don't remember the last time he missed.”
Johnny shrugged, “Well, the hell with it. I've waited long enough.” He pushed away from the bar. “See you, Mick.” He was within half a dozen paces of the front door when it opened to admit Manuel Ybarra. “Hey, boy!” Johnny greeted him. “Been waitin' for you.”
A curious expression flitted over the dark features. “You took Consuelo home? She is all right?”
“Sure she's all right,” Johnny agreed, and mentally ground to a halt as he recalled the condition of the chain latch on the Ybarra apartment door. He thrust it aside. Let Consuelo do her own explaining; she was a big girl now. He looked at Manuel more closely. “You look a little shook, amigo.”
“Nothing too much,” the dark man replied with a shrug of the thick shoulders. “A friend of mine was-had an accident. I am jus' from the hospital.”
“Oh. Automobile?”
“No. You have been waiting long?”
“Not too long.” Johnny drew him aside from the traffic around the front door. “You're a friend of Rick Manfredi, Manuel. I'd like to talk to him.”
Manuel studied him soberly. “I do not know about this.”
Johnny grinned. “Another friend of Rick's said she thought I might like him.”
“Consuelo talks too much,” Consuelo's brother said wryly. He appeared to be considering. “I don't think so, my friend. Remember, I have seen you in the tavern that night. You are too much the disposition of the man who energetically climbs the mountain to take the punch at the echo. I want no trouble with Rick.”
“Where's the trouble?” Johnny argued. “I just want to talk to him. Why's he hidin' out?”
“He is not an easy man to put the thumb on. He has an all-night poker game which he moves to a different location each night.” Manuel pursed his lips; he looked at Johnny again, then up at the wall clock, obviously undecided. “If I brought you, he might not speak to you. Rick preaches the minding of the own business.”
“You get me two minutes with him,” Johnny said confidently. “He'll talk to me.”
“At least he can decide for himself,” Manuel acknowledged. “You are ready?”
“Right now.”
“We will need a cab.” The dark man rebuttoned his overcoat. “Tonight the game is downtown.” On the sidewalk he turned north, then east at the first intersection. “More cabs on Seventh,” he said to Johnny over his shoulder. “It's not-”
“Watch it!” Johnny interrupted sharply as two bulky figures stepped out into their path from a tailor shop doorway. The nearer figure shouldered roughly between Manuel and Johnny, herding Johnny to the building wall. “Sit still, pal,” he growled warningly. “It's this one we're gonna talk to.” He jerked his head over his shoulder, and half turned to watch. “Hurry it up, Cy.”
Beyond the overcoated shoulder Johnny could see the shine of brass knuckles as Cy, without speaking a word, swung heavily at Manuel. The blow landed high on his cheekbone, and the dark man staggered backward. When he regained his balance he stood motionless, his hands at his sides, and as Cy moved in on him again Johnny lowered his head and butted the man in front of him, hard, between abdomen and breastbone. The man's breath escaped in a whistling sigh, and he doubled over slowly, twisting into the wall. With his back to it he slithered in little spurts to the ground, his heels making scrabbling noises on the sidewalk. At the sound Cy turned sharply away from Manuel, his broad, pock-marked face alert. “Askin' for it, bud? Any old time.”
He moved lithely toward Johnny, a thin-bladed knife materializing in his left hand. Johnny unbuttoned the two bottom buttons of his overcoat and bounded eighteen inches straight up into the air. From this altitude he unleashed a doubled-up right knee, and the sole of his shoe caught the oncoming Cy explosively at the junction of neck and shoulder and landed him on his back in the street. The recoil slammed Johnny's shoulders back against the wall; fifteen yards away approaching footsteps halted, and two men crossed the street hurriedly. Back on balance, Johnny turned to the man on hands and knees on the sidewalk.
“No!” Manuel exclaimed harshly when he sensed Johnny's intention.
“No?” Johnny barked incredulously. “You crazy?”
The ex-fighter took his arm. “We mus' get away from here,” he said resolutely. “Come.” Reluctantly Johnny permitted himself to be towed down the street; at that hour the few pedestrians were as carefully incurious as the first two, and there was no outcry from behind them. By turning his head Johnny could see the thin trickle of blood oozing from the blue welt on Manuel's impassive face.
