many.”
He worried it around under the steaming hot water, and after a cold rinse emerged no nearer a solution. He slid into fresh underwear, and glanced at his watch on the bureau; scarcely more than an hour since he had stood in the alley and watched the lights come on in the kitchen far down the side of the building.
Max was gone, and Dutch was gone, and Dumas-if that was his name-was gone, all violently, and judging from their temper the police knew little more than he did. Johnny ran a comb through thick, damp hair; it was just about time that a thread frazzled somewhere on the fringe and gave a man something he could follow up to the counterpane.
He sat down on the edge of the bed and tried to divorce his mind from his still queasy stomach. He opened a drawer and looked in at a carton of cigarettes, changed his mind, and closed the drawer again. He went back into the bathroom and wrung out a towel in cold water, returned to the bed, stretched out, and placed it over his eyes. Deliberately he tried to make his mind a blank; he tried to withdraw physically from the painful hammering just behind his eyes.
The phone woke him. Bright sunlight poured in the room as he sat up with a start, and he blinked as he reached for it. “Yeah?”
“It's Sally.”
“Christ.” Unbelievingly he looked at the sun. “You still downstairs?”
“I'm at the apartment. It's noontime.”
“Noontime! Man, was that ever a blackout-”
“I sent Paul up to look at you. He said you were sound asleep, so I told him to leave you alone. He didn't have any trouble the balance of the shift.”
“You callin' for anything special?”
“Well, you wanted to know about anything that looked even a little bit unusual-”
“So what's unusual?”
“Well, we wouldn't notice it on our shift, but Myrna mentioned when I relieved her last night that 1224 has had every meal in her room since she checked in three days ago.”
“Sick, probably.”
“Myrna says not. I looked at the registry card, and she's a Mrs. Carl Muller, from Bremerhaven, Germany.”
Johnny frowned. “Could be something, at that You did right to call me. I'll probably be by the place in an hour or so, ma. Put some beer in the refrigerator, huh? See you soon.”
He swung his legs off the bed to the floor and stood up. His eyes were as gritty as though they had been well sanded, but outside of that he felt fine. He dropped to the floor and did a dozen pushups, then went into the bathroom and shaved. He dressed leisurely; he couldn't remember the last time he had been up this early in the day. He felt good.
He rode the main elevator down to the lobby and walked back through the bar to the kitchen, returning to normal after the luncheon rush. He waved to Hans, the first cook, standing to the left of the big range, a tall man with a perpetually sour expression. “Have someone throw a few eggs in a skillet for me, Hans? 'N a handful of home fries.”
Johnny drew a big mug of steaming coffee from the big urn and carried it over to the butcher's block in the corner which he always used as a table. He upended a ginger ale case for a seat, and seated himself as Hans himself silently placed on the block a platter containing a half dozen eggs sunnyside up and a heaping mound of potatoes.
“Thanks, Hans.” Johnny sugared his black coffee liberally, and looked up at the tall man standing beside him, and at the look on Hans's face he remembered. “Oh. Last night.” Johnny shook his head. “Rough. Police talk to you yet?”
“They were here this morning.” Displeasure wrinkled Hans's brow. “They don't know any more than I do.”
“They got a way of worrying things till they come up with an answer. Freddie say anything? He going to give you a shot at the job?”
“I am to talk to him this afternoon. I certainly hope-”
“Possession is nine points of the law,” Johnny reminded him. “You're on the ground, and you're producin'. That's the main thing.”
Hans shrugged, not too cheerfully, and walked away to supervise a boy cleaning the interior of a small refrigerator. Johnny attacked his eggs. One thing about a kitchen run by Dutch and Hans, he mused: the sauces and the relishes might have a little less tang or brio than in a French kitchen, but damn if you couldn't literally eat off the floor. Cleanliness came even before godliness with these people.
He ate steadily, only an occasional twinge in his jaw reminding him of the skirmish of two evenings ago. He lingered over his coffee, then looked up and around for Hans as the memory of Sally's telephone call came to him. “Hans!”
“Yes?”
“Who's rushin' the trays upstairs these days?”
“Richie Gordon.”
“He around?”
“In the boiler room, probably. He always is.”
Johnny finished his coffee, stacked his dishes and carried them over to the rack. He re-crossed the long room to the rear, opened the massive fire door and descended the spiral metal staircase to the storeroom below. He threaded his way through the narrow passageway created by the high piled cases of canned goods on either side and approached a huge door heavily padded with asbestos. The door opened outward as Johnny reached for it, and he peered through the gloom dispelled scarcely at all by the widespaced naked light bulbs. “Eddie? Richie in there?”
White teeth shone in the dark face, but the rich voice was disconsolate. “He shuah is, Mist' Johnny. Him an'
The heavy door creaked shut behind Johnny as he stepped inside and joined the tightknit kneeling semicircle. A slim, uniformed youngster with the face of a choir boy was speaking earnestly to the medium-sized green dice he held in his hand. “-one's for the coach and carriage, children … hit it quick for papa, and we're over the hill and far away. Little big ol' natural comin' up… I can feel it… I can feel it jus' as plain-”
“That's what she said,” a basso profundo growled from his audience. “Throw the damn dice, Richie.”
The boy's arm swung forward, and the dice clanked off the furnace front, spun dizzily, and stopped, and the boy leaped into the air, straight as an arrow. “Eleven! Nice little dice-”
Heavy breathing and disgusted mutters drifted upward; green money fluttered downward, and Fred, the day bartender, straightened stiffly and backed out of the circle, shaking his head ruefully as he caught Johnny's eye. “Ain't that kid somethin'?”
“You boys are missing a bet, Fred. The kid's lucky. You ought to make up a pot and take him around to a real game. He ties a few passes together there, you guys'll have had a good season, and God knows seems like every time I walk in here he's either puttin' on a hand or just finished one.
“Maybe you're right, at that. He's sure enough got us all working for him here. You'd think this game was a benefit. We'll play hell gettin' our money back from him, the way he's goin'.”
The boy rubbed the dice briskly on his sleeve, speaking to them as equals. “-whisper to me one time, now, and we burn down the grandstand… comin' up, comin' out, comin' out, comin' up… one time now… hah!”
He rolled a nine, and made it right back; threw a four, and rolled interminably before taking down the money with two deuces; rolled a seven; rolled an eleven, and sevened out looking for an eight. The circle around him was decimated; silent figures on their knees glumly watched the boy stuff loose bills in his pockets, and the dice lay idle on the floor. The spirit, as well as the money, was gone from the game.
Johnny caught the boy's eye. “Got a minute, Richie?”
“Sure thing, John.”
Johnny led him into a corner, and looked down into the precociously wise hazel eyes in the young face. “1224, Rich.”
The boy made a wry face. “Not a dime.” *
