Shake a Crooked Town (11 page)

He had double-barreled evidence immediately that no one walked up and knocked on the door of Jim Daddario’s apartment. A doorman gave Johnny’s leather jacket a fishy eye on his way in. Right in the center of the miniature lobby with its deep-pile carpeting a slender blonde girl sat at a modernistic switchboard. She looked at Johnny inquiringly. “Daddario,” he said.

Her eyes took him in impersonally. “The name, please?”

“Killain.” An alias wouldn’t advance him any. And the woman at the real-estate office must have called.

The girl spoke into her mouthpiece in a low tone. She looked up at Johnny at once. “If you will wait just one moment, please, sir? The penthouse elevator will be right down.”

“Yeah, sure. Thanks.” It would be down with someone on it, Johnny thought. He wondered if Jigger Kratz performed as an in-residence bodyguard. And a penthouse, yet. With a private elevator. Dick Lowell didn’t live this well.

On a small raised terrace the gilded doors of two selfservice elevators sat side by side. The one on the right opened noiselessly and Jigger Kratz stepped out. He walked out to the edge of the terrace and looked down at Johnny. His blunt features and flat-appearing eyes with the yellowish cast betrayed no special interest. “What’s your business with the boss?” he asked Johnny. He made no effort to hold his voice down.

“I’ll talk to him about it, Kratz.”

“Not today. You talk to me or you dry up an’ blow away.”

“You talk a good game, man,” Johnny goaded him. He wanted Kratz in motion.

The big man smiled his gap-toothed smile. “My name’s not Savino,” he rumbled. “Take off, Killain. While you can.”

Johnny took three fast steps toward the little flight of stairs. Jigger Kratz started down toward him. The instant the big man took his first step Johnny launched himself horizontally. His two hundred forty pounds viciously shoulder-blocked the ankle supporting Kratz’s weight. The big man’s forward momentum sent him up and over Johnny’s head. His startled grunt was still audible when he smashed down upon the lobby floor, barely missing the switchboard booth.

Johnny scrambled up from his hands and knees and headed for the penthouse elevator. His right shoulder tingled. After scything down Kratz it had plowed into the top step. Only Mickey Tallant’s leather jacket had saved him from a bad bruise or worse. He stepped aboard the elevator and punched the single button. As the doors closed he had a quick glimpse of the blonde girl leaning out over her booth staring down incredulously at Jigger Kratz on his knees shaking his head dazedly. His massive pinwheel had slowed the big man down only temporarily.

The elevator stopped so smoothly and the doors opened so soundlessly it was like watching a camera pan on a Hollywood luxury apartment. Johnny stepped out into more soft-carpeted self-indulgence. The furniture was new, angled, and blond. The pictures on the walls were bright daubs. Music came from somewhere to the right. Johnny followed the sound of it and came upon Jim Daddario at a desk, hunched over some papers. Beside him a hi-fi set played softly. At the sound of Johnny’s muffled footfall the politician spoke without looking around. “What did he want, Jigger?”

“He wanted to talk to you,” Johnny said.

His chair was not a swivel chair but Daddario whirled about as though it were. He looked at Johnny, looked behind him for Kratz, then back at Johnny again. “How the hell did you get up here?” he asked harshly.

“What’s so hard about it?” Johnny asked innocently. “I got on the elevator an’ pushed the button.” He removed the leather jacket. Very shortly he would need the unhampered use of arms and shoulders.

Daddario rose to his feet, slapping at the switch of the hi-fi. He settled his horn-rimmed glasses more firmly on the bridge of his nose. “Goddammit, if you’re not the biggest pest—!” he examined in exasperation. “What—”

He broke off to listen. They both heard Kratz the second he got off the elevator. No carpet could completely deaden that furious charge. Snorting through his nose, the big man plunged into the room. A sleeve was torn out of his jacket and his left ear was bleeeding. He rushed Johnny without a word as Johnny set himself. Both launched right hand swings. Neither made any effort to duck or block the other’s punch. Both connected. Each was knocked back a pace, but only a pace. Both gathered themselves to swing again.

