Dan Marlowe - Doorway to Death

He pulled out the pillows above her head to prop her in with so that she couldn't roll out, straightened, and looked down at her thoughtfully. After a moment he bent forward, delicately lifted an eyelid, and studied the eye carefully. He straightened again, and rubbed his chin; he sat down on the bed finally and purposefully repeated his barroom examination of the girl's arms, this time pushing the brightly colored sleeves up to her armpits. He shook his head, baffled, considered a moment, then stood up abruptly and in the manner of a man husking an ear of corn ripped and tore her out of the gold toreador pants in great, tearing handfuls.

And saw what he was searching for….

On the milky inner thigh and extending up into the lace on the pale blue fragile looking panties a cluster of tiny red dots broke the ivory surface; Johnny stared down at the unsymmetric pattern with a little shrinking feeling as the girl murmured something unintelligible and half-turned into the pillow bank. And anger and disgust boiled over, and he exploded a hard palm upon the pale blue fragility. A tiny bubble of sound floated up from the bed, and then silence.

Johnny strode out of the bedroom, and re-set the door flush with the wall. He turned out the lights, closed the apartment door behind him, and listened for the click of the lock. He avoided the elevator and headed for the stairs. On the three flights to the street his mind was a jumble, but two things pushed into the forefront… Willie Martin, and a white thigh with needle punctures. He set out for the hotel at a fast walk; he needed to think, and he thought better on his feet.

Johnny waited in the twelfth floor corridor until he heard Richie's shrill whistle as the boy stepped off the automatically piloted kitchen service elevator, and heard the whistle break off abruptly as Richie turned the corner and sighted him. “Hey! You were serious the other afternoon-”

Johnny lifted a corner of the napkin covering the tray Richie was carrying and studied the uninspired effort of an overworked kitchen crew. “I can see they miss Dutch already.” He lifted the tray and balanced it aloft easily. “I'll leave your tip with Hans, Rich.”

The boy snorted. “She hasn't sprung for a nickel yet. She tips you, I'll begin to believe a few of these stories I hear about you.”

“Stories?”

“Bedtime stories.” Richie smiled, opened his mouth to continue, and checked himself at some indefinable thing in Johnny's look. “Forget it,” he said abruptly. “I got a big mouth.” He drifted off down the corridor, turning once to look back, and Johnny smiled and walked the few steps to 1224.

He started to tap gently, and changed his mind; Richie would not tap gently. He hit the door four sharp raps with the ring on his right hand, and it opened a crack immediately. At sight of the tray it opened wider, and then as the occupant noticed his bulk it started to close again. The woman did her second double take when she verified the uniform, and he pushed past her indecision and strode briskly to the card table already set up in the room's center.

He deposited the tray on the far side of the table, and with easy familiarity he unrolled the silver from its napkin container and made the place setting. He filled a glass with icewater and placed a spare napkin under the sweating pitcher. He transferred the aluminum covered dishes from the tray, lifted the lids for a last minute check, tucked the unloaded tray under his arm, and with an indeterminate slight bow in the woman's direction drew back her chair for her to seat herself. He looked directly at her for the first time since he had entered the room, and she returned his look with grave interest.

“Thank you. The boy leaves everything and rushes off.” Her English was more careful than accented, and she was not as old as Richie's description would have led him to believe. Forty five, possibly. She was tall and inclined to plumpness, and what had been dark hair was liberally streaked with gray. Her face was lined, but the remnants of what must once have been striking good looks were still evident, if you excepted the eyes. Johnny felt that he had seen eyes like that before: dead, with scarcely enough spark in them to betray a discernible emotion.

“It's his youth. We'll correct him.”

“Not too harshly, I trust.” She smiled as she spoke, and Johnny returned the smile. With a nod of his head he indicated the withdrawn chair, and he slipped it forward beneath her as she seated herself. She glanced back over her shoulder as she picked up her napkin. “You are from Europe?”

“I've been there. Not lately.”

She nodded in satisfaction at a solved problem. “That is where you learned the European style of service.”

“It's a different life. A different world.”

“That is so, indeed.” She looked down at her plate, and he turned to leave. At the door he could see that although she had not turned her head more than a few degrees she could observe him from the corner of her eye. He closed the door softly from the outside, pivoted, and almost bumped into Ronald Frederick. The manager sidestepped, murmured an apology and was three strides on past when second thought pulled him up short. He paused and turned.

“Johnny? In uniform? On this shift? And on room service?”

Johnny cursed his luck, and the tray under his arm. The chance of running into Freddie like this was infinitesimal, but here he was. “Just tradin' a couple hours with one of the kids.”

Ronald Frederick stared. “Indeed? I'd scarcely have thought you felt it necessary.”

“Owed the kid a favor.” He tried to keep his voice light; he groped for a diversion. “Had a call from Joe Dameron today.”

The little man smiled briefly. “I'm afraid we're not in the lieutenant's good graces. Too many unexplained-ah- events.”

“Joe figures to explain 'em. Had me looking at a million pictures. They identified the guy Dutch got, you know. Frenchy somethin'-or-other from the coast. Joe thought I might recognize someone I'd seen him with around here.”

“But you didn't.”

“That's right… I didn't.”

“Of course I suppose I realized at least subconsciously that the police were still working on the-ah-homicides, but when there is so little surface activity-”

“Joe's a whittler and a bulldog. Don't underestimate him.”

“I'm not inclined to. You're taking your regular shift?”

“Sure thing.”

The manager nodded and turned to go. Whatever he had been given to ponder in the conversation did not prevent his quick but thorough scrutiny of the number of the room from which Johnny had emerged, and Johnny shook his head as he started in the opposite direction for the elevator. So much for the attempted diversion; a rearguard action was now indicated.

He dropped Richie's tray off in the kitchen and continued on through the huge room which was a beehive of controlled frenzy at the height of the dinner hour. He went out past the bar to the lobby and across to the telephone switchboard, where he interrupted Myrna's drowsy gum-chewing in the mealtime lull on the board.

In the light of Sally's warning he would have liked to have had a story ready with which to go up against this girl, but now there was no time. This one he would have to play by ear.

Myrna Hansen was a slender girl whose very ordinary features were dwarfed by large horn-rimmed glasses, and both features and glasses were dominated in turn by a tousled mop of orange-tinted hair. The eyes behind the horn rims were an indeterminate shade of blue, and set a little closely together, and they examined his uniform at first sleepily and then more alertly as she nodded to him. “You're quite a stranger, Johnny. Someone sick on this shift?”

“Tradin' a few hours. How you doin', sugarpuss?”