CHAPTER VI
At three minutes to nine that night Johnny walked up the stairs in Madeleine Winters' apartment building, avoiding the elevator. At the door he pushed the white button in the left jamb. Chimes, he was sure, but he couldn't hear them. The place must be well-insulated. Or soundproofed.
Harry Palmer opened the door. “How you do get around, man,” Johnny said to him, and walked inside. Behind him he heard the solid snick of the lock as the door closed again. At the far end of the huge white-and-gold room, Madeleine Winters stood erect with her hands clasped loosely at her waist. She had on something that looked to Johnny like black lounging pajamas, but he had to forgo a closer look.
A big man, who seemed to overflow in all directions from the armchair in which he sat, lumbered to his feet at Johnny's entrance. He had no neck at all, but a lot of face, hammered flat. “This the guy?” he asked hoarsely. Nobody denied it, and he moved forward. His jacket rested on the back of his chair, and his shirt-sleeves were rolled back to disclose thick, hairy forearms.
Johnny circled slowly, one eye on Madeleine Winters. “No sheets on the pretty furniture to keep the blood from splashin'?” he chided her. “You're-” He broke off as the big man rushed him. Johnny side-stepped and put two hundred thirty-eight pounds into the hardest right-hand kidney smash he had in him as the man went by. The big man sucked in his breath, hard. Before he could turn, Johnny was in behind him and, with a bladed hand, chopped savagely twice at the stubby neck. It should have dropped him; all it did was turn him around. Johnny lowered his shoulder, set himself and sank his left hand out of sight in the ponderously advancing, bulbous stomach. He followed it with a right, and the big man went to his knees with a crash that jiggled the shades on the wall lamps. He looked mildly surprised.
Johnny set himself again as the man dropped his fists to the floor for leverage, hoisted his rump in the air and started up. From an angle Johnny blasted him with a right to the bridge of the nose that rolled the big man on his side. Blood spurted. The big man shook his head gingerly, drew one knee up under him, thought it over a second and straightened the leg out again. Johnny found a handkerchief and wrapped his right hand in it gently.
“I hope you're satisfied,” Madeleine Winters said bitterly from the back of the room.
No one answered her. Johnny pointed at an amazed Harry Palmer. “Outside, you.” Johnny strode to the chair, picked up a jacket with enough material in it for a horse blanket and threw it at the little man. “An' take your garbage with you.” He moved in on the bloody-shirted man weaving to his feet, grabbed him by an arm and shoulder and half pushed, half dragged him to the door. He opened it with one hand and spun his burden out into the corridor. He looked back at the still motionless Palmer. “Out, man.”
“You know what we agreed, Madeleine!” the little man cried shrilly. He scuttled sideways like a crab as Johnny left the door and advanced on him, but there was no fear in his face. “You know what we agreed!” His voice trailed off in a squeak as Johnny's hand closed down on his coat collar. Backing and struggling, Johnny marched him to the door on tiptoe, thrust him out and banged it shut. For an instant there was an impotent drumming of fists on the outer panels, and then silence reigned.
Johnny walked back down the length of the room to where Madeleine Winters had seated herself, on the royal blue couch. He removed his jacket, straightened his shirtsleeves, unbelted his trousers and restored his shirt- tails, and put the jacket back on. “Who was payin' for the breakage an' redecoration?” he asked her casually. “Harry darlin'?”
“I told him it was stupid!” she exclaimed spiritedly. “If Max couldn't do it, that clown certainly couldn't.”
“I got news for you, lady. That clown would eat Max for lunch an' me for dinner if he ever got himself untracked. He sopped up more'n the first wave at Anzio, an' he wasn't even close to bein' out. He just decided the size of the job hadn't been taken care of in the wage scale. Us businessmen are like that. We don't-” The phone rang shrilly on the gate-legged table across the room. “That's Harry darlin' from the lobby, pantin' to know if you need the cops to keep me from poundin' on your lily-white body,” Johnny told Madeleine Winters. “If you think you know, tell him.”
