The Fatal Frails (6 page)

Twice the lieutenant opened his mouth to speak, and twice he closed it. Eyes smoldering, he spun on his heel. Cuneo caught up to him at the foyer doors, and they went out together.

“I wish you wouldn’t do that, Johnny,” Sally said worriedly from behind him. “He’s furious.”

“The hell with him,” Johnny grunted. “Maybe it’ll stir up his tired blood a little. They get my cork.” He turned from his morose inspection of the foyer doors to smile in over the wooden gate at anxious brown eyes. “Forget ‘em, ma. Small potatoes, an’ not very many to the hill.”

“But they can do all kinds of things, Johnny. They can—”

“Forget it, ma,” he said again. “I got Joe right under the gun. The next time he comes back to see me, it’ll be with his hat in his hand. You don’t believe it?” He looked at his watch. “It’s late, but he’ll probably still be up. Plug yourself in there an’ call the Rosario an’ ask for Cardinal Lucian Alerini. Tell whoever you get on there that Killain wants to talk to him.” He grinned at Sally’s stare. “I’m not kiddin’, ma. Go ahead an’ call.”

He waited while Sally looked up the number and put the call through. She had to repeat her little speech to four different people in the cardinal’s entourage before she finally nodded for Johnny to pick up the house phone. He whistled the first eight bars of
Edelweiss
into it. “Kiki? Your phone on a switchboard?”

“This hotel phone is, Johnny, but I also have a direct line.”

“Call me here at the Duarte. I’m standin’ beside my switchboard.” He hung up, waited for Sally’s nod and picked up the receiver again. “You could do me a favor, Kiki. Like callin’ up the highest police official you know and expressin’ unofficial thanks for the help Dameron’s givin’ you on a delicate private matter.”

“I see,” the cardinal’s resonant voice said after a thoughtful pause. “Yes, I think I do see. Consider it done. Do you feel you’re making any progress?”

“I’ve met half a dozen of Dechant’s closest associates. They think I’ve got somethin’ to sell. A couple at least are real anxious to buy. When I run onto someone in the crowd that’s peddlin’ instead of buyin’, I figure I’ll have somethin’.”

“I see,” the cardinal said again. “I wish you luck.”

“I think we’ll break it down. It’s kind of a tight little circle, with nobody much likin’ anyone else. It leaves room for angle-playin’. Kiki, how big is this thing I’m lookin’ for?”

“About eighteen inches by fifteen inches. It weighs nearly thirty pounds. The bulk of the weight is made up of gold and jewels.” The cardinal’s tone was dry.

“Thirty pounds,” Johnny mused. “Nobody’s walkin’ around with it in their hip pocket, anyway. Okay. I’ll be callin’ you.”

“The other I’ll do right now. Thanks for calling, Johnny.”

Johnny replaced the phone slowly, lost in thought. He looked up finally to find Sally’s eyes upon him. “See how easy it is, ma? When Kiki makes his call, the police official will call Dameron to give him a pat on the head for renderin’ such outstandin’ service to a distinguished foreign visitor. With a line-up like that against him, you think Dameron’s gonna pull many spokes outa my wheel? He’ll know where it came from.” He grinned, and stretched lazily. “I’d give a dollar to watch his mug when he gets the call.”

“That was a
cardinal
you were talking to? In language like that?” Sally looked horrified.

“It’s the only language I know, ma. An’ he’s a right guy. He an’ I were goin’ up a cliff on a rope one night a few years back. He was on the rope when it was cut, an’ he went to the bottom. I was on a ledge, an’ it took me a while to get down to him. I packed him outta there, although for quite a while I wasn’t sure it was gonna do any good. He’s tough, though. He made it. The next night I went back an’ made it to the top. I found the guys that cut the rope. I never told him that.” He roused himself from relived memories, and looked at his watch. “I’ll let Marty go on his relief now, I guess. You call Paul to relieve you when you’re ready, ma.” He pushed through the wooden gate and squeezed himself along the narrow passageway between the mail racks and the cashier’s wicket. Sally’s eyes followed him until the angle of the registration desk hid him from sight.

