telling you this, Jimmy, because I know that he's what happened to Max and Co.; his brand was stamped all over them. All except the bullet, the way I see it now. With the buzz we'd had on this deal, I offered him in; he was on the ground, and he's got a nose for this kind of thing. He thought I was holding the Armistead thing over his head, and he wouldn't buy. I figure he's lonewolfing it now; none of us knows what we're doing here anyway, and he thinks he might find a spot to cash in. Right, Johnny?” He shrugged at the glowering silence. “All right, then. What happened here tonight?”
“You tell me, you're so goddamn smart.”
“Temper, temper.” The lieutenant turned back to his assistant. “I forgot to say, Jimmy, that Armistead had braced him first, before I did, but he didn't like Armistead. When Max tried to push it a little, Johnny dropped him in the alley on the second bounce, and whoever was behind Max figured he could do without him.” He turned back to Johnny. “All right. Let's hear it.”
Johnny drew a deep breath, and for the first time in minutes wrenched his eyes away from the red-faced man. He looked up at Jimmy Rogers. “I can tell you what you already know. Whoever it was, they had a key to something. No sign of forcible entry. They just didn't know old Dutch had insomnia and often sat here nights. When they stumbled over him, the one on the floor got nervous and started after him, probably wavin' a gun. He violated the number one rule for drawing your social security; never go after a chef in his own kitchen. Dutch split him like a chicken from a dozen feet away with the cleaver he always had on this desk. The boy that caught the cleaver put two out of two into Dutch, which was pretty good shootin' under the circumstances. That was a little noisier than his partner liked to work, so the partner pumped in a couple of convincers alongside the cleaver to make sure no talkee and blew. Game, set, and match.”
“How'd you know the man the chef got was shot, too?” Detective Rogers asked him curiously.
“I looked. He wasn't layin' right for a knife wound, even a smash like that. A knife, they got time to get down easy, usually. A gun belts 'em down hard. This guy was belted.”
“He was, for a fact.”
“Now I'll tell you something you didn't know. The guy on the floor was registered into 1421 here last night under the name of Dumas. He was visitin' a guy named Lustig up in 938 early this morning; I brought him up some beer. Dumas checked out at nine thirty this morning. Lustig turned out to be a no-pay; room clean and no sign of him.”
“You can see why I thought he might be useful, Jimmy,” Lieutenant Dameron said briskly. “He has a nose for trouble.”
“He also has a nose for facts; he laid out a pretty straight story.” Rogers frowned down at his notebook. “The bar boy heard the first two shots and started right in here. On the way he heard a pop-pop; silencer on the second gun, evidently. He ran right back out when he got a look around and says he didn't pass anyone either way.”
“How do you figure the second bird got out of here, then?” Lieutenant Dameron asked him.
“Same key he came in with, I'd say, sir. Mighty cool character. Changed horses at flood tide and never batted an eye.” He closed his notebook. “I'll talk to a few more of the help now, if we've finished here.”
The ruddyfaced man stood up slowly. “You go ahead; I'm running along. Begins to look like one of those things around here; this is the second stone wall we've hit.”
Johnny looked at Detective Rogers. “Manuel tell you what Dutch said?”
The slender man nodded and looked at the lieutenant. “The kid said that the chef said something that sounded like 'clocks.'”
“Clocks?” The big man circled the room with his eyes and stopped at the big kitchen clock. He pointed to it. “Have the lab boys dismantle that and go over it. There won't be anything to it, bat we might as well make a noise like we knew what we were doing, especially since it doesn't look like the rush of witnesses is going to knock us down.” He led the way out to the bar, stopped, and turned to Johnny. “You have a key to this thing?”
“Yeah, but Willie's a little fussy who he sets them up for.”
The apple cheeks darkened, but the lieutenant bit off any reply he might have been going to make. He turned and strode out through the lobby, his heels hitting heavily, — and Jimmy Rogers shook his head disapprovingly at Johnny. “What does it get you, man?”
“A little satisfaction.”
“He'll wear you out, if he takes a notion.”
Johnny looked at him. “I don't work for him, kid. He'll play hell gettin' an angle on me. And when I was workin' for him, I'd leave it up to him who wore who out.”
Detective Rogers laughed. He started to say something and then broke off as Ronald Frederick emerged through the swinging doors from the lobby, in pajamas and plum colored robe. He came directly to them. “A dreadful accident, dreadful.”
“Accident?” Jimmy Rogers' tone was amused.
“I meant to say-that is to say, not an accident, most assuredly not, but a shocking-ah-occurrence. They woke me to let me know.”
The sandyhaired man nodded. “If we could have three minutes' conversation now it might save fifteen or twenty in the morning,” he suggested.
“Certainly,” Ronald Frederick acceded promptly. **We can use my office.” He turned to Johnny. “You'll take care of-ah-things?”
“Yeah.” He looked at the sandyhaired man. “I got something for you I wouldn't give that lardhead just walked out of here. There's an automatic pilot elevator touches on that kitchen; we use it for room service. The kitchen outlet is supposed to be locked at ten every night, but for a client with keys it's the easiest route.”
“Where does it go?” Detective Rogers demanded.
Johnny grinned at him. “Only to the sixteenth floor.”
The slender man grimaced. “I already had no appetite for breakfast; now I'm losing it for lunch.”
“The kitchen outlet can be locked either from the kitchen side or the elevator side,” Johnny suggested.
“So?” Jimmy Rogers began, and then his eyes narrowed. “Then whatever floor that elevator is on now is where the guy got off?”
“If he used it,” Johnny amended. “And if he was cute enough not to get off at his own floor you won't have lowered the odds a nickel's worth.”
“Give me your keys,” Detective Rogers said briskly. “I'd like to start lowering the odds around here even a little bit.”
“I have mine,” Ronald Frederick said interestedly, and produced them from a pocket of his robe. “May I accompany you?”
“You two go ahead,” Johnny told them. “I haven't checked the front in an hour.” He watched the oddly matched pair pause in the service door entrance to the again darkened kitchen while Rogers flipped on lights; when the door swung shut behind them, Johnny left the bar for the lobby. He glanced over at Sally's switchboard; and regretted it immediately; she beckoned imperiously, but he shook his head. Making a circle of thumb and forefinger of each hand, he lifted them to his eyes, and then pointed upward. Sally shook her head in a furious negative, but Johnny grinned at her and headed for the elevator.
As he started upward, he could hear the impatient, persistent ringing of the unanswered bell captain's phone.
Chapter V
If he was afraid of anything in this world, he was afraid of confinement. Johnny could feel his nostrils thinning in anticipatory rejection as he knelt before the heavy walnut desk in his own room and from the right hand bottom drawer removed flashlight, screwdriver, and icepick. On his way back to the door he could see in the mirror the hard line of his lips as he carefully patted bulging pockets to make sure he had forgotten nothing.
In the corridor he passed the exit door with its prim red overhead light, and stopped at the door beyond it with its neatly lettered metal sign, Maid. He opened this door, groped around behind the mops and the broom handles and removed a short stepladder whose bulk had effectively sealed the narrow opening behind it.
Johnny drew a deep breath, took a final look along the deserted corridor, and squeezed into the closet; he