Daddario stepped hurriedly in between. “Here! You think I want my place busted up by you two elephants? Cut it—”

Jigger Kratz disposed of his employer with a contemptuous backhanded slap. Jim Daddario staggered backward on his heels until his head hit the wall with a solid tunking sound. His glasses popped off his nose and dropped floorward as his body followed. There was a distinct crunching sound as the glasses were demolished under his dead weight, then he sprawled on his face, out cold.

Kratz never even looked in his direction. Lips drawn back from his teeth, he circled Johnny slowly. “When I get finished with you, man, you’re gonna look like Thompson.” He tried to maneuver Johnny into a corner. “Every day of your life you look in a mirror you’re gonna remember Jigger Kratz. I’ll fix—”

Johnny rushed him, on the theory the big man was a lot more used to seeing them going away from him. Kratz stumbled backward as Johnny’s weight rebounded from him. He flung up his arms as he started to fall. Johnny nailed him with three solid shots on his way down to the floor, right-left-right. He thought the bones in his hands had splintered on the rough-hewn features. Kratz bounced to his feet like a rubber ball, blood pouring from a cut beneath one eye. Eyes aflame he charged again.

A long right-hand punch landed right on top of Johnny’s head and he felt his knees loosen. A sweeping left knocked him down. Kratz kicked him heavily twice before Johnny grabbed a leg and upset him. They rolled over and traded punches on their knees. They came up together and Kratz lowered his head and roared in like a billygoat. Johnny barely shouldered-blocked him to one side. Kratz missed the desk but went into and through the hi-fi. Johnny dived for him and they thrashed around in the fragments of expensive cabinet-wood, neither able to secure a handhold.

They rammed under the desk, Johnny momentarily on top. Wood screeched in protest and two legs collapsed. A flailing elbow hit Johnny in the eye as the desk sagged onto them. They kicked it out into the center of the room. It smashed down and dissolved like a house of cards. Jigger Kratz snatched up a broken-off desk leg and hit Johnny alongside the ear, knocking him over sideways. Johnny felt the ear puff up like a toadstool.

Adrenalin-charged anger powered him upright again. He took the next swing of the club on his shoulder, got his hands on it and wrenched it away, and with one savage smash fused Kratz’s mouth and teeth into a bloody smear. He dropped the desk leg and went for Kratz’s throat with both hands.

The big man bellowed hoarsely and rained blows on Johnny’s face. They rolled over and over, crushing the lightweight furniture in their path. Johnny held on grimly, his lungs on fire with the effort. He could feel Kratz’s blows weaken as the man heaved convulsively. Johnny redoubled his straining exertion, channeling every ounce of strength in his body into his hands. It was some time before he realized dimly that all movement beneath him had ceased.

He was so exhausted it took a distinct struggle to remove his hands from Kratz’s throat. His thumbs were imbedded a quarter inch. He pulled himself to his knees and the room swam in circles around him. Doggedly, he jerked himself upright and fought to remain there. The sound he had been hearing for some time was his own breath whistling raggedly in his throat. Blood ran from somewhere down into his left eye. He slapped at it, impatient to remove it.

He looked around at the wreckage in the room. The heavy bodies had made matchsticks of the furniture. Daddario lay on his face, still unconscious. Kratz lay on his back. Johnny looked more closely. He was still breathing.

Johnny forced himself into motion. His legs felt heavy as iron posts yet trembled violently. He couldn’t remember the last time he felt so completely drained. He hauled himself through the apartment, opening doors, supporting himself with handholds on every solid-looking object. He stumbled into a bathroom and in the medicine cabinet mirror stared into a face he didn’t recognize. He pulled a towel from the rack and blotted off the face. He stared at the crimson imprint on the towel. The touch of the towel on his ear hurt so badly he looked in the mirror again. The ear was a blue-black puffball, and even as he looked it exploded and blood drained down his neck onto his collar. He wiped it off mechanically.

He took two cautious sips of water after rinsing his mouth and turned resolutely away. He knew his stomach would rebel at anything more. He felt a little better. Some of the iron-banded tightness had left his chest.

