magic carpet ride downtown. That Rogers is polite enough, but in his own way he's as much of an earache as Cuneo. I don't like them-either of them.” Conviction strengthened her tone momentarily and then died out as heat and weariness took over. “I have the most dreadful feeling I'm doing this all wrong, Johnny. The original decision seemed simple enough, but now it's complicated beyond belief. That girl-” Her voice trailed off as she sat huddled in the chair.
“Whyn't you talk a little bit about what happened over at Sanders' place that night, Lorraine? Might take a little pressure off you, if nothin' else.”
Her lips firmed stubbornly. “I know nothing that would help you.”
Ice cubes tinkled in his drink as he leaned up on an elbow. “How do you know, for God's sake? More important, how do I know? This is personal with me, Lorraine. I'll find out anyway, but you could save me leg work. An' time.”
For an instant he thought his savage probing had made an impression, but then she shook her head. “I can't trust your reaction.”
“What do you care about my reaction?” he began quickly, then paused. It was the wrong thing to have said. Obviously she did care, or she would not be balancing on a high wire with the police. He groped for a saving phrase, but she spoke before he could get himself back on the rails.
“Why do you think Bobby Perry was killed, Johnny?” Her voice was subdued.
He sank back on the sofa. For a moment he had been close to something, but the moment had passed. “That kid had hot little hands for money. She was workin' up to something with me. She could have been tryin' to peddle something to a guy allergic to buying. Or she could have been someone's alibi for Sanders, and the someone fixed it for good that she wouldn't change her mind. I kind of like that one.”
He lifted his head again to finish off his drink, set the glass down on the floor and swung his feet around from the sofa arm and into his shoes. He stood up and picked up his shirt from the back of the chair; he looked down at the drawn-faced woman. “One thing you can bet me-she knew who it was. She'd left work to keep an appointment. The guy set her up like a clay pigeon, climbed the fire escape from the alley, didn't see me in my high-backed chair and closed the books on her proposition.”
“You think it's Russo, or Winslow, or whatever his name is, don't you?” she asked, watching him closely.
He shrugged. “I'd like to find out Roberta Perry was his alibi for Sanders. For sure that'd put him on my hit parade.”
“I can't see him as a murderer,” she said slowly. “From the little I've seen of him, that is. Although do you ever really know? This man didn't start out to commit three murders. One thing just led to another.” She paused as she thought of something else. “Are the papers going to know you were in that room when Bobby was killed?”
“The police don't want it given out, but the landlady at least knew it. They muzzled her, or they think they did.” He tried to make his voice light. “How about it, Lorraine? Just the answers to a coupla questions?”
“I'm sorry, Johnny.”
Despite himself his voice thickened and his hands hooked into claws. “Lorraine-”
“Stop it.” Her voice had gone cold as ice. “I know you'd like to muscle it out of me, but I wouldn't recommend it.”
He could feel the heat in his face; not trusting his voice he turned and walked from the apartment, only with an effort preventing himself from slamming the door. He stormed down the single flight of steps and out onto the walk. Damn all stubborn women… how was he going to get it out of her, anyway? He jerked open the iron gate and clanged it shut behind him as he turned right to walk back to the hotel. He almost bumped into a figure that detached itself from the fence. “Got a light, bud?”
Impatiently he reached for the lighter in his shirt pocket. He looked at the lean, dark face in the lighter's glow, a dark suit, complete with jacket, even in this heat. And then the dark man's right hand flashed up and caught Johnny solidly under the left ear and rocked him sideways into the iron fence. He bounced off into a left to the body that was partially minimized by his nearness as his lighter clattered to the sidewalk, and the dark man spoke raspingly. “Maybe you'll mind your own business after this, bud.”
The dark man launched another right hand, but Johnny partially blocked it, caught the hand and dragged the body behind it in close. He hurt his own right hand on the belt buckle of the dark suit, and the man sagged, gasping. Johnny picked him up bodily by the shoulders, carried him over to the fence, and hung him by his coat collar from a blunt iron pike.
