The Fatal Frails (11 page)

“What’s on my mind is that I received a phone call tonight from that detective who’s been making a nuisance of himself out at the warehouse recently.”

“That’s one call,” Johnny said as Stitt paused. “Oh, I got your check. What was the hurry?”

The cold-eyed man waved a deprecating hand. “I want no trouble. That phone call, now. If I hadn’t been home what would I have been accused of tonight?”

“Hospitalizin’ Madeleine Winters.”

Max Stitt pinched his chin thoughtfully between a thumb and forefinger. His eyes never left Johnny’s face. “Another shooting?”

Johnny shook his head. “Knuckle job. Broke her face all up.”

Max Stitt’s hands opened and closed. One thin streak of color flared in the pale features. “Someone is trying to involve me!” he said gutturally.

“It looked like it could’ve been your work, all right,” Johnny said in a detached tone. “Not but a couple pieces of bone left together anywhere in her face.”

“I tell you someone iss trying to inwolve me!” Max Stitt’s consonants had tripled on his tongue in his icy rage. “I want
no
trouble, but if it iss brought to me, someone will wish he had never been born!”

“That second call you got,” Johnny said casually. “That from anyone we both know?” He dredged up a full-sized strawberry from one corner of the sundae and considered Max Stitt’s obsessed silence. Johnny doubted that Stitt had even heard him. His hands clenched on the table-top before him to white-knuckled rigidity, the cold-eyed man seethed with an inner fire. Behind Johnny’s back he sent searching glances darting up to the front of the restaurant, and once turned his head to look suspiciously at the roped-off, darkened section behind them.

“You know damn well—” Johnny began again, still trying, and turned curiously as Stitt’s eyes again raked the front of the restaurant. “Oh-oh,” Johnny said softly. Detective Ted Cuneo sat upon a counter stool halfway to the door.

Stitt’s eyes were upon Johnny immediately. “You know him? I thought he was paying too much attention to this booth.”

“A detective. He doesn’t like—”

“I’ll teach you to bag me, Killain!” Max Stitt’s furious right hand swept upward in a blurred arc and crashed against Johnny’s cheekbone. Still going backward from the force of the blow, Johnny hit Stitt in the chest with the sundae. Dripping fruit, nuts, syrup and ice cream, Max Stitt roared out of the booth. Johnny boiled out of his side, and they met in the aisle, head-on. Max Stitt’s lightning fast hands nailed Johnny twice on his way in before Johnny could grab him, and then they went to the floor in a thrashing tangle.

Stitt fought with hands, feet, elbows, knees, head and teeth. Hooked fingers clawed at Johnny’s face as they banged under a booth. A table leg smashed with a crackling of wood, and a capsized booth table pursued them as they rolled back out into the aisle, hammering at each other. Grimly, Johnny sought for a handhold on the eel-like Stitt, trading roundhouse clubbing lefts as he groped for a throat-hold with his right hand.

Surging up from beneath, Johnny tried to use his weight to pin the dervish spitting at him. Ignoring the lefts to his face, he grunted with satisfaction as his right hand slipped solidly home. Hitching his shoulders together for additional leverage, from the very corner of his eye he caught sight of a shadow standing behind him with uplifted hand. Instinctively Johnny dived and rolled, carrying Stitt up on top of him as a shield. Ted Cuneo’s descending night stick caught the plunging Stitt squarely behind the ear, and he went limp on Johnny’s body.

Johnny slung him aside like a sack of sugar and scrambled to his knees. “Take a sucker shot at me, will you, you sonofabitch!” he growled at Ted Cuneo, and started up.

“No, no, Johnny!” His high-pitched voice like a steam calliope in Johnny’s ear, Danny Giardino, the tough little night manager, jumped from the thin circle of wide-eyed late-hour onlookers. Clamping a headlock on Johnny, he tried with his weight to prevent him from rising. “You can’t swing at a cop, Johnny!”

“The hell I can’t!” Johnny came up anyway, plucking at Danny hanging from his head. Peeling Giardino off himself like wet paper from a wall, Johnny threw him at Cuneo. The pair of them crashed backward into a booth, which splintered and collapsed beneath them. Johnny charged the shambles of the booth.

