with conviction, though. He might.”
“He did,” Johnny said flatly. “Nothin' else makes sense. Listen, don't breathe a word of this to anyone. Can I bring the kid back here? No, wait, that might not be such a good idea.” He snapped his fingers impatiently. “I'll think of something.”
“You can't do anything alone!” she protested as he started for the door. “You'd never reach Daddario. Kratz-”
“Kratz'll have to take his chances. Here.” He stopped to take out his wallet and removed a slip of paper with Toby Lowell's Washington phone number on it. “Call this guy an' tell him Killain said to haul his ass up here while there's still somethin' left of this town. Stay on the line till you get him.” He was out the door while she was still studying the number. On the street he headed for the real-estate office. He was so sure of this thing it was sticking in his throat like the dry toast. Why in the hell hadn't he seen it before? There had to be a reason Daddario could bull Micheline around.
At the real-estate office Johnny found the shades still drawn but the door open. “Where's Daddario?” he demanded of the single woman occupant. The glass door panel had been replaced.
“Mr. Daddario seldom arrives before nine-thirty,” she said stiffly. From her expression, she all too obviously remembered him as the wild man of two days before.
Johnny wasted no further time on her. He looked up Jim Daddario's address in the phone-booth directory. Then he walked into the street and waved his arms in circles. A block away, a cab in rank in front of a hotel responded to his semaphoring and rolled toward him. “212 Golden Hill Lane,” Johnny grunted, sliding into the back seat. He sat hunkered forward, his big hands knitting and unknitting. If his hunch was right, when he got his hands on Daddario The neighborhood of Golden Hill Lane upheld the name, he decided. On high ground, new apartment buildings flanked a park whose entrance was barred by a chain and a metal sign: PRIVATE-KEEP OUT. Johnny was reminded of Jessie Burger's apartment. Reminded because the two neighborhoods were differentiated by more than twenty years in age and a million or two in money. It was the atmosphere, and Jim Daddario had decided his long- time girl friend couldn't “grow” into his new style of living. The decision told nearly all he needed to know about the city council president.
The cab turned into an impressively deep horseshoe driveway in front of the largest apartment and stopped at a canopied entrance. Johnny got out and paid the driver, looking around at the evidences of comfortable living. If no bank presidents lived here it was probably because they couldn't satisfy the rental agent as to their financial standing.
He had double-barreled evidence immediately that no one walked up and knocked on the door of Jim Daddario's apartment. A doorman gave Johnny's leather jacket a fishy eye of his way in. Right in the center of the miniature lobby with its deep-pile carpeting a slender blonde girl sat at a modernistic switchboard. She looked at Johnny inquiringly. “Daddario,” he said.
Her eyes took him in impersonally. “The name, please?”
“Killain.” An alias wouldn't advance him any. And the woman at the real-estate office must have called.
The girl spoke into her mouthpiece in a low tone. She looked up at Johnny at once. “If you will wait just one moment, please, sir? The penthouse elevator will be right down.”
“Yeah, sure. Thanks.” It would be down with someone on it, Johnny thought. He wondered if Jigger Kratz performed as an in-residence bodyguard. And a penthouse, yet. With a private elevator. Dick Lowell didn't live this well.
On a small raised terrace the gilded doors of two self-service elevators sat side by side. The one on the right opened noiselessly and Jigger Kratz stepped out. He walked out to the edge of the terrace and looked down at Johnny. His blunt features and flat-appearing eyes with the yellowish cast betrayed no special interest. “What's your business with the boss?” he asked Johnny. He made no effort to hold his voice down.
“I'll talk to him about it, Kratz.”
“Not today. You talk to me or you dry up an' blow away.”
“You talk a good game, man,” Johnny goaded him. He wanted Kratz in motion.
The big man smiled his gap-toothed smile. “My name's not Savino,” he rumbled. “Take off, Killain. While you can.”
