Shake a Crooked Town (8 page)

The naked man came up on his knees making gobbling noises. He was barely audible as he scuttled sideways to escape the unseen demon attacking him. He bounded to his feet and started to run. Johnny was able to fetch him one solid swat of the holster harness from behind before he sprinted across the lawns and disappeared between the houses.

Johnny made a. little pile of the shredded clothing, making sure he had it all. He added belt, harness, shoes, and socks to it, bundled it all up and carried it across the street. He let himself in with his key. He was surprised to see Valerie Peterson, swathed shapelessly in a man’s bathrobe, standing in the hall in the dim night-light.

“There’s someone watching the house from across the street,” she said in a low tone. “I’ve been waiting up to tell—”

“You mean there was,” Johnny said. “Put on a light so I can get a look at this stuff.” She looked at the bundle under his arm. “Not out here. Somebody else might be watchin’.”

“Come out into the kitchen. The shades are drawn.” Johnny followed on her heels and pushed aside a plate of crackers and cheese to dump his booty on the oilcloth-covered table. He didn’t have far to look. In the wallet in the ragged trousers he found a badge clipped to a photograph. He showed it to Mrs. Peterson.

“Will Tolliver,” she said grimly. “One of Jack Riley’s hot young sparks. You’re up to your ears now, man. What happened? I didn’t hear a sound.”

“I got to his throat first.”

Her eyes gradually absorbed the totality of the strips of clothing on the table. She picked up a shoe. “My God, didn’t you leave him
anything?”

“Buck naked,” Johnny said. “He won’t be back for a while. There’s somethin’ psychological about it, no clothes an’ unable to communicate. It does somethin’ to a man. The
carabinieri
in Italy are specialists at it. ‘Course they add a couple of refinements. Before they turn their man loose after thumbin’ his vocal chords they set up an obstacle course. You’d be surprised how a man can tear himself up runnin’ a quarter mile in the dark. An’ the ever-lovin’
carabinieri
‘d rather do it to a woman.”

Despite the bulky bathrobe Valerie Peterson shivered. “I won’t ask you how you know,” she said dryly. She looked at him eyeing the crackers and cheese. “Would you like a beer?”

“I would, thanks,” he said promptly. She opened the refrigerator door as he swept the bundled clothing off onto the floor. The thump with which the holster hit the floor reminded him of something. He removed the police special and placed it on the table beside the wallet. “I’ll drop these in the nearest mailbox before I go upstairs,” he remarked to Mrs. Peterson. He wiped each carefully with his handkerchief and wrapped them in it. “I’ll burn the rest in your incinerator.”

Her eyes rested on him speculatively. “You think they don’t know where they sent him?”

“No sweat,” Johnny said. “Let them try to prove something.” Valerie Peterson sat down across the table from him. He looked up from his painstaking construction of a four-decker cracker-and-cheese monument to find her staring across at him, her chin in her hands. “I get it,” he said resignedly. “You’re thinkin’ of askin’ me to leave.”

“I’m thinking of it.” Her tone was level. “You didn’t tell me Carl Thompson was dead. And you’re getting an awful lot of attention for a stranger in town.” Her steady gaze took in his hands and shoulders and returned to his face. “You bother me. Without that silly looking jacket you’re different, but you come into town looking like something out of a comic strip—”

He waited until he was sure she wasn’t going to continue. “You figure Jim Daddario’s the wheel in this neck of the woods?” he asked her casually.

“Of course not.” She seemed surprised. “Dick Lowell runs this town.”

“You sure you’re up to date?”

“You think that because Thompson is out and Riley is in it makes Daddario top dog? I don’t think so. And anyway, they’ve never had any trouble getting along.”

“Sometimes a bug bites a man. Daddario might be plannin’ on movin’ up. How would Lowell like that?”

Valerie Peterson’s mouth pursed thoughtfully. “Knowing him, he wouldn’t like it.” Her steady gaze rested on Johnny’s face. “Are you hiring out to one side or the other?”

“I’m here on a little business of my own.”

“I don’t intend to have your business bringing trouble to my place,” she warned him. She pushed back from the table. “If it does—”

“See me then,” Johnny told her. He picked up his handkerchief-wrapped little package and walked to the door. “Be right back.”

Five minutes after he had dropped the revolver and wallet in the mailbox at the corner he was in bed, and thirty seconds after he was in bed he was asleep.