“No, no, no, Johnny!” Danny begged from the floor. He spread his arms wide over Cuneo beneath him, the tough face pleading. “Don’t take a fall over this, Johnny!”

Some part of the rugged little Italian’s sincere plea reached Johnny’s bubbling ferment. He knew Danny was his friend. Reluctantly his hands came down, then up again as he reached down and picked Giardino up and set him on his feet. “Sorry, Danny,” he said, and turned to look for a place to sit.

The crowd parted instinctively to let him through. Johnny sat down in the nearest upright booth and looked around, trying to control his heavy breathing. That end of the restaurant was a mess. Johnny’s uniform was in shreds, both forearms gone completely, as well as the entire right leg from mid-thigh. Rough, red streaks, from floor burns, abraded his forearms and his visible leg.

Ted Cuneo raised himself slowly from the wreckage of the booth, his face like ashes. No one had lifted a hand to help him. He glared around wildly until he saw Johnny, then started for him, his hand slapping at a side pocket. He stopped, slapped again automatically, turned and started pawing through booth fragments.

“Your bat slid up under the rope,” Giardino growled at him from the side. “What’cha need it for now?”

Cuneo straightened and turned to look at him, then glanced fleetingly at the rim of spectators. He scowled and shoved his hands into his pockets, his sallow features darkening with angry blood.

On the floor Max Stitt sat up slowly, a hand gingerly at the back of his head. A wet gob of fruit and syrup stains was still visible on what remained of his suit. One knee was split out completely through a trouser leg. Danny Giardino gave him a hand to his feet. Stitt flexed a wrist and fingers, and touched his throat experimentally. Looking at Danny, he reached in his back pocket and took out his wallet. “Owner?” he asked. His voice was a croak.

“Owner, hell,” Danny snorted. “Manager.”

“No trouble,” Stitt said, and swallowed visibly. He started to remove bills from the wallet, looked around at the debris and handed the wallet to Giardino. “Want no trouble,” he said, and swallowed again, hard. “Take out for—”

“What
is
this?” Ted Cuneo demanded in a hard tone, coming to life. He walked over and planted himself in front of Stitt aggressively. “You’re making charges against this man.” A jerk of his head indicated Johnny in the booth.

“No charges.” Stitt’s Adam’s apple worked painfully. “No charges,” he repeated. He looked at Danny. “Enough? Write you a check if—”

“Plenty, man,” Danny said cheerfully. He separated and removed a thin sheaf of bills, showed Stitt what was left and handed him back his wallet with a flourish. “I like a guy what don’t hold no grudge after a little difference of opinion.” He looked at Cuneo. “Well?”

“I’ll make my own charges.” Cuneo stabbed a finger at an onlooker. “You saw him—” another jerk of the head in Johnny’s direction—”try to assault me.” The onlooker stared back woodenly. Cuneo flushed and whirled to another.

“I’ll swear he didn’t lay a finger on you,” Danny Giardino said mildly before the detective could speak. He chuckled. “An’ by God, he didn’t.” He looked pleased with himself.

Detective Ted Cuneo stared at the array of faces ranging from impassive to hostile, cursed under his breath and stamped from the restaurant, the tips of his ears scarlet.

“Good riddance,” Danny Giardino pronounced when the door swung to behind him. The squat man beamed at the group. “Coffee’s on the house, boys. Come an’ get it.”

T
HE OFFICES OF THE SPANDAU WATCH COMPANY
presented a deserted appearance to Johnny’s inspection. He had knocked at the outer door, opened it after an interval of silence, but had found no redhead at her desk. When he had walked beyond it and tried the door to the inner office, he’d found no Jules Tremaine, either. Retracting his steps, he was debating leaving a note when he heard high heels in the corridor outside.

“Mornin’, little sister,” he greeted Gloria Philips as she entered.

“Oh,” she said listlessly. “It’s you.” She appeared neither surprised nor pleased to see him, Johnny thought. Dark circles ringed the area under her blue-gray eyes.

“It’s me,” he agreed. “Where’s Tremaine?”

“He called and said he wouldn’t be in this morning. He’s not feeling well.”

“Somethin’ he ate?”

“I didn’t inquire,” Gloria said with more snap to her tone. “Why don’t you ask him if you’d like to know?”