Johnny took three fast steps toward the little flight of stairs. Jigger Kratz started down toward him. The instant the big man took his first step Johnny launched himself horizontally. His two hundred forty pounds viciously shoulder-blocked the ankle supporting Kratz's weight. The big man's forward momentum sent him up and over Johnny's head. His startled grunt was still audible when he smashed down upon the lobby floor, barely missing the switchboard booth.
Johnny scrambled up from his hands and knees and headed for the penthouse elevator. His right shoulder tingled. After scything down Kratz it had plowed into the top step. Only Mickey Tallant's leather jacket had saved him from a bad bruise or worse. He stepped aboard the elevator and punched the single button. As the doors closed he had a quick glimpse of the blonde girl leaning out over her booth staring down incredulously at Jigger Kratz on his knees shaking his head dazedly. His massive pinwheel had slowed the big man down only temporarily.
The elevator stopped so smoothly and the doors opened so soundlessly it was like watching a camera pan on a Hollywood luxury apartment. Johnny stepped out into more soft-carpeted self-indulgence. The furniture was new, angled, and blond. The pictures on the walls were bright daubs. Music came from somewhere to the right. Johnny followed the sound of it and came upon Jim Daddario at a desk, hunched over some papers. Beside him a hi-fi set played softly. At the sound of Johnny's muffled footfall the politician spoke without looking around. “What did he want, Jigger?”
“He wanted to talk to you,” Johnny said.
His chair was not a swivel chair but Daddario whirled about as though it were. He looked at Johnny, looked behind him for Kratz, then back at Johnny again. “How the hell did you get up here?” he asked harshly.
“What's so hard about it?” Johnny asked innocently. “I got on the elevator an' pushed the button.” He removed the leather jacket. Very shortly he would need the unhampered use of arms and shoulders.
Daddario rose to his feet, slapping at the switch of the hi-fi. He settled his horn-rimmed glasses more firmly on the bridge of his nose. “Goddammit, if you're not the biggest pest-!” he examined in exasperation. “What-”
He broke off to listen. They both heard Kratz the second he got off the elevator. No carpet could completely deaden that furious charge. Snorting through his nose, the big man plunged into the room. A sleeve was torn out of his jacket and his left ear was bleeding. He rushed Johnny without a word as Johnny set himself. Both launched right hand swings. Neither made any effort to duck or block the other's punch. Both connected. Each was knocked back a pace, but only a pace. Both gathered themselves to swing again.
Daddario stepped hurriedly in between. “Here! You think I want my place busted up by you two elephants? Cut it-”
Jigger Kratz disposed of his employer with a contemptuous backhanded slap. Jim Daddario staggered backward on his heels until his head hit the wall with a solid tunking sound. His glasses popped off his nose and dropped floorward as his body followed. There was a distinct crunching sound as the glasses were demolished under his dead weight, then he sprawled on his face, out cold.
Kratz never even looked in his direction. Lips drawn back from his teeth, he circled Johnny slowly. “When I get finished with you, man, you're gonna look like Thompson.” He tried to maneuver Johnny into a corner. “Every day of your life you look in a mirror you're gonna remember Jigger Kratz. I'll fix-”
Johnny rushed him, on the theory the big man was a lot more used to seeing them going away from him. Kratz stumbled backward as Johnny's weight rebounded from him. He flung up his arms as he started to fall. Johnny nailed him with three solid shots on his way down to the floor, right-left-right. He thought the bones in his hands had splintered on the rough-hewn features. Kratz bounced to his feet like a rubber ball, blood pouring from a cut beneath one eye. Eyes aflame he charged again.
A long right-hand punch landed right on top of Johnny's head and he felt his knees loosen. A sweeping left knocked him down. Kratz kicked him heavily twice before Johnny grabbed a leg and upset him. They rolled over and traded punches on their knees. They came up together and Kratz lowered his head and roared in like a billygoat. Johnny barely shouldered-blocked him to one side. Kratz missed the desk but went into and through the hi-fi. Johnny dived for him and they thrashed around in the fragments of expensive cabinet-wood, neither able to secure a handhold.
They rammed under the desk, Johnny momentarily on top. Wood screeched in protest and two legs collapsed.