• • •

He came instantly awake in bright sunshine at a knock at the door. “Telephone, Johnny,” Jingle Peterson’s voice called.

He rolled out of bed and slid into his pants. He padded barefoot to the door, opened it, and thrust his head out. “Man or woman, Jingle?” he inquired.

“Woman. Like definitely, see?” She eyed his bare arms and shoulders. “‘What big muscles you have, grandma,’ Little Red Ridinghood said to the wolf.”

“You should see the ones in my head.” Johnny returned to the chair beside his bed for an undershirt, pulled it on and, not bothering with shoes, brushed past Jingle and ran downstairs. He expected to hear Jessamyn Burger’s voice when he picked up the dangling receiver of the wall pay phone in the front hall. Micheline Thompson’s surprised him.

“Is this Johnny Killain?”

“Yeah. Hey!” he exclaimed. “Where are you? I been tryin’ to reach you.”

“I don’t want to talk to you. I don’t want to see you. I don’t know what you’re doing here. I think you’d better leave town.”

“Just answer ‘yes’ or ‘no’,” Johnny said rapidly. “Is someone standin’ right beside you while you’re reelin’ that off?”

He counted to five before she replied. “No,” she said.

“Someone’s listenin’ in on an extension?”

Again the hesitation. “You’re going to get yourself in a lot of trouble,” her voice said finally. It sounded flat, without emphasis. “You’d better listen to—”

“Micheline,” he broke in,
“qu’est-ce que c’est que vous voulez dire? Quand—”
The loud click of the broken connection in his ear cut him off. “Damn it all,” he said softly, and hung up the receiver. He stood looking blankly at the phone for an instant before turning to go back upstairs. Before he had taken three steps a sharp ring spun him around again. He had started for the telephone before he realized it was the front-door bell.

Jingle answered the door. There appeared to be no conversation as she was shunted aside by two uniformed police who barged right in. “Here!” Jingle said indignantly. “What do you think you’re doing?”

They paid no attention. The leader stopped at sight of Johnny. “That him?” he asked his companion.

“Yeah.”

The front man addressed Johnny directly. “Let’s take a little walk, pal.”

“Yeah? Whose invitation?” Through the small-paned window beside the front door Johnny could see the Black Maria at the curb and a third cop standing on the sidewalk.

“Our invitation. Let’s go.”

“You got a warrant?” Johnny wished he had his shoes on. He wasn’t going willingly in the police van, and a roughhouse barefoot was like driving a racing car with a couple of cylinders missing.

The second man glanced at the wide-eyed Jingle taking it all in. “Take a walk, kid,” he said gruffly.

“This is my house!” the girl retorted. “Don’t you try to tell me what to do in my own house!”

Johnny laughed. The second man looked at him. “We don’t need a warrant for you to come along for a quiet little talk, now, do we?” he asked.

“You sure as hell do,” Johnny told him.

The leader spoke up again. “You could be making—”

“Get it out of your head I’m goin’ with you voluntarily,” Johnny interrupted. His voice was flat and hard. “Take it any damn place you please from there.”

The second man said something in an undertone to the leader. The man looked undecided, started to reply, shrugged, and strode to the wall phone. He dug out a dime from a handful of change and dialed.

“What’s the hard time for?” the second man asked injuredly. Johnny thought the question was asked to cover the rapid, low-voiced phone conversation. “You’d think someone was going to eat you.”

“Someone ate your ex-boss. Whose side were you on?”

The policeman’s face darkened but he was saved from the necessity of a reply by the first man’s turning away from the phone. “He’s coming over,” he announced to no one in particular.

“Good,” Johnny said briskly. “I’ll get dressed. I’d like to look my best for Chief Riley.” He walked to the stairs.

“Go with him, Charlie,” he heard from behind him. He didn’t know which of them had spoken. He heard the solid thump of boots on the stair treads behind him. When he was in his own room he went immediately to his shoes beside the bed. He slipped into socks and shoes, lacing and tying them carefully. He straightened and flexed his knees. He felt like a new man.

“Cigarette me, Jack,” he said expansively to the patrolman who had followed him into the room. It was the man who had made the phone call. His eyebrows climbed in surprise but he produced a crumpled pack of cigarettes. Johnny took one, lit it, winced at the before-breakfast taste, and sat down in the room’s only chair. The man in uniform eyed the bed, but it would have put him at a disadvantage since he wanted to keep between Johnny and the door. He stayed where he was.

