Kippy kicked viciously; his heavy boot caught Johnny in the ankle and he cried out, involuntarily.
“Use your left,” snarled the beefy-faced man. “Or I don’t give a damn what you use. But write that note, now... or take a drag on this... ” he snatched the cigarette out of Johnny’s mouth and jammed his automatic savagely against Johnny’s teeth.
Johnny rolled with the blow, closed his eyes, said “nnnh-h-h” dully and fell over on the floor. Kippy gave him the boot in the ribs, but Johnny didn’t stir.
Kippy swore in disgust.
“Out like a light... well, baby, I’ll bring you back to life.” He went into the bathroom and ran the water. Then he came back, got an arm under Johnny’s head and poured ice-water down his neck.
Johnny sat up, dizzily.
Kippy was squatting near him, a glass in his left hand, the gun in his right. The little, pale eyes were sneering.
“Come out of it, delicate. You gotta letter t’ write. Don’t forget it.”
Johnny saw something on the carpet, it glittered faintly in the darkness of the rich maroon velvet.
“Yeah.” He spoke thickly. “Sure.” He leaned forward, got his left hand over the object and added: “You’ll have to lift me.”
Kippy said: “Get up yourself, you—! And get up now.”
Johnny lurched to his feet, swung a little and tossed something out of the open window.
Kippy lifted the automatic menacingly.
“What the hell... what’d you chuck outa that window? What was it?” He took a step forward, his head lowered, his eyes glittering.
Johnny sat down, reached for the pack of cigarettes on the desk.
“Mind if I smoke?” He spoke very politely.
Kippy showed uneven, gold-capped teeth.
“What — was — that — you — threw?” he said, spacing his words carefully.
Johnny flipped open his lighter.
“My life insurance,” he said, easily. “The key to this room.” Kippy’s finger tightened on the trigger and Johnny tried to keep his voice calm and steady. “You won’t want to be found in here with a hundred and eighty pounds of first-degree evidence, will you, Kippy?”
The stubby finger relaxed its pressure on the trigger, the gun dropped muzzle-down and the stocky man backed towards the other side of the room. Then he whirled quickly and tried the door; he had locked it himself... and now there was no way to get out.
“All right... all right,” he said. “Don’t think that’ll keep you from takin’ the full dose, Mister Johnny Hi Gear... I been in tighter spots than this, an’ I’m still pickin’ ’em up an’ layin’ ’em down.”
He reversed the gun, walked deliberately to Johnny’s chair and clubbed him twice, where the bullet had hit his right shoulder.
Johnny thought he was going to pass out of the picture for good, but he managed to keep a grip on his reeling senses. Kippy smashed the Colt against the side of Johnny’s fate as a final caress, went to the phone and called: “Doc Benter, please.”
“Hello... Egghead? Listen close, kid. Johnny’s done a fadeaway... and I want doc to come right up... but Johnny locked th’ door before he fainted. Get th’ extra key from the desk and jump right up... Right?”
He hung up.
“You got just as long as it takes Egghead to beat it up here, to get ready for the big dive, mug. I had just enough of y’r — dam’... ”
He looked in astonishment at the bed, across the room — a lazy coil of thick, white smoke was curling from the floor like mist.
Johnny spoke from the floor, where he had dived when his lighter had ignited the edge of the woolly blankets, the sheet and mattress:
“Think it over, hard-boiled. You’re in bad enough, as it is.”
He threw one of his shoes through the window.
6
Kippy stared.
The cloth smoked furiously; oily waves of thick gray fumes oozed to the window level, eddied around the ceiling.
Then the man across the room ran to the bathroom. Johnny got to his knees, used his left hand to yank the curtains from their wooden cornice and throw them on the blazing blankets.
Kippy dashed out of the bathroom, panic in his fish-like eyes; his voice throaty with fear:
“Jeeze... you wanta burn us t’ death? You wanta... ” he spilled half a tumbler of water three feet from the blaze. The smoke was quite dense now.
Johnny got to his feet; grabbed the phone and hollered: “Fire... fire!” loudly. Then he left the receiver off the hook and said: “The John Laws will be here before your pal, Egghead, makes the grade. What about it, Kippy?”
“—!” The other screamed in rage and fright. “I’ll fix your works, you crazy... ”
There was a knocking at the door.
“Who’s inside? Who’s in there?” said a voice. It was not Egghead.
“Get the police!” yelled Johnny. “And bring an extinguisher.”
“Open the door... what’s burning?” The voice was getting excited.
Kippy gulped in the fog-like coils of thick, acrid smoke. He slipped the safety on his automatic and stuck it under the bed, fired once, twice. Then he put a bullet through the pillows... another through the foot of the bed.
Johnny crawled past him through the smoke to the bathroom, got inside and closed the door, turned the lock. There was a ventilator which kept the air a little clearer; outside the curtains had blazed up... one of the chair seats was beginning to burn.
Feet were padding up and down the corridor; voices came over the transom in fragmentary clarity:
“... Sent in the alarm... break it down... something about police... that’s Johnny Hi Gear’s room... ”
Johnny ran water in the bowl; drank a glass of ice-water. His arm and shoulder were one throbbing ache. His face was swollen and bleeding... his lips cut and bruised. One ankle was knifing him with pain.
Ping! The medicine-cabinet mirror tinkled to the wash-bowl in silvery, shattered bits of glass. Kippy was trying to write him off the books.
He stepped into the bathtub, turned on the cold shower and watched a row of little holes appear in the panels of the door. Concrete chipped from the walls and metal rang loudly, but he was untouched.
Crash! Someone was trying to break down the door. Why didn’t the fools get the duplicate key, Johnny wondered. Then he realized that it was Kippy who was trying to smash his way through to freedom.
The falling rain of cool water cleared the air a bit — he could breathe more easily now. He sniffed; there was a pungent odor in the smoke... he recognized it for extinguisher-fluid... they must be putting it in through the transom.
Then someone was hammering on the bathroom door:
“Open up... come out of there, you fool... do you hear? Come out... the fire’s over.”
It was a new voice and Johnny turned the lock and stepped out. Water dripped off him in pools; his clothing was plastered to his skin and he could only stand erect with an effort.
A smallish, black-haired man in a derby hat and a dark suit stood outside the bathroom door; the room was full of men seen vaguely through the wreaths of smoke which drifted out through the wide-flung windows.
“Well... maybe you’ll tell us what it’s all about?”
“Get him?” Johnny started stripping off wet clothing, grunted with the reaction from his shoulder. The corridor was crowded with curious guests, bellhops, maids, policemen.
The houseman gave him a hand with his soaking coat.
“Boy! You’re plugged, for fair. What happened?”
“Did you nail him?” Johnny wanted to know, wringing water from his trousers, kicking off his remaining shoe. The walls of the room were smoke-stained, discolored; the carpet was a mess. Curtains and draperies had been torn down, pictures smashed... and the bed smelled like burning goat-hair.