conscious and improving slowly. We're hoping he'll have some vision left in the right eye.”
“The left's gone?”
“From present indications. Dr. Martin says there's always a chance of a miracle, but-”
“Yeah, sure. Thanks, Miss Scalley.” Johnny hung up, rolled slowly onto his back and stared up at the ceiling again. Well, Killain. What are you getting yourself all roiled up about? A guy and a gal took a short cut to the money chamber. They didn't make it. The girl doesn't know yet why they didn't make it. And a damn good thing for Manfredi that she doesn't.
He shifted restlessly on the bed. How had Manfredi gotten to the kid to change the round of the fix? It couldn't have been through Gidlow. Gidlow had been sewed up lock, stock and money belt by Lonnie Turner. Or had he?
Terry Chavez had probably been closest to the kid in the hours before the fight. Johnny sat up on the bed suddenly. Terry Chavez. Would the old man double-cross his own flesh and blood? Hardly, but Terry Chavez-if he were able to talk-could very easily know how it had been done.
Johnny slid off the bed and began to dress rapidly. In the mirror he examined the purpling bruise spreading beneath his ear. Another mercenary. Nobody kills his own in this rat race-it's all hired. Unless Gidlow- You don't know about Gidlow. And Hendricks? You don't know about Hendricks, either. That one might have had no connection at all with the rest of it. Except for Hendrick's trip to borrow money from Manfredi. That tied him in solidly, as solidly as Keith. Or as solidly as Munson. Or Turner. Or Manfredi.
A fight manager dead, a fighter dead and a fight judge dead. A fight trainer hospitalized and an ex-fighter hospitalized. Not much doubt about the hub of the wheel.
He descended hurriedly to the lobby, and he was in full flight through it to the street when, from the corner of his eye, he noticed a slim, youngish man detach himself easily from a lobby chair and swing along in his wake. Belatedly Johnny recalled Stacy's warning. He turned right under the marquee, toward Sixth Avenue, looking nowhere but straight in front of him. He had no intention of having his movements reported upon to Lonnie Turner. The gentlemen behind him had a surprise coming to him.
Johnny turned right on Sixth, walked rapidly up the block and turned right again at the next corner. Two doors down he stepped into the recessed doorway of a cocktail lounge, a quick glance through the window verifying that it was deserted at that time of day. He couldn't even see the bartender.
Right on schedule, the slim man came around the corner, moving smoothly, tight to the wall. His eyes flickered side-wise to Johnny in the doorway, but he would have continued right on by if Johnny's hand on his arm had not snatched him into the doorway. Johnny shoved his hands casually in his coat pockets and leaned a shoulder against his companion, pinning him not too conspicuously to the window. “You do that real good, Jack,” Johnny told him gently. “I like the way you take the corners with the inside leg, like a base runner.”
“What the hell?” the slim man breathed wonderingly. “Am I wearing a sign?” The dean features looked startled; he had blue eyes and a fringe of red hair beneath a gray fedora.
“P.I.?” Johnny inquired. The man shrugged and nodded. “What's your per diem?”
“Twenty-five, and expenses.”
“Turner's probably payin' fifty to insure a good job,” Johnny guessed, and knew from the blue eyes' blink that the guess had been a good one. “It's not worth it, Jack.” He increased the shoulder pressure, and the slim man winced. “The next right turn I make an' your right ankle comes dippin' around the corner, I put a bullet through it.” Johnny paused to note the effect, then in midstream changed horses. There was an easier way than trying to scare this boy. “You know Jimmy Rogers?”
“De-Detective Rogers?” The man sounded as though he were having trouble with his wind.
“Detective Rogers,” Johnny agreed, and eased up on the weight of his shoulder. “You call him up an' ask him if he thinks it's a smart idea.” Without another word he walked out of the doorway back up to Sixth and flagged a cab. From the back seat as it pulled away he could see the slim man still in the doorway. So that was that, unless he had a partner, which wasn't likely. “Sisters of Mercy Hospital,” Johnny told the cabbie, and settled back for the ride.
