Dan Marlowe - Doorway to Death

“You think you can stop me?”

“I can make you wish you'd never thought of the idea, and by God, I will. I'll take you off the street if I have to make a law. Don't you cross me.”

“Blow it outta your barracks bag, Joe. You think you're scarin' anyone?”

“Johnny, this is important to me!”

“So you sit here an'-ahhh, forget it!” He lurched to his feet and started for the door.

“Johnny-!”

He slammed the door heavily behind him.

In his own room he stared at himself in the bureau mirror over the rim of the double shot-glass of bourbon in his hand. He threw back his head and tossed down the contents, shivered, and solemnly inspected himself again in the glass.

“Well, Killain? You figure it out. Man told you not to do something. Did he mean it, or did he say it figurin' you'd do it anyway to spite him? An' if that's what he figured, you sure you want to do it? Go ahead, Killain. Figure it out.”

He refilled the shot-glass and sat down in his easy chair.

He lifted the glass to the light, studied its amber contents, and drank deeply. After a moment he put down the glass and got to his feet again; he walked into the bathroom and splashed water on his face. He groped for a towel, dried himself off, threw the towel aside, and walked back into the living room.

The telephone rang as he walked to the door; he ignored it. In the corridor he turned right and walked steadily on past the service elevator to the end suite in the hallway.

At the door he knocked sharply three times, folded his arms, and waited.

The man who was not Ronald Frederick opened the door.

“You owe me a drink, Freddie,” Johnny informed him.

The little manager was neatly dressed in a light gray suit with the ever-present breast pocket handkerchief prominent as usual. For the count of ten the mild eyes behind the steel rimmed spectacles studied his visitor, and then he nodded, and stepped back. “I… ah… recall that I do. Come in.”

Johnny preceded him into the sitting room which was fitted out with a desk in its center, and his host scrutinized him carefully as he followed. “Are you sure that you-ah- need it now?”

“Right now.”

“Have a chair, then.” He stood beside his desk as Johnny seated himself in the armchair to one side. “Scotch?”

“Naah.”

“Bourbon, then?”-*

“Okay.”

Johnny watched as bottles were removed from a wall cabinet and two liberal drinks poured. Ronald Frederick looked at his guest. “Chaser?”

“Some other time.”

The little man handed Johnny his glass and put his own down on the desk. He walked unhurriedly to the door, turned the bolt, and slipped on the chain latch. His manner as he returned to his desk was politely courteous. “I'm assuming that we wish no interruptions?”

“You're assumin' well today.” Johnny lifted the drink in his hand. “To your beautiful blue eyes, Freddie.”

The manager smiled faintly as he seated himself and picked up his own drink. He leaned back comfortably in his desk chair. “Since my eyes don't happen to be blue-”

“Got to be,” Johnny said flatly over the rim of his glass. “San Francisco says Ronald Frederick's eyes are blue.”

The slender face behind the desk seemed to tighten up feature by feature. “San Francisco?”

“Yeah. Let's cut out the horsin' around, Freddie. I want a piece of your action here.”

The little man pursed his lips, seemed to consider for a moment, then leaned forward smoothly, slid open a desk drawer, and emerged with his right hand gripping a revolver from which the long snout of a silence projected. He sat back again with it lying casually across his lap. “You're so impetuous at times, Johnny,” he said apologetically. “You'll understand, I'm sure.”

“Yeah. That the gun you measured Frenchy with that night in the kitchen?”

Ronald Frederick picked up his drink carefully in his left hand and sipped at it, his face impersonal.

“Not very smart of you keepin' it around here, Freddie. Suppose Joe Dameron had picked you up any time in the last few days, like he'd halfway planned. Could you've explained it? They got the slugs outta Frenchy, you know.”

The silence from behind the desk lengthened. Johnny threw back his head and drained his glass, and at his first movement the revolver in the chair opposite lifted itself three inches and then lowered again as he settled back. “You didn't know the stuff was in the hotel already, did you, Freddie?” Ronald Frederick delicately removed the handkerchief from his breast pocket, flipped it open, and Spread it on his knee. He wiped his fingers deliberately by rubbing them briskly over the handkerchief, one hand at a time, the free hand in turn hovering over the gun butt. “It's funny, in a way, Freddie. Dumas hires you to do a job for him here and sets you up in business. All of a sudden to save your own neck you have to knock him off. The man with the stuff arrives; he knew Frenchy, and he's waitin' for Frenchy to contact him. Gonna be quite a wait. The man doesn't know you. You don't know him, but I know both of you.”

The voice from the opposite chair was quiet and unemotional. “You seem to have acquired a good deal of dangerous information.”

Johnny grinned at him. “You know I haven't got that kind of brains, Freddie. This is right from the horse's mouth. If Joe'd had even a halfwit to put you near the kitchen that night, your tail woulda been sizzlin' in the bacon grease long ago. How much more time you think you're gonna get?”

“I trust just time enough.” The manager lifted the gun in his lap, balanced it appraisingly a moment, and gently returned it again. “As you said a moment ago, let's eliminate the-ah-horsing around. I'm sure you didn't come here without a proposition!”

“Sure. It's simple. I take you upstairs, and we go up against the guy with the stuff. How you handle him is your problem, but you and I split the dollar bills right down the middle.”

The manager nodded. “It sounds reasonable from your point of view, of course. Unfortunately the answer is 'no.'”

“You got a choice?”

“I do have a choice. I think that even you will agree that this revolver gives me a choice. I'm not about to give away fifty percent of three months' effort merely because you suggest it.”

“You can't find him without me, Freddie. You need me.”

“Only up to a point.” Ronald Frederick smiled. “You see, Johnny, there's a very important point at which your premise ceases to be valid. Frenchy Dumas did not hire me. I am answerable only to-” He tried to cover the apparent slip by gulping at his drink. “You know, this sort of-ah- violent activity differs radically from my past operations, which is why Lieutenant Dameron and his associates have been unable to 'make' me.”

He cleared his throat gently; the mild eyes were unclouded again. “That night in the kitchen was a disaster, of course. Frenchy's initial carelessness in permitting himself to be followed into the hotel resulted in a kangaroo court and a body. When we took it to the kitchen to dispose of it temporarily, we stumbled over the old man. Frenchy lost his head-if you don't mind a grisly little joke, almost literally.”

Ronald Frederick smiled again. “Man proposes, the saying goes; through one oversight in an otherwise straightforward master-plan, upon Frenchy's death I was placed in the unfortunate position of being unable to identify the courier or myself to him. In that respect the good lieutenant was entirely right in his deductions.” He sipped at his drink. “So there I was, until now. Your appearance is providential; you've saved me a good deal of embarrassment.”

“So let's hear the deal, Freddie.”