Dan Marlowe: Doorway to Death

“Later, ma,” he interrupted her, eyes on the foyer. “Duty calls.”

The boy and girl were young; very young. The aura of money enveloped them … looks, clothes, and attitude. The boy was thin and gangling; the tangerine-colored hair in the crew cut emphasized the too-prominent ears. His shoes had cost a minimum of thirty dollars. The girl was of medium height with soft, swirling brown hair; she fit her lightweight sweater and skirt well, the more so in that like most of her generation she carried a few more pounds than her inches demanded.

Johnny motioned to Paul with his head as they entered the elevator, and slipped on behind them as Paul nodded and exited. “Suit in the checkroom to 322, Paul,” he said over his shoulder.

“Right away.”

Johnny closed the flanged doors, and the tight, shining walls enveloped them. He leaned back and studied them as they spoke together in consciously hushed voices. The scrubbed young faces were pink; not drunk, but in drink taken.

The quiet and lack of movement got through to them finally. “Nine, please,” the girl said, looking around suddenly.

“Who's got the key, sis?”

“I have,” she announced and produced it. She smiled experimentally.

“An' who's registered?”

“I am.” The corners of the colorfully wide mouth drooped in the beginning of a pout.

“Okay, son,” Johnny said firmly, re-opening the bronze door. “Say goodnight to her here. We'll look for you in the morning.”

The boy flushed a dull, agonized red, swallowed hard, mumbled something unintelligible to the obviously sympathetic girl, and scuffed off the elevator through the lobby to the foyer.

“You didn't need to do that, you know,” the girl protested softly, half way out into the ninth floor corridor. “He'll be terribly disappointed. I could have handled him.”

Johnny considered the serious young face, the rounded, solemn brown eyes. “You got it wrong, sis,” he told her gently. “If you could have handled him, then he'd be terribly disappointed. On your own veranda maybe you're the captain, but a hotel room in the a.m. with three highballs eggin' him on'll surprise the hell out of you. Pretty soon you find out you can't handle him, after all, and then you got to call me to do it for you, and then everybody's mad at everybody else. This way I'm the only schmuck in the crowd… right?”

Her smile was unwilling, the soft mouth rueful. “You make it sound so inevitable- ”

“Chapter and verse. Boy and girl. Man and woman.”

The brown eyes widened, but she giggled, and swung her handbag by its long strap, so plainly in no hurry to depart that he looked at her as an individual for the first time. Beautiful skin, beautiful teeth … a plump, pert little partridge.

“Tell you what, sis-what's your name?”

“Frannie.”

“Tell you what we'll do, Frannie. Now you've looked your cards over, we'll drop back down to the lobby, and I'll run out and catch him for you.”

“No, thanks,” she said quickly. “Look, I told you my name. What's yours?”

“Ugly,” Johnny said promptly. “Name, nature, an' inclination.”

“That's ridiculous,” she began, and then smiled. “Do you charge for this lecture, Ugly?”

“Courtesy of the house, like the newspaper in the morning. Look at it this way, Frannie. In a place like this you got a chance to lose real big. You sure you want to?”

“N-no-”

“So take it easy. You're sharpenin' your claws on the wrong table leg. Simmer down. Don't chase those things. They'll catch up to you.”

The pretty face was petulant. “I wish you'd tell me just one thing, then. You asked us who was registered. Suppose he'd been registered-?”

He grinned at her. “In that case, I'd not only have ran you right on up, I'd have held you down for him if he'd had any trouble. Courtesy of the house, just like the newspaper-”

She flounced down the hall with her nose in the air, then turned indignantly. “You're… you're not a gentleman!”

“Alas.” He burlesqued a sigh. “Goodnight, Frannie.”

If she replied, he didn't hear it; a door opened between them and a dark, medium-sized man stepped out briskly. He stopped short at sight of Johnny in the elevator. “Oh. You, there. I'd like to get a couple of quarts of beer. The switchboard just told me room service was through for the night-” He paused suggestively, and Johnny nodded.

“If you're not fussy about the brand.”

“Hell with the brand.” He had a hard, aggressive voice.

“What's the room number?”

The man turned and looked at the door behind him. “938.”

“Ten minutes,” Johnny said and closed the elevator door. As he entered the lobby Paul beckoned to him.

“Fella to see you, Johnny.”

Johnny glanced quickly at the limp figure sprawled in a lobby chair, and the figure stood up and uncoiled to a surprising height as Johnny approached him. “Killain?” the man asked. He had a long, mournful face.

Johnny took a good look at him. “That's right. I didn't get your name, but the address is Centre Street, isn't it?”

The man wet a finger and held it aloft. “Not a damn bit of wind in here, either. Nothing the matter with your nose, mister. To skip the preliminaries, there was a little ruckus in the neighborhood last night.”

Johnny nodded and hesitated. The thin man studied him, deep lines furrowing the elongated features and the spaniel eyes tiredly sad.

“This personal?”

“As always, that depends on the answers I get. I did hear in a roundabout way that you got a little rep for makin' muscle medicine when you get peeved, and that you and Armistead weren't members of the same lodge. I'd have to concede you something on that last, up to a point.”

Johnny rubbed his chin thoughtfully. “I don't know whether it makes any difference to you or not, but I've been over this already.”

“That right?” Johnny couldn't tell whether the morose face believed him or not. “Who's been over it with you?”

“Lieutenant Dameron.”

“That right?” Johnny recognized the difference in inflection, he debated for a moment calling Lieutenant Dameron at that hour and patently decided against it. The thin man smiled sourly. “M' mother told me there'd be days like this. You understand I'll check you out in the morning?”

“I understand. A drink against the rules?”

“What rules?”

Johnny led the way into the bar, held up a finger as Tommy approached, and indicated his companion. He turned to the thin man who held out a large, capable hand. “Thanks for the drink. Name's Jones. Arthur. One of the Jones' boys.”

Johnny nodded. “Legwork is hell.”

“You can print that.” Arthur Jones turned to Tommy at the bar, and Johnny walked down the long room and through the service door in the rear to the kitchen beyond, dark except for a single bulb in the farthest corner where a man in a white uniform nodded over a paperbacked book.

“Why don't you go to bed, Dutch?”

“You know I can't sleep, John.” The voice was slow and dignified, ripe with years. White hair fringed the high chef's hat, and the veins stood out on the backs of the transparent looking hands.

“You got any beer in the box, Dutch? I got some cached downstairs, but it isn't cold.”

“Happens I have, John.”

“I need two quarts.”

“Happens I have two quarts.” The old man rose stiffly to his feet and produced a huge key and with deliberate movements opened up the walk-in box behind him. Cold air drifted out as he removed two bottles from a case on the floor and handed them to Johnny.

“Got a good notion to come down here in the morning when I'm ready for the sack, Dutch. The temperature is about right.”