• • •

The appearance of Ernest Faulkner’s law office was not what he would have expected, Johnny decided. In contrast to the up-to-the-minute cut of the lawyer’s two-hundred-dollar suits, the waiting room furniture in the musty office was so soundly and solidly old-fashioned that it looked as though it would still be there when the building itself was gone.

Johnny spoke up when he wearied of the gray-haired, quince-mouthed dragon in shirtwaist and skirt not deigning to notice him. He knew she’d heard him come in. “The name’s Killain. I’d like to see Faulkner.”

She looked up from her desk and raised gold pince-nez glasses on a gold chain. From behind them gimlet eyes swept him from head to foot. “Your business?”

“Private,” he said shortly.

Down came the corners of the thin mouth. “I shall have to have some knowledge of the nature of your business, sir.”

Johnny stared at her. “Yeah? Who died an’ left you boss?” He pushed past her desk to the door behind her. She had risen at his first movement; for a second he thought she meant to step in front of him, but if that had been her intention she thought better of it. She was right on his heels when he knocked on the inner door and entered. Ernest Faulkner looked over his shoulder at them from where he stood beside a window, his hands jammed idly in his pockets. “Hi, Ernest,” Johnny greeted him. “You make all your customers run this barrage?”

“Oh, it’s you.” The sensitive-featured lawyer nodded to the woman behind Johnny. “It’s all right, Miss McPartland. I’m acquainted with Mr. Killain. He has an impetuous nature.”

“He’s no gentleman!” Miss McPartland snapped, but backed reluctantly to the door. It banged shut behind her.

“You sure she hasn’t got the room bugged?” Johnny asked. “What you got to do to get ‘em to take that kind of an interest in their work?”

The corners of Ernest Faulkner’s mouth moved nervously. “I inherited Miss McPartland from my father,” he explained, and with a wave of his hand indicated the massive iron safe and dull-backed, book-lined walls. “Along with these less trying legacies.” He seated himself behind his desk and waved Johnny to a chair alongside. He removed his heavy horn-rimmed glasses and began to polish them carefully. “Sit down. May I be of assistance?”

“It depends,” Johnny told him. He sat down. The sound of the lawyer’s high-pitched voice lingered in his ears. Without the heavy glasses to strengthen it, the face was almost feminine in its delicacy. A soft bloom emanating from the skin added to the illusion. And there was something about the slightly stilted walk and the quick movements of the slim hands—this boy could have a little trouble, Johnny decided. Latent, if not overt. Still, the scorecards said he was getting to bat regularly against Gloria Philips. No indication of a hormone deficiency there. “You rate yourself near the top in the lawyerin’ business, Ernest?”

A ghost of a smile hovered on the soft-looking mouth. “Am I being offered your business?”

“I thought maybe I should talk to you first before I went up against Palmer again.”

“Considerate of you.” Ernest Faulkner replaced his glasses, leaned back in his chair and studied Johnny. “You’d be surprised at the number of people who don’t feel they should talk to me first.”

A sense of humor, Johnny thought. Likewise more bitterness than you’d expect. There was more to Faulkner than met the eye. “I’ve been takin’ a few soundin’s of the ice, Ernest, since someone in the crowd took on himself to scratch Arends from the entries.”

“If it’s the thickness of the piece you’re on that concerns you, I don’t blame you.” The lawyer settled the glasses firmly on the bridge of his nose. “Although you didn’t strike me as the nervous type.”

“It’s bad for business, havin’ potential customers bothered like that,” Johnny explained, dead-pan. “It’s liable to hustle me along a little faster’n I like to go. What’s my chances of gettin’ paid if I go back to Palmer ready to do business?”

“Mr. Palmer is a reputable businessman,” the lawyer said smoothly. “For value received—”

“The worst kind of thief,” Johnny interrupted impatiently, “does it legally. I’ll make you a proposition. You handle the money end of it for me, an’ I’ll make a deal with Palmer. I got to be sure I get paid.”

Ernest Faulkner stared at him. “Are you serious, Mr. Killain? Do you for one moment imagine that any lawyer can afford to represent you?”

