Doorway to Death

switchboard, where he interrupted Myrna's drowsy gum-chewing in the mealtime lull on the board.

In the light of Sally's warning he would have liked to have had a story ready with which to go up against this girl, but now there was no time. This one he would have to play by ear.

Myrna Hansen was a slender girl whose very ordinary features were dwarfed by large horn-rimmed glasses, and both features and glasses were dominated in turn by a tousled mop of orange-tinted hair. The eyes behind the horn rims were an indeterminate shade of blue, and set a little closely together, and they examined his uniform at first sleepily and then more alertly as she nodded to him. “You're quite a stranger, Johnny. Someone sick on this shift?”

“Tradin' a few hours. How you doin', sugarpuss?”

The thin mouth pursed itself appraisingly. “Skip the preliminaries, man. If you want something, say so.”

Johnny changed gears. “Matter of fact, I do. I wanted to say thanks.”

The glasses estimated him carefully. “Thanks? To me?”

“Yeah. Ma told me how you'd rolled out of the bunk to make room for me.”

“Oh, that.” She settled back in her chair. “She shouldn't have told you that. Sally's a little naive in a lot of ways.”

“And you're not?”

She looked at him levelly. “That's right, Johnny. I'm not.”

“I believe you,” he grinned at her, “but regardless, I figure I owe you a little something. I like to pay my bills.”

She sat there with the orange head under the headphone cocked suspiciously to one side, testing his voice for hidden inflections. “Am I supposed to ask how you'd like to pay this one?”

He shrugged. “You did me a favor, kid. I'd scratch your back for free when you gave me the word. You want a dress pressed? A cake baked? A car stolen? A church bombed? A man killed? Call Johnny. Service with a smile.”

“I see.” She looked up at him thoughtfully, started to say something, and changed her mind. When she did speak it was briskly. “I'll take it under advisement. Meantime, now that you've made your little speech, why did you really stop here?”

This time his grin was reluctant; this was a shrewd little witch. “That's the next order of business, but don't forget I meant what I said.” He leaned forward over the railing. “In the next thirty minutes you're gonna get a call on the board here from outside.” She watched him carefully as he spoke. “The caller is going to ask you about the atomic blonde dazzler in 1224.”

Her eyes left his face to range the alphabetized room listing posted at the right of her switchboard, and her voice was flat and positive when she looked back at him. “1224's no atomic blonde dazzler.”

“But you're goin' to say she is. You can send me the bill.”

“I don't send bills,” she said coolly. “I collect dividends.”

Johnny had already made up his mind. He took a small notebook from his uniform breast pocket and handed it to her. “Scribble your name and address in here so I can add you to my Christmas list.”

She took the notebook, hesitated, and handed it back to him. “You can write, can't you? Here's a pen.”

Shrewd. Nothing in her own handwriting. He opened the notebook and reached for the pen. “Shoot.”

She withdrew the pen. “On second thought, I don't believe I want my name and address in your little black book. I could be in bad company. You know where to find me. If and when it becomes dividend time, you can put it in a bushel basket, and leave it right here.”

Johnny returned the notebook to his pocket. “It does simplify things, doesn't-”

The switchboard buzzed, and she held up a warning finger. “Good evening, Hotel Duarte. May I help you?” As she listened her head swung sharply from the board around to Johnny. “What room number was that again, please?” Slim fingers twisted the phone cord. “You know I'm not supposed to give out information like that, don't you? I could get in trouble.” She leaned back in her chair so that she could watch Johnny's expression. “I'd have to know who was calling.” A corner of the thin mouth quirked upward. “Well, I suppose if it's only idle curiosity… well, yes. That's right. Yes. Very striking. Yes.” She reached for the key. “No. Blonde. Yes. You're welcome.” She flipped the key and turned back to Johnny. “Well?”

“You played it like Bernhardt, kid.”

“Don't I know that voice?” The thin girl frowned, trying to think. “He was disguising it, or trying to, but I'm sure-”

“Thanks for goin' along with the gag, Myrna. You'll be a little heavier when you leave at the end of your shift.”

She nodded almost absently, but he could feel her eyes on him all the way over to the elevator. This girl was a twenty minute egg, for sure; if he had to make much use of her she was going to present a problem eventually. On the way up in the elevator he reviewed the tight little sequence of events, but his mind kept straying from the thin girl with the orange hair and possible problem she might present to the eyes of the gray-haired woman in 1224. Mrs. Girl Muller; Johnny shook his head slowly as he paused in the corridor outside his room and fumbled at the clip on his wristwatch band for his key.

“You've seen eyes like that before, Killain,” he told himself. “Not yesterday, or the day before, but you've seen them. On the wrong side of the barbed wire.”

He looked down unseeingly a moment at the key in his hand before inserting it in the lock….

He had opened the refrigerator door and reached for the frosted bottle of beer when the phone rang, and he closed the door. “Yeah?”

“It's Paul, Johnny. I'm on the board.” There was a subdued hint of urgency in Paul's usually phlegmatic voice.

“Where's Sally?”

“Ladies' room. Look, Johnny; there's a charged-up cowboy down here in the lobby you ought to take a look at.”

“What's he look like?”

“Kind of slim, pale face, red hair, freckles, a little-”

“I know him. What's his pitch?”

“He walked in from the street and asked Vic where you were. Vic told him you weren't around right that minute, and he said he'd wait. He's sitting in the front row of lobby chairs, facing the elevators, half cocked around in the chair so he can see the whole lobby by turning his head.”

“Drunk?”

“I don't think he's drunk-”

“Snowed, then. That's lovely.” Johnny remembered the stark expanse of freckles in the dead white, reckless face.

“It figures. Listen, Paul. He's trouble. I'll have to come down and get him. From what you say, the only way I can get at him is to drop down to the sub-basement and go around the building and come in the help's entrance. One flight up from there'll put me in the lobby, behind him. You wait three minutes, and then let the board go for itself. Get over to the desk and keep an eye on that lobby entrance, and when you see me there you give me some good loud entrance music. Anyone else in the lobby now?”

“Old man Tompkins is asleep in his chair.”

“It would take you twenty minutes to wake him up and get him moving. Leave him alone. Get Vic out of the way. Send him out on some errand and tell him I said to go.” He thought a minute. “Get this, now. When you set me up on the entrance, dig yourself a hole. If this boy catches me on the way across the lobby to him he might figure you for the diversion and knock an ear off you just for fun. When's Sally due back?”

“Ten minutes. Little more, maybe.”

“All right. I'm on the way down. Keep your eye on that entrance. I'm not gonna be posin' there.”

“I'll see you.”

“Just so you do.”

In the sub-basement's humidity Johnny left the elevator and ran down the alley and around the blank rear side of the hotel, dodging ashcans and garbage buckets from the neighboring areaways. He went up the single flight of stairs inside the help's off-street entrance three steps at a time and stopped just inside the lobby entrance and settled a balled fist lightly in the other palm. He stepped out into the frame of the entrance for an instant, and then