Dan Marlowe - Doorway to Death

“You wouldn't do much sleeping, John. Grand Central's no busier than this box daytimes. The meat box over there, now; that's different. Only need to get into it twice a week, usually. That one'd stiffen you right out in about twelve hours, though. Should I make you a reservation?”

“My toes are tender, Dutch. Thanks for the beer. I'll get the ticket to you first thing in the morning.”

The white-haired man smiled. “I don't imagine we'd make a Federal case of it if you were a few minutes late.” He re-locked the cold box and returned to his detective story at the desk, and Johnny picked up his bottles and walked back across the dark kitchen to the connecting service door at the bar.

At the door he looked back. The only sound he could hear was his own breathing, and the tiny desk light in the far corner was the only break in the massive darkness.

Johnny shrugged and continued on out to the lobby.

On the way through the lobby he stopped at the registration desk. “Who's m 938, Vic?”

Vic Barnes elevated the glasses riding low on the bridge of his nose and looked up at the room rack. “Lustig, Frank,” he read and looked inquiringly at Johnny. Vic was a stocky, middle-aged man with a round face, thinning hair combed straight back from a high forehead, high color, and facial skin so glossy it looked waxed.

“You got a chit? I'm droppin' two quarts of beer off up there, and I forgot to get one from Dutch.”

Vic fumbled under the counter and produced one, and Johnny borrowed a pencil and laboriously made out the charge. Satisfied, he looked up at the watching Vic. “What time you want your relief?”

“Any time at all. I'm in no hurry.”

Johnny nodded. “About twenty minutes, then.”

Upstairs he had to knock three times at the door of 938 before it opened a conservative two inches. The dark man stared out at Johnny blankly, then snapped his fingers. “Oh, sure. The beer.” The door widened to six inches and Johnny handed in the beer and the charge ticket. The dark man held out his hand for a pencil, and Johnny gave him one; he had his first good look at the man's face as he held the chit up on the wall beside the door and signed his name. The face had been around; the nose had been broken at least twice, and the brows were thicker than nature had intended.

“Here you are.” The chit came out through the opening, and the door started to close. Johnny got one quick flash at the signature and quickly put out his hand to prevent the closing of the door.

“Just a minute-” The dark man looked out suspiciously, and Johnny waved the chit at him. “Your name Dumas?”

“Would I have signed it if it wasn't?” the man bristled.

“Mr. Dumas isn't registered in this room,” Johnny told him.

“Oh, hell, that's right, I'm upstairs-” He half turned and called over his shoulder. “Frank!” He turned to Johnny again. “Here, give me that. There's a quicker way than all this damnfoolishness.” He took the chit back and tore it across twice, reached in his pocket and fumbled out a bill. He looked down at it, and handed it out to Johnny. “Okay. Thanks.”

Johnny looked at the five dollar bill in his hand and at the closed door. He started slowly back to the elevator, and changed his mind. He took out his wallet and removed the illegal brass pass key and opened a room he knew was vacant, walked to the phone and picked it up. “Sally? Johnny. You got a Dumas registered in the house?”

Her answer came in seconds. “1421. Why?”

“Nothin", I guess. Paul around?”

“At the desk.”

“Put him on.” He heard the click of the additional connection; he smiled to himself. Sally hadn't taken herself off the line. “Paul? You bring any women up to the ninth floor tonight?”

“Nary a one. You find any?”

“No-” Johnny thought a moment, and shrugged. “I thought somethin' might be goin' on in 938, but I guess not. Kinda keep that one in mind, will you? You, too, Sally.”

“He's made a lot of phone calls, Johnny. Long distance, too.”

“If-he went to all that trouble to get a girl, maybe we shouldn't bother him. Tell Vic I'll be down in a few minutes.”

In the elevator he dropped down to the sixth floor and turned to anchor the cab with his ever ready slab of wood; his subconscious mind registered another presence even before he looked up and saw Ronald Frederick's plum colored robe standing outside the door of Johnny's room. Waiting? It tugged at Johnny's mind for an instant, and then was gone as the manager spoke. “I was hoping you'd be by, Johnny. Been telling myself I'd invite myself in for a drink.” Even in pajamas and dressing gown the little man managed to look dressed for the opera; not a hair was out of place. The mild eyes behind the steel rimmed glasses were both diffident and apologetic.

“Sure. Come on in. I could use one myself.”

The manager watched as Johnny slipped a key from a clip on the band of his wrist watch and opened his door, flinging it wide.

“That serves a purpose?” he inquired, a nod of the head indicating the key restored to the clip on the watch band, and Johnny looked down at it an instant before realizing what he meant.

“Oh, that. Yeah. Once in a blue moon you might need to get to a key faster'n you can get in and out of the pockets of these tight monkey suits.”

“And opening the door all the way; a form of semper par at is?”

“Reflex, maybe.”

The slender man smiled faintly as he preceded his host inside. His glance ranged the comfortably furnished bed-sitting room with its tiny attached kitchen, coming to rest on the thick pile of the carpeting which he tested absent-mindedly with the toe of a slipper. “You do yourself rather well in the creature comforts, Johnny. Your own things?”

“Willie's. Scotch okay with you?”

“And water. No ice. This was Mr. Martin's room?”

“This is his room. When he's in town.”

“You move out?”

“I move over.” Johnny passed behind the neat figure sitting almost bolt upright in the easy chair and still examining the room. At the refrigerator he could feel his guest's eyes upon him as he went through the familiar ritual with glasses and odd shaped bottles.

Ronald Frederick's voice was musing. “You know as one gets older, Johnny, he sometimes discovers new and surprising-ah-facets in his own nature, so why should he be surprised at corresponding discoveries in someone else?” He examined his fingernails, removed a handkerchief from his robe and lightly buffed the nails on his left hand. He looked over at Johnny again as he replaced the handkerchief. “For example, I'm sure that even yesterday I should not have had the-ah-unmitigated gall to push my way in here on you like this, without an invitation.”

He waited for the automatic disclaimer as Johnny approached him, glass in hand and, when it was not forthcoming, accepted the drink with a smile. “One can say with no fear at all of successful contradiction that you are a man who speaks his mind, or not, as the occasion warrants? Ah, well. I fear that I am about to compound the felony of my presence here by becoming inquisitive.” He leaned back in his chair, tasted his drink, and nodded his head in approval. “Excellent.” He watched as Johnny poured a colorless liquid into a slender glass and took a long, slow swallow. “Vodka?”

“Oozo.”

“Oozo?”

“A Greek drink. Or at least south central Mediterranean. You drink all night an' then turn your head an' the world dissolves.”

The little man smiled again politely, but his mind was obviously elsewhere. He drank again and sank deeper into the depths of his chair. “Since I've stated my case, or rather the lack of it, it remains only to say that I am belatedly curious.”