“I thought I came to the right man,” Johnny said mildly. “You’re Dechant’s lawyer. You’re Palmer’s lawyer. You’re the Winters woman’s lawyer. You get to see the wheels go round. You know Dechant was a thief all his life. You know he an’ the Winters woman killed her husband. You know Palmer’s playin’ footsie with the blonde just like Arends was. You know Tremaine’s—”

“Just a minute!” Ernest Faulkner appeared to have trouble with his breathing. He looked horrified. “How can you expect me to sit here and listen to these—these gross insinuations! These monstrous—”

“Insinuations, hell! Act your age, Ernest.”

“Let’s not be under any misapprehension,” the lawyer said hurriedly. “I was Claude’s attorney, it’s true. But I’m not Palmer’s, and except in the most highly specialized context I’m not Madeleine’s, either.”

“Palmer said he paid you a retainer,” Johnny pointed out. “An’ when we found Arends in Madeleine’s place the other night, who did she call? You.”

“It was the equivalent of calling a friend,” Faulkner protested. He worried his lower lip with his teeth. “She called me because of my knowledge of certain circumstances.”

“It’s your knowledge of certain circumstances I’m tryin’ to line up on my side,” Johnny told him. “What’s the price?”

“You’ve heard of ethics, Mr. Killain? Legal ethics?”

“Nobody doin’ business with these people has ethics,” Johnny said positively. “What’re they payin’ you?”

“I think that you had better leave now. Immediately.”

Johnny shook his head at the attempted dignity in the shaken voice. “You know I’m gonna do business with someone, Ernest. Why not with you?” He studied the moist-looking face across the desk. “Use your phone?” he asked abruptly, and without waiting for permission pulled it toward him. He picked up the metal tel-e-list from in front of Faulkner and thumbed the indicator down to the W’s. A touch sprang it open.

“Here! What do you think you’re doing?” The lawyer came halfway up out of his chair and then sank back into it.

“Callin’ a mutual acquaintance,” Johnny said, dialing the number listed for Madeleine Winters. Across from him Faulkner removed a handkerchief from his pocket and dabbed at the faint sheen visible on his white forehead. “I noticed the other night she had a phone in the living room and another in the bedroom. This the unlisted number?” He shook his head in mock regret at the lack of response from the man behind the desk.

“Harry, darling?” the phone cooed in Johnny’s ear.

“You tryin’ to make me jealous? This is Killain, from the Duarte.”

“How did you get this number, Killain?” Her tone had hardened up like wet leather in the desert sun, he thought admiringly. This woman really had a cutting edge.

“You know anything that’s not for sale if the price is right?” he asked her. “Let’s get to somethin’ important. I want to see you. How about your place tonight? Around nine?” He could almost hear the gears going around beneath the ash-blonde hair.

“Tonight?” she began doubtfully, and then her voice firmed up. “All right. I’ll arrange it.”

“Fine. I’ll be there.” Johnny nodded casually to a whey-faced Ernest Faulkner as he replaced the phone.

“Are you trying to get me in trouble?” the lawyer croaked.

“Nothin’ like that, Ernest,” Johnny soothed him. He moved the indicator on the tel-e-list again, opened it at the P’s, and pointed out Palmer’s number to the wide-eyed lawyer. “Don’t forget to call Harry. You know how he likes to keep posted.”

On his way through the waiting room Johnny bowed gravely to a ramrod-straight Miss McPartland, who looked right through him.

A
T THREE MINUTES TO NINE
that night Johnny walked up the stairs in Madeleine Winters’ apartment building, avoiding the elevator. At the door he pushed the white button in the left jamb. Chimes, he was sure, but he couldn’t hear them. The place must be well-insulated. Or soundproofed.

Harry Palmer opened the door. “How you do get around, man,” Johnny said to him, and walked inside. Behind him he heard the solid snick of the lock as the door closed again. At the far end of the huge white-and-gold room, Madeleine Winters stood erect with her hands clasped loosely at her waist. She had on something that looked to Johnny like black lounging pajamas, but he had to forgo a closer look.