“Now, punk,” he growled throatily. “Who sent you? Start talkin' and save yourself a little wear-and-tear.” He slapped the dark face hard, left, right, left, right. The suspended man's toes scrabbled on the sidewalk as he tried in vain to get leverage. Dimly Johnny heard a car door slam and the sound of running feet; he turned to confront the two shirt-sleeved men coming at him shoulder to shoulder.
“Get him!” the nearer man grated, and a bludgeoning arm and the weight of the blocky body thrust Johnny backward. Instinctively he clamped the thrashing figure in his arms, and as he drew on arm and back muscles for the constriction he half turned to look for the third man. Metal glinted to Johnny's right as the man in his arms bleated hoarsely, screamed and went limp; he shifted position, but not in time. A starburst exploded above his right eye; he felt something rip, and a curtain of blood washed over the eye. He threw the crumpled body in his arms to the sidewalk, where it rolled off into the gutter, and turned to the man with the brass knuckles.
He absorbed a body punch as he cocked his head awkwardly because of the blindness in his eye; he moved in closer and landed a glancing left of his own. As the man backed up a step Johnny charged him; the shirt-sleeved arm swung hurriedly and missed, and Johnny dumped him to the sidewalk with a blasting right that missed the chin and landed on the throat. With bitter anger a brassy taste in his throat he stooped and picked up the crawling figure waist-high and slammed it into the street.
“All right, Johnny. That's enough.” Johnny whirled at the voice behind him, half crouched, arms outstretched, and the speaker backed hastily away. “Easy. This is Rogers.” Johnny focused with difficulty on the sandy-haired detective and then looked beyond him to the man still suspended from the fence.
“Outta the way.” His voice was a croak. “I want that one.”
“Stop it!” Detective Rogers grunted as Johnny shouldered through him on his way to the fence. He reached quickly for his shoulder holster as Johnny grabbed the belt of the dark man on the fence, and yanked. The man came off the fence wearing just the sleeves of his suit jacket, and his face was a dirty gray.
“Let's hear it while you can talk,” Johnny snarled down into the face, and his shoulders swelled as his arms bunched. “Who sent you?”
Detective Rogers pushed in between them; his face was shiny. “Drop him, Johnny. I'll handle this.”
“Aghhhh-” The sound was prolonged, breathy, and disgusted. “Take a walk around the block, Jimmy. Then you can have him.”
“I said drop him.” Firmness had returned to the detective's tone; he placed a hand on the dark man's arm. Johnny snorted angrily but turned loose his belt hold, and the dark man's dead weight nearly carried Jimmy Rogers to the sidewalk with him.
Johnny stepped back and sleeved the obscured eye, but it filled right up again, and he reached for the spare handkerchief in his hip pocket.
“Johnny!” Lorraine Barnes ran toward him awkwardly; in her dash to the street she had lost a shoe. Her breath came rough and hard as she turned indignantly to Detective Rogers. “I saw it all from-upstairs. They were waiting, one at the-gate, two in the car. They rushed-”
“I saw it, too,” the detective cut in. He looked down at the man at his feet. “I couldn't've been more than sixty yards down the street, but by the time I put in the squeal from my car and got over here Johnny had rearranged the landscape.” He looked down at the revolver still in his hand as though wondering how it had come there; he re-holstered it hurriedly. He took three steps to the curb and inspected Brass Knuckles, who was struggling to his knees. The detective pushed him to a sitting position, took one look at the still figure in the gutter- the man who had been in Johnny's arms-and turned away.
“Your eye-” Lorraine Barnes said to Johnny.
“I'll run him over to the hospital soon's the boys get here,” Detective Rogers said quickly.
“No hospital,” Johnny said flatly. He turned to Lorraine. “You don't mind my drippin' a little I'll go upstairs and clean up.”
“You're going to need stitches in that eye cut,” Jimmy Rogers said positively. He stepped out into the street with his arms over his head as he pushed his way through the gathering crowd and signaled to the muted siren and
