balcony, kid.”
Marty's grin was sheepish. “It makes me unusual?”
“It puts you in bad company.” Johnny studied the unease in the sharp features under the red hair. “I'll lay it on the line, Marty. You been puttin' out information on guests in the hotel to the blonde, for services rendered, maybe?” The boy tugged self-consciously at his bow tie. “Just put this in your peace pipe, kid-there's gonna be a big, loud noise up on that balcony shortly. Are you covered?”
Marty Seiden swallowed. “I will be. And thanks.”
Johnny nodded, and turned away from the desk. At the bell captain's desk Paul was glumly studying the log. “Middle shift had only seven check-ins since six o'clock.”
“Better'n we'll do, if this rain keeps up,” Johnny predicted. “Damn these quiet nights, anyway. I can't stay awake. If you see Mike Larsen come in, Paul, tell him to see me before he goes upstairs.”
He hadn't had a chance yet to check with Mike on the folder of carbons he had taken away from Mavis Delaroche. Mike would probably know whether it was more likely to be a part of Russo's over-all operation or whether the blonde was in business for herself unknown to Russo.
Paul tapped him on the arm. “Lend me your key to Chet's office. Marty needs transcript sheets.”
“I'll run up myself. If I don't keep movin', I'll fall over sideways.” Johnny dug out his keys, detoured to the switch box and turned out the main overhead lights in the lobby, and in the familiar gloom climbed the stairs to the mezzanine. There was a light on in the public stenographer's office which went out even as he looked, and the door opened. Ed Russo walked out of the office, accompanied by a tall blonde; for an instant Johnny thought it was Mavis, and then he saw that this woman was older. Attractive, if you liked the lean, greyhound type. She had the lacquered look of money.
On impulse Johnny stepped into the curtained circular lounge; he was not hidden if anyone looked in there, but he was not out in plain sight, either.
Ed Russo closed the door of his office and shifted a package under his arm as he fumbled for his key. “Take mine, Ed,” the woman said. Her voice was low, but crisp. She removed a key from her bag and handed it to him. “Thanks for taking this trouble for me on such short notice.”
“No trouble, Mrs. Sanders.” Ed Russo tried the locked door and handed her back the key. “All part of the day's work. I'm only sorry the other news tonight couldn't have been a little better.” He led the way toward the stairs.
So this was the widow Sanders; Johnny craned to see better but they were moving away from him. Johnny found it interesting that the widow Sanders not only was on a first name basis with Ed Russo, but actually had a key to his office.
When the descending heads on the stairs passed below floor level he went into action. He ran back across the mezzanine to Chet Rollins' office, opened it hurriedly, grabbed up a handful of transcript sheets and ran back downstairs to the lobby. He slapped the sheets down on the registration desk in front of Marty Seiden and sprinted out to the foyer. As he had hoped, Russo and the widow were still in sight, on the sidewalk under the marquee; as he looked the woman raised her umbrella, and the pair turned left and started toward Seventh Avenue.
Johnny shot into the checkroom behind the bell captain's desk and snatched a raincoat from a hook. From the looks of it it wouldn't shed much rain, but it would cover the uniform. Paul stepped off the nearer elevator as Johnny emerged from the checkroom, and he pointed to the raincoat. “Back in a few minutes, Paul.”
He dashed out to the street and breathed more freely when he saw the umbrella two-thirds of the way toward the avenue. He hadn't lost them. He crossed the street at a trot and took up the chase from the other side, settling down to a long stride that gained rapidly for him.
The rain was a steady drizzle; it looked like being a damp pursuit. And then, as he drew closer to his quarry from a parallel position across the street, in an instant it changed from pursuit to decision. Across Seventh, at the corner of Forty-fifth and Broadway Russo handed the widow the package he had been carrying, and with no exchange at all that Johnny could see widow, package and umbrella turned north on Broadway while Ed Russo continued west on Forty-fifth.
Johnny hesitated and then decided for Russo. The sharp-featured man was on the street in the rain with no hat, raincoat or umbrella now, and he gave no indication of looking for a cab. Ed Russo increased Johnny's interest in the next fifty yards by turning left on Eighth Avenue where he walked the block to Forty-fourth and turned back east, so that as Johnny once again took up the chase from the opposite side of the street the original direction had been reversed.
Between Eighth and Broadway Russo stepped into a doorway, but it was only to turn up the collar of his jacket. So it was not to be a short trip, then; Johnny settled down to it. He was more curious than ever now about Ed Russo's destination, since it appeared to be one that the man felt he had to walk to, in the rain. They crossed Seventh again, and the Avenue of the Americas and Fifth, and between Fifth and Madison Johnny made a discovery. He was not the only one following Russo. A man in an oilskin slicker stayed a steady two-thirds of a block behind the oblivious target.
This observation was confirmed almost at once when Russo turned left on Madison and the slicker followed. Johnny dropped back a little further; let the slicker follow Russo, and he would follow the slicker. Russo turned right again on Forty-sixth; he had evidently only wanted to by-pass the Grand Central building. The procession trekked damply across Park, Lexington and Third, and at Second Avenue Russo turned right again for two blocks to Forty- fourth, and at Forty-Fourth turned east again.
From the opposite side of Second Avenue Johnny made the long diagonal as he kept the oilskin slicker in sight. The slicker turned the corner of Forty-fourth, looked east and broke into a run. From the middle of Second Avenue Johnny accelerated through the puddles, and turned the corner himself.
On Forty-fourth Street Ed Russo was nowhere to be seen at all. The oilskin slicker was forty feet from the corner, poised doubtfully before two narrow alleys, practically side by side, that meandered off almost at right angles into the wet darkness. Evidently he hadn't seen which one Russo had taken.
The speed at which Johnny negotiated the corner caught the slicker's attention; he turned and stared. Rather than turn back and invite inquiry, Johnny walked on more sedately; he would have walked right on by, but the slicker stepped into his path and barred the way.
“I thought so!” the slicker said grimly. “There couldn't be two that big out on a night like this.”
Johnny stared down into the wet, angry features of Detective James Rogers and for once in his life was at a loss for words.
“Well?” Jimmy Rogers demanded. “I'm listening. What-”
His staccato inquiry choked. In the darkness and rain an automatic pistol went off four times, soggy sounds in the soggy night.
“He's got someone else!” Johnny said tightly.
Detective Rogers said nothing at all; he turned and ran up the nearer alley, and Johnny ran hard at his heels.
CHAPTER 12
He slogged heavily over the uneven cobblestoned footing up the close-walled alleyway between the dark warehouses, a step and a half behind the bobbing flashlight in the hand of Jimmy Rogers. They burst into a wider areaway with a slight downgrade; the rapid circular movement of the flashlight disclosed cement loading platforms on three sides of the rough inner square. The alley was a dead end.
Johnny stood on tiptoe as the flash returned to its starting point and made a slow, probing semicircle of the loading area, picking up the blank-faced, whitewashed doors and the dusty concrete freight-handling surfaces which the steady rain had turned to pasty mud at their unprotected outer edges.
He pushed up behind the slender, intent detective. “You think we come up the wrong alley?”
The sandy-haired man made no reply. He started the light on another tour of the darkness, this time at ground level. Two-thirds of the way around the circuit Johnny grunted as the bright beam wavered and then locked down on a shapeless bundle prone in the shallow puddles of the pitted roadbed of the alley.
“Jackpot,” Detective Rogers said tersely and trotted to the still figure. At his shoulder Johnny looked down