“Man, you're outta your head,” Johnny steamed. “With your eyes like they are, how many knucks shots you think you can take before the lights go out for good?”
“I think you know there mus' be a reason,” the dark man replied patiently. He looked at Johnny curiously. “Where did you learn la savate?”
“Marseilles,” Johnny said shortly. “On the street in overcoat weather your hands are no good.”
“My hands, perhaps,” Manuel Ybarra said significantly. At the corner of Seventh Avenue he looked north for a cruising cab. “Never have I seen a more formidable bull in the plaza, my friend.” White teeth flashed in a smile as he turned again, and then the smile faded. “You gored them most prettily, yet almost-” He hesitated-“almost I wish I had been alone.”
He raised an arm, and a block and a half north a cab accelerated and darted toward them at the curb. “But why the sittin' duck act?” Johnny demanded. “You could have taken him.”
“I made a mistake with a dangerous man, amigo. If his men had punched out the little debt on Manuel, it might prevent the unhealthy mind of him from turning to the idea of repayment through Manuel's sister.”
“Is that right?” Johnny said with interest. “That puts you in the same club as a guy I know.” He stepped down from the curb into the cab. “It was Manfredi you made the mistake with?” he asked as the thick-shouldered man crowded in beside him.
“Rick?” Manuel turned to stare in surprise. “Rick is my friend!” He said it proudly. He leaned back in his corner of the cab, dabbling at the purpling bruise on his cheek with a handkerchief. “You meant it of the best, and Manuel Ybarra does not forget,” he said with a flat finality that closed the conversation. The hum of the tires was the only sound in the cab for the balance of the downtown ride.
Johnny rose from the shabby chair in the sitting room of the second-rate hotel suite as Manuel entered from the room beyond with a chubby, moon-faced man with short, curly hair. In the second before the door closed behind them, Johnny had a fleeting glimpse through a smoky haze of intent, soft-hatted men circled about a green-baize table top.
Manuel introduced them. “Rick Manfredi, Johnny Killain.”
Johnny shook a soft, plump hand that retained a surprising firmness in its grip. Manfredi wore an eggshell- white silk shirt with a buttoned-down collar, a bolo tie whose tips glittered with something more than glass, a green velvet smoking jacket, tan slacks and Italian shoes with very pointed toes.
“Glad to meet you, Killain,” the gambler said genially. “Any friend of Manuel's-” He waved a hand. He had a wide, boyish smile, and his youth surprised Johnny; Manfredi must still be in his early twenties, he thought, although the dark eyes in the smooth, olive face looked as though they had been around considerably longer.
The chubby man turned back to Manuel. “I didn't want to ask you inside,” he said in Spanish. “How is he?” He moved to one side to get a better look. “And what's the matter with your face?”
“He is-fair,” Manuel replied in English with a significant glance at Johnny. “The face is nothing.”
“You speak Spanish?” the gambler asked Johnny, surprised. “Yeah?” He smiled broadly. “Good joke on me.” A fleshy hand fumbled in the breast pocket of the smoking jacket and removed a slim panatela. “Try one?” Johnny accepted the cigar and stripped the cellophane from it. Rick Manfredi did the same for its twin after Manuel had refused it. Johnny bowed his head to accept the proffered light from an initialed gold cigar lighter with a big, steady flame. “My mother was Spanish,” Rick Manfredi said almost absently as he rotated the tip of his cigar in the flame, drew on it until he had it going to his satisfaction, and flipped off and pocketed the lighter. He exhaled a thin cloud of blue smoke.
“Good cigar,” Johnny told him.
“Ought to be, what I pay for 'em.” The gambler waved Johnny back into his chair. “You didn't come over here to compliment me on my cigars. What's on your mind?”
“I'm here stoolin' for the police,” Johnny said.
An opaque film seemed to descend over the dark eyes. “Now there's an openin' line I don't seem to have run across before,” Rick Manfredi said softly. His glance at Manuel was expressionless.
