Lieutenant Dameron barked irritatedly from the interior shadows, the big body sprawled loosely in a swivel desk chair. He beckoned with the half-filled glass in his hand.

“You boys afraid of a raid?”

A chair was kicked in his general direction. “Don't like to be interrupted when I'm drinking. I've given the dear taxpayers their dollar's worth today.” The red-faced man nodded to the chair. “Park it.”

Johnny remained standing. From the looks of the half-empty bottle on the desk and the overflowing ashtrays this war council had been a lengthy one. “I came by to see if your offer to sign up was still good, Joe.”

Lieutenant Dameron set down his glass and leaned forward over his desk to look at Johnny more closely. “You're serious?”

“Yeah.”

A five second pause. “Say please.”

Johnny focused his eyes on a point two and a half feet over the lieutenant's head. “Please.”

Lieutenant Dameron grunted in surprise. “Down on your knees, Jimmy. The world is positively coming to an end within the next twenty minutes, I'd say.” He leaned back in his chair, picked up his glass, and took a swallow from it. “I'm a little curious over this switch.”

Johnny remained silent, and the frosty gray eyes studied him carefully above the rim of the glass before switching to the watching Detective Rogers.

“Jimmy? What do you think?”

“He's already given us about all we have to date, if you look at it one way,” the sandyhaired man said mildly. “And knowing him, I don't think he'd walk in like this empty-handed.” He grinned at Johnny. “Course, as to why, that's your problem, Lieutenant. I imagine you'll get the due-bill later.”

The gray eyes came back to Johnny. “All right,” the lieutenant said suddenly. “Against my better judgment, but all right. We've been sitting here getting knots on our head. You got anything for the pot?”

“I've got a candidate good for a laugh, anyway.”

“I could stand a good laugh right about now.”

“I think it's Fearless Freddie.”

“Freddie? You mean the manager, Frederick? Is he the one you were hinting at the other night when you called me and asked me if I'd checked out the help?”

“He's the one. I got to admit he's not much of a candidate, for looks.”

The ruddyfaced man tipped back in his chair, forehead creased. “You can play that contract vulnerable, redoubled. Still… Jimmy, what did we turn up on him?”

Detective Rogers spread his hands widely. “Almost nothing, literally. Hotelman all his working life, never in any trouble, unless you call a divorce trouble. I went through his folder from end to end.”

“You got a picture in that folder?”

Lieutenant Dameron's eyes swiveled from Johnny to Rogers and back again.

“No picture,” the slender man admitted.

The lieutenant's voice was mild. “You think we should have a picture, Johnny?”

“I'll tell you why I think so. This week there was a guest at the hotel who knew Ronald Frederick when he managed a hotel in the south. She went by the office and sent her name in, but he was too busy to see her, even to say hello.”

Jimmy Rogers shifted in his chair. “So we could have a bogus Frederick? I'd have to say possible-”

“-but not probable,” Johnny finished. “I know.”

Lieutenant Dameron's heavy voice broke the little silence. “Do you have anything substantial on him, Johnny?”