“There were certain aspects-”
“Bag it, Joe. Tell it to someone who doesn't know you.”
The gray eyes examined him frostily. “We have time to listen to your version, if you have one.”
“You won't like it. My version is that the kid was murdered by two gunmen sent to do that specific job.”
“You know you can't prove that!” The heavy voice was edged. “I just can't buy it, Johnny.”
“So don't buy it,” Johnny replied indifferently. “It'll sell itself to you. Just remember I said so.”
“I hope I don't have to warn you about withholding information,” the big man said icily. “I want to know what you know. Right now.”
Johnny laughed shortly. “You always get what you want?”
Lieutenant Dameron's hands closed down tightly on the arms of his chair. “By God, I'll-”
“Easy, Joe, easy.” Johnny rose to his feet leisurely and looked down at the man in the chair. “What did you bring over here for me? Not a damn echo, even. That's why for you I got nothing, in spades. I don't work one-way streets.” He made a production of looking at his watch. “You're abusin' my hospitality, boys.”
Detective Rogers rose, looking uncomfortable, but the steely gray eyes of the man in the armchair glared up at Johnny for five seconds before the lieutenant heaved himself to his feet. Without a word he strode to the door and flung it open. In the second that Johnny had Jimmy Rogers' sole attention he silently mouthed, “Come on back.” He received a quick affirmative nod before the slender man followed his superior from the room.
Johnny closed the door behind them and lit a cigarette. He stretched out on his back on the bed, and thought about the reason for the visit, never disclosed. Experimentally, he blew smoke rings at the ceiling; but, seeing they were all lopsided, he gave it up. He had stubbed out the cigarette when the knock came at the door, and he admitted a weary-looking Detective James Rogers.
“Man, oh, man!” the sandy-haired man exclaimed feelingly. “I know you don't like him, but do you mind making your point some time when I'm not around to get the rebuttal?” He probed at both ears.
“He's gone?”
“Fortissimo, he's gone. Now why am I back up here?”
“You know why you're back up here. I'll tell you what I wouldn't tell that big monkey just slammed outta here. From you just possibly I might get somethin' one of these days. Now listen.” Naming no names, Johnny swiftly gave his interpretation of the fixed fight and the deaths in the tavern as he now reconstructed them.
“Where did you learn all this?” Detective Rogers bristled.
“You practicin' to sound like Dameron? You ought to know there's people will talk to me won't talk to the police.”
“We'd had rumors on that fight,” the detective admitted. “The lieutenant's afraid of an investigation. Every time there's an investigation of a sporting event, the police department winds up in the middle of a political weight- throwing contest.”
“So good old Joe was out scoutin' the ground figurin' the safest way to lean?”
“It's hardly likely there'll be an investigation now, with the boy dying a hero, as far as the newspapers are concerned. Who wants to try to make any hay bucking those headlines?” Detective Rogers looked at Johnny thoughtfully. “I can't understand how you get away with it with the lieutenant.”
Johnny grinned. “You think I got somethin' on him? Not a damn thing, except in his own mind. Joe fought a good, tight war over there, but the rat holes we was sent to plug had to be handled in a way sometimes you wouldn't want to mention at a political rally. Joe knows that I don't give a damn, an' he's afraid I'll open my mouth in the wrong place an' run his dirty underwear up to the top of the mast along with mine.” He kept his tone casual. “Say, you know anyone named Munson?”
“Only Al Munson, Lonnie Turner's press agent,” the detective said absently. “He fixes me up with a ticket every now and then.” His attention sharpened. “What's with Munson?”
“Had a message from someone by that name,” Johnny said easily. “That's probably the one. Turner promoted that fight, didn't he? It's probably about the check for the kid's end.”
“Roketenetz hadn't been paid?”
“Hadn't been time, Jimmy.”
“He had thirty-eight hundred and a few dollars on him when we-brought him in,” the slender man said slowly.
Johnny whistled. “You just this minute held your own fight investigation, didn't you? Not that there was ever any doubt, if you saw it. This Gidlow-the kid's manager — haven't I heard that he's in Turner's pocket?”
“I've heard stories.” Jimmy Rogers tugged at an ear lobe exasperatedly. “I'd like to talk to Gidlow. I've got lines out for him all over town, but he doesn't show.”
“You sure he's not upstairs?”
“He'd better not be upstairs. I've called up there fifteen times since two-thirty this morning.”
“Jake's got a gizmo disconnects his phone when he doesn't want to be bothered,” Johnny said. He removed his wallet and from a hidden compartment took out the illegal brass passkey. “You could scratch the suite off your entries right now, Jimmy.”
“I wouldn't have a leg to stand on,” Detective Rogers said.
“I'll open the door, an' if he's in there I'll double talk him about the floor below complainin' about noise. Once you know he's there you can make him open up.”
“I'm getting into bad habits associating with you,” the slender man said wryly. “All right. Come on, before I change my mind.”
Johnny led the way cheerfully to the service elevator, ran them up to the tenth floor and anchored the cab with a slab of wood. With Detective Rogers a self-conscious dozen yards away, Johnny knocked sharply three times on the door of 1020, the corner room entrance to Jake Gidlow's three-room suite. At the pervading silence he glanced sardonically at the detective and removed the key from his pocket.
“Let's give this some semblance of legitimacy,” the detective said quickly. He advanced upon the door and repeated Johnny's triple knock. “Gidlow! This is Detective Rogers! Open this door!”
“You an' your conscience,” Johnny grunted in disgust.
“You'll never get a peep outta him now.” With his toe he pointed at the base of the door. “See that?”
The sandy-haired man stared down at the bright strip of light in evidence under the sill. “So he's in there,” he said softly. From an inside breast pocket he removed a small oilskin package, which resolved itself into a two- hinged, three-sided magnifying glass of varying strengths. He knelt swiftly and applied it to the keyhole.
“Now there's a handy gadget,” Johnny approved.
“Room brightly lighted,” Detective Rogers said, and was silent. He rose finally with a peculiar expression on his face. “There's a thread running from the door to a corner I can't see.”
“A thread?” Johnny repeated incredulously. “Mmmm- from the back of the room a half-choked shotgun would get most of the door area.” Detective Rogers looked doubtful. “Okay,” Johnny continued rapidly. “It's a bum guess, you think. Let's take the guess out of it. Get down on the floor over there, out of line.” He dropped down himself, and bellied up to the wall. He reached up, inserted his key gently and looked over at the prostrate overcoated figure on the other side of the door. “Here we go, Jimmy,” he said softly, and, with his left hand, the only part of him in front of the door, turned the key and pushed in the same movement. He snatched his hand back at once as the door swung open.
Silence. Complete and utter silence…
Johnny pushed himself away from the wall and scrambled to his knees, but Detective Rogers was already up and inside. When Johnny reached him the slender man was already bending over the purple-faced gargoyle half sitting, half reclining in a corner of the upholstered divan, one hand precariously balancing an expensive-looking camera on the broad divan arm.
“You were right about one thing,” the detective said crisply. “I'll never get a peep out of him now.” He lifted an arm and watched it fall back rigidly. “Dead twelve to eighteen hours,” he said quietly, and walked to the telephone.
CHAPTER IV