He resumed his search of the apartment, losing count of the rooms. Daddario hadn’t stinted himself in his living. And then Johnny opened one more door and stared at a small, pajama-clad, bright-haired pixie sitting up on the bed returning his stare with interest. She looked about twelve.

“You’ve been fighting,” she said in a clear, cool little voice. “Your mother’s going to be mad.”

“Yeah,” Johnny agreed. He cleared his throat. It seemed to have a pound of cotton in it. “Where’s
your
mother?”

“Oh, she comes to see me afternoons.”

“Afternoons?” Johnny could taste his disappointment. Had all this been for nothing? “She’s not here?”

The bright head shook itself negatively. “I’m getting awful tired of seeing her only afternoons,” she confided.

He could see that she had Micheline’s features and he supposed that Micheline’s dark hair and Carl Thompson’s red thatch could combine to produce the taffy-colored halo on the bed. He remained in the doorway, afraid to move closer for fear his battered appearance would frighten the child, but aware he had to do something and do it quickly. “I knew your mother when she wasn’t much bigger than you are,” he said tentatively.

“Betcha you didn’t,” she said immediately, bright-eyed.

“Betcha I did, too.”

“You don’t even know my name!” she scoffed.

“Sure I do. You’re Genevieve Thompson. And your mother was Micheline Laurent when I knew her.” The taffy head bobbed in wondering agreement. “I think we’d better go and find your mother, Genevieve.”

She was immediately cool to the idea. “Mother said I should wait for her here.”

“But this is an emergency!” Johnny said desperately.

She shook her head, but not so decisively. “You do look like an emergency,” she decided. “Can I go back to school when we find my mother?”

“You bet your life you can,” he said fervently.

“And you won’t let her be mad at me for not doing what she says?” Johnny crossed his heart silently. “Okay, I’ll get dressed.”

“We don’t have time,” Johnny said swiftly. “Would it be all right if I carried you?”

“In my pajamas?” she inquired doubtfully.

“We’ll do you up in a blanket like an Indian maiden.” He advanced to the bed and bundled her up elaborately, picked her up and sat her on his arm. “There. Okay?”

“Okay,” she agreed. “I don’t like these people, anyway, but mother said I should pretend.”

Johnny was already walking out through the apartment. He pulled the girl’s blanket up like a hood before they reached the room in which the fight had taken place. The first glance showed Daddario and Kratz still on the floor and the uniformed doorman picking his way through the debris like a horror-stricken, long-legged crane. He whirled at the sound of Johnny’s approach. “Don’t make a move, Jack,” Johnny advised him. At sight of Johnny’s face the doorman backed off hastily.

“Who was that?” Genevieve inquired with interest, riding Johnny’s arm onto the elevator. “I couldn’t see. Was that one of the bad men?”

“I figure him for just mediocre bad,” Johnny said, and she giggled. He carried her through the deserted lobby and out through the front door under the canopy. A taxi was at the right and a man in a tan topcoat was just about to enter it. Johnny crossed the walk in three long strides and tapped him on the arm. “Emergency, Jack,” he said.

When the man turned his eyes were at the level of the girl’s blanketed figure. “What kind of—” He started to say, and his eyes came up to Johnny’s face. “Jesus!” he said involuntarily. “Take it.”

Johnny was already depositing Genevieve inside. “Thanks, Jack,” he said, and climbed in himself. “546 Circle Drive,” he said to the driver.

He leaned back and slowly released breath he seemed to have unconsciously been holding for a long time.

I
N THE LOBBY
of Jessamyn Burger’s apartment building Johnny lowered his blanket-wrapped burden to an overstuffed armchair and turned the chair so that its small occupant was hidden from casual view. “Now you wait here for me while I scout out the ground,” Johnny said to Genevieve.

“You won’t be gone long?” she queried with her first hint of timidity.

“I’ll be right back,” he promised. “Scout’s honor.”

Clear gray eyes looked up at him trustingly. “You should do something about your face. I have a hankie in my ‘jamas. Would you like to borrow it?”

“I’ve got one, thanks,” Johnny said hastily, and groped for it. “Quiet like a mouse for you now—right?”

“Comme la souris,”
she echoed sturdily. Johnny grinned, patted the taffy-colored halo, dabbed at the deeper of his welling facial cuts with the handkerchief, and left the lobby for the corridor and the door of 2-A.

