Dan Marlowe - Doorway to Death

“That's right, fella.” He gestured at the figure on the floor. “I'll take over now. I saw the whole thing from the top of the stairs. That's a real nice move, Killain. Like to show it to me sometime on my day off?”

“I'll make a deal with you, Jack. You go get lost upstairs for ten minutes. When you come back down I give you this and I show you the move any time you say.”

The fat man shook his head regretfully. “I can't do it. I got my orders, and they say to keep an eye on that door upstairs, and to break up any scrimmage you get into around here. What I hear, if I took you up on that offer I'd need a basket to get him downtown.”

“It bothers you, Jack?”

“It bothers the people that sent me here. Comprends?” Johnny sighed and released the collar to which he had been holding. There was a hollow sound as the dead weight struck the floor, and the fat man clucked in disapproval. “You're gonna spoil him, Killain.”

Johnny started to reply and then remembered. “This bastard said the second cab at the stand-” He ran lightly to the door with the fat man outdistanced. Behind the first cab at the stand was an empty space. “Damn-!”

“Gone, huh?” the stout man sympathized. “Too bad. I think I'll call and get the meat wagon for your boy here.”

“Here.” Johnny handed him the gun. “This goes with him.”

“Well, thanks, now. I appreciate it. Sorry I can't do you that other favor, but you know how it is. I sure would like to learn that move, too.”

“You keep the stairs here clean, and you learn the move.”

“Yeah? Mister, nobody gets up those stairs without a blood test.”

Johnny nodded, and turned to the door.

He ran into Jimmy Rogers just inside the door of the stationhouse, and the sandyhaired man cocked a quizzical eyebrow at the sight of him. “The lieutenant get hold of you? He's been calling all around.”

“First I heard of it. What's up?”

“Put up your lightning rod.”

“Like that, huh? What's chewin' him?” Johnny followed the detective inside to the private offices, and a billow of sound rolled through the corridor.

“Rogers!”

Johnny grinned at Jimmy Rogers' sardonic glance. “The bull moose is in rut, huh? Let's go in an' give him a hotfoot.”

“You don't have to work for him.” Detective Rogers made no objection to Johnny entering behind him into the same office he had left with Willie Martin not so many hours ago.

“Mornin', Joe.”

“You!” It was an epithet the way it was uttered as the red-faced man's head jerked up and focused on Johnny. “I want a few words with you right now!”

“You expect to enjoy yourself while you're havin' 'em, furl your sails a little,” Johnny suggested. He seated himself comfortably as he eyed the irate lieutenant. “You'd have a little trouble bustin' me back to a post, Joe.” Detective Rogers' expression as he sat down across from Johnny was carefully blank.

“You can skip the wise remarks. I want a straight answer from you. Have you had anything to do with this Myrna Hansen, the telephone operator?”

It surprised Johnny. “I had a little talk with her,” he said cautiously.

The lieutenant's hands came up from his lap and gripped the edges of his desk, hard. “You had a little talk with her,” he mimicked heavily. “She's only a certain witness and a possible confederate to some of these goings on, but you had a little talk with her.” He raised himself up in his chair, and the angry face was dark red. “Just who the hell do you think you are? This is a police investigation. I don't want you-”

“Ahh, knock it off, Joe,” Johnny interrupted him. “You talked to her for two hours, and you got a big, fat nothing. I just tried to throw a little scare into her, that's all.”

“God give me strength.” The lieutenant looked up at the ceiling before again boring Johnny with his eyes. “Did it ever occur to you that just possibly we might know what we're doing? We wanted to know where that woman went, whom she contacted. You had your little talk with her and scared her underground. My man lost her yesterday afternoon and hasn't seen her since.”

“The people she's been playin' with, you'll be lucky if you don't find her underground,” Johnny said thoughtfully. “Or she'll be lucky. Personally, I couldn't care less; in my book she's been livin' on borrowed time a while already, the way she operates. Are you listenin' today, Joe, or just talkin'? I got a couple of things.”

The big man glowered at him silently, and Johnny shifted his remarks to Detective Rogers. “I was just stuck up at the door of that apartment where you have the stakeout. Gun-in-my-ribs said, 'Get into the second cab at the cab stand.'”

“Where the hell was Mulleavy while all that was going on?” the sandyhaired man demanded sharply.

“Mulleavy your man? He was at the head of the stairs, watching.”

“Oh, great-!”

“I'm kiddin' you. He didn't have time to blow his nose. I didn't even know he was there, so when I took out the guy in the doorway I had just started to lug him down into the basement for a private interview when Mulleavy declared himself in. Said private interviews were verboten.”

Lieutenant Dameron broke his silence, the backbone gone from his voice. He sounded tired. “Mulleavy followed orders, but I almost wish he'd been out for a beer. That's an unofficial wish.” Thick fingers drummed on the desk.

Johnny returned his attention to the lieutenant. “I remember way back at the beginnin' of all this, Joe, you stood up on your hind legs and told me you got answers. You sure as hell haven't gotten many from the people you've talked to so far, and there's been quite a few. What goes?”

The lieutenant slumped down in his chair and passed a hand over his eyes. “Well, let's take it by the numbers. Max's boys were a couple of professional hoods; you never figure to do much with them. I had hopes for that coked-up redhead; he should have told us everything he'd ever known in his life when his skinful wore out. He got a real weird reaction when it did, though; he went right from a human clam to a whistling scream. The docs took him away from us.” He straightened in his chair and looked over at Johnny. “Then there was Rieder, the cook at the hotel. I don't feel too good about that one. I felt safe; Doc Greenstein had knocked him out with a needle, I had a man at the door of his room, and Jimmy on the way over to kneel on his chest and get a few answers. But with all that, he still went down the drain. Literally, by God. Now there's this one you knocked over today. He able to talk?”

“When they tape up his ribs.”

“Put that at the top of your list, Jimmy. Not that it'll do us any good. This is another hood.” The gray eyes ranged Johnny speculatively. “How'd you like the cooperation we got from your boss last night?” Johnny was silent. “Well? Did he give you a reason? He couldn't have given you one that made sense, because there isn't any. I don't forget things like that, Johnny.”

“He's a businessman, Joe. He can't-”

“Businessman, hell! This is Dameron you're talking to. Willie inherited a few dollars, and all his life he's been the playboy of the western world, except for that little party overseas. He's been-”

“Ahhh, chop it!” Johnny snapped. “All that crap is between you and him. All I know is that if I'm in a thirty foot circle and I need a man at my back, Willie's the man. Where the hell do you get off runnin' him down? Why don't you make your own move instead of askin' him to do something you're afraid to do yourself?”

Detective Rogers interposed himself smoothly between the acrimonious raised voices. “You said you had a couple of things, Johnny. You only mentioned one.”