“Money,” Johnny said with emphasis.
“Oh. Okay.” The tavern owner turned and started to waddle up the duckboards to a door at the end of the bar marked OFFICE.
“An' Mick, where can I get a coat?”
Mickey Tallant halted in his tracks. “For Christ's sake, did your room burn up? You got more clothes 'n the Salvation Army.”
“I don't want to go back to the room.” Although he'd seen no sign of a watcher, Johnny reflected.
The Irishman nodded wisely. “Money, an' a coat. You're runnin'. From the cops? You belted one, maybe?”
Johnny shook his head. “I got a look at a hole card in a fresh game, Mick.”
“No kiddin'?” The tavern owner looked eager. “I could stick my old lady behind the mahogany here an' go with you. Could be you'll need someone knows how to throw a punch, man.”
“Then I'd rather have your old lady.”
“Is that so?” Mickey Tallant began indignantly, and foundered on Johnny's grin. “What are you up to? Are you bein' followed?”
“If I am it's a good job. How about that coat?”
“You haven't got a prayer. Coat sizes to include a twenty an' a half inch neck an' a fifty inch chest don't grow on trees.” He rubbed his chin thoughtfully. “I've got a leather jacket out in back you could probably get into, though.”
Johnny looked at the beer barrel upper body of the man behind the bar. “Fetch it out with the geld, Mick.”
“Sure.” The Irishman was back in two minutes and handed Johnny an expensive-looking black leather jacket studded with silver trimmings.
Johnny looked at the gaudy ensemble. “You in your second childhood? Where's the motorcycle goes with this thing?”
“I just happen to like it,” Mickey Tallant said placidly. “Don't you let nothin' happen to it. I paid a hundred forty fish for that jacket.”
“Then you're out of your damn mind.” Johnny tried it on. It was a little short in the waist but the shoulders were all right. And it was fleece-lined and warm. He removed it and put his suit jacket back on. “Okay. You sold me. Where's the lettuce?”
“In the jacket. I stuck it in an envelope.”
“Today I'm allergic to envelopes all of a sudden.” Johnny removed the envelope from the jacket and the money from the envelope and spread a sheaf of bills on the bar. “What the hell?” he said as he saw tens, twenties, and hundreds. “How much is here?”
“About three thousand. If you run short get on the phone-”
“Three thousand? You lunatic, all I need is about three hundred. Here-” Johnny tried to separate some of the bills.
Mickey Tallant caught his wrist. “Take it,” he said brusquely. “You don't know what you'll need. Jesus, I'd give a farm to be goin' with you. I wouldn't give a damn if it was to Australia.” He looked at Johnny hopefully. “All I'd need would be twenty minutes to get the old lady over here an' I'd be on my way.” He wadded up the money and thrust it at Johnny.
“Man, you're three-to-five to win the Poorhouse Derby in a pulled-up trot.”
“Shut up. I owe you a favor, an' if I've got to stand around here listenin' to my arteries harden at least I can finance a little action.”
Johnny put the roll in his pocket and raised his hand in a half salute. “Well, keep punchin', Mick.”
“You keep punchin'. An' if you run into a buzzsaw you call the Mick.”
Johnny left the tavern with the silver-studded leather jacket on his arm. He walked over to Broadway and caught a south-bound cab to the apartment. Full dawn was not far away when he let himself in quietly. His eyes felt as though they had been sandpapered.
Sally was asleep sitting up in a living-room chair. She was in robe and slippers and Johnny's bag lay open at her feet. Johnny picked her up and sat down in the chair with her on his lap. Her eyes flew open. “Johnny, why are your clothes in that bag? Are you going somewhere?” she began immediately.
“Not if anyone asks you, ma.”
“Does Dr. Randall know about it?” Her brown eyes probed at him. “You know he prescribed a rest. What-”
“I'm restin', an' I'm not married to Doc Randall. Have I got any clothes over here?”
“I'll look. There's pajamas, I know.”
“Pajamas I got no time for.” Johnny dropped his head and lipped at her neck. “Ever.”
“Stop it, Johnny.” He could feel the little shiver that rippled through her. The slim body moved uneasily on his knees. “I don't think you ought to be going anyplace. You're barely out-”
“You're outvoted, ma, two forty to a hundred. Pounds. How about the clothes?”
She slid from his lap and caught sight of the jacket Johnny had dropped on a couch. “What in the world is that?” She picked it up, held it up by the shoulders an instant, and slipped it on over her robe. The bottom hit her at the knees and the sleeve-ends hid her hands completely. Johnny burst out laughing at the small-featured bright face above the huge jacket as she pirouetted before him. “What's so funny? What is it, a disguise?”
“For you it would be, sure as hell.” Johnny rose and captured the jacket, swinging Sally off her feet and up into his arms. He carried her into the bedroom and stood her up in the center of the bed while he removed the jacket.
“I haven't looked for your clothes,” she murmured as her robe followed the jacket.
“F-forget it.” He picked her up by the elbows and set her down on the floor. “Maybe I could use this.” He whisked her nightgown up around her shoulders.
“Johnny!” she cried out, her voice muffled as he pulled it over her head. He dropped the nightgown, boosted her slender whiteness aloft and tossed her onto the bed. Before she had bounced twice he was beside her. She snatched off a slipper and flailed away at him. “You-big-walrus!” she panted, and yelped as he inserted a finger in her ribs. “Johnny! No tickling!”
“Say somethin' now, ma,” he said deeply as he tucked her down beneath his weight. “Say somethin' now.”
A long-drawn, hissing inhalation was his only answer.
There was no further conversation in the bedroom.
Late afternoon sunlight bathed the Albany terminal as Johnny alighted stiffly from a Greyhound Scenicruiser. He had been awake for twenty-four hours, and he felt it. He could have gone straight on to Jefferson in the same bus but he had decided against it. No one should be looking for him in Jefferson, but if they were the bus terminal would be watched.
On the ride up he had dozed fitfully without getting any real rest and thought his way around in circles. The role of Micheline Thompson bothered him. The timing of her call to him and the call to the police bothered him. Was it possible she'd known all the time that her husband was already dead? Johnny didn't like to think so.
Had she collaborated with Daddario to call him down to the Manhattan where he could be looked over at close range by Kratz and Savino who could then step down to the street to engineer the first attempt on Johnny's life? The possibility left a bad taste in his mouth.
He remembered Micheline Laurent in the hands of a German corporal screaming a warning to Johnny Killain to save himself. Could such a girl sell out her husband? The answer should be in Jefferson, along with the people who seemed determined that Carl Thompson's story should end with Johnny Killain.
In the terminal washroom he changed from his wrinkled suit to slacks, a wool shirt, and Mickey Tallant's leather jacket. He had already felt the nip in the northern air. Back upstairs he asked directions and caught a local bus to Jefferson.
It bumped along interminably, stopping at everyone's back door. When it finally descended a long hill Johnny could see the city in the valley below. Smoke poured from tall chimneys. There was industry in the valley. He left the bus a few blocks short of the business district and walked toward it slowly. It looked clean and had an air of liveliness although an occasional gaptoothed empty storefront indicated a worm or two in the local economic