“Who is it?” he heard in answer to his knock.

“Killain.”

The door opened three inches on a chain latch. Johnny looked in over it at Jessie Burger in a housecoat and dark glasses. “Dear God!” she exclaimed at the sight of him. The chain rattled loosely and the door opened wide. “Come in. Quickly.”

“You afraid of snow blindness?” Johnny asked as he stepped inside and she closed the door behind him. The chain latch was immediately restored. On a hunch he turned her around and removed the dark glasses. She ducked her head but not before he saw two savage-looking black eyes. The left side of her face was swollen. “Kratz?” he asked her.

“S-Savino.” Her face crumpled and she started to cry. “Everything you s-said about them is true. He t-talked his way in here last night and beat me up because I hadn’t s-stopped seeing you. They’re th-thugs, all of them. Jim, too. I h-hate them. Ask me anything. I’ll tell you the whole awful s-story.”

“Micheline?” he asked quietly.

“Jim has her little girl at his apartment so that he can control her. After the first telephone call from New York Jim knew he was in trouble. He forced the maid with whom Micheline had left the little girl to bring her to his place. He flew to New York and found Micheline at the Taft and made her call the maid and dismiss her. He threatened to keep her separated from her daughter if she didn’t do what he said. He was desperate. He’d built up—”

Johnny held up a hand. “I get most of the picture, but where’s Micheline?”

“I don’t know where she’s been staying. Jim wouldn’t let her stay at her own apartment. She comes to see her daughter every day.”

“I’ve got the kid outside,” Johnny said casually, watching her face.

It was seconds before she reacted. “The daughter? You have her with you? Outside where? Here?” The words tumbled out over each other. “Is that why you look like this? I thought they’d jumped you—for God’s sake, bring her in before Kratz or Savino happen along!” She flushed at his steady regard. “Listen, I may be no damn good, but on
this
you can trust me, I hope!”

“Be right back,” he said, and let himself out the door. He approached the silent chair in the lobby and watched apprehensive gray eyes brighten as he bent down and picked her up in her blanket cocoon. “Everything’s copacetic, sugar-foot,” he told her, hoisting her aloft.

“Is my mother here?” she asked eagerly.

“I’m goin’ to get her just as soon as we get you tucked in the sack.” Johnny ducked so the girl wouldn’t bump her head as he carried her into the apartment. Jessamyn, her dark glasses restored, slapped the chain latch back on the door. “Genevieve, this is a friend of ours, Miss Jessie.” He handed the blanketed small figure to Jessamyn.

“Let’s go in my room, dear,” the librarian said. Genevieve nodded shy acquiesence. On the way, Jessamyn looked over her shoulder at Johnny. “I’ve called a doctor in the next building about your face. He’ll be right over. You can let him in.”

“First I got to—” Johnny began, and paused at a rap at the door.

“There he is now.” Jessamyn disappeared into the bedroom. Johnny admitted the doctor and reluctantly submitted to his ministrations. He gave the accompanying questions short shrift. Jessamyn reappeared during the application of the last of five stitches distributed two, two, and one in three different locations. The doctor took his disapproving departure and Johnny sat up on the couch that had served as an operating table.

“I’m goin’ back to Daddario’s,” he said, reaching for his undershirt. He worked it on gently over his head.

“Your ear looks horrible,” Jessamyn said with a little shudder. The import of his words reached her. “Jim’s? You can’t go back there! Kratz—”

“I saw Kratz. We split a hair or two. To make sure of gettin’ the kid out of there I had to leave without talkin’ to Daddario. He’s the only one can tell me where Micheline is.” Johnny stood up. His face felt as if it were on fire and his body ached. He looked at Jessamyn. “Tell me somethin’. Why would Riley offer me a thousand to find Micheline?”

“Riley? Jack Riley offered you—” She shook her head when she saw that he was serious. “I just don’t know. I’m not surprised Jim didn’t let him know, but why would Jack
want
to know?”

“He was in New York the day Thompson was killed,” Johnny suggested, watching her.

“Riley hires his troublemakers. Or he always has.”

