Dan Marlowe - Doorway to Death

“Aww, cut it out! A bishop climbing a rope?”

“I'm telling you he could really go.”

“If he had a broken leg he must've gone down one time instead of up.”

“A character cut the rope, but that's another story. Everything else ready?”

“All ready.”

“Let's go, then.” Johnny covered his salad bowl and followed Richie and his tray behind the enormous kitchen range to the tiny room service elevator. To the right of the elevator stood a sleekly polished rolling oven, and Johnny indicated it to Richie with a nod as he slid open the metal door. “Kick that steamer aboard here, kid.”

The boy complied, shaking his head as he carefully set down his heavily burdened tray. “Boy, are you ever making a production out of this thing! You figurin' on marrying the dame?”

“Paste this in your derby, Rich: you should never serve a meal upstairs without a steamer, even if it is a little more trouble. Okay. See you around.” He closed the elevator door, punched the twelve button on the automatic pilot, and waited until the car stopped and the door slid open silently. With the salad bowl aloft in his left hand he steered the freely rolling oven off the car into the corridor and around two corners to the door of 1224. His knock was answered immediately, and he eased the wagon over the slightly raised threshold.

She stood aside to let him in, a slight smile on her face, and he crossed to the card table ready with its usual tablecloth and deposited the covered salad bowl. He returned to the oven, knelt and lit the alcohol brazier and slid the tray into the heating compartment. When he had made the customary place setting and withdrawn her chair, she seated herself in silence, but when Johnny removed the cover from the salad bowl she exclaimed with pleasure. “Insalata mista!” The momentary brightness drained from her features, and she looked up at him speculatively as he spooned a portion of the salad into an individual bowl and placed it before her.

He spoke without looking at her. “Not everyone calls it by that name, ma'am.”

Her fingers plucked stiffly at the napkin in her lap. “I have eaten it before,” she said finally. “It is not uncommon.”

“But more common in some areas than others?” She stared down at her water glass without replying, and Johnny took up his usual station behind her. She began to eat slowly and despite her preoccupation, appreciatively. The room was quiet in the interval before she looked up again in the little gesture which indicated that he was to move back into her field of vision. She looked directly at him an instant, and then back down at the salad. “This is very good.” She hesitated. “You keep reminding me of- of things I thought I had forgotten.”

At her left he refilled her salad dish and set it a little to one side. He returned to the oven, swathed his hand in a napkin and removed the roast beef platter from the heating compartment. He placed it before her and removed the aluminum lid. “Careful. Plate's hot.”

She nodded absently, her eyes following the quick dexterity with which he deepened the incision in a foil-wrapped baked potato and inserted a slice of butter, and then with a circular motion of his wrist opened up the potato until its mealy center was exposed. “Why do I feel that you remind me deliberately?”

He took up her knife and fork and cut her roast beef into manageably small pieces, placed the knife on the butter dish, and handed her the fork.

“Thank you. Why do you deliberately remind me?”

“Maybe because we both were there. Italy. A few years back.”

“I see. And you feel that I should be reminded of Italy a few years back?”

He broke a piece of rye bread into thirds, buttered a section thinly, and handed it to her. Her eyes never left his face. “Maybe I feel we were members of the same dub.”

This time there was no hesitation at all. “Scarcely an exclusive one.”

“Some branches of it were.”

Her glance dropped to her plate, and she began to eat, and Johnny retired again behind her chair. She spoke after a moment without looking around. “What is your name? Your surname?”

“Killain.”

“You're not French, then?”

“No. Your name's Muller, but you're not German.”

Her head came up, and she stared across the room. “A married woman changes her name.”

“Your maiden name could've been Muller, too, but that wouldn't make you German, either.”

“So it seems I am not German.” She pushed a square of meat absently about her plate with her fork, then speared it purposefully. “My beef is getting cold.”

She completed her meal in silence, and when she had finished he removed her dishes, scraped off the table crumbs, and poured her coffee. She extracted a cigarette from a tiny metallic case, and he lighted it for her. He made a one load trip with her dishes to the oven where he stacked them neatly, and then returned to his position behind her chair. She motioned him forward with a wave of the cigarette. “Come around here where I can see you. And stop standing at attention like that. Sit down.”

Johnny sat on the chair beside the bed, and she studied him, the tired eyes shadowed in the worn face. She pointed the cigarette at him. “There must be a reason for the diligence with which you extract information without ever asking a direct question?” She inspected his silence gravely, and when she resumed her voice was level and calm. “At my age one does not blithely discard small favors, small comforts. Not out of hand, at least. Since your advent I have eaten much better, but unless you can convince me that there is an essential point to this cat-and-mouse business into which we seem to be drifting, I shall have to forego these meals in your company.”

Smoke drifted up from her cigarette in a long, wavering line as she again studied his continued silence, and her tone was puzzled when she continued. “I believe that I sense in your attitude an aura of concern, of protectiveness. If I am correct in this assumption I think that you had better explain yourself.”

Johnny's voice was hard and abrupt. “You're in trouble.”

She stiffened, then shook her head slowly and put down her cigarette with a sigh. “I'm sorry. I have to say-”

“That it's none of my business.”

“-that you are presumptuous to an egomaniacal degree, certainly-“ She reached for the cigarette again and stubbed it out decisively. “I think that you should leave now.”

Johnny rose from his chair, removed her cup and saucer, dumped and cleaned her ash try and replaced it, and folded her tablecloth and placed it on the card table. He made all his movements deliberate in the hope of provoking her to further speech, but he was halfway to the door before she spoke again from her frowning concentration. “I am a complete stranger to you. Even if I were in trouble, why should you be interested, let alone concerned?”

He spoke shortly, over his shoulder. “I'm the elected godparent of all the stray cats in the neighborhood.”

He was surprised to hear her laugh. “Self-elected, I'm sure.”

When he turned she was still smiling. She had removed another cigarette from her case and was tapping it on the back of her wrist reflectively. “There is an unkind name for such as you, young man, and yet I feel that no un-kindness is meant. Come back here and sit down. I see that we shall have to bring this to a conclusion.” He paused on the way to light her cigarette, and when he had re-seated himself her eyes resumed their steady contemplation of him. “Now.” She spoke deliberately. “I am not in trouble. Is that clear?”

“No.”

“Attend me. I am not in trouble.”

“That's not the truth.”

“I don't like the implications of such an assertion.”