“I’m plannin’ to. How was your sleep last night?”

“Oh, about the sa—” She pulled herself up. “I don’t know who I think I’m kidding. It was terrible. That was an awful thing that happened last night.”

“How’d you hear about the awful thing?”

“Not with anybody’s help!” she said swiftly, again with more spirit in her voice. “After that detective called and left me dangling without a word of explanation, I had to know what had happened. I called Jules, and couldn’t get him. I called you, and couldn’t get you. I called the police, and got bucked around from extension to extension by people who knew nothing, or weren’t talking. I finally called Harry. He said he’d had much the same experience, but having more brains than I have he’d started calling hospitals. The third one he found her.” She moistened her lips with the tip of her tongue. “It must have been—well, awful’s the only word I can seem to think of this morning.”

“It covers it.” He wouldn’t have expected to find her this shaken, Johnny thought. “What did Harry do?”

“He went over there right away. Then he went home for a few hours and went back this morning. He called me about an hour ago. She’s on the critical list.” She sat down heavily, little grace apparent in the plump body. “Did you see her?”

He nodded. “You don’t want to hear about it,” he said gruffly.

“She was—oh, I don’t know—” Gloria Philips ran her palms up over her arms as though suddenly cold. “It makes you wonder if any of us knew what we were getting into in this thing.”

“Specifically, which thing?” Johnny asked her.

“Oh, run along,” she said tiredly. “Yap, yap, yap, that’s all I hear. Poke a little, pry a little, prod a little. Watch the animals squirm. All I’ve wanted all along—” She checked herself.

“Yeah?”

“No.” She shook her head. “I’m not going to tell you what I’ve wanted all along. But I’m not going to get it. I feel that I’m not. I feel—oh, run along,” she repeated. “I mean it. I’m not fit to talk to anyone today.”

He moved toward the door. “Harry still at the hospital?”

“I guess.”

He left her sitting slumped and hollow-eyed. Enough to shake any woman, when she hears it, he thought on his way to the street. That their incorporated capital can be blown in three bloody minutes.

All the uptown cabs were full. He had to cross the street and hail one going the other way. “Hotel Alden,” Johnny said, and successfully fielded the driver’s indignant stare. He settled down for the long ride.

The first person he saw in the lobby of the Alden was Harry Palmer. Striding along with his chin in the lead, the aggressive-looking little man was headed for the elevators.

“Harry!” Johnny called.

Palmer looked startled as he turned a step or two away from a waiting elevator. “You following me?” he snapped.

“Wouldn’t dream of it. What’s on your mind upstairs?”

“Not a damn thing you can handle. Butt out, Killain.” Palmer stepped aboard the elevator, and Johnny followed right behind. The little man’s voice rose. “I said—”

“I heard what you said. Relax.”

“Killain, I’ll—” The elevator doors opened, and Palmer stepped off, again followed by Johnny. Palmer glared. “If you aren’t the damnedest buttinsky I ever—”

Johnny waited only until the clash of the elevator’s doors behind him signaled its departure. He took Harry Palmer by an arm and turned him, took him by the collar of his suit coat and marched him on tiptoe to the wall. Holding him aloft until only the tips of his toes touched, Johnny began a swift-patting manual examination. “Don’t kick,” he advised soothingly. “You’ll just take all the polish off your shoes on the wall. Ahh—” He removed a blue-steel revolver from inside Palmer’s belt. “All you gunmen, Harry, and I haven’t found a shoulder holster in the crowd. Don’t you read up on what the well-dressed goons are wearin’ these days?”

“Give me that damn gun back, Killain,” Palmer stormed when Johnny released him.

“You gonna plug him with me standin’ right there, Harry? Then you’d have to plug me. Which’d make it a little silly of me to give you back the gun, right?”

Without another word Palmer plunged off up the corridor. He had to knock three times at Tremaine’s door before anything happened. When it opened Jules Tremaine stood in the door and stared out at them irresolutely. The Frenchman was badly in need of a shave, and his eyes were bloodshot. “What d’you two birds of ill omen want?” he asked thickly. “In, I suppose,” he answered his own question, and walked back inside as though it were a matter of indifference to him whether they followed or not. When Johnny got inside Jules Tremaine was pouring himself half a water glass of Armagnac from a bottle two-thirds empty.