They waited in silence.

C
HIEF OF POLICE
Jack Riley’s entrance into Johnny’s room was impressive. Johnny was reminded of a younger, heavier Dameron. Another twenty pounds might reduce him to fat-man status but he still carried himself well. Johnny looked at the heavy gold badge on the blue uniform jacket, a badge identical in appearance to the torn one Carl Thompson had showed him in the hotel room.

“All right, Stewart,” the chief said. “Take the van and the others on back.”

“A change of plans?” Johnny inquired when the patrolman had left the room.

Chief Riley was in no hurry to reply. Without moving from where he stood, he examined the room deliberately. In some intangible way his manner irked Johnny. The chief finally returned his heavy-lidded gaze to Johnny. “You’d better leave town, Killain.”

“Yeah?” The measured pompousness of the pronouncement raised Johnny’s hackles. “Like for what?”

“One of my men is in the hospital. I’m prepared to prove you led the gang that put him there. If I have to, that is. It might be a little less wearing all around if you just moved on.”

“This happen last night?”

“You know it happened last night.” Chief Riley’s heavy features darkened in remembrance.

“I happen to have a pretty good alibi for last night.”

“You have no alibi for last night that will do you the slightest good.” The chief rapped out the words. “Am I making myself clear?”

“You mean your man will identify me?”

“He will.” Chief Riley said it positively.

“Let’s go see him an’ give him a chance,” Johnny said, knowing Riley had no such intention. “I’ll bring my alibi along. Name of Lowell.”

The chief went red, white, and red again. Anger generated the color changes “You’re nothing but a goddamned agitator, Killain. I told Jim in New York you were—”

“Go ahead,” Johnny said softly as the angry voice ran down suddenly. “You told Jim what in New York?” The chief’s hands clenched at his sides. “It’s mighty funny the attraction New York seemed to have for Jefferson’s officialdom the other day. Maybe you have an explanation for it?”

“The only thing I’ve got for you is a warning,” Chief Riley said between his teeth. “Be out of this town by noon or take the consequences.”

“Would you mind repeatin’ that?” Johnny asked him. “I’m not sure the tape recorder caught it the first time.” He laughed at the chief’s suspicious stare around the room.

At the laugh Riley went scarlet with rage. For a second, Johnny thought he was going to attack. If the thought had crossed his mind he quickly reconsidered. His voice shook. “Killain—”

Johnny gave him no time for threats or anything else. Moving swiftly, he crowded up against the chief who instinctively retreated. Johnny planted a heel deliberately on a well-shined toe and Riley flinched. “Drag it out’ve here, Riley,” Johnny said in a hard tone. He sank a casual elbow into the well-padded ribs and the chief gasped. “I’ve got you on tape now. You may have to roll over like a two-dollar whore for Daddario but I don’t. The whole damn crowd of you are chickenshit to me.” Under the sharp prodding of careless feet and elbows the chief stumbled backward to the door. He landed out in the hallway in demoralized retreat without Johnny ever having laid a hand on him.

From the doorway, Johnny saw Mrs. Peterson standing wide-eyed at one side. Riley saw her, too. He made a pathetic attempt at a dignified exit. He waved a finger at Johnny. “Killain, I—”

Johnny moved toward him. The chief angled hurriedly to the stairs. In mid-flight, he stopped and turned. “Remember what I said. I’ll—I’ll—” His voice shook. He faced about and tramped heavily down the balance of the steps. The lower floor shook from the violence with which he slammed the front door on his way out.

Valerie Peterson shook her head soberly. “That was a foolish thing to do.”

“The hell it was,” Johnny disagreed. “He’s had me measured for a disappearin’ suit from the minute he laid eyes on me. He just made a mistake figurin’ I’d run the minute he swelled up his chest. Now he doesn’t know whether I had a recorder in the room or not. I’ll fix his wagon good now where it’ll hurt, with his boss. Where does Daddario hang out when he’s not dictatin’ legislation for the city council to rubber-stamp?”

“He has a real-estate office a block off Main on Beacon.” Mrs. Peterson wagged her head disapprovingly. “I’ll predict a building’s going to fall on you. It’s happened to better men in this town.”

“Better maybe, but not as lucky,” Johnny told her. “Beacon off Main. Right. Jimmy boy, break out the Sèvres china. Two lumps. No cream, thank you.” He grinned at his landlady, did an exuberant little time step, and ran lightly down the stairs.

