push.”
“Jumped literally?”
“No. Sleeping pills.”
“The easiest suicide to fake,” Johnny remarked cynically.
“There's no question but what it was suicide,” the lieutenant said patiently. He paused for emphasis. “We're back to Turner now.”
“Did Keith name Turner in the note?” Johnny asked instantly. The big man examined him woodenly, and Johnny snorted. “You'll never change, Joe. You think it's Turner, an' you're afraid to go up against him because he's got a couple of dollars.”
“I can do without those wise remarks,” Dameron said coldly. “There were no names mentioned in the note, but I think you'll agree Turner's not the least likely prospect.” He paused again, as though searching for the right words. “We have a little chore for you.”
“I knew damn well you didn't come over here just to sit and gas,” Johnny said with satisfaction. “We gettin' down to the dirt now?”
The lieutenant was leaning forward in his chair again. “Ted's been over talking to the Ybarra girl.” Johnny's glance darted off to Ted Cuneo, who stared back at him impassively. “She claims an insufficient knowledge of English to be able to understand or respond properly. She asked for you as an interpreter.”
“You must have told her you had a dozen at the station,” Johnny said cautiously.
“She made it dear she's not coming to the station, voluntarily. For the time being, at least, we'd prefer to handle it on a co-operative basis.”
“You're barkin' up the wrong tree, Joe. She doesn't know her brother's business.”
“It's always possible she knows more than her brother realizes. The doctors won't let us talk to him just yet, so we'll have to settle for next best. I think this interpreter thing is a stall. You might tell her it's the last stall we're prepared to go along with. She'll talk at our convenience, if she misses this boat.”
Johnny sat irresolutely a moment. The only way he could figure it was that Consuelo at least thought she knew what she was doing. He shrugged, rose and walked to the closet for his coat. “On this you're gonna draw a big, fat zero, Joe,” he predicted.
The big man's smile was wry. “In that case we'll be right in step with the whole operation. Are we ready? Fine.” He pushed himself up on the arms of the chair and glanced from Johnny to Cuneo. “You can reach me at home if you should happen to need me, Ted.”
Detective Ted Cuneo turned to Johnny in the back seat of the cab, after the first fifteen blocks of the ride to Spanish Harlem had been covered in silence. His tone was puzzled. “You're quite a ladies' man, Killain. This Spanish girl-”
“I know her brother,” Johnny cut in.
“-and Turner's receptionist,” the detective continued, unheeding. “You know her brother, too?” His teeth showed whitely against his sallow face. “I might have to ask you for the formula. I haven't seen two back to back like that in years.”
The balance of the ride was made in silence. They pulled in behind another cab in front of the dingy tenement, and Johnny looked out at Rick Manfredi, who was turning from halfway across the sidewalk to study them. The gambler had a long box under his arm, and his eyes flicked from Cuneo to Johnny. His expression darkened angrily, and he strode toward the cab as Johnny got out on the street side and walked around it. “I don't want you around here, Killain!” he said sharply.
“He's here because I brought him here!” Cuneo bristled immediately.
Manfredi shifted his attention to the detective. “I already told you I don't mind your scratching over my back yard, Cuneo, but I don't want you bugging the girl.”
“What the hell are you, a protective association or something?” the detective demanded.
The gambler shifted his box from one arm to the other, ignoring Cuneo's remark. “I'll go with you,” he said flatly.
“You're not going anywhere!” Cuneo's temper was growing short. “Take a walk till you're sent for, sonny!”
Manfredi's voice was steady. “I'm her fiance, Cuneo. There are times you can push me around, but this isn't one of them. Make an issue of it and I'll promise you a wasted trip.”
Cuneo glared at him, undecided, glanced at Johnny standing silently to one side and abruptly started for the iron steps. “Be my guest,” he threw over his shoulder. “All I want right now is to get home to dinner.”
Johnny followed him, and the gambler fell in behind. They mounted the five flights in silence and waited while Cuneo knocked on the door of 5-B. He knocked again more sharply when there was no response and whirled on Manfredi. “So she took a runout!” he grated. The gambler looked surprised, but Johnny pointed silently to the stairs. Cuneo's mottled color faded a little as he listened to the ascending footsteps, and in seconds Consuelo Ybarra's shawled head and shoulders appeared around the final turn as she climbed to the fifth-floor landing.
She looked windblown and breathless. “I 'ad a call to go out,” she managed to get out, and fumbled in her bag. “The key-”
Johnny was startled at the difference in her looks when she got the door open. The first time he had seen her she had been twenty-five and looked eighteen. She looked thirty-five now; the old-womanish shawl blotted out the youthful sheen of her hair, and there were deep lines about her mouth and eyes.
He pushed inside with the rest, and the girl waved them to the room beyond as she pulled off the shawl. “I will take off my coat-”
Rick Manfredi snapped on the light in the semidark inner room and opened the long box he was carrying. He removed two dozen red roses from the swaddling tissue and arranged them in the crook of his arm, a complacent little smile on his round, smooth face. He moved forward to catch Consuelo's attention as she entered. “For you, querida,” he said quickly, and presented his arm with a flourish.
The girl appeared not to have seen the roses as she stood before him with hands knitted in a fold of her skirt. “My Uncle Terry is dead,” she said quietly with an expressionless face. The gambler looked shocked. Ted Cuneo looked puzzled and glanced at Johnny, who kept his attention fastened upon Consuelo Ybarra. “I am jus' from the hospital,” she continued in the same quiet tone. “He spoke to me before he- died.” Rick Manfredi paled, and stood in sudden awkwardness with arm still extended. “He tol' me how you changed the round with Gidlow.” The dark eyes burned upward at the gambler. “An' how you had him beaten when you found out that he knew. You meant to kill him then, and you finally succeeded!”
“No!” Manfredi cried out hoarsely as the girl's hand flashed upward like lightning from its hiding place in her skirt. The glinting metal in her hand slashed him from eyebrow to jaw-line, and he screamed as his arms jerked upward with a reflexive movement that sent the roses to the ceiling. He staggered back a pace as the knife whipped across his face again, and the roses fell on them both. With a guttural sound the gambler brought his hands down in clenched fists upon the girl's head, and she wobbled and fell back against the wall on her knees. The wall held her cruelly upright as the crazed man slammed maniacal punches into the beautiful face, which disappeared in a crimson smear before she pitched forward.
Johnny's hard hands on Rick Manfredi's shoulders jerked the gambler over backward so violently the back of his head hit the floor first. He rolled and rolled like a stricken animal, blood spurting between the hands that were holding the gaping face. A pale-faced Detective Cuneo put himself belatedly in motion and tried to ignore the sounds from the floor as he grabbed up the telephone.
The overpowering scent of crushed roses filled the room.
Johnny swung up into the seat beside the driver as the second ambulance pulled away, and the man behind the wheel glanced sidewise at him curiously. “You there, Jack? Lovers' quarrel?” He shrugged at Johnny's silence. “How's it look, Pauline?” he called over his shoulder.
“Plastic surgery for both,” the woman intern's voice replied matter-of-factly. “This one's not quite as bad as the man.”
Ahead of them the traffic thickened in front of their blinking red light, and the siren steadied down to a prolonged wail.