A big man, who seemed to overflow in all directions from the armchair in which he sat, lumbered to his feet at Johnny’s entrance. He had no neck at all, but a lot of face, hammered flat. “This the guy?” he asked hoarsely. Nobody denied it, and he moved forward. His jacket rested on the back of his chair, and his shirt-sleeves were rolled back to disclose thick, hairy forearms.

Johnny circled slowly, one eye on Madeleine Winters. “No sheets on the pretty furniture to keep the blood from splashin’?” he chided her. “You’re—” He broke off as the big man rushed him. Johnny side-stepped and put two hundred thirty-eight pounds into the hardest right-hand kidney smash he had in him as the man went by. The big man sucked in his breath, hard. Before he could turn, Johnny was in behind him and, with a bladed hand, chopped savagely twice at the stubby neck. It should have dropped him; all it did was turn him around. Johnny lowered his shoulder, set himself and sank his left hand out of sight in the ponderously advancing, bulbous stomach. He followed it with a right, and the big man went to his knees with a crash that jiggled the shades on the wall lamps. He looked mildly surprised.

Johnny set himself again as the man dropped his fists to the floor for leverage, hoisted his rump in the air and started up. From an angle Johnny blasted him with a right to the bridge of the nose that rolled the big man on his side. Blood spurted. The big man shook his head gingerly, drew one knee up under him, thought it over a second and straightened the leg out again. Johnny found a handkerchief and wrapped his right hand in it gently.

“I hope you’re satisfied,” Madeleine Winters said bitterly from the back of the room.

No one answered her. Johnny pointed at an amazed Harry Palmer. “Outside, you.” Johnny strode to the chair, picked up a jacket with enough material in it for a horse blanket and threw it at the little man. “An’ take your garbage with you.” He moved in on the bloody-shirted man weaving to his feet, grabbed him by an arm and shoulder and half pushed, half dragged him to the door. He opened it with one hand and spun his burden out into the corridor. He looked back at the still motionless Palmer. “Out, man.”

“You know what we agreed, Madeleine!” the little man cried shrilly. He scuttled sideways like a crab as Johnny left the door and advanced on him, but there was no fear in his face. “You know what we agreed!” His voice trailed off in a squeak as Johnny’s hand closed down on his coat collar. Kicking and struggling, Johnny marched him to the door on tiptoe, thrust him out and banged it shut. For an instant there was an impotent drumming of fists on the outer panels, and then silence reigned.

Johnny walked back down the length of the room to where Madeleine Winters had seated herself, on the royal blue couch. He removed his jacket, straightened his shirt-sleeves, unbelted his trousers and restored his shirt-tails, and put the jacket back on. “Who was payin’ for the breakage an’ redecoration?” he asked her casually. “Harry dar-lin’?”

“I told him it was stupid!” she exclaimed spiritedly. “If Max couldn’t do it, that clown certainly couldn’t.”

“I got news for you, lady. That clown would eat Max for lunch an’ me for dinner if he ever got himself untracked. He sopped up more’n the first wave at Anzio, an’ he wasn’t even close to bein’ out. He just decided the size of the job hadn’t been taken care of in the wage scale. Us businessmen are like that. We don’t—” The phone rang shrilly on the gate-legged table across the room. “That’s Harry darlin’ from the lobby, pantin’ to know if you need the cops to keep me from poundin’ on your lily-white body,” Johnny told Madeleine Winters. “If you think you know, tell him.”

The blonde rose languidly and walked to the phone, every movement as studiedly graceful and carefully rehearsed as any on a Broadway stage. “Hello? No, you fool! Next time you’ll listen to me. I said no!
No!
Don’t you understand English?” She banged the phone down and turned to survey Johnny from beneath long lashes. “I don’t know that I’ve ever met a man as sure of himself,” she said thoughtfully. She smiled. “But who am I to say it’s not justified?”

“What’s this agreement with Harry darlin’ he was yodelin’ about goin’ through the door?” Johnny asked her. He removed the handkerchief from his right hand and inspected the knuckles.

The green eyes glinted with amusement. “A suggested pact not to engage in an auction for the merchandise you’re selling.”

“He seemed to think it was a little stronger’n that.”

