not a killer.”
“Did he throw you over because he was takin' up with Micheline?”
“Don't be ridiculous.” Her tone was sharp. “Why do you ask that?”
“I've heard it mentioned.”
“People will say anything.” An audible sniff conveyed her impression of people. “Next you'll be saying Jim had Thompson killed so he could marry the widow.”
“You think people aren't sayin' that, too?”
“It's doubly ridiculous. Jim Daddario is a hard-headed, practical politician. He and I might have known each other a little too well. The-bloom rubbed off. We split up. But Jim did a lot for me, and I'm grateful.”
“Suppose that some of the things you knew should all of a sudden be an anchor around the neck of this hard-headed politician? What would he do then, Jessie?”
“You're just trying to upset me!” She bounced up from his knees. “And I'm not going to let you.” Her voice softened. “We had a nice evening. Don't spoil it.”
“I wouldn't think of spoilin' it, baby.” He reached out and patted a plump hip. “I'm lookin' forward to others.”
“Do you say that to all the girls?”
He stood up from the chair and stretched mightily. “Only to the ones who combine enthusiasm with their know-how.” He reached out a casual arm and pulled her up against him. “You're all right, kid. More bounce to the ounce.”
She freed herself gently. “It's getting late. I won't turn on the light in the hall when I let you out. Goodnight, Johnny.”
“Goodnight, Jessie.” At the door he gave her arm a silent squeeze and walked quietly down the dimly lighted hallway.
He found that he wasn't surprised to discover Valerie Peterson waiting up for him when he let himself in with his key. “She rose from the chair in which she had been doing sentry duty, still swathed in the man's bathrobe he had seen previously. She wasted no time on preliminaries. “I'm sorry to have to say this but I'm-”
“You're goin' to have to ask me to remove my high-voltage carcass from the premises,” Johnny finished for her.
“You're right. I am. I'm not saying right this minute or even tomorrow, but I wish you'd look for another place.”
Johnny shrugged. “You're the doctor. Any particular pressure on you to have me move out?”
“No. It's just that there's too much lightning playing around your head. I've got a daughter to raise and a living to make. I can't afford to be in the middle on something like this.” Her eyes on his were steady. “Personally, I rather like you, but I know trouble ahead when I see it. I don't want any.”
“It's your house,” Johnny agreed. “I'll find a berth tomorrow.” He headed for the stairs.
Her voice stopped him. “You had a telephone message just a few minutes ago.” Johnny turned to her, his interest fired. “A man named Rudy said to be sure to let you know the big fish were biting.”
“Oh. That. Yeah.” Johnny's interest died. He found it replaced at once by a flicker of something else. His hand closed lightly on the roll of bills in his pocket. He glanced at his wrist watch. Why not sit in for a couple of hours? The game was a soft touch. “Maybe I'll take a look.”
“You're a gambler, among other things?”
He looked at Mrs. Peterson's disapproving face. “You know Rudy?”
“Everyone knows Rudy and all the rest like him.” She said it with distaste. 'That's what's the matter with this town. It was bad enough when Girl Thompson was running it like a business. A dirty business, but a business. Now it's an out-and-out racket and someone's going to get hurt. Dick Lowell should be ashamed of himself.”
“What can he do about it?” Johnny asked her.
“If he slept in his own bed nights Daddario never would have been able to undermine him on the council and get control.” Mrs. Peterson's voice was sharp. “He's not a Lowell. He's a weakling.”
“Yeah,” Johnny said vaguely. “Well, maybe he's got a problem or two of his own.” He started for the front door. “I'll clear out tomorrow. Sorry to have bothered you.”
He thought she was going to speak again, but she stood and watched him silently as he let himself out.
CHAPTER VIII
Johnny awoke in the first rays of the sunrise with his stomach rumbling with hunger pains. He had been too disgusted to eat anything before going to bed five hours before.
He rolled over and lay on his back with his hands folded beneath his head. The trip to Rudy's had been a disaster. The corners of his mouthy turned down at the remembrance. The sour taste was almost literal.
He had stepped into the game brash with confidence. In the first dozen hands he had run second three times and had pulled in his horns a little. He had won a small pot with three sevens and almost at once saw a full house top his smaller full. That had been painful, but not nearly so bad as the hand shortly after on which he had wagered briskly on a pat flush against a two-card draw. After two return raises Johnny had called and watched his opponent cheerfully lay down the ace, king, queen, nine, and five of spades. He always liked to draw to an ace, king, queen flush possibility, his opponent explained.
Johnny salvaged his few remaining chips and backed out of the game hurriedly. When they started filling flushes on two-card draws it obviously wasn't his night. It had only taken him twenty-five minutes and fourteen hundred dollars to find it out.
“Murder,” Rudy said at the door, letting him out.
“First degree,” Johnny affirmed.
“You happen to know this Tolliver boy up in Emergency Hospital?” Rudy asked.
“Seems to me I've heard the name,” Johnny said carefully. “What happened to him?”
“I heard he run into a fence,” Rudy said dryly. He spat on the floor and scrubbed it out with his heel. So far as he was concerned, the conversation seemed to have ended.
Johnny tried to keep it moving. “You have to choose up sides in this town to get your umbrella for this game?” he asked.
“Never used to have to,” Rudy said heavily. He cleared his throat. “Never used to,” he repeated. “It'd better stay that way. I pay my dues to the lodge an' all I ask is to be left alone.”
“They been comin' at you lately from more'n one direction?”
“I pay my dues,” Rudy reiterated.
And that had been all. Rudy had refused to say another word, leaving Johnny to wonder why the subject of Tolliver had been brought up. Unless it was Rudy's way of making the point that he knew what was going on around town.
Johnny had stopped at the Western Union office and wired Mickey Tallant for fresh funds and had trudged back to Mrs. Peterson's wishing he had never left it.
He stretched lazily in bed, threw back the covers and sprang out. He dressed hurriedly in the room's chill. Autumn was coming with a vengeance. In the bathroom across the hall, he splashed water noisily and chopped at his wet-down hair with his comb. Three or four eggs and a like number cups of coffee should put a brighter aspect on things. It usually did. He remembered mornings after nights at the card table-Back in his room he tossed the comb at the bureau and reached for Mickey Tallant's leather jacket on the back of a chair. His hand became paralyzed in mid-movement. Jingle Peterson lay on her back in his bed, her red hair flying over the pillow, the covers demurely up to her chin.
Just for a second Johnny thought it was a put-up job, the presence of this decidedly under-age female. Just for a second. Until he saw the guileless face on the pillow. “You're dressed!” she accused him.
He loomed up over her at the bedside. “Your mother will skin you alive,” he told her. “Your mother will-”
“My mother is sound asleep,” she informed him. “Aren't you coming back to bed?”
He could never explain this to Mrs. Peterson, Johnny decided. He disposed of the covers in one tearing yank. “Hey!” Jingle protested, sitting up, her arms wrapped about herself. Her nightgown was plainly not her own, being
