“I'll just call that bluff,” the detective decided after a moment's debate with himself. Johnny lifted his arm to a cab that darted into the curb.
“Two-twenty-two Maiden Lane,” Johnny told the driver as he preceded Cuneo into the back seat.
The tall man jerked to a stop halfway in. “Where'd you get that address?” he demanded.
“From the lawyer, Faulkner,” Johnny said innocently. “Why? You guys forget to muzzle him?”
Cuneo pulled himself in the balance of the way. He sat in compressed-lip silence the entire trip. In the lobby of the office building he watched, his mouth a thin, hard line, as Johnny gravely ran a finger down the “S's” on the wall directory. “Spandau,” Johnny said aloud. “Eighteen-oh-eight.”
“And just what do you think you're going to do up there?” Cuneo's voice was acid-tipped, but Johnny thought he detected a note of uneasiness in it, too.
“Who the hell knows?” Johnny responded. “I play these things better by ear. You still aboard? Let's go.” Cuneo followed stubbornly to the elevators, but hesitated just outside as Johnny stepped on. Johnny needled him. “Come on, man. You think I got time to wait while you thumb through the manual lookin' for a paragraph to cover you? The man said report, didn't he? How the hell 're you gonna report if you're not with me?”
Ted Cuneo burst onto the elevator as though goosed from behind. The large-pupiled eyes were narrowed to slits. “Goddam you, Killain, I'll-”
“Temper, temper,” Johnny said soothingly. To himself he thought that about one more jab of the spurs and Detective Cuneo would be out of the saddle completely on this trip.
Johnny was interested to note, beneath the block-lettered Spandau Watch Co. on the frosted glass of 1808, a smaller J. Tremaine, Representative. J. Tremaine. The “Jack” of Dechant's phone calls? Or the “Jules”? Johnny tapped once and entered, with the now obviously reluctant Cuneo still tagging doggedly along.
The redhead from the previous evening looked up inquiringly from behind a neat, small desk. The room was small, too, and a little on the shabby side, Johnny thought. The girl was alone, but the door to an inner office was at her back. Johnny was relieved to discover that he had made no mistake in judgment last night. Even in the less flattering daylight, this was an exceptional specimen of the genus female.
“May I help you, gentlemen?” the girl asked as Cuneo remained a discreet half pace behind Johnny.
“Sure you can, Gloria,” Johnny told her. He leaned down over her desk, resting his weight on his big-knuckled hands. Gloria Philips glanced fleetingly at the hands, longer at the breadth of chest and shoulders above them, longer still at the rough-hewn, craggy features thirty-six inches from her own. “Tremaine around?”
“Who wishes-” The redhead nodded to herself. “I place you now. You were in the room last night when we found Claude.” She inspected Johnny coolly from beneath long lashes. “You have business with Mr. Tremaine?”
“Oh, boy, do I have business!” Johnny replied cheerfully.
Her eyes slid off to Cuneo. “And this one?”
“Oh, he's just a cop,” Johnny said disparagingly. “Just taggin' along. I can't get rid of him.”
“A policeman? Really?” Gloria Philips' stare banked off the red-faced Cuneo back to Johnny. “Mr. Tremaine is unavailable right now. If you could give me some idea of the nature of your business… I'm Mr. Tremaine's secretary.”
“Well, I guess if you're his secretary it's all right,” Johnny allowed grudgingly. “I come over here to blackmail him.” Beside Johnny, Detective Cuneo blanched.
“You're joking, of course,” the girl said finally.
“Jokin'?” Johnny repeated. “I been livin' in Claude Dechant's pocket for ten years, little sister. You don't think that qualifies me?”
The redhead considered this for five seconds before her fascinated stare returned to Cuneo. “And in the presence of the police you mention blackmail of Mr. Tremaine?”
Ted Cuneo emitted a strangled sound. His hand opened and closed at his sides. “Where's a phone?” he blared.
“Where's a goddam phone? Not that thing!” he shouted hoarsely at Gloria Philips as she pushed the phone on her desk toward him. “A pay phone!”
“None closer than the lobby, I'm afraid,” she told him.
He whirled to the door. From its threshold he leveled a finger at Johnny. “I'll get you for this, you sonofabitch! If Dameron just gives me the word, I'll-” He growled inarticulately, and the door shivered from the force with which he slammed it.
Gloria Philips was looking up at Johnny pensively when he turned back to her desk. “A man like you hasn't always worked in a hotel, has he?” she asked.
She's stalling, he thought instantly. Her hands were motionless on the desk top. Buzzer under her foot, probably. Act II was due to be coming up any second now. He moved a casual step closer to her desk. “Worked? Hell, I worked at everything. I was rollin' furniture vans over the mountains between L.A. an' Houston before I was eighteen. Jimmy-diesels. Monsters. Load a mansion in one. We did, many a time. Like the time I moved the whorehouse into Silver City. Rainin' like the sun 'd gone out of style, an'-”
The door behind Gloria Philips was flung open, and a big man charged through it with so much energy that Johnny wondered why he had bothered to turn the knob. “What is it, Gloria?” the man demanded. He had a heavy, good-looking head set squarely on solid shoulders.
The redhead released a spatter of rapid-fire French. “This maniac speaks of blackmail, Jules. He was here with another whom he said was of the police and who has now gone to telephone. I don't understand the relationship; they were unfriendly, but the other truly looked of the police. This one works at the hotel where Claude died. Perhaps there is-”
Johnny leaned down over her desk again and knuckle-rapped it sharply for attention. “Un de ces jours tu prendras mon cul pour une tasse du cafe,” he said energetically. “Maybe today, eh? Why guess, when I'd be happy to tell you?”
Jules Tremaine flexed his arms and advanced deliberately from his open doorway around the end of the girl's desk. “Jules,” Gloria Philips said quietly. “Look at the neck.”
The big man looked. He didn't appear alarmed, but he halted, a thoughtful look on his handsome face.
“Thank the lady for doin' you a big favor, Jules,” Johnny said softly, coming down off the balls of his feet.
Jules Tremaine looked him up and down impersonally, then jerked his head at the doorway behind him. “Inside,” he said curtly. “We can talk in there.”
“That's the specific idea,” Johnny told him. He looked down at Gloria Philips. “You, too, little sister. I like you near me.”
He followed them into the inner office.
CHAPTER III
Jules Tremaine pushed a stack of papers from a corner of his high-piled desk and settled himself upon it, a leg swinging negligently and the big body at ease. “Sit there,” he directed, and nodded at a chair that would have placed him between Johnny and the door. He paid no attention at all to Gloria Philips, who had seated herself unobtrusively in the farthest corner.
“I'm doin' fine right here,” Johnny returned equably from where he stood, just inside the door.
Dark, wide-spaced eyes beneath heavy lids examined Johnny carefully. The jet black hair had a thick wave in it, and the smooth, olive features tapered to a square jaw. This man must have broken a thousand hearts, Johnny decided, but he was no pretty-boy. Tremaine's manner, as well as the blunt-fingered, capable-looking hands, contributed to an overall impression of rugged competence.
“Now let's get-” Tremaine checked himself. “Who are you?”
“The name's Killain. Johnny.” He nodded at the redhead in her corner. “Shouldn't we stuff little sister's ears before we begin? I wanted her here to keep her off the phone.”
“You can talk.”
“Suit yourself,” Johnny shrugged. “I got something to sell, Tremaine. It takes a bankroll to buy. Dechant furnished the merchandise. You interested?”
Heavy-lidded eyes, beneath straight black brows, stared unwinkingly into Johnny's. “In the first place, I don't