He watched the neighborhoods change from business to residential to slum to slightly seedy residential again. His thoughts were on the white-haired, hawk-nosed man he had last seen in a coma in the boxlike, white- walled room at the Sisters of Mercy Hospital. If Terry Chavez were able to communicate at all…
He stepped from the cab at the end of the ride and mounted the glistening white stone stairs. Inside the front door he glanced in at the little chapel; it would not do to run into Consuelo Ybarra on these premises. The hospital's air of quiet serenity would more than likely never be the same. Johnny didn't want to run into Manuel's sister unexpectedly, but there was a question he had to ask her, and it couldn't wait much longer.
Johnny climbed to the second floor and approached the remembered door with caution. He was ready to retreat at sight of a figure in the chair beside the bed until he realized that the head outlined was masculine. He entered the room after his momentary hesitation, and in the gloom had difficulty in recognizing Dr. McDevitt until the pink-cheeked man looked up with a start from his meditative, head-on-chest position.
The doctor rose to his feet with hand extended. “Ashamed to say I was nearly asleep, Killain. Haven't been sleeping too well recently.” His hand in Johnny's was dry and crisp. “Nice to know poor Terry's not completely forgotten,” he added with a glance at the bed.
“How's he doin', Doc? Any better?”
The commission physician pursed his lips doubtfully. “I'm afraid not. I've already looked at the chart.” He nodded at the clip-board hanging from the end of the bed. “It's difficult to tell in these cases sometimes, but it's my feeling that he's slowly sinking.”
“He's never regained consciousness?”
Dr. McDevitt walked around to the foot of the bed and picked up the chart. “Not since he first lapsed into this comatose condition. He was conscious-let's see-the first thirty-six hours after admission.” He looked up from the chart. “I feel a little negligent in this. Terry's an old friend of mine, and the first report I had was that it wasn't this serious.”
“He must have made a statement to the police at the time of admission,” Johnny said, thinking aloud, his eyes on the still form in the bed. He continued as the doctor raised an inquiring eyebrow. “If he'd never made a statement at all, there'd be a man in blue cocked up in a chair outside this door right now. An', whatever he told 'em, they're not expectin' a follow-up, or they'd have someone posted.”
“I'm afraid I didn't pay enough attention to the few details I did hear,” Dr. McDevitt admitted ruefully. “I believe it was the usual thing-attacked from behind on the street, with no sight of the assailant. You're a friend of Terry's?”
“A friend of a friend.”
The doctor nodded. “I like Terry. He's no saint-he's a hard drinker, in spurts-and certainly no intellectual. I employed him for some time as my chauffeur. I'm a poor driver in city traffic, and among other things Terry drove me out the highway to my psychiatrist's office every afternoon.” He chuckled gently. “Ever been in analysis, Killain? No, I can see it's a foolish question from looking at you. I had to give it up myself.” He chuckled again. “When those devils get to the point where they can remove the feeling of guilt from a man's life, it's time to quit. No guilt, no flavor, I always say. Ergo, no life. None worth living, at any rate. And I've managed to live quite comfortably with my little peccadilloes.” He waved a deprecating hand. “I'm boring you. I'm sorry. I've got to run along. Can I offer you a share of a cab downtown? Or have you the time for that drink I owe you from the other evening?”
“Not right now, thanks, Doc. That fella that was with you the other night went kinda quick, didn't he?”
“About as quickly as you can go, I guess,” the doctor said drily. “As sometimes happens after a man's gone, I'm beginning to hear stories that he led a parti-colored life. Dave Hendricks operated on several levels, apparently. In running up and down various stepladders he got his foot caught between the rungs of one of them. Not an infrequent occurrence in this town, but I was a little surprised that it happened to Dave.” The pink-cheeked doctor nodded casually, moved to the door and went out.
Johnny moved in beside the chair the doctor had vacated and looked down at the sharp-angled features under the shock of white hair visible above the head bandage. “I wonder if you'd make the same statement to the police now, man, if you knew what a tight fit it is,” Johnny mused, half aloud. He straightened finally and walked from the silent room.
In the daylight under a threatening sky, the tenement area in which the Ybarras lived looked even more depressing than at night, Johnny reflected. Scabrous building fronts contributed their own indefinable rundown aura.