The blonde rose languidly and walked to the phone, every movement as studiedly graceful and carefully rehearsed as any on a Broadway stage. “Hello? No, you fool! Next time you'll listen to me. I said no! No! Don't you understand English?” She banged the phone down and turned to survey Johnny from beneath long lashes. “I don't know that I've ever met a man as sure of himself,” she said thoughtfully. She smiled. “But who am I to say it's not justified?”
“What's this agreement with Harry darlin' he was yodelin' about goin' through the door?” Johnny asked her. He removed the handkerchief from his right hand and inspected the knuckles.
The green eyes glinted with amusement. “A suggested pact not to engage in an auction for the merchandise you're selling.”
“He seemed to think it was a little stronger'n that.”
“At his age Harry should be used to a lady's exercising her perogative to change her mind,” she said silkily. Abruptly her mood hardened. “Are you for hire, Killain?”
“By the pound,” he told her solemnly.
“And just where do you draw the line?”
He looked at her. “What kind of business are we in?”
She gestured impatiently. “The kind I just saw demonstrated.”
“You've got a reputation for killin' your own, the way I hear it,” Johnny said.
She turned white. “That's the nastiest-” She stopped as mellow chimes sounded from the front of the room. She started automatically to the door, but her first step in that direction ended up against the iron bar of Johnny's arm.
“That could be Big Stuff back for Round Two,” he said mildly. “I wouldn't want to see those pajamas get rumpled. Unless I did the rumplin'.” He walked out to the door. Silently he turned the knob in slow motion, stepped back and flung it open.
The unexpectedly dark corridor, the shadowy figure, the sharp report, the blue flame and the hard sting in the ribs impressed him simultaneously. His feet became entangled in the door mat as he lunged forward. He shot over the threshold, clawing at the air. The first part of him to make contact was his head, with the wall, making him feel as though his neck had been telescoped. From his knees he shook his head groggily, surged erect and wheeled in the direction of the rapidly diminishing sound of running feet on the corridor's thick carpeting.
Madeleine Winters' thin scream halted him before he ever got in motion. From her apartment doorway she stared unbelievingly at the bright red blotch staining his jacket on the left side.
Detective James Rogers propped his topcoated shoulders against the emergency room wall. He lipped at an unlighted cigarette, his hazel eyes reflective as he watched the crew-cut intern briskly winding adhesive around Johnny's waist.
“That's enough, Doc,” Johnny growled finally. “I'm not fixin' to wear this till New Year's.”
The white-coated doctor cut the wide-backed tape with a shears and stretched the loose end into place. “That'll do it,” he announced.
“Okay.” Johnny slid down from the table. “Where's my pants?”
“You're staying overnight, at least,” the doctor said, surprised. “Precautionary. Possible-”
“The hell I'm stayin' overnight. Where's my things?”
“Out of the question, Killain.” The intern turned to leave. “I'll want to see you in the morning.”
Johnny caught his wrist. “I'll give you an address where you can see me in the mornin'. Meantime, do I get my clothes or do I wear yours?”
“Ridiculous!” the doctor snorted. He looked at the detective for support.
Rogers looked amused. “He's entirely capable of doing it,” he warned.
“Oh, very well, then,” the doctor said impatiently. “When bigger fools are made-” He looked Johnny up and down. “I'll send the nurse in with a release form for you to sign.”
“An' my clothes,” Johnny called after him as the doctor strode out. “These people are nearly as bad as yours for thinkin' they got to get their own way,” Johnny told Rogers. “Throw me a cigarette.”
“Now there's an all-fired black pot calling the kettle ebony,” the detective declared sarcastically. “No smoking in here,” he added as an afterthought. “How much of a chunk of you did that thing get?”
“Not much,” Johnny grunted. He raised his arms gingerly over his head and twisted from side to side at the waist, testing the constriction of his adhesive corset. “Chopped out a furrow under the arm is all. Grazed a
