“I know what it's right next to,” Detective Rogers replied wearily. “Just walk across the hall like a good little boy when you're finished here.” The hazel eyes considered Johnny bale-fully. “Remind me to talk to you sometime, too, about using my name to get a private eye off your back, will you?”
“You'd be surprised the influence you have, Jimmy.”
“Over some people, maybe.” The slender man's tone was ironic. “We'll be expecting you.”
Gilligan looked at Johnny curiously when Detective Rogers had departed. “I wouldn't think there was much of a future butting heads with Rogers,” he said mildly.
“He discounts the source,” Johnny replied briefly, and resumed turning over cards. When he finally reached the bottom of the stack, he stretched lengthily and looked up to find the blue eyes questioning him. He shook his head negatively. “He's not in there.”
Gilligan looked disappointed. “You sure you'd know the man?”
“That man I'd know,” Johnny answered softly.
Gilligan's glance at him was sharp, but he picked up the cards without comment. “They're probably waiting for you,” he said from the file. “You'd better get on over there.”
“Isn't it funny that everyone's in a hurry but me?” Johnny remarked, but rose reluctantly from his chair and moved to the door. After the day he'd had he didn't particularly look forward to locking horns with Joe Dameron. In Johnny's present razor-edged near-depletion, he knew his own temper well enough to know that the infighting could get out of hand quickly.
He knocked on the door across the hall and, when he heard nothing, knocked again. He tried the door when there was still no sound from inside. It was locked, so Johnny turned and walked back to the squad rooms where a plump detective with round eyes known on the Broadway perimeter as Owly sat by the phones.
“I was supposed to see Dameron,” Johnny said to him.
“They just went out, him and Rogers,” Owly replied.
“I can just barely stand missing him,” Johnny said with relief. “Just barely. See you later. He knows where to find me.”
On the street he looked up at the leaden skies. It was blusteringly cold, and it looked like more snow. It suited his mood. He set off toward the hotel.
Johnny gave a dum didididada dum dum knock upon the door of Stacy Bartlett's apartment and shoved the corsage box he carried behind his back. He was early, and, as a moment passed with no response, he speculated uneasily upon the possibility of having caught her in the shower. He was relieved when the door opened. “H'ya, kid,” he greeted her lightly, and maneuvered inside with his box still behind him. “All set to paint the town red, white and purple?” She walked ahead of him into the living room. “Your-” He broke off as he caught sight of her averted face, creased with tears, and eyes reddened and swollen. “What the hell's the matter, Stacy?” he demanded, his voice rising.
“N-nothing.” She turned her back to hide her face.
“Nothin'!” he snorted. “You look like it's nothin', all right.”
“D-don't look at me,” she pleaded. “I sh-shouldn't have let you in until I p-pulled myself together.”
“Somethin' wrong at home?” he asked quickly.
“N-no.” She knuckled her eyes frankly, took a deep breath, faced about and tried to smile at him. “Aren't I an awful b-baby?”
“So tell me about it,” he invited.
She turned again until her face was in profile and he couldn't read her expression. “I lost my j-job, that's all.” She struggled to hold her voice steady. “I don't know why I'm c-crying about it. It just-it just came as a s- surprise.”
Johnny felt winded. He had run up the scale on a dozen things, each succeedingly worse. Still, what's worse to a twenty-year-old going it alone in a strange town than losing her job? “Look, kid,” he began awkwardly, then stopped because she had noticed the position of his arm.
“You brought me something?” she asked with an upturn in her tone. She moved to him quickly and tugged his arm into view. “Oh, a corsage!” she exclaimed at sight of the box.
“Don't open it!” he said quickly, trying to withhold it from her.
“Certainly I'll open it!” she replied stoutly, capturing it between both hands and pulling the pale yellow ribbon to one side.
Johnny placed a big hand firmly on the box's cover. “Don't open it, Stacy,” he said again. “It was a gag, a damn fool gag. It's not funny any more-”
She removed the hand as firmly as he had placed it upon the box. “Don't be silly,” she told him. “I want to see.” She removed the lid, parted the tissue, started to giggle, choked and gasped for breath as Johnny pounded her on the back. “A s-skunk cabbage!” she said when she could say anything.
“Me and my timely damn sense of humor,” Johnny said savagely. “I wanted somethin' to remind you of the farm. Spent twenty-five minutes findin' one small enough to fit in the damn box.”
“I love it!” she said quickly, and held it up to her shoulder. “I'd have worn-I will wear it tonight!” She marshaled up a deep breath. “I guess the world hasn't come to an end just yet, has it? And in the circumstances this is-this is appropriate.”
“Will you cut it out? You said it yourself-it's not the end of the world. There's plenty of better-”
He paused at the deliberate shake of the blonde head. “I think perhaps my father was right, Johnny. Maybe I am a country girl. I haven't had time to really consider it yet, but-” Her voice trailed off. When it resumed her voice was firmer. “I'll think it over, but I don't believe I want to line myself up for another letdown like that right away.”
“Turner let you go right out of hand?”
She nodded. “Inefficiency, he said.” She said it casually, but he could see her hands.
“Inefficiency, hell!” Johnny exploded. “It took him four months to find it out? This thing is all my fault.”
Her eyebrows rose. “Your fault?”
“Sure it is. Someone heard you makin' that call to me about the tail Turner'd put on me. It has to be that.”
“Do you really think so?” She sounded almost hopeful. “I wouldn't feel nearly as badly-”
“I know damn well so,” Johnny said emphatically. He looked at the tall girl. “I should've had more sense than to let you put yourself on a spot like that when you had a livin' to make.”
She colored lightly. “That was up to me, wasn't it? Anyway, it's a much more comforting reason than the other, and it helps to explain a couple of remarks I couldn't understand. I'm really-” She looked out into the hallway at the sound of a solid knock at the door. “The dry cleaner's delivery boy, I expect. That's why I'm not ready, and that's what you get for being early. Along with a sob story.”
She picked up her bag from the couch and walked out into the hall, and Johnny could hear the surprise in her voice when she opened the door. “Yes?”
“Surprised, doll? I brought the stuff over from your desk.” Johnny's scalp tightened at the sound of Monk Carmody's throaty rasp. “Turner thought it might be a little embarrass-in' for you to come back over to pick it up.”
“Well-thank you. I'll put them-” Listening, Johnny could hear the click of the door lock and the change in Stacy's tone. “Will you kindly open that door? And do you have to stand that close to me?”
Johnny came forward on the balls of his feet and came out of his jacket in one smooth-flowing motion. He threw it at the couch.
“Turner's not behind you now, doll,” Monk husked from the hall. “Turner's mad at you now. I been waitin' a long time-”
Johnny was already in motion as Stacy's tensed voice interrupted the squat man. “Will you please-let go of my wrist?”
“Ahhh, come off it!” the heavy voice rasped.
“Johnny!” Stacy cried out, and Johnny loomed up in the doorway at Monk's back in time to see the tall girl go to her knees, her wrist bent awkwardly in the cruel grip. Monk released the girl and whirled in the same instant, the dark face slack and sick-looking for an instant, then immediately taut and dangerous.
“You meddlin' bastard!” Monk growled bitterly. “You had to be here. I'll give you a little of what I owe you, mister.” He charged, head down, arms flailing, elbows flying. A fist stung Johnny's ear, and an elbow caught him in
