Willie leaned forward in his chair again. He looked tired Johnny thought. “Is this the man, Joe? Am I safe in preferring charges? Have you got a case?”
lieutenant Dameron spoke carefully. “With your help, Willie, we intend-” He broke off as the slender man stood up suddenly.
“I can't buy it,” he said sharply. “Not this way. I'll soften it a little, though. I'll have to talk to my lawyer first, of course. Then I'm going to Acapulco in the morning. I'll be back in two days, and by that time you should have developed this thing to the point where you either don't need me at all, or that I can justify my intervention. More than that I can't do.”
“We don't want that little bastard to have two days,” Johnny said gloomily. “I'd bet my life he's the juggler keepin' all this stuff in the air. We grab him we got a good chance of rollin' up the rug on the jackpot.”
Willie looked at him. “Aren't you giving him the Iron Cross with palms for being the mastermind behind all this that I've been listening to, in addition to holding down a full time job?”
“Willie, how many times have I steered you wrong? He's the man.”
Willie shrugged. “We could sit here all night and get nowhere,” he said after a moment. “That's not what I came to New York for, though. Let's go, Johnny.”
Johnny rose reluctantly, looking at the big man behind the desk, who looked away. No one offered to shake hands on the way out, and on the stone steps outside Willie paused and looked up at Johnny. “You figure I'm wrong?”
“I know you're wrong.”
“Sorry.” But he didn't sound sorry, Johnny thought; he slowly descended to the street in the wake of the slender man impatiently whistling for a cab.
He heard Sally's key in the door, and he put down his newspaper as she entered with her arms full of bundles. Her eyebrows lifted at sight of him in the easy chair. “Well buster,” she commented on her way through to the kitchen where she set down her packages with a thump, “I couldn't truthfully say I expected to see you this morning Have you been to bed at all? What happened to Willie?”
“Just put him on the plane to Mexico,” Johnny said.
Her voice drifted out from the kitchen. “He ought to be right in his element with the jumping beans.” She reappeared in the doorway. “You all right? You look a little down. Or just hung over?”
“That must be it, ma.”
She walked into the bedroom and came out with the telephone pad in her hand. “I had a report this morning from a Fontaine Agency operative,” she said importantly. “Interested?”
“It depends.”
“Let me check and see if you've paid last month's bill. Maybe your credit rating doesn't call for any additional information.” She looked down at his expression of inquiry. “Mr. Carl Muller is in town.”
Johnny grunted. “You know that?”
She nodded. “He's not only in town, he's in the hotel. I've had Vivian Fuller-she's the new day housekeeper- watching Mrs. Muller's room ever since you said you were interested in it. She called me a half hour ago and said that he'd just checked in. Same address, Bremerhaven. He doesn't speak as good English as his wife. He asked if a Mr.-” she checked the telephone pad ”-Samud was registered or had left a message for him. Seemed surprised when they said no and made the desk check again. They opened up the connecting door between 1224 and 1226 and made a suite out of it; you know, with the bathroom in between. End of report.”
Johnny stared at the white summer curtains moving gently in the early morning breeze. “He's meeting someone. Or planning to. Probably doesn't have a thing in the world to do with this other skirmish-” He stood up restlessly and jammed his hands in his pockets. “Think I'll go out for awhile.”
“You just got here. Barely.”
“I'll call you, ma.”
He ran lightly down the single flight of stairs to the street level, his mind on Carl Muller. Now if somehow there should be a connection-
He noticed the man in the hallway but brushed past him to open the door. His hand barely touched the knob when a hard object was jammed into his right side and a voice spoke curtly in his ear. “Take the second cab at the stand, bud. No tricks.”
Gun and voice were at his right; Johnny turned left. “I beg your pardon?” he said politely over his left shoulder, then continued to turn in apparent surprise at not finding anyone there. In the middle of his turn the pressure in his right side lessened as the man with the gun tried in vain to follow his movement, and Johnny accelerated. He came out of the turn with a stiffened left forearm that clubbed the squat body viciously at the beltline, and the man gasped and doubled up, face screwed up in agony.
Johnny chopped a rabbit punch to the exposed neck, and the man pitched forward to his knees. Johnny bent swiftly and removed the gun from the nerveless hand as the squat man fell over on his side; with a firm grip he grabbed the slack shirt collar and towed the limp figure along the parqueted floor toward the basement entrance just down the corridor from him. Five minutes privacy with this one, and he would have the answers to a few questions.
Johnny speeded up as he heard steps descending the stairs. The overhang partly hid him, and he didn't know whether he had been seen or not. He was not long in doubt; the voice behind him was heavy and demanding. “Just a minute, mister.”
Johnny halted and turned slowly. A stout man with hard gray eyes advanced from the foot of the stairs and stopped a dozen feet away. Johnny blinked; there was no gun in his hand. That was an improvement. He estimated the distance between them, and then it came to him. “You Dameron's stakeout here?”
“That's right, fella.” He gestured at the figure on the floor. “I'll take over now. I saw the whole thing from the top of the stairs. That's a real nice move, Killain. Like to show it to me sometime on my day off?”
“I'll make a deal with you, Jack. You go get lost upstairs for ten minutes. When you come back down I give you this and I show you the move any time you say.”
The fat man shook his head regretfully. “I can't do it. I got my orders, and they say to keep an eye on that door upstairs, and to break up any scrimmage you get into around here. What I hear, if I took you up on that offer I'd need a basket to get him downtown.”
“It bothers you, Jack?”
“It bothers the people that sent me here.
Johnny started to reply and then remembered. “This bastard said the second cab at the stand-” He ran lightly to the door with the fat man outdistanced. Behind the first cab at the stand was an empty space. “Damn-!”
“Gone, huh?” the stout man sympathized. “Too bad. I think I'll call and get the meat wagon for your boy here.”
“Here.” Johnny handed him the gun. “This goes with him.”
“Well, thanks, now. I appreciate it. Sorry I can't do you that other favor, but you know how it is. I sure would like to learn that move, too.”
“You keep the stairs here clean, and you learn the move.”
“Yeah? Mister,
Johnny nodded, and turned to the door.
He ran into Jimmy Rogers just inside the door of the stationhouse, and the sandyhaired man cocked a quizzical eyebrow at the sight of him. “The lieutenant get hold of you? He's been calling all around.”
“First I heard of it. What's up?”
“Put up your lightning rod.”
“Like that, huh? What's chewin' him?” Johnny followed the detective inside to the private offices, and a billow of sound rolled through the corridor.
“Rogers!”
Johnny grinned at Jimmy Rogers' sardonic glance. “The bull moose is in rut, huh? Let's go in an' give him a hotfoot.”
“You don't have to work for him.” Detective Rogers made no objection to Johnny entering behind him into the same office he had left with Willie Martin not so many hours ago.