“At his age Harry should be used to a lady’s exercising her perogative to change her mind,” she said silkily. Abruptly her mood hardened. “Are you for hire, Killain?”

“By the pound,” he told her solemnly.

“And just where do you draw the line?”

He looked at her. “What kind of business are we in?”

She gestured impatiently. “The kind I just saw demonstrated.”

“You’ve got a reputation for killin’ your own, the way I hear it,” Johnny said.

She turned white. “That’s the nastiest—” She stopped as mellow chimes sounded from the front of the room. She started automatically to the door, but her first step in that direction ended up against the iron bar of Johnny’s arm.

“That could be Big Stuff back for Round Two,” he said mildly. “I wouldn’t want to see those pajamas get rumpled. Unless I did the rumplin’.” He walked out to the door. Silently he turned the knob in slow motion, stepped back and flung it open.

The unexpectedly dark corridor, the shadowy figure, the sharp report, the blue flame and the hard sting in the ribs impressed him simultaneously. His feet became entangled in the door mat as he lunged forward. He shot over the threshold, clawing at the air. The first part of him to make contact was his head, with the wall, making him feel as though his neck had been telescoped. From his knees he shook his head groggily, surged erect and wheeled in the direction of the rapidly diminishing sound of running feet on the corridor’s thick carpeting.

Madeleine Winters’ thin scream halted him before he ever got in motion. From her apartment doorway she stared unbelievingly at the bright red blotch staining his jacket on the left side.

• • •

Detective James Rogers propped his topcoated shoulders against the emergency room wall. He lipped at an unlighted cigarette, his hazel eyes reflective as he watched the crewcut intern briskly winding adhesive around Johnny’s waist.

“That’s enough, Doc,” Johnny, growled finally. “I’m not fixin’ to wear this till New Year’s.”

The white-coated doctor cut the wide-backed tape with a shears and stretched the loose end into place. “That’ll do it,” he announced.

“Okay.” Johnny slid down from the table. “Where’s my pants?”

“You’re staying overnight, at least,” the doctor said, surprised. “Precautionary. Possible—”

“The hell I’m stayin’ overnight. Where’s my things?”

“Out of the question, Killain.” The intern turned to leave. “I’ll want to see you in the morning.”

Johnny caught his wrist. “I’ll give you an address where you can see me in the mornin’. Meantime, do I get my clothes or do I wear yours?”

“Ridiculous!” the doctor snorted. He looked at the detective for support.

Rogers looked amused. “He’s entirely capable of doing it,” he warned.

“Oh, very well, then,” the doctor said impatiently. “When bigger fools are made—” He looked Johnny up and down. “I’ll send the nurse in with a release form for you to sign.”

“An’ my clothes,” Johnny called after him as the doctor strode out. “These people are nearly as bad as yours for thinkin’ they got to get their own way,” Johnny told Rogers. “Throw me a cigarette.”

“Now
there’s
an all-fired black pot calling the kettle ebony,” the detective declared sarcastically. “No smoking in here,” he added as an afterthought. “How much of a chunk of you did that thing get?”

“Not much,” Johnny grunted. He raised his arms gingerly over his head and twisted from side to side at the waist, testing the constriction of his adhesive corset. “Chopped out a furrow under the arm is all. Grazed a rib.”

“What were you doing while all that was going on?”

“Standin’ there watchin’. Someone unscrewed the corridor light bulbs, rang the bell an’ busted one through me when I opened the door. The door was at the dark end of the apartment, too. All I saw was a kind of outline. Dark clothes, an’ I’d bet gloves an’ a mask. I didn’t even get a glimmer of skin.”

“How about size?”

“Right quick I’d have said not too big, but after I like to sprung my neck against the opposite wall goin’ after him, the runnin’ footsteps sounded real heavy.”

“All running footsteps sound heavy,” Detective Rogers said patiently. He removed the still unlighted cigarette from his mouth and placed it carefully over one ear. “When I got there after they’d hauled you in here, your ex-hostess was hysterical. Claimed that, with the difference in height, if she’d opened the door herself she’d be on a slab downtown.”

“Could be, Jimmy.”

“On the other hand, you haven’t made many new friends lately, either.”