• • •

The real-estate office was larger than Johnny expected. From the sidewalk he could see a half-dozen desks behind a long counter. In one corner a private office with a frosted-glass door was partitioned off from the remaining floor space. There was no sign of Daddario. Two middle-aged women sprang to their feet from behind their desks as Johnny entered. “Yes, sir?” they chorused alertly. “Is there something—?”

A hand fell on Johnny’s shoulder before he could speak. “I’ll take care of it, girls,” Jigger Kratz’s heavy voice said. Johnny shook off the hand as he turned. Kratz had been sitting in a chair to the right of the entrance where he could look at the customers before they could spot him. Johnny noticed that up close there was a yellowish cast to the big man’s eyes. Kratz studied him incuriously. “What’s your business here, Killain?”

“I’m here to talk to Daddario.” Johnny leaned back with his elbows on the counter top cluttered with maps, pictures, brochures, staplers, ballpoint pens and boxes of paper clips.

“Jim’s not here.” Kratz smiled a heavy-lipped smile, disclosing strong, gapped teeth.

“Maybe he’s in there.” Johnny nodded at the private office.

“You’re a little slow today, sonny,” Kratz said amiably. “To you he’s not here, period.” He sounded bored.

Johnny turned as if to look at the office again. His right hand closed on a stapler. “Get him out here, Kratz. Before I go in there after him.”

“You could be a little big for your britches, Killain.” Kratz’s voice was still mild. “This is a place of business and Jim’s a busy man. You’d better run along.”

“Yeah?” Johnny pivoted and threw the stapler at the frosted-glass door of the partitioned-off office. The panel shattered in a burst of glass fragments. Muffled shrieks rose from the women behind the counter as Kratz charged. Johnny nailed him with a good left to the body on the way in. It didn’t even slow him down. Arms like cable hawsers grappled with Johnny as they came together hard and thudded into the counter, half-sprawled along its top. Bracing his legs against Kratz’s efforts to force him off his feet, Johnny sank both hands out of sight in the thick-set body. Kratz growled wordlessly and redoubled his attempt to force Johnny backward over the counter.

“Jigger! JIGGER!” The harsh voice cut like a sword. Johnny and Kratz eased back from each other cautiously as Jim Daddario stood in the office doorway, his face black with anger. Glass crunched under his feet. His expression turned even more choleric when he recognized Johnny. “Get in here,” he snapped. “Both of you.”

He stood aside to let them in, closed the door and drew a yellow curtain that restored some semblance of privacy. “Boss,” Kratz began.

“Shut up!” Daddario barked. “How many times do I have to tell you I want no donnybrooks around here?” He glared at Johnny. “What the hell do you want?”

“A net over Riley,” Johnny said.

“Riley?” The full-faced man removed his glasses. He looked from Johnny to Kratz and back again. “What about Riley?”

“He was just over at where I’m stayin’,” Johnny said easily. “He gave me till noon to get out of town or else. I taped the whole conversation. I just mailed the tape to a friend of mine in New York. If he doesn’t hear from me every twenty-four hours he mails the tape on to a Washington address we both know.”

Daddario’s snapping black eyes slid off to Kratz. “Did you send him over there, Jigger?” he asked quietly.

“You know I never sent him no place you didn’t say to send him,” the big man protested. “I never sent him there.”

Jim Daddario reached for his phone. “Police Headquarters,” he grunted. A hand tapped idly on a corner of his desk. “Riley,” he said. “Jack? Jim.” His voice gathered force. “What the hell did you think you were doing threatening this man Killain?” Veins swelled in his temples as he listened. This man really had a temper, Johnny decided. “Don’t try to lie to me—he’s standing right here in front of me! He taped your whole goddamn foolish conversation.” Scratchy sounds issued from the phone. “I’ll do the damn thinking! You do what you’re told! And the next time I won’t just be telling you!” He banged up the receiver furiously.

“Too bad, Daddario,” Johnny needled him. “At least when you buy ‘em they ought to stay bought.”

Jim Daddario never even looked at him. “Get over there before the blithering idiot has time to put a story together,” he said to Kratz. “I want to know why he did it. Shake him down to the holes in his socks.” Kratz glanced at Johnny. “I’ll handle this,” Daddario said impatiently. “Get going.”

“Nice, tight little army you’ve got,” Johnny said admiringly when Kratz had gone. “Rudy and his friends pay the private taxes that subsidize it?”

