asked curiously.
“We've explored that factor. Even after a rather complicated inheritance tax formula-”
“Let me be the first to give you the bad news,” Johnny interrupted him. “Internal Revenue has staked out a prior claim.”
Even in the poor light he could see Al Munson's eyes narrow. “Internal Revenue?”
“The same. They come by to warn Miss Fontaine not to buy any yachts, because they were goin' to go to court prepared to maintain that the boodle was one-year undeclared income, in which case there's not enough left for anyone to fight over. Right?”
Al Munson spoke thoughtfully into the little silence. 'That can be contested in court.”
“Who's gonna contest it? You?”
“Miss Fontaine will contest it. A good lawyer-”
“You're off your rocker, Munson!” Johnny snorted. “Why should she buy herself a jackpot like that for whatever you feel like givin' her, when all she's got to do is sit tight an' the apple drops in her lap? Internal Revenue's already hinted they'll do the right thing in return for co-operation.”
“Nice of them,” Al Munson said drily. “You can't be as stupid as that last remark sounds, Killain. Perhaps I haven't made it sufficiently clear that I'm just a spokesman in all this. The people whom I represent are not going to look with favor upon such an attitude, I assure you.” Heavy irony flavored his tone. He continued with assurance. “I think Miss Fontaine will co-operate, and not with Internal Revenue.”
“Listen, wise guy-where d'you think you'd wind up if she repeated this conversation to Internal Revenue?”
“She hasn't heard this conversation,” Al Munson replied evenly. “For Miss Fontaine's sake I wouldn't like to think that Internal Revenue learned about it in any other way.”
Johnny's shoulders came off the booth with a jerk. “Munson, I'll-”
“Think it over, Killain,” the publicist interrupted, and waddled to the door. Monk Carmody followed, after favoring Johnny with a complacent leer, and when Johnny walked slowly into the lobby they were gone. He went directly to the switchboard.
“They been bangin' at you every day without my knowin' it?” he asked Sally tightly.
She nodded miserably, brown eyes brimming. “I s-should have told you.”
“Damn right you should have told me, an' the next time you don't your fanny'll catch a real heartburn. I got to know what they're up to if I'm goin' to spoke their wheel.”
“Johnny?” It was scarcely more than a whisper. “Let's give them the bankbook. I don't want it. Honestly. Let's give it to them and get rid of them.”
“It's not that simple, Ma,” he explained patiently. “You're the only one with a claim to it now. You couldn't give anyone the book without givin' 'em a headache they don't want.”
“Then what on earth do they want?” she said, cross-examining him.
“Pie in the sky,” he said tersely. “Forget it, Ma. Just let me know if they bother you.”
“But what can you do, Johnny?”
“I can say 'Tut-tut, boys. Naughty-naughty.' ” He grinned at her. “The way I'd say it I think it might make an impression.” He sobered at sight of her serious expression. “Don't worry about it, see? Everything's gonna be fine.”
“I want to know what you're going to do, Johnny.”
“Who the hell knows? You know me-just rock along, an', if you can't see the ball carrier, just put a good stiff block on the interference. Somethin'll drop.”
“Probably you,” she said apprehensively. “I still think-”
“Your career's not in thinkin', Ma. I'll bear witness.”
“Please be careful, Johnny?”
“My pleasure. You hop back on the board now. I'm gonna skip upstairs an' irrigate my thought processes with a dollop of bourbon.”
“You mean you're going to try to slip out of here without my knowing where you're going or what you're up to.”
“You wound me, Ma. Deeply. I need that bourbon now.” He crossed the lobby to the service elevator and waved to the watching figure before sliding the bronze door shut in a crash of metal.
In the icy darkness of the street doorway a slim shadow moved in beside Johnny and tapped him on the arm. “Out for a constitutional?” Detective James Rogers inquired briskly.
Johnny slowly dropped his hands. “I already told you about that caper, Jimmy. You're buckin' for bridgework.”
The slender man regarded him impassively. “Nice night for a stroll,” he said reflectively, and passed a hand through their combined breaths whitening the air. He glanced across the street at the imposing pile of the apartment building that towered upward into the night sky, with only occasional pinpoints of light dotting the angular surface, and his voice, when he spoke, was official. “You have no business here, Johnny.”
Johnny pointed with a shoulder across the street. “You bodyguardin' Turner now?”
“I'm conducting an investigation,” the detective said evenly. “Without your help. In case the point should come up.”
“That's a little different than the noise you were makin' a while back.”
“Don't make me ask myself if I made a mistake. What are you doing here?”
“This guy's pushin' Sally around,” Johnny said obliquely.
“Turner? I haven't heard a word to that effect.”
“Maybe I could get him to call up an' let you know. Or take an ad in the paper. Make a little sense, will you, Jimmy? I caught a couple of them over at the place tonight because she wouldn't answer her phone any more.”
“You reported it, of course.”
“I'm reportin' it now,” Johnny said easily.
“Fortunately you knew right where to find me,” the sandy-haired man remarked sardonically. He hunched his shoulders together beneath his overcoat. “No sense standing here freezing to death,” he said abruptly. “Come on.”
Johnny walked along beside him the two blocks to an all-night Java mill, and with mugs of coffee on the table between them the detective's inspection of Johnny became more preoccupied. “How do you get to spend so much time off the job during working hours?” he asked.
“You with Wages and Hours now?” Johnny answered. He sugared his coffee liberally. “I got a good crew over there. Five of us do eight people's work, an' we been doin' it a long time now. Nobody peeps at what goes on on our shift, brother. It'd cost them money, an' they know it.” He took a sip of the scalding coffee. “You clockin' Turner's workouts now?”
“You know better than to ask me that. What happened over at your place tonight?”
“Munson and Carmody showed up to talk to Sally. I kind of changed their minds.”
“Galahad in full armor, by God. What did they want?”
Johnny made his grin sheepish. “I made a mistake. I run them outta there so fast I never did get to find out.” He hurried on past the slender man's disbelieving stare. “I was a little late catchin' up to the fact that they'd been worryin' her. They'd made the point they'd take a little interest in me if she let me know. She thinks I'm the delicate type.”
“How much are you holding back this time?” Detective Rogers inquired casually.
Johnny stared. “This time?”
The slender man absent-mindedly sugared his coffee for the second time, tasted the resulting syrup and pushed it aside. “Carlo Petrillo made a statement to the effect that you had run Carmody and a man he didn't know away from Miss Fontaine's apartment early in the morning on the day that Roketenetz was killed.” Hazel eyes studied Johnny. “I don't seem to remember hearing about that from you.”
“Oh, that-” Johnny shrugged. “Things happened so fast right after that it slipped my mind. I thought of it a couple of times since, but it didn't seem important enough to bother you with.”
“We'd like to be the judge of that. Who was the other man?”
Why hasn't he asked Carmody, Johnny wondered, and immediately caution inserted, Perhaps he has. “A
