“Work!” the blonde exclaimed scornfully. “I don't understand a man like you in a place like this, Killain.”
“I like it here.” Johnny sat down, and tackled the shoes again. He glanced upward to note the petulance of Madeleine Winters' expression. “I like it fine. Nobody bothers me. Look around when you go back downstairs. You see a night manager? No. You see a house dick? No. You see Killain. It gives a man a little room to spread his wings. Around here I do it my way, an' the brass don't ask me how I get it done.”
The blonde spoke swiftly as he paused. “Killain, I can make it worth-” She stopped suddenly at the sound of a knock at the door.
Amy, the tall colored girl who handled housekeeping nights, sidled in with her attention directed downward at the broken lock. “Mist' Johnny, somebody done bust-” she began, then straightened and saw the room. “Hoo- ee!”
The pretty face crinkled in an impudent grin. “Who you gone an' got mad at this time?”
“This time I wasn't here,” Johnny told her. “I hope you brought a shovel.” He redirected his attention to Madeleine Winters. “Go ahead,” he invited her.
“I can't talk now,” she protested sulkily, an eye on Amy, who was examining her with bright-eyed interest. “Okay,” Johnny shrugged. “Good night.” “Good night?” The green eyes flattened at the corners in the manner of a cat's. “Don't get on your high horse with me, Killain. I came-” She turned suddenly to Amy. “You'll excuse us for just a moment, please?” She really had a charming smile when she wanted to use it, Johnny reflected.
Amy promptly dropped the shredded curtains she had been gloomily regarding. “I'll get my cleanin' things,” she said, and went out.
Johnny forestalled the blonde before she could speak. “You came over here to buy something?” It took her by surprise. “Well, no. I came-“ “You came to put me on the pay roll so you'd have me handy in the oat bin when it come time to slam down the lid.”
“I don't see how you can say that. I never intended-” “You're not buyin',” he interrupted. “That leaves Palmer.” “I didn't say I wasn't buying,” she said quickly. “I said that wasn't my idea in coming here tonight.”
“You figure whoever got Arends winged that one at you tonight?” he asked her casually.
Her features seemed to shrink, and she circled her lips rapidly with the tip of her tongue. “I don't know. I need help. Don't you see that I could buy the thing from you tonight, and wind up dead before morning? It wouldn't solve anything for me.”
“But it would for me. All I want is to convert.” She chose to disregard this completely. “Come to work for me, Killain,” she pleaded. The vibrant voice was artistically husky. “I do need help, and I promise it wouldn't be the worst job in the world. I need someone like you.
Jules Tremaine would kill me as quick as he'd look at me. He proved that tonight.”
“Sorry,” Johnny said curtly.
The beautiful face looked pinched. “You mean-you won't?”
“That's what I meant.”
The change of expression was instantaneous. Madeleine Winters hitched her fur stole about herself with a vicious twist of her shoulders. “I won't forget this. You won't, either.”
“That's better,” Johnny said approvingly. “For a minute there I was afraid you were goin' soft on me.”
She was already on her way to the door. Only the broken lock prevented a really effective slam. Amy thrust her head cautiously inside before entering. “You is shuah rough on 'em, Mist' Johnny. That one got steam comin' out of her ears. She pretty enough to expect to have it the other way aroun'.” Amy's silvery giggle rippled through the room.
“See what you can do with this mess,” Johnny told her. He finished dressing and headed for the service elevator and the lobby. He found Paul in the cloakroom. “A guy about six-one, Paul,” he began without preliminary. “Looks slender, but isn't. Walks like he had a poker up his back. A real cold face an' eyes. Crew-cut gray hair, if he didn't have a hat on.”
Paul nodded. “A man like that came in just after the shift changed. He went directly to the house phones, spoke to someone and went upstairs.”
“He called a number at random, an' if he got an answer asked 'em if they wanted to buy any insurance,” Johnny said musingly. “When they hung up on him he went upstairs as if by invitation. Tore my place all to hell.” Max Stitt's footprints had been all over that job, he decided. A man looking for a thirty-pound object slashes curtains and clothes only from pure meanness. Unless he didn't know what he was looking for? Not likely.
He flexed his hands unconsciously. He would interview Mr. Stitt in the morning. He planned to enjoy it.
CHAPTER VII
Sally Fontaine looked up from her magazine as Johnny's key let him almost noiselessly into the apartment. He grunted at the sight of her in the living-room armchair. “Thought you'd be rackin' up sack-time, ma. Conscience keepin' you awake?”
“There's nothing the matter with my conscience.” She laid aside the magazine and looked him over as he approached her chair. “You avoided me all night at work,” she said accusingly.
He slipped an arm beneath the knees and another about the shoulders of her flowered lounging pajamas and scooped her out of the chair. He sat down carefully with her on his lap. “I was afraid you'd see the blonde I took up to the room.”
“I saw the blonde,” she informed him. “I heard what you found when you took her up there, too.”
“Yeah? You tell that little giggler Amy I'll paddle her two shades darker if it's the last thing I do.”
“Amy knows who to do her talking to,” Sally told him. “She wouldn't say a word to anyone but me!”
“I'll impress it on her that you're not on the free list either, ma.” He rested his head against the back of the chair. “I need about three hours' sleep. Set the alarm for eleven, will you?” He attempted to outstare the close- range inspection of the brown eyes. “Think you'll know me the next time you see me?”
“It's something about the way you're moving,” she decided aloud. She dropped a hand experimentally on one shoulder, probed lightly, passed on to the other, and inevitably descended to Johnny's adhesive-corseted waist. “I knew it!” she declared. “What happened this time?”
“Someone whiffled one through the blonde's front door tonight. I just happened to be there.”
“I'll bet you just happened to be there.” Her eyes widened as his words registered. “You were shot?”
“Creased, ma. Just creased. Your cuticle scissors give me a harder time when you're manicurin' my paws. The hell of it was my foot got tangled up in a mat an' threw me when I went after the gent.”
“And a good thing, too,” she stated firmly. “How you keep from being killed-” Head cocked to one side, she examined his face. “What were you doing there in the first place?” she asked abruptly.
“You mean aside from the obvious, ma?” He ducked a left lead and smothered her hands in his. “That's what's known as a long, involved story. Stop worryin'. It wasn't even meant for me.”
“If you hadn't been there, you couldn't have been hit,” Sally pointed out with unerring feminine logic. “Was it the blonde they were shooting at? She looked just the type.”
“I guess she was supposed to be up at bat, all right,” Johnny admitted. He ruffled the soft brown hair under his hand. “She's a little shook. She's allergic to the clay-pigeon bit.”
Sally dropped her head on Johnny's shoulder and closed her eyes. “From the look of her, it couldn't happen to a more deserving pigeon,” she murmured. The eyes flew open again, and she lifted her head to look at him. “Tell me about it,” she said.
He eased the slim body on his lap to a more comfortable position. “I'm just tryin' to give the man you called for me the other night a hand in retrievin' a piece of goods swiped from him a while back.”
The brown eyes speculated. “And it was Claude Dechant who did the swiping? That's why you asked me all those questions about the people he used to telephone?”
“It was Dechant. An' he killed himself. I'd like to know why.” Johnny stared broodingly across the room over a flower-pajamaed shoulder. “About all I've done so far tryin' to find out is to tie into the damnedest bunch of do-it- yourself characters you ever saw.”
“Did one of them tear up your room tonight?”
“One of them did.” Johnny's eyes darkened. “I'm gonna speak to him about it.” He looked at Sally on his lap.
