I'd pulled your chestnuts outta the fire here. Then what?”
The voice was tired. “You didn't ask for a written contract.”
“And a damn good thing, I can see now, you Irish sonofabitch. You never did assay very high to the ton in my book, Joe, and if I wasn't rustin' completely away in this plush birdcage for something to do I'd kiss you off for good. I'm tellin' you now: you stay the hell out of my way.”
The voice was sharper. “Don't get ideas, Johnny. Don't meddle in something that's none of your business. Don't make me prove I'm a cop.”
“And don't you make me laugh. The next corner I turn that you're around, I run right over the top of you.” Johnny banged up the receiver and boiled out of the booth to collide with an underdressed cigarette girl carrying her wares on a neck-slung tray.
“Why, Johnny! I've missed you-” She was tall and dark, with long slender legs in full length opera hose, brief shorts and a briefer bra of black satin. She was an extremely good-looking girl, with flawless pale features under jet black hair.
“I'm in a hurry, Shirley.”
“You and that boss of yours are always in a hurry. Relax; you'll live longer. He tell you when he'd be back?”
“He didn't say.”
“You're not even a good liar, Johnny. What did he tell you?”
“I said I was in a rush, Shirl.” He tried to edge by her past the close-crowded tables, and she stepped into his path.
“Why don't you drop by some night in the master's absence and warm up the couch, Johnny?”
“That shade of mauve makes me bilious.”
She tapped her teeth with a silvered fingernail. “Not anti-social, are you? Or did you just remember your Boy Scout oath?”
“You're not makin' a play for me, Shirl. Relax.”
“When did Willie say he'd be back?”
“What did he tell you when you asked him?”
Two bright red spots emblazoned the pale face; the tall girl in one quick movement picked up a package of cigarettes from her tray and threw them right in Johnny's face. A titter ran around the nearer tables, but Shirley took an involuntary backward step at the look on his face as he straightened from his instinctive half-crouch. His voice when he found it was huskily soft. “Don't press your luck, Shirl.”
She had recovered her poise in that instant; her voice was jeering. “Run along, little boy. Willie will keep you in line.”
“Don't ever count on it.” He brushed her aside roughly and strode heavily to the door. You can keep an eye on your own damn wildcats, Willie, he thought to himself grimly. I'm too likely to break that one's little neck.
On the street he slammed back toward the hotel in a furious black mist.
“Over here, sonny.”
Johnny looked and leaped in the same instant, surprising the freckled, reckless face above the snubnosed automatic partially concealed in the pointing hand, and the man ricocheted off the parked car against which he had been leaning and looked down with a shocked grin at the gun which clattered noisily into the street.
The big hands closed down on the lapels of the garish sport jacket. “I didn't get the name, chum?”
The man twisted, freckles stark in the pale face. He tried to kick, tried viciously to jerk up a knee, and the hands shook him until his head bobbed wildly, and the whites of his eyes rolled up.
Johnny widened his leg stance. “Let's hear something, gunman, or I feed you one of your ears.”
The frecklefaced man's hat flew off disclosing carroty red hair as he snarled defiance between gasps. “Go to h-hell-!”
Johnny's shoulders bunched under the uniform as he leaned forward to increase his leverage.
“Drop him, muscles!” Johnny turned; over his shoulder he could see the twin of the gun he had knocked into the street prominently displayed in the grip of a large, swarthy man in a seersucker suit three paces to his rear. He shrugged and released his grip, and the man he had been shaking staggered to one side, a hand at his throat, wheezing hard.
“Get your gun, Eddie,” the seersucker suit said softly. “The boss said this one was a character.”
As Johnny's eyes automatically followed Eddie scrambling in the gutter, the swarthy man took a long step and a short step forward and in perfect coordination reversed his gun and, in a full armed swing, exploded its butt high off Johnny's head.
When the first flash of light subsided he found himself on his knees staring foggily at two large feet planted solidly on the sidewalk in front of him. Too late he reacted to the position of the feet; his twisting lunge carried him right into the second crashing impact, this time along the jaw-line. Johnny felt something sharp catch under his ear and rip through the flesh, and pure anger as well as reflex conditioned his furious grab at the close-in knees. His arms tightened around them hungrily as the man above him yelled in surprise, and he lifted mightily and smashed him to the sidewalk, rolling over on him.
He grinned down tightly into the stricken face below him, cocking his own head to one side so that he could see from the good eye. “You don't look near so tough from up here, Bud.”
Methodically Johnny freed a hand and arm. He pinned the thrashing body beneath him with his own weight, and systematically hammered the contorted face, meantime trying to inch around to increase his field of vision on the side of the bad eye. Eddie was on his mind, but not soon enough. Sudden, brilliant light hurt his eyes, and he tipped forward into a long, inclined chute…
He came to, sitting on the sidewalk with his back propped against the building wall with someone he couldn't see mopping the blood streaming down his face and neck.
“-jumped him. Two of 'em. I seen it,” a voice announced excitedly over his head.
“Who is he? Where's-?”
“-big bellhop from up the street. Man, 'd you-”
“-got away. Two more in a car across-”
“-an ambulance. A doctor, anyway-”
“-see the other one? Hope his wife had a picture of him-”
“Hey! Don't all crowd around!”
Johnny cleared his throat; vision was returning on one side. “Gimme a hand up here, one of you.”
“You can't make it, Mac.”
“Gimme a hand. I'll make it.”
They struggled with his bulk and got him to his feet. The night air felt wonderfully cool as he took deep, deep breaths; he felt better. He fixed a younglooking face with his good eye. “Hustle on up to the hotel, son, and tell Paul I want him.”
He waited, releasing himself from the supporting arms; he tried a tentative step and grimaced as his knees twinged. He could feel his strength returning; with his sleeve he dabbed at the slow trickle running down the side of his face. He looked impatiently at the increasing crowd milling around; he had to get out of there. He looked up with relief when Paul pushed through its fringes. “Little difference of opinion, Paul.” The stolid Paul nodded. “Get Doc Phillips started up to my room. Then drop the service elevator to the sub-basement, and I'll get on from the alley.”
“Can you make it to the alley?”
“I'll make it.” He motioned the crowd out of the way as Paul hurried back up the street. “Goodnight, folks. Repeat performance tomorrow night by special request. Admission will be charged; refreshments will be served. Come early; seats are goin' fast. All right; back up now-”
He marked a line on the sidewalk and started off, bearing down with such a conscious effort to maintain- it that he almost missed the turn into the alley. He swerved at the last instant, and the two or three stragglers who had followed him stopped and stared silently as Paul opened the door and helped him inside. The fifteen feet to the cab seemed longer; inside it he propped himself against a side wall and slowly released breath he seemed to have been holding almost indefinitely.
He could feel Paul's eyes on him as the elevator started up. “Never kid a southerner about Antietam, Paul.”
