“Talked to her?” Mike's voice broke in. “When did you talk to her?”
“I went over there.” Jimmy Rogers' voice was quiet, but Mike Larsen sounded as if he were having difficulty with his breathing.
“In the middle of the night you went over there? And told her that her husband was in the sneezer for being found in the hotel room of a dead woman who had been her friend? Excuse me. Remind me to cross the street the next time I see you guys coming.”
“Don't be such a rose, Mike.” Irritation was back in Ted Cuneo's voice. “These people are suspects. You think she was running around on her husband?”
“Now wait a minute. I didn't say that.”
“Always the gentleman, eh, Mike?”
“Don't you put words in my mouth, Ted. These people are friends of mine. You go paddle your own canoe. You boys play too rough. I'm through.”
“Now wait a minute, Mike-”
Johnny had cautiously resumed his interrupted progress toward the public stenographer's office. He found that even with the shade drawn he could see in through the eight-inch clearance on either side, but what he saw disappointed him. He plainly saw Ed Russo taking a long drink from an up-tilted whisky bottle, and he would much rather have seen Ed Russo doing something-anything at all-which would have permitted Johnny to lower a little weight on him.
Johnny and Ed Russo had hung up a time or two. Verbally. To Johnny's way of thinking, Ed Russo was a man a little bit too impressed with a sense of his own importance. Johnny had often wondered how he and the blonde in the office with him could take a living out of the transient business in a hotel this size, but he conceded that that was their problem. He conceded, too, that it would be difficult to make anything out of Ed Russo taking a drink in his own office, regardless of the hour. He edged back to the front of the balcony.
“-know that Johnny had been married to this girl, Mike?” Detective Rogers sounded quite casual.
“Johnny?” Mike Larsen sounded strangled. “You're crazy!”
“Right from the horse's mouth, Mike. Why should it surprise you so much?”
“Damned if I know, to tell you the truth,” Mike admitted after a moment. “Except that I thought I knew Johnny rather well, and I never heard him say a word-”
“The reason I ask is because upstairs he sounded a little bit as though he could be lining up a vendetta for himself. We wouldn't like to see that, Mike. You could do him a favor by warning him off the grass.”
Mike snorted. “Joe Dameron could tell you something about warning Johnny off the grass.”
“We can't use any help. Or any hindrance. Tell him.”
“I'll tell him, and a fat lot of good it will do you.”
“Tell him, and let us worry about the good.” Footsteps scuffed on the marble floor below; Johnny waited a moment until he was sure they had gone, then descended the stairs into the lobby. Mike Larsen was standing looking thoughtfully out into the foyer after the departed detectives. He turned at the sound of Johnny's approach. “Well… speak of the devil-”
“I just heard you speakin' of him.” Mike's eyes-cat's eyes, curiously flecked with yellow-went aloft. “Yeah. I was up there. Thanks for the testimonial.”
“I'll send you a bill. If you heard it all I can save a little breath.”
“You can save a lot of breath.”
Mike smiled. “Old head-down Johnny.” The smile died. “How come I never heard anything before about you and Ellen?”
“It never seemed to come up.”
“Yeah,” Mike Larsen said drily. “I can see that. Well, where do we go from here?”
“You think it's too early to call Lorraine? Vic would want one of us to go downtown with her. That Cuneo is all wound up to give her a hard time.”
Mike was looking at him curiously. “You think that's a good move? For you to go down there, I mean? You'd be kind of rubbing yourself in Cuneo's nose, wouldn't you? And don't worry about Lorraine; she's no violet. She'll give Cuneo a little better than he's expecting.”
“It's Vic I'm thinking of, Mike. He'd expect us to do it.”
“Okay,” Mike shrugged. “Go ahead and call her; she won't be asleep. I'll pick up a lawyer friend of mine and meet you down there.”
Johnny leaned over the registration desk and pulled the front office phone toward himself. “Sally? Ring Vic's place for me, huh?” He twisted the cord in his hand. “Lorraine? Johnny Killain. I'd like to go downtown with you this morning when you go.”
“I think I'd like that, Johnny.” No hysterics here-a cool, poised voice. “About nine?”
“I'll be ready.”
Mike Larsen nodded as Johnny hung up. “I'll see you down there. And don't you go redheaded on me; I've only got one lawyer friend. And never mind looking at me like the great stone face. Some day I'm going to find something a little thicker than your skull, and when I do the metallurgists are going to beat a path to my door.” He stalked out of the lobby, a big man, moving easily.
Johnny resumed his long interrupted trip out back to the kitchen, which was just beginning to stir in the early morning quiet. Two or three lights were on in the big room, and the odor of coffee was in the air. Johnny stopped off by the giant urn and drew off a steaming mug, then carried it over to the paint-peeled desk in the back corner. A round little man with mild blue eyes looked up at his approach. “Good morning, Yonnee.”
“Mornin', Eric. What do you feed a kitten?” The blue eyes considered the matter; the offhand reply was obviously not a part of this man's nature. “Whose kitten, Yonnee?”
“My kitten.”
Eric smiled. “I would think then a little liver, a little shrimp, a little milk-”
“You sold me.”
Eric rose, his fresh whites rustling. “Drink your coffee. I fix it.”
Johnny sipped at the scalding coffee and watched the little second cook unlock a square refrigerator, rummage in its interior and emerge with a slice of liver and a handful of shrimp.
Eric turned to him. “A small kitten, Yonnee?”
Johnny shaped Sassy's size with his hands, and Eric nodded. A wide-bladed knife chopped firmly, and Johnny finished his coffee as wax paper was applied and a pint of milk set out. “Can I have one of those empties, Eric?” Johnny pointed to a stack of cartons which had contained canned goods.
“Why not?”
“Thanks, Eric. For the works.” Johnny took a carton whose sides were not too deep, gathered up his packages and departed for the lobby. On the mezzanine he confiscated a medium-sized geranium plant; he uprooted it and dumped the loose dirt in his carton, then slid the empty flower pot with the limp geranium in it under the nearest bench.
In his own room he showed this arrangement to the interested Sassy. “This is light housekeeping, baby doll,” he told her, “until Mother Killain gets to do a little shopping.” He had already lost her attention; the small, wrinkled nose was testing his packages. “Okay, tiger. Hold tight.”
From a shelf above the refrigerator he took down three saucers. He filled one with milk and put a little shrimp and a little liver in each of the others. As an afterthought he placed a newspaper beneath them, and Sassy immediately made it look like an excellent idea. Her notion of a quiet meal was to charge up on a plate full tilt and seize a piece in her mouth, then back away growling, defying the world to take it away from her. At the extreme edge of the newspaper she would eat daintily, then crouch and rush back again. She was an extremely leisurely diner.
He watched her for a few moments, then filled another saucer with water and added it to the lineup. He stretched out on the bed and closed his eyes lightly; in the first peaceful interlude he had had since Vic Barnes had opened Ellen Saxon's door Johnny tried to filter through his mind the impossible sequence of events since two o'clock that morning. For a long time the only noises in the room were Sassy's small sounds and the spatter of her paws on the newspaper.