“Goddammit, Tremaine, I want to talk to you,” Harry Palmer bristled.

“Unfortunately I hear you.” Tremaine raised his glass and swallowed three times rapidly. He bowed exaggeratedly when he found Johnny’s eyes upon him. “Sacrilegious, I know, to gulp in such a manner, but circumstances alter cases.”

Not drunk, Johnny decided, but not far from it, either. The room could have used a good cleaning. It appeared different to him from the last time he had been there, and he suddenly realized why. The large short wave radio and the table upon which it stood were both gone. “What happened to your radio, Tremaine?” he asked the Frenchman.

Harry Palmer cut in, angrily malicious. “After so many years a man can get tired of his hobby of listening to the short wave marine band, you know.”

Johnny looked at him. “So what’s with the marine band?”

“Don’t be naive, Killain. In certain lines of business it pays a man to know on which tide a certain ship is going to dock, even at what hour. If he knew that he might know, not only specific workmen unloading freight, but the customs crew checking it in.”

“You’ve got a lot to say, Harry,” Tremaine said from the sofa upon which he’d seated himself. He didn’t appear particularly concerned. Glass in hand, he leaned back and closed his eyes.

“I’ll have a damn sight more to say, you murdering bastard!” the little man flared. “I’m going—”

“Murdering?” Johnny interrupted. “Madeleine Winters died?”

“No, no,” Palmer said impatiently. “Although she still could. It’s Jack Arends he killed. There’s no—”

“Harry—”

“Shut up, you!” Palmer’s complexion was mottled from the violence of his emotion. “For that matter, Madeleine might have been better off if you had killed her. The doctors say there’s a serious question as to what her mental condition will be. If she recovers at all.”

Jules Tremaine re-opened his eyes, which had remained closed. “I didn’t lay a finger on Madeleine, Harry,” he said softly. “I have an alibi.” He smiled. “Attested to by the police.”

“I don’t believe y—” Harry Palmer swung to Johnny. “I don’t believe him. He hated her. He’d said time and time again he’d get her.”

“True,” the Frenchman said unruffledly. He raised his glass and drank from it, his bloodshot eyes on the little man. “But someone saved me the trouble. And through a most fortunate circumstance I have an alibi. I very nearly didn’t.”

“You weren’t here,” Johnny inserted.

“I wasn’t,” Tremaine agreed. His glance that had difficulty in focusing moved over to Johnny speculatively. “Although I don’t know how you knew. I was—disturbed, last evening. Upset, if you like. I am given to moods. I have a—treatment for them. Early in the evening I repaired to a little place I know where the bartender is an artist in the preparation of that much neglected drink, the French Seventy-five.” He smiled at Johnny, not quite vacuously despite the clouded eyes. “You’re familiar with the drink? Champagne over a cognac base? Terrific morale builder. I had—several, after which I decided a spot of visiting was in order. I’ve no idea, actually, how long my stay lasted, but upon my departure—”

“Who’d you go to see?” Johnny drilled at him.

“A friend.” Tremaine took a long, meditative pull at his glass. “Yes, I believe that covers it. A friend. As I say, I’m. not clear as to my departure time. For some reason, also unclear to me at the moment, it had been decided that despite the hour I was to drive up to the Bronx and deliver a package. Really a most inconsequential package.”

He waved his hand, nearly dropping his glass. “I actually started, before it occurred to me that I could accomplish the same thing far more conveniently today by messenger. Having arrived at this brilliant conclusion, I drove back to my bartender and more French Seventy-fives. Magnificent drink, really. It was latish when I got in downstairs to find that damnably narky Rogers waiting in the lobby. You will agree, gentlemen, that if I’d made the trip to the Bronx I’d have been unable to take Rogers to my bartender friend who assured him of my presence at the critical time? In my relief I insisted that Rogers have a French Seventy-five. I’m afraid his palate needs cultivating.”

Johnny glanced sardonically at a discomfited Harry Palmer. “Want your gun back now, hot shot? I’ll steady your hand for you.”

“He still killed Arends,” Palmer blustered. “You know he did.”