Johnny grunted. “I don’t see how he could’ve knifed Thompson, anyway. None of those people should’ve been able to get within forty rods of Thompson, let alone close enough to shiv him.”

“You sound so—casual about it,” she protested.

He looked at his watch, paying her no attention. “Riley’s money should be up with Rudy by now if he was levelin’. What’s the name of that tavern that fronts for the gamblin’ joint?”

“The Gamecock.”

“I’ll look it up in the book. I’d like to know.”

“The number is Edison 7-9490.”

“Thanks.” He paused on his way to the phone. “How the hell would you know that off-hand?”

She refused to look at him. “I keep the books for that place. Both operations. The license is in my mother’s name.” Her voice was low. “In the beginning it seemed all right because Jim and I were going to be married. Afterward—well, I just couldn’t say ‘no’ to the money.”

“Not many can,” Johnny said. He went to the phone and dialed. “Rudy,” he said, and waited. “Rudy? Someone leave a thousand with you this mornin’ for—”

“Got it right here,” the gambler’s bass interrupted. “An’ lissen, Killain. No names, but I just had a guy here broadcastin’ he’s goin’ to lay you out in lavender when he catches up to you. Slim, dark job.”

Savino, Johnny thought. “It’d make my day complete to have him try it,” he said grimly. “Thanks, Rudy.” He replaced the phone and looked at Jessamyn. “When did this town go wrong?”

“About four years ago.” She said it tiredly. “It started just in a small way with Dick Lowell and Jim Daddario milking the gamblers. Carl Thompson managed it for them. Gradually it got bigger. Dick had needed money because of Dorothy Trent. Then he needed a lot of money. They set out to organize everything and in the process Jim saw that with Dick in trouble he could take over the whole thing for himself—”

“An’ because Thompson wouldn’t go along with the idea of derailin’ Lowell, Daddario had to get rid of him. Haven’t you asked yourself if he didn’t have to finish the job down in New York?”

“I’ve been afraid to.” Her voice was almost a whisper. “I’d be an accessory, wouldn’t I?” He couldn’t see her eyes behind the dark glasses but he could hear the tears in her voice. “I never thought there c-could be anything like
murder—
”

“We don’t know that he did it. Yet.” Johnny moved to the door. “Lock this thing behind me an’ don’t open it for anyone but me, understand?” He nodded at the bedroom. “Don’t let me down.”

“What do you think I am?” she flared, and subsided at once. “All right—I had it coming.” She sounded beaten down to her knees. “I promise nothing will happen to her. You can believe it or not.”

“If I didn’t believe it I wouldn’t leave her here. I’ll be back just as quick as I can make it.”

“Don’t—” He closed the door from the outside upon whatever she had been about to say.

He had to walk three blocks before he caught a cab. The cold wind bored at his stitched face. He speculated on the chance of Savino’s going back to Jessamyn’s. It didn’t seem likely. It should be the safest place in town for the child right now. If he hurried.

• • •

The blonde in the lobby of Daddario’s apartment remembered him. Her eyes widened. “The police are looking for you,” she said before she thought, and reached for a switch. Johnny stepped forward and caught her hand in his. “Let’s you ‘n me take a little ride upstairs,” he suggested.

“No!” She couldn’t take her eyes from his face.

He maneuvered her out from behind the switchboard and up the three carpeted steps to the penthouse elevator. “Daddario up there?” he asked her.

“Yes,” she whispered, shrinking into a corner. Johnny pushed the button and the elevator started up. “You let me out of here!” she cried in sudden panic. “You’ve got no right—”

“Who else?” His hard voice cut across hers. “Who else is up there?” he repeated when she stared at him blankly.

“Only Mrs. Thompson.”

“
Only
Mrs. Thompson,” Johnny said. He rolled the irony on his tongue. He grinned at the shivering blond girl. “Well, now—who else do we need?” He felt rejuvenated.

The elevator came to its non-jarring stop and the doors slid open noiselessly. With her eyes on Johnny she didn’t see the room come into view behind her. At the hoarse masculine scream practically in her ear she leaped convulsively, her face saffron. She fainted in mid-air; Johnny had to lunge to catch her and lower her to the floor of the elevator cab.

