be careful. Nothin' ever happens to me.”
“Take a look in the mirror,” she advised him and disappeared inside past the iron door. Johnny stood in the alley, an idle toe scuffing the moisture accumulating underfoot. There should be something in all this that a man could get his teeth into….
Far down the dark wall of the hotel a light came on at ground level. The kitchen, he registered automatically. Another light flashed on. But there should be no lights in the kitchen this time of the morning; Johnny was already in motion when the third light appeared. He ran back through the passageway back to the elevator, slammed up to the lobby and burst into the somnolent quiet. Vic looked up from the desk and waved idly.
Johnny turned and ran for the bar, silently. Inside the paneled doors he rushed soft-footedly past the drowsing drinkers on the bar stools, and then at the far end of the long bar the service door to the kitchen flew open, and the bar boy Manuel stared out at him, his eyes two unripe olives in the white face. “Johnee! The keetehen! The keetehen-
He sprinted past the stricken Manuel, spared only a glance for the darksuited figure crumpled just inside the door to the left, and dropped to his knees beside the loosely sprawled slight body in the white uniform beside the shabby desk. “Dutch-?”
A vein throbbed in the thin temple. The closed lids opened and the washed-out blue eyes looked up at Johnny. A trickle of blood ran down from a corner of the twisted mouth, but the old man managed a faint smile. “- missed … the fun, John. S'prised 'em-”
Johnny eased the thin body to a more comfortable position, his mouth taut at the sight of the dark red stain on the front of the white jacket. “Who was it, Dutch?”
“-s'prised-”
The white head fell sideways suddenly, the high chefs hat falling off and rolling away. Johnny reached for it and replaced it automatically, and then he stood, up slowly and looked down at the newly pinched features. After a moment he crossed the huge room and bent over the dark-suited figure in the corner; the last time Johnny had seen that hard-visaged face it had been to exchange two quarts of beer for a five dollar bill. Johnny studied him carefully, lifted a lapel of the jacket fractionally, and let it fall again. He straightened and made a swift circuit of the room, checking the window fastenings and the locks on the walk-in boxes. When he turned again Manuel's pale face was in the service entrance to the bar.
“You call the police?”
“Si.”
“Dutch say anything at all while you were in here?”
The slim shoulders lifted apologetically. “Notheeng I understand-”
“What'd he say, Manuel? Exactly.”
The boy hesitated. “No sense to eet. Eet sound like he say 'the clocks.'”
“'The clocks'?” Manuel nodded. Johnny stared at the large kitchen clock on the wall across the room. “That's all he said?”
“That ees all.”
Johnny sighed. “Okay. Tell Tommy to close up the bar.”
“Si.” Manuel's dark eyes lingered fascinatedly on the body just inside the door, until he caught Johnny's gaze upon him.
“Move!” The boy disappeared, and Johnny returned to his restless prowling of the kitchen. Twice he stepped off the distance between the two bodies, dissatisfied, then knelt quickly to examine a dark spot on the tiles midway but a little to one side. The spot smeared under his probing finger, and he nodded.
He was seated in Dutch's chair behind the little desk in which the old man had kept his records when the police arrived, a corporal and an eager-beaver rookie in the van, and Lieutenant Dameron not fifteen yards behind.
Johnny waved without rising. “Sleepin' light, Joe?”
The lieutenant came over and kicked a chair into position beside Johnny's and sat down heavily. The red face was shiny and stubbled with gray whiskers. He stared out impassively over the room filling up with men, watching the uniformed and plainclothesmen drawing lines on the floor, dusting powder, taking pictures, and putting minute specks of dirt in labeled white envelopes. A man with horn-rimmed glasses bent alternately over the two still figures on the floor, writing busily in a notebook, and in a matter of minutes the bodies were lightly covered, rolled loosely onto narrow stretchers, and taken out the back way.
Lieutenant Dameron looked at Johnny. “You know anything about this?”
“I know how it happened.”
“Wait till my boy can check you out.” The lieutenant raised a hand and beckoned, and a slim, sandyhaired man approached them. His features were pleasant, and he smiled at Johnny. “You two know each other,” Lieutenant Dameron continued. “This was the second man on the scene, Jimmy, if we can believe the bar boy.”
Detective James Rogers nodded and took out his ever-present notebook. “Long time, Johnny.”
“Yeah. How's the only straight man works out of 54th Street?”
“Shhh-” the sandyhaired man warned. “The boss'll hear you.”
“He should hear me.” Johnny reached over and tapped Joe Dameron on the knee. “How come you let this boy work with the rest of the bastards you've got up there? He supposed to leaven the loaf?”
“He beats his wife,” Joe Dameron said amiably. “That qualifies him. You ready, Jimmy?”
“Yes, sir.” He bent over the notebook. “Name: John Killain-”
“'D you ever know he had an alias, Jimmy?” the lieutenant interrupted. “Sure. Ask him. Or never mind asking him, ask me. Poetic, too. Manos Muertas.”
Johnny stiffened in his chair, and Detective Rogers looked from him to the lieutenant and back again. “Muertas,” he repeated slowly. “Odd name. Manos Muertas. Translates a bit grimly. The hands of death.”
Lieutenant Dameron laughed. “You see the advantages of an education, Johnny? Jimmy went to school.”
Johnny's voice was thick and heavy. “There's a nice, quiet alley outside, Joe.”
The lieutenant eyed him placidly. “My mother didn't raise any foolish children to my age.”
“Just one. The one trying to push me around.” “Nobody's pushing you around, you thick idiot. Will you get off that button?”
“I'll get off it when you put away flat needle you've had out lately. I don't like it.”
“So you don't like it. Drop dead.” The chair creaked as Johnny's weight shifted. “Don't do it,” Lieutenant Dameron continued softly. The redrimmed eyes stared frostily. “Don't even think of it, Johnny. You're no privileged character. I gave you a chance to do me a favor, and you turned me down. I can use you, but I don't need you, so don't get out of line. That's a warning. Now let's catch Jimmy here up on a little ancient history.”
He leaned back in his chair, unheeding the smoldering glance from across the desk. “A few years back, Jimmy, when you were still trying to get the pants off the high-school cheerleaders in your home town, this character and I were running around southern Europe for Uncle. I imagine quite a few people over there would remember that name, even today.”
He exhaled a cloud of smoke and idly dabbled the tip of his cigarette in it before replacing it in his mouth. “He was a specialist, Jimmy. No machinery. No guns, no knives, no blackjacks; all he had to do was reach you. He can give any circus strong man you ever saw cards and spades, and when he gets mad you wouldn't believe it. He warms up on brick walls.”
The cigarette's tip glowed redly. “Willie brought him back here with him… that's Willie Martin, the owner of this place. Our sourpussed friend here was Willie's hatchet man, and he pulled Willie through a couple of mighty snug knotholes. Willie stuck him in a uniform here and gave him the run of the place, and he developed a sideline. Women. What I hear, they had to enlarge the place a couple of times to get them all in.” He studied the growing ash on his cigarette. “This Willie Martin's a story himself. He was head oddball in a strictly oddball outfit; he inherited some money, and while I never did hear of him making any, he'll probably always be able to buy and sell the crowd here. He's the type that lives every minute like it's going to be his last on earth; a little frantic for the pedestrian caliber like me, geared a little lower.”
Lieutenant Dameron leaned forward in his chair, head turned up sidewise to the listening detective. “I'm