Jules Tremaine re-opened the bloodshot eyes he had again closed. “Gun? You were going to kill me, Harry, because of what I’d done to Madeleine?” He looked surprised. “Why?”

“Why!” Palmer shouted emotionally. “Anyone who’d do that to a woman’s not fit to live, that’s why!”

“But why you, Harry?” Tremaine persisted gently. “It’s a bit thick you’re passing yourself off as her protector, or avenging angel, either. I know she’s been blackmailing you for years.”

For the first time since he had known him, Johnny thought the brash-looking little man appeared completely taken aback. Tremaine winked at Johnny gravely. “I owed him a dig for that bit about the wireless,” he confided. He transferred his attention to Palmer. “Did you suppose no one knew about your financial arrangements, old boy?”

“That was a long time ago,” Palmer said quickly, recovering. “The relationship has—changed.”

“Recently? For the better?” the Frenchman inquired significantly. He drained his glass, stooped and groped for the bottle alongside the sofa. “I’m sorry, but you people will have to excuse me now. I’m getting drunk. Disgusting, I know, but my own method of—ah—reassessing certain—ah—ambiguous assets.”

“You want a ride downtown?” Harry Palmer said abruptly to Johnny, who nodded. Jules Tremaine did not accompany them to the door. The last Johnny saw of him he had again half-filled his glass and was contemplating it in the light. “Doesn’t know what he’s talking about,” Palmer said jerkily with a side glance at Johnny at the elevators. “It’s not like that at all now.” The elevator doors opened, and they stepped aboard. “Not like that at all,” Harry Palmer repeated loudly.

Johnny was still trying to catch up with the sudden reversal of the no-motive feeling he’d had about the aggressive little man. He wondered cynically about Palmer and Arends.

Palmer was watching Johnny’s face. “Ridiculous listen drunken clown—” he was rattling off in verbal shorthand when the car stopped in the lobby. Johnny looked out at Ernest Faulkner waiting to get on. Ernest Faulkner looked in at them, obviously flustered.

“Visitin’ the sick?” Johnny asked him blandly. He maneuvered the lawyer away from the elevator as he and Palmer got off.

“Is he sick?” Faulkner asked anxiously.

“He’s drunk!” Palmer sneered caustically.

“Oh. He sounded—upset when he called me,” the lawyer said. “I’ll—I’ll see what I can do for him.” He flushed under Johnny’s eyes. “Jules is my friend,” he said importantly.

“What’d he call you about?” Johnny asked.

“Really, Killain. You’re the crudest—I dislike having to descend to your level and inform you that it’s none of your business.” Ernest Faulkner drew a deep breath, trying to strengthen the sensitive features behind the heavy glasses. “Now if you’ll kindly get out of my way—”

Johnny silently stepped aside. He watched until the doors closed behind the slender lawyer.

“Let’s go, if you’re coming with me!” Palmer ordered brusquely. Johnny followed him out to the curb. He thought for a minute they were waiting for a cab until a Lincoln Continental pulled slowly in to them from the traffic stream. Tiny bulked up behind the wheel, the preposterous chauffeur’s cap perched squarely on top of his head.

The little man took a quick look at Johnny as they settled down in the back seat. “Listen,” he began rapidly. “It may have been the way that jerk says once, but that was a long time ago. What’s a few dollars to me? At my age, what I was getting there I appreciate.” He tried to outstare Johnny. “You think I’m lying to you?”

Tiny pulled out from the curb without even a by-your-leave, and Johnny winced as the squeal of brakes and the blat of a horn sounded simultaneously from behind them. Tiny never even looked around. At the first light a cab pulled up alongside and the driver leaned over and rolled down his window. Tiny turned his head and looked at him, and the cabbie rolled his window back up without saying a word.

“I’m wonderin’ what I’d hear about you an’ Arends if I asked around a little,” Johnny said to Harry Palmer. “It just come to me I been takin’ you on faith, man.”

“Don’t you think the police have taken care of that?” Palmer snapped. He leaned forward and rapped on the glass that divided the front and back seats to within eight inches of the car’s ceiling. “Let me out at the Circle, Tiny,” he called, and sat back as Tiny nodded. “He’ll take you down to the hotel,” the little man added sulkily. He folded his arms and stared straight ahead at the road.