to the white-faced fat man, who scrambled awkwardly over the floor in compliance. “Dump 'em in his mouth when I open it,” Johnny commanded, and pulled on Stitt's nostrils ferociously, until his mouth opened. “Now chew, you bastard,” Johnny told him as Jack Arends backed away, saucer-eyed. “So far I left your face alone, but if you don't chew I'll break your jaw in seventeen places.”
The cold eyes stared up at him an instant, and then Max Stitt chewed. The crunch of the bone buttons was the only sound in the room, except for the heavy breathing. All the fight had finally drained from the man on the floor. Johnny raised his own hands cautiously to his face. The heavy gloves had felt like clubs. His skin neither cut nor bruised easily, but Johnny knew that he bore marks.
He got abruptly to his feet, and Jack Arends scuttled away in alarm. Johnny paid no attention to him. He picked up Stitt's leather jacket and slipped into it. It was far too small in the shoulders, but it covered the torn shirt and missing buttons. Behind him, Max Stitt crawled to a corner, gagging.
His hand on the slung-over bar on the door of the storage room, Johnny looked back at Jack Arends. “The name's Killain. I'm at the Duarte. You got that? I got something to sell. Bring cash when you come.”
The fat man was staring, awe-stricken, at Stitt in the corner. “He'll kill you,” he said nearly in a whisper. “He'll kill you for this.”
Johnny threw over the bar and walked out without a backward glance.
Gus Poulles, Johnny's counterpart on the day shift, handed him two telephones chits when he walked into the hotel. Gus studied Johnny's face. Johnny had stopped off for hurried repairs en route, but he had a lumped-up cheekbone, a scratched ear and a scraped forehead. “What's the other guy look like?” Gus wanted to know. He was a pale-faced, black-haired Greek, whose worldly-wise expression perfectly reflected his bored attitude. He tapped the top chit in Johnny's hand. “If this one looks like the sounds, I'm available for a spare slice off the loaf.”
“If it's who I think it is, I haven't dulled my own knife yet,” Johnny grunted. The top chit invited him to call G. Philips at the Spandau number. “Yeah. I'm not plannin' on makin' it a long campaign, though.” The second chit suggested that he call J. Tremaine, and the number listed was not the Spandau number. Johnny tossed the bits of paper thoughtfully on his palm. “Thanks, Gus,” he said, and headed for the lobby phone booth.
He called Gloria's boss first. “Jules Tremaine,” he said to the high-pitched voice he knew at once was not the redhead's.
“Mr. Tremaine will return your call immediately, sir. Your number, please, Mr.-” the voice inquired rapidly.
“Killain,” Johnny said after a second, and supplied the booth phone number. He waited, puzzled. What kind of a gag was this? He sat there for five minutes, and was just about to dial the Spandau number when the phone rang. He grabbed the receiver. “Yeah?”
“Killain? That matter you mentioned at the office. Why don't you go to see Madeleine Winters?”
“I don't know her address,” Johnny replied truthfully. Score one for the redhead, he thought. She called this one right on the nose.
“2-0-4 East 66th. You knew that she's the widow of Dechant's former partner, whose sudden death two years ago was extensively investigated?”
“I know she's still walkin' around,” Johnny answered.
“Nothing could be proven. She's a clever, ruthless woman.”
“Am I supposed to be pullin' chestnuts out of the fire for you because you don't like her?” Johnny asked in simulated doubt. “'Course, if you tell me she's got no inexpensive sins-”
“There is nothing about Madeleine Winters that is inexpensive,” Jules Tremaine said positively. “Ah-Killain. I'd like to talk to you. Privately. Not at the hotel. The attention you've drawn to yourself, you've probably got more people watching you than the Surete has agents.”
“You name it,” Johnny suggested.
“My place, I guess,” Tremaine said after a second. “Tonight. Latish, though. About midnight?”
“Suits me,” Johnny agreed. “I'm a night bird. Where's your roost?”
“At the unfashionable Hotel Alden,” Tremaine said drily.
“I'll see you,” Johnny told him, and hung up. He dialed the Spandau number as quickly as he could get a dime out. There was something he wanted to know. “Your boss around, little sister?”
“Johnny? He just rushed out of here when his answering service called him. I thought it might be you he was calling back.”
Johnny ignored the implied question. “He doesn't trust his little secretary?”
“He trusts Jules Tremaine.” Her tone changed. “What happened over at Empire?”
“If you know somethin' happened, you should know what it was,” Johnny pointed out.
“I only caught snatches. Jack called, nearly in hysterics. I heard your name.”
“Arends hysterics easy. Where'd you learn French and Italian?”
“I went to school in Switzerland. You learned French in the South, didn't you? I could hear that soft Provencal accent.”
“Marseilles.”
“I thought so. Mine is the accent du nord. Jules' is Parisien. Although his English is Britishy. Did you know he speaks seven languages?” Her tone changed again. “Stop distracting me. What happened?”
“You could call Max Stitt,” Johnny suggested.
“I'm not speaking to Max Stitt.”
“Then it wouldn't break you all up to hear that he ran into a little hard luck?”
“The only thing that would break me all up is that I wasn't there to see it.” Gloria Philips made no effort to disguise the malice in her tone, or the impatience. “What happened?”
“Well, he come waltzin' out of the chute with his front hoofs in the air before I got to say a word. At his age he should be a little more careful of the matches he makes for himself.”
“Max Stitt has never had to be careful. He has a reputation for hospitalizing people.”
“What's he so sudden about?”
“He enjoys it,” the girl said flatly. “He has an appetite for violence. I can't believe you beat him. Everyone's afraid of him.”
“Until he run into the hard luck he was way ahead on the score card. He can go.”
“It must have been quite a load of hard luck. Madeleine called me twenty minutes after Jack called Jules, which means that he'd called her, too. She wants to meet you.”
“She a buddy of yours?” Johnny asked cautiously.
Gloria Philips' laugh was brittle. “She doesn't even know I'm alive, until she wants something. Right now she wants to meet you. Her Majesty has commanded. I'm to arrange it.”
“What kind of a string's she got on you?”
“She owns stock in Spandau.”
“How's she think you're goin' to be able to do it?”
“My girlish charm. She knows I met you at the hotel when we found Claude.” She does, does she, Johnny thought. What a nice, tight little community of interests this was turning out to be. “I thought the best way to handle it would be to have her meet us when you pick me up for dinner,” Gloria continued. “If you don't mind. We can stop off for a drink at her place. She can afford it better than you can.”
“Suits me, if it does you,” Johnny said with pretended indifference. “She'll meet us at your place?”
“Not in the office. She won't come within a mile of Jules, if she can help it. He hates her, and she's deathly afraid of him, although she won't admit it. I'll see you at five?”
“You will, little sister. You will indeed.” Johnny replaced the receiver pensively.
The slowly widening ripples from the stone cast into the pool, he thought. The slowly widening ripples…
He left the phone booth and hurried upstairs to change.
CHAPTER IV
Johnny stepped from the elevator into the stream of people in the lobby of 222 Maiden Lane with Gloria Philips on his arm, and the redhead's hand tightened on his elbow. “There she is,” the girl murmured. “That's Harry
