“I think you would. How many people you decommissioned with that move? Four inches lower you had a perfect gut shot; six inches higher you break my neck. I could see you were surprised I didn't go over; you got a real bad break, huh? You learn that one in finishin' school?”
“Oh, stop it!” Weariness had replaced the fear, but there was still no color in her face except for the mark of his hand. “I should have known better than to try to knock over a chunk of pig iron like you. You got me mad, that's all. I'm sorry.”
“Skip the sorry. Talk.”
The tip of her tongue circled her lips swiftly; she appeared to be gauging his mood. “I suppose you feel you have all the justification you need now to beat it out of me. That should make you feel good. That should-”
“Will you stop the stalling?” Johnny's voice cut across hers, hard. “Talk!”
And as though the explosive imperative had been a signal the apartment buzzer sounded in the hallway. Lorraine looked surprised but started to rise; he made one halfhearted move to stop her and then shrugged. He knew who it was. It just wasn't his night.
“Who?” Lorraine asked the speaker. “Oh.” She hesitated and half turned to look at Johnny in the doorway. “Well… come on up.” She scooped up her wet raincoat, jacket and slacks from the floor where Johnny had dropped them and threw them into a corner of the hall closet. She stood with her back pressed against the closet door and looked at him speculatively. “It's Cuneo. I'm not fussy about his finding you here this time of night. On the other hand, I'm not fussy about being left alone with you here, either.” She frowned as she moved away from the door. “Why is he here?”
“Whyn't you ask him?”
“But I need to know-” She chewed at her lip in the familiar gesture. “We can still work together, Johnny,” she said persuasively.
“Not a chance. A clean divorce.”
“Just a minute!” she called to the knock at the door. She turned back to Johnny with the first hint of desperation in her tone. “You can't do this to me now! I need to know what happened!”
“Open the door,” he said inexorably. “You're doin' all right. You're still walkin' around, and there's four people that aren't.”
Her eyes widened. “Four!”
“Open the door.”
She opened it, reluctantly. Ted Cuneo stalked in, hesitated at sight of her nightwear, sensed the other presence and whirled to look at Johnny. “Well, for- What are you doing here, Killain?”
“Do I need a license from you to be here?”
The detective turned to stare at Lorraine. “You two-” he said slowly. He looked at her more closely. “What's the matter with your face?”
In the split second that she hesitated Johnny could see that she was wondering if she could somehow involve him with Cuneo without involving herself. With evident regret she decided against it. “Nothing that a little cold water won't fix. I believe I took the decision on points.”
Detective Cuneo seemed to swell. “You mean he hit you, Mrs. Barnes?”
“Not often enough,” Johnny said harshly, and Lorraine Barnes laughed almost gaily.
“Johnny and I never understood one another better. He was just leaving.”
“Right now,” Johnny agreed. He turned experimentally to the door. If Cuneo knew about his unheralded departure from Second Avenue…
Cuneo didn't, evidently. “Anyone talked to you tonight?” he asked Johnny sharply, his side glance at Lorraine indicating that he didn't want to say too much.
“Yeah,” Johnny said laconically. “I was with Rogers.”
“You were with-” The large-pupilled eyes swung back to Lorraine and caught her hard, interrogating stare. He gestured dismissingly. “I'll talk to you later, Killain.”
“Sure you will,” Johnny agreed softly. He smiled at Lorraine, then walked out of the apartment and down the stairs out into the still dripping night.
CHAPTER 13
In the rainswept, deserted street Johnny scowlingly squished along back toward the hotel; not a cab in sight, naturally. A little more water might be just what you need, Killain… reduce a little of the steam coming out of your thick ears after that fiasco upstairs. Damn that Lorraine woman, anyway… Damn all women eating their cake and trying to have it, too He came to a dead stop in the middle of the block.
Women…
There's a woman on the fringe of this deal at whom you haven't taken a very close look, friend. Quite a considerable woman-name of Mavis Delaroche. You think maybe she was out in the rain tonight, too? You think you could get her to tell you why, if she were? Mavis. You've never gotten the answer yet on those one-copy carbons of hers, either.
He hunched his shoulders under the sodden raincoat and propelled himself forward again. He grunted impatiently as he stepped down off the curb into a puddle of water; across the street he turned right and headed for the lights of the all-night drugstore two blocks over. At its entrance he wrung a little of the surplus water from himself and marched inside to the phone booth. He dialed the hotel and removed his handkerchief from his pocket and placed it lightly before his lips. “Front desk,” he said muffledly.
He waited for the click of Sally's cut-off key before answering Marty Seiden's “Front desk, Seiden.”
“Don't let on, Marty; this is Johnny. Call me 'sir'.”
“Right you are, sir.”
“That big blonde up on the balcony… what's her address? An' don't mention her name.”
“Address?” He could hear the surprise in the red-haired night clerk's voice. “Uh-332 East 63rd.”
“You payin' the rent up there?”
“In that neighborhood? I couldn't pay her maid service. You're outta your mind. Sir.” Marty's tone was injured.
“Okay. Tell Paul I'll be hung up a little while yet.”
He left the booth and ran an appraising eye up and down the half-dozen assorted coffee drinkers at the counter. “Any of you guys hackin'?”
A cup clattered into its saucer, and a gray-haired man in horn-rimmed spectacles stood up immediately. “That's me, boss. Where to?”
“Let's go,” Johnny said noncommittally and led the way outside. Never tell your business to a roomful of listening ears… well, okay, but are you ever going to relax a little bit from the ingrained caution of the old days? he asked himself impatiently. Who do you think gives a damn about you, or what you're up to now?
In the cab he gave the uptown address and settled back for the ride. You've still got a problem, Killain… in that neighborhood you're nine-to-five not to even get inside the front door. If there isn't a doorman there'll be a night switchboard operator, plus probably an elevator operator, all of them likely to be a little crusty over a tenant being disturbed at four a.m.
He paid off the cab in front of the towering apartment building and stood on the curb until it pulled away. Automatically he fumbled up the collar of the raincoat, though there wasn't a dry quarter of an inch on it, and crossed the street to reconnoiter a little less conspicuously. He stood on the opposite sidewalk in the blowing rain and looked up at the acres of windows with only an occasional light behind them.
No doorman visible-fine. Unless the old boy was inside sneaking a smoke, or dodging the rain. Through the front entrance he could see the closed elevator doors, and even as he looked they opened and a uniformed figure emerged and turned left. Johnny hastily skipped a damp fifteen feet to his right to keep the uniform in sight and watched it settle down lackadaisically behind a small counter that could only be a lobby switchboard.
You must be getting lucky, Killain… no doorman, and the switchboard operator is also the elevator operator. He can't be in two places at once. Remind yourself to send that economy-minded building superintendent a carton of cigarettes tomorrow.