He started out into the room and a woman’s voice froze him. “That’s to show you I’m not fooling, Jim. Where is she?” Johnny thought he had never heard a feminine voice so metallically hard. He rushed off the elevator. In the corner of the room Jim Daddario cowered away from Micheline Thompson standing in front of him threatening him with a needle-like stiletto. His hands and arms sought to protect his face and neck, but a bright red line on his throat oozed down onto his white shirt. Neither of them noticed Johnny.

“I’ll ask you once more, Jim,” Micheline Thompson grated in the strange-sounding voice. Her face was like chalk. “Where is she?”

“I told you I don’t know!” the politician babbled. “She was gone when they brought me to. I didn’t see—don’t!” he screamed, and half fell trying to get away from the sudden movement of her arm. He slammed heavily into the wall, his mouth wide open and his eyes staring as the stiletto cut him again. “I don’t know! I don’t know! I don’t know!” he yelled.

“He honest-to-God doesn’t, Micheline,” Johnny said.

At the first syllable she whirled, catlike, the stiletto extended. She had to re-focus her eyes to take him in. Her arm dropped to her side as she recognized him. “He said you’d been here,” she said dully. “I didn’t believe him.” Behind her, Jim Daddario slumped floorward, easing himself down with his hands on the wall.

“Genevieve’s safe,” Johnny said quietly. “I took—”

She came toward him with a rush. “Where? Take me to her!”

“Easy,” Johnny soothed her. “She’s safe.” He glanced at the man on the floor. “What do we do with him?”

“You’re not just saying she’s safe?” she pleaded. “You didn’t tell me when you knew Carl was—” She failed to complete the sentence.

“I’ll take you right to her,” Johnny assured her.

“What happened to your face?” she began, and turned at a sound from the elevator. The blonde telephone operator wobbled uncertainly into the room. “Why, Esther!” Micheline exclaimed in surprise.

“I brought her up with me to keep her from makin’ a call,” Johnny explained.

“I thought he was going to k-kill you,” Esther said to Micheline in a dry voice. “He looked so—terrible.”

“Esther called me this morning and said all hell had broken loose here,” Micheline said to Johnny. “I didn’t trust Jim and I’d arranged with Esther to keep me posted.”

“I thought she was workin’ for him,” Johnny said with another look at the blonde who was staring in fascination at Daddario. He pointed with a thumb. “Did he kill Carl?”

“No!” Daddario blurted from the floor. He sat up, but made no move to get to his feet.

Johnny looked at Micheline. “He didn’t do it himself,” she said. “He was never out of my sight after he trapped me at the Taft. Which is to say I was never out of his.”

“I figured that knife job for Savino,” Johnny said. “All except—” He frowned and shook his head. “Well, what do we do? In this town we don’t call the police to come an’ get him.”

“Esther,” Micheline said. The telephone operator started. “Take the elevator down and go back to work. Keep everyone away that you can. If anyone persists, ring us here when they start up.” The girl nodded and departed. Micheline looked at Daddario and raised the stiletto she had concealed in a fold of her skirt while the blonde was in the room. The politician shrank away as she bent down over him. His lips made a bubbling sound as he tried to say something. She wiped the stiletto on his shirt and straightened up with a smile on her face. It was quite a smile, Johnny thought. “Tie him up,” she said. “Until I
see
my daughter unharmed I want to know where he is. For a week I have promised myself—”

“Yeah. Sure. I’ll tie him.” Johnny strode into a bedroom and stripped off the bedding. He tore a sheet into long strips and went back into the other room. “Is there any other way down from here?” he asked Micheline.

“We can walk down a flight and get the regular elevator.”

“Okay.” He reached in his pocket and tossed a heavy-bladed knife to Micheline. “Pull the penthouse elevator back up here. Pry open the little door you’ll see head-high at the front an’ take out the fuses. That’ll leave it hung at this floor. I’ll gag this monkey an’ that’ll leave him incommunicado here till we’re ready to come back an’ rack him up.” He prodded the politician with his toe. “Stretch out there, buster, an’ make it easy on yourself.”