“I think this is one time I was the innocent bystander. On two counts. That shot came through so fast it had to be just reflex on the part of the gunman. He wasn’t pickin’ an’ choosin’ targets. He was all lined up on the door, an’ the second it opened—bang.”

“You said on two counts,” Rogers reminded him.

Johnny hesitated. “I didn’t use the elevator goin’ up there, Jimmy. I used the stairs. There was two people with her when I got there. For anyone watchin’ the elevator, when those two people left Madeleine Winters was supposed to be alone.”

“I know it’s hopeless asking you why you avoided the elevator, so I’ll just ask you who her visitors were.”

“You must’ve asked her that when you talked to her, Jimmy.”

“Maybe she lied to me.”

“Maybe she did. You don’t want any help from me, though. I’ve got it on the best of authority.”

Detective Rogers glared. “Was one of them this Tremaine? The woman’s got him all tagged and labeled as the gunman. She was all for swearing out a warrant until I asked her what she planned to use for evidence.”

“She’s got a thing about him. They don’t like each other.”

“You don’t know that it wasn’t Tremaine who fired the shot, Johnny.”

An orderly entered with Johnny’s clothes, and he signed without reading the slip offered him. He began to dress. “No. I don’t know. I
think
Tremaine’s too big for what I saw, but I don’t have to be right.”

“What were you doing up in that apartment in the first place?”

Johnny eased on his undershirt, picked up his shirt and looked at the dark-red clotted stain on it. He got his arms into it and buttoned it slowly. “Dechant had been crooked for years, accordin’ to what I hear, an’ had been mixed in with the same crowd right along. Everyone enjoyed good health, except Dechant’s partner some time back. Then Kiki landed here.
Pow!
Dechant evaporated, Arends was blasted, someone pitched a shot through the widow lady’s door an’ all the other lovely people keep makin’ noises like they’d like to nibble each other to pieces. Why, Jimmy?”

“What were you doing up in that apartment?”

Johnny settled his jacket gently on his shoulders and covered the red-brown discoloration on the left side with his sleeve. “I just about got time to get back to the Duarte an’ knock off a fast forty winks before the school bell rings,” he said. “Seems like a better idea the more I think of it.”

“Johnny, you—”

“I’m the guy that got scragged, Mr. Detective, please, sir,” Johnny said in a falsetto. “Wouldn’t you think the police department would be out scufflin’ to find out who pegged that iron instead of fussin’ with little old me?”

“Little old you can drop dead, as far as I’m concerned,” Detective James Rogers said bitterly. He set sail for the door without a backward glance, the back of his neck rigid with anger.

Johnny went out to the street leisurely. It was surprisingly mild, a pointed reminder that the weather was about to catch up with the calendar. Johnny couldn’t truthfully say he thought too well of the idea. He seemed to appreciate the heat of the summer in New York City a little less with each passing year.

He stood on the curb and waited for a cab. He’d have to find some way to smooth down Rogers’ ruffled fur. He liked Jimmy Rogers.

It had been quite an evening. Quite an evening.

• • •

In the lobby of the Duarte Johnny caught Paul Sassella’s head nod, and turned to confront Madeleine Winters rising from an armchair. She came directly to him, her green eyes large in the pale oval of her face. “I want to talk to you. Privately,” she said huskily.

“Just a minute.” Johnny walked over to Paul behind the bell captain’s desk. “What time did she get here?” he asked the stocky Swiss in an undertone.

“Three minutes ago. Less, maybe. Hadn’t even gotten the chair warm.”

“Any excitement around here?”

“Marty had a no-pay skip on the middle shift. He checked in on our shift. Rollins wants to see you in the morning.”

“Okay,” Johnny grunted. “I’m goin’ up an’ change.” He walked back to Madeleine Winters. “Let’s go upstairs.”

“I called the hospital and they said you’d left against their advice,” she said on the elevator. “I came right over.”

“You sure did,” Johnny agreed. “You had farther to come than I did.”

“You certainly don’t look as though you were shot,” she said in the sixth floor corridor, almost trotting to keep up. “If I hadn’t seen you hit—”