“You’ve got a big, fat lip, Killain,” the realtor said coldly. “Button it while you can.”

“You sound like a big, brave boy. Are you forgettin’ you sent your army off to the wars?”

“Killain, I’ve got a thousand things on my mind beside a two-bit slab of beef like you, but if you push me I could get around to you. As of now you’re excused. Get out.”

“I only got half what I came for, hotshot. Where’s Micheline Thompson?”

“I haven’t the faintest notion.”

Johnny reached across the desk and took him firmly by the tie. “Jack your brains up, wise guy. It’s time you learned a few manners.” Slowly and steadily he applied downward pressure on the tie until Daddario’s head was forced down to the desk top. His face turned scarlet. His hand darted suddenly to a desk drawer.

Johnny dropped his grip on the tie and picked up the desk. Daddario screamed as the rising desk trapped his hand in the drawer. His chair went over backward and he hung by his hand from the desk for an instant before Johnny dropped it on him. Drawers and papers cascaded in all directions as Daddario lay winded, panting.

Johnny started around the upside-down desk after him. A gobbling noise from the phone on the floor distracted him. He picked up the receiver. “Police, police, police!” he could hear one of the women in the outer office babbling. He dropped the receiver.

He bent down beside the hard-breathing realtor and spoke slowly and distinctly. “The next time I ask you something, wise guy, have the answer handy.”

He walked lightly past the shattered door into the outer office. At sight of him, the woman at the phone shrieked and threw it away from her. Johnny waved at her. At the door he looked back. Jim Daddario’s private office looked as if a tidal wave had rolled over it and Jim Daddario still lay amidst the debris.

• • •

Johnny touched off the kindling in the fireplace with a folded newspaper he used as a torch. Beside him, Jessamyn Burger watched as it alternately flared and dimmed until the birch logs began finally to crackle and sputter. Johnny sat back on his heels and looked up at her. “That appeal to your homemakin’ instinct?”

“Don’t make fun of me,” she said softly. She retreated to the nearer of the two chairs drawn up before the fire, but paused before she sat down. “Would you like a brandy to settle dinner?”

“If you have one, too.”

“I’m afraid I had too many cocktails. I feel—well, lightheaded.” She went to get his brandy and returned with a second glass with half as much in it. “I couldn’t resist.” She handed him his glass as he sat in one of the chairs and with an outstretched leg he barred her from the other.

“One chair this size is big enough for two people,” he told her.

She exaggerated the lift of her brows. “I can see you’re not the practical type. I’d crush my best dress.”

“Take it off.”

“Really, you’re—”

“Take it off, Jessie.”

She smiled, a slow, helpless smile. “Then stay right where you are,” she warned him, and disappeared behind the bedroom door.

Johnny sat and watched the firelight’s refractions from his brandy glass. He felt pleasantly relaxed. There was no sound from the bedroom. He sipped at his brandy. Jessamyn reappeared in the doorway and he set down his glass.

She had on a pale ivory negligee that nicely complemented her dark hair. Her pom-pomed mules had high heels and the heels contained clusters of rhinestones that twinkled brilliantly as she walked. She came directly to him and sat on the arm of his chair. Her face was calm and there was no coquettishness about her.

Johnny fingered a fold of the negligee. “No lace?” he asked her.

“No lace,” she agreed. “I’m practical, if you’re not. Most women have lingerie they’ve never worn. Not little Jessie.”

“If what you are is practical I just hope it never goes out of style, baby.” They could both hear the deepened timbre in his voice.

She reached up over his head and turned off the floor lamp that was the room’s only light except for the fire’s dancing shadows on the white hearth. She bent down over him and unbuttoned the collar of his sport shirt and then the rest of the shirt down to his belt. She tried to span his neck with her two warm hands. “Heavens!” she said softly. “What size is your shirt?”

“Tent size,” he said, and with an encircling arm swept her from the chair arm down into his lap. She snuggled down against him and he could feel the moist pressure of her lips against his throat.

He could hear her lengthy sigh as she stretched generously. “You know I was told not to see you again,” she murmured in his ear.

“Yeah? Lucky for me you don’t take orders. What was the reason supposed to be?”

“The questions you’d ask me.”

He increased the pressure of the arm around her until he heard the sibilant intake of her breath. “The answers to the questions I’m about to ask, little girl, you couldn’t print in a family newspaper.” He dropped his free hand firmly on a round thigh.