appealing smile with which she was favoring the lawyer froze grotesquely as she turned and saw Johnny in the chair. “How did you get in here, Killain?” she demanded in a tone that would cut glass.
“You make it sound like it was hard to do,” Johnny said. “That's not much of a lock you've got on that door.”
“There'll be a different one tomorrow,” the blonde promised grimly.
“It may be different, but will it be any better? You'd be lockin' the barn door then after the mare'd eloped, anyway. I already took a pretty good look around.”
The furious green eyes left his face to dart rapidly about the room. Ernest Faulkner spoke for the first time. “Really, Killain,” he said with distaste. “Breaking and entering?”
“You see anything broken an' entered?” Johnny asked him. “I think the lady just forgot to lock her door.” He grinned at them both. “What the hell, Ernest, you're lucky I'm a gentleman by instinct. I could've hidden under the bed.”
“When I want a comedian I'll turn on the television set,” Madeleine Winters said frigidly as Faulkner flushed. “Exactly what do you think you're doing here?”
“Tell you the truth, I come over to see how you stack up in the daylight, Madeleine.” Johnny rose deliberately from his chair, took the blonde by the arm and with two fingers tipped up her chin into a ray of sunlight. “You're givin' it a hell of a battle, kid,” he told her. Eyes flashing, she raised a hand to slap him. Johnny slightly increased the two-finger pressure under the firm chin, and Madeleine Winters tilted backward on her high heels. Her hand dropped to her side as Johnny eased up just before she went completely over. “I also come over to talk a little business, sugar.”
The green eyes raked him angrily. “I want nothing to do with you. Nothing!”
“This is money I'm talkin' about,” Johnny said reasonably. “Dinero. Mucho moolah bux. You allergic to it?”
Her eyes went from him to Faulkner, calculatingly. Her manner underwent a transformation nothing short of miraculous. “Ernest,” she cooed. “I'm sure that I can handle him now. Why don't you run along? You can call me later if you like.”
“Do you think it's wise?” he asked doubtfully. “The man's obviously a ruffian.” He scowled at Johnny, if the weak face could ever be said to scowl, Johnny thought.
“I can handle him, Ernest,” she repeated rapidly. She put a placating hand on his arm. “I appreciate your concern, believe me.” The hand on his arm had the lawyer on his way to the door before he even realized it. “Be sure and call me this evening, Ernest. And thank you very much.” With a brilliant smile she patted his arm and ushered him through the door.
Johnny congratulated her. “Very efficient removal job. What's that boy got that I haven't that he gets invited in?”
“An L.L.D. after his name. Now what were you looking for in here?” she demanded in a no-nonsense tone.
“That was just propaganda for Ernest,” Johnny said comfortably. “You know the only reason I'm here is to road-test those black silk sheets.”
She stared at him, her lower lip lightly pinched between even white teeth. “Sometimes I think you're mad. You said you had business to discuss!”
“Oh, if you got to talk business-” Johnny waved a negligent hand. “Can you find a buyer for a hundred fifty cases of Armagnac under the market? Ten dollars a case finder's fee if you produce one. Fifteen hundred gefilte fish to line your girdle with.”
“You're serious?” She sat down on the couch opposite and smoothed her dress down over her knees. “Under the market? What's the price? It's smuggled, isn't it?” she asked shrewdly.
“Now don't you worry your little blonde head about that, sugar, or about the price, either. That's between me an' the buyer, if an' when you find one. Just you concentrate on findin' me a live one for little Johnny. A live one's worth ten clams per case.”
“I might know someone,” she said meditatively. “Yes, I think I might. I'm almost sure of it.”
“Okay.” Johnny stood up quickly. “That takes care of the business.” He extended a hand to Madeleine Winters on the couch. “Let's adjourn the meetin' to the playground.” He pushed the hand at her insistently when she tried to ignore it. When it was in her face she took it in self-defense, and he drew her slowly to her feet.
“You are crazy,” she said calmly. “You don't feel there's something a little cold-blooded about your approach?”
“We're adults, sugar. Who needs the moonlight an' roses?” He led her into the bedroom. She watched with amusement tinged with wariness as he turned down the bed and ran a hand lightly over the exposed ebony glossiness. “Nice,” he approved, and sat down in a boudoir chair and removed his shoes and socks.
Madeleine Winters stood at the foot of the bed and eyed him, the corners of her mouth twitching, as he shed clothing in a rainbowed shower. He climbed naked onto the bed, bounced on it twice, experimentally, and rolled onto his back, grunting pleasurably. He sat up immediately to look at her. “Well, come on. Let's roll the wagons.”
“If you aren't the damnedest-” the blonde said between her teeth. She stepped back to the wall and flicked a switch. A motor purred, the Venetian blinds slatted together and darkness rushed in upon the bedroom. There was another click, and rows of tiny lights came on at baseboard height all around the room. Two brighter ones appeared at either side of the large boudoir mirror, and Johnny looked up to find himself portrayed as Nude on Bearskin. “And I supply technique, not calisthenics,” Madeleine Winters continued. A third click produced a whirring noise, and a flash of light directed Johnny's attention upward, where he saw himself in a ceiling mirror.
“Damn if you don't supply technique, sugar.” He reached for her as she slid easily onto the bed. “Remind me to give you your grade afterward.” He rolled her up onto his chest and admired the ceiling view. “That LX.D. of Faulkner's. He earn it in here?”
“That, you big buffalo, is none of your damned business,” she told him sweetly.
“What the hell, I've got a degree of my own. Had it longer'n Faulkner's had his. Meet Johnny Killain, C.P.B.” She lifted her head to try to see his face. “You never heard of it? Nothin' honorary about my degree, kid. I was valedictorian of my class at Roll-Up-Your-Sleeves-an'-Spit-on-Your-Hands University, too.”
Her voice was muffled as her body moved beneath his hands. “And what is-this degree-of C.P.B.?”
“Certified Prize Bull.”
He bit her, lightly, and smothered her giggle and her gasped protest against his big chest.
The Heritage Building was so brand new that some windows on the upper floors still had supporting white adhesive x's on them, Johnny noticed as he crossed the street. The ground floor interior seemed composed of tastefully polished sandstone and people in a hurry. There were no wall directories that Johnny could see. Aimed by a harried brunette behind a makeshift desk he descended a flight of stairs to a basement smelling of damp cement and powdered plaster and found Harry Palmer drinking coffee from a paper cup in a room that, in its jumbled litter, resembled a carpenter's workbench.
“Thought I'd anyway find you in the penthouse,” Johnny told the little man, who bounded energetically to his feet from the depths of a battered office chair.
“I can buy and sell six times over the boob paying the rent on that penthouse,” Harry Palmer announced snappily, “but does that mean I have to be a boob, too, and give that rent away?” He turned behind him to a door half hidden by leaning plywood panels. “Tiny!” he yelled. “More coffee!” He turned back to Johnny, rubbing his hands together. “We'll have a hundred per cent occupancy by the first of the month. I'm my own rental agent, too. Why give it away?”
“Who's your building superintendent?” Johnny inquired, already knowing the answer. He held up a hand. “I know. Why give it away?” He looked at the little man curiously. “You actually tryin' to run a building this size out of your hat?”
“Why not?” Harry Palmer bristled. “It's my building.”
“You're gonna get damn sick of the noise you get,” Johnny predicted.
“I'm sick of it now,” Palmer admitted gloomily, suddenly deflated. “Headaches. Squawks. Oi. You want a job?” he asked, briefly hopeful.
“How can I go to work for a man guns me in the dark just for easin' him out of a blonde's apartment?”
“You know goddam well that wasn't me,” Harry Palmer growled. “Or anyone connected